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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vanishing England, by P. H. Ditchfield,
+Illustrated by Fred Roe
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Vanishing England
+
+Author: P. H. Ditchfield
+
+Release Date: January 20, 2005  [eBook #14742]
+
+Language: en
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANISHING ENGLAND***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Victoria Woosley, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+      See 14742-h.htm or 14742-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/4/14742/14742-h/14742-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/4/14742/14742-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+VANISHING ENGLAND
+
+The Book
+
+by
+
+P. H. DITCHFIELD
+M.A., F.S.A., F.H.S.L., F.R.HIST.S.
+
+The Illustrations by FRED ROE, R.I.
+
+Methuen & Co. Ltd.
+36 Essex Street W.C.
+London
+
+1910
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset]
+
+
+[Illustration: Canopy over Doorway of Buckingham House, Portsmouth]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER
+
+        I. INTRODUCTION
+
+       II. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ENGLAND
+
+      III. OLD WALLED TOWNS
+
+       IV. IN STREETS AND LANES
+
+        V. OLD CASTLES
+
+       VI. VANISHING OR VANISHED CHURCHES
+
+      VII. OLD MANSIONS
+
+     VIII. THE DESTRUCTION OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS
+
+       IX. CATHEDRAL CITIES AND ABBEY TOWNS
+
+        X. OLD INNS
+
+       XI. OLD MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS
+
+      XII. OLD CROSSES
+
+     XIII. STOCKS AND WHIPPING-POSTS
+
+      XIV. OLD BRIDGES
+
+       XV. OLD HOSPITALS AND ALMSHOUSES
+
+      XVI. VANISHING FAIRS
+
+     XVII. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF OLD DOCUMENTS
+
+    XVIII. OLD CUSTOMS THAT ARE VANISHING
+
+      XIX. THE VANISHING OF ENGLISH SCENERY
+
+       XX. CONCLUSION
+
+           INDEX
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    The George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset (Frontispiece)
+
+    Canopy over Doorway of Buckingham House, Portsmouth (Title page)
+
+    Rural Tenements, Capel, Surrey
+
+    Detail of Seventeenth-century Table in Milton's Cottage,
+      Chalfont St. Giles
+
+    Seventeenth-century Trophy
+
+    Old Shop, formerly standing in Cliffe High Street, Lewes
+
+    Paradise Square, Banbury
+
+    Norden's Chart of the River Ore and Suffolk Coast
+
+    Disused Mooring-post on bank of the Rother, Rye
+
+    Old Houses built on the Town Wall, Rye
+
+    Bootham Bar, York
+
+    Half-timbered House with early Fifteenth-century Doorway,
+      King's Lynn, Norfolk
+
+    The "Bone Tower," Town Walls, Great Yarmouth
+
+    Row No. 83, Great Yarmouth
+
+    The Old Jetty, Gorleston
+
+    Tudor House, Ipswich, near the Custom House
+
+    Three-gabled House, Fore Street, Ipswich
+
+    "Melia's Passage," York
+
+    Detail of Half-timbered House in High Street, Shrewsbury
+
+    Tower on the Town Wall, Shrewsbury
+
+    House that the Earl of Richmond stayed in before the Battle of
+      Bosworth. Shrewsbury
+
+    Old Houses formerly standing in Spon Street, Coventry
+
+    West Street, Rye
+
+    Monogram and Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye
+
+    Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye
+
+    Relic of Lynn Siege in Hampton Court, King's Lynn
+
+    Hampton Court, King's Lynn, Norfolk
+
+    Mill Street, Warwick
+
+    Tudor Tenements, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford (now demolished)
+
+    Gothic Corner-post. The Half Moon Inn, Ipswich
+
+    Timber-built House, Shrewsbury
+
+    Missbrook Farm, Capel, Surrey
+
+    Cottage at Capel, Surrey
+
+    Farm-house, Horsmonden, Kent
+
+    Seventeenth-century Cottages, Stow Langtoft, Suffolk
+
+    The "Fish House," Littleport, Cambs.
+
+    Sixteenth-century Cottage, formerly standing in Upper Deal, Kent
+
+    Gable, Upper Deal, Kent
+
+    A Portsmouth "Row"
+
+    Lich-gate, Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks
+
+    Fifteenth-century Handle on Church Door, Monk's Risborough, Bucks
+
+    Weather-boarded Houses, Crown Street, Portsmouth
+
+    Inscription on Font, Parish Church, Burford, Oxon
+
+    Detail of Fifteenth-century Barge-board, Burford, Oxon
+
+    The George Inn, Burford, Oxon
+
+    Maldon, Essex. Sky-line of the High Street at twilight
+
+    St. Mary's Church, Maldon
+
+    Norman Clamp on door of Heybridge Church, Essex
+
+    Tudor Fire-place. Now walled up in the passage of a shop
+      in Banbury
+
+    Cottages in Witney Street, Burford, Oxon
+
+    Burgh Castle, Suffolk
+
+    Caister Castle, Norfolk
+
+    Defaced Arms, Taunton Castle
+
+    Knightly Basinet (_temp._ Henry V) in Norwich Castle
+
+    Saxon Doorway in St. Lawrence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts.
+
+    St. George's Church, Great Yarmouth
+
+    Carving on Rood-screen, Alcester Church, Warwick
+
+    Fourteenth-century Coffer in Faversham Church, Kent
+
+    Flanders Chest in East Dereham Church, Norfolk, _temp_.
+      Henry VIII
+
+    Reversed Rose carved on "Miserere" in Norwich Cathedral
+
+    Oak Panelling. Wainscot of Fifteenth Century, with addition _circa_
+      late Seventeenth Century, fitted on to it in
+      angle of room in the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent
+
+    Section of Mouldings of Cornice on Panelling, the Church House,
+      Goudhurst
+
+    The Wardrobe House, the Close, Salisbury
+
+    Chimney at Compton Wynyates
+
+    Window-catch, Brockhall, Northants
+
+    Gothic Chimney, Norton St. Philip, Somerset
+
+    The Moat, Crowhurst Place, Surrey
+
+    Arms of the Gaynesfords in window, Crowhurst Place, Surrey
+
+    Cupboard Hinge, Crowhurst Place, Surrey
+
+    Fixed Bench in the hall, Crowhurst Place, Surrey
+
+    Gothic Door-head, Goudhurst, Kent
+
+    Knightly Basinet (_temp._ Henry V) in Norwich Castle
+
+    Hilt of Thirteenth-century Sword in Norwich Museum
+
+    "Hand-and-a-half" Sword. Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A.
+
+    Seventeenth-century Boot, in the possession of Ernest
+      Crofts, Esq., R.A.
+
+    Chapel de Fer at Ockwells, Berks
+
+    Tudor Dresser Table, in the possession of Sir Alfred Dryden,
+      Canon's Ashby, Northants
+
+    Seventeenth-century Powder-horn, found in the wall of an
+      old house at Glastonbury. Now in Glastonbury Museum
+
+    Seventeenth-century Spy-glass in Taunton Museum
+
+    Fourteenth-century Flagon. From an old Manor House in Norfolk
+
+    Elizabethan Chest, in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B.
+
+    Staircase Newel, Cromwell House, Highgate
+
+    Piece of Wood Carved with Inscription. Found with a sword (_temp._
+      Charles II) in an old house at Stoke-under-Ham, Somerset
+
+    Seventeenth-century Water-clock, in Norwich Museum
+
+    Sun-dial. The Manor House, Sutton Courtenay
+
+    Half-timber Cottages, Waterside, Evesham
+
+    Quarter Jacks over the Clock on exterior of north wall of Wells
+      Cathedral
+
+    The Gate House, Bishop's Palace, Well
+
+    House in which Bishop Hooper was imprisoned, Westgate Street,
+      Gloucester
+
+    The "Stone House," Rye, Sussex
+
+    Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham
+
+    Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham
+
+    Fifteenth-century House in Cowl Street, Evesham
+
+    Half-timber House, Alcester, Warwick
+
+    Half-timber House at Alcester
+
+    The Wheelwrights' Arms, Warwick
+
+    Entrance to the Reindeer Inn, Banbury
+
+    The Shoulder of Mutton Inn, King's Lynn
+
+    A Quaint Gable, the Bell Inn, Stilton
+
+    The Bell Inn, Stilton
+
+    The "Briton's Arms," Norwich
+
+    The Dolphin Inn, Heigham, Norwich
+
+    Shield and Monogram on doorway of the Dolphin Inn, Heigham
+
+    Staircase Newel at the Dolphin Inn
+
+    The Falstaff Inn, Canterbury
+
+    The Bear and Ragged Staff Inn, Tewkesbury
+
+    Fire-place in the George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset
+
+    The Green Dragon Inn, Wymondham, Norfolk
+
+    The Star Inn, Alfriston, Sussex
+
+    Courtyard of the George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset
+
+    The Dark Lantern Inn, Aylesbury, Bucks
+
+    Spandril. The Marquis of Granby Inn, Colchester
+
+    The Town Hall, Shrewsbury
+
+    The Greenland Fishery House, King's Lynn.
+      An old Guild House of the time of James I
+
+    The Market House, Wymondham, Norfolk
+
+    Guild Mark and Date on doorway, Burford, Oxon
+
+    Stretham Cross, Isle of Ely
+
+    The Market Cross, Salisbury
+
+    Under the Butter Cross, Witney, Oxon
+
+    The Triangular Bridge, Crowland
+
+    Huntingdon Bridge
+
+    The Crane Bridge, Salisbury
+
+    Watch House on the Bridge, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts
+
+    Gateway of St. John's Hospital, Canterbury
+
+    Inmate of the Trinity Bede House at Castle Rising, Norfolk
+
+    The Hospital for Ancient Fishermen, Great Yarmouth
+
+    Inscription on the Hospital, King's Lynn
+
+    Ancient Inmates of the Fishermen's Hospital, Great Yarmouth
+
+    Cottages at Evesham
+
+    Stalls at Banbury Fair
+
+    An Old English Fair
+
+    An Ancient Maker of Nets in a Kentish Fair
+
+    Outside the Lamb Inn, Burford
+
+    Tail Piece
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+This book is intended not to raise fears but to record facts. We wish
+to describe with pen and pencil those features of England which are
+gradually disappearing, and to preserve the memory of them. It may be
+said that we have begun our quest too late; that so much has already
+vanished that it is hardly worth while to record what is left.
+Although much has gone, there is still, however, much remaining that
+is good, that reveals the artistic skill and taste of our forefathers,
+and recalls the wonders of old-time. It will be our endeavour to tell
+of the old country houses that Time has spared, the cottages that
+grace the village green, the stern grey walls that still guard some
+few of our towns, the old moot halls and public buildings. We shall
+see the old-time farmers and rustics gathering together at fair and
+market, their games and sports and merry-makings, and whatever relics
+of old English life have been left for an artist and scribe of the
+twentieth century to record.
+
+Our age is an age of progress. _Altiora peto_ is its motto. The spirit
+of progress is in the air, and lures its votaries on to higher
+flights. Sometimes they discover that they have been following a mere
+will-o'-the-wisp, that leads them into bog and quagmire whence no
+escape is possible. The England of a century, or even of half a
+century ago, has vanished, and we find ourselves in the midst of a
+busy, bustling world that knows no rest or peace. Inventions tread
+upon each other's heels in one long vast bewildering procession. We
+look back at the peaceful reign of the pack-horse, the rumbling wagon,
+the advent of the merry coaching days, the "Lightning" and the
+"Quicksilver," the chaining of the rivers with locks and bars, the
+network of canals that spread over the whole country; and then the
+first shriek of the railway engine startled the echoes of the
+countryside, a poor powerless thing that had to be pulled up the steep
+gradients by a chain attached to a big stationary engine at the
+summit. But it was the herald of the doom of the old-world England.
+Highways and coaching roads, canals and rivers, were abandoned and
+deserted. The old coachmen, once lords of the road, ended their days
+in the poorhouse, and steam, almighty steam, ruled everywhere.
+
+Now the wayside inns wake up again with the bellow of the motor-car,
+which like a hideous monster rushes through the old-world villages,
+startling and killing old slow-footed rustics and scampering children,
+dogs and hens, and clouds of dust strive in very mercy to hide the
+view of the terrible rushing demon. In a few years' time the air will
+be conquered, and aeroplanes, balloons, flying-machines and air-ships,
+will drop down upon us from the skies and add a new terror to life.
+
+  Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,
+  Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
+
+Life is for ever changing, and doubtless everything is for the best in
+this best of possible worlds; but the antiquary may be forgiven for
+mourning over the destruction of many of the picturesque features of
+bygone times and revelling in the recollections of the past. The
+half-educated and the progressive--I attach no political meaning to
+the term--delight in their present environment, and care not to
+inquire too deeply into the origin of things; the study of evolution
+and development is outside their sphere; but yet, as Dean Church once
+wisely said, "In our eagerness for improvement it concerns us to be
+on our guard against the temptation of thinking that we can have the
+fruit or the flower, and yet destroy the root.... It concerns us that
+we do not despise our birthright and cast away our heritage of gifts
+and of powers, which we may lose, but not recover."
+
+Every day witnesses the destruction of some old link with the past
+life of the people of England. A stone here, a buttress there--it
+matters not; these are of no consequence to the innovator or the
+iconoclast. If it may be our privilege to prevent any further
+spoliation of the heritage of Englishmen, if we can awaken any respect
+or reverence for the work of our forefathers, the labours of both
+artist and author will not have been in vain. Our heritage has been
+sadly diminished, but it has not yet altogether disappeared, and it is
+our object to try to record some of those objects of interest which
+are so fast perishing and vanishing from our view, in order that the
+remembrance of all the treasures that our country possesses may not
+disappear with them.
+
+The beauty of our English scenery has in many parts of the country
+entirely vanished, never to return. Coal-pits, blasting furnaces,
+factories, and railways have converted once smiling landscapes and
+pretty villages into an inferno of black smoke, hideous mounds of
+ashes, huge mills with lofty chimneys belching forth clouds of smoke
+that kills vegetation and covers the leaves of trees and plants with
+exhalations. I remember attending at Oxford a lecture delivered by the
+late Mr. Ruskin. He produced a charming drawing by Turner of a
+beautiful old bridge spanning a clear stream, the banks of which were
+clad with trees and foliage. The sun shone brightly, and the sky was
+blue, with fleeting clouds. "This is what you are doing with your
+scenery," said the lecturer, as he took his palette and brushes; he
+began to paint on the glass that covered the picture, and in a few
+minutes the scene was transformed. Instead of the beautiful bridge a
+hideous iron girder structure spanned the stream, which was no longer
+pellucid and clear, but black as the Styx; instead of the trees arose
+a monstrous mill with a tall chimney vomiting black smoke that spread
+in heavy clouds, hiding the sun and the blue sky. "That is* what you
+are doing with your scenery," concluded Mr. Ruskin--a true picture of
+the penalty we pay for trade, progress, and the pursuit of wealth. We
+are losing faith in the testimony of our poets and painters to the
+beauty of the English landscape which has inspired their art, and much
+of the charm of our scenery in many parts has vanished. We happily
+have some of it left still where factories are not, some interesting
+objects that artists love to paint. It is well that they should be
+recorded before they too pass away.
+
+   *Transcriber's Note: Original "it".
+
+[Illustration: Rural Tenements, Capel, Surrey]
+
+Old houses of both peer and peasant and their contents are sooner or
+later doomed to destruction. Historic mansions full of priceless
+treasures amassed by succeeding generations of old families fall a
+prey to relentless fire. Old panelled rooms and the ancient
+floor-timbers understand not the latest experiments in electric
+lighting, and yield themselves to the flames with scarce a struggle.
+Our forefathers were content with hangings to keep out the draughts
+and open fireplaces to keep them warm. They were a hardy race, and
+feared not a touch or breath of cold. Their degenerate sons must have
+an elaborate heating apparatus, which again distresses the old timbers
+of the house and fires their hearts of oak. Our forefathers, indeed,
+left behind them a terrible legacy of danger--that beam in the
+chimney, which has caused the destruction of many country houses.
+Perhaps it was not so great a source of danger in the days of the old
+wood fires. It is deadly enough when huge coal fires burn in the
+grates. It is a dangerous, subtle thing. For days, or even for a week
+or two, it will smoulder and smoulder; and then at last it will blaze
+up, and the old house with all its precious contents is wrecked.
+
+The power of the purse of American millionaires also tends greatly to
+the vanishing of much that is English--the treasures of English art,
+rare pictures and books, and even of houses. Some nobleman or
+gentleman, through the extravagance of himself or his ancestors, or on
+account of the pressure of death duties, finds himself impoverished.
+Some of our great art dealers hear of his unhappy state, and knowing
+that he has some fine paintings--a Vandyke or a Romney--offer him
+twenty-five or thirty thousand pounds for a work of art. The
+temptation proves irresistible. The picture is sold, and soon finds
+its way into the gallery of a rich American, no one in England having
+the power or the good taste to purchase it. We spend our money in
+other ways. The following conversation was overheard at Christie's:
+"Here is a beautiful thing; you should buy it," said the speaker to a
+newly fledged baronet. "I'm afraid I can't afford it," replied the
+baronet. "Not afford it?" replied his companion. "It will cost you
+infinitely less than a baronetcy and do you infinitely more credit."
+The new baronet seemed rather offended. At the great art sales rare
+folios of Shakespeare, pictures, Sevres, miniatures from English
+houses are put up for auction, and of course find their way to
+America. Sometimes our cousins from across the Atlantic fail to secure
+their treasures. They have striven very eagerly to buy Milton's
+cottage at Chalfont St. Giles, for transportation to America; but this
+effort has happily been successfully resisted. The carved table in
+the cottage was much sought after, and was with difficulty retained
+against an offer of £150. An old window of fifteenth-century
+workmanship in an old house at Shrewsbury was nearly exploited by an
+enterprising American for the sum of £250; and some years ago an
+application was received by the Home Secretary for permission to
+unearth the body of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, from
+its grave in the burial-ground of Jordans, near Chalfont St. Giles,
+and transport it to Philadelphia. This action was successfully opposed
+by the trustees of the burial-ground, but it was considered expedient
+to watch the ground for some time to guard against the possibility of
+any illicit attempts at removal.
+
+[Illustration: Detail of Seventeenth-century Table in Milton's
+Cottage, Chalfont St. Giles]
+
+It was reported that an American purchaser had been more successful at
+Ipswich, where in 1907 a Tudor house and corner-post, it was said, had
+been secured by a London firm for shipment to America. We are glad to
+hear that this report was incorrect, that the purchaser was an English
+lord, who re-erected the house in his park.
+
+Wanton destruction is another cause of the disappearance of old
+mansions. Fashions change even in house-building. Many people prefer
+new lamps to old ones, though the old ones alone can summon genii and
+recall the glories of the past, the associations of centuries of
+family life, and the stories of ancestral prowess. Sometimes fashion
+decrees the downfall of old houses. Such a fashion raged at the
+beginning of the last century, when every one wanted a brand-new house
+built after the Palladian style; and the old weather-beaten pile that
+had sheltered the family for generations, and was of good old English
+design with nothing foreign or strange about it, was compelled to give
+place to a new-fangled dwelling-place which was neither beautiful nor
+comfortable. Indeed, a great wit once advised the builder of one of
+these mansions to hire a room on the other side of the road and spend
+his days looking at his Palladian house, but to be sure not to live
+there.
+
+Many old houses have disappeared on account of the loyalty of their
+owners, who were unfortunate enough to reside within the regions
+harassed by the Civil War. This was especially the case in the county
+of Oxford. Still you may see avenues of venerable trees that lead to
+no house. The old mansion or manor-house has vanished. Many of them
+were put in a posture of defence. Earthworks and moats, if they did
+not exist before, were hastily constructed, and some of these houses
+were bravely defended by a competent and brave garrison, and were
+thorns in the sides of the Parliamentary army. Upon the triumph of the
+latter, revenge suffered not these nests of Malignants to live. Others
+were so battered and ruinous that they were only fit residences for
+owls and bats. Some loyal owners destroyed the remains of their homes
+lest they should afford shelter to the Parliamentary forces. David
+Walter set fire to his house at Godstow lest it should afford
+accommodation to the "Rebels." For the same reason Governor Legge
+burnt the new episcopal palace, which Bancroft had only finished ten
+years before at Cuddesdon. At the same time Thomas Gardiner burnt his
+manor-house in Cuddesdon village, and many other houses were so
+battered that they were left untenanted, and so fell to ruin.[1] Sir
+Bulstrode Whitelock describes how he slighted the works at Phillis
+Court, "causing the bulwarks and lines to be digged down, the grafts
+[i.e. moats] filled, the drawbridge to be pulled up, and all levelled.
+I sent away the great guns, the granadoes, fireworks, and ammunition,
+whereof there was good store in the fort. I procured pay for my
+soldiers, and many of them undertook the service in Ireland." This is
+doubtless typical of what went on in many other houses. The famous
+royal manor-house of Woodstock was left battered and deserted, and
+"haunted," as the readers of _Woodstock_ will remember, by an "adroit
+and humorous royalist named Joe Collins," who frightened the
+commissioners away by his ghostly pranks. In 1651 the old house was
+gutted and almost destroyed. The war wrought havoc with the old
+houses, as it did with the lives and other possessions of the
+conquered.
+
+  [1] _History of Oxfordshire_, by J. Meade Falkner.
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Trophy]
+
+But we are concerned with times less remote, with the vanishing of
+historic monuments, of noble specimens of architecture, and of the
+humble dwellings of the poor, the picturesque cottages by the wayside,
+which form such attractive features of the English landscape. We have
+only to look at the west end of St. Albans Abbey Church, which has
+been "Grimthorped" out of all recognition, or at the over-restored
+Lincoln's Inn Chapel, to see what evil can be done in the name of
+"Restoration," how money can be lavishly spent to a thoroughly bad
+purpose.
+
+Property in private hands has suffered no less than many of our
+public buildings, even when the owner is a lover of antiquity and does
+not wish to remove and to destroy the objects of interest on his
+estate. Estate agents are responsible for much destruction. Sir John
+Stirling Maxwell, Bart., F.S.A., a keen archæologist, tells how an
+agent on his estate transformed a fine old grim sixteenth-century
+fortified dwelling, a very perfect specimen of its class, into a house
+for himself, entirely altering the character of its appearance, adding
+a lofty oriel and spacious windows with a new door and staircase,
+while some of the old stones were made to adorn a rockery in the
+garden. When he was abroad the elaborately contrived entrance for the
+defence of a square fifteenth-century keep with four square towers at
+the corners, very curious and complete, were entirely obliterated by a
+zealous mason. In my own parish I awoke one day to find the old
+village pound entirely removed by order of an estate agent, and a very
+interesting stand near the village smithy for fastening oxen when they
+were shod disappeared one day, the village publican wanting the posts
+for his pig-sty. County councils sweep away old bridges because they
+are inconveniently narrow and steep for the tourists' motors, and
+deans and chapters are not always to be relied upon in regard to their
+theories of restoration, and squire and parson work sad havoc on the
+fabrics of old churches when they are doing their best to repair them.
+Too often they have decided to entirely demolish the old building, the
+most characteristic feature of the English landscape, with its square
+grey tower or shapely spire, a tower that is, perhaps, loopholed and
+battlemented, and tells of turbulent times when it afforded a secure
+asylum and stronghold when hostile bands were roving the countryside.
+Within, piscina, ambrey, and rood-loft tell of the ritual of former
+days. Some monuments of knights and dames proclaim the achievements of
+some great local family. But all this weighs for nothing in the eyes
+of the renovating squire and parson. They must have a grand, new,
+modern church with much architectural pretension and fine decorations
+which can never have the charm which attaches to the old building. It
+has no memories, this new structure. It has nothing to connect it with
+the historic past. Besides, they decree that it must not cost too
+much. The scheme of decoration is stereotyped, the construction
+mechanical. There is an entire absence of true feeling and of any real
+inspiration of devotional art. The design is conventional, the pattern
+uniform. The work is often scamped and hurried, very different from
+the old method of building. We note the contrast. The medieval
+builders were never in a hurry to finish their work. The old fanes
+took centuries to build; each generation doing its share, chancel or
+nave, aisle or window, each trying to make the church as perfect as
+the art of man could achieve. We shall see how much of this sound and
+laborious work has vanished, a prey to restoration and ignorant
+renovation. We shall see the house-breaker at work in rural hamlet and
+in country town. Vanishing London we shall leave severely alone. Its
+story has been already told in a large and comely volume by my friend
+Mr. Philip Norman. Besides, is there anything that has not vanished,
+having been doomed to destruction by the march of progress, now that
+Crosby Hall has gone the way of life in the Great City? A few old
+halls of the City companies remain, but most of them have given way to
+modern palaces; a few City churches, very few, that escaped the Great
+Fire, and every now and again we hear threatenings against the
+masterpieces of Wren, and another City church has followed in the wake
+of all the other London buildings on which the destroyer has laid his
+hand. The site is so valuable; the modern world of business presses
+out the life of these fine old edifices. They have to make way for
+new-fangled erections built in the modern French style with sprawling
+gigantic figures with bare limbs hanging on the porticoes which seem
+to wonder how they ever got there, and however they were to keep
+themselves from falling. London is hopeless! We can but delve its soil
+when opportunities occur in order to find traces of Roman or medieval
+life. Churches, inns, halls, mansions, palaces, exchanges have
+vanished, or are quickly vanishing, and we cast off the dust of London
+streets from our feet and seek more hopeful places.
+
+[Illustration: Old Shop, formerly standing in Cliffe High Street,
+Lewes]
+
+But even in the sleepy hollows of old England the pulse beats faster
+than of yore, and we shall only just be in time to rescue from
+oblivion and the house-breaker some of our heritage. Old city walls
+that have defied the attacks of time and of Cromwell's Ironsides are
+often in danger from the wiseacres who preside on borough
+corporations. Town halls picturesque and beautiful in their old age
+have to make way for the creations of the local architect. Old shops
+have to be pulled down in order to provide a site for a universal
+emporium or a motor garage. Nor are buildings the only things that are
+passing away. The extensive use of motor-cars and highway vandalism
+are destroying the peculiar beauty of the English roadside. The
+swift-speeding cars create clouds of white dust which settles upon the
+hedges and trees, covering them with it and obscuring the wayside
+flowers and hiding all their attractiveness. Corn and grass are
+injured and destroyed by the dust clouds. The charm and poetry of the
+country walk are destroyed by motoring demons, and the wayside
+cottage-gardens, once the most attractive feature of the English
+landscape, are ruined. The elder England, too, is vanishing in the
+modes, habits, and manners of her people. Never was the truth of the
+old oft-quoted Latin proverb--_Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in
+illis_--so pathetically emphatic as it is to-day. The people are
+changing in their habits and modes of thought. They no longer take
+pleasure in the simple joys of their forefathers. Hence in our
+chronicle of Vanishing England we shall have to refer to some of those
+strange customs which date back to primeval ages, but which the
+railways, excursion trains, and the schoolmaster in a few years will
+render obsolete.
+
+In recording the England that is vanishing the artist's pencil will
+play a more prominent part than the writer's pen. The graphic sketches
+that illustrate this book are far more valuable and helpful to the
+discernment of the things that remain than the most effective
+descriptions. We have tried together to gather up the fragments that
+remain that nothing be lost; and though there may be much that we have
+not gathered, the examples herein given of some of the treasures that
+are left may be useful in creating a greater reverence for the work
+bequeathed to us by our forefathers, and in strengthening the hands of
+those who would preserve them. Happily we are still able to use the
+present participle, not the past. It is vanishing England, not
+vanished, of which we treat; and if we can succeed in promoting an
+affection for the relics of antiquity that time has spared, our
+labours will not have been in vain or the object of this book
+unattained.
+
+[Illustration: Paradise Square, Banbury]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ENGLAND
+
+
+Under this alarming heading, "The Disappearance of England," the
+_Gaulois_ recently published an article by M. Guy Dorval on the
+erosion of the English coasts. The writer refers to the predictions of
+certain British men of science that England will one day disappear
+altogether beneath the waves, and imagines that we British folk are
+seized by a popular panic. Our neighbours are trembling for the fate
+of the _entente cordiale_, which would speedily vanish with vanishing
+England; but they have been assured by some of their savants that the
+rate of erosion is only one kilometre in a thousand years, and that
+the danger of total extinction is somewhat remote. Professor Stanislas
+Meunier, however, declares that our "panic" is based on scientific
+facts. He tells us that the cliffs of Brighton are now one kilometre
+farther away from the French coast than in the days of Queen
+Elizabeth, and that those of Kent are six kilometres farther away than
+in the Roman period. He compares our island to a large piece of sugar
+in water, but we may rest assured that before we disappear beneath the
+waves the period which must elapse would be greater than the longest
+civilizations known in history. So we may hope to be able to sing
+"Rule Britannia" for many a long year.
+
+Coast erosion is, however, a serious problem, and has caused the
+destruction of many a fair town and noble forest that now lie beneath
+the seas, and the crumbling cliffs on our eastern shore threaten to
+destroy many a village church and smiling pasture. Fishermen tell you
+that when storms rage and the waves swell they have heard the bells
+chiming in the towers long covered by the seas, and nigh the
+picturesque village of Bosham we were told of a stretch of sea that
+was called the Park. This as late as the days of Henry VIII was a
+favourite royal hunting forest, wherein stags and fawns and does
+disported themselves; now fish are the only prey that can be slain
+therein.
+
+The Royal Commission on coast erosion relieves our minds somewhat by
+assuring us that although the sea gains upon the land in many places,
+the land gains upon the sea in others, and that the loss and gain are
+more or less balanced. As a matter of area this is true. Most of the
+land that has been rescued from the pitiless sea is below high-water
+mark, and is protected by artificial banks. This work of reclaiming
+land can, of course, only be accomplished in sheltered places, for
+example, in the great flat bordering the Wash, which flat is formed by
+the deposit of the rivers of the Fenland, and the seaward face of this
+region is gradually being pushed forward by the careful processes of
+enclosure. You can see the various old sea walls which have been
+constructed from Roman times onward. Some accretions of land have
+occurred where the sea piles up masses of shingle, unless foolish
+people cart away the shingle in such quantities that the waves again
+assert themselves. Sometimes sand silts up as at Southport in
+Lancashire, where there is the second longest pier in England, a mile
+in length, from the end of which it is said that on a clear day with a
+powerful telescope you may perchance see the sea, that a distinguished
+traveller accustomed to the deserts of Sahara once found it, and that
+the name Southport is altogether a misnomer, as it is in the north and
+there is no port at all.
+
+But however much as an Englishman I might rejoice that the actual area
+of "our tight little island," which after all is not very tight,
+should not be diminishing, it would be a poor consolation to me, if I
+possessed land and houses on the coast of Norfolk which were fast
+slipping into the sea, to know that in the Fenland industrious farmers
+were adding to their acres. And day by day, year by year, this
+destruction is going on, and the gradual melting away of land. The
+attack is not always persistent. It is intermittent. Sometimes the
+progress of the sea seems to be stayed, and then a violent storm
+arises and falling cliffs and submerged houses proclaim the sway of
+the relentless waves. We find that the greatest loss has occurred on
+the east and southern coasts of our island. Great damage has been
+wrought all along the Yorkshire sea-board from Bridlington to Kilnsea,
+and the following districts have been the greatest sufferers: between
+Cromer and Happisburgh, Norfolk; between Pakefield and Southwold,
+Suffolk; Hampton and Herne Bay, and then St. Margaret's Bay, near
+Dover; the coast of Sussex, east of Brighton, and the Isle of Wight;
+the region of Bournemouth and Poole; Lyme Bay, Dorset, and Bridgwater
+Bay, Somerset.
+
+All along the coast from Yarmouth to Eastbourne, with a few
+exceptional parts, we find that the sea is gaining on the land by
+leaps and bounds. It is a coast that is most favourably constructed
+for coast erosion. There are no hard or firm rocks, no cliffs high
+enough to give rise to a respectable landslip; the soil is composed of
+loose sand and gravels, loams and clays, nothing to resist the
+assaults of atmospheric action from above or the sea below. At
+Covehithe, on the Suffolk coast, there has been the greatest loss of
+land. In 1887 sixty feet was claimed by the sea, and in ten years
+(1878-87) the loss was at the rate of over eighteen feet a year. In
+1895 another heavy loss occurred between Southwold and Covehithe and a
+new cove formed. Easton Bavent has entirely disappeared, and so have
+the once prosperous villages of Covehithe, Burgh-next-Walton, and
+Newton-by-Corton, and the same fate seems to be awaiting Pakefield,
+Southwold, and other coast-lying towns. Easton Bavent once had such a
+flourishing fishery that it paid an annual rent of 3110 herrings; and
+millions of herrings must have been caught by the fishermen of
+disappeared Dunwich, which we shall visit presently, as they paid
+annually "fish-fare" to the clergy of the town 15,377 herrings,
+besides 70,000 to the royal treasury.
+
+The summer visitors to the pleasant watering-place Felixstowe, named
+after St. Felix, who converted the East Anglians to Christianity and
+was their first bishop, that being the place where the monks of the
+priory of St. Felix in Walton held their annual fair, seldom reflect
+that the old Saxon burgh was carried away as long ago as 1100 A.D.
+Hence Earl Bigot was compelled to retire inland and erect his famous
+castle at Walton. But the sea respected not the proud walls of the
+baron's stronghold; the strong masonry that girt the keep lies beneath
+the waves; a heap of stones, called by the rustics Stone Works, alone
+marks the site of this once powerful castle. Two centuries later the
+baron's marsh was destroyed by the sea, and eighty acres of land was
+lost, much to the regret of the monks, who were thus deprived of the
+rent and tithe corn.
+
+The old chroniclers record many dread visitations of the relentless
+foe. Thus in 1237 we read: "The sea burst with high tides and tempests
+of winds, marsh countries near the sea were flooded, herds and flocks
+perished, and no small number of men were lost and drowned. The sea
+rose continually for two days and one night." Again in 1251: "On
+Christmas night there was a great thunder and lightning in Suffolk;
+the sea caused heavy floods." In much later times Defoe records:
+"Aldeburgh has two streets, each near a mile long, but its breadth,
+which was more considerable formerly, is not proportionable, and the
+sea has of late years swallowed up one whole street." It has still
+standing close to the shore its quaint picturesque town hall, erected
+in the fifteenth century. Southwold is now practically an island,
+bounded on the east by the sea, on the south-west by the Blyth River,
+on the north-west by Buss Creek. It is only joined to the mainland by
+a narrow neck of shingle that divides Buss Creek from the sea. I think
+that I should prefer to hold property in a more secure region. You
+invest your savings in stock, and dividends decrease and your capital
+grows smaller, but you usually have something left. But when your land
+and houses vanish entirely beneath the waves, the chapter is ended and
+you have no further remedy except to sue Father Neptune, who has
+rather a wide beat and may be difficult to find when he is wanted to
+be served with a summons.
+
+[Illustration: Norden's Chart of the River Ore and Suffolk Coast]
+
+But the Suffolk coast does not show all loss. In the north much land
+has been gained in the region of Beccles, which was at one time close
+to the sea, and one of the finest spreads of shingle in England
+extends from Aideburgh to Bawdry. This shingle has silted up many a
+Suffolk port, but it has proved a very effectual barrier against the
+inroads of the sea. Norden's map of the coast made in 1601[2] shows
+this wonderful mass of shingle, which has greatly increased since
+Norden's day. It has been growing in a southerly direction, until the
+Aide River had until recently an estuary ten miles in length. But in
+1907 the sea asserted itself, and "burst through the stony barrier,
+making a passage for the exit of the river one mile further north, and
+leaving a vast stretch of shingle and two deserted river-channels as a
+protection to the Marshes of Hollesley from further inroads of the
+sea."[3] Formerly the River Alde flowed direct to the sea just south
+of the town of Aldeburgh. Perhaps some day it may be able to again
+force a passage near its ancient course or by Havergate Island. This
+alteration in the course of rivers is very remarkable, and may be
+observed at Christ Church, Hants.
+
+  [2] It is now in possession of Mr. Kenneth M. Clark, by whose
+  permission the accompanying plan, reproduced from the _Memorials
+  of Old Suffolk_, was made.
+
+  [3] _Memorials of Old Suffolk_, edited by V.B. Redstone, p. 226.
+
+It is pathetic to think of the historic churches, beautiful villages,
+and smiling pastures that have been swept away by the relentless sea.
+There are no less than twelve towns and villages in Yorkshire that
+have been thus buried, and five in Suffolk. Ravensburgh, in the former
+county, was once a flourishing seaport. Here landed Henry IV in 1399,
+and Edward IV in 1471. It returned two members to Parliament. An old
+picture of the place shows the church, a large cross, and houses; but
+it has vanished with the neighbouring villages of Redmare,
+Tharlethorp, Frismarch, and Potterfleet, and "left not a wrack
+behind." Leland mentions it in 1538, after which time its place in
+history and on the map knows it no more. The ancient church of Kilnsea
+lost half its fabric in 1826, and the rest followed in 1831. Alborough
+Church and the Castle of Grimston have entirely vanished. Mapleton
+Church was formerly two miles from the sea; it is now on a cliff with
+the sea at its feet, awaiting the final attack of the all-devouring
+enemy. Nearly a century ago Owthorne Church and churchyard were
+overwhelmed, and the shore was strewn with ruins and shattered
+coffins. On the Tyneside the destruction has been remarkable and
+rapid. In the district of Saltworks there was a house built standing
+on the cliff, but it was never finished, and fell a prey to the waves.
+At Percy Square an inn and two cottages have been destroyed. The edge
+of the cliff in 1827 was eighty feet seaward, and the banks of Percy
+Square receded a hundred and eighty feet between the years 1827 and
+1892. Altogether four acres have disappeared. An old Roman building,
+locally known as "Gingling Geordie's Hole," and large masses of the
+Castle Cliff fell into the sea in the 'eighties. The remains of the
+once flourishing town of Seaton, on the Durham coast, can be
+discovered amid the sands at low tide. The modern village has sunk
+inland, and cannot now boast of an ancient chapel dedicated to St.
+Thomas of Canterbury, which has been devoured by the waves.
+
+Skegness, on the Lincolnshire coast, was a large and important town;
+it boasted of a castle with strong fortifications and a church with a
+lofty spire; it now lies deep beneath the devouring sea, which no
+guarding walls could conquer. Far out at sea, beneath the waves, lies
+old Cromer Church, and when storms rage its bells are said to chime.
+The churchyard wherein was written the pathetic ballad "The Garden of
+Sleep" is gradually disappearing, and "the graves of the fair women
+that sleep by the cliffs by the sea" have been outraged, and their
+bodies scattered and devoured by the pitiless waves.
+
+One of the greatest prizes of the sea is the ancient city of Dunwich,
+which dates back to the Roman era. The Domesday Survey shows that it
+was then a considerable town having 236 burgesses. It was girt with
+strong walls; it possessed an episcopal palace, the seat of the East
+Anglian bishopric; it had (so Stow asserts) fifty-two churches, a
+monastery, brazen gates, a town hall, hospitals, and the dignity of
+possessing a mint. Stow tells of its departed glories, its royal and
+episcopal palaces, the sumptuous mansion of the mayor, its numerous
+churches and its windmills, its harbour crowded with shipping, which
+sent forth forty vessels for the king's service in the thirteenth
+century. Though Dunwich was an important place, Stow's description of
+it is rather exaggerated. It could never have had more than ten
+churches and monasteries. Its "brazen gates" are mythical, though it
+had its Lepers' Gate, South Gate, and others. It was once a thriving
+city of wealthy merchants and industrious fishermen. King John granted
+to it a charter. It suffered from the attacks of armed men as well as
+from the ravages of the sea. Earl Bigot and the revolting barons
+besieged it in the reign of Edward I. Its decay was gradual. In 1342,
+in the parish of St. Nicholas, out of three hundred houses only
+eighteen remained. Only seven out of a hundred houses were standing in
+the parish of St. Martin. St. Peter's parish was devastated and
+depopulated. It had a small round church, like that at Cambridge,
+called the Temple, once the property of the Knights Templars, richly
+endowed with costly gifts. This was a place of sanctuary, as were the
+other churches in the city. With the destruction of the houses came
+also the decay of the port which no ships could enter. Its rival,
+Southwold, attracted the vessels of strangers. The markets and fairs
+were deserted. Silence and ruin reigned over the doomed town, and the
+ruined church of All Saints is all that remains of its former glories,
+save what the storms sometimes toss along the beach for the study and
+edification of antiquaries.
+
+As we proceed down the coast we find that the sea is still gaining on
+the land. The old church at Walton-on-the-Naze was swept away, and is
+replaced by a new one. A flourishing town existed at Reculver, which
+dates back to the Romans. It was a prosperous place, and had a noble
+church, which in the sixteenth century was a mile from the sea.
+Steadily have the waves advanced, until a century ago the church fell
+into the sea, save two towers which have been preserved by means of
+elaborate sea-walls as a landmark for sailors.
+
+The fickle sea has deserted some towns and destroyed their prosperity;
+it has receded all along the coast from Folkestone to the Sussex
+border, and left some of the famous Cinque Ports, some of which we
+shall visit again, Lymne, Romney, Hythe, Richborough, Stonor,
+Sandwich, and Sarre high and dry, with little or no access to the sea.
+Winchelsea has had a strange career. The old town lies beneath the
+waves, but a new Winchelsea arose, once a flourishing port, but now
+deserted and forlorn with the sea a mile away. Rye, too, has been
+forsaken. It was once an island; now the little Rother stream conveys
+small vessels to the sea, which looks very far away.
+
+We cannot follow all the victories of the sea. We might examine the
+inroads made by the waves at Selsea. There stood the first cathedral
+of the district before Chichester was founded. The building is now
+beneath the sea, and since Saxon times half of the Selsea Bill has
+vanished. The village of Selsea rested securely in the centre of the
+peninsula, but only half a mile now separates it from the sea. Some
+land has been gained near this projecting headland by an industrious
+farmer. His farm surrounded a large cove with a narrow mouth through
+which the sea poured. If he could only dam up that entrance, he
+thought he could rescue the bed of the cove and add to his acres. He
+bought an old ship and sank it by the entrance and proceeded to drain.
+But a tiresome storm arose and drove the ship right across the cove,
+and the sea poured in again. By no means discouraged, he dammed up the
+entrance more effectually, got rid of the water, increased his farm by
+many acres, and the old ship makes an admirable cow-shed.
+
+[Illustration: Disused Mooring-Post on bank of the Rother, Rye]
+
+The Isle of Wight in remote geological periods was part of the
+mainland. The Scilly Isles were once joined with Cornwall, and were
+not severed until the fourteenth century, when by a mighty storm and
+flood, 140 churches and villages were destroyed and overwhelmed, and
+190 square miles of land carried away. Much land has been lost in the
+Wirral district of Cheshire. Great forests have been overwhelmed, as
+the skulls and bones of deer and horse and fresh-water shell-fish have
+been frequently discovered at low tide. Fifty years ago a distance of
+half a mile separated Leasowes Castle from the sea; now its walls are
+washed by the waves. The Pennystone, off the Lancashire coast by
+Blackpool, tells of a submerged village and manor, about which cluster
+romantic legends.
+
+Such is the sad record of the sea's destruction, for which the
+industrious reclamation of land, the compensations wrought by the
+accumulation of shingle and sand dunes and the silting of estuaries
+can scarcely compensate us. How does the sea work this? There are
+certain rock-boring animals, such as the Pholas, which help to decay
+the rocks. Each mollusc cuts a series of augur-holes from two to four
+inches deep, and so assists in destroying the bulwarks of England.
+Atmospheric action, the disintegration of soft rocks by frost and by
+the attack of the sea below, all tend in the same direction. But the
+foolish action of man in removing shingle, the natural protection of
+our coasts, is also very mischievous. There is an instance of this in
+the Hall Sands and Bee Sands, Devon. A company a few years ago
+obtained authority to dredge both from the foreshore and sea-bed. The
+Commissioners of Woods and Forests and the Board of Trade granted this
+permission, the latter receiving a royalty of £50 and the former £150.
+This occurred in 1896. Soon afterwards a heavy gale arose and caused
+an immense amount of damage, the result entirely of this dredging. The
+company had to pay heavily, and the royalties were returned to them.
+This is only one instance out of many which might be quoted. We are an
+illogical nation, and our regulations and authorities are weirdly
+confused. It appears that the foreshore is under the control of the
+Board of Trade, and then a narrow strip of land is ruled over by the
+Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Of course these bodies do not
+agree; different policies are pursued by each, and the coast suffers.
+Large sums are sometimes spent in coast-defence works. At Spurn no
+less than £37,433 has been spent out of Parliamentary grants, besides
+£14,227 out of the Mercantile Marine Fund. Corporations or county
+authorities, finding their coasts being worn away, resolve to protect
+it. They obtain a grant in aid from Parliament, spend vast sums, and
+often find their work entirely thrown away, or proving itself most
+disastrous to their neighbours. If you protect one part of the coast
+you destroy another. Such is the rule of the sea. If you try to beat
+it back at one point it will revenge itself on another. If only you
+can cause shingle to accumulate before your threatened town or
+homestead, you know you can make the place safe and secure from the
+waves. But if you stop this flow of shingle you may protect your own
+homes, but you deprive your neighbours of this safeguard against the
+ravages of the sea. It was so at Deal. The good folks of Deal placed
+groynes in order to stop the flow of shingle and protect the town.
+They did their duty well; they stopped the shingle and made a good
+bulwark against the sea. With what result? In a few years' time they
+caused the destruction of Sandown, which had been deprived of its
+natural protection. Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., who has walked along the
+whole coast from Norfolk to Cornwall, besides visiting other parts of
+our English shore, and whose contributions to the Report of the Royal
+Commission on Coast Erosion are so valuable, remembers when a boy the
+Castle of Sandown, which dated from the time of Henry VIII. It was
+then in a sound condition and was inhabited. Now it is destroyed, and
+the batteries farther north have gone too. The same thing is going on
+at Dover. The Admiralty Pier causes the accumulation of shingle on its
+west side, and prevents it from following its natural course in a
+north-easterly direction. Hence the base of the cliffs on the other
+side of the pier and harbour is left bare and unprotected; this aids
+erosion, and not unfrequently do we hear of the fall of the chalk
+cliffs.
+
+Isolated schemes for the prevention of coast erosion are of little
+avail. They can do no good, and only increase the waste and
+destruction of land in neighbouring shores. Stringent laws should be
+passed to prevent the taking away of shingle from protecting beaches,
+and to prohibit the ploughing of land near the edge of cliffs, which
+greatly assists atmospheric destructive action from above. The State
+has recently threatened the abandonment of the coastguard service.
+This would be a disastrous policy. Though the primary object of
+coastguards, the prevention of smuggling, has almost passed away, the
+old sailors who act as guardians of our coast-line render valuable
+services to the country. They are most useful in looking after the
+foreshore. They save many lives from wrecked vessels, and keep watch
+and ward to guard our shores, and give timely notice of the advance of
+a hostile fleet, or of that ever-present foe which, though it affords
+some protection for our island home from armed invasion, does not fail
+to exact a heavy tithe from the land it guards, and has destroyed so
+many once flourishing towns and villages by its ceaseless attack.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+OLD WALLED TOWNS
+
+
+The destruction of ancient buildings always causes grief and distress
+to those who love antiquity. It is much to be deplored, but in some
+cases is perhaps inevitable. Old-fashioned half-timbered shops with
+small diamond-paned windows are not the most convenient for the
+display of the elegant fashionable costumes effectively draped on
+modelled forms. Motor-cars cannot be displayed in antiquated old
+shops. Hence in modern up-to-date towns these old buildings are
+doomed, and have to give place to grand emporiums with large
+plate-glass windows and the refinements of luxurious display. We hope
+to visit presently some of the old towns and cities which happily
+retain their ancient beauties, where quaint houses with oversailing
+upper stories still exist, and with the artist's aid to describe many
+of their attractions.
+
+Although much of the destruction is, as I have said, inevitable, a
+vast amount is simply the result of ignorance and wilful perversity.
+Ignorant persons get elected on town councils--worthy men doubtless,
+and able men of business, who can attend to and regulate the financial
+affairs of the town, look after its supply of gas and water, its
+drainage and tramways; but they are absolutely ignorant of its
+history, its associations, of architectural beauty, of anything that
+is not modern and utilitarian. Unhappily, into the care of such men as
+these is often confided the custody of historic buildings and
+priceless treasures, of ruined abbey and ancient walls, of objects
+consecrated by the lapse of centuries and by the associations of
+hundreds of years of corporate life; and it is not surprising that in
+many cases they betray their trust. They are not interested in such
+things. "Let bygones be bygones," they say. "We care not for old
+rubbish." Moreover, they frequently resent interference and
+instruction. Hence they destroy wholesale what should be preserved,
+and England is the poorer.
+
+Not long ago the Edwardian wall of Berwick-on-Tweed was threatened
+with demolition at the hands of those who ought to be its
+guardians--the Corporation of the town. An official from the Office of
+Works, when he saw the begrimed, neglected appearance of the two
+fragments of this wall near the Bell Tower, with a stagnant pool in
+the fosse, bestrewed with broken pitchers and rubbish, reported that
+the Elizabethan walls of the town which were under the direction of
+the War Department were in excellent condition, whereas the Edwardian
+masonry was utterly neglected. And why was this relic of the town's
+former greatness to be pulled down? Simply to clear the site for the
+erection of modern dwelling-houses. A very strong protest was made
+against this act of municipal barbarism by learned societies, the
+Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, and others, and we
+hope that the hand of the destroyer has been stayed.
+
+Most of the principal towns in England were protected by walls, and
+the citizens regarded it as a duty to build them and keep them in
+repair. When we look at some of these fortifications, their strength,
+their height, their thickness, we are struck by the fact that they
+were very great achievements, and that they must have been raised with
+immense labour and gigantic cost. In turbulent and warlike times they
+were absolutely necessary. Look at some of these triumphs of medieval
+engineering skill, so strong, so massive, able to defy the attacks of
+lance and arrow, ram or catapult, and to withstand ages of neglect and
+the storms of a tempestuous clime. Towers and bastions stood at
+intervals against the wall at convenient distances, in order that
+bowmen stationed in them could shoot down any who attempted to scale
+the wall with ladders anywhere within the distance between the
+towers. All along the wall there was a protected pathway for the
+defenders to stand, and machicolations through which boiling oil or
+lead, or heated sand could be poured on the heads of the attacking
+force. The gateways were carefully constructed, flanked by defending
+towers with a portcullis, and a guard-room overhead with holes in the
+vaulted roof of the gateway for pouring down inconvenient substances
+upon the heads of the besiegers. There were several gates, the usual
+number being four; but Coventry had twelve, Canterbury six, and
+Newcastle-on-Tyne seven, besides posterns.
+
+[Illustration: Old Houses built on the Town Wall, Rye]
+
+Berwick-upon-Tweed, York, Chester, and Conway have maintained their
+walls in good condition. Berwick has three out of its four gates still
+standing. They are called Scotchgate, Shoregate, and Cowgate, and in
+the last two still remain the original massive wooden gates with their
+bolts and hinges. The remaining fourth gate, named Bridgate, has
+vanished. We have alluded to the neglect of the Edwardian wall and its
+threatened destruction. Conway has a wall a mile and a quarter in
+length, with twenty-one semicircular towers along its course and three
+great gateways besides posterns. Edward I built this wall in order to
+subjugate the Welsh, and also the walls round Carnarvon, some of which
+survive, and Beaumaris. The name of his master-mason has been
+preserved, one Henry le Elreton. The muniments of the Corporation of
+Alnwick prove that often great difficulties arose in the matter of
+wall-building. Its closeness to the Scottish border rendered a wall
+necessary. The town was frequently attacked and burnt. The inhabitants
+obtained a licence to build a wall in 1433, but they did not at once
+proceed with the work. In 1448 the Scots came and pillaged the town,
+and the poor burgesses were so robbed and despoiled that they could
+not afford to proceed with the wall and petitioned the King for aid.
+Then Letters Patent were issued for a collection to be made for the
+object, and at last, forty years after the licence was granted,
+Alnwick got its wall, and a very good wall it was--a mile in
+circumference, twenty feet in height and six in thickness; "it had
+four gateways--Bondgate, Clayport, Pottergate, and Narrowgate. Only
+the first-named of these is standing. It is three stories in height.
+Over the central archway is a panel on which was carved the Brabant
+lion, now almost obliterated. On either side is a semi-octagonal
+tower. The masonry is composed of huge blocks to which time and
+weather have given dusky tints. On the front facing the expected foes
+the openings are but little more than arrow-slits; on that within,
+facing the town, are well-proportioned mullioned and transomed
+windows. The great ribbed archway is grooved for a portcullis, now
+removed, and a low doorway on either side gives entrance to the
+chambers in the towers. Pottergate was rebuilt in the eighteenth
+century and crowns a steep street; only four corner-stones marked T
+indicate the site of Clayport. No trace of Narrowgate remains."[4]
+
+As the destruction of many of our castles is due to the action of
+Cromwell and the Parliament, who caused them to be "slighted" partly
+out of revenge upon the loyal owners who had defended them, so several
+of our town-walls were thrown down by order of Charles II at the
+Restoration on account of the active assistance which the townspeople
+had given to the rebels. The heads of rebels were often placed on
+gateways. London Bridge, Lincoln, Newcastle, York, Berwick,
+Canterbury, Temple Bar, and other gates have often been adorned with
+these gruesome relics of barbarous punishments.
+
+How were these strong walls ever taken in the days before gunpowder
+was extensively used or cannon discharged their devastating shells?
+Imagine you are present at a siege. You would see the attacking force
+advancing a huge wooden tower, covered with hides and placed on
+wheels, towards the walls. Inside this tower were ladders, and when
+the "sow" had been pushed towards the wall the soldiers rushed up
+these ladders and were able to fight on a level with the garrison.
+Perhaps they were repulsed, and then a shed-like structure would be
+advanced towards the wall, so as to enable the men to get close enough
+to dig a hole beneath the walls in order to bring them down. The
+besieged would not be inactive, but would cast heavy stones on the
+roof of the shed. Molten lead and burning flax were favourite means of
+defence to alarm and frighten away the enemy, who retaliated by
+casting heavy stones by means of a catapult into the town.
+
+  [4] _The Builder_, April 16, 1904.
+
+[Illustration: Bootham Bar, York]
+
+Amongst the fragments of walls still standing, those at Newcastle are
+very massive, sooty, and impressive. Southampton has some grand walls
+left and a gateway, which show how strongly the town was fortified.
+The old Cinque Port, Sandwich, formerly a great and important town,
+lately decayed, but somewhat renovated by golf, has two gates left,
+and Rochester and Canterbury have some fragments of their walls
+standing. The repair of the walls of towns was sometimes undertaken by
+guilds. Generous benefactors, like Sir Richard Whittington, frequently
+contributed to the cost, and sometimes a tax called murage was levied
+for the purpose which was collected by officers named muragers.
+
+The city of York has lost many of its treasures, and the City Fathers
+seem to find it difficult to keep their hands off such relics of
+antiquity as are left to them. There are few cities in England more
+deeply marked with the impress of the storied past than York--the long
+and moving story of its gates and walls, of the historical
+associations of the city through century after century of English
+history. About eighty years ago the Corporation destroyed the
+picturesque old barbicans of the Bootham, Micklegate, and Monk Bars,
+and only one, Walmgate, was suffered to retain this interesting
+feature. It is a wonder they spared those curious stone half-length
+figures of men, sculptured in a menacing attitude in the act of
+hurling large stones downwards, which vaunt themselves on the summit
+of Monk Bar--probably intended to deceive invaders--or that
+interesting stone platform only twenty-two inches wide, which was the
+only foothold available for the martial burghers who guarded the city
+wall at Tower Place. A year or two ago the City Fathers decided, in
+order to provide work for the unemployed, to interfere with the city
+moats by laying them out as flower-beds and by planting shrubs and
+making playgrounds of the banks. The protest of the Yorks
+Archæological Society, we believe, stayed their hands.
+
+The same story can be told of far too many towns and cities. A few
+years ago several old houses were demolished in the High Street of the
+city of Rochester to make room for electric tramways. Among these was
+the old White Hart Inn, built in 1396, the sign being a badge of
+Richard II, where Samuel Pepys stayed. He found that "the beds were
+corded, and we had no sheets to our beds, only linen to our mouths" (a
+narrow strip of linen to prevent the contact of the blanket with the
+face). With regard to the disappearance of old inns, we must wait
+until we arrive at another chapter.
+
+We will now visit some old towns where we hope to discover some
+buildings that are ancient and where all is not distressingly new,
+hideous, and commonplace. First we will travel to the old-world town
+of Lynn--"Lynn Regis, vulgarly called King's Lynn," as the royal
+charter of Henry VIII terms it. On the land side the town was defended
+by a fosse, and there are still considerable remains of the old wall,
+including the fine Gothic South Gates. In the days of its ancient
+glory it was known as Bishop's Lynn, the town being in the hands of
+the Bishop of Norwich. Bishop Herbert de Losinga built the church of
+St. Margaret at the beginning of the twelfth century, and gave it with
+many privileges to the monks of Norwich, who held a priory at Lynn;
+and Bishop Turbus did a wonderfully good stroke of business, reclaimed
+a large tract of land about 1150 A.D., and amassed wealth for his see
+from his markets, fairs, and mills. Another bishop, Bishop Grey,
+induced or compelled King John to grant a free charter to the town,
+but astutely managed to keep all the power in his own hands. Lynn was
+always a very religious place, and most of the orders--Benedictines,
+Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelite and Augustinian Friars, and the
+Sack Friars--were represented at Lynn, and there were numerous
+hospitals, a lazar-house, a college of secular canons, and other
+religious institutions, until they were all swept away by the greed of
+a rapacious king. There is not much left to-day of all these religious
+foundations. The latest authority on the history of Lynn, Mr. H.J.
+Hillen, well says: "Time's unpitying plough-share has spared few
+vestiges of their architectural* grandeur." A cemetery cross in the
+museum, the name "Paradise" that keeps up the remembrance of the cool,
+verdant cloister-garth, a brick arch upon the east bank of the Nar,
+and a similar gateway in "Austin" Street are all the relics that
+remain of the old monastic life, save the slender hexagonal "Old
+Tower," the graceful lantern of the convent of the grey-robed
+Franciscans. The above writer also points out the beautifully carved
+door in Queen Street, sole relic of the College of Secular Canons,
+from which the chisel of the ruthless iconoclast has chipped off the
+obnoxious _Orate pro anima_.
+
+  *Transcriber's Note: Original "achitectural"
+
+The quiet, narrow, almost deserted streets of Lynn, its port and quays
+have another story to tell. They proclaim its former greatness as one
+of the chief ports in England and the centre of vast mercantile
+activity. A thirteenth-century historian, Friar William Newburg,
+described Lynn as "a noble city noted for its trade." It was the key
+of Norfolk. Through it flowed all the traffic to and from northern
+East Anglia, and from its harbour crowds of ships carried English
+produce, mainly wool, to the Netherlands, Norway, and the Rhine
+Provinces. Who would have thought that this decayed harbour ranked
+fourth among the ports of the kingdom? But its glories have departed.
+Decay set in. Its prosperity began to decline.
+
+Railways have been the ruin of King's Lynn. The merchant princes who
+once abounded in the town exist here no longer. The last of the long
+race died quite recently. Some ancient ledgers still exist in the
+town, which exhibit for one firm alone a turnover of something like a
+million and a half sterling per annum. Although possessed of a
+similarly splendid waterway, unlike Ipswich, the trade of the town
+seems to have quite decayed. Few signs of commerce are visible, except
+where the advent of branch stations of enterprising "Cash" firms has
+resulted in the squaring up of odd projections and consequent
+overthrow of certain ancient buildings. There is one act of vandalism
+which the town has never ceased to regret and which should serve as a
+warning for the future. This is the demolition of the house of Walter
+Coney, merchant, an unequalled specimen of fifteenth-century domestic
+architecture, which formerly stood at the corner of the Saturday
+Market Place and High Street. So strongly was this edifice constructed
+that it was with the utmost difficulty that it was taken to pieces, in
+order to make room for the ugly range of white brick buildings which
+now stands upon its site. But Lynn had an era of much prosperity
+during the rise of the Townshends, when the agricultural improvements
+brought about by the second Viscount introduced much wealth to
+Norfolk. Such buildings as the Duke's Head Hotel belong to the second
+Viscount's time, and are indicative of the influx of visitors which
+the town enjoyed. In the present day this hotel, though still a
+good-sized establishment, occupies only half the building which it
+formerly did. An interesting oak staircase of fine proportions, though
+now much warped, may be seen here.
+
+[Illustration: Half-timbered House with early Fifteenth-century
+Doorway, King's Lynn, Norfolk]
+
+In olden days the Hanseatic League had an office here. The Jews were
+plentiful and supplied capital--you can find their traces in the name
+of the "Jews' Lane Ward"--and then came the industrious Flemings, who
+brought with them the art of weaving cloth and peculiar modes of
+building houses, so that Lynn looks almost like a little Dutch town.
+The old guild life of Lynn was strong and vigorous, from its Merchant
+Guild to the humbler craft guilds, of which we are told that there
+have been no less than seventy-five. Part of the old Guildhall,
+erected in 1421, with its chequered flint and stone gable still stands
+facing the market of St. Margaret with its Renaissance porch, and a
+bit of the guild hall of St. George the Martyr remains in King Street.
+The custom-house, which was originally built as an exchange for the
+Lynn merchants, is a notable building, and has a statue of Charles II
+placed in a niche.
+
+This was the earliest work of a local architect, Henry Bell, who is
+almost unknown. He was mayor of King's Lynn, and died in 1717, and his
+memory has been saved from oblivion by Mr. Beloe of that town, and is
+enshrined in Mr. Blomfield's _History of Renaissance Architecture_:--
+
+  "This admirable little building originally consisted of an open
+  loggia about 40 feet by 32 feet outside, with four columns down
+  the centre, supporting the first floor, and an attic storey above.
+  The walls are of Portland stone, with a Doric order to the ground
+  storey supporting an Ionic order to the first floor. The cornice
+  is of wood, and above this is a steep-pitched tile roof with
+  dormers, surmounted by a balustrade inclosing a flat, from which
+  rises a most picturesque wooden cupola. The details are extremely
+  refined, and the technical knowledge and delicate sense of scale
+  and proportion shown in this building are surprising in a designer
+  who was under thirty, and is not known to have done any previous
+  work."[5]
+
+  [5] _History of Renaissance Architecture_, by R. Blomfield.
+
+A building which the town should make an effort to preserve is the old
+"Greenland Fishery House," a tenement dating from the commencement of
+the seventeenth century.
+
+The Duke's Head Inn, erected in 1689, now spoilt by its coating of
+plaster, a house in Queen's Street, the old market cross, destroyed in
+1831 and sold for old materials, and the altarpieces of the churches
+of St. Margaret and St. Nicholas, destroyed during "restoration," and
+North Runcton church, three miles from Lynn, are other works of this
+very able artist.
+
+Until the Reformation Lynn was known as Bishop's Lynn, and galled
+itself under the yoke of the Bishop of Norwich; but Henry freed the
+townsfolk from their bondage and ordered the name to be changed to
+Lynn Regis. Whether the good people throve better under the control of
+the tyrant who crushed all their guilds and appropriated the spoil
+than under the episcopal yoke may be doubtful; but the change pleased
+them, and with satisfaction they placed the royal arms on their East
+Gate, which, after the manner of gates and walls, has been pulled
+down. If you doubt the former greatness of this old seaport you must
+examine its civic plate. It possesses the oldest and most important
+and most beautiful specimen of municipal plate in England, a grand,
+massive silver-gilt cup of exquisite workmanship. It is called "King
+John's Cup," but it cannot be earlier than the reign of Edward III. In
+addition to this there is a superb sword of state of the time of Henry
+VIII, another cup, four silver maces, and other treasures. Moreover,
+the town had a famous goldsmiths' company, and several specimens of
+their handicraft remain. The defences of the town were sorely tried in
+the Civil War, when for three weeks it sustained the attacks of the
+rebels. The town was forced to surrender, and the poor folk were
+obliged to pay ten shillings a head, besides a month's pay to the
+soldiers, in order to save their homes from plunder. Lynn has many
+memories. It sheltered King John when fleeing from the revolting
+barons, and kept his treasures until he took them away and left them
+in a still more secure place buried in the sands of the Wash. It
+welcomed Queen Isabella during her retirement at Castle Rising,
+entertained Edward IV when he was hotly pursued by the Earl of
+Warwick, and has been worthy of its name as a loyal king's town.
+
+Another walled town on the Norfolk coast attracts the attention of all
+who love the relics of ancient times, Great Yarmouth, with its
+wonderful record of triumphant industry and its associations with many
+great events in history. Henry III, recognizing the important
+strategical position of the town in 1260, granted a charter to the
+townsfolk empowering them to fortify the place with a wall and a moat,
+but more than a century elapsed before the fortifications were
+completed. This was partly owing to the Black Death, which left few
+men in Yarmouth to carry on the work. The walls were built of cut
+flint and Caen stone, and extended from the north-east tower in St.
+Nicholas Churchyard, called King Henry's Tower, to Blackfriars Tower
+at the south end, and from the same King Henry's Tower to the
+north-west tower on the bank of the Bure. Only a few years ago a large
+portion of this, north of Ramp Row, now called Rampart Road, was taken
+down, much to the regret of many. And here I may mention a grand
+movement which might be with advantage imitated in every historic
+town. A small private company has been formed called the "Great
+Yarmouth Historical Buildings, Limited." Its object is to acquire
+and preserve the relics of ancient Yarmouth. The founders deserve the
+highest praise for their public spirit and patriotism. How many
+cherished objects in Vanishing England might have been preserved if
+each town or county possessed such a valuable association! This
+Yarmouth society owns the remains of the cloisters of Grey Friars and
+other remains of ancient buildings. It is only to be regretted that it
+was not formed earlier. There were nine gates in the walls of the
+town, but none of them are left, and of the sixteen towers which
+protected the walls only a very few remain.
+
+[Illustration: The "Bone Tower", Town walls, Great Yarmouth]
+
+These walls guard much that is important. The ecclesiastical buildings
+are very fine, including the largest parish church in England, founded
+by the same Herbert de Losinga whose good work we saw at King's Lynn.
+The church of St. Nicholas has had many vicissitudes, and is now one
+of the finest in the country. It was in medieval times the church of a
+Benedictine Priory; a cell of the monastery at Norwich and the Priory
+Hall remains, and is now restored and used as a school. Royal guests
+have been entertained there, but part of the buildings were turned
+into cottages and the great hall into stables. As we have said, part
+of the Grey Friars Monastery remains, and also part of the house of
+the Augustine Friars. The Yarmouth rows are a great feature of the
+town. They are not like the Chester rows, but are long, narrow streets
+crossing the town from east to west, only six feet wide, and one row
+called Kitty-witches only measures at one end two feet three inches.
+It has been suggested that this plan of the town arose from the
+fishermen hanging out their nets to dry and leaving a narrow passage
+between each other's nets, and that in course of time these narrow
+passages became defined and were permanently retained. In former days
+rich merchants and traders lived in the houses that line these rows,
+and had large gardens behind their dwellings; and sometimes you can
+see relics of former greatness--a panelled room or a richly decorated
+ceiling. But the ancient glory of the rows is past, and the houses
+are occupied now by fishermen or labourers. These rows are so narrow
+that no ordinary vehicle could be driven along them. Hence there arose
+special Yarmouth carts about three and a half feet wide and twelve
+feet long with wheels underneath the body. Very brave and gallant have
+always been the fishermen of Yarmouth, not only in fighting the
+elements, but in defeating the enemies of England. History tells of
+many a sea-fight in which they did good service to their king and
+country. They gallantly helped to win the battle of Sluys, and sent
+forty-three ships and one thousand men to help with the siege of
+Calais in the time of Edward III. They captured and burned the town
+and harbour of Cherbourg in the time of Edward I, and performed many
+other acts of daring.
+
+[Illustration: Row No. 83, Great Yarmouth]
+
+One of the most interesting houses in the town is the Tolhouse, the
+centre of the civic life of Yarmouth. It is said to be six hundred
+years old, having been erected in the time of Henry III, though some
+of the windows are decorated, but may have been inserted later. Here
+the customs or tolls were collected, and the Corporation held its
+meetings. There is a curious open external staircase leading to the
+first floor, where the great hall is situated. Under the hall is a
+gaol, a wretched prison wherein the miserable captives were chained to
+a beam that ran down the centre. Nothing in the town bears stronger
+witness to the industry and perseverance of the Yarmouth men than the
+harbour. They have scoured the sea for a thousand years to fill their
+nets with its spoil, and made their trade of world-wide fame, but
+their port speaks louder in their praise. Again and again has the
+fickle sea played havoc with their harbour, silting it up with sand
+and deserting the town as if in revenge for the harvest they reap from
+her. They have had to cut out no less than seven harbours in the
+course of the town's existence, and royally have they triumphed over
+all difficulties and made Yarmouth a great and prosperous port.
+
+Near Yarmouth is the little port of Gorleston with its old jetty-head,
+of which we give an illustration. It was once the rival of Yarmouth.
+The old magnificent church of the Augustine Friars stood in this
+village and had a lofty, square, embattled tower which was a landmark
+to sailors. But the church was unroofed and despoiled at the
+Reformation, and its remains were pulled down in 1760, only a small
+portion of the tower remaining, and this fell a victim to a violent
+storm at the beginning of the last century. The grand parish church
+was much plundered at the Reformation, and left piteously bare by the
+despoilers.
+
+[Illustration: The Old Jetty, Gorleston]
+
+The town, now incorporated with Yarmouth, has a proud boast:--
+
+        Gorleston was Gorleston ere Yarmouth begun,
+        And will be Gorleston when Yarmouth is done.
+
+Another leading East Anglian port in former days was the county town
+of Suffolk, Ipswich. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
+ships from most of the countries of Western Europe disembarked their
+cargoes on its quays--wines from Spain, timber from Norway, cloth from
+Flanders, salt from France, and "mercerie" from Italy left its crowded
+wharves to be offered for sale in the narrow, busy streets of the
+borough. Stores of fish from Iceland, bales of wool, loads of untanned
+hides, as well as the varied agricultural produce of the district,
+were exposed twice in the week on the market stalls.[6] The learned
+editor of the _Memorials of Old Suffolk_, who knows the old town so
+well, tells us that the stalls of the numerous markets lay within a
+narrow limit of space near the principal churches of the town--St.
+Mary-le-Tower, St. Mildred, and St. Lawrence. The Tavern Street of
+to-day was the site of the flesh market or cowerye. A narrow street
+leading thence to the Tower Church was the Poultry, and Cooks' Row,
+Butter Market, Cheese and Fish markets were in the vicinity. The
+manufacture of leather was the leading industry of old Ipswich, and
+there was a goodly company of skinners, barkers, and tanners employed
+in the trade. Tavern Street had, as its name implies, many taverns,
+and was called the Vintry, from the large number of opulent vintners
+who carried on their trade with London and Bordeaux. Many of these men
+were not merely peaceful merchants, but fought with Edward III in his
+wars with France and were knighted for their feats of arms. Ipswich
+once boasted of a castle which was destroyed in Stephen's reign. In
+Saxon times it was fortified by a ditch and a rampart which were
+destroyed by the Danes, but the fortifications were renewed in the
+time of King John, when a wall was built round the town with four
+gates which took their names from the points of the compass. Portions
+of these remain to bear witness to the importance of this ancient
+town. We give views of an old building near the custom-house in
+College Street and Fore Street, examples of the narrow, tortuous
+thoroughfares which modern improvements have not swept away.
+
+  [6] Cf. _Memorials of Suffolk_, edited by V.B. Redstone.
+
+[Illustration: Tudor House, Ipswich, near the Custom House]
+
+[Illustration: Three-gabled House, Fore Street, Ipswich]
+
+We cannot give accounts of all the old fortified towns in England and
+can only make selections. We have alluded to the ancient walls of
+York. Few cities can rival it in interest and architectural beauty,
+its relics of Roman times, its stately and magnificent cathedral, the
+beautiful ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, the numerous churches exhibiting
+all the grandeur of the various styles of Gothic architecture, the old
+merchants' hall, and the quaint old narrow streets with gabled houses
+and widely projecting storeys. And then there is the varied history of
+the place dating from far-off Roman times. Not the least interesting
+feature of York are its gates and walls. Some parts of the walls are
+Roman, that curious thirteen-sided building called the multangular
+tower forming part of it, and also the lower part of the wall leading
+from this tower to Bootham Bar, the upper part being of later origin.
+These walls have witnessed much fighting, and the cannons in the Civil
+War during the siege in 1644 battered down some portions of them and
+sorely tried their hearts. But they have been kept in good
+preservation and repaired at times, and the part on the west of the
+Ouse is especially well preserved. You can see some Norman and Early
+English work, but the bulk of it belongs to Edwardian times, when York
+played a great part in the history of England, and King Edward I made
+it his capital during the war with Scotland, and all the great nobles
+of England sojourned there. Edward II spent much time there, and the
+minster saw the marriage of his son. These walls were often sorely
+needed to check the inroads of the Scots. After Bannockburn fifteen
+thousand of these northern warriors advanced to the gates of York. The
+four gates of the city are very remarkable. Micklegate Bar consists of
+a square tower built over a circular arch of Norman date with
+embattled turrets at the angles. On it the heads of traitors were
+formerly exposed. It bears on its front the arms of France as well as
+those of England.
+
+[Illustration: "Melia's Passage," York]
+
+Bootham Bar is the main entrance from the north, and has a Norman arch
+with later additions and turrets with narrow slits for the discharge
+of arrows. It saw the burning of the suburb of Bootham in 1265 and
+much bloodshed, when a mighty quarrel raged between the citizens and
+the monks of the Abbey of St. Mary owing to the abuse of the privilege
+of sanctuary possessed by the monastery. Monk Bar has nothing to do
+with monks. Its former name was Goodramgate, and after the Restoration
+it was changed to Monk Bar in honour of General Monk. The present
+structure was probably built in the fourteenth century. Walmgate Bar,
+a strong, formidable structure, was built in the reign of Edward I,
+and as we have said, it is the only gate that retains its curious
+barbican, originally built in the time of Edward III and rebuilt in
+1648. The inner front of the gate has been altered from its original
+form in order to secure more accommodation within. The remains of the
+Clifford's Tower, which played an important part in the siege, tell of
+the destruction caused by the blowing up of the magazine in 1683, an
+event which had more the appearance of design than accident. York
+abounds with quaint houses and narrow streets. We give an illustration
+of the curious Melia's Passage; the origin of the name I am at a loss
+to conjecture.
+
+Chester is, we believe, the only city in England which has retained
+the entire circuit of its walls complete. According to old unreliable
+legends, Marius, or Marcius, King of the British, grandson of
+Cymbeline, who began his reign A.D. 73, first surrounded Chester with
+a wall, a mysterious person who must be classed with Leon Gawr, or
+Vawr, a mighty strong giant who founded Chester, digging caverns in
+the rocks for habitations, and with the story of King Leir, who first
+made human habitations in the future city. Possibly there was here a
+British camp. It was certainly a Roman city, and has preserved the
+form and plan which the Romans were accustomed to affect; its four
+principal streets diverging at right angles from a common centre, and
+extending north, east, south, and west, and terminating in a gate, the
+other streets forming insulæ as at Silchester. There is every reason
+to believe that the Romans surrounded the city with a wall. Its
+strength was often tried. Hither the Saxons came under Ethelfrith and
+pillaged the city, but left it to the Britons, who were not again
+dislodged until Egbert came in 828 and recovered it. The Danish
+pirates came here and were besieged by Alfred, who slew all within its
+walls. These walls were standing but ruinous when the noble daughter
+of Alfred, Ethelfleda, restored them in 907. A volume would be needed
+to give a full account of Chester's varied history, and our main
+concern is with the treasures that remain. The circumference of the
+walls is nearly two miles, and there are four principal gates besides
+posterns--the North, East, Bridge-gate, and Water-gate. The North Gate
+was in the charge of the citizens; the others were held by persons who
+had that office by serjeanty under the Earls of Chester, and were
+entitled to certain tolls, which, with the custody of the gates, were
+frequently purchased by the Corporation. The custody of the
+Bridge-gate belonged to the Raby family in the reign of Edward III. It
+had two round towers, on the westernmost of which was an octagonal
+water-tower. These were all taken down in 1710-81 and the gate
+rebuilt. The East Gate was given by Edward I to Henry Bradford, who
+was bound to find a crannoc and a bushel for measuring the salt that
+might be brought in. Needless to say, the old gate has vanished. It
+was of Roman architecture, and consisted of two arches formed by large
+stones. Between the tops of the arches, which were cased with Norman
+masonry, was the whole-length figure of a Roman soldier. This gate was
+a _porta principalis_, the termination of the great Watling Street
+that led from Dover through London to Chester. It was destroyed in
+1768, and the present gate erected by Earl Grosvenor. The custody of
+the Water-gate belonged to the Earls of Derby. It also was destroyed,
+and the present arch erected in 1788. A new North Gate was built in
+1809 by Robert, Earl Grosvenor. The principal postern-gates were Cale
+Yard Gate, made by the abbot and convent in the reign of Edward I as a
+passage to their kitchen garden; New-gate, formerly Woolfield or
+Wolf-gate, repaired in 1608, also called Pepper-gate;[7] and
+Ship-gate, or Hole-in-the-wall, which alone retains its Roman arch,
+and leads to a ferry across the Dee.
+
+  [7] The Chester folk have a proverb, "When the daughter is stolen,
+  shut Pepper-gate"--referring to the well-known story of a daughter
+  of a Mayor of Chester having made her escape with her lover
+  through this gate, which he ordered to be closed, but too late to
+  prevent the fugitives.
+
+The walls are strengthened by round towers so placed as not to be
+beyond bowshot of each other, in order that their arrows might reach
+the enemy who should attempt to scale the walls in the intervals. At
+the north-east corner is Newton's Tower, better known as the Phoenix
+from a sculptured figure, the ensign of one of the city guilds,
+appearing over its door. From this tower Charles I saw the battle of
+Rowton Heath and the defeat of his troops during the famous siege of
+Chester. This was one of the most prolonged and deadly in the whole
+history of the Civil War. It would take many pages to describe the
+varied fortunes of the gallant Chester men, who were at length
+constrained to feed on horses, dogs, and cats. There is much in the
+city to delight the antiquary and the artist--the famous rows, the
+three-gabled old timber mansion of the Stanleys with its massive
+staircase, oaken floors, and panelled walls, built in 1591, Bishop
+Lloyd's house in Water-gate with its timber front sculptured with
+Scripture subjects, and God's Providence House with its motto "God's
+Providence is mine inheritance," the inhabitants of which are said to
+have escaped one of the terrible plagues that used to rage frequently
+in old Chester.
+
+[Illustration: Detail of Half-timbered House in High Street,
+Shrewsbury]
+
+Journeying southwards we come to Shrewsbury, another walled town,
+abounding with delightful half-timbered houses, less spoiled than any
+town we know. It was never a Roman town, though six miles away, at
+Uriconium, the Romans had a flourishing city with a great basilica,
+baths, shops, and villas, and the usual accessories of luxury.
+Tradition says that its earliest Celtic name was Pengwern, where a
+British prince had his palace; but the town Scrobbesbyrig came into
+existence under Offa's rule in Mercia, and with the Normans came Roger
+de Montgomery, Shrewsbury's first Earl, and a castle and the stately
+abbey of SS. Peter and Paul. A little later the town took to itself
+walls, which were abundantly necessary on account of the constant
+inroads of the wild Welsh.
+
+        For the barbican's massy and high,
+                  Bloudie Jacke!
+        And the oak-door is heavy and brown;
+        And with iron it's plated and machicolated,
+        To pour boiling oil and lead down;
+                  How you'd frown
+        Should a ladle-full fall on your crown!
+
+        The rock that it stands on is steep,
+                  Bloudie Jacke!
+        To gain it one's forced for to creep;
+        The Portcullis is strong, and the Drawbridge is long,
+        And the water runs all round the Keep;
+                  At a peep
+        You can see that the moat's very deep!
+
+So rhymed the author of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, when in his "Legend
+of Shropshire" he described the red stone fortress that towers over
+the loop of the Severn enclosing the picturesque old town of
+Shrewsbury. The castle, or rather its keep, for the outworks have
+disappeared, has been modernized past antiquarian value now. Memories
+of its importance as the key of the Northern Marches, and of the
+ancient custom of girding the knights of the shire with their swords
+by the sheriffs on the grass plot of its inner court, still remain.
+The town now stands on a peninsula girt by the Severn. On the high
+ground between the narrow neck stood the castle, and under its shelter
+most of the houses of the inhabitants. Around this was erected the
+first wall. The latest historian of Shrewsbury[8] tells us that it
+started from the gate of the castle, passed along the ridge at the
+back of Pride Hill, at the bottom of which it turned along the line of
+High Street, past St. Julian's Church which overhung it, to the top
+of Wyle Cop, when it followed the ridge back to the castle. Of the
+part extending from Pride Hill to Wyle Cop only scant traces exist at
+the back of more modern buildings.
+
+  [8] The Rev. T. Auden, _Shrewsbury_ (Methuen and Co.).
+
+The town continued to grow and more extensive defences were needed,
+and in the time of Henry III, Mr. Auden states that this followed the
+old line at the back of Pride Hill, but as the ground began to slope
+downwards, another wall branched from it in the direction of Roushill
+and extended to the Welsh Bridge. This became the main defence,
+leaving the old wall as an inner rampart. From the Welsh Bridge the
+new wall turned up Claremont Bank to where St. Chad's Church now
+stands, and where one of the original towers stood. Then it passed
+along Murivance, where the only existing tower is to be seen, and so
+along the still remaining portion of the wall to English Bridge, where
+it turned up the hill at the back of what is now Dogpole, and passing
+the Watergate, again joined the fortifications of the castle.[9] The
+castle itself was reconstructed by Prince Edward, the son of Henry
+III, at the end of the thirteenth century, and is of the Edwardian
+type of concentric castle. The Norman keep was incorporated within a
+larger circle of tower and wall, forming an inner bailey; besides this
+there was formerly an outer bailey, in which were various buildings,
+including the chapel of St. Nicholas. Only part of the buildings on
+one side of the inner bailey remains in its original form, but the
+massive character of the whole may be judged from the fragments now
+visible.
+
+  [9] _Ibid._, p. 48.
+
+These walls guarded a noble town full of churches and monasteries,
+merchants' houses, guild halls, and much else. We will glance at the
+beauties that remain: St. Mary's, containing specimens of every style
+of architecture from Norman downward, with its curious foreign glass;
+St. Julian's, mainly rebuilt in 1748, though the old tower remains;
+St. Alkmund's; the Church of St. Chad; St. Giles's Church; and the
+nave and refectory pulpit of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul. It
+is distressing to see this interesting gem of fourteenth-century
+architecture amid the incongruous surroundings of a coalyard. You can
+find considerable remains of the domestic buildings of the Grey
+Friars' Monastery near the footbridge across the Severn, and also of
+the home of the Austin Friars in a builder's yard at the end of Baker
+Street.
+
+[Illustration: Tower on the Town Wall, Shrewsbury]
+
+In many towns we find here and there an old half-timbered dwelling,
+but in Shrewsbury there is a surprising wealth of them--streets full
+of them, bearing such strange medieval names as "Mardel" or "Wyle
+Cop." Shrewsbury is second to no other town in England in the interest
+of its ancient domestic buildings. There is the gatehouse of the old
+Council House, bearing the date 1620, with its high gable and carved
+barge-boards, its panelled front, the square spaces between the
+upright and horizontal timbers being ornamented with cut timber. The
+old buildings of the famous Shrewsbury School are now used as a Free
+Library and Museum and abound in interest. The house remains in which
+Prince Rupert stayed during his sojourn in 1644, then owned by "Master
+Jones the lawyer," at the west end of St. Mary's Church, with its fine
+old staircase. Whitehall, a fine mansion of red sandstone, was built
+by Richard Prince, a lawyer, in 1578-82, "to his great chardge with
+fame to hym and hys posterite for ever." The Old Market Hall in the
+Renaissance style, with its mixture of debased Gothic and classic
+details, is worthy of study. Even in Shrewsbury we have to record the
+work of the demon of destruction. The erection of the New Market Hall
+entailed the disappearance of several old picturesque houses.
+Bellstone House, erected in 1582, is incorporated in the National
+Provincial Bank. The old mansion known as Vaughan's Place is swallowed
+up by the music-hall, though part of the ancient dwelling-place
+remains. St. Peter's Abbey Church in the commencement of the
+nineteenth century had an extraordinary annexe of timber and plaster,
+probably used at one time as parsonage house, which, with several
+buttressed remains of the adjacent conventual buildings, have long ago
+been squared up and "improved" out of existence. Rowley's mansion, in
+Hill's Lane, built of brick in 1618 by William Rowley, is now a
+warehouse. Butcher Row has some old houses with projecting storeys,
+including a fine specimen of a medieval shop. Some of the houses in
+Grope Lane lean together from opposite sides of the road, so that
+people in the highest storey can almost shake hands with their
+neighbours across the way. You can see the "Olde House" in which Mary
+Tudor is said to have stayed, and the mansion of the Owens, built in
+1592 as an inscription tells us, and that of the Irelands, with its
+range of bow-windows, four storeys high, and terminating in gables,
+erected about 1579. The half-timbered hall of the Drapers' Guild, some
+old houses in Frankwell, including the inn with the quaint sign--the
+String of Horses, the ancient hostels--the Lion, famous in the
+coaching age, the Ship, and the Raven--Bennett's Hall, which was the
+mint when Shrewsbury played its part in the Civil War, and last, but
+not least, the house in Wyle Cop, one of the finest in the town, where
+Henry Earl of Richmond stayed on his way to Bosworth field to win the
+English Crown. Such are some of the beauties of old Shrewsbury which
+happily have not yet vanished.
+
+[Illustration: House that the Earl of Richmond stayed in before the
+Battle of Bosworth, Shrewsbury]
+
+Not far removed from Shrewsbury is Coventry, which at one time could
+boast of a city wall and a castle. In the reign of Richard II this
+wall was built, strengthened by towers. Leland, writing in the time of
+Henry VIII, states that the city was begun to be walled in when Edward
+II reigned, and that it had six gates, many fair towers, and streets
+well built with timber. Other writers speak of thirty-two towers and
+twelve gates. But few traces of these remain. The citizens of Coventry
+took an active part in the Civil War in favour of the Parliamentary
+army, and when Charles II came to the throne he ordered these defences
+to be demolished. The gates were left, but most of them have since
+been destroyed. Coventry is a city of fine old timber-framed
+fifteenth-century houses with gables and carved barge-boards and
+projecting storeys, though many of them are decayed and may not last
+many years. The city has had a fortunate immunity from serious fires.
+We give an illustration of one of the old Coventry streets called Spon
+Street, with its picturesque houses. These old streets are numerous,
+tortuous and irregular. One of the richest and most interesting
+examples of domestic architecture in England is St. Mary's Hall,
+erected in the time of Henry VI. Its origin is connected with ancient
+guilds of the city, and in it were stored their books and archives.
+The grotesquely carved roof, minstrels' gallery, armoury, state-chair,
+great painted window, and a fine specimen of fifteenth-century
+tapestry are interesting features of this famous hall, which furnishes
+a vivid idea of the manners and civic customs of the age when Coventry
+was the favourite resort of kings and princes. It has several fine
+churches, though the cathedral was levelled with the ground by that
+arch-destroyer Henry VIII. Coventry remains one of the most
+interesting towns in England.
+
+One other walled town we will single out for especial notice in this
+chapter--the quaint, picturesque, peaceful, placid town of Rye on the
+Sussex coast. It was once wooed by the sea, which surrounded the rocky
+island on which it stands, but the fickle sea has retired and left it
+lonely on its hill with a long stretch of marshland between it and the
+waves. This must have taken place about the fifteenth century. Our
+illustration of a disused mooring-post (p. 24) is a symbol of the
+departed greatness of the town as a naval station. The River Rother
+connects it with the sea, and the few barges and humble craft and a
+few small shipbuilding yards remind it of its palmy days when it was
+a member of the Cinque Ports, a rich and prosperous town that sent
+forth its ships to fight the naval battles of England and win honour
+for Rye and St. George. During the French wars English vessels often
+visited French ports and towns along the coast and burned and pillaged
+them. The French sailors retaliated with equal zest, and many of our
+southern towns have suffered from fire and sword during those
+adventurous days.
+
+[Illustration: Old Houses formerly standing in Spon Street Coventry]
+
+Rye was strongly fortified by a wall with gates and towers and a
+fosse, but the defences suffered grievously from the attacks of the
+French, and the folk of Rye were obliged to send a moving petition to
+King Richard II, praying him "to have consideration of the poor town
+of Rye, inasmuch as it had been several times taken, and is unable
+further to repair the walls, wherefore the town is, on the sea-side,
+open to enemies." I am afraid that the King did not at once grant
+their petition, as two years later, in 1380, the French came again and
+set fire to the town. With the departure of the sea and the
+diminishing of the harbour, the population decreased and the
+prosperity of Rye declined. Refugees from France have on two notable
+occasions added to the number of its inhabitants. After the Massacre
+of St. Bartholomew seven hundred scared and frightened Protestants
+arrived at Rye and brought with them their industry, and later on,
+after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, many Huguenots settled
+here and made it almost a French town. We need not record all the
+royal visits, the alarms of attack, the plagues, and other incidents
+that have diversified the life of Rye. We will glance at the relics
+that remain. The walls seem never to have recovered from the attack of
+the French, but one gate is standing--the Landgate on the north-east
+of the town, built in 1360, and consisting of a broad arch flanked by
+two massive towers with chambers above for archers and defenders.
+Formerly there were two other gates, but these have vanished save only
+the sculptured arms of the Cinque Ports that once adorned the Strand
+Gate. The Ypres tower is a memorial of the ancient strength of the
+town, and was originally built by William de Ypres, Earl of Kent, in
+the twelfth century, but has received later additions. It has a stern,
+gaunt appearance, and until recent times was used as a jail. The
+church possesses many points of unique interest. The builders began in
+the twelfth century to build the tower and transepts, which are
+Norman; then they proceeded with the nave, which is Transitional; and
+when they reached the choir, which is very large and fine, the style
+had merged into the Early English. Later windows were inserted in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The church has suffered with the
+town at the hands of the French invaders, who did much damage. The old
+clock, with its huge swinging pendulum, is curious. The church has a
+collection of old books, including some old Bibles, including a
+Vinegar and a Breeches Bible, and some stone cannon-balls, mementoes
+of the French invasion of 1448.
+
+[Illustration: West Street, Rye]
+
+Near the church is the Town Hall, which contains several relics of
+olden days. The list of mayors extends from the time of Edward I, and
+we notice the long continuance of the office in families. Thus the
+Lambs held office from 1723 to 1832, and the Grebells from 1631 to
+1741. A great tragedy happened in the churchyard. A man named Breedes
+had a grudge against one of the Lambs, and intended to kill him. He
+saw, as he thought, his victim walking along the dark path through the
+shrubs in the churchyard, attacked and murdered him. But he had made a
+mistake; his victim was Mr. Grebell. The murderer was hanged and
+quartered. The Town Hall contains the ancient pillory, which was
+described as a very handy affair, handcuffs, leg-irons, special
+constables' staves, which were always much needed for the usual riots
+on Gunpowder Plot Day, and the old primitive fire-engine dated 1745.
+The town has some remarkable plate. There is the mayor's handbell
+with the inscription:--
+
+      O MATER DEI
+      MEMENTO MEI.
+         1566.
+    PETRUS GHEINEUS
+       ME FECIT.
+
+The maces of Queen Elizabeth with the date 1570 and bearing the
+fleur-de-lis and the Tudor rose are interesting, and the two silver
+maces presented by George III, bearing the arms of Rye and weighing
+962 oz., are said to be the finest in Europe.
+
+[Illustration: Monogram and Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye]
+
+The chief charm of Rye is to walk along the narrow streets and lanes,
+and see the picturesque rows and groups of old fifteenth-and
+sixteenth-century houses with their tiled roofs and gables,
+weather-boarded or tile-hung after the manner of Sussex cottages,
+graceful bay-windows--altogether pleasing. Wherever one wanders one
+meets with these charming dwellings, especially in West Street and
+Pump Street; the oldest house in Rye being at the corner of the
+churchyard. The Mermaid Inn is delightful both outside and inside,
+with its low panelled rooms, immense fire-places and dog-grates. We
+see the monogram and names and dates carved on the stone fire-places,
+1643, 1646, the name Loffelholtz seeming to indicate some foreign
+refugee or settler. It is pleasant to find at least in one town in
+England so much that has been left unaltered and so little spoilt.
+
+[Illustration: Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+IN STREETS AND LANES
+
+
+I have said in another place that no country in the world can boast of
+possessing rural homes and villages which have half the charm and
+picturesqueness of our English cottages and hamlets.[10] They have to
+be known in order that they may be loved. The hasty visitor may pass
+them by and miss half their attractiveness. They have to be wooed in
+varying moods in order that they may display their charms--when the
+blossoms are bright in the village orchards, when the sun shines on
+the streams and pools and gleams on the glories of old thatch, when
+autumn has tinged the trees with golden tints, or when the hoar frost
+makes their bare branches beautiful again with new and glistening
+foliage. Not even in their summer garb do they look more beautiful.
+There is a sense of stability and a wondrous variety caused by the
+different nature of the materials used, the peculiar stone indigenous
+in various districts and the individuality stamped upon them by
+traditional modes of building.
+
+  [10] _The Charm of the English Village_ (Batsford).
+
+We have still a large number of examples of the humbler kind of
+ancient domestic architecture, but every year sees the destruction of
+several of these old buildings, which a little care and judicious
+restoration might have saved. Ruskin's words should be writ in bold,
+big letters at the head of the by-laws of every district council.
+
+  "Watch an old building with anxious care; guard it as best you
+  may, and at any cost, from any influence of dilapidation. Count
+  its stones as you would the jewels of a crown. Set watchers about
+  it, as if at the gate of a besieged city; bind it together with
+  iron when it loosens; stay it with timber when it declines. Do not
+  care about the unsightliness of the aid--better a crutch than a
+  lost limb; and do this tenderly and reverently and continually,
+  and many a generation will still be born and pass away beneath its
+  shadow."
+
+[Illustration: Relic of Lynn Siege in Hampton Court, King's Lynn]
+
+[Illustration: Hampton Court, King's Lynn, Norfolk]
+
+If this sound advice had been universally taken many a beautiful old
+cottage would have been spared to us, and our eyes would not be
+offended by the wondrous creations of the estate agents and local
+builders, who have no other ambition but to build cheaply. The
+contrast between the new and the old is indeed deplorable. The old
+cottage is a thing of beauty. Its odd, irregular form and various
+harmonious colouring, the effects of weather, time, and accident,
+environed with smiling verdure and sweet old-fashioned garden flowers,
+its thatched roof, high gabled front, inviting porch overgrown with
+creepers, and casement windows, all combine to form a fair and
+beautiful home. And then look at the modern cottage with its glaring
+brick walls, slate roof, ungainly stunted chimney, and note the
+difference. Usually these modern cottages are built in a row, each one
+exactly like its fellow, with door and window frames exactly alike,
+brought over ready-made from Norway or Sweden. The walls are thin, and
+the winds of winter blow through them piteously, and if a man and his
+wife should unfortunately "have words" (the pleasing country euphemism
+for a violent quarrel) all their neighbours can hear them. The scenery
+is utterly spoilt by these ugly eyesores. Villas at Hindhead seem to
+have broken out upon the once majestic hill like a red skin eruption.
+The jerry-built villa is invading our heaths and pine-woods; every
+street in our towns is undergoing improvement; we are covering whole
+counties with houses. In Lancashire no sooner does one village end its
+mean streets than another begins. London is ever enlarging itself,
+extending its great maw over all the country round. The Rev. Canon
+Erskine Clarke, Vicar of Battersea, when he first came to reside near
+Clapham Junction, remembers the green fields and quiet lanes with
+trees on each side that are now built over. The street leading from
+the station lined with shops forty years ago had hedges and trees on
+each side. There were great houses situated in beautiful gardens and
+parks wherein resided some of the great City merchants, county
+families, the leaders in old days of the influential "Clapham sect."
+These gardens and parks have been covered with streets and rows of
+cottages and villas; some of the great houses have been pulled down
+and others turned into schools or hospitals, valued only at the rent
+of the land on which they stand. All this is inevitable. You cannot
+stop all this any more than Mrs. Partington could stem the Atlantic
+tide with a housemaid's mop. But ere the flood has quite swallowed up
+all that remains of England's natural and architectural beauties, it
+may be useful to glance at some of the buildings that remain in town
+and country ere they have quite vanished.
+
+[Illustration: Mill Street, Warwick]
+
+Beneath the shade of the lordly castle of Warwick, which has played
+such an important part in the history of England, the town of Warwick
+sprang into existence, seeking protection in lawless times from its
+strong walls and powerful garrison. Through its streets often rode
+in state the proud rulers of the castle with their men-at-arms--the
+Beauchamps, the Nevilles, including the great "King-maker," Richard
+Neville, the Dudleys, and the Grevilles. They contributed to the
+building of their noble castle, protected the town, and were borne to
+their last resting-place in the fine church, where their tombs remain.
+The town has many relics of its lords, and possesses many
+half-timbered graceful houses. Mill Street is one of the most
+picturesque groups of old-time dwellings, a picture that lingers in
+our minds long after we have left the town and fortress of the grim
+old Earls of Warwick.
+
+Oxford is a unique city. There is no place like it in the world.
+Scholars of Cambridge, of course, will tell me that I am wrong, and
+that the town on the Cam is a far superior place, and then point
+triumphantly to "the backs." Yes, they are very beautiful, but as a
+loyal son of Oxford I may be allowed to prefer that stately city with
+its towers and spires, its wealth of college buildings, its exquisite
+architecture unrivalled in the world. Nor is the new unworthy of the
+old. The buildings at Magdalen, at Brazenose, and even the New Schools
+harmonize not unseemly with the ancient structures. Happily Keble is
+far removed from the heart of the city, so that that somewhat
+unsatisfactory, unsuccessful pile of brickwork interferes not with its
+joy. In the streets and lanes of modern Oxford we can search for and
+discover many types of old-fashioned, humble specimens of domestic
+art, and we give as an illustration some houses which date back to
+Tudor times, but have, alas! been recently demolished.
+
+[Illustration: Tudor Tenements, New Inn Hall St, Oxford. Now
+demolished]
+
+Many conjectures have been made as to the reason why our forefathers
+preferred to rear their houses with the upper storeys projecting out
+into the streets. We can understand that in towns where space was
+limited it would be an advantage to increase the size of the upper
+rooms, if one did not object to the lack of air in the narrow street
+and the absence of sunlight. But we find these same projecting storeys
+in the depth of the country, where there could have been no
+restriction as to the ground to be occupied by the house. Possibly the
+fashion was first established of necessity in towns, and the
+traditional mode of building was continued in the country. Some say
+that by this means our ancestors tried to protect the lower part of
+the house, the foundations, from the influence of the weather; others
+with some ingenuity suggest that these projecting storeys were
+intended to form a covered walk for passengers in the streets, and to
+protect them from the showers of slops which the careless housewife of
+Elizabethan times cast recklessly from the upstairs windows.
+Architects tell us that it was purely a matter of construction. Our
+forefathers used to place four strong corner-posts, framed from the
+trunks of oak trees, firmly sunk into the ground with their roots left
+on and placed upward, the roots curving outwards so as to form
+supports for the upper storeys. These curved parts, and often the
+posts also, were often elaborately carved and ornamented, as in the
+example which our artist gives us of a corner-post of a house in
+Ipswich.
+
+In _The Charm of the English Village_ I have tried to describe the
+methods of the construction of these timber-framed houses,[11] and it
+is perhaps unnecessary for me to repeat what is there recorded. In
+fact, there were three types of these dwelling-places, to which have
+been given the names Post and Pan, Transom Framed, and Intertie Work.
+In judging of the age of a house it will be remembered that the nearer
+together the upright posts are placed the older the house is. The
+builders as time went on obtained greater confidence, set their posts
+wider apart, and held them together by transoms.
+
+  [11] _The Charm of the English Village_, pp. 50-7.
+
+[Illustration: Gothic Corner-post. The Half Moon Inn, Ipswich]
+
+Surrey is a county of good cottages and farm-houses, and these have
+had their chroniclers in Miss Gertrude Jekyll's delightful _Old West
+Surrey_ and in the more technical work of Mr. Ralph Nevill, F.S.A. The
+numerous works on cottage and farm-house building published by Mr.
+Batsford illustrate the variety of styles that prevailed in different
+counties, and which are mainly attributable to the variety in the
+local materials in the counties. Thus in the Cotswolds,
+Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Westmorland, Somersetshire,
+and elsewhere there is good building-stone; and there we find charming
+examples of stone-built cottages and farm-houses, altogether
+satisfying. In several counties where there is little stone and large
+forests of timber we find the timber-framed dwelling flourishing in
+all its native beauty. In Surrey there are several materials for
+building, hence there is a charming diversity of domiciles. Even the
+same building sometimes shows walls of stone and brick, half-timber
+and plaster, half-timber and tile-hanging, half-timber with panels
+filled with red brick, and roofs of thatch or tiles, or stone slates
+which the Horsham quarries supplied.
+
+[Illustration: Timber-built House, Shrewsbury]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+These Surrey cottages have changed with age. Originally they were
+built with timber frames, the panels being filled in with wattle and
+daub, but the storms of many winters have had their effect upon the
+structure. Rain drove through the walls, especially when the ends of
+the wattle rotted a little, and draughts were strong enough to blow
+out the rushlights and to make the house very uncomfortable. Oak
+timbers often shrink. Hence the joints came apart, and being exposed
+to the weather became decayed. In consequence of this the buildings
+settled, and new methods had to be devised to make them weather-proof.
+The villages therefore adopted two or three means in order to attain
+this end. They plastered the whole surface of the walls on the
+outside, or they hung them with deal boarding or covered them with
+tiles. In Surrey tile-hung houses are more common than in any other
+part of the country. This use of weather-tiles is not very ancient,
+probably not earlier than 1750, and much of this work was done in that
+century or early in the nineteenth. Many of these tile-hung houses are
+the old sixteenth-century timber-framed structures in a new shell.
+Weather-tiles are generally flatter and thinner than those used for
+roofing, and when bedded in mortar make a thoroughly weather-proof
+wall. Sometimes they are nailed to boarding, but the former plan makes
+the work more durable, though the courses are not so regular. These
+tiles have various shapes, of which the commonest is semicircular,
+resembling a fish-scale. The same form with a small square shoulder is
+very generally used, but there is a great variety, and sometimes those
+with ornamental ends are blended with plain ones. Age imparts a very
+beautiful colour to old tiles, and when covered with lichen they
+assume a charming appearance which artists love to depict.
+
+The mortar used in these old buildings is very strong and good. In
+order to strengthen the mortar used in Sussex and Surrey houses and
+elsewhere, the process of "galleting" or "garreting" was adopted. The
+brick-layers used to decorate the rather wide and uneven mortar joint
+with small pieces of black ironstone stuck into the mortar. Sussex was
+once famous for its ironwork, and ironstone is found in plenty near
+the surface of the ground in this district. "Galleting" dates back to
+Jacobean times, and is not to be found in sixteenth-century work.
+
+Sussex houses are usually whitewashed and have thatched roofs, except
+when Horsham slates or tiles are used. Thatch as a roofing material
+will soon have altogether vanished with other features of vanishing
+England. District councils in their by-laws usually insert regulations
+prohibiting thatch to be used for roofing. This is one of the
+mysteries of the legislation of district councils. Rules, suitable
+enough for towns, are applied to the country villages, where they are
+altogether unsuitable or unnecessary. The danger of fire makes it
+inadvisable to have thatched roofs in towns, or even in some villages
+where the houses are close together, but that does not apply to
+isolated cottages in the country. The district councils do not compel
+the removal of thatch, but prohibit new cottages from being roofed
+with that material. There is, however, another cause for the
+disappearance of thatched roofs, which form such a beautiful feature
+in the English landscape. Since mowing-machines came into general use
+in the harvest fields the straw is so bruised that it is not fit for
+thatching, at least it is not so suitable as the straw which was cut
+by the hand. Thatching, too, is almost a lost art in the country.
+Indeed ricks have to be covered with thatch, but "the work for this
+temporary purpose cannot compare with that of the old roof-thatcher,
+with his 'strood' or 'frail' to hold the loose straw, and his
+spars--split hazel rods pointed at each end--that with a dexterous
+twist in the middle make neat pegs for the fastening of the straw rope
+that he cleverly twists with a simple implement called a 'wimble.' The
+lowest course was finished with an ornamental bordering of rods with a
+diagonal criss-cross pattern between, all neatly pegged and held down
+by the spars."[12]
+
+  [12] _Old West Surrey_, by Gertrude Jekyll, p. 206.
+
+[Illustration: Missbrook Farm. Capel, Surrey.]
+
+Horsham stone makes splendid roofing material. This stone easily
+flakes into plates like thick slates, and forms large grey flat slabs
+on which "the weather works like a great artist in harmonies of moss
+lichen and stain. No roofing so combines dignity and homeliness, and
+no roofing, except possibly thatch (which, however, is short-lived),
+so surely passes into the landscape."[13] It is to be regretted that
+this stone is no longer used for roofing--another feature of vanishing
+England. The stone is somewhat thick and heavy, and modern rafters are
+not adapted to bear their weight. If you want to have a roof of
+Horsham stone, you can only accomplish your purpose by pulling down an
+old cottage and carrying off the slabs. Perhaps the small Cotswold
+stone slabs are even more beautiful. Old Lancashire and Yorkshire
+cottages have heavy stone roofs which somewhat resemble those
+fashioned with Horsham slabs.
+
+  [13] _Highways and Byways in Sussex_, by E.V. Lucas.
+
+The builders and masons of our country cottages were cunning men, and
+adapted their designs to their materials. You will have noticed that
+the pitch of the Horsham-slated roof is unusually flat. They observed
+that when the sides of the roof were deeply sloping, as in the case of
+thatched roofs, the heavy stone slates strained and dragged at the
+pegs and laths and fell and injured the roof. Hence they determined
+to make the slope less steep. Unfortunately the rain did not then
+easily run off, and in order to prevent the water penetrating into the
+house they were obliged to adopt additional precautions. Therefore
+they cemented their roofs and stopped them with mortar.
+
+[Illustration: Cottage at Capel, Surrey ]
+
+Very lovely are these South Country cottages, peaceful, picturesque,
+pleasant, with their graceful gables and jutting eaves, altogether
+delightful. Well sang a loyal Sussex poet:--
+
+        If I ever become a rich man,
+          Or if ever I grow to be old,
+        I will build a house with deep thatch[14]
+          To shelter me from the cold;
+        And there shall the Sussex songs be sung
+          And the story of Sussex told.
+
+  [14] I fear the poet's plans will never be passed by the rural
+  district council.
+
+We give some good examples of Surrey cottages at the village of Capel
+in the neighbourhood of Dorking, a charming region for the study of
+cottage-building. There you can see some charming ingle-nooks in the
+interior of the dwellings, and some grand farm-houses. Attached to the
+ingle-nook is the oven, wherein bread is baked in the old-fashioned
+way, and the chimneys are large and carried up above the floor of the
+first storey, so as to form space for curing bacon.
+
+[Illustration: Farm-house, Horsmonden, Kent]
+
+Horsmonden, Kent, near Lamberhurst, is beautifully situated among
+well-wooded scenery, and the farm-house shown in the illustration is a
+good example of the pleasant dwellings to be found therein.
+
+East Anglia has no good building-stone, and brick and flint are the
+principal materials used in that region. The houses built of the
+dark, dull, thin old bricks, not of the great staring modern
+varieties, are very charming, especially when they are seen against a
+background of wooded hills. We give an illustration of some cottages
+at Stow Langtoft, Suffolk.
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Cottages, Stow Langtoft, Suffolk]
+
+The old town of Banbury, celebrated for its cakes, its Cross, and its
+fine lady who rode on a white horse accompanied by the sound of bells,
+has some excellent "black and white" houses with pointed gables and
+enriched barge-boards pierced in every variety of patterns, their
+finials and pendants, and pargeted fronts, which give an air of
+picturesqueness contrasting strangely with the stiffness of the
+modern brick buildings. In one of these is established the old Banbury
+Cake Shop. In the High Street there is a very perfect example of these
+Elizabethan houses, erected about the year 1600. It has a fine oak
+staircase, the newels beautifully carved and enriched with pierced
+finials and pendants. The market-place has two good specimens of the
+same date, one of which is probably the front of the Unicorn Inn, and
+had a fine pair of wooden gates bearing the date 1684, but I am not
+sure whether they are still there. The Reindeer Inn is one of the
+chief architectural attractions of the town. We see the dates 1624 and
+1637 inscribed on different parts of the building, but its chief glory
+is the Globe Room, with a large window, rich plaster ceiling, good
+panelling, elaborately decorated doorways and chimney-piece. The
+courtyard is a fine specimen of sixteenth-century architecture. A
+curious feature is the mounting-block near the large oriel window. It
+must have been designed not for mounting horses, unless these were of
+giant size, but for climbing to the top of coaches. The Globe Room is
+a typical example of Vanishing England, as it is reported that the
+whole building has been sold for transportation to America. We give an
+illustration of some old houses in Paradise Square, that does not
+belie its name. The houses all round the square are thatched, and the
+gardens in the centre are a blaze of colour, full of old-fashioned
+flowers. The King's Head Inn has a good courtyard. Banbury suffered
+from a disastrous fire in 1628 which destroyed a great part of the
+town, and called forth a vehement sermon from the Rev. William
+Whateley, of two hours' duration, on the depravity of the town, which
+merited such a severe judgment. In spite of the fire much old work
+survived, and we give an illustration of a Tudor fire-place which you
+cannot now discover, as it is walled up into the passage of an
+ironmonger's shop.
+
+[Illustration: The "Fish House," Littleport, Cambs]
+
+The old ports and harbours are always attractive. The old fishermen
+mending their nets delight to tell their stories of their adventures,
+and retain their old customs and usages, which are profoundly
+interesting to the lovers of folk-lore. Their houses are often
+primitive and quaint. There is the curious Fish House at Littleport,
+Cambridgeshire, with part of it built of stone, having a gable and
+Tudor weather-moulding over the windows. The rest of the building was
+added at a later date.
+
+[Illustration: Sixteenth-century Cottage, formerly standing in Upper
+Deal, Kent]
+
+In Upper Deal there is an interesting house which shows Flemish
+influence in the construction of its picturesque gable and octagonal
+chimney, and contrasted with it an early sixteenth-century cottage
+much the worse for wear.
+
+We give a sketch of a Portsmouth row which resembles in narrowness
+those at Yarmouth, and in Crown Street there is a battered,
+three-gabled, weather-boarded house which has evidently seen better
+days. There is a fine canopy over the front door of Buckingham House,
+wherein George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was assassinated by John
+Felton on August 23rd, 1628.
+
+[Illustration: Gable, Upper Deal, Kent]
+
+The Vale of Aylesbury is one of the sweetest and most charmingly
+characteristic tracts of land in the whole of rural England,
+abounding with old houses. The whole countryside literally teems with
+picturesque evidences of the past life and history of England. Ancient
+landmarks and associations are so numerous that it is difficult to
+mention a few without seeming to ignore unfairly their equally
+interesting neighbours. Let us take the London road, which enters the
+shire from Middlesex and makes for Aylesbury, a meandering road with
+patches of scenery strongly suggestive of Birket Foster's landscapes.
+Down a turning at the foot of the lovely Chiltern Hills lies the
+secluded village of Chalfont St. Giles. Here Milton, the poet, sought
+refuge from plague-stricken London among a colony of fellow Quakers,
+and here remains, in a very perfect state, the cottage in which he
+lived and was visited by Andrew Marvel. It is said that his neighbour
+Elwood, one of the Quaker fraternity, suggested the idea of "Paradise
+Regained," and that the draft of the latter poem was written upon a
+great oak table which may be seen in one of the low-pitched rooms on
+the ground floor. I fancy that Milton must have beautified and
+repaired the cottage at the period of his tenancy. The mantelpiece
+with its classic ogee moulding belongs certainly to his day, and some
+other minor details may also be noticed which support this inference.
+It is not difficult to imagine that one who was accustomed to
+metropolitan comforts would be dissatisfied with the open hearth
+common to country cottages of that poet's time, and have it enclosed
+in the manner in which we now see it. Outside the garden is brilliant
+with old-fashioned flowers, such as the poet loved. A stone scutcheon
+may be seen peeping through the shrubbery which covers the front of
+the cottage, but the arms which it displays are those of the
+Fleetwoods, one time owners of these tenements. Between the years 1709
+and 1807 the house was used as an inn. Milton's cottage is one of our
+national treasures, which (though not actually belonging to the
+nation) has successfully resisted purchase by our American cousins and
+transportation across the Atlantic.
+
+[Illustration: A Portsmouth "Row"]
+
+The entrance to the churchyard in Chalfont St. Giles is through a
+wonderfully picturesque turnstile or lich-gate under an ancient house
+in the High Street. The gate formerly closed itself mechanically by
+means of a pulley to which was attached a heavy weight. Unfortunately
+this weight was not boxed in--as in the somewhat similar example at
+Hayes, in Middlesex--and an accident which happened to some children
+resulted in its removal.
+
+[Illustration: Lich-gate, Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks]
+
+A good many picturesque old houses remain in the village, among them
+being one called Stonewall Farm, a structure of the fifteenth century
+with an original billet-moulded porch and Gothic barge-boards.
+
+There is a certain similarity about the villages that dot the Vale of
+Aylesbury. The old Market House is usually a feature of the High
+Street--where it has not been spoilt as at Wendover. Groups of
+picturesque timber cottages, thickest round the church, and shouldered
+here and there by their more respectable and severe Georgian brethren,
+are common to all, and vary but little in their general aspect and
+colouring. Memories and legends haunt every hamlet, the very names of
+which have an ancient sound carrying us vaguely back to former days.
+Prince's Risborough, once a manor of the Black Prince; Wendover, the
+birthplace of Roger of Wendover, the medieval historian, and author of
+the Chronicle _Flores Historiarum, or History of the World from the
+Creation to the year 1235_, in modern language a somewhat "large
+order"; Hampden, identified to all time with the patriot of that name;
+and so on indefinitely. At Monk's Risborough, another hamlet with an
+ancient-sounding name, but possessing no special history, is a church
+of the Perpendicular period containing some features of exceptional
+interest, and internally one of the most charmingly picturesque of its
+kind. The carved tie-beams of the porch with their masks and tracery
+and the great stone stoup which appears in one corner have an
+_unrestored_ appearance which is quite delightful in these days of
+over-restoration. The massive oak door has some curious iron fittings,
+and the interior of the church itself displays such treasures as a
+magnificent early Tudor roof and an elegant fifteenth-century
+chancel-screen, on the latter of which some remains of ancient
+painting exist.[15]
+
+  [15] The rood-loft has unfortunately disappeared.
+
+[Illustration: Fifteenth-century Handle on Church Door, Monk's
+Risborough, Bucks]
+
+Thame, just across the Oxfordshire border, is another town of the
+greatest interest. The noble parish church here contains a number of
+fine brasses and tombs, including the recumbent effigies of Lord John
+Williams of Thame and his wife, who flourished in the reign of Queen
+Mary. The chancel-screen is of uncommon character, the base being
+richly decorated with linen panelling, while above rises an arcade in
+which Gothic form mingles freely with the grotesqueness of the
+Renaissance. The choir-stalls are also lavishly ornamented with the
+linen-fold decoration.
+
+The centre of Thame's broad High Street is narrowed by an island of
+houses, once termed Middle Row, and above the jumble of tiled roofs
+here rises like a watch-tower a most curious and interesting medieval
+house known as the "Bird Cage Inn." About this structure little is
+known; it is, however, referred to in an old document as the "tenement
+called the Cage, demised to James Rosse by indenture for the term of
+100 years, yielding therefor by the year 8s.," and appears to have
+been a farm-house. The document in question is a grant of Edward IV to
+Sir John William of the Charity or Guild of St. Christopher in Thame,
+founded by Richard Quartemayne, _Squier_, who died in the year 1460.
+This house, though in some respects adapted during later years from
+its original plan, is structurally but little altered, and should be
+taken in hand and _intelligently_ restored as an object of local
+attraction and interest. The choicest oaks of a small forest must have
+supplied its framework, which stands firm as the day when it was
+built. The fine corner-posts (now enclosed) should be exposed to view,
+and the mullioned windows which jut out over a narrow passage should
+be opened up. If this could be done--and not overdone--the "Bird Cage"
+would hardly be surpassed as a miniature specimen of medieval timber
+architecture in the county. A stone doorway of Gothic form and a kind
+of almery or safe exist in its cellars.
+
+A school was founded at Thame by Lord John Williams, whose recumbent
+effigy exists in the church, and amongst the students there during the
+second quarter of the seventeenth century was Anthony Wood, the Oxford
+antiquary. Thame about this time was the centre of military operations
+between the King's forces and the rebels, and was continually being
+beaten up by one side or the other. Wood, though but a boy at the
+time, has left on record in his narrative some vivid impressions of
+the conflicts which he personally witnessed, and which bring the
+disjointed times before us in a vision of strange and absolute
+reality.
+
+He tells of Colonel Blagge, the Governor of Wallingford Castle, who
+was on a marauding expedition, being chased through the streets of
+Thame by Colonel Crafford, who commanded the Parliamentary garrison at
+Aylesbury, and how one man fell from his horse, and the Colonel "held
+a pistol to him, but the trooper cried 'Quarter!' and the rebels came
+up and rifled him and took him and his horse away with them." On
+another occasion, just as a company of Roundhead soldiers were sitting
+down to dinner, a Cavalier force appeared "to beat up their quarters,"
+and the Roundheads retired in a hurry, leaving "A.W. and the
+schoolboyes, sojourners in the house," to enjoy their venison pasties.
+
+He tells also of certain doings at the Nag's Head, a house that still
+exists--a very ancient hostelry, though not nearly so old a building
+as the Bird Cage Inn. The sign is no longer there, but some
+interesting features remain, among them the huge strap hinges on the
+outer door, fashioned at their extremities in the form of
+fleurs-de-lis. We should like to linger long at Thame and describe the
+wonders at Thame Park, with its remains of a Cistercian abbey and the
+fine Tudor buildings of Robert King, last abbot and afterward the
+first Bishop of Oxford. The three fine oriel windows and stair-turret,
+the noble Gothic dining-hall and abbot's parlour panelled with oak in
+the style of the linen pattern, are some of the finest Tudor work in
+the country. The Prebendal house and chapel built by Grossetête are
+also worthy of the closest attention. The chapel is an architectural
+gem of Early English design, and the rest of the house with its later
+Perpendicular windows is admirable. Not far away is the interesting
+village of Long Crendon, once a market-town, with its fine church and
+its many picturesque houses, including Staple Hall, near the church,
+with its noble hall, used for more than five centuries as a manorial
+court-house on behalf of various lords of the manor, including Queen
+Katherine, widow of Henry V. It has now fortunately passed into the
+care of the National Trust, and its future is secured for the benefit
+of the nation. The house is a beautiful half-timbered structure, and
+was in a terribly dilapidated condition. It is interesting both
+historically and architecturally, and is note-worthy as illustrating
+the continuity of English life, that the three owners from whom the
+Trust received the building, Lady Kinloss, All Souls' College, and the
+Ecclesiastical Commissioners, are the successors in title of three
+daughters of an Earl of Pembroke in the thirteenth century. It is
+fortunate that the old house has fallen into such good hands. The
+village has a Tudor manor-house which has been restored.
+
+Another court-house, that at Udimore, in Sussex, near Rye, has, we
+believe, been saved by the Trust, though the owner has retained
+possession. It is a picturesque half-timbered building of two storeys
+with modern wings projecting at right angles at each end. The older
+portion is all that remains of a larger house which appears to have
+been built in the fifteenth century. The manor belonged to the Crown,
+and it is said that both Edward I and Edward III visited it. The
+building was in a very dilapidated condition, and the owner intended
+to destroy it and replace it with modern cottages. We hope that this
+scheme has now been abandoned, and that the old house is safe for many
+years to come.
+
+[Illustration: Weather-boarded Houses, Crown Street, Portsmouth]
+
+At the other end of the county of Oxfordshire remote from Thame is the
+beautiful little town of Burford, the gem of the Cotswolds. No
+wonder that my friend "Sylvanus Urban," otherwise Canon Beeching,
+sings of its charm:--
+
+        Oh fair is Moreton in the marsh
+          And Stow on the wide wold,
+        Yet fairer far is Burford town
+          With its stone roofs grey and old;
+        And whether the sky be hot and high,
+          Or rain fall thin and chill,
+        The grey old town on the lonely down
+          Is where I would be still.
+
+        O broad and smooth the Avon flows
+          By Stratford's many piers;
+        And Shakespeare lies by Avon's side
+          These thrice a hundred years;
+        But I would be where Windrush sweet
+          Laves Burford's lovely hill--
+        The grey old town on the lonely down
+          Is where I would be still.
+
+It is unlike any other place, this quaint old Burford, a right
+pleasing place when the sun is pouring its beams upon the fantastic
+creations of the builders of long ago, and when the moon is full there
+is no place in England which surpasses it in picturesqueness. It is
+very quiet and still now, but there was a time when Burford cloth,
+Burford wool, Burford stone, Burford malt, and Burford saddles were
+renowned throughout the land. Did not the townsfolk present two of its
+famous saddles to "Dutch William" when he came to Burford with the
+view of ingratiating himself into the affections of his subjects
+before an important general election? It has been the scene of
+battles. Not far off is Battle Edge, where the fierce kings of Wessex
+and Mercia fought in 720 A.D. on Midsummer Eve, in commemoration of
+which the good folks of Burford used to carry a dragon up and down the
+streets, the great dragon of Wessex. Perhaps the origin of this
+procession dates back to early pagan days before the battle was
+fought, but tradition connects it with the fight. Memories cluster
+thickly around one as you walk up the old street. It was the first
+place in England to receive the privilege of a Merchant Guild. The
+gaunt Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, owned the place, and
+appropriated to himself the credit of erecting the almshouses, though
+Henry Bird gave the money. You can still see the Earl's signature at
+the foot of the document relating to this foundation--R.
+Warrewych--the only signature known save one at Belvoir. You can see
+the ruined Burford Priory. It is not the conventual building wherein
+the monks lived in pre-Reformation days and served God in the grand
+old church that is Burford's chief glory. Edmund Harman, the royal
+barber-surgeon, received a grant of the Priory from Henry VIII for
+curing him from a severe illness. Then Sir Laurence Tanfield, Chief
+Baron of the Exchequer, owned it, who married a Burford lady,
+Elizabeth Cobbe. An aged correspondent tells me that in the days of
+her youth there was standing a house called Cobb Hall, evidently the
+former residence of Lady Tanfield's family. He built a grand
+Elizabethan mansion on the site of the old Priory, and here was born
+Lucius Gary, Lord Falkland, who was slain in Newbury fight. That Civil
+War brought stirring times to Burford. You have heard of the fame of
+the Levellers, the discontented mutineers in Cromwell's army, the
+followers of John Lilburne, who for a brief space threatened the
+existence of the Parliamentary regime. Cromwell dealt with them with
+an iron hand. He caught and surprised them at Burford and imprisoned
+them in the church, wherein carved roughly on the font with a dagger
+you can see this touching memorial of one of these poor men:--
+
+   ANTHONY SEDLEY PRISNER 1649.
+
+[Illustration: Inscription on Font, Parish Church, Burford, Oxon]
+
+Three of the leaders were shot in the churchyard on the following
+morning in view of the other prisoners, who were placed on the leaden
+roof of the church, and you can still see the bullet-holes in the old
+wall against which the unhappy men were placed. The following entries
+in the books of the church tell the sad story tersely:--
+
+   _Burials._--"1649 Three soldiers shot to death in Burford
+   Churchyard May 17th."
+
+   "Pd. to Daniel Muncke for cleansinge the Church when the
+   Levellers were taken 3s. 4d."
+
+[Illustration: Detail of Fifteenth-century Barge-board, Burford,
+Oxon.]
+
+A walk through the streets of the old town is refreshing to an
+antiquary's eyes. The old stone buildings grey with age with tile
+roofs, the old Tolsey much restored, the merchants' guild mark over
+many of the ancient doorways, the noble church with its eight
+chapels and fine tombs, the plate of the old corporation, now in the
+custody of its oldest surviving member (Burford has ceased to be an
+incorporated borough), are all full of interest. Vandalism is not,
+however, quite lacking, even in Burford. One of the few Gothic
+chimneys remaining, a gem with a crocketed and pinnacled canopy, was
+taken down some thirty years ago, while the Priory is said to be in
+danger of being pulled down, though a later report speaks only of its
+restoration. In the coaching age the town was alive with traffic, and
+Burford races, established by the Merry Monarch, brought it much
+gaiety. At the George Inn, now degraded from its old estate and cut up
+into tenements, Charles I stayed. It was an inn for more than a
+century before his time, and was only converted from that purpose
+during the early years of the nineteenth century, when the proprietor
+of the Bull Inn bought it up and closed its doors to the public with a
+view to improving the prosperity of his own house. The restoration of
+the picturesque almshouses founded by Henry Bird in the time of the
+King-maker, a difficult piece of work, was well carried out in the
+decadent days of the "twenties," and happily they do not seem to have
+suffered much in the process.
+
+[Illustration: The George Inn, Burford, Oxon]
+
+During our wanderings in the streets and lanes of rural England we
+must not fail to visit the county of Essex. It is one of the least
+picturesque of our counties, but it possesses much wealth of
+interesting antiquities in the timber houses at Colchester, Saffron
+Walden, the old town of Maldon, the inns at Chigwell and Brentwood,
+and the halls of Layer Marney and Horsham at Thaxted. Saffron Walden
+is one of those quaint agricultural towns whose local trade is a thing
+of the past. From the records which are left of it in the shape of
+prints and drawings, the town in the early part of the nineteenth
+century must have been a medieval wonder. It is useless now to rail
+against the crass ignorance and vandalism which has swept away so many
+irreplaceable specimens of bygone architecture only to fill their
+sites with brick boxes, "likely indeed and all alike."
+
+Itineraries of the Georgian period when mentioning Saffron Walden
+describe the houses as being of "mean appearance,"[16] which remark,
+taking into consideration the debased taste of the times, is
+significant. A perfect holocaust followed, which extending through
+that shocking time known as the Churchwarden Period has not yet spent
+itself in the present day. Municipal improvements threaten to go
+further still, and in these commercial days, when combined capital
+under such appellations as the "Metropolitan Co-operative" or the
+"Universal Supply Stores" endeavours to increase its display behind
+plate-glass windows of immodest size, the life of old buildings seems
+painfully insecure.
+
+  [16] _Excursions in Essex_, published in 1819, states: "The old
+  market cross and gaol are taking down. The market cross has long
+  been considered a nuisance."
+
+A good number of fine early barge-boards still remain in Saffron
+Walden, and the timber houses which have been allowed to remain speak
+only too eloquently of the beauties which have vanished. One of these
+structures--a large timber building or collection of buildings, for
+the dates of erection are various--stands in Church Street, and was
+formerly the Sun Inn, a hostel of much importance in bygone times.
+This house of entertainment is said to have been in 1645 the quarters
+of the Parliamentary Generals Cromwell, Ireton, and Skippon. In 1870,
+during the conversion of the Sun Inn into private residences, some
+glazed tiles were discovered bricked up in what had once been an open
+hearth. These tiles were collectively painted with a picture on each
+side of the hearth, and bore the inscription "W.E. 1730," while on one
+of them a bust of the Lord Protector was depicted, thus showing the
+tradition to have been honoured during the second George's time.[17]
+Saffron Walden was the rendezvous of the Parliamentarian forces after
+the sacking of Leicester, having their encampment on Triplow Heath. A
+remarkable incident may be mentioned in connexion with this fact. In
+1826 a rustic, while ploughing some land to the south of the town,
+turned up with his share the brass seal of Leicester Hospital, which
+seal had doubtless formed part of the loot acquired by the rebel army.
+
+  [17] These tiles have now found a place in the excellent local museum.
+
+The Sun Inn, or "House of the Giants," as it has sometimes been
+called, from the colossal figures which appear in the pargeting over
+its gateway, is a building which evidently grew with the needs of the
+town, and a study of its architectural features is curiously
+instructive.
+
+The following extract from Pepys's _Diary_ is interesting as referring
+to Saffron Walden:--
+
+  "1659, Feby. 27th. Up by four o'clock. Mr. Blayton and I took
+  horse and straight to Saffron Walden, where at the White Hart we
+  set up our horses and took the master to show us Audley End House,
+  where the housekeeper showed us all the house, in which the
+  stateliness of the ceilings, chimney-pieces, and form of the whole
+  was exceedingly worth seeing. He took us into the cellar, where we
+  drank most admirable drink, a health to the King. Here I played on
+  my flageolette, there being an excellent echo. He showed us
+  excellent pictures; two especially, those of the four Evangelists
+  and Henry VIII. In our going my landlord carried us through a very
+  old hospital or almshouse, where forty poor people were
+  maintained; a very old foundation, and over the chimney-piece was
+  an inscription in brass: 'Orato pro animâ Thomae Bird,' &c. They
+  brought me a draft of their drink in a brown bowl, tipt with
+  silver, which I drank off, and at the bottom was a picture of the
+  Virgin with the child in her arms done in silver. So we took
+  leave...."
+
+The inscription and the "brown bowl" (which is a mazer cup) still
+remain, but the picturesque front of the hospital, built in the reign
+of Edward VI, disappeared during the awful "improvements" which took
+place during the "fifties." A drawing of it survives in the local
+museum.
+
+Maldon, the capital of the Blackwater district, is to the eye of an
+artist a town for twilight effects. The picturesque skyline of its
+long, straggling street is accentuated in the early morning or
+afterglow, when much undesirable detail of modern times below the
+tiled roofs is blurred and lost. In broad daylight the quaintness of
+its suburbs towards the river reeks of the salt flavour of W.W.
+Jacobs's stories. Formerly the town was rich with such massive timber
+buildings as still appear in the yard of the Blue Boar--an ancient
+hostelry which was evidently modernized externally in Pickwickian
+times. While exploring in the outhouses of this hostel Mr. Roe lighted
+on a venerable posting-coach of early nineteenth-century origin among
+some other decaying vehicles, a curiosity even more rare nowadays than
+the Gothic king-posts to be seen in the picturesque half-timbered
+billiard-room.
+
+[Illustration: Maldon, Essex. Sky-line of the High Street at twilight]
+
+The country around Maldon is dotted plentifully with evidences of
+past ages; Layer Marney, with its famous towers; D'Arcy Hall, noted
+for containing some of the finest linen panelling in England; Beeleigh
+Abbey, and other old-world buildings. The sea-serpent may still be
+seen at Heybridge, on the Norman church-door, one of the best of its
+kind, and exhibiting almost all its original ironwork, including the
+chimerical decorative clamp.
+
+[Illustration: St. Mary's Church, Maldon]
+
+The ancient house exhibited at the Franco-British Exhibition at
+Shepherd's Bush was a typical example of an Elizabethan dwelling. It
+was brought from Ipswich, where it was doomed to make room for the
+extension of Co-operative Stores, but so firmly was it built that, in
+spite of its age of three hundred and fifty years, it defied for some
+time the attacks of the house-breakers. It was built in 1563, as the
+date carved on the solid lintel shows, but some parts of the structure
+may have been earlier. All the oak joists and rafters had been
+securely mortised into each other and fixed with stout wooden pins. So
+securely were these pins fixed, that after many vain attempts to knock
+them out, they had all to be bored out with augers. The mortises and
+tenons were found to be as sound and clean as on the day when they
+were fitted by the sixteenth-century carpenters. The foundations and
+the chimneys were built of brick. The house contained a large
+entrance-hall, a kitchen, a splendidly carved staircase, a
+living-room, and two good bedrooms, on the upper floor. The whole
+house was a fine specimen of East Anglian half-timber work. The
+timbers that formed the framework were all straight, the diamond and
+curved patterns, familiar in western counties, signs of later
+construction, being altogether absent. One of the striking features of
+this, as of many other timber-framed houses, is the carved corner or
+angle post. It curves outwards as a support to the projecting first
+floor to the extent of nearly two feet, and the whole piece was hewn
+out of one massive oak log, the root, as was usual, having been placed
+upwards, and beautifully carved with Gothic floriations. The full
+overhang of the gables is four feet six inches. In later examples this
+distance between the gables and the wall was considerably reduced,
+until at last the barge-boards were flush with the wall. The joists of
+the first floor project from under a finely carved string-course, and
+the end of each joist has a carved finial. All the inside walls were
+panelled with oak, and the fire-place is of the typical old English
+character, with seats for half a dozen people in the ingle-nook. The
+principal room had a fine Tudor door, and the frieze and some of the
+panels were enriched with an inlay of holly. When the house was
+demolished many of the choicest fittings which were missing from their
+places were found carefully stowed under the floor boards. Possibly a
+raid or a riot had alarmed the owners in some distant period, and they
+hid their nicest things and then were slain, and no one knew of the
+secret hiding-place.
+
+[Illustration: Norman Clamp on door of Heybridge Church, Essex]
+
+[Illustration: Tudor Fire-place. Now walled up in the passage of a
+shop in Banbury]
+
+The Rector of Haughton calls attention to a curious old house which
+certainly ought to be preserved if it has not yet quite vanished.
+
+  "It is completely hidden from the public gaze. Right away in the
+  fields, to be reached only by footpath, or by strangely circuitous
+  lane, in the parish of Ranton, there stands a little old
+  half-timbered house, known as the Vicarage Farm. Only a very
+  practised eye would suspect the treasures that it contains.
+  Entering through the original door, with quaint knocker intact,
+  you are in the kitchen with a fine open fire-place, noble beam,
+  and walls panelled with oak. But the principal treasure consists
+  in what I have heard called 'The priest's room.' I should venture
+  to put the date of the house at about 1500--certainly
+  pre-Reformation. How did it come to be there? and what purpose did
+  it serve? I have only been able to find one note which can throw
+  any possible light on the matter. Gough says that a certain Rose
+  (Dunston?) brought land at Ranton to her husband John Doiley; and
+  he goes on: 'This man had the consent of William, the Prior of
+  Ranton, to erect a chapel at Ranton.' The little church at Ranton
+  has stood there from the thirteenth century, as the architecture
+  of the west end and south-west doorway plainly testify. The church
+  and cell (or whatever you may call it) must clearly have been an
+  off-shoot from the Priory. But the room: for this is what is
+  principally worth seeing. The beam is richly moulded, and so is
+  the panelling throughout. It has a very well carved course of
+  panelling all round the top, and this is surmounted by an
+  elaborate cornice. The stone mantelpiece is remarkably fine and of
+  unusual character. But the most striking feature of the room is a
+  square-headed arched recess, or niche, with pierced spandrels.
+  What was its use? It is about the right height for a seat, and
+  what may have been the seat is there unaltered. Or was it a niche
+  containing a Calvary, or some figure? I confess I know nothing. Is
+  this a unique example? I cannot remember any other. But possibly
+  there may be others, equally hidden away, comparison with which
+  might unfold its secret. In this room, and in other parts of the
+  house, much of the old ironwork of hinges and door-fasteners
+  remains, and is simply excellent. The old oak sliding shutters are
+  still there, and two more fine stone mantelpieces; on one hearth
+  the original encaustic tiles with patterns, chiefly a Maltese
+  cross, and the oak cill surrounding them, are _in situ_. I confess
+  I tremble for the safety of this priceless relic. The house is in
+  a somewhat dilapidated condition; and I know that one attempt was
+  made to buy the panelling and take it away. Surely such a monument
+  of the past should be in some way guarded by the nation."
+
+The beauty of English cottage-building, its directness, simplicity,
+variety, and above all its inevitable quality, the intimate way in
+which the buildings ally themselves with the soil and blend with the
+ever-varied and exquisite landscape, the delicate harmonies, almost
+musical in their nature, that grow from their gentle relationship with
+their surroundings, the modulation from man's handiwork to God's
+enveloping world that lies in the quiet gardening that binds one to
+the other without discord or dissonance--all these things are
+wonderfully attractive to those who have eyes to see and hearts to
+understand. The English cottages have an importance in the story of
+the development of architecture far greater than that which concerns
+their mere beauty and picturesqueness. As we follow the history of
+Gothic art we find that for the most part the instinctive art in
+relation to church architecture came to an end in the first quarter of
+the sixteenth century, but the right impulse did not cease.
+House-building went on, though there was no church-building, and we
+admire greatly some of those grand mansions which were reared in the
+time of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts; but art was declining, a
+crumbling taste causing disintegration of the sense of real beauty and
+refinement of detail. A creeping paralysis set in later, and the end
+came swiftly when the dark days of the eighteenth century blotted out
+even the memory of a great past. And yet during all this time the
+people, the poor and middle classes, the yeomen and farmers, were ever
+building, building, quietly and simply, untroubled by any thoughts
+of style, of Gothic art or Renaissance; hence the cottages and
+dwellings of the humblest type maintained in all their integrity the
+real principles that made medieval architecture great. Frank, simple,
+and direct, built for use and not for the establishment of
+architectural theories, they have transmitted their messages to the
+ages and have preserved their beauties for the admiration of mankind
+and as models for all time.
+
+[Illustration: Wilney Street Burford]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OLD CASTLES
+
+
+Castles have played a prominent part in the making of England. Many
+towns owe their existence to the protecting guard of an old fortress.
+They grew up beneath its sheltering walls like children holding the
+gown of their good mother, though the castle often proved but a harsh
+and cruel stepmother, and exacted heavy tribute in return for partial
+security from pillage and rapine. Thus Newcastle-upon-Tyne arose about
+the early fortress erected in 1080 by Robert Curthose to guard the
+passage of the river at the Pons Aelii. The poor little Saxon village
+of Monkchester was then its neighbour. But the castle occupying a fine
+strategic position soon attracted townsfolk, who built their houses
+'neath its shadow. The town of Richmond owes its existence to the
+lordly castle which Alain Rufus, a cousin of the Duke of Brittany,
+erected on land granted to him by the Conqueror. An old rhyme tells
+how he
+
+        Came out of Brittany
+        With his wife Tiffany,
+        And his maid Manfras,
+        And his dog Hardigras.
+
+He built his walls of stone. We must not imagine, however, that an
+early Norman castle was always a vast keep of stone. That came later.
+The Normans called their earliest strongholds _mottes_, which
+consisted of a mound with stockades and a deep ditch and a
+bailey-court also defended by a ditch and stockades. Instead of the
+great stone keep of later days, "foursquare to every wind that blew,"
+there was a wooden tower for the shelter of the garrison. You can see
+in the Bayeux tapestry the followers of William the Conqueror in the
+act of erecting some such tower of defence. Such structures were
+somewhat easily erected, and did not require a long period for their
+construction. Hence they were very useful for the holding of a
+conquered country. Sometimes advantage was taken of the works that the
+Romans had left. The Normans made use of the old stone walls built by
+the earliest conquerors of Britain. Thus we find at Pevensey a Norman
+fortress born within the ancient fortress reared by the Romans to
+protect that portion of the southern coast from the attacks of the
+northern pirates. Porchester Keep rose in the time of the first Henry
+at the north-west angle of the Roman fort. William I erected his
+castle at Colchester on the site of the Roman _castrum_. The old Roman
+wall of London was used by the Conqueror for the eastern defence of
+his Tower that he erected to keep in awe the citizens of the
+metropolis, and at Lincoln and Colchester the works of the first
+conquerors of Britain were eagerly utilized by him.
+
+One of the most important Roman castles in the country is Burgh
+Castle, in North Suffolk, with its grand and noble walls. The late Mr.
+G.E. Fox thus described the ruins:--
+
+  "According to the plan on the Ordnance Survey map, the walls
+  enclose a quadrangular area roughly 640 feet long by 413 wide, the
+  walls being 9 feet thick with a foundation 12 feet in width. The
+  angles of the station are rounded. The eastern wall is
+  strengthened by four solid bastions, one standing against each of
+  the rounded angles, the other two intermediate, and the north and
+  south sides have one each, neither of them being in the centre of
+  the side, but rather west of it. The quaggy ground between the
+  camp and the stream would be an excellent defence against sudden
+  attack."
+
+[Illustration: Burgh Castle]
+
+Burgh Castle, according to the late Canon Raven, was the Roman station
+_Gariannonum_ of the _Notitia Imperii_. Its walls are built of
+flint-rubble concrete, and there are lacing courses of tiles. There
+is no wall on the west, and Canon Raven used to contend that one
+existed there but has been destroyed. But this conjecture seems
+improbable. That side was probably defended by the sea, which has
+considerably receded. Two gates remain, the principal one being the
+east gate, commanded by towers a hundred feet high; while the north is
+a postern-gate about five feet wide. The Romans have not left many
+traces behind them. Some coins have been found, including a silver one
+of Gratian and some of Constantine. Here St. Furseus, an Irish
+missionary, is said to have settled with a colony of monks, having
+been favourably received by Sigebert, the ruler of the East Angles, in
+633 A.D. Burgh Castle is one of the finest specimens of a Roman fort
+which our earliest conquerors have left us, and ranks with Reculver,
+Richborough, and Pevensey, those strong fortresses which were erected
+nearly two thousand years ago to guard the coasts against foreign
+foes.
+
+In early days, ere Norman and Saxon became a united people, the castle
+was the sign of the supremacy of the conquerors and the subjugation of
+the English. It kept watch and ward over tumultuous townsfolk and
+prevented any acts of rebellion and hostility to their new masters.
+Thus London's Tower arose to keep the turbulent citizens in awe as
+well as to protect them from foreign foes. Thus at Norwich the castle
+dominated the town, and required for its erection the destruction of
+over a hundred houses. At Lincoln the Conqueror destroyed 166 houses
+in order to construct a strong _motte_ at the south-west corner of the
+old _castrum_ in order to overawe the city. Sometimes castles were
+erected to protect the land from foreign foes. The fort at Colchester
+was intended to resist the Danes if ever their threatened invasion
+came, and Norwich Castle was erected quite as much to drive back the
+Scandinavian hosts as to keep in order the citizens. Newcastle and
+Carlisle were of strategic importance for driving back the Scots, and
+Lancaster Keep, traditionally said to have been reared by Roger de
+Poitou, but probably of later date, bore the brunt of many a marauding
+invasion. To check the incursions of the Welsh, who made frequent and
+powerful irruptions into Herefordshire, many castles were erected in
+Shropshire and Herefordshire, forming a chain of fortresses which are
+more numerous than in any other part of England. They are of every
+shape and size, from stately piles like Wigmore and Goodrich, to the
+smallest fortified farm, like Urishay Castle, a house half mansion,
+half fortress. Even the church towers of Herefordshire, with their
+walls seven or eight feet thick, such as that at Ewias Harold, look as
+if they were designed as strongholds in case of need. On the western
+and northern borders of England we find the largest number of
+fortresses, erected to restrain and keep back troublesome neighbours.
+
+The story of the English castles abounds in interest and romance. Most
+of them are ruins now, but fancy pictures them in the days of their
+splendour, the abodes of chivalry and knightly deeds, of "fair ladies
+and brave men," and each one can tell its story of siege and
+battle-cries, of strenuous attack and gallant defence, of prominent
+parts played in the drama of English history. To some of these we
+shall presently refer, but it would need a very large volume to record
+the whole story of our English fortresses.
+
+We have said that the earliest Norman castle was a _motte_ fortified
+by a stockade, an earthwork protected with timber palings. That is the
+latest theory amongst antiquaries, but there are not a few who
+maintain that the Normans, who proved themselves such admirable
+builders of the stoutest of stone churches, would not long content
+themselves with such poor fortresses. There were stone castles before
+the Normans, besides the old Roman walls at Pevensey, Colchester,
+London, and Lincoln. And there came from Normandy a monk named Gundulf
+in 1070 who was a mighty builder. He was consecrated Bishop of
+Rochester and began to build his cathedral with wondrous architectural
+skill. He is credited with devising a new style of military
+architecture, and found much favour with the Conqueror, who at the
+time especially needed strong walls to guard himself and his hungry
+followers. He was ordered by the King to build the first beginnings of
+the Tower of London. He probably designed the keep at Colchester and
+the castle of his cathedral town, and set the fashion of building
+these great ramparts of stone which were so serviceable in the
+subjugation and overawing of the English. The fashion grew, much to
+the displeasure of the conquered, who deemed them "homes of wrong and
+badges of bondage," hateful places filled with devils and evil men who
+robbed and spoiled them. And when they were ordered to set to work on
+castle-building their impotent wrath knew no bounds. It is difficult
+to ascertain how many were constructed during the Conqueror's reign.
+Domesday tells of forty-nine. Another authority, Mr. Pearson, mentions
+ninety-nine, and Mrs. Armitage after a careful examination of
+documents contends for eighty-six. But there may have been many
+others. In Stephen's reign castles spread like an evil sore over the
+land. His traitorous subjects broke their allegiance to their king and
+preyed upon the country. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ records that
+"every rich man built his castles and defended them against him, and
+they filled the land full of castles. They greatly oppressed the
+wretched people by making them work at these castles, and when the
+castles were finished they filled them with devils and evil men. Then
+they took those whom they suspected to have any goods, by night and by
+day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their
+gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable, for never
+were any martyrs tormented as these were. They hung some up by their
+feet and smoked them with foul smoke; some by their thumbs or by the
+head, and they hung burning things on their feet. They put a knotted
+string about their heads, and twisted it till it went into the brain.
+They put them into dungeons wherein were adders and snakes and toads,
+and thus wore them out. Some they put into a crucet-house, that is,
+into a chest that was short and narrow and not deep, and they put
+sharp stones in it, and crushed the man therein so that they broke all
+his limbs. There were hateful and grim things called Sachenteges in
+many of the castles, and which two or three men had enough to do to
+carry. The Sachentege was made thus: it was fastened to a beam, having
+a sharp iron to go round a man's throat and neck, so that he might
+noways sit, nor lie, nor sleep, but that he must bear all the iron.
+Many thousands they exhausted with hunger. I cannot, and I may not,
+tell of all the wounds and all the tortures that they inflicted upon
+the wretched men of this land; and this state of things lasted the
+nineteen years that Stephen was king, and ever grew worse and worse.
+They were continually levying an exaction from the towns, which they
+called Tenserie,[18] and when the miserable inhabitants had no more to
+give, then plundered they and burnt all the towns, so that well
+mightest thou walk a whole day's journey nor ever shouldest thou find
+a man seated in a town or its lands tilled."
+
+  [18] A payment to the superior lord for protection.
+
+More than a thousand of these abodes of infamy are said to have been
+built. Possibly many of them were timber structures only. Countless
+small towns and villages boast of once possessing a fortress. The name
+Castle Street remains, though the actual site of the stronghold has
+long vanished. Sometimes we find a mound which seems to proclaim its
+position, but memory is silent, and the people of England, if the
+story of the chronicler be true, have to be grateful to Henry II, who
+set himself to work to root up and destroy very many of these
+adulterine castles which were the abodes of tyranny and oppression.
+However, for the protection of his kingdom, he raised other
+strongholds, in the south the grand fortress of Dover, which still
+guards the straits; in the west, Berkeley Castle, for his friend
+Robert FitzHarding, ancestor of Lord Berkeley, which has remained in
+the same family until the present day; in the north, Richmond,
+Scarborough, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and in the east, Orford Keep.
+The same stern Norman keep remains, but you can see some changes in
+the architecture. The projection of the buttresses is increased, and
+there is some attempt at ornamentation. Orford Castle, which some
+guide-books and directories will insist on confusing with Oxford
+Castle and stating that it was built by Robert D'Oiley in 1072, was
+erected by Henry II to defend the country against the incursions of
+the Flemings and to safeguard Orford Haven. Caen stone was brought for
+the stone dressings to windows and doors, parapets and groins, but
+masses of septaria found on the shore and in the neighbouring marshes
+were utilized with such good effect that the walls have stood the
+attacks of besiegers and weathered the storms of the east coast for
+more than seven centuries. It was built in a new fashion that was made
+in France, and to which our English eyes were unaccustomed, and is
+somewhat similar in plan to Conisborough Castle, in the valley of the
+Don. The plan is circular with three projecting towers, and the keep
+was protected by two circular ditches, one fifteen feet and the other
+thirty feet distant from its walls. Between the two ditches was a
+circular wall with parapet and battlements. The interior of the castle
+was divided into three floors; the towers, exclusive of the turrets,
+had five, two of which were entresols, and were ninety-six feet high,
+the central keep being seventy feet.[19] The oven was at the top of
+the keep. The chapel is one of the most interesting chambers, with its
+original altar still in position, though much damaged, and also
+piscina, aumbrey, and ciborium. This castle nearly vanished with other
+features of vanishing England in the middle of the eighteenth century,
+Lord Hereford proposing to pull it down for the sake of the material;
+but "it being a necessary sea-mark, especially for ships coming from
+Holland, who by steering so as to make the castle cover or hide the
+church thereby avoid a dangerous sandbank called the Whiting,
+Government interfered and prevented the destruction of the
+building."[20]
+
+  [19] Cf. _Memorials of Old Suffolk_, p. 65.
+
+  [20] Grose's _Antiquities._
+
+In these keeps the thickness of the walls enabled them to contain
+chambers, stairs, and passages. At Guildford there is an oratory with
+rude carvings of sacred subjects, including a crucifixion. The first
+and second floors were usually vaulted, and the upper ones were of
+timber. Fireplaces were built in most of the rooms, and some sort of
+domestic comfort was not altogether forgotten. In the earlier
+fortresses the walls of the keep enclosed an inner court, which had
+rooms built up to the great stone walls, the court afterwards being
+vaulted and floors erected. In order to protect the entrance there
+were heavy doors with a portcullis, and by degrees the outward
+defences were strengthened. There was an outer bailey or court
+surrounded by a strong wall, with a barbican guarding the entrance,
+consisting of a strong gate protected by two towers. In this lower or
+outer court are the stables, and the mound where the lord of the
+castle dispenses justice, and where criminals and traitors are
+executed. Another strong gateway flanked by towers protects the inner
+bailey, on the edge of which stands the keep, which frowns down upon
+us as we enter. An immense household was supported in these castles.
+Not only were there men-at-arms, but also cooks, bakers, brewers,
+tailors, carpenters, smiths, masons, and all kinds of craftsmen; and
+all this crowd of workers had to be provided with accommodation by the
+lord of the castle. Hence a building in the form of a large hall was
+erected, sometimes of stone, usually of wood, in the lower or upper
+bailey, for these soldiers and artisans, where they slept and had
+their meals.
+
+Amongst other castles which arose during this late Norman and early
+English period of architecture we may mention Barnard Castle, a mighty
+stronghold, held by the royal house of Balliol, the Prince Bishops of
+Durham, the Earls of Warwick, the Nevilles, and other powerful
+families. Sir Walter Scott immortalized the Castle in _Rokeby_. Here
+is his description of the fortress:--
+
+        High crowned he sits, in dawning pale,
+        The sovereign of the lovely vale.
+        What prospects from the watch-tower high
+        Gleam gradual on the warder's eye?
+        Far sweeping to the east he sees
+        Down his deep woods the course of Tees,
+        And tracks his wanderings by the steam
+        Of summer vapours from the stream;
+        And ere he pace his destined hour
+        By Brackenbury's dungeon tower,
+        These silver mists shall melt away
+        And dew the woods with glittering spray.
+        Then in broad lustre shall be shown
+        That mighty trench of living stone.
+        And each huge trunk that from the side,
+        Reclines him o'er the darksome tide,
+        Where Tees, full many a fathom low,
+        Wears with his rage no common foe;
+        Nor pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here,
+        Nor clay-mound checks his fierce career,
+        Condemned to mine a channelled way
+        O'er solid sheets of marble grey.
+
+This lordly pile has seen the Balliols fighting with the Scots, of
+whom John Balliol became king, the fierce contests between the warlike
+prelates of Durham and Barnard's lord, the triumph of the former, who
+were deprived of their conquest by Edward I, and then its surrender in
+later times to the rebels of Queen Elizabeth.
+
+Another northern border castle is Norham, the possession of the Bishop
+of Durham, built during this period. It was a mighty fortress, and
+witnessed the gorgeous scene of the arbitration between the rival
+claimants to the Scottish throne, the arbiter being King Edward I of
+England, who forgot not to assert his own fancied rights to the
+overlordship of the northern kingdom. It was, however, besieged by the
+Scots, and valiant deeds were wrought before its walls by Sir William
+Marmion and Sir Thomas Grey, but the Scots captured it in 1327 and
+again in 1513. It is now but a battered ruin. Prudhoe, with its
+memories of border wars, and Castle Rising, redolent with the memories
+of the last years of the wicked widow of Edward II, belong to this age
+of castle-architecture, and also the older portions of Kenilworth.
+
+Pontefract Castle, the last fortress that held out for King Charles in
+the Civil War, and in consequence slighted and ruined, can tell of
+many dark deeds and strange events in English history. The De Lacys
+built it in the early part of the thirteenth century. Its area was
+seven acres. The wall of the castle court was high and flanked by
+seven towers; a deep moat was cut on the western side, where was the
+barbican and drawbridge. It had terrible dungeons, one a room
+twenty-five feet square, without any entrance save a trap-door in the
+floor of a turret. The castle passed, in 1310, by marriage to Thomas
+Earl of Lancaster, who took part in the strife between Edward II and
+his nobles, was captured, and in his own hall condemned to death. The
+castle is always associated with the murder of Richard II, but
+contemporary historians, Thomas of Walsingham and Gower the poet,
+assert that he starved himself to death; others contend that his
+starvation was not voluntary; while there are not wanting those who
+say that he escaped to Scotland, lived there many years, and died in
+peace in the castle of Stirling, an honoured guest of Robert III of
+Scotland, in 1419. I have not seen the entries, but I am told in the
+accounts of the Chamberlain of Scotland there are items for the
+maintenance of the King for eleven years. But popular tales die hard,
+and doubtless you will hear the groans and see the ghost of the
+wronged Richard some moonlight night in the ruined keep of Pontefract.
+He has many companion ghosts--the Earl of Salisbury, Richard Duke of
+York, Anthony Wydeville, Earl Rivers and Grey his brother, and Sir
+Thomas Vaughan, whose feet trod the way to the block, that was worn
+hard by many victims. The dying days of the old castle made it
+illustrious. It was besieged three times, taken and retaken, and saw
+amazing scenes of gallantry and bravery. It held out until after the
+death of the martyr king; it heard the proclamation of Charles II, but
+at length was compelled to surrender, and "the strongest inland
+garrison in the kingdom," as Oliver Cromwell termed it, was slighted
+and made a ruin. Its sister fortress Knaresborough shared its fate.
+Lord Lytton, in _Eugene Aram_, wrote of it:--
+
+  "You will be at a loss to recognise now the truth of old Leland's
+  description of that once stout and gallant bulwark of the north,
+  when 'he numbrid 11 or 12 Toures in the walles of the Castel, and
+  one very fayre beside in the second area.' In that castle the four
+  knightly murderers of the haughty Becket (the Wolsey of his age)
+  remained for a whole year, defying the weak justice of the times.
+  There, too, the unfortunate Richard II passed some portion of his
+  bitter imprisonment. And there, after the battle of Marston Moor,
+  waved the banner of the loyalists against the soldiers of
+  Lilburn."
+
+An interesting story is told of the siege. A youth, whose father was
+in the garrison, each night went into the deep, dry moat, climbed up
+the glacis, and put provisions through a hole where his father stood
+ready to receive them. He was seen at length, fired on by the
+Parliamentary soldiers, and sentenced to be hanged in sight of the
+besieged as a warning to others. But a good lady obtained his respite,
+and after the conquest of the place was released. The castle then,
+once the residence of Piers Gaveston, of Henry III, and of John of
+Gaunt, was dismantled and destroyed.
+
+During the reign of Henry III great progress was made in the
+improvement and development of castle-building. The comfort and
+convenience of the dwellers in these fortresses were considered, and
+if not very luxurious places they were made more beautiful by art and
+more desirable as residences. During the reigns of the Edwards this
+progress continued, and a new type of castle was introduced. The
+stern, massive, and high-towering keep was abandoned, and the
+fortifications arranged in a concentric fashion. A fine hall with
+kitchens occupied the centre of the fortress; a large number of
+chambers were added. The stronghold itself consisted of a large square
+or oblong like that at Donnington, Berkshire, and the approach was
+carefully guarded by strong gateways, advanced works, walled
+galleries, and barbicans. Deep moats filled with water increased their
+strength and improved their beauty.
+
+We will give some examples of these Edwardian castles, of which Leeds
+Castle, Kent, is a fine specimen. It stands on three islands in a
+sheet of water about fifteen acres in extent, these islands being
+connected in former times by double drawbridges. It consists of two
+huge piles of buildings which with a strong gate-house and barbican
+form four distinct forts, capable of separate defence should any one
+or other fall into the hands of an enemy. Three causeways, each with
+its drawbridge, gate, and portcullis, lead to the smallest island or
+inner barbican, a fortified mill contributing to the defences. A stone
+bridge connects this island with the main island. There stands the
+Constable's Tower, and a stone wall surrounds the island and within is
+the modern mansion. The Maiden's Tower and the Water Tower defend the
+island on the south. A two-storeyed building on arches now connects
+the main island with the Tower of the Gloriette, which has a curious
+old bell with the Virgin and Child, St. George and the Dragon, and the
+Crucifixion depicted on it, and an ancient clock. The castle withstood
+a siege in the time of Edward II because Queen Isabella was refused
+admission. The King hung the Governor, Thomas de Colepepper, by the
+chain of the drawbridge. Henry IV retired here on account of the
+Plague in London, and his second wife, Joan of Navarre, was imprisoned
+here. It was a favourite residence of the Court in the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries. Here the wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester,
+was tried for witchcraft. Dutch prisoners were confined here in 1666
+and contrived to set fire to some of the buildings. It is the home of
+the Wykeham Martin family, and is one of the most picturesque castles
+in the country.
+
+In the same neighbourhood is Allington Castle, an ivy-mantled ruin,
+another example of vanished glory, only two tenements occupying the
+princely residence of the Wyatts, famous in the history of State and
+Letters. Sir Henry, the father of the poet, felt the power of the
+Hunchback Richard, and was racked and imprisoned in Scotland, and
+would have died in the Tower of London but for a cat. He rose to great
+honour under Henry VII, and here entertained the King in great style.
+At Allington the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt was born, and spent his days in
+writing prose and verse, hunting and hawking, and occasionally
+dallying after Mistress Anne Boleyn at the neighbouring castle of
+Hever. He died here in 1542, and his son Sir Thomas led the
+insurrection against Queen Mary and sealed the fate of himself and his
+race.
+
+Hever Castle, to which allusion has been made, is an example of the
+transition between the old fortress and the more comfortable mansion
+of a country squire or magnate. Times were less dangerous, the country
+more peaceful when Sir Geoffrey Boleyn transformed and rebuilt the
+castle built in the reign of Edward III by William de Hever, but the
+strong entrance-gate flanked by towers, embattled and machicolated,
+and defended by stout doors and three portcullises and the surrounding
+moat, shows that the need of defence had not quite passed away. The
+gates lead into a courtyard around which the hall, chapel, and
+domestic chambers are grouped. The long gallery Anne Boleyn so often
+traversed with impatience still seems to re-echo her steps, and her
+bedchamber, which used to contain some of the original furniture, has
+always a pathetic interest. The story of the courtship of Henry VIII
+with "the brown girl with a perthroat and an extra finger," as
+Margaret More described her, is well known. Her old home, which was
+much in decay, has passed into the possession of a wealthy American
+gentleman, and has been recently greatly restored and transformed.
+
+Sussex can boast of many a lordly castle, and in its day Bodiam must
+have been very magnificent. Even in its decay and ruin it is one of
+the most beautiful in England. It combined the palace of the feudal
+lord and the fortress of a knight. The founder, Sir John Dalyngrudge,
+was a gallant soldier in the wars of Edward III, and spent most of his
+best years in France, where he had doubtless learned the art of making
+his house comfortable as well as secure. He acquired licence to
+fortify his castle in 1385 "for resistance against our enemies." There
+was need of strong walls, as the French often at that period ravaged
+the coast of Sussex, burning towns and manor-houses. Clark, the great
+authority on castles, says that "Bodiam is a complete and typical
+castle of the end of the fourteenth century, laid out entirely on a
+new site, and constructed after one design and at one period. It but
+seldom happens that a great fortress is wholly original, of one, and
+that a known, date, and so completely free from alterations or
+additions." It is nearly square, with circular tower sixty-five feet
+high at the four corners, connected by embattled curtain-walls, in the
+centre of each of which square towers rise to an equal height with the
+circular. The gateway is a large structure composed of two flanking
+towers defended by numerous oiletts for arrows, embattled parapets,
+and deep machicolations. Over the gateway are three shields bearing
+the arms of Bodiam, Dalyngrudge, and Wardieu. A huge portcullis still
+frowns down upon us, and two others opposed the way, while above are
+openings in the vault through which melted lead, heated sand, pitch,
+and other disagreeable things could be poured on the heads of the foe.
+In the courtyard on the south stands the great hall with its oriel,
+buttery, and kitchen, and amidst the ruins you can discern the chapel,
+sacristy, ladies' bower, presence chamber. The castle stayed not long
+in the family of the builder, his son John probably perishing in the
+wars, and passed to Sir Thomas Lewknor, who opposed Richard III, and
+was therefore attainted of high treason and his castle besieged and
+taken. It was restored to him again by Henry VII, but the Lewknors
+never resided there again. Waller destroyed it after the capture of
+Arundel, and since that time it has been left a prey to the rains and
+frosts and storms, but manages to preserve much of its beauty, and to
+tell how noble knights lived in the days of chivalry.
+
+Caister Castle is one of the four principal castles in Norfolk. It is
+built of brick, and is one of the earliest edifices in England
+constructed of that material after its rediscovery as suitable for
+building purposes. It stands with its strong defences not far from the
+sea on the barren coast. It was built by Sir John Fastolfe, who fought
+with great distinction in the French wars of Henry V and Henry VI, and
+was the hero of the Battle of the Herrings in 1428, when he defeated
+the French and succeeded in convoying a load of herrings in triumph to
+the English camp before Orleans. It is supposed that he was the
+prototype of Shakespeare's Falstaff, but beyond the resemblance in the
+names there is little similarity in the exploits of the two "heroes."
+Sir John Fastolfe, much to the chagrin of other friends and relatives,
+made John Paston his heir, who became a great and prosperous man,
+represented his county in Parliament, and was a favourite of Edward
+IV. Paston loved Caister, his "fair jewell"; but misfortunes befell
+him. He had great losses, and was thrice confined in the Fleet Prison
+and then outlawed. Those were dangerous days, and friends often
+quarrelled. Hence during his troubles the Duke of Norfolk and Lord
+Scales tried to get possession of Caister, and after his death laid
+siege to it. The Pastons lacked not courage and determination, and
+defended it for a year, but were then forced to surrender. However, it
+was restored to them, but again forcibly taken from them. However, not
+by the sword but by negotiations and legal efforts, Sir John again
+gained his own, and an embattled tower at the north-west corner, one
+hundred feet high, and the north and west walls remain to tell the
+story of this brave old Norfolk family, who by their _Letters_ have
+done so much to guide us through the dark period to which they relate.
+
+[Illustration: Caister Castle 7 Aug 1908]
+
+[Illustration: Defaced Arms. Taunton Castle]
+
+We will journey to the West Country, a region of castles. The Saxons
+were obliged to erect their rude earthen strongholds to keep back the
+turbulent Welsh, and these were succeeded by Norman keeps.
+Monmouthshire is famous for its castles. Out of the thousand erected
+in Norman times twenty-five were built in that county. There is
+Chepstow Castle with its Early Norman gateway spanned by a circular
+arch flanked by round towers. In the inner court there are gardens
+and ruins of a grand hall, and in the outer the remains of a chapel
+with evidences of beautifully groined vaulting, and also a winding
+staircase leading to the battlements. In the dungeon of the old keep
+at the south-east corner of the inner court Roger de Britolio, Earl of
+Hereford, was imprisoned for rebellion against the Conqueror, and in
+later times Henry Martin, the regicide, lingered as a prisoner for
+thirty years, employing his enforced leisure in writing a book in
+order to prove that it is not right for a man to be governed by one
+wife. Then there is Glosmont Castle, the fortified residence of the
+Earl of Lancaster; Skenfrith Castle, White Castle, the _Album Castrum_
+of the Latin records, the Landreilo of the Welsh, with its six towers,
+portcullis and drawbridge flanked by massive towers, barbican, and
+other outworks; and Raglan Castle with its splendid gateway, its
+Elizabethan banqueting-hall ornamented with rich stone tracery, its
+bowling-green, garden terraces, and spacious courts--an ideal place
+for knightly tournaments. Raglan is associated with the gallant
+defence of the castle by the Marquis of Worcester in the Civil War.
+
+Another famous siege is connected with the old castle of Taunton.
+Taunton was a noted place in Saxon days, and the castle is the
+earliest English fortress by some two hundred years of which we have
+any written historical record.[21] The Anglo-Saxon chronicler states,
+under the date 722 A.D.: "This year Queen Ethelburge overthrew
+Taunton, which Ina had before built." The buildings tell their story.
+We see a Norman keep built to the westward of Ina's earthwork,
+probably by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, the warlike brother
+of King Stephen. The gatehouse with the curtain ending in drum towers,
+of which one only remains, was first built at the close of the
+thirteenth century under Edward I; but it was restored with
+Perpendicular additions by Bishop Thomas Langton, whose arms with the
+date 1495 may be seen on the escutcheon above the arch. Probably
+Bishop Langton also built the great hall; whilst Bishop Home, who is
+sometimes credited with this work, most likely only repaired the hall,
+but tacked on to it the southward structure on pilasters, which shows
+his arms with the date 1577. The hall of the castle was for a long
+period used as Assize Courts. The castle was purchased by the Taunton
+and Somerset Archæological Society, and is now most appropriately a
+museum. Taunton has seen many strange sights. The town was owned by
+the Bishop of Winchester, and the castle had its constable, an office
+held by many great men. When Lord Daubeney of Barrington Court was
+constable in 1497 Taunton saw thousands of gaunt Cornishmen marching
+on to London to protest against the king's subsidy, and they aroused
+the sympathy of the kind-hearted Somerset folk, who fed them, and were
+afterwards fined for "aiding and comforting" them. Again, crowds of
+Cornishmen here flocked to the standard of Perkin Warbeck. The gallant
+defence of Taunton by Robert Blake, aided by the townsfolk, against
+the whole force of the Royalists, is a matter of history, and also the
+rebellion of Monmouth, who made Taunton his head-quarters. This
+castle, like every other one in England, has much to tell us of the
+chief events in our national annals.
+
+  [21] _Taunton and its Castle_, by D.P. Alford (Memorials of Old
+  Somerset), p. 149.
+
+In the principality of Wales we find many noted strong holds--Conway,
+Harlech, and many others. Carnarvon Castle, the repair of which is
+being undertaken by Sir John Puleston, has no rival among our medieval
+fortresses for the grandeur and extent of the ruins. It was commenced
+about 1283 by Edward I, but took forty years to complete. In 1295 a
+playful North Walian, named Madoc, who was an illegitimate son of
+Prince David, took the rising stronghold by surprise upon a fair day,
+massacred the entire garrison, and hanged the constable from his own
+half-finished walls. Sir John Puleston, the present constable, though
+he derives his patronymic from the "base, bloody, and brutal Saxon,"
+is really a warmly patriotic Welshman, and is doing a good work in
+preserving the ruins of the fortress of which he is the titular
+governor.
+
+We should like to record the romantic stories that have woven
+themselves around each crumbling keep and bailey-court, to see them in
+the days of their glory when warders kept the gate and watching
+archers guarded the wall, and the lord and lady and their knights and
+esquires dined in the great hall, and knights practised feats of arms
+in the tilting-ground, and the banner of the lord waved over the
+battlements, and everything was ready for war or sport, hunting or
+hawking. But all the glories of most of the castles of England have
+vanished, and naught is to be seen but ruined walls and deserted
+halls. Some few have survived and become royal palaces or noblemen's
+mansions. Such are Windsor, Warwick, Raby, Alnwick, and Arundel, but
+the fate of most of them is very similar. The old fortress aimed at
+being impregnable in the days of bows and arrows; but the progress of
+guns and artillery somewhat changed the ideas with regard to their
+security. In the struggle between Yorkists and Lancastrians many a
+noble owner lost his castle and his head. Edward IV thinned down
+castle-ownership, and many a fine fortress was left to die. When the
+Spaniards threatened our shores those who possessed castles tried to
+adapt them for the use of artillery, and when the Civil War began many
+of them were strengthened and fortified and often made gallant
+defences against their enemies, such as Donnington, Colchester,
+Scarborough, and Pontefract. When the Civil War ended the last bugle
+sounded the signal for their destruction. Orders were issued for their
+destruction, lest they should ever again be thorns in the sides of the
+Parliamentary army. Sometimes they were destroyed for revenge, or
+because of their materials, which were sold for the benefit of the
+Government or for the satisfaction of private greed. Lead was torn
+from the roofs of chapels and banqueting-halls. The massive walls were
+so strong that they resisted to the last and had to be demolished
+with the aid of gunpowder. They became convenient quarries for stone
+and furnished many a farm, cottage and manor-house with materials for
+their construction. Henceforth the old castle became a ruin. In its
+silent marshy moat reeds and rushes grow, and ivy covers its walls,
+and trees have sprung up in the quiet and deserted courts. Picnic
+parties encamp on the green sward, and excursionists amuse themselves
+in strolling along the walls and wonder why they were built so thick,
+and imagine that the castle was always a ruin erected for the
+amusement of the cheap-tripper for jest and playground. Happily care
+is usually bestowed upon the relics that remain, and diligent
+antiquaries excavate and try to rear in imagination the stately
+buildings. Some have been fortunate enough to become museums, and some
+modernized and restored are private residences. The English castle
+recalls some of the most eventful scenes in English history, and its
+bones and skeleton should be treated with respect and veneration as an
+important feature of vanishing England.
+
+[Illustration: Knightly Bascinet (_temp._ Henry V) in Norwich Castle]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+VANISHING OR VANISHED CHURCHES
+
+
+No buildings have suffered more than our parish churches in the course
+of ages. Many have vanished entirely. A few stones or ruins mark the
+site of others, and iconoclasm has left such enduring marks on the
+fabric of many that remain that it is difficult to read their story
+and history. A volume, several volumes, would be needed to record all
+the vandalism that has been done to our ecclesiastical structures in
+the ages that have passed. We can only be thankful that some churches
+have survived to proclaim the glories of English architecture and the
+skill of our masons and artificers who wrought so well and worthily in
+olden days.
+
+In the chapter that relates to the erosion of our coasts we have
+mentioned many of the towns and villages which have been devoured by
+the sea with their churches. These now lie beneath the waves, and the
+bells in their towers are still said to ring when storms rage. We need
+not record again the submerged Ravenspur, Dunwich, Kilnsea, and other
+unfortunate towns with their churches where now only mermaids can form
+the congregation.
+
+       And as the fisherman strays
+       When the clear cold eve's declining,
+       He sees the round tower of other days
+       In the wave beneath him shining.
+
+In the depths of the country, far from the sea, we can find many
+deserted shrines, many churches that once echoed with the songs of
+praise of faithful worshippers, wherein were celebrated the divine
+mysteries, and organs pealed forth celestial music, but now forsaken,
+desecrated, ruined, forgotten.
+
+        The altar has vanished, the rood screen flown,
+        Foundation and buttress are ivy-grown;
+        The arches are shattered, the roof has gone,
+        The mullions are mouldering one by one;
+        Foxglove and cow-grass and waving weed
+        Grow over the scrolls where you once could read
+        Benedicite.
+
+Many of them have been used as quarries, and only a few stones remain
+to mark the spot where once stood a holy house of God. Before the
+Reformation the land must have teemed with churches. I know not the
+exact number of monastic houses once existing in England. There must
+have been at least a thousand, and each had its church. Each parish
+had a church. Besides these were the cathedrals, chantry chapels,
+chapels attached to the mansions, castles, and manor-houses of the
+lords and squires, to almshouses and hospitals, pilgrim churches by
+the roadside, where bands of pilgrims would halt and pay their
+devotions ere they passed along to the shrine of St. Thomas at
+Canterbury or to Our Lady at Walsingham. When chantries and guilds as
+well as monasteries were suppressed, their chapels were no longer used
+for divine service; some of the monastic churches became cathedrals or
+parish churches, but most of them were pillaged, desecrated, and
+destroyed. When pilgrimages were declared to be "fond things vainly
+invented," and the pilgrim bands ceased to travel along the pilgrim
+way, the wayside chapel fell into decay, or was turned into a barn or
+stable.
+
+It is all very sad and deplorable. But the roll of abandoned shrines
+is not complete. At the present day many old churches are vanishing.
+Some have been abandoned or pulled down because they were deemed too
+near to the squire's house, and a new church erected at a more
+respectful distance. "Restoration" has doomed many to destruction. Not
+long ago the new scheme for supplying Liverpool with water
+necessitated the converting of a Welsh valley into a huge reservoir
+and the consequent destruction of churches and villages. A new scheme
+for supplying London with water has been mooted, and would entail the
+damming up of a river at the end of a valley and the overwhelming of
+several prosperous old villages and churches which have stood there
+for centuries. The destruction of churches in London on account of the
+value of their site and the migration of the population, westward and
+eastward, has been frequently deplored. With the exception of All
+Hallows, Barking; St. Andrew's Undershaft; St. Catherine Cree; St.
+Dunstan's, Stepney; St. Giles', Cripplegate; All Hallows, Staining;
+St. James's, Aldgate; St. Sepulchre's; St. Mary Woolnoth; all the old
+City churches were destroyed by the Great Fire, and some of the above
+were damaged and repaired. "Destroyed by the Great Fire, rebuilt by
+Wren," is the story of most of the City churches of London. To him
+fell the task of rebuilding the fallen edifices. Well did he
+accomplish his task. He had no one to guide him; no school of artists
+or craftsmen to help him in the detail of his buildings; no great
+principles of architecture to direct him. But he triumphed over all
+obstacles and devised a style of his own that was well suitable for
+the requirements of the time and climate and for the form of worship
+of the English National Church. And how have we treated the buildings
+which his genius devised for us? Eighteen of his beautiful buildings
+have already been destroyed, and fourteen of these since the passing
+of the Union of City Benefices Act in 1860 have succumbed. With the
+utmost difficulty vehement attacks on others have been warded off, and
+no one can tell how long they will remain. Here is a very sad and
+deplorable instance of the vanishing of English architectural
+treasures. While we deplore the destructive tendencies of our
+ancestors we have need to be ashamed of our own.
+
+We will glance at some of these deserted shrines on the sites where
+formerly they stood. The Rev. Gilbert Twenlow Royds, Rector of
+Haughton and Rural Dean of Stafford, records three of these in his
+neighbourhood, and shall describe them in his own words:--
+
+  "On the main road to Stafford, in a field at the top of Billington
+  Hill, a little to the left of the road, there once stood a chapel.
+  The field is still known as Chapel Hill; but not a vestige of the
+  building survives; no doubt the foundations were grubbed up for
+  ploughing purposes. In a State paper, describing 'The State of the
+  Church in Staffs, in 1586,' we find the following entry:
+  'Billington Chappell; reader, a husbandman; pension 16 groats; no
+  preacher.' This is under the heading of Bradeley, in which parish
+  it stood. I have made a wide search for information as to the
+  dates of the building and destruction of this chapel. Only one
+  solitary note has come to my knowledge. In Mazzinghi's _History of
+  Castle Church_ he writes: 'Mention is made of Thomas Salt the son
+  of Richard Salt and C(lem)ance his wife as Christened at
+  Billington Chapel in 1600.' Local tradition says that within the
+  memory of the last generation stones were carted from this site to
+  build the churchyard wall of Bradley Church. I have noticed
+  several re-used stones; but perhaps if that wall were to be more
+  closely examined or pulled down, some further history might
+  disclose itself. Knowing that some of the stones were said to be
+  in a garden on the opposite side of the road, I asked permission
+  to investigate. This was most kindly granted, and I was told that
+  there was a stone 'with some writing on it' in a wall. No doubt we
+  had the fragment of a gravestone! and such it proved to be. With
+  some difficulty we got the stone out of the wall; and, being an
+  expert in palæography, I was able to decipher the inscription. It
+  ran as follows: 'FURy. Died Feb. 28, 1864.' A skilled antiquary
+  would probably pronounce it to be the headstone of a favourite
+  dog's grave; and I am inclined to think that we have here a not
+  unformidable rival of the celebrated
+
+              +
+           BIL ST
+             UM
+            PS HI
+             S.M.
+             ARK
+
+  of the _Pickwick Papers_.
+
+  "Yet another vanished chapel, of which I have even less to tell
+  you. On the right-hand side of the railway line running towards
+  Stafford, a little beyond Stallbrook Crossing, there is a field
+  known as Chapel Field. But there is nothing but the name left.
+  From ancient documents I have learnt that a chapel once stood
+  there, known as Derrington Chapel (I think in the thirteenth
+  century), in Seighford parish, but served from Ranton Priory. In
+  1847 my father built a beautiful little church at Derrington, in
+  the Geometrical Decorated style, but not on the Chapel Field. I
+  cannot tell you what an immense source of satisfaction it would be
+  to me if I could gather some further reliable information as to
+  the history, style, and annihilation of these two vanished
+  chapels. It is unspeakably sad to be forced to realize that in so
+  many of our country parishes no records exist of things and events
+  of surpassing interest in their histories.
+
+  "I take you now to where there is something a little more
+  tangible. There stand in the park of Creswell Hall, near Stafford,
+  the ruins of a little thirteenth-century chapel. I will describe
+  what is left. I may say that some twenty years ago I made certain
+  excavations, which showed the ground plan to be still complete. So
+  far as I remember, we found a chamfered plinth all round the nave,
+  with a west doorway. The chancel and nave are of the same width,
+  the chancel measuring about 21 ft. long and the nave _c._ 33 ft.
+  The ground now again covers much of what we found. The remains
+  above ground are those of the chancel only. Large portions of the
+  east and north walls remain, and a small part of the south wall.
+  The north wall is still _c._ 12 ft. high, and contains two narrow
+  lancets, quite perfect. The east wall reaches _c._ 15 ft., and has
+  a good base-mould. It contains the opening, without the head, of a
+  three-light window, with simply moulded jambs, and the glass-line
+  remaining. A string-course under the window runs round the angle
+  buttresses, or rather did so run, for I think the north buttress
+  has been rebuilt, and without the string. The south buttress is
+  complete up to two weatherings, and has two strings round it. It
+  is a picturesque and valuable ruin, and well worth a visit. It is
+  amusing to notice that Creswell now calls itself a rectory, and an
+  open-air service is held annually within its walls. It was a
+  pre-bend of S. Mary's, Stafford, and previously a Free Chapel, the
+  advowson belonging to the Lord of the Manor; and it was sometimes
+  supplied with preachers from Ranton Priory. Of the story of its
+  destruction I can discover nothing. It is now carefully preserved
+  and, I have heard it suggested that it might some day be rebuilt
+  to meet the spiritual needs of its neighbourhood.
+
+  "We pass now to the most stately and beautiful object in this
+  neighbourhood. I mean the tower of Ranton Priory Church. It is
+  always known here as Ranton Abbey. But it has no right to the
+  title. It was an off-shoot of Haughmond Abbey, near Shrewsbury,
+  and was a Priory of Black Canons, founded _temp._ Henry II. The
+  church has disappeared entirely, with the exception of a bit of
+  the south-west walling of the nave and a Norman doorway in it.
+  This may have connected the church with the domestic buildings. In
+  Cough's Collection in the Bodleian, dated 1731, there is a sketch
+  of the church. What is shown there is a simple parallelogram, with
+  the usual high walls, in Transition-Norman style, with flat
+  pilaster buttresses, two strings running round the walls, the
+  upper one forming the dripstones of lancet windows, a corbel-table
+  supporting the eaves-course, and a north-east priest's door. But
+  whatever the church may have been (and the sketch represents it as
+  being of severe simplicity), some one built on to it a west tower
+  of great magnificence. It is of early Perpendicular date,
+  practically uninjured, the pinnacles only being absent, though,
+  happily, the stumps of these remain. Its proportion appears to me
+  to be absolutely perfect, and its detail so good that I think you
+  would have to travel far to find its rival. There is a very
+  interesting point to notice in the beautiful west doorway. It will
+  be seen that the masonry of the lower parts of its jambs is quite
+  different from that of the upper parts, and there can, I think, be
+  no doubt that these lower stones have been re-used from a
+  thirteenth-century doorway of some other part of the buildings.
+  There is a tradition that the bells of Gnosall Church were taken
+  from this tower. I can find no confirmation of this, and I cannot
+  believe it. For the church at Gnosall is of earlier date and
+  greater magnificence than that of Ranton Priory, and was, I
+  imagine, quite capable of having bells of its own."
+
+It would be an advantage to archæology if every one were such a
+careful and accurate observer of local antiquarian remains as the
+Rural Dean of Stafford. Wherever we go we find similar deserted and
+abandoned shrines. In Derbyshire alone there are over a hundred
+destroyed or disused churches, of which Dr. Cox, the leading authority
+on the subject, has published a list. Nottinghamshire abounds in
+instances of the same kind. As late as 1892 the church at Colston
+Bassett was deliberately turned into a ruin. There are only mounds and a
+few stones to show the site of the parish church of Thorpe-in-the-fields,
+which in the seventeenth century was actually used as a beer-shop. In
+the fields between Elston and East Stoke is a disused church with a
+south Norman doorway. The old parochial chapel of Aslacton was long
+desecrated, and used in comparatively recent days as a beer-shop. The
+remains of it have, happily, been reclaimed, and now serve as a
+mission-room. East Anglia, famous for its grand churches, has to mourn
+over many which have been lost, many that are left roofless and
+ivy-clad, and some ruined indeed, though some fragment has been made
+secure enough for the holding of divine service. Whitling has a
+roofless church with a round Norman tower. The early Norman church of
+St. Mary at Kirby Bedon has been allowed to fall into decay, and for
+nearly two hundred years has been ruinous. St. Saviour's Church,
+Surlingham, was pulled down at the beginning of the eighteenth century
+on the ground that one church in the village was sufficient for its
+spiritual wants, and its materials served to mend roads.
+
+A strange reason has been given for the destruction of several of
+these East Anglian churches. In Norfolk there were many recusants,
+members of old Roman Catholic families, who refused in the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries to obey the law requiring them to attend
+their parish church. But if their church were in ruins no service
+could be held, and therefore they could not be compelled to attend.
+Hence in many cases the churches were deliberately reduced to a
+ruinous state. Bowthorpe was one of these unfortunate churches which
+met its fate in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It stands in a
+farm-yard, and the nave made an excellent barn and the steeple a
+dovecote. The lord of the manor was ordered to restore it at the
+beginning of the seventeenth century. This he did, and for a time it
+was used for divine service. Now it is deserted and roofless, and
+sleeps placidly girt by a surrounding wall, a lonely shrine. The
+church of St. Peter, Hungate, at Norwich, is of great historical
+interest and contains good architectural features, including a very
+fine roof. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century by John Paston and
+Margaret, his wife, whose letters form part of that extraordinary
+series of medieval correspondence which throws so much light upon the
+social life of the period. The church has a rudely carved record of
+their work outside the north door. This unhappy church has fallen into
+disuse, and it has been proposed to follow the example of the London
+citizens to unite the benefice with another and to destroy the
+building. Thanks to the energy and zeal of His Highness Prince
+Frederick Duleep Singh, delay in carrying out the work of destruction
+has been secured, and we trust that his efforts to save the building
+will be crowned with the success they deserve.
+
+Not far from Norwich are the churches of Keswick and Intwood. Before
+1600 A.D. the latter was deserted and desecrated, being used for a
+sheep-fold, and the people attended service at Keswick. Then Intwood
+was restored to its sacred uses, and poor Keswick church was compelled
+to furnish materials for its repair. Keswick remained ruinous until a
+few years ago, when part of it was restored and used as a cemetery
+chapel. Ringstead has two ruined churches, St. Andrew's and St.
+Peter's. Only the tower of the latter remains. Roudham church two
+hundred years ago was a grand building, as its remains plainly
+testify. It had a thatched roof, which was fired by a careless
+thatcher, and has remained roofless to this day. Few are acquainted
+with the ancient hamlet of Liscombe, situated in a beautiful Dorset
+valley. It now consists of only one or two houses, a little Norman
+church, and an old monastic barn. The little church is built of flint,
+stone, and large blocks of hard chalk, and consists of a chancel and
+nave divided by a Transition-Norman arch with massive rounded columns.
+There are Norman windows in the chancel, with some later work
+inserted. A fine niche, eight feet high, with a crocketed canopy,
+stood at the north-east corner of the chancel, but has disappeared.
+The windows of the nave and the west doorway have perished. It has
+been for a long time desecrated. The nave is used as a bakehouse.
+There is a large open grate, oven, and chimney in the centre, and the
+chancel is a storehouse for logs. The upper part of the building has
+been converted into an upper storey and divided into bedrooms, which
+have broken-down ceilings. The roof is of thatch. Modern windows and a
+door have been inserted. It is a deplorable instance of terrible
+desecration.
+
+The growth of ivy unchecked has caused many a ruin. The roof of the
+nave and south aisle of the venerable church of Chingford, Essex, fell
+a few years ago entirely owing to the destructive ivy which was
+allowed to work its relentless will on the beams, tiles, and rafters
+of this ancient structure.
+
+Besides those we have mentioned there are about sixty other ruined
+churches in Norfolk, and in Suffolk many others, including the
+magnificent ruins of Covehithe, Flixton, Hopton, which was destroyed
+only forty-four years ago through the burning of its thatched roof,
+and the Old Minster, South Elmham.
+
+Attempts have been made by the National Trust and the Society for the
+Protection of Ancient Buildings to save Kirkstead Chapel, near
+Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire. It is one of the very few surviving
+examples of the _capella extra portas_, which was a feature of every
+Cistercian abbey, where women and other persons who were not allowed
+within the gates could hear Mass. The abbey was founded in 1139, and
+the chapel, which is private property, is one of the finest examples
+of Early English architecture remaining in the country. It is in a
+very decaying condition. The owner has been approached, and the
+officials of the above societies have tried to persuade him to repair
+it himself or to allow them to do so. But these negotiations have
+hitherto failed. It is very deplorable when the owners of historic
+buildings should act in this "dog-in-the-manger" fashion, and surely
+the time has come when the Government should have power to
+compulsorily acquire such historic monuments when their natural
+protectors prove themselves to be incapable or unwilling to preserve
+and save them from destruction.
+
+We turn from this sorry page of wilful neglect to one that records the
+grand achievement of modern antiquaries, the rescue and restoration of
+the beautiful specimen of Saxon architecture, the little chapel of St.
+Lawrence at Bradford-on-Avon. Until 1856 its existence was entirely
+unknown, and the credit of its discovery was due to the Rev. Canon
+Jones, Vicar of Bradford. At the Reformation with the dissolution of
+the abbey at Shaftesbury it had passed into lay hands. The chancel was
+used as a cottage. Round its walls other cottages arose. Perhaps part
+of the building was at one time used as a charnel-house, as in an old
+deed it is called the Skull House. In 1715 the nave and porch were
+given to the vicar to be used as a school. But no one suspected the
+presence of this exquisite gem of Anglo-Saxon architecture, until
+Canon Jones when surveying the town from the height of a neighbouring
+hill recognized the peculiarity of the roof and thought that it might
+indicate the existence of a church. Thirty-seven years ago the
+Wiltshire antiquaries succeeded in purchasing the building. They
+cleared away the buildings, chimney-stacks, and outhouses that had
+grown up around it, and revealed the whole beauties of this lovely
+shrine. Archæologists have fought many battles over it as to its date.
+Some contend that it is the identical church which William of
+Malmesbury tells us St. Aldhelm built at Bradford-on-Avon about 700
+A.D., others assert that it cannot be earlier than the tenth century.
+It was a monastic cell attached to the Abbey of Malmesbury, but
+Ethelred II gave it to the Abbess of Shaftesbury in 1001 as a secure
+retreat for her nuns if Shaftesbury should be threatened by the
+ravaging Danes. We need not describe the building, as it is well
+known. Our artist has furnished us with an admirable illustration of
+it. Its great height, its characteristic narrow Saxon doorways, heavy
+plain imposts, the string-courses surrounding the building, the
+arcades of pilasters, the carved figures of angels are some of its
+most important features. It is cheering to find that amid so much that
+has vanished we have here at Bradford a complete Saxon church that
+differs very little from what it was when it was first erected.
+
+[Illustration: Saxon Doorway in St. Lawrence's Church,
+Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts.]
+
+Other Saxon remains are not wanting. Wilfrid's Crypt at Hexham, that
+at Ripon, Brixworth Church, the church within the precincts of Dover
+Castle, the towers of Barnack, Barton-upon-Humber, Stow, Earl's
+Barton, Sompting, Stanton Lacy show considerable evidences of Saxon
+work. Saxon windows with their peculiar baluster shafts can be seen at
+Bolam and Billingham, Durham; St. Andrew's, Bywell, Monkwearmouth,
+Ovington, Sompting, St. Mary Junior, York, Hornby, Wickham (Berks),
+Waithe, Holton-le-Clay, Glentworth and Clee (Lincoln), Northleigh,
+Oxon, and St. Alban's Abbey. Saxon arches exist at Worth, Corhampton,
+Escomb, Deerhurst, St. Benet's, Cambridge, Brigstock, and Barnack.
+Triangular arches remain at Brigstock, Barnack, Deerhurst, Aston
+Tirrold, Berks. We have still some Saxon fonts at Potterne, Wilts;
+Little Billing, Northants; Edgmond and Bucknell, Shropshire; Penmon,
+Anglesey; and South Hayling, Hants. Even Saxon sundials exist at
+Winchester, Corhampton, Bishopstone, Escomb, Aldborough, Edston, and
+Kirkdale. There is also one at Daglingworth, Gloucestershire. Some
+hours of the Saxon's day in that village must have fled more swiftly
+than others, as all the radii are placed at the same angle. Even some
+mural paintings by Saxon artists exist at St. Mary's, Guildford; St.
+Martin's, Canterbury; and faint traces at Britford, Headbourne,
+Worthing, and St. Nicholas, Ipswich, and some painted consecration
+crosses are believed to belong to this period.
+
+Recent investigations have revealed much Saxon work in our churches,
+the existence of which had before been unsuspected. Many circumstances
+have combined to obliterate it. The Danish wars had a disastrous
+effect on many churches reared in Saxon times. The Norman Conquest
+caused many of them to be replaced by more highly finished structures.
+But frequently, as we study the history written in the stonework of
+our churches, we find beneath coatings of stucco the actual walls
+built by Saxon builders, and an arch here, a column there, which link
+our own times with the distant past, when England was divided into
+eight kingdoms and when Danegelt was levied to buy off the marauding
+strangers.
+
+It is refreshing to find these specimens of early work in our
+churches. Since then what destruction has been wrought, what havoc
+done upon their fabric and furniture! At the Reformation iconoclasm
+raged with unpitying ferocity. Everybody from the King to the
+churchwardens, who sold church plate lest it should fall into the
+hands of the royal commissioners, seems to have been engaged in
+pillaging churches and monasteries. The plunder of chantries and
+guilds followed. Fuller quaintly describes this as "the last dish of
+the course, and after cheese nothing is to be expected." But the
+coping-stone was placed on the vast fabric of spoliation by sending
+commissioners to visit all the cathedrals and parish churches, and
+seize the superfluous plate and ornaments for the King's use. Even
+quite small churches possessed many treasures which the piety of many
+generations had bestowed upon them.
+
+There is a little village in Berkshire called Boxford, quite a small
+place. Here is the list of church goods which the commissioners found
+there, and which had escaped previous ravages:--
+
+  "One challice, a cross of copper & gilt, another cross of timber
+  covered with brass, one cope of blue velvet embroidered with
+  images of angles, one vestment of the same suit with an albe of
+  Lockeram,[22] two vestments of Dornexe,[23] and three other very
+  old, two old & coarse albes of Lockeram, two old copes of Dornexe,
+  iiij altar cloths of linen cloth, two corporals with two cases
+  whereof one is embroidered, two surplices, & one rochet, one bible
+  & the paraphrases of Erasmus in English, seven banners of lockeram
+  & one streamer all painted, three front cloths for altars whereof
+  one of them is with panes of white damask & black satin, & the
+  other two of old vestments, two towels of linen, iiij candlesticks
+  of latten[24] & two standertes[25] before the high altar of
+  latten, a lent vail[26] before the high altar with panes blue and
+  white, two candlesticks of latten and five branches, a peace,[27]
+  three great bells with one saunce bell xx, one canopy of cloth, a
+  covering of Dornixe for the Sepulchre, two cruets of pewter, a
+  holy-water pot of latten, a linen cloth to draw before the rood.
+  And all the said parcels safely to be kept & preserved, & all the
+  same & every parcel thereof to be forthcoming at all times when it
+  shall be of them [the churchwardens] required."
+
+  [22] A fine linen cloth made in Brittany (cf. _Coriolanus_, Act
+  ii. sc. 1).
+
+  [23] A rich sort of stuff interwoven with gold and silver, made at
+  Tournay, which was formerly called Dorneck, in Flanders.
+
+  [24] An alloy of copper and zinc.
+
+  [25] Large standard candlesticks.
+
+  [26] The Lent cloth, hung before the altar during Lent.
+
+  [27] A Pax.
+
+This inventory of the goods of one small church enables us to judge of
+the wealth of our country churches before they were despoiled. Of
+private spoliators their name was legion. The arch-spoliator was
+Protector Somerset, the King's uncle, Edward Seymour, formerly Earl of
+Hertford and then created Duke of Somerset. He ruled England for three
+years after King Henry's death. He was a glaring and unblushing
+church-robber, setting an example which others were only too ready to
+follow. Canon Overton[28] tells how Somerset House remains as a
+standing memorial of his rapacity. In order to provide materials for
+building it he pulled down the church of St. Mary-le-Strand and three
+bishops' houses, and was proceeding also to pull down the historical
+church of St. Margaret, Westminster; but public opinion was too strong
+against him, the parishioners rose and beat off his workmen, and he
+was forced to desist, and content himself with violating and
+plundering the precincts of St. Paul's. Moreover, the steeple and most
+of the church of St. John of Jerusalem, Smithfield, were mined and
+blown up with gunpowder that the materials might be utilized for the
+ducal mansion in the Strand. He turned Glastonbury, with all its
+associations dating from the earliest introduction of Christianity
+into our island, into a worsted manufactory, managed by French
+Protestants. Under his auspices the splendid college of St.
+Martin-le-Grand in London was converted into a tavern, and St.
+Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, served the scarcely less incongruous
+purpose of a Parliament House. All this he did, and when his
+well-earned fall came the Church fared no better under his successor,
+John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and afterwards Duke of Northumberland.
+
+  [28] _History of the Church in England_, p. 401.
+
+Another wretch was Robert, Earl of Sussex, to whom the King gave the
+choir of Atleburgh, in Norfolk, because it belonged to a college.
+"Being of a covetous disposition, he not only pulled down and spoiled
+the chancel, but also pulled up many fair marble gravestones of his
+ancestors with monuments of brass upon them, and other fair good
+pavements, and carried them and laid them for his hall, kitchen, and
+larder-house." The church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, has many
+monumental stones, the brasses of which were in 1551 sent to London to
+be cast into weights and measures for the use of the town. The shops
+of the artists in brass in London were full of broken brass memorials
+torn from tombs. Hence arose the making of palimpsest brasses, the
+carvers using an old brass and on the reverse side cutting a memorial
+of a more recently deceased person.
+
+After all this iconoclasm, spoliation, and robbery it is surprising
+that anything of value should have been left in our churches. But
+happily some treasures escaped, and the gifts of two or three
+generations added others. Thus I find from the will of a good
+gentleman, Mr. Edward Ball, that after the spoliation of Barkham
+Church he left the sum of five shillings for the providing of a
+processional cross to be borne before the choir in that church, and I
+expect that he gave us our beautiful Elizabethan chalice of the date
+1561. The Church had scarcely recovered from its spoliation before
+another era of devastation and robbery ensued. During the Cromwellian
+period much destruction was wrought by mad zealots of the Puritan
+faction. One of these men and his doings are mentioned by Dr. Berwick
+in his _Querela Cantabrigiensis_:--
+
+  "One who calls himself John [it should be William] Dowsing and by
+  Virtue of a pretended Commission, goes about y^{e} country like a
+  Bedlam, breaking glasse windows, having battered and beaten downe
+  all our painted glasses, not only in our Chappels, but (contrary
+  to order) in our Publique Schools, Colledge Halls, Libraries, and
+  Chambers, mistaking, perhaps, y^{e} liberall Artes for Saints
+  (which they intend in time to pull down too) and having (against
+  an order) defaced and digged up y^{e} floors of our Chappels, many
+  of which had lien so for two or three hundred years together, not
+  regarding y^{e} dust of our founders and predecessors who likely
+  were buried there; compelled us by armed Souldiers to pay forty
+  shillings a Colledge for not mending what he had spoyled and
+  defaced, or forth with to goe to prison."
+
+We meet with the sad doings of this wretch Dowsing in various places
+in East Anglia. He left his hideous mark on many a fair church. Thus
+the churchwardens of Walberswick, in Suffolk, record in their
+accounts:--
+
+  "1644, April 8th, paid to Martin Dowson, that came with the
+  troopers to our church, about the taking down of Images and
+  Brasses off Stones 6 0."
+
+  "1644 paid that day to others for taking up the brasses of grave
+  stones before the officer Dowson came 1 0."
+
+[Illustration: St. George's Church, Great Yarmouth]
+
+The record of the ecclesiastical exploits of William Dowsing has been
+preserved by the wretch himself in a diary which he kept. It was
+published in 1786, and the volume provides much curious reading. With
+reference to the church of Toffe he says:--
+
+  "Will: Disborugh Church Warden Richard Basly and John Newman
+  Cunstable, 27 Superstitious pictures in glass and ten other in
+  stone, three brass inscriptions, Pray for y^{e} Soules, and a
+  Cross to be taken of the Steeple (6s. 8d.) and there was divers
+  Orate pro Animabus in ye windows, and on a Bell, Ora pro Anima
+  Sanctæ Catharinæ."
+
+  "_Trinity Parish, Cambridge_, M. Frog, Churchwarden, December 25,
+  we brake down 80 Popish pictures, and one of Christ and God y^{e}
+  Father above."
+
+  "At _Clare_ we brake down 1000 pictures superstitious."
+
+  "_Cochie_, there were divers pictures in the Windows which we
+  could not reach, neither would they help us to raise the ladders."
+
+  "1643, Jan^{y} 1, Edwards parish, we digged up the steps, and
+  brake down 40 pictures, and took off ten superstitious
+  inscriptions."
+
+It is terrible to read these records, and to imagine all the beautiful
+works of art that this ignorant wretch ruthlessly destroyed. To all
+the inscriptions on tombs containing the pious petition _Orate pro
+anima_--his ignorance is palpably displayed by his _Orate pro
+animabus_--he paid special attention. Well did Mr. Cole observe
+concerning the last entry in Dowsing's diary:--
+
+  "From this last Entry we may clearly see to whom we are obliged
+  for the dismantling of almost all the gravestones that had brasses
+  on them, both in town and country: a sacrilegious sanctified
+  rascal that was afraid, or too proud, to call it St. Edward's
+  Church, but not ashamed to rob the dead of their honours and the
+  Church of its ornaments. W.C."
+
+He tells also of the dreadful deeds that were being done at Lowestoft
+in 1644:--
+
+  "In the same year, also, on the 12th of June, there came one
+  Jessop, with a commission from the Earl of Manchester, to take
+  away from gravestones all inscriptions on which he found _Orate
+  pro anima_--a wretched Commissioner not able to read or find out
+  that which his commission enjoyned him to remove--he took up in
+  our Church so much brasse, as he sold to Mr. Josiah Wild for five
+  shillings, which was afterwards (contrary to my knowledge) runn
+  into the little bell that hangs in the Town-house. There were
+  taken up in the Middle Ayl twelve pieces belonging to twelve
+  generations of the Jettours."
+
+The same scenes were being enacted in many parts of England.
+Everywhere ignorant commissioners were rampaging about the country
+imitating the ignorant ferocity of this Dowsing and Jessop. No wonder
+our churches were bare, pillaged, and ruinated. Moreover, the
+conception of art and the taste for architecture were dead or dying,
+and there was no one who could replace the beautiful objects which
+these wretches destroyed or repair the desolation they had caused.
+
+Another era of spoliation set in in more recent times, when the
+restorers came with vitiated taste and the worst ideals to reconstruct
+and renovate our churches which time, spoliation, and carelessness had
+left somewhat the worse for wear. The Oxford Movement taught men to
+bestow more care upon the houses of God in the land, to promote His
+honour by more reverent worship, and to restore the beauty of His
+sanctuary. A rector found his church in a dilapidated state and talked
+over the matter with the squire. Although the building was in a sorry
+condition, with a cracked ceiling, hideous galleries, and high pews
+like cattle-pens, it had a Norman doorway, some Early English carved
+work in the chancel, a good Perpendicular tower, and fine Decorated
+windows. These two well-meaning but ignorant men decided that a
+brand-new church would be a great improvement on this old tumble-down
+building. An architect was called in, or a local builder; the plan of
+a new church was speedily drawn, and ere long the hammers and axes
+were let loose on the old church and every vestige of antiquity
+destroyed. The old Norman font was turned out of the church, and
+either used as a cattle-trough or to hold a flower-pot in the rectory
+garden. Some of the beautifully carved stones made an excellent
+rockery in the squire's garden, and old woodwork, perchance a
+fourteenth-century rood-screen, encaustic tiles bearing the arms of
+the abbey with which in former days the church was connected,
+monuments and stained glass, are all carted away and destroyed, and
+the triumph of vandalism is complete.
+
+That is an oft-told tale which finds its counterpart in many towns and
+villages, the entire and absolute destruction of the old church by
+ignorant vandals who work endless mischief and know not what they do.
+There is the village of Little Wittenham, in our county of Berks, not
+far from Sinodun Hill, an ancient earthwork covered with trees, that
+forms so conspicuous an object to the travellers by the Great Western
+Railway from Didcot to Oxford. About forty years ago terrible things
+were done in the church of that village. The vicar was a Goth. There
+was a very beautiful chantry chapel on the south side of the choir,
+full of magnificent marble monuments to the memory of various members
+of the Dunce family. This family, once great and powerful, whose great
+house stood hard by on the north of the church--only the terraces of
+which remain--is now, it is believed, extinct. The vicar thought that
+he might be held responsible for the dilapidations of this old
+chantry; so he pulled it down, and broke all the marble tombs with
+axes and hammers. You can see the shattered remains that still show
+signs of beauty in one of the adjoining barns. Some few were set up in
+the tower, the old font became a pig-trough, the body of the church
+was entirely renewed, and vandalism reigned supreme. In our county of
+Berks there were at the beginning of the last century 170 ancient
+parish churches. Of these, thirty have been pulled down and entirely
+rebuilt, six of them on entirely new sites; one has been burnt down,
+one disused; before 1890 one hundred were restored, some of them most
+drastically, and several others have been restored since, but with
+greater respect to old work.
+
+A favourite method of "restoration" was adopted in many instances. A
+church had a Norman doorway and pillars in the nave; sundry additions
+and alterations had been made in subsequent periods, and examples of
+Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles of architecture
+were observable, with, perhaps, a Renaissance porch or other later
+feature. What did the early restorers do? They said, "This is a Norman
+church; all its details should be Norman too." So they proceeded to
+take away these later additions and imitate Norman work as much as
+they could by breaking down the Perpendicular or Decorated tracery in
+the windows and putting in large round-headed windows--their
+conception of Norman work, but far different from what any Norman
+builder would have contrived. Thus these good people entirely
+destroyed the history of the building, and caused to vanish much that
+was interesting and important. Such is the deplorable story of the
+"restoration" of many a parish church.
+
+An amusing book, entitled _Hints to Some Churchwardens, with a few
+Illustrations Relative to the Repair and Improvement of Parish
+Churches_, was published in 1825. The author, with much satire,
+depicts the "very many splendid, curious, and convenient ideas which
+have emanated from those churchwardens who have attained perfection as
+planners and architects." He apologises for not giving the names of
+these superior men and the dates of the improvements they have
+achieved, but is sure that such works as theirs must immortalize them,
+not only in their parishes, but in their counties, and, he trusts, in
+the kingdom at large. The following are some of the "hints":--
+
+  "_How to affix a porch to an old church._
+
+  "If the church is of stone, let the porch be of brick, the roof
+  slated, and the entrance to it of the improved Gothic called
+  modern, being an arch formed by an acute angle. The porch should
+  be placed so as to stop up what might be called a useless window;
+  and as it sometimes happens that there is an ancient Saxon[29]
+  entrance, let it be carefully bricked up, and perhaps plastered,
+  so as to conceal as much as possible of the zigzag ornament used
+  in buildings of this kind. Such improvements cannot fail to ensure
+  celebrity to churchwardens of future ages.
+
+  "_How to add a vestry to an old church._
+
+  "The building here proposed is to be of bright brick, with a
+  slated roof and sash windows, with a small door on one side; and
+  it is, moreover, to be adorned with a most tasty and ornamental
+  brick chimney, which terminates at the chancel end. The position
+  of the building should be against two old Gothic windows; which,
+  having the advantage of hiding them nearly altogether, when
+  contrasted with the dull and uniform surface of an old stone
+  church, has a lively and most imposing effect.
+
+  "_How to ornament the top or battlements of a tower belonging to
+  an ancient church_.
+
+  "Place on each battlement, vases, candlesticks, and pineapples
+  alternately, and the effect will be striking. Vases have many
+  votaries amongst those worthy members of society, the
+  churchwardens. Candlesticks are of ancient origin, and represent,
+  from the highest authority, the light of the churches: but as in
+  most churches weathercocks are used, I would here recommend the
+  admirers of novelty and improvement to adopt a pair of snuffers,
+  which might also be considered as a useful emblem for
+  reinvigorating the lights from the candlesticks. The pineapple
+  ornament having in so many churches been judiciously substituted
+  for Gothic, cannot fail to please. Some such ornament should also
+  be placed at the top of the church, and at the chancel end. But as
+  this publication does not restrict any churchwarden of real taste,
+  and as the ornaments here recommended are in a common way made of
+  stone, if any would wish to distinguish his year of office,
+  perhaps he would do it brilliantly by painting them all bright
+  red...."
+
+  [29] Doubtless our author means Norman.
+
+Other valuable suggestions are made in this curious and amusing work,
+such as "how to repair Quartre-feuille windows" by cutting out all
+the partitions and making them quite round; "how to adapt a new church
+to an old tower with most taste and effect," the most attractive
+features being light iron partitions instead of stone mullions for the
+windows, with shutters painted yellow, bright brick walls and slate
+roof, and a door painted sky-blue. You can best ornament a chancel by
+placing colossal figures of Moses and Aaron supporting the altar, huge
+tables of the commandments, and clusters of grapes and pomegranates in
+festoons and clusters of monuments. Vases upon pillars, the
+commandments in sky-blue, clouds carved out of wood supporting angels,
+are some of the ideas recommended. Instead of a Norman font you can
+substitute one resembling a punch-bowl,[30] with the pedestal and legs
+of a round claw table; and it would be well to rear a massive pulpit
+in the centre of the chancel arch, hung with crimson and gold lace,
+with gilt chandeliers, large sounding-board with a vase at the top. A
+stove is always necessary. It can be placed in the centre of the
+chancel, and the stove-pipe can be carried through the upper part of
+the east window, and then by an elbow conveyed to the crest of the
+roof over the window, the cross being taken down to make room for the
+chimney. Such are some of the recommendations of this ingenious
+writer, which are ably illustrated by effective drawings. They are not
+all imaginative. Many old churches tell the tragic story of their
+mutilation at the hands of a rector who has discovered Parker's
+_Glossary_, knows nothing about art, but "does know what he likes,"
+advised by his wife who has visited some of the cathedrals, and by an
+architect who has been elaborately educated in the principles of Roman
+Renaissance, but who knows no more of Lombard, Byzantine, or Gothic
+art than he does of the dynasties of ancient Egypt. When a church has
+fallen into the hands of such renovators and been heavily "restored,"
+if the ghost of one of its medieval builders came to view his work he
+would scarcely recognize it. Well says Mr. Thomas Hardy: "To restore
+the great carcases of mediævalism in the remote nooks of western
+England seems a not less incongruous act than to set about renovating
+the adjoining crags themselves," and well might he sigh over the
+destruction of the grand old tower of Endelstow Church and the
+erection of what the vicar called "a splendid tower, designed by a
+first-rate London man--in the newest style of Gothic art and full of
+Christian feeling."
+
+  [30] A china punch-bowl was actually presented by Sir T. Drake to
+  be used as a font at Woodbury, Devon.
+
+The novelist's remarks on "restoration" are most valuable:--
+
+  "Entire destruction under the saving name has been effected on so
+  gigantic a scale that the protection of structures, their being
+  kept wind and weather-proof, counts as nothing in the balance. Its
+  enormous magnitude is realized by few who have not gone personally
+  from parish to parish through a considerable district, and
+  compared existing churches there with records, traditions, and
+  memories of what they formerly were. The shifting of old windows
+  and other details irregularly spaced, and spacing them at exact
+  distances, has been one process. The deportation of the original
+  chancel arch to an obscure nook and the insertion of a wider new
+  one, to throw open the view of the choir, is a practice by no
+  means extinct. Next in turn to the re-designing of old buildings
+  and parts of them comes the devastation caused by letting
+  restorations by contract, with a clause in the specification
+  requesting the builder to give a price for 'old materials,' such
+  as the lead of the roofs, to be replaced by tiles or slates, and
+  the oak of the pews, pulpit, altar-rails, etc., to be replaced by
+  deal. Apart from these irregularities it has been a principle that
+  anything later than Henry VIII is anathema and to be cast out. At
+  Wimborne Minster fine Jacobean canopies have been removed from
+  Tudor stalls for the offence only of being Jacobean. At a hotel in
+  Cornwall a tea-garden was, and probably is still, ornamented with
+  seats constructed of the carved oak from a neighbouring church--no
+  doubt the restorer's perquisite.
+
+  "Poor places which cannot afford to pay a clerk of the works
+  suffer much in these ecclesiastical convulsions. In one case I
+  visited, as a youth, the careful repair of an interesting Early
+  English window had been specified, but it was gone. The
+  contractor, who had met me on the spot, replied genially to my
+  gaze of concern: 'Well, now, I said to myself when I looked at the
+  old thing, I won't stand upon a pound or two. I'll give 'em a new
+  winder now I am about it, and make a good job of it, howsomever.'
+  A caricature in new stone of the old window had taken its place.
+  In the same church was an old oak rood-screen in the Perpendicular
+  style with some gilding and colouring still remaining. Some
+  repairs had been specified, but I beheld in its place a new screen
+  of varnished deal. 'Well,' replied the builder, more genial than
+  ever, 'please God, now I am about it, I'll do the thing well, cost
+  what it will.' The old screen had been used up to boil the
+  work-men's kettles, though 'a were not much at that.'"
+
+Such is the terrible report of this amazing iconoclasm.
+
+Some wiseacres, the vicar and churchwardens, once determined to pull
+down their old church and build a new one. So they met in solemn
+conclave and passed the following sagacious resolutions:--
+
+    1. That a new church should be built.
+
+    2. That the materials of the old church should be used in the
+    construction of the new.
+
+    3. That the old church should not be pulled down until the new
+    one be built.
+
+How they contrived to combine the second and third resolutions history
+recordeth not.
+
+Even when the church was spared the "restorers" were guilty of strange
+enormities in the embellishment and decoration of the sacred building.
+Whitewash was vigorously applied to the walls and pews, carvings,
+pulpit, and font. If curious mural paintings adorned the walls, the
+hideous whitewash soon obliterated every trace and produced "those
+modest hues which the native appearance of the stone so pleasingly
+bestows." But whitewash has one redeeming virtue, it preserves and
+saves for future generations treasures which otherwise might have been
+destroyed. Happily all decoration of churches has not been carried out
+in the reckless fashion thus described by a friend of the writer. An
+old Cambridgeshire incumbent, who had done nothing to his church for
+many years, was bidden by the archdeacon to "brighten matters up a
+little." The whole of the woodwork wanted repainting and varnishing, a
+serious matter for a poor man. His wife, a very capable lady, took the
+matter in hand. She went to the local carpenter and wheelwright and
+bought up the whole of his stock of that particular paint with which
+farm carts and wagons are painted, coarse but serviceable, and of the
+brightest possible red, blue, green, and yellow hues. With her own
+hands she painted the whole of the interior--pulpit, pews, doors,
+etc., and probably the wooden altar, using the colours as her fancy
+dictated, or as the various colours held out. The effect was
+remarkable. A succeeding rector began at once the work of restoration,
+scraping off the paint and substituting oak varnish; but when my
+friend took a morning service for him the work had not been completed,
+and he preached from a bright green pulpit.
+
+[Illustration: Carving on Rood-screen, Alcester Church, Warwick]
+
+The contents of our parish churches, furniture and plate, are rapidly
+vanishing. England has ever been remarkable for the number and beauty
+of its rood-screens. At the Reformation the roods were destroyed and
+many screens with them, but many of the latter were retained, and
+although through neglect or wanton destruction they have ever since
+been disappearing, yet hundreds still exist.[31] Their number is,
+however, sadly decreased. In Cheshire "restoration" has removed nearly
+all examples, except Ashbury, Mobberley, Malpas, and a few others. The
+churches of Bunbury and Danbury have lost some good screen-work since
+1860. In Derbyshire screens suffered severely in the nineteenth
+century, and the records of each county show the disappearance of many
+notable examples, though happily Devonshire, Somerset, and several
+other shires still possess some beautiful specimens of medieval
+woodwork. A large number of Jacobean pulpits with their curious
+carvings have vanished. A pious donor wishes to give a new pulpit to a
+church in memory of a relative, and the old pulpit is carted away to
+make room for its modern and often inferior substitute. Old stalls and
+misericordes, seats and benches with poppy-head terminations have
+often been made to vanish, and the pillaging of our churches at the
+Reformation and during the Commonwealth period and at the hands of the
+"restorers" has done much to deprive our churches of their ancient
+furniture.
+
+  [31] _English Church Furniture_, by Dr. Cox and A. Harvey.
+
+Most churches had two or three chests or coffers for the storing of
+valuable ornaments and vestments. Each chantry had its chest or ark,
+as it was sometimes called, e.g. the collegiate church of St. Mary,
+Warwick, had in 1464, "ij old irebound coofres," "j gret olde arke to
+put in vestments," "j olde arke at the autere ende, j old coofre
+irebonde having a long lok of the olde facion, and j lasse new coofre
+having iij loks called the tresory cofre and certain almaries." "In
+the inner house j new hie almarie with ij dores to kepe in the
+evidence of the Churche and j great old arke and certain olde
+Almaries, and in the house afore the Chapter house j old irebounde
+cofre having hie feet and rings of iron in the endes thereof to heve
+it bye."
+
+  "It is almost exceptional to find any parish of five hundred
+  inhabitants which does not possess a parish chest. The parish
+  chest of the parish in which I am writing is now in the vestry of
+  the church here. It has been used for generations as a coal box.
+  It is exceptional to find anything so useful as wholesome fuel
+  inside these parish chests; their contents have in the great
+  majority of instances utterly perished, and the miserable
+  destruction of those interesting parish records testifies to the
+  almost universal neglect which they have suffered at the hands,
+  not of the parsons, who as a rule have kept with remarkable care
+  the register books for which they have always been responsible,
+  but of the churchwardens and overseers, who have let them perish
+  without a thought of their value.
+
+  "As a rule the old parish chests have fallen to pieces, or worse,
+  and their contents have been used to light the church stove,
+  except in those very few cases where the chests were furnished
+  with two or more keys, each key being of different wards from the
+  other, and each being handed over to a different functionary when
+  the time of the parish meeting came round."[32]
+
+  [32] _The Parish Councillor_, an article by Dr. Jessop, September
+  20, 1895.
+
+When the ornaments and vestments were carted away from the church in
+the time of Edward VI, many of the church chests lost their use, and
+were sold or destroyed, the poorest only being kept for registers and
+documents. Very magnificent were some of these chests which have
+survived, such as that at Icklington, Suffolk, Church Brampton,
+Northants, Rugby, Westminster Abbey, and Chichester. The old chest at
+Heckfield may have been one of those ordered in the reign of King John
+for the collection of the alms of the faithful for the fifth crusade.
+The artist, Mr. Fred Roe, has written a valuable work on chests, to
+which those who desire to know about these interesting objects can
+refer.
+
+Another much diminishing store of treasure belonging to our churches
+is the church plate. Many churches possess some old plate--perhaps a
+pre-Reformation chalice. It is worn by age, and the clergyman,
+ignorant of its value, takes it to a jeweller to be repaired. He is
+told that it is old and thin and cannot easily be repaired, and is
+offered very kindly by the jeweller in return for this old chalice a
+brand-new one with a paten added. He is delighted, and the old chalice
+finds its way to Christie's, realizes a large sum, and goes into the
+collection of some millionaire. Not long ago the Council of the
+Society of Antiquaries issued a memorandum to the bishops and
+archdeacons of the Anglican Church calling attention to the increasing
+frequency of the sale of old or obsolete church plate. This is of two
+kinds: (1) pieces of plate or other articles of a domestic character
+not especially made, nor perhaps well fitted for the service of the
+Church; (2) chalices, patens, flagons, or plate generally, made
+especially for ecclesiastical use, but now, for reasons of change of
+fashion or from the articles themselves being worn out, no longer
+desired to be used. A church possibly is in need of funds for
+restoration, and an effort is naturally made to turn such articles
+into money. The officials decide to sell any objects the church may
+have of the first kind. Thus the property of the Church of England
+finds its way abroad, and is thus lost to the nation. With regard to
+the sacred vessels of the second class, it is undignified, if not a
+desecration, that vessels of such a sacred character should be
+subjected to a sale by auction and afterwards used as table ornaments
+by collectors to whom their religious significance makes no appeal. We
+are reminded of the profanity of Belshazzar's feast.[33] It would be
+far better to place such objects for safe custody and preservation in
+some local museum. Not long ago a church in Knightsbridge was removed
+and rebuilt on another site. It had a communion cup presented by
+Archbishop Laud. Some addition was required for the new church, and it
+was proposed to sell the chalice to help in defraying the cost of this
+addition. A London dealer offered five hundred guineas for it, and
+doubtless by this time it has passed into private hands and left the
+country. This is only one instance out of many of the depletion of the
+Church of its treasures. It must not be forgotten that although the
+vicar and churchwardens are for the time being trustees of the church
+plate and furniture, yet the property really is vested in the
+parishioners. It ought not to be sold without a faculty, and the
+chancellors of dioceses ought to be extremely careful ere they allow
+such sales to take place. The learned Chancellor of Exeter very wisely
+recently refused to allow the rector of Churchstanton to sell a
+chalice of the date 1660 A.D., stating that it was painfully repugnant
+to the feelings of many Churchmen that it should be possible that a
+vessel dedicated to the most sacred service of the Church should
+figure upon the dinner-table of a collector. He quoted a case of a
+chalice which had disappeared from a church and been found afterwards
+with an inscription showing that it had been awarded as a prize at
+athletic sports. Such desecration is too deplorable for words suitable
+to describe it. If other chancellors took the same firm stand as Mr.
+Chadwyck-Healey, of Exeter, we should hear less of such alienation of
+ecclesiastical treasure.
+
+  [33] Canon F.E. Warren recently reported to the Suffolk Institute
+  of Archæology that while he was dining at a friend's house he saw
+  two chalices on the table.
+
+[Illustration: Fourteenth-century Coffer in Faversham Church, Kent
+From _Old Oak Furniture_, by Fred Roe]
+
+[Illustration: Flanders Chest in East Dereham Church, Norfolk, _temp._
+Henry VIII From _Old Oak Furniture_]
+
+Another cause of mutilation and the vanishing of objects of interest
+and beauty is the iconoclasm of visitors, especially of American
+visitors, who love our English shrines so much that they like to chip
+off bits of statuary or wood-carving to preserve as mementoes of their
+visit. The fine monuments in our churches and cathedrals are
+especially convenient to them for prey. Not long ago the best portions
+of some fine carving were ruthlessly cut and hacked away by a party of
+American visitors. The verger explained that six of the party held him
+in conversation at one end of the building while the rest did their
+deadly and nefarious work at the other. One of the most beautiful
+monuments in the country, that of the tomb of Lady Maud FitzAlan at
+Chichester, has recently been cut and chipped by these unscrupulous
+visitors. It may be difficult to prevent them from damaging such works
+of art, but it is hoped that feelings of greater reverence may grow
+which would render such vandalism impossible. All civilized persons
+would be ashamed to mutilate the statues of Greece and Rome in our
+museums. Let them realize that these monuments in our cathedrals and
+churches are just as valuable, as they are the best of English art,
+and then no sacrilegious hand would dare to injure them or deface them
+by scratching names upon them or by carrying away broken chips as
+souvenirs. Playful boys in churchyards sometimes do much mischief. In
+Shrivenham churchyard there is an ancient full-sized effigy, and two
+village urchins were recently seen amusing themselves by sliding the
+whole length of the figure. This must be a common practice of the boys
+of the village, as the effigy is worn almost to an inclined plane. A
+tradition exists that the figure represents a man who was building the
+tower and fell and was killed. Both tower and effigy are of the same
+period--Early English--and it is quite possible that the figure may be
+that of the founder of the tower, but its head-dress seems to show
+that it represents a lady. Whipping-posts and stocks are too light a
+punishment for such vandalism.
+
+The story of our vanished and vanishing churches, and of their
+vanished and vanishing contents, is indeed a sorry one. Many efforts
+are made in these days to educate the public taste, to instil into the
+minds of their custodians a due appreciation of their beauties and of
+the principles of English art and architecture, and to save and
+protect the treasures that remain. That these may be crowned with
+success is the earnest hope and endeavour of every right-minded
+Englishman.
+
+[Illustration: Reversed Rose carved on "Miserere" in Norwich
+Cathedral]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+OLD MANSIONS
+
+
+One of the most deplorable features of vanishing England is the
+gradual disappearance of its grand old manor-houses and mansions. A
+vast number still remain, we are thankful to say. We have still left
+to us Haddon and Wilton, Broughton, Penshurst, Hardwick, Welbeck,
+Bramshill, Longleat, and a host of others; but every year sees a
+diminution in their number. The great enemy they have to contend with
+is fire, and modern conveniences and luxuries, electric lighting and
+the heating apparatus, have added considerably to their danger. The
+old floors and beams are unaccustomed to these insidious wires that
+have a habit of fusing, hence we often read in the newspapers:
+"DISASTROUS FIRE--HISTORIC MANSION ENTIRELY DESTROYED." Too often not
+only is the house destroyed, but most of its valuable contents is
+devoured by the flames. Priceless pictures by Lely and Vandyke,
+miniatures of Cosway, old furniture of Chippendale and Sheraton, and
+the countless treasures which generations of cultured folk with ample
+wealth have accumulated, deeds, documents and old papers that throw
+valuable light on the manners and customs of our forefathers and on
+the history of the country, all disappear and can never be replaced. A
+great writer has likened an old house to a human heart with a life of
+its own, full of sad and sweet reminiscences. It is deplorably sad
+when the old mansion disappears in a night, and to find in the morning
+nothing but blackened walls--a grim ruin.
+
+Our forefathers were a hardy race, and did not require hot-water
+pipes and furnaces to keep them warm. Moreover, they built their
+houses so surely and so well that they scarcely needed these modern
+appliances. They constructed them with a great square courtyard, so
+that the rooms on the inside of the quadrangle were protected from the
+winds. They sang truly in those days, as in these:--
+
+        Sing heigh ho for the wind and the rain,
+        For the rain it raineth every day.
+
+[Illustration: Oak Panelling. Wainscot of Fifteenth Century, with
+addition _circa_ late Seventeenth Century, fitted on to it in angle of
+room in the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent]
+
+So they sheltered themselves from the wind and rain by having a
+courtyard or by making an E or H shaped plan for their dwelling-place.
+Moreover, they made their walls very thick in order that the winds
+should not blow or the rain beat through them. Their rooms, too, were
+panelled or hung with tapestry--famous things for making a room warm
+and cosy. We have plaster walls covered with an elegant wall-paper
+which has always a cold surface, hence the air in the room, heated by
+the fire, is chilled when it comes into contact with the cold wall and
+creates draughts. But oak panelling or woollen tapestry soon becomes
+warm, and gives back its heat to the room, making it delightfully
+comfortable and cosy.
+
+One foolish thing our forefathers did, and that was to allow the great
+beams that help to support the upper floor to go through the chimney.
+How many houses have been burnt down owing to that fatal beam! But our
+ancestors were content with a dog-grate and wood fires; they could not
+foresee the advent of the modern range and the great coal fires, or
+perhaps they would have been more careful about that beam.
+
+[Illustration: Section of Mouldings of Cornice on Panelling, the
+Church House, Goudhurst]
+
+Fire is, perhaps, the chief cause of the vanishing of old houses, but
+it is not the only cause. The craze for new fashions at the beginning
+of the last century doomed to death many a noble mansion. There seems
+to have been a positive mania for pulling down houses at that period.
+As I go over in my mind the existing great houses in this country, I
+find that by far the greater number of the old houses were wantonly
+destroyed about the years 1800-20, and new ones in the Italian or some
+other incongruous style erected in their place. Sometimes, as at
+Little Wittenham, you find the lone lorn terraces of the gardens of
+the house, but all else has disappeared. As Mr. Allan Fea says: "When
+an old landmark disappears, who does not feel a pang of regret at
+parting with something which linked us with the past? Seldom an old
+house is threatened with demolition but there is some protest, more
+perhaps from the old associations than from any particular
+architectural merit the building may have." We have many pangs of
+regret when we see such wanton destruction. The old house at Weston,
+where the Throckmortons resided when the poet Cowper lived at the
+lodge, and when leaving wrote on a window-shutter--
+
+        Farewell, dear scenes, for ever closed to me;
+        Oh! for what sorrows must I now exchange ye!
+
+may be instanced as an example of a demolished mansion. Nothing is now
+left of it but the entrance-gates and a part of the stables. It was
+pulled down in 1827. It is described as a fine mansion, possessing
+secret chambers which were occupied by Roman Catholic priests when it
+was penal to say Mass. One of these chambers was found to contain,
+when the house was pulled down, a rough bed, candlestick, remains of
+food, and a breviary. A Roman Catholic school and presbytery now
+occupy its site. It is a melancholy sight to see the "Wilderness"
+behind the house, still adorned with busts and urns, and the graves of
+favourite dogs, which still bear the epitaphs written by Cowper on Sir
+John Throckmorton's pointer and Lady Throckmorton's pet spaniel.
+"Capability Brown" laid his rude, rough hand upon the grounds, but you
+can still see the "prosed alcove" mentioned by Cowper, a wooden
+summer-house, much injured
+
+        By rural carvers, who with knives deface
+        The panels, leaving an obscure rude name.
+
+Sometimes, alas! the old house has to vanish entirely through old age.
+It cannot maintain its struggle any longer. The rain pours through the
+roof and down the insides of the walls. And the family is as decayed
+as their mansion, and has no money wherewith to defray the cost of
+reparation.
+
+[Illustration: The Wardrobe House. The Close. Salisbury. Evening.]
+
+Our artist, Mr. Fred Roe, in his search for the picturesque, had one
+sad and deplorable experience, which he shall describe in his own
+words:--
+
+  "One of the most weird and, I may add, chilling experiences in
+  connection with the decline of county families which it was my lot
+  to experience, occurred a year or two ago in a remote corner of
+  the eastern counties. I had received, through a friend, an
+  invitation to visit an old mansion before the inmates (descendants
+  of the owners in Elizabethan times) left and the contents were
+  dispersed. On a comfortless January morning, while rain and sleet
+  descended in torrents to the accompaniment of a biting wind, I
+  detrained at a small out-of-the-way station in ----folk. A
+  weather-beaten old man in a patched great-coat, with the oldest
+  and shaggiest of ponies and the smallest of governess-traps,
+  awaited my arrival. I, having wedged myself with the Jehu into
+  this miniature vehicle, was driven through some miles of muddy
+  ruts, until turning through a belt of wooded land the broken
+  outlines of an extensive dilapidated building broke into view.
+  This was ---- Hall.
+
+  "I never in my life saw anything so weirdly picturesque and
+  suggestive of the phrase 'In Chancery' as this semi-ruinous
+  mansion. Of many dates and styles of architecture, from Henry VIII
+  to George III, the whole seemed to breathe an atmosphere of
+  neglect and decay. The waves of affluence and successive rise of
+  various members of the family could be distinctly traced in the
+  enlargements and excrescences which contributed to the casual plan
+  and irregular contour of the building. At one part an addition
+  seemed to denote that the owner had acquired wealth about the time
+  of the first James, and promptly directed it to the enlargement of
+  his residence. In another a huge hall with classic brick frontage,
+  dating from the commencement of the eighteenth century, spoke of
+  an increase of affluence--probably due to agricultural
+  prosperity--followed by the dignity of a peerage. The latest
+  alterations appear to have been made during the Strawberry Hill
+  epoch, when most of the mullioned windows had been transformed to
+  suit the prevailing taste. Some of the building--a little of
+  it--seemed habitable, but in the greater part the gables were
+  tottering, the stucco frontage peeling and falling, and the
+  windows broken and shuttered. In front of this wreck of a
+  building stretched the overgrown remains of what once had been a
+  terrace, bounded by large stone globes, now moss-grown and half
+  hidden under long grass. It was the very picture of desolation and
+  proud poverty.
+
+  "We drove up to what had once been the entrance to the servants'
+  hall, for the principal doorway had long been disused, and
+  descending from the trap I was conducted to a small panelled
+  apartment, where some freshly cut logs did their best to give out
+  a certain amount of heat. Of the hospitality meted out to me that
+  day I can only hint with mournful appreciation. I was made welcome
+  with all the resources which the family had available. But the
+  place was a veritable vault, and cold and damp as such. I think
+  that this state of things had been endured so long and with such
+  haughty silence by the inmates that it had passed into a sort of
+  normal condition with them, and remained unnoticed except by
+  new-comers. A few old domestics stuck by the family in its fallen
+  fortunes, and of these one who had entered into their service some
+  quarter of a century previous waited upon us at lunch with
+  dignified ceremony. After lunch a tour of the house commenced.
+  Into this I shall not enter into in detail; many of the rooms were
+  so bare that little could be said of them, but the Great Hall, an
+  apartment modelled somewhat on the lines of the more palatial
+  Rainham, needs the pen of the author of _Lammermoor_ to describe.
+  It was a very large and lofty room in the pseudo-classic style,
+  with a fine cornice, and hung round with family portraits so
+  bleached with damp and neglect that they presented but dim and
+  ghostly presentments of their originals. I do not think a fire
+  could have been lit in this ghostly gallery for many years, and
+  some of the portraits literally sagged in their frames with
+  accumulations of rubbish which had dropped behind the canvases.
+  Many of the pictures were of no value except for their
+  associations, but I saw at least one Lely, a family group, the
+  principal figure in which was a young lady displaying too little
+  modesty and too much bosom. Another may have been a Vandyk, while
+  one or two were early works representing gallants of Elizabeth's
+  time in ruffs and feathered caps. The rest were for the most part
+  but wooden ancestors displaying curled wigs, legs which lacked
+  drawing, and high-heeled shoes. A few old cabinets remained, and a
+  glorious suite of chairs of Queen Anne's time--these, however,
+  were perishing, like the rest--from want of proper care and
+  firing.
+
+  "The kitchens, a vast range of stone-flagged apartments, spoke of
+  mighty hospitality in bygone times, containing fire-places fit to
+  roast oxen at whole, huge spits and countless hooks, the last
+  exhibiting but one dependent--the skin of the rabbit shot for
+  lunch. The atmosphere was, if possible, a trifle more penetrating
+  than that of the Great Hall, and the walls were discoloured with
+  damp.
+
+  "Upstairs, besides the bedrooms, was a little chapel with some
+  remains of Gothic carving, and a few interesting pictures of the
+  fifteenth century; a cunningly contrived priest-hole, and a long
+  gallery lined with dusty books, whither my lord used to repair on
+  rainy days. Many of the windows were darkened by creepers, and
+  over one was a flap of half-detached plaster work which hung like
+  a shroud. But, oh, the stained glass! The eighteenth-century
+  renovators had at least respected these, and quarterings and coats
+  of arms from the fifteenth century downwards were to be seen by
+  scores. What an opportunity for the genealogist with a history in
+  view, but that opportunity I fear has passed for ever. The ----
+  Hall estate was evidently mortgaged up to the hilt, and nothing
+  intervened to prevent the dispersal of these treasures, which
+  occurred some few months after my visit. Large though the building
+  was, I learned that its size was once far greater, some two-thirds
+  of the old building having been pulled down when the hall was
+  constituted in its present form. Hard by on an adjoining estate a
+  millionaire manufacturer (who owned several motor-cars) had set up
+  an establishment, but I gathered that his tastes were the reverse
+  of antiquarian, and that no effort would be made to restore the
+  old hall to its former glories and preserve such treasures as yet
+  remained intact--a golden opportunity to many people of taste with
+  leanings towards a country life. But time fled, and the ragged
+  retainer was once more at the door, so I left ---- Hall in a
+  blinding storm of rain, and took my last look at its gaunt façade,
+  carrying with me the seeds of a cold which prevented me from
+  visiting the Eastern Counties for some time to come."
+
+Some historic houses of rare beauty have only just escaped
+destruction. Such an one is the ancestral house of the Comptons,
+Compton Wynyates, a vision of colour and architectural beauty--
+
+        A Tudor-chimneyed bulk
+        Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.
+
+Owing to his extravagance and the enormous expenses of a contested
+election in 1768, Spencer, the eighth Earl of Northampton, was reduced
+to cutting down the timber on the estate, selling his furniture at
+Castle Ashby and Compton, and spending the rest of his life in
+Switzerland. He actually ordered Compton Wynyates to be pulled down,
+as he could not afford to repair it; happily the faithful steward of
+the estate, John Berrill, did not obey the order. He did his best to
+keep out the weather and to preserve the house, asserting that he was
+sure the family would return there some day. Most of the windows were
+bricked up in order to save the window-tax, and the glorious old
+building within whose walls kings and queens had been entertained
+remained bare and desolate for many years, excepting a small portion
+used as a farm-house. All honour to the old man's memory, the faithful
+servant, who thus saved his master's noble house from destruction, the
+pride of the Midlands. Its latest historian, Miss Alice Dryden,[34]
+thus describes its appearance:--
+
+  "On approaching the building by the high road, the entrance front
+  now bursts into view across a wide stretch of lawn, where formerly
+  it was shielded by buildings forming an outer court. It is indeed
+  a most glorious pile of exquisite colouring, built of small red
+  bricks widely separated by mortar, with occasional chequers of
+  blue bricks; the mouldings and facings of yellow local stone, the
+  woodwork of the two gables carved and black with age, the stone
+  slates covered with lichens and mellowed by the hand of time; the
+  whole building has an indescribable charm. The architecture, too,
+  is all irregular; towers here and there, gables of different
+  heights, any straight line embattled, few windows placed exactly
+  over others, and the whole fitly surmounted by the elaborate
+  brick chimneys of different designs, some fluted, others
+  zigzagged, others spiral, or combined spiral and fluted."
+
+  [34] _Memorials of Old Warwickshire_, edited by Miss Alice Dryden.
+
+An illustration is given of one of these chimneys which form such an
+attractive feature of the house.
+
+[Illustration: Chimney at Compton Wynyates]
+
+It is unnecessary to record the history of Compton Wynyates. The
+present owner, the Marquis of Northampton, has written an admirable
+monograph on the annals of the house of his ancestors. Its builder was
+Sir William Compton,[35] who by his valour in arms and his courtly
+ways gained the favour of Henry VIII, and was promoted to high honour
+at the Court. Dugdale states that in 1520 he obtained licence to
+impark two thousand acres at Overcompton and Nethercompton, _alias_
+Compton Vyneyats, where he built a "fair mannour house," and where he
+was visited by the King, "for over the gateway are the arms of France
+and England, under a crown, supported by the greyhound and griffin,
+and sided by the rose and the crown, probably in memory of Henry
+VIII's visit here."[36] The Comptons ever basked in the smiles of
+royalty. Henry Compton, created baron, was the favourite of Queen
+Elizabeth, and his son William succeeded in marrying the daughter of
+Sir John Spencer, richest of City merchants. All the world knows of
+his ingenious craft in carrying off the lady in a baker's basket, of
+his wife's disinheritance by the irate father, and of the subsequent
+reconciliation through the intervention of Queen Elizabeth at the
+baptism of the son of this marriage. The Comptons fought bravely for
+the King in the Civil War. Their house was captured by the enemy, and
+besieged by James Compton, Earl of Northampton, and the story of the
+fighting about the house abounds in interest, but cannot be related
+here. The building was much battered by the siege and by Cromwell's
+soldiers, who plundered the house, killed the deer in the park,
+defaced the monuments in the church, and wrought much mischief. Since
+the eighteenth-century disaster to the family it has been restored,
+and remains to this day one of the most charming homes in England.
+
+  [35] The present Marquis of Northampton in his book contends that
+  the house was mainly built in the reign of Henry VII by Edmund
+  Compton, Sir William's father, and that Sir William only enlarged
+  and added to the house. We have not space to record the arguments
+  in favour of or against this view.
+
+  [36] _The Progresses of James I_, by Nichols.
+
+[Illustration: Window-catch, Brockhall, Northants]
+
+"The greatest advantages men have by riches are to give, to build, to
+plant, and make pleasant scenes." So wrote Sir William Temple,
+diplomatist, philosopher, and true garden-lover. And many of the
+gentlemen of England seem to have been of the same mind, if we may
+judge from the number of delightful old country-houses set amid
+pleasant scenes that time and war and fire have spared to us. Macaulay
+draws a very unflattering picture of the old country squire, as of the
+parson. His untruths concerning the latter I have endeavoured to
+expose in another place.[37] The manor-houses themselves declare the
+historian's strictures to be unfounded. Is it possible that men so
+ignorant and crude could have built for themselves residences bearing
+evidence of such good taste, so full of grace and charm, and
+surrounded by such rare blendings of art and nature as are displayed
+so often in park and garden? And it is not, as a rule, in the greatest
+mansions, the vast piles erected by the great nobles of the Court,
+that we find such artistic qualities, but most often in the smaller
+manor-houses of knights and squires. Certainly many higher-cultured
+people of Macaulay's time and our own could learn a great deal from
+them of the art of making beautiful homes.
+
+  [37] _Old-time Parson_, by P.H. Ditchfield, 1908.
+
+[Illustration: Gothic Chimney, Norton St. Philip, Somerset]
+
+Holinshed, the Chronicler, writing during the third quarter of the
+sixteenth century, makes some illuminating observations on the
+increasing preference shown in his time for stone and brick buildings
+in place of timber and plaster. He wrote:--
+
+  "The ancient maners and houses of our gentlemen are yet for the
+  most part of strong timber. How beit such as be lately buylded are
+  commonly either of bricke or harde stone, their rowmes large and
+  stately, and houses of office farder distant fro their lodgings.
+  Those of the nobilitie are likewise wrought with bricke and harde
+  stone, as provision may best be made; but so magnificent and
+  stately, as the basest house of a barren doth often match with
+  some honours of princes in olde tyme: so that if ever curious
+  buylding did flourishe in Englande it is in these our dayes,
+  wherein our worckemen excel and are in maner comparable in skill
+  with old Vitruvius and Serle."
+
+He also adds the curious information that "there are olde men yet
+dwelling in the village where I remayn, which have noted three things
+to be marveylously altered in Englande within their sound
+remembrance. One is, the multitude of chimnies lately erected,
+whereas, in their young dayes there were not above two or three, if so
+many, in most uplandish townes of the realme (the religious houses and
+mannour places of their lordes alwayes excepted, and peradventure some
+great personages [parsonages]), but each one made his fire against a
+reredosse in the halle, where he dined and dressed his meate," This
+want of chimneys is noticeable in many pictures of, and previous to,
+the time of Henry VIII. A timber farm-house yet remains (or did until
+recently) near Folkestone, which shows no vestige of either chimney or
+hearth.
+
+Most of our great houses and manor-houses sprang up in the great
+Elizabethan building epoch, when the untold wealth of the monasteries
+which fell into the hands of the courtiers and favourites of the King,
+the plunder of gold-laden Spanish galleons, and the unprecedented
+prosperity in trade gave such an impulse to the erection of fine
+houses that the England of that period has been described as "one
+great stonemason's yard." The great noblemen and gentlemen of the
+Court were filled with the desire for extravagant display, and built
+such clumsy piles as Wollaton and Burghley House, importing French and
+German artisans to load them with bastard Italian Renaissance detail.
+Some of these vast structures are not very admirable with their
+distorted gables, their chaotic proportions, and their crazy
+imitations of classic orders. But the typical Elizabethan mansion,
+whose builder's means or good taste would not permit of such a
+profusion of these architectural luxuries, is unequalled in its
+combination of stateliness with homeliness, in its expression of the
+manner of life of the class for which it was built. And in the humbler
+manors and farm-houses the latter idea is even more perfectly
+expressed, for houses were affected by the new fashions in
+architecture generally in proportion to their size.
+
+[Illustration: The Moat, Crowhurst Place, Surrey]
+
+Holinshed tells of the increased use of stone or brick in his age in
+the district wherein he lived. In other parts of England, where the
+forests supplied good timber, the builders stuck to their
+half-timbered houses and brought the "black and white" style to
+perfection. Plaster was extensively used in this and subsequent ages,
+and often the whole surface of the house was covered with rough-cast,
+such as the quaint old house called Broughton Hall, near Market
+Drayton. Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, is an attractive example of the
+plastered house. The irregular roof-line, the gables, and the
+white-barred windows, and the contrast of the white walls with the
+rich green of the vines and surrounding trees combine to make a
+picture of rare beauty. Part of the house is built of stone and part
+half-timber, but a coat of thin plaster covers the stonework and makes
+it conform with the rest. To plaster over stone-work is a somewhat
+daring act, and is not architecturally correct, but the appearance of
+the house is altogether pleasing.
+
+The Elizabethan and Jacobean builder increased the height of his
+house, sometimes causing it to have three storeys, besides rooms in
+attics beneath the gabled roof. He also loved windows. "Light, more
+light," was his continued cry. Hence there is often an excess of
+windows, and Lord Bacon complained that there was no comfortable place
+to be found in these houses, "in summer by reason of the heat, or in
+winter by reason of the cold." It was a sore burden to many a
+house-owner when Charles II imposed the iniquitous window-tax, and so
+heavily did this fall upon the owners of some Elizabethan houses that
+the poorer ones were driven to the necessity of walling up some of the
+windows which their ancestors had provided with such prodigality. You
+will often see to this day bricked-up windows in many an old
+farm-house. Not every one was so cunning as the parish clerk of
+Bradford-on-Avon, Orpin, who took out the window-frames from his
+interesting little house near the church and inserted numerous small
+single-paned windows which escaped the tax.
+
+Surrey and Kent afford an unlimited field for the study of the better
+sort of houses, mansions, and manor-houses. We have already alluded to
+Hever Castle and its memories of Anne Boleyn. Then there is the
+historic Penshurst, the home of the Sidneys, haunted by the shades of
+Sir Philip, "Sacharissa," the ill-fated Algernon, and his handsome
+brother. You see their portraits on the walls, the fine gallery, and
+the hall, which reveals the exact condition of an ancient noble's hall
+in former days.
+
+[Illustration: Arms of the Gaynesfords in window, Crowhurst Place,
+Surrey]
+
+Not far away are the manors of Crittenden, Puttenden, and Crowhurst.
+This last is one of the most picturesque in Surrey, with its moat,
+across which there is a fine view of the house, its half-timber work,
+the straight uprights placed close together signifying early work, and
+the striking character of the interior. The Gaynesford family became
+lords of the manor of Crowhurst in 1337, and continued to hold it
+until 1700, a very long record. In 1903 the Place was purchased by the
+Rev. ---- Gaynesford, of Hitchin, a descendant of the family of the
+former owners. This is a rare instance of the repossession of a
+medieval residence by an ancient family after the lapse of two hundred
+years. It was built in the fifteenth century, and is a complete
+specimen of its age and style, having been unspoilt by later
+alterations and additions. The part nearer the moat is, however, a
+little later than the gables further back. The dining-room is the
+contracted remains of the great hall of Crowhurst Place, the upper
+part of which was converted into a series of bedrooms in the
+eighteenth century. We give an illustration of a very fine hinge to a
+cupboard door in one of the bedrooms, a good example of the
+blacksmith's skill. It is noticeable that the points of the linen-fold
+in the panelling of the door are undercut and project sharply. We see
+the open framed floor with moulded beams. Later on the fashion
+changed, and the builders preferred to have square-shaped beams. We
+notice the fine old panelling, the elaborate mouldings, and the fixed
+bench running along one end of the chamber, of which we give an
+illustration. The design and workmanship of this fixture show it to
+belong to the period of Henry VIII. All the work is of stout timber,
+save the fire-place. The smith's art is shown in the fine candelabrum
+and in the knocker or ring-plate, perforated with Gothic design, still
+backed with its original morocco leather. It is worthy of a sanctuary,
+and doubtless many generations of Crowhurst squires have found a very
+dear sanctuary in this grand old English home. This ring-plate is in
+one of the original bedrooms. Immense labour was often bestowed upon
+the mouldings of beams in these fifteenth-century houses. There was a
+very fine moulded beam in a farm-house in my own parish, but a recent
+restoration has, alas! covered it. We give some illustrations of the
+cornice mouldings of the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent, and of a fine
+Gothic door-head.
+
+[Illustration: Cupboard Hinge, Crowhurst Place, Surrey]
+
+It is impossible for us to traverse many shires in our search for old
+houses. But a word must be said for the priceless contents of many of
+our historic mansions and manors. These often vanish and are lost for
+ever. I have alluded to the thirst of American millionaires for these
+valuables, which causes so many of our treasures to cross the Atlantic
+and find their home in the palaces of Boston and Washington and
+elsewhere. Perhaps if our valuables must leave their old
+resting-places and go out of the country, we should prefer them to go
+to America than to any other land. Our American cousins are our
+kindred; they know how to appreciate the treasures of the land that,
+in spite of many changes, is to them their mother-country. No nation
+in the world prizes a high lineage and a family tree more than the
+Americans, and it is my privilege to receive many inquiries from
+across the Atlantic for missing links in the family pedigree, and the
+joy that a successful search yields compensates for all one's trouble.
+So if our treasures must go we should rather send them to America than
+to Germany. It is, however, distressing to see pictures taken from
+the place where they have hung for centuries and sent to Christie's,
+to see the dispersal of old libraries at Sotherby's, and the contents
+of a house, amassed by generations of cultured and wealthy folk,
+scattered to the four winds and bought up by the _nouveaux riches_.
+
+[Illustration: Fixed Bench in the Hall, Crowhurst Place, Surrey]
+
+There still remain in many old houses collections of armour that bears
+the dints of many fights. Swords, helmets, shields, lances, and other
+weapons of warfare often are seen hanging on the walls of an ancestral
+hall. The buff coats of Cromwell's soldiers, tilting-helmets, guns and
+pistols of many periods are all there, together with man-traps--the
+cruel invention of a barbarous age.
+
+[Illustration: Gothic Door-head, Goudhurst, Kent]
+
+The historic hall of Littlecote bears on its walls many suits worn
+during the Civil War by the Parliamentary troopers, and in countless
+other halls you can see specimens of armour. In churches also much
+armour has been stored. It was the custom to suspend over the tomb the
+principal arms of the departed warrior, which had previously been
+carried in the funeral procession. Shakespeare alludes to this custom
+when, in _Hamlet_, he makes Laertes say:--
+
+        His means of death, his obscure burial--
+        No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
+        No noble rite, nor formal ostentation.
+
+You can see the armour of the Black Prince over his tomb at
+Canterbury, and at Westminster the shield of Henry V that probably did
+its duty at Agincourt. Several of our churches still retain the arms
+of the heroes who lie buried beneath them, but occasionally it is not
+the actual armour but sham, counterfeit helmets and breastplates made
+for the funeral procession and hung over the monument. Much of this
+armour has been removed from churches and stored in museums. Norwich
+Museum has some good specimens, of which we give some illustrations.
+There is a knight's basinet which belongs to the time of Henry V
+(_circa_ 1415). We can compare this with the salads, which came into
+use shortly after this period, an example of which may be seen at the
+Porte d'Hal, Brussels. We also show a thirteenth-century sword, which
+was dredged up at Thorpe, and believed to have been lost in 1277, when
+King Edward I made a military progress through Suffolk and Norfolk,
+and kept his Easter at Norwich. The blade is scimitar-shaped, is
+one-edged, and has a groove at the back. We may compare this with the
+sword of the time of Edward IV now in the possession of Mr. Seymour
+Lucas. The development of riding-boots is an interesting study. We
+show a drawing of one in the possession of Mr. Ernest Crofts, R.A.,
+which was in use in the time of William III.
+
+[Illustration: Knightly Basinet (_temp._ Henry V) in Norwich Castle]
+
+[Illustration: Hilt of Thirteenth-century Sword in Norwich Museum]
+
+An illustration is given of a chapel-de-fer which reposes in the
+noble hall of Ockwells, Berkshire, much dented by use. It has
+evidently seen service. In the same hall is collected by the friends
+of the author, Sir Edward and Lady Barry, a vast store of armour and
+most interesting examples of ancient furniture worthy of the beautiful
+building in which they are placed. Ockwells Manor House is goodly to
+look upon, a perfect example of fifteenth-century residence with its
+noble hall and minstrels' gallery, its solar, kitchens, corridors, and
+gardens. Moreover, it is now owned by those who love and respect
+antiquity and its architectural beauties, and is in every respect an
+old English mansion well preserved and tenderly cared for. Yet at one
+time it was almost doomed to destruction. Not many years ago it was
+the property of a man who knew nothing of its importance. He
+threatened to pull it down or to turn the old house into a tannery.
+Our Berks Archæological Society endeavoured to raise money for its
+purchase in order to preserve it. This action helped the owner to
+realise that the house was of some commercial value. Its destruction
+was stayed, and then, happily, it was purchased by the present owners,
+who have done so much to restore its original beauties.
+
+[Illustration: "Hand-and-a-half" Sword. Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A.]
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Boot, in the possession of Ernest
+Crofts, Esq., R.A.]
+
+[Illustration: Chapel de Fer at Ockwells, Berks]
+
+Ockwells was built by Sir John Norreys about the year 1466. The chapel
+was not completed at his death in 1467, and he left money in his will
+"to the full bilding and making uppe of the Chapell with the Chambres
+ajoyng with'n my manoir of Okholt in the p'rish of Bray aforsaid not
+yet finisshed XL li." This chapel was burnt down in 1778. One of the
+most important features of the hall is the heraldic glass,
+commemorating eighteen worthies, which is of the same date as the
+house. The credit of identifying these worthies is due to Mr. Everard
+Green, Rouge Dragon, who in 1899 communicated the result of his
+researches to Viscount Dillon, President of the Society of
+Antiquaries. There are eighteen shields of arms. Two are royal and
+ensigned with royal crowns. Two are ensigned with mitres and fourteen
+with mantled helms, and of these fourteen, thirteen support a crest.
+Each achievement is placed in a separate light on an ornamental
+background composed of quarries and alternate diagonal stripes of
+white glass bordered with gold, on which the motto
+
+    Feyth-fully-serve
+
+is inscribed in black-letter. This motto is assigned by some to the
+family of Norreys and by others as that of the Royal Wardrobe. The
+quarries in each light have the same badge, namely, three golden
+distaffs, one in pale and two in saltire, banded with a golden and
+tasselled ribbon, which badge some again assign to the family of
+Norreys and others to the Royal Wardrobe. If, however, the Norreys
+arms are correctly set forth in a compartment of a door-head remaining
+in the north wall, and also in one of the windows--namely, argent a
+chevron between three ravens' heads erased sable, with a beaver for a
+dexter supporter--the second conjecture is doubtless correct.
+
+These shields represent the arms of Sir John Norreys, the builder of
+Ockwells Manor House, and of his sovereign, patrons, and kinsfolk. It
+is a _liber amicorum_ in glass, a not unpleasant way for light to come
+to us, as Mr. Everard Green pleasantly remarks. By means of heraldry
+Sir John Norreys recorded his friendships, thereby adding to the
+pleasures of memory as well as to the splendour of his great hall. His
+eye saw the shield, his memory supplied the story, and to him the
+lines of George Eliot,
+
+        O memories,
+        O Past that IS,
+
+were made possible by heraldry.
+
+The names of his friends and patrons so recorded in glass by their
+arms are: Sir Henry Beauchamp, sixth Earl of Warwick; Sir Edmund
+Beaufort, K.G.; Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI, "the dauntless
+queen of tears, who headed councils, led armies, and ruled both king
+and people"; Sir John de la Pole, K.G.; Henry VI; Sir James Butler;
+the Abbey of Abingdon; Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury from
+1450 to 1481; Sir John Norreys himself; Sir John Wenlock, of Wenlock,
+Shropshire; Sir William Lacon, of Stow, Kent, buried at Bray; the arms
+and crest of a member of the Mortimer family; Sir Richard Nanfan, of
+Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire; Sir John Norreys with his arms
+quartered with those of Alice Merbury, of Yattendon, his first wife;
+Sir John Langford, who married Sir John Norreys's granddaughter; a
+member of the De la Beche family (?); John Purye, of Thatcham, Bray,
+and Cookham; Richard Bulstrode, of Upton, Buckinghamshire, Keeper of
+the Great Wardrobe to Queen Margaret of Anjou, and afterwards
+Comptroller of the Household to Edward IV. These are the worthies
+whose arms are recorded in the windows of Ockwells. Nash gave a
+drawing of the house in his _Mansions of England in the Olden Time_,
+showing the interior of the hall, the porch and corridor, and the east
+front; and from the hospitable door is issuing a crowd of gaily
+dressed people in Elizabethan costume, such as was doubtless often
+witnessed in days of yore. It is a happy and fortunate event that this
+noble house should in its old age have found such a loving master and
+mistress, in whose family we hope it may remain for many long years.
+
+Another grand old house has just been saved by the National Trust and
+the bounty of an anonymous benefactor. This is Barrington Court, and
+is one of the finest houses in Somerset. It is situated a few miles
+east of Ilminster, in the hundred of South Petherton. Its exact age is
+uncertain, but it seems probable that it was built by Henry, Lord
+Daubeney, created Earl of Bridgewater in 1539, whose ancestors had
+owned the place since early Plantagenet times. At any rate, it appears
+to date from about the middle of the sixteenth century, and it is a
+very perfect example of the domestic architecture of that period. From
+the Daubeneys it passed successively to the Duke of Suffolk, the
+Crown, the Cliftons, the Phelips's, the Strodes; and one of this last
+family entertained the Duke of Monmouth there during his tour in the
+west in 1680. The house, which is E-shaped, with central porch and
+wings at each end, is built of the beautiful Ham Hill stone which
+abounds in the district; the colour of this stone greatly enhances the
+appearance of the house and adds to its venerable aspect. It has
+little ornamental detail, but what there is is very good, while the
+loftiness and general proportions of the building--its extent and
+solidity of masonry, and the taste and care with which every part has
+been designed and carried out, give it an air of dignity and
+importance.
+
+  "The angle buttresses to the wings and the porch rising to twisted
+  terminals are a feature surviving from mediæval times, which
+  disappeared entirely in the buildings of Stuart times. These
+  twisted terminals with cupola-like tops are also upon the gables,
+  and with the chimneys, also twisted, give a most pleasing and
+  attractive character to the structure. We may go far, indeed,
+  before we find another house of stone so lightly and gracefully
+  adorned, and the detail of the mullioned windows with their arched
+  heads, in every light, and their water-tables above, is admirable.
+  The porch also has a fine Tudor arch, which might form the
+  entrance to some college quadrangle, and there are rooms above and
+  gables on either hand. The whole structure breathes the spirit of
+  the Tudor age, before the classic spirit had exercised any marked
+  influence upon our national architecture, while the details of the
+  carving are almost as rich as is the moulded and sculptured work
+  in the brick houses of East Anglia. The features in other parts of
+  the exterior are all equally good, and we may certainly say of
+  Barrington Court that it occupies a most notable place in the
+  domestic architecture of England. It is also worthy of remark that
+  such houses as this are far rarer than those of Jacobean
+  times."[38]
+
+  [38] _Country Life_, September 17th, 1904.
+
+But Barrington Court has fallen on evil days; one half of the house
+only is now habitable, the rest having been completely gutted about
+eighty years ago. The great hall is used as a cider store, the
+wainscoting has been ruthlessly removed, and there have even been
+recent suggestions of moving the whole structure across England and
+re-erecting it in a strange county. It has several times changed hands
+in recent years, and under these circumstances it is not surprising
+that but little has been done to ensure the preservation of what is
+indeed an architectural gem. But the walls are in excellent condition
+and the roofs fairly sound. The National Trust, like an angel of
+mercy, has spread its protecting wings over the building; friends have
+been found to succour the Court in its old age; and there is every
+reason to hope that its evil days are past, and that it may remain
+standing for many generations.
+
+[Illustration: Tudor Dresser Table, in the possession of Sir Alfred
+Dryden, Canon's Ashby, Northants]
+
+The wealth of treasure to be found in many country houses is indeed
+enormous. In Holinshed's _Chronicle of Englande, Scotlande and
+Irelande_, published in 1577, there is a chapter on the "maner of
+buylding and furniture of our Houses," wherein is recorded the
+costliness of the stores of plate and tapestry that were found in the
+dwellings of nobility and gentry and also in farm-houses, and even in
+the homes of "inferior artificers." Verily the spoils of the
+monasteries and churches must have been fairly evenly divided. These
+are his words:--
+
+  "The furniture of our houses also exceedeth, and is growne in
+  maner even to passing delicacie; and herein I do not speake of the
+  nobilitie and gentrie onely, but even of the lowest sorte that
+  have anything to take to. Certes in noble men's houses it is not
+  rare to see abundance of array, riche hangings of tapestry, silver
+  vessell, and so much other plate as may furnish sundrie cupbordes
+  to the summe ofte times of a thousand or two thousand pounde at
+  the leaste; wherby the value of this and the reast of their stuffe
+  doth grow to be inestimable. Likewise in the houses of knightes,
+  gentlemen, marchauntmen, and other wealthie citizens, it is not
+  geson to beholde generallye their great provision of tapestrie
+  Turkye worke, _pewter_, _brasse_, fine linen, and thereto costly
+  cupbords of plate woorth five or six hundred pounde, to be demed
+  by estimation. But as herein all these sortes doe farre exceede
+  their elders and predecessours, so in tyme past the costly
+  furniture _stayed there_, whereas now it is descended yet lower,
+  even unto the inferior artificiers and most fermers[39] who have
+  learned to garnish also their cupbordes with plate, their beddes
+  with tapestrie and silk hanginges, and their table with fine
+  naperie whereby the wealth of our countrie doth infinitely
+  appeare...."
+
+  [39] Farmers.
+
+Much of this wealth has, of course, been scattered. Time, poverty,
+war, the rise and fall of families, have caused the dispersion of
+these treasures. Sometimes you find valuable old prints or china in
+obscure and unlikely places. A friend of the writer, overtaken by a
+storm, sought shelter in a lone Welsh cottage. She admired and bought
+a rather curious jug. It turned out to be a somewhat rare and valuable
+ware, and a sketch of it has since been reproduced in the _Connoisseur_.
+I have myself discovered three Bartolozzi engravings in cottages in
+this parish. We give an illustration of a seventeenth-century
+powder-horn which was found at Glastonbury by Charles Griffin in 1833
+in the wall of an old house which formerly stood where the Wilts and
+Dorset Bank is now erected. Mr. Griffin's account of its discovery is
+as follows:--
+
+  "When I was a boy about fifteen years of age I took a ladder up
+  into the attic to see if there was anything hid in some holes that
+  were just under the roof.... Pushing my hand in the wall ... I
+  pulled out this carved horn, which then had a metal rim and
+  cover--of silver, I think. A man gave me a shilling for it, and he
+  sold it to Mr. Porch."
+
+It is stated that a coronet was engraved or stamped on the silver rim
+which has now disappeared.
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Powder-horn, found in the wall of
+an old house at Glastonbury. Now in Glastonbury Museum]
+
+Monmouth's harassed army occupied Glastonbury on the night of June 22,
+1685, and it is extremely probable that the powder-horn was deposited
+in its hiding-place by some wavering follower who had decided to
+abandon the Duke's cause. There is another relic of Monmouth's
+rebellion, now in the Taunton Museum, a spy-glass, with the aid of
+which Mr. Sparke, from the tower of Chedzoy, discovered the King's
+troops marching down Sedgemoor on the day previous to the fight, and
+gave information thereof to the Duke, who was quartered at Bridgwater.
+It was preserved by the family for more than a century, and given by
+Miss Mary Sparke, the great-granddaughter of the above William Sparke,
+in 1822 to a Mr. Stradling, who placed it in the museum. The
+spy-glass, which is of very primitive construction, is in four
+sections or tubes of bone covered with parchment. Relics of war and
+fighting are often stored in country houses. Thus at Swallowfield
+Park, the residence of Lady Russell, was found, when an old tree was
+grubbed up, some gold and silver coins of the reign of Charles I. It
+is probable that a Cavalier, when hard pressed, threw his purse into a
+hollow tree, intending, if he escaped, to return and rescue it. This,
+for some reason, he was unable to do, and his money remained in the
+tree until old age necessitated its removal. The late Sir George
+Russell, Bart., caused a box to be made of the wood of the tree, and
+in it he placed the coins, so that they should not be separated after
+their connexion of two centuries and a half.
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Spy-glass in Taunton Museum]
+
+We give an illustration of a remarkable flagon of bell-metal for
+holding spiced wine, found in an old manor-house in Norfolk. It is of
+English make, and was manufactured about the year 1350. It is embossed
+with the old Royal Arms of England crowned and repeated several times,
+and has an inscription in Gothic letters:--
+
+        God is grace Be in this place.
+          Amen.
+        Stand uttir[40] from the fier
+        And let onjust[41] come nere.
+
+  [40] Stand away.
+
+  [41] One just.
+
+[Illustration: Fourteenth-century Flagon. From an old Manor House in
+Norfolk]
+
+This interesting flagon was bought from the Robinson Collection in
+1879 by the nation, and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
+
+Many old houses, happily, contain their stores of ancient furniture.
+Elizabethan bedsteads wherein, of course, the Virgin Queen reposed
+(she made so many royal progresses that it is no wonder she slept in
+so many places), expanding tables, Jacobean chairs and sideboards, and
+later on the beautiful productions of Chippendale, Sheraton, and
+Hipplethwaite. Some of the family chests are elaborate works of art.
+We give as an illustration a fine example of an Elizabethan chest. It
+is made of oak, inlaid with holly, dating from the last quarter of the
+sixteenth century. Its length is 5 ft. 2 in., its height 2 ft. 11 in.
+It is in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B., of the
+manor-house, Warborough, in Oxfordshire. The staircases are often
+elaborately carved, which form a striking feature of many old houses.
+The old Aldermaston Court was burnt down, but fortunately the huge
+figures on the staircase were saved and appear again in the new Court,
+the residence of a distinguished antiquary, Mr. Charles Keyser, F.S.A.
+Hartwell House, in Buckinghamshire, once the residence of the exiled
+French Court of Louis XVIII during the Revolution and the period of
+the ascendancy of Napoleon I, has some curiously carved oaken figures
+adorning the staircase, representing Hercules, the Furies, and various
+knights in armour. We give an illustration of the staircase newel in
+Cromwell House, Highgate, with its quaint little figure of a man
+standing on a lofty pedestal.
+
+[Illustration: Elizabethan Chest, in the possession of Sir Coleridge
+Grove, K.C.B. Height, 2 ft. 11 in.; length, 5 ft. 2 in.]
+
+Sometimes one comes across strange curiosities in old houses, the odds
+and ends which Time has accumulated. On p. 201 is a representation of
+a water-clock or clepsydra which was made at Norwich by an ingenious
+person named Parson in 1610. It is constructed on the same principle
+as the timepieces used by the Greeks and Romans. The brass tube was
+filled with water, which was allowed to run out slowly at the
+bottom. A cork floated at the top of the water in the tube, and as it
+descended the hour was indicated by the pointer on the dial above.
+This ingenious clock has now found its way into the museum in Norwich
+Castle. The interesting contents of old houses would require a volume
+for their complete enumeration.
+
+In looking at these ancient buildings, which time has spared us, we
+seem to catch a glimpse of the Lamp of Memory which shines forth in
+the illuminated pages of Ruskin. The men, our forefathers, who built
+these houses, built them to last, and not for their own generation. It
+would have grieved them to think that their earthly abode, which had
+seen and seemed almost to sympathize in all their honour, their
+gladness or their suffering--that this, with all the record it bare of
+them, and of all material things that they had loved and ruled over,
+and set the stamp of themselves upon--was to be swept away as soon as
+there was room made for them in the grave. They valued and prized the
+house that they had reared, or added to, or improved. Hence they loved
+to carve their names or their initials on the lintels of their doors
+or on the walls of their houses with the date. On the stone houses of
+the Cotswolds, in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, wherever good
+building stone abounds, you can see these inscriptions, initials
+usually those of husband and wife, which preserved the memorial of
+their names as long as the house remained in the family. Alas! too
+often the memorial conveys no meaning, and no one knows the names they
+represent. But it was a worthy feeling that prompted this building for
+futurity. There is a mystery about the inscription recorded in the
+illustration "T.D. 1678." It was discovered, together with a sword
+(_temp._ Charles II), between the ceiling and the floor when an old
+farm-house called Gundry's, at Stoke-under-Ham, was pulled down. The
+year was one of great political disturbance, being that in which the
+so-called "Popish Plot" was exploited by Titus Oates. Possibly
+"T.D." was fearful of being implicated, concealed this inscription,
+and effected his escape.
+
+[Illustration: Staircase Newel Cromwell House, Highgate]
+
+Our forefathers must have been animated by the spirit which caused Mr.
+Ruskin to write: "When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
+Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it
+be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think,
+as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones
+will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men
+will say as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them,
+'See! this our fathers did for us.'"
+
+[Illustration: Piece of Wood Carved with Inscription Found with a
+sword (_temp._ Charles II) in an old house at Stoke-under-Ham,
+Somerset]
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Water-clock, in Norwich Museum]
+
+Contrast these old houses with the modern suburban abominations,
+"those thin tottering foundationless shells of splintered wood and
+imitated stone," "those gloomy rows of formalised minuteness, alike
+without difference and without fellowship, as solitary as similar," as
+Ruskin calls them. These modern erections have no more relation to
+their surroundings than would a Pullman-car or a newly painted piece
+of machinery. Age cannot improve the appearance of such things. But
+age only mellows and improves our ancient houses. Solidly built of
+good materials, the golden stain of time only adds to their beauties.
+The vines have clothed their walls and the green lawns about them have
+grown smoother and thicker, and the passing of the centuries has
+served but to tone them down and bring them into closer harmony with
+nature. With their garden walls and hedges they almost seem to have
+grown in their places as did the great trees that stand near by. They
+have nothing of the uneasy look of the parvenu about them. They have
+an air of dignified repose; the spirit of ancient peace seems to rest
+upon them and their beautiful surroundings.
+
+[Illustration: Sun-dial. The Manor House, Sutton Courtenay]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DESTRUCTION OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS
+
+
+We still find in various parts of the country traces of the
+prehistoric races who inhabited our island and left their footprints
+behind them, which startle us as much as ever the print of Friday's
+feet did the indomitable Robinson Crusoe. During the last fifty years
+we have been collecting the weapons and implements of early man, and
+have learnt that the history of Britain did not begin with the year
+B.C. 55, when Julius Cæsar attempted his first conquest of our island.
+Our historical horizon has been pushed back very considerably, and
+every year adds new knowledge concerning the Palæolithic and Neolithic
+races, and the first users of bronze and iron tools and weapons. We
+have learnt to prize what they have left, to recognize the immense
+archæological value of these remains, and of their inestimable
+prehistoric interest. It is therefore very deplorable to discover that
+so much has been destroyed, obliterated, and forgotten.
+
+We have still some left. Examples are still to be seen of megalithic
+structures, barrows, cromlechs, camps, earthen or walled castles,
+hut-circles, and other remains of the prehistoric inhabitants of these
+islands. We have many monoliths, called in Wales and Cornwall, as also
+in Brittany, menhirs, a name derived from the Celtic word _maen_ or
+_men_, signifying a stone, and _hir_ meaning tall. They are also
+called logan stones and "hoar" stones, _hoar_ meaning a boundary,
+inasmuch as they were frequently used in later times to mark the
+boundary of an estate, parish, or manor. A vast number have been torn
+down and used as gateposts or for building purposes, and a recent
+observer in the West Country states that he has looked in vain for
+several where he knew that not long ago they existed. If in the Land's
+End district you climb the ascent of Bolleit, the Place of Blood,
+where Athelstan fought and slew the Britons, you can see "the Pipers,"
+two great menhirs, twelve and sixteen feet high, and the Holed Stone,
+which is really an ancient cross, but you will be told that the cruel
+Druids used to tie their human victims for sacrifice to this stone,
+and you would shudder at the memory if you did not know that the
+Druids were very philosophical folk, and never did such dreadful
+deeds.
+
+Another kind of megalithic monument are the stone circles, only they
+are circles no longer, many stones having been carted away to mend
+walls. If you look at the ordnance map of Penzance you will find large
+numbers of these circles, but if you visit the spots where they are
+supposed to be, you will find that many have vanished. The "Merry
+Maidens," not far from the "Pipers," still remain--nineteen great
+stones, which fairy-lore perhaps supposes to have been once fair
+maidens who danced to the tune the pipers played ere a Celtic Medusa
+gazed at them and turned them into stone. Every one knows the story of
+the Rollright stones, a similar stone circle in Oxfordshire, which
+were once upon a time a king and his army, and were converted into
+stone by a witch who cast a fatal spell upon them by the words--
+
+        Move no more; stand fast, stone;
+        King of England thou shalt none.
+
+The solitary stone is the ambitious monarch who was told by an oracle
+that if he could see Long Compton he would be king of England; the
+circle is his army, and the five "Whispering Knights" are five of his
+chieftains, who were hatching a plot against him when the magic spell
+was uttered. Local legends have sometimes helped to preserve these
+stones. The farmers around Rollright say that if these stones are
+removed from the spot they will never rest, but make mischief till
+they are restored. There is a well-known cromlech at Stanton Drew, in
+Somerset, and there are several in Scotland, the Channel Islands, and
+Brittany. Some sacrilegious persons transported a cromlech from the
+Channel Islands, and set it up at Park Place, Henley-on-Thames. Such
+an act of antiquarian barbarism happily has few imitators.
+
+Stonehenge, with its well-wrought stones and gigantic trilitha, is one
+of the latest of the stone circles, and was doubtless made in the Iron
+Age, about two hundred years before the Christian era. Antiquarians
+have been very anxious about its safety. In 1900 one of the great
+upright stones fell, bringing down the cross-piece with it, and
+several learned societies have been invited by the owner, Sir Edmund
+Antrobus, to furnish recommendations as to the best means of
+preserving this unique memorial of an early race. We are glad to know
+that all that can be done will be done to keep Stonehenge safe for
+future generations.
+
+We need not record the existence of dolmens, or table-stones, the
+remains of burial mounds, which have been washed away by denudation,
+nor of what the French folk call _alignements_, or lines of stones,
+which have suffered like other megalithic monuments. Barrows or tumuli
+are still plentiful, great mounds of earth raised to cover the
+prehistoric dead. But many have disappeared. Some have been worn down
+by ploughing, as on the Berkshire Downs. Others have been dug into for
+gravel. The making of golf-links has disturbed several, as at
+Sunningdale, where several barrows were destroyed in order to make a
+good golf-course. Happily their contents were carefully guarded, and
+are preserved in the British Museum and in that of Reading. Earthworks
+and camps still guard the British ancient roads and trackways, and
+you still admire their triple vallum and their cleverly protected
+entrance. Happily the Earthworks Committee of the Congress of
+Archæological Societies watches over them, and strives to protect them
+from injury. Pit-dwellings and the so-called "ancient British
+villages" are in many instances sorely neglected, and are often buried
+beneath masses of destructive briers and ferns. We can still trace the
+course of several of the great tribal boundaries of prehistoric times,
+the Grim's dykes that are seen in various parts of the country,
+gigantic earthworks that so surprised the Saxon invaders that they
+attributed them to the agency of the Devil or Grim. Here and there
+much has vanished, but stretches remain with a high bank twelve or
+fourteen feet high and a ditch; the labour of making these earthen
+ramparts must have been immense in the days when the builders of them
+had only picks made out of stag's horns and such simple tools to work
+with.
+
+Along some of our hillsides are curious turf-cut monuments, which
+always attract our gaze and make us wonder who first cut out these
+figures on the face of the chalk hill. There is the great White Horse
+on the Berkshire Downs above Uffington, which we like to think was cut
+out by Alfred's men after his victory over the Danes on the Ashdown
+Hills. We are told, however, that that cannot be, and that it must
+have been made at least a thousand years before King Alfred's glorious
+reign. Some of these monuments are in danger of disappearing. They
+need scouring pretty constantly, as the weeds and grass will grow over
+the face of the bare chalk and tend to obliterate the figures. The
+Berkshire White Horse wanted grooming badly a short time ago, and the
+present writer was urged to approach the noble owner, the Earl of
+Craven, and urge the necessity of a scouring. The Earl, however,
+needed no reminder, and the White Horse is now thoroughly groomed, and
+looks as fit and active as ever. Other steeds on our hillsides have in
+modern times been so cut and altered in shape that their nearest
+relations would not know them. Thus the White Horse at Westbury, in
+Wiltshire, is now a sturdy-looking little cob, quite up to date and
+altogether modern, very different from the old shape of the animal.
+
+The vanishing of prehistoric monuments is due to various causes.
+Avebury had at one time within a great rampart and a fosse, which is
+still forty feet deep, a large circle of rough unhewn stones, and
+within this two circles each containing a smaller concentric circle.
+Two avenues of stones led to the two entrances to the space surrounded
+by the fosse. It must have been a vast and imposing edifice, much more
+important than Stonehenge, and the area within this great circle
+exceeds twenty-eight acres, with a diameter of twelve hundred feet.
+But the spoilers have been at work, and "Farmer George" and other
+depredators have carted away so many of the stones, and done so much
+damage, that much imagination is needed to construct in the eye of the
+mind this wonder of the world.
+
+Every one who journeys from London to Oxford by the Great Western
+Railway knows the appearance of the famous Wittenham Clumps, a few
+miles from historic Wallingford. If you ascend the hill you will find
+it a paradise for antiquaries. The camp itself occupies a commanding
+position overlooking the valley of the Thames, and has doubtless
+witnessed many tribal fights, and the great contest between the Celts
+and the Roman invaders. In the plain beneath is another remarkable
+earthwork. It was defended on three sides by the Thames, and a strong
+double rampart had been made across the cord of the bow formed by the
+river. There was also a trench which in case of danger could have been
+filled with water. But the spoiler has been at work here. In 1870 a
+farmer employed his men during a hard winter in digging down the west
+side of the rampart and flinging the earth into the fosse. The farmer
+intended to perform a charitable act, and charity is said to cover a
+multitude of sins; but his action was disastrous to antiquaries and
+has almost destroyed a valuable prehistoric monument. There is a
+noted camp at Ashbury, erroneously called "Alfred's Castle," on an
+elevated part of Swinley Down, in Berkshire, not far from Ashdown
+Park, the seat of the Earl of Craven. Lysons tells us that formerly
+there were traces of buildings here, and Aubrey says that in his time
+the earthworks were "almost quite defaced by digging for sarsden
+stones to build my Lord Craven's house in the park." Borough Hill
+Camp, in Boxford parish, near Newbury, has little left, so much of the
+earth having been removed at various times. Rabbits, too, are great
+destroyers, as they disturb the original surface of the ground and
+make it difficult for investigators to make out anything with
+certainty.
+
+Sometimes local tradition, which is wonderfully long-lived, helps the
+archæologist in his discoveries. An old man told an antiquary that a
+certain barrow in his parish was haunted by the ghost of a soldier who
+wore golden armour. The antiquary determined to investigate and dug
+into the barrow, and there found the body of a man with a gold or
+bronze breastplate. I am not sure whether the armour was gold or
+bronze. Now here is an amazing instance of folk-memory. The chieftain
+was buried probably in Anglo-Saxon times, or possibly earlier. During
+thirteen hundred years, at least, the memory of that burial has been
+handed down from father to son until the present day. It almost seems
+incredible.
+
+It seems something like sacrilege to disturb the resting-places of our
+prehistoric ancestors, and to dig into barrows and examine their
+contents. But much knowledge of the history and manners and customs of
+the early inhabitants of our island has been gained by these
+investigations. Year by year this knowledge grows owing to the patient
+labours of industrious antiquaries, and perhaps our predecessors would
+not mind very much the disturbing of their remains, if they reflected
+that we are getting to know them better by this means, and are almost
+on speaking terms with the makers of stone axes, celts and
+arrow-heads, and are great admirers of their skill and ingenuity. It
+is important that all these monuments of antiquity should be carefully
+preserved, that plans should be made of them, and systematic
+investigations undertaken by competent and skilled antiquaries. The
+old stone monuments and the later Celtic crosses should be rescued
+from serving such purposes as brook bridges, stone walls,
+stepping-stones, and gate-posts and reared again on their original
+sites. They are of national importance, and the nation should do this.
+
+[Illustration: Half-timber Cottages, Waterside, Evesham]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CATHEDRAL CITIES AND ABBEY TOWNS
+
+
+There is always an air of quietude and restfulness about an ordinary
+cathedral city. Some of our cathedrals are set in busy places, in
+great centres of population, wherein the high towering minster looks
+down with a kind of pitying compassion upon the toiling folk and
+invites them to seek shelter and peace and the consolations of
+religion in her quiet courts. For ages she has watched over the city
+and seen generation after generation pass away. Kings and queens have
+come to lay their offerings on her altars, and have been borne there
+amid all the pomp of stately mourning to lie in the gorgeous tombs
+that grace her choir. She has seen it all--times of pillage and alarm,
+of robbery and spoliation, of change and disturbance, but she lives
+on, ever calling men with her quiet voice to look up in love and faith
+and prayer.
+
+But many of our cathedral cities are quite small places which owe
+their very life and existence to the stately church which pious hands
+have raised centuries ago. There age after age the prayer of faith,
+the anthems of praise, and the divine services have been offered.
+
+In the glow of a summer's evening its heavenly architecture stands
+out, a mass of wondrous beauty, telling of the skill of the masons and
+craftsmen of olden days who put their hearts into their work and
+wrought so surely and so well. The greensward of the close, wherein
+the rooks caw and guard their nests, speaks of peace and joy that is
+not of earth. We walk through the fretted cloisters that once echoed
+with the tread of sandalled monks and saw them illuminating and
+copying wonderful missals, antiphonaries, and other manuscripts which
+we prize so highly now. The deanery is close at hand, a venerable
+house of peace and learning; and the canons' houses tell of centuries
+of devoted service to God's Church, wherein many a distinguished
+scholar, able preacher, and learned writer has lived and sent forth
+his burning message to the world, and now lies at peace in the quiet
+minster.
+
+The fabric of the cathedrals is often in danger of becoming part and
+parcel of vanishing England. Every one has watched with anxiety the
+gallant efforts that have been made to save Winchester. The insecure
+foundations, based on timbers that had rotted, threatened to bring
+down that wondrous pile of masonry. And now Canterbury is in danger.
+
+The Dean and Chapter of Canterbury having recently completed the
+reparation of the central tower of the cathedral, now find themselves
+confronted with responsibilities which require still heavier
+expenditure. It has recently been found that the upper parts of the
+two western towers are in a dangerous condition. All the pinnacles of
+these towers have had to be partially removed in order to avoid the
+risk of dangerous injury from falling stones, and a great part of the
+external work of the two towers is in a state of grievous decay.
+
+The Chapter were warned by the architect that they would incur an
+anxious responsibility if they did not at once adopt measures to
+obviate this danger.
+
+Further, the architect states that there are some fissures and shakes
+in the supporting piers of the central tower within the cathedral, and
+that some of the stonework shows signs of crushing. He further reports
+that there is urgent need of repair to the nave windows, the south
+transept roof, the Warriors' Chapel, and several other parts of the
+building. The nave pinnacles are reported by him to be in the last
+stage of decay, large portions falling frequently, or having to be
+removed.
+
+In these modern days we run "tubes" and under-ground railways in close
+proximity to the foundations of historic buildings, and thereby
+endanger their safety. The grand cathedral of St. Paul, London, was
+threatened by a "tube," and only saved by vigorous protest from having
+its foundations jarred and shaken by rumbling trains in the bowels of
+the earth. Moreover, by sewers and drains the earth is made devoid of
+moisture, and therefore is liable to crack and crumble, and to disturb
+the foundations of ponderous buildings. St. Paul's still causes
+anxiety on this account, and requires all the care and vigilance of
+the skilful architect who guards it.
+
+The old Norman builders loved a central tower, which they built low
+and squat. Happily they built surely and well, firmly and solidly, as
+their successors loved to pile course upon course upon their Norman
+towers, to raise a massive superstructure, and often crown them with a
+lofty, graceful, but heavy spire. No wonder the early masonry has, at
+times, protested against this additional weight, and many mighty
+central towers and spires have fallen and brought ruin on the
+surrounding stonework. So it happened at Chichester and in several
+other noble churches. St. Alban's tower very nearly fell. There the
+ingenuity of destroyers and vandals at the Dissolution had dug a hole
+and removed the earth from under one of the piers, hoping that it
+would collapse. The old tower held on for three hundred years, and
+then the mighty mass began to give way, and Sir Gilbert Scott tells
+the story of its reparation in 1870, of the triumphs of the skill of
+modern builders, and their bravery and resolution in saving the fall
+of that great tower. The greatest credit is due to all concerned in
+that hazardous and most difficult task. It had very nearly gone. The
+story of Peterborough, and of several others, shows that many of these
+vast fanes which have borne the storms and frosts of centuries are by
+no means too secure, and that the skill of wise architects and the
+wealth of the Englishmen of to-day are sorely needed to prevent them
+from vanishing. If they fell, new and modern work would scarcely
+compensate us for their loss.
+
+We will take Wells as a model of a cathedral city which entirely owes
+its origin to the noble church and palace built there in early times.
+The city is one of the most picturesque in England, situated in the
+most delightful country, and possessing the most perfect
+ecclesiastical buildings which can be conceived. Jocelyn de Wells, who
+lived at the beginning of the thirteenth century (1206-39), has for
+many years had the credit of building the main part of this beautiful
+house of God. It is hard to have one's beliefs and early traditions
+upset, but modern authorities, with much reason, tell us that we are
+all wrong, and that another Jocelyn--one Reginald Fitz-Jocelyn
+(1171-91)--was the main builder of Wells Cathedral. Old documents
+recently discovered decide the question, and, moreover, the style of
+architecture is certainly earlier than the fully developed Early
+English of Jocelyn de Wells. The latter, and also Bishop Savaricus
+(1192-1205), carried out the work, but the whole design and a
+considerable part of the building are due to Bishop Reginald
+Fitz-Jocelyn. His successors, until the middle of the fifteenth
+century, went on perfecting the wondrous shrine, and in the time of
+Bishop Beckington Wells was in its full glory. The church, the
+outbuildings, the episcopal palace, the deanery, all combined to form
+a wonderful architectural triumph, a group of buildings which
+represented the highest achievement of English Gothic art.
+
+Since then many things have happened. The cathedral, like all other
+ecclesiastical buildings, has passed through three great periods of
+iconoclastic violence. It was shorn of some of its glory at the
+Reformation, when it was plundered of the treasures which the piety of
+many generations had heaped together. Then the beautiful Lady Chapel
+in the cloisters was pulled down, and the infamous Duke of Somerset
+robbed it of its wealth and meditated further sacrilege. Amongst these
+desecrators and despoilers there was a mighty hunger for lead. "I
+would that they had found it scalding," exclaimed an old chaplain of
+Wells; and to get hold of the lead that covered the roofs--a valuable
+commodity--Somerset and his kind did much mischief to many of our
+cathedrals and churches. An infamous bishop of York, at this period,
+stripped his fine palace that stood on the north of York Minster, "for
+the sake of the lead that covered it," and shipped it off to London,
+where it was sold for £1000; but of this sum he was cheated by a noble
+duke, and therefore gained nothing by his infamy. During the Civil War
+it escaped fairly well, but some damage was done, the palace was
+despoiled; and at the Restoration of the Monarchy much repair was
+needed. Monmouth's rebels wrought havoc. They came to Wells in no
+amiable mood, defaced the statues on the west front, did much wanton
+mischief, and would have caroused about the altar had not Lord Grey
+stood before it with his sword drawn, and thus preserved it from the
+insults of the ruffians. Then came the evils of "restoration." A
+terrible renewing was begun in 1848, when the old stalls were
+destroyed and much damage done. Twenty years later better things were
+accomplished, save that the grandeur of the west front was belittled
+by a pipey restoration, when Irish limestone, with its harsh hue, was
+used to embellish it.
+
+A curiosity at Wells are the quarter jacks over the clock on the
+exterior north wall of the cathedral. Local tradition has it that the
+clock with its accompanying figures was part of the spoil removed from
+Glastonbury Abbey. The ecclesiastical authorities at Wells assert in
+contradiction to this that the clock was the work of one Peter
+Lightfoot, and was placed in the cathedral in the latter part of the
+fourteenth century. A minute is said to exist in the archives of
+repairs to the clock and figures in 1418. It is Mr. Roe's opinion that
+the defensive armour on the quarter jacks dates from the first half of
+the fifteenth century, the plain oviform breastplates and basinets, as
+well as the continuation of the tassets round the hips, being very
+characteristic features of this period. The halberds in the hands of
+the figures are evidently restorations of a later time. It may be
+mentioned that in 1907, when the quarter jacks were painted, it was
+discovered that though the figures themselves were carved out of solid
+blocks of oak hard as iron, the arms were of elm bolted and braced
+thereon. Though such instances of combined materials are common enough
+among antiquities of medieval times, it may yet be surmised that the
+jar caused by incessant striking may in time have necessitated repairs
+to the upper limbs. The arms are immovable, as the figures turn on
+pivots to strike.
+
+[Illustration: Quarter Jacks over the Clock on exterior of North Wall
+of Wells Cathedral.]
+
+An illustration is given of the palace at Wells, which is one of the
+finest examples of thirteenth-century houses existing in England. It
+was begun by Jocelyn. The great hall, now in ruins, was built by
+Bishop Burnell at the end of the thirteenth century, and was destroyed
+by Bishop Barlow in 1552. The chapel is Decorated. The gatehouse, with
+its drawbridge, moat, and fortifications, was constructed by Bishop
+Ralph, of Shrewsbury, who ruled from 1329 to 1363. The deanery was
+built by Dean Gunthorpe in 1475, who was chaplain to Edward IV. On the
+north is the beautiful vicar's close, which has forty-two houses,
+constructed mainly by Bishop Beckington (1443-64), with a common hall
+erected by Bishop Ralph in 1340 and a chapel by Budwith (1407-64), but
+altered a century later. You can see the old fireplace, the pulpit
+from which one of the brethren read aloud during meals, and an ancient
+painting representing Bishop Ralph making his grant to the kneeling
+figures, and some additional figures painted in the time of Queen
+Elizabeth.
+
+[Illustration: The Gate House, Bishop's Palace, Wells]
+
+When we study the cathedrals of England and try to trace the causes
+which led to the destruction of so much that was beautiful, so much of
+English art that has vanished, we find that there were three great
+eras of iconoclasm. First there were the changes wrought at the time
+of the Reformation, when a rapacious king and his greedy ministers set
+themselves to wring from the treasures of the Church as much gain and
+spoil as they were able. These men were guilty of the most daring acts
+of shameless sacrilege, the grossest robbery. With them nothing was
+sacred. Buildings consecrated to God, holy vessels used in His
+service, all the works of sacred art, the offerings of countless pious
+benefactors were deemed as mere profane things to be seized and
+polluted by their sacrilegious hands. The land was full of the most
+beautiful gems of architectural art, the monastic churches. We can
+tell something of their glories from those which were happily spared
+and converted into cathderals or parish churches. Ely, Peterborough
+the pride of the Fenlands, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, Westminster,
+St. Albans, Beverley, and some others proclaim the grandeur of
+hundreds of other magnificent structures which have been shorn of
+their leaden roofs, used as quarries for building-stone, entirely
+removed and obliterated, or left as pitiable ruins which still look
+beautiful in their decay. Reading, Tintern, Glastonbury, Fountains,
+and a host of others all tell the same story of pitiless iconoclasm.
+And what became of the contents of these churches? The contents
+usually went with the fabric to the spoliators. The halls of
+country-houses were hung with altar-cloths; tables and beds were
+quilted with copes; knights and squires drank their claret out of
+chalices and watered their horses in marble coffins. From the accounts
+of the royal jewels it is evident that a great deal of Church plate
+was delivered to the king for his own use, besides which the sum of
+£30,360 derived from plate obtained by the spoilers was given to the
+proper hand of the king.
+
+The iconoclasts vented their rage in the destruction of stained glass
+and beautiful illuminated manuscripts, priceless tomes and costly
+treasures of exceeding rarity. Parish churches were plundered
+everywhere. Robbery was in the air, and clergy and churchwardens sold
+sacred vessels and appropriated the money for parochial purposes
+rather than they should be seized by the king. Commissioners were sent
+to visit all the cathedral and parish churches and seize the
+superfluous ornaments for the king's use. Tithes, lands, farms,
+buildings belonging to the church all went the same way, until the
+hand of the iconoclast was stayed, as there was little left to steal
+or to be destroyed. The next era of iconoclastic zeal was that of the
+Civil War and the Cromwellian period. At Rochester the soldiers
+profaned the cathedral by using it as a stable and a tippling place,
+while saw-pits were made in the sacred building and carpenters plied
+their trade. At Chichester the pikes of the Puritans and their wild
+savagery reduced the interior to a ruinous desolation. The usual
+scenes of mad iconoclasm were enacted--stained glass windows broken,
+altars thrown down, lead stripped from the roof, brasses and effigies
+defaced and broken. A creature named "Blue Dick" was the wild leader
+of this savage crew of spoliators who left little but the bare walls
+and a mass of broken fragments strewing the pavement. We need not
+record similar scenes which took place almost everywhere.
+
+[Illustration: House in which Bishop Hooper was imprisoned, Westgate
+Street, Gloucester]
+
+The last and grievous rule of iconoclasm set in with the restorers,
+who worked their will upon the fabric of our cathedrals and churches
+and did so much to obliterate all the fragments of good architectural
+work which the Cromwellian soldiers and the spoliators at the time of
+the Reformation had left. The memory of Wyatt and his imitators is not
+revered when we see the results of their work on our ecclesiastical
+fabrics, and we need not wonder that so much of English art has
+vanished.
+
+The cathedral of Bristol suffered from other causes. The darkest spot
+in the history of the city is the story of the Reform riots of 1831,
+sometimes called "the Bristol Revolution," when the dregs of the
+population pillaged and plundered, burnt the bishop's palace, and were
+guilty of the most atrocious vandalism.
+
+[Illustration: The "Stone House," Rye, Sussex]
+
+The city of Bath, once the rival of Wells--the contention between the
+monks of St. Peter and the canons of St. Andrews at Wells being hot
+and fierce--has many attractions. Its minster, rebuilt by Bishop
+Oliver King of Wells (1495-1503), and restored in the seventeenth
+century, and also in modern times, is not a very interesting building,
+though it lacks not some striking features, and certainly contains
+some fine tombs and monuments of the fashionable folk who flocked to
+Bath in the days of its splendour. The city itself abounds in
+interest. It is a gem of Georgian art, with a complete homogeneous
+architectural character of its own which makes it singular and unique.
+It is full of memories of the great folks who thronged its streets,
+attended the Bath and Pump Room, and listened to sermons in the
+Octagon. It tells of the autocracy of Beau Nash, of Goldsmith,
+Sheridan, David Garrick, of the "First Gentleman of Europe," and many
+others who made Bath famous. And now it is likely that this unique
+little city with its memories and its charming architectural features
+is to be mutilated for purely commercial reasons. Every one knows Bath
+Street with its colonnaded loggias on each side terminated with a
+crescent at each end, and leading to the Cross Bath in the centre of
+the eastern crescent. That the original founders of Bath Street
+regarded it as an important architectural feature of the city is
+evident from the inscription in abbreviated Latin which was engraved
+on the first stone of the street when laid:--
+
+              PRO
+        VRBIS DIG: ET AMP:
+        HÆC PON: CVRAV:
+              SC:
+            DELEGATI
+         A: D: MDCCXCI.
+       I: HORTON, PRAET:
+     T: BALDWIN, ARCHITECTO.
+
+which may be read to the effect that "for the dignity and enlargement
+(of the city) the delegates I. Horton, Mayor, and T. Baldwin,
+architect, laid this (stone) A.D. 1791."
+
+It is actually proposed by the new proprietors of the Grand Pump Hotel
+to entirely destroy the beauty of this street by removing the
+colonnaded loggia on one side of this street and constructing a new
+side to the hotel two or three storeys higher, and thus to change the
+whole character of the street and practically destroy it. It is a sad
+pity, and we should have hoped that the city Council would have
+resisted very strongly the proposal that the proprietors of the hotel
+have made to their body. But we hear that the Council is lukewarm in
+its opposition to the scheme, and has indeed officially approved it.
+It is astonishing what city and borough councils will do, and this
+Bath Council has "the discredit of having, for purely commercial
+reasons, made the first move towards the destruction architecturally
+of the peculiar charm of their unique and beautiful city."[42]
+
+  [42] _The Builder_, March 6, 1909.
+
+Evesham is entirely a monastic town. It sprang up under the sheltering
+walls of the famous abbey--
+
+        A pretty burgh and such as Fancy loves
+        For bygone grandeurs.
+
+This abbey shared the fate of many others which we have mentioned. The
+Dean of Gloucester thus muses over the "Vanished Abbey":--
+
+  "The stranger who knows nothing of its story would surely smile if
+  he were told that beneath the grass and daisies round him were
+  hidden the vast foundation storeys of one of the mightiest of our
+  proud mediæval abbeys; that on the spot where he was standing were
+  once grouped a forest of tall columns bearing up lofty fretted
+  roofs; that all around once were altars all agleam with colour and
+  with gold; that besides the many altars were once grouped in that
+  sacred spot chauntries and tombs, many of them marvels of grace
+  and beauty, placed there in the memory of men great in the service
+  of Church and State--of men whose names were household words in
+  the England of our fathers; that close to him were once stately
+  cloisters, great monastic buildings, including refectories,
+  dormitories, chapter-house, chapels, infirmary, granaries,
+  kitchens--all the varied piles of buildings which used to make up
+  the hive of a great monastery."
+
+It was commenced by Bishop Egwin, of Worcester, in 702 A.D., but the
+era of its great prosperity set in after the battle of Evesham when
+Simon de Montford was slain, and his body buried in the monastic
+church. There was his shrine to which was great pilgrimage, crowds
+flocking to lay their offerings there; and riches poured into the
+treasury of the monks, who made great additions to their house, and
+reared noble buildings. Little is left of its former grandeur. You can
+discover part of the piers of the great central tower, the cloister
+arch of Decorated work of great beauty erected in 1317, and the abbey
+fishponds. The bell tower is one of the glories of Evesham. It was
+built by the last abbot, Abbot Lichfield, and was not quite completed
+before the destruction of the great abbey church adjacent to it. It is
+a grand specimen of Perpendicular architecture.
+
+[Illustration: Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham]
+
+At the corner of the Market Place there is a picturesque old house
+with gable and carved barge-boards and timber-framed arch, and we see
+the old Norman gateway named Abbot Reginald's Gateway, after the name
+of its builder, who also erected part of the wall enclosing the
+monastic buildings. A timber-framed structure now stretches across the
+arcade, but a recent restoration has exposed the Norman columns which
+support the arch. The Church House, always an interesting building in
+old towns and villages, wherein church ales and semi-ecclesiastical
+functions took place, has been restored. Passing under the arch we see
+the two churches in one churchyard--All Saints and St. Laurence. The
+former has some Norman work at the inner door of the porch, but its
+main construction is Decorated and Perpendicular. Its most
+interesting feature is the Lichfield Chapel, erected by the last
+abbot, whose initials and the arms of the abbey appear on escutcheons
+on the roof. The fan-tracery roof is especially noticeable, and the
+good modern glass. The church of St. Laurence is entirely
+Perpendicular, and the chantry of Abbot Lichneld, with its fan-tracery
+vaulting, is a gem of English architecture.
+
+[Illustration: Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham]
+
+[Illustration: Fifteenth-century House in Cowl Street, Evesham]
+
+Amongst the remains of the abbey buildings may be seen the Almonry,
+the residence of the almoner, formerly used as a gaol. An interesting
+stone lantern of fifteenth-century work is preserved here. Another
+abbey gateway is near at hand, but little evidence remains of its
+former Gothic work. Part of the old wall built by Abbot William de
+Chyryton early in the fourteenth century remains. In the town there is
+a much-modernized town hall, and near it the old-fashioned Booth Hall,
+a half-timbered building, now used as shops and cottages, where
+formerly courts were held, including the court of pie-powder, the
+usual accompaniment of every fair. Bridge Street is one of the most
+attractive streets in the borough, with its quaint old house, and the
+famous inn, "The Crown." The old house in Cowl Street was formerly the
+White Hart Inn, which tells a curious Elizabethan story about "the
+Fool and the Ice," an incident supposed to be referred to by
+Shakespeare in _Troilus and Cressida_ (Act iii. sc. 3): "The fool
+slides o'er the ice that you should break." The Queen Anne house in
+the High Street, with its wrought-iron railings and brackets, called
+Dresden House and Almswood, one of the oldest dwelling-houses in the
+town, are worthy of notice by the students of domestic architecture.
+
+[Illustration: Half-timber House, Alcester, Warwick]
+
+[Illustration: Half-timber House at Alcester]
+
+There is much in the neighbourhood of Evesham which is worthy of note,
+many old-fashioned villages and country towns, manor-houses, churches,
+and inns which are refreshing to the eyes of those who have seen so
+much destruction, so much of the England that is vanishing. The old
+abbey tithe-barn at Littleton of the fourteenth century, Wickhamford
+Manor, the home of Penelope Washington, whose tomb is in the adjoining
+church, the picturesque village of Cropthorne, Winchcombe and its
+houses, Sudeley Castle, the timbered houses at Norton and Harvington,
+Broadway and Campden, abounding with beautiful houses, and the old
+town of Alcester, of which some views are given--all these contain
+many objects of antiquarian and artistic interest, and can easily be
+reached from Evesham. In that old town we have seen much to interest,
+and the historian will delight to fight over again the battle of
+Evesham and study the records of the siege of the town in the Civil
+War.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OLD INNS
+
+
+The trend of popular legislation is in the direction of the
+diminishing of the number of licensed premises and the destruction of
+inns. Very soon, we may suppose, the "Black Boy" and the "Red Lion"
+and hosts of other old signs will have vanished, and there will be a
+very large number of famous inns which have "retired from business."
+Already their number is considerable. In many towns through which in
+olden days the stage-coaches passed inns were almost as plentiful as
+blackberries; they were needed then for the numerous passengers who
+journeyed along the great roads in the coaches; they are not needed
+now when people rush past the places in express trains. Hence the
+order has gone forth that these superfluous houses shall cease to be
+licensed premises and must submit to the removal of their signs.
+Others have been so remodelled in order to provide modern comforts and
+conveniences that scarce a trace of their old-fashioned appearance can
+be found. Modern temperance legislators imagine that if they can only
+reduce the number of inns they will reduce drunkenness and make the
+English people a sober nation. This is not the place to discuss
+whether the destruction of inns tends to promote temperance. We may,
+perhaps, be permitted to doubt the truth of the legend, oft repeated
+on temperance platforms, of the working man, returning homewards from
+his toil, struggling past nineteen inns and succumbing to the syren
+charms of the twentieth. We may fear lest the gathering together of
+large numbers of men in a few public-houses may not increase rather
+than diminish their thirst and the love of good fellowship which in
+some mysterious way is stimulated by the imbibing of many pots of
+beer. We may, perhaps, feel some misgiving with regard to the
+temperate habits of the people, if instead of well-conducted hostels,
+duly inspected by the police, the landlords of which are liable to
+prosecution for improper conduct, we see arising a host of ungoverned
+clubs, wherein no control is exercised over the manners of the members
+and adequate supervision impossible. We cannot refuse to listen to the
+opinion of certain royal commissioners who, after much sifting of
+evidence, came to the conclusion that as far as the suppression of
+public-houses had gone, their diminution had not lessened the
+convictions for drunkenness.
+
+But all this is beside our subject. We have only to record another
+feature of vanishing England, the gradual disappearance of many of its
+ancient and historic inns, and to describe some of the fortunate
+survivors. Many of them are very old, and cannot long contend against
+the fiery eloquence of the young temperance orator, the newly fledged
+justice of the peace, or the budding member of Parliament who tries to
+win votes by pulling things down.
+
+We have, however, still some of these old hostelries left; medieval
+pilgrim inns redolent of the memories of the not very pious companies
+of men and women who wended their way to visit the shrines of St.
+Thomas of Canterbury or Our Lady at Walsingham; historic inns wherein
+some of the great events in the annals of England have occurred; inns
+associated with old romances or frequented by notorious highwaymen, or
+that recall the adventures of Mr. Pickwick and other heroes and
+villains of Dickensian tales. It is well that we should try to depict
+some of these before they altogether vanish.
+
+There was nothing vulgar or disgraceful about an inn a century ago.
+From Elizabethan times to the early part of the nineteenth century
+they were frequented by most of the leading spirits of each
+generation. Archbishop Leighton, who died in 1684, often used to say
+to Bishop Burnet that "if he were to choose a place to die in it
+should be an inn; it looked like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this
+world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion
+of it." His desire was fulfilled. He died at the old Bell Inn in
+Warwick Lane, London, an old galleried hostel which was not demolished
+until 1865. Dr. Johnson, when delighting in the comfort of the
+Shakespeare's Head Inn, between Worcester and Lichfield, exclaimed:
+"No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by
+which so much happiness is provided as by a good tavern or inn." This
+oft-quoted saying the learned Doctor uttered at the Chapel House Inn,
+near King's Norton; its glory has departed; it is now a simple
+country-house by the roadside. Shakespeare, who doubtless had many
+opportunities of testing the comforts of the famous inns at Southwark,
+makes Falstaff say: "Shall I not take mine ease at mine inn?"; and
+Shenstone wrote the well-known rhymes on a window of the old Red Lion
+at Henley-on-Thames:--
+
+        Whoe'er has travelled life's dull road,
+          Where'er his stages may have been,
+        May sigh to think he still has found
+          The warmest welcome at an inn.
+
+Fynes Morrison tells of the comforts of English inns even as early as
+the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1617 he wrote:--
+
+  "The world affords not such inns as England hath, for as soon as a
+  passenger comes the servants run to him; one takes his horse and
+  walks him till he be cold, then rubs him and gives him meat; but
+  let the master look to this point. Another gives the traveller his
+  private chamber and kindles his fire, the third pulls off his
+  boots and makes them clean; then the host or hostess visits
+  him--if he will eat with the host--or at a common table it will be
+  4d. and 6d. If a gentleman has his own chamber, his ways are
+  consulted, and he has music, too, if he likes."
+
+[Illustration: The Wheelwrights' Arms, Warwick]
+
+The literature of England abounds in references to these ancient inns.
+If Dr. Johnson, Addison, and Goldsmith were alive now, we should find
+them chatting together at the Authors' Club, or the Savage, or the
+Athenæum. There were no literary clubs in their days, and the public
+parlours of the Cock Tavern or the "Cheshire Cheese" were their clubs,
+wherein they were quite as happy, if not quite so luxuriously housed,
+as if they had been members of a modern social institution. Who has
+not sung in praise of inns? Longfellow, in his _Hyperion_, makes
+Flemming say: "He who has not been at a tavern knows not what a
+paradise it is. O holy tavern! O miraculous tavern! Holy, because no
+carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain; and miraculous,
+because of the spits which of themselves turned round and round." They
+appealed strongly to Washington Irving, who, when recording his visit
+to the shrine of Shakespeare, says: "To a homeless man, who has no
+spot on this wide world which he can truly call his own, there is a
+momentary feeling of something like independence and territorial
+consequence, when after a weary day's travel he kicks off his boots,
+thrusts his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn
+fire. Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall,
+so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time
+being, the very monarch of all he surveys.... 'Shall I not take mine
+ease in mine inn?' thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back
+in my elbow chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlour
+of the Red Horse at Stratford-on-Avon."
+
+[Illustration: Entrance to the Reindeer Inn, Banbury]
+
+And again, on Christmas Eve Irving tells of his joyous long day's ride
+in a coach, and how he at length arrived at a village where he had
+determined to stay the night. As he drove into the great gateway of
+the inn (some of them were mighty narrow and required much skill on
+the part of the Jehu) he saw on one side the light of a rousing
+kitchen fire beaming through a window. He "entered and admired, for
+the hundredth time, that picture of convenience, neatness, and broad
+honest enjoyment--the kitchen of an English inn." It was of spacious
+dimensions, hung round with copper and tin vessels highly polished,
+and decorated here and there with Christmas green. Hams, tongues, and
+flitches of bacon were suspended from the ceiling; a smoke-jack made
+its ceaseless clanking beside the fire-place, and a clock ticked in
+one corner. A well-scoured deal table extended along one side of the
+kitchen, with a cold round of beef and other hearty viands upon it,
+over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting guard.
+Travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout
+repast, while others sat smoking and gossiping over their ale on two
+high-backed oaken settles beside the fire. Trim housemaids were
+hurrying backwards and forwards under the directions of a fresh
+bustling landlady; but still seizing an occasional moment to exchange
+a flippant word, and have a rallying laugh with the group round the
+fire.
+
+Such is the cheering picture of an old-fashioned inn in days of yore.
+No wonder that the writers should have thus lauded these inns! Imagine
+yourself on the box-seat of an old coach travelling somewhat slowly
+through the night. It is cold and wet, and your fingers are frozen,
+and the rain drives pitilessly in your face; and then, when you are
+nearly dead with misery, the coach stops at a well-known inn. A
+smiling host and buxom hostess greets you; blazing fires thaw you back
+to life, and good cheer awaits your appetite. No wonder people loved
+an inn and wished to take their ease therein after the dangers and
+hardships of the day. Lord Beaconsfield, in his novel _Tancred_,
+vividly describes the busy scene at a country hostelry in the busy
+coaching days. The host, who is always "smiling," conveys the pleasing
+intelligence to the passengers: "'The coach stops here half an hour,
+gentlemen: dinner quite ready.' 'Tis a delightful sound. And what a
+dinner! What a profusion of substantial delicacies! What mighty and
+iris-tinted rounds of beef! What vast and marble-veined ribs! What
+gelatinous veal pies! What colossal hams! These are evidently prize
+cheeses! And how invigorating is the perfume of those various and
+variegated pickles. Then the bustle emulating the plenty; the ringing
+of bells, the clash of thoroughfare, the summoning of ubiquitous
+waiters, and the all-pervading feeling of omnipotence from the guests,
+who order what they please to the landlord, who can produce and
+execute everything they can desire. 'Tis a wondrous sight!"
+
+[Illustration: The Shoulder of Mutton Inn, King's Lynn]
+
+And then how picturesque these old inns are, with their swinging
+signs, the pump and horse-trough before the door, a towering elm or
+poplar overshadowing the inn, and round it and on each side of the
+entrance are seats, with rustics sitting on them. The old house has
+picturesque gables and a tiled roof mellowed by age, with moss and
+lichen growing on it, and the windows are latticed. A porch protects
+the door, and over it and up the walls are growing old-fashioned
+climbing rose trees. Morland loved to paint the exteriors of inns
+quite as much as he did to frequent their interiors, and has left us
+many a wondrous drawing of their beauties. The interior is no less
+picturesque, with its open ingle-nook, its high-backed settles, its
+brick floor, its pots and pans, its pewter and brass utensils. Our
+artist has drawn for us many beautiful examples of old inns, which we
+shall visit presently and try to learn something of their old-world
+charm. He has only just been in time to sketch them, as they are fast
+disappearing. It is astonishing how many noted inns in London and the
+suburbs have vanished during the last twenty or thirty years.
+
+Let us glance at a few of the great Southwark inns. The old "Tabard,"
+from which Chaucer's pilgrims started on their memorable journey, was
+destroyed by a great fire in 1676, rebuilt in the old fashion, and
+continued until 1875, when it had to make way for a modern "old
+Tabard" and some hop merchant's offices. This and many other inns had
+galleries running round the yard, or at one end of it, and this yard
+was a busy place, frequented not only by travellers in coach or
+saddle, but by poor players and mountebanks, who set up their stage
+for the entertainment of spectators who hung over the galleries or
+from their rooms watched the performance. The model of an inn-yard was
+the first germ of theatrical architecture. The "White Hart" in
+Southwark retained its galleries on the north and east side of its
+yard until 1889, though a modern tavern replaced the south and main
+portion of the building in 1865-6. This was a noted inn, bearing as
+its sign a badge of Richard II, derived from his mother Joan of Kent.
+Jack Cade stayed there while he was trying to capture London, and
+another "immortal" flits across the stage, Master Sam Weller, of
+_Pickwick_ fame. A galleried inn still remains at Southwark, a great
+coaching and carriers' hostel, the "George." It is but a fragment of
+its former greatness, and the present building was erected soon after
+the fire in 1676, and still retains its picturesqueness.
+
+The glory has passed from most of these London inns. Formerly their
+yards resounded with the strains of the merry post-horn, and carriers'
+carts were as plentiful as omnibuses now are. In the fine yard of the
+"Saracen's Head," Aldgate, you can picture the busy scene, though the
+building has ceased to be an inn, and if you wished to travel to
+Norwich there you would have found your coach ready for you. The old
+"Bell Savage," which derives its name from one Savage who kept the
+"Bell on the Hoop," and not from any beautiful girl "La Belle
+Sauvage," was a great coaching centre, and so were the "Swan with two
+Necks," Lad Lane, the "Spread Eagle" and "Cross Keys" in Gracechurch
+Street, the "White Horse," Fetter Lane, and the "Angel," behind St.
+Clements. As we do not propose to linger long in London, and prefer
+the country towns and villages where relics of old English life
+survive, we will hie to one of these noted hostelries, book our seats
+on a Phantom coach, and haste away from the great city which has dealt
+so mercilessly with its ancient buildings. It is the last few years
+which have wrought the mischief. Many of these old inns lingered on
+till the 'eighties. Since then their destruction has been rapid, and
+the huge caravanserais, the "Cecil," the "Ritz," the "Savoy," and the
+"Metropole," have supplanted the old Saracen's Heads, the Bulls, the
+Bells, and the Boars that satisfied the needs of our forefathers in a
+less luxurious age.
+
+Let us travel first along the old York road, or rather select our
+route, going by way of Ware, Tottenham, Edmonton, and Waltham Cross,
+Hatfield and Stevenage, or through Barnet, until we arrive at the
+Wheat Sheaf Inn on Alconbury Hill, past Little Stukeley, where the two
+roads conjoin and "the milestones are numbered agreeably to that
+admeasurement," viz. to that from Hicks' Hall through Barnet, as
+_Patterson's Roads_ plainly informs us. Along this road you will find
+several of the best specimens of old coaching inns in England. The
+famous "George" at Huntingdon, the picturesque "Fox and Hounds" at
+Ware, the grand old inns at Stilton and Grantham are some of the best
+inns on English roads, and pleadingly invite a pleasant pilgrimage. We
+might follow in the wake of Dick Turpin, if his ride to York were not
+a myth. The real incident on which the story was founded occurred
+about the year 1676, long before Turpin was born. One Nicks robbed a
+gentleman on Gadshill at four o'clock in the morning, crossed the
+river with his _bay_ mare as soon as he could get a ferry-boat at
+Gravesend, and then by Braintree, Huntingdon, and other places reached
+York that evening, went to the Bowling Green, pointedly asked the
+mayor the time, proved an alibi, and got off. This account was
+published as a broadside about the time of Turpin's execution, but it
+makes no allusion to him whatever. It required the romance of the
+nineteenth century to change Nicks to Turpin and the bay mare to Black
+Bess. But _revenir à nos moutons_, or rather our inns. The old "Fox
+and Hounds" at Ware is beautiful with its swinging sign suspended by
+graceful and elaborate ironwork and its dormer windows. The "George"
+at Huntingdon preserves its gallery in the inn-yard, its projecting
+upper storey, its outdoor settle, and much else that is attractive.
+Another "George" greets us at Stamford, an ancient hostelry, where
+Charles I stayed during the Civil War when he was journeying from
+Newark to Huntingdon.
+
+And then we come to Grantham, famous for its old inns. Foremost among
+them is the "Angel," which dates back to medieval times. It has a fine
+stone front with two projecting bays, an archway with welcoming doors
+on either hand, and above the arch is a beautiful little oriel window,
+and carved heads and gargoyles jut out from the stonework. I think
+that this charming front was remodelled in Tudor times, and judging
+from the interior plaster-work I am of opinion that the bays were
+added in the time of Henry VII, the Tudor rose forming part of the
+decoration. The arch and gateway with the oriel are the oldest parts
+of the front, and on each side of the arch is a sculptured head, one
+representing Edward III and the other his queen, Philippa of Hainault.
+The house belonged in ancient times to the Knights Templars, where
+royal and other distinguished travellers were entertained. King John
+is said to have held his court here in 1213, and the old inn witnessed
+the passage of the body of Eleanor, the beloved queen of Edward I, as
+it was borne to its last resting-place at Westminster. One of the
+seven Eleanor crosses stood at Grantham on St. Peter's Hill, but it
+shared the fate of many other crosses and was destroyed by the
+troopers of Cromwell during the Civil War. The first floor of the
+"Angel" was occupied by one long room, wherein royal courts were held.
+It is now divided into three separate rooms. In this room Richard III
+condemned to execution the Duke of Buckingham, and probably here
+stayed Cromwell in the early days of his military career and wrote his
+letter concerning the first action that made him famous. We can
+imagine the silent troopers assembling in the market-place late in the
+evening, and then marching out twelve companies strong to wage an
+unequal contest against a large body of Royalists. The Grantham folk
+had much to say when the troopers rode back with forty-five prisoners
+besides divers horses and arms and colours. The "Angel" must have seen
+all this and sighed for peace. Grim troopers paced its corridors, and
+its stables were full of tired horses. One owner of the inn at the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, though he kept a hostel, liked
+not intemperance. His name was Michael Solomon, and he left an annual
+charge of 40s. to be paid to the vicar of the parish for preaching a
+sermon in the parish church against the sin of drunkenness. The
+interior of this ancient hostelry has been modernized and fitted with
+the comforts which we modern folk are accustomed to expect.
+
+Across the way is the "Angel's" rival the "George," possibly identical
+with the hospitium called "Le George" presented with other property by
+Edward IV to his mother, the Duchess of York. It lacks the appearance
+of age which clothes the "Angel" with dignity, and was rebuilt with
+red brick in the Georgian era. The coaches often called there, and
+Charles Dickens stayed the night and describes it as one of the best
+inns in England. He tells of Squeers conducting his new pupils through
+Grantham to Dotheboys Hall, and how after leaving the inn the luckless
+travellers "wrapped themselves more closely in their coats and cloaks
+... and prepared with many half-suppressed moans again to encounter
+the piercing blasts which swept across the open country." At the
+"Saracen's Head" in Westgate Isaac Newton used to stay, and there are
+many other inns, the majority of which rejoice in signs that are blue.
+We see a Blue Horse, a Blue Dog, a Blue Ram, Blue Lion, Blue Cow, Blue
+Sheep, and many other cerulean animals and objects, which proclaim the
+political colour of the great landowner. Grantham boasts of a unique
+inn-sign. Originally known as the "Bee-hive," a little public-house in
+Castlegate has earned the designation of the "Living Sign," on account
+of the hive of bees fixed in a tree that guards its portals. Upon the
+swinging sign the following lines are inscribed:--
+
+        Stop, traveller, this wondrous sign explore,
+        And say when thou hast viewed it o'er and o'er,
+        Grantham, now two rarities are thine--
+        A lofty steeple and a "Living Sign."
+
+The connexion of the "George" with Charles Dickens reminds one of the
+numerous inns immortalized by the great novelist both in and out of
+London. The "Golden Cross" at Charing Cross, the "Bull" at Rochester,
+the "Belle Sauvage" (now demolished) near Ludgate Hill, the "Angel" at
+Bury St. Edmunds, the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich, the "King's
+Head" at Chigwell (the original of the "Maypole" in _Barnaby Rudge_),
+the "Leather Bottle" at Cobham are only a few of those which he by his
+writings made famous.
+
+[Illustration: A Quaint Gable. The Bell Inn, Stilton]
+
+Leaving Grantham and its inns, we push along the great North Road to
+Stilton, famous for its cheese, where a choice of inns awaits us--the
+"Bell" and the "Angel," that glare at each other across the broad
+thoroughfare. In the palmy days of coaching the "Angel" had stabling
+for three hundred horses, and it was kept by Mistress Worthington, at
+whose door the famous cheeses were sold and hence called Stilton,
+though they were made in distant farmsteads and villages. It is quite
+a modern-looking inn as compared with the "Bell." You can see a date
+inscribed on one of the gables, 1649, but this can only mean that the
+inn was restored then, as the style of architecture of "this dream in
+stone" shows that it must date back to early Tudor times. It has a
+noble swinging sign supported by beautifully designed ornamental
+ironwork, gables, bay-windows, a Tudor archway, tiled roof, and a
+picturesque courtyard, the silence and dilapidation of which are
+strangely contrasted with the continuous bustle, life, and animation
+which must have existed there before the era of railways.
+
+Not far away is Southwell, where there is the historic inn the
+"Saracen's Head." Here Charles I stayed, and you can see the very room
+where he lodged on the left of the entrance-gate. Here it was on May
+5th, 1646, that he gave himself up to the Scotch Commissioners, who
+wrote to the Parliament from Southwell "that it made them feel like
+men in a dream." The "Martyr-King" entered this inn as a sovereign; he
+left it a prisoner under the guard of his Lothian escort. Here he
+slept his last night of liberty, and as he passed under the archway of
+the "Saracen's Head" he started on that fatal journey that terminated
+on the scaffold at Whitehall. You can see on the front of the inn over
+the gateway a stone lozenge with the royal arms engraved on it with
+the date 1693, commemorating this royal melancholy visit. In later
+times Lord Byron was a frequent visitor.
+
+On the high, wind-swept road between Ashbourne and Buxton there is an
+inn which can defy the attacks of the reformers. It is called the
+Newhaven Inn and was built by a Duke of Devonshire for the
+accommodation of visitors to Buxton. King George IV was so pleased
+with it that he gave the Duke a perpetual licence, with which no
+Brewster Sessions can interfere. Near Buxton is the second highest inn
+in England, the "Cat and Fiddle," and "The Traveller's Rest" at Flash
+Bar, on the Leek road, ranks as third, the highest being the Tan Hill
+Inn, near Brough, on the Yorkshire moors.
+
+[Illustration: The Bell Inn, Stilton]
+
+Norwich is a city remarkable for its old buildings and famous inns. A
+very ancient inn is the "Maid's Head" at Norwich, a famous hostelry
+which can vie in interest with any in the kingdom. Do we not see there
+the identical room in which good Queen Bess is said to have reposed on
+the occasion of her visit to the city in 1578? You cannot imagine a
+more delightful old chamber, with its massive beams, its wide
+fifteenth-century fire-place, and its quaint lattice, through which
+the moonbeams play upon antique furniture and strange, fantastic
+carvings. This oak-panelled room recalls memories of the Orfords,
+Walpoles, Howards, Wodehouses, and other distinguished guests whose
+names live in England's annals. The old inn was once known as the
+Murtel or Molde Fish, and some have tried to connect the change of
+name with the visit of Queen Elizabeth; unfortunately for the
+conjecture, the inn was known as the Maid's Head long before the days
+of Queen Bess. It was built on the site of an old bishop's palace, and
+in the cellars may be seen some traces of Norman masonry. One of the
+most fruitful sources of information about social life in the
+fifteenth century are the _Paston Letters_. In one written by John
+Paston in 1472 to "Mestresse Margret Paston," he tells her of the
+arrival of a visitor, and continues: "I praye yow make hym goode cheer
+... it were best to sette hys horse at the Maydes Hedde, and I shall
+be content for ther expenses." During the Civil War this inn was the
+rendezvous of the Royalists, but alas! one day Cromwell's soldiers
+made an attack on the "Maid's Head," and took for their prize the
+horses of Dame Paston stabled here.
+
+We must pass over the records of civic feasts and aldermanic
+junketings, which would fill a volume, and seek out the old "Briton's
+Arms," in the same city, a thatched building of venerable appearance
+with its projecting upper storeys and lofty gable. It looks as if it
+may not long survive the march of progress.
+
+The parish of Heigham, now part of the city of Norwich, is noted as
+having been the residence of Bishop Hall, "the English Seneca," and
+author of the _Meditations_, on his ejection from the bishopric in
+1647 till his death in 1656[43] The house in which he resided, now
+known as the Dolphin Inn, still stands, and is an interesting
+building with its picturesque bays and mullioned windows and
+ingeniously devised porch. It has actually been proposed to pull down,
+or improve out of existence, this magnificent old house. Its front is
+a perfect specimen of flint and stone sixteenth-century architecture.
+Over the main door appears an episcopal coat of arms with the date
+1587, while higher on the front appears the date of a restoration (in
+two bays):--
+
+  [43] It is erroneously styled Bishop Hall's Palace. An episcopal
+  palace is the official residence of the bishop in his cathedral
+  city. Not even a country seat of a bishop is correctly called a
+  palace, much less the residence of a bishop when ejected from his
+  see.
+
+[Illustration: The "Briton's Arms," Norwich]
+
+[Illustration: ANNO DOMINI 1615]
+
+Just inside the doorway is a fine Gothic stoup into which bucolic
+rustics now knock the fag-ends of their pipes. The staircase newel is
+a fine piece of Gothic carving with an embattled moulding, a
+poppy-head and heraldic lion. Pillared fire-places and other tokens of
+departed greatness testify to the former beauty of this old
+dwelling-place.
+
+[Illustration: The Dolphin Inn, Heigham, Norwich]
+
+We will now start back to town by the coach which leaves the "Maid's
+Head" (or did leave in 1762) at half-past eleven in the forenoon, and
+hope to arrive in London on the following day, and thence hasten
+southward to Canterbury. Along this Dover road are some of the best
+inns in England: the "Bull" at Dartford, with its galleried courtyard,
+once a pilgrims' hostel; the "Bull" and "Victoria" at Rochester,
+reminiscent of _Pickwick_; the modern "Crown" that supplants a
+venerable inn where Henry VIII first beheld Anne of Cleves; the "White
+Hart"; and the "George," where pilgrims stayed; and so on to
+Canterbury, a city of memories, which happily retains many features of
+old English life that have not altogether vanished. Its grand
+cathedral, its churches, St. Augustine's College, its quaint streets,
+like Butchery Lane, with their houses bending forward in a friendly
+manner to almost meet each other, as well as its old inns, like the
+"Falstaff" in High Street, near West Gate, standing on the site of a
+pilgrims' inn, with its sign showing the valiant and portly knight,
+and supported by elaborate ironwork, its tiled roof and picturesque
+front, all combine to make Canterbury as charming a place of modern
+pilgrimage as it was attractive to the pilgrims of another sort who
+frequented its inns in days of yore.
+
+[Illustration: Shield and Monogram on doorway of the Dolphin Inn,
+Heigham]
+
+[Illustration: Staircase Newel at the Dolphin Inn. From _Old Oak
+Furniture_, by Fred Roe]
+
+And now we will discard the cumbersome old coaches and even the
+"Flying Machines," and travel by another flying machine, an airship,
+landing where we will, wherever a pleasing inn attracts us. At
+Glastonbury is the famous "George," which has hardly changed its
+exterior since it was built by Abbot Selwood in 1475 for the
+accommodation of middle-class pilgrims, those of high degree being
+entertained at the abbot's lodgings. At Gloucester we find ourselves
+in the midst of memories of Roman, Saxon, and monastic days. Here too
+are some famous inns, especially the quaint "New Inn," in Northgate
+Street, a somewhat peculiar sign for a hostelry built (so it is said)
+for the use of pilgrims frequenting the shrine of Edward II in the
+cathedral. It retains all its ancient medieval picturesqueness. Here
+the old gallery which surrounded most of our inn-yards remains. Carved
+beams and door-posts made of chestnut are seen everywhere, and at the
+corner of New Inn Lane is a very elaborate sculpture, the lower part
+of which represents the Virgin and Holy Child. Here, in Hare Lane, is
+also a similar inn, the Old Raven Tavern, which has suffered much in
+the course of ages. It was formerly built around a courtyard, but only
+one side of it is left.
+
+[Illustration: The Falstaff Inn, Canterbury]
+
+There are many fine examples of old houses that are not inns in
+Gloucester, beautiful half-timbered black and white structures, such
+as Robert Raikes's house, the printer who has the credit of founding
+the first Sunday-school, the old Judges' House in Westgate Street, the
+old Deanery with its Norman room, once the Prior's Lodge of the
+Benedictine Abbey. Behind many a modern front there exist curious
+carvings and quaintly panelled rooms and elaborate ceilings. There is
+an interesting carved-panel room in the Tudor House, Westgate Street.
+The panels are of the linen-fold pattern, and at the head of each are
+various designs, such as the Tudor Rose and Pomegranate, the Lion of
+England, etc. The house originally known as the Old Blue Shop has some
+magnificent mantelpieces, and also St. Nicholas House can boast of a
+very elaborately carved example of Elizabethan sculpture.
+
+We journey thence to Tewkesbury and visit the grand silver-grey abbey
+that adorns the Severn banks. Here are some good inns of great
+antiquity. The "Wheat-sheaf" is perhaps the most attractive, with its
+curious gable and ancient lights, and even the interior is not much
+altered. Here too is the "Bell," under the shadow of the abbey tower.
+It is the original of Phineas Fletcher's house in the novel _John
+Halifax, Gentleman_. The "Bear and the Ragged Staff" is another
+half-timbered house with a straggling array of buildings and curious
+swinging signboard, the favourite haunt of the disciples of Izaak
+Walton, under the overhanging eaves of which the Avon silently flows.
+
+The old "Seven Stars" at Manchester is said to be the most ancient in
+England, claiming a licence 563 years old. But it has many rivals,
+such as the "Fighting Cocks" at St. Albans, the "Dick Whittington" in
+Cloth Fair, St. Bartholomews, the "Running Horse" at Leatherhead,
+wherein John Skelton, the poet laureate of Henry VIII, sang the
+praises of its landlady, Eleanor Rumming, and several others. The
+"Seven Stars" has many interesting features and historical
+associations. Here came Guy Fawkes and concealed himself in "Ye Guy
+Faux Chamber," as the legend over the door testifies. What strange
+stories could this old inn tell us! It could tell us of the Flemish
+weavers who, driven from their own country by religious persecutions
+and the atrocities of Duke Alva, settled in Manchester in 1564, and
+drank many a cup of sack at the "Seven Stars," rejoicing in their
+safety. It could tell us of the disputes between the clergy of the
+collegiate church and the citizens in 1574, when one of the preachers,
+a bachelor of divinity, on his way to the church was stabbed three
+times by the dagger of a Manchester man; and of the execution of three
+popish priests, whose heads were afterwards exposed from the tower of
+the church. Then there is the story of the famous siege in 1642, when
+the King's forces tried to take the town and were repulsed by the
+townsfolk, who were staunch Roundheads. "A great and furious skirmish
+did ensue," and the "Seven Stars" was in the centre of the fighting.
+Sir Thomas Fairfax made Manchester his head-quarters in 1643, and the
+walls of the "Seven Stars" echoed with the carousals of the
+Roundheads. When Fairfax marched from Manchester to relieve Nantwich,
+some dragoons had to leave hurriedly, and secreted their mess plate in
+the walls of the old inn, where it was discovered only a few years
+ago, and may now be seen in the parlour of this interesting hostel. In
+1745 it furnished accommodation for the soldiers of Prince Charles
+Edward, the Young Pretender, and was the head-quarters of the
+Manchester regiment. One of the rooms is called "Ye Vestry," on
+account of its connexion with the collegiate church. It is said that
+there was a secret passage between the inn and the church, and,
+according to the Court Leet Records, some of the clergy used to go to
+the "Seven Stars" in sermon-time in their surplices to refresh
+themselves. _O tempora!_ _O mores!_ A horseshoe at the foot of the
+stairs has a story to tell. During the war with France in 1805 the
+press-gang was billeted at the "Seven Stars." A young farmer's lad was
+leading a horse to be shod which had cast a shoe. The press-gang
+rushed out, seized the young man, and led him off to serve the king.
+Before leaving he nailed the shoe to a post on the stairs, saying,
+"Let this stay till I come from the wars to claim it." So it remains
+to this day unclaimed, a mute reminder of its owner's fate and of the
+manners of our forefathers.
+
+[Illustration: The Bear and Ragged Staff Inn, Tewkesbury]
+
+Another inn, the "Fighting Cocks" at St. Albans, formerly known as "Ye
+Old Round House," close to the River Ver, claims to be the oldest
+inhabited house in England. It probably formed part of the monastic
+buildings, but its antiquity as an inn is not, as far as I am aware,
+fully established.
+
+The antiquary must not forget the ancient inn at Bainbridge, in
+Wensleydale, which has had its licence since 1445, and plays its
+little part in _Drunken Barnaby's Journal_.
+
+[Illustration: Fire-place in the George Inn, Norton St. Philip,
+Somerset]
+
+Many inns have played an important part in national events. There is
+the "Bull" at Coventry, where Henry VII stayed before the battle of
+Bosworth Field, where he won for himself the English crown. There Mary
+Queen of Scots was detained by order of Elizabeth. There the
+conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot met to devise their scheme for
+blowing up the Houses of Parliament. The George Inn at Norton St.
+Philip, Somerset, took part in the Monmouth rebellion. There the Duke
+stayed, and there was much excitement in the inn when he informed his
+officers that it was his intention to attack Bristol. Thence he
+marched with his rude levies to Keynsham, and after a defeat and a
+vain visit to Bath he returned to the "George" and won a victory over
+Faversham's advanced guard. You can still see the Monmouth room in the
+inn with its fine fire-place.
+
+The Crown and Treaty Inn at Uxbridge reminds one of the meeting of the
+Commissioners of King and Parliament, who vainly tried to arrange a
+peace in 1645; and at the "Bear," Hungerford, William of Orange
+received the Commissioners of James II, and set out thence on his
+march towards London and the English throne.
+
+The Dark Lantern Inn at Aylesbury, in a nest of poor houses, seems to
+tell by its unique sign of plots and conspiracies.
+
+Aylesbury is noted for its inns. The famous "White Hart" is no more.
+It has vanished entirely, having disappeared in 1863. It had been
+modernized, but could boast of a timber balcony round the courtyard,
+ornamented with ancient wood carvings brought from Salden House, an
+old seat of the Fortescues, near Winslow. Part of the inn was built by
+the Earl of Rochester in 1663, and many were the great feasts and
+civic banquets that took place within its hospitable doors. The
+"King's Head" dates from the middle of the fifteenth century and is a
+good specimen of the domestic architecture of the Tudor period. It
+formerly issued its own tokens. It was probably the hall of some guild
+or fraternity. In a large window are the arms of England and Anjou.
+The George Inn has some interesting paintings which were probably
+brought from Eythrope House on its demolition in 1810, and the "Bull's
+Head" has some fine beams and panelling.
+
+[Illustration: The Green Dragon Inn, Wymondham, Norfolk]
+
+Some of the inns of Burford and Shrewsbury we have seen when we
+visited those old-world towns. Wymondham, once famous for its abbey,
+is noted for its "Green Dragon," a beautiful half-timbered house with
+projecting storeys, and in our wanderings we must not forget to see
+along the Brighton road the picturesque "Star" at Alfriston with its
+three oriel windows, one of the oldest in Sussex. It was once a
+sanctuary within the jurisdiction of the Abbot of Battle for persons
+flying from justice. Hither came men-slayers, thieves, and rogues of
+every description, and if they reached this inn-door they were safe.
+There is a record of a horse-thief named Birrel in the days of Henry
+VIII seeking refuge here for a crime committed at Lydd, in Kent. It
+was intended originally as a house for the refreshment of mendicant
+friars. The house is very quaint with its curious carvings, including
+a great red lion that guards the side, the figure-head of a wrecked
+Dutch vessel lost in Cuckmen Haven. Alfriston was noted as a great
+nest of smugglers, and the "Star" was often frequented by Stanton
+Collins and his gang, who struck terror into their neighbours,
+daringly carried on their trade, and drank deep at the inn when the
+kegs were safely housed. Only fourteen years ago the last of his gang
+died in Eastbourne Workhouse. Smuggling is a vanished profession
+nowadays, a feature of vanished England that no one would seek to
+revive. Who can tell whether it may not be as prevalent as ever it
+was, if tariff reform and the imposition of heavy taxes on imports
+become articles of our political creed?
+
+[Illustration: The Star Inn, Afriston Sussex. Fred Roe, 16 Sep 97]
+
+Many of the inns once famous in the annals of the road have now
+"retired from business" and have taken down their signs. The First and
+Last Inn, at Croscombe, Somerset, was once a noted coaching hostel,
+but since coaches ceased to run it was not wanted and has closed its
+doors to the public. Small towns like Hounslow, Wycombe, and Ashbourne
+were full of important inns which, being no longer required for the
+accommodation of travellers, have retired from work and converted
+themselves into private houses. Small villages like Little Brickhill,
+which happened to be a stage, abounded with hostels which the ending
+of the coaching age made unnecessary. The Castle Inn at Marlborough,
+once one of the finest in England, is now part of a great public
+school. The house has a noted history. It was once a nobleman's
+mansion, being the home of Frances Countess of Hereford, the patron of
+Thomson, and then of the Duke of Northumberland, who leased it to Mr.
+Cotterell for the purpose of an inn. Crowds of distinguished folk have
+thronged its rooms and corridors, including the great Lord Chatham,
+who was laid up here with an attack of gout for seven weeks in 1762
+and made all the inn-servants wear his livery. Mr. Stanley Weyman has
+made it the scene of one of his charming romances. It was not until
+1843 that it took down its sign, and has since patiently listened to
+the conjugation of Greek and Latin verbs, to classic lore, and other
+studies which have made Marlborough College one of the great and
+successful public schools. Another great inn was the fine Georgian
+house near one of the entrances to Kedleston Park, built by Lord
+Scarsdale for visitors to the medicinal waters in his park. But these
+waters have now ceased to cure the mildest invalid, and the inn is now
+a large farm-house with vast stables and barns.
+
+It seems as if something of the foundations of history were crumbling
+to read that the "Star and Garter" at Richmond is to be sold at
+auction. That is a melancholy fate for perhaps the most famous inn in
+the country--a place at which princes and statesmen have stayed, and
+to which Louis Philippe and his Queen resorted. The "Star and Garter"
+has figured in the romances of some of our greatest novelists. One
+comes across it in Meredith and Thackeray, and it finds its way into
+numerous memoirs, nearly always with some comment upon its unique
+beauty of situation, a beauty that was never more real than at this
+moment when the spring foliage is just beginning to peep.
+
+The motor and changing habits account for the evil days upon which the
+hostelry has fallen. Trains and trams have brought to the doors almost
+of the "Star and Garter" a public that has not the means to make use
+of its 120 bedrooms. The richer patrons of other days flash past on
+their motors, making for those resorts higher up the river which are
+filling the place in the economy of the London Sunday and week-end
+which Richmond occupied in times when travelling was more difficult.
+These changes are inevitable. The "Ship" at Greenwich has gone, and
+Cabinet Ministers can no longer dine there. The convalescent home,
+which was the undoing of certain Poplar Guardians, is housed in an
+hotel as famous as the "Ship," in its days once the resort of Pitt and
+his bosom friends. Indeed, a pathetic history might be written of the
+famous hostelries of the past.
+
+Not far from Marlborough is Devizes, formerly a great coaching centre,
+and full of inns, of which the most noted is the "Bear," still a
+thriving hostel, once the home of the great artist Sir Thomas
+Lawrence, whose father was the landlord.
+
+[Illustration: Courtyard of the George Inn, Norton St. Philip
+Somerset]
+
+It is impossible within one chapter to record all the old inns of
+England, we have still a vast number left unchronicled, but perhaps a
+sufficient number of examples has been given of this important feature
+of vanishing England. Some of these are old and crumbling, and may die
+of old age. Others will fall a prey to licensing committees. Some have
+been left high and dry, deserted by the stream of guests that flowed
+to them in the old coaching days. Motor-cars have resuscitated some
+and brought prosperity and life to the old guest-haunted chambers. We
+cannot dwell on the curious signs that greet us as we travel along the
+old highways, or strive to interpret their origin and meaning. We are
+rather fond in Berkshire of the "Five Alls," the interpretation of
+which is cryptic. The Five Alls are, if I remember right--
+
+        "I rule all" [the king].
+        "I pray for all" [the bishop].
+        "I plead for all" [the barrister].
+        "I fight for all" [the soldier].
+        "I pay for all" [the farmer].
+
+One of the most humorous inn signs is "The Man Loaded with Mischief,"
+which is found about a mile from Cambridge, on the Madingley road. The
+original Mischief was designed by Hogarth for a public-house in Oxford
+Street. It is needless to say that the signboard, and even the name,
+have long ago disappeared from the busy London thoroughfare, but the
+quaint device must have been extensively copied by country
+sign-painters. There is a "Mischief" at Wallingford, and a "Load of
+Mischief" at Norwich, and another at Blewbury. The inn on the
+Madingley road exhibits the sign in its original form. Though the
+colours are much faded from exposure to the weather, traces of
+Hogarthian humour can be detected. A man is staggering under the
+weight of a woman, who is on his back. She is holding a glass of gin
+in her hand; a chain and padlock are round the man's neck, labelled
+"Wedlock." On the right-hand side is the shop of "S. Gripe,
+Pawnbroker," and a carpenter is just going in to pledge his tools.
+
+[Illustration: "The Dark Lantern" Inn, Aylesbury 16 Aug 1902]
+
+The art of painting signboards is almost lost, and when they have to
+be renewed sorry attempts are made to imitate the old designs. Some
+celebrated artists have not thought it below their dignity to paint
+signboards. Some have done this to show their gratitude to their
+kindly host and hostess for favours received when they sojourned at
+inns during their sketching expeditions. The "George" at Wargrave has
+a sign painted by the distinguished painters Mr. George Leslie, R.A.,
+and Mr. Broughton, R.A., who, when staying at the inn, kindly painted
+the sign, which is hung carefully within doors that it may not be
+exposed to the mists and rains of the Thames valley. St. George is
+sallying forth to slay the dragon on the one side, and on the reverse
+he is refreshing himself with a tankard of ale after his labours. Not
+a few artists in the early stages of their career have paid their
+bills at inns by painting for the landlord. Morland was always in
+difficulties and adorned many a signboard, and the art of David Cox,
+Herring, and Sir William Beechey has been displayed in this homely
+fashion. David Cox's painting of the Royal Oak at Bettws-y-Coed was
+the subject of prolonged litigation, the sign being valued at £1000,
+the case being carried to the House of Lords, and there decided in
+favour of the freeholder.
+
+Sometimes strange notices appear in inns. The following rather
+remarkable one was seen by our artist at the "County Arms," Stone,
+near Aylesbury:--
+
+  "A man is specially engaged to do all the cursing and swearing
+  that is required in this establishment. A dog is also kept to do
+  all the barking. Our prize-fighter and chucker-out has won
+  seventy-five prize-fights and has never been beaten, and is a
+  splendid shot with the revolver. An undertaker calls here for
+  orders every morning."
+
+Motor-cars have somewhat revived the life of the old inns on the great
+coaching roads, but it is only the larger and more important ones
+that have been aroused into a semblance of their old life. The cars
+disdain the smaller establishments, and run such long distances that
+only a few houses along the road derive much benefit from them. For
+many their days are numbered, and it may be useful to describe them
+before, like four-wheelers and hansom-cabs, they have quite vanished
+away.
+
+[Illustration: Spandril. The Marquis of Granby Inn, Colchester]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+OLD MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS
+
+
+No class of buildings has suffered more than the old town halls of our
+country boroughs. Many of these towns have become decayed and all
+their ancient glories have departed. They were once flourishing places
+in the palmy days of the cloth trade, and could boast of fairs and
+markets and a considerable number of inhabitants and wealthy
+merchants; but the tide of trade has flowed elsewhere. The invention
+of steam and complex machinery necessitating proximity to coal-fields
+has turned its course elsewhere, to the smoky regions of Yorkshire and
+Lancashire, and the old town has lost its prosperity and its power.
+Its charter has gone; it can boast of no municipal corporation; hence
+the town hall is scarcely needed save for some itinerant Thespians, an
+occasional public meeting, or as a storehouse of rubbish. It begins to
+fall into decay, and the decayed town is not rich enough, or
+public-spirited enough, to prop its weakened timbers. For the sake of
+the safety of the public it has to come down.
+
+On the other hand, an influx of prosperity often dooms the aged town
+hall to destruction. It vanishes before a wave of prosperity. The
+borough has enlarged its borders. It has become quite a great town and
+transacts much business. The old shops have given place to grand
+emporiums with large plate-glass windows, wherein are exhibited the
+most recent fashions of London and Paris, and motor-cars can be
+bought, and all is very brisk and up-to-date. The old town hall is now
+deemed a very poor and inadequate building. It is small, inconvenient,
+and unsuited to the taste of the municipal councillors, whose ideas
+have expanded with their trade. The Mayor and Corporation meet, and
+decide to build a brand-new town hall replete with every luxury and
+convenience. The old must vanish.
+
+And yet, how picturesque these ancient council chambers are. They
+usually stand in the centre of the market-place, and have an
+undercroft, the upper storey resting on pillars. Beneath this shelter
+the market women display their wares and fix their stalls on market
+days, and there you will perhaps see the fire-engine, at least the old
+primitive one which was in use before a grand steam fire-engine had
+been purchased and housed in a station of its own. The building has
+high pointed gables and mullioned windows, a tiled roof mellowed with
+age, and a finely wrought vane, which is a credit to the skill of the
+local blacksmith. It is a sad pity that this "thing of beauty" should
+have to be pulled down and be replaced by a modern building which is
+not always creditable to the architectural taste of the age. A law
+should be passed that no old town halls should be pulled down, and
+that all new ones should be erected on a different site. No more
+fitting place could be found for the storage of the antiquities of the
+town, the relics of its old municipal life, sketches of its old
+buildings that have vanished, and portraits of its worthies, than the
+ancient building which has for so long kept watch and ward over its
+destinies and been the scene of most of the chief events connected
+with its history.
+
+Happily several have been spared, and they speak to us of the old
+methods of municipal government; of the merchant guilds, composed of
+rich merchants and clothiers, who met therein to transact their common
+business. The guild hall was the centre of the trade of the town and
+of its social and commercial life. An amazing amount of business was
+transacted therein. If you study the records of any ancient borough
+you will discover that the pulse of life beat fast in the old guild
+hall. There the merchants met to talk over their affairs and "drink
+their guild." There the Mayor came with the Recorder or "Stiward" to
+hold his courts and to issue all "processes as attachementes, summons,
+distresses, precepts, warantes, subsideas, recognissaunces, etc." The
+guild hall was like a living thing. It held property, had a treasury,
+received the payments of freemen, levied fines on "foreigners" who
+were "not of the guild," administered justice, settled quarrels
+between the brethren of the guild, made loans to merchants, heard the
+complaints of the aggrieved, held feasts, promoted loyalty to the
+sovereign, and insisted strongly on every burgess that he should do
+his best to promote the "comyn weele and prophite of ye saide gylde."
+It required loyalty and secrecy from the members of the common council
+assembled within its walls, and no one was allowed to disclose to the
+public its decisions and decrees. This guild hall was a living thing.
+Like the Brook it sang:--
+
+        "Men may come and men may go,
+        But I flow on for ever."
+
+Mayor succeeded mayor, and burgess followed burgess, but the old guild
+hall lived on, the central mainspring of the borough's life. Therein
+were stored the archives of the town, the charters won, bargained for,
+and granted by kings and queens, which gave them privileges of trade,
+authority to hold fairs and markets, liberty to convey and sell their
+goods in other towns. Therein were preserved the civic plate, the
+maces that gave dignity to their proceedings, the cups bestowed by
+royal or noble personages or by the affluent members of the guild in
+token of their affection for their town and fellowship. Therein they
+assembled to don their robes to march in procession to the town church
+to hear Mass, or in later times a sermon, and then refreshed
+themselves with a feast at the charge of the hall. The portraits of
+the worthies of the town, of royal and distinguished patrons, adorned
+the walls, and the old guild hall preached daily lessons to the
+townsfolk to uphold the dignity and promote the welfare of the
+borough, and good feeling and the sense of brotherhood among
+themselves.
+
+[Illustration: The Town Hall, Shrewsbury]
+
+We give an illustration of the town hall of Shrewsbury, a notable
+building and well worthy of study as a specimen of a municipal
+building erected at the close of the sixteenth century. The style is
+that of the Renaissance with the usual mixture of debased Gothic and
+classic details, but the general effect is imposing; the arches and
+parapet are especially characteristic. An inscription over the arch at
+the north end records:--
+
+  "The xv^{th} day of June was this building begonne, William Jones
+  and Thomas Charlton, Gent, then Bailiffes, and was erected and
+  covered in their time, 1595."
+
+A full description of this building is given in Canon Auden's history
+of the town. He states that "under the clock is the statue of Richard
+Duke of York, father of Edward IV, which was removed from the old
+Welsh Bridge at its demolition in 1791. This is flanked by an
+inscription recording this fact on the one side, and on the other by
+the three leopards' heads which are the arms of the town. On the other
+end of the building is a sun-dial, and also a sculptured angel holding
+a shield on which are the arms of England and France. This was removed
+from the gate of the town, which stood at the foot of the castle, on
+its demolition in 1825. The principal entrance is on the west, and
+over this are the arms of Queen Elizabeth and the date 1596. It will
+be noticed that one of the supporters is not the unicorn, but the red
+dragon of Wales. The interior is now partly devoted to various
+municipal offices, and partly used as the Mayor's Court, the roof of
+which still retains its old character." It was formerly known as the
+Old Market Hall, but the business of the market has been transferred
+to the huge but tasteless building of brick erected at the top of
+Mardol in 1869, the erection of which caused the destruction of
+several picturesque old houses which can ill be spared.
+
+Cirencester possesses a magnificent town hall, a stately
+Perpendicular building, which stands out well against the noble church
+tower of the same period. It has a gateway flanked by buttresses and
+arcades on each side and two upper storeys with pierced battlements at
+the top which are adorned with richly floriated pinnacles. A great
+charm of the building are the three oriel windows extending from the
+top of the ground-floor division to the foot of the battlements. The
+surface of the wall of the façade is cut into panels, and niches for
+statues adorn the faces of the four buttresses. The whole forms a most
+elaborate piece of Perpendicular work of unusual character. We
+understand that it needs repair and is in some danger. The aid of the
+Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has been called in,
+and their report has been sent to the civic authorities, who will, we
+hope, adopt their recommendations and deal kindly and tenderly with
+this most interesting structure.
+
+Another famous guild hall is in danger, that at Norwich. It has even
+been suggested that it should be pulled down and a new one erected,
+but happily this wild scheme has been abandoned. Old buildings like
+not new inventions, just as old people fear to cross the road lest
+they should be run over by a motor-car. Norwich Guildhall does not
+approve of electric tram-cars, which run close to its north side and
+cause its old bones to vibrate in a most uncomfortable fashion. You
+can perceive how much it objects to these horrid cars by feeling the
+vibration of the walls when you are standing on the level of the
+street or on the parapet. You will not therefore be surprised to find
+ominous cracks in the old walls, and the roof is none too safe, the
+large span having tried severely the strength of the old oak beams. It
+is a very ancient building, the crypt under the east end, vaulted in
+brickwork, probably dating from the thirteenth century, while the main
+building was erected in the fifteenth century. The walls are well
+built, three feet in thickness, and constructed of uncut flints; the
+east end is enriched with diaper-work in chequers of stone and knapped
+flint. Some new buildings have been added on the south side within
+the last century. There is a clock turret at the east end, erected in
+1850 at the cost of the then Mayor. Evidently the roof was giving the
+citizens anxiety at that time, as the good donor presented the clock
+tower on condition that the roof of the council chamber should be
+repaired. This famous old building has witnessed many strange scenes,
+such as the burning of old dames who were supposed to be witches, the
+execution of criminals and conspirators, the savage conflicts of
+citizens and soldiers in days of rioting and unrest. These good
+citizens of Norwich used to add considerably to the excitement of the
+place by their turbulence and eagerness for fighting. The crypt of the
+Town Hall is just old enough to have heard of the burning of the
+cathedral and monastery by the citizens in 1272, and to have seen the
+ringleaders executed. Often was there fighting in the city, and this
+same old building witnessed in 1549 a great riot, chiefly directed
+against the religious reforms and change of worship introduced by the
+first Prayer Book of Edward VI. It was rather amusing to see Parker,
+afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, addressing the rioters from a
+platform, under which stood the spearmen of Kett, the leader of the
+riot, who took delight in pricking the feet of the orator with their
+spears as he poured forth his impassioned eloquence. In an important
+city like Norwich the guild hall has played an important part in the
+making of England, and is worthy in its old age of the tenderest and
+most reverent treatment, and even of the removal from its proximity of
+the objectionable electric tram-cars.
+
+As we are at Norwich it would be well to visit another old house,
+which though not a municipal building, is a unique specimen of the
+domestic architecture of a Norwich citizen in days when, as Dr. Jessop
+remarks, "there was no coal to burn in the grate, no gas to enlighten
+the darkness of the night, no potatoes to eat, no tea to drink, and
+when men believed that the sun moved round the earth once in 365
+days, and would have been ready to burn the culprit who should dare to
+maintain the contrary." It is called Strangers' Hall, a most
+interesting medieval mansion which had never ceased to be an inhabited
+house for at least 500 years, till it was purchased in 1899 by Mr.
+Leonard Bolingbroke, who rescued it from decay, and permits the public
+to inspect its beauties. The crypt and cellars, and possibly the
+kitchen and buttery, were portions of the original house owned in 1358
+by Robert Herdegrey, Burgess in Parliament and Bailiff of the City,
+and the present hall, with its groined porch and oriel window, was
+erected later over the original fourteenth-century cellars. It was
+inhabited by a succession of merchants and chief men of Norwich, and
+at the beginning of the sixteenth century passed into the family of
+Sotherton. The merchant's mark of Nicholas Sotherton is painted on the
+roof of the hall. You can see this fine hall with its screen and
+gallery and beautifully-carved woodwork. The present Jacobean
+staircase and gallery, big oak window, and doorways leading into the
+garden are later additions made by Francis Cook, grocer of Norwich,
+who was mayor of the city in 1627. The house probably took its name
+from the family of Le Strange, who settled in Norwich in the sixteenth
+century. In 1610 the Sothertons conveyed the property to Sir le
+Strange Mordant, who sold it to the above-mentioned Francis Cook. Sir
+Joseph Paine came into possession just before the Restoration, and we
+see his initials, with those of his wife Emma, and the date 1659, in
+the spandrels of the fire-places in some of the rooms. This beautiful
+memorial of the merchant princes of Norwich, like many other old
+houses, fell into decay. It is most pleasant to find that it has now
+fallen into such tender hands, that its old timbers have been saved
+and preserved by the generous care of its present owner, who has thus
+earned the gratitude of all who love antiquity.
+
+Sometimes buildings erected for quite different purposes have been
+used as guild halls. There was one at Reading, a guild hall near the
+holy brook in which the women washed their clothes, and made so much
+noise by "beating their battledores" (the usual style of washing in
+those days) that the mayor and his worthy brethren were often
+disturbed in their deliberations, so they petitioned the King to grant
+them the use of the deserted church of the Greyfriars' Monastery
+lately dissolved in the town. This request was granted, and in the
+place where the friars sang their services and preached, the mayor and
+burgesses "drank their guild" and held their banquets. When they got
+tired of that building they filched part of the old grammar school
+from the boys, making an upper storey, wherein they held their council
+meetings. The old church then was turned into a prison, but now
+happily it is a church again. At last the corporation had a town hall
+of their own, which they decorated with the initials S.P.Q.R., Romanus
+and Readingensis conveniently beginning with the same letter. Now they
+have a grand new town hall, which provides every accommodation for
+this growing town.
+
+[Illustration: The Greenland Fishery House, King's Lynn. An old Guild
+House of the time of James I]
+
+The Newbury town hall, a Georgian structure, has just been demolished.
+It was erected in 1740-1742, taking the place of an ancient and
+interesting guild hall built in 1611 in the centre of the
+market-place. The councillors were startled one day by the collapse of
+the ceiling of the hall, and when we last saw the chamber tons of
+heavy plaster were lying on the floor. The roof was unsound; the
+adjoining street too narrow for the hundred motors that raced past the
+dangerous corners in twenty minutes on the day of the Newbury races;
+so there was no help for the old building; its fate was sealed, and it
+was bound to come down. But the town possesses a very charming Cloth
+Hall, which tells of the palmy days of the Newbury cloth-makers, or
+clothiers, as they were called; of Jack of Newbury, the famous John
+Winchcombe, or Smallwoode, whose story is told in Deloney's humorous
+old black-letter pamphlet, entitled _The Most Pleasant and Delectable
+Historie of John Winchcombe, otherwise called Jacke of Newberie_,
+published in 1596. He is said to have furnished one hundred men
+fully equipped for the King's service at Flodden Field, and mightily
+pleased Queen Catherine, who gave him a "riche chain of gold," and
+wished that God would give the King many such clothiers. You can see
+part of the house of this worthy, who died in 1519. Fuller stated in
+the seventeenth century that this brick and timber residence had been
+converted into sixteen clothiers' houses. It is now partly occupied by
+the Jack of Newbury Inn. A fifteenth-century gable with an oriel
+window and carved barge-board still remains, and you can see a massive
+stone chimney-piece in one of the original chambers where Jack used to
+sit and receive his friends. Some carvings also have been discovered
+in an old house showing what is thought to be a carved portrait of the
+clothier. It bears the initials J.W., and another panel has a raised
+shield suspended by strap and buckle with a monogram I.S., presumably
+John Smallwoode. He was married twice, and the portrait busts on each
+side are supposed to represent his two wives. Another carving
+represents the Blessed Trinity under the figure of a single head with
+three faces within a wreath of oak-leaves with floriated
+spandrels.[44] We should like to pursue the subject of these Newbury
+clothiers and see Thomas Dolman's house, which is so fine and large
+and cost so much money that his workpeople used to sing a doggerel
+ditty:--
+
+  Lord have mercy upon us miserable sinners,
+  Thomas Dolman has built a new house and turned away all his spinners.
+
+  [44] _History of Newbury_, by Walter Money, F.S.A.
+
+The old Cloth Hall which has led to this digression has been recently
+restored, and is now a museum.
+
+The ancient town of Wallingford, famous for its castle, had a guild
+hall with selds under it, the earliest mention of which dates back to
+the reign of Edward II, and occurs constantly as the place wherein the
+burghmotes were held. The present town hall was erected in 1670--a
+picturesque building on stone pillars. This open space beneath the
+town hall was formerly used as a corn-market, and so continued until
+the present corn-exchange was erected half a century ago. The slated
+roof is gracefully curved, is crowned by a good vane, and a neat
+dormer window juts out on the side facing the market-place. Below this
+is a large Renaissance window opening on to a balcony whence orators
+can address the crowds assembled in the market-place at election
+times. The walls of the hall are hung with portraits of the worthies
+and benefactors of the town, including one of Archbishop Laud. A
+mayor's feast was, before the passing of the Municipal Corporations
+Act, a great occasion in most of our boroughs, the expenses of which
+were defrayed by the rates. The upper chamber in the Wallingford town
+hall was formerly a kitchen, with a huge fire-place, where mighty
+joints and fat capons were roasted for the banquet. Outside you can
+see a ring of light-coloured stones, called the bull-ring, where
+bulls, provided at the cost of the Corporation, were baited. Until
+1840 our Berkshire town of Wokingham was famous for its annual
+bull-baiting on St. Thomas's Day. A good man, one George Staverton,
+was once gored by a bull; so he vented his rage upon the whole bovine
+race, and left a charity for the providing of bulls to be baited on
+the festival of this saint, the meat afterwards to be given to the
+poor of the town. The meat is still distributed, but the bulls are no
+longer baited. Here at Wokingham there was a picturesque old town hall
+with an open undercroft, supported on pillars; but the townsfolk must
+needs pull it down and erect an unsightly brick building in its stead.
+It contains some interesting portraits of royal and distinguished folk
+dating from the time of Charles I, but how the town became possessed
+of these paintings no man knoweth.
+
+Another of our Berkshire towns can boast of a fine town hall that has
+not been pulled down like so many of its fellows. It is not so old as
+some, but is in itself a memorial of some vandalism, as it occupies
+the site of the old Market Cross, a thing of rare beauty, beautifully
+carved and erected in Mary's reign, but ruthlessly destroyed by Waller
+and his troopers during the Civil War period. Upon the ground on which
+it stood thirty-four years later--in 1677--the Abingdon folk reared
+their fine town hall; its style resembles that of Inigo Jones, and it
+has an open undercroft--a kindly shelter from the weather for market
+women. Tall and graceful it dominates the market-place, and it is
+crowned with a pretty cupola and a fine vane. You can find a still
+more interesting hall in the town, part of the old abbey, the gateway
+with its adjoining rooms, now used as the County Hall, and there you
+will see as fine a collection of plate and as choice an array of royal
+portraits as ever fell to the lot of a provincial county town. One of
+these is a Gainsborough. One of the reasons why Abingdon has such a
+good store of silver plate is that according to their charter the
+Corporation has to pay a small sum yearly to their High Stewards, and
+these gentlemen--the Bowyers of Radley and the Earls of Abingdon--have
+been accustomed to restore their fees to the town in the shape of a
+gift of plate.
+
+We might proceed to examine many other of these interesting buildings,
+but a volume would be needed for the purpose of recording them all.
+Too many of the ancient ones have disappeared and their places taken
+by modern, unsightly, though more convenient buildings. We may mention
+the salvage of the old market-house at Winster, in Derbyshire, which
+has been rescued by that admirable National Trust for Places of
+Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, which descends like an angel of
+mercy on many a threatened and abandoned building and preserves it for
+future generations. The Winster market-house is of great age; the
+lower part is doubtless as old as the thirteenth century, and the
+upper part was added in the seventeenth. Winster was at one time an
+important place; its markets were famous, and this building must for
+very many years have been the centre of the commercial life of a large
+district. But as the market has diminished in importance, the old
+market-house has fallen out of repair, and its condition has caused
+anxiety to antiquaries for some time past. Local help has been
+forthcoming under the auspices of the National Trust, in which it is
+now vested for future preservation.
+
+[Illustration: The Market House, Wymondham, Norfolk]
+
+Though not a town hall, we may here record the saving of a very
+interesting old building, the Palace Gatehouse at Maidstone, the
+entire demolition of which was proposed. It is part of the old
+residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, near the Perpendicular
+church of All Saints, on the banks of the Medway, whose house at
+Maidstone added dignity to the town and helped to make it the
+important place it was. The Palace was originally the residence of the
+Rector of Maidstone, but was given up in the thirteenth century to the
+Archbishop. The oldest part of the existing building is at the north
+end, where some fifteenth-century windows remain. Some of the rooms
+have good old panelling and open stone fire-places of the
+fifteenth-century date. But decay has fallen on the old building. Ivy
+is allowed to grow over it unchecked, its main stems clinging to the
+walls and disturbing the stones. Wet has begun to soak into the walls
+through the decayed stone sills. Happily the gatehouse has been saved,
+and we doubt not that the enlightened Town Council will do its best to
+preserve this interesting building from further decay.
+
+The finest Early Renaissance municipal building is the picturesque
+guild hall at Exeter, with its richly ornamented front projecting over
+the pavement and carried on arches. The market-house at Rothwell is a
+beautifully designed building erected by Sir Thomas Tresham in 1577.
+Being a Recusant, he was much persecuted for his religion, and never
+succeeded in finishing the work. We give an illustration of the quaint
+little market-house at Wymondham, with its open space beneath, and the
+upper storey supported by stout posts and brackets. It is entirely
+built of timber and plaster. Stout posts support the upper floor,
+beneath which is a covered market. The upper chamber is reached by a
+quaint rude wooden staircase. Chipping Campden can boast of a handsome
+oblong market-house, built of stone, having five arches with three
+gables on the long sides, and two arches with gables over each on the
+short sides. There are mullioned windows under each gable.
+
+[Illustration: Guild Mark and Date on doorway, Burford, Oxon]
+
+The city of Salisbury could at one time boast of several halls of the
+old guilds which flourished there. There was a charming island of old
+houses near the cattle-market, which have all disappeared. They were
+most picturesque and interesting buildings, and we regret to have to
+record that new half-timbered structures have been erected in their
+place with sham beams, and boards nailed on to the walls to represent
+beams, one of the monstrosities of modern architectural art. The old
+Joiners' Hall has happily been saved by the National Trust. It has a
+very attractive sixteenth-century façade, though the interior has been
+much altered. Until the early years of the nineteenth century it was
+the hall of the guild or company of the joiners of the city of New
+Sarum.
+
+Such are some of the old municipal buildings of England. There are
+many others which might have been mentioned. It is a sad pity that so
+many have disappeared and been replaced by modern and uninteresting
+structures. If a new town hall be required in order to keep pace with
+the increasing dignity of an important borough, the Corporation can at
+least preserve their ancient municipal hall which has so long watched
+over the fortunes of the town and shared in its joys and sorrows, and
+seek a fresh site for their new home without destroying the old.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CROSSES
+
+
+A careful study of the ordnance maps of certain counties of England
+reveals the extraordinary number of ancient crosses which are
+scattered over the length and breadth of the district. Local names
+often suggest the existence of an ancient cross, such as Blackrod, or
+Black-rood, Oakenrod, Crosby, Cross Hall, Cross Hillock. But if the
+student sally forth to seek this sacred symbol of the Christian faith,
+he will often be disappointed. The cross has vanished, and even the
+recollection of its existence has completely passed away. Happily not
+all have disappeared, and in our travels we shall be able to discover
+many of these interesting specimens of ancient art, but not a tithe of
+those that once existed are now to be discovered.
+
+Many causes have contributed to their disappearance. The Puritans
+waged insensate war against the cross. It was in their eyes an idol
+which must be destroyed. They regarded them as popish superstitions,
+and objected greatly to the custom of "carrying the corse towards the
+church all garnished with crosses, which they set down by the way at
+every cross, and there all of them devoutly on their knees make
+prayers for the dead."[45] Iconoclastic mobs tore down the sacred
+symbol in blind fury. In the summer of 1643 Parliament ordered that
+all crucifixes, crosses, images, and pictures should be obliterated or
+otherwise destroyed, and during the same year the two Houses passed a
+resolution for the destruction of all crosses throughout the kingdom.
+They ordered Sir Robert Harlow to superintend the levelling to the
+ground of St. Paul's Cross, Charing Cross, and that in Cheapside, and
+a contemporary print shows the populace busily engaged in tearing down
+the last. Ladders are placed against the structure, workmen are busy
+hammering the figures, and a strong rope is attached to the actual
+cross on the summit and eager hands are dragging it down. Similar
+scenes were enacted in many other towns, villages, and cities of
+England, and the wonder is that any crosses should have been left. But
+a vast number did remain in order to provide further opportunities for
+vandalism and wanton mischief, and probably quite as many have
+disappeared during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as those
+which were destroyed by Puritan iconoclasts. When trade and commerce
+developed, and villages grew into towns, and sleepy hollows became
+hives of industry, the old market-places became inconveniently small,
+and market crosses with their usually accompanying stocks and
+pillories were swept away as useless obstructions to traffic.[46] Thus
+complaints were made with regard to the market-place at Colne. There
+was no room for the coaches to turn. Idlers congregated on the steps
+of the cross and interfered with the business of the place. It was
+pronounced a nuisance, and in 1882 was swept away. Manchester market
+cross existed until 1816, when for the sake of utility and increased
+space it was removed. A stately Jacobean Proclamation cross remained
+at Salford until 1824. The Preston Cross, or rather obelisk,
+consisting of a clustered Gothic column, thirty-one feet high,
+standing on a lofty pedestal which rested on three steps, was taken
+down by an act of vandalism in 1853. The Covell Cross at Lancaster
+shared its fate, being destroyed in 1826 by the justices when they
+purchased the house now used as the judges' lodgings. A few years ago
+it was rebuilt as a memorial of the accession of King Edward VII.
+
+  [45] Report of the State of Lancashire in 1590 (Chetham Society,
+  Vol. XCVI, p. 5).
+
+  [46] _Ancient Crosses of Lancashire_, by Henry Taylor.
+
+Individuals too, as well as corporations, have taken a hand in the
+overthrow of crosses. There was a wretch named Wilkinson, vicar of
+Goosnargh, Lancashire, who delighted in their destruction. He was a
+zealous Protestant, and on account of his fame as a prophet of evil
+his deeds were not interfered with by his neighbours. He used to
+foretell the deaths of persons obnoxious to him, and unfortunately
+several of his prophecies were fulfilled, and he earned the dreaded
+character of a wizard. No one dared to prevent him, and with his own
+hands he pulled down several of these venerable monuments. Some
+drunken men in the early years of the nineteenth century pulled down
+the old market cross at Rochdale. There was a cross on the
+bowling-green at Whalley in the seventeenth century, the fall of which
+is described by a cavalier, William Blundell, in 1642. When some
+gentlemen came to use the bowling-green they found their game
+interfered with by the fallen cross. A strong, powerful man was
+induced to remove it. He reared it, and tried to take it away by
+wresting it from edge to edge, but his foot slipped; down he fell, and
+the cross falling upon him crushed him to death. A neighbour
+immediately he heard the news was filled with apprehension of a
+similar fate, and confessed that he and the deceased had thrown down
+the cross. It was considered a dangerous act to remove a cross, though
+the hope of discovering treasure beneath it often urged men to essay
+the task. A farmer once removed an old boundary stone, thinking it
+would make a good "buttery stone." But the results were dire. Pots and
+pans, kettles and crockery placed upon it danced a clattering dance
+the livelong night, and spilled their contents, disturbed the farmer's
+rest, and worrited the family. The stone had to be conveyed back to
+its former resting-place, and the farm again was undisturbed by
+tumultuous spirits. Some of these crosses have been used for
+gate-posts. Vandals have sometimes wanted a sun-dial in their
+churchyards, and have ruthlessly knocked off the head and upper part
+of the shaft of a cross, as they did at Halton, Lancashire, in order
+to provide a base for their dial. In these and countless other ways
+have these crosses suffered, and certainly, from the æsthetic and
+architectural point of view, we have to bewail the loss of many of the
+most lovely monuments of the piety and taste of our forefathers.
+
+We will now gather up the fragments of the ancient crosses of England
+ere these also vanish from our country. They served many purposes and
+were of divers kinds. There were preaching-crosses, on the steps of
+which the early missionary or Saxon priest stood when he proclaimed
+the message of the gospel, ere churches were built for worship. These
+wandering clerics used to set up crosses in the villages, and beneath
+their shade preached, baptized, and said Mass. The pagan Saxons
+worshipped stone pillars; so in order to wean them from their
+superstition the Christian missionaries erected these stone crosses
+and carved upon them the figures of the Saviour and His Apostles,
+displaying before the eyes of their hearers the story of the Cross
+written in stone. The north of England has many examples of these
+crosses, some of which were fashioned by St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of
+York, in the eighth century. When he travelled about his diocese a
+large number of monks and workmen attended him, and amongst these were
+the cutters in stone, who made the crosses and erected them on the
+spots which Wilfrid consecrated to the worship of God. St. Paulinus
+and others did the same. Hence arose a large number of these Saxon
+works of art, which we propose to examine and to try to discover the
+meaning of some of the strange sculptures found upon them.
+
+[Illustration: Strethem Cross, Isle of Ely.]
+
+In spite of iconoclasm and vandalism there remains in England a vast
+number of pre-Norman crosses, and it will be possible to refer only to
+the most noted and curious examples. These belong chiefly to four main
+schools of art--the Celtic, Saxon, Roman, and Scandinavian. These
+various streams of northern and classical ideas met and were blended
+together, just as the wild sagas of the Vikings and the teaching of
+the gospel showed themselves together in sculptured representations
+and symbolized the victory of the Crucified One over the legends of
+heathendom. The age and period of these crosses, the greater influence
+of one or other of these schools have wrought differences; the beauty
+and delicacy of the carving is in most cases remarkable, and we stand
+amazed at the superabundance of the inventive faculty that could
+produce such wondrous work. A great characteristic of these early
+sculptures is the curious interlacing scroll-work, consisting of
+knotted and interlaced cords of divers patterns and designs. There is
+an immense variety in this carving of these early artists. Examples
+are shown of geometrical designs, of floriated ornament, of which the
+conventional vine pattern is the most frequent, and of rope-work and
+other interlacing ornament. We can find space to describe only a few
+of the most remarkable.
+
+The famous Bewcastle Cross stands in the most northern corner of the
+county of Cumberland. Only the shaft remains. In its complete
+condition it must have been at least twenty-one feet high. A runic
+inscription on the west side records that it was erected "in memory of
+Alchfrith lately king" of Northumbria. He was the son of Oswy, the
+friend and patron of St. Wilfrid, who loved art so much that he
+brought workmen from Italy to build churches and carve stone, and he
+decided in favour of the Roman party at the famous Synod of Whitby. On
+the south side the runes tell that the cross was erected in "the first
+year of Ecgfrith, King of this realm," who began to reign 670 A.D. On
+the west side are three panels containing deeply incised figures, the
+lowest one of which has on his wrist a hawk, an emblem of nobility;
+the other three sides are filled with interlacing, floriated, and
+geometrical ornament. Bishop Browne believes that these scrolls and
+interlacings had their origin in Lombardy and not in Ireland, that
+they were Italian and not Celtic, and that the same sort of designs
+were used in the southern land early in the seventh century, whence
+they were brought by Wilfrid to this country.
+
+Another remarkable cross is that of Ruthwell, now sheltered from wind
+and weather in the Durham Cathedral Museum. It is very similar to that
+at Bewcastle, though probably not wrought by the same hands. In the
+panels are sculptures representing events in the life of our Lord. The
+lowest panel is too defaced for us to determine the subject; on the
+second we see the flight into Egypt; on the third figures of Paul, the
+first hermit, and Anthony, the first monk, are carved; on the fourth
+is a representation of our Lord treading under foot the heads of
+swine; and on the highest there is the figure of St. John the Baptist
+with the lamb. On the reverse side are the Annunciation, the
+Salutation, and other scenes of gospel history, and the other sides
+are covered with floral and other decoration. In addition to the
+figures there are five stanzas of an Anglo-Saxon poem of singular
+beauty expressed in runes. It is the story of the Crucifixion told in
+touching words by the cross itself, which narrates its own sad tale
+from the time when it was a growing tree by the woodside until at
+length, after the body of the Lord had been taken down--
+
+        The warriors left me there
+        Standing defiled with blood.
+
+On the head of the cross are inscribed the words "Cædmon made
+me"--Cædmon the first of English poets who poured forth his songs in
+praise of Almighty God and told in Saxon poetry the story of the
+Creation and of the life of our Lord.
+
+Another famous cross is that at Gosforth, which is of a much later
+date and of a totally different character from those which we have
+described. The carvings show that it is not Anglian, but that it is
+connected with Viking thought and work. On it is inscribed the story
+of one of the sagas, the wild legends of the Norsemen, preserved by
+their scalds or bards, and handed down from generation to generation
+as the precious traditions of their race. On the west side we see
+Heimdal, the brave watchman of the gods, with his sword withstanding
+the powers of evil, and holding in his left hand the Gialla horn, the
+terrible blast of which shook the world. He is overthrowing Hel, the
+grim goddess of the shades of death, who is riding on the pale horse.
+Below we see Loki, the murderer of the holy Baldur, the blasphemer of
+the gods, bound by strong chains to the sharp edges of a rock, while
+as a punishment for his crimes a snake drops poison upon his face,
+making him yell with pain, and the earth quakes with his convulsive
+tremblings. His faithful wife Sigyn catches the poison in a cup, but
+when the vessel is full she is obliged to empty it, and then a drop
+falls on the forehead of Loki, the destroyer, and the earth shakes on
+account of his writhings. The continual conflict between good and evil
+is wonderfully described in these old Norse legends. On the reverse
+side we see the triumph of Christianity, a representation of the
+Crucifixion, and beneath this the woman bruising the serpent's head.
+In the former sculptures the monster is shown with two heads; here it
+has only one, and that is being destroyed. Christ is conquering the
+powers of evil on the cross. In another fragment at Gosforth we see
+Thor fishing for the Midgard worm, the offspring of Loki, a serpent
+cast into the sea which grows continually and threatens the world with
+destruction. A bull's head is the bait which Thor uses, but fearing
+for the safety of his boat, he has cut the fishing-line and released
+the monstrous worm; giant whales sport in the sea which afford pastime
+to the mighty Thor. Such are some of the strange tales which these
+crosses tell.
+
+There is an old Viking legend inscribed on the cross at Leeds. Volund,
+who is the same mysterious person as our Wayland Smith, is seen
+carrying off a swan-maiden. At his feet are his hammer, anvil,
+bellows, and pincers. The cross was broken to pieces in order to make
+way for the building of the old Leeds church hundreds of years ago,
+but the fragments have been pieced together, and we can see the
+swan-maiden carried above the head of Volund, her wings hanging down
+and held by two ropes that encircle her waist. The smith holds her by
+her back hair and by the tail of her dress. There were formerly
+several other crosses which have been broken up and used as building
+material.
+
+At Halton, Lancashire, there is a curious cross of inferior
+workmanship, but it records the curious mingling of Pagan and
+Christian ideas and the triumph of the latter over the Viking deities.
+On one side we see emblems of the Four Evangelists and the figures of
+saints; on the other are scenes from the Sigurd legend. Sigurd sits at
+the anvil with hammer and tongs and bellows, forging a sword. Above
+him is shown the magic blade completed, with hammer and tongs, while
+Fafni writhes in the knotted throes that everywhere signify his death.
+Sigurd is seen toasting Fafni's heart on a spit. He has placed the
+spit on a rest, and is turning it with one hand, while flames ascend
+from the faggots beneath. He has burnt his finger and is putting it to
+his lips. Above are the interlacing boughs of a sacred tree, and sharp
+eyes may detect the talking pies that perch thereon, to which Sigurd
+is listening. On one side we see the noble horse Grani coming
+riderless home to tell the tale of Sigurd's death, and above is the
+pit with its crawling snakes that yawns for Gunnar and for all the
+wicked whose fate is to be turned into hell. On the south side are
+panels filled with a floriated design representing the vine and
+twisted knot-work rope ornamentation. On the west is a tall
+Resurrection cross with figures on each side, and above a winged and
+seated figure with two others in a kneeling posture. Possibly these
+represent the two Marys kneeling before the angel seated on the stone
+of the holy sepulchre on the morning of the Resurrection of our Lord.
+
+A curious cross has at last found safety after many vicissitudes in
+Hornby Church, Lancashire. It is one of the most beautiful fragments
+of Anglian work that has come down to modern times. One panel shows a
+representation of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. At the foot
+are shown the two fishes and the five loaves carved in bold relief. A
+conventional tree springs from the central loaf, and on each side is a
+nimbed figure. The carving is still so sharp and crisp that it is
+difficult to realize that more than a thousand years have elapsed
+since the sculptor finished his task.
+
+It would be a pleasant task to wander through all the English counties
+and note all pre-Norman crosses that remain in many a lonely
+churchyard; but such a lengthy journey and careful study are too
+extended for our present purpose. Some of them were memorials of
+deceased persons; others, as we have seen, were erected by the early
+missionaries; but preaching crosses were erected and used in much
+later times; and we will now examine some of the medieval examples
+which time has spared, and note the various uses to which they were
+adapted. The making of graves has often caused the undermining and
+premature fall of crosses and monuments; hence early examples of
+churchyard crosses have often passed away and medieval ones been
+erected in their place. Churchyard crosses were always placed at the
+south side of the church, and always faced the east. The carving and
+ornamentation naturally follow the style of architecture prevalent at
+the period of their erection. They had their uses for ceremonial and
+liturgical purposes, processions being made to them on Palm Sunday,
+and it is stated in Young's _History of Whitby_ that "devotees creeped
+towards them and kissed them on Good Fridays, so that a cross was
+considered as a necessary appendage to every cemetery." Preaching
+crosses were also erected in distant parts of large parishes in the
+days when churches were few, and sometimes market crosses were used
+for this purpose.
+
+
+WAYSIDE OR WEEPING CROSSES
+
+Along the roads of England stood in ancient times many a roadside or
+weeping cross. Their purpose is well set forth in the work _Dives et
+Pauper_, printed at Westminster in 1496. Therein it is stated: "For
+this reason ben ye crosses by ye way, that when folk passynge see the
+crosses, they sholde thynke on Hym that deyed on the crosse, and
+worshyppe Hym above all things." Along the pilgrim ways doubtless
+there were many, and near villages and towns formerly they stood, but
+unhappily they made such convenient gate-posts when the head was
+knocked off. Fortunately several have been rescued and restored. It
+was a very general custom to erect these wayside crosses along the
+roads leading to an old parish church for the convenience of funerals.
+There were no hearses in those days; hence the coffin had to be
+carried a long way, and the roads were bad, and bodies heavy, and the
+bearers were not sorry to find frequent resting-places, and the
+mourners' hearts were comforted by constant prayer as they passed
+along the long, sad road with their dear ones for the last time. These
+wayside crosses, or weeping crosses, were therefore of great practical
+utility. Many of the old churches in Lancashire were surrounded by a
+group of crosses, arranged in radiating lines along the converging
+roads, and at suitable distances for rest. You will find such ranges
+of crosses in the parishes of Aughton, Ormskirk, and Burscough Priory,
+and at each a prayer for the soul of the departed was offered or the
+_De profundis_ sung. Every one is familiar with the famous Eleanor
+crosses erected by King Edward I to mark the spots where the body of
+his beloved Queen rested when it was being borne on its last sad
+pilgrimage to Westminster Abbey.
+
+
+MARKET CROSSES
+
+Market crosses form an important section of our subject, and are an
+interesting feature of the old market-places wherein they stand. Mr.
+Gomme contends that they were the ancient meeting-places of the local
+assemblies, and we know that for centuries in many towns they have
+been the rallying-points for the inhabitants. Here fairs were
+proclaimed, and are still in some old-fashioned places, beginning with
+the quaint formula "O yes, O yes, O yes!" a strange corruption of the
+old Norman-French word _oyez_, meaning "Hear ye." I have printed in my
+book _English Villages_ a very curious proclamation of a fair and
+market which was read a few years ago at Broughton-in-Furness by the
+steward of the lord of the manor from the steps of the old market
+cross. Very comely and attractive structures are many of these ancient
+crosses. They vary very much in different parts of the country and
+according to the period in which they were erected. The earliest are
+simple crosses with steps. Later on they had niches for sculptured
+figures, and then in the southern shires a kind of penthouse, usually
+octagonal in shape, enclosed the cross, in order to provide shelter
+from the weather for the market-folk. In the north the hardy
+Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians recked not for rain and storms, and few
+covered-in crosses can be found. You will find some beautiful
+specimens of these at Malmesbury, Chichester, Somerton, Shepton
+Mallet, Cheddar, Axbridge, Nether Stowey, Dunster, South Petherton,
+Banwell, and other places.
+
+Salisbury market cross, of which we give an illustration, is
+remarkable for its fine and elaborate Gothic architectural features,
+its numerous niches and foliated pinnacles. At one time a sun-dial and
+ball crowned the structure, but these have been replaced by a cross.
+It is usually called the Poultry Cross. Near it and in other parts of
+the city are quaint overhanging houses. Though the Guildhall has
+vanished, destroyed in the eighteenth century, the Joiners' Hall, the
+Tailors' Hall, the meeting-places of the old guilds, the Hall of John
+Halle, and the Old George are still standing with some of their
+features modified, but not sufficiently altered to deprive them of
+interest.
+
+[Illustration: The Market Cross, Salisbury, Wilts. Oct. 1908]
+
+Sometimes you will find above a cross an overhead chamber, which was
+used for the storing of market appurtenances. The reeve of the lord of
+the manor, or if the town was owned by a monastery, or the market and
+fair had been granted to a religious house, the abbot's official sat
+in this covered place to receive dues from the merchants or
+stall-holders.
+
+There are no less than two hundred old crosses in Somerset, many of
+them fifteenth-century work. Saxon crosses exist at Rowberrow and
+Kelston; a twelfth-century cross at Harptree; Early English crosses at
+Chilton Trinity, Dunster, and Broomfield; Decorated crosses at
+Williton, Wiveliscombe, Bishops-Lydeard, Chewton Mendip, and those at
+Sutton Bingham and Wraghall are fifteenth century. But not all these
+are market crosses. The south-west district of England is particularly
+rich in these relics of ancient piety, but many have been allowed to
+disappear. Glastonbury market cross, a fine Perpendicular structure
+with a roof, was taken down in 1808, and a new one with no surrounding
+arcade was erected in 1846. The old one bore the arms of Richard Bere,
+abbot of Glastonbury, who died in 1524. The wall of an adjacent house
+has a piece of stone carving representing a man and a woman clasping
+hands, and tradition asserts that this formed part of the original
+cross. Together with the cross was an old conduit, which frequently
+accompanied the market cross. Cheddar Cross is surrounded by its
+battlemented arcade with grotesque gargoyles, a later erection, the
+shaft going through the roof. Taunton market cross was erected in 1867
+in place of a fifteenth-century structure destroyed in 1780. On its
+steps the Duke of Monmouth was proclaimed king, and from the window of
+the Old Angel Inn Judge Jeffreys watched with pleasure the hanging of
+the deluded followers of the duke from the tie-beams of the Market
+Arcade. Dunster market cross is known as the Yarn Market, and was
+erected in 1600 by George Luttrell, sheriff of the county of Somerset.
+The town was famous for its kersey cloths, sometimes called
+"Dunsters," which were sold under the shade of this structure.
+
+Wymondham, in the county of Norfolk, standing on the high road between
+Norwich and London, has a fine market cross erected in 1617. A great
+fire raged here in 1615, when three hundred houses were destroyed, and
+probably the old cross vanished with them, and this one was erected to
+supply its place.
+
+The old cross at Wells, built by William Knight, bishop of Bath in
+1542, was taken down in 1783. Leland states that it was "a right
+sumptuous Peace of worke." Over the vaulted roof was the _Domus
+Civica_ or town hall. The tolls of the market were devoted to the
+support of the choristers of Wells Cathedral. Leland also records a
+market cross at Bruton which had six arches and a pillar in the middle
+"for market folkes to stande yn." It was built by the last abbot of
+Bruton in 1533, and was destroyed in 1790. Bridgwater Cross was
+removed in 1820, and Milverton in 1850. Happily the inhabitants of
+some towns and villages were not so easily deprived of their ancient
+crosses, and the people of Croscombe, Somerset, deserve great credit
+for the spirited manner in which they opposed the demolition of their
+cross about thirty years ago.
+
+Witney Butter Cross, Oxon, the town whence blankets come, has a
+central pillar which stands on three steps, the superstructure being
+supported on thirteen circular pillars. An inscription on the lantern
+above records the following:--
+
+    GULIEIMUS BLAKE
+    Armiger de Coggs
+        1683
+    Restored 1860
+             1889
+             1894
+
+It has a steep roof, gabled and stone-slated, which is not improved
+by the pseudo-Gothic barge-boards, added during the restorations.
+
+Many historical events of great importance have taken place at these
+market crosses which have been so hardly used. Kings were always
+proclaimed here at their accession, and would-be kings have also
+shared that honour. Thus at Lancaster in 1715 the Pretender was
+proclaimed king as James III, and, as we have stated, the Duke of
+Monmouth was proclaimed king at Taunton and Bridgwater. Charles II
+received that honour at Lancaster market cross in 1651, nine years
+before he ruled. Banns of marriage were published here in Cromwell's
+time, and these crosses have witnessed all the cruel punishments which
+were inflicted on delinquents in the "good old days." The last step of
+the cross was often well worn, as it was the seat of the culprits who
+sat in the stocks. Stocks, whipping-posts, and pillories, of which we
+shall have much to say, always stood nigh the cross, and as late as
+1822 a poor wretch was tied to a cart-wheel at the Colne Cross,
+Lancashire, and whipped.
+
+Sometimes the cross is only a cross in name, and an obelisk has
+supplanted the Christian symbol. The change is deemed to be
+attributable to the ideas of some of the Reformers who desired to
+assert the supremacy of the Crown over the Church. Hence they placed
+an orb on the top of the obelisk surmounted by a small, plain Latin
+cross, and later on a large crown took the place of the orb and cross.
+At Grantham the Earl of Dysart erected an obelisk which has an
+inscription stating that it occupies the site of the Grantham Eleanor
+cross. This is a strange error, as this cross stood on an entirely
+different site on St. Peter's Hill and was destroyed by Cromwell's
+troopers. The obelisk replaced the old market cross, which was
+regarded with much affection and reverence by the inhabitants, who in
+1779, when it was taken down by the lord of the manor, immediately
+obtained a mandamus for its restoration. The Mayor and Corporation
+still proclaim the Lent Fair in quaint and archaic language at this
+poor substitute for the old cross.
+
+[Illustration: Under the old Butter Cross, Whitney Oxon]
+
+One of the uses of the market cross was to inculcate the sacredness of
+bargains. There is a curious stone erection in the market-place at
+Middleham, Yorkshire, which seems to have taken the place of the
+market cross and to have taught the same truth. It consists of a
+platform on which are two pillars; one carries the effigy of some
+animal in a kneeling posture, resembling a sheep or a cow, the other
+supports an octagonal object traditionally supposed to represent a
+cheese. The farmers used to walk up the opposing flights of steps when
+concluding a bargain and shake hands over the sculptures.[47]
+
+  [47] _Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire,_ by Henry
+  Taylor, F.S.A.
+
+
+BOUNDARY CROSSES
+
+Crosses marked in medieval times the boundaries of ecclesiastical
+properties, which by this sacred symbol were thus protected from
+encroachment and spoliation. County boundaries were also marked by
+crosses and meare stones. The seven crosses of Oldham marked the
+estate owned by the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem.
+
+
+CROSSES AT CROSS-ROADS AND HOLY WELLS
+
+Where roads meet and many travellers passed a cross was often erected.
+It was a wayside or weeping cross. There pilgrims knelt to implore
+divine aid for their journey and protection from outlaws and robbers,
+from accidents and sudden death. At holy wells the cross was set in
+order to remind the frequenters of the sacredness of the springs and
+to wean them from all superstitious thoughts and pagan customs. Sir
+Walter Scott alludes to this connexion of the cross and well in
+_Marmion_, when he tells of "a little fountain cell" bearing the
+legend:--
+
+        Drink, weary pilgrim, drink and pray
+        For the kind soul of Sybil Grey,
+        Who built this cross and well.
+
+  "In the corner of a field on the Billington Hall Farm, just
+  outside the parish of Haughton, there lies the base, with a
+  portion of the shaft, of a fourteenth-century wayside cross. It
+  stands within ten feet of an old disused lane leading from
+  Billington to Bradley. Common report pronounced it to be an old
+  font. Report states that it was said to be a stone dropped out of
+  a cart as the stones from Billington Chapel were being conveyed to
+  Bradley to be used in building its churchyard wall. A
+  superstitious veneration has always attached to it. A former owner
+  of the property wrote as follows: 'The late Mr. Jackson, who was a
+  very superstitious man, once told me that a former tenant of the
+  farm, whilst ploughing the field, pulled up the stone, and the
+  same day his team of wagon-horses was all drowned. He then put it
+  into the same place again, and all went on right; and that he
+  himself would not have it disturbed upon any account.' A similar
+  legend is attached to another cross. Cross Llywydd, near Raglan,
+  called The White Cross, which is still complete, and has evidently
+  been whitewashed, was moved by a man from its base at some
+  cross-roads to his garden. From that time he had no luck and all
+  his animals died. He attributed this to his sacrilegious act and
+  removed it to a piece of waste ground. The next owner afterwards
+  enclosed the waste with the cross standing in it.
+
+  "The Haughton Cross is only a fragment--almost precisely similar
+  to a fragment at Butleigh, in Somerset, of early
+  fourteenth-century date. The remaining part is clearly the top
+  stone of the base, measuring 2 ft. 1½ in. square by 1 ft. 6 in.
+  high, and the lowest portion of the shaft sunk into it, and
+  measuring 1 ft. 1 in. square by 10½ in. high. Careful excavation
+  showed that the stone is probably still standing on its original
+  site."[48]
+
+  "There is in the same parish, where there are four cross-roads, a
+  place known as 'The White Cross.' Not a vestige of a stone
+  remains. But on a slight mound at the crossing stands a venerable
+  oak, now dying. In Monmouthshire oaks have often been so planted
+  on the sites of crosses; and in some cases the bases of the
+  crosses still remain. There are in that county about thirty sites
+  of such crosses, and in seventeen some stones still exist; and
+  probably there are many more unknown to the antiquary, but hidden
+  away in corners of old paths, and in field-ways, and in ditches
+  that used to serve as roads. A question of great interest arises.
+  What were the origin and use of these wayside crosses? and why
+  were so many of them, especially at cross-roads, known as 'The
+  White Cross'? At Abergavenny a cross stood at cross-roads. There
+  is a White Cross Street in London and one in Monmouth, where a
+  cross stood. Were these planted by the White Cross Knights (the
+  Knights of Malta, or of S. John of Jerusalem)? Or are they the
+  work of the Carmelite, or White, Friars? There is good authority
+  for the general idea that they were often used as preaching
+  stations, or as praying stations, as is so frequently the case in
+  Brittany. But did they at cross-roads in any way serve the purpose
+  of the modern sign-post? They are certainly of very early origin.
+  The author of _Ecclesiastical Polity_ says that the erection of
+  wayside crosses was a very ancient practice. Chrysostom says that
+  they were common in his time. Eusebius says that their building
+  was begun by Constantine the Great to eradicate paganism. Juvenal
+  states that a shapeless post, with a marble head of Mercury on it,
+  was erected at cross-roads to point out the way; and Eusebius says
+  that wherever Constantine found a statue of Bivialia (the Roman
+  goddess who delivered from straying from the path), or of
+  Mercurius Triceps (who served the same kind purpose for the
+  Greeks), he pulled it down and had a cross placed upon the site.
+  If, then, these cross-road crosses of later medieval times also
+  had something to do with directions for the way, another source of
+  the designation 'White Cross' is by no means to be laughed out of
+  court, viz. that they were whitewashed, and thus more prominent
+  objects by day, and especially by night. It is quite certain that
+  many of them were whitewashed, for the remains of this may still
+  be seen on them. And the use of whitewash or plaister was far more
+  usual in England than is generally known. There is no doubt that
+  the whole of the outside of the abbey church of St. Albans, and of
+  White Castle, from top to base, were coated with whitewash."[49]
+
+
+  [48] _Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire,_ by Henry
+  Taylor, F.S.A.
+
+  [49] _Ibid._
+
+Whether they were whitened or not, or whether they served as
+guide-posts or stations for prayer, it is well that they should be
+carefully preserved and restored as memorials of the faith of our
+forefathers, and for the purpose of raising the heart of the modern
+pilgrim to Christ, the Saviour of men.
+
+
+SANCTUARY CROSSES
+
+When criminals sought refuge in ancient sanctuaries, such as Durham,
+Beverley, Ripon, Manchester, and other places which provided the
+privilege, having claimed sanctuary and been provided with a
+distinctive dress, they were allowed to wander within certain
+prescribed limits. At Beverley Minster the fugitive from justice could
+wander with no fear of capture to a distance extending a mile from the
+church in all directions. Richly carved crosses marked the limit of
+the sanctuary. A peculiar reverence for the cross protected the
+fugitives from violence if they kept within the bounds. In Cheshire,
+in the wild region of Delamere Forest, there are several ancient
+crosses erected for the convenience of travellers; and under their
+shadows they were safe from robbery and violence at the hands of
+outlaws, who always respected the reverence attached to these symbols
+of Christianity.
+
+
+CROSSES AS GUIDE-POSTS
+
+In wild moorland and desolate hills travellers often lost their way.
+Hence crosses were set up to guide them along the trackless heaths.
+They were as useful as sign-posts, and conveyed an additional lesson.
+You will find such crosses in the desolate country on the borderland
+of Yorkshire and Lancashire. They were usually placed on the summit of
+hills. In Buckinghamshire there are two crosses cut in the turf on a
+spur of the Chilterns, Whiteleaf and Bledlow crosses, which were
+probably marks for the direction of travellers through the wild and
+dangerous woodlands, though popular tradition connects them with the
+memorials of ancient battles between the Saxons and Danes.
+
+From time out of mind crosses have been the rallying point for the
+discussion of urgent public affairs. It was so in London. Paul's
+Cross was the constant meeting-place of the citizens of London
+whenever they were excited by oppressive laws, the troublesome
+competition of "foreigners," or any attempt to interfere with their
+privileges and liberties. The meetings of the shire or hundred moots
+took place often at crosses, or other conspicuous or well-known
+objects. Hundreds were named after them, such as the hundred of
+Faircross in Berkshire, of Singlecross in Sussex, Normancross in
+Huntingdonshire, and Brothercross and Guiltcross, or Gyldecross, in
+Norfolk.
+
+Stories and legends have clustered around them. There is the famous
+Stump Cross in Cheshire, the subject of one of Nixon's prophecies. It
+is supposed to be sinking into the ground. When it reaches the level
+of the earth the end of the world will come. A romantic story is
+associated with Mab's Cross, in Wigan, Lancashire. Sir William
+Bradshaigh was a great warrior, and went crusading for ten years,
+leaving his beautiful wife, Mabel, alone at Haigh Hall. A dastard
+Welsh knight compelled her to marry him, telling her that her husband
+was dead, and treated her cruelly; but Sir William came back to the
+hall disguised as a palmer. Mabel, seeing in him some resemblance to
+her former husband, wept sore, and was beaten by the Welshman. Sir
+William made himself known to his tenants, and raising a troop,
+marched to the hall. The Welsh knight fled, but Sir William followed
+him and slew him at Newton, for which act he was outlawed a year and a
+day. The lady was enjoined by her confessor to do penance by going
+once a week, bare-footed and bare-legged, to a cross near Wigan, two
+miles from the hall, and it is called Mab's Cross to this day. You can
+see in Wigan Church the monument of Sir William and his lady, which
+tells this sad story, and also the cross--at least, all that remains
+of it--the steps, a pedestal, and part of the shaft--in Standisgate,
+"to witness if I lie." It is true that Sir William was born ten years
+after the last of the crusades had ended; but what does that matter?
+He was probably fighting for his king, Edward II, against the Scots,
+or he was languishing a prisoner in some dungeon. There was plenty of
+fighting in those days for those who loved it, and where was the
+Englishman then who did not love to fight for his king and country, or
+seek for martial glory in other lands, if an ungrateful country did
+not provide him with enough work for his good sword and ponderous
+lance?
+
+Such are some of the stories that cluster round these crosses. It is a
+sad pity that so many should have been allowed to disappear. More have
+fallen owing to the indifference and apathy of the people of England
+in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than to the wanton and
+iconoclastic destruction of the Puritans. They are holy relics of
+primitive Christianity. On the lonely mountainsides the tired
+traveller found in them a guide and friend, a director of his ways and
+an uplifter of his soul. In the busy market-place they reminded the
+trader of the sacredness of bargains and of the duty of honest
+dealing. Holy truths were proclaimed from their steps. They connected
+by a close and visible bond religious duties with daily life; and not
+only as objects of antiquarian interest, but as memorials of the
+religious feelings, habits, and customs of our forefathers, are they
+worthy of careful preservation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+STOCKS, WHIPPING-POSTS, AND OLD-TIME PUNISHMENTS
+
+
+Near the village cross almost invariably stood the parish stocks,
+instruments of rude justice, the use of which has only just passed
+away. The "oldest inhabitant" can remember well the old stocks
+standing in the village green and can tell of the men who suffered in
+them. Many of these instruments of torture still remain, silent
+witnesses of old-time ways. You can find them in multitudes of remote
+villages in all parts of the country, and vastly uncomfortable it must
+have been to have one's "feet set in the stocks." A well-known artist
+who delights in painting monks a few years ago placed the portly model
+who usually "sat" for him in the village stocks of Sulham, Berkshire,
+and painted a picture of the monk in disgrace. The model declared that
+he was never so uncomfortable in his life and his legs and back ached
+for weeks afterwards. To make the penalty more realistic the artist
+might have prevailed upon some village urchins to torment the sufferer
+by throwing stones, refuse, or garbage at him, some village maids to
+mock and jeer at him, and some mischievous men to distract his ears
+with inharmonious sounds. In an old print of two men in the stocks I
+have seen a malicious wretch scraping piercing noises out of a fiddle
+and the victims trying to drown the hideous sounds by putting their
+fingers into their ears. A few hours in the stocks was no light
+penalty.
+
+These stocks have a venerable history. They date back to Saxon times
+and appear in drawings of that period. It is a pity that they should
+be destroyed; but borough corporations decide that they interfere with
+the traffic of a utilitarian age and relegate them to a museum or doom
+them to be cut up as faggots. Country folk think nothing of
+antiquities, and a local estate agent or the village publican will
+make away with this relic of antiquity and give the "old rubbish" to
+Widow Smith for firing. Hence a large number have disappeared, and it
+is wonderful that so many have hitherto escaped. Let the eyes of
+squires and local antiquaries be ever on the watch lest those that
+remain are allowed to vanish.
+
+By ancient law[50] every town or village was bound to provide a pair
+of stocks. It was a sign of dignity, and if the village had this seat
+for malefactors, a constable, and a pound for stray cattle, it could
+not be mistaken for a mere hamlet. The stocks have left their mark on
+English literature. Shakespeare frequently alludes to them. Falstaff,
+in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, says that but for his "admirable
+dexterity of wit the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the
+common stocks." "What needs all that and a pair of stocks in the
+town," says Luce in the _Comedy of Errors_. "Like silly beggars, who
+sitting in stocks refuge their shame," occurs in _Richard II_; and in
+_King Lear_ Cornwall exclaims--
+
+        "Fetch forth the stocks!
+        You stubborn ancient knave."
+
+  [50] Act of Parliament, 1405.
+
+Who were the culprits who thus suffered? Falstaff states that he only
+just escaped the punishment of being set in the stocks for a witch.
+Witches usually received severer justice, but stocks were often used
+for keeping prisoners safe until they were tried and condemned, and
+possibly Shakespeare alludes in this passage only to the preliminaries
+of a harsher ordeal. Drunkards were the common defaulters who appeared
+in the stocks, and by an Act of 2 James I they were required to endure
+six hours' incarceration with a fine of five shillings. Vagrants
+always received harsh treatment unless they had a licence, and the
+corporation records of Hungerford reveal the fact that they were
+always placed in the pillory and whipped. The stocks, pillory, and
+whipping-post were three different implements of punishment, but, as
+was the case at Wallingford, Berkshire, they were sometimes allied and
+combined. The stocks secured the feet, the pillory "held in durance
+vile" the head and the hands, while the whipping-post imprisoned the
+hands only by clamps on the sides of the post. In the constable's
+accounts of Hungerford we find such items as:--
+
+    "Pd for cheeke and brace for the pillory                  00,02,00
+    Pd for mending the pillory                                00,00,06
+    Pd the Widow Tanner for iron geare for the whipping post  00,03,06"
+
+Whipping was a very favourite pastime at this old Berkshire town; this
+entry will suffice:--
+
+    "Pd to John Savidge for his extraordinary
+    paines this yeare and whipping of severall persons        00,05,00"
+
+John Savidge was worthy of his name, but the good folks of Hungerford
+tempered mercy with justice and usually gave a monetary consolation to
+those who suffered from the lash. Thus we read:--
+
+    "Gave a poore man that was whipped and sent
+    from Tythinge to Tythinge                                 00,00,04"
+
+Women were whipped at Hungerford, as we find that the same John
+Savidge received 2d. for whipping Dorothy Millar. All this was
+according to law. The first Whipping Act was passed in 1530 when Henry
+VIII reigned, and according to this barbarous piece of legislation the
+victim was stripped naked and tied to a cart-tail, dragged through the
+streets of the town, and whipped "till his body was bloody." In
+Elizabeth's time the cart-tail went out of fashion and a
+whipping-post was substituted, and only the upper part of the body was
+exposed. The tramp question was as troublesome in the seventeenth
+century as it is to-day. We confine them in workhouse-cells and make
+them break stones or pick oakum; whipping was the solution adopted by
+our forefathers. We have seen John Savidge wielding his whip, which
+still exists among the curiosities at Hungerford. At Barnsley in 1632
+Edward Wood was paid iiijd. "for whiping of three wanderers." Ten
+years earlier Richard White received only iid. for performing the like
+service for six wanderers. Mr. W. Andrews has collected a vast store
+of curious anecdotes on the subject of whippings, recorded in his
+_Bygone Punishments_, to which the interested reader is referred. The
+story he tells of the brutality of Judge Jeffreys may be repeated.
+This infamous and inhuman judge sentenced a woman to be whipped, and
+said, "Hangman, I charge you to pay particular attention to this lady.
+Scourge her soundly, man; scourge her till her blood runs down! It is
+Christmas, a cold time for madam to strip. See that you warm her
+shoulders thoroughly." It was not until 1791 that the whipping of
+female vagrants was expressly forbidden by Act of Parliament.
+
+Stocks have been used in quite recent times. So late as 1872, at
+Newbury, one Mark Tuck, a devoted disciple of John Barleycorn,
+suffered this penalty for his misdeeds.[51] He was a rag and bone
+dealer, and knew well the inside of Reading jail. _Notes and
+Queries_[52] contains an account of the proceedings, and states that
+he was "fixed in the stocks for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in
+the Parish Church on Monday evening." Twenty-six years had elapsed
+since the stocks were last used, and their reappearance created no
+little sensation and amusement, several hundreds of persons being
+attracted to the spot where they were fixed. Tuck was seated on a
+stool, and his legs were secured in the stocks at a few minutes past
+one o'clock, and as the church clock, immediately facing him, chimed
+each quarter, he uttered expressions of thankfulness, and seemed
+anything but pleased at the laughter and derision of the crowd. Four
+hours having passed, Tuck was released, and by a little stratagem on
+the part of the police he escaped without being interfered with by the
+crowd.
+
+  [51] _History of Hungerford_, by W. Money, p. 38.
+
+  [52] _Notes and Queries_, 4th series, X, p. 6.
+
+Sunday drinking during divine service provided in many places victims
+for the stocks. So late as half a century ago it was the custom for
+the churchwardens to go out of church during the morning service on
+Sundays and visit the public-houses to see if any persons were
+tippling there, and those found _in flagrante delicto_ were
+immediately placed in the stocks. So arduous did the churchwardens
+find this duty that they felt obliged to regale themselves at the
+alehouses while they made their tour of inspection, and thus rendered
+themselves liable to the punishment which they inflicted on others.
+Mr. Rigbye, postmaster at Croston, Lancashire, who was seventy-three
+years of age in 1899, remembered these Sunday-morning searches, and
+had seen drunkards sitting in the stocks, which were fixed near the
+southern step of the village cross. Mr. Rigbye, when a boy, helped to
+pull down the stocks, which were then much dilapidated. A certain
+Richard Cottam, called "Cockle Dick," was the last man seen in
+them.[53]
+
+  [53] _Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire_, by H. Taylor,
+  F.S.A., p. 37.
+
+The same morning perambulating of ale-houses was carried on at
+Skipton, the churchwardens being headed by the old beadle, an imposing
+personage, who wore a cocked hat and an official coat trimmed with
+gold, and carried in majestic style a trident staff, a terror to
+evil-doers, at least to those of tender years.[54] At Beverley the
+stocks still preserved in the minster were used as late as 1853; Jim
+Brigham, guilty of Sunday tippling, and discovered by the
+churchwardens in their rounds, was the last victim. Some sympathizer
+placed in his mouth a lighted pipe of tobacco, but the constable in
+charge hastily snatched it away. James Gambles, for gambling on
+Sunday, was confined in the Stanningley stocks, Yorkshire, for six
+hours in 1860. The stocks and village well remain still at Standish,
+near the cross, and also the stone cheeks of those at Eccleston Green
+bearing the date 1656. At Shore Cross, near Birkdale, the stocks
+remain, also the iron ones at Thornton, Lancashire, described in Mrs.
+Blundell's novel _In a North Country Village_; also at Formby they
+exist, though somewhat dilapidated.
+
+  [54] _History of Skipton_, W.H. Dawson, quoted in _Bygone
+  Punishments_, p. 199.
+
+Whether by accident or design, the stocks frequently stand close to
+the principal inn in a village. As they were often used for the
+correction of the intemperate their presence was doubtless intended as
+a warning to the frequenters of the hostelry not to indulge too
+freely. Indeed, the sight of the stocks, pillory, and whipping-post
+must have been a useful deterrent to vice. An old writer states that
+he knew of the case of a young man who was about to annex a silver
+spoon, but on looking round and seeing the whipping-post he
+relinquished his design. The writer asserts that though it lay
+immediately in the high road to the gallows, it had stopped many an
+adventurous young man in his progress thither.
+
+The ancient Lancashire town of Poulton-in-the-Fylde has a fairly
+complete set of primitive punishment implements. Close to the cross
+stand the stocks with massive ironwork, the criminals, as usual,
+having been accustomed to sit on the lowest step of the cross, and on
+the other side of the cross is the rogue's whipping-post, a stone
+pillar about eight feet high, on the sides of which are hooks to which
+the culprit was fastened. Between this and the cross stands another
+useful feature of a Lancashire market-place, the fish stones, an
+oblong raised slab for the display and sale of fish.
+
+In several places we find that movable stocks were in use, which could
+be brought out whenever occasion required. A set of these exists at
+Garstang, Lancashire. The quotation already given from _King Lear,_
+"Fetch forth the stocks," seems to imply that in Shakespeare's time
+they were movable. Beverley stocks were movable, and in _Notes and
+Queries_ we find an account of a mob at Shrewsbury dragging around the
+town in the stocks an incorrigible rogue one Samuel Tisdale in the
+year 1851.
+
+The Rochdale stocks remain, but they are now in the churchyard, having
+been removed from the place where the markets were formerly held at
+Church Stile. When these kind of objects have once disappeared it is
+rarely that they are ever restored. However, at West Derby this
+unusual event has occurred, and five years ago the restoration was
+made. It appears that in the village there was an ancient pound or
+pinfold which had degenerated into an unsightly dust-heap, and the old
+stocks had passed into private hands. The inhabitants resolved to turn
+the untidy corner into a garden, and the lady gave back the stocks to
+the village. An inscription records: "To commemorate the long and
+happy reign of Queen Victoria and the coronation of King Edward VII,
+the site of the ancient pound of the Dukes of Lancaster and other
+lords of the manor of West Derby was enclosed and planted, and the
+village stocks set therein. Easter, 1904."
+
+This inscription records another item of vanishing England. Before the
+Inclosure Acts at the beginning of the last century there were in all
+parts of the country large stretches of unfenced land, and cattle
+often strayed far from their homes and presumed to graze on the open
+common lands of other villages. Each village had its pound-keeper,
+who, when he saw these estrays, as the lawyers term the valuable
+animals that were found wandering in any manor or lordship,
+immediately drove them into the pound. If the owner claimed them, he
+had certain fees to pay to the pound-keeper and the cost of the keep.
+If they were not claimed they became the property of the lord of the
+manor, but it was required that they should be proclaimed in the
+church and two market towns next adjoining the place where they were
+found, and a year and a day must have elapsed before they became the
+actual property of the lord. The possession of a pound was a sign of
+dignity for the village. Now that commons have been enclosed and waste
+lands reclaimed, stray cattle no longer cause excitement in the
+village, the pound-keeper has gone, and too often the pound itself has
+disappeared. We had one in our village twenty years ago, but suddenly,
+before he could be remonstrated with, an estate agent, not caring for
+the trouble and cost of keeping it in repair, cleared it away, and its
+place knows it no more. In very many other villages similar happenings
+have occurred. Sometimes the old pound has been utilized by road
+surveyors as a convenient place for storing gravel for mending roads,
+and its original purpose is forgotten.
+
+It would be a pleasant task to go through the towns and villages of
+England to discover and to describe traces of these primitive
+implements of torture, but such a record would require a volume
+instead of a single chapter. In Berkshire we have several left to us.
+There is a very complete set at Wallingford, pillory, stocks, and
+whipping-post, now stored in the museum belonging to Miss Hedges in
+the castle, but in western Berkshire they have nearly all disappeared.
+The last pair of stocks that I can remember stood at the entrance to
+the town of Wantage. They have only disappeared within the last few
+years. The whipping-post still exists at the old Town Hall at
+Faringdon, the staples being affixed to the side of the ancient
+"lock-up," known as the Black Hole.
+
+At Lymm, Cheshire, there are some good stocks by the cross in that
+village, and many others may be discovered by the wandering antiquary,
+though their existence is little known and usually escapes the
+attention of the writers on local antiquities. As relics of primitive
+modes of administering justice, it is advisable that they should be
+preserved.
+
+Yet another implement of rude justice was the cucking or ducking
+stool, which exists in a few places. It was used principally for the
+purpose of correcting scolding women. Mr. Andrews, who knows all that
+can be known about old-time punishments, draws a distinction between
+the cucking and ducking stool, and states that the former originally
+was a chair of infamy where immoral women and scolds were condemned to
+sit with bare feet and head to endure the derision of the populace,
+and had no relation to any ducking in water. But it appears that later
+on the terms were synonymous, and several of these implements remain.
+This machine for quieting intemperate scolds was quite simple. A plank
+with a chair at one end was attached by an axle to a post which was
+fixed on the bank of a river or pond, or on wheels, so that it could
+be run thither; the culprit was tied to the chair, and the other end
+of the plank was alternately raised or lowered so as to cause the
+immersion of the scold in the chilly water. A very effectual
+punishment! The form of the chair varies. The Leominster ducking-stool
+is still preserved, and this implement was the latest in use, having
+been employed in 1809 for the ducking of Jenny Pipes, _alias_ Jane
+Corran, a common scold, by order of the magistrates, and also as late
+as 1817; but in this case the victim, one Sarah Leeke, was only
+wheeled round the town in the chair, and not ducked, as the water in
+the Kenwater stream was too shallow for the purpose. The cost of
+making the stool appears in many corporation accounts. That at
+Hungerford must have been in pretty frequent use, as there are several
+entries for repairs in the constable's accounts.[55] Thus we find the
+item under the year 1669:--
+
+    "Pd for the Cucking stoole                   01,10,00"
+
+and in 1676:--
+
+    "Pd for nailes and workmanship about
+    the stocks and cucking stoole                00,07,00"
+
+  [55] The corporation of Hungerford is peculiar, the head official
+  being termed the constable, who corresponded with the mayor in
+  less original boroughs.
+
+At Kingston-upon-Thames in 1572 the accounts show the expenditure:--
+
+    "The making of the cucking-stool        .     8s.    0d.
+    Iron work for the same  .      .        .     3s.    0d.
+    Timber for the same     .      .        .     7s.    6d.
+    Three brasses for the same and three wheels   4s.   10d.
+                                                ------------
+                                             £1   3s.    4d."
+
+We need not record similar items shown in the accounts of other
+boroughs. You will still find examples of this fearsome implement at
+Leicester in the museum, Wootton Bassett, the wheels of one in the
+church of St. Mary, Warwick; two at Plymouth, one of which was used in
+1808; King's Lynn, Norfolk, in the museum; Ipswich, Scarborough,
+Sandwich, Fordwich, and possibly some other places of which we have no
+record.
+
+We find in museums, but not in common use, another terrible implement
+for the curbing of the rebellious tongues of scolding women. It was
+called the brank or scold's bridle, and probably came to us from
+Scotland with the Solomon of the North, whither the idea of it had
+been conveyed through the intercourse of that region with France. It
+is a sort of iron cage or framework helmet, which was fastened on the
+head, having a flat tongue of iron that was placed on the tongue of
+the victim and effectually restrained her from using it. Sometimes the
+iron tongue was embellished with spikes so as to make the movement of
+the human tongue impossible except with the greatest agony. Imagine
+the poor wretch with her head so encaged, her mouth cut and bleeding
+by this sharp iron tongue, none too gently fitted by her rough
+torturers, and then being dragged about the town amid the jeers of the
+populace, or chained to the pillory in the market-place, an object of
+ridicule and contempt. Happily this scene has vanished from vanishing
+England. Perhaps she was a loud-voiced termagant; perhaps merely the
+ill-used wife of a drunken wretch, who well deserved her scolding; or
+the daring teller of home truths to some jack-in-office, who thus
+revenged himself. We have shrews and scolds still; happily they are
+restrained in a less barbarous fashion. You may still see some
+fearsome branks in museums. Reading, Leeds, York, Walton-on-Thames,
+Congleton, Stockport, Macclesfield, Warrington, Morpeth, Hamstall
+Ridware, in Staffordshire, Lichfield, Chesterfield (now in possession
+of the Walsham family), Leicester, Doddington Park, Lincolnshire (a
+very grotesque example), the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Ludlow,
+Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Whitchurch, Market Drayton, are some of the
+places which still possess scolds' bridles. Perhaps it is wrong to
+infer from the fact that most of these are to be found in the counties
+of Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, that the women of those
+shires were especially addicted to strong and abusive language. It may
+be only that antiquaries in those counties have been more industrious
+in unearthing and preserving these curious relics of a barbarous age.
+The latest recorded occasion of its use was at Congleton in 1824, when
+a woman named Ann Runcorn was condemned to endure the bridle for
+abusing and slandering the churchwardens when they made their tour of
+inspection of the alehouses during the Sunday-morning service. There
+are some excellent drawings of branks, and full descriptions of their
+use, in Mr. Andrews's _Bygone Punishments_.
+
+Another relic of old-time punishments most gruesome of all are the
+gibbet-irons wherein the bones of some wretched breaker of the laws
+hung and rattled as the irons creaked and groaned when stirred by the
+breeze. _Pour l'encouragement des autres_, our wise forefathers
+enacted that the bodies of executed criminals should be hanged in
+chains. At least this was a common practice that dated from medieval
+times, though it was not actually legalized until 1752.[56] This Act
+remained in force until 1834, and during the interval thousands of
+bodies were gibbeted and left creaking in the wind at Hangman's Corner
+or Gibbet Common, near the scene of some murder or outrage. It must
+have been ghostly and ghastly to walk along our country lanes and hear
+the dreadful noise, especially if the tradition were true
+
+        That the wretch in his chains, each night took the pains,
+        To come down from the gibbet--and walk.
+
+In order to act as a warning to others the bodies were kept up as long
+as possible, and for this purpose were saturated with tar. On one
+occasion the gibbet was fired and the tar helped the conflagration,
+and a rapid and effectual cremation ensued. In many museums
+gibbet-irons are preserved.
+
+Punishments in olden times were usually cruel. Did they act as
+deterrents to vice? Modern judges have found the use of the lash a
+cure for robbery from the person with violence. The sight of
+whipping-posts and stocks, we learn, has stayed young men from
+becoming topers and drunkards. A brank certainly in one recorded case
+cured a woman from coarse invective and abuse. But what effect had the
+sight of the infliction of cruel punishments upon those who took part
+in them or witnessed them? It could only have tended to make cruel
+natures more brutal. Barbarous punishments, public hangings, cruel
+sports such as bull-baiting, dog-fighting, bear-baiting,
+prize-fighting and the like could not fail to exercise a bad influence
+on the populace; and where one was deterred from vice, thousands were
+brutalized and their hearts and natures hardened, wherein vicious
+pleasures, crime, and lust found a congenial soil. But we can still
+see our stocks on the village greens, our branks, ducking-stools, and
+pillories in museums, and remind ourselves of the customs of former
+days which have not so very long ago passed away.
+
+  [56] Act of Parliament 25 George II.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+OLD BRIDGES
+
+
+The passing away of the old bridges is a deplorable feature of
+vanishing England. Since the introduction of those terrible
+traction-engines, monstrous machines that drag behind them a whole
+train of heavily laden trucks, few of these old structures that have
+survived centuries of ordinary use are safe from destruction. The
+immense weight of these road-trains are enough to break the back of
+any of the old-fashioned bridges. Constantly notices have to be set up
+stating: "This bridge is only sufficient to carry the ordinary traffic
+of the district, and traction-engines are not allowed to proceed over
+it." Then comes an outcry from the proprietors of locomotives
+demanding bridges suitable for their convenience. County councils and
+district councils are worried by their importunities, and soon the
+venerable structures are doomed, and an iron-girder bridge hideous in
+every particular replaces one of the most beautiful features of our
+village.
+
+When the Sonning bridges that span the Thames were threatened a few
+years ago, English artists, such as Mr. Leslie and Mr. Holman-Hunt,
+strove manfully for their defence. The latter wrote:--
+
+  "The nation, without doubt, is in serious danger of losing faith
+  in the testimony of our poets and painters to the exceptional
+  beauty of the land which has inspired them. The poets, from
+  Chaucer to the last of his true British successors, with one voice
+  enlarge on the overflowing sweetness of England, her hills and
+  dales, her pastures with sweet flowers, and the loveliness of her
+  silver streams. It is the cherishing of the wholesome enjoyments
+  of daily life that has implanted in the sons of England love of
+  home, goodness of nature, and sweet reasonableness, and has given
+  strength to the thews and sinews of her children, enabling them to
+  defend her land, her principles, and her prosperity. With regard
+  to the three Sonning bridges, parts of them have been already
+  rebuilt with iron fittings in recent years, and no disinterested
+  reasonable person can see why they could not be easily made
+  sufficient to carry all existing traffic. If the bridges were to
+  be widened in the service of some disproportionate vehicles it is
+  obvious that the traffic such enlarged bridges are intended to
+  carry would be put forward as an argument for demolishing the
+  exquisite old bridge over the main river which is the glory of
+  this exceptionally picturesque and well-ordered village; and this
+  is a matter of which even the most utilitarian would soon see the
+  evil in the diminished attraction of the river not only to
+  Englishmen, but to Colonials and Americans who have across the sea
+  read widely of its beauty. Remonstrances must look ahead, and can
+  only now be of avail in recognition of future further danger. We
+  are called upon to plead the cause for the whole of the
+  beauty-loving England, and of all river-loving people in
+  particular."
+
+Gallantly does the great painter express the views of artists, and
+such vandalism is as obnoxious to antiquaries as it is to artists and
+lovers of the picturesque. Many of these old bridges date from
+medieval times, and are relics of antiquity that can ill be spared.
+Brick is a material as nearly imperishable as any that man can build
+with. There is hardly any limit to the life of a brick or stone
+bridge, whereas an iron or steel bridge requires constant supervision.
+The oldest iron bridge in this country--at Coalbrookdale, in
+Shropshire--has failed after 123 years of life. It was worn out by old
+age, whereas the Roman bridge at Rimini, and the medieval ones at St.
+Ives, Bradford-on-Avon, and countless other places in this country and
+abroad, are in daily use and are likely to remain serviceable for many
+years to come, unless these ponderous trains break them down.
+
+The interesting bridge which crosses the River Conway at Llanrwst was
+built in 1636 by Sir Richard Wynn, then the owner of Gwydir Castle,
+from the designs of Inigo Jones. Like many others, it is being injured
+by traction-trains carrying unlimited weights. Happily the Society for
+the Protection of Ancient Buildings heard the plaint of the old bridge
+that groaned under its heavy burdens and cried aloud for pity. The
+society listened to its pleading, and carried its petition to the
+Carmarthen County Council, with excellent results. This enlightened
+Council decided to protect the bridge and save it from further harm.
+
+The building of bridges was anciently regarded as a charitable and
+religious act, and guilds and brotherhoods existed for their
+maintenance and reparation. At Maidenhead there was a notable bridge,
+for the sustenance of which the Guild of St. Andrew and St. Mary
+Magdalene was established by Henry VI in 1452. An early bridge existed
+here in the thirteenth century, a grant having been made in 1298 for
+its repair. A bridge-master was one of the officials of the
+corporation, according to the charter granted to the town by James II.
+The old bridge was built of wood and supported by piles. No wonder
+that people were terrified at the thought of passing over such
+structures in dark nights and stormy weather. There was often a
+bridge-chapel, as on the old Caversham bridge, wherein they said their
+prayers, and perhaps made their wills, before they ventured to cross.
+
+Some towns owe their existence to the making of bridges. It was so at
+Maidenhead. It was quite a small place, a cluster of cottages, but
+Camden tells us that after the erection of the bridge the town began
+to have inns and to be so frequented as to outvie its "neighbouring
+mother, Bray, a much more ancient place," where the famous "Vicar"
+lived. The old bridge gave place in 1772 to a grand new one with very
+graceful arches, which was designed by Sir Roland Taylor.
+
+Abingdon, another of our Berkshire towns, has a famous bridge that
+dates back to the fifteenth century, when it was erected by some good
+merchants of the town, John Brett and John Huchyns and Geoffrey
+Barbour, with the aid of Sir Peter Besils of Besselsleigh, who
+supplied the stone from his quarries. It is an extremely graceful
+structure, well worthy of the skill of the medieval builders. It is
+some hundreds of yards in length, spanning the Thames and meadows that
+are often flooded, the main stream being spanned by six arches. Henry
+V is credited with its construction, but he only graciously bestowed
+his royal licence. In fact these merchants built two bridges, one
+called Burford Bridge and the other across the ford at Culham. The
+name Burford has nothing to do with the beautiful old town which we
+have already visited, but is a corruption of Borough-ford, the town
+ford at Abingdon. Two poets have sung their praises, one in atrocious
+Latin and the other in quaint, old-fashioned English. The first poet
+made a bad shot at the name of the king, calling him Henry IV instead
+of Henry V, though it is a matter of little importance, as neither
+monarch had anything to do with founding the structure. The Latin poet
+sings, if we may call it singing:--
+
+        Henricus Quartus quarto fundaverat anno
+        Rex pontem Burford super undas atque Culham-ford.
+
+The English poet fixes the date of the bridge, 4 Henry V (1416) and
+thus tells its story:--
+
+        King Henry the fyft, in his fourthe yere
+        He hath i-founde for his folke a brige in Berkshire
+        For cartis with cariage may goo and come clere,
+        That many wynters afore were marred in the myre.
+
+        Now is Culham hithe[57] i-come to an ende
+        And al the contre the better and no man the worse,
+        Few folke there were coude that way mende,
+        But they waged a cold or payed of ther purse;
+        An if it were a beggar had breed in his bagge,
+        He schulde be right soone i-bid to goo aboute;
+        And if the pore penyless the hireward would have,
+        A hood or a girdle and let him goo aboute.
+        Culham hithe hath caused many a curse
+        I' blyssed be our helpers we have a better waye,
+        Without any peny for cart and horse.
+
+        Another blyssed besiness is brigges to make
+        That there the pepul may not passe after great schowres,
+        Dole it is to draw a dead body out of a lake
+        That was fulled in a fount stoon and felow of owres.
+
+  [57] Ferry.
+
+The poet was grateful for the mercies conveyed to him by the bridge.
+"Fulled in a fount stoon," of course, means "washed or baptized in a
+stone font." He reveals the misery and danger of passing through a
+ford "after great showers," and the sad deaths which befell
+adventurous passengers when the river was swollen by rains and the
+ford well-nigh impassable. No wonder the builders of bridges earned
+the gratitude of their fellows. Moreover, this Abingdon Bridge was
+free to all persons, rich and poor alike, and no toll or pontage was
+demanded from those who would cross it.
+
+Within the memory of man there was a beautiful old bridge between
+Reading and Caversham. It was built of brick, and had ten arches, some
+constructed of stone. About the time of the Restoration some of these
+were ruinous, and obstructed the passage by penning up the water above
+the bridge so that boats could not pass without the use of a winch,
+and in the time of James II the barge-masters of Oxford appealed to
+Courts of Exchequer, asserting that the charges of pontage exacted on
+all barges passing under the bridge were unlawful, claiming exemption
+from all tolls by reason of a charter granted to the citizens of
+Oxford by Richard II. They won their case. This bridge is mentioned in
+the Close Rolls of the early years of Edward I as a place where
+assizes were held. The bridge at Cromarsh and Grandpont outside Oxford
+were frequently used for the same purpose. So narrow was it that two
+vehicles could not pass. For the safety of the foot passenger little
+angles were provided at intervals into which he could step in order
+to avoid being run over by carts or coaches. The chapel on the bridge
+was a noted feature of the bridge. It was very ancient. In 1239
+Engelard de Cyngny was ordered to let William, chaplain of the chapel
+of Caversham, have an oak out of Windsor Forest with which to make
+shingles for the roofing of the chapel. Passengers made offerings in
+the chapel to the priest in charge of it for the repair of the bridge
+and the maintenance of the chapel and priest. It contained many relics
+of saints, which at the Dissolution were eagerly seized by Dr. London,
+the King's Commissioner. About the year 1870 the old bridge was pulled
+down and the present hideous iron-girder erection substituted for it.
+It is extremely ugly, but is certainly more convenient than the old
+narrow bridge, which required passengers to retire into the angle to
+avoid the danger of being run over.
+
+These bridges can tell many tales of battle and bloodshed. There was a
+great skirmish on Caversham Bridge in the Civil War in a vain attempt
+on the part of the Royalists to relieve the siege of Reading. When
+Wallingford was threatened in the same period of the Great Rebellion,
+one part of the bridge was cut in order to prevent the enemy riding
+into the town. And you can still detect the part that was severed.
+There is a very interesting old bridge across the upper Thames between
+Bampton and Faringdon. It is called Radcot Bridge; probably built in
+the thirteenth century, with its three arches and a heavy buttress in
+the middle niched for a figure of the Virgin, and a cross formerly
+stood in the centre. A "cut" has diverted the course of the river to
+another channel, but the bridge remains, and on this bridge a sharp
+skirmish took place between Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Marquis of
+Dublin, and Duke of Ireland, a favourite of Richard II, upon whom the
+King delighted to bestow titles and honours. The rebellious lords met
+the favourite's forces at Radcot, where a fierce fight ensued. De Vere
+was taken in the rear, and surrounded by the forces of the Duke of
+Gloucester and the Earl of Derby, and being hard pressed, he plunged
+into the icy river (it was on the 20th day of December, 1387) with his
+armour on, and swimming down-stream with difficulty saved his life. Of
+this exploit a poet sings:--
+
+        Here Oxford's hero, famous for his boar,
+        While clashing swords upon his target sound,
+        And showers of arrows from his breast rebound,
+        Prepared for worst of fates, undaunted stood,
+        And urged his heart into the rapid flood.
+        The waves in triumph bore him, and were proud
+        To sink beneath their honourable load.
+
+Religious communities, monasteries and priories, often constructed
+bridges. There is a very curious one at Croyland, probably erected by
+one of the abbots of the famous abbey of Croyland or Crowland. This
+bridge is regarded as one of the greatest curiosities in the kingdom.
+It is triangular in shape, and has been supposed to be emblematical of
+the Trinity. The rivers Welland, Nene, and a drain called Catwater
+flow under it. The ascent is very steep, so that carriages go under
+it. The triangular bridge of Croyland is mentioned in a charter of
+King Edred about the year 941, but the present bridge is probably not
+earlier than the fourteenth century. However, there is a rude statue
+said to be that of King Ethelbald, and may have been taken from the
+earlier structure and built into the present bridge. It is in a
+sitting posture at the end of the south-west wall of the bridge. The
+figure has a crown on the head, behind which are two wings, the arms
+bound together, round the shoulders a kind of mantle, in the left hand
+a sceptre and in the right a globe. The bridge consists of three
+piers, whence spring three pointed arches which unite their groins in
+the centre. Croyland is an instance of a decayed town, the tide of its
+prosperity having flowed elsewhere. Though nominally a market-town, it
+is only a village, with little more than the ruins of its former
+splendour remaining, when the great abbey attracted to it crowds of
+the nobles and gentry of England, and employed vast numbers of
+labourers, masons, and craftsmen on the works of the abbey and in the
+supply of its needs.
+
+[Illustration: The Triangular Bridge Crowland]
+
+All over the country we find beautiful old bridges, though the opening
+years of the present century, with the increase of heavy
+traction-engines, have seen many disappear. At Coleshill,
+Warwickshire, there is a graceful old bridge leading to the town with
+its six arches and massive cutwaters. Kent is a county of bridges,
+picturesque medieval structures which have survived the lapse of time
+and the storms and floods of centuries. You can find several of these
+that span the Medway far from the busy railway lines and the great
+roads. There is a fine medieval fifteenth-century bridge at Yalding
+across the Beult, long, fairly level, with deeply embayed cutwaters of
+rough ragstone. Twyford Bridge belongs to the same period, and
+Lodingford Bridge, with its two arches and single-buttressed cutwater,
+is very picturesque. Teston Bridge across the Medway has five arches
+of carefully wrought stonework and belongs to the fifteenth century,
+and East Farleigh is a fine example of the same period with four
+ribbed and pointed arches and four bold cutwaters of wrought stones,
+one of the best in the country. Aylesford Bridge is a very graceful
+structure, though it has been altered by the insertion of a wide span
+arch in the centre for the improvement of river navigation. Its
+existence has been long threatened, and the Society for the Protection
+of Ancient Buildings has done its utmost to save the bridge from
+destruction. Its efforts are at length crowned with success, and the
+Kent County Council has decided that there are not sufficient grounds
+to justify the demolition of the bridge and that it shall remain. The
+attack upon this venerable structure will probably be renewed some
+day, and its friends will watch over it carefully and be prepared to
+defend it again when the next onslaught is made. It is certainly one
+of the most beautiful bridges in Kent. Little known and seldom seen
+by the world, and unappreciated even by the antiquary or the motorist,
+these Medway bridges continue their placid existence and proclaim the
+enduring work of the English masons of nearly five centuries ago.
+
+Many of our bridges are of great antiquity. The Eashing bridges over
+the Wey near Godalming date from the time of King John and are of
+singular charm and beauty. Like many others they have been threatened,
+the Rural District Council having proposed to widen and strengthen
+them, and completely to alter their character and picturesqueness.
+Happily the bridges were private property, and by the action of the
+Old Guildford Society and the National Trust they have been placed
+under the guardianship of the Trust, and are now secure from
+molestation.
+
+[Illustration: Huntingdon Bridge]
+
+We give an illustration of the Crane Bridge, Salisbury, a small Gothic
+bridge near the Church House, and seen in conjunction with that
+venerable building it forms a very beautiful object. Another
+illustration shows the huge bridge at Huntingdon spanning the Ouse
+with six arches. It is in good preservation, and has an arcade of
+Early Gothic arches, and over it the coaches used to run along the
+great North Road, the scene of the mythical ride of Dick Turpin, and
+doubtless the youthful feet of Oliver Cromwell, who was born at
+Huntingdon, often traversed it. There is another fine bridge at St.
+Neots with a watch-tower in the centre.
+
+The little town of Bradford-on-Avon has managed to preserve almost
+more than any other place in England the old features which are fast
+vanishing elsewhere. We have already seen that most interesting
+untouched specimen of Saxon architecture the little Saxon church,
+which we should like to think is the actual church built by St.
+Aldhelm, but we are compelled to believe on the authority of experts
+that it is not earlier than the tenth century. In all probability a
+church was built by St. Aldhelm at Bradford, probably of wood, and was
+afterwards rebuilt in stone when the land had rest and the raids of
+the Danes had ceased, and King Canute ruled and encouraged the
+building of churches, and Bishops Dunstan and Æthelwold of Winchester
+were specially prominent in the work. Bradford, too, has its noble
+church, parts of which date back to Norman times; its famous
+fourteenth-century barn at Barton Farm, which has a fifteenth-century
+porch and gatehouse; many fine examples of the humbler specimens of
+domestic architecture; and the very interesting Kingston House of the
+seventeenth century, built by one of the rich clothiers of Bradford,
+when the little town (like Abingdon) "stondeth by clothing," and all
+the houses in the place were figuratively "built upon wool-packs." But
+we are thinking of bridges, and Bradford has two, the earlier one
+being a little footbridge by the abbey grange, now called Barton Farm.
+Miss Alice Dryden tells the story of the town bridge in her _Memorials
+of Old Wiltshire_. It was originally only wide enough for a string of
+packhorses to pass along it. The ribbed portions of the southernmost
+arches and the piers for the chapel are early fourteenth century, the
+other arches were built later. Bradford became so prosperous, and the
+stream of traffic so much increased, and wains took the place of
+packhorses, that the narrow bridge was not sufficient for it; so the
+good clothiers built in the time of James I a second bridge alongside
+the first. Orders were issued in 1617 and 1621 for "the repair of the
+very fair bridge consisting of many goodly arches of freestone,"
+which had fallen into decay. The cost of repairing it was estimated at
+200 marks. There is a building on the bridge corbelled out on a
+specially built pier of the bridge, the use of which is not at first
+sight evident. Some people call it the watch-house, and it has been
+used as a lock-up; but Miss Dryden tells us that it was a chapel,
+similar to those which we have seen on many other medieval bridges. It
+belonged to the Hospital of St. Margaret, which stood at the southern
+end of the bridge, where the Great Western Railway crosses the road.
+This chapel retains little of its original work, and was rebuilt when
+the bridge was widened in the time of James I. Formerly there was a
+niche for a figure looking up the stream, but this has gone with much
+else during the drastic restoration. That a bridge-chapel existed here
+is proved by Aubrey, who mentions "the chapel for masse in the middest
+of the bridge" at Bradford.
+
+[Illustration: The Crane Bridge, Salisbury]
+
+Sometimes bridges owe their origin to curious circumstances. There was
+an old bridge at Olney, Buckinghamshire, of which Cowper wrote when he
+sang:--
+
+        That with its wearisome but needful length
+              Bestrides the flood.
+
+The present bridge that spans the Ouse with three arches and a
+causeway has taken the place of the long bridge of Cowper's time. This
+long bridge was built in the days of Queen Anne by two squires, Sir
+Robert Throckmorton of Weston Underwood and William Lowndes of Astwood
+Manor. These two gentlemen were sometimes prevented from paying visits
+to one another by floods, as they lived on opposite sides of the Ouse.
+They accordingly built the long bridge in continuation of an older
+one, of which only a small portion remains at the north end. Sir
+Robert found the material and Mr. Lowndes the labour. This story
+reminds one of a certain road in Berks and Bucks, the milestones along
+which record the distance between Hatfield and Bath? Why Hatfield? It
+is not a place of great resort or an important centre of population.
+But when we gather that a certain Marquis of Salisbury was troubled
+with gout, and had frequently to resort to Bath for the "cure," and
+constructed the road for his special convenience at his own expense,
+we begin to understand the cause of the carving of Hatfield on the
+milestones.
+
+[Illustration: Watch House On The Bridge Bradford on Avon Wilts. 8 Oct
+1908]
+
+The study of the bridges of England seems to have been somewhat
+neglected by antiquaries. You will often find some good account of a
+town or village in guide-books or topographical works, but the story
+of the bridges is passed over in silence. Owing to the reasons we have
+already stated, old bridges are fast disappearing and are being
+substituted by the hideous erections of iron and steel. It is well
+that we should attempt to record those that are left, photograph them
+and paint them, ere the march of modern progress, evinced by the
+traction-engine and the motor-car, has quite removed and destroyed
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+OLD HOSPITALS AND ALMSHOUSES
+
+
+There are in many towns and villages hospitals--not the large modern
+and usually unsightly buildings wherein the sick are cured, with wards
+all spick and span and up to date--but beautiful old buildings
+mellowed with age wherein men and women, on whom the snows of life
+have begun to fall thickly, may rest and recruit and take their ease
+before they start on the long, dark journey from which no traveller
+returns to tell to those he left behind how he fared.
+
+Almshouses we usually call them now, but our forefathers preferred to
+call them hospitals, God's hostels, "God huis," as the Germans call
+their beautiful house of pity at Lübeck, where the tired-out and
+money-less folk might find harbourage. The older hospitals were often
+called "bede-houses," because the inmates were bound to pray for their
+founder and benefactors. Some medieval hospitals, memorials of the
+charity of pre-Reformation Englishmen, remain, but many were
+suppressed during the age of spoliation; and others have been so
+rebuilt and restored that there is little left of the early
+foundation.
+
+We may notice three classes of these foundations. First, there are the
+pre-Reformation bede-houses or hospitals; the second group is composed
+of those which were built during the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth,
+James I, and Charles I. The Civil War put a stop to the foundation of
+almshouses. The principal landowners were impoverished by the war or
+despoiled by the Puritans, and could not build; the charity of the
+latter was devoted to other purposes. With the Restoration of the
+Church and the Monarchy another era of the building of almshouses set
+in, and to this period very many of our existing institutions belong.
+
+[Illustration: Gateway of St. John's Hospital, Canterbury]
+
+Of the earliest group we have several examples left. There is the
+noble hospital of St. Cross at Winchester, founded in the days of
+anarchy during the contest between Stephen and Matilda for the English
+throne. Its hospitable door is still open. Bishop Henry of Blois was
+its founder, and he made provision for thirteen poor men to be housed,
+boarded, and clothed, and for a hundred others to have a meal every
+day. He placed the hospital under the care of the Master of the
+Knights Hospitallers. Fortunately it was never connected with a
+monastery. Hence it escaped pillage and destruction at the
+dissolution of monastic houses. Bishop Henry was a great builder, and
+the church of the hospital is an interesting example of a structure of
+the Transition Norman period, when the round arch was giving way to
+the Early English pointed arch. To this foundation was added in 1443
+by Cardinal Beaufort an extension called the "Almshouse of Noble
+Poverty," and it is believed that the present domestic buildings were
+erected by him.[58] The visitor can still obtain the dole of bread and
+ale at the gate of St. Cross. Winchester is well provided with old
+hospitals: St. John's was founded in 931 and refounded in 1289; St.
+Mary Magdalen, by Bishop Toclyve in 1173-88 for nine lepers; and
+Christ's Hospital in 1607.
+
+  [58] Mr. Nisbett gives a good account of the hospital in
+  _Memorials of Old Hampshire_, and Mr. Champneys fully describes
+  the buildings in the _Architectural Review_, October, 1903, and
+  April, 1904.
+
+We will visit some less magnificent foundations. Some are of a very
+simple type, resembling a church with nave and chancel. The nave part
+was a large hall divided by partitions on each side of an alley into
+little cells in which the bedesmen lived. Daily Mass was celebrated in
+the chancel, the chapel of hospital, whither the inmates resorted; but
+the sick and infirm who could not leave their cells were able to join
+in the service. St. Mary's Hospital, at Chichester, is an excellent
+example, as it retains its wooden cells, which are still used by the
+inmates. It was formerly a nunnery, but in 1229 the nuns departed and
+the almswomen took their place. It is of wide span with low
+side-walls, and the roof is borne by wooden pillars. There are eight
+cells of two rooms each, and beyond the screen is a little chapel,
+which is still used by the hospitallers.[59]
+
+  [59] The _Treasury_, November, 1907, an article on hospitals by
+  Dr. Hermitage Day.
+
+Archbishop Chichele founded a fine hospital at Higham Ferrers in
+Northamptonshire, which saw his lowly birth, together with a school
+and college, about the year 1475. The building is still in existence
+and shows a good roof and fine Perpendicular window, but the twelve
+bedesmen and the one sister, who was to be chosen for her plainness,
+no longer use the structure.
+
+Stamford can boast of a fine medieval hospital, the foundation of
+Thomas Browne in 1480 for the accommodation of ten old men and two
+women. A new quadrangle has been built for the inmates, but you can
+still see the old edifice with its nave of two storeys, its
+fifteenth-century stained glass, and its chapel with its screen and
+stalls and altar.
+
+Stamford has another hospital which belongs to our second group. Owing
+to the destruction of monasteries, which had been great benefactors to
+the poor and centres of vast schemes of charity, there was sore need
+for almshouses and other schemes for the relief of the aged and
+destitute. The _nouveaux riches_, who had fattened on the spoils of
+the monasteries, sought to salve their consciences by providing for
+the wants of the poor, building grammar schools, and doing some good
+with their wealth. Hence many almshouses arose during this period.
+This Stamford home was founded by the great Lord Burghley in 1597. It
+is a picturesque group of buildings with tall chimneys, mullioned and
+dormer windows, on the bank of the Welland stream, and occupies the
+site of a much more ancient foundation.
+
+There is the college at Cobham, in Kent, the buildings forming a
+pleasant quadrangle south of the church. Flagged pathways cross the
+greensward of the court, and there is a fine hall wherein the inmates
+used to dine together.
+
+As we traverse the village streets we often meet with these grey piles
+of sixteenth-century almshouses, often low, one-storeyed buildings,
+picturesque and impressive, each house having a welcoming porch with a
+seat on each side and a small garden full of old-fashioned flowers.
+The roof is tiled, on which moss and lichen grow, and the
+chimney-stacks are tall and graceful. An inscription records the date
+and name of the generous founder with his arms and motto. Such a home
+of peace you will find at Quainton, in Buckinghamshire, founded, as an
+inscription records, "Anno Dom. 1687. These almshouses were then
+erected and endow'd by Richard Winwood, son and heir of Right Hon'ble
+Sir Ralph Winwood, Bart., Principal Secretary of State to King James
+y'e First." Within these walls dwell (according to the rules drawn up
+by Sir Ralph Verney in 1695) "three poor men--widowers,--to be called
+Brothers, and three poor women--widows,--to be called Sisters." Very
+strict were these rules for the government of the almshouses, as to
+erroneous opinions in any principle of religion, the rector of
+Quainton being the judge, the visiting of alehouses, the good conduct
+of the inmates, who were to be "no whisperers, quarrelers, evil
+speakers or contentious."
+
+These houses at Quainton are very humble abodes; other almshouses are
+large and beautiful buildings erected by some rich merchant, or great
+noble, or London City company, for a large scheme of charity. Such are
+the beautiful almshouses in the Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, founded in
+the early part of the eighteenth century under the terms of the will
+of Sir Robert Geffery. They stand in a garden about an acre in extent,
+a beautiful oasis in the surrounding desert of warehouses, reminding
+the passer-by of the piety and loyal patriotism of the great citizens
+of London, and affording a peaceful home for many aged folk. This
+noble building, of great architectural dignity, with the figure of the
+founder over the porch and its garden with fine trees, has only just
+escaped the hands of the destroyer and been numbered among the bygone
+treasures of vanished England. It was seriously proposed to pull down
+this peaceful home of poor people and sell the valuable site to the
+Peabody Donation Fund for the erection of working-class dwellings. The
+almshouses are governed by the Ironmongers' Company, and this proposal
+was made; but, happily, the friends of ancient buildings made their
+protest to the Charity Commissioners, who have refused their sanction
+to the sale, and the Geffery Almshouses will continue to exist,
+continue their useful mission, and remain the chief architectural
+ornament in a district that sorely needs "sweetness and light."
+
+City magnates who desired to build and endow hospitals for the aged
+nearly always showed their confidence in and affection for the Livery
+Companies to which they belonged by placing in their care these
+charitable foundations. Thus Sir Richard Whittington, of famous
+memory, bequeathed to the Mercers' Company all his houses and
+tenements in London, which were to be sold and the proceeds
+distributed in various charitable works. With this sum they founded a
+College of Priests, called Whittington College, which was suppressed
+at the Reformation, and the almshouses adjoining the old church of St.
+Michael Paternoster, for thirteen poor folk, of whom one should be
+principal or tutor. The Great Fire destroyed the buildings; they were
+rebuilt on the same site, but in 1835 they were fallen into decay, and
+the company re-erected them at Islington, where you will find
+Whittington College, providing accommodation for twenty-eight poor
+women. Besides this the Mercers have charge of Lady Mico's Almshouses
+at Stepney, founded in 1692 and rebuilt in 1857, and the Trinity
+Hospital at Greenwich, founded in 1615 by Henry Howard, Earl of
+Northampton. This earl was of a very charitable disposition, and
+founded other hospitals at Castle Rising in Norfolk and Clun in
+Shropshire. The Mercers continue to manage the property and have built
+a new hospital at Shottisham, besides making grants to the others
+created by the founder. It is often the custom of the companies to
+expend out of their private income far more than they receive from the
+funds of the charities which they administer.
+
+[Illustration: Inmate of the Trinity Bede House at Castle Rising,
+Norfolk]
+
+The Grocers' Company have almshouses and a Free Grammar School at
+Oundle in Northamptonshire, founded by Sir William Laxton in 1556,
+upon which they have expended vast sums of money. The Drapers
+administer the Mile End Almshouses and school founded in 1728 by
+Francis Bancroft, Sir John Jolles's almshouses at Tottenham, founded
+in 1618, and very many others. They have two hundred in the
+neighbourhood of London alone, and many others in different parts of
+the country. Near where I am writing is Lucas's Hospital at Wokingham,
+founded by Henry Lucas in 1663, which he placed in the charge of the
+company. It is a beautiful Carolian house with a central portion and
+two wings, graceful and pleasing in every detail. The chapel is
+situated in one wing and the master's house in the other, and there
+are sets of rooms for twelve poor men chosen from the parishes in the
+neighbourhood. The Fishmongers have the management of three important
+hospitals. At Bray, in Berkshire, famous for its notable vicar, there
+stands the ancient Jesus Hospital, founded in 1616 under the will of
+William Goddard, who directed that there should be built rooms with
+chimneys in the said hospital, fit and convenient for forty poor
+people to dwell and inhabit it, and that there should be one chapel or
+place convenient to serve Almighty God in for ever with public and
+divine prayers and other exercises of religion, and also one kitchen
+and bakehouse common to all the people of the said hospital. Jesus
+Hospital is a quadrangular building, containing forty almshouses
+surrounding a court which is divided into gardens, one of which is
+attached to each house. It has a pleasing entrance through a gabled
+brick porch which has over the Tudor-shaped doorway a statue of the
+founder and mullioned latticed windows. The old people live happy and
+contented lives, and find in the eventide of their existence a
+cheerful home in peaceful and beautiful surroundings. The Fishmongers
+also have almshouses at Harrietsham, in Kent, founded by Mark Quested,
+citizen and fishmonger of London, in 1642, which they rebuilt in 1772,
+and St. Peter's Hospital, Wandsworth, formerly called the Fishmongers'
+Almshouses. The Goldsmiths have a very palatial pile of almshouses at
+Acton Park, called Perryn's Almshouses, with a grand entrance
+portico, and most of the London companies provide in this way homes
+for their decayed members, so that they may pass their closing years
+in peace and freedom from care.
+
+[Illustration: The Hospital for Ancient Fishermen, Great Yarmouth. Aug
+1908]
+
+Fishermen, who pass their lives in storm and danger reaping the
+harvest of the sea, have not been forgotten by pious benefactors. One
+of the most picturesque buildings in Great Yarmouth is the Fishermen's
+Hospital, of which we give some illustrations. It was founded by the
+corporation of the town in 1702 for the reception of twenty old
+fishermen and their wives. It is a charming house of rest, with its
+gables and dormer windows and its general air of peace and repose. The
+old men look very comfortable after battling for so many years with
+the storms of the North Sea. Charles II granted to the hospital an
+annuity of £160 for its support, which was paid out of the excise on
+beer, but when the duty was repealed the annuity naturally ceased.
+
+The old hospital at King's Lynn was destroyed during the siege, as
+this quaint inscription tells:--
+
+     THIS HOSPITAL WAS
+    BURNT DOWN AT LIN
+     SEGE AND REBULT
+     1649 NATH MAXEY
+      MAYOR AND EDW
+     ROBINSON ALDMAN
+    TREASURER PRO TEM
+               P.R.O.
+
+Norwich had several important hospitals. Outside the Magdalen gates
+stood the Magdalen Hospital, founded by Bishop Herbert, the first
+bishop. It was a house for lepers, and some portions of the Norman
+chapel still exist in a farm-building by the roadside. The far-famed
+St. Giles's Hospital in Bishopsgate Street is an ancient foundation,
+erected by Bishop Walter Suffield in 1249 for poor chaplains and other
+poor persons. It nearly vanished at the Reformation era, like so many
+other kindred institutions, but Henry VIII and Edward VI granted it a
+new charter. The poor clergy were, however, left out in the cold, and
+the benefits were confined to secular folk. For the accommodation of
+its inmates the chancel of the church was divided by a floor into an
+upper and a lower storey, and this arrangement still exists, and you
+can still admire the picturesque ivy-clad tower, the wards with cosy
+ingle-nooks at either end and cubicles down the middle, the roof
+decorated with eagles, deemed to be the cognizance of Queen Anne of
+Bohemia, wife of Richard II, the quaint little cloister, and above
+all, the excellent management of this grand institution, the "Old
+Man's Hospital," as it is called, which provides for the necessities
+of 150 old folk, whose wants are cared for by a master and twelve
+nurses.
+
+[Illustration: Inscription on the Hospital, King's Lynn]
+
+Let us travel far and visit another charming almshouse, Abbot's
+Hospital, at Guildford, which is an architectural gem and worthy of
+the closest inspection. It was founded by Archbishop Abbot in 1619,
+and is a noble building of mellowed brick with finely carved oak
+doors, graceful chimneys with their curious "crow-rests," noble
+staircases, interesting portraits, and rare books, amongst which is a
+Vinegar Bible. The chapel with its Flemish windows showing the story
+of Jacob and Esau, and oak carvings and almsbox dated 1619, is
+especially attractive. Here the founder retired in sadness and sorrow
+after his unfortunate day's hunting in Bramshill Park, where he
+accidentally shot a keeper, an incident which gave occasion to his
+enemies to blaspheme and deride him. Here the Duke of Monmouth was
+confined on his way to London after the battle of Sedgemoor. The
+details of the building are worthy of attention, especially the
+ornamented doors and doorways, the elaborate latches, beautifully
+designed and furnished with a spring, and elegant casement-fasteners.
+Guildford must have had a school of great artists of these
+window-fasteners. Near the hospital there is a very interesting house,
+No. 25 High Street, now a shop, but formerly the town clerk's
+residence and the lodgings of the judges of assize; no better series
+in England of beautifully designed window-fasteners can be found than
+in this house, erected in 1683; it also has a fine staircase like that
+at Farnham Castle, and some good plaster ceilings resembling Inigo
+Jones's work and probably done by his workmen.
+
+The good town of Abingdon has a very celebrated hospital founded in
+1446 by the Guild of the Holy Cross, a fraternity composed of "good
+men and true," wealthy merchants and others, which built the bridge,
+repaired roads, maintained a bridge priest and a rood priest, and held
+a great annual feast at which the brethren consumed as much as 6
+calves, 16 lambs, 80 capons, 80 geese, and 800 eggs. It was a very
+munificent and beneficent corporation, and erected these almshouses
+for thirteen poor men and the same number of poor women. That hospital
+founded so long ago still exists. It is a curious and ancient
+structure in one storey, and is denoted Christ's Hospital. One of our
+recent writers on Berkshire topography, whose historical accuracy is a
+little open to criticism, gives a good description of the building:--
+
+  "It is a long range of chambers built of mellow brick and
+  immemorial oak, having in their centre a small hall, darkly
+  wainscoted, the very table in which makes a collector sinfully
+  covetous. In front of the modest doors of the chambers inhabited
+  by almsmen and almswomen runs a tiny cloister with oak pillars, so
+  that the inmates may visit one another dryshod in any weather.
+  Each door, too, bears a text from the Old or New Testament. A more
+  typical relic of the old world, a more sequestered haven of rest,
+  than this row of lowly buildings, looking up to the great church
+  in front, and with its windows opening on to green turf bordered
+  with flowers in the rear, it could not enter into the heart of man
+  to imagine."[60]
+
+  [60] _Highways and Byways in Berkshire_.
+
+We could spend endless time in visiting the old almshouses in many
+parts of the country. There is the Ford's Hospital in Coventry,
+erected in 1529, an extremely good specimen of late Gothic work,
+another example of which is found in St. John's Hospital at Rye. The
+Corsham Almshouses in Wiltshire, erected in 1663, are most picturesque
+without, and contain some splendid woodwork within, including a fine
+old reading-desk with carved seat in front. There is a large porch
+with an immense coat-of-arms over the door. In the region of the
+Cotswolds, where building-stone is plentiful, we find a noble set of
+almshouses at Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire, a gabled structure
+near the church with tall, graceful chimneys and mullioned windows,
+having a raised causeway in front protected by a low wall. Ewelme, in
+Oxfordshire, is a very attractive village with a row of cottages half
+a mile long, which have before their doors a sparkling stream dammed
+here and there into watercress beds. At the top of the street on a
+steep knoll stand church and school and almshouses of the mellowest
+fifteenth-century bricks, as beautiful and structurally sound as the
+pious founders left them. These founders were the unhappy William de
+la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk, and his good wife the Duchess Alice.
+The Duke inherited Ewelme through his wife Alice Chaucer, a kinswoman
+of the poet, and "for love of her and the commoditie of her landes
+fell much to dwell in Oxfordshire," and in 1430-40 was busy building
+a manor-place of "brick and Tymbre and set within a fayre mote," a
+church, an almshouse, and a school. The manor-place, or "Palace," as
+it was called, has disappeared, but the almshouse and school remain,
+witnesses of the munificence of the founders. The poor Duke, favourite
+minister of Henry VI, was exiled by the Yorkist faction, and beheaded
+by the sailors on his way to banishment. Twenty-five years of
+widowhood fell to the bereaved duchess, who finished her husband's
+buildings, called the almshouses "God's House," and then reposed
+beneath one of the finest monuments in England in the church hard by.
+The almshouses at Audley End, Essex, are amongst the most picturesque
+in the country. Such are some of these charming homes of rest that
+time has spared.
+
+The old people who dwell in them are often as picturesque as their
+habitations. Here you will find an old woman with her lace-pillow and
+bobbins, spectacles on nose, and white bonnet with strings, engaged in
+working out some intricate lace pattern. In others you will see the
+inmates clad in their ancient liveries. The dwellers in the Coningsby
+Hospital at Hereford, founded in 1614 for old soldiers and aged
+servants, had a quaint livery consisting of "a fustian suit of ginger
+colour, of a soldier-like fashion, and seemly laced; a cloak of red
+cloth lined with red baize and reaching to the knees, to be worn in
+walks and journeys, and a gown of red cloth, reaching to the ankle,
+lined also with baize, to be worn within the hospital." They are,
+therefore, known as Red Coats. The almsmen of Ely and Rochester have
+cloaks. The inmates of the Hospital of St. Cross wear as a badge a
+silver cross potent. At Bottesford they have blue coats and blue
+"beef-eater" hats, and a silver badge on the left arm bearing the arms
+of the Rutland family--a peacock in its pride, surmounted by a coronet
+and surrounded by a garter.
+
+[Illustration: Ancient Inmates of the Fishermen's Hospital, Great
+Yarmouth]
+
+It is not now the fashion to found almshouses. We build workhouses
+instead, vast ugly barracks wherein the poor people are governed by
+all the harsh rules of the Poor Law, where husband and wife are
+separated from each other, and "those whom God hath joined together
+are," by man and the Poor Law, "put asunder"; where the industrious
+labourer is housed with the lazy and ne'er-do-weel. The old almshouses
+were better homes for the aged poor, homes of rest after the struggle
+for existence, and harbours of refuge for the tired and weary till
+they embark on their last voyage.
+
+[Illustration: Cottages at Evesham]
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+VANISHING FAIRS
+
+
+The "oldest inhabitants" of our villages can remember many changes in
+the social conditions of country life. They can remember the hard time
+of the Crimean war when bread was two shillings and eightpence a
+gallon, when food and work were both scarce, and starvation wages were
+doled out. They can remember the "machine riots," and tumultuous
+scenes at election times, and scores of interesting facts, if only you
+can get them to talk and tell you their recollections. The changed
+condition of education puzzles them. They can most of them read, and
+perhaps write a little, but they prefer to make their mark and get you
+to attest it with the formula, "the mark of J----N." Their schooling
+was soon over. When they were nine years of age they were ploughboys,
+and had a rough time with a cantankerous ploughman who often used to
+ply his whip on his lad or on his horses quite indiscriminately. They
+have seen many changes, and do not always "hold with" modern notions;
+and one of the greatest changes they have seen is in the fairs. They
+are not what they were. Some, indeed, maintain some of their
+usefulness, but most of them have degenerated into a form of mild
+Saturnalia, if not into a scandal and a nuisance; and for that reason
+have been suppressed.
+
+Formerly quite small villages had their fairs. If you look at an old
+almanac you will see a list of fair-days with the names of the
+villages which, when the appointed days come round, cannot now boast
+of the presence of a single stall or merry-go-round. The day of the
+fair was nearly always on or near the festival of the patron saint to
+whom the church of that village is dedicated. There is, of course, a
+reason for this. The word "fair" is derived from the Latin word
+_feria_, which means a festival, the parish feast day. On the festival
+of the patron saint of a village church crowds of neighbours from
+adjoining villages would flock to the place, the inhabitants of which
+used to keep open house, and entertain all their relations and friends
+who came from a distance. They used to make booths and tents with
+boughs of trees near the church, and celebrated the festival with much
+thanksgiving and prayer. By degrees they began to forget their prayers
+and remembered only the feasting; country people flocked from far and
+near; the pedlars and hawkers came to find a market for their wares.
+Their stalls began to multiply, and thus the germ of a fair was
+formed.
+
+[Illustration: Stalls at Banbury Fair]
+
+In such primitive fairs the traders paid no toll or rent for their
+stalls, but by degrees the right of granting permission to hold a
+fair was vested in the King, who for various considerations bestowed
+this favour on nobles, merchant guilds, bishops, or monasteries. Great
+profits arose from these gatherings. The traders had to pay toll on
+all the goods which they brought to the fair, in addition to the
+payment of stallage or rent for the ground on which they displayed
+their merchandise, and also a charge on all the goods they sold.
+Moreover, the trades-folk of the town were obliged to close their
+shops during the days of the fair, and to bring their goods to the
+fair, so that the toll-owner might gain good profit withal.
+
+We can imagine, or try to imagine, the roads and streets leading to
+the market-place thronged with traders and chapmen, the sellers of
+ribbons and cakes, minstrels and morris-dancers, smock-frocked
+peasants and sombre-clad monks and friars. Then a horn was sounded,
+and the lord of the manor, or the bishop's bailiff, or the mayor of
+the town proclaimed the fair; and then the cries of the traders, the
+music of the minstrels, the jingling of the bells of the
+morris-dancers, filled the air and added animation to the spectacle.
+
+There is a curious old gateway, opposite the fair-ground at
+Smithfield, which has just recently narrowly escaped destruction, and
+very nearly became part of the vanished glories of England. Happily
+the donations of the public poured in so well that the building was
+saved. This Smithfield gateway dates back to the middle of the
+thirteenth century, the entrance to the Priory of St. Bartholomew,
+founded by Rahere, the court jester of Henry I, a century earlier.
+Every one knows the story of the building of this Priory, and has
+followed its extraordinary vicissitudes, the destruction of its nave
+at the dissolution of monasteries, the establishment of a fringe
+factory in the Lady Chapel, and the splendid and continuous work of
+restoration which has been going on during the last forty years. We
+are thankful that this choir of St. Bartholomew's Church should have
+been preserved for future generations as an example of the earliest
+and most important ecclesiastical buildings in London. But we are
+concerned now with this gateway, the beauty of which is partially
+concealed by the neighbouring shops and dwellings that surround it, as
+a poor and vulgar frame may disfigure some matchless gem of artistic
+painting. Its old stones know more about fairs than do most things. It
+shall tell its own history. You can still admire the work of the Early
+English builders, the receding orders with exquisite mouldings and
+dog-tooth ornament--the hall-mark of the early Gothic artists. It
+looks upon the Smithfield market, and how many strange scenes of
+London history has this gateway witnessed! Under its arch possibly
+stood London's first chronicler, Fitzstephen, the monk, when he saw
+the famous horse fairs that took place in Smithfield every Friday,
+which he described so graphically. Thither flocked earls, barons,
+knights, and citizens to look on or buy. The monk admired the nags
+with their sleek and shining coats, smoothly ambling along, the young
+blood colts not yet accustomed to the bridle, the horses for burden,
+strong and stout-limbed, and the valuable chargers of elegant shape
+and noble height, with nimbly moving ears, erect necks, and plump
+haunches. He waxes eloquent over the races, the expert jockeys, the
+eager horses, the shouting crowds. "The riders, inspired with the love
+of praise and the hope of victory, clap spurs to their flying horses,
+lashing them with their whips, and inciting them by their shouts"; so
+wrote the worthy monk Fitzstephen. He evidently loved a horse-race,
+but he need not have given us the startling information, "their chief
+aim is to prevent a competitor getting before them." That surely would
+be obvious even to a monk. He also examined the goods of the peasants,
+the implements of husbandry, swine with their long sides, cows with
+distended udders, _Corpora magna boum, lanigerumque pecus_, mares
+fitted for the plough or cart, some with frolicsome colts running by
+their sides. A very animated scene, which must have delighted the
+young eyes of the stone arch in the days of its youth, as it did the
+heart of the monk.
+
+Still gayer scenes the old gate has witnessed. Smithfield was the
+principal spot in London for jousts, tournaments, and military
+exercises, and many a grand display of knightly arms has taken place
+before this priory gate. "In 1357 great and royal jousts were then
+holden in Smithfield; there being present the Kings of England,
+France, and Scotland, with many other nobles and great estates of
+divers lands," writes Stow. Gay must have been the scene in the
+forty-eighth year of Edward III, when Dame Alice Perrers, the King's
+mistress, as Lady of the Sun, rode from the Tower of London to
+Smithfield accompanied by many lords and ladies, every lady leading a
+lord by his horse-bridle, and there began a great joust which endured
+seven days after. The lists were set in the great open space with
+tiers of seats around, a great central canopy for the Queen of Beauty,
+the royal party, and divers tents and pavilions for the contending
+knights and esquires. It was a grand spectacle, adorned with all the
+pomp and magnificence of medieval chivalry. Froissart describes with
+consummate detail the jousts in the fourteenth year of Richard II,
+before a grand company, when sixty coursers gaily apparelled for the
+jousts issued from the Tower of London ridden by esquires of honour,
+and then sixty ladies of honour mounted on palfreys, each lady leading
+a knight with a chain of gold, with a great number of trumpets and
+other instruments of music with them. On arriving at Smithfield the
+ladies dismounted, the esquires led the coursers which the knights
+mounted, and after their helmets were set on their heads proclamation
+was made by the heralds, the jousts began, "to the great pleasure of
+the beholders." But it was not all pomp and pageantry. Many and deadly
+were the fights fought in front of the old gate, when men lost their
+lives or were borne from the field mortally wounded, or contended for
+honour and life against unjust accusers. That must have been a sorry
+scene in 1446, when a rascally servant, John David, accused his
+master, William Catur, of treason, and had to face the wager of battle
+in Smithfield. The master was well beloved, and inconsiderate friends
+plied him with wine so that he was not in a condition to fight, and
+was slain by his servant. But Stow reminds us that the prosperity of
+the wicked is frail. Not long after David was hanged at Tyburn for
+felony, and the chronicler concludes: "Let such false accusers note
+this for example, and look for no better end without speedy
+repentance." He omits to draw any moral from the intemperance of the
+master and the danger of drunkenness.
+
+But let this suffice for the jousts in Smithfield. The old gateway
+heard on one occasion strange noises in the church, Archbishop
+Boniface raging with oaths not to be recited, and sounds of strife and
+shrieks and angry cries. This foreigner, Archbishop of Canterbury, had
+dared to come with his armed retainers from Provence to hold a
+visitation of the priory. The canons received him with solemn pomp,
+but respectfully declined to be visited by him, as they had their own
+proper visitor, a learned man, the Bishop of London, and did not care
+for another inspector. Boniface lost his temper, struck the sub-prior,
+saying, "Indeed, doth it become you English traitors so to answer me?"
+He tore in pieces the rich cope of the sub-prior; the canons rushed to
+their brother's rescue and knocked the Archbishop down; but his men
+fell upon the canons and beat them and trod them under foot. The old
+gateway was shocked and grieved to see the reverend canons running
+beneath the arch bloody and miry, rent and torn, carrying their
+complaint to the Bishop and then to the King at Westminster. After
+which there was much contention, and the whole city rose and would
+have torn the Archbishop into small pieces, shouting, "Where is this
+ruffian? that cruel smiter!" and much else that must have frightened
+and astonished Master Boniface and made him wish that he had never set
+foot in England, but stayed quietly in peaceful Provence.
+
+But this gateway loved to look upon the great fair that took place on
+the Feast of St. Bartholomew. This was granted to Rahere the Prior and
+to the canons and continued for seven centuries, until the abuses of
+modern days destroyed its character and ended its career. The scene of
+the actual fair was within the priory gates in the churchyard, and
+there during the three days of its continuance stood the booths and
+standings of the clothiers and drapers of London and of all England,
+of pewterers, and leather-sellers, and without in the open space
+before the priory were tents and booths and a noisy crowd of traders,
+pleasure-seekers, friars, jesters, tumblers, and stilt-walkers. This
+open space was just outside the turreted north wall of the city, and
+was girt by tall elms, and near it was a sheet of water whereon the
+London boys loved to skate when the frost came. It was the city
+playground, and the city gallows were placed there before they were
+removed to Tyburn. This dread implement of punishment stood under the
+elms where Cow Lane now runs: and one fair day brave William Wallace
+was dragged there in chains at the tails of horses, bruised and
+bleeding, and foully done to death after the cruel fashion of the age.
+All this must have aged the heart of the old gateway, and especially
+the sad sight of the countless burials that took place in the year of
+the Plague, 1349, when fifty thousand were interred in the burial
+ground of the Carthusians, and few dared to attend the fair for fear
+of the pestilence.
+
+Other terrible things the gateway saw: the burning of heretics. Not
+infrequently did these fires of persecution rage. One of the first of
+these martyrs was John Bedley, a tailor, burnt in Smithfield in 1410.
+In Fox's _Book of Martyrs_ you can see a woodcut of the burning of
+Anne Ascue and others, showing a view of the Priory and the crowd of
+spectators who watched the poor lady die. Not many days afterwards the
+fair-folk assembled, while the ground was still black with her ashes,
+and dogs danced and women tumbled and the devil jeered in the miracle
+play on the spot where martyrs died.
+
+We should need a volume to describe all the sights of this wondrous
+fair, the church crowded with worshippers, the halt and sick praying
+for healing, the churchyard full of traders, the sheriff proclaiming
+new laws, the young men bowling at ninepins, pedlars shouting their
+wares, players performing the miracle play on a movable stage, bands
+of pipers, lowing oxen, neighing horses, and bleating sheep. It was a
+merry sight that medieval Bartholomew Fair.
+
+[Illustration: An Old English Fair]
+
+We still have Cloth Fair, a street so named, with a remarkable group
+of timber houses with over-sailing storeys and picturesque gables. It
+is a very dark and narrow thoroughfare, and in spite of many changes
+it remains a veritable "bit" of old London, as it was in the
+seventeenth century. These houses have sprung up where in olden days
+the merchants' booths stood for the sale of cloth. It was one of the
+great annual markets of the nation, the chief cloth fair in England
+that had no rival. Hither came the officials of the Merchant Tailors'
+Company bearing a silver yard measure, to try the measures of the
+clothiers and drapers to see if they were correct. And so each year
+the great fair went on, and priors and canons lived and died and were
+buried in the church or beneath the grass of the churchyard. But at
+length the days of the Priory were numbered, and it changed masters.
+The old gateway wept to see the cowled Black Canons depart when Henry
+VIII dissolved the monastery; its heart nearly broke when it heard the
+sounds of axes and hammers, crowbars and saws, at work on the fabric
+of the church pulling down the grand nave, and it scowled at the new
+owner, Sir Richard Rich, a prosperous political adventurer, who bought
+the whole estate for £1064 11s. 3d., and made a good bargain.
+
+The monks, a colony of Black Friars, came in again with Queen Mary,
+but they were driven out again when Elizabeth reigned, and Lord Rich
+again resumed possession of the estate, which passed to his heirs, the
+Earls of Warwick and Holland. Each Sunday, however, the old gate
+welcomed devout worshippers on their way to the church, the choir
+having been converted into the parish church of the district, and was
+not sorry to see in Charles's day a brick tower rising at the west
+end.
+
+In spite of the changes of ownership the fair went on increasing with
+the increase of the city. But the scene has changed. In the time of
+James I the last elm tree had gone, and rows of houses, fair and
+comely buildings, had sprung up. The old muddy plain had been drained
+and paved, and the traders and pleasure-seekers could no longer dread
+the wading through a sea of mud. We should like to follow the fair
+through the centuries, and see the sights and shows. The puppet shows
+were always attractive, and the wild beasts, the first animal ever
+exhibited being "a large and beautiful young camel from Grand Cairo
+in Egypt. This creature is twenty-three years old, his head and neck
+like those of a deer." One Flockton during the last half of the
+eighteenth century was the prince of puppet showmen, and he called his
+puppets the Italian Fantocinni. He made his figures work in a most
+lifelike style. He was a conjurer too, and the inventor of a wonderful
+clock which showed nine hundred figures at work upon a variety of
+trades. "Punch and Judy" always attracted crowds, and we notice the
+handbills of Mr. Robinson, conjurer to the Queen, and of Mr. Lane, who
+sings:
+
+        It will make you to laugh, it will drive away gloom,
+        To see how the eggs will dance round the room;
+        And from another egg a bird there will fly,
+        Which makes all the company all for to cry, etc.
+
+The booths for actors were a notable feature of the fair. We read of
+Fielding's booth at the George Inn, of the performance of the
+_Beggar's Opera_ in 1728, of Penkethman's theatrical booth when _Wat
+Taylor and Jack Straw_ was acted, of the new opera called _The
+Generous Free Mason or the Constant Lady_, of _Jephthah's Rash Vow_,
+and countless other plays that saw the light at Bartholomew Fair. The
+audience included not only the usual frequenters of fairs, but even
+royal visitors, noblemen, and great ladies flocked to the booths for
+amusement, and during its continuance the playhouses of London were
+closed.
+
+I must not omit to mention the other attractions, the fireproof lady,
+Madam Giradelli, who put melted lead in her mouth, passed red-hot iron
+over her body, thrust her arm into fire, and washed her hands in
+boiling oil; Mr. Simon Paap, the Dutch dwarf, twenty-eight inches
+high; bear-dancing, the learned pig, the "beautiful spotted negro
+boy," peep-shows, Wombell's royal menagerie, the learned cats, and a
+female child with two perfect heads.
+
+But it is time to ring down the curtain. The last days of the fair
+were not edifying. Scenes of riot and debauch, of violence and
+lawlessness disgraced the assembly. Its usefulness as a gathering for
+trade purposes had passed away. It became a nuisance and a disgrace to
+London. In older days the Lord Mayor used to ride in his grand coach
+to our old gateway, and there proclaim it with a great flourish of
+trumpets. In 1850 his worship walked quietly to the accustomed place,
+and found that there was no fair to proclaim, and five years later the
+formality was entirely dispensed with, and silence reigned over the
+historic ground over which century after century the hearts of our
+forefathers throbbed with the outspoken joys of life. The old gateway,
+like many aged folk, has much on which to meditate in its advanced
+age.
+
+[Illustration: An Ancient Maker of Nets in a Kentish Fair]
+
+Many other fairs have been suppressed in recent years, but some
+survive and thrive with even greater vigour than ever. Some are hiring
+fairs, where you may see young men with whipcord in their caps
+standing in front of inns ready to be hired by the farmers who come to
+seek labourers. Women and girls too come to be hired, but their number
+decreases every year. Such is the Abingdon fair, which no rustic in
+the adjoining villages ever thinks of missing. We believe that the
+Nottingham Goose Fair, which is attended by very large crowds, is also
+a hiring fair. "Pleasure fairs" in several towns and cities show no
+sign of diminished popularity. The famous St. Giles's Fair at Oxford
+is attended by thousands, and excursion trains from London, Cardiff,
+Reading, and other large towns bring crowds to join in the humours of
+the gathering, the shows covering all the broad space between St.
+Giles's Church and George Street. Reading Michaelmas Pleasure Fair is
+always a great attraction. The fair-ground is filled from end to end
+with roundabouts driven by steam, which also plays a hideous organ
+that grinds out popular tunes, swings, stalls, shows, menageries, and
+all "the fun of the fair." You can see biographs, hear phonographs,
+and a penny-in-the-slot will introduce you to wonderful sights, and
+have your fortune told, or shy at coco-nuts or Aunt Sally, or witness
+displays of boxing, or have a photograph taken of yourself, or watch
+weird melodramas, and all for a penny or two. No wonder the fair is
+popular.
+
+[Illustration: Outside The "Lamb Inn". Burford, Oxon]
+
+There is no reverence paid in these modern gatherings to old-fashioned
+ways and ancient picturesque customs, but in some places these are
+still observed with punctilious exactness. The quaint custom of
+"proclaiming the fair" at Honiton, in Devonshire, is observed every
+year, the town having obtained the grant of a fair from the lord of
+the manor so long ago as 1257. The fair still retains some of the
+picturesque characteristics of bygone days. The town crier, dressed in
+old-world uniform, and carrying a pole decorated with gay flowers and
+surmounted by a large gilt model of a gloved hand, publicly
+announces the opening of the fair as follows: "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! The
+fair's begun, the glove is up. No man can be arrested till the glove
+is taken down." Hot coins are then thrown amongst the children. The
+pole and glove remain displayed until the end of the fair.
+
+Nor have all the practical uses of fairs vanished. On the Berkshire
+downs is the little village of West Ilsley; there from time immemorial
+great sheep fairs are held, and flocks are brought thither from
+districts far and wide. Every year herds of Welsh ponies congregate at
+Blackwater, in Hampshire, driven thither by inveterate custom. Every
+year in an open field near Cambridge the once great Stourbridge fair
+is held, first granted by King John to the Hospital for Lepers, and
+formerly proclaimed with great state by the Vice-Chancellor of the
+University and the Mayor of Cambridge. This was one of the largest
+fairs in Europe. Merchants of all nations attended it. The booths were
+planted in a cornfield, and the circuit of the fair, which was like a
+well-governed city, was about three miles. All offences committed
+therein were tried, as at other fairs, before a special court of
+_pie-poudre_, the derivation of which word has been much disputed, and
+I shall not attempt to conjecture or to decide. The shops were built
+in rows, having each a name, such as Garlick Row, Booksellers' Row, or
+Cooks' Row; there were the cheese fair, hop fair, wood fair; every
+trade was represented, and there were taverns, eating-houses, and in
+later years playhouses of various descriptions. As late as the
+eighteenth century it is said that one hundred thousand pounds' worth
+of woollen goods were sold in a week in one row alone. But the glories
+of Stourbridge fair have all departed, and it is only a ghost now of
+its former greatness.
+
+The Stow Green pleasure fair, in Lincolnshire, which has been held
+annually for upwards of eight hundred years, having been established
+in the reign of Henry III, has practically ceased to exist. Held on an
+isolated common two miles from Billingborough, it was formerly one of
+the largest fairs in England for merchandise, and originally lasted
+for three weeks. Now it is limited to two days, and when it opened
+last year there were but few attractions.
+
+Fairs have enriched our language with at least one word. There is a
+fair at Ely founded in connexion with the abbey built by St.
+Etheldreda, and at this fair a famous "fairing" was "St. Audrey's
+laces." St. Audrey, or Etheldreda, in the days of her youthful vanity
+was very fond of wearing necklaces and jewels. "St. Audrey's laces"
+became corrupted into "Tawdry laces"; hence the adjective has come to
+be applied to all cheap and showy pieces of female ornament.
+
+Trade now finds its way by means of other channels than fairs.
+Railways and telegrams have changed the old methods of conducting the
+commerce of the country. But, as we have said, many fairs have
+contrived to survive, and unless they degenerate into a scandal and a
+nuisance it is well that they should be continued. Education and the
+increasing sobriety of the nation may deprive them of their more
+objectionable features, and it would be a pity to prevent the rustic
+from having some amusements which do not often fall to his lot, and to
+forbid him from enjoying once a year "all the fun of the fair."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF OLD DOCUMENTS
+
+
+The history of England is enshrined in its ancient documents. Some of
+it may be read in its stone walls and earthworks. The builders of our
+churches stamped its story on their stones, and by the shape of arch
+and design of window, by porch and doorway, tower and buttress you can
+read the history of the building and tell its age and the dates of its
+additions and alterations. Inscriptions, monuments, and brasses help
+to fill in the details; but all would be in vain if we had no
+documentary evidence, no deeds and charters, registers and wills, to
+help us to build up the history of each town and monastery, castle and
+manor. Even after the most careful searches in the Record Office and
+the British Museum it is very difficult oftentimes to trace a manorial
+descent. You spend time and labour, eyesight and midnight oil in
+trying to discover missing links, and very often it is all in vain;
+the chain remains broken, and you cannot piece it together. Some of us
+whose fate it is to have to try and solve some of these genealogical
+problems, and spend hours over a manorial descent, are inclined to
+envy other writers who fill their pages _currente calamo_ and are
+ignorant of the joys and disappointments of research work.
+
+In the making of the history of England patient research and the
+examination of documents are, of course, all-important. In the parish
+chest, in the municipal charters and records, in court rolls, in the
+muniment-rooms of guilds and city companies, of squire and noble, in
+the Record Office, Pipe Rolls, Close Rolls, royal letters and papers,
+etc., the real history of the country is contained. Masses of Rolls
+and documents of all kinds have in these late years been arranged,
+printed, and indexed, enabling the historical student to avail himself
+of vast stores of information which were denied to the historian of an
+earlier age, or could only be acquired by the expenditure of immense
+toil.
+
+Nevertheless, we have to deplore the disappearance of large numbers of
+priceless manuscripts, the value of which was not recognized by their
+custodians. Owing to the ignorance and carelessness of these keepers
+of historic documents vast stores have been hopelessly lost or
+destroyed, and have vanished with much else of the England that is
+vanishing. We know of a Corporation--that of Abingdon, in Berkshire,
+the oldest town in the royal county and anciently its most
+important--which possessed an immense store of municipal archives.
+These manuscript books would throw light upon the history of the
+borough; but in their wisdom the members of the Corporation decided
+that they should be sold for waste paper! A few gentlemen were deputed
+to examine the papers in order to see if anything was worth
+preserving. They spent a few hours on the task, which would have
+required months for even a cursory inspection, and much expert
+knowledge, which these gentlemen did not possess, and reported that
+there was nothing in the documents of interest or importance, and the
+books and papers were sold to a dealer. Happily a private gentleman
+purchased the "waste paper," which remains in his hands, and was not
+destroyed: but this example only shows the insecurity of much of the
+material upon which local and municipal history depends.
+
+Court rolls, valuable wills and deeds are often placed by noble owners
+and squires in the custody of their solicitors. They repose in peace
+in safes or tin boxes with the name of the client printed on them.
+Recent legislation has made it possible to prove a title without
+reference to all the old deeds. Hence the contents of these boxes are
+regarded only as old lumber and of no value. A change is made in the
+office. The old family solicitor dies, and the new man proceeds with
+the permission of his clients to burn all these musty papers, which
+are of immense value in tracing the history of a manor or of a family.
+Some years ago a leading family solicitor became bankrupt. His office
+was full of old family deeds and municipal archives. What happened? A
+fire was kindled in the garden, and for a whole fortnight it was fed
+with parchment deeds and rolls, many of them of immense value to the
+genealogist and the antiquary. It was all done very speedily, and no
+one had a chance to interfere. This is only one instance of what we
+fear has taken place in many offices, the speedy disappearance of
+documents which can never be replaced.
+
+From the contents of the parish chests, from churchwardens'
+account-books, we learn much concerning the economic history of the
+country, and the methods of the administration of local and parochial
+government. As a rule persons interested in such matters have to
+content themselves with the statements of the ecclesiastical law books
+on the subject of the repair of churches, the law of church rates, the
+duties of churchwardens, and the constitution and power of vestries.
+And yet there has always existed a variety of customs and practices
+which have stood for ages on their prescriptive usage with many
+complications and minute differentiations. These old account-books and
+minute-books of the churchwardens in town and country are a very large
+but a very perishable and rapidly perishing treasury of information on
+matters the very remembrance of which is passing away. Yet little care
+is taken of these books. An old book is finished and filled up with
+entries; a new book is begun. No one takes any care of the old book.
+It is too bulky for the little iron register safe. A farmer takes
+charge of it; his children tear out pages on which to make their
+drawings; it is torn, mutilated, and forgotten, and the record
+perishes. All honour to those who have transcribed these documents
+with much labour and endless pains and printed them. They will have
+gained no money for their toil. The public do not show their gratitude
+to such laborious students by purchasing many copies, but the
+transcribers know that they have fitted another stone in the Temple of
+Knowledge, and enabled antiquaries, genealogists, economists, and
+historical inquirers to find material for their pursuits.
+
+The churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's, Thame, and some of the most
+interesting in the kingdom, are being printed in the _Berks, Bucks,
+and Oxon Archæological Journal_. The originals were nearly lost.
+Somehow they came into the possession of the Buckinghamshire
+Archæological Society. The volume was lent to the late Rev. F. Lee, in
+whose library it remained and could not be recovered. At his death it
+was sold with his other books, and found its way to the Bodleian
+Library at Oxford. There it was transcribed by Mr. Patterson Ellis,
+and then went back to the Buckinghamshire Society after its many
+wanderings. It dates back to the fifteenth century, and records many
+curious items of pre-Reformation manners and customs.
+
+From these churchwardens' accounts we learn how our forefathers raised
+money for the expenses of the church and of the parish. Provision for
+the poor, mending of roads, the improvement of agriculture by the
+killing of sparrows, all came within the province of the vestry, as
+well as the care of the church and churchyard. We learn about such
+things as "Gatherings" at Hocktide, May-day, All Hallow-day,
+Christmas, and Whitsuntide, the men stopping the women on one day and
+demanding money, while on the next day the women retaliated, and
+always gained more for the parish fund than those of the opposite sex:
+Church Ales, the Holy Loaf, Paschal Money, Watching the Sepulchre, the
+duties of clerks and clergymen, and much else, besides the general
+principles of local self-government, which the vestrymen carried on
+until quite recent times. There are few books that provide greater
+information or more absorbing interest than these wonderful books of
+accounts. It is a sad pity that so many have vanished.
+
+The parish register books have suffered less than the churchwardens'
+accounts, but there has been terrible neglect and irreparable loss.
+Their custody has been frequently committed to ignorant parish clerks,
+who had no idea of their utility beyond their being occasionally the
+means of putting a shilling into their pockets for furnishing
+extracts. Sometimes they were in the care of an incumbent who was
+forgetful, careless, or negligent. Hence they were indifferently kept,
+and baptisms, burials, and marriages were not entered as they ought to
+have been. In one of my own register books an indignant parson writes
+in the year 1768: "There does not appear any one entry of a Baptism,
+Marriage, or Burial in the old Register for nine successive years,
+viz. from the year 1732 till the year 1741, when this Register
+commences." The fact was that the old parchment book beginning A.D.
+1553 was quite full and crowded with names, and the rector never
+troubled to provide himself with a new one. Fortunately this sad
+business took place long before our present septuagenarians were born,
+or there would be much confusion and uncertainty with regard to
+old-age pensions.
+
+The disastrous period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth caused
+great confusion and many defects in the registers. Very often the
+rector was turned out of his parish; the intruding minister, often an
+ignorant mechanic, cared naught for registers. Registrars were
+appointed in each parish who could scarcely sign their names, much
+less enter a baptism. Hence we find very frequent gaps in the books
+from 1643 to 1660. At Tarporley, Cheshire, there is a break from 1643
+to 1648, upon which a sorrowful vicar remarks:--
+
+  "This Intermission hapned by reason of the great wars obliterating
+  memorials, wasting fortunes, and slaughtering persons of all
+  sorts."
+
+The Parliamentary soldiers amused themselves by tearing out the leaves
+in the registers for the years 1604 to the end of 1616 in the parish
+of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire.
+
+There is a curious note in the register of Tunstall, Kent. There seems
+to have been a superfluity of members of the family of Pottman in this
+parish, and the clergyman appears to have been tired of recording
+their names in his books, and thus resolves:--
+
+    "1557   Mary Pottman nat. & bapt. 15 Apr.
+            Mary Pottman n. & b. 29 Jan.
+            Mary Pottman sep. 22 Aug.
+                     1567
+        From henceforw^{d} I omitt the Pottmans."
+
+Fire has played havoc with parish registers. The old register of
+Arborfield, Berkshire, was destroyed by a fire at the rectory. Those
+at Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, were burnt in a fire which consumed
+two-thirds of the town in 1676, and many others have shared the same
+fate. The Spaniards raided the coast of Cornwall in 1595 and burnt the
+church at Paul, when the registers perished in the conflagration.
+
+Wanton destruction has caused the disappearance of many parish books.
+There was a parish clerk at Plungar in Leicestershire who combined his
+ecclesiastical duties with those of a grocer. He found the pages of
+the parish register very useful for wrapping up his groceries. The
+episcopal registry of Ely seems to have been plundered at some time of
+its treasures, as some one purchased a book entitled _Registrum
+causarum Consistorii Eliensis de Tempore Domini Thome de Arundele
+Episcopi Eliensis_, a large quarto, written on vellum, containing 162
+double pages, which was purchased as waste paper at a grocer's shop at
+Cambridge together with forty or fifty old books belonging to the
+registry of Ely. The early registers at Christ Church, Hampshire, were
+destroyed by a curate's wife who had made kettle-holders of them, and
+would perhaps have consumed the whole parish archives in this homely
+fashion, had not the parish clerk, by a timely interference, rescued
+the remainder. One clergyman, being unable to transcribe certain
+entries which were required from his registers, cut them out and sent
+them by post; and an Essex clerk, not having ink and paper at hand for
+copying out an extract, calmly took out his pocket-knife and cut out
+two leaves, handing them to the applicant. Sixteen leaves of another
+old register were cut out by the clerk, who happened to be a tailor,
+in order to supply himself with measures. Tradesmen seem to have found
+these books very useful. The marriage register of Hanney, Berkshire,
+from 1754 to 1760 was lost, but later on discovered in a grocer's
+shop.
+
+Deplorable has been the fate of these old books, so valuable to the
+genealogist. Upon the records contained there the possession of much
+valuable property may depend. The father of the present writer was
+engaged in proving his title to an estate, and required certificates
+of all the births, deaths, and marriages that had occurred in the
+family during a hundred years. All was complete save the record of one
+marriage. He discovered that his ancestor had eloped with a young
+lady, and the couple had married in London at a City church. The name
+of the church where the wedding was said to have taken place was
+suggested to him, but he discovered that it had been pulled down.
+However, the old parish clerk was discovered, who had preserved the
+books; the entry was found, and all went well and the title to the
+estate established. How many have failed to obtain their rights and
+just claims through the gross neglect of the keepers or custodians of
+parochial documents?
+
+An old register was kept in the drawer of an old table, together with
+rusty iron and endless rubbish, by a parish clerk who was a poor
+labouring man. Another was said to be so old and "out of date" and so
+difficult to read by the parson and his neighbours, that it had been
+tossed about the church and finally carried off by children and torn
+to pieces. The leaves of an old parchment register were discovered
+sewed together as a covering for the tester of a bedstead, and the
+daughters of a parish clerk, who were lace-makers, cut up the pages of
+a register for a supply of parchment to make patterns for their lace
+manufacture. Two Leicestershire registers were rescued, one from the
+shop of a bookseller, the other from the corner cupboard of a
+blacksmith, where it had lain perishing and unheard of more than
+thirty years. The following extract from _Notes and Queries_ tells of
+the sad fate of other books:--
+
+  "On visiting the village school of Colton it was discovered that
+  the 'Psalters' of the children were covered with the leaves of the
+  Parish Register; some of them were recovered, and replaced in the
+  parish chest, but many were totally obliterated and cut away. This
+  discovery led to further investigation, which brought to light a
+  practice of the Parish Clerk and Schoolmaster of the day, who to
+  certain 'goodies' of the village, gave the parchment leaves for
+  hutkins for their knitting pins."
+
+Still greater desecration has taken place. The registers of South
+Otterington, containing several entries of the great families of
+Talbot, Herbert, and Falconer, were kept in the cottage of the parish
+clerk, who used all those preceding the eighteenth century for waste
+paper, and devoted not a few to the utilitarian employment of singeing
+a goose. At Appledore the books were lost through having been kept in
+a public-house for the delectation of its frequenters.
+
+But many parsons have kept their registers with consummate care. The
+name of the Rev. John Yate, rector of Rodmarton, Gloucestershire, in
+1630, should be mentioned as a worthy and careful custodian on account
+of his quaint directions for the preservation of his registers. He
+wrote in the volume:--
+
+   "If you will have this Book last, bee sure to aire it att the
+   fier or in the Sunne three or foure times a yeare--els it will
+   grow dankish and rott, therefore look to it. It will not be
+   amisse when you finde it dankish to wipe over the leaves with a
+   dry woollen cloth. This place is very much subject to
+   dankishness, therefore I say looke to it."
+
+Sometimes the parsons adorned their books with their poetical
+effusions either in Latin or English. Here are two examples, the first
+from Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire; the second from Ruyton, Salop:--
+
+        Hic puer ætatem, his Vir sponsalia noscat.
+        Hic decessorum funera quisque sciat.
+
+        No Flatt'ry here, where to be born and die
+        Of rich and poor is all the history.
+        Enough, if virtue fill'd the space between,
+        Prov'd, by the ends of being, to have been.
+
+Bishop Kennet urged his clergy to enter in their registers not only
+every christening, wedding, or burial, which entries have proved some
+of the best helps for the preserving of history, but also any notable
+events that may have occurred in the parish or neighbourhood, such as
+"storms and lightning, contagion and mortality, droughts, scarcity,
+plenty, longevity, robbery, murders, or the like casualties. If such
+memorable things were fairly entered, your parish registers would
+become chronicles of many strange occurrences that would not otherwise
+be known and would be of great use and service for posterity to know."
+
+The clergy have often acted upon this suggestion. In the registers of
+Cranbrook, Kent, we find a long account of the great plague that raged
+there in 1558, with certain moral reflections on the vice of
+"drunkeness which abounded here," on the base characters of the
+persons in whose houses the Plague began and ended, on the vehemence
+of the infection in "the Inns and Suckling houses of the town, places
+of much disorder," and tells how great dearth followed the Plague
+"with much wailing and sorrow," and how the judgment of God seemed but
+to harden the people in their sin.
+
+The Eastwell register contains copies of the Protestation of 1642, the
+Vow and Covenant of 1643, and the Solemn League and Covenant of the
+same year, all signed by sundry parishioners, and of the death of the
+last of the Plantagenets, Richard by name, a bricklayer by trade, in
+1550, whom Richard III acknowledged to be his son on the eve of the
+battle of Bosworth. At St. Oswalds, Durham, there is the record of the
+hanging and quartering in 1590 of "Duke, Hyll, Hogge and Holyday, iiij
+Semynaryes, Papysts, Tretors and Rebels for their horrible offences."
+"Burials, 1687 April 17th Georges Vilaus Lord dooke of bookingham," is
+the illiterate description of the Duke who was assassinated by Felton
+and buried at Helmsley. It is impossible to mention all the gleanings
+from parish registers; each parish tells its tale, its trades, its
+belief in witchcraft, its burials of soldiers killed in war, its
+stories of persecution, riot, sudden deaths, amazing virtues, and
+terrible sins. The edicts of the laws of England, wise and foolish,
+are reflected in these pages, e.g. the enforced burial in woollen; the
+relatives of those who desired to be buried in linen were obliged to
+pay fifty shillings to the informer and the same sum to the poor of
+the parish. The tax on marriages, births, and burials, levied by the
+Government on the estates of gentlemen in 1693, is also recorded in
+such entries as the following:--
+
+"1700. Mr. Thomas Cullum buried 27 Dec. As the said Mr. Cullum was a
+gentleman, there is 24s. to be paid for his buriall." The practice of
+heart-burial is also frequently demonstrated in our books.
+Extraordinary superstitions and strong beliefs, the use of talismans,
+amulets, and charms, astrological observations, the black art,
+scandals, barbarous punishments, weird customs that prevailed at man's
+most important ceremonies, his baptism, marriage and burial, the
+binding of apprenticeships, obsolete trades, such as that of the
+person who is styled "aquavity man" or the "saltpetre man," the mode
+of settling quarrels and disputes, duels, sports, games, brawls, the
+expenses of supplying a queen's household, local customs and
+observances--all these find a place in these amazing records. In
+short, there is scarcely any feature of the social life of our
+forefathers which is not abundantly set forth in our parish registers.
+The loss of them would indeed be great and overwhelming.
+
+As we have said, many of them have been lost by fire and other
+casualties, by neglect and carelessness. The guarding of the safety of
+those that remain is an anxious problem. Many of us would regret to
+part with our registers and to allow them to leave the church or town
+or village wherein they have reposed so long. They are part of the
+story of the place, and when American ladies and gentlemen come to
+find traces of their ancestors they love to see these records in the
+village where their forefathers lived, and to carry away with them a
+photograph of the church, some ivy from the tower, some flowers from
+the rectory garden, to preserve in their western homes as memorials of
+the place whence their family came. It would not be the same thing if
+they were to be referred to a dusty office in a distant town. Some
+wise people say that all registers should be sent to London, to the
+Record Office or the British Museum. That would be an impossibility.
+The officials of those institutions would tremble at the thought, and
+the glut of valuable books would make reference a toil that few could
+undertake. The real solution of the difficulty is that county councils
+should provide accommodation for all deeds and documents, that all
+registers should be transcribed, that copies should be deposited in
+the county council depository, and that the originals should still
+remain in the parish chest where they have lain for three centuries
+and a half.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+OLD CUSTOMS THAT ARE VANISHING
+
+
+Many writers have mourned over the decay of our ancient customs which
+the restlessness of modern life has effectually killed. New manners
+are ever pushing out the old, and the lover of antiquity may perhaps
+be pardoned if he prefers the more ancient modes. The death of the old
+social customs which added such diversity to the lives of our
+forefathers tends to render the countryman's life one continuous round
+of labour unrelieved by pleasant pastime, and if innocent pleasures
+are not indulged in, the tendency is to seek for gratification in
+amusements that are not innocent or wholesome.
+
+The causes of the decline and fall of many old customs are not far to
+seek. Agricultural depression has killed many. The deserted farmsteads
+no longer echo with the sounds of rural revelry; the cheerful
+log-fires no longer glow in the farmer's kitchen; the harvest-home
+song has died away; and "largess" no longer rewards the mummers and
+the morris-dancers. Moreover, the labourer himself has changed; he has
+lost his simplicity. His lot is far better than it was half a century
+ago, and he no longer takes pleasure in the simple joys that delighted
+his ancestors in days of yore. Railways and cheap excursions have made
+him despise the old games and pastimes which once pleased his
+unenlightened soul. The old labourer is dead, and his successor is a
+very "up-to-date" person, who reads the newspapers and has his ideas
+upon politics and social questions that would have startled his less
+cultivated sire. The modern system of elementary education also has
+much to do with the decay of old customs.
+
+Still we have some left. We can only here record a few that survive.
+Some years ago I wrote a volume on the subject, and searched
+diligently to find existing customs in the remote corners of old
+England.[61] My book proved useful to Sir Benjamin Stone, M.P., the
+expert photographer of the House of Commons, who went about with his
+camera to many of the places indicated, and by his art produced
+permanent presentments of the scenes which I had tried to describe. He
+was only just in time, as doubtless many of these customs will soon
+pass away. It is, however, surprising to find how much has been left;
+how tenaciously the English race clings to that which habit and usage
+have established; how deeply rooted they are in the affections of the
+people. It is really remarkable that at the present day, in spite of
+ages of education and social enlightenment, in spite of centuries of
+Christian teaching and practice, we have now amongst us many customs
+which owe their origin to pagan beliefs and the superstitions of our
+heathen forefathers, and have no other _raison d'être_ for their
+existence than the wild legends of Scandinavian mythology.
+
+  [61] _Old English Customs Extant at the Present Time_ (Methuen and
+  Co.).
+
+We have still our Berkshire mummers at Christmas, who come to us
+disguised in strange garb and begin their quaint performance with the
+doggerel rhymes--
+
+  I am King George, that noble champion bold,
+  And with my trusty sword I won ten thousand pounds in gold;
+  'Twas I that fought the fiery dragon, and brought him to the slaughter,
+  And by these means I won the King of Egypt's daughter.[62]
+
+  [62] The book of words is printed in _Old English Customs_, by
+  P.H. Ditchfield.
+
+Other counties have their own versions. In Staffordshire they are
+known as the "Guisers," in Cornwall as the "Geese-dancers," in Sussex
+as the "Tipteerers." Carolsingers are still with us, but often instead
+of the old carols they sing very badly and irreverently modern hymns,
+though in Cambridgeshire you may still hear "God bless you, merry
+gentlemen," and the vessel-boxes (a corruption of wassail) are still
+carried round in Yorkshire. At Christmas Cornish folk eat giblet-pie,
+and Yorkshiremen enjoy furmenty; and mistletoe and the kissing-bush
+are still hung in the hall; and in some remote parts of Cornwall
+children may be seen dancing round painted lighted candles placed in a
+box of sand. The devil's passing-bell tolls on Christmas Eve from the
+church tower at Dewsbury, and a muffled peal bewails the slaughter of
+the children on Holy Innocents' Day. The boar's head is still brought
+in triumph into the hall of Queen's College. Old women "go a-gooding"
+or mumping on St. Thomas's Day, and "hoodening" or horse-head mumming
+is practised at Walmer, and bull-hoodening prevails at Kingscote, in
+Gloucestershire. The ancient custom of "goodening" still obtains at
+Braughing, Herts. The _Hertfordshire Mercury_ of December 28, 1907,
+states that on St. Thomas's Day (December 21) certain of the more
+sturdy widows of the village went round "goodening," and collected £4
+14s. 6d., which was equally divided among the eighteen needy widows of
+the parish. In 1899 the oldest dame who took part in the ceremony was
+aged ninety-three, while in 1904 a widow "goodened" for the thirtieth
+year in succession. In the _Herts and Cambs Reporter_ for December 23,
+1904, is an account of "Gooding Day" at Gamlingay. It appears that in
+1665 some almshouses for aged women (widows) were built there by Sir
+John Jacob, Knight. "On Wednesday last (St. Thomas's Day)," says this
+journal, "an interesting ceremony was to be seen. The old women were
+gathered at the central doorway ... preparatory to a pilgrimage to
+collect alms at the houses of the leading inhabitants. This old
+custom, which has been observed for nearly three hundred years, it is
+safe to say, will not fall into desuetude, for it usually results in
+each poor widow realising a gold coin." In the north of England
+first-footing on New Year's Eve is common, and a dark-complexioned
+person is esteemed as a herald of good fortune. Wassailing exists in
+Lancashire, and the apple-wassailing has not quite died out on Twelfth
+Night. Plough Monday is still observed in Cambridgeshire, and the
+"plough-bullocks" drag around the parishes their ploughs and perform a
+weird play. The Haxey hood is still thrown at that place in
+Lincolnshire on the Feast of the Epiphany, and valentines are not
+quite forgotten by rural lovers.
+
+Shrovetide is associated with pancakes. The pancake bell is still rung
+in many places, and for some occult reason it is the season for some
+wild football games in the streets and lanes of several towns and
+villages. At St. Ives on the Monday there is a grand hurling match,
+which resembles a Rugby football contest without the kicking of the
+ball, which is about the size of a cricket-ball, made of cork or light
+wood. At Ashbourne on Shrove-Tuesday thousands join in the game, the
+origin of which is lost in the mists of antiquity. As the old church
+clock strikes two a little speech is made, the National Anthem sung,
+and then some popular devotee of the game is hoisted on the shoulders
+of excited players and throws up the ball. "She's up," is the cry, and
+then the wild contest begins, which lasts often till nightfall.
+Several efforts have been made to stop the game, and even the judge of
+the Court of Queen's Bench had to decide whether it was legal to play
+the game in the streets. In spite of some opposition it still
+flourishes, and is likely to do so for many a long year. Sedgefield,
+Chester-le-Street, Alnwick, Dorking also have their famous football
+fights, which differ much from an ordinary league match. In the latter
+thousands look on while twenty-two men show their skill. In these old
+games all who wish take part in them, all are keen champions and know
+nothing of professionalism.
+
+"Ycleping," or, as it is now called, clipping churches, is another
+Shrovetide custom, when the children join hands round the church and
+walk round it. It has just been revived at Painswick, in the
+Cotswolds, where after being performed for many hundred years it was
+discontinued by the late vicar. On the patron saint's day (St. Mary's)
+the children join hands in a ring round the church and circle round
+the building singing. It is the old Saxon custom of "ycleping," or
+naming the church on the anniversary of its original dedication.
+
+Simnels on Mothering Sunday still exist, reminding us of Herrick's
+lines:--
+
+        I'll to thee a Simnel bring,
+        'Gainst thou goes a mothering;
+        So that when she blesseth thee
+        Half the blessing thou'lt give me.
+
+Palm Sunday brings some curious customs. At Roundway Hill, and at
+Martinsall, near Marlborough, the people bear "palms," or branches of
+willow and hazel, and the boys play a curious game of knocking a ball
+with hockey-sticks up the hill; and in Buckinghamshire it is called
+Fig Sunday, and also in Hertfordshire. Hertford, Kempton,
+Edlesborough, Dunstable are homes of the custom, nor is the practice
+of eating figs and figpies unknown in Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire,
+Oxfordshire, Wilts, and North Wales. Possibly the custom is connected
+with the withering of the barren fig-tree.
+
+Good Friday brings hot-cross-buns with the well-known rhyme. Skipping
+on that day at Brighton is, I expect, now extinct. Sussex boys play
+marbles, Guildford folk climb St. Martha's Hill, and poor widows pick
+up six-pences from a tomb in the churchyard of St. Bartholomew the
+Great, London, on the same Holy Day.
+
+Easter brings its Pace eggs, symbols of the Resurrection, and
+Yorkshire children roll them against one another in fields and
+gardens. The Biddenham cakes are distributed, and the Hallaton
+hare-scramble and bottle-kicking provide a rough scramble and a
+curious festival for Easter Monday. On St. Mark's Day the ghosts of
+all who will die during the year in the villages of Yorkshire pass at
+midnight before the waiting people, and Hock-tide brings its quaint
+diversions to the little Berkshire town of Hungerford.
+
+The diversions of May Day are too numerous to be chronicled here, and
+I must refer the reader to my book for a full description of the
+sports that usher in the spring; but we must not forget the remarkable
+Furry Dance at Helston on May 8th, and the beating of the bounds of
+many a township during Rogation Week. Our boys still wear oak-leaves
+on Royal Oak Day, and the Durham Cathedral choir sing anthems on the
+top of the tower in memory of the battle of Neville's Cross, fought so
+long ago as the year 1346.
+
+Club-feasts and morris-dancers delight the rustics at Whitsuntide, and
+the wakes are well kept up in the north of England, and rush-beating
+at Ambleside, and hay-strewing customs in Leicestershire. The horn
+dance at Abbot Bromley is a remarkable survival. The fires on
+Midsummer Eve are still lighted in a few places in Wales, but are fast
+dying out. Ratby, in Leicestershire, is a home of old customs, and has
+an annual feast, when the toast of the immortal memory of John of
+Gaunt is drunk with due solemnity. Harvest customs were formerly very
+numerous, but are fast dying out before the reaping-machines and
+agricultural depression. The "kern-baby" has been dead some years.
+
+Bonfire night and the commemoration of the discovery of Gunpowder Plot
+and the burning of "guys" are still kept up merrily, but few know the
+origin of the festivities or concern themselves about it. Soul cakes
+and souling still linger on in Cheshire, and cattering and clemmening
+on the feasts of St. Catherine and St. Clement are still observed in
+East Sussex.
+
+Very remarkable are the local customs which linger on in some of our
+towns and villages and are not confined to any special day in the
+year. Thus, at Abbots Ann, near Andover, the good people hang up
+effigies of arms and hands in memory of girls who died unmarried, and
+gloves and garlands of roses are sometimes hung for the same purpose.
+The Dunmow Flitch is a well-known matrimonial prize for happy couples
+who have never quarrelled during the first year of their wedded life;
+while a Skimmerton expresses popular indignation against quarrelsome
+or licentious husbands and wives.
+
+Many folk-customs linger around wells and springs, the haunts of
+nymphs and sylvan deities who must be propitiated by votive offerings
+and are revengeful when neglected. Pins, nails, and rags are still
+offered, and the custom of "well-dressing," shorn of its pagan
+associations and adapted to Christian usage, exists in all its glory
+at Tissington, Youlgrave, Derby, and several other places.
+
+The three great events of human life--birth, marriage, and death--have
+naturally drawn around them some of the most curious beliefs. These
+are too numerous to be recorded here, and I must again refer the
+curious reader to my book on old-time customs. We should like to dwell
+upon the most remarkable of the customs that prevail in the City of
+London, in the halls of the Livery Companies, as well as in some of
+the ancient boroughs of England, but this record would require too
+large a space. Bell-ringing customs attract attention. The curfew-bell
+still rings in many towers; the harvest-bell, the gleaning-bell, the
+pancake-bell, the "spur-peal," the eight-hours' bell, and sundry
+others send out their pleasing notice to the world. At Aldermaston
+land is let by means of a lighted candle. A pin is placed through the
+candle, and the last bid that is made before that pin drops out is the
+occupier of the land for a year. The Church Acre at Chedzoy is let in
+a similar manner, and also at Todworth, Warton, and other places.
+Wiping the shoes of those who visit a market for the first time is
+practised at Brixham, and after that little ceremony they have to "pay
+their footing." At St. Ives raffling for Bibles continues, according
+to the will of Dr. Wilde in 1675, and in church twelve children cast
+dice for six Bibles. Court, Bar, and Parliament have each their
+peculiar customs which it would be interesting to note, if space
+permitted; and we should like to record the curious bequests, doles,
+and charities which display the eccentricities of human nature and the
+strange tenures of land which have now fallen into disuse.
+
+It is to be hoped that those who are in a position to preserve any
+existing custom in their own neighbourhood will do their utmost to
+prevent its decay. Popular customs are a heritage which has been
+bequeathed to us from a remote past, and it is our duty to hand down
+that heritage to future generations of English folk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE VANISHING OF ENGLISH SCENERY AND NATURAL BEAUTY
+
+
+Not the least distressing of the losses which we have to mourn is the
+damage that has been done to the beauty of our English landscapes and
+the destruction of many scenes of sylvan loveliness. The population of
+our large towns continues to increase owing to the insensate folly
+that causes the rural exodus. People imagine that the streets of towns
+are paved with gold, and forsake the green fields for a crowded slum,
+and after many vicissitudes and much hardship wish themselves back
+again in their once despised village home. I was lecturing to a crowd
+of East End Londoners at Toynbee Hall on village life in ancient and
+modern times, and showed them views of the old village street, the
+cottages, manor-houses, water-mills, and all the charms of rural
+England, and after the lecture I talked with many of the men who
+remembered their country homes which they had left in the days of
+their youth, and they all wished to go back there again, if only they
+could find work and had not lost the power of doing it. But the rural
+exodus continues. Towns increase rapidly, and cottages have to be
+found for these teeming multitudes. Many a rural glade and stretch of
+woodland have to be sacrificed, and soon streets are formed and rows
+of unsightly cottages spring up like magic, with walls terribly thin,
+that can scarcely stop the keenness of the wintry blasts, so thin that
+each neighbour can hear your conversation, and if a man has a few
+words with his wife all the inhabitants of the row can hear him.
+
+Garden cities have arisen as a remedy for this evil, carefully planned
+dwelling-places wherein some thought is given to beauty and
+picturesque surroundings, to plots for gardens, and to the comfort of
+the fortunate citizens. But some garden cities are garden only in
+name. Cheap villas surrounded by unsightly fields that have been
+spoilt and robbed of all beauty, with here and there unsightly heaps
+of rubbish and refuse, only delude themselves and other people by
+calling themselves garden cities. Too often there is no attempt at
+beauty. Cheapness and speedy construction are all that their makers
+strive for.
+
+These growing cities, ever increasing, ever enclosing fresh victims in
+their hideous maw, work other ills. They require much food, and they
+need water. Water must be found and conveyed to them. This has been no
+easy task for many corporations. For many years the city of Liverpool
+drew its supply from Rivington, a range of hills near Bolton-le-Moors,
+where there were lakes and where they could construct others. Little
+harm was done there; but the city grew and the supply was
+insufficient. Other sources had to be found and tapped. They found one
+in Wales. Their eyes fell on the Lake Vyrnwy, and believed that they
+found what they sought. But that, too, could not supply the millions
+of gallons that Liverpool needed. They found that the whole vale of
+Llanwddyn must be embraced. A gigantic dam must be made at the lower
+end of the valley, and the whole vale converted into one great lake.
+But there were villages in the vale, rural homes and habitations,
+churches and chapels, and over five hundred people who lived therein
+and must be turned out. And now the whole valley is a lake. Homes and
+churches lie beneath the waves, and the graves of the "women that
+sleep," of the rude forefathers of the hamlet, of bairns and dear
+ones are overwhelmed by the pitiless waters. It is all very
+deplorable.
+
+And now it seems that the same thing must take place again: but this
+time it is an English valley that is concerned, and the people are the
+country folk of North Hampshire. There is a beautiful valley not far
+from Kingsclere and Newbury, surrounded by lovely hills covered with
+woodland. In this valley in a quiet little village appropriately
+called Woodlands, formed about half a century ago out of the large
+parish of Kingsclere, there is a little hamlet named Ashford Hill, the
+modern church of St. Paul, Woodlands, pretty cottages with pleasant
+gardens, a village inn, and a dissenting chapel. The churchyard is
+full of graves, and a cemetery has been lately added. This pretty
+valley with its homes and church and chapel is a doomed valley. In a
+few years time if a former resident returns home from Australia or
+America to his native village he will find his old cottage gone from
+the light of the sun and buried beneath the still waters of a huge
+lake. It is almost certain that such will be the case with this
+secluded rural scene. The eyes of Londoners have turned upon the
+doomed valley. They need water, and water must somehow be procured.
+The great city has no pity. The church and the village will have to be
+removed. It is all very sad. As a writer in a London paper says:
+"Under the best of conditions it is impossible to think of such an
+eviction without sympathy for the grief that it must surely cause to
+some. The younger residents may contemplate it cheerfully enough; but
+for the elder folk, who have spent lives of sunshine and shade, toil,
+sorrow, joy, in this peaceful vale, it must needs be that the removal
+will bring a regret not to be lightly uttered in words. The soul of
+man clings to the localities that he has known and loved; perhaps, as
+in Wales, there will be some broken hearts when the water flows in
+upon the scenes where men and women have met and loved and wedded,
+where children have been born, where the beloved dead have been laid
+to rest."
+
+The old forests are not safe. The Act of 1851 caused the destruction
+of miles of beautiful landscape. Peacock, in his story of _Gryll
+Grange_, makes the announcement that the New Forest is now enclosed,
+and that he proposes never to visit it again. Twenty-five years of
+ruthless devastation followed the passing of that Act. The deer
+disappeared. Stretches of open beechwood and green lawns broken by
+thickets of ancient thorn and holly vanished under the official axe.
+Woods and lawns were cleared and replaced by miles and miles of
+rectangular fir plantations. The Act of 1876 with regard to forest
+land came late, but it, happily, saved some spots of sylvan beauty.
+Under the Act of 1851 all that was ancient and delightful to the eye
+would have been levelled, or hidden in fir-wood. The later Act stopped
+this wholesale destruction. We have still some lofty woods, still some
+scenery that shows how England looked when it was a land of blowing
+woodland. The New Forest is maimed and scarred, but what is left is
+precious and unique. It is primeval forest land, nearly all that
+remains in the country. Are these treasures safe? Under the Act of
+1876 managers are told to consider beauty as well as profit, and to
+abstain from destroying ancient trees; but much is left to the
+decision and to the judgment of officials, and they are not always to
+be depended on.
+
+After having been threatened with demolition for a number of years,
+the famous Winchmore Hill Woods are at last to be hewn down and the
+land is to be built upon. These woods, which it was Hood's and Charles
+Lamb's delight to stroll in, have become the property of a syndicate,
+which will issue a prospectus shortly, and many of the fine old oaks,
+beeches, and elms already bear the splash of white which marks them
+for the axe. The woods have been one of the greatest attractions in
+the neighbourhood, and public opinion is strongly against the
+demolition.
+
+One of the greatest services which the National Trust is doing for the
+country is the preserving of the natural beauties of our English
+scenery. It acquires, through the generosity of its supporters,
+special tracts of lovely country, and says to the speculative builder
+"Avaunt!" It maintains the landscape for the benefit of the public.
+People can always go there and enjoy the scenery, and townsfolk can
+fill their lungs with fresh air, and children play on the greensward.
+These oases afford sanctuary to birds and beasts and butterflies, and
+are of immense value to botanists and entomologists. Several
+properties in the Lake District have come under the ægis of the Trust.
+Seven hundred and fifty acres around Ullswater have been purchased,
+including Gowbarrow Fell and Aira Force. By this, visitors to the
+English lakes can have unrestrained access over the heights of
+Gowbarrow Fell, through the glen of Aira and along a mile of Ullswater
+shore, and obtain some of the loveliest views in the district. It is
+possible to trespass in the region of the lakes. It is possible to
+wander over hills and through dales, but private owners do not like
+trespassers, and it is not pleasant to be turned back by some
+officious servant. Moreover, it needs much impudence and daring to
+traverse without leave another man's land, though it be bare and
+barren as a northern hill. The Trust invites you to come, and you are
+at peace, and know that no man will stop you if you walk over its
+preserves. Moreover, it holds a delectable bit of country on Lake
+Derwentwater, known as the Brandlehow Park Estate. It extends for
+about a mile along the shore of the lake and reaches up the fell-side
+to the unenclosed common on Catbels. It is a lovely bit of woodland
+scenery. Below the lake glistens in the sunlight and far away the
+giant hills Blencatha, Skiddaw, and Borrowdale rear their heads. It
+cost the Trust £7000, but no one would deem the money ill-spent.
+Almost the last remnant of the primeval fenland of East Anglia, called
+Wicken Fen, has been acquired by the Trust, and also Burwell Fen, the
+home of many rare insects and plants. Near London we see many bits of
+picturesque land that have been rescued, where the teeming population
+of the great city can find rest and recreation. Thus at Hindhead,
+where it has been said villas seem to have broken out upon the once
+majestic hill like a red skin eruption, the Hindhead Preservation
+Committee and the Trust have secured 750 acres of common land on the
+summit of the hill, including the Devil's Punch Bowl, a bright oasis
+amid the dreary desert of villas. Moreover, the Trust is waging a
+battle with the District Council of Hambledon in order to prevent the
+Hindhead Commons from being disfigured by digging for stone for
+mending roads, causing unsightliness and the sad disfiguring of the
+commons. May it succeed in its praiseworthy endeavour. At Toy's Hill,
+on a Kentish hillside, overlooking the Weald, some valuable land has
+been acquired, and part of Wandle Park, Wimbledon, containing the
+Merton Mill Pond and its banks, adjoining the Recreation Ground
+recently provided by the Wimbledon Corporation, is now in the
+possession of the Trust. It is intended for the quiet enjoyment of
+rustic scenery by the people who live in the densely populated area of
+mean streets of Merton and Morden, and not for the lovers of the more
+strenuous forms of recreation. Ide Hill and Crockham Hill, the
+properties of the Trust, can easily be reached by the dwellers in
+London streets.
+
+We may journey in several directions and find traces of the good work
+of the Trust. At Barmouth a beautiful cliff known as Dinas-o-lea,
+Llanlleiana Head, Anglesey, the fifteen acres of cliff land at
+Tintagel, called Barras Head, looking on to the magnificent pile of
+rocks on which stand the ruins of King Arthur's Castle, and the summit
+of Kymin, near Monmouth, whence you can see a charming view of the Wye
+Valley, are all owned and protected by the Trust. Every one knows the
+curious appearance of Sarsen stones, often called Grey Wethers from
+their likeness to a flock of sheep lying down amidst the long grass of
+a Berkshire or Wiltshire down. These stones are often useful for
+building purposes and for road-mending. There is a fine collection of
+these curious stones, which were used in prehistoric times for
+building Stonehenge, at Pickle Dean and Lockeridge Dean. These are
+adjacent to high roads and would soon have fallen a prey to the road
+surveyor or local builder. Hence the authorities of this Trust stepped
+in; they secured for the nation these characteristic examples of a
+unique geological phenomenon, and preserved for all time a curious and
+picturesque feature of the country traversed by the old Bath Road. All
+that the Trust requires is "more force to its elbow," increased funds
+for the preservation of the natural beauty of our English scenery, and
+the increased appreciation on the part of the public and of the owners
+of unspoilt rural scenes to extend its good work throughout the
+counties of England.
+
+A curious feature of vanished or vanishing England is the decay of our
+canals, which here and there with their unused locks, broken towpaths,
+and stagnant waters covered with weeds form a pathetic and melancholy
+part of the landscape. If you look at the map of England you will see,
+besides the blue curvings that mark the rivers, other threads of blue
+that show the canals. Much was expected of them. They were built just
+before the railway era. The whole country was covered by a network of
+canals. Millions were spent upon their construction. For a brief space
+they were prosperous. Some places, like our Berkshire Newbury, became
+the centres of considerable traffic and had little harbours filled
+with barges. Barge-building was a profitable industry. Fly-boats sped
+along the surface of the canals conveying passengers to towns or
+watering-places, and the company were very bright and enjoyed
+themselves. But all are dead highways now, strangled by steam and by
+the railways. The promoters of canals opposed the railways with might
+and main, and tried to protect their properties. Hence the railways
+were obliged to buy them up, and then left them lone and neglected.
+The change was tragic. You can, even now, travel all over the country
+by the means of these silent waterways. You start from London along
+the Regent's Canal, which joins the Grand Junction Canal, and this
+spreads forth northwards and joins other canals that ramify to the
+Wash, to Manchester and Liverpool and Leeds. You can go to every great
+town in England as far as York if you have patience and endless time.
+There are four thousand miles of canals in England. They were not well
+constructed; we built them just as we do many other things, without
+any regular system, with no uniform depth or width or carrying
+capacity, or size of locks or height of bridges. Canals bearing barges
+of forty tons connect with those capable of bearing ninety tons. And
+now most of them are derelict, with dilapidated banks, foul bottoms,
+and shallow horse haulage. The bargemen have taken to other callings,
+but occasionally you may see a barge looking gay and bright drawn by
+an unconcerned horse on the towpath, with a man lazily smoking his
+pipe at the helm and his family of water gipsies, who pass an
+open-air, nomadic existence, tranquil, and entirely innocent of
+schooling. He is a survival of an almost vanished race which the
+railways have caused to disappear.
+
+Much destruction of beautiful scenery is, alas! inevitable. Trade and
+commerce, mills and factories, must work their wicked will on the
+landscapes of our country. Mr. Ruskin's experiment on the painting of
+Turner, quoted in our opening chapter, finds its realisation in many
+places. There was a time, I suppose, when the Mersey was a pure river
+that laved the banks carpeted with foliage and primroses on which the
+old Collegiate Church of Manchester reared its tower. It is now, and
+has been for years, an inky-black stream or drain running between
+stone walls, where it does not hide its foul waters for very shame
+beneath an arched culvert. There was a time when many a Yorkshire
+village basked in the sunlight. Now they are great overgrown towns
+usually enveloped in black smoke. The only day when you can see the
+few surviving beauties of a northern manufacturing town or village is
+Sunday, when the tall factory chimneys cease to vomit their clouds of
+smoke which kills the trees, or covers the struggling leaves with
+black soot. We pay dearly for our commercial progress in this
+sacrifice of Nature's beauties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+Whatever method can be devised for the prevention of the vanishing of
+England's chief characteristics are worthy of consideration. First
+there must be the continued education of the English people in the
+appreciation of ancient buildings and other relics of antiquity. We
+must learn to love them, or we shall not care to preserve them. An
+ignorant squire or foolish landowner may destroy in a day some
+priceless object of antiquity which can never be replaced. Too often
+it is the agent who is to blame. Squires are very much in the hands of
+their agents, and leave much to them to decide and carry out. When
+consulted they do not take the trouble to inspect the threatened
+building, and merely confirm the suggestions of the agents. Estate
+agents, above all people, need education in order that the destruction
+of much that is precious may be averted.
+
+The Government has done well in appointing commissions for England,
+Scotland, and Wales to inquire into and report on the condition of
+ancient monuments, but we lag behind many other countries in the task
+of protecting and preserving the memorials of the past.
+
+In France national monuments of historic or artistic interest are
+scheduled under the direction of the Minister of Public Instruction
+and Fine Arts. In cases in which a monument is owned by a private
+individual, it usually may not be scheduled without the consent of the
+owner, but if his consent is withheld the State Minister is empowered
+to purchase compulsorily. No monument so scheduled may be destroyed or
+subjected to works of restoration, repair, or alteration without the
+consent of the Minister, nor may new buildings be annexed to it
+without permission from the same quarter. Generally speaking, the
+Minister is advised by a commission of historical monuments,
+consisting of leading officials connected with fine arts, public
+buildings, and museums. Such a commission has existed since 1837, and
+very considerable sums of public money have been set apart to enable
+it to carry on its work. In 1879 a classification of some 2500
+national monuments was made, and this classification has been adopted
+in the present law. It includes megalithic remains, classical remains,
+and medieval, Renaissance, and modern buildings and ruins.[63]
+
+  [63] A paper read by Mr. Nigel Bond, Secretary of the National
+  Trust, at a meeting of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian
+  Field Club, to which paper the writer is indebted for the
+  subsequent account of the proceeding's of foreign governments with
+  regard to the preservation of their ancient monuments.
+
+We do not suggest that in England we should imitate the very drastic
+restorations to which some of the French abbeys and historic buildings
+are subjected. The authorities have erred greatly in destroying so
+much original work and their restorations, as in the case of Mont St.
+Michel, have been practically a rebuilding.
+
+The Belgian people appear to have realized for a very long time the
+importance of preserving their historic and artistic treasures. By a
+royal decree of 1824 bodies in charge of church temporalities are
+reminded that they are managers merely, and while they are urged to
+undertake in good time the simple repairs that are needed for the
+preservation of the buildings in their charge, they are strictly
+forbidden to demolish any ecclesiastical building without authority
+from the Ministry which deals with the subject of the fine arts. By
+the same decree they are likewise forbidden to alienate works of art
+or historical monuments placed in churches. Nine years later, in 1835,
+in view of the importance of assuring the preservation of all national
+monuments remarkable for their antiquity, their association, or their
+artistic value, another decree was issued constituting a Royal
+Commission for the purpose of advising as to the repairs required by
+such monuments. Nearly 200,000 francs are annually voted for
+expenditure for these purposes. The strict application of these
+precautionary measures has allowed a number of monuments of the
+highest interest in their relation to art and archæology to be
+protected and defended, but it does not appear that the Government
+controls in any way those monuments which are in the hands of private
+persons.[64]
+
+  [64] _Ibid._
+
+In Holland public money to the extent of five or six thousand pounds a
+year is spent on preserving and maintaining national monuments and
+buildings of antiquarian and architectural interest. In Germany steps
+are being taken which we might follow with advantage in this country,
+to control and limit the disfigurement of landscapes by advertisement
+hoardings.
+
+A passage from the ministerial order of 1884 with reference to the
+restoration of churches may be justly quoted:--
+
+  "If the restoration of a public building is to be completely
+  successful, it is absolutely essential that the person who directs
+  it should combine with an enlightened æsthetic sense an artistic
+  capacity in a high degree, and, moreover, be deeply imbued with
+  feelings of veneration for all that has come down to us from
+  ancient times. If a restoration is carried out without any real
+  comprehension of the laws of architecture, the result can only be
+  a production of common and dreary artificiality, recognizable
+  perhaps as belonging to one of the architectural styles, but
+  wanting the stamp of true art, and, therefore, incapable of
+  awakening the enthusiasm of the spectator."
+
+And again:--
+
+  "In consequence of the removal or disfigurement of monuments which
+  have been erected during the course of centuries--monuments which
+  served, as it were, as documents of the historical development of
+  past periods of culture, which have, moreover, a double interest
+  and value if left undisturbed on the spot where they were
+  originally erected--the sympathy of congregations with the
+  history of their church is diminished, and, a still more
+  lamentable consequence, a number of objects of priceless artistic
+  value destroyed or squandered, whereby the property of the church
+  suffers a serious loss."
+
+How much richer might we be here in England if only our central
+authorities had in the past circulated these admirable doctrines!
+
+Very wisely has the Danish Government prohibited the removal of stones
+from monuments of historic interest for utilitarian purposes, such as
+is causing the rapid disappearance of the remains on Dartmoor in this
+country; and the Greeks have stringent regulations to ensure the
+preservation of antiquities, which are regarded as national property,
+and may on no account be damaged either by owner or lessee. It has
+actually been found necessary to forbid the construction of limekilns
+nearer than two miles from any ancient ruins, in order to remove the
+temptation for the filching of stones. In Italy there are stringent
+laws for the protection of historical and ancient monuments.
+Road-mending is a cause of much destruction of antiquarian objects in
+all countries, even in Italy, where the law has been invoked to
+protect ancient monuments from the highway authorities.
+
+We need not record the legal enactments of other Governments, so
+admirably summarized by Mr. Bond in his paper read before the Dorset
+Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club. We see what other
+countries much poorer than our own are doing to protect their national
+treasures, and though the English Government has been slow in
+realizing the importance of the ancient monuments of this country, we
+believe that it is inclined to move in the right direction, and to do
+its utmost to preserve those that have hitherto escaped the attacks of
+the iconoclasts, and the heedlessness and stupidity of the Gallios
+"who care for none of these things."
+
+When an old building is hopelessly dilapidated, what methods can be
+devised for its restoration and preservation? To pull it down and
+rebuild it is to destroy its historical associations and to make it
+practically a new structure. Happily science has recently discovered a
+new method for the preserving of these old buildings without
+destroying them, and this good angel is the grouting machine, the
+invention of Mr. James Greathead, which has been the means of
+preventing much of vanishing England. Grout, we understand, is a
+mixture of cement, sand, and water, and the process of grouting was
+probably not unknown to the Romans. But the grouting machine is a
+modern invention, and it has only been applied to ancient buildings
+during the last six or seven years.[65] It is unnecessary to describe
+its mechanism, but its admirable results may be summarized. Suppose an
+old building shows alarming cracks. By compressed air you blow out the
+old decayed mortar, and then damping the masonry by the injection of
+water, you insert the nozzle of the machine and force the grout into
+the cracks and cavities, and soon the whole mass of decayed masonry is
+cemented together and is as sound as ever it was. This method has been
+successfully applied to Winchester Cathedral, the old walls of
+Chester, and to various churches and towers. It in no way destroys the
+characteristics and features of the building, the weatherworn surfaces
+of the old stones, their cracks and deformations, and even the moss
+and lichen which time has planted on them need not be disturbed.
+Pointing is of no avail to preserve a building, as it only enters an
+inch or two in depth. Underpinning is dangerous if the building be
+badly cracked, and may cause collapse. But if you shore the structure
+with timber, and then weld its stones together by applying the
+grouting machine, you turn the whole mass of masonry into a monolith,
+and can then strengthen the foundations in any way that may be found
+necessary. The following story of the saving of an old church, as told
+by Mr. Fox, proclaims the merits of this scientific invention better
+than any description can possibly do:--
+
+  "The ancient church of Corhampton, near Bishops Waltham, in
+  Hampshire, is an instance. This Saxon church, 1300 years old, was
+  in a sadly dilapidated condition. In the west gable there were
+  large cracks, one from the ridge to the ground, another nearer the
+  side wall, both wide enough for a man's arm to enter; whilst at
+  the north-west angle the Saxon work threatened to fall bodily off.
+  The mortar of the walls had perished through age, and the ivy had
+  penetrated into the interior of the church in every direction. It
+  would have been unsafe to attempt any examination of the
+  foundations for fear of bringing down the whole fabric;
+  consequently the grouting machine was applied all over the
+  building. The grout escaped at every point, and it occupied the
+  attention of the masons both inside and outside to stop it
+  promptly by plastering clay on to the openings from which it was
+  running.
+
+  "After the operation had been completed and the clay was removed,
+  the interior was found to be completely filled with cement set
+  very hard; and sufficient depth having been left for fixing the
+  flint work outside and tiling inside, the result was that no trace
+  of the crack was visible, and the walls were stronger and better
+  than they had ever been before. Subsequent steps were then taken
+  to examine and, where necessary, to underpin the walls, and the
+  church is saved, as the vicar, the Rev. H. Churton, said, 'all
+  without moving one of the Saxon "long and short" stones.'"
+
+  [65] A full account of this useful invention was given in the
+  _Times_ Engineering Supplement, March 18th, 1908, by Mr. Francis
+  Fox, M. Inst. C.E.
+
+In our chapter on the delightful and picturesque old bridges that form
+such beautiful features of our English landscapes, we deplored the
+destruction now going on owing to the heavy traction-engines which
+some of them have to bear and the rush and vibration of motor-cars
+which cause the decay of the mortar and injure their stability. Many
+of these old bridges, once only wide enough for pack-horses to cross,
+then widened for the accommodation of coaches, beautiful and graceful
+in every way, across which Cavaliers rode to fight the Roundheads, and
+were alive with traffic in the old coaching days, have been pulled
+down and replaced by the hideous iron-girder arrangements which now
+disfigure so many of our streams and rivers. In future, owing to this
+wonderful invention of the grouting machine, these old bridges can be
+saved and made strong enough to last another five hundred years. Mr.
+Fox tells us that an old Westmoreland bridge in a very bad condition
+has been so preserved, and that the celebrated "Auld Brig o' Ayr" has
+been saved from destruction by this means. A wider knowledge of the
+beneficial effects of this wonderful machine would be of invaluable
+service to the country, and prevent the passing away of much that in
+these pages we have mourned. By this means we may be able to preserve
+our old and decaying buildings for many centuries, and hand down to
+posterity what Ruskin called the great entail of beauty bequeathed to
+us.
+
+Vanishing England has a sad and melancholy sound. Nevertheless, the
+examples we have given of the historic buildings, and the beauties of
+our towns and villages, prove that all has not yet disappeared which
+appeals to the heart and intellect of the educated Englishman. And
+oftentimes the poor and unlearned appreciate the relics that remain
+with quite as much keenness as their richer neighbours. A world
+without beauty is a world without hope. To check vandalism, to stay
+the hand of the iconoclast and destroyer, to prevent the invasion and
+conquest of the beauties bequeathed to us by our forefathers by the
+reckless and ever-engrossing commercial and utilitarian spirit of the
+age, are some of the objects of our book, which may be useful in
+helping to preserve some of the links that connect our own times with
+the England of the past, and in increasing the appreciation of the
+treasures that remain by the Englishmen of to-day.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abbey towns, 210-29
+Abbot's Ann, 381
+---- Hospital, Guildford, 343
+Abingdon, 278
+---- bridge, 320
+---- hospital, 344
+---- archives of, 365
+Age, a progressive, 2
+Albans, St., Abbey, 212
+---- inn at, 254
+Aldeburgh, 18
+Aldermaston, 196, 381
+Alfriston, 256
+Allington Castle, 124
+Alnwick, 31
+Almshouses, 333-48
+Almsmen's liveries, 346
+American rapacity, 6-7, 164, 183
+Ancient Monuments Commission, 392
+_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ on Castles, 116
+Armour, 184
+Art treasures dispersed, 5
+Ashbury camp, 208
+Atleburgh, Norfolk, 147
+Avebury, stone circle at, 207
+---- manor-house, 180
+Aylesbury, Vale of, 86, 91
+---- inn at, 256
+
+Bainbridge, inn at, 254
+Banbury, 83
+Barkham, 148
+Barnard Castle, 119
+Barrington Court, 189
+Bartholomew's, St., Priory, 351-9
+Bath, city of, 220
+Beauty of English scenery vanishing, 383-91
+Berkeley Castle, 118
+Berwick-on-Tweed, 29, 31
+Beverley, 303, 310
+Bewcastle Cross, 288
+Bledlow Crosses, 303
+Bodiam Castle, 125
+Bonfires of old deeds, 366
+Bosham, 16
+Bournemouth, 17
+Bowthorpe, 139
+Boxford, 145
+Bradford-on-Avon, 142, 328
+Branks, 315
+Bray, Jesus Hospital at, 340
+Bridges, destruction of, 10
+---- old, 318-32
+Bridgwater Bay, 17
+Bridlington, 17
+Bristol Cathedral, 220
+Burford, 94
+Burgh-next-Walton, 17
+Burgh Castle, 112
+
+Caister Castle, 126
+Canals, 389
+Canterbury Cathedral, 211
+---- inns at, 248
+Capel, Surrey, 82
+Castles, old, 111-32
+Cathedral cities, 210-29
+Caversham bridge, 322
+Chalfont St. Giles, 88
+Charms of villages, 67
+Chester, 50
+Chests, church, 159
+Chests in houses, 196
+Chichester, 164
+---- hospital at, 335
+Chingford, Essex, 141
+Chipping Campden, 345
+Chipping monuments, 164
+Church, a painted, 158
+---- furniture, 158
+---- plate, 160
+Churches, Vanishing or Vanished, 133-65
+Churchwarden's account-books, 366
+Cinque Ports, 23
+Cirencester, 270
+Clipping churches, 378
+Clock at Wells, 214
+Cloth Fair, Smithfield, 356
+Coast erosion, 15-27
+Coastguards, their uses, 27
+Cobham, 336
+Coleshill bridge, 326
+Colston Bassett, 139
+Commonwealth, spoliation during the, 148, 220
+Compton Wynyates, 174
+Conway, 31
+Corhampton church, 397
+Cornwall, prehistoric remains in, 204
+Corsham, 345
+Cottages, beauties of old, 68, 108
+Covehithe, 17
+Coventry, 58, 255, 345
+Cowper at Weston, 170
+Cranbrook registers, 372
+Crane bridge, Salisbury, 327
+Cromer, 17
+Crosses, 283-305
+---- wayside, 293
+---- market, 293
+---- boundary, 300
+---- at Cross-roads and Holy Wells, 300
+---- sanctuary, 303
+---- as guide-posts, 303
+Crowhurst, 181
+Croyland bridge, 324
+Cucking stool, 314
+Curious entries in registers, 373
+Customs that are vanishing, 375-82
+
+Deal, 86
+Derby, West, stocks restored, 312
+Devizes, inn at, 260
+Dickens, C., and inns, 242
+Disappearance of England, 15-27
+Documents, disappearance of old, 364-74
+Dover Castle, 117
+Dowsing, W., spoliator, 148
+Dunwich, 22
+
+Eashing bridge, 327
+Eastbourne, 17
+Easter customs, 379
+Easton Bavent, 17
+Edwardian castles, 123
+Elizabethan house, an, 104, 178
+Ely fair, 363
+---- registry plundered, 369
+England, disappearance of, 15-27
+Essex, 100
+Estate agents, 10
+Evesham, 223
+Ewelme, 345
+Exeter town hall, 280
+Experience, a weird, 171
+Fairs, vanishing, 349-63
+Fastolfe, Sir John, 126
+Felixstowe, 18
+Fig Sunday, 379
+Fires in houses, 166
+Fishermen's Hospital, 342
+Fitzstephen on Smithfield Fair, 352
+Flagon, a remarkable, 194
+Football in streets, 378
+Forests destroyed, 386
+Foreign governments and monuments, 392-5
+Friday, Good, customs on, 379
+Furniture, old, 196
+---- church, 158
+
+Galleting, 78
+Garden cities, 384
+Gates of Chester, 51
+Geffery Almshouses, 337
+Gibbet-irons, 316
+Glastonbury, 147, 250
+---- powder horn found at, 192
+Gloucester, 252
+Goodening custom, 377
+Gorleston, 45
+Gosforth Cross, 289
+Grantham, inns at, 240
+---- crosses at, 298
+Greenwich, the "Ship" at, 260
+Grouting machine, 396
+Guildford, 343
+Guildhalls, 268
+Guildhall at Lynn, 38
+Gundulf, a builder of castles, 115
+
+Hall, Bishop, his palace, 246
+Halton Cross, 291
+Hampton, 17
+Happisburgh, 17
+Hardy, T., on restoration, 156
+Hartwell House, 196
+Heckfield, 160
+Herne Bay, 17
+Hever Castle, 124
+Higham Ferrers, 335
+_Hints to Churchwardens_, 153
+Holinshed quoted, 177, 191
+Holman Hunt, Mr., on bridges, 318
+Honiton Fair, 360
+Hornby Cross, 292
+Horsham slates, 80
+Horsmonden, Kent, 82
+Hospitals, old, 333-48
+Houses, old, 104, 171
+---- destroyed, 5
+---- half-timber, 57, 74, 107
+Hungate, St. Peter, Norwich, 140
+Hungerford, 308, 314
+Huntingdon, inn at, 240
+---- bridge at, 327
+
+Ilsley, West, sheep fair, 362
+Inns, signs of, 262
+---- old, 230-65
+---- retired from business, 259
+---- at Banbury, 84
+Intwood, Norfolk, 140
+Ipswich, 45
+Irving, Washington, on Inns, 234
+Ivy, evils of, 141
+
+Jessop, spoliator, 150
+Jousts at Smithfield, 353
+
+Kent bridges, 326
+Keswick, Norfolk, 140
+Kilnsea, 17, 21
+Kirby Bedon, 139
+Kirkstead, 141
+
+Leeds Cross, 290
+---- Castle, 123
+Leominster, 314
+Levellers at Burford, 97
+Lichgate at Chalfont, 90
+Links with past severed, 3
+Liscombe, Dorset, 140
+Littleport, 86
+Llanrwst bridge, 320
+Llanwddyn vale destroyed, 384
+London, vanishing, 11
+---- churches, 135
+---- growth of, 70
+---- Inns, 238
+---- Livery Companies' Almshouses, 338
+---- Paul's Cross, 304
+---- St. Bartholomew's Fair, 351-9
+---- water supply threatens a village, 385
+Lowestoft, 150
+Lynn Bay, 17
+Lynn Regis, 35, 342
+
+Mab's Cross, Wigan, 304
+Maidstone, 280
+Maidenhead bridge, 320
+Maldon, 103
+Manor-houses, 177
+Mansions, old, 166-202
+Marlborough, inn at, 259
+Martyrs burnt at Smithfield, 353
+Megalithic remains, 203
+Memory, folk, instance of, 208
+Menhirs, 203, 204
+Merchant Guilds, 267
+Milton's Cottage, 88
+"Mischief, the Load of," 262
+Monmouthshire castles, 128
+Mothering Sunday, 379
+_Mottes_, Norman, 111, 115
+Mumming at Christmas, 376
+Municipal buildings, old, 266-82
+
+National Trust for the Protection of Places of Historic Interest, 141,
+  189, 278, 281, 386
+Newbury, stocks at, 309
+---- town hall, 274
+Newcastle, 111
+---- walls, 34
+New Forest partly destroyed, 386
+Newton-by-Corton, 17
+Norham Castle, 120
+Norton St. Philip, 255
+Nottingham Goose Fair, 360
+Norwich, 244, 271
+---- hospitals at, 342
+
+Ockwells, Berks, 187
+Olney bridge, 330
+Orford Castle, 118
+Oundle, 338
+Oxford, 70
+---- St. Giles's Fair, 360
+
+Palimpsest brasses, 147
+Palm Sunday customs, 379
+Pakefield, 17
+Paston family, 126, 140, 246
+Penshurst, 181
+Pevensey Castle, 112
+Plaster, the use of, 180
+Plough Monday, 378
+Pontefract Castle, 121
+Poole, 17
+Porchester Castle, 112
+Ports and harbours, 84
+Portsmouth, 86
+Poulton-in-the-Fylde, 311
+Pounds, 312
+Prehistoric remains,  destruction of, 203-9
+Preservation of registers, 374
+Progress, 2
+Punishments, old-time, 306-17
+
+Quainton, Bucks, 337
+
+Radcot bridge, 323
+Ranton, house at, 107
+---- priory, 138
+Ravensburgh, 20, 21
+Reading, guild hall at, 274
+---- Fair, 360
+Rebels' heads on gateways, 32
+Reculver, 23
+Reformation, iconoclasm at, 145, 218
+Register books, parish, 368
+Restoration, evils of, 9, 10, 151, 153, 156, 220
+Richard II., murder of, 121
+Richmond, 111, 260
+Ringstead, 140
+Rochester, 35, 248
+Rollright stones, 204
+Roman fortresses, 114
+Rood-screens removed, 158
+Roudham, 140
+Rows at Yarmouth, 42
+---- ---- Portsmouth, 86
+Ruskin, 3, 67, 198, 200
+Ruthwell Cross, 289
+Rye, 60
+
+Saffron Walden, 100
+Salisbury, halls of guilds at, 281
+Sandwich, 34
+St. Albans Cathedral, 212
+---- inn at, 254
+St. Audrey's laces, 363
+St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, 351-9
+St. Margaret's Bay, 17
+Salisbury, halls of guilds at, 281, 294
+Sandwich, 34
+Saxon churches, 144
+Scenery, vanishing of English, 3, 383-91
+Scold's bridle, 315
+Sea-serpent at Heybridge, 104
+Selsea, 23
+"Seven Stars" at Manchester, 252
+Shingle, flow of, 26
+Shrewsbury, 52, 270
+Shrivenham, Berks, 165
+Shrovetide customs, 378
+Signboards, 264
+Sieges of towns, 32
+Simnels, 379
+Skegness, 21
+Skipton, 310
+Smithfield Fair, 351-9
+Smuggling, 258
+Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings, 141, 320, 326
+Somerset, Duke of, spoliator, 146
+Somerset crosses, 296
+Sonning bridges, 318
+Southport, 16
+Southwell, inn at, 144
+Southwold, 17, 18
+Staircases, old, 196
+Staffordshire churches, 136
+Stamford, hospitals at, 336
+Stilton, inn at, 243
+Stocks, 306-17
+-- in literature, 307
+Stonehenge, 205
+Storeys, projecting, 72
+Stourbridge Fair, 362
+Stow Green Fair, 362
+Strategic position of castles, 114
+Streets and lanes, in, 67-110
+Stump Cross, 304
+Suffolk coast, 20
+Surrey cottages, 76
+Sussex coast, 17
+Sussex, Robert, Earl of, spoliator, 147
+Swallowfield Park, 194
+
+_Tancred_, description of an inn, 236
+Taunton Castle, 129
+Tewkesbury, inns at, 252
+Thame, 91, 367
+Thatch for roofing, 78
+Thorpe-in-the-Fields, 139
+Tile-hung cottages, 77
+Tournaments at Smithfield, 353
+Towns, old walled, 28-66
+---- abbey, 210-29
+---- decayed, 266
+---- halls, 266-82
+Turpin's ride to York, 240
+Tyneside, coast erosion at, 21
+
+Udimore, Sussex, 94
+Uxbridge, inn at, 256
+
+Viking legends, 290, 291
+
+Walberswick, Suffolk, 148
+Walled towns, old, 28-66
+Walls, city, destroyed, 12
+Wallingford, 276, 313
+Warwick, 70, 159
+Wash, land gaining on sea, 16
+Water-clock, 196
+Well customs, 381
+Wells, cross at, 297
+Wells Cathedral, 213-16
+Welsh castles, 130
+Weston house, 170
+Whipping-posts, 306-17
+White Horse Hill, 206
+Whitewash, the era of, 157
+Whittenham Clumps, 207
+Whittenham, Little, 152
+Whitling church, 139
+Whittington College, 338
+Winchester, St. Cross, 334
+Winchmore Hill Woods, destroyed, 386
+Window tax, 180
+Winster, 278
+Witney Butter Cross, 297
+Wirral, Cheshire, 25
+Wokingham, 277
+---- Lucas's Hospital at, 340
+Wood, Anthony, at Thame, 93
+Wymondham, 256, 297
+
+Yarmouth, 17, 40, 147, 342
+York, 48
+---- walls of, 34
+Yorkshire coast, 17
+Ypres Tower, Rye, 64
+
+
+
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+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Vanishing England, by P. H. Ditchfield</title>
+    <style type="text/css" id="internalstyle">
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+<body>
+<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vanishing England, by P. H. Ditchfield,
+Illustrated by Fred Roe</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Vanishing England</p>
+<p>Author: P. H. Ditchfield</p>
+<p>Release Date: January 20, 2005  [eBook #14742]</p>
+<p>Language: en</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANISHING ENGLAND***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Victoria Woosley,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (www.pgdp.net)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_PF"></a><img src="./images/il001.png" alt="The George Inn" title="" /><br />
+The George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset</p>
+
+<h1>VANISHING<br /> ENGLAND</h1>
+
+<h2>THE BOOK</h2>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h3>P.H. DITCHFIELD</h3>
+
+<h4>M.A., F.S.A., F.H.S.L., F.R.HIST.S.</h4>
+
+
+<h2>THE ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h3>FRED ROE, R.I.</h3>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_PT"></a><img src="./images/il002.png"  alt="Canopy Over Doorway" title="" /><br />
+Canopy over Doorway of Buckingham House, Portsmouth</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h6>Methuen &amp; Co. Ltd.<br /> 36 Essex Street W.C.<br />
+London</h6>
+
+<h4>1910</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="ctr">
+<table width="75%" border="0" summary="">
+<colgroup span="3"><col align="right" /><col align="left" /><col align="right" /></colgroup>
+<tr><td>I.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">INTRODUCTION</a></td><td>1</td></tr>
+<tr><td>II.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ENGLAND</a></td><td>15</td></tr>
+<tr><td>III.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">OLD WALLED TOWNS</a></td><td>28</td></tr>
+<tr><td>IV.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IN STREETS AND LANES</a></td><td>67</td></tr>
+<tr><td>V.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">OLD CASTLES</a></td><td>111</td></tr>
+<tr><td>VI.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VANISHING OR VANISHED CHURCHES</a></td><td>133</td></tr>
+<tr><td>VII.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">OLD MANSIONS</a></td><td>166</td></tr>
+<tr><td>VIII.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">THE DESTRUCTION OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS</a></td><td>203</td></tr>
+<tr><td>IX.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CATHEDRAL CITIES AND ABBEY TOWNS</a></td><td>210</td></tr>
+<tr><td>X.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">OLD INNS</a></td><td>230</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XI.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">OLD MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS</a></td><td>266</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XII.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">OLD CROSSES</a></td><td>283</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XIII.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">STOCKS AND WHIPPING-POSTS</a></td><td>306</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XIV.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">OLD BRIDGES</a></td><td>318</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XV.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">OLD HOSPITALS AND ALMSHOUSES</a></td><td>333</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XVI.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">VANISHING FAIRS</a></td><td>349</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XVII.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">THE DISAPPEARANCE OF OLD DOCUMENTS</a></td><td>364</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XVIII.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">OLD CUSTOMS THAT ARE VANISHING</a></td><td>375</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XIX.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">THE VANISHING OF ENGLISH SCENERY</a></td><td>383</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XX.</td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CONCLUSION</a></td><td>392</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></td><td>399</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td><a href="#FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</a></td><td><i>End</i></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<div class="ctr">
+<table border="0" width="90%" summary="">
+<colgroup span="2"><col align="left" /><col align="right" /></colgroup>
+<tr><td></td><td>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_PF">The George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset</a></td><td><i>Frontispiece</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_PT">Canopy over Doorway of Buckingham House, Portsmouth</a></td><td><i>Title page</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P4">Rural Tenements, Capel, Surrey</a></td><td>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P6">Detail of Seventeenth-century Table in Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St. Giles</a></td><td>6</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P9">Seventeenth-century Trophy</a></td><td>9</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P12">Old Shop, formerly standing in Cliffe High Street, Lewes</a></td><td>12</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P14">Paradise Square, Banbury</a></td><td>14</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P19">Norden's Chart of the River Ore and Suffolk Coast</a></td><td>19</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P24">Disused Mooring-post on bank of the Rother, Rye</a></td><td>24</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P30">Old Houses built on the Town Wall, Rye</a></td><td>30</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P33">Bootham Bar, York</a></td><td>33</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P37">Half-timbered House with early Fifteenth-century Doorway, King's Lynn, Norfolk</a></td><td>37</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P41">The "Bone Tower," Town Walls, Great Yarmouth</a></td><td>41</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P43">Row No. 83, Great Yarmouth</a></td><td>43</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P45">The Old Jetty, Gorleston</a></td><td>45</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P46">Tudor House, Ipswich, near the Custom House</a></td><td>46</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P47">Three-gabled House, Fore Street, Ipswich</a></td><td>47</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P49">"Melia's Passage," York</a></td><td>49</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P53">Detail of Half-timbered House in High Street, Shrewsbury</a></td><td>53</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P56">Tower on the Town Wall, Shrewsbury</a></td><td>56</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P59">House that the Earl of Richmond stayed in before the Battle of Bosworth. Shrewsbury</a></td><td>59</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P61">Old Houses formerly standing in Spon Street, Coventry</a></td><td>61</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P63">West Street, Rye</a></td><td>63</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P65">Monogram and Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye</a></td><td>65</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P66">Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye</a></td><td>66</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P68">Relic of Lynn Siege in Hampton Court, King's Lynn</a></td><td>68</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P69">Hampton Court, King's Lynn, Norfolk</a></td><td>69</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P71">Mill Street, Warwick</a></td><td>71</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P73">Tudor Tenements, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford (now demolished)</a></td><td>73</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P75">Gothic Corner-post. The Half Moon Inn, Ipswich</a></td><td>75</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P76">Timber-built House, Shrewsbury</a></td><td>76</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P79">Missbrook Farm, Capel, Surrey</a></td><td>79</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P81">Cottage at Capel, Surrey</a></td><td>81</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P82">Farm-house, Horsmonden, Kent</a></td><td>82</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P83">Seventeenth-century Cottages, Stow Langtoft, Suffolk</a></td><td>83</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P85">The "Fish House," Littleport, Cambs.</a></td><td>85</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P86">Sixteenth-century Cottage, formerly standing in Upper Deal, Kent</a></td><td>86</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P87">Gable, Upper Deal, Kent</a></td><td>87</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P89">A Portsmouth "Row"</a></td><td>89</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P90">Lich-gate, Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks</a></td><td>90</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P91">Fifteenth-century Handle on Church Door, Monk's Risborough, Bucks</a></td><td>91</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P95">Weather-boarded Houses, Crown Street, Portsmouth</a></td><td>95</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P97">Inscription on Font, Parish Church, Burford, Oxon</a></td><td>97</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P98">Detail of Fifteenth-century Barge-board, Burford, Oxon</a></td><td>98</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P99">The George Inn, Burford, Oxon</a></td><td>99</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P103">Maldon, Essex. Sky-line of the High Street at twilight</a></td><td>103</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P104">St. Mary's Church, Maldon</a></td><td>104</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P105">Norman Clamp on door of Heybridge Church, Essex</a></td><td>105</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P106">Tudor Fire-place. Now walled up in the passage of a shop in Banbury</a></td><td>106</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P109">Cottages in Witney Street, Burford, Oxon</a></td><td>109</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P113">Burgh Castle, Suffolk</a></td><td>113</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P127">Caister Castle, Norfolk</a></td><td>127</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P128">Defaced Arms, Taunton Castle</a></td><td>128</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P132">Knightly Basinet (<i>temp.</i> Henry V) in Norwich Castle</a></td><td>132</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P143">Saxon Doorway in St. Lawrence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts.</a></td><td>143</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P149">St. George's Church, Great Yarmouth</a></td><td>149</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P158">Carving on Rood-screen, Alcester Church, Warwick</a></td><td>158</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P161">Fourteenth-century Coffer in Faversham Church, Kent</a></td><td>161</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P163">Flanders Chest in East Dereham Church, Norfolk, <i>temp.</i> Henry VIII</a></td><td>163</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P165">Reversed Rose carved on "Miserere" in Norwich Cathedral</a></td><td>165</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P167">Oak Panelling. Wainscot of Fifteenth Century, with addition <i>circa</i> late Seventeenth Century, fitted on to it in angle of room in the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent</a></td><td>167</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P168">Section of Mouldings of Cornice on Panelling, the Church House, Goudhurst</a></td><td>168</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P169">The Wardrobe House, the Close, Salisbury</a></td><td>169</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P175">Chimney at Compton Wynyates</a></td><td>175</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P176">Window-catch, Brockhall, Northants</a></td><td>176</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P177">Gothic Chimney, Norton St. Philip, Somerset</a></td><td>177</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P179">The Moat, Crowhurst Place, Surrey</a></td><td>179</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P181">Arms of the Gaynesfords in window, Crowhurst Place, Surrey</a></td><td>181</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P182">Cupboard Hinge, Crowhurst Place, Surrey</a></td><td>182</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P183">Fixed Bench in the hall, Crowhurst Place, Surrey</a></td><td>183</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P184">Gothic Door-head, Goudhurst, Kent</a></td><td>184</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P185A">Knightly Basinet (<i>temp.</i> Henry V) in Norwich Castle</a></td><td>185</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P185B">Hilt of Thirteenth-century Sword in Norwich Museum</a></td><td>185</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P186A">"Hand-and-a-half" Sword. Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A.</a></td><td>186</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P186B">Seventeenth-century Boot, in the possession of Ernest Crofts, Esq., R.A.</a></td><td>186</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P187">Chapel de Fer at Ockwells, Berks</a></td><td>187</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P191">Tudor Dresser Table, in the possession of Sir Alfred Dryden, Canon's Ashby, Northants</a></td><td>191</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P193">Seventeenth-century Powder-horn, found in the wall of an old house at Glastonbury. Now in Glastonbury Museum</a></td><td>193</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P194">Seventeenth-century Spy-glass in Taunton Museum</a></td><td>194</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P195">Fourteenth-century Flagon. From an old Manor House in Norfolk</a></td><td>195</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P197">Elizabethan Chest, in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B.</a></td><td>197</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P199">Staircase Newel, Cromwell House, Highgate</a></td><td>199</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P200">Piece of Wood Carved with Inscription. Found with a sword (<i>temp.</i> Charles II) in an old house at Stoke-under-Ham, Somerset</a></td><td>200</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P201">Seventeenth-century Water-clock, in Norwich Museum</a></td><td>201</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P202">Sun-dial. The Manor House, Sutton Courtenay</a></td><td>202</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P209">Half-timber Cottages, Waterside, Evesham</a></td><td>209</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P215">Quarter Jacks over the Clock on exterior of north wall of Wells Cathedral</a></td><td>215</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P217">The Gate House, Bishop's Palace, Well</a></td><td>217</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P219">House in which Bishop Hooper was imprisoned, Westgate Street, Gloucester</a></td><td>219</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P221">The "Stone House," Rye, Sussex</a></td><td>221</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P224">Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham</a></td><td>224</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P225">Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham</a></td><td>225</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P226">Fifteenth-century House in Cowl Street, Evesham</a></td><td>226</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P227">Half-timber House, Alcester, Warwick</a></td><td>227</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P228">Half-timber House at Alcester</a></td><td>228</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P233">The Wheelwrights' Arms, Warwick</a></td><td>233</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P235">Entrance to the Reindeer Inn, Banbury</a></td><td>235</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P237">The Shoulder of Mutton Inn, King's Lynn</a></td><td>237</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P243">A Quaint Gable, the Bell Inn, Stilton</a></td><td>243</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P245">The Bell Inn, Stilton</a></td><td>245</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P247">The "Briton's Arms," Norwich</a></td><td>247</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P249">The Dolphin Inn, Heigham, Norwich</a></td><td>249</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P250A">Shield and Monogram on doorway of the Dolphin Inn, Heigham</a></td><td>250</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P250B">Staircase Newel at the Dolphin Inn</a></td><td>250</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P251">The Falstaff Inn, Canterbury</a></td><td>251</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P253">The Bear and Ragged Staff Inn, Tewkesbury</a></td><td>253</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P255">Fire-place in the George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset</a></td><td>255</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P257">The Green Dragon Inn, Wymondham, Norfolk</a></td><td>257</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P258">The Star Inn, Alfriston, Sussex</a></td><td>258</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P261">Courtyard of the George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset</a></td><td>261</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P263">The Dark Lantern Inn, Aylesbury, Bucks</a></td><td>263</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P265">Spandril. The Marquis of Granby Inn, Colchester</a></td><td>265</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P269">The Town Hall, Shrewsbury</a></td><td>269</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P275">The Greenland Fishery House, King's Lynn. An old Guild House of the time of James I</a></td><td>275</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P279">The Market House, Wymondham, Norfolk</a></td><td>279</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P281">Guild Mark and Date on doorway, Burford, Oxon</a></td><td>281</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P287">Stretham Cross, Isle of Ely</a></td><td>287</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P295">The Market Cross, Salisbury</a></td><td>295</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P299">Under the Butter Cross, Witney, Oxon</a></td><td>299</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P325">The Triangular Bridge, Crowland</a></td><td>325</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P327">Huntingdon Bridge</a></td><td>327</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P329">The Crane Bridge, Salisbury</a></td><td>329</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P331">Watch House on the Bridge, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts</a></td><td>331</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P334">Gateway of St. John's Hospital, Canterbury</a></td><td>334</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P339">Inmate of the Trinity Bede House at Castle Rising, Norfolk</a></td><td>339</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P341">The Hospital for Ancient Fishermen, Great Yarmouth</a></td><td>341</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P343">Inscription on the Hospital, King's Lynn</a></td><td>343</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P347">Ancient Inmates of the Fishermen's Hospital, Great Yarmouth</a></td><td>347</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P348">Cottages at Evesham</a></td><td>348</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P350">Stalls at Banbury Fair</a></td><td>350</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P356">An Old English Fair</a></td><td>356</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P359">An Ancient Maker of Nets in a Kentish Fair</a></td><td>359</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P361">Outside the Lamb Inn, Burford</a></td><td>361</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a href="#IL_P363">Tail Piece</a></td><td>363</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1>VANISHING ENGLAND<a name="Page_1"></a></h1>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3>
+
+<p>This book is intended not to raise fears but to record facts. We wish
+to describe with pen and pencil those features of England which are
+gradually disappearing, and to preserve the memory of them. It may be
+said that we have begun our quest too late; that so much has already
+vanished that it is hardly worth while to record what is left.
+Although much has gone, there is still, however, much remaining that
+is good, that reveals the artistic skill and taste of our forefathers,
+and recalls the wonders of old-time. It will be our endeavour to tell
+of the old country houses that Time has spared, the cottages that
+grace the village green, the stern grey walls that still guard some
+few of our towns, the old moot halls and public buildings. We shall
+see the old-time farmers and rustics gathering together at fair and
+market, their games and sports and merry-makings, and whatever relics
+of old English life have been left for an artist and scribe of the
+twentieth century to record.</p>
+
+<p>Our age is an age of progress. <i>Altiora peto</i> is its motto. The spirit
+of progress is in the air, and lures its votaries on to higher
+flights. Sometimes they discover that they have been following a mere
+will-o'-the-wisp, that leads them into bog and quagmire whence no
+escape is possible. The England of a century, or even of half a
+century ago, <a name="Page_2"></a>has vanished, and we find ourselves in the midst of a
+busy, bustling world that knows no rest or peace. Inventions tread
+upon each other's heels in one long vast bewildering procession. We
+look back at the peaceful reign of the pack-horse, the rumbling wagon,
+the advent of the merry coaching days, the &quot;Lightning&quot; and the
+&quot;Quicksilver,&quot; the chaining of the rivers with locks and bars, the
+network of canals that spread over the whole country; and then the
+first shriek of the railway engine startled the echoes of the
+countryside, a poor powerless thing that had to be pulled up the steep
+gradients by a chain attached to a big stationary engine at the
+summit. But it was the herald of the doom of the old-world England.
+Highways and coaching roads, canals and rivers, were abandoned and
+deserted. The old coachmen, once lords of the road, ended their days
+in the poorhouse, and steam, almighty steam, ruled everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Now the wayside inns wake up again with the bellow of the motor-car,
+which like a hideous monster rushes through the old-world villages,
+startling and killing old slow-footed rustics and scampering children,
+dogs and hens, and clouds of dust strive in very mercy to hide the
+view of the terrible rushing demon. In a few years' time the air will
+be conquered, and aeroplanes, balloons, flying-machines and air-ships,
+will drop down upon us from the skies and add a new terror to life.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,<br />
+Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.</p>
+
+<p>Life is for ever changing, and doubtless everything is for the best in
+this best of possible worlds; but the antiquary may be forgiven for
+mourning over the destruction of many of the picturesque features of
+bygone times and revelling in the recollections of the past. The
+half-educated and the progressive&mdash;I attach no political meaning to
+the term&mdash;delight in their present environment, and care not to
+inquire too deeply into the origin of things; the study of evolution
+and development is outside their sphere; but yet, as Dean Church once
+wisely said, &quot;In our eagerness <a name="Page_3"></a>for improvement it concerns us to be
+on our guard against the temptation of thinking that we can have the
+fruit or the flower, and yet destroy the root.... It concerns us that
+we do not despise our birthright and cast away our heritage of gifts
+and of powers, which we may lose, but not recover.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Every day witnesses the destruction of some old link with the past
+life of the people of England. A stone here, a buttress there&mdash;it
+matters not; these are of no consequence to the innovator or the
+iconoclast. If it may be our privilege to prevent any further
+spoliation of the heritage of Englishmen, if we can awaken any respect
+or reverence for the work of our forefathers, the labours of both
+artist and author will not have been in vain. Our heritage has been
+sadly diminished, but it has not yet altogether disappeared, and it is
+our object to try to record some of those objects of interest which
+are so fast perishing and vanishing from our view, in order that the
+remembrance of all the treasures that our country possesses may not
+disappear with them.</p>
+
+<p>The beauty of our English scenery has in many parts of the country
+entirely vanished, never to return. Coal-pits, blasting furnaces,
+factories, and railways have converted once smiling landscapes and
+pretty villages into an inferno of black smoke, hideous mounds of
+ashes, huge mills with lofty chimneys belching forth clouds of smoke
+that kills vegetation and covers the leaves of trees and plants with
+exhalations. I remember attending at Oxford a lecture delivered by the
+late Mr. Ruskin. He produced a charming drawing by Turner of a
+beautiful old bridge spanning a clear stream, the banks of which were
+clad with trees and foliage. The sun shone brightly, and the sky was
+blue, with fleeting clouds. &quot;This is what you are doing with your
+scenery,&quot; said the lecturer, as he took his palette and brushes; he
+began to paint on the glass that covered the picture, and in a few
+minutes the scene was transformed. Instead of the beautiful bridge a
+hideous iron girder structure spanned the stream, which <a name="Page_4"></a>was no longer
+pellucid and clear, but black as the Styx; instead of the trees arose
+a monstrous mill with a tall chimney vomiting black smoke that spread
+in heavy clouds, hiding the sun and the blue sky. &quot;That
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: Original &quot;it&quot;.">is</ins> what you
+are doing with your scenery,&quot; concluded Mr. Ruskin&mdash;a true picture of
+the penalty we pay for trade, progress, and the pursuit of wealth. We
+are losing faith in the testimony of our poets and painters to the
+beauty of the English landscape which has inspired their art, and much
+of the charm of our scenery in many parts has vanished. We happily
+have some of it left still where factories are not, some interesting
+objects that artists love to paint. It is well that they should be
+recorded before they too pass away.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P4"></a><img src="./images/il003.png" alt="Rural Tenements" title="" /><br />
+Rural Tenements, Capel, Surrey</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_5"></a>Old houses of both peer and peasant and their contents are sooner or
+later doomed to destruction. Historic mansions full of priceless
+treasures amassed by succeeding generations of old families fall a
+prey to relentless fire. Old panelled rooms and the ancient
+floor-timbers understand not the latest experiments in electric
+lighting, and yield themselves to the flames with scarce a struggle.
+Our forefathers were content with hangings to keep out the draughts
+and open fireplaces to keep them warm. They were a hardy race, and
+feared not a touch or breath of cold. Their degenerate sons must have
+an elaborate heating apparatus, which again distresses the old timbers
+of the house and fires their hearts of oak. Our forefathers, indeed,
+left behind them a terrible legacy of danger&mdash;that beam in the
+chimney, which has caused the destruction of many country houses.
+Perhaps it was not so great a source of danger in the days of the old
+wood fires. It is deadly enough when huge coal fires burn in the
+grates. It is a dangerous, subtle thing. For days, or even for a week
+or two, it will smoulder and smoulder; and then at last it will blaze
+up, and the old house with all its precious contents is wrecked.</p>
+
+<p>The power of the purse of American millionaires also tends greatly to
+the vanishing of much that is English&mdash;the treasures of English art,
+rare pictures and books, and even of houses. Some nobleman or
+gentleman, through the extravagance of himself or his ancestors, or on
+account of the pressure of death duties, finds himself impoverished.
+Some of our great art dealers hear of his unhappy state, and knowing
+that he has some fine paintings&mdash;a Vandyke or a Romney&mdash;offer him
+twenty-five or thirty thousand pounds for a work of art. The
+temptation proves irresistible. The picture is sold, and soon finds
+its way into the gallery of a rich American, no one in England having
+the power or the good taste to purchase it. We spend our money in
+other ways. The following conversation was overheard at Christie's:
+&quot;Here is a beautiful thing; you should buy it,&quot; said the speaker to <a name="Page_6"></a>a
+newly fledged baronet. &quot;I'm afraid I can't afford it,&quot; replied the
+baronet. &quot;Not afford it?&quot; replied his companion. &quot;It will cost you
+infinitely less than a baronetcy and do you infinitely more credit.&quot;
+The new baronet seemed rather offended. At the great art sales rare
+folios of Shakespeare, pictures, Sevres, miniatures from English
+houses are put up for auction, and of course find their way to
+America. Sometimes our cousins from across the Atlantic fail to secure
+their treasures. They have striven very eagerly to buy Milton's
+cottage at Chalfont St. Giles, for transportation to America; but this
+effort has happily been successfully resisted. The carved <a name="Page_7"></a>table in
+the cottage was much sought after, and was with difficulty retained
+against an offer of &pound;150. An old window of fifteenth-century
+workmanship in an old house at Shrewsbury was nearly exploited by an
+enterprising American for the sum of &pound;250; and some years ago an
+application was received by the Home Secretary for permission to
+unearth the body of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, from
+its grave in the burial-ground of Jordans, near Chalfont St. Giles,
+and transport it to Philadelphia. This action was successfully opposed
+by the trustees of the burial-ground, but it was considered expedient
+to watch the ground for some time to guard against the possibility of
+any illicit attempts at removal.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P6"></a><img src="./images/il004.png"  alt="Detail of Table" title="" /><br />
+Detail of Seventeenth-century Table in Milton's
+Cottage, Chalfont St. Giles</p>
+
+<p>It was reported that an American purchaser had been more successful at
+Ipswich, where in 1907 a Tudor house and corner-post, it was said, had
+been secured by a London firm for shipment to America. We are glad to
+hear that this report was incorrect, that the purchaser was an English
+lord, who re-erected the house in his park.</p>
+
+<p>Wanton destruction is another cause of the disappearance of old
+mansions. Fashions change even in house-building. Many people prefer
+new lamps to old ones, though the old ones alone can summon genii and
+recall the glories of the past, the associations of centuries of
+family life, and the stories of ancestral prowess. Sometimes fashion
+decrees the downfall of old houses. Such a fashion raged at the
+beginning of the last century, when every one wanted a brand-new house
+built after the Palladian style; and the old weather-beaten pile that
+had sheltered the family for generations, and was of good old English
+design with nothing foreign or strange about it, was compelled to give
+place to a new-fangled dwelling-place which was neither beautiful nor
+comfortable. Indeed, a great wit once advised the builder of one of
+these mansions to hire a room on the other side of the road and spend
+his days looking at his Palladian house, but to be sure not to live
+there.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_8"></a>Many old houses have disappeared on account of the loyalty of their
+owners, who were unfortunate enough to reside within the regions
+harassed by the Civil War. This was especially the case in the county
+of Oxford. Still you may see avenues of venerable trees that lead to
+no house. The old mansion or manor-house has vanished. Many of them
+were put in a posture of defence. Earthworks and moats, if they did
+not exist before, were hastily constructed, and some of these houses
+were bravely defended by a competent and brave garrison, and were
+thorns in the sides of the Parliamentary army. Upon the triumph of the
+latter, revenge suffered not these nests of Malignants to live. Others
+were so battered and ruinous that they were only fit residences for
+owls and bats. Some loyal owners destroyed the remains of their homes
+lest they should afford shelter to the Parliamentary forces. David
+Walter set fire to his house at Godstow lest it should afford
+accommodation to the &quot;Rebels.&quot; For the same reason Governor Legge
+burnt the new episcopal palace, which Bancroft had only finished ten
+years before at Cuddesdon. At the same time Thomas Gardiner burnt his
+manor-house in Cuddesdon village, and many other houses were so
+battered that they were left untenanted, and so fell to ruin.<a name="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1"><sup>1</sup></a> Sir
+Bulstrode Whitelock describes how he slighted the works at Phillis
+Court, &quot;causing the bulwarks and lines to be digged down, the grafts
+[i.e. moats] filled, the drawbridge to be pulled up, and all levelled.
+I sent away the great guns, the granadoes, fireworks, and ammunition,
+whereof there was good store in the fort. I procured pay for my
+soldiers, and many of them undertook the service in Ireland.&quot; This is
+doubtless typical of what went on in many other houses. The famous
+royal manor-house of Woodstock was left battered and deserted, and
+&quot;haunted,&quot; as the readers of <i>Woodstock</i> will remember, by an &quot;adroit
+and humorous royalist named Joe Collins,&quot; who frightened the
+commissioners away by <a name="Page_9"></a>his ghostly pranks. In 1651 the old house was
+gutted and almost destroyed. The war wrought havoc with the old
+houses, as it did with the lives and other possessions of the
+conquered.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P9"></a><img src="./images/il005.png"  alt="17th Century Trophy" title="" /><br />
+Seventeenth-century Trophy</p>
+
+<p>But we are concerned with times less remote, with the vanishing of
+historic monuments, of noble specimens of architecture, and of the
+humble dwellings of the poor, the picturesque cottages by the wayside,
+which form such attractive features of the English landscape. We have
+only to look at the west end of St. Albans Abbey Church, which has
+been &quot;Grimthorped&quot; out of all recognition, or at the over-restored
+Lincoln's Inn Chapel, to see what evil can be done in the name of
+&quot;Restoration,&quot; how money can be lavishly spent to a thoroughly bad
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Property in private hands has suffered no less than <a name="Page_10"></a>many of our
+public buildings, even when the owner is a lover of antiquity and does
+not wish to remove and to destroy the objects of interest on his
+estate. Estate agents are responsible for much destruction. Sir John
+Stirling Maxwell, Bart., F.S.A., a keen arch&aelig;ologist, tells how an
+agent on his estate transformed a fine old grim sixteenth-century
+fortified dwelling, a very perfect specimen of its class, into a house
+for himself, entirely altering the character of its appearance, adding
+a lofty oriel and spacious windows with a new door and staircase,
+while some of the old stones were made to adorn a rockery in the
+garden. When he was abroad the elaborately contrived entrance for the
+defence of a square fifteenth-century keep with four square towers at
+the corners, very curious and complete, were entirely obliterated by a
+zealous mason. In my own parish I awoke one day to find the old
+village pound entirely removed by order of an estate agent, and a very
+interesting stand near the village smithy for fastening oxen when they
+were shod disappeared one day, the village publican wanting the posts
+for his pig-sty. County councils sweep away old bridges because they
+are inconveniently narrow and steep for the tourists' motors, and
+deans and chapters are not always to be relied upon in regard to their
+theories of restoration, and squire and parson work sad havoc on the
+fabrics of old churches when they are doing their best to repair them.
+Too often they have decided to entirely demolish the old building, the
+most characteristic feature of the English landscape, with its square
+grey tower or shapely spire, a tower that is, perhaps, loopholed and
+battlemented, and tells of turbulent times when it afforded a secure
+asylum and stronghold when hostile bands were roving the countryside.
+Within, piscina, ambrey, and rood-loft tell of the ritual of former
+days. Some monuments of knights and dames proclaim the achievements of
+some great local family. But all this weighs for nothing in the eyes
+of the renovating squire and parson. They must have a grand, new,
+modern church with much architectural pretension and fine decorations
+<a name="Page_11"></a>which can never have the charm which attaches to the old building. It
+has no memories, this new structure. It has nothing to connect it with
+the historic past. Besides, they decree that it must not cost too
+much. The scheme of decoration is stereotyped, the construction
+mechanical. There is an entire absence of true feeling and of any real
+inspiration of devotional art. The design is conventional, the pattern
+uniform. The work is often scamped and hurried, very different from
+the old method of building. We note the contrast. The medieval
+builders were never in a hurry to finish their work. The old fanes
+took centuries to build; each generation doing its share, chancel or
+nave, aisle or window, each trying to make the church as perfect as
+the art of man could achieve. We shall see how much of this sound and
+laborious work has vanished, a prey to restoration and ignorant
+renovation. We shall see the house-breaker at work in rural hamlet and
+in country town. Vanishing London we shall leave severely alone. Its
+story has been already told in a large and comely volume by my friend
+Mr. Philip Norman. Besides, is there anything that has not vanished,
+having been doomed to destruction by the march of progress, now that
+Crosby Hall has gone the way of life in the Great City? A few old
+halls of the City companies remain, but most of them have given way to
+modern palaces; a few City churches, very few, that escaped the Great
+Fire, and every now and again we hear threatenings against the
+masterpieces of Wren, and another City church has followed in the wake
+of all the other London buildings on which the destroyer has laid his
+hand. The site is so valuable; the modern world of business presses
+out the life of these fine old edifices. They have to make way for
+new-fangled erections built in the modern French style with sprawling
+gigantic figures with bare limbs hanging on the porticoes which seem
+to wonder how they ever got there, and however they were to keep
+themselves from falling. London is hopeless! We can but delve its soil
+when opportunities occur in <a name="Page_12"></a>order to find traces of Roman or medieval
+life. Churches, inns, halls, mansions, palaces, exchanges have
+vanished, or are quickly vanishing, and we cast off the dust of London
+streets from our feet and seek more hopeful places.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P12"></a><img src="./images/il006.png"  alt="Old Shop" title="" /><br />
+Old Shop, formerly standing in Cliffe High Street, Lewes</p>
+
+<p>But even in the sleepy hollows of old England the pulse beats faster
+than of yore, and we shall only just be in time to rescue from
+oblivion and the house-breaker some of our heritage. Old city walls
+that have defied the attacks of time and of Cromwell's Ironsides are
+often in danger from the wiseacres who preside on borough
+corporations. Town halls picturesque and beautiful in their old age
+have to make way for the creations of the local architect. Old shops
+have to be pulled down in order to provide a site <a name="Page_13"></a>for a universal
+emporium or a motor garage. Nor are buildings the only things that are
+passing away. The extensive use of motor-cars and highway vandalism
+are destroying the peculiar beauty of the English roadside. The
+swift-speeding cars create clouds of white dust which settles upon the
+hedges and trees, covering them with it and obscuring the wayside
+flowers and hiding all their attractiveness. Corn and grass are
+injured and destroyed by the dust clouds. The charm and poetry of the
+country walk are destroyed by motoring demons, and the wayside
+cottage-gardens, once the most attractive feature of the English
+landscape, are ruined. The elder England, too, is vanishing in the
+modes, habits, and manners of her people. Never was the truth of the
+old oft-quoted Latin proverb&mdash;<i>Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in
+illis</i>&mdash;so pathetically emphatic as it is to-day. The people are
+changing in their habits and modes of thought. They no longer take
+pleasure in the simple joys of their forefathers. Hence in our
+chronicle of Vanishing England we shall have to refer to some of those
+strange customs which date back to primeval ages, but which the
+railways, excursion trains, and the schoolmaster in a few years will
+render obsolete.</p>
+
+<p>In recording the England that is vanishing the artist's pencil will
+play a more prominent part than the writer's pen. The graphic sketches
+that illustrate this book are far more valuable and helpful to the
+discernment of the things that remain than the most effective
+descriptions. We have tried together to gather up the fragments that
+remain that nothing be lost; and though there may be much that we have
+not gathered, the examples herein given of some of the treasures that
+are left may be useful in creating a greater reverence for the work
+bequeathed to us by our forefathers, and in strengthening the hands of
+those who would preserve them. Happily we are still able to use the
+present participle, not the past. It is vanishing England, not
+vanished, of which <a name="Page_14"></a>we treat; and if we can succeed in promoting an
+affection for the relics of antiquity that time has spared, our
+labours will not have been in vain or the object of this book
+unattained.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P14"></a><img src="./images/il007.png"  alt="Paradise Square" title="" /><br />
+Paradise Square, Banbury</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II"></a><a name="Page_15"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ENGLAND</h3>
+
+
+<p>Under this alarming heading, &quot;The Disappearance of England,&quot; the
+<i>Gaulois</i> recently published an article by M. Guy Dorval on the
+erosion of the English coasts. The writer refers to the predictions of
+certain British men of science that England will one day disappear
+altogether beneath the waves, and imagines that we British folk are
+seized by a popular panic. Our neighbours are trembling for the fate
+of the <i>entente cordiale</i>, which would speedily vanish with vanishing
+England; but they have been assured by some of their savants that the
+rate of erosion is only one kilometre in a thousand years, and that
+the danger of total extinction is somewhat remote. Professor Stanislas
+Meunier, however, declares that our &quot;panic&quot; is based on scientific
+facts. He tells us that the cliffs of Brighton are now one kilometre
+farther away from the French coast than in the days of Queen
+Elizabeth, and that those of Kent are six kilometres farther away than
+in the Roman period. He compares our island to a large piece of sugar
+in water, but we may rest assured that before we disappear beneath the
+waves the period which must elapse would be greater than the longest
+civilizations known in history. So we may hope to be able to sing
+&quot;Rule Britannia&quot; for many a long year.</p>
+
+<p>Coast erosion is, however, a serious problem, and has caused the
+destruction of many a fair town and noble forest that now lie beneath
+the seas, and the crumbling cliffs on our eastern shore threaten to
+destroy many a village church and smiling pasture. Fishermen tell you
+that when storms rage and the waves swell they have heard <a name="Page_16"></a>the bells
+chiming in the towers long covered by the seas, and nigh the
+picturesque village of Bosham we were told of a stretch of sea that
+was called the Park. This as late as the days of Henry VIII was a
+favourite royal hunting forest, wherein stags and fawns and does
+disported themselves; now fish are the only prey that can be slain
+therein.</p>
+
+<p>The Royal Commission on coast erosion relieves our minds somewhat by
+assuring us that although the sea gains upon the land in many places,
+the land gains upon the sea in others, and that the loss and gain are
+more or less balanced. As a matter of area this is true. Most of the
+land that has been rescued from the pitiless sea is below high-water
+mark, and is protected by artificial banks. This work of reclaiming
+land can, of course, only be accomplished in sheltered places, for
+example, in the great flat bordering the Wash, which flat is formed by
+the deposit of the rivers of the Fenland, and the seaward face of this
+region is gradually being pushed forward by the careful processes of
+enclosure. You can see the various old sea walls which have been
+constructed from Roman times onward. Some accretions of land have
+occurred where the sea piles up masses of shingle, unless foolish
+people cart away the shingle in such quantities that the waves again
+assert themselves. Sometimes sand silts up as at Southport in
+Lancashire, where there is the second longest pier in England, a mile
+in length, from the end of which it is said that on a clear day with a
+powerful telescope you may perchance see the sea, that a distinguished
+traveller accustomed to the deserts of Sahara once found it, and that
+the name Southport is altogether a misnomer, as it is in the north and
+there is no port at all.</p>
+
+<p>But however much as an Englishman I might rejoice that the actual area
+of &quot;our tight little island,&quot; which after all is not very tight,
+should not be diminishing, it would be a poor consolation to me, if I
+possessed land and houses on the coast of Norfolk which were fast
+slipping into the sea, to know that in the Fenland industrious farmers
+<a name="Page_17"></a>were adding to their acres. And day by day, year by year, this
+destruction is going on, and the gradual melting away of land. The
+attack is not always persistent. It is intermittent. Sometimes the
+progress of the sea seems to be stayed, and then a violent storm
+arises and falling cliffs and submerged houses proclaim the sway of
+the relentless waves. We find that the greatest loss has occurred on
+the east and southern coasts of our island. Great damage has been
+wrought all along the Yorkshire sea-board from Bridlington to Kilnsea,
+and the following districts have been the greatest sufferers: between
+Cromer and Happisburgh, Norfolk; between Pakefield and Southwold,
+Suffolk; Hampton and Herne Bay, and then St. Margaret's Bay, near
+Dover; the coast of Sussex, east of Brighton, and the Isle of Wight;
+the region of Bournemouth and Poole; Lyme Bay, Dorset, and Bridgwater
+Bay, Somerset.</p>
+
+<p>All along the coast from Yarmouth to Eastbourne, with a few
+exceptional parts, we find that the sea is gaining on the land by
+leaps and bounds. It is a coast that is most favourably constructed
+for coast erosion. There are no hard or firm rocks, no cliffs high
+enough to give rise to a respectable landslip; the soil is composed of
+loose sand and gravels, loams and clays, nothing to resist the
+assaults of atmospheric action from above or the sea below. At
+Covehithe, on the Suffolk coast, there has been the greatest loss of
+land. In 1887 sixty feet was claimed by the sea, and in ten years
+(1878-87) the loss was at the rate of over eighteen feet a year. In
+1895 another heavy loss occurred between Southwold and Covehithe and a
+new cove formed. Easton Bavent has entirely disappeared, and so have
+the once prosperous villages of Covehithe, Burgh-next-Walton, and
+Newton-by-Corton, and the same fate seems to be awaiting Pakefield,
+Southwold, and other coast-lying towns. Easton Bavent once had such a
+flourishing fishery that it paid an annual rent of 3110 herrings; and
+millions of herrings must have been caught by the fishermen of
+disappeared Dunwich, which we shall <a name="Page_18"></a>visit presently, as they paid
+annually &quot;fish-fare&quot; to the clergy of the town 15,377 herrings,
+besides 70,000 to the royal treasury.</p>
+
+<p>The summer visitors to the pleasant watering-place Felixstowe, named
+after St. Felix, who converted the East Anglians to Christianity and
+was their first bishop, that being the place where the monks of the
+priory of St. Felix in Walton held their annual fair, seldom reflect
+that the old Saxon burgh was carried away as long ago as 1100 A.D.
+Hence Earl Bigot was compelled to retire inland and erect his famous
+castle at Walton. But the sea respected not the proud walls of the
+baron's stronghold; the strong masonry that girt the keep lies beneath
+the waves; a heap of stones, called by the rustics Stone Works, alone
+marks the site of this once powerful castle. Two centuries later the
+baron's marsh was destroyed by the sea, and eighty acres of land was
+lost, much to the regret of the monks, who were thus deprived of the
+rent and tithe corn.</p>
+
+<p>The old chroniclers record many dread visitations of the relentless
+foe. Thus in 1237 we read: &quot;The sea burst with high tides and tempests
+of winds, marsh countries near the sea were flooded, herds and flocks
+perished, and no small number of men were lost and drowned. The sea
+rose continually for two days and one night.&quot; Again in 1251: &quot;On
+Christmas night there was a great thunder and lightning in Suffolk;
+the sea caused heavy floods.&quot; In much later times Defoe records:
+&quot;Aldeburgh has two streets, each near a mile long, but its breadth,
+which was more considerable formerly, is not proportionable, and the
+sea has of late years swallowed up one whole street.&quot; It has still
+standing close to the shore its quaint picturesque town hall, erected
+in the fifteenth century. Southwold is now practically an island,
+bounded on the east by the sea, on the south-west by the Blyth River,
+on the north-west by Buss Creek. It is only joined to the mainland by
+a narrow neck of shingle that divides Buss Creek from the sea. I think
+that I should prefer to hold property <a name="Page_19"></a><a name="Page_20"></a>in a more secure region. You
+invest your savings in stock, and dividends decrease and your capital
+grows smaller, but you usually have something left. But when your land
+and houses vanish entirely beneath the waves, the chapter is ended and
+you have no further remedy except to sue Father Neptune, who has
+rather a wide beat and may be difficult to find when he is wanted to
+be served with a summons.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P19"></a><a href="./images/il008.png">
+<img src="./images/il008_th.png" alt="Coastal Map" title="" /></a></p>
+
+<p>But the Suffolk coast does not show all loss. In the north much land
+has been gained in the region of Beccles, which was at one time close
+to the sea, and one of the finest spreads of shingle in England
+extends from Aideburgh to Bawdry. This shingle has silted up many a
+Suffolk port, but it has proved a very effectual barrier against the
+inroads of the sea. Norden's map of the coast made in 1601<a name="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2"><sup>2</sup></a> shows
+this wonderful mass of shingle, which has greatly increased since
+Norden's day. It has been growing in a southerly direction, until the
+Aide River had until recently an estuary ten miles in length. But in
+1907 the sea asserted itself, and &quot;burst through the stony barrier,
+making a passage for the exit of the river one mile further north, and
+leaving a vast stretch of shingle and two deserted river-channels as a
+protection to the Marshes of Hollesley from further inroads of the
+sea.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3"><sup>3</sup></a> Formerly the River Alde flowed direct to the sea just south
+of the town of Aldeburgh. Perhaps some day it may be able to again
+force a passage near its ancient course or by Havergate Island. This
+alteration in the course of rivers is very remarkable, and may be
+observed at Christ Church, Hants.</p>
+
+<p>It is pathetic to think of the historic churches, beautiful villages,
+and smiling pastures that have been swept away by the relentless sea.
+There are no less than twelve towns and villages in Yorkshire that
+have been thus buried, and five in Suffolk. Ravensburgh, in the former
+<a name="Page_21"></a>county, was once a flourishing seaport. Here landed Henry IV in 1399,
+and Edward IV in 1471. It returned two members to Parliament. An old
+picture of the place shows the church, a large cross, and houses; but
+it has vanished with the neighbouring villages of Redmare,
+Tharlethorp, Frismarch, and Potterfleet, and &quot;left not a wrack
+behind.&quot; Leland mentions it in 1538, after which time its place in
+history and on the map knows it no more. The ancient church of Kilnsea
+lost half its fabric in 1826, and the rest followed in 1831. Alborough
+Church and the Castle of Grimston have entirely vanished. Mapleton
+Church was formerly two miles from the sea; it is now on a cliff with
+the sea at its feet, awaiting the final attack of the all-devouring
+enemy. Nearly a century ago Owthorne Church and churchyard were
+overwhelmed, and the shore was strewn with ruins and shattered
+coffins. On the Tyneside the destruction has been remarkable and
+rapid. In the district of Saltworks there was a house built standing
+on the cliff, but it was never finished, and fell a prey to the waves.
+At Percy Square an inn and two cottages have been destroyed. The edge
+of the cliff in 1827 was eighty feet seaward, and the banks of Percy
+Square receded a hundred and eighty feet between the years 1827 and
+1892. Altogether four acres have disappeared. An old Roman building,
+locally known as &quot;Gingling Geordie's Hole,&quot; and large masses of the
+Castle Cliff fell into the sea in the 'eighties. The remains of the
+once flourishing town of Seaton, on the Durham coast, can be
+discovered amid the sands at low tide. The modern village has sunk
+inland, and cannot now boast of an ancient chapel dedicated to St.
+Thomas of Canterbury, which has been devoured by the waves.</p>
+
+<p>Skegness, on the Lincolnshire coast, was a large and important town;
+it boasted of a castle with strong fortifications and a church with a
+lofty spire; it now lies deep beneath the devouring sea, which no
+guarding walls could conquer. Far out at sea, beneath the waves, lies
+<a name="Page_22"></a>old Cromer Church, and when storms rage its bells are said to chime.
+The churchyard wherein was written the pathetic ballad &quot;The Garden of
+Sleep&quot; is gradually disappearing, and &quot;the graves of the fair women
+that sleep by the cliffs by the sea&quot; have been outraged, and their
+bodies scattered and devoured by the pitiless waves.</p>
+
+<p>One of the greatest prizes of the sea is the ancient city of Dunwich,
+which dates back to the Roman era. The Domesday Survey shows that it
+was then a considerable town having 236 burgesses. It was girt with
+strong walls; it possessed an episcopal palace, the seat of the East
+Anglian bishopric; it had (so Stow asserts) fifty-two churches, a
+monastery, brazen gates, a town hall, hospitals, and the dignity of
+possessing a mint. Stow tells of its departed glories, its royal and
+episcopal palaces, the sumptuous mansion of the mayor, its numerous
+churches and its windmills, its harbour crowded with shipping, which
+sent forth forty vessels for the king's service in the thirteenth
+century. Though Dunwich was an important place, Stow's description of
+it is rather exaggerated. It could never have had more than ten
+churches and monasteries. Its &quot;brazen gates&quot; are mythical, though it
+had its Lepers' Gate, South Gate, and others. It was once a thriving
+city of wealthy merchants and industrious fishermen. King John granted
+to it a charter. It suffered from the attacks of armed men as well as
+from the ravages of the sea. Earl Bigot and the revolting barons
+besieged it in the reign of Edward I. Its decay was gradual. In 1342,
+in the parish of St. Nicholas, out of three hundred houses only
+eighteen remained. Only seven out of a hundred houses were standing in
+the parish of St. Martin. St. Peter's parish was devastated and
+depopulated. It had a small round church, like that at Cambridge,
+called the Temple, once the property of the Knights Templars, richly
+endowed with costly gifts. This was a place of sanctuary, as were the
+other churches in the city. With the destruction of the houses came
+also the decay of the port which no ships could enter. Its <a name="Page_23"></a>rival,
+Southwold, attracted the vessels of strangers. The markets and fairs
+were deserted. Silence and ruin reigned over the doomed town, and the
+ruined church of All Saints is all that remains of its former glories,
+save what the storms sometimes toss along the beach for the study and
+edification of antiquaries.</p>
+
+<p>As we proceed down the coast we find that the sea is still gaining on
+the land. The old church at Walton-on-the-Naze was swept away, and is
+replaced by a new one. A flourishing town existed at Reculver, which
+dates back to the Romans. It was a prosperous place, and had a noble
+church, which in the sixteenth century was a mile from the sea.
+Steadily have the waves advanced, until a century ago the church fell
+into the sea, save two towers which have been preserved by means of
+elaborate sea-walls as a landmark for sailors.</p>
+
+<p>The fickle sea has deserted some towns and destroyed their prosperity;
+it has receded all along the coast from Folkestone to the Sussex
+border, and left some of the famous Cinque Ports, some of which we
+shall visit again, Lymne, Romney, Hythe, Richborough, Stonor,
+Sandwich, and Sarre high and dry, with little or no access to the sea.
+Winchelsea has had a strange career. The old town lies beneath the
+waves, but a new Winchelsea arose, once a flourishing port, but now
+deserted and forlorn with the sea a mile away. Rye, too, has been
+forsaken. It was once an island; now the little Rother stream conveys
+small vessels to the sea, which looks very far away.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot follow all the victories of the sea. We might examine the
+inroads made by the waves at Selsea. There stood the first cathedral
+of the district before Chichester was founded. The building is now
+beneath the sea, and since Saxon times half of the Selsea Bill has
+vanished. The village of Selsea rested securely in the centre of the
+peninsula, but only half a mile now separates it from the sea. Some
+land has been gained near this projecting headland by an industrious
+farmer. His farm surrounded a large cove with a narrow mouth through
+<a name="Page_24"></a>which the sea poured. If he could only dam up that entrance, he
+thought he could rescue the bed of the cove and add to his acres. He
+bought an old ship and sank it by the entrance and proceeded to drain.
+But a tiresome storm arose and drove the ship right across the cove,
+and the sea poured in again. By no means discouraged, he dammed up the
+entrance more effectually, got rid of the water, increased his farm by
+many acres, and the old ship makes an admirable cow-shed.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P24"></a><img src="./images/il009.png"  alt="Mooring-post" title="" /><br />
+Disused Mooring-Post on bank of the Rother, Rye</p>
+
+<p>The Isle of Wight in remote geological periods was part of the
+mainland. The Scilly Isles were once joined with Cornwall, and were
+not severed until the fourteenth century, when by a mighty storm and
+flood, 140 churches and villages were destroyed and overwhelmed, and
+190 square miles of land carried away. Much land has been <a name="Page_25"></a>lost in the
+Wirral district of Cheshire. Great forests have been overwhelmed, as
+the skulls and bones of deer and horse and fresh-water shell-fish have
+been frequently discovered at low tide. Fifty years ago a distance of
+half a mile separated Leasowes Castle from the sea; now its walls are
+washed by the waves. The Pennystone, off the Lancashire coast by
+Blackpool, tells of a submerged village and manor, about which cluster
+romantic legends.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the sad record of the sea's destruction, for which the
+industrious reclamation of land, the compensations wrought by the
+accumulation of shingle and sand dunes and the silting of estuaries
+can scarcely compensate us. How does the sea work this? There are
+certain rock-boring animals, such as the Pholas, which help to decay
+the rocks. Each mollusc cuts a series of augur-holes from two to four
+inches deep, and so assists in destroying the bulwarks of England.
+Atmospheric action, the disintegration of soft rocks by frost and by
+the attack of the sea below, all tend in the same direction. But the
+foolish action of man in removing shingle, the natural protection of
+our coasts, is also very mischievous. There is an instance of this in
+the Hall Sands and Bee Sands, Devon. A company a few years ago
+obtained authority to dredge both from the foreshore and sea-bed. The
+Commissioners of Woods and Forests and the Board of Trade granted this
+permission, the latter receiving a royalty of &pound;50 and the former &pound;150.
+This occurred in 1896. Soon afterwards a heavy gale arose and caused
+an immense amount of damage, the result entirely of this dredging. The
+company had to pay heavily, and the royalties were returned to them.
+This is only one instance out of many which might be quoted. We are an
+illogical nation, and our regulations and authorities are weirdly
+confused. It appears that the foreshore is under the control of the
+Board of Trade, and then a narrow strip of land is ruled over by the
+Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Of course these bodies do not
+agree; different policies are pursued by each, and the coast suffers.
+Large sums are sometimes <a name="Page_26"></a>spent in coast-defence works. At Spurn no
+less than &pound;37,433 has been spent out of Parliamentary grants, besides
+&pound;14,227 out of the Mercantile Marine Fund. Corporations or county
+authorities, finding their coasts being worn away, resolve to protect
+it. They obtain a grant in aid from Parliament, spend vast sums, and
+often find their work entirely thrown away, or proving itself most
+disastrous to their neighbours. If you protect one part of the coast
+you destroy another. Such is the rule of the sea. If you try to beat
+it back at one point it will revenge itself on another. If only you
+can cause shingle to accumulate before your threatened town or
+homestead, you know you can make the place safe and secure from the
+waves. But if you stop this flow of shingle you may protect your own
+homes, but you deprive your neighbours of this safeguard against the
+ravages of the sea. It was so at Deal. The good folks of Deal placed
+groynes in order to stop the flow of shingle and protect the town.
+They did their duty well; they stopped the shingle and made a good
+bulwark against the sea. With what result? In a few years' time they
+caused the destruction of Sandown, which had been deprived of its
+natural protection. Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., who has walked along the
+whole coast from Norfolk to Cornwall, besides visiting other parts of
+our English shore, and whose contributions to the Report of the Royal
+Commission on Coast Erosion are so valuable, remembers when a boy the
+Castle of Sandown, which dated from the time of Henry VIII. It was
+then in a sound condition and was inhabited. Now it is destroyed, and
+the batteries farther north have gone too. The same thing is going on
+at Dover. The Admiralty Pier causes the accumulation of shingle on its
+west side, and prevents it from following its natural course in a
+north-easterly direction. Hence the base of the cliffs on the other
+side of the pier and harbour is left bare and unprotected; this aids
+erosion, and not unfrequently do we hear of the fall of the chalk
+cliffs.</p>
+
+<p>Isolated schemes for the prevention of coast erosion are <a name="Page_27"></a>of little
+avail. They can do no good, and only increase the waste and
+destruction of land in neighbouring shores. Stringent laws should be
+passed to prevent the taking away of shingle from protecting beaches,
+and to prohibit the ploughing of land near the edge of cliffs, which
+greatly assists atmospheric destructive action from above. The State
+has recently threatened the abandonment of the coastguard service.
+This would be a disastrous policy. Though the primary object of
+coastguards, the prevention of smuggling, has almost passed away, the
+old sailors who act as guardians of our coast-line render valuable
+services to the country. They are most useful in looking after the
+foreshore. They save many lives from wrecked vessels, and keep watch
+and ward to guard our shores, and give timely notice of the advance of
+a hostile fleet, or of that ever-present foe which, though it affords
+some protection for our island home from armed invasion, does not fail
+to exact a heavy tithe from the land it guards, and has destroyed so
+many once flourishing towns and villages by its ceaseless attack.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="Page_28"></a><a name="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD WALLED TOWNS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The destruction of ancient buildings always causes grief and distress
+to those who love antiquity. It is much to be deplored, but in some
+cases is perhaps inevitable. Old-fashioned half-timbered shops with
+small diamond-paned windows are not the most convenient for the
+display of the elegant fashionable costumes effectively draped on
+modelled forms. Motor-cars cannot be displayed in antiquated old
+shops. Hence in modern up-to-date towns these old buildings are
+doomed, and have to give place to grand emporiums with large
+plate-glass windows and the refinements of luxurious display. We hope
+to visit presently some of the old towns and cities which happily
+retain their ancient beauties, where quaint houses with oversailing
+upper stories still exist, and with the artist's aid to describe many
+of their attractions.</p>
+
+<p>Although much of the destruction is, as I have said, inevitable, a
+vast amount is simply the result of ignorance and wilful perversity.
+Ignorant persons get elected on town councils&mdash;worthy men doubtless,
+and able men of business, who can attend to and regulate the financial
+affairs of the town, look after its supply of gas and water, its
+drainage and tramways; but they are absolutely ignorant of its
+history, its associations, of architectural beauty, of anything that
+is not modern and utilitarian. Unhappily, into the care of such men as
+these is often confided the custody of historic buildings and
+priceless treasures, of ruined abbey and ancient walls, of objects
+consecrated by the lapse of centuries and by the associations of
+hundreds of years of corporate life; and it is not surprising that in
+many cases <a name="Page_29"></a>they betray their trust. They are not interested in such
+things. &quot;Let bygones be bygones,&quot; they say. &quot;We care not for old
+rubbish.&quot; Moreover, they frequently resent interference and
+instruction. Hence they destroy wholesale what should be preserved,
+and England is the poorer.</p>
+
+<p>Not long ago the Edwardian wall of Berwick-on-Tweed was threatened
+with demolition at the hands of those who ought to be its
+guardians&mdash;the Corporation of the town. An official from the Office of
+Works, when he saw the begrimed, neglected appearance of the two
+fragments of this wall near the Bell Tower, with a stagnant pool in
+the fosse, bestrewed with broken pitchers and rubbish, reported that
+the Elizabethan walls of the town which were under the direction of
+the War Department were in excellent condition, whereas the Edwardian
+masonry was utterly neglected. And why was this relic of the town's
+former greatness to be pulled down? Simply to clear the site for the
+erection of modern dwelling-houses. A very strong protest was made
+against this act of municipal barbarism by learned societies, the
+Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, and others, and we
+hope that the hand of the destroyer has been stayed.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the principal towns in England were protected by walls, and
+the citizens regarded it as a duty to build them and keep them in
+repair. When we look at some of these fortifications, their strength,
+their height, their thickness, we are struck by the fact that they
+were very great achievements, and that they must have been raised with
+immense labour and gigantic cost. In turbulent and warlike times they
+were absolutely necessary. Look at some of these triumphs of medieval
+engineering skill, so strong, so massive, able to defy the attacks of
+lance and arrow, ram or catapult, and to withstand ages of neglect and
+the storms of a tempestuous clime. Towers and bastions stood at
+intervals against the wall at convenient distances, in order that
+bowmen stationed in them could shoot down any who attempted to scale
+the wall with ladders anywhere <a name="Page_30"></a>within the distance between the
+towers. All along the wall there was a protected pathway for the
+defenders to stand, and machicolations through which boiling oil or
+lead, or heated sand could be poured on the heads of the attacking
+force. The gateways were carefully constructed, flanked by defending
+towers with a portcullis, and a guard-room overhead with holes in the
+vaulted roof of the gateway for pouring down inconvenient substances
+upon the heads of the besiegers. There were several gates, the <a name="Page_31"></a>usual
+number being four; but Coventry had twelve, Canterbury six, and
+Newcastle-on-Tyne seven, besides posterns.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P30"></a><img src="./images/il010.png"  alt="Old Houses" title="" /><br />
+Old Houses built on the Town Wall, Rye</p>
+
+<p>Berwick-upon-Tweed, York, Chester, and Conway have maintained their
+walls in good condition. Berwick has three out of its four gates still
+standing. They are called Scotchgate, Shoregate, and Cowgate, and in
+the last two still remain the original massive wooden gates with their
+bolts and hinges. The remaining fourth gate, named Bridgate, has
+vanished. We have alluded to the neglect of the Edwardian wall and its
+threatened destruction. Conway has a wall a mile and a quarter in
+length, with twenty-one semicircular towers along its course and three
+great gateways besides posterns. Edward I built this wall in order to
+subjugate the Welsh, and also the walls round Carnarvon, some of which
+survive, and Beaumaris. The name of his master-mason has been
+preserved, one Henry le Elreton. The muniments of the Corporation of
+Alnwick prove that often great difficulties arose in the matter of
+wall-building. Its closeness to the Scottish border rendered a wall
+necessary. The town was frequently attacked and burnt. The inhabitants
+obtained a licence to build a wall in 1433, but they did not at once
+proceed with the work. In 1448 the Scots came and pillaged the town,
+and the poor burgesses were so robbed and despoiled that they could
+not afford to proceed with the wall and petitioned the King for aid.
+Then Letters Patent were issued for a collection to be made for the
+object, and at last, forty years after the licence was granted,
+Alnwick got its wall, and a very good wall it was&mdash;a mile in
+circumference, twenty feet in height and six in thickness; &quot;it had
+four gateways&mdash;Bondgate, Clayport, Pottergate, and Narrowgate. Only
+the first-named of these is standing. It is three stories in height.
+Over the central archway is a panel on which was carved the Brabant
+lion, now almost obliterated. On either side is a semi-octagonal
+tower. The masonry is composed of huge blocks to which time and
+weather have given dusky tints. On the front facing <a name="Page_32"></a>the expected foes
+the openings are but little more than arrow-slits; on that within,
+facing the town, are well-proportioned mullioned and transomed
+windows. The great ribbed archway is grooved for a portcullis, now
+removed, and a low doorway on either side gives entrance to the
+chambers in the towers. Pottergate was rebuilt in the eighteenth
+century and crowns a steep street; only four corner-stones marked T
+indicate the site of Clayport. No trace of Narrowgate remains.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4"><sup>4</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>As the destruction of many of our castles is due to the action of
+Cromwell and the Parliament, who caused them to be &quot;slighted&quot; partly
+out of revenge upon the loyal owners who had defended them, so several
+of our town-walls were thrown down by order of Charles II at the
+Restoration on account of the active assistance which the townspeople
+had given to the rebels. The heads of rebels were often placed on
+gateways. London Bridge, Lincoln, Newcastle, York, Berwick,
+Canterbury, Temple Bar, and other gates have often been adorned with
+these gruesome relics of barbarous punishments.</p>
+
+<p>How were these strong walls ever taken in the days before gunpowder
+was extensively used or cannon discharged their devastating shells?
+Imagine you are present at a siege. You would see the attacking force
+advancing a huge wooden tower, covered with hides and placed on
+wheels, towards the walls. Inside this tower were ladders, and when
+the &quot;sow&quot; had been pushed towards the wall the soldiers rushed up
+these ladders and were able to fight on a level with the garrison.
+Perhaps they were repulsed, and then a shed-like structure would be
+advanced towards the wall, so as to enable the men to get close enough
+to dig a hole beneath the walls in order to bring them down. The
+besieged would not be inactive, but would cast heavy stones on the
+roof of the shed. Molten lead and burning flax were favourite means of
+defence to alarm and frighten away the enemy, who retaliated by
+casting heavy stones by means of a catapult into the town.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="Page_33"></a><a name="IL_P33"></a><a href="./images/il011.png">
+<img src="./images/il011_th.png" alt="Bootham Bar" title="" /></a><br />
+Bootham Bar, York</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_34"></a>Amongst the fragments of walls still standing, those at Newcastle are
+very massive, sooty, and impressive. Southampton has some grand walls
+left and a gateway, which show how strongly the town was fortified.
+The old Cinque Port, Sandwich, formerly a great and important town,
+lately decayed, but somewhat renovated by golf, has two gates left,
+and Rochester and Canterbury have some fragments of their walls
+standing. The repair of the walls of towns was sometimes undertaken by
+guilds. Generous benefactors, like Sir Richard Whittington, frequently
+contributed to the cost, and sometimes a tax called murage was levied
+for the purpose which was collected by officers named muragers.</p>
+
+<p>The city of York has lost many of its treasures, and the City Fathers
+seem to find it difficult to keep their hands off such relics of
+antiquity as are left to them. There are few cities in England more
+deeply marked with the impress of the storied past than York&mdash;the long
+and moving story of its gates and walls, of the historical
+associations of the city through century after century of English
+history. About eighty years ago the Corporation destroyed the
+picturesque old barbicans of the Bootham, Micklegate, and Monk Bars,
+and only one, Walmgate, was suffered to retain this interesting
+feature. It is a wonder they spared those curious stone half-length
+figures of men, sculptured in a menacing attitude in the act of
+hurling large stones downwards, which vaunt themselves on the summit
+of Monk Bar&mdash;probably intended to deceive invaders&mdash;or that
+interesting stone platform only twenty-two inches wide, which was the
+only foothold available for the martial burghers who guarded the city
+wall at Tower Place. A year or two ago the City Fathers decided, in
+order to provide work for the unemployed, to interfere with the city
+moats by laying them out as flower-beds and by planting shrubs and
+making playgrounds of the banks. The protest of the Yorks
+Arch&aelig;ological Society, we believe, stayed their hands.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_35"></a>The same story can be told of far too many towns and cities. A few
+years ago several old houses were demolished in the High Street of the
+city of Rochester to make room for electric tramways. Among these was
+the old White Hart Inn, built in 1396, the sign being a badge of
+Richard II, where Samuel Pepys stayed. He found that &quot;the beds were
+corded, and we had no sheets to our beds, only linen to our mouths&quot; (a
+narrow strip of linen to prevent the contact of the blanket with the
+face). With regard to the disappearance of old inns, we must wait
+until we arrive at another chapter.</p>
+
+<p>We will now visit some old towns where we hope to discover some
+buildings that are ancient and where all is not distressingly new,
+hideous, and commonplace. First we will travel to the old-world town
+of Lynn&mdash;&quot;Lynn Regis, vulgarly called King's Lynn,&quot; as the royal
+charter of Henry VIII terms it. On the land side the town was defended
+by a fosse, and there are still considerable remains of the old wall,
+including the fine Gothic South Gates. In the days of its ancient
+glory it was known as Bishop's Lynn, the town being in the hands of
+the Bishop of Norwich. Bishop Herbert de Losinga built the church of
+St. Margaret at the beginning of the twelfth century, and gave it with
+many privileges to the monks of Norwich, who held a priory at Lynn;
+and Bishop Turbus did a wonderfully good stroke of business, reclaimed
+a large tract of land about 1150 A.D., and amassed wealth for his see
+from his markets, fairs, and mills. Another bishop, Bishop Grey,
+induced or compelled King John to grant a free charter to the town,
+but astutely managed to keep all the power in his own hands. Lynn was
+always a very religious place, and most of the orders&mdash;Benedictines,
+Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelite and Augustinian Friars, and the
+Sack Friars&mdash;were represented at Lynn, and there were numerous
+hospitals, a lazar-house, a college of secular canons, and other
+religious institutions, until they were all swept away by the greed of
+a rapacious king. There is not much left to-day of all these religious
+<a name="Page_36"></a>foundations. The latest authority on the history of Lynn, Mr. H.J.
+Hillen, well says: &quot;Time's unpitying plough-share has spared few
+vestiges of their
+<ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's Note: Original &quot;achitectural&quot;.">architectural</ins> grandeur.&quot; A cemetery cross in the
+museum, the name &quot;Paradise&quot; that keeps up the remembrance of the cool,
+verdant cloister-garth, a brick arch upon the east bank of the Nar,
+and a similar gateway in &quot;Austin&quot; Street are all the relics that
+remain of the old monastic life, save the slender hexagonal &quot;Old
+Tower,&quot; the graceful lantern of the convent of the grey-robed
+Franciscans. The above writer also points out the beautifully carved
+door in Queen Street, sole relic of the College of Secular Canons,
+from which the chisel of the ruthless iconoclast has chipped off the
+obnoxious <i>Orate pro anima</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The quiet, narrow, almost deserted streets of Lynn, its port and quays
+have another story to tell. They proclaim its former greatness as one
+of the chief ports in England and the centre of vast mercantile
+activity. A thirteenth-century historian, Friar William Newburg,
+described Lynn as &quot;a noble city noted for its trade.&quot; It was the key
+of Norfolk. Through it flowed all the traffic to and from northern
+East Anglia, and from its harbour crowds of ships carried English
+produce, mainly wool, to the Netherlands, Norway, and the Rhine
+Provinces. Who would have thought that this decayed harbour ranked
+fourth among the ports of the kingdom? But its glories have departed.
+Decay set in. Its prosperity began to decline.</p>
+
+<p>Railways have been the ruin of King's Lynn. The merchant princes who
+once abounded in the town exist here no longer. The last of the long
+race died quite recently. Some ancient ledgers still exist in the
+town, which exhibit for one firm alone a turnover of something like a
+million and a half sterling per annum. Although possessed of a
+similarly splendid waterway, unlike Ipswich, the trade of the town
+seems to have quite decayed. Few signs of commerce are visible, except
+where the advent of branch stations of enterprising<a name="Page_37"></a> &quot;Cash&quot; firms has
+resulted in the squaring up of odd projections and consequent
+overthrow of certain ancient buildings. There is one act of vandalism
+which the town has never ceased to regret and which should serve as a
+warning for the future. This is the demolition of the house of Walter
+Coney, merchant, an unequalled specimen of fifteenth-century domestic
+architecture, which formerly stood at the corner of the Saturday
+Market Place and High Street. So strongly was this edifice constructed
+that it was with the utmost difficulty that it was taken to pieces, in
+order to make room for the ugly range of white brick buildings which
+now stands upon its <a name="Page_38"></a>site. But Lynn had an era of much prosperity
+during the rise of the Townshends, when the agricultural improvements
+brought about by the second Viscount introduced much wealth to
+Norfolk. Such buildings as the Duke's Head Hotel belong to the second
+Viscount's time, and are indicative of the influx of visitors which
+the town enjoyed. In the present day this hotel, though still a
+good-sized establishment, occupies only half the building which it
+formerly did. An interesting oak staircase of fine proportions, though
+now much warped, may be seen here.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P37"></a><img src="./images/il012.png" alt="Half-timbered House" title="" /><br />
+Half-timbered House with early Fifteenth-century
+Doorway, King's Lynn, Norfolk</p>
+
+<p>In olden days the Hanseatic League had an office here. The Jews were
+plentiful and supplied capital&mdash;you can find their traces in the name
+of the &quot;Jews' Lane Ward&quot;&mdash;and then came the industrious Flemings, who
+brought with them the art of weaving cloth and peculiar modes of
+building houses, so that Lynn looks almost like a little Dutch town.
+The old guild life of Lynn was strong and vigorous, from its Merchant
+Guild to the humbler craft guilds, of which we are told that there
+have been no less than seventy-five. Part of the old Guildhall,
+erected in 1421, with its chequered flint and stone gable still stands
+facing the market of St. Margaret with its Renaissance porch, and a
+bit of the guild hall of St. George the Martyr remains in King Street.
+The custom-house, which was originally built as an exchange for the
+Lynn merchants, is a notable building, and has a statue of Charles II
+placed in a niche.</p>
+
+<p>This was the earliest work of a local architect, Henry Bell, who is
+almost unknown. He was mayor of King's Lynn, and died in 1717, and his
+memory has been saved from oblivion by Mr. Beloe of that town, and is
+enshrined in Mr. Blomfield's <i>History of Renaissance Architecture</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;This admirable little building originally consisted of an open
+   loggia about 40 feet by 32 feet outside, with four columns down
+   the centre, supporting the first floor, and an attic storey
+   above. The walls are of Portland <a name="Page_39"></a>stone, with a Doric order to
+   the ground storey supporting an Ionic order to the first floor.
+   The cornice is of wood, and above this is a steep-pitched tile
+   roof with dormers, surmounted by a balustrade inclosing a flat,
+   from which rises a most picturesque wooden cupola. The details
+   are extremely refined, and the technical knowledge and delicate
+   sense of scale and proportion shown in this building are
+   surprising in a designer who was under thirty, and is not known
+   to have done any previous work.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5"><sup>5</sup></a> </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A building which the town should make an effort to preserve is the old
+&quot;Greenland Fishery House,&quot; a tenement dating from the commencement of
+the seventeenth century.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke's Head Inn, erected in 1689, now spoilt by its coating of
+plaster, a house in Queen's Street, the old market cross, destroyed in
+1831 and sold for old materials, and the altarpieces of the churches
+of St. Margaret and St. Nicholas, destroyed during &quot;restoration,&quot; and
+North Runcton church, three miles from Lynn, are other works of this
+very able artist.</p>
+
+<p>Until the Reformation Lynn was known as Bishop's Lynn, and galled
+itself under the yoke of the Bishop of Norwich; but Henry freed the
+townsfolk from their bondage and ordered the name to be changed to
+Lynn Regis. Whether the good people throve better under the control of
+the tyrant who crushed all their guilds and appropriated the spoil
+than under the episcopal yoke may be doubtful; but the change pleased
+them, and with satisfaction they placed the royal arms on their East
+Gate, which, after the manner of gates and walls, has been pulled
+down. If you doubt the former greatness of this old seaport you must
+examine its civic plate. It possesses the oldest and most important
+and most beautiful specimen of municipal plate in England, a grand,
+massive silver-gilt cup of exquisite workmanship. It is called &quot;King
+John's Cup,&quot; but it cannot be earlier than the reign of Edward III. In
+addition to this there is a superb sword of state of the time of Henry
+VIII, another cup, <a name="Page_40"></a>four silver maces, and other treasures. Moreover,
+the town had a famous goldsmiths' company, and several specimens of
+their handicraft remain. The defences of the town were sorely tried in
+the Civil War, when for three weeks it sustained the attacks of the
+rebels. The town was forced to surrender, and the poor folk were
+obliged to pay ten shillings a head, besides a month's pay to the
+soldiers, in order to save their homes from plunder. Lynn has many
+memories. It sheltered King John when fleeing from the revolting
+barons, and kept his treasures until he took them away and left them
+in a still more secure place buried in the sands of the Wash. It
+welcomed Queen Isabella during her retirement at Castle Rising,
+entertained Edward IV when he was hotly pursued by the Earl of
+Warwick, and has been worthy of its name as a loyal king's town.</p>
+
+<p>Another walled town on the Norfolk coast attracts the attention of all
+who love the relics of ancient times, Great Yarmouth, with its
+wonderful record of triumphant industry and its associations with many
+great events in history. Henry III, recognizing the important
+strategical position of the town in 1260, granted a charter to the
+townsfolk empowering them to fortify the place with a wall and a moat,
+but more than a century elapsed before the fortifications were
+completed. This was partly owing to the Black Death, which left few
+men in Yarmouth to carry on the work. The walls were built of cut
+flint and Caen stone, and extended from the north-east tower in St.
+Nicholas Churchyard, called King Henry's Tower, to Blackfriars Tower
+at the south end, and from the same King Henry's Tower to the
+north-west tower on the bank of the Bure. Only a few years ago a large
+portion of this, north of Ramp Row, now called Rampart Road, was taken
+down, much to the regret of many. And here I may mention a grand
+movement which might be with advantage imitated in every historic
+town. A small private company has been formed called the &quot;Great
+Yarmouth Historical Buildings, Limited.&quot; Its object is <a name="Page_41"></a><a name="Page_42"></a>to acquire
+and preserve the relics of ancient Yarmouth. The founders deserve the
+highest praise for their public spirit and patriotism. How many
+cherished objects in Vanishing England might have been preserved if
+each town or county possessed such a valuable association! This
+Yarmouth society owns the remains of the cloisters of Grey Friars and
+other remains of ancient buildings. It is only to be regretted that it
+was not formed earlier. There were nine gates in the walls of the
+town, but none of them are left, and of the sixteen towers which
+protected the walls only a very few remain.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P41"></a><img src="./images/il013.png" alt="Bone Tower" title="" /><br />
+The &quot;Bone Tower&quot;, Town walls, Great Yarmouth</p>
+
+<p>These walls guard much that is important. The ecclesiastical buildings
+are very fine, including the largest parish church in England, founded
+by the same Herbert de Losinga whose good work we saw at King's Lynn.
+The church of St. Nicholas has had many vicissitudes, and is now one
+of the finest in the country. It was in medieval times the church of a
+Benedictine Priory; a cell of the monastery at Norwich and the Priory
+Hall remains, and is now restored and used as a school. Royal guests
+have been entertained there, but part of the buildings were turned
+into cottages and the great hall into stables. As we have said, part
+of the Grey Friars Monastery remains, and also part of the house of
+the Augustine Friars. The Yarmouth rows are a great feature of the
+town. They are not like the Chester rows, but are long, narrow streets
+crossing the town from east to west, only six feet wide, and one row
+called Kitty-witches only measures at one end two feet three inches.
+It has been suggested that this plan of the town arose from the
+fishermen hanging out their nets to dry and leaving a narrow passage
+between each other's nets, and that in course of time these narrow
+passages became defined and were permanently retained. In former days
+rich merchants and traders lived in the houses that line these rows,
+and had large gardens behind their dwellings; and sometimes you can
+see relics of former greatness&mdash;a panelled room or a richly decorated
+ceiling. But the ancient glory of the <a name="Page_43"></a><a name="Page_44"></a>rows is past, and the houses
+are occupied now by fishermen or labourers. These rows are so narrow
+that no ordinary vehicle could be driven along them. Hence there arose
+special Yarmouth carts about three and a half feet wide and twelve
+feet long with wheels underneath the body. Very brave and gallant have
+always been the fishermen of Yarmouth, not only in fighting the
+elements, but in defeating the enemies of England. History tells of
+many a sea-fight in which they did good service to their king and
+country. They gallantly helped to win the battle of Sluys, and sent
+forty-three ships and one thousand men to help with the siege of
+Calais in the time of Edward III. They captured and burned the town
+and harbour of Cherbourg in the time of Edward I, and performed many
+other acts of daring.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P43"></a><img src="./images/il014.png"  alt="Row No. 83" title="" /><br />
+Row No. 83, Great Yarmouth</p>
+
+<p>One of the most interesting houses in the town is the Tolhouse, the
+centre of the civic life of Yarmouth. It is said to be six hundred
+years old, having been erected in the time of Henry III, though some
+of the windows are decorated, but may have been inserted later. Here
+the customs or tolls were collected, and the Corporation held its
+meetings. There is a curious open external staircase leading to the
+first floor, where the great hall is situated. Under the hall is a
+gaol, a wretched prison wherein the miserable captives were chained to
+a beam that ran down the centre. Nothing in the town bears stronger
+witness to the industry and perseverance of the Yarmouth men than the
+harbour. They have scoured the sea for a thousand years to fill their
+nets with its spoil, and made their trade of world-wide fame, but
+their port speaks louder in their praise. Again and again has the
+fickle sea played havoc with their harbour, silting it up with sand
+and deserting the town as if in revenge for the harvest they reap from
+her. They have had to cut out no less than seven harbours in the
+course of the town's existence, and royally have they triumphed over
+all difficulties and made Yarmouth a great and prosperous port.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_45"></a>Near Yarmouth is the little port of Gorleston with its old jetty-head,
+of which we give an illustration. It was once the rival of Yarmouth.
+The old magnificent church of the Augustine Friars stood in this
+village and had a lofty, square, embattled tower which was a landmark
+to sailors. But the church was unroofed and despoiled at the
+Reformation, and its remains were pulled down in 1760, only a small
+portion of the tower remaining, and this fell a victim to a violent
+storm at the beginning of the last century. The grand parish church
+was much plundered at the Reformation, and left piteously bare by the
+despoilers.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P45"></a><img src="./images/il015.png"  alt="Old Jetty" title="" /><br />
+The Old Jetty, Gorleston</p>
+
+<p>The town, now incorporated with Yarmouth, has a proud boast:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Gorleston was Gorleston ere Yarmouth begun,<br />
+ And will be Gorleston  when Yarmouth is done. </p>
+
+<p>Another leading East Anglian port in former days was the county town
+of Suffolk, Ipswich. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
+ships from most of the countries of Western Europe disembarked their
+cargoes on its quays&mdash;wines from Spain, timber from Norway, cloth from
+Flanders, salt from France, and &quot;mercerie&quot; from Italy left its crowded
+wharves to be offered for sale in <a name="Page_46"></a>the narrow, busy streets of the
+borough. Stores of fish from Iceland, bales of wool, loads of untanned
+hides, as well as the varied agricultural produce of the district,
+were exposed twice in the week on the market stalls.<a name="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6"><sup>6</sup></a> The learned
+editor of the <i>Memorials of Old Suffolk</i>, who knows the old town so
+well, tells us that the stalls of the numerous markets lay within a
+narrow limit of space near the principal churches of the town&mdash;St.
+Mary-le-Tower, St. Mildred, and St. Lawrence. The Tavern Street of
+to-day was the site of the flesh market or cowerye. A narrow street
+leading thence to the Tower Church was the Poultry, and Cooks' Row,
+Butter Market, Cheese and Fish markets were in the vicinity. The
+manufacture of leather was the leading industry of old Ipswich, and
+there was a goodly company of skinners, barkers, and tanners employed
+in the trade. Tavern Street had, as its name implies, many taverns,
+and was called the Vintry, from the large number of opulent vintners
+who carried on their trade with London and Bordeaux. Many of these men
+were not merely peaceful merchants, but fought with Edward III in his
+wars with France and were knighted <a name="Page_47"></a>for their feats of arms. Ipswich
+once boasted of a castle which was destroyed in Stephen's reign. In
+Saxon times it was fortified by a ditch and a rampart which were
+destroyed by the Danes, but the fortifications were renewed in the
+time of King John, when a wall was built round the town with four
+gates which took their names from the points of the compass. Portions
+of these remain to bear <a name="Page_48"></a>witness to the importance of this ancient
+town. We give views of an old building near the custom-house in
+College Street and Fore Street, examples of the narrow, tortuous
+thoroughfares which modern improvements have not swept away.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P46"></a><img src="./images/il016.png" alt="Tudor House" title="" /><br />
+Tudor House, Ipswich, near the Custom House</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P47"></a><img src="./images/il017.png"  alt="Three-gabled house" title="" /><br />
+Three-gabled House, Fore Street, Ipswich</p>
+
+<p>We cannot give accounts of all the old fortified towns in England and
+can only make selections. We have alluded to the ancient walls of
+York. Few cities can rival it in interest and architectural beauty,
+its relics of Roman times, its stately and magnificent cathedral, the
+beautiful ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, the numerous churches exhibiting
+all the grandeur of the various styles of Gothic architecture, the old
+merchants' hall, and the quaint old narrow streets with gabled houses
+and widely projecting storeys. And then there is the varied history of
+the place dating from far-off Roman times. Not the least interesting
+feature of York are its gates and walls. Some parts of the walls are
+Roman, that curious thirteen-sided building called the multangular
+tower forming part of it, and also the lower part of the wall leading
+from this tower to Bootham Bar, the upper part being of later origin.
+These walls have witnessed much fighting, and the cannons in the Civil
+War during the siege in 1644 battered down some portions of them and
+sorely tried their hearts. But they have been kept in good
+preservation and repaired at times, and the part on the west of the
+Ouse is especially well preserved. You can see some Norman and Early
+English work, but the bulk of it belongs to Edwardian times, when York
+played a great part in the history of England, and King Edward I made
+it his capital during the war with Scotland, and all the great nobles
+of England sojourned there. Edward II spent much time there, and the
+minster saw the marriage of his son. These walls were often sorely
+needed to check the inroads of the Scots. After Bannockburn fifteen
+thousand of these northern warriors advanced to the gates of York. The
+four gates of the city are very remarkable. Micklegate Bar consists of
+a square tower built over a circular arch of<a name="Page_49"></a> Norman date with
+embattled turrets at the angles. On it the heads of traitors were
+formerly exposed. It bears on its front the arms of France as well as
+those of England.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P49"></a><img src="./images/il018.png"  alt="Melia's Passage" title="" /><br />
+&quot;Melia's Passage,&quot; York</p>
+
+<p>Bootham Bar is the main entrance from the north, and has a Norman arch
+with later additions and turrets with narrow slits for the discharge
+of arrows. It saw the burning of the suburb of Bootham in 1265 and
+much bloodshed, when a mighty quarrel raged between the citizens <a name="Page_50"></a>and
+the monks of the Abbey of St. Mary owing to the abuse of the privilege
+of sanctuary possessed by the monastery. Monk Bar has nothing to do
+with monks. Its former name was Goodramgate, and after the Restoration
+it was changed to Monk Bar in honour of General Monk. The present
+structure was probably built in the fourteenth century. Walmgate Bar,
+a strong, formidable structure, was built in the reign of Edward I,
+and as we have said, it is the only gate that retains its curious
+barbican, originally built in the time of Edward III and rebuilt in
+1648. The inner front of the gate has been altered from its original
+form in order to secure more accommodation within. The remains of the
+Clifford's Tower, which played an important part in the siege, tell of
+the destruction caused by the blowing up of the magazine in 1683, an
+event which had more the appearance of design than accident. York
+abounds with quaint houses and narrow streets. We give an illustration
+of the curious Melia's Passage; the origin of the name I am at a loss
+to conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>Chester is, we believe, the only city in England which has retained
+the entire circuit of its walls complete. According to old unreliable
+legends, Marius, or Marcius, King of the British, grandson of
+Cymbeline, who began his reign A.D. 73, first surrounded Chester with
+a wall, a mysterious person who must be classed with Leon Gawr, or
+Vawr, a mighty strong giant who founded Chester, digging caverns in
+the rocks for habitations, and with the story of King Leir, who first
+made human habitations in the future city. Possibly there was here a
+British camp. It was certainly a Roman city, and has preserved the
+form and plan which the Romans were accustomed to affect; its four
+principal streets diverging at right angles from a common centre, and
+extending north, east, south, and west, and terminating in a gate, the
+other streets forming insul&aelig; as at Silchester. There is every reason
+to believe that the Romans surrounded the city with a wall. Its
+strength was often tried. Hither the Saxons came under<a name="Page_51"></a> Ethelfrith and
+pillaged the city, but left it to the Britons, who were not again
+dislodged until Egbert came in 828 and recovered it. The Danish
+pirates came here and were besieged by Alfred, who slew all within its
+walls. These walls were standing but ruinous when the noble daughter
+of Alfred, Ethelfleda, restored them in 907. A volume would be needed
+to give a full account of Chester's varied history, and our main
+concern is with the treasures that remain. The circumference of the
+walls is nearly two miles, and there are four principal gates besides
+posterns&mdash;the North, East, Bridge-gate, and Water-gate. The North Gate
+was in the charge of the citizens; the others were held by persons who
+had that office by serjeanty under the Earls of Chester, and were
+entitled to certain tolls, which, with the custody of the gates, were
+frequently purchased by the Corporation. The custody of the
+Bridge-gate belonged to the Raby family in the reign of Edward III. It
+had two round towers, on the westernmost of which was an octagonal
+water-tower. These were all taken down in 1710-81 and the gate
+rebuilt. The East Gate was given by Edward I to Henry Bradford, who
+was bound to find a crannoc and a bushel for measuring the salt that
+might be brought in. Needless to say, the old gate has vanished. It
+was of Roman architecture, and consisted of two arches formed by large
+stones. Between the tops of the arches, which were cased with Norman
+masonry, was the whole-length figure of a Roman soldier. This gate was
+a <i>porta principalis</i>, the termination of the great Watling Street
+that led from Dover through London to Chester. It was destroyed in
+1768, and the present gate erected by Earl Grosvenor. The custody of
+the Water-gate belonged to the Earls of Derby. It also was destroyed,
+and the present arch erected in 1788. A new North Gate was built in
+1809 by Robert, Earl Grosvenor. The principal postern-gates were Cale
+Yard Gate, made by the abbot and convent in the reign of Edward I as a
+passage to their kitchen garden; New-gate, formerly Woolfield or
+Wolf-gate, repaired in 1608, <a name="Page_52"></a>also called Pepper-gate;<a name="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7"><sup>7</sup></a> and
+Ship-gate, or Hole-in-the-wall, which alone retains its Roman arch,
+and leads to a ferry across the Dee.</p>
+
+<p>The walls are strengthened by round towers so placed as not to be
+beyond bowshot of each other, in order that their arrows might reach
+the enemy who should attempt to scale the walls in the intervals. At
+the north-east corner is Newton's Tower, better known as the Phoenix
+from a sculptured figure, the ensign of one of the city guilds,
+appearing over its door. From this tower Charles I saw the battle of
+Rowton Heath and the defeat of his troops during the famous siege of
+Chester. This was one of the most prolonged and deadly in the whole
+history of the Civil War. It would take many pages to describe the
+varied fortunes of the gallant Chester men, who were at length
+constrained to feed on horses, dogs, and cats. There is much in the
+city to delight the antiquary and the artist&mdash;the famous rows, the
+three-gabled old timber mansion of the Stanleys with its massive
+staircase, oaken floors, and panelled walls, built in 1591, Bishop
+Lloyd's house in Water-gate with its timber front sculptured with
+Scripture subjects, and God's Providence House with its motto &quot;God's
+Providence is mine inheritance,&quot; the inhabitants of which are said to
+have escaped one of the terrible plagues that used to rage frequently
+in old Chester.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P53"></a><img src="./images/il019.png" alt="Detail of half-timbered house" title="" /><br />
+Detail of Half-timbered House in High Street, Shrewsbury</p>
+
+<p>Journeying southwards we come to Shrewsbury, another walled town,
+abounding with delightful half-timbered houses, less spoiled than any
+town we know. It was never a Roman town, though six miles away, at
+Uriconium, the Romans had a flourishing city with a great basilica,
+baths, shops, and villas, and the usual accessories of luxury.
+Tradition says that its earliest Celtic name was Pengwern, where a
+British prince had his <a name="Page_53"></a><a name="Page_54"></a>palace; but the town Scrobbesbyrig came into
+existence under Offa's rule in Mercia, and with the Normans came Roger
+de Montgomery, Shrewsbury's first Earl, and a castle and the stately
+abbey of SS. Peter and Paul. A little later the town took to itself
+walls, which were abundantly necessary on account of the constant
+inroads of the wild Welsh.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">For the barbican's massy and high,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Bloudie Jacke!</span>
+And the oak-door is heavy and brown;<br />
+And with iron it's plated and machicolated,<br />
+To pour boiling oil and lead down;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">How you'd frown</span>
+Should a ladle-full fall on your crown!</p>
+
+<p class="poem">The rock that it stands on is steep,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Bloudie Jacke!</span>
+To gain it one's forced for to creep;<br />
+The Portcullis is strong, and the Drawbridge is long,<br />
+And the water runs all round the Keep;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">At a peep</span>
+You can see that the moat's very deep!</p>
+
+<p>So rhymed the author of the <i>Ingoldsby Legends</i>, when in his &quot;Legend
+of Shropshire&quot; he described the red stone fortress that towers over
+the loop of the Severn enclosing the picturesque old town of
+Shrewsbury. The castle, or rather its keep, for the outworks have
+disappeared, has been modernized past antiquarian value now. Memories
+of its importance as the key of the Northern Marches, and of the
+ancient custom of girding the knights of the shire with their swords
+by the sheriffs on the grass plot of its inner court, still remain.
+The town now stands on a peninsula girt by the Severn. On the high
+ground between the narrow neck stood the castle, and under its shelter
+most of the houses of the inhabitants. Around this was erected the
+first wall. The latest historian of Shrewsbury<a name="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8"><sup>8</sup></a> tells us that it
+started from the gate of the castle, passed along the ridge at the
+back of Pride Hill, at the bottom of which it turned along the line of
+High<a name="Page_55"></a> Street, past St. Julian's Church which overhung it, to the top
+of Wyle Cop, when it followed the ridge back to the castle. Of the
+part extending from Pride Hill to Wyle Cop only scant traces exist at
+the back of more modern buildings.</p>
+
+<p>The town continued to grow and more extensive defences were needed,
+and in the time of Henry III, Mr. Auden states that this followed the
+old line at the back of Pride Hill, but as the ground began to slope
+downwards, another wall branched from it in the direction of Roushill
+and extended to the Welsh Bridge. This became the main defence,
+leaving the old wall as an inner rampart. From the Welsh Bridge the
+new wall turned up Claremont Bank to where St. Chad's Church now
+stands, and where one of the original towers stood. Then it passed
+along Murivance, where the only existing tower is to be seen, and so
+along the still remaining portion of the wall to English Bridge, where
+it turned up the hill at the back of what is now Dogpole, and passing
+the Watergate, again joined the fortifications of the castle.<a name="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9"><sup>9</sup></a> The
+castle itself was reconstructed by Prince Edward, the son of Henry
+III, at the end of the thirteenth century, and is of the Edwardian
+type of concentric castle. The Norman keep was incorporated within a
+larger circle of tower and wall, forming an inner bailey; besides this
+there was formerly an outer bailey, in which were various buildings,
+including the chapel of St. Nicholas. Only part of the buildings on
+one side of the inner bailey remains in its original form, but the
+massive character of the whole may be judged from the fragments now
+visible.</p>
+
+<p>These walls guarded a noble town full of churches and monasteries,
+merchants' houses, guild halls, and much else. We will glance at the
+beauties that remain: St. Mary's, containing specimens of every style
+of architecture from Norman downward, with its curious foreign glass;
+St. Julian's, mainly rebuilt in 1748, though the <a name="Page_56"></a><a name="Page_57"></a>old tower remains;
+St. Alkmund's; the Church of St. Chad; St. Giles's Church; and the
+nave and refectory pulpit of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul. It
+is distressing to see this interesting gem of fourteenth-century
+architecture amid the incongruous surroundings of a coalyard. You can
+find considerable remains of the domestic buildings of the Grey
+Friars' Monastery near the footbridge across the Severn, and also of
+the home of the Austin Friars in a builder's yard at the end of Baker
+Street.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P56"></a>
+<a href="./images/il020.png"><img src="./images/il020_th.png" alt="Tower on Town Hall" title="" /></a><br />
+Tower on the Town Wall, Shrewsbury</p>
+
+<p>In many towns we find here and there an old half-timbered dwelling,
+but in Shrewsbury there is a surprising wealth of them&mdash;streets full
+of them, bearing such strange medieval names as &quot;Mardel&quot; or &quot;Wyle
+Cop.&quot; Shrewsbury is second to no other town in England in the interest
+of its ancient domestic buildings. There is the gatehouse of the old
+Council House, bearing the date 1620, with its high gable and carved
+barge-boards, its panelled front, the square spaces between the
+upright and horizontal timbers being ornamented with cut timber. The
+old buildings of the famous Shrewsbury School are now used as a Free
+Library and Museum and abound in interest. The house remains in which
+Prince Rupert stayed during his sojourn in 1644, then owned by &quot;Master
+Jones the lawyer,&quot; at the west end of St. Mary's Church, with its fine
+old staircase. Whitehall, a fine mansion of red sandstone, was built
+by Richard Prince, a lawyer, in 1578-82, &quot;to his great chardge with
+fame to hym and hys posterite for ever.&quot; The Old Market Hall in the
+Renaissance style, with its mixture of debased Gothic and classic
+details, is worthy of study. Even in Shrewsbury we have to record the
+work of the demon of destruction. The erection of the New Market Hall
+entailed the disappearance of several old picturesque houses.
+Bellstone House, erected in 1582, is incorporated in the National
+Provincial Bank. The old mansion known as Vaughan's Place is swallowed
+up by the music-hall, though part of the ancient dwelling-place
+<a name="Page_58"></a>remains. St. Peter's Abbey Church in the commencement of the
+nineteenth century had an extraordinary annexe of timber and plaster,
+probably used at one time as parsonage house, which, with several
+buttressed remains of the adjacent conventual buildings, have long ago
+been squared up and &quot;improved&quot; out of existence. Rowley's mansion, in
+Hill's Lane, built of brick in 1618 by William Rowley, is now a
+warehouse. Butcher Row has some old houses with projecting storeys,
+including a fine specimen of a medieval shop. Some of the houses in
+Grope Lane lean together from opposite sides of the road, so that
+people in the highest storey can almost shake hands with their
+neighbours across the way. You can see the &quot;Olde House&quot; in which Mary
+Tudor is said to have stayed, and the mansion of the Owens, built in
+1592 as an inscription tells us, and that of the Irelands, with its
+range of bow-windows, four storeys high, and terminating in gables,
+erected about 1579. The half-timbered hall of the Drapers' Guild, some
+old houses in Frankwell, including the inn with the quaint sign&mdash;the
+String of Horses, the ancient hostels&mdash;the Lion, famous in the
+coaching age, the Ship, and the Raven&mdash;Bennett's Hall, which was the
+mint when Shrewsbury played its part in the Civil War, and last, but
+not least, the house in Wyle Cop, one of the finest in the town, where
+Henry Earl of Richmond stayed on his way to Bosworth field to win the
+English Crown. Such are some of the beauties of old Shrewsbury which
+happily have not yet vanished.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P59"></a><img src="./images/il021.png" alt="House Earl of Richmond Stayed In" title="" /><br />
+House that the Earl of Richmond stayed in before the Battle of Bosworth, Shrewsbury</p>
+
+<p>Not far removed from Shrewsbury is Coventry, which at one time could
+boast of a city wall and a castle. In the reign of Richard II this
+wall was built, strengthened by towers. Leland, writing in the time of
+Henry VIII, states that the city was begun to be walled in when Edward
+II reigned, and that it had six gates, many fair towers, and streets
+well built with timber. Other writers speak of thirty-two towers and
+twelve gates. But few traces of these remain. The citizens of Coventry
+took an <a name="Page_59"></a><a name="Page_60"></a>active part in the Civil War in favour of the Parliamentary
+army, and when Charles II came to the throne he ordered these defences
+to be demolished. The gates were left, but most of them have since
+been destroyed. Coventry is a city of fine old timber-framed
+fifteenth-century houses with gables and carved barge-boards and
+projecting storeys, though many of them are decayed and may not last
+many years. The city has had a fortunate immunity from serious fires.
+We give an illustration of one of the old Coventry streets called Spon
+Street, with its picturesque houses. These old streets are numerous,
+tortuous and irregular. One of the richest and most interesting
+examples of domestic architecture in England is St. Mary's Hall,
+erected in the time of Henry VI. Its origin is connected with ancient
+guilds of the city, and in it were stored their books and archives.
+The grotesquely carved roof, minstrels' gallery, armoury, state-chair,
+great painted window, and a fine specimen of fifteenth-century
+tapestry are interesting features of this famous hall, which furnishes
+a vivid idea of the manners and civic customs of the age when Coventry
+was the favourite resort of kings and princes. It has several fine
+churches, though the cathedral was levelled with the ground by that
+arch-destroyer Henry VIII. Coventry remains one of the most
+interesting towns in England.</p>
+
+<p>One other walled town we will single out for especial notice in this
+chapter&mdash;the quaint, picturesque, peaceful, placid town of Rye on the
+Sussex coast. It was once wooed by the sea, which surrounded the rocky
+island on which it stands, but the fickle sea has retired and left it
+lonely on its hill with a long stretch of marshland between it and the
+waves. This must have taken place about the fifteenth century. Our
+illustration of a disused mooring-post (p. 24) is a symbol of the
+departed greatness of the town as a naval station. The River Rother
+connects it with the sea, and the few barges and humble craft and a
+few small shipbuilding yards remind it of its palmy <a name="Page_61"></a><a name="Page_62"></a>days when it was
+a member of the Cinque Ports, a rich and prosperous town that sent
+forth its ships to fight the naval battles of England and win honour
+for Rye and St. George. During the French wars English vessels often
+visited French ports and towns along the coast and burned and pillaged
+them. The French sailors retaliated with equal zest, and many of our
+southern towns have suffered from fire and sword during those
+adventurous days.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P61"></a>
+<a href="./images/il022.png"><img src="./images/il022_th.png" alt="Old Houses" title="" /></a><br />
+Old Houses formerly standing in Spon Street Coventry</p>
+
+<p>Rye was strongly fortified by a wall with gates and towers and a
+fosse, but the defences suffered grievously from the attacks of the
+French, and the folk of Rye were obliged to send a moving petition to
+King Richard II, praying him &quot;to have consideration of the poor town
+of Rye, inasmuch as it had been several times taken, and is unable
+further to repair the walls, wherefore the town is, on the sea-side,
+open to enemies.&quot; I am afraid that the King did not at once grant
+their petition, as two years later, in 1380, the French came again and
+set fire to the town. With the departure of the sea and the
+diminishing of the harbour, the population decreased and the
+prosperity of Rye declined. Refugees from France have on two notable
+occasions added to the number of its inhabitants. After the Massacre
+of St. Bartholomew seven hundred scared and frightened Protestants
+arrived at Rye and brought with them their industry, and later on,
+after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, many Huguenots settled
+here and made it almost a French town. We need not record all the
+royal visits, the alarms of attack, the plagues, and other incidents
+that have diversified the life of Rye. We will glance at the relics
+that remain. The walls seem never to have recovered from the attack of
+the French, but one gate is standing&mdash;the Landgate on the north-east
+of the town, built in 1360, and consisting of a broad arch flanked by
+two massive towers with chambers above for archers and defenders.
+Formerly there were two other gates, but these have vanished save only
+the sculptured arms of the<a name="Page_63"></a><a name="Page_64"></a> Cinque Ports that once adorned the Strand
+Gate. The Ypres tower is a memorial of the ancient strength of the
+town, and was originally built by William de Ypres, Earl of Kent, in
+the twelfth century, but has received later additions. It has a stern,
+gaunt appearance, and until recent times was used as a jail. The
+church possesses many points of unique interest. The builders began in
+the twelfth century to build the tower and transepts, which are
+Norman; then they proceeded with the nave, which is Transitional; and
+when they reached the choir, which is very large and fine, the style
+had merged into the Early English. Later windows were inserted in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The church has suffered with the
+town at the hands of the French invaders, who did much damage. The old
+clock, with its huge swinging pendulum, is curious. The church has a
+collection of old books, including some old Bibles, including a
+Vinegar and a Breeches Bible, and some stone cannon-balls, mementoes
+of the French invasion of 1448.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P63"></a>
+<a href="./images/il023.png"><img src="./images/il023_th.png"  alt="West Street" title="" /></a><br />
+West Street, Rye</p>
+
+<p>Near the church is the Town Hall, which contains several relics of
+olden days. The list of mayors extends from the time of Edward I, and
+we notice the long continuance of the office in families. Thus the
+Lambs held office from 1723 to 1832, and the Grebells from 1631 to
+1741. A great tragedy happened in the churchyard. A man named Breedes
+had a grudge against one of the Lambs, and intended to kill him. He
+saw, as he thought, his victim walking along the dark path through the
+shrubs in the churchyard, attacked and murdered him. But he had made a
+mistake; his victim was Mr. Grebell. The murderer was hanged and
+quartered. The Town Hall contains the ancient pillory, which was
+described as a very handy affair, handcuffs, leg-irons, special
+constables' staves, which were always much needed for the usual riots
+on Gunpowder Plot Day, and the old primitive fire-engine dated 1745.
+The town has some remarkable <a name="Page_65"></a>plate. There is the mayor's handbell
+with the inscription:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P"></a>O MATER DEI<br />
+MEMENTO MEI.<br />
+1566.<br />
+PETRUS GHEINEUS<br />
+ME FECIT.</p>
+
+<p>The maces of Queen Elizabeth with the date 1570 and bearing the
+fleur-de-lis and the Tudor rose are interesting, and the two silver
+maces presented by George III, bearing the arms of Rye and weighing
+962 oz., are said to be the finest in Europe.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P65"></a><img src="./images/il024.png"  alt="Monogram and Inscription" title="" /><br />
+Monogram and Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye</p>
+
+<p>The chief charm of Rye is to walk along the narrow streets and lanes,
+and see the picturesque rows and groups of old fifteenth-and
+sixteenth-century houses with their tiled roofs and gables,
+weather-boarded or tile-hung after the manner of Sussex cottages,
+graceful bay-windows&mdash;altogether pleasing. Wherever one wanders one
+meets with these charming dwellings, especially in West Street and
+Pump Street; the oldest house in Rye being at the corner of the
+churchyard. The Mermaid Inn is delightful both outside and inside,
+with its low panelled rooms, immense fire-places and dog-grates.<a name="Page_66"></a> We
+see the monogram and names and dates carved on the stone fire-places,
+1643, 1646, the name Loffelholtz seeming to indicate some foreign
+refugee or settler. It is pleasant to find at least in one town in
+England so much that has been left unaltered and so little spoilt.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P66"></a><img src="./images/il025.png"  alt="Inscription" title="" /><br />
+Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="Page_67"></a><a name="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>IN STREETS AND LANES</h3>
+
+
+<p>I have said in another place that no country in the world can boast of
+possessing rural homes and villages which have half the charm and
+picturesqueness of our English cottages and hamlets.<a name="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10"><sup>10</sup></a> They have to
+be known in order that they may be loved. The hasty visitor may pass
+them by and miss half their attractiveness. They have to be wooed in
+varying moods in order that they may display their charms&mdash;when the
+blossoms are bright in the village orchards, when the sun shines on
+the streams and pools and gleams on the glories of old thatch, when
+autumn has tinged the trees with golden tints, or when the hoar frost
+makes their bare branches beautiful again with new and glistening
+foliage. Not even in their summer garb do they look more beautiful.
+There is a sense of stability and a wondrous variety caused by the
+different nature of the materials used, the peculiar stone indigenous
+in various districts and the individuality stamped upon them by
+traditional modes of building.</p>
+
+<p>We have still a large number of examples of the humbler kind of
+ancient domestic architecture, but every year sees the destruction of
+several of these old buildings, which a little care and judicious
+restoration might have saved. Ruskin's words should be writ in bold,
+big letters at the head of the by-laws of every district council.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;Watch an old building with anxious care; guard it as best you
+   may, and at any cost, from any influence of dilapidation. Count
+   its stones as you would the jewels of a crown. Set watchers about
+   it, as if at the gate of a <a name="Page_68"></a>besieged city; bind it together with
+   iron when it loosens; stay it with timber when it declines. Do
+   not care about the unsightliness of the aid&mdash;better a crutch than
+   a lost limb; and do this tenderly and reverently and continually,
+   and many a generation will still be born and pass away beneath
+   its shadow.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P68"></a><img src="./images/il026.png"  alt="Relic of Lynn Siege" title="" /><br />
+Relic of Lynn Siege in Hampton Court, King's Lynn</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P69"></a>
+<a href="./images/il027.png"><img src="./images/il027_th.png" alt="Hampton Court, King's Lynn, Norfolk" title="" /></a><br />
+Hampton Court, King's Lynn, Norfolk</p>
+
+<p>If this sound advice had been universally taken many a beautiful old
+cottage would have been spared to us, and our eyes would not be
+offended by the wondrous creations of the estate agents and local
+builders, who have no other ambition but to build cheaply. The
+contrast between the new and the old is indeed deplorable. The old
+cottage is a thing of beauty. Its odd, irregular form and various
+harmonious colouring, the effects of weather, time, and accident,
+environed with smiling verdure and sweet old-fashioned garden flowers,
+its thatched roof, high gabled front, inviting porch overgrown with
+creepers, and casement windows, all combine to form a fair and
+beautiful home. And then look at the modern cottage with its glaring
+brick walls, slate roof, ungainly stunted chimney, and note the
+difference. Usually these modern cottages are built in a row, each one
+exactly like its fellow, with <a name="Page_69"></a><a name="Page_70"></a>door and window frames exactly alike,
+brought over ready-made from Norway or Sweden. The walls are thin, and
+the winds of winter blow through them piteously, and if a man and his
+wife should unfortunately &quot;have words&quot; (the pleasing country euphemism
+for a violent quarrel) all their neighbours can hear them. The scenery
+is utterly spoilt by these ugly eyesores. Villas at Hindhead seem to
+have broken out upon the once majestic hill like a red skin eruption.
+The jerry-built villa is invading our heaths and pine-woods; every
+street in our towns is undergoing improvement; we are covering whole
+counties with houses. In Lancashire no sooner does one village end its
+mean streets than another begins. London is ever enlarging itself,
+extending its great maw over all the country round. The Rev. Canon
+Erskine Clarke, Vicar of Battersea, when he first came to reside near
+Clapham Junction, remembers the green fields and quiet lanes with
+trees on each side that are now built over. The street leading from
+the station lined with shops forty years ago had hedges and trees on
+each side. There were great houses situated in beautiful gardens and
+parks wherein resided some of the great City merchants, county
+families, the leaders in old days of the influential &quot;Clapham sect.&quot;
+These gardens and parks have been covered with streets and rows of
+cottages and villas; some of the great houses have been pulled down
+and others turned into schools or hospitals, valued only at the rent
+of the land on which they stand. All this is inevitable. You cannot
+stop all this any more than Mrs. Partington could stem the Atlantic
+tide with a housemaid's mop. But ere the flood has quite swallowed up
+all that remains of England's natural and architectural beauties, it
+may be useful to glance at some of the buildings that remain in town
+and country ere they have quite vanished.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P71"></a>
+<img src="./images/il028.png" alt="Mill Street" title="" /><br />
+Mill Street, Warwick</p>
+
+<p>Beneath the shade of the lordly castle of Warwick, which has played
+such an important part in the history of England, the town of Warwick
+sprang into existence, seeking protection in lawless times from its
+strong walls <a name="Page_71"></a><a name="Page_72"></a>and powerful garrison. Through its streets often rode
+in state the proud rulers of the castle with their men-at-arms&mdash;the
+Beauchamps, the Nevilles, including the great &quot;King-maker,&quot; Richard
+Neville, the Dudleys, and the Grevilles. They contributed to the
+building of their noble castle, protected the town, and were borne to
+their last resting-place in the fine church, where their tombs remain.
+The town has many relics of its lords, and possesses many
+half-timbered graceful houses. Mill Street is one of the most
+picturesque groups of old-time dwellings, a picture that lingers in
+our minds long after we have left the town and fortress of the grim
+old Earls of Warwick.</p>
+
+<p>Oxford is a unique city. There is no place like it in the world.
+Scholars of Cambridge, of course, will tell me that I am wrong, and
+that the town on the Cam is a far superior place, and then point
+triumphantly to &quot;the backs.&quot; Yes, they are very beautiful, but as a
+loyal son of Oxford I may be allowed to prefer that stately city with
+its towers and spires, its wealth of college buildings, its exquisite
+architecture unrivalled in the world. Nor is the new unworthy of the
+old. The buildings at Magdalen, at Brazenose, and even the New Schools
+harmonize not unseemly with the ancient structures. Happily Keble is
+far removed from the heart of the city, so that that somewhat
+unsatisfactory, unsuccessful pile of brickwork interferes not with its
+joy. In the streets and lanes of modern Oxford we can search for and
+discover many types of old-fashioned, humble specimens of domestic
+art, and we give as an illustration some houses which date back to
+Tudor times, but have, alas! been recently demolished.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P73"></a>
+<a href="./images/il029.png"><img src="./images/il029_th.png"  alt="Tudor Tenements" title="" /></a><br />
+Tudor Tenements, New Inn Hall St, Oxford. Now demolished.</p>
+
+<p>Many conjectures have been made as to the reason why our forefathers
+preferred to rear their houses with the upper storeys projecting out
+into the streets. We can understand that in towns where space was
+limited it would be an advantage to increase the size of the upper
+rooms, if one did not object to the lack of air in the <a name="Page_73"></a>narrow street
+and the absence of sunlight. But we find these same projecting storeys
+in the depth of the country, where there could have been no
+restriction as to the ground to be occupied by the house. Possibly the
+fashion was first established of necessity in towns, and the
+traditional mode of building was continued in the country. Some say
+that by this means our ancestors tried to protect the lower part of
+the house, the foundations, from the influence of the weather; others
+with <a name="Page_74"></a>some ingenuity suggest that these projecting storeys were
+intended to form a covered walk for passengers in the streets, and to
+protect them from the showers of slops which the careless housewife of
+Elizabethan times cast recklessly from the upstairs windows.
+Architects tell us that it was purely a matter of construction. Our
+forefathers used to place four strong corner-posts, framed from the
+trunks of oak trees, firmly sunk into the ground with their roots left
+on and placed upward, the roots curving outwards so as to form
+supports for the upper storeys. These curved parts, and often the
+posts also, were often elaborately carved and ornamented, as in the
+example which our artist gives us of a corner-post of a house in
+Ipswich.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>The Charm of the English Village</i> I have tried to describe the
+methods of the construction of these timber-framed houses,<a name="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11"><sup>11</sup></a> and it
+is perhaps unnecessary for me to repeat what is there recorded. In
+fact, there were three types of these dwelling-places, to which have
+been given the names Post and Pan, Transom Framed, and Intertie Work.
+In judging of the age of a house it will be remembered that the nearer
+together the upright posts are placed the older the house is. The
+builders as time went on obtained greater confidence, set their posts
+wider apart, and held them together by transoms.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P75"></a>
+<a href="./images/il030.png"><img src="./images/il030_th.png"  alt="Gothic Corner Post" title="" /></a><br />
+Gothic Corner-post. The Half Moon Inn, Ipswich</p>
+
+<p>Surrey is a county of good cottages and farm-houses, and these have
+had their chroniclers in Miss Gertrude Jekyll's delightful <i>Old West
+Surrey</i> and in the more technical work of Mr. Ralph Nevill, F.S.A. The
+numerous works on cottage and farm-house building published by Mr.
+Batsford illustrate the variety of styles that prevailed in different
+counties, and which are mainly attributable to the variety in the
+local materials in the counties. Thus in the Cotswolds,
+Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Westmorland, Somersetshire,
+and elsewhere there is good building-stone; and there we find charming
+examples of stone-built cottages and farm-houses, <a name="Page_75"></a><a name="Page_76"></a>altogether
+satisfying. In several counties where there is little stone and large
+forests of timber we find the timber-framed dwelling flourishing in
+all its native beauty. In Surrey there are several materials for
+building, hence there is a charming diversity of domiciles. Even the
+same building sometimes shows walls of stone and brick, half-timber
+and plaster, half-timber and tile-hanging, half-timber with panels
+filled with red brick, and roofs of thatch or tiles, or stone slates
+which the Horsham quarries supplied.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P76"></a><img src="./images/il031.png"  alt="Timber-built House" title="" /><br />
+Timber-built House, Shrewsbury</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_77"></a>These Surrey cottages have changed with age. Originally they were
+built with timber frames, the panels being filled in with wattle and
+daub, but the storms of many winters have had their effect upon the
+structure. Rain drove through the walls, especially when the ends of
+the wattle rotted a little, and draughts were strong enough to blow
+out the rushlights and to make the house very uncomfortable. Oak
+timbers often shrink. Hence the joints came apart, and being exposed
+to the weather became decayed. In consequence of this the buildings
+settled, and new methods had to be devised to make them weather-proof.
+The villages therefore adopted two or three means in order to attain
+this end. They plastered the whole surface of the walls on the
+outside, or they hung them with deal boarding or covered them with
+tiles. In Surrey tile-hung houses are more common than in any other
+part of the country. This use of weather-tiles is not very ancient,
+probably not earlier than 1750, and much of this work was done in that
+century or early in the nineteenth. Many of these tile-hung houses are
+the old sixteenth-century timber-framed structures in a new shell.
+Weather-tiles are generally flatter and thinner than those used for
+roofing, and when bedded in mortar make a thoroughly weather-proof
+wall. Sometimes they are nailed to boarding, but the former plan makes
+the work more durable, though the courses are not so regular.<a name="Page_78"></a> These
+tiles have various shapes, of which the commonest is semicircular,
+resembling a fish-scale. The same form with a small square shoulder is
+very generally used, but there is a great variety, and sometimes those
+with ornamental ends are blended with plain ones. Age imparts a very
+beautiful colour to old tiles, and when covered with lichen they
+assume a charming appearance which artists love to depict.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P77"></a><img src="./images/il032.png" alt="Illustration" title="" /></p>
+
+<p>The mortar used in these old buildings is very strong and good. In
+order to strengthen the mortar used in Sussex and Surrey houses and
+elsewhere, the process of &quot;galleting&quot; or &quot;garreting&quot; was adopted. The
+brick-layers used to decorate the rather wide and uneven mortar joint
+with small pieces of black ironstone stuck into the mortar. Sussex was
+once famous for its ironwork, and ironstone is found in plenty near
+the surface of the ground in this district. &quot;Galleting&quot; dates back to
+Jacobean times, and is not to be found in sixteenth-century work.</p>
+
+<p>Sussex houses are usually whitewashed and have thatched roofs, except
+when Horsham slates or tiles are used. Thatch as a roofing material
+will soon have altogether vanished with other features of vanishing
+England. District councils in their by-laws usually insert regulations
+prohibiting thatch to be used for roofing. This is one of the
+mysteries of the legislation of district councils. Rules, suitable
+enough for towns, are applied to the country villages, where they are
+altogether unsuitable or unnecessary. The danger of fire makes it
+inadvisable to have thatched roofs in towns, or even in some villages
+where the houses are close together, but that does not apply to
+isolated cottages in the country. The district councils do not compel
+the removal of thatch, but prohibit new cottages from being roofed
+with that material. There is, however, another cause for the
+disappearance of thatched roofs, which form such a beautiful feature
+in the English landscape. Since mowing-machines came into general use
+in the harvest fields the straw is so bruised that it is not fit for
+thatching, at least it is not so suitable as the <a name="Page_79"></a><a name="Page_80"></a>straw which was cut
+by the hand. Thatching, too, is almost a lost art in the country.
+Indeed ricks have to be covered with thatch, but &quot;the work for this
+temporary purpose cannot compare with that of the old roof-thatcher,
+with his 'strood' or 'frail' to hold the loose straw, and his
+spars&mdash;split hazel rods pointed at each end&mdash;that with a dexterous
+twist in the middle make neat pegs for the fastening of the straw rope
+that he cleverly twists with a simple implement called a 'wimble.' The
+lowest course was finished with an ornamental bordering of rods with a
+diagonal criss-cross pattern between, all neatly pegged and held down
+by the spars.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12"><sup>12</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P79"></a>
+<a href="./images/il033.png"><img src="./images/il033_th.png"  alt="Missbrook Farm" title="" /></a><br />
+Missbrook Farm. Capel. Surrey.</p>
+
+<p>Horsham stone makes splendid roofing material. This stone easily
+flakes into plates like thick slates, and forms large grey flat slabs
+on which &quot;the weather works like a great artist in harmonies of moss
+lichen and stain. No roofing so combines dignity and homeliness, and
+no roofing, except possibly thatch (which, however, is short-lived),
+so surely passes into the landscape.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13"><sup>13</sup></a> It is to be regretted that
+this stone is no longer used for roofing&mdash;another feature of vanishing
+England. The stone is somewhat thick and heavy, and modern rafters are
+not adapted to bear their weight. If you want to have a roof of
+Horsham stone, you can only accomplish your purpose by pulling down an
+old cottage and carrying off the slabs. Perhaps the small Cotswold
+stone slabs are even more beautiful. Old Lancashire and Yorkshire
+cottages have heavy stone roofs which somewhat resemble those
+fashioned with Horsham slabs.</p>
+
+<p>The builders and masons of our country cottages were cunning men, and
+adapted their designs to their materials. You will have noticed that
+the pitch of the Horsham-slated roof is unusually flat. They observed
+that when the sides of the roof were deeply sloping, as in the case of
+thatched roofs, the heavy stone slates strained and dragged at the
+pegs and laths and fell and injured the roof. Hence <a name="Page_81"></a>they determined
+to make the slope less steep. Unfortunately the rain did not then
+easily run off, and in order to prevent the water penetrating into the
+house they were obliged to adopt additional precautions. Therefore
+they cemented their roofs and stopped them with mortar.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P81"></a><img src="./images/il034.png" alt="Cottage at Capel" title="" /><br />
+Cottage at Capel, Surrey </p>
+
+<p>Very lovely are these South Country cottages, peaceful, picturesque,
+pleasant, with their graceful gables and jutting eaves, altogether
+delightful. Well sang a loyal Sussex poet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">If I ever become a rich man,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or if ever I grow to be old,</span>
+I will build a house with deep thatch<a name="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14"><sup>14</sup></a><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To shelter me from the cold;</span>
+And there shall the Sussex songs be sung<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And the story of Sussex told.</span></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_82"></a>We give some good examples of Surrey cottages at the village of Capel
+in the neighbourhood of Dorking, a charming region for the study of
+cottage-building. There you can see some charming ingle-nooks in the
+interior of the dwellings, and some grand farm-houses. Attached to the
+ingle-nook is the oven, wherein bread is baked in the old-fashioned
+way, and the chimneys are large and carried up above the floor of the
+first storey, so as to form space for curing bacon.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P82"></a><img src="./images/il035.png" alt="Farm-house" title="" /><br />
+Farm-house, Horsmonden, Kent</p>
+
+<p>Horsmonden, Kent, near Lamberhurst, is beautifully situated among
+well-wooded scenery, and the farm-house shown in the illustration is a
+good example of the pleasant dwellings to be found therein.</p>
+
+<p>East Anglia has no good building-stone, and brick and flint are the
+principal materials used in that region. The <a name="Page_83"></a>houses built of the
+dark, dull, thin old bricks, not of the great staring modern
+varieties, are very charming, especially when they are seen against a
+background of wooded hills. We give an illustration of some cottages
+at Stow Langtoft, Suffolk.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P83"></a><img src="./images/il036.png"  alt="17th century Cottages" title="" /><br />
+Seventeenth-century Cottages, Stow Langtoft, Suffolk</p>
+
+<p>The old town of Banbury, celebrated for its cakes, its Cross, and its
+fine lady who rode on a white horse accompanied by the sound of bells,
+has some excellent &quot;black and white&quot; houses with pointed gables and
+enriched barge-boards pierced in every variety of patterns, their
+finials and pendants, and pargeted fronts, which give an air of
+picturesqueness contrasting strangely with the stiffness of <a name="Page_84"></a>the
+modern brick buildings. In one of these is established the old Banbury
+Cake Shop. In the High Street there is a very perfect example of these
+Elizabethan houses, erected about the year 1600. It has a fine oak
+staircase, the newels beautifully carved and enriched with pierced
+finials and pendants. The market-place has two good specimens of the
+same date, one of which is probably the front of the Unicorn Inn, and
+had a fine pair of wooden gates bearing the date 1684, but I am not
+sure whether they are still there. The Reindeer Inn is one of the
+chief architectural attractions of the town. We see the dates 1624 and
+1637 inscribed on different parts of the building, but its chief glory
+is the Globe Room, with a large window, rich plaster ceiling, good
+panelling, elaborately decorated doorways and chimney-piece. The
+courtyard is a fine specimen of sixteenth-century architecture. A
+curious feature is the mounting-block near the large oriel window. It
+must have been designed not for mounting horses, unless these were of
+giant size, but for climbing to the top of coaches. The Globe Room is
+a typical example of Vanishing England, as it is reported that the
+whole building has been sold for transportation to America. We give an
+illustration of some old houses in Paradise Square, that does not
+belie its name. The houses all round the square are thatched, and the
+gardens in the centre are a blaze of colour, full of old-fashioned
+flowers. The King's Head Inn has a good courtyard. Banbury suffered
+from a disastrous fire in 1628 which destroyed a great part of the
+town, and called forth a vehement sermon from the Rev. William
+Whateley, of two hours' duration, on the depravity of the town, which
+merited such a severe judgment. In spite of the fire much old work
+survived, and we give an illustration of a Tudor fire-place which you
+cannot now discover, as it is walled up into the passage of an
+ironmonger's shop.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P85"></a>
+<a href="./images/il037.png"><img src="./images/il037_th.png"  alt="The Fish House" title="" /></a><br />
+The &quot;Fish House,&quot; Littleport, Cambs</p>
+
+<p>The old ports and harbours are always attractive. The old fishermen
+mending their nets delight to tell their stories of their adventures,
+and retain their old customs <a name="Page_85"></a><a name="Page_86"></a>and usages, which are profoundly
+interesting to the lovers of folk-lore. Their houses are often
+primitive and quaint. There is the curious Fish House at Littleport,
+Cambridgeshire, with part of it built of stone, having a gable and
+Tudor weather-moulding over the windows. The rest of the building was
+added at a later date.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P86"></a><img src="./images/il038.png" alt="16th Century Cottage" title="" /><br />
+Sixteenth-century Cottage, formerly standing in Upper Deal, Kent</p>
+
+<p>In Upper Deal there is an interesting house which shows Flemish
+influence in the construction of its picturesque gable and octagonal
+chimney, and contrasted with it an early sixteenth-century cottage
+much the worse for wear.</p>
+
+<p>We give a sketch of a Portsmouth row which resembles in narrowness
+those at Yarmouth, and in Crown Street there is a battered,
+three-gabled, weather-boarded house which has evidently seen better
+days. There is a fine canopy over the front door of Buckingham House,
+wherein George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was assassinated by John
+Felton on August 23rd, 1628.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P87"></a><img src="./images/il039.png" alt="Gable, Upper Deal, Kent" title="" /><br />
+Gable, Upper Deal, Kent</p>
+
+<p>The Vale of Aylesbury is one of the sweetest and most charmingly
+characteristic tracts of land in the whole of <a name="Page_87"></a><a name="Page_88"></a>rural England,
+abounding with old houses. The whole countryside literally teems with
+picturesque evidences of the past life and history of England. Ancient
+landmarks and associations are so numerous that it is difficult to
+mention a few without seeming to ignore unfairly their equally
+interesting neighbours. Let us take the London road, which enters the
+shire from Middlesex and makes for Aylesbury, a meandering road with
+patches of scenery strongly suggestive of Birket Foster's landscapes.
+Down a turning at the foot of the lovely Chiltern Hills lies the
+secluded village of Chalfont St. Giles. Here Milton, the poet, sought
+refuge from plague-stricken London among a colony of fellow Quakers,
+and here remains, in a very perfect state, the cottage in which he
+lived and was visited by Andrew Marvel. It is said that his neighbour
+Elwood, one of the Quaker fraternity, suggested the idea of &quot;Paradise
+Regained,&quot; and that the draft of the latter poem was written upon a
+great oak table which may be seen in one of the low-pitched rooms on
+the ground floor. I fancy that Milton must have beautified and
+repaired the cottage at the period of his tenancy. The mantelpiece
+with its classic ogee moulding belongs certainly to his day, and some
+other minor details may also be noticed which support this inference.
+It is not difficult to imagine that one who was accustomed to
+metropolitan comforts would be dissatisfied with the open hearth
+common to country cottages of that poet's time, and have it enclosed
+in the manner in which we now see it. Outside the garden is brilliant
+with old-fashioned flowers, such as the poet loved. A stone scutcheon
+may be seen peeping through the shrubbery which covers the front of
+the cottage, but the arms which it displays are those of the
+Fleetwoods, one time owners of these tenements. Between the years 1709
+and 1807 the house was used as an inn. Milton's cottage is one of our
+national treasures, which (though not actually belonging to the
+nation) has successfully resisted purchase by our American cousins and
+transportation across the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="Page_89"></a><a name="IL_P89"></a>
+<a href="./images/il040.png"><img src="./images/il040_th.png" alt="A Portsmouth Row" title="" /></a><br />
+A Portsmouth &quot;Row&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_90"></a>The entrance to the churchyard in Chalfont St. Giles is through a
+wonderfully picturesque turnstile or lich-gate under an ancient house
+in the High Street. The gate formerly closed itself mechanically by
+means of a pulley to which was attached a heavy weight. Unfortunately
+this weight was not boxed in&mdash;as in the somewhat similar example at
+Hayes, in Middlesex&mdash;and an accident which happened to some children
+resulted in its removal.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P90"></a><img src="./images/il041.png"  alt="Lich-gate" title="" /><br />
+Lich-gate, Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks</p>
+
+<p>A good many picturesque old houses remain in the village, among them
+being one called Stonewall Farm, a structure of the fifteenth century
+with an original billet-moulded porch and Gothic barge-boards.</p>
+
+<p>There is a certain similarity about the villages that dot <a name="Page_91"></a>the Vale of
+Aylesbury. The old Market House is usually a feature of the High
+Street&mdash;where it has not been spoilt as at Wendover. Groups of
+picturesque timber cottages, thickest round the church, and shouldered
+here and there by their more respectable and severe Georgian brethren,
+are common to all, and vary but little in their general aspect and
+colouring. Memories and legends haunt every hamlet, the very names of
+which have an ancient sound carrying us vaguely back to former days.
+Prince's Risborough, once a manor of the Black Prince; Wendover, the
+birthplace of Roger of Wendover, the medieval historian, and author of
+the Chronicle <i>Flores Historiarum, or History of the World from the
+Creation to the year 1235</i>, in modern language a somewhat &quot;large
+order&quot;; Hampden, identified to all time with the patriot of that name;
+and so on indefinitely. At Monk's Risborough, another hamlet with an
+ancient-sounding name, but possessing no special history, is a church
+of the Perpendicular period containing some features of exceptional
+interest, and internally one of the most charmingly picturesque of its
+kind. The carved tie-beams of the porch with their masks and tracery
+and the great stone stoup which appears in one corner have an
+<i>unrestored</i> appearance which is quite delightful in these days of
+over-restoration. The massive oak door has some curious iron fittings,
+and the interior of the church itself displays such treasures as a
+magnificent early Tudor roof and an elegant fifteenth-century
+chancel-screen, on the latter of which some remains of ancient
+painting exist.<a name="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15"><sup>15</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P91"></a><img src="./images/il042.png" alt="15th Century Handle" title="" /><br />
+Fifteenth-century Handle on Church Door, Monk's Risborough, Bucks</p>
+
+<p>Thame, just across the Oxfordshire border, is another <a name="Page_92"></a>town of the
+greatest interest. The noble parish church here contains a number of
+fine brasses and tombs, including the recumbent effigies of Lord John
+Williams of Thame and his wife, who flourished in the reign of Queen
+Mary. The chancel-screen is of uncommon character, the base being
+richly decorated with linen panelling, while above rises an arcade in
+which Gothic form mingles freely with the grotesqueness of the
+Renaissance. The choir-stalls are also lavishly ornamented with the
+linen-fold decoration.</p>
+
+<p>The centre of Thame's broad High Street is narrowed by an island of
+houses, once termed Middle Row, and above the jumble of tiled roofs
+here rises like a watch-tower a most curious and interesting medieval
+house known as the &quot;Bird Cage Inn.&quot; About this structure little is
+known; it is, however, referred to in an old document as the &quot;tenement
+called the Cage, demised to James Rosse by indenture for the term of
+100 years, yielding therefor by the year 8s.,&quot; and appears to have
+been a farm-house. The document in question is a grant of Edward IV to
+Sir John William of the Charity or Guild of St. Christopher in Thame,
+founded by Richard Quartemayne, <i>Squier</i>, who died in the year 1460.
+This house, though in some respects adapted during later years from
+its original plan, is structurally but little altered, and should be
+taken in hand and <i>intelligently</i> restored as an object of local
+attraction and interest. The choicest oaks of a small forest must have
+supplied its framework, which stands firm as the day when it was
+built. The fine corner-posts (now enclosed) should be exposed to view,
+and the mullioned windows which jut out over a narrow passage should
+be opened up. If this could be done&mdash;and not overdone&mdash;the &quot;Bird Cage&quot;
+would hardly be surpassed as a miniature specimen of medieval timber
+architecture in the county. A stone doorway of Gothic form and a kind
+of almery or safe exist in its cellars.</p>
+
+<p>A school was founded at Thame by Lord John<a name="Page_93"></a> Williams, whose recumbent
+effigy exists in the church, and amongst the students there during the
+second quarter of the seventeenth century was Anthony Wood, the Oxford
+antiquary. Thame about this time was the centre of military operations
+between the King's forces and the rebels, and was continually being
+beaten up by one side or the other. Wood, though but a boy at the
+time, has left on record in his narrative some vivid impressions of
+the conflicts which he personally witnessed, and which bring the
+disjointed times before us in a vision of strange and absolute
+reality.</p>
+
+<p>He tells of Colonel Blagge, the Governor of Wallingford Castle, who
+was on a marauding expedition, being chased through the streets of
+Thame by Colonel Crafford, who commanded the Parliamentary garrison at
+Aylesbury, and how one man fell from his horse, and the Colonel &quot;held
+a pistol to him, but the trooper cried 'Quarter!' and the rebels came
+up and rifled him and took him and his horse away with them.&quot; On
+another occasion, just as a company of Roundhead soldiers were sitting
+down to dinner, a Cavalier force appeared &quot;to beat up their quarters,&quot;
+and the Roundheads retired in a hurry, leaving &quot;A.W. and the
+schoolboyes, sojourners in the house,&quot; to enjoy their venison pasties.</p>
+
+<p>He tells also of certain doings at the Nag's Head, a house that still
+exists&mdash;a very ancient hostelry, though not nearly so old a building
+as the Bird Cage Inn. The sign is no longer there, but some
+interesting features remain, among them the huge strap hinges on the
+outer door, fashioned at their extremities in the form of
+fleurs-de-lis. We should like to linger long at Thame and describe the
+wonders at Thame Park, with its remains of a Cistercian abbey and the
+fine Tudor buildings of Robert King, last abbot and afterward the
+first Bishop of Oxford. The three fine oriel windows and stair-turret,
+the noble Gothic dining-hall and abbot's parlour panelled with oak in
+the style of the linen pattern, are some of the finest Tudor work in
+the country. The Prebendal house <a name="Page_94"></a>and chapel built by Grosset&ecirc;te are
+also worthy of the closest attention. The chapel is an architectural
+gem of Early English design, and the rest of the house with its later
+Perpendicular windows is admirable. Not far away is the interesting
+village of Long Crendon, once a market-town, with its fine church and
+its many picturesque houses, including Staple Hall, near the church,
+with its noble hall, used for more than five centuries as a manorial
+court-house on behalf of various lords of the manor, including Queen
+Katherine, widow of Henry V. It has now fortunately passed into the
+care of the National Trust, and its future is secured for the benefit
+of the nation. The house is a beautiful half-timbered structure, and
+was in a terribly dilapidated condition. It is interesting both
+historically and architecturally, and is note-worthy as illustrating
+the continuity of English life, that the three owners from whom the
+Trust received the building, Lady Kinloss, All Souls' College, and the
+Ecclesiastical Commissioners, are the successors in title of three
+daughters of an Earl of Pembroke in the thirteenth century. It is
+fortunate that the old house has fallen into such good hands. The
+village has a Tudor manor-house which has been restored.</p>
+
+<p>Another court-house, that at Udimore, in Sussex, near Rye, has, we
+believe, been saved by the Trust, though the owner has retained
+possession. It is a picturesque half-timbered building of two storeys
+with modern wings projecting at right angles at each end. The older
+portion is all that remains of a larger house which appears to have
+been built in the fifteenth century. The manor belonged to the Crown,
+and it is said that both Edward I and Edward III visited it. The
+building was in a very dilapidated condition, and the owner intended
+to destroy it and replace it with modern cottages. We hope that this
+scheme has now been abandoned, and that the old house is safe for many
+years to come.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P95"></a><img src="./images/il043.png" alt="Weather-boarded houses" title="" /><br />
+Weather-boarded Houses, Crown Street, Portsmouth</p>
+
+<p>At the other end of the county of Oxfordshire remote from Thame is the
+beautiful little town of Burford, the <a name="Page_95"></a><a name="Page_96"></a>gem of the Cotswolds. No
+wonder that my friend &quot;Sylvanus Urban,&quot; otherwise Canon Beeching,
+sings of its charm:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Oh fair is Moreton in the marsh<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And Stow on the wide wold,</span>
+Yet fairer far is Burford town<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With its stone roofs grey and old;</span>
+And whether the sky be hot and high,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or rain fall thin and chill,</span>
+The grey old town on the lonely down<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Is where I would be still.</span></p>
+
+<p class="poem">O broad and smooth the Avon flows<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">By Stratford's many piers;</span>
+And Shakespeare lies by Avon's side<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">These thrice a hundred years;</span>
+But I would be where Windrush sweet<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Laves Burford's lovely hill&mdash;</span>
+The grey old town on the lonely down<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Is where I would be still.</span></p>
+
+<p>It is unlike any other place, this quaint old Burford, a right
+pleasing place when the sun is pouring its beams upon the fantastic
+creations of the builders of long ago, and when the moon is full there
+is no place in England which surpasses it in picturesqueness. It is
+very quiet and still now, but there was a time when Burford cloth,
+Burford wool, Burford stone, Burford malt, and Burford saddles were
+renowned throughout the land. Did not the townsfolk present two of its
+famous saddles to &quot;Dutch William&quot; when he came to Burford with the
+view of ingratiating himself into the affections of his subjects
+before an important general election? It has been the scene of
+battles. Not far off is Battle Edge, where the fierce kings of Wessex
+and Mercia fought in 720 A.D. on Midsummer Eve, in commemoration of
+which the good folks of Burford used to carry a dragon up and down the
+streets, the great dragon of Wessex. Perhaps the origin of this
+procession dates back to early pagan days before the battle was
+fought, but tradition connects it with the fight. Memories cluster
+thickly around one as you walk up the old street. It was the first
+place in England to receive the privilege of a Merchant Guild. The
+gaunt Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, owned the place, and
+<a name="Page_97"></a>appropriated to himself the credit of erecting the almshouses, though
+Henry Bird gave the money. You can still see the Earl's signature at
+the foot of the document relating to this foundation&mdash;R.
+Warrewych&mdash;the only signature known save one at Belvoir. You can see
+the ruined Burford Priory. It is not the conventual building wherein
+the monks lived in pre-Reformation days and served God in the grand
+old church that is Burford's chief glory. Edmund Harman, the royal
+barber-surgeon, received a grant of the Priory from Henry VIII for
+curing him from a severe illness. Then Sir Laurence Tanfield, Chief
+Baron of the Exchequer, owned it, who married a Burford lady,
+Elizabeth Cobbe. An aged correspondent tells me that in the days of
+her youth there was standing a house called Cobb Hall, evidently the
+former residence of Lady Tanfield's family. He built a grand
+Elizabethan mansion on the site of the old Priory, and here was born
+Lucius Gary, Lord Falkland, who was slain in Newbury fight. That Civil
+War brought stirring times to Burford. You have heard of the fame of
+the Levellers, the discontented mutineers in Cromwell's army, the
+followers of John Lilburne, who for a brief space threatened the
+existence of the Parliamentary regime. Cromwell dealt with them with
+an iron hand. He caught and surprised them at Burford and imprisoned
+them in the church, wherein carved roughly on the font with a dagger
+you can see this touching memorial of one of these poor men:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">ANTHONY SEDLEY PRISNER 1649.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P97"></a><img src="./images/il044.png" alt="Inscription on Font" title="" /><br />
+Inscription on Font, Parish Church, Burford, Oxon<br /></p>
+
+<p>Three of the leaders were shot in the churchyard on the <a name="Page_98"></a>following
+morning in view of the other prisoners, who were placed on the leaden
+roof of the church, and you can still see the bullet-holes in the old
+wall against which the unhappy men were placed. The following entries
+in the books of the church tell the sad story tersely:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>Burials.</i>&mdash;&quot;1649 Three soldiers shot to death in Burford
+   Churchyard May 17th.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pd. to Daniel Muncke for cleansinge the Church when the
+   Levellers were taken 3s. 4d.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P98"></a><img src="./images/il045.png" alt="Detail of 15th century barge-board" title="" /><br />
+Detail of Fifteenth-century Barge-board, Burford, Oxon.</p>
+
+<p>A walk through the streets of the old town is refreshing to an
+antiquary's eyes. The old stone buildings grey with age with tile
+roofs, the old Tolsey much restored, the merchants' guild mark over
+many of the ancient doorways, <a name="Page_99"></a><a name="Page_100"></a>the noble church with its eight
+chapels and fine tombs, the plate of the old corporation, now in the
+custody of its oldest surviving member (Burford has ceased to be an
+incorporated borough), are all full of interest. Vandalism is not,
+however, quite lacking, even in Burford. One of the few Gothic
+chimneys remaining, a gem with a crocketed and pinnacled canopy, was
+taken down some thirty years ago, while the Priory is said to be in
+danger of being pulled down, though a later report speaks only of its
+restoration. In the coaching age the town was alive with traffic, and
+Burford races, established by the Merry Monarch, brought it much
+gaiety. At the George Inn, now degraded from its old estate and cut up
+into tenements, Charles I stayed. It was an inn for more than a
+century before his time, and was only converted from that purpose
+during the early years of the nineteenth century, when the proprietor
+of the Bull Inn bought it up and closed its doors to the public with a
+view to improving the prosperity of his own house. The restoration of
+the picturesque almshouses founded by Henry Bird in the time of the
+King-maker, a difficult piece of work, was well carried out in the
+decadent days of the &quot;twenties,&quot; and happily they do not seem to have
+suffered much in the process.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P99"></a><img src="./images/il046.png" alt="THe George Inn, Burford" title="" /><br />
+The George Inn, Burford, Oxon</p>
+
+<p>During our wanderings in the streets and lanes of rural England we
+must not fail to visit the county of Essex. It is one of the least
+picturesque of our counties, but it possesses much wealth of
+interesting antiquities in the timber houses at Colchester, Saffron
+Walden, the old town of Maldon, the inns at Chigwell and Brentwood,
+and the halls of Layer Marney and Horsham at Thaxted. Saffron Walden
+is one of those quaint agricultural towns whose local trade is a thing
+of the past. From the records which are left of it in the shape of
+prints and drawings, the town in the early part of the nineteenth
+century must have been a medieval wonder. It is useless now to rail
+against the crass ignorance and vandalism which has swept away so many
+irreplaceable specimens of bygone <a name="Page_101"></a>architecture only to fill their
+sites with brick boxes, &quot;likely indeed and all alike.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Itineraries of the Georgian period when mentioning Saffron Walden
+describe the houses as being of &quot;mean appearance,&quot;<a name="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16"><sup>16</sup></a> which remark,
+taking into consideration the debased taste of the times, is
+significant. A perfect holocaust followed, which extending through
+that shocking time known as the Churchwarden Period has not yet spent
+itself in the present day. Municipal improvements threaten to go
+further still, and in these commercial days, when combined capital
+under such appellations as the &quot;Metropolitan Co-operative&quot; or the
+&quot;Universal Supply Stores&quot; endeavours to increase its display behind
+plate-glass windows of immodest size, the life of old buildings seems
+painfully insecure.</p>
+
+<p>A good number of fine early barge-boards still remain in Saffron
+Walden, and the timber houses which have been allowed to remain speak
+only too eloquently of the beauties which have vanished. One of these
+structures&mdash;a large timber building or collection of buildings, for
+the dates of erection are various&mdash;stands in Church Street, and was
+formerly the Sun Inn, a hostel of much importance in bygone times.
+This house of entertainment is said to have been in 1645 the quarters
+of the Parliamentary Generals Cromwell, Ireton, and Skippon. In 1870,
+during the conversion of the Sun Inn into private residences, some
+glazed tiles were discovered bricked up in what had once been an open
+hearth. These tiles were collectively painted with a picture on each
+side of the hearth, and bore the inscription &quot;W.E. 1730,&quot; while on one
+of them a bust of the Lord Protector was depicted, thus showing the
+tradition to have been honoured during the second George's time.<a name="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17"><sup>17</sup></a>
+Saffron Walden was the rendezvous of the Parliamentarian forces after
+the <a name="Page_102"></a>sacking of Leicester, having their encampment on Triplow Heath. A
+remarkable incident may be mentioned in connexion with this fact. In
+1826 a rustic, while ploughing some land to the south of the town,
+turned up with his share the brass seal of Leicester Hospital, which
+seal had doubtless formed part of the loot acquired by the rebel army.</p>
+
+<p>The Sun Inn, or &quot;House of the Giants,&quot; as it has sometimes been
+called, from the colossal figures which appear in the pargeting over
+its gateway, is a building which evidently grew with the needs of the
+town, and a study of its architectural features is curiously
+instructive.</p>
+
+<p>The following extract from Pepys's <i>Diary</i> is interesting as referring
+to Saffron Walden:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;1659, Feby. 27th. Up by four o'clock. Mr. Blayton and I took
+   horse and straight to Saffron Walden, where at the White Hart we
+   set up our horses and took the master to show us Audley End
+   House, where the housekeeper showed us all the house, in which
+   the stateliness of the ceilings, chimney-pieces, and form of the
+   whole was exceedingly worth seeing. He took us into the cellar,
+   where we drank most admirable drink, a health to the King. Here I
+   played on my flageolette, there being an excellent echo. He
+   showed us excellent pictures; two especially, those of the four
+   Evangelists and Henry VIII. In our going my landlord carried us
+   through a very old hospital or almshouse, where forty poor people
+   were maintained; a very old foundation, and over the
+   chimney-piece was an inscription in brass: 'Orato pro anim&acirc;
+   Thomae Bird,' &amp;c. They brought me a draft of their drink in a
+   brown bowl, tipt with silver, which I drank off, and at the
+   bottom was a picture of the Virgin with the child in her arms
+   done in silver. So we took leave....&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The inscription and the &quot;brown bowl&quot; (which is a mazer cup) still
+remain, but the picturesque front of the hospital, built in the reign
+of Edward VI, disappeared during the awful &quot;improvements&quot; which took
+place during the &quot;fifties.&quot; A drawing of it survives in the local
+museum.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_103"></a>Maldon, the capital of the Blackwater district, is to the eye of an
+artist a town for twilight effects. The picturesque skyline of its
+long, straggling street is accentuated in the early morning or
+afterglow, when much undesirable detail of modern times below the
+tiled roofs is blurred and lost. In broad daylight the quaintness of
+its suburbs towards the river reeks of the salt flavour of W.W.
+Jacobs's stories. Formerly the town was rich with such massive timber
+buildings as still appear in the yard of the Blue Boar&mdash;an ancient
+hostelry which was evidently modernized externally in Pickwickian
+times. While exploring in the outhouses of this hostel Mr. Roe lighted
+on a venerable posting-coach of early nineteenth-century origin among
+some other decaying vehicles, a curiosity even more rare nowadays than
+the Gothic king-posts to be seen in the picturesque half-timbered
+billiard-room.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P103"></a><img src="./images/il047.png" alt="Maldon Skyline" title="" /><br />
+Maldon, Essex. Sky-line of the High Street at twilight</p>
+
+<p>The country around Maldon is dotted plentifully with <a name="Page_104"></a>evidences of
+past ages; Layer Marney, with its famous towers; D'Arcy Hall, noted
+for containing some of the finest linen panelling in England; Beeleigh
+Abbey, and other old-world buildings. The sea-serpent may still be
+seen at Heybridge, on the Norman church-door, one of the best of its
+kind, and exhibiting almost all its original ironwork, including the
+chimerical decorative clamp.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P104"></a><img src="./images/il048.png" alt="St Mary's, Maldon" title="" /><br />
+St. Mary's Church, Maldon</p>
+
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P105"></a><img src="./images/il049.png" alt="Norman Clasp" title="" /><br />
+Norman Clamp on door of Heybridge Church, Essex</p>
+
+<p>The ancient house exhibited at the Franco-British Exhibition at
+Shepherd's Bush was a typical example of an Elizabethan dwelling. It
+was brought from Ipswich, where it was doomed to make room for the
+extension of Co-operative Stores, but so firmly was it built that, in
+spite <a name="Page_105"></a>of its age of three hundred and fifty years, it defied for some
+time the attacks of the house-breakers. It was built in 1563, as the
+date carved on the solid lintel shows, but some parts of the structure
+may have been earlier. All the oak joists and rafters had been
+securely mortised into each other and fixed with stout wooden pins. So
+securely were these pins fixed, that after many vain attempts to knock
+them out, they had all to be bored out with augers. The mortises and
+tenons were found to be as sound and clean as on the day when they
+were fitted by the sixteenth-century carpenters. The foundations and
+the chimneys were built of brick. The house contained a large
+entrance-hall, a kitchen, a splendidly carved staircase, a
+living-room, and two good bedrooms, on the upper floor. The whole
+house was a fine specimen of East Anglian half-timber work. The
+timbers that formed the framework were all straight, the diamond and
+curved patterns, familiar in western counties, signs of later
+construction, being altogether absent. One of the striking features of
+this, as of many other timber-framed houses, is the carved corner or
+angle post. It curves outwards as a support to the projecting first
+floor to the extent of nearly two feet, and the whole piece was hewn
+out of one massive oak log, the root, as was usual, having been placed
+upwards, and beautifully carved with Gothic floriations. The full
+overhang of the gables is four feet six inches. In later examples this
+distance between the gables and the wall was considerably reduced,
+until at last the barge-boards were flush with the wall. The joists of
+the first floor project from under a finely carved string-course, and
+the end of each joist has a carved finial. All the inside walls were
+panelled with oak, and the fire-place is of the typical <a name="Page_106"></a>old English
+character, with seats for half a dozen people in the ingle-nook. The
+principal room had a fine Tudor door, and the frieze and some of the
+panels were enriched with an inlay of holly. When the house was
+demolished many of the choicest fittings which were missing from their
+places were found carefully stowed under the floor boards. Possibly a
+raid or a riot had alarmed the owners in some distant period, and they
+hid their nicest things and then were slain, and no one knew of the
+secret hiding-place.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P106"></a><img src="./images/il050.png" alt="Tudor Fireplace" title="" /><br />
+Tudor Fire-place. Now walled up in the passage of a shop in Banbury</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_107"></a>The Rector of Haughton calls attention to a curious old house which
+certainly ought to be preserved if it has not yet quite vanished.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;It is completely hidden from the public gaze. Right away in the
+   fields, to be reached only by footpath, or by strangely
+   circuitous lane, in the parish of Ranton, there stands a little
+   old half-timbered house, known as the Vicarage Farm. Only a very
+   practised eye would suspect the treasures that it contains.
+   Entering through the original door, with quaint knocker intact,
+   you are in the kitchen with a fine open fire-place, noble beam,
+   and walls panelled with oak. But the principal treasure consists
+   in what I have heard called 'The priest's room.' I should venture
+   to put the date of the house at about 1500&mdash;certainly
+   pre-Reformation. How did it come to be there? and what purpose
+   did it serve? I have only been able to find one note which can
+   throw any possible light on the matter. Gough says that a certain
+   Rose (Dunston?) brought land at Ranton to her husband John
+   Doiley; and he goes on: 'This man had the consent of William, the
+   Prior of Ranton, to erect a chapel at Ranton.' The little church
+   at Ranton has stood there from the thirteenth century, as the
+   architecture of the west end and south-west doorway plainly
+   testify. The church and cell (or whatever you may call it) must
+   clearly have been an off-shoot from the Priory. But the room: for
+   this is what is principally worth seeing. The beam is richly
+   moulded, and so is the panelling throughout. It has a very well
+   carved course of panelling all round the top, and this is
+   surmounted by an elaborate cornice. The stone mantelpiece is
+   remarkably fine and of unusual character. But the most striking
+   feature of the room is a square-headed arched recess, or niche,
+   with pierced spandrels. What was its use? It is about the right
+   height for a seat, and what may have been the seat is there
+   unaltered. Or was it a niche containing a Calvary, or some
+   figure? I confess I know nothing. Is this a unique example? I
+   cannot remember any other. But possibly there may be others,
+   equally hidden away, comparison with which might unfold its
+   secret. In this room, and in other parts of the <a name="Page_108"></a>house, much of
+   the old ironwork of hinges and door-fasteners remains, and is
+   simply excellent. The old oak sliding shutters are still there,
+   and two more fine stone mantelpieces; on one hearth the original
+   encaustic tiles with patterns, chiefly a Maltese cross, and the
+   oak cill surrounding them, are <i>in situ</i>. I confess I tremble for
+   the safety of this priceless relic. The house is in a somewhat
+   dilapidated condition; and I know that one attempt was made to
+   buy the panelling and take it away. Surely such a monument of the
+   past should be in some way guarded by the nation.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The beauty of English cottage-building, its directness, simplicity,
+variety, and above all its inevitable quality, the intimate way in
+which the buildings ally themselves with the soil and blend with the
+ever-varied and exquisite landscape, the delicate harmonies, almost
+musical in their nature, that grow from their gentle relationship with
+their surroundings, the modulation from man's handiwork to God's
+enveloping world that lies in the quiet gardening that binds one to
+the other without discord or dissonance&mdash;all these things are
+wonderfully attractive to those who have eyes to see and hearts to
+understand. The English cottages have an importance in the story of
+the development of architecture far greater than that which concerns
+their mere beauty and picturesqueness. As we follow the history of
+Gothic art we find that for the most part the instinctive art in
+relation to church architecture came to an end in the first quarter of
+the sixteenth century, but the right impulse did not cease.
+House-building went on, though there was no church-building, and we
+admire greatly some of those grand mansions which were reared in the
+time of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts; but art was declining, a
+crumbling taste causing disintegration of the sense of real beauty and
+refinement of detail. A creeping paralysis set in later, and the end
+came swiftly when the dark days of the eighteenth century blotted out
+even the memory of a great past. And yet during all this time the
+people, the poor and middle classes, the yeomen and farmers, were ever
+building, building, <a name="Page_109"></a><a name="Page_110"></a>quietly and simply, untroubled by any thoughts
+of style, of Gothic art or Renaissance; hence the cottages and
+dwellings of the humblest type maintained in all their integrity the
+real principles that made medieval architecture great. Frank, simple,
+and direct, built for use and not for the establishment of
+architectural theories, they have transmitted their messages to the
+ages and have preserved their beauties for the admiration of mankind
+and as models for all time.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P109"></a><img src="./images/il051.png" alt="Wilney Street" title="" /><br />
+Wilney Street Burford</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="Page_111"></a><a name="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD CASTLES</h3>
+
+
+<p>Castles have played a prominent part in the making of England. Many
+towns owe their existence to the protecting guard of an old fortress.
+They grew up beneath its sheltering walls like children holding the
+gown of their good mother, though the castle often proved but a harsh
+and cruel stepmother, and exacted heavy tribute in return for partial
+security from pillage and rapine. Thus Newcastle-upon-Tyne arose about
+the early fortress erected in 1080 by Robert Curthose to guard the
+passage of the river at the Pons Aelii. The poor little Saxon village
+of Monkchester was then its neighbour. But the castle occupying a fine
+strategic position soon attracted townsfolk, who built their houses
+'neath its shadow. The town of Richmond owes its existence to the
+lordly castle which Alain Rufus, a cousin of the Duke of Brittany,
+erected on land granted to him by the Conqueror. An old rhyme tells
+how he</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Came out of Brittany<br />
+With his wife Tiffany,<br />
+And his maid Manfras,<br />
+And his dog Hardigras.</p>
+
+<p>He built his walls of stone. We must not imagine, however, that an
+early Norman castle was always a vast keep of stone. That came later.
+The Normans called their earliest strongholds <i>mottes</i>, which
+consisted of a mound with stockades and a deep ditch and a
+bailey-court also defended by a ditch and stockades. Instead of the
+great stone keep of later days, &quot;foursquare to every wind <a name="Page_112"></a>that blew,&quot;
+there was a wooden tower for the shelter of the garrison. You can see
+in the Bayeux tapestry the followers of William the Conqueror in the
+act of erecting some such tower of defence. Such structures were
+somewhat easily erected, and did not require a long period for their
+construction. Hence they were very useful for the holding of a
+conquered country. Sometimes advantage was taken of the works that the
+Romans had left. The Normans made use of the old stone walls built by
+the earliest conquerors of Britain. Thus we find at Pevensey a Norman
+fortress born within the ancient fortress reared by the Romans to
+protect that portion of the southern coast from the attacks of the
+northern pirates. Porchester Keep rose in the time of the first Henry
+at the north-west angle of the Roman fort. William I erected his
+castle at Colchester on the site of the Roman <i>castrum</i>. The old Roman
+wall of London was used by the Conqueror for the eastern defence of
+his Tower that he erected to keep in awe the citizens of the
+metropolis, and at Lincoln and Colchester the works of the first
+conquerors of Britain were eagerly utilized by him.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most important Roman castles in the country is Burgh
+Castle, in North Suffolk, with its grand and noble walls. The late Mr.
+G.E. Fox thus described the ruins:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;According to the plan on the Ordnance Survey map, the walls
+   enclose a quadrangular area roughly 640 feet long by 413 wide,
+   the walls being 9 feet thick with a foundation 12 feet in width.
+   The angles of the station are rounded. The eastern wall is
+   strengthened by four solid bastions, one standing against each of
+   the rounded angles, the other two intermediate, and the north and
+   south sides have one each, neither of them being in the centre of
+   the side, but rather west of it. The quaggy ground between the
+   camp and the stream would be an excellent defence against sudden
+   attack.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P113"></a><img src="./images/il052.png" alt="Burgh Castle" title="" /><br />
+Burgh Castle</p>
+
+<p>Burgh Castle, according to the late Canon Raven, was the Roman station
+<i>Gariannonum</i> of the <i>Notitia Imperii</i>. Its walls are built of
+flint-rubble concrete, and there are <a name="Page_113"></a><a name="Page_114"></a>lacing courses of tiles. There
+is no wall on the west, and Canon Raven used to contend that one
+existed there but has been destroyed. But this conjecture seems
+improbable. That side was probably defended by the sea, which has
+considerably receded. Two gates remain, the principal one being the
+east gate, commanded by towers a hundred feet high; while the north is
+a postern-gate about five feet wide. The Romans have not left many
+traces behind them. Some coins have been found, including a silver one
+of Gratian and some of Constantine. Here St. Furseus, an Irish
+missionary, is said to have settled with a colony of monks, having
+been favourably received by Sigebert, the ruler of the East Angles, in
+633 A.D. Burgh Castle is one of the finest specimens of a Roman fort
+which our earliest conquerors have left us, and ranks with Reculver,
+Richborough, and Pevensey, those strong fortresses which were erected
+nearly two thousand years ago to guard the coasts against foreign
+foes.</p>
+
+<p>In early days, ere Norman and Saxon became a united people, the castle
+was the sign of the supremacy of the conquerors and the subjugation of
+the English. It kept watch and ward over tumultuous townsfolk and
+prevented any acts of rebellion and hostility to their new masters.
+Thus London's Tower arose to keep the turbulent citizens in awe as
+well as to protect them from foreign foes. Thus at Norwich the castle
+dominated the town, and required for its erection the destruction of
+over a hundred houses. At Lincoln the Conqueror destroyed 166 houses
+in order to construct a strong <i>motte</i> at the south-west corner of the
+old <i>castrum</i> in order to overawe the city. Sometimes castles were
+erected to protect the land from foreign foes. The fort at Colchester
+was intended to resist the Danes if ever their threatened invasion
+came, and Norwich Castle was erected quite as much to drive back the
+Scandinavian hosts as to keep in order the citizens. Newcastle and
+Carlisle were of strategic importance for driving back the Scots, and<a name="Page_115"></a>
+Lancaster Keep, traditionally said to have been reared by Roger de
+Poitou, but probably of later date, bore the brunt of many a marauding
+invasion. To check the incursions of the Welsh, who made frequent and
+powerful irruptions into Herefordshire, many castles were erected in
+Shropshire and Herefordshire, forming a chain of fortresses which are
+more numerous than in any other part of England. They are of every
+shape and size, from stately piles like Wigmore and Goodrich, to the
+smallest fortified farm, like Urishay Castle, a house half mansion,
+half fortress. Even the church towers of Herefordshire, with their
+walls seven or eight feet thick, such as that at Ewias Harold, look as
+if they were designed as strongholds in case of need. On the western
+and northern borders of England we find the largest number of
+fortresses, erected to restrain and keep back troublesome neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>The story of the English castles abounds in interest and romance. Most
+of them are ruins now, but fancy pictures them in the days of their
+splendour, the abodes of chivalry and knightly deeds, of &quot;fair ladies
+and brave men,&quot; and each one can tell its story of siege and
+battle-cries, of strenuous attack and gallant defence, of prominent
+parts played in the drama of English history. To some of these we
+shall presently refer, but it would need a very large volume to record
+the whole story of our English fortresses.</p>
+
+<p>We have said that the earliest Norman castle was a <i>motte</i> fortified
+by a stockade, an earthwork protected with timber palings. That is the
+latest theory amongst antiquaries, but there are not a few who
+maintain that the Normans, who proved themselves such admirable
+builders of the stoutest of stone churches, would not long content
+themselves with such poor fortresses. There were stone castles before
+the Normans, besides the old Roman walls at Pevensey, Colchester,
+London, and Lincoln. And there came from Normandy a monk named Gundulf
+in 1070 who was a mighty builder. He was consecrated Bishop <a name="Page_116"></a>of
+Rochester and began to build his cathedral with wondrous architectural
+skill. He is credited with devising a new style of military
+architecture, and found much favour with the Conqueror, who at the
+time especially needed strong walls to guard himself and his hungry
+followers. He was ordered by the King to build the first beginnings of
+the Tower of London. He probably designed the keep at Colchester and
+the castle of his cathedral town, and set the fashion of building
+these great ramparts of stone which were so serviceable in the
+subjugation and overawing of the English. The fashion grew, much to
+the displeasure of the conquered, who deemed them &quot;homes of wrong and
+badges of bondage,&quot; hateful places filled with devils and evil men who
+robbed and spoiled them. And when they were ordered to set to work on
+castle-building their impotent wrath knew no bounds. It is difficult
+to ascertain how many were constructed during the Conqueror's reign.
+Domesday tells of forty-nine. Another authority, Mr. Pearson, mentions
+ninety-nine, and Mrs. Armitage after a careful examination of
+documents contends for eighty-six. But there may have been many
+others. In Stephen's reign castles spread like an evil sore over the
+land. His traitorous subjects broke their allegiance to their king and
+preyed upon the country. The <i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i> records that
+&quot;every rich man built his castles and defended them against him, and
+they filled the land full of castles. They greatly oppressed the
+wretched people by making them work at these castles, and when the
+castles were finished they filled them with devils and evil men. Then
+they took those whom they suspected to have any goods, by night and by
+day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their
+gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable, for never
+were any martyrs tormented as these were. They hung some up by their
+feet and smoked them with foul smoke; some by their thumbs or by the
+head, and they hung burning things on their feet. They put a knotted
+string about their heads, <a name="Page_117"></a>and twisted it till it went into the brain.
+They put them into dungeons wherein were adders and snakes and toads,
+and thus wore them out. Some they put into a crucet-house, that is,
+into a chest that was short and narrow and not deep, and they put
+sharp stones in it, and crushed the man therein so that they broke all
+his limbs. There were hateful and grim things called Sachenteges in
+many of the castles, and which two or three men had enough to do to
+carry. The Sachentege was made thus: it was fastened to a beam, having
+a sharp iron to go round a man's throat and neck, so that he might
+noways sit, nor lie, nor sleep, but that he must bear all the iron.
+Many thousands they exhausted with hunger. I cannot, and I may not,
+tell of all the wounds and all the tortures that they inflicted upon
+the wretched men of this land; and this state of things lasted the
+nineteen years that Stephen was king, and ever grew worse and worse.
+They were continually levying an exaction from the towns, which they
+called Tenserie,<a name="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18"><sup>18</sup></a> and when the miserable inhabitants had no more to
+give, then plundered they and burnt all the towns, so that well
+mightest thou walk a whole day's journey nor ever shouldest thou find
+a man seated in a town or its lands tilled.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>More than a thousand of these abodes of infamy are said to have been
+built. Possibly many of them were timber structures only. Countless
+small towns and villages boast of once possessing a fortress. The name
+Castle Street remains, though the actual site of the stronghold has
+long vanished. Sometimes we find a mound which seems to proclaim its
+position, but memory is silent, and the people of England, if the
+story of the chronicler be true, have to be grateful to Henry II, who
+set himself to work to root up and destroy very many of these
+adulterine castles which were the abodes of tyranny and oppression.
+However, for the protection of his kingdom, he raised other
+strongholds, in the south the grand fortress of Dover, which still
+guards the straits; in the <a name="Page_118"></a>west, Berkeley Castle, for his friend
+Robert FitzHarding, ancestor of Lord Berkeley, which has remained in
+the same family until the present day; in the north, Richmond,
+Scarborough, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and in the east, Orford Keep.
+The same stern Norman keep remains, but you can see some changes in
+the architecture. The projection of the buttresses is increased, and
+there is some attempt at ornamentation. Orford Castle, which some
+guide-books and directories will insist on confusing with Oxford
+Castle and stating that it was built by Robert D'Oiley in 1072, was
+erected by Henry II to defend the country against the incursions of
+the Flemings and to safeguard Orford Haven. Caen stone was brought for
+the stone dressings to windows and doors, parapets and groins, but
+masses of septaria found on the shore and in the neighbouring marshes
+were utilized with such good effect that the walls have stood the
+attacks of besiegers and weathered the storms of the east coast for
+more than seven centuries. It was built in a new fashion that was made
+in France, and to which our English eyes were unaccustomed, and is
+somewhat similar in plan to Conisborough Castle, in the valley of the
+Don. The plan is circular with three projecting towers, and the keep
+was protected by two circular ditches, one fifteen feet and the other
+thirty feet distant from its walls. Between the two ditches was a
+circular wall with parapet and battlements. The interior of the castle
+was divided into three floors; the towers, exclusive of the turrets,
+had five, two of which were entresols, and were ninety-six feet high,
+the central keep being seventy feet.<a name="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19"><sup>19</sup></a> The oven was at the top of
+the keep. The chapel is one of the most interesting chambers, with its
+original altar still in position, though much damaged, and also
+piscina, aumbrey, and ciborium. This castle nearly vanished with other
+features of vanishing England in the middle of the eighteenth century,
+Lord Hereford proposing to pull it down for the sake of the material;
+but &quot;it being a necessary sea-mark, especially <a name="Page_119"></a>for ships coming from
+Holland, who by steering so as to make the castle cover or hide the
+church thereby avoid a dangerous sandbank called the Whiting,
+Government interfered and prevented the destruction of the
+building.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20"><sup>20</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>In these keeps the thickness of the walls enabled them to contain
+chambers, stairs, and passages. At Guildford there is an oratory with
+rude carvings of sacred subjects, including a crucifixion. The first
+and second floors were usually vaulted, and the upper ones were of
+timber. Fireplaces were built in most of the rooms, and some sort of
+domestic comfort was not altogether forgotten. In the earlier
+fortresses the walls of the keep enclosed an inner court, which had
+rooms built up to the great stone walls, the court afterwards being
+vaulted and floors erected. In order to protect the entrance there
+were heavy doors with a portcullis, and by degrees the outward
+defences were strengthened. There was an outer bailey or court
+surrounded by a strong wall, with a barbican guarding the entrance,
+consisting of a strong gate protected by two towers. In this lower or
+outer court are the stables, and the mound where the lord of the
+castle dispenses justice, and where criminals and traitors are
+executed. Another strong gateway flanked by towers protects the inner
+bailey, on the edge of which stands the keep, which frowns down upon
+us as we enter. An immense household was supported in these castles.
+Not only were there men-at-arms, but also cooks, bakers, brewers,
+tailors, carpenters, smiths, masons, and all kinds of craftsmen; and
+all this crowd of workers had to be provided with accommodation by the
+lord of the castle. Hence a building in the form of a large hall was
+erected, sometimes of stone, usually of wood, in the lower or upper
+bailey, for these soldiers and artisans, where they slept and had
+their meals.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst other castles which arose during this late Norman and early
+English period of architecture we may mention Barnard Castle, a mighty
+stronghold, held <a name="Page_120"></a>by the royal house of Balliol, the Prince Bishops of
+Durham, the Earls of Warwick, the Nevilles, and other powerful
+families. Sir Walter Scott immortalized the Castle in <i>Rokeby</i>. Here
+is his description of the fortress:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">High crowned he sits, in dawning pale,<br />
+The sovereign of the lovely vale.<br />
+What prospects from the watch-tower high<br />
+Gleam gradual on the warder's eye?<br />
+Far sweeping to the east he sees<br />
+Down his deep woods the course of Tees,<br />
+And tracks his wanderings by the steam<br />
+Of summer vapours from the stream;<br />
+And ere he pace his destined hour<br />
+By Brackenbury's dungeon tower,<br />
+These silver mists shall melt away<br />
+And dew the woods with glittering spray.<br />
+Then in broad lustre shall be shown<br />
+That mighty trench of living stone.<br />
+And each huge trunk that from the side,<br />
+Reclines him o'er the darksome tide,<br />
+Where Tees, full many a fathom low,<br />
+Wears with his rage no common foe;<br />
+Nor pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here,<br />
+Nor clay-mound checks his fierce career,<br />
+Condemned to mine a channelled way<br />
+O'er solid sheets of marble grey.</p>
+
+<p>This lordly pile has seen the Balliols fighting with the Scots, of
+whom John Balliol became king, the fierce contests between the warlike
+prelates of Durham and Barnard's lord, the triumph of the former, who
+were deprived of their conquest by Edward I, and then its surrender in
+later times to the rebels of Queen Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>Another northern border castle is Norham, the possession of the Bishop
+of Durham, built during this period. It was a mighty fortress, and
+witnessed the gorgeous scene of the arbitration between the rival
+claimants to the Scottish throne, the arbiter being King Edward I of
+England, who forgot not to assert his own fancied rights to the
+overlordship of the northern kingdom. It was, however, besieged by the
+Scots, and valiant deeds were wrought before its walls by Sir William
+Marmion and Sir Thomas Grey, but the Scots captured it in 1327 and
+<a name="Page_121"></a>again in 1513. It is now but a battered ruin. Prudhoe, with its
+memories of border wars, and Castle Rising, redolent with the memories
+of the last years of the wicked widow of Edward II, belong to this age
+of castle-architecture, and also the older portions of Kenilworth.</p>
+
+<p>Pontefract Castle, the last fortress that held out for King Charles in
+the Civil War, and in consequence slighted and ruined, can tell of
+many dark deeds and strange events in English history. The De Lacys
+built it in the early part of the thirteenth century. Its area was
+seven acres. The wall of the castle court was high and flanked by
+seven towers; a deep moat was cut on the western side, where was the
+barbican and drawbridge. It had terrible dungeons, one a room
+twenty-five feet square, without any entrance save a trap-door in the
+floor of a turret. The castle passed, in 1310, by marriage to Thomas
+Earl of Lancaster, who took part in the strife between Edward II and
+his nobles, was captured, and in his own hall condemned to death. The
+castle is always associated with the murder of Richard II, but
+contemporary historians, Thomas of Walsingham and Gower the poet,
+assert that he starved himself to death; others contend that his
+starvation was not voluntary; while there are not wanting those who
+say that he escaped to Scotland, lived there many years, and died in
+peace in the castle of Stirling, an honoured guest of Robert III of
+Scotland, in 1419. I have not seen the entries, but I am told in the
+accounts of the Chamberlain of Scotland there are items for the
+maintenance of the King for eleven years. But popular tales die hard,
+and doubtless you will hear the groans and see the ghost of the
+wronged Richard some moonlight night in the ruined keep of Pontefract.
+He has many companion ghosts&mdash;the Earl of Salisbury, Richard Duke of
+York, Anthony Wydeville, Earl Rivers and Grey his brother, and Sir
+Thomas Vaughan, whose feet trod the way to the block, that was worn
+hard by many victims. The dying days of the old castle made it
+illustrious. It was besieged three times, <a name="Page_122"></a>taken and retaken, and saw
+amazing scenes of gallantry and bravery. It held out until after the
+death of the martyr king; it heard the proclamation of Charles II, but
+at length was compelled to surrender, and &quot;the strongest inland
+garrison in the kingdom,&quot; as Oliver Cromwell termed it, was slighted
+and made a ruin. Its sister fortress Knaresborough shared its fate.
+Lord Lytton, in <i>Eugene Aram</i>, wrote of it:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;You will be at a loss to recognise now the truth of old Leland's
+   description of that once stout and gallant bulwark of the north,
+   when 'he numbrid 11 or 12 Toures in the walles of the Castel, and
+   one very fayre beside in the second area.' In that castle the
+   four knightly murderers of the haughty Becket (the Wolsey of his
+   age) remained for a whole year, defying the weak justice of the
+   times. There, too, the unfortunate Richard II passed some portion
+   of his bitter imprisonment. And there, after the battle of
+   Marston Moor, waved the banner of the loyalists against the
+   soldiers of Lilburn.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>An interesting story is told of the siege. A youth, whose father was
+in the garrison, each night went into the deep, dry moat, climbed up
+the glacis, and put provisions through a hole where his father stood
+ready to receive them. He was seen at length, fired on by the
+Parliamentary soldiers, and sentenced to be hanged in sight of the
+besieged as a warning to others. But a good lady obtained his respite,
+and after the conquest of the place was released. The castle then,
+once the residence of Piers Gaveston, of Henry III, and of John of
+Gaunt, was dismantled and destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>During the reign of Henry III great progress was made in the
+improvement and development of castle-building. The comfort and
+convenience of the dwellers in these fortresses were considered, and
+if not very luxurious places they were made more beautiful by art and
+more desirable as residences. During the reigns of the Edwards this
+progress continued, and a new type of castle was introduced. The
+stern, massive, and high-towering keep was abandoned, and the
+fortifications <a name="Page_123"></a>arranged in a concentric fashion. A fine hall with
+kitchens occupied the centre of the fortress; a large number of
+chambers were added. The stronghold itself consisted of a large square
+or oblong like that at Donnington, Berkshire, and the approach was
+carefully guarded by strong gateways, advanced works, walled
+galleries, and barbicans. Deep moats filled with water increased their
+strength and improved their beauty.</p>
+
+<p>We will give some examples of these Edwardian castles, of which Leeds
+Castle, Kent, is a fine specimen. It stands on three islands in a
+sheet of water about fifteen acres in extent, these islands being
+connected in former times by double drawbridges. It consists of two
+huge piles of buildings which with a strong gate-house and barbican
+form four distinct forts, capable of separate defence should any one
+or other fall into the hands of an enemy. Three causeways, each with
+its drawbridge, gate, and portcullis, lead to the smallest island or
+inner barbican, a fortified mill contributing to the defences. A stone
+bridge connects this island with the main island. There stands the
+Constable's Tower, and a stone wall surrounds the island and within is
+the modern mansion. The Maiden's Tower and the Water Tower defend the
+island on the south. A two-storeyed building on arches now connects
+the main island with the Tower of the Gloriette, which has a curious
+old bell with the Virgin and Child, St. George and the Dragon, and the
+Crucifixion depicted on it, and an ancient clock. The castle withstood
+a siege in the time of Edward II because Queen Isabella was refused
+admission. The King hung the Governor, Thomas de Colepepper, by the
+chain of the drawbridge. Henry IV retired here on account of the
+Plague in London, and his second wife, Joan of Navarre, was imprisoned
+here. It was a favourite residence of the Court in the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries. Here the wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester,
+was tried for witchcraft. Dutch prisoners were confined here in 1666
+and contrived to set fire to some of the buildings. It is the <a name="Page_124"></a>home of
+the Wykeham Martin family, and is one of the most picturesque castles
+in the country.</p>
+
+<p>In the same neighbourhood is Allington Castle, an ivy-mantled ruin,
+another example of vanished glory, only two tenements occupying the
+princely residence of the Wyatts, famous in the history of State and
+Letters. Sir Henry, the father of the poet, felt the power of the
+Hunchback Richard, and was racked and imprisoned in Scotland, and
+would have died in the Tower of London but for a cat. He rose to great
+honour under Henry VII, and here entertained the King in great style.
+At Allington the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt was born, and spent his days in
+writing prose and verse, hunting and hawking, and occasionally
+dallying after Mistress Anne Boleyn at the neighbouring castle of
+Hever. He died here in 1542, and his son Sir Thomas led the
+insurrection against Queen Mary and sealed the fate of himself and his
+race.</p>
+
+<p>Hever Castle, to which allusion has been made, is an example of the
+transition between the old fortress and the more comfortable mansion
+of a country squire or magnate. Times were less dangerous, the country
+more peaceful when Sir Geoffrey Boleyn transformed and rebuilt the
+castle built in the reign of Edward III by William de Hever, but the
+strong entrance-gate flanked by towers, embattled and machicolated,
+and defended by stout doors and three portcullises and the surrounding
+moat, shows that the need of defence had not quite passed away. The
+gates lead into a courtyard around which the hall, chapel, and
+domestic chambers are grouped. The long gallery Anne Boleyn so often
+traversed with impatience still seems to re-echo her steps, and her
+bedchamber, which used to contain some of the original furniture, has
+always a pathetic interest. The story of the courtship of Henry VIII
+with &quot;the brown girl with a perthroat and an extra finger,&quot; as
+Margaret More described her, is well known. Her old home, which was
+much in decay, has passed into the possession of a wealthy American
+gentleman, and has been recently greatly restored and transformed.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_125"></a>Sussex can boast of many a lordly castle, and in its day Bodiam must
+have been very magnificent. Even in its decay and ruin it is one of
+the most beautiful in England. It combined the palace of the feudal
+lord and the fortress of a knight. The founder, Sir John Dalyngrudge,
+was a gallant soldier in the wars of Edward III, and spent most of his
+best years in France, where he had doubtless learned the art of making
+his house comfortable as well as secure. He acquired licence to
+fortify his castle in 1385 &quot;for resistance against our enemies.&quot; There
+was need of strong walls, as the French often at that period ravaged
+the coast of Sussex, burning towns and manor-houses. Clark, the great
+authority on castles, says that &quot;Bodiam is a complete and typical
+castle of the end of the fourteenth century, laid out entirely on a
+new site, and constructed after one design and at one period. It but
+seldom happens that a great fortress is wholly original, of one, and
+that a known, date, and so completely free from alterations or
+additions.&quot; It is nearly square, with circular tower sixty-five feet
+high at the four corners, connected by embattled curtain-walls, in the
+centre of each of which square towers rise to an equal height with the
+circular. The gateway is a large structure composed of two flanking
+towers defended by numerous oiletts for arrows, embattled parapets,
+and deep machicolations. Over the gateway are three shields bearing
+the arms of Bodiam, Dalyngrudge, and Wardieu. A huge portcullis still
+frowns down upon us, and two others opposed the way, while above are
+openings in the vault through which melted lead, heated sand, pitch,
+and other disagreeable things could be poured on the heads of the foe.
+In the courtyard on the south stands the great hall with its oriel,
+buttery, and kitchen, and amidst the ruins you can discern the chapel,
+sacristy, ladies' bower, presence chamber. The castle stayed not long
+in the family of the builder, his son John probably perishing in the
+wars, and passed to Sir Thomas Lewknor, who opposed Richard III, and
+was therefore attainted of high treason <a name="Page_126"></a>and his castle besieged and
+taken. It was restored to him again by Henry VII, but the Lewknors
+never resided there again. Waller destroyed it after the capture of
+Arundel, and since that time it has been left a prey to the rains and
+frosts and storms, but manages to preserve much of its beauty, and to
+tell how noble knights lived in the days of chivalry.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P127"></a><img src="./images/il053.png" alt="Caister Castle" title="" /><br />
+Caister Castle</p>
+
+<p>Caister Castle is one of the four principal castles in Norfolk. It is
+built of brick, and is one of the earliest edifices in England
+constructed of that material after its rediscovery as suitable for
+building purposes. It stands with its strong defences not far from the
+sea on the barren coast. It was built by Sir John Fastolfe, who fought
+with great distinction in the French wars of Henry V and Henry VI, and
+was the hero of the Battle of the Herrings in 1428, when he defeated
+the French and succeeded in convoying a load of herrings in triumph to
+the English camp before Orleans. It is supposed that he was the
+prototype of Shakespeare's Falstaff, but beyond the resemblance in the
+names there is little similarity in the exploits of the two &quot;heroes.&quot;
+Sir John Fastolfe, much to the chagrin of other friends and relatives,
+made John Paston his heir, who became a great and prosperous man,
+represented his county in Parliament, and was a favourite of Edward
+IV. Paston loved Caister, his &quot;fair jewell&quot;; but misfortunes befell
+him. He had great losses, and was thrice confined in the Fleet Prison
+and then outlawed. Those were dangerous days, and friends often
+quarrelled. Hence during his troubles the Duke of Norfolk and Lord
+Scales tried to get possession of Caister, and after his death laid
+siege to it. The Pastons lacked not courage and determination, and
+defended it for a year, but were then forced to surrender. However, it
+was restored to them, but again forcibly taken from them. However, not
+by the sword but by negotiations and legal efforts, Sir John again
+gained his own, and an embattled tower at the north-west corner, one
+hundred feet high, and the north and west walls remain to tell the
+<a name="Page_127"></a><a name="Page_128"></a>story of this brave old Norfolk family, who by their <i>Letters</i> have
+done so much to guide us through the dark period to which they relate.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P128"></a><img src="./images/il054.png" alt="Defaced Arms" title="" /><br />
+Defaced Arms. Taunton Castle</p>
+
+<p>We will journey to the West Country, a region of castles. The Saxons
+were obliged to erect their rude earthen strongholds to keep back the
+turbulent Welsh, and these were succeeded by Norman keeps.
+Monmouthshire is famous for its castles. Out of the thousand erected
+in Norman times twenty-five were built in that county. There is
+Chepstow Castle with its Early Norman gateway spanned by a circular
+arch flanked by round <a name="Page_129"></a>towers. In the inner court there are gardens
+and ruins of a grand hall, and in the outer the remains of a chapel
+with evidences of beautifully groined vaulting, and also a winding
+staircase leading to the battlements. In the dungeon of the old keep
+at the south-east corner of the inner court Roger de Britolio, Earl of
+Hereford, was imprisoned for rebellion against the Conqueror, and in
+later times Henry Martin, the regicide, lingered as a prisoner for
+thirty years, employing his enforced leisure in writing a book in
+order to prove that it is not right for a man to be governed by one
+wife. Then there is Glosmont Castle, the fortified residence of the
+Earl of Lancaster; Skenfrith Castle, White Castle, the <i>Album Castrum</i>
+of the Latin records, the Landreilo of the Welsh, with its six towers,
+portcullis and drawbridge flanked by massive towers, barbican, and
+other outworks; and Raglan Castle with its splendid gateway, its
+Elizabethan banqueting-hall ornamented with rich stone tracery, its
+bowling-green, garden terraces, and spacious courts&mdash;an ideal place
+for knightly tournaments. Raglan is associated with the gallant
+defence of the castle by the Marquis of Worcester in the Civil War.</p>
+
+<p>Another famous siege is connected with the old castle of Taunton.
+Taunton was a noted place in Saxon days, and the castle is the
+earliest English fortress by some two hundred years of which we have
+any written historical record.<a name="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21"><sup>21</sup></a> The Anglo-Saxon chronicler states,
+under the date 722 A.D.: &quot;This year Queen Ethelburge overthrew
+Taunton, which Ina had before built.&quot; The buildings tell their story.
+We see a Norman keep built to the westward of Ina's earthwork,
+probably by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, the warlike brother
+of King Stephen. The gatehouse with the curtain ending in drum towers,
+of which one only remains, was first built at the close of the
+thirteenth century under Edward I; but it was restored with
+Perpendicular additions by<a name="Page_130"></a> Bishop Thomas Langton, whose arms with the
+date 1495 may be seen on the escutcheon above the arch. Probably
+Bishop Langton also built the great hall; whilst Bishop Home, who is
+sometimes credited with this work, most likely only repaired the hall,
+but tacked on to it the southward structure on pilasters, which shows
+his arms with the date 1577. The hall of the castle was for a long
+period used as Assize Courts. The castle was purchased by the Taunton
+and Somerset Arch&aelig;ological Society, and is now most appropriately a
+museum. Taunton has seen many strange sights. The town was owned by
+the Bishop of Winchester, and the castle had its constable, an office
+held by many great men. When Lord Daubeney of Barrington Court was
+constable in 1497 Taunton saw thousands of gaunt Cornishmen marching
+on to London to protest against the king's subsidy, and they aroused
+the sympathy of the kind-hearted Somerset folk, who fed them, and were
+afterwards fined for &quot;aiding and comforting&quot; them. Again, crowds of
+Cornishmen here flocked to the standard of Perkin Warbeck. The gallant
+defence of Taunton by Robert Blake, aided by the townsfolk, against
+the whole force of the Royalists, is a matter of history, and also the
+rebellion of Monmouth, who made Taunton his head-quarters. This
+castle, like every other one in England, has much to tell us of the
+chief events in our national annals.</p>
+
+<p>In the principality of Wales we find many noted strong holds&mdash;Conway,
+Harlech, and many others. Carnarvon Castle, the repair of which is
+being undertaken by Sir John Puleston, has no rival among our medieval
+fortresses for the grandeur and extent of the ruins. It was commenced
+about 1283 by Edward I, but took forty years to complete. In 1295 a
+playful North Walian, named Madoc, who was an illegitimate son of
+Prince David, took the rising stronghold by surprise upon a fair day,
+massacred the entire garrison, and hanged the constable from his own
+half-finished walls. Sir John Puleston, the present constable, though
+he derives his patronymic <a name="Page_131"></a>from the &quot;base, bloody, and brutal Saxon,&quot;
+is really a warmly patriotic Welshman, and is doing a good work in
+preserving the ruins of the fortress of which he is the titular
+governor.</p>
+
+<p>We should like to record the romantic stories that have woven
+themselves around each crumbling keep and bailey-court, to see them in
+the days of their glory when warders kept the gate and watching
+archers guarded the wall, and the lord and lady and their knights and
+esquires dined in the great hall, and knights practised feats of arms
+in the tilting-ground, and the banner of the lord waved over the
+battlements, and everything was ready for war or sport, hunting or
+hawking. But all the glories of most of the castles of England have
+vanished, and naught is to be seen but ruined walls and deserted
+halls. Some few have survived and become royal palaces or noblemen's
+mansions. Such are Windsor, Warwick, Raby, Alnwick, and Arundel, but
+the fate of most of them is very similar. The old fortress aimed at
+being impregnable in the days of bows and arrows; but the progress of
+guns and artillery somewhat changed the ideas with regard to their
+security. In the struggle between Yorkists and Lancastrians many a
+noble owner lost his castle and his head. Edward IV thinned down
+castle-ownership, and many a fine fortress was left to die. When the
+Spaniards threatened our shores those who possessed castles tried to
+adapt them for the use of artillery, and when the Civil War began many
+of them were strengthened and fortified and often made gallant
+defences against their enemies, such as Donnington, Colchester,
+Scarborough, and Pontefract. When the Civil War ended the last bugle
+sounded the signal for their destruction. Orders were issued for their
+destruction, lest they should ever again be thorns in the sides of the
+Parliamentary army. Sometimes they were destroyed for revenge, or
+because of their materials, which were sold for the benefit of the
+Government or for the satisfaction of private greed. Lead was torn
+from the roofs of chapels and banqueting-halls. The massive walls were
+so strong <a name="Page_132"></a>that they resisted to the last and had to be demolished
+with the aid of gunpowder. They became convenient quarries for stone
+and furnished many a farm, cottage and manor-house with materials for
+their construction. Henceforth the old castle became a ruin. In its
+silent marshy moat reeds and rushes grow, and ivy covers its walls,
+and trees have sprung up in the quiet and deserted courts. Picnic
+parties encamp on the green sward, and excursionists amuse themselves
+in strolling along the walls and wonder why they were built so thick,
+and imagine that the castle was always a ruin erected for the
+amusement of the cheap-tripper for jest and playground. Happily care
+is usually bestowed upon the relics that remain, and diligent
+antiquaries excavate and try to rear in imagination the stately
+buildings. Some have been fortunate enough to become museums, and some
+modernized and restored are private residences. The English castle
+recalls some of the most eventful scenes in English history, and its
+bones and skeleton should be treated with respect and veneration as an
+important feature of vanishing England.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P132"></a><img src="./images/il055.png" alt="Knightly Bascinet" title="" /><br />
+Knightly Bascinet (<i>temp.</i> Henry V) in Norwich Castle</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI"></a><a name="Page_133"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>VANISHING OR VANISHED CHURCHES</h3>
+
+
+<p>No buildings have suffered more than our parish churches in the course
+of ages. Many have vanished entirely. A few stones or ruins mark the
+site of others, and iconoclasm has left such enduring marks on the
+fabric of many that remain that it is difficult to read their story
+and history. A volume, several volumes, would be needed to record all
+the vandalism that has been done to our ecclesiastical structures in
+the ages that have passed. We can only be thankful that some churches
+have survived to proclaim the glories of English architecture and the
+skill of our masons and artificers who wrought so well and worthily in
+olden days.</p>
+
+<p>In the chapter that relates to the erosion of our coasts we have
+mentioned many of the towns and villages which have been devoured by
+the sea with their churches. These now lie beneath the waves, and the
+bells in their towers are still said to ring when storms rage. We need
+not record again the submerged Ravenspur, Dunwich, Kilnsea, and other
+unfortunate towns with their churches where now only mermaids can form
+the congregation.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">And as the fisherman strays<br />
+When the clear cold eve's declining,<br />
+He sees the round tower of other days<br />
+In the wave beneath him shining.</p>
+
+<p>In the depths of the country, far from the sea, we can find many
+deserted shrines, many churches that once echoed with the songs of
+praise of faithful worshippers, wherein were celebrated the divine
+mysteries, and organs <a name="Page_134"></a>pealed forth celestial music, but now forsaken,
+desecrated, ruined, forgotten.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">The altar has vanished, the rood screen flown,<br />
+Foundation and buttress are ivy-grown;<br />
+The arches are shattered, the roof has gone,<br />
+The mullions are mouldering one by one;<br />
+Foxglove and cow-grass and waving weed<br />
+Grow over the scrolls where you once could read<br />
+Benedicite.</p>
+
+<p>Many of them have been used as quarries, and only a few stones remain
+to mark the spot where once stood a holy house of God. Before the
+Reformation the land must have teemed with churches. I know not the
+exact number of monastic houses once existing in England. There must
+have been at least a thousand, and each had its church. Each parish
+had a church. Besides these were the cathedrals, chantry chapels,
+chapels attached to the mansions, castles, and manor-houses of the
+lords and squires, to almshouses and hospitals, pilgrim churches by
+the roadside, where bands of pilgrims would halt and pay their
+devotions ere they passed along to the shrine of St. Thomas at
+Canterbury or to Our Lady at Walsingham. When chantries and guilds as
+well as monasteries were suppressed, their chapels were no longer used
+for divine service; some of the monastic churches became cathedrals or
+parish churches, but most of them were pillaged, desecrated, and
+destroyed. When pilgrimages were declared to be &quot;fond things vainly
+invented,&quot; and the pilgrim bands ceased to travel along the pilgrim
+way, the wayside chapel fell into decay, or was turned into a barn or
+stable.</p>
+
+<p>It is all very sad and deplorable. But the roll of abandoned shrines
+is not complete. At the present day many old churches are vanishing.
+Some have been abandoned or pulled down because they were deemed too
+near to the squire's house, and a new church erected at a more
+respectful distance. &quot;Restoration&quot; has doomed many to destruction. Not
+long ago the new scheme for supplying Liverpool with water
+necessitated the converting <a name="Page_135"></a>of a Welsh valley into a huge reservoir
+and the consequent destruction of churches and villages. A new scheme
+for supplying London with water has been mooted, and would entail the
+damming up of a river at the end of a valley and the overwhelming of
+several prosperous old villages and churches which have stood there
+for centuries. The destruction of churches in London on account of the
+value of their site and the migration of the population, westward and
+eastward, has been frequently deplored. With the exception of All
+Hallows, Barking; St. Andrew's Undershaft; St. Catherine Cree; St.
+Dunstan's, Stepney; St. Giles', Cripplegate; All Hallows, Staining;
+St. James's, Aldgate; St. Sepulchre's; St. Mary Woolnoth; all the old
+City churches were destroyed by the Great Fire, and some of the above
+were damaged and repaired. &quot;Destroyed by the Great Fire, rebuilt by
+Wren,&quot; is the story of most of the City churches of London. To him
+fell the task of rebuilding the fallen edifices. Well did he
+accomplish his task. He had no one to guide him; no school of artists
+or craftsmen to help him in the detail of his buildings; no great
+principles of architecture to direct him. But he triumphed over all
+obstacles and devised a style of his own that was well suitable for
+the requirements of the time and climate and for the form of worship
+of the English National Church. And how have we treated the buildings
+which his genius devised for us? Eighteen of his beautiful buildings
+have already been destroyed, and fourteen of these since the passing
+of the Union of City Benefices Act in 1860 have succumbed. With the
+utmost difficulty vehement attacks on others have been warded off, and
+no one can tell how long they will remain. Here is a very sad and
+deplorable instance of the vanishing of English architectural
+treasures. While we deplore the destructive tendencies of our
+ancestors we have need to be ashamed of our own.</p>
+
+<p>We will glance at some of these deserted shrines on the sites where
+formerly they stood. The Rev. Gilbert Twenlow Royds, Rector of
+Haughton and Rural Dean <a name="Page_136"></a>of Stafford, records three of these in his
+neighbourhood, and shall describe them in his own words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;On the main road to Stafford, in a field at the top of
+   Billington Hill, a little to the left of the road, there once
+   stood a chapel. The field is still known as Chapel Hill; but not
+   a vestige of the building survives; no doubt the foundations were
+   grubbed up for ploughing purposes. In a State paper, describing
+   'The State of the Church in Staffs, in 1586,' we find the
+   following entry: 'Billington Chappell; reader, a husbandman;
+   pension 16 groats; no preacher.' This is under the heading of
+   Bradeley, in which parish it stood. I have made a wide search for
+   information as to the dates of the building and destruction of
+   this chapel. Only one solitary note has come to my knowledge. In
+   Mazzinghi's <i>History of Castle Church</i> he writes: 'Mention is
+   made of Thomas Salt the son of Richard Salt and C(lem)ance his
+   wife as Christened at Billington Chapel in 1600.' Local tradition
+   says that within the memory of the last generation stones were
+   carted from this site to build the churchyard wall of Bradley
+   Church. I have noticed several re-used stones; but perhaps if
+   that wall were to be more closely examined or pulled down, some
+   further history might disclose itself. Knowing that some of the
+   stones were said to be in a garden on the opposite side of the
+   road, I asked permission to investigate. This was most kindly
+   granted, and I was told that there was a stone 'with some writing
+   on it' in a wall. No doubt we had the fragment of a gravestone!
+   and such it proved to be. With some difficulty we got the stone
+   out of the wall; and, being an expert in pal&aelig;ography, I was able
+   to decipher the inscription. It ran as follows: 'FURy. Died Feb.
+   28, 1864.' A skilled antiquary would probably pronounce it to be
+   the headstone of a favourite dog's grave; and I am inclined to
+   think that we have here a not unformidable rival of the
+   celebrated</p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="ctr">&#8224;<br />
+BIL ST<br />
+UM<br />
+PS HI<br />
+S.M.<br />
+ARK</p>
+
+<p>of the <i>Pickwick Papers</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;Yet another vanished chapel, of which I have even less to tell
+   you. On the right-hand side of the railway line <a name="Page_137"></a>running towards
+   Stafford, a little beyond Stallbrook Crossing, there is a field
+   known as Chapel Field. But there is nothing but the name left.
+   From ancient documents I have learnt that a chapel once stood
+   there, known as Derrington Chapel (I think in the thirteenth
+   century), in Seighford parish, but served from Ranton Priory. In
+   1847 my father built a beautiful little church at Derrington, in
+   the Geometrical Decorated style, but not on the Chapel Field. I
+   cannot tell you what an immense source of satisfaction it would
+   be to me if I could gather some further reliable information as
+   to the history, style, and annihilation of these two vanished
+   chapels. It is unspeakably sad to be forced to realize that in so
+   many of our country parishes no records exist of things and
+   events of surpassing interest in their histories.</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;I take you now to where there is something a little more
+   tangible. There stand in the park of Creswell Hall, near
+   Stafford, the ruins of a little thirteenth-century chapel. I will
+   describe what is left. I may say that some twenty years ago I
+   made certain excavations, which showed the ground plan to be
+   still complete. So far as I remember, we found a chamfered plinth
+   all round the nave, with a west doorway. The chancel and nave are
+   of the same width, the chancel measuring about 21 ft. long and
+   the nave <i>c.</i> 33 ft. The ground now again covers much of what we
+   found. The remains above ground are those of the chancel only.
+   Large portions of the east and north walls remain, and a small
+   part of the south wall. The north wall is still <i>c.</i> 12 ft. high,
+   and contains two narrow lancets, quite perfect. The east wall
+   reaches <i>c.</i> 15 ft., and has a good base-mould. It contains the
+   opening, without the head, of a three-light window, with simply
+   moulded jambs, and the glass-line remaining. A string-course
+   under the window runs round the angle buttresses, or rather did
+   so run, for I think the north buttress has been rebuilt, and
+   without the string. The south buttress is complete up to two
+   weatherings, and has two strings round it. It is a picturesque
+   and valuable ruin, and well worth a visit. It is amusing to
+   notice that Creswell now calls itself a rectory, and an open-air
+   service is held annually within its walls. It was a pre-bend of
+   S. Mary's, Stafford, and previously a Free Chapel, the advowson
+   belonging to the Lord of the Manor; and it was sometimes supplied
+   with preachers from Ranton Priory. Of the story of its
+   destruction I <a name="Page_138"></a>can discover nothing. It is now carefully
+   preserved and, I have heard it suggested that it might some day
+   be rebuilt to meet the spiritual needs of its neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;We pass now to the most stately and beautiful object in this
+   neighbourhood. I mean the tower of Ranton Priory Church. It is
+   always known here as Ranton Abbey. But it has no right to the
+   title. It was an off-shoot of Haughmond Abbey, near Shrewsbury,
+   and was a Priory of Black Canons, founded <i>temp.</i> Henry II. The
+   church has disappeared entirely, with the exception of a bit of
+   the south-west walling of the nave and a Norman doorway in it.
+   This may have connected the church with the domestic buildings.
+   In Cough's Collection in the Bodleian, dated 1731, there is a
+   sketch of the church. What is shown there is a simple
+   parallelogram, with the usual high walls, in Transition-Norman
+   style, with flat pilaster buttresses, two strings running round
+   the walls, the upper one forming the dripstones of lancet
+   windows, a corbel-table supporting the eaves-course, and a
+   north-east priest's door. But whatever the church may have been
+   (and the sketch represents it as being of severe simplicity),
+   some one built on to it a west tower of great magnificence. It is
+   of early Perpendicular date, practically uninjured, the pinnacles
+   only being absent, though, happily, the stumps of these remain.
+   Its proportion appears to me to be absolutely perfect, and its
+   detail so good that I think you would have to travel far to find
+   its rival. There is a very interesting point to notice in the
+   beautiful west doorway. It will be seen that the masonry of the
+   lower parts of its jambs is quite different from that of the
+   upper parts, and there can, I think, be no doubt that these lower
+   stones have been re-used from a thirteenth-century doorway of
+   some other part of the buildings. There is a tradition that the
+   bells of Gnosall Church were taken from this tower. I can find no
+   confirmation of this, and I cannot believe it. For the church at
+   Gnosall is of earlier date and greater magnificence than that of
+   Ranton Priory, and was, I imagine, quite capable of having bells
+   of its own.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It would be an advantage to arch&aelig;ology if every one were such a
+careful and accurate observer of local antiquarian remains as the
+Rural Dean of Stafford. Wherever <a name="Page_139"></a>we go we find similar deserted and
+abandoned shrines. In Derbyshire alone there are over a hundred
+destroyed or disused churches, of which Dr. Cox, the leading authority
+on the subject, has published a list. Nottinghamshire abounds in
+instances of the same kind. As late as 1892 the church at Colston
+Bassett was deliberately turned into a ruin. There are only mounds and
+a few stones to show the site of the parish church of
+Thorpe-in-the-fields, which in the seventeenth century was actually
+used as a beer-shop. In the fields between Elston and East Stoke is a
+disused church with a south Norman doorway. The old parochial chapel
+of Aslacton was long desecrated, and used in comparatively recent days
+as a beer-shop. The remains of it have, happily, been reclaimed, and
+now serve as a mission-room. East Anglia, famous for its grand
+churches, has to mourn over many which have been lost, many that are
+left roofless and ivy-clad, and some ruined indeed, though some
+fragment has been made secure enough for the holding of divine
+service. Whitling has a roofless church with a round Norman tower. The
+early Norman church of St. Mary at Kirby Bedon has been allowed to
+fall into decay, and for nearly two hundred years has been ruinous.
+St. Saviour's Church, Surlingham, was pulled down at the beginning of
+the eighteenth century on the ground that one church in the village
+was sufficient for its spiritual wants, and its materials served to
+mend roads.</p>
+
+<p>A strange reason has been given for the destruction of several of
+these East Anglian churches. In Norfolk there were many recusants,
+members of old Roman Catholic families, who refused in the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries to obey the law requiring them to attend
+their parish church. But if their church were in ruins no service
+could be held, and therefore they could not be compelled to attend.
+Hence in many cases the churches were deliberately reduced to a
+ruinous state. Bowthorpe was one of these unfortunate churches which
+<a name="Page_140"></a>met its fate in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It stands in a
+farm-yard, and the nave made an excellent barn and the steeple a
+dovecote. The lord of the manor was ordered to restore it at the
+beginning of the seventeenth century. This he did, and for a time it
+was used for divine service. Now it is deserted and roofless, and
+sleeps placidly girt by a surrounding wall, a lonely shrine. The
+church of St. Peter, Hungate, at Norwich, is of great historical
+interest and contains good architectural features, including a very
+fine roof. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century by John Paston and
+Margaret, his wife, whose letters form part of that extraordinary
+series of medieval correspondence which throws so much light upon the
+social life of the period. The church has a rudely carved record of
+their work outside the north door. This unhappy church has fallen into
+disuse, and it has been proposed to follow the example of the London
+citizens to unite the benefice with another and to destroy the
+building. Thanks to the energy and zeal of His Highness Prince
+Frederick Duleep Singh, delay in carrying out the work of destruction
+has been secured, and we trust that his efforts to save the building
+will be crowned with the success they deserve.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from Norwich are the churches of Keswick and Intwood. Before
+1600 A.D. the latter was deserted and desecrated, being used for a
+sheep-fold, and the people attended service at Keswick. Then Intwood
+was restored to its sacred uses, and poor Keswick church was compelled
+to furnish materials for its repair. Keswick remained ruinous until a
+few years ago, when part of it was restored and used as a cemetery
+chapel. Ringstead has two ruined churches, St. Andrew's and St.
+Peter's. Only the tower of the latter remains. Roudham church two
+hundred years ago was a grand building, as its remains plainly
+testify. It had a thatched roof, which was fired by a careless
+thatcher, and has remained roofless to this day. Few are acquainted
+with the ancient hamlet of Liscombe, situated in a beautiful<a name="Page_141"></a> Dorset
+valley. It now consists of only one or two houses, a little Norman
+church, and an old monastic barn. The little church is built of flint,
+stone, and large blocks of hard chalk, and consists of a chancel and
+nave divided by a Transition-Norman arch with massive rounded columns.
+There are Norman windows in the chancel, with some later work
+inserted. A fine niche, eight feet high, with a crocketed canopy,
+stood at the north-east corner of the chancel, but has disappeared.
+The windows of the nave and the west doorway have perished. It has
+been for a long time desecrated. The nave is used as a bakehouse.
+There is a large open grate, oven, and chimney in the centre, and the
+chancel is a storehouse for logs. The upper part of the building has
+been converted into an upper storey and divided into bedrooms, which
+have broken-down ceilings. The roof is of thatch. Modern windows and a
+door have been inserted. It is a deplorable instance of terrible
+desecration.</p>
+
+<p>The growth of ivy unchecked has caused many a ruin. The roof of the
+nave and south aisle of the venerable church of Chingford, Essex, fell
+a few years ago entirely owing to the destructive ivy which was
+allowed to work its relentless will on the beams, tiles, and rafters
+of this ancient structure.</p>
+
+<p>Besides those we have mentioned there are about sixty other ruined
+churches in Norfolk, and in Suffolk many others, including the
+magnificent ruins of Covehithe, Flixton, Hopton, which was destroyed
+only forty-four years ago through the burning of its thatched roof,
+and the Old Minster, South Elmham.</p>
+
+<p>Attempts have been made by the National Trust and the Society for the
+Protection of Ancient Buildings to save Kirkstead Chapel, near
+Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire. It is one of the very few surviving
+examples of the <i>capella extra portas</i>, which was a feature of every
+Cistercian abbey, where women and other persons who were not allowed
+within the gates could hear Mass. The <a name="Page_142"></a>abbey was founded in 1139, and
+the chapel, which is private property, is one of the finest examples
+of Early English architecture remaining in the country. It is in a
+very decaying condition. The owner has been approached, and the
+officials of the above societies have tried to persuade him to repair
+it himself or to allow them to do so. But these negotiations have
+hitherto failed. It is very deplorable when the owners of historic
+buildings should act in this &quot;dog-in-the-manger&quot; fashion, and surely
+the time has come when the Government should have power to
+compulsorily acquire such historic monuments when their natural
+protectors prove themselves to be incapable or unwilling to preserve
+and save them from destruction.</p>
+
+<p>We turn from this sorry page of wilful neglect to one that records the
+grand achievement of modern antiquaries, the rescue and restoration of
+the beautiful specimen of Saxon architecture, the little chapel of St.
+Lawrence at Bradford-on-Avon. Until 1856 its existence was entirely
+unknown, and the credit of its discovery was due to the Rev. Canon
+Jones, Vicar of Bradford. At the Reformation with the dissolution of
+the abbey at Shaftesbury it had passed into lay hands. The chancel was
+used as a cottage. Round its walls other cottages arose. Perhaps part
+of the building was at one time used as a charnel-house, as in an old
+deed it is called the Skull House. In 1715 the nave and porch were
+given to the vicar to be used as a school. But no one suspected the
+presence of this exquisite gem of Anglo-Saxon architecture, until
+Canon Jones when surveying the town from the height of a neighbouring
+hill recognized the peculiarity of the roof and thought that it might
+indicate the existence of a church. Thirty-seven years ago the
+Wiltshire antiquaries succeeded in purchasing the building. They
+cleared away the buildings, chimney-stacks, and outhouses that had
+grown up around it, and revealed the whole beauties of this lovely
+shrine. Arch&aelig;ologists have fought many battles over it as to its date.
+Some contend that it is the identical <a name="Page_143"></a><a name="Page_144"></a>church which William of
+Malmesbury tells us St. Aldhelm built at Bradford-on-Avon about 700
+A.D., others assert that it cannot be earlier than the tenth century.
+It was a monastic cell attached to the Abbey of Malmesbury, but
+Ethelred II gave it to the Abbess of Shaftesbury in 1001 as a secure
+retreat for her nuns if Shaftesbury should be threatened by the
+ravaging Danes. We need not describe the building, as it is well
+known. Our artist has furnished us with an admirable illustration of
+it. Its great height, its characteristic narrow Saxon doorways, heavy
+plain imposts, the string-courses surrounding the building, the
+arcades of pilasters, the carved figures of angels are some of its
+most important features. It is cheering to find that amid so much that
+has vanished we have here at Bradford a complete Saxon church that
+differs very little from what it was when it was first erected.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P143"></a><img src="./images/il056.png" alt="Saxon Doorway" title="" /><br />
+Saxon Doorway in St. Lawrence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts.</p>
+
+<p>Other Saxon remains are not wanting. Wilfrid's Crypt at Hexham, that
+at Ripon, Brixworth Church, the church within the precincts of Dover
+Castle, the towers of Barnack, Barton-upon-Humber, Stow, Earl's
+Barton, Sompting, Stanton Lacy show considerable evidences of Saxon
+work. Saxon windows with their peculiar baluster shafts can be seen at
+Bolam and Billingham, Durham; St. Andrew's, Bywell, Monkwearmouth,
+Ovington, Sompting, St. Mary Junior, York, Hornby, Wickham (Berks),
+Waithe, Holton-le-Clay, Glentworth and Clee (Lincoln), Northleigh,
+Oxon, and St. Alban's Abbey. Saxon arches exist at Worth, Corhampton,
+Escomb, Deerhurst, St. Benet's, Cambridge, Brigstock, and Barnack.
+Triangular arches remain at Brigstock, Barnack, Deerhurst, Aston
+Tirrold, Berks. We have still some Saxon fonts at Potterne, Wilts;
+Little Billing, Northants; Edgmond and Bucknell, Shropshire; Penmon,
+Anglesey; and South Hayling, Hants. Even Saxon sundials exist at
+Winchester, Corhampton, Bishopstone, Escomb, Aldborough, Edston, and
+Kirkdale. There is also one at Daglingworth, Gloucestershire. Some
+hours of the<a name="Page_145"></a> Saxon's day in that village must have fled more swiftly
+than others, as all the radii are placed at the same angle. Even some
+mural paintings by Saxon artists exist at St. Mary's, Guildford; St.
+Martin's, Canterbury; and faint traces at Britford, Headbourne,
+Worthing, and St. Nicholas, Ipswich, and some painted consecration
+crosses are believed to belong to this period.</p>
+
+<p>Recent investigations have revealed much Saxon work in our churches,
+the existence of which had before been unsuspected. Many circumstances
+have combined to obliterate it. The Danish wars had a disastrous
+effect on many churches reared in Saxon times. The Norman Conquest
+caused many of them to be replaced by more highly finished structures.
+But frequently, as we study the history written in the stonework of
+our churches, we find beneath coatings of stucco the actual walls
+built by Saxon builders, and an arch here, a column there, which link
+our own times with the distant past, when England was divided into
+eight kingdoms and when Danegelt was levied to buy off the marauding
+strangers.</p>
+
+<p>It is refreshing to find these specimens of early work in our
+churches. Since then what destruction has been wrought, what havoc
+done upon their fabric and furniture! At the Reformation iconoclasm
+raged with unpitying ferocity. Everybody from the King to the
+churchwardens, who sold church plate lest it should fall into the
+hands of the royal commissioners, seems to have been engaged in
+pillaging churches and monasteries. The plunder of chantries and
+guilds followed. Fuller quaintly describes this as &quot;the last dish of
+the course, and after cheese nothing is to be expected.&quot; But the
+coping-stone was placed on the vast fabric of spoliation by sending
+commissioners to visit all the cathedrals and parish churches, and
+seize the superfluous plate and ornaments for the King's use. Even
+quite small churches possessed many treasures which the piety of many
+generations had bestowed upon them.</p>
+
+<p>There is a little village in Berkshire called Boxford, <a name="Page_146"></a>quite a small
+place. Here is the list of church goods which the commissioners found
+there, and which had escaped previous ravages:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;One challice, a cross of copper &amp; gilt, another cross of timber
+   covered with brass, one cope of blue velvet embroidered with
+   images of angles, one vestment of the same suit with an albe of
+   Lockeram,<a name="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22"><sup>22</sup></a> two vestments of Dornexe,<a name="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23"><sup>23</sup></a> and three other very
+   old, two old &amp; coarse albes of Lockeram, two old copes of
+   Dornexe, iiij altar cloths of linen cloth, two corporals with two
+   cases whereof one is embroidered, two surplices, &amp; one rochet,
+   one bible &amp; the paraphrases of Erasmus in English, seven banners
+   of lockeram &amp; one streamer all painted, three front cloths for
+   altars whereof one of them is with panes of white damask &amp; black
+   satin, &amp; the other two of old vestments, two towels of linen,
+   iiij candlesticks of latten<a name="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24"><sup>24</sup></a> &amp; two standertes<a name="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25"><sup>25</sup></a> before the
+   high altar of latten, a lent vail<a name="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26"><sup>26</sup></a> before the high altar with
+   panes blue and white, two candlesticks of latten and five
+   branches, a peace,<a name="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27"><sup>27</sup></a> three great bells with one saunce bell xx,
+   one canopy of cloth, a covering of Dornixe for the Sepulchre, two
+   cruets of pewter, a holy-water pot of latten, a linen cloth to
+   draw before the rood. And all the said parcels safely to be kept
+   &amp; preserved, &amp; all the same &amp; every parcel thereof to be
+   forthcoming at all times when it shall be of them [the
+   churchwardens] required.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>This inventory of the goods of one small church enables us to judge of
+the wealth of our country churches before they were despoiled. Of
+private spoliators their name was legion. The arch-spoliator was
+Protector Somerset, the King's uncle, Edward Seymour, formerly Earl of
+Hertford and then created Duke of Somerset. He ruled England for three
+years after King Henry's death. He was a glaring and unblushing
+church-robber, setting an example which others were only too ready to
+follow. Canon Overton<a name="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28"><sup>28</sup></a> tells how Somerset House remains as a
+<a name="Page_147"></a>standing memorial of his rapacity. In order to provide materials for
+building it he pulled down the church of St. Mary-le-Strand and three
+bishops' houses, and was proceeding also to pull down the historical
+church of St. Margaret, Westminster; but public opinion was too strong
+against him, the parishioners rose and beat off his workmen, and he
+was forced to desist, and content himself with violating and
+plundering the precincts of St. Paul's. Moreover, the steeple and most
+of the church of St. John of Jerusalem, Smithfield, were mined and
+blown up with gunpowder that the materials might be utilized for the
+ducal mansion in the Strand. He turned Glastonbury, with all its
+associations dating from the earliest introduction of Christianity
+into our island, into a worsted manufactory, managed by French
+Protestants. Under his auspices the splendid college of St.
+Martin-le-Grand in London was converted into a tavern, and St.
+Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, served the scarcely less incongruous
+purpose of a Parliament House. All this he did, and when his
+well-earned fall came the Church fared no better under his successor,
+John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and afterwards Duke of Northumberland.</p>
+
+<p>Another wretch was Robert, Earl of Sussex, to whom the King gave the
+choir of Atleburgh, in Norfolk, because it belonged to a college.
+&quot;Being of a covetous disposition, he not only pulled down and spoiled
+the chancel, but also pulled up many fair marble gravestones of his
+ancestors with monuments of brass upon them, and other fair good
+pavements, and carried them and laid them for his hall, kitchen, and
+larder-house.&quot; The church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, has many
+monumental stones, the brasses of which were in 1551 sent to London to
+be cast into weights and measures for the use of the town. The shops
+of the artists in brass in London were full of broken brass memorials
+torn from tombs. Hence arose the making of palimpsest brasses, the
+carvers using an old brass and on the reverse side cutting a memorial
+of a more recently deceased person.<a name="Page_148"></a></p>
+
+<p>After all this iconoclasm, spoliation, and robbery it is surprising
+that anything of value should have been left in our churches. But
+happily some treasures escaped, and the gifts of two or three
+generations added others. Thus I find from the will of a good
+gentleman, Mr. Edward Ball, that after the spoliation of Barkham
+Church he left the sum of five shillings for the providing of a
+processional cross to be borne before the choir in that church, and I
+expect that he gave us our beautiful Elizabethan chalice of the date
+1561. The Church had scarcely recovered from its spoliation before
+another era of devastation and robbery ensued. During the Cromwellian
+period much destruction was wrought by mad zealots of the Puritan
+faction. One of these men and his doings are mentioned by Dr. Berwick
+in his <i>Querela Cantabrigiensis</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;One who calls himself John [it should be William] Dowsing and by
+Virtue of a pretended Commission, goes about y<sup>e</sup> country like a
+Bedlam, breaking glasse windows, having battered and beaten downe
+all our painted glasses, not only in our Chappels, but (contrary
+to order) in our Publique Schools, Colledge Halls, Libraries, and
+Chambers, mistaking, perhaps, y<sup>e</sup> liberall Artes for Saints
+(which they intend in time to pull down too) and having (against
+an order) defaced and digged up y<sup>e</sup> floors of our Chappels,
+many of which had lien so for two or three hundred years
+together, not regarding y<sup>e</sup> dust of our founders and
+predecessors who likely were buried there; compelled us by armed
+Souldiers to pay forty shillings a Colledge for not mending what
+he had spoyled and defaced, or forth with to goe to prison.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We meet with the sad doings of this wretch Dowsing in various places
+in East Anglia. He left his hideous mark on many a fair church. Thus
+the churchwardens of Walberswick, in Suffolk, record in their
+accounts:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="ctr"><table summary="" border="0">
+<colgroup span="2"><col align="left" width="60%" /><col align="right" width="10%" /></colgroup>
+<tr><td>&quot;1644, April 8th, paid to Martin Dowson, that came with the
+   troopers to our church, about the taking down of Images and
+   Brasses off Stones</td><td>0 6 0.&quot;</td></tr>
+<tr><td>&quot;1644 paid that day to others for taking up the brasses of grave
+   stones before the officer Dowson came</td><td>0 1 0.&quot;</td></tr></table>
+</div>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P149"></a><a name="Page_149"></a>
+<a href="./images/il057.png"><img src="./images/il057_th.png" alt="St. George's Church" title="" /></a><br />
+St. George's Church, Great Yarmouth</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_150"></a>The record of the ecclesiastical exploits of William Dowsing has been
+preserved by the wretch himself in a diary which he kept. It was
+published in 1786, and the volume provides much curious reading. With
+reference to the church of Toffe he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;Will: Disborugh Church Warden Richard Basly and John Newman
+   Cunstable, 27 Superstitious pictures in glass and ten other in
+stone, three brass inscriptions, Pray for y<sup>e</sup> Soules, and a
+   Cross to be taken of the Steeple (6s. 8d.) and there was divers
+   Orate pro Animabus in ye windows, and on a Bell, Ora pro Anima
+   Sanct&aelig; Catharin&aelig;.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;<i>Trinity Parish, Cambridge</i>, M. Frog, Churchwarden, December 25,
+we brake down 80 Popish pictures, and one of Christ and God y<sup>e</sup>
+   Father above.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;At <i>Clare</i> we brake down 1000 pictures superstitious.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;<i>Cochie</i>, there were divers pictures in the Windows which we
+   could not reach, neither would they help us to raise the
+   ladders.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;1643, Jan<sup>y</sup> 1, Edwards parish, we digged up the steps, and
+   brake down 40 pictures, and took off ten superstitious
+   inscriptions.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is terrible to read these records, and to imagine all the beautiful
+works of art that this ignorant wretch ruthlessly destroyed. To all
+the inscriptions on tombs containing the pious petition <i>Orate pro
+anima</i>&mdash;his ignorance is palpably displayed by his <i>Orate pro
+animabus</i>&mdash;he paid special attention. Well did Mr. Cole observe
+concerning the last entry in Dowsing's diary:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;From this last Entry we may clearly see to whom we are obliged
+   for the dismantling of almost all the gravestones that had
+   brasses on them, both in town and country: a sacrilegious
+   sanctified rascal that was afraid, or too proud, to call it St.
+   Edward's Church, but not ashamed to rob the dead of their honours
+   and the Church of its ornaments. W.C.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He tells also of the dreadful deeds that were being done at Lowestoft
+in 1644:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;In the same year, also, on the 12th of June, there came one
+   Jessop, with a commission from the Earl of<a name="Page_151"></a> Manchester, to take
+   away from gravestones all inscriptions on which he found <i>Orate
+   pro anima</i>&mdash;a wretched Commissioner not able to read or find out
+   that which his commission enjoyned him to remove&mdash;he took up in
+   our Church so much brasse, as he sold to Mr. Josiah Wild for five
+   shillings, which was afterwards (contrary to my knowledge) runn
+   into the little bell that hangs in the Town-house. There were
+   taken up in the Middle Ayl twelve pieces belonging to twelve
+   generations of the Jettours.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The same scenes were being enacted in many parts of England.
+Everywhere ignorant commissioners were rampaging about the country
+imitating the ignorant ferocity of this Dowsing and Jessop. No wonder
+our churches were bare, pillaged, and ruinated. Moreover, the
+conception of art and the taste for architecture were dead or dying,
+and there was no one who could replace the beautiful objects which
+these wretches destroyed or repair the desolation they had caused.</p>
+
+<p>Another era of spoliation set in in more recent times, when the
+restorers came with vitiated taste and the worst ideals to reconstruct
+and renovate our churches which time, spoliation, and carelessness had
+left somewhat the worse for wear. The Oxford Movement taught men to
+bestow more care upon the houses of God in the land, to promote His
+honour by more reverent worship, and to restore the beauty of His
+sanctuary. A rector found his church in a dilapidated state and talked
+over the matter with the squire. Although the building was in a sorry
+condition, with a cracked ceiling, hideous galleries, and high pews
+like cattle-pens, it had a Norman doorway, some Early English carved
+work in the chancel, a good Perpendicular tower, and fine Decorated
+windows. These two well-meaning but ignorant men decided that a
+brand-new church would be a great improvement on this old tumble-down
+building. An architect was called in, or a local builder; the plan of
+a new church was speedily drawn, and ere long the hammers and axes
+were let loose on the old church and every vestige of antiquity
+<a name="Page_152"></a>destroyed. The old Norman font was turned out of the church, and
+either used as a cattle-trough or to hold a flower-pot in the rectory
+garden. Some of the beautifully carved stones made an excellent
+rockery in the squire's garden, and old woodwork, perchance a
+fourteenth-century rood-screen, encaustic tiles bearing the arms of
+the abbey with which in former days the church was connected,
+monuments and stained glass, are all carted away and destroyed, and
+the triumph of vandalism is complete.</p>
+
+<p>That is an oft-told tale which finds its counterpart in many towns and
+villages, the entire and absolute destruction of the old church by
+ignorant vandals who work endless mischief and know not what they do.
+There is the village of Little Wittenham, in our county of Berks, not
+far from Sinodun Hill, an ancient earthwork covered with trees, that
+forms so conspicuous an object to the travellers by the Great Western
+Railway from Didcot to Oxford. About forty years ago terrible things
+were done in the church of that village. The vicar was a Goth. There
+was a very beautiful chantry chapel on the south side of the choir,
+full of magnificent marble monuments to the memory of various members
+of the Dunce family. This family, once great and powerful, whose great
+house stood hard by on the north of the church&mdash;only the terraces of
+which remain&mdash;is now, it is believed, extinct. The vicar thought that
+he might be held responsible for the dilapidations of this old
+chantry; so he pulled it down, and broke all the marble tombs with
+axes and hammers. You can see the shattered remains that still show
+signs of beauty in one of the adjoining barns. Some few were set up in
+the tower, the old font became a pig-trough, the body of the church
+was entirely renewed, and vandalism reigned supreme. In our county of
+Berks there were at the beginning of the last century 170 ancient
+parish churches. Of these, thirty have been pulled down and entirely
+rebuilt, six of them on entirely new sites; one has been burnt down,
+one disused; before 1890 one hundred <a name="Page_153"></a>were restored, some of them most
+drastically, and several others have been restored since, but with
+greater respect to old work.</p>
+
+<p>A favourite method of &quot;restoration&quot; was adopted in many instances. A
+church had a Norman doorway and pillars in the nave; sundry additions
+and alterations had been made in subsequent periods, and examples of
+Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles of architecture
+were observable, with, perhaps, a Renaissance porch or other later
+feature. What did the early restorers do? They said, &quot;This is a Norman
+church; all its details should be Norman too.&quot; So they proceeded to
+take away these later additions and imitate Norman work as much as
+they could by breaking down the Perpendicular or Decorated tracery in
+the windows and putting in large round-headed windows&mdash;their
+conception of Norman work, but far different from what any Norman
+builder would have contrived. Thus these good people entirely
+destroyed the history of the building, and caused to vanish much that
+was interesting and important. Such is the deplorable story of the
+&quot;restoration&quot; of many a parish church.</p>
+
+<p>An amusing book, entitled <i>Hints to Some Churchwardens, with a few
+Illustrations Relative to the Repair and Improvement of Parish
+Churches</i>, was published in 1825. The author, with much satire,
+depicts the &quot;very many splendid, curious, and convenient ideas which
+have emanated from those churchwardens who have attained perfection as
+planners and architects.&quot; He apologises for not giving the names of
+these superior men and the dates of the improvements they have
+achieved, but is sure that such works as theirs must immortalize them,
+not only in their parishes, but in their counties, and, he trusts, in
+the kingdom at large. The following are some of the &quot;hints&quot;:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;<i>How to affix a porch to an old church.</i></p>
+
+<p>   &quot;If the church is of stone, let the porch be of brick, the roof
+   slated, and the entrance to it of the improved<a name="Page_154"></a> Gothic called
+   modern, being an arch formed by an acute angle. The porch should
+   be placed so as to stop up what might be called a useless window;
+   and as it sometimes happens that there is an ancient Saxon<a name="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29"><sup>29</sup></a>
+   entrance, let it be carefully bricked up, and perhaps plastered,
+   so as to conceal as much as possible of the zigzag ornament used
+   in buildings of this kind. Such improvements cannot fail to
+   ensure celebrity to churchwardens of future ages.</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;<i>How to add a vestry to an old church.</i></p>
+
+<p>   &quot;The building here proposed is to be of bright brick, with a
+   slated roof and sash windows, with a small door on one side; and
+   it is, moreover, to be adorned with a most tasty and ornamental
+   brick chimney, which terminates at the chancel end. The position
+   of the building should be against two old Gothic windows; which,
+   having the advantage of hiding them nearly altogether, when
+   contrasted with the dull and uniform surface of an old stone
+   church, has a lively and most imposing effect.</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;<i>How to ornament the top or battlements of a tower belonging to
+   an ancient church</i>.</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;Place on each battlement, vases, candlesticks, and pineapples
+   alternately, and the effect will be striking. Vases have many
+   votaries amongst those worthy members of society, the
+   churchwardens. Candlesticks are of ancient origin, and represent,
+   from the highest authority, the light of the churches: but as in
+   most churches weathercocks are used, I would here recommend the
+   admirers of novelty and improvement to adopt a pair of snuffers,
+   which might also be considered as a useful emblem for
+   reinvigorating the lights from the candlesticks. The pineapple
+   ornament having in so many churches been judiciously substituted
+   for Gothic, cannot fail to please. Some such ornament should also
+   be placed at the top of the church, and at the chancel end. But
+   as this publication does not restrict any churchwarden of real
+   taste, and as the ornaments here recommended are in a common way
+   made of stone, if any would wish to distinguish his year of
+   office, perhaps he would do it brilliantly by painting them all
+   bright red....&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Other valuable suggestions are made in this curious and amusing work,
+such as &quot;how to repair Quartre-feuille <a name="Page_155"></a>windows&quot; by cutting out all
+the partitions and making them quite round; &quot;how to adapt a new church
+to an old tower with most taste and effect,&quot; the most attractive
+features being light iron partitions instead of stone mullions for the
+windows, with shutters painted yellow, bright brick walls and slate
+roof, and a door painted sky-blue. You can best ornament a chancel by
+placing colossal figures of Moses and Aaron supporting the altar, huge
+tables of the commandments, and clusters of grapes and pomegranates in
+festoons and clusters of monuments. Vases upon pillars, the
+commandments in sky-blue, clouds carved out of wood supporting angels,
+are some of the ideas recommended. Instead of a Norman font you can
+substitute one resembling a punch-bowl,<a name="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30"><sup>30</sup></a> with the pedestal and legs
+of a round claw table; and it would be well to rear a massive pulpit
+in the centre of the chancel arch, hung with crimson and gold lace,
+with gilt chandeliers, large sounding-board with a vase at the top. A
+stove is always necessary. It can be placed in the centre of the
+chancel, and the stove-pipe can be carried through the upper part of
+the east window, and then by an elbow conveyed to the crest of the
+roof over the window, the cross being taken down to make room for the
+chimney. Such are some of the recommendations of this ingenious
+writer, which are ably illustrated by effective drawings. They are not
+all imaginative. Many old churches tell the tragic story of their
+mutilation at the hands of a rector who has discovered Parker's
+<i>Glossary</i>, knows nothing about art, but &quot;does know what he likes,&quot;
+advised by his wife who has visited some of the cathedrals, and by an
+architect who has been elaborately educated in the principles of Roman
+Renaissance, but who knows no more of Lombard, Byzantine, or Gothic
+art than he does of the dynasties of ancient Egypt. When a church has
+fallen into the hands of such renovators and been heavily &quot;restored,&quot;
+if the ghost of one of its medieval builders came <a name="Page_156"></a>to view his work he
+would scarcely recognize it. Well says Mr. Thomas Hardy: &quot;To restore
+the great carcases of medi&aelig;valism in the remote nooks of western
+England seems a not less incongruous act than to set about renovating
+the adjoining crags themselves,&quot; and well might he sigh over the
+destruction of the grand old tower of Endelstow Church and the
+erection of what the vicar called &quot;a splendid tower, designed by a
+first-rate London man&mdash;in the newest style of Gothic art and full of
+Christian feeling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The novelist's remarks on &quot;restoration&quot; are most valuable:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;Entire destruction under the saving name has been effected on so
+   gigantic a scale that the protection of structures, their being
+   kept wind and weather-proof, counts as nothing in the balance.
+   Its enormous magnitude is realized by few who have not gone
+   personally from parish to parish through a considerable district,
+   and compared existing churches there with records, traditions,
+   and memories of what they formerly were. The shifting of old
+   windows and other details irregularly spaced, and spacing them at
+   exact distances, has been one process. The deportation of the
+   original chancel arch to an obscure nook and the insertion of a
+   wider new one, to throw open the view of the choir, is a practice
+   by no means extinct. Next in turn to the re-designing of old
+   buildings and parts of them comes the devastation caused by
+   letting restorations by contract, with a clause in the
+   specification requesting the builder to give a price for 'old
+   materials,' such as the lead of the roofs, to be replaced by
+   tiles or slates, and the oak of the pews, pulpit, altar-rails,
+   etc., to be replaced by deal. Apart from these irregularities it
+   has been a principle that anything later than Henry VIII is
+   anathema and to be cast out. At Wimborne Minster fine Jacobean
+   canopies have been removed from Tudor stalls for the offence only
+   of being Jacobean. At a hotel in Cornwall a tea-garden was, and
+   probably is still, ornamented with seats constructed of the
+   carved oak from a neighbouring church&mdash;no doubt the restorer's
+   perquisite.</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;Poor places which cannot afford to pay a clerk of the works
+   suffer much in these ecclesiastical convulsions. In one case I
+   visited, as a youth, the careful repair of an interesting Early
+   English window had been specified, but it was gone. The
+   contractor, who had met me on the spot, <a name="Page_157"></a>replied genially to my
+   gaze of concern: 'Well, now, I said to myself when I looked at
+   the old thing, I won't stand upon a pound or two. I'll give 'em a
+   new winder now I am about it, and make a good job of it,
+   howsomever.' A caricature in new stone of the old window had
+   taken its place. In the same church was an old oak rood-screen in
+   the Perpendicular style with some gilding and colouring still
+   remaining. Some repairs had been specified, but I beheld in its
+   place a new screen of varnished deal. 'Well,' replied the
+   builder, more genial than ever, 'please God, now I am about it,
+   I'll do the thing well, cost what it will.' The old screen had
+   been used up to boil the work-men's kettles, though 'a were not
+   much at that.'&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Such is the terrible report of this amazing iconoclasm.</p>
+
+<p>Some wiseacres, the vicar and churchwardens, once determined to pull
+down their old church and build a new one. So they met in solemn
+conclave and passed the following sagacious resolutions:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>1. That a new church should be built.<br />
+2. That the materials of the old church should be used in the
+   construction of the new.<br />
+3. That the old church should not be pulled down until the new
+   one be built. </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>How they contrived to combine the second and third resolutions history
+recordeth not.</p>
+
+<p>Even when the church was spared the &quot;restorers&quot; were guilty of strange
+enormities in the embellishment and decoration of the sacred building.
+Whitewash was vigorously applied to the walls and pews, carvings,
+pulpit, and font. If curious mural paintings adorned the walls, the
+hideous whitewash soon obliterated every trace and produced &quot;those
+modest hues which the native appearance of the stone so pleasingly
+bestows.&quot; But whitewash has one redeeming virtue, it preserves and
+saves for future generations treasures which otherwise might have been
+destroyed. Happily all decoration of churches has not been carried out
+in the reckless fashion thus described by a friend of the writer. An
+old Cambridgeshire incumbent, who had done nothing to his <a name="Page_158"></a>church for
+many years, was bidden by the archdeacon to &quot;brighten matters up a
+little.&quot; The whole of the woodwork wanted repainting and varnishing, a
+serious matter for a poor man. His wife, a very capable lady, took the
+matter in hand. She went to the local carpenter and wheelwright and
+bought up the whole of his stock of that particular paint with which
+farm carts and wagons are painted, coarse but serviceable, and of the
+brightest possible red, blue, green, and yellow hues. With her own
+hands she painted the whole of the interior&mdash;pulpit, pews, doors,
+etc., and probably the wooden altar, using the colours as her fancy
+dictated, or as the various colours held out. The effect was
+remarkable. A succeeding rector began at once the work of restoration,
+scraping off the paint and substituting oak varnish; but when my
+friend took a morning service for him the work had not been completed,
+and he preached from a bright green pulpit.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P158"></a><img src="./images/il058.png" alt="Carving on Rood-screen" title="" /><br />
+Carving on Rood-screen, Alcester Church, Warwick</p>
+
+<p>The contents of our parish churches, furniture and plate, are rapidly
+vanishing. England has ever been remarkable for the number and beauty
+of its rood-screens. At the Reformation the roods were destroyed and
+many screens with them, but many of the latter were retained, and
+although through neglect or wanton destruction they have ever since
+been disappearing, yet hundreds still exist.<a name="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31"><sup>31</sup></a> Their number is,
+however, sadly decreased. In Cheshire &quot;restoration&quot; has removed nearly
+all examples, except Ashbury, Mobberley, Malpas, and a few others. The
+churches of Bunbury and Danbury have lost some good screen-work since
+1860. In Derbyshire screens <a name="Page_159"></a>suffered severely in the nineteenth
+century, and the records of each county show the disappearance of many
+notable examples, though happily Devonshire, Somerset, and several
+other shires still possess some beautiful specimens of medieval
+woodwork. A large number of Jacobean pulpits with their curious
+carvings have vanished. A pious donor wishes to give a new pulpit to a
+church in memory of a relative, and the old pulpit is carted away to
+make room for its modern and often inferior substitute. Old stalls and
+misericordes, seats and benches with poppy-head terminations have
+often been made to vanish, and the pillaging of our churches at the
+Reformation and during the Commonwealth period and at the hands of the
+&quot;restorers&quot; has done much to deprive our churches of their ancient
+furniture.</p>
+
+<p>Most churches had two or three chests or coffers for the storing of
+valuable ornaments and vestments. Each chantry had its chest or ark,
+as it was sometimes called, e.g. the collegiate church of St. Mary,
+Warwick, had in 1464, &quot;ij old irebound coofres,&quot; &quot;j gret olde arke to
+put in vestments,&quot; &quot;j olde arke at the autere ende, j old coofre
+irebonde having a long lok of the olde facion, and j lasse new coofre
+having iij loks called the tresory cofre and certain almaries.&quot; &quot;In
+the inner house j new hie almarie with ij dores to kepe in the
+evidence of the Churche and j great old arke and certain olde
+Almaries, and in the house afore the Chapter house j old irebounde
+cofre having hie feet and rings of iron in the endes thereof to heve
+it bye.&quot;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;It is almost exceptional to find any parish of five hundred
+   inhabitants which does not possess a parish chest. The parish
+   chest of the parish in which I am writing is now in the vestry of
+   the church here. It has been used for generations as a coal box.
+   It is exceptional to find anything so useful as wholesome fuel
+   inside these parish chests; their contents have in the great
+   majority of instances utterly perished, and the miserable
+   destruction of those interesting parish records testifies to the
+   almost universal neglect which they have suffered at the hands,
+   not of the parsons, who as a rule have kept with remarkable <a name="Page_160"></a>care
+   the register books for which they have always been responsible,
+   but of the churchwardens and overseers, who have let them perish
+   without a thought of their value.</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;As a rule the old parish chests have fallen to pieces, or worse,
+   and their contents have been used to light the church stove,
+   except in those very few cases where the chests were furnished
+   with two or more keys, each key being of different wards from the
+   other, and each being handed over to a different functionary when
+   the time of the parish meeting came round.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32"><sup>32</sup></a> </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>When the ornaments and vestments were carted away from the church in
+the time of Edward VI, many of the church chests lost their use, and
+were sold or destroyed, the poorest only being kept for registers and
+documents. Very magnificent were some of these chests which have
+survived, such as that at Icklington, Suffolk, Church Brampton,
+Northants, Rugby, Westminster Abbey, and Chichester. The old chest at
+Heckfield may have been one of those ordered in the reign of King John
+for the collection of the alms of the faithful for the fifth crusade.
+The artist, Mr. Fred Roe, has written a valuable work on chests, to
+which those who desire to know about these interesting objects can
+refer.</p>
+
+<p>Another much diminishing store of treasure belonging to our churches
+is the church plate. Many churches possess some old plate&mdash;perhaps a
+pre-Reformation chalice. It is worn by age, and the clergyman,
+ignorant of its value, takes it to a jeweller to be repaired. He is
+told that it is old and thin and cannot easily be repaired, and is
+offered very kindly by the jeweller in return for this old chalice a
+brand-new one with a paten added. He is delighted, and the old chalice
+finds its way to Christie's, realizes a large sum, and goes into the
+collection of some millionaire. Not long ago the Council of the
+Society of Antiquaries issued a memorandum to the bishops and
+archdeacons of the Anglican Church calling attention to the increasing
+frequency of the sale of old or obsolete church plate. This is of two
+kinds: (1) pieces of plate <a name="Page_161"></a><a name="Page_162"></a>or other articles of a domestic character
+not especially made, nor perhaps well fitted for the service of the
+Church; (2) chalices, patens, flagons, or plate generally, made
+especially for ecclesiastical use, but now, for reasons of change of
+fashion or from the articles themselves being worn out, no longer
+desired to be used. A church possibly is in need of funds for
+restoration, and an effort is naturally made to turn such articles
+into money. The officials decide to sell any objects the church may
+have of the first kind. Thus the property of the Church of England
+finds its way abroad, and is thus lost to the nation. With regard to
+the sacred vessels of the second class, it is undignified, if not a
+desecration, that vessels of such a sacred character should be
+subjected to a sale by auction and afterwards used as table ornaments
+by collectors to whom their religious significance makes no appeal. We
+are reminded of the profanity of Belshazzar's feast.<a name="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33"><sup>33</sup></a> It would be
+far better to place such objects for safe custody and preservation in
+some local museum. Not long ago a church in Knightsbridge was removed
+and rebuilt on another site. It had a communion cup presented by
+Archbishop Laud. Some addition was required for the new church, and it
+was proposed to sell the chalice to help in defraying the cost of this
+addition. A London dealer offered five hundred guineas for it, and
+doubtless by this time it has passed into private hands and left the
+country. This is only one instance out of many of the depletion of the
+Church of its treasures. It must not be forgotten that although the
+vicar and churchwardens are for the time being trustees of the church
+plate and furniture, yet the property really is vested in the
+parishioners. It ought not to be sold without a faculty, and the
+chancellors of dioceses ought to be extremely careful ere they allow
+such sales to take place. The learned Chancellor of Exeter very wisely
+recently refused to allow the rector of Churchstanton to sell a
+chalice of the date 1660 A.D., stating that it was painfully repugnant
+to the feelings of many Churchmen that it should be possible that a
+vessel dedicated to the most sacred service of the Church should
+figure upon the dinner-table of a collector. He quoted a case of a
+chalice which had disappeared from a church and been found afterwards
+with an inscription showing that it had been awarded as a prize at
+athletic sports. Such desecration is too deplorable for words suitable
+to describe it. If other chancellors took the same firm stand as Mr.
+Chadwyck-Healey, of Exeter, we should hear less of such alienation of
+ecclesiastical treasure.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P161"></a><img src="./images/il059.png" alt="14th Century Coffer" title="" /><br />
+Fourteenth-century Coffer in Faversham Church, Kent From <i>Old Oak Furniture</i>, by Fred Roe</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P163"></a><a name="Page_163"></a>
+<a href="./images/il060.png"><img src="./images/il060_th.png" alt="Flanders Chest" title="" /></a><br />
+Flanders Chest in East Dereham Church, Norfolk, <i>temp.</i> Henry VIII From <i>Old Oak Furniture</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_164"></a>Another cause of mutilation and the vanishing of objects of interest
+and beauty is the iconoclasm of visitors, especially of American
+visitors, who love our English shrines so much that they like to chip
+off bits of statuary or wood-carving to preserve as mementoes of their
+visit. The fine monuments in our churches and cathedrals are
+especially convenient to them for prey. Not long ago the best portions
+of some fine carving were ruthlessly cut and hacked away by a party of
+American visitors. The verger explained that six of the party held him
+in conversation at one end of the building while the rest did their
+deadly and nefarious work at the other. One of the most beautiful
+monuments in the country, that of the tomb of Lady Maud FitzAlan at
+Chichester, has recently been cut and chipped by these unscrupulous
+visitors. It may be difficult to prevent them from damaging such works
+of art, but it is hoped that feelings of greater reverence may grow
+which would render such vandalism impossible. All civilized persons
+would be ashamed to mutilate the statues of Greece and Rome in our
+museums. Let them realize that these monuments in our cathedrals and
+churches are just as valuable, as they are the best of English art,
+and then no sacrilegious hand would dare to injure them or deface them
+by scratching names upon them or by carrying away broken chips as
+souvenirs. Playful boys in churchyards sometimes do much mischief.<a name="Page_165"></a> In
+Shrivenham churchyard there is an ancient full-sized effigy, and two
+village urchins were recently seen amusing themselves by sliding the
+whole length of the figure. This must be a common practice of the boys
+of the village, as the effigy is worn almost to an inclined plane. A
+tradition exists that the figure represents a man who was building the
+tower and fell and was killed. Both tower and effigy are of the same
+period&mdash;Early English&mdash;and it is quite possible that the figure may be
+that of the founder of the tower, but its head-dress seems to show
+that it represents a lady. Whipping-posts and stocks are too light a
+punishment for such vandalism.</p>
+
+<p>The story of our vanished and vanishing churches, and of their
+vanished and vanishing contents, is indeed a sorry one. Many efforts
+are made in these days to educate the public taste, to instil into the
+minds of their custodians a due appreciation of their beauties and of
+the principles of English art and architecture, and to save and
+protect the treasures that remain. That these may be crowned with
+success is the earnest hope and endeavour of every right-minded
+Englishman.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P165"></a><img src="./images/il061.png" alt="" title="" /><br />
+Reversed Rose carved on &quot;Miserere&quot; in Norwich Cathedral</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="Page_166"></a><a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD MANSIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p>One of the most deplorable features of vanishing England is the
+gradual disappearance of its grand old manor-houses and mansions. A
+vast number still remain, we are thankful to say. We have still left
+to us Haddon and Wilton, Broughton, Penshurst, Hardwick, Welbeck,
+Bramshill, Longleat, and a host of others; but every year sees a
+diminution in their number. The great enemy they have to contend with
+is fire, and modern conveniences and luxuries, electric lighting and
+the heating apparatus, have added considerably to their danger. The
+old floors and beams are unaccustomed to these insidious wires that
+have a habit of fusing, hence we often read in the newspapers:
+&quot;DISASTROUS FIRE&mdash;HISTORIC MANSION ENTIRELY DESTROYED.&quot; Too often not
+only is the house destroyed, but most of its valuable contents is
+devoured by the flames. Priceless pictures by Lely and Vandyke,
+miniatures of Cosway, old furniture of Chippendale and Sheraton, and
+the countless treasures which generations of cultured folk with ample
+wealth have accumulated, deeds, documents and old papers that throw
+valuable light on the manners and customs of our forefathers and on
+the history of the country, all disappear and can never be replaced. A
+great writer has likened an old house to a human heart with a life of
+its own, full of sad and sweet reminiscences. It is deplorably sad
+when the old mansion disappears in a night, and to find in the morning
+nothing but blackened walls&mdash;a grim ruin.</p>
+
+<p>Our forefathers were a hardy race, and did not require <a name="Page_167"></a>hot-water
+pipes and furnaces to keep them warm. Moreover, they built their
+houses so surely and so well that they scarcely needed these modern
+appliances. They constructed them with a great square courtyard, so
+that the rooms on the inside of the quadrangle were protected from the
+winds. They sang truly in those days, as in these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Sing heigh ho for the wind and the rain,<br />
+For the rain it raineth every day.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P167"></a><img src="./images/il062.png" alt="Oak Panelling" title="" /><br />
+Oak Panelling. Wainscot of Fifteenth Century, with addition <i>circa</i> late Seventeenth Century, fitted on to it in angle of
+room in the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent</p>
+
+<p>So they sheltered themselves from the wind and rain by having a
+courtyard or by making an E or H shaped plan for their dwelling-place.
+Moreover, they made their walls very thick in order that the winds
+should not blow or the rain beat through them. Their rooms, too, were
+panelled or hung with tapestry&mdash;famous things for making a room warm
+and cosy. We have plaster walls covered with an elegant wall-paper
+which has <a name="Page_168"></a>always a cold surface, hence the air in the room, heated by
+the fire, is chilled when it comes into contact with the cold wall and
+creates draughts. But oak panelling or woollen tapestry soon becomes
+warm, and gives back its heat to the room, making it delightfully
+comfortable and cosy.</p>
+
+<p>One foolish thing our forefathers did, and that was to allow the great
+beams that help to support the upper floor to go through the chimney.
+How many houses have been burnt down owing to that fatal beam! But our
+ancestors were content with a dog-grate and wood fires; they could not
+foresee the advent of the modern range and the great coal fires, or
+perhaps they would have been more careful about that beam.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P168"></a><img src="./images/il063.png" alt="Moldings" title="" /><br />
+Section of Mouldings of Cornice on Panelling, the Church House, Goudhurst</p>
+
+<p>Fire is, perhaps, the chief cause of the vanishing of old houses, but
+it is not the only cause. The craze for new fashions at the beginning
+of the last century doomed to death many a noble mansion. There seems
+to have been a positive mania for pulling down houses at that period.
+As I go over in my mind the existing great houses in this country, I
+find that by far the greater number of the old houses were wantonly
+destroyed about the years 1800-20, and new ones in the Italian or some
+other incongruous style erected in their place. Sometimes, as at
+Little Wittenham, you find the lone lorn terraces of the gardens of
+the house, but all else has disappeared. As Mr. Allan Fea says: &quot;When
+an old landmark disappears, <a name="Page_169"></a><a name="Page_170"></a>who does not feel a pang of regret at
+parting with something which linked us with the past? Seldom an old
+house is threatened with demolition but there is some protest, more
+perhaps from the old associations than from any particular
+architectural merit the building may have.&quot; We have many pangs of
+regret when we see such wanton destruction. The old house at Weston,
+where the Throckmortons resided when the poet Cowper lived at the
+lodge, and when leaving wrote on a window-shutter&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Farewell, dear scenes, for ever closed to me;<br />
+Oh! for what sorrows must I now exchange ye!</p>
+
+<p>may be instanced as an example of a demolished mansion. Nothing is now
+left of it but the entrance-gates and a part of the stables. It was
+pulled down in 1827. It is described as a fine mansion, possessing
+secret chambers which were occupied by Roman Catholic priests when it
+was penal to say Mass. One of these chambers was found to contain,
+when the house was pulled down, a rough bed, candlestick, remains of
+food, and a breviary. A Roman Catholic school and presbytery now
+occupy its site. It is a melancholy sight to see the &quot;Wilderness&quot;
+behind the house, still adorned with busts and urns, and the graves of
+favourite dogs, which still bear the epitaphs written by Cowper on Sir
+John Throckmorton's pointer and Lady Throckmorton's pet spaniel.
+&quot;Capability Brown&quot; laid his rude, rough hand upon the grounds, but you
+can still see the &quot;prosed alcove&quot; mentioned by Cowper, a wooden
+summer-house, much injured</p>
+
+<p class="poem">By rural carvers, who with knives deface<br />
+The panels, leaving an obscure rude name.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, alas! the old house has to vanish entirely through old age.
+It cannot maintain its struggle any longer. The rain pours through the
+roof and down the insides of the walls. And the family is as decayed
+as their mansion, and has no money wherewith to defray the cost of
+reparation.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P169"></a><img src="./images/il064.png" alt="" title="" /><br />
+The Wardrobe House. The Close. Salisbury. Evening.<a name="Page_171"></a></p>
+
+<p>Our artist, Mr. Fred Roe, in his search for the picturesque, had one
+sad and deplorable experience, which he shall describe in his own
+words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;One of the most weird and, I may add, chilling experiences in
+   connection with the decline of county families which it was my
+   lot to experience, occurred a year or two ago in a remote corner
+   of the eastern counties. I had received, through a friend, an
+   invitation to visit an old mansion before the inmates
+   (descendants of the owners in Elizabethan times) left and the
+   contents were dispersed. On a comfortless January morning, while
+   rain and sleet descended in torrents to the accompaniment of a
+   biting wind, I detrained at a small out-of-the-way station in
+   &mdash;&mdash;folk. A weather-beaten old man in a patched great-coat, with
+   the oldest and shaggiest of ponies and the smallest of
+   governess-traps, awaited my arrival. I, having wedged myself with
+   the Jehu into this miniature vehicle, was driven through some
+   miles of muddy ruts, until turning through a belt of wooded land
+   the broken outlines of an extensive dilapidated building broke
+   into view. This was &mdash;&mdash; Hall.</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;I never in my life saw anything so weirdly picturesque and
+   suggestive of the phrase 'In Chancery' as this semi-ruinous
+   mansion. Of many dates and styles of architecture, from Henry
+   VIII to George III, the whole seemed to breathe an atmosphere of
+   neglect and decay. The waves of affluence and successive rise of
+   various members of the family could be distinctly traced in the
+   enlargements and excrescences which contributed to the casual
+   plan and irregular contour of the building. At one part an
+   addition seemed to denote that the owner had acquired wealth
+   about the time of the first James, and promptly directed it to
+   the enlargement of his residence. In another a huge hall with
+   classic brick frontage, dating from the commencement of the
+   eighteenth century, spoke of an increase of affluence&mdash;probably
+   due to agricultural prosperity&mdash;followed by the dignity of a
+   peerage. The latest alterations appear to have been made during
+   the Strawberry Hill epoch, when most of the mullioned windows had
+   been transformed to suit the prevailing taste. Some of the
+   building&mdash;a little of it&mdash;seemed habitable, but in the greater
+   part the gables were tottering, the stucco frontage peeling and
+   falling, and the windows broken and shuttered. In front of this
+   <a name="Page_172"></a>wreck of a building stretched the overgrown remains of what once
+   had been a terrace, bounded by large stone globes, now moss-grown
+   and half hidden under long grass. It was the very picture of
+   desolation and proud poverty.</p>
+
+<p>   &quot;We drove up to what had once been the entrance to the servants'
+   hall, for the principal doorway had long been disused, and
+   descending from the trap I was conducted to a small panelled
+   apartment, where some freshly cut logs did their best to give out
+   a certain amount of heat. Of the hospitality meted out to me that
+   day I can only hint with mournful appreciation. I was made
+   welcome with all the resources which the family had available.
+   But the place was a veritable vault, and cold and damp as such. I
+   think that this state of things had been endured so long and with
+   such haughty silence by the inmates that it had passed into a
+   sort of normal condition with them, and remained unnoticed except
+   by new-comers. A few old domestics stuck by the family in its
+   fallen fortunes, and of these one who had entered into their
+   service some quarter of a century previous waited upon us at
+   lunch with dignified ceremony. After lunch a tour of the house
+   commenced. Into this I shall not enter into in detail; many of
+   the rooms were so bare that little could be said of them, but the
+   Great Hall, an apartment modelled somewhat on the lines of the
+   more palatial Rainham, needs the pen of the author of
+   <i>Lammermoor</i> to describe. It was a very large and lofty room in
+   the pseudo-classic style, with a fine cornice, and hung round
+   with family portraits so bleached with damp and neglect that they
+   presented but dim and ghostly presentments of their originals. I
+   do not think a fire could have been lit in this ghostly gallery
+   for many years, and some of the portraits literally sagged in
+   their frames with accumulations of rubbish which had dropped
+   behind the canvases. Many of the pictures were of no value except
+   for their associations, but I saw at least one Lely, a family
+   group, the principal figure in which was a young lady displaying
+   too little modesty and too much bosom. Another may have been a
+   Vandyk, while one or two were early works representing gallants
+   of Elizabeth's time in ruffs and feathered caps. The rest were
+   for the most part but wooden ancestors displaying curled wigs,
+   legs which lacked drawing, and high-heeled shoes. A few old
+   cabinets remained, and a glorious suite of chairs of<a name="Page_173"></a> Queen
+   Anne's time&mdash;these, however, were perishing, like the rest&mdash;from
+   want of proper care and firing.</p>
+
+<p>  &quot;The kitchens, a vast range of stone-flagged apartments, spoke of
+   mighty hospitality in bygone times, containing fire-places fit to
+   roast oxen at whole, huge spits and countless hooks, the last
+   exhibiting but one dependent&mdash;the skin of the rabbit shot for
+   lunch. The atmosphere was, if possible, a trifle more penetrating
+   than that of the Great Hall, and the walls were discoloured with
+   damp.</p>
+
+<p>  &quot;Upstairs, besides the bedrooms, was a little chapel with some
+   remains of Gothic carving, and a few interesting pictures of the
+   fifteenth century; a cunningly contrived priest-hole, and a long
+   gallery lined with dusty books, whither my lord used to repair on
+   rainy days. Many of the windows were darkened by creepers, and
+   over one was a flap of half-detached plaster work which hung like
+   a shroud. But, oh, the stained glass! The eighteenth-century
+   renovators had at least respected these, and quarterings and
+   coats of arms from the fifteenth century downwards were to be
+   seen by scores. What an opportunity for the genealogist with a
+   history in view, but that opportunity I fear has passed for ever.
+   The &mdash;&mdash; Hall estate was evidently mortgaged up to the hilt, and
+   nothing intervened to prevent the dispersal of these treasures,
+   which occurred some few months after my visit. Large though the
+   building was, I learned that its size was once far greater, some
+   two-thirds of the old building having been pulled down when the
+   hall was constituted in its present form. Hard by on an adjoining
+   estate a millionaire manufacturer (who owned several motor-cars)
+   had set up an establishment, but I gathered that his tastes were
+   the reverse of antiquarian, and that no effort would be made to
+   restore the old hall to its former glories and preserve such
+   treasures as yet remained intact&mdash;a golden opportunity to many
+   people of taste with leanings towards a country life. But time
+   fled, and the ragged retainer was once more at the door, so I
+   left &mdash;&mdash; Hall in a blinding storm of rain, and took my last look
+   at its gaunt fa&ccedil;ade, carrying with me the seeds of a cold which
+   prevented me from visiting the Eastern Counties for some time to
+   come.&quot;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Some historic houses of rare beauty have only just escaped
+destruction. Such an one is the ancestral house <a name="Page_174"></a>of the Comptons,
+Compton Wynyates, a vision of colour and architectural beauty&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">A Tudor-chimneyed bulk<br />
+Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to his extravagance and the enormous expenses of a contested
+election in 1768, Spencer, the eighth Earl of Northampton, was reduced
+to cutting down the timber on the estate, selling his furniture at
+Castle Ashby and Compton, and spending the rest of his life in
+Switzerland. He actually ordered Compton Wynyates to be pulled down,
+as he could not afford to repair it; happily the faithful steward of
+the estate, John Berrill, did not obey the order. He did his best to
+keep out the weather and to preserve the house, asserting that he was
+sure the family would return there some day. Most of the windows were
+bricked up in order to save the window-tax, and the glorious old
+building within whose walls kings and queens had been entertained
+remained bare and desolate for many years, excepting a small portion
+used as a farm-house. All honour to the old man's memory, the faithful
+servant, who thus saved his master's noble house from destruction, the
+pride of the Midlands. Its latest historian, Miss Alice Dryden,<a name="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34"><sup>34</sup></a>
+thus describes its appearance:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;On approaching the building by the high road, the entrance front
+   now bursts into view across a wide stretch of lawn, where
+   formerly it was shielded by buildings forming an outer court. It
+   is indeed a most glorious pile of exquisite colouring, built of
+   small red bricks widely separated by mortar, with occasional
+   chequers of blue bricks; the mouldings and facings of yellow
+   local stone, the woodwork of the two gables carved and black with
+   age, the stone slates covered with lichens and mellowed by the
+   hand of time; the whole building has an indescribable charm. The
+   architecture, too, is all irregular; towers here and there,
+   gables of different heights, any straight line embattled, few
+   windows placed exactly over others, and the whole fitly
+   surmounted by the elaborate <a name="Page_175"></a>brick chimneys of different designs,
+   some fluted, others zigzagged, others spiral, or combined spiral
+   and fluted.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>An illustration is given of one of these chimneys which form such an
+attractive feature of the house.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P175"></a><img src="./images/il065.png" alt="Chimney" title="" /><br />
+Chimney at Compton Wynates.</p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to record the history of Compton Wynyates. The
+present owner, the Marquis of Northampton, has written an admirable
+monograph on the annals of the house of his ancestors. Its builder was
+Sir William Compton,<a name="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35"><sup>35</sup></a> who by his valour in arms and his courtly
+ways gained the favour of Henry VIII, and was promoted to high honour
+at the Court. Dugdale states that in 1520 he obtained licence to
+impark two thousand acres at Overcompton and Nethercompton, <i>alias</i>
+Compton Vyneyats, where he built a &quot;fair mannour house,&quot; and where he
+was visited by the King, &quot;for over the gateway are the arms of France
+and England, under a crown, supported by the greyhound and griffin,
+and sided by the rose and the crown, probably in memory of Henry
+VIII's visit here.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36"><sup>36</sup></a> The Comptons ever basked in the smiles of
+royalty. Henry Compton, created baron, was the favourite of Queen
+Elizabeth, and his son William succeeded in marrying the daughter of
+Sir John Spencer, richest of City merchants. All the world knows of
+his ingenious craft in carrying off the lady in a baker's basket, of
+his wife's disinheritance by the irate father, and of the subsequent
+reconciliation through the <a name="Page_176"></a>intervention of Queen Elizabeth at the
+baptism of the son of this marriage. The Comptons fought bravely for
+the King in the Civil War. Their house was captured by the enemy, and
+besieged by James Compton, Earl of Northampton, and the story of the
+fighting about the house abounds in interest, but cannot be related
+here. The building was much battered by the siege and by Cromwell's
+soldiers, who plundered the house, killed the deer in the park,
+defaced the monuments in the church, and wrought much mischief. Since
+the eighteenth-century disaster to the family it has been restored,
+and remains to this day one of the most charming homes in England.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P176"></a><img src="./images/il066.png" alt="Window-catch" title="" /><br />
+Window-catch, Brockhall, Northants</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The greatest advantages men have by riches are to give, to build, to
+plant, and make pleasant scenes.&quot; So wrote Sir William Temple,
+diplomatist, philosopher, and true garden-lover. And many of the
+gentlemen of England seem to have been of the same mind, if we may
+judge from the number of delightful old country-houses set amid
+pleasant scenes that time and war and fire have spared to us. Macaulay
+draws a very unflattering picture of the old country squire, as of the
+parson. His untruths concerning the latter I have endeavoured to
+expose in another place.<a name="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37"><sup>37</sup></a> The manor-houses themselves declare <a name="Page_177"></a>the
+historian's strictures to be unfounded. Is it possible that men so
+ignorant and crude could have built for themselves residences bearing
+evidence of such good taste, so full of grace and charm, and
+surrounded by such rare blendings of art and nature as are displayed
+so often in park and garden? And it is not, as a rule, in the greatest
+mansions, the vast piles erected by the great nobles of the Court,
+that we find such artistic qualities, but most often in the smaller
+manor-houses of knights and squires. Certainly many higher-cultured
+people of Macaulay's time and our own could learn a great deal from
+them of the art of making beautiful homes.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P177"></a><img src="./images/il067.png" alt="Gothic Chimney" title="" /><br />
+Gothic Chimney, Norton St. Philip, Somerset</p>
+
+<p>Holinshed, the Chronicler, writing during the third quarter of the
+sixteenth century, makes some illuminating observations on the
+increasing preference shown in his time for stone and brick buildings
+in place of timber and plaster. He wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The ancient maners and houses of our gentlemen are yet for the
+   most part of strong timber. How beit such as be lately buylded
+   are commonly either of bricke or harde stone, their rowmes large
+   and stately, and houses of office farder distant fro their
+   lodgings. Those of the nobilitie are likewise wrought with bricke
+   and harde stone, as provision may best be made; but so
+   magnificent and stately, as the basest house of a barren doth
+   often match with some honours of princes in olde tyme: so that if
+   ever curious buylding did flourishe in Englande it is in these
+   our dayes, wherein our worckemen excel and are in maner
+   comparable in skill with old Vitruvius and Serle.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He also adds the curious information that &quot;there are olde men yet
+dwelling in the village where I remayn, which have noted three things
+to be marveylously altered <a name="Page_178"></a>in Englande within their sound
+remembrance. One is, the multitude of chimnies lately erected,
+whereas, in their young dayes there were not above two or three, if so
+many, in most uplandish townes of the realme (the religious houses and
+mannour places of their lordes alwayes excepted, and peradventure some
+great personages [parsonages]), but each one made his fire against a
+reredosse in the halle, where he dined and dressed his meate,&quot; This
+want of chimneys is noticeable in many pictures of, and previous to,
+the time of Henry VIII. A timber farm-house yet remains (or did until
+recently) near Folkestone, which shows no vestige of either chimney or
+hearth.</p>
+
+<p>Most of our great houses and manor-houses sprang up in the great
+Elizabethan building epoch, when the untold wealth of the monasteries
+which fell into the hands of the courtiers and favourites of the King,
+the plunder of gold-laden Spanish galleons, and the unprecedented
+prosperity in trade gave such an impulse to the erection of fine
+houses that the England of that period has been described as &quot;one
+great stonemason's yard.&quot; The great noblemen and gentlemen of the
+Court were filled with the desire for extravagant display, and built
+such clumsy piles as Wollaton and Burghley House, importing French and
+German artisans to load them with bastard Italian Renaissance detail.
+Some of these vast structures are not very admirable with their
+distorted gables, their chaotic proportions, and their crazy
+imitations of classic orders. But the typical Elizabethan mansion,
+whose builder's means or good taste would not permit of such a
+profusion of these architectural luxuries, is unequalled in its
+combination of stateliness with homeliness, in its expression of the
+manner of life of the class for which it was built. And in the humbler
+manors and farm-houses the latter idea is even more perfectly
+expressed, for houses were affected by the new fashions in
+architecture generally in proportion to their size.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P179"></a><img src="./images/il068.png" alt="The Moat" title="" /><br />
+The Moat, Crowhurst Place, Surrey</p>
+
+<p>Holinshed tells of the increased use of stone or brick in his age in
+the district wherein he lived. In other parts <a name="Page_179"></a><a name="Page_180"></a>of England, where the
+forests supplied good timber, the builders stuck to their
+half-timbered houses and brought the &quot;black and white&quot; style to
+perfection. Plaster was extensively used in this and subsequent ages,
+and often the whole surface of the house was covered with rough-cast,
+such as the quaint old house called Broughton Hall, near Market
+Drayton. Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, is an attractive example of the
+plastered house. The irregular roof-line, the gables, and the
+white-barred windows, and the contrast of the white walls with the
+rich green of the vines and surrounding trees combine to make a
+picture of rare beauty. Part of the house is built of stone and part
+half-timber, but a coat of thin plaster covers the stonework and makes
+it conform with the rest. To plaster over stone-work is a somewhat
+daring act, and is not architecturally correct, but the appearance of
+the house is altogether pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>The Elizabethan and Jacobean builder increased the height of his
+house, sometimes causing it to have three storeys, besides rooms in
+attics beneath the gabled roof. He also loved windows. &quot;Light, more
+light,&quot; was his continued cry. Hence there is often an excess of
+windows, and Lord Bacon complained that there was no comfortable place
+to be found in these houses, &quot;in summer by reason of the heat, or in
+winter by reason of the cold.&quot; It was a sore burden to many a
+house-owner when Charles II imposed the iniquitous window-tax, and so
+heavily did this fall upon the owners of some Elizabethan houses that
+the poorer ones were driven to the necessity of walling up some of the
+windows which their ancestors had provided with such prodigality. You
+will often see to this day bricked-up windows in many an old
+farm-house. Not every one was so cunning as the parish clerk of
+Bradford-on-Avon, Orpin, who took out the window-frames from his
+interesting little house near the church and inserted numerous small
+single-paned windows which escaped the tax.</p>
+
+<p>Surrey and Kent afford an unlimited field for the study <a name="Page_181"></a>of the better
+sort of houses, mansions, and manor-houses. We have already alluded to
+Hever Castle and its memories of Anne Boleyn. Then there is the
+historic Penshurst, the home of the Sidneys, haunted by the shades of
+Sir Philip, &quot;Sacharissa,&quot; the ill-fated Algernon, and his handsome
+brother. You see their portraits on the walls, the fine gallery, and
+the hall, which reveals the exact condition of an ancient noble's hall
+in former days.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P181"></a><img src="./images/il069.png" alt="Arms of Gaynesfords" title="" /><br />
+Arms of the Gaynesfords in window, Crowhurst Place, Surrey</p>
+
+<p>Not far away are the manors of Crittenden, Puttenden, and Crowhurst.
+This last is one of the most picturesque in Surrey, with its moat,
+across which there is a fine view of the house, its half-timber work,
+the straight uprights placed close together signifying early work, and
+the striking character of the interior. The Gaynesford family became
+lords of the manor of Crowhurst in 1337, and continued to hold it
+until 1700, a very long record. In 1903 the Place was purchased by the
+Rev. &mdash;&mdash; Gaynesford, of Hitchin, a descendant of the family of the
+former owners. This is a rare instance of the repossession of a
+medieval residence by an ancient family after the lapse of two hundred
+years. It was built in the fifteenth century, and is a complete
+specimen of its age and style, having <a name="Page_182"></a>been unspoilt by later
+alterations and additions. The part nearer the moat is, however, a
+little later than the gables further back. The dining-room is the
+contracted remains of the great hall of Crowhurst Place, the upper
+part of which was converted into a series of bedrooms in the
+eighteenth century. We give an illustration of a very fine hinge to a
+cupboard door in one of the bedrooms, a good example of the
+blacksmith's skill. It is noticeable that the points of the linen-fold
+in the panelling of the door are undercut and project sharply. We see
+the open framed floor with moulded beams. Later on the fashion
+changed, and the builders preferred to have square-shaped beams. We
+notice the fine old panelling, the elaborate mouldings, and the fixed
+bench running along one end of the chamber, of which we give an
+illustration. The design and workmanship of this fixture show it to
+belong to the period of Henry VIII. All the work is of stout timber,
+save the fire-place. The smith's art is shown in the fine candelabrum
+and in the knocker or ring-plate, perforated with Gothic design, still
+backed with its original morocco leather. It is worthy of a sanctuary,
+and doubtless many generations of Crowhurst squires have found a very
+dear sanctuary in this grand old English home. This ring-plate is in
+one of the original bedrooms. Immense labour was often bestowed upon
+the mouldings of beams in these fifteenth-century houses. There was a
+very fine moulded beam in a farm-house in my own parish, but a recent
+restoration has, alas! covered it. We give some illustrations of the
+cornice mouldings of the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent, and of a fine
+Gothic door-head.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P182"></a><img src="./images/il070.png" alt="Cupboard Hinge" title="" /><br />
+Cupboard Hinge, Crowhurst Place, Surrey</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible for us to traverse many shires in our <a name="Page_183"></a>search for old
+houses. But a word must be said for the priceless contents of many of
+our historic mansions and manors. These often vanish and are lost for
+ever. I have alluded to the thirst of American millionaires for these
+valuables, which causes so many of our treasures to cross the Atlantic
+and find their home in the palaces of Boston and Washington and
+elsewhere. Perhaps if our valuables must leave their old
+resting-places and go out of the country, we should prefer them to go
+to America than to any other land. Our American cousins are our
+kindred; they know how to appreciate the treasures of the land that,
+in spite of many changes, is to them their mother-country. No nation
+in the world prizes a high lineage and a family tree more than the
+Americans, and it is my privilege to receive many inquiries from
+across the Atlantic for missing links in the family pedigree, and the
+joy that a successful search yields compensates for all one's trouble.
+So if our treasures must go we should rather send them to America than
+to Germany.<a name="Page_184"></a> It is, however, distressing to see pictures taken from
+the place where they have hung for centuries and sent to Christie's,
+to see the dispersal of old libraries at Sotherby's, and the contents
+of a house, amassed by generations of cultured and wealthy folk,
+scattered to the four winds and bought up by the <i>nouveaux riches</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P183"></a><img src="./images/il071.png" alt="Fixed Bench" title="" /><br />
+Fixed Bench in the Hall, Crowhurst Place, Surrey</p>
+
+<p>There still remain in many old houses collections of armour that bears
+the dints of many fights. Swords, helmets, shields, lances, and other
+weapons of warfare often are seen hanging on the walls of an ancestral
+hall. The buff coats of Cromwell's soldiers, tilting-helmets, guns and
+pistols of many periods are all there, together with man-traps&mdash;the
+cruel invention of a barbarous age.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P184"></a><img src="./images/il072.png" alt="Gothic Door-head" title="" /><br />
+Gothic Door-head, Goudhurst, Kent</p>
+
+<p>The historic hall of Littlecote bears on its walls many suits worn
+during the Civil War by the Parliamentary troopers, and in countless
+other halls you can see specimens of armour. In churches also much
+armour has been stored. It was the custom to suspend over the tomb the
+principal arms of the departed warrior, which had previously been
+carried in the funeral procession. Shakespeare alludes to this custom
+when, in <i>Hamlet</i>, he makes Laertes say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">His means of death, his obscure burial&mdash;<br />
+No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,<br />
+No noble rite, nor formal ostentation.</p>
+
+<p>You can see the armour of the Black Prince over his tomb at
+Canterbury, and at Westminster the shield of Henry V that probably did
+its duty at Agincourt. Several of our churches still retain the arms
+of the heroes who lie buried beneath them, but occasionally it is not
+the actual <a name="Page_185"></a>armour but sham, counterfeit helmets and breastplates made
+for the funeral procession and hung over the monument. Much of this
+armour has been removed from churches and stored in museums. Norwich
+Museum has some good specimens, of which we give some illustrations.
+There is a knight's basinet which belongs to the time of Henry V
+(<i>circa</i> 1415). We can compare this with the salads, which came into
+use shortly after this period, an example of which may be seen at the
+Porte d'Hal, Brussels. We also show a thirteenth-century sword, which
+was dredged up at Thorpe, and believed to have been lost in 1277, when
+King Edward I made a military progress through Suffolk and Norfolk,
+and kept his Easter at Norwich. The blade is scimitar-shaped, is
+one-edged, and has a groove at the back. We may compare this with the
+sword of the time of Edward IV now in the possession of Mr. Seymour
+Lucas. The development of riding-boots is an interesting study. We
+show a drawing of one in the possession of Mr. Ernest Crofts, R.A.,
+which was in use in the time of William III.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P185A"></a><img src="./images/il073.png" alt="Knightly Basinet" title="" /><br />
+Knightly Basinet (<i>temp.</i> Henry V) in Norwich Castle</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P185B"></a><img src="./images/il074.png" alt="Hilt of 13th C Sword" title="" /><br />
+Hilt of Thirteenth-century Sword in Norwich Museum</p>
+
+<p>An illustration is given of a chapel-de-fer which reposes <a name="Page_186"></a>in the
+noble hall of Ockwells, Berkshire, much dented by use. It has
+evidently seen service. In the same hall is collected by the friends
+of the author, Sir Edward and Lady Barry, a vast store of armour and
+most interesting examples of ancient furniture worthy of the beautiful
+building in which they are placed. Ockwells Manor House is goodly to
+look upon, a perfect example of fifteenth-century residence with its
+noble hall and minstrels' gallery, its solar, kitchens, corridors, and
+gardens. Moreover, it is now owned by those who love and respect
+antiquity and its architectural beauties, and is in every respect an
+old English mansion well preserved and tenderly cared for. Yet at one
+time it was almost doomed to destruction. Not many years ago it was
+the property of a man who knew nothing of its importance. He
+threatened to pull it down or to turn the old house into a tannery.
+Our Berks Arch&aelig;ological Society endeavoured to raise money for its
+purchase in order to preserve it. This action helped the owner to
+realise that the <a name="Page_187"></a>house was of some commercial value. Its destruction
+was stayed, and then, happily, it was purchased by the present owners,
+who have done so much to restore its original beauties.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P186A"></a><img src="./images/il075.png" alt="Hand-and-a-half Sword" title="" /><br />
+ &quot;Hand-and-a-half&quot; Sword. Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P186B"></a><img src="./images/il076.png" alt="17th Cent Boot" title="" /><br />
+Seventeenth-century Boot, in the possession of Ernest
+Crofts, Esq., R.A.</p>
+
+<p>Ockwells was built by Sir John Norreys about the year 1466. The chapel
+was not completed at his death in 1467, and he left money in his will
+&quot;to the full bilding and making uppe of the Chapell with the Chambres
+ajoyng with'n my manoir of Okholt in the p'rish of Bray aforsaid not
+yet finisshed XL li.&quot; This chapel was burnt down in 1778. One of the
+most important features of the hall is the heraldic glass,
+commemorating eighteen worthies, which is of the same date as the
+house. The credit of identifying these worthies is due to Mr. Everard
+Green, Rouge Dragon, who in 1899 communicated the result of his
+researches to Viscount Dillon, President of the Society of
+Antiquaries. There are eighteen shields of arms. Two are royal and
+ensigned with royal crowns. Two are ensigned with mitres and fourteen
+with mantled helms, and of these fourteen, thirteen support a crest.
+Each achievement is placed in a separate light on an ornamental
+background composed of quarries and alternate diagonal stripes of
+white glass bordered with gold, on which the motto</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><img src="./images/motto.png" alt="Feyth-fully-serve" title="" /></p>
+
+<p>is inscribed in black-letter. This motto is assigned by <a name="Page_188"></a>some to the
+family of Norreys and by others as that of the Royal Wardrobe. The
+quarries in each light have the same badge, namely, three golden
+distaffs, one in pale and two in saltire, banded with a golden and
+tasselled ribbon, which badge some again assign to the family of
+Norreys and others to the Royal Wardrobe. If, however, the Norreys
+arms are correctly set forth in a compartment of a door-head remaining
+in the north wall, and also in one of the windows&mdash;namely, argent a
+chevron between three ravens' heads erased sable, with a beaver for a
+dexter supporter&mdash;the second conjecture is doubtless correct.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P187"></a><img src="./images/il077.png" alt="" title="" /><br />
+Chapel de Fer at Ockwells, Berks</p>
+
+<p>These shields represent the arms of Sir John Norreys, the builder of
+Ockwells Manor House, and of his sovereign, patrons, and kinsfolk. It
+is a <i>liber amicorum</i> in glass, a not unpleasant way for light to come
+to us, as Mr. Everard Green pleasantly remarks. By means of heraldry
+Sir John Norreys recorded his friendships, thereby adding to the
+pleasures of memory as well as to the splendour of his great hall. His
+eye saw the shield, his memory supplied the story, and to him the
+lines of George Eliot,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">O memories,<br />
+O Past that IS,</p>
+
+<p>were made possible by heraldry.</p>
+
+<p>The names of his friends and patrons so recorded in glass by their
+arms are: Sir Henry Beauchamp, sixth Earl of Warwick; Sir Edmund
+Beaufort, K.G.; Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI, &quot;the dauntless
+queen of tears, who headed councils, led armies, and ruled both king
+and people&quot;; Sir John de la Pole, K.G.; Henry VI; Sir James Butler;
+the Abbey of Abingdon; Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury from
+1450 to 1481; Sir John Norreys himself; Sir John Wenlock, of Wenlock,
+Shropshire; Sir William Lacon, of Stow, Kent, buried at Bray; the arms
+and crest of a member of the Mortimer family; Sir Richard Nanfan, of
+Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire; Sir John Norreys with his arms
+quartered <a name="Page_189"></a>with those of Alice Merbury, of Yattendon, his first wife;
+Sir John Langford, who married Sir John Norreys's granddaughter; a
+member of the De la Beche family (?); John Purye, of Thatcham, Bray,
+and Cookham; Richard Bulstrode, of Upton, Buckinghamshire, Keeper of
+the Great Wardrobe to Queen Margaret of Anjou, and afterwards
+Comptroller of the Household to Edward IV. These are the worthies
+whose arms are recorded in the windows of Ockwells. Nash gave a
+drawing of the house in his <i>Mansions of England in the Olden Time</i>,
+showing the interior of the hall, the porch and corridor, and the east
+front; and from the hospitable door is issuing a crowd of gaily
+dressed people in Elizabethan costume, such as was doubtless often
+witnessed in days of yore. It is a happy and fortunate event that this
+noble house should in its old age have found such a loving master and
+mistress, in whose family we hope it may remain for many long years.</p>
+
+<p>Another grand old house has just been saved by the National Trust and
+the bounty of an anonymous benefactor. This is Barrington Court, and
+is one of the finest houses in Somerset. It is situated a few miles
+east of Ilminster, in the hundred of South Petherton. Its exact age is
+uncertain, but it seems probable that it was built by Henry, Lord
+Daubeney, created Earl of Bridgewater in 1539, whose ancestors had
+owned the place since early Plantagenet times. At any rate, it appears
+to date from about the middle of the sixteenth century, and it is a
+very perfect example of the domestic architecture of that period. From
+the Daubeneys it passed successively to the Duke of Suffolk, the
+Crown, the Cliftons, the Phelips's, the Strodes; and one of this last
+family entertained the Duke of Monmouth there during his tour in the
+west in 1680. The house, which is <b>E</b>-shaped, with central porch and
+wings at each end, is built of the beautiful Ham Hill stone which
+abounds in the district; the colour of this stone greatly enhances the
+appearance of the house and adds to its venerable aspect. It has
+little ornamental <a name="Page_190"></a>detail, but what there is is very good, while the
+loftiness and general proportions of the building&mdash;its extent and
+solidity of masonry, and the taste and care with which every part has
+been designed and carried out, give it an air of dignity and
+importance.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The angle buttresses to the wings and the porch rising to
+   twisted terminals are a feature surviving from medi&aelig;val times,
+   which disappeared entirely in the buildings of Stuart times.
+   These twisted terminals with cupola-like tops are also upon the
+   gables, and with the chimneys, also twisted, give a most pleasing
+   and attractive character to the structure. We may go far, indeed,
+   before we find another house of stone so lightly and gracefully
+   adorned, and the detail of the mullioned windows with their
+   arched heads, in every light, and their water-tables above, is
+   admirable. The porch also has a fine Tudor arch, which might form
+   the entrance to some college quadrangle, and there are rooms
+   above and gables on either hand. The whole structure breathes the
+   spirit of the Tudor age, before the classic spirit had exercised
+   any marked influence upon our national architecture, while the
+   details of the carving are almost as rich as is the moulded and
+   sculptured work in the brick houses of East Anglia. The features
+   in other parts of the exterior are all equally good, and we may
+   certainly say of Barrington Court that it occupies a most notable
+   place in the domestic architecture of England. It is also worthy
+   of remark that such houses as this are far rarer than those of
+   Jacobean times.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38"><sup>38</sup></a> </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But Barrington Court has fallen on evil days; one half of the house
+only is now habitable, the rest having been completely gutted about
+eighty years ago. The great hall is used as a cider store, the
+wainscoting has been ruthlessly removed, and there have even been
+recent suggestions of moving the whole structure across England and
+re-erecting it in a strange county. It has several times changed hands
+in recent years, and under these circumstances it is not surprising
+that but little has been done to ensure the preservation of what is
+indeed an architectural gem. But the walls are in excellent condition
+and the roofs fairly <a name="Page_191"></a>sound. The National Trust, like an angel of
+mercy, has spread its protecting wings over the building; friends have
+been found to succour the Court in its old age; and there is every
+reason to hope that its evil days are past, and that it may remain
+standing for many generations.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P191"></a><img src="./images/il078.png" alt="Tudor Dresser" title="" /><br />
+Tudor Dresser Table, in the possession of Sir Alfred Dryden, Canon's Ashby, Northants</p>
+
+<p>The wealth of treasure to be found in many country houses is indeed
+enormous. In Holinshed's <i>Chronicle of Englande, Scotlande and
+Irelande</i>, published in 1577, there is a chapter on the &quot;maner of
+buylding and furniture of our Houses,&quot; wherein is recorded the
+costliness of the stores of plate and tapestry that were found in the
+dwellings of nobility and gentry and also in farm-houses, and even in
+the homes of &quot;inferior artificers.&quot; Verily the spoils of the
+monasteries and churches must have been fairly evenly divided. These
+are his words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The furniture of our houses also exceedeth, and is growne in
+   maner even to passing delicacie; and herein I do not speake of
+   the nobilitie and gentrie onely, but even <a name="Page_192"></a>of the lowest sorte
+   that have anything to take to. Certes in noble men's houses it is
+   not rare to see abundance of array, riche hangings of tapestry,
+   silver vessell, and so much other plate as may furnish sundrie
+   cupbordes to the summe ofte times of a thousand or two thousand
+   pounde at the leaste; wherby the value of this and the reast of
+   their stuffe doth grow to be inestimable. Likewise in the houses
+   of knightes, gentlemen, marchauntmen, and other wealthie
+   citizens, it is not geson to beholde generallye their great
+   provision of tapestrie Turkye worke, <i>pewter</i>, <i>brasse</i>, fine
+   linen, and thereto costly cupbords of plate woorth five or six
+   hundred pounde, to be demed by estimation. But as herein all
+   these sortes doe farre exceede their elders and predecessours, so
+   in tyme past the costly furniture <i>stayed there</i>, whereas now it
+   is descended yet lower, even unto the inferior artificiers and
+   most fermers<a name="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39"><sup>39</sup></a> who have learned to garnish also their cupbordes
+   with plate, their beddes with tapestrie and silk hanginges, and
+   their table with fine naperie whereby the wealth of our countrie
+   doth infinitely appeare....&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Much of this wealth has, of course, been scattered. Time, poverty,
+war, the rise and fall of families, have caused the dispersion of
+these treasures. Sometimes you find valuable old prints or china in
+obscure and unlikely places. A friend of the writer, overtaken by a
+storm, sought shelter in a lone Welsh cottage. She admired and bought
+a rather curious jug. It turned out to be a somewhat rare and valuable
+ware, and a sketch of it has since been reproduced in the
+<i>Connoisseur</i>. I have myself discovered three Bartolozzi engravings in
+cottages in this parish. We give an illustration of a
+seventeenth-century powder-horn which was found at Glastonbury by
+Charles Griffin in 1833 in the wall of an old house which formerly
+stood where the Wilts and Dorset Bank is now erected. Mr. Griffin's
+account of its discovery is as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;When I was a boy about fifteen years of age I took a ladder up
+   into the attic to see if there was anything hid in some holes
+   that were just under the roof.... Pushing my hand in the wall ...
+   I pulled out this carved horn, <a name="Page_193"></a>which then had a metal rim and
+   cover&mdash;of silver, I think. A man gave me a shilling for it, and
+   he sold it to Mr. Porch.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is stated that a coronet was engraved or stamped on the silver rim
+which has now disappeared.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P193"></a><img src="./images/il079.png" alt="17th Cent Powder-horn" title="" /><br />
+Seventeenth-century Powder-horn, found in the wall of
+an old house at Glastonbury. Now in Glastonbury Museum</p>
+
+<p>Monmouth's harassed army occupied Glastonbury on the night of June 22,
+1685, and it is extremely probable that the powder-horn was deposited
+in its hiding-place by some wavering follower who had decided to
+abandon the Duke's cause. There is another relic of Monmouth's
+rebellion, now in the Taunton Museum, a spy-glass, with the aid of
+which Mr. Sparke, from the tower of Chedzoy, discovered the King's
+troops marching down Sedgemoor <a name="Page_194"></a>on the day previous to the fight, and
+gave information thereof to the Duke, who was quartered at Bridgwater.
+It was preserved by the family for more than a century, and given by
+Miss Mary Sparke, the great-granddaughter of the above William Sparke,
+in 1822 to a Mr. Stradling, who placed it in the museum. The
+spy-glass, which is of very primitive construction, is in four
+sections or tubes of bone covered with parchment. Relics of war and
+fighting are often stored in country houses. Thus at Swallowfield
+Park, the residence of Lady Russell, was found, when an old tree was
+grubbed up, some gold and silver coins of the reign of Charles I. It
+is probable that a Cavalier, when hard pressed, threw his purse into a
+hollow tree, intending, if he escaped, to return and rescue it. This,
+for some reason, he was unable to do, and his money remained in the
+tree until old age necessitated its removal. The late Sir George
+Russell, Bart., caused a box to be made of the wood of the tree, and
+in it he placed the coins, so that they should not be separated after
+their connexion of two centuries and a half.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P194"></a><img src="./images/il080.png" alt="17th Cent Spy-glass" title="" /><br />
+Seventeenth-century Spy-glass in Taunton Museum</p>
+
+<p>We give an illustration of a remarkable flagon of bell-metal for
+holding spiced wine, found in an old manor-house in Norfolk. It is of
+English make, and was manufactured about the year 1350. It is embossed
+with the old Royal Arms of England crowned and repeated several times,
+and has an inscription in Gothic letters:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">God is grace Be in this place.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Amen.</span><br />
+Stand uttir<a name="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40"><sup>40</sup></a> from the fier<br />
+And let onjust<a name="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41"><sup>41</sup></a> come nere.<a name="Page_195"></a></p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P195"></a><img src="./images/il081.png" alt="14th Cent Flagon" title="" /><br />
+Fourteenth-century Flagon. From an old Manor House in Norfolk</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_196"></a>This interesting flagon was bought from the Robinson
+Collection in 1879 by the nation, and is now in the Victoria and
+Albert Museum.</p>
+
+<p>Many old houses, happily, contain their stores of ancient furniture.
+Elizabethan bedsteads wherein, of course, the Virgin Queen reposed
+(she made so many royal progresses that it is no wonder she slept in
+so many places), expanding tables, Jacobean chairs and sideboards, and
+later on the beautiful productions of Chippendale, Sheraton, and
+Hipplethwaite. Some of the family chests are elaborate works of art.
+We give as an illustration a fine example of an Elizabethan chest. It
+is made of oak, inlaid with holly, dating from the last quarter of the
+sixteenth century. Its length is 5 ft. 2 in., its height 2 ft. 11 in.
+It is in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B., of the
+manor-house, Warborough, in Oxfordshire. The staircases are often
+elaborately carved, which form a striking feature of many old houses.
+The old Aldermaston Court was burnt down, but fortunately the huge
+figures on the staircase were saved and appear again in the new Court,
+the residence of a distinguished antiquary, Mr. Charles Keyser, F.S.A.
+Hartwell House, in Buckinghamshire, once the residence of the exiled
+French Court of Louis XVIII during the Revolution and the period of
+the ascendancy of Napoleon I, has some curiously carved oaken figures
+adorning the staircase, representing Hercules, the Furies, and various
+knights in armour. We give an illustration of the staircase newel in
+Cromwell House, Highgate, with its quaint little figure of a man
+standing on a lofty pedestal.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P197"></a>
+<a href="./images/il082.png"><img src="./images/il082_th.png" alt="Elizabethan Chest" title="" /></a><br />
+Elizabethan Chest, in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B. Height, 2 ft. 11 in.; length, 5 ft. 2 in.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes one comes across strange curiosities in old houses, the odds
+and ends which Time has accumulated. On p. 201 is a representation of
+a water-clock or clepsydra which was made at Norwich by an ingenious
+person named Parson in 1610. It is constructed on the same principle
+as the timepieces used by the Greeks and Romans. The brass tube was
+filled with water, which <a name="Page_197"></a><a name="Page_198"></a>was allowed to run out slowly at the
+bottom. A cork floated at the top of the water in the tube, and as it
+descended the hour was indicated by the pointer on the dial above.
+This ingenious clock has now found its way into the museum in Norwich
+Castle. The interesting contents of old houses would require a volume
+for their complete enumeration.</p>
+
+<p>In looking at these ancient buildings, which time has spared us, we
+seem to catch a glimpse of the Lamp of Memory which shines forth in
+the illuminated pages of Ruskin. The men, our forefathers, who built
+these houses, built them to last, and not for their own generation. It
+would have grieved them to think that their earthly abode, which had
+seen and seemed almost to sympathize in all their honour, their
+gladness or their suffering&mdash;that this, with all the record it bare of
+them, and of all material things that they had loved and ruled over,
+and set the stamp of themselves upon&mdash;was to be swept away as soon as
+there was room made for them in the grave. They valued and prized the
+house that they had reared, or added to, or improved. Hence they loved
+to carve their names or their initials on the lintels of their doors
+or on the walls of their houses with the date. On the stone houses of
+the Cotswolds, in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, wherever good
+building stone abounds, you can see these inscriptions, initials
+usually those of husband and wife, which preserved the memorial of
+their names as long as the house remained in the family. Alas! too
+often the memorial conveys no meaning, and no one knows the names they
+represent. But it was a worthy feeling that prompted this building for
+futurity. There is a mystery about the inscription recorded in the
+illustration &quot;T.D. 1678.&quot; It was discovered, together with a sword
+(<i>temp.</i> Charles II), between the ceiling and the floor when an old
+farm-house called Gundry's, at Stoke-under-Ham, was pulled down. The
+year was one of great political disturbance, being that in which the
+so-called &quot;Popish Plot&quot; was exploited by<a name="Page_199"></a><a name="Page_200"></a> Titus Oates. Possibly
+&quot;T.D.&quot; was fearful of being implicated, concealed this inscription,
+and effected his escape.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P199"></a><img src="./images/il083.png" alt="Staircase Newel" title="" /><br />
+Staircase Newel Cromwell House, Highgate</p>
+
+<p>Our forefathers must have been animated by the spirit which caused Mr.
+Ruskin to write: &quot;When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
+Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it
+be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think,
+as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones
+will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men
+will say as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them,
+'See! this our fathers did for us.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P200"></a><img src="./images/il084.png" alt="Piece of Wood" title="" /><br />
+Piece of Wood Carved with Inscription Found with a sword (<i>temp.</i> Charles II) in an old house at Stoke-under-Ham,
+Somerset</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P201"></a><img src="./images/il085.png" alt="17th Cent Water-clock" title="" /><br />
+Seventeenth-century Water-clock, in Norwich Museum</p>
+
+<p>Contrast these old houses with the modern suburban abominations,
+&quot;those thin tottering foundationless shells of splintered wood and
+imitated stone,&quot; &quot;those gloomy rows of formalised minuteness, alike
+without difference and without fellowship, as solitary as similar,&quot; as
+Ruskin calls them. These modern erections have no more relation to
+their surroundings than would a Pullman-car or a newly painted piece
+of machinery. Age cannot improve the appearance of such things. But
+age only mellows and improves our ancient houses. Solidly built of
+good materials, the golden stain of time only adds to their beauties.
+The vines have clothed their walls and the green lawns about them have
+grown smoother and thicker, and the passing of the centuries has
+served but to tone them down and bring them into closer harmony <a name="Page_201"></a><a name="Page_202"></a>with
+nature. With their garden walls and hedges they almost seem to have
+grown in their places as did the great trees that stand near by. They
+have nothing of the uneasy look of the parvenu about them. They have
+an air of dignified repose; the spirit of ancient peace seems to rest
+upon them and their beautiful surroundings.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P202"></a><img src="./images/il086.png" alt="Sun-dial" title="" /><br />
+Sun-dial. The Manor House, Sutton Courtenay</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="Page_203"></a><a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DESTRUCTION OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS</h3>
+
+
+<p>We still find in various parts of the country traces of the
+prehistoric races who inhabited our island and left their footprints
+behind them, which startle us as much as ever the print of Friday's
+feet did the indomitable Robinson Crusoe. During the last fifty years
+we have been collecting the weapons and implements of early man, and
+have learnt that the history of Britain did not begin with the year
+B.C. 55, when Julius C&aelig;sar attempted his first conquest of our island.
+Our historical horizon has been pushed back very considerably, and
+every year adds new knowledge concerning the Pal&aelig;olithic and Neolithic
+races, and the first users of bronze and iron tools and weapons. We
+have learnt to prize what they have left, to recognize the immense
+arch&aelig;ological value of these remains, and of their inestimable
+prehistoric interest. It is therefore very deplorable to discover that
+so much has been destroyed, obliterated, and forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>We have still some left. Examples are still to be seen of megalithic
+structures, barrows, cromlechs, camps, earthen or walled castles,
+hut-circles, and other remains of the prehistoric inhabitants of these
+islands. We have many monoliths, called in Wales and Cornwall, as also
+in Brittany, menhirs, a name derived from the Celtic word <i>maen</i> or
+<i>men</i>, signifying a stone, and <i>hir</i> meaning tall. They are also
+called logan stones and &quot;hoar&quot; stones, <i>hoar</i> meaning a boundary,
+inasmuch as they were frequently <a name="Page_204"></a>used in later times to mark the
+boundary of an estate, parish, or manor. A vast number have been torn
+down and used as gateposts or for building purposes, and a recent
+observer in the West Country states that he has looked in vain for
+several where he knew that not long ago they existed. If in the Land's
+End district you climb the ascent of Bolleit, the Place of Blood,
+where Athelstan fought and slew the Britons, you can see &quot;the Pipers,&quot;
+two great menhirs, twelve and sixteen feet high, and the Holed Stone,
+which is really an ancient cross, but you will be told that the cruel
+Druids used to tie their human victims for sacrifice to this stone,
+and you would shudder at the memory if you did not know that the
+Druids were very philosophical folk, and never did such dreadful
+deeds.</p>
+
+<p>Another kind of megalithic monument are the stone circles, only they
+are circles no longer, many stones having been carted away to mend
+walls. If you look at the ordnance map of Penzance you will find large
+numbers of these circles, but if you visit the spots where they are
+supposed to be, you will find that many have vanished. The &quot;Merry
+Maidens,&quot; not far from the &quot;Pipers,&quot; still remain&mdash;nineteen great
+stones, which fairy-lore perhaps supposes to have been once fair
+maidens who danced to the tune the pipers played ere a Celtic Medusa
+gazed at them and turned them into stone. Every one knows the story of
+the Rollright stones, a similar stone circle in Oxfordshire, which
+were once upon a time a king and his army, and were converted into
+stone by a witch who cast a fatal spell upon them by the words&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Move no more; stand fast, stone;<br />
+King of England thou shalt none.</p>
+
+<p>The solitary stone is the ambitious monarch who was told by an oracle
+that if he could see Long Compton he would be king of England; the
+circle is his army, and the five &quot;Whispering Knights&quot; are five of his
+chieftains, <a name="Page_205"></a>who were hatching a plot against him when the magic spell
+was uttered. Local legends have sometimes helped to preserve these
+stones. The farmers around Rollright say that if these stones are
+removed from the spot they will never rest, but make mischief till
+they are restored. There is a well-known cromlech at Stanton Drew, in
+Somerset, and there are several in Scotland, the Channel Islands, and
+Brittany. Some sacrilegious persons transported a cromlech from the
+Channel Islands, and set it up at Park Place, Henley-on-Thames. Such
+an act of antiquarian barbarism happily has few imitators.</p>
+
+<p>Stonehenge, with its well-wrought stones and gigantic trilitha, is one
+of the latest of the stone circles, and was doubtless made in the Iron
+Age, about two hundred years before the Christian era. Antiquarians
+have been very anxious about its safety. In 1900 one of the great
+upright stones fell, bringing down the cross-piece with it, and
+several learned societies have been invited by the owner, Sir Edmund
+Antrobus, to furnish recommendations as to the best means of
+preserving this unique memorial of an early race. We are glad to know
+that all that can be done will be done to keep Stonehenge safe for
+future generations.</p>
+
+<p>We need not record the existence of dolmens, or table-stones, the
+remains of burial mounds, which have been washed away by denudation,
+nor of what the French folk call <i>alignements</i>, or lines of stones,
+which have suffered like other megalithic monuments. Barrows or tumuli
+are still plentiful, great mounds of earth raised to cover the
+prehistoric dead. But many have disappeared. Some have been worn down
+by ploughing, as on the Berkshire Downs. Others have been dug into for
+gravel. The making of golf-links has disturbed several, as at
+Sunningdale, where several barrows were destroyed in order to make a
+good golf-course. Happily their contents were carefully guarded, and
+are preserved in the British Museum and in that of Reading. Earthworks
+and camps still guard the British ancient roads and trackways, and
+<a name="Page_206"></a>you still admire their triple vallum and their cleverly protected
+entrance. Happily the Earthworks Committee of the Congress of
+Arch&aelig;ological Societies watches over them, and strives to protect them
+from injury. Pit-dwellings and the so-called &quot;ancient British
+villages&quot; are in many instances sorely neglected, and are often buried
+beneath masses of destructive briers and ferns. We can still trace the
+course of several of the great tribal boundaries of prehistoric times,
+the Grim's dykes that are seen in various parts of the country,
+gigantic earthworks that so surprised the Saxon invaders that they
+attributed them to the agency of the Devil or Grim. Here and there
+much has vanished, but stretches remain with a high bank twelve or
+fourteen feet high and a ditch; the labour of making these earthen
+ramparts must have been immense in the days when the builders of them
+had only picks made out of stag's horns and such simple tools to work
+with.</p>
+
+<p>Along some of our hillsides are curious turf-cut monuments, which
+always attract our gaze and make us wonder who first cut out these
+figures on the face of the chalk hill. There is the great White Horse
+on the Berkshire Downs above Uffington, which we like to think was cut
+out by Alfred's men after his victory over the Danes on the Ashdown
+Hills. We are told, however, that that cannot be, and that it must
+have been made at least a thousand years before King Alfred's glorious
+reign. Some of these monuments are in danger of disappearing. They
+need scouring pretty constantly, as the weeds and grass will grow over
+the face of the bare chalk and tend to obliterate the figures. The
+Berkshire White Horse wanted grooming badly a short time ago, and the
+present writer was urged to approach the noble owner, the Earl of
+Craven, and urge the necessity of a scouring. The Earl, however,
+needed no reminder, and the White Horse is now thoroughly groomed, and
+looks as fit and active as ever. Other steeds on our hillsides have in
+modern times been so cut and altered in shape that their nearest
+<a name="Page_207"></a>relations would not know them. Thus the White Horse at Westbury, in
+Wiltshire, is now a sturdy-looking little cob, quite up to date and
+altogether modern, very different from the old shape of the animal.</p>
+
+<p>The vanishing of prehistoric monuments is due to various causes.
+Avebury had at one time within a great rampart and a fosse, which is
+still forty feet deep, a large circle of rough unhewn stones, and
+within this two circles each containing a smaller concentric circle.
+Two avenues of stones led to the two entrances to the space surrounded
+by the fosse. It must have been a vast and imposing edifice, much more
+important than Stonehenge, and the area within this great circle
+exceeds twenty-eight acres, with a diameter of twelve hundred feet.
+But the spoilers have been at work, and &quot;Farmer George&quot; and other
+depredators have carted away so many of the stones, and done so much
+damage, that much imagination is needed to construct in the eye of the
+mind this wonder of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Every one who journeys from London to Oxford by the Great Western
+Railway knows the appearance of the famous Wittenham Clumps, a few
+miles from historic Wallingford. If you ascend the hill you will find
+it a paradise for antiquaries. The camp itself occupies a commanding
+position overlooking the valley of the Thames, and has doubtless
+witnessed many tribal fights, and the great contest between the Celts
+and the Roman invaders. In the plain beneath is another remarkable
+earthwork. It was defended on three sides by the Thames, and a strong
+double rampart had been made across the cord of the bow formed by the
+river. There was also a trench which in case of danger could have been
+filled with water. But the spoiler has been at work here. In 1870 a
+farmer employed his men during a hard winter in digging down the west
+side of the rampart and flinging the earth into the fosse. The farmer
+intended to perform a charitable act, and charity is said to cover a
+multitude of sins; but his action was disastrous to antiquaries and
+has almost <a name="Page_208"></a>destroyed a valuable prehistoric monument. There is a
+noted camp at Ashbury, erroneously called &quot;Alfred's Castle,&quot; on an
+elevated part of Swinley Down, in Berkshire, not far from Ashdown
+Park, the seat of the Earl of Craven. Lysons tells us that formerly
+there were traces of buildings here, and Aubrey says that in his time
+the earthworks were &quot;almost quite defaced by digging for sarsden
+stones to build my Lord Craven's house in the park.&quot; Borough Hill
+Camp, in Boxford parish, near Newbury, has little left, so much of the
+earth having been removed at various times. Rabbits, too, are great
+destroyers, as they disturb the original surface of the ground and
+make it difficult for investigators to make out anything with
+certainty.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes local tradition, which is wonderfully long-lived, helps the
+arch&aelig;ologist in his discoveries. An old man told an antiquary that a
+certain barrow in his parish was haunted by the ghost of a soldier who
+wore golden armour. The antiquary determined to investigate and dug
+into the barrow, and there found the body of a man with a gold or
+bronze breastplate. I am not sure whether the armour was gold or
+bronze. Now here is an amazing instance of folk-memory. The chieftain
+was buried probably in Anglo-Saxon times, or possibly earlier. During
+thirteen hundred years, at least, the memory of that burial has been
+handed down from father to son until the present day. It almost seems
+incredible.</p>
+
+<p>It seems something like sacrilege to disturb the resting-places of our
+prehistoric ancestors, and to dig into barrows and examine their
+contents. But much knowledge of the history and manners and customs of
+the early inhabitants of our island has been gained by these
+investigations. Year by year this knowledge grows owing to the patient
+labours of industrious antiquaries, and perhaps our predecessors would
+not mind very much the disturbing of their remains, if they reflected
+that we are getting to know them better by this means, and are almost
+on speaking terms with the makers of stone axes, celts and
+<a name="Page_209"></a>arrow-heads, and are great admirers of their skill and ingenuity. It
+is important that all these monuments of antiquity should be carefully
+preserved, that plans should be made of them, and systematic
+investigations undertaken by competent and skilled antiquaries. The
+old stone monuments and the later Celtic crosses should be rescued
+from serving such purposes as brook bridges, stone walls,
+stepping-stones, and gate-posts and reared again on their original
+sites. They are of national importance, and the nation should do this.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P209"></a><img src="./images/il087.png" alt="Half-timber cottages" title="" /><br />
+Half-timber Cottages, Waterside, Evesham</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a><a name="Page_210"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>CATHEDRAL CITIES AND ABBEY TOWNS</h3>
+
+<p>There is always an air of quietude and restfulness about an ordinary
+cathedral city. Some of our cathedrals are set in busy places, in
+great centres of population, wherein the high towering minster looks
+down with a kind of pitying compassion upon the toiling folk and
+invites them to seek shelter and peace and the consolations of
+religion in her quiet courts. For ages she has watched over the city
+and seen generation after generation pass away. Kings and queens have
+come to lay their offerings on her altars, and have been borne there
+amid all the pomp of stately mourning to lie in the gorgeous tombs
+that grace her choir. She has seen it all&mdash;times of pillage and alarm,
+of robbery and spoliation, of change and disturbance, but she lives
+on, ever calling men with her quiet voice to look up in love and faith
+and prayer.</p>
+
+<p>But many of our cathedral cities are quite small places which owe
+their very life and existence to the stately church which pious hands
+have raised centuries ago. There age after age the prayer of faith,
+the anthems of praise, and the divine services have been offered.</p>
+
+<p>In the glow of a summer's evening its heavenly architecture stands
+out, a mass of wondrous beauty, telling of the skill of the masons and
+craftsmen of olden days who put their hearts into their work and
+wrought so surely and so well. The greensward of the close, wherein
+the rooks caw and guard their nests, speaks of peace and joy that is
+not of earth. We walk through the fretted cloisters <a name="Page_211"></a>that once echoed
+with the tread of sandalled monks and saw them illuminating and
+copying wonderful missals, antiphonaries, and other manuscripts which
+we prize so highly now. The deanery is close at hand, a venerable
+house of peace and learning; and the canons' houses tell of centuries
+of devoted service to God's Church, wherein many a distinguished
+scholar, able preacher, and learned writer has lived and sent forth
+his burning message to the world, and now lies at peace in the quiet
+minster.</p>
+
+<p>The fabric of the cathedrals is often in danger of becoming part and
+parcel of vanishing England. Every one has watched with anxiety the
+gallant efforts that have been made to save Winchester. The insecure
+foundations, based on timbers that had rotted, threatened to bring
+down that wondrous pile of masonry. And now Canterbury is in danger.</p>
+
+<p>The Dean and Chapter of Canterbury having recently completed the
+reparation of the central tower of the cathedral, now find themselves
+confronted with responsibilities which require still heavier
+expenditure. It has recently been found that the upper parts of the
+two western towers are in a dangerous condition. All the pinnacles of
+these towers have had to be partially removed in order to avoid the
+risk of dangerous injury from falling stones, and a great part of the
+external work of the two towers is in a state of grievous decay.</p>
+
+<p>The Chapter were warned by the architect that they would incur an
+anxious responsibility if they did not at once adopt measures to
+obviate this danger.</p>
+
+<p>Further, the architect states that there are some fissures and shakes
+in the supporting piers of the central tower within the cathedral, and
+that some of the stonework shows signs of crushing. He further reports
+that there is urgent need of repair to the nave windows, the south
+transept roof, the Warriors' Chapel, and several other parts of the
+building. The nave pinnacles are reported by him to be in the last
+stage of decay, large portions falling frequently, or having to be
+removed.<a name="Page_212"></a></p>
+
+<p>In these modern days we run &quot;tubes&quot; and under-ground railways in close
+proximity to the foundations of historic buildings, and thereby
+endanger their safety. The grand cathedral of St. Paul, London, was
+threatened by a &quot;tube,&quot; and only saved by vigorous protest from having
+its foundations jarred and shaken by rumbling trains in the bowels of
+the earth. Moreover, by sewers and drains the earth is made devoid of
+moisture, and therefore is liable to crack and crumble, and to disturb
+the foundations of ponderous buildings. St. Paul's still causes
+anxiety on this account, and requires all the care and vigilance of
+the skilful architect who guards it.</p>
+
+<p>The old Norman builders loved a central tower, which they built low
+and squat. Happily they built surely and well, firmly and solidly, as
+their successors loved to pile course upon course upon their Norman
+towers, to raise a massive superstructure, and often crown them with a
+lofty, graceful, but heavy spire. No wonder the early masonry has, at
+times, protested against this additional weight, and many mighty
+central towers and spires have fallen and brought ruin on the
+surrounding stonework. So it happened at Chichester and in several
+other noble churches. St. Alban's tower very nearly fell. There the
+ingenuity of destroyers and vandals at the Dissolution had dug a hole
+and removed the earth from under one of the piers, hoping that it
+would collapse. The old tower held on for three hundred years, and
+then the mighty mass began to give way, and Sir Gilbert Scott tells
+the story of its reparation in 1870, of the triumphs of the skill of
+modern builders, and their bravery and resolution in saving the fall
+of that great tower. The greatest credit is due to all concerned in
+that hazardous and most difficult task. It had very nearly gone. The
+story of Peterborough, and of several others, shows that many of these
+vast fanes which have borne the storms and frosts of centuries are by
+no means too secure, and that the skill of wise architects and the
+wealth of the Englishmen of to-day are sorely needed to prevent them
+from vanishing.<a name="Page_213"></a> If they fell, new and modern work would scarcely
+compensate us for their loss.</p>
+
+<p>We will take Wells as a model of a cathedral city which entirely owes
+its origin to the noble church and palace built there in early times.
+The city is one of the most picturesque in England, situated in the
+most delightful country, and possessing the most perfect
+ecclesiastical buildings which can be conceived. Jocelyn de Wells, who
+lived at the beginning of the thirteenth century (1206-39), has for
+many years had the credit of building the main part of this beautiful
+house of God. It is hard to have one's beliefs and early traditions
+upset, but modern authorities, with much reason, tell us that we are
+all wrong, and that another Jocelyn&mdash;one Reginald Fitz-Jocelyn
+(1171-91)&mdash;was the main builder of Wells Cathedral. Old documents
+recently discovered decide the question, and, moreover, the style of
+architecture is certainly earlier than the fully developed Early
+English of Jocelyn de Wells. The latter, and also Bishop Savaricus
+(1192-1205), carried out the work, but the whole design and a
+considerable part of the building are due to Bishop Reginald
+Fitz-Jocelyn. His successors, until the middle of the fifteenth
+century, went on perfecting the wondrous shrine, and in the time of
+Bishop Beckington Wells was in its full glory. The church, the
+outbuildings, the episcopal palace, the deanery, all combined to form
+a wonderful architectural triumph, a group of buildings which
+represented the highest achievement of English Gothic art.</p>
+
+<p>Since then many things have happened. The cathedral, like all other
+ecclesiastical buildings, has passed through three great periods of
+iconoclastic violence. It was shorn of some of its glory at the
+Reformation, when it was plundered of the treasures which the piety of
+many generations had heaped together. Then the beautiful Lady Chapel
+in the cloisters was pulled down, and the infamous Duke of Somerset
+robbed it of its wealth and meditated further sacrilege. Amongst these
+desecrators and <a name="Page_214"></a>despoilers there was a mighty hunger for lead. &quot;I
+would that they had found it scalding,&quot; exclaimed an old chaplain of
+Wells; and to get hold of the lead that covered the roofs&mdash;a valuable
+commodity&mdash;Somerset and his kind did much mischief to many of our
+cathedrals and churches. An infamous bishop of York, at this period,
+stripped his fine palace that stood on the north of York Minster, &quot;for
+the sake of the lead that covered it,&quot; and shipped it off to London,
+where it was sold for &pound;1000; but of this sum he was cheated by a noble
+duke, and therefore gained nothing by his infamy. During the Civil War
+it escaped fairly well, but some damage was done, the palace was
+despoiled; and at the Restoration of the Monarchy much repair was
+needed. Monmouth's rebels wrought havoc. They came to Wells in no
+amiable mood, defaced the statues on the west front, did much wanton
+mischief, and would have caroused about the altar had not Lord Grey
+stood before it with his sword drawn, and thus preserved it from the
+insults of the ruffians. Then came the evils of &quot;restoration.&quot; A
+terrible renewing was begun in 1848, when the old stalls were
+destroyed and much damage done. Twenty years later better things were
+accomplished, save that the grandeur of the west front was belittled
+by a pipey restoration, when Irish limestone, with its harsh hue, was
+used to embellish it.</p>
+
+<p>A curiosity at Wells are the quarter jacks over the clock on the
+exterior north wall of the cathedral. Local tradition has it that the
+clock with its accompanying figures was part of the spoil removed from
+Glastonbury Abbey. The ecclesiastical authorities at Wells assert in
+contradiction to this that the clock was the work of one Peter
+Lightfoot, and was placed in the cathedral in the latter part of the
+fourteenth century. A minute is said to exist in the archives of
+repairs to the clock and figures in 1418. It is Mr. Roe's opinion that
+the defensive armour on the quarter jacks dates from the first half of
+the fifteenth century, the plain oviform breastplates and basinets, as
+well as the continuation <a name="Page_215"></a><a name="Page_216"></a>of the tassets round the hips, being very
+characteristic features of this period. The halberds in the hands of
+the figures are evidently restorations of a later time. It may be
+mentioned that in 1907, when the quarter jacks were painted, it was
+discovered that though the figures themselves were carved out of solid
+blocks of oak hard as iron, the arms were of elm bolted and braced
+thereon. Though such instances of combined materials are common enough
+among antiquities of medieval times, it may yet be surmised that the
+jar caused by incessant striking may in time have necessitated repairs
+to the upper limbs. The arms are immovable, as the figures turn on
+pivots to strike.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P215"></a><img src="./images/il088.png" alt="Quarter Jacks" title="" /><br />
+Quarter Jacks over the Clock on exterior of North Wall of Wells Cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>An illustration is given of the palace at Wells, which is one of the
+finest examples of thirteenth-century houses existing in England. It
+was begun by Jocelyn. The great hall, now in ruins, was built by
+Bishop Burnell at the end of the thirteenth century, and was destroyed
+by Bishop Barlow in 1552. The chapel is Decorated. The gatehouse, with
+its drawbridge, moat, and fortifications, was constructed by Bishop
+Ralph, of Shrewsbury, who ruled from 1329 to 1363. The deanery was
+built by Dean Gunthorpe in 1475, who was chaplain to Edward IV. On the
+north is the beautiful vicar's close, which has forty-two houses,
+constructed mainly by Bishop Beckington (1443-64), with a common hall
+erected by Bishop Ralph in 1340 and a chapel by Budwith (1407-64), but
+altered a century later. You can see the old fireplace, the pulpit
+from which one of the brethren read aloud during meals, and an ancient
+painting representing Bishop Ralph making his grant to the kneeling
+figures, and some additional figures painted in the time of Queen
+Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P217"></a><img src="./images/il089.png" alt="The Gate House" title="" /><br />
+The Gate House, Bishop's Palace, Wells</p>
+
+<p>When we study the cathedrals of England and try to trace the causes
+which led to the destruction of so much that was beautiful, so much of
+English art that has vanished, we find that there were three great
+eras of iconoclasm. First there were the changes wrought at <a name="Page_217"></a><a name="Page_218"></a>the time
+of the Reformation, when a rapacious king and his greedy ministers set
+themselves to wring from the treasures of the Church as much gain and
+spoil as they were able. These men were guilty of the most daring acts
+of shameless sacrilege, the grossest robbery. With them nothing was
+sacred. Buildings consecrated to God, holy vessels used in His
+service, all the works of sacred art, the offerings of countless pious
+benefactors were deemed as mere profane things to be seized and
+polluted by their sacrilegious hands. The land was full of the most
+beautiful gems of architectural art, the monastic churches. We can
+tell something of their glories from those which were happily spared
+and converted into cathderals or parish churches. Ely, Peterborough
+the pride of the Fenlands, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, Westminster,
+St. Albans, Beverley, and some others proclaim the grandeur of
+hundreds of other magnificent structures which have been shorn of
+their leaden roofs, used as quarries for building-stone, entirely
+removed and obliterated, or left as pitiable ruins which still look
+beautiful in their decay. Reading, Tintern, Glastonbury, Fountains,
+and a host of others all tell the same story of pitiless iconoclasm.
+And what became of the contents of these churches? The contents
+usually went with the fabric to the spoliators. The halls of
+country-houses were hung with altar-cloths; tables and beds were
+quilted with copes; knights and squires drank their claret out of
+chalices and watered their horses in marble coffins. From the accounts
+of the royal jewels it is evident that a great deal of Church plate
+was delivered to the king for his own use, besides which the sum of
+&pound;30,360 derived from plate obtained by the spoilers was given to the
+proper hand of the king.</p>
+
+<p>The iconoclasts vented their rage in the destruction of stained glass
+and beautiful illuminated manuscripts, priceless tomes and costly
+treasures of exceeding rarity. Parish churches were plundered
+everywhere. Robbery was in the air, and clergy and churchwardens sold
+sacred <a name="Page_219"></a>vessels and appropriated the money for parochial purposes
+rather than they should be seized by the king. Commissioners were sent
+to visit all the cathedral and parish churches and seize the
+superfluous ornaments for the king's use. Tithes, lands, farms,
+buildings belonging to the church all went the same way, until the
+hand of the iconoclast was stayed, as there was little left to steal
+or to be destroyed. The next era of iconoclastic zeal <a name="Page_220"></a>was that of the
+Civil War and the Cromwellian period. At Rochester the soldiers
+profaned the cathedral by using it as a stable and a tippling place,
+while saw-pits were made in the sacred building and carpenters plied
+their trade. At Chichester the pikes of the Puritans and their wild
+savagery reduced the interior to a ruinous desolation. The usual
+scenes of mad iconoclasm were enacted&mdash;stained glass windows broken,
+altars thrown down, lead stripped from the roof, brasses and effigies
+defaced and broken. A creature named &quot;Blue Dick&quot; was the wild leader
+of this savage crew of spoliators who left little but the bare walls
+and a mass of broken fragments strewing the pavement. We need not
+record similar scenes which took place almost everywhere.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P219"></a><img src="./images/il090.png" alt="House where Hooper Imprisoned" title="" /><br />
+House in which Bishop Hooper was imprisoned, Westgate
+Street, Gloucester</p>
+
+<p>The last and grievous rule of iconoclasm set in with the restorers,
+who worked their will upon the fabric of our cathedrals and churches
+and did so much to obliterate all the fragments of good architectural
+work which the Cromwellian soldiers and the spoliators at the time of
+the Reformation had left. The memory of Wyatt and his imitators is not
+revered when we see the results of their work on our ecclesiastical
+fabrics, and we need not wonder that so much of English art has
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>The cathedral of Bristol suffered from other causes. The darkest spot
+in the history of the city is the story of the Reform riots of 1831,
+sometimes called &quot;the Bristol Revolution,&quot; when the dregs of the
+population pillaged and plundered, burnt the bishop's palace, and were
+guilty of the most atrocious vandalism.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P221"></a><img src="./images/il091.png" alt="Stone House" title="" /><br />
+The &quot;Stone House,&quot; Rye, Sussex</p>
+
+<p>The city of Bath, once the rival of Wells&mdash;the contention between the
+monks of St. Peter and the canons of St. Andrews at Wells being hot
+and fierce&mdash;has many attractions. Its minster, rebuilt by Bishop
+Oliver King of Wells (1495-1503), and restored in the seventeenth
+century, and also in modern times, is not a very interesting building,
+though it lacks not some striking features, and certainly contains
+some fine tombs and monuments of the fashionable folk who flocked to
+Bath in the days of its splendour. The <a name="Page_221"></a><a name="Page_222"></a>city itself abounds in
+interest. It is a gem of Georgian art, with a complete homogeneous
+architectural character of its own which makes it singular and unique.
+It is full of memories of the great folks who thronged its streets,
+attended the Bath and Pump Room, and listened to sermons in the
+Octagon. It tells of the autocracy of Beau Nash, of Goldsmith,
+Sheridan, David Garrick, of the &quot;First Gentleman of Europe,&quot; and many
+others who made Bath famous. And now it is likely that this unique
+little city with its memories and its charming architectural features
+is to be mutilated for purely commercial reasons. Every one knows Bath
+Street with its colonnaded loggias on each side terminated with a
+crescent at each end, and leading to the Cross Bath in the centre of
+the eastern crescent. That the original founders of Bath Street
+regarded it as an important architectural feature of the city is
+evident from the inscription in abbreviated Latin which was engraved
+on the first stone of the street when laid:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">PRO<br />
+VRBIS DIG: ET AMP:<br />
+H&AElig;C PON: CVRAV:<br />
+SC:<br />
+DELEGATI<br />
+A: D: MDCCXCI.<br />
+I: HORTON, PRAET:<br />
+T: BALDWIN, ARCHITECTO.</p>
+
+<p>which may be read to the effect that &quot;for the dignity and enlargement
+(of the city) the delegates I. Horton, Mayor, and T. Baldwin,
+architect, laid this (stone) A.D. 1791.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is actually proposed by the new proprietors of the Grand Pump Hotel
+to entirely destroy the beauty of this street by removing the
+colonnaded loggia on one side of this street and constructing a new
+side to the hotel two or three storeys higher, and thus to change the
+whole character of the street and practically destroy it. It is a sad
+pity, and we should have hoped that the city Council would have
+resisted very strongly the proposal that the proprietors of the hotel
+have made to their body. But we <a name="Page_223"></a>hear that the Council is lukewarm in
+its opposition to the scheme, and has indeed officially approved it.
+It is astonishing what city and borough councils will do, and this
+Bath Council has &quot;the discredit of having, for purely commercial
+reasons, made the first move towards the destruction architecturally
+of the peculiar charm of their unique and beautiful city.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42"><sup>42</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Evesham is entirely a monastic town. It sprang up under the sheltering
+walls of the famous abbey&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">A pretty burgh and such as Fancy loves<br />
+For bygone grandeurs.</p>
+
+<p>This abbey shared the fate of many others which we have mentioned. The
+Dean of Gloucester thus muses over the &quot;Vanished Abbey&quot;:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The stranger who knows nothing of its story would surely smile
+   if he were told that beneath the grass and daisies round him were
+   hidden the vast foundation storeys of one of the mightiest of our
+   proud medi&aelig;val abbeys; that on the spot where he was standing
+   were once grouped a forest of tall columns bearing up lofty
+   fretted roofs; that all around once were altars all agleam with
+   colour and with gold; that besides the many altars were once
+   grouped in that sacred spot chauntries and tombs, many of them
+   marvels of grace and beauty, placed there in the memory of men
+   great in the service of Church and State&mdash;of men whose names were
+   household words in the England of our fathers; that close to him
+   were once stately cloisters, great monastic buildings, including
+   refectories, dormitories, chapter-house, chapels, infirmary,
+   granaries, kitchens&mdash;all the varied piles of buildings which used
+   to make up the hive of a great monastery.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It was commenced by Bishop Egwin, of Worcester, in 702 A.D., but the
+era of its great prosperity set in after the battle of Evesham when
+Simon de Montford was slain, and his body buried in the monastic
+church. There was his shrine to which was great pilgrimage, crowds
+flocking to lay their offerings there; and riches poured into the
+treasury of the monks, who made great additions <a name="Page_224"></a>to their house, and
+reared noble buildings. Little is left of its former grandeur. You can
+discover part of the piers of the great central tower, the cloister
+arch of Decorated work of great beauty erected in 1317, and the abbey
+fishponds. The bell tower is one of the glories of Evesham. It was
+built by the last abbot, Abbot Lichfield, and was not quite completed
+before the destruction of the great abbey church adjacent to it. It is
+a grand specimen of Perpendicular architecture.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P224"></a><img src="./images/il092.png" alt="15th Cent House" title="" /><br />
+Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham</p>
+
+<p>At the corner of the Market Place there is a picturesque old house
+with gable and carved barge-boards and timber-framed arch, and we see
+the old Norman gateway named Abbot Reginald's Gateway, after the name
+of its builder, who also erected part of the wall enclosing the
+monastic buildings. A timber-framed structure now stretches across the
+arcade, but a recent restoration has exposed the Norman columns which
+support the arch. The Church House, always an interesting building in
+old towns and villages, wherein church ales and semi-ecclesiastical
+functions took place, has been restored. Passing under the arch we see
+the two churches in one churchyard&mdash;All Saints and St. Laurence. The
+former has some Norman work at the inner door of the porch, but its
+main construction is Decorated and Perpendicular.<a name="Page_225"></a><a name="Page_226"></a> Its most
+interesting feature is the Lichfield Chapel, erected by the last
+abbot, whose initials and the arms of the abbey appear on escutcheons
+on the roof. The fan-tracery roof is especially noticeable, and the
+good modern glass. The church of St. Laurence is entirely
+Perpendicular, and the chantry of Abbot Lichneld, with its fan-tracery
+vaulting, is a gem of English architecture.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P225"></a><img src="./images/il093.png" alt="15th Cent House" title="" /><br />
+Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P226"></a><img src="./images/il094.png" alt="House in Cowl Street" title="" /><br />
+Fifteenth-century House in Cowl Street, Evesham</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the remains of the abbey buildings may be seen the Almonry,
+the residence of the almoner, formerly used as a gaol. An interesting
+stone lantern of fifteenth-century work is preserved here. Another
+abbey gateway is near at hand, but little evidence remains of its
+former Gothic work. Part of the old wall built by Abbot William de
+Chyryton early in the fourteenth century remains. In the town there is
+a much-modernized town hall, and near it the old-fashioned Booth Hall,
+a half-timbered building, now used as shops and cottages, where
+formerly courts were held, including the court of <a name="Page_227"></a><a name="Page_228"></a>pie-powder, the
+usual accompaniment of every fair. Bridge Street is one of the most
+attractive streets in the borough, with its quaint old house, and the
+famous inn, &quot;The Crown.&quot; The old house in Cowl Street was formerly the
+White Hart Inn, which tells a curious Elizabethan story about &quot;the
+Fool and the Ice,&quot; an incident supposed to be referred to by
+Shakespeare in <i>Troilus and Cressida</i> (Act iii. sc. 3): &quot;The fool
+slides o'er the ice that you should break.&quot; The Queen Anne house in
+the High Street, with its wrought-iron railings and brackets, called
+Dresden House and Almswood, one of the oldest dwelling-houses in the
+town, are worthy of notice by the students of domestic architecture.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P227"></a><img src="./images/il095.png" alt="Half-timber House" title="" /><br />
+Half-timber House, Alcester, Warwick</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P228"></a><img src="./images/il096.png" alt="Half Timber House" title="" /><br />
+Half-timber House at Alcester</p>
+
+<p>There is much in the neighbourhood of Evesham which is worthy of note,
+many old-fashioned villages and country towns, manor-houses, churches,
+and inns which are refreshing to the eyes of those who have seen so
+much destruction, so much of the England that is vanishing. The old
+abbey tithe-barn at Littleton of the fourteenth century, Wickhamford
+Manor, the home of Penelope Washington, whose tomb is in the adjoining
+church, <a name="Page_229"></a>the picturesque village of Cropthorne, Winchcombe and its
+houses, Sudeley Castle, the timbered houses at Norton and Harvington,
+Broadway and Campden, abounding with beautiful houses, and the old
+town of Alcester, of which some views are given&mdash;all these contain
+many objects of antiquarian and artistic interest, and can easily be
+reached from Evesham. In that old town we have seen much to interest,
+and the historian will delight to fight over again the battle of
+Evesham and study the records of the siege of the town in the Civil
+War.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X"></a><a name="Page_230"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD INNS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The trend of popular legislation is in the direction of the
+diminishing of the number of licensed premises and the destruction of
+inns. Very soon, we may suppose, the &quot;Black Boy&quot; and the &quot;Red Lion&quot;
+and hosts of other old signs will have vanished, and there will be a
+very large number of famous inns which have &quot;retired from business.&quot;
+Already their number is considerable. In many towns through which in
+olden days the stage-coaches passed inns were almost as plentiful as
+blackberries; they were needed then for the numerous passengers who
+journeyed along the great roads in the coaches; they are not needed
+now when people rush past the places in express trains. Hence the
+order has gone forth that these superfluous houses shall cease to be
+licensed premises and must submit to the removal of their signs.
+Others have been so remodelled in order to provide modern comforts and
+conveniences that scarce a trace of their old-fashioned appearance can
+be found. Modern temperance legislators imagine that if they can only
+reduce the number of inns they will reduce drunkenness and make the
+English people a sober nation. This is not the place to discuss
+whether the destruction of inns tends to promote temperance. We may,
+perhaps, be permitted to doubt the truth of the legend, oft repeated
+on temperance platforms, of the working man, returning homewards from
+his toil, struggling past nineteen inns and succumbing to the syren
+charms of the twentieth. We may fear lest the gathering together of
+large numbers of men in a few public-houses may not increase rather
+<a name="Page_231"></a>than diminish their thirst and the love of good fellowship which in
+some mysterious way is stimulated by the imbibing of many pots of
+beer. We may, perhaps, feel some misgiving with regard to the
+temperate habits of the people, if instead of well-conducted hostels,
+duly inspected by the police, the landlords of which are liable to
+prosecution for improper conduct, we see arising a host of ungoverned
+clubs, wherein no control is exercised over the manners of the members
+and adequate supervision impossible. We cannot refuse to listen to the
+opinion of certain royal commissioners who, after much sifting of
+evidence, came to the conclusion that as far as the suppression of
+public-houses had gone, their diminution had not lessened the
+convictions for drunkenness.</p>
+
+<p>But all this is beside our subject. We have only to record another
+feature of vanishing England, the gradual disappearance of many of its
+ancient and historic inns, and to describe some of the fortunate
+survivors. Many of them are very old, and cannot long contend against
+the fiery eloquence of the young temperance orator, the newly fledged
+justice of the peace, or the budding member of Parliament who tries to
+win votes by pulling things down.</p>
+
+<p>We have, however, still some of these old hostelries left; medieval
+pilgrim inns redolent of the memories of the not very pious companies
+of men and women who wended their way to visit the shrines of St.
+Thomas of Canterbury or Our Lady at Walsingham; historic inns wherein
+some of the great events in the annals of England have occurred; inns
+associated with old romances or frequented by notorious highwaymen, or
+that recall the adventures of Mr. Pickwick and other heroes and
+villains of Dickensian tales. It is well that we should try to depict
+some of these before they altogether vanish.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing vulgar or disgraceful about an inn a century ago.
+From Elizabethan times to the early part of the nineteenth century
+they were frequented by most <a name="Page_232"></a>of the leading spirits of each
+generation. Archbishop Leighton, who died in 1684, often used to say
+to Bishop Burnet that &quot;if he were to choose a place to die in it
+should be an inn; it looked like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this
+world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion
+of it.&quot; His desire was fulfilled. He died at the old Bell Inn in
+Warwick Lane, London, an old galleried hostel which was not demolished
+until 1865. Dr. Johnson, when delighting in the comfort of the
+Shakespeare's Head Inn, between Worcester and Lichfield, exclaimed:
+&quot;No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by
+which so much happiness is provided as by a good tavern or inn.&quot; This
+oft-quoted saying the learned Doctor uttered at the Chapel House Inn,
+near King's Norton; its glory has departed; it is now a simple
+country-house by the roadside. Shakespeare, who doubtless had many
+opportunities of testing the comforts of the famous inns at Southwark,
+makes Falstaff say: &quot;Shall I not take mine ease at mine inn?&quot;; and
+Shenstone wrote the well-known rhymes on a window of the old Red Lion
+at Henley-on-Thames:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Whoe'er has travelled life's dull road,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where'er his stages may have been,</span><br />
+May sigh to think he still has found<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The warmest welcome at an inn.</span></p>
+
+<p>Fynes Morrison tells of the comforts of English inns even as early as
+the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1617 he wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The world affords not such inns as England hath, for as soon as
+   a passenger comes the servants run to him; one takes his horse
+   and walks him till he be cold, then rubs him and gives him meat;
+   but let the master look to this point. Another gives the
+   traveller his private chamber and kindles his fire, the third
+   pulls off his boots and makes them clean; then the host or
+   hostess visits him&mdash;if he will eat with the host&mdash;or at a common
+   table it will be 4d. and 6d. If a gentleman has his own chamber,
+   his ways are consulted, and he has music, too, if he likes.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="Page_233"></a><a name="IL_P233"></a><img src="./images/il097.png" alt="The Wheelwright's Arms" title="" /><br />
+The Wheelwrights' Arms, Warwick</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_234"></a>The literature of England abounds in references to these ancient inns.
+If Dr. Johnson, Addison, and Goldsmith were alive now, we should find
+them chatting together at the Authors' Club, or the Savage, or the
+Athen&aelig;um. There were no literary clubs in their days, and the public
+parlours of the Cock Tavern or the &quot;Cheshire Cheese&quot; were their clubs,
+wherein they were quite as happy, if not quite so luxuriously housed,
+as if they had been members of a modern social institution. Who has
+not sung in praise of inns? Longfellow, in his <i>Hyperion</i>, makes
+Flemming say: &quot;He who has not been at a tavern knows not what a
+paradise it is. O holy tavern! O miraculous tavern! Holy, because no
+carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain; and miraculous,
+because of the spits which of themselves turned round and round.&quot; They
+appealed strongly to Washington Irving, who, when recording his visit
+to the shrine of Shakespeare, says: &quot;To a homeless man, who has no
+spot on this wide world which he can truly call his own, there is a
+momentary feeling of something like independence and territorial
+consequence, when after a weary day's travel he kicks off his boots,
+thrusts his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn
+fire. Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall,
+so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time
+being, the very monarch of all he surveys.... 'Shall I not take mine
+ease in mine inn?' thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back
+in my elbow chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlour
+of the Red Horse at Stratford-on-Avon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P235"></a><img src="./images/il098.png" alt="Entrance to Reindeer Inn" title="" /><br />
+Entrance to the Reindeer Inn, Banbury</p>
+
+<p>And again, on Christmas Eve Irving tells of his joyous long day's ride
+in a coach, and how he at length arrived at a village where he had
+determined to stay the night. As he drove into the great gateway of
+the inn (some of them were mighty narrow and required much skill on
+the part of the Jehu) he saw on one side the light of a rousing
+kitchen fire beaming through a window. He &quot;entered and admired, for
+the hundredth time, that picture of convenience, <a name="Page_235"></a><a name="Page_236"></a>neatness, and broad
+honest enjoyment&mdash;the kitchen of an English inn.&quot; It was of spacious
+dimensions, hung round with copper and tin vessels highly polished,
+and decorated here and there with Christmas green. Hams, tongues, and
+flitches of bacon were suspended from the ceiling; a smoke-jack made
+its ceaseless clanking beside the fire-place, and a clock ticked in
+one corner. A well-scoured deal table extended along one side of the
+kitchen, with a cold round of beef and other hearty viands upon it,
+over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting guard.
+Travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout
+repast, while others sat smoking and gossiping over their ale on two
+high-backed oaken settles beside the fire. Trim housemaids were
+hurrying backwards and forwards under the directions of a fresh
+bustling landlady; but still seizing an occasional moment to exchange
+a flippant word, and have a rallying laugh with the group round the
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the cheering picture of an old-fashioned inn in days of yore.
+No wonder that the writers should have thus lauded these inns! Imagine
+yourself on the box-seat of an old coach travelling somewhat slowly
+through the night. It is cold and wet, and your fingers are frozen,
+and the rain drives pitilessly in your face; and then, when you are
+nearly dead with misery, the coach stops at a well-known inn. A
+smiling host and buxom hostess greets you; blazing fires thaw you back
+to life, and good cheer awaits your appetite. No wonder people loved
+an inn and wished to take their ease therein after the dangers and
+hardships of the day. Lord Beaconsfield, in his novel <i>Tancred</i>,
+vividly describes the busy scene at a country hostelry in the busy
+coaching days. The host, who is always &quot;smiling,&quot; conveys the pleasing
+intelligence to the passengers: &quot;'The coach stops here half an hour,
+gentlemen: dinner quite ready.' 'Tis a delightful sound. And what a
+dinner! What a profusion of substantial delicacies! What mighty and
+iris-tinted rounds of beef! What vast and marble-veined ribs!<a name="Page_237"></a> What
+gelatinous veal pies! What colossal hams! These are evidently prize
+cheeses! And how invigorating is the perfume of those various and
+variegated pickles. Then the bustle emulating the plenty; the ringing
+of bells, the clash of thoroughfare, the summoning of ubiquitous
+waiters, and the all-pervading feeling of omnipotence from the guests,
+who order what they please to the landlord, who can produce and
+execute everything they can desire. 'Tis a wondrous sight!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P237"></a><img src="./images/il099.png" alt="Shoulder of Mutton Inn" title="" /><br />
+The Shoulder of Mutton Inn, King's Lynn</p>
+
+<p>And then how picturesque these old inns are, with their swinging
+signs, the pump and horse-trough before the door, a towering elm or
+poplar overshadowing the inn, and round it and on each side of the
+entrance are <a name="Page_238"></a>seats, with rustics sitting on them. The old house has
+picturesque gables and a tiled roof mellowed by age, with moss and
+lichen growing on it, and the windows are latticed. A porch protects
+the door, and over it and up the walls are growing old-fashioned
+climbing rose trees. Morland loved to paint the exteriors of inns
+quite as much as he did to frequent their interiors, and has left us
+many a wondrous drawing of their beauties. The interior is no less
+picturesque, with its open ingle-nook, its high-backed settles, its
+brick floor, its pots and pans, its pewter and brass utensils. Our
+artist has drawn for us many beautiful examples of old inns, which we
+shall visit presently and try to learn something of their old-world
+charm. He has only just been in time to sketch them, as they are fast
+disappearing. It is astonishing how many noted inns in London and the
+suburbs have vanished during the last twenty or thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>Let us glance at a few of the great Southwark inns. The old &quot;Tabard,&quot;
+from which Chaucer's pilgrims started on their memorable journey, was
+destroyed by a great fire in 1676, rebuilt in the old fashion, and
+continued until 1875, when it had to make way for a modern &quot;old
+Tabard&quot; and some hop merchant's offices. This and many other inns had
+galleries running round the yard, or at one end of it, and this yard
+was a busy place, frequented not only by travellers in coach or
+saddle, but by poor players and mountebanks, who set up their stage
+for the entertainment of spectators who hung over the galleries or
+from their rooms watched the performance. The model of an inn-yard was
+the first germ of theatrical architecture. The &quot;White Hart&quot; in
+Southwark retained its galleries on the north and east side of its
+yard until 1889, though a modern tavern replaced the south and main
+portion of the building in 1865-6. This was a noted inn, bearing as
+its sign a badge of Richard II, derived from his mother Joan of Kent.
+Jack Cade stayed there while he was trying to capture London, and
+another &quot;immortal&quot; flits across the stage, Master Sam Weller, <a name="Page_239"></a>of
+<i>Pickwick</i> fame. A galleried inn still remains at Southwark, a great
+coaching and carriers' hostel, the &quot;George.&quot; It is but a fragment of
+its former greatness, and the present building was erected soon after
+the fire in 1676, and still retains its picturesqueness.</p>
+
+<p>The glory has passed from most of these London inns. Formerly their
+yards resounded with the strains of the merry post-horn, and carriers'
+carts were as plentiful as omnibuses now are. In the fine yard of the
+&quot;Saracen's Head,&quot; Aldgate, you can picture the busy scene, though the
+building has ceased to be an inn, and if you wished to travel to
+Norwich there you would have found your coach ready for you. The old
+&quot;Bell Savage,&quot; which derives its name from one Savage who kept the
+&quot;Bell on the Hoop,&quot; and not from any beautiful girl &quot;La Belle
+Sauvage,&quot; was a great coaching centre, and so were the &quot;Swan with two
+Necks,&quot; Lad Lane, the &quot;Spread Eagle&quot; and &quot;Cross Keys&quot; in Gracechurch
+Street, the &quot;White Horse,&quot; Fetter Lane, and the &quot;Angel,&quot; behind St.
+Clements. As we do not propose to linger long in London, and prefer
+the country towns and villages where relics of old English life
+survive, we will hie to one of these noted hostelries, book our seats
+on a Phantom coach, and haste away from the great city which has dealt
+so mercilessly with its ancient buildings. It is the last few years
+which have wrought the mischief. Many of these old inns lingered on
+till the 'eighties. Since then their destruction has been rapid, and
+the huge caravanserais, the &quot;Cecil,&quot; the &quot;Ritz,&quot; the &quot;Savoy,&quot; and the
+&quot;Metropole,&quot; have supplanted the old Saracen's Heads, the Bulls, the
+Bells, and the Boars that satisfied the needs of our forefathers in a
+less luxurious age.</p>
+
+<p>Let us travel first along the old York road, or rather select our
+route, going by way of Ware, Tottenham, Edmonton, and Waltham Cross,
+Hatfield and Stevenage, or through Barnet, until we arrive at the
+Wheat Sheaf Inn on Alconbury Hill, past Little Stukeley, where the two
+roads conjoin and &quot;the milestones are numbered <a name="Page_240"></a>agreeably to that
+admeasurement,&quot; viz. to that from Hicks' Hall through Barnet, as
+<i>Patterson's Roads</i> plainly informs us. Along this road you will find
+several of the best specimens of old coaching inns in England. The
+famous &quot;George&quot; at Huntingdon, the picturesque &quot;Fox and Hounds&quot; at
+Ware, the grand old inns at Stilton and Grantham are some of the best
+inns on English roads, and pleadingly invite a pleasant pilgrimage. We
+might follow in the wake of Dick Turpin, if his ride to York were not
+a myth. The real incident on which the story was founded occurred
+about the year 1676, long before Turpin was born. One Nicks robbed a
+gentleman on Gadshill at four o'clock in the morning, crossed the
+river with his <i>bay</i> mare as soon as he could get a ferry-boat at
+Gravesend, and then by Braintree, Huntingdon, and other places reached
+York that evening, went to the Bowling Green, pointedly asked the
+mayor the time, proved an alibi, and got off. This account was
+published as a broadside about the time of Turpin's execution, but it
+makes no allusion to him whatever. It required the romance of the
+nineteenth century to change Nicks to Turpin and the bay mare to Black
+Bess. But <i>revenir &agrave; nos moutons</i>, or rather our inns. The old &quot;Fox
+and Hounds&quot; at Ware is beautiful with its swinging sign suspended by
+graceful and elaborate ironwork and its dormer windows. The &quot;George&quot;
+at Huntingdon preserves its gallery in the inn-yard, its projecting
+upper storey, its outdoor settle, and much else that is attractive.
+Another &quot;George&quot; greets us at Stamford, an ancient hostelry, where
+Charles I stayed during the Civil War when he was journeying from
+Newark to Huntingdon.</p>
+
+<p>And then we come to Grantham, famous for its old inns. Foremost among
+them is the &quot;Angel,&quot; which dates back to medieval times. It has a fine
+stone front with two projecting bays, an archway with welcoming doors
+on either hand, and above the arch is a beautiful little oriel window,
+and carved heads and gargoyles jut out from the stonework. I think
+that this charming front <a name="Page_241"></a>was remodelled in Tudor times, and judging
+from the interior plaster-work I am of opinion that the bays were
+added in the time of Henry VII, the Tudor rose forming part of the
+decoration. The arch and gateway with the oriel are the oldest parts
+of the front, and on each side of the arch is a sculptured head, one
+representing Edward III and the other his queen, Philippa of Hainault.
+The house belonged in ancient times to the Knights Templars, where
+royal and other distinguished travellers were entertained. King John
+is said to have held his court here in 1213, and the old inn witnessed
+the passage of the body of Eleanor, the beloved queen of Edward I, as
+it was borne to its last resting-place at Westminster. One of the
+seven Eleanor crosses stood at Grantham on St. Peter's Hill, but it
+shared the fate of many other crosses and was destroyed by the
+troopers of Cromwell during the Civil War. The first floor of the
+&quot;Angel&quot; was occupied by one long room, wherein royal courts were held.
+It is now divided into three separate rooms. In this room Richard III
+condemned to execution the Duke of Buckingham, and probably here
+stayed Cromwell in the early days of his military career and wrote his
+letter concerning the first action that made him famous. We can
+imagine the silent troopers assembling in the market-place late in the
+evening, and then marching out twelve companies strong to wage an
+unequal contest against a large body of Royalists. The Grantham folk
+had much to say when the troopers rode back with forty-five prisoners
+besides divers horses and arms and colours. The &quot;Angel&quot; must have seen
+all this and sighed for peace. Grim troopers paced its corridors, and
+its stables were full of tired horses. One owner of the inn at the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, though he kept a hostel, liked
+not intemperance. His name was Michael Solomon, and he left an annual
+charge of 40s. to be paid to the vicar of the parish for preaching a
+sermon in the parish church against the sin of drunkenness. The
+interior of this <a name="Page_242"></a>ancient hostelry has been modernized and fitted with
+the comforts which we modern folk are accustomed to expect.</p>
+
+<p>Across the way is the &quot;Angel's&quot; rival the &quot;George,&quot; possibly identical
+with the hospitium called &quot;Le George&quot; presented with other property by
+Edward IV to his mother, the Duchess of York. It lacks the appearance
+of age which clothes the &quot;Angel&quot; with dignity, and was rebuilt with
+red brick in the Georgian era. The coaches often called there, and
+Charles Dickens stayed the night and describes it as one of the best
+inns in England. He tells of Squeers conducting his new pupils through
+Grantham to Dotheboys Hall, and how after leaving the inn the luckless
+travellers &quot;wrapped themselves more closely in their coats and cloaks
+... and prepared with many half-suppressed moans again to encounter
+the piercing blasts which swept across the open country.&quot; At the
+&quot;Saracen's Head&quot; in Westgate Isaac Newton used to stay, and there are
+many other inns, the majority of which rejoice in signs that are blue.
+We see a Blue Horse, a Blue Dog, a Blue Ram, Blue Lion, Blue Cow, Blue
+Sheep, and many other cerulean animals and objects, which proclaim the
+political colour of the great landowner. Grantham boasts of a unique
+inn-sign. Originally known as the &quot;Bee-hive,&quot; a little public-house in
+Castlegate has earned the designation of the &quot;Living Sign,&quot; on account
+of the hive of bees fixed in a tree that guards its portals. Upon the
+swinging sign the following lines are inscribed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Stop, traveller, this wondrous sign explore,<br />
+And say when thou hast viewed it o'er and o'er,<br />
+Grantham, now two rarities are thine&mdash;<br />
+A lofty steeple and a &quot;Living Sign.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The connexion of the &quot;George&quot; with Charles Dickens reminds one of the
+numerous inns immortalized by the great novelist both in and out of
+London. The &quot;Golden Cross&quot; at Charing Cross, the &quot;Bull&quot; at Rochester,
+the &quot;Belle Sauvage&quot; (now demolished) near Ludgate Hill, the &quot;Angel&quot; at
+Bury St. Edmunds, the &quot;Great White<a name="Page_243"></a> Horse&quot; at Ipswich, the &quot;King's
+Head&quot; at Chigwell (the original of the &quot;Maypole&quot; in <i>Barnaby Rudge</i>),
+the &quot;Leather Bottle&quot; at Cobham are only a few of those which he by his
+writings made famous.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P243"></a><img src="./images/il100.png" alt="Quaint Gable" title="" /><br />
+A Quaint Gable. The Bell Inn, Stilton</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Grantham and its inns, we push along the great North Road to
+Stilton, famous for its cheese, where a choice of inns awaits us&mdash;the
+&quot;Bell&quot; and the &quot;Angel,&quot; that glare at each other across the broad
+thoroughfare. In the palmy days of coaching the &quot;Angel&quot; had stabling
+for three hundred horses, and it was kept by Mistress Worthington, at
+whose door the famous cheeses were sold and hence called Stilton,
+though they were made in distant farmsteads and villages. It is quite
+a modern-looking inn as compared with the &quot;Bell.&quot; You can see a date
+inscribed on one of the gables, 1649, but this can only mean that the
+inn was restored then, as the style of architecture of &quot;this dream in
+stone&quot; shows that it must date back to early Tudor times. It has a
+noble swinging sign supported by beautifully designed ornamental
+ironwork, gables, bay-windows, a Tudor archway, tiled roof, and a
+picturesque courtyard, the silence and dilapidation <a name="Page_244"></a>of which are
+strangely contrasted with the continuous bustle, life, and animation
+which must have existed there before the era of railways.</p>
+
+<p>Not far away is Southwell, where there is the historic inn the
+&quot;Saracen's Head.&quot; Here Charles I stayed, and you can see the very room
+where he lodged on the left of the entrance-gate. Here it was on May
+5th, 1646, that he gave himself up to the Scotch Commissioners, who
+wrote to the Parliament from Southwell &quot;that it made them feel like
+men in a dream.&quot; The &quot;Martyr-King&quot; entered this inn as a sovereign; he
+left it a prisoner under the guard of his Lothian escort. Here he
+slept his last night of liberty, and as he passed under the archway of
+the &quot;Saracen's Head&quot; he started on that fatal journey that terminated
+on the scaffold at Whitehall. You can see on the front of the inn over
+the gateway a stone lozenge with the royal arms engraved on it with
+the date 1693, commemorating this royal melancholy visit. In later
+times Lord Byron was a frequent visitor.</p>
+
+<p>On the high, wind-swept road between Ashbourne and Buxton there is an
+inn which can defy the attacks of the reformers. It is called the
+Newhaven Inn and was built by a Duke of Devonshire for the
+accommodation of visitors to Buxton. King George IV was so pleased
+with it that he gave the Duke a perpetual licence, with which no
+Brewster Sessions can interfere. Near Buxton is the second highest inn
+in England, the &quot;Cat and Fiddle,&quot; and &quot;The Traveller's Rest&quot; at Flash
+Bar, on the Leek road, ranks as third, the highest being the Tan Hill
+Inn, near Brough, on the Yorkshire moors.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P245"></a>
+<a href="./images/il101.png"><img src="./images/il101_th.png" alt="Bell Inn" title="" /></a><br />
+The Bell Inn, Stilton</p>
+
+<p>Norwich is a city remarkable for its old buildings and famous inns. A
+very ancient inn is the &quot;Maid's Head&quot; at Norwich, a famous hostelry
+which can vie in interest with any in the kingdom. Do we not see there
+the identical room in which good Queen Bess is said to have reposed on
+the occasion of her visit to the city in 1578? You cannot imagine a
+more delightful old chamber, with its massive beams, its wide
+fifteenth-century fire-place, <a name="Page_245"></a><a name="Page_246"></a>and its quaint lattice, through which
+the moonbeams play upon antique furniture and strange, fantastic
+carvings. This oak-panelled room recalls memories of the Orfords,
+Walpoles, Howards, Wodehouses, and other distinguished guests whose
+names live in England's annals. The old inn was once known as the
+Murtel or Molde Fish, and some have tried to connect the change of
+name with the visit of Queen Elizabeth; unfortunately for the
+conjecture, the inn was known as the Maid's Head long before the days
+of Queen Bess. It was built on the site of an old bishop's palace, and
+in the cellars may be seen some traces of Norman masonry. One of the
+most fruitful sources of information about social life in the
+fifteenth century are the <i>Paston Letters</i>. In one written by John
+Paston in 1472 to &quot;Mestresse Margret Paston,&quot; he tells her of the
+arrival of a visitor, and continues: &quot;I praye yow make hym goode cheer
+... it were best to sette hys horse at the Maydes Hedde, and I shall
+be content for ther expenses.&quot; During the Civil War this inn was the
+rendezvous of the Royalists, but alas! one day Cromwell's soldiers
+made an attack on the &quot;Maid's Head,&quot; and took for their prize the
+horses of Dame Paston stabled here.</p>
+
+<p>We must pass over the records of civic feasts and aldermanic
+junketings, which would fill a volume, and seek out the old &quot;Briton's
+Arms,&quot; in the same city, a thatched building of venerable appearance
+with its projecting upper storeys and lofty gable. It looks as if it
+may not long survive the march of progress.</p>
+
+<p>The parish of Heigham, now part of the city of Norwich, is noted as
+having been the residence of Bishop Hall, &quot;the English Seneca,&quot; and
+author of the <i>Meditations</i>, on his ejection from the bishopric in
+1647 till his death in 1656<a name="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43"><sup>43</sup></a> The house in which he resided, now
+<a name="Page_247"></a><a name="Page_248"></a>known as the Dolphin Inn, still stands, and is an interesting
+building with its picturesque bays and mullioned windows and
+ingeniously devised porch. It has actually been proposed to pull down,
+or improve out of existence, this magnificent old house. Its front is
+a perfect specimen of flint and stone sixteenth-century architecture.
+Over the main door appears an episcopal coat of arms with the date
+1587, while higher on the front appears the date of a restoration (in
+two bays):&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P247"></a>
+<a href="./images/il102.png"><img src="./images/il102_th.png" alt="Briton's Arms" title="" /></a><br />
+The &quot;Briton's Arms, &quot; Norwich</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P248"></a><img src="./images/il103.png" alt="Anno Domini 1615" title="" /><br /></p>
+
+<p>Just inside the doorway is a fine Gothic stoup into which bucolic
+rustics now knock the fag-ends of their pipes. The staircase newel is
+a fine piece of Gothic carving with an embattled moulding, a
+poppy-head and heraldic lion. Pillared fire-places and other tokens of
+departed greatness testify to the former beauty of this old
+dwelling-place.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P249"></a>
+<a href="./images/il104.png"><img src="./images/il104_th.png" alt="Dolphin Inn" title="" /></a><br />
+The Dolphin Inn, Heigham, Norwich</p>
+
+<p>We will now start back to town by the coach which leaves the &quot;Maid's
+Head&quot; (or did leave in 1762) at half-past eleven in the forenoon, and
+hope to arrive in London on the following day, and thence hasten
+southward to Canterbury. Along this Dover road are some of the best
+inns in England: the &quot;Bull&quot; at Dartford, with its galleried courtyard,
+once a pilgrims' hostel; the &quot;Bull&quot; and &quot;Victoria&quot; at Rochester,
+reminiscent of <i>Pickwick</i>; the modern &quot;Crown&quot; that supplants a
+venerable inn where Henry VIII first beheld Anne of Cleves; the &quot;White
+Hart&quot;; and the &quot;George,&quot; where pilgrims stayed; and so on to
+Canterbury, a city of memories, which happily retains many features of
+old English life that have not altogether vanished. Its grand
+cathedral, its churches, St. Augustine's College, its quaint streets,
+like Butchery Lane, with their houses bending forward in a friendly
+manner to almost meet each other, as well as its old inns, like the
+&quot;Falstaff&quot; in High Street, near West Gate, standing <a name="Page_249"></a><a name="Page_250"></a>on the site of a
+pilgrims' inn, with its sign showing the valiant and portly knight,
+and supported by elaborate ironwork, its tiled roof and picturesque
+front, all combine to make Canterbury as charming a place of modern
+pilgrimage as it was attractive to the pilgrims of another sort who
+frequented its inns in days of yore.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P250A"></a><img src="./images/il105.png" alt="Shield &amp; Monogram" title="" /><br />
+Shield and Monogram on doorway of the Dolphin Inn,
+Heigham</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P250B"></a><img src="./images/il106.png" alt="Staircase Newel" title="" /><br />
+Staircase Newel at the Dolphin Inn. From <i>Old Oak Furniture</i>, by Fred Roe</p>
+
+<p>And now we will discard the cumbersome old coaches and even the
+&quot;Flying Machines,&quot; and travel by another flying machine, an airship,
+landing where we will, wherever a pleasing inn attracts us. At
+Glastonbury is the famous &quot;George,&quot; which has hardly changed its
+exterior since it was built by Abbot Selwood in 1475 for the
+accommodation of middle-class pilgrims, those of high degree being
+entertained at the abbot's lodgings. At Gloucester we find ourselves
+in the midst of memories of Roman, Saxon, and monastic days. Here too
+are some famous inns, especially the quaint &quot;New Inn,&quot; in<a name="Page_251"></a> Northgate
+Street, a somewhat peculiar sign for a hostelry built (so it is said)
+for the use of pilgrims frequenting the shrine of Edward II in the
+cathedral. It retains all its ancient medieval picturesqueness. Here
+the old gallery which surrounded most of our inn-yards remains. Carved
+beams and door-posts made of chestnut are seen everywhere, and at the
+corner of New Inn Lane is a very elaborate sculpture, the lower part
+of which represents the Virgin and Holy Child. Here, in Hare Lane, is
+also a similar inn, the Old Raven Tavern, which has suffered much in
+the course of ages. It was formerly built around a courtyard, but only
+one side of it is left.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P251"></a><img src="./images/il107.png" alt="Falstaff Inn" title="" /><br />
+The Falstaff Inn, Canterbury</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_252"></a>There are many fine examples of old houses that are not inns in
+Gloucester, beautiful half-timbered black and white structures, such
+as Robert Raikes's house, the printer who has the credit of founding
+the first Sunday-school, the old Judges' House in Westgate Street, the
+old Deanery with its Norman room, once the Prior's Lodge of the
+Benedictine Abbey. Behind many a modern front there exist curious
+carvings and quaintly panelled rooms and elaborate ceilings. There is
+an interesting carved-panel room in the Tudor House, Westgate Street.
+The panels are of the linen-fold pattern, and at the head of each are
+various designs, such as the Tudor Rose and Pomegranate, the Lion of
+England, etc. The house originally known as the Old Blue Shop has some
+magnificent mantelpieces, and also St. Nicholas House can boast of a
+very elaborately carved example of Elizabethan sculpture.</p>
+
+<p>We journey thence to Tewkesbury and visit the grand silver-grey abbey
+that adorns the Severn banks. Here are some good inns of great
+antiquity. The &quot;Wheat-sheaf&quot; is perhaps the most attractive, with its
+curious gable and ancient lights, and even the interior is not much
+altered. Here too is the &quot;Bell,&quot; under the shadow of the abbey tower.
+It is the original of Phineas Fletcher's house in the novel <i>John
+Halifax, Gentleman</i>. The &quot;Bear and the Ragged Staff&quot; is another
+half-timbered house with a straggling array of buildings and curious
+swinging signboard, the favourite haunt of the disciples of Izaak
+Walton, under the overhanging eaves of which the Avon silently flows.</p>
+
+<p>The old &quot;Seven Stars&quot; at Manchester is said to be the most ancient in
+England, claiming a licence 563 years old. But it has many rivals,
+such as the &quot;Fighting Cocks&quot; at St. Albans, the &quot;Dick Whittington&quot; in
+Cloth Fair, St. Bartholomews, the &quot;Running Horse&quot; at Leatherhead,
+wherein John Skelton, the poet laureate of Henry VIII, sang the
+praises of its landlady, Eleanor Rumming, and several others. The
+&quot;Seven Stars&quot; has <a name="Page_253"></a>many interesting features and historical
+associations. Here came Guy Fawkes and concealed himself in &quot;Ye Guy
+Faux Chamber,&quot; as the legend over the door testifies. What strange
+stories could this old inn tell us! It could tell us of the Flemish
+weavers who, driven from their own country by religious persecutions
+and the atrocities of Duke Alva, settled in Manchester in 1564, and
+drank many a cup of sack at the &quot;Seven Stars,&quot; rejoicing in their
+safety. It could tell us of the disputes between the clergy of the
+collegiate church and the citizens in 1574, when one of the preachers,
+a bachelor of divinity, on his way to the church was stabbed three
+times by the dagger of a Manchester man; and of the execution of three
+popish priests, whose heads were afterwards exposed from the tower of
+the church. Then there is the story of the famous siege in 1642, when
+the King's forces tried to <a name="Page_254"></a>take the town and were repulsed by the
+townsfolk, who were staunch Roundheads. &quot;A great and furious skirmish
+did ensue,&quot; and the &quot;Seven Stars&quot; was in the centre of the fighting.
+Sir Thomas Fairfax made Manchester his head-quarters in 1643, and the
+walls of the &quot;Seven Stars&quot; echoed with the carousals of the
+Roundheads. When Fairfax marched from Manchester to relieve Nantwich,
+some dragoons had to leave hurriedly, and secreted their mess plate in
+the walls of the old inn, where it was discovered only a few years
+ago, and may now be seen in the parlour of this interesting hostel. In
+1745 it furnished accommodation for the soldiers of Prince Charles
+Edward, the Young Pretender, and was the head-quarters of the
+Manchester regiment. One of the rooms is called &quot;Ye Vestry,&quot; on
+account of its connexion with the collegiate church. It is said that
+there was a secret passage between the inn and the church, and,
+according to the Court Leet Records, some of the clergy used to go to
+the &quot;Seven Stars&quot; in sermon-time in their surplices to refresh
+themselves. <i>O tempora!</i> <i>O mores!</i> A horseshoe at the foot of the
+stairs has a story to tell. During the war with France in 1805 the
+press-gang was billeted at the &quot;Seven Stars.&quot; A young farmer's lad was
+leading a horse to be shod which had cast a shoe. The press-gang
+rushed out, seized the young man, and led him off to serve the king.
+Before leaving he nailed the shoe to a post on the stairs, saying,
+&quot;Let this stay till I come from the wars to claim it.&quot; So it remains
+to this day unclaimed, a mute reminder of its owner's fate and of the
+manners of our forefathers.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P253"></a><img src="./images/il108.png" alt="Bear &amp; Ragged Staff Inn" title="" /><br />
+The Bear and Ragged Staff Inn, Tewkesbury</p>
+
+<p>Another inn, the &quot;Fighting Cocks&quot; at St. Albans, formerly known as &quot;Ye
+Old Round House,&quot; close to the River Ver, claims to be the oldest
+inhabited house in England. It probably formed part of the monastic
+buildings, but its antiquity as an inn is not, as far as I am aware,
+fully established.</p>
+
+<p>The antiquary must not forget the ancient inn at Bainbridge, in
+Wensleydale, which has had its licence since<a name="Page_255"></a> 1445, and plays its
+little part in <i>Drunken Barnaby's Journal</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P255"></a><img src="./images/il109.png" alt="Fire-place" title="" /><br />
+Fire-place in the George Inn, Norton St. Philip,
+Somerset</p>
+
+<p>Many inns have played an important part in national events. There is
+the &quot;Bull&quot; at Coventry, where Henry VII stayed before the battle of
+Bosworth Field, where he won for himself the English crown. There Mary
+Queen of Scots was detained by order of Elizabeth. There the
+conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot met to devise their scheme for
+blowing up the Houses of Parliament. The George Inn at Norton St.
+Philip, Somerset, took part in the Monmouth rebellion. There the Duke
+stayed, and there was much excitement in the inn when he informed his
+officers that it was his intention to attack Bristol. Thence he
+marched with his rude levies to<a name="Page_256"></a> Keynsham, and after a defeat and a
+vain visit to Bath he returned to the &quot;George&quot; and won a victory over
+Faversham's advanced guard. You can still see the Monmouth room in the
+inn with its fine fire-place.</p>
+
+<p>The Crown and Treaty Inn at Uxbridge reminds one of the meeting of the
+Commissioners of King and Parliament, who vainly tried to arrange a
+peace in 1645; and at the &quot;Bear,&quot; Hungerford, William of Orange
+received the Commissioners of James II, and set out thence on his
+march towards London and the English throne.</p>
+
+<p>The Dark Lantern Inn at Aylesbury, in a nest of poor houses, seems to
+tell by its unique sign of plots and conspiracies.</p>
+
+<p>Aylesbury is noted for its inns. The famous &quot;White Hart&quot; is no more.
+It has vanished entirely, having disappeared in 1863. It had been
+modernized, but could boast of a timber balcony round the courtyard,
+ornamented with ancient wood carvings brought from Salden House, an
+old seat of the Fortescues, near Winslow. Part of the inn was built by
+the Earl of Rochester in 1663, and many were the great feasts and
+civic banquets that took place within its hospitable doors. The
+&quot;King's Head&quot; dates from the middle of the fifteenth century and is a
+good specimen of the domestic architecture of the Tudor period. It
+formerly issued its own tokens. It was probably the hall of some guild
+or fraternity. In a large window are the arms of England and Anjou.
+The George Inn has some interesting paintings which were probably
+brought from Eythrope House on its demolition in 1810, and the &quot;Bull's
+Head&quot; has some fine beams and panelling.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P257"></a>
+<a href="./images/il110.png"><img src="./images/il110_th.png" alt="Green Dragon" title="" /></a><br />
+The Green Dragon Inn, Wymondham, Norfolk</p>
+
+<p>Some of the inns of Burford and Shrewsbury we have seen when we
+visited those old-world towns. Wymondham, once famous for its abbey,
+is noted for its &quot;Green Dragon,&quot; a beautiful half-timbered house with
+projecting storeys, and in our wanderings we must not forget to see
+along the Brighton road the picturesque &quot;Star&quot; at Alfriston with its
+three oriel windows, one of the oldest in Sussex.<a name="Page_257"></a><a name="Page_258"></a> It was once a
+sanctuary within the jurisdiction of the Abbot of Battle for persons
+flying from justice. Hither came men-slayers, thieves, and rogues of
+every description, and if they reached this inn-door they were safe.
+There is a record of a horse-thief named Birrel in the days of Henry
+VIII seeking refuge here for a crime committed at Lydd, in Kent. It
+was intended originally as a house for the refreshment of mendicant
+friars. The house is very quaint with its curious carvings, including
+a great red lion that guards the side, the figure-head of a wrecked
+Dutch vessel lost in Cuckmen Haven. Alfriston was noted as a great
+nest of smugglers, and the &quot;Star&quot; was often frequented by Stanton
+Collins and his gang, who struck terror into their neighbours,
+daringly carried on their trade, and drank deep at the inn when <a name="Page_259"></a>the
+kegs were safely housed. Only fourteen years ago the last of his gang
+died in Eastbourne Workhouse. Smuggling is a vanished profession
+nowadays, a feature of vanished England that no one would seek to
+revive. Who can tell whether it may not be as prevalent as ever it
+was, if tariff reform and the imposition of heavy taxes on imports
+become articles of our political creed?</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P258"></a><img src="./images/il111.png" alt="Star Inn" title="" /><br />
+The Star Inn, Afriston Sussex.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the inns once famous in the annals of the road have now
+&quot;retired from business&quot; and have taken down their signs. The First and
+Last Inn, at Croscombe, Somerset, was once a noted coaching hostel,
+but since coaches ceased to run it was not wanted and has closed its
+doors to the public. Small towns like Hounslow, Wycombe, and Ashbourne
+were full of important inns which, being no longer required for the
+accommodation of travellers, have retired from work and converted
+themselves into private houses. Small villages like Little Brickhill,
+which happened to be a stage, abounded with hostels which the ending
+of the coaching age made unnecessary. The Castle Inn at Marlborough,
+once one of the finest in England, is now part of a great public
+school. The house has a noted history. It was once a nobleman's
+mansion, being the home of Frances Countess of Hereford, the patron of
+Thomson, and then of the Duke of Northumberland, who leased it to Mr.
+Cotterell for the purpose of an inn. Crowds of distinguished folk have
+thronged its rooms and corridors, including the great Lord Chatham,
+who was laid up here with an attack of gout for seven weeks in 1762
+and made all the inn-servants wear his livery. Mr. Stanley Weyman has
+made it the scene of one of his charming romances. It was not until
+1843 that it took down its sign, and has since patiently listened to
+the conjugation of Greek and Latin verbs, to classic lore, and other
+studies which have made Marlborough College one of the great and
+successful public schools. Another great inn was the fine Georgian
+house near one of the entrances to Kedleston Park, built by Lord
+Scarsdale for visitors <a name="Page_260"></a>to the medicinal waters in his park. But these
+waters have now ceased to cure the mildest invalid, and the inn is now
+a large farm-house with vast stables and barns.</p>
+
+<p>It seems as if something of the foundations of history were crumbling
+to read that the &quot;Star and Garter&quot; at Richmond is to be sold at
+auction. That is a melancholy fate for perhaps the most famous inn in
+the country&mdash;a place at which princes and statesmen have stayed, and
+to which Louis Philippe and his Queen resorted. The &quot;Star and Garter&quot;
+has figured in the romances of some of our greatest novelists. One
+comes across it in Meredith and Thackeray, and it finds its way into
+numerous memoirs, nearly always with some comment upon its unique
+beauty of situation, a beauty that was never more real than at this
+moment when the spring foliage is just beginning to peep.</p>
+
+<p>The motor and changing habits account for the evil days upon which the
+hostelry has fallen. Trains and trams have brought to the doors almost
+of the &quot;Star and Garter&quot; a public that has not the means to make use
+of its 120 bedrooms. The richer patrons of other days flash past on
+their motors, making for those resorts higher up the river which are
+filling the place in the economy of the London Sunday and week-end
+which Richmond occupied in times when travelling was more difficult.
+These changes are inevitable. The &quot;Ship&quot; at Greenwich has gone, and
+Cabinet Ministers can no longer dine there. The convalescent home,
+which was the undoing of certain Poplar Guardians, is housed in an
+hotel as famous as the &quot;Ship,&quot; in its days once the resort of Pitt and
+his bosom friends. Indeed, a pathetic history might be written of the
+famous hostelries of the past.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from Marlborough is Devizes, formerly a great coaching centre,
+and full of inns, of which the most noted is the &quot;Bear,&quot; still a
+thriving hostel, once the home of the great artist Sir Thomas
+Lawrence, whose father was the landlord.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P261"></a><img src="./images/il112.png" alt="Courtyard of George Inn" title="" /><br />
+Courtyard of the George Inn, Norton St. Philip Somerset</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible within one chapter to record all the old <a name="Page_261"></a><a name="Page_262"></a>inns of
+England, we have still a vast number left unchronicled, but perhaps a
+sufficient number of examples has been given of this important feature
+of vanishing England. Some of these are old and crumbling, and may die
+of old age. Others will fall a prey to licensing committees. Some have
+been left high and dry, deserted by the stream of guests that flowed
+to them in the old coaching days. Motor-cars have resuscitated some
+and brought prosperity and life to the old guest-haunted chambers. We
+cannot dwell on the curious signs that greet us as we travel along the
+old highways, or strive to interpret their origin and meaning. We are
+rather fond in Berkshire of the &quot;Five Alls,&quot; the interpretation of
+which is cryptic. The Five Alls are, if I remember right&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&quot;I rule all&quot; [the king].<br />
+&quot;I pray for all&quot; [the bishop].<br />
+&quot;I plead for all&quot; [the barrister].<br />
+&quot;I fight for all&quot; [the soldier].<br />
+&quot;I pay for all&quot; [the farmer].</p>
+
+<p>One of the most humorous inn signs is &quot;The Man Loaded with Mischief,&quot;
+which is found about a mile from Cambridge, on the Madingley road. The
+original Mischief was designed by Hogarth for a public-house in Oxford
+Street. It is needless to say that the signboard, and even the name,
+have long ago disappeared from the busy London thoroughfare, but the
+quaint device must have been extensively copied by country
+sign-painters. There is a &quot;Mischief&quot; at Wallingford, and a &quot;Load of
+Mischief&quot; at Norwich, and another at Blewbury. The inn on the
+Madingley road exhibits the sign in its original form. Though the
+colours are much faded from exposure to the weather, traces of
+Hogarthian humour can be detected. A man is staggering under the
+weight of a woman, who is on his back. She is holding a glass of gin
+in her hand; a chain and padlock are round the man's neck, labelled
+&quot;Wedlock.&quot; On the right-hand side is the <a name="Page_263"></a><a name="Page_264"></a>shop of &quot;S. Gripe,
+Pawnbroker,&quot; and a carpenter is just going in to pledge his tools.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P263"></a><img src="./images/il113.png" alt="Dark Lantern" title="" /><br />
+&quot;The Dark Lantern&quot; Inn, Aylesbury</p>
+
+<p>The art of painting signboards is almost lost, and when they have to
+be renewed sorry attempts are made to imitate the old designs. Some
+celebrated artists have not thought it below their dignity to paint
+signboards. Some have done this to show their gratitude to their
+kindly host and hostess for favours received when they sojourned at
+inns during their sketching expeditions. The &quot;George&quot; at Wargrave has
+a sign painted by the distinguished painters Mr. George Leslie, R.A.,
+and Mr. Broughton, R.A., who, when staying at the inn, kindly painted
+the sign, which is hung carefully within doors that it may not be
+exposed to the mists and rains of the Thames valley. St. George is
+sallying forth to slay the dragon on the one side, and on the reverse
+he is refreshing himself with a tankard of ale after his labours. Not
+a few artists in the early stages of their career have paid their
+bills at inns by painting for the landlord. Morland was always in
+difficulties and adorned many a signboard, and the art of David Cox,
+Herring, and Sir William Beechey has been displayed in this homely
+fashion. David Cox's painting of the Royal Oak at Bettws-y-Coed was
+the subject of prolonged litigation, the sign being valued at &pound;1000,
+the case being carried to the House of Lords, and there decided in
+favour of the freeholder.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes strange notices appear in inns. The following rather
+remarkable one was seen by our artist at the &quot;County Arms,&quot; Stone,
+near Aylesbury:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;A man is specially engaged to do all the cursing and swearing
+   that is required in this establishment. A dog is also kept to do
+   all the barking. Our prize-fighter and chucker-out has won
+   seventy-five prize-fights and has never been beaten, and is a
+   splendid shot with the revolver. An undertaker calls here for
+   orders every morning.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Motor-cars have somewhat revived the life of the old inns on the great
+coaching roads, but it is only the <a name="Page_265"></a>larger and more important ones
+that have been aroused into a semblance of their old life. The cars
+disdain the smaller establishments, and run such long distances that
+only a few houses along the road derive much benefit from them. For
+many their days are numbered, and it may be useful to describe them
+before, like four-wheelers and hansom-cabs, they have quite vanished
+away.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P265"></a><img src="./images/il114.png" alt="Spandril" title="" /><br />
+Spandril. The Marquis of Granby Inn, Colchester</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a><a name="Page_266"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS</h3>
+
+
+<p>No class of buildings has suffered more than the old town halls of our
+country boroughs. Many of these towns have become decayed and all
+their ancient glories have departed. They were once flourishing places
+in the palmy days of the cloth trade, and could boast of fairs and
+markets and a considerable number of inhabitants and wealthy
+merchants; but the tide of trade has flowed elsewhere. The invention
+of steam and complex machinery necessitating proximity to coal-fields
+has turned its course elsewhere, to the smoky regions of Yorkshire and
+Lancashire, and the old town has lost its prosperity and its power.
+Its charter has gone; it can boast of no municipal corporation; hence
+the town hall is scarcely needed save for some itinerant Thespians, an
+occasional public meeting, or as a storehouse of rubbish. It begins to
+fall into decay, and the decayed town is not rich enough, or
+public-spirited enough, to prop its weakened timbers. For the sake of
+the safety of the public it has to come down.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, an influx of prosperity often dooms the aged town
+hall to destruction. It vanishes before a wave of prosperity. The
+borough has enlarged its borders. It has become quite a great town and
+transacts much business. The old shops have given place to grand
+emporiums with large plate-glass windows, wherein are exhibited the
+most recent fashions of London and Paris, and motor-cars can be
+bought, and all is very brisk and up-to-date. The old town hall is now
+deemed a very poor and inadequate building. It is small, inconvenient,
+<a name="Page_267"></a>and unsuited to the taste of the municipal councillors, whose ideas
+have expanded with their trade. The Mayor and Corporation meet, and
+decide to build a brand-new town hall replete with every luxury and
+convenience. The old must vanish.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, how picturesque these ancient council chambers are. They
+usually stand in the centre of the market-place, and have an
+undercroft, the upper storey resting on pillars. Beneath this shelter
+the market women display their wares and fix their stalls on market
+days, and there you will perhaps see the fire-engine, at least the old
+primitive one which was in use before a grand steam fire-engine had
+been purchased and housed in a station of its own. The building has
+high pointed gables and mullioned windows, a tiled roof mellowed with
+age, and a finely wrought vane, which is a credit to the skill of the
+local blacksmith. It is a sad pity that this &quot;thing of beauty&quot; should
+have to be pulled down and be replaced by a modern building which is
+not always creditable to the architectural taste of the age. A law
+should be passed that no old town halls should be pulled down, and
+that all new ones should be erected on a different site. No more
+fitting place could be found for the storage of the antiquities of the
+town, the relics of its old municipal life, sketches of its old
+buildings that have vanished, and portraits of its worthies, than the
+ancient building which has for so long kept watch and ward over its
+destinies and been the scene of most of the chief events connected
+with its history.</p>
+
+<p>Happily several have been spared, and they speak to us of the old
+methods of municipal government; of the merchant guilds, composed of
+rich merchants and clothiers, who met therein to transact their common
+business. The guild hall was the centre of the trade of the town and
+of its social and commercial life. An amazing amount of business was
+transacted therein. If you study the records of any ancient borough
+you will discover that the pulse of life beat fast in the old guild
+hall. There the merchants <a name="Page_268"></a>met to talk over their affairs and &quot;drink
+their guild.&quot; There the Mayor came with the Recorder or &quot;Stiward&quot; to
+hold his courts and to issue all &quot;processes as attachementes, summons,
+distresses, precepts, warantes, subsideas, recognissaunces, etc.&quot; The
+guild hall was like a living thing. It held property, had a treasury,
+received the payments of freemen, levied fines on &quot;foreigners&quot; who
+were &quot;not of the guild,&quot; administered justice, settled quarrels
+between the brethren of the guild, made loans to merchants, heard the
+complaints of the aggrieved, held feasts, promoted loyalty to the
+sovereign, and insisted strongly on every burgess that he should do
+his best to promote the &quot;comyn weele and prophite of ye saide gylde.&quot;
+It required loyalty and secrecy from the members of the common council
+assembled within its walls, and no one was allowed to disclose to the
+public its decisions and decrees. This guild hall was a living thing.
+Like the Brook it sang:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Men may come and men may go,<br />
+But I flow on for ever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mayor succeeded mayor, and burgess followed burgess, but the old guild
+hall lived on, the central mainspring of the borough's life. Therein
+were stored the archives of the town, the charters won, bargained for,
+and granted by kings and queens, which gave them privileges of trade,
+authority to hold fairs and markets, liberty to convey and sell their
+goods in other towns. Therein were preserved the civic plate, the
+maces that gave dignity to their proceedings, the cups bestowed by
+royal or noble personages or by the affluent members of the guild in
+token of their affection for their town and fellowship. Therein they
+assembled to don their robes to march in procession to the town church
+to hear Mass, or in later times a sermon, and then refreshed
+themselves with a feast at the charge of the hall. The portraits of
+the worthies of the town, of royal and distinguished patrons, adorned
+the walls, and the old guild hall preached daily <a name="Page_269"></a><a name="Page_270"></a>lessons to the
+townsfolk to uphold the dignity and promote the welfare of the
+borough, and good feeling and the sense of brotherhood among
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P269"></a><img src="./images/il115.png" alt="Town Hall" title="" /><br />
+The Town Hall, Shrewsbury</p>
+
+<p>We give an illustration of the town hall of Shrewsbury, a notable
+building and well worthy of study as a specimen of a municipal
+building erected at the close of the sixteenth century. The style is
+that of the Renaissance with the usual mixture of debased Gothic and
+classic details, but the general effect is imposing; the arches and
+parapet are especially characteristic. An inscription over the arch at
+the north end records:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The xv<sup>th</sup> day of June was this building begonne, William Jones
+   and Thomas Charlton, Gent, then Bailiffes, and was erected and
+   covered in their time, 1595.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A full description of this building is given in Canon Auden's history
+of the town. He states that &quot;under the clock is the statue of Richard
+Duke of York, father of Edward IV, which was removed from the old
+Welsh Bridge at its demolition in 1791. This is flanked by an
+inscription recording this fact on the one side, and on the other by
+the three leopards' heads which are the arms of the town. On the other
+end of the building is a sun-dial, and also a sculptured angel holding
+a shield on which are the arms of England and France. This was removed
+from the gate of the town, which stood at the foot of the castle, on
+its demolition in 1825. The principal entrance is on the west, and
+over this are the arms of Queen Elizabeth and the date 1596. It will
+be noticed that one of the supporters is not the unicorn, but the red
+dragon of Wales. The interior is now partly devoted to various
+municipal offices, and partly used as the Mayor's Court, the roof of
+which still retains its old character.&quot; It was formerly known as the
+Old Market Hall, but the business of the market has been transferred
+to the huge but tasteless building of brick erected at the top of
+Mardol in 1869, the erection of which caused the destruction of
+several picturesque old houses which can ill be spared.</p>
+
+<p>Cirencester possesses a magnificent town hall, a stately<a name="Page_271"></a>
+Perpendicular building, which stands out well against the noble church
+tower of the same period. It has a gateway flanked by buttresses and
+arcades on each side and two upper storeys with pierced battlements at
+the top which are adorned with richly floriated pinnacles. A great
+charm of the building are the three oriel windows extending from the
+top of the ground-floor division to the foot of the battlements. The
+surface of the wall of the fa&ccedil;ade is cut into panels, and niches for
+statues adorn the faces of the four buttresses. The whole forms a most
+elaborate piece of Perpendicular work of unusual character. We
+understand that it needs repair and is in some danger. The aid of the
+Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has been called in,
+and their report has been sent to the civic authorities, who will, we
+hope, adopt their recommendations and deal kindly and tenderly with
+this most interesting structure.</p>
+
+<p>Another famous guild hall is in danger, that at Norwich. It has even
+been suggested that it should be pulled down and a new one erected,
+but happily this wild scheme has been abandoned. Old buildings like
+not new inventions, just as old people fear to cross the road lest
+they should be run over by a motor-car. Norwich Guildhall does not
+approve of electric tram-cars, which run close to its north side and
+cause its old bones to vibrate in a most uncomfortable fashion. You
+can perceive how much it objects to these horrid cars by feeling the
+vibration of the walls when you are standing on the level of the
+street or on the parapet. You will not therefore be surprised to find
+ominous cracks in the old walls, and the roof is none too safe, the
+large span having tried severely the strength of the old oak beams. It
+is a very ancient building, the crypt under the east end, vaulted in
+brickwork, probably dating from the thirteenth century, while the main
+building was erected in the fifteenth century. The walls are well
+built, three feet in thickness, and constructed of uncut flints; the
+east end is enriched with diaper-work in chequers of stone and knapped
+flint.<a name="Page_272"></a> Some new buildings have been added on the south side within
+the last century. There is a clock turret at the east end, erected in
+1850 at the cost of the then Mayor. Evidently the roof was giving the
+citizens anxiety at that time, as the good donor presented the clock
+tower on condition that the roof of the council chamber should be
+repaired. This famous old building has witnessed many strange scenes,
+such as the burning of old dames who were supposed to be witches, the
+execution of criminals and conspirators, the savage conflicts of
+citizens and soldiers in days of rioting and unrest. These good
+citizens of Norwich used to add considerably to the excitement of the
+place by their turbulence and eagerness for fighting. The crypt of the
+Town Hall is just old enough to have heard of the burning of the
+cathedral and monastery by the citizens in 1272, and to have seen the
+ringleaders executed. Often was there fighting in the city, and this
+same old building witnessed in 1549 a great riot, chiefly directed
+against the religious reforms and change of worship introduced by the
+first Prayer Book of Edward VI. It was rather amusing to see Parker,
+afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, addressing the rioters from a
+platform, under which stood the spearmen of Kett, the leader of the
+riot, who took delight in pricking the feet of the orator with their
+spears as he poured forth his impassioned eloquence. In an important
+city like Norwich the guild hall has played an important part in the
+making of England, and is worthy in its old age of the tenderest and
+most reverent treatment, and even of the removal from its proximity of
+the objectionable electric tram-cars.</p>
+
+<p>As we are at Norwich it would be well to visit another old house,
+which though not a municipal building, is a unique specimen of the
+domestic architecture of a Norwich citizen in days when, as Dr. Jessop
+remarks, &quot;there was no coal to burn in the grate, no gas to enlighten
+the darkness of the night, no potatoes to eat, no tea to drink, and
+when men believed that the sun moved round the earth once in<a name="Page_273"></a> 365
+days, and would have been ready to burn the culprit who should dare to
+maintain the contrary.&quot; It is called Strangers' Hall, a most
+interesting medieval mansion which had never ceased to be an inhabited
+house for at least 500 years, till it was purchased in 1899 by Mr.
+Leonard Bolingbroke, who rescued it from decay, and permits the public
+to inspect its beauties. The crypt and cellars, and possibly the
+kitchen and buttery, were portions of the original house owned in 1358
+by Robert Herdegrey, Burgess in Parliament and Bailiff of the City,
+and the present hall, with its groined porch and oriel window, was
+erected later over the original fourteenth-century cellars. It was
+inhabited by a succession of merchants and chief men of Norwich, and
+at the beginning of the sixteenth century passed into the family of
+Sotherton. The merchant's mark of Nicholas Sotherton is painted on the
+roof of the hall. You can see this fine hall with its screen and
+gallery and beautifully-carved woodwork. The present Jacobean
+staircase and gallery, big oak window, and doorways leading into the
+garden are later additions made by Francis Cook, grocer of Norwich,
+who was mayor of the city in 1627. The house probably took its name
+from the family of Le Strange, who settled in Norwich in the sixteenth
+century. In 1610 the Sothertons conveyed the property to Sir le
+Strange Mordant, who sold it to the above-mentioned Francis Cook. Sir
+Joseph Paine came into possession just before the Restoration, and we
+see his initials, with those of his wife Emma, and the date 1659, in
+the spandrels of the fire-places in some of the rooms. This beautiful
+memorial of the merchant princes of Norwich, like many other old
+houses, fell into decay. It is most pleasant to find that it has now
+fallen into such tender hands, that its old timbers have been saved
+and preserved by the generous care of its present owner, who has thus
+earned the gratitude of all who love antiquity.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes buildings erected for quite different purposes have been
+used as guild halls. There was one at<a name="Page_274"></a> Reading, a guild hall near the
+holy brook in which the women washed their clothes, and made so much
+noise by &quot;beating their battledores&quot; (the usual style of washing in
+those days) that the mayor and his worthy brethren were often
+disturbed in their deliberations, so they petitioned the King to grant
+them the use of the deserted church of the Greyfriars' Monastery
+lately dissolved in the town. This request was granted, and in the
+place where the friars sang their services and preached, the mayor and
+burgesses &quot;drank their guild&quot; and held their banquets. When they got
+tired of that building they filched part of the old grammar school
+from the boys, making an upper storey, wherein they held their council
+meetings. The old church then was turned into a prison, but now
+happily it is a church again. At last the corporation had a town hall
+of their own, which they decorated with the initials S.P.Q.R., Romanus
+and Readingensis conveniently beginning with the same letter. Now they
+have a grand new town hall, which provides every accommodation for
+this growing town.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P275"></a><img src="./images/il116.png" alt="Greenland Fishery House" title="" /><br />
+The Greenland Fishery House, King's Lynn. An old Guild House of the time of James I</p>
+
+<p>The Newbury town hall, a Georgian structure, has just been demolished.
+It was erected in 1740-1742, taking the place of an ancient and
+interesting guild hall built in 1611 in the centre of the
+market-place. The councillors were startled one day by the collapse of
+the ceiling of the hall, and when we last saw the chamber tons of
+heavy plaster were lying on the floor. The roof was unsound; the
+adjoining street too narrow for the hundred motors that raced past the
+dangerous corners in twenty minutes on the day of the Newbury races;
+so there was no help for the old building; its fate was sealed, and it
+was bound to come down. But the town possesses a very charming Cloth
+Hall, which tells of the palmy days of the Newbury cloth-makers, or
+clothiers, as they were called; of Jack of Newbury, the famous John
+Winchcombe, or Smallwoode, whose story is told in Deloney's humorous
+old black-letter pamphlet, entitled <i>The Most Pleasant and Delectable
+Historie of John Winchcombe, otherwise called Jacke of Newberie</i>,
+<a name="Page_275"></a><a name="Page_276"></a>published in 1596. He is said to have furnished one hundred men
+fully equipped for the King's service at Flodden Field, and mightily
+pleased Queen Catherine, who gave him a &quot;riche chain of gold,&quot; and
+wished that God would give the King many such clothiers. You can see
+part of the house of this worthy, who died in 1519. Fuller stated in
+the seventeenth century that this brick and timber residence had been
+converted into sixteen clothiers' houses. It is now partly occupied by
+the Jack of Newbury Inn. A fifteenth-century gable with an oriel
+window and carved barge-board still remains, and you can see a massive
+stone chimney-piece in one of the original chambers where Jack used to
+sit and receive his friends. Some carvings also have been discovered
+in an old house showing what is thought to be a carved portrait of the
+clothier. It bears the initials J.W., and another panel has a raised
+shield suspended by strap and buckle with a monogram I.S., presumably
+John Smallwoode. He was married twice, and the portrait busts on each
+side are supposed to represent his two wives. Another carving
+represents the Blessed Trinity under the figure of a single head with
+three faces within a wreath of oak-leaves with floriated
+spandrels.<a name="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44"><sup>44</sup></a> We should like to pursue the subject of these Newbury
+clothiers and see Thomas Dolman's house, which is so fine and large
+and cost so much money that his workpeople used to sing a doggerel
+ditty:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Lord have mercy upon us miserable sinners,<br />
+Thomas Dolman has built a new house and turned away all his spinners.</p>
+
+<p>The old Cloth Hall which has led to this digression has been recently
+restored, and is now a museum.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient town of Wallingford, famous for its castle, had a guild
+hall with selds under it, the earliest mention of which dates back to
+the reign of Edward II, and occurs constantly as the place wherein the
+burghmotes were held. The present town hall was erected in 1670&mdash;a
+<a name="Page_277"></a>picturesque building on stone pillars. This open space beneath the
+town hall was formerly used as a corn-market, and so continued until
+the present corn-exchange was erected half a century ago. The slated
+roof is gracefully curved, is crowned by a good vane, and a neat
+dormer window juts out on the side facing the market-place. Below this
+is a large Renaissance window opening on to a balcony whence orators
+can address the crowds assembled in the market-place at election
+times. The walls of the hall are hung with portraits of the worthies
+and benefactors of the town, including one of Archbishop Laud. A
+mayor's feast was, before the passing of the Municipal Corporations
+Act, a great occasion in most of our boroughs, the expenses of which
+were defrayed by the rates. The upper chamber in the Wallingford town
+hall was formerly a kitchen, with a huge fire-place, where mighty
+joints and fat capons were roasted for the banquet. Outside you can
+see a ring of light-coloured stones, called the bull-ring, where
+bulls, provided at the cost of the Corporation, were baited. Until
+1840 our Berkshire town of Wokingham was famous for its annual
+bull-baiting on St. Thomas's Day. A good man, one George Staverton,
+was once gored by a bull; so he vented his rage upon the whole bovine
+race, and left a charity for the providing of bulls to be baited on
+the festival of this saint, the meat afterwards to be given to the
+poor of the town. The meat is still distributed, but the bulls are no
+longer baited. Here at Wokingham there was a picturesque old town hall
+with an open undercroft, supported on pillars; but the townsfolk must
+needs pull it down and erect an unsightly brick building in its stead.
+It contains some interesting portraits of royal and distinguished folk
+dating from the time of Charles I, but how the town became possessed
+of these paintings no man knoweth.</p>
+
+<p>Another of our Berkshire towns can boast of a fine town hall that has
+not been pulled down like so many of its fellows. It is not so old as
+some, but is in itself a <a name="Page_278"></a>memorial of some vandalism, as it occupies
+the site of the old Market Cross, a thing of rare beauty, beautifully
+carved and erected in Mary's reign, but ruthlessly destroyed by Waller
+and his troopers during the Civil War period. Upon the ground on which
+it stood thirty-four years later&mdash;in 1677&mdash;the Abingdon folk reared
+their fine town hall; its style resembles that of Inigo Jones, and it
+has an open undercroft&mdash;a kindly shelter from the weather for market
+women. Tall and graceful it dominates the market-place, and it is
+crowned with a pretty cupola and a fine vane. You can find a still
+more interesting hall in the town, part of the old abbey, the gateway
+with its adjoining rooms, now used as the County Hall, and there you
+will see as fine a collection of plate and as choice an array of royal
+portraits as ever fell to the lot of a provincial county town. One of
+these is a Gainsborough. One of the reasons why Abingdon has such a
+good store of silver plate is that according to their charter the
+Corporation has to pay a small sum yearly to their High Stewards, and
+these gentlemen&mdash;the Bowyers of Radley and the Earls of Abingdon&mdash;have
+been accustomed to restore their fees to the town in the shape of a
+gift of plate.</p>
+
+<p>We might proceed to examine many other of these interesting buildings,
+but a volume would be needed for the purpose of recording them all.
+Too many of the ancient ones have disappeared and their places taken
+by modern, unsightly, though more convenient buildings. We may mention
+the salvage of the old market-house at Winster, in Derbyshire, which
+has been rescued by that admirable National Trust for Places of
+Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, which descends like an angel of
+mercy on many a threatened and abandoned building and preserves it for
+future generations. The Winster market-house is of great age; the
+lower part is doubtless as old as the thirteenth century, and the
+upper part was added in the seventeenth. Winster was at one time an
+important place; its markets were famous, and this building <a name="Page_279"></a><a name="Page_280"></a>must for
+very many years have been the centre of the commercial life of a large
+district. But as the market has diminished in importance, the old
+market-house has fallen out of repair, and its condition has caused
+anxiety to antiquaries for some time past. Local help has been
+forthcoming under the auspices of the National Trust, in which it is
+now vested for future preservation.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P279"></a><img src="./images/il117.png" alt="Market House" title="" /><br />
+The Market House, Wymondham, Norfolk</p>
+
+<p>Though not a town hall, we may here record the saving of a very
+interesting old building, the Palace Gatehouse at Maidstone, the
+entire demolition of which was proposed. It is part of the old
+residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, near the Perpendicular
+church of All Saints, on the banks of the Medway, whose house at
+Maidstone added dignity to the town and helped to make it the
+important place it was. The Palace was originally the residence of the
+Rector of Maidstone, but was given up in the thirteenth century to the
+Archbishop. The oldest part of the existing building is at the north
+end, where some fifteenth-century windows remain. Some of the rooms
+have good old panelling and open stone fire-places of the
+fifteenth-century date. But decay has fallen on the old building. Ivy
+is allowed to grow over it unchecked, its main stems clinging to the
+walls and disturbing the stones. Wet has begun to soak into the walls
+through the decayed stone sills. Happily the gatehouse has been saved,
+and we doubt not that the enlightened Town Council will do its best to
+preserve this interesting building from further decay.</p>
+
+<p>The finest Early Renaissance municipal building is the picturesque
+guild hall at Exeter, with its richly ornamented front projecting over
+the pavement and carried on arches. The market-house at Rothwell is a
+beautifully designed building erected by Sir Thomas Tresham in 1577.
+Being a Recusant, he was much persecuted for his religion, and never
+succeeded in finishing the work. We give an illustration of the quaint
+little market-house at Wymondham, with its open space beneath, and the
+upper storey supported by stout posts and brackets. It is entirely
+<a name="Page_281"></a>built of timber and plaster. Stout posts support the upper floor,
+beneath which is a covered market. The upper chamber is reached by a
+quaint rude wooden staircase. Chipping Campden can boast of a handsome
+oblong market-house, built of stone, having five arches with three
+gables on the long sides, and two arches with gables over each on the
+short sides. There are mullioned windows under each gable.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P281"></a><img src="./images/il118.png" alt="Guild Mark" title="" /><br />
+Guild Mark and Date on doorway, Burford, Oxon</p>
+
+<p>The city of Salisbury could at one time boast of several halls of the
+old guilds which flourished there. There was a charming island of old
+houses near the cattle-market, which have all disappeared. They were
+most picturesque and interesting buildings, and we regret to have to
+record that new half-timbered structures have been erected in their
+place with sham beams, and boards nailed on to the walls to represent
+beams, one of the monstrosities of modern architectural art. The old
+Joiners' Hall has happily been saved by the National Trust. It has a
+very attractive sixteenth-century fa&ccedil;ade, though the interior has been
+much altered. Until the early years of the nineteenth century it was
+the hall of the guild or company of the joiners of the city of New
+Sarum.</p>
+
+<p>Such are some of the old municipal buildings of England. There are
+many others which might have been mentioned. It is a sad pity that so
+many have disappeared and been replaced by modern and uninteresting
+structures.<a name="Page_282"></a> If a new town hall be required in order to keep pace with
+the increasing dignity of an important borough, the Corporation can at
+least preserve their ancient municipal hall which has so long watched
+over the fortunes of the town and shared in its joys and sorrows, and
+seek a fresh site for their new home without destroying the old.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a><a name="Page_283"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>CROSSES</h3>
+
+
+<p>A careful study of the ordnance maps of certain counties of England
+reveals the extraordinary number of ancient crosses which are
+scattered over the length and breadth of the district. Local names
+often suggest the existence of an ancient cross, such as Blackrod, or
+Black-rood, Oakenrod, Crosby, Cross Hall, Cross Hillock. But if the
+student sally forth to seek this sacred symbol of the Christian faith,
+he will often be disappointed. The cross has vanished, and even the
+recollection of its existence has completely passed away. Happily not
+all have disappeared, and in our travels we shall be able to discover
+many of these interesting specimens of ancient art, but not a tithe of
+those that once existed are now to be discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Many causes have contributed to their disappearance. The Puritans
+waged insensate war against the cross. It was in their eyes an idol
+which must be destroyed. They regarded them as popish superstitions,
+and objected greatly to the custom of &quot;carrying the corse towards the
+church all garnished with crosses, which they set down by the way at
+every cross, and there all of them devoutly on their knees make
+prayers for the dead.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45"><sup>45</sup></a> Iconoclastic mobs tore down the sacred
+symbol in blind fury. In the summer of 1643 Parliament ordered that
+all crucifixes, crosses, images, and pictures should be obliterated or
+otherwise destroyed, and during the same year the two Houses passed a
+resolution for the destruction of all <a name="Page_284"></a>crosses throughout the kingdom.
+They ordered Sir Robert Harlow to superintend the levelling to the
+ground of St. Paul's Cross, Charing Cross, and that in Cheapside, and
+a contemporary print shows the populace busily engaged in tearing down
+the last. Ladders are placed against the structure, workmen are busy
+hammering the figures, and a strong rope is attached to the actual
+cross on the summit and eager hands are dragging it down. Similar
+scenes were enacted in many other towns, villages, and cities of
+England, and the wonder is that any crosses should have been left. But
+a vast number did remain in order to provide further opportunities for
+vandalism and wanton mischief, and probably quite as many have
+disappeared during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as those
+which were destroyed by Puritan iconoclasts. When trade and commerce
+developed, and villages grew into towns, and sleepy hollows became
+hives of industry, the old market-places became inconveniently small,
+and market crosses with their usually accompanying stocks and
+pillories were swept away as useless obstructions to traffic.<a name="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46"><sup>46</sup></a> Thus
+complaints were made with regard to the market-place at Colne. There
+was no room for the coaches to turn. Idlers congregated on the steps
+of the cross and interfered with the business of the place. It was
+pronounced a nuisance, and in 1882 was swept away. Manchester market
+cross existed until 1816, when for the sake of utility and increased
+space it was removed. A stately Jacobean Proclamation cross remained
+at Salford until 1824. The Preston Cross, or rather obelisk,
+consisting of a clustered Gothic column, thirty-one feet high,
+standing on a lofty pedestal which rested on three steps, was taken
+down by an act of vandalism in 1853. The Covell Cross at Lancaster
+shared its fate, being destroyed in 1826 by the justices when they
+purchased the house now used as the judges' lodgings. A few years ago
+it was rebuilt as a memorial of the accession of King Edward VII.<a name="Page_285"></a></p>
+
+<p>Individuals too, as well as corporations, have taken a hand in the
+overthrow of crosses. There was a wretch named Wilkinson, vicar of
+Goosnargh, Lancashire, who delighted in their destruction. He was a
+zealous Protestant, and on account of his fame as a prophet of evil
+his deeds were not interfered with by his neighbours. He used to
+foretell the deaths of persons obnoxious to him, and unfortunately
+several of his prophecies were fulfilled, and he earned the dreaded
+character of a wizard. No one dared to prevent him, and with his own
+hands he pulled down several of these venerable monuments. Some
+drunken men in the early years of the nineteenth century pulled down
+the old market cross at Rochdale. There was a cross on the
+bowling-green at Whalley in the seventeenth century, the fall of which
+is described by a cavalier, William Blundell, in 1642. When some
+gentlemen came to use the bowling-green they found their game
+interfered with by the fallen cross. A strong, powerful man was
+induced to remove it. He reared it, and tried to take it away by
+wresting it from edge to edge, but his foot slipped; down he fell, and
+the cross falling upon him crushed him to death. A neighbour
+immediately he heard the news was filled with apprehension of a
+similar fate, and confessed that he and the deceased had thrown down
+the cross. It was considered a dangerous act to remove a cross, though
+the hope of discovering treasure beneath it often urged men to essay
+the task. A farmer once removed an old boundary stone, thinking it
+would make a good &quot;buttery stone.&quot; But the results were dire. Pots and
+pans, kettles and crockery placed upon it danced a clattering dance
+the livelong night, and spilled their contents, disturbed the farmer's
+rest, and worrited the family. The stone had to be conveyed back to
+its former resting-place, and the farm again was undisturbed by
+tumultuous spirits. Some of these crosses have been used for
+gate-posts. Vandals have sometimes wanted a sun-dial in their
+churchyards, and have ruthlessly knocked off the head and upper part
+<a name="Page_286"></a>of the shaft of a cross, as they did at Halton, Lancashire, in order
+to provide a base for their dial. In these and countless other ways
+have these crosses suffered, and certainly, from the &aelig;sthetic and
+architectural point of view, we have to bewail the loss of many of the
+most lovely monuments of the piety and taste of our forefathers.</p>
+
+<p>We will now gather up the fragments of the ancient crosses of England
+ere these also vanish from our country. They served many purposes and
+were of divers kinds. There were preaching-crosses, on the steps of
+which the early missionary or Saxon priest stood when he proclaimed
+the message of the gospel, ere churches were built for worship. These
+wandering clerics used to set up crosses in the villages, and beneath
+their shade preached, baptized, and said Mass. The pagan Saxons
+worshipped stone pillars; so in order to wean them from their
+superstition the Christian missionaries erected these stone crosses
+and carved upon them the figures of the Saviour and His Apostles,
+displaying before the eyes of their hearers the story of the Cross
+written in stone. The north of England has many examples of these
+crosses, some of which were fashioned by St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of
+York, in the eighth century. When he travelled about his diocese a
+large number of monks and workmen attended him, and amongst these were
+the cutters in stone, who made the crosses and erected them on the
+spots which Wilfrid consecrated to the worship of God. St. Paulinus
+and others did the same. Hence arose a large number of these Saxon
+works of art, which we propose to examine and to try to discover the
+meaning of some of the strange sculptures found upon them.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P287"></a><img src="./images/il119.png" alt="Strethem Cross" title="" /><br />
+Strethem Cross, Isle of Ely.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of iconoclasm and vandalism there remains in England a vast
+number of pre-Norman crosses, and it will be possible to refer only to
+the most noted and curious examples. These belong chiefly to four main
+schools of art&mdash;the Celtic, Saxon, Roman, and Scandinavian. These
+various streams of northern and classical <a name="Page_287"></a><a name="Page_288"></a>ideas met and were blended
+together, just as the wild sagas of the Vikings and the teaching of
+the gospel showed themselves together in sculptured representations
+and symbolized the victory of the Crucified One over the legends of
+heathendom. The age and period of these crosses, the greater influence
+of one or other of these schools have wrought differences; the beauty
+and delicacy of the carving is in most cases remarkable, and we stand
+amazed at the superabundance of the inventive faculty that could
+produce such wondrous work. A great characteristic of these early
+sculptures is the curious interlacing scroll-work, consisting of
+knotted and interlaced cords of divers patterns and designs. There is
+an immense variety in this carving of these early artists. Examples
+are shown of geometrical designs, of floriated ornament, of which the
+conventional vine pattern is the most frequent, and of rope-work and
+other interlacing ornament. We can find space to describe only a few
+of the most remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>The famous Bewcastle Cross stands in the most northern corner of the
+county of Cumberland. Only the shaft remains. In its complete
+condition it must have been at least twenty-one feet high. A runic
+inscription on the west side records that it was erected &quot;in memory of
+Alchfrith lately king&quot; of Northumbria. He was the son of Oswy, the
+friend and patron of St. Wilfrid, who loved art so much that he
+brought workmen from Italy to build churches and carve stone, and he
+decided in favour of the Roman party at the famous Synod of Whitby. On
+the south side the runes tell that the cross was erected in &quot;the first
+year of Ecgfrith, King of this realm,&quot; who began to reign 670 A.D. On
+the west side are three panels containing deeply incised figures, the
+lowest one of which has on his wrist a hawk, an emblem of nobility;
+the other three sides are filled with interlacing, floriated, and
+geometrical ornament. Bishop Browne believes that these scrolls and
+interlacings had their origin in Lombardy and not in Ireland, that
+they were Italian <a name="Page_289"></a>and not Celtic, and that the same sort of designs
+were used in the southern land early in the seventh century, whence
+they were brought by Wilfrid to this country.</p>
+
+<p>Another remarkable cross is that of Ruthwell, now sheltered from wind
+and weather in the Durham Cathedral Museum. It is very similar to that
+at Bewcastle, though probably not wrought by the same hands. In the
+panels are sculptures representing events in the life of our Lord. The
+lowest panel is too defaced for us to determine the subject; on the
+second we see the flight into Egypt; on the third figures of Paul, the
+first hermit, and Anthony, the first monk, are carved; on the fourth
+is a representation of our Lord treading under foot the heads of
+swine; and on the highest there is the figure of St. John the Baptist
+with the lamb. On the reverse side are the Annunciation, the
+Salutation, and other scenes of gospel history, and the other sides
+are covered with floral and other decoration. In addition to the
+figures there are five stanzas of an Anglo-Saxon poem of singular
+beauty expressed in runes. It is the story of the Crucifixion told in
+touching words by the cross itself, which narrates its own sad tale
+from the time when it was a growing tree by the woodside until at
+length, after the body of the Lord had been taken down&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">The warriors left me there<br />
+Standing defiled with blood.</p>
+
+<p>On the head of the cross are inscribed the words &quot;C&aelig;dmon made
+me&quot;&mdash;C&aelig;dmon the first of English poets who poured forth his songs in
+praise of Almighty God and told in Saxon poetry the story of the
+Creation and of the life of our Lord.</p>
+
+<p>Another famous cross is that at Gosforth, which is of a much later
+date and of a totally different character from those which we have
+described. The carvings show that it is not Anglian, but that it is
+connected with Viking thought and work. On it is inscribed the story
+of <a name="Page_290"></a>one of the sagas, the wild legends of the Norsemen, preserved by
+their scalds or bards, and handed down from generation to generation
+as the precious traditions of their race. On the west side we see
+Heimdal, the brave watchman of the gods, with his sword withstanding
+the powers of evil, and holding in his left hand the Gialla horn, the
+terrible blast of which shook the world. He is overthrowing Hel, the
+grim goddess of the shades of death, who is riding on the pale horse.
+Below we see Loki, the murderer of the holy Baldur, the blasphemer of
+the gods, bound by strong chains to the sharp edges of a rock, while
+as a punishment for his crimes a snake drops poison upon his face,
+making him yell with pain, and the earth quakes with his convulsive
+tremblings. His faithful wife Sigyn catches the poison in a cup, but
+when the vessel is full she is obliged to empty it, and then a drop
+falls on the forehead of Loki, the destroyer, and the earth shakes on
+account of his writhings. The continual conflict between good and evil
+is wonderfully described in these old Norse legends. On the reverse
+side we see the triumph of Christianity, a representation of the
+Crucifixion, and beneath this the woman bruising the serpent's head.
+In the former sculptures the monster is shown with two heads; here it
+has only one, and that is being destroyed. Christ is conquering the
+powers of evil on the cross. In another fragment at Gosforth we see
+Thor fishing for the Midgard worm, the offspring of Loki, a serpent
+cast into the sea which grows continually and threatens the world with
+destruction. A bull's head is the bait which Thor uses, but fearing
+for the safety of his boat, he has cut the fishing-line and released
+the monstrous worm; giant whales sport in the sea which afford pastime
+to the mighty Thor. Such are some of the strange tales which these
+crosses tell.</p>
+
+<p>There is an old Viking legend inscribed on the cross at Leeds. Volund,
+who is the same mysterious person as our Wayland Smith, is seen
+carrying off a swan-maiden. At his feet are his hammer, anvil,
+bellows, and <a name="Page_291"></a>pincers. The cross was broken to pieces in order to make
+way for the building of the old Leeds church hundreds of years ago,
+but the fragments have been pieced together, and we can see the
+swan-maiden carried above the head of Volund, her wings hanging down
+and held by two ropes that encircle her waist. The smith holds her by
+her back hair and by the tail of her dress. There were formerly
+several other crosses which have been broken up and used as building
+material.</p>
+
+<p>At Halton, Lancashire, there is a curious cross of inferior
+workmanship, but it records the curious mingling of Pagan and
+Christian ideas and the triumph of the latter over the Viking deities.
+On one side we see emblems of the Four Evangelists and the figures of
+saints; on the other are scenes from the Sigurd legend. Sigurd sits at
+the anvil with hammer and tongs and bellows, forging a sword. Above
+him is shown the magic blade completed, with hammer and tongs, while
+Fafni writhes in the knotted throes that everywhere signify his death.
+Sigurd is seen toasting Fafni's heart on a spit. He has placed the
+spit on a rest, and is turning it with one hand, while flames ascend
+from the faggots beneath. He has burnt his finger and is putting it to
+his lips. Above are the interlacing boughs of a sacred tree, and sharp
+eyes may detect the talking pies that perch thereon, to which Sigurd
+is listening. On one side we see the noble horse Grani coming
+riderless home to tell the tale of Sigurd's death, and above is the
+pit with its crawling snakes that yawns for Gunnar and for all the
+wicked whose fate is to be turned into hell. On the south side are
+panels filled with a floriated design representing the vine and
+twisted knot-work rope ornamentation. On the west is a tall
+Resurrection cross with figures on each side, and above a winged and
+seated figure with two others in a kneeling posture. Possibly these
+represent the two Marys kneeling before the angel seated on the stone
+of the holy sepulchre on the morning of the Resurrection of our Lord.<a name="Page_292"></a></p>
+
+<p>A curious cross has at last found safety after many vicissitudes in
+Hornby Church, Lancashire. It is one of the most beautiful fragments
+of Anglian work that has come down to modern times. One panel shows a
+representation of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. At the foot
+are shown the two fishes and the five loaves carved in bold relief. A
+conventional tree springs from the central loaf, and on each side is a
+nimbed figure. The carving is still so sharp and crisp that it is
+difficult to realize that more than a thousand years have elapsed
+since the sculptor finished his task.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a pleasant task to wander through all the English counties
+and note all pre-Norman crosses that remain in many a lonely
+churchyard; but such a lengthy journey and careful study are too
+extended for our present purpose. Some of them were memorials of
+deceased persons; others, as we have seen, were erected by the early
+missionaries; but preaching crosses were erected and used in much
+later times; and we will now examine some of the medieval examples
+which time has spared, and note the various uses to which they were
+adapted. The making of graves has often caused the undermining and
+premature fall of crosses and monuments; hence early examples of
+churchyard crosses have often passed away and medieval ones been
+erected in their place. Churchyard crosses were always placed at the
+south side of the church, and always faced the east. The carving and
+ornamentation naturally follow the style of architecture prevalent at
+the period of their erection. They had their uses for ceremonial and
+liturgical purposes, processions being made to them on Palm Sunday,
+and it is stated in Young's <i>History of Whitby</i> that &quot;devotees creeped
+towards them and kissed them on Good Fridays, so that a cross was
+considered as a necessary appendage to every cemetery.&quot; Preaching
+crosses were also erected in distant parts of large parishes in the
+days when churches were few, and sometimes market crosses were used
+for this purpose.<a name="Page_293"></a></p>
+
+
+<h4>WAYSIDE OR WEEPING CROSSES</h4>
+
+<p>Along the roads of England stood in ancient times many a roadside or
+weeping cross. Their purpose is well set forth in the work <i>Dives et
+Pauper</i>, printed at Westminster in 1496. Therein it is stated: &quot;For
+this reason ben ye crosses by ye way, that when folk passynge see the
+crosses, they sholde thynke on Hym that deyed on the crosse, and
+worshyppe Hym above all things.&quot; Along the pilgrim ways doubtless
+there were many, and near villages and towns formerly they stood, but
+unhappily they made such convenient gate-posts when the head was
+knocked off. Fortunately several have been rescued and restored. It
+was a very general custom to erect these wayside crosses along the
+roads leading to an old parish church for the convenience of funerals.
+There were no hearses in those days; hence the coffin had to be
+carried a long way, and the roads were bad, and bodies heavy, and the
+bearers were not sorry to find frequent resting-places, and the
+mourners' hearts were comforted by constant prayer as they passed
+along the long, sad road with their dear ones for the last time. These
+wayside crosses, or weeping crosses, were therefore of great practical
+utility. Many of the old churches in Lancashire were surrounded by a
+group of crosses, arranged in radiating lines along the converging
+roads, and at suitable distances for rest. You will find such ranges
+of crosses in the parishes of Aughton, Ormskirk, and Burscough Priory,
+and at each a prayer for the soul of the departed was offered or the
+<i>De profundis</i> sung. Every one is familiar with the famous Eleanor
+crosses erected by King Edward I to mark the spots where the body of
+his beloved Queen rested when it was being borne on its last sad
+pilgrimage to Westminster Abbey.</p>
+
+
+<h4>MARKET CROSSES</h4>
+
+<p>Market crosses form an important section of our subject, and are an
+interesting feature of the old market-places wherein they stand. Mr.
+Gomme contends that <a name="Page_294"></a>they were the ancient meeting-places of the local
+assemblies, and we know that for centuries in many towns they have
+been the rallying-points for the inhabitants. Here fairs were
+proclaimed, and are still in some old-fashioned places, beginning with
+the quaint formula &quot;O yes, O yes, O yes!&quot; a strange corruption of the
+old Norman-French word <i>oyez</i>, meaning &quot;Hear ye.&quot; I have printed in my
+book <i>English Villages</i> a very curious proclamation of a fair and
+market which was read a few years ago at Broughton-in-Furness by the
+steward of the lord of the manor from the steps of the old market
+cross. Very comely and attractive structures are many of these ancient
+crosses. They vary very much in different parts of the country and
+according to the period in which they were erected. The earliest are
+simple crosses with steps. Later on they had niches for sculptured
+figures, and then in the southern shires a kind of penthouse, usually
+octagonal in shape, enclosed the cross, in order to provide shelter
+from the weather for the market-folk. In the north the hardy
+Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians recked not for rain and storms, and few
+covered-in crosses can be found. You will find some beautiful
+specimens of these at Malmesbury, Chichester, Somerton, Shepton
+Mallet, Cheddar, Axbridge, Nether Stowey, Dunster, South Petherton,
+Banwell, and other places.</p>
+
+<p>Salisbury market cross, of which we give an illustration, is
+remarkable for its fine and elaborate Gothic architectural features,
+its numerous niches and foliated pinnacles. At one time a sun-dial and
+ball crowned the structure, but these have been replaced by a cross.
+It is usually called the Poultry Cross. Near it and in other parts of
+the city are quaint overhanging houses. Though the Guildhall has
+vanished, destroyed in the eighteenth century, the Joiners' Hall, the
+Tailors' Hall, the meeting-places of the old guilds, the Hall of John
+Halle, and the Old George are still standing with some of their
+features modified, but not sufficiently altered to deprive them of
+interest.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P295"></a><a name="Page_295"></a>
+<img src="./images/il120.png" alt="" title="Market Cross" /><br />
+The Market Cross, Salisbury, Wilts. Oct. 1908</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_296"></a>Sometimes you will find above a cross an overhead chamber, which was
+used for the storing of market appurtenances. The reeve of the lord of
+the manor, or if the town was owned by a monastery, or the market and
+fair had been granted to a religious house, the abbot's official sat
+in this covered place to receive dues from the merchants or
+stall-holders.</p>
+
+<p>There are no less than two hundred old crosses in Somerset, many of
+them fifteenth-century work. Saxon crosses exist at Rowberrow and
+Kelston; a twelfth-century cross at Harptree; Early English crosses at
+Chilton Trinity, Dunster, and Broomfield; Decorated crosses at
+Williton, Wiveliscombe, Bishops-Lydeard, Chewton Mendip, and those at
+Sutton Bingham and Wraghall are fifteenth century. But not all these
+are market crosses. The south-west district of England is particularly
+rich in these relics of ancient piety, but many have been allowed to
+disappear. Glastonbury market cross, a fine Perpendicular structure
+with a roof, was taken down in 1808, and a new one with no surrounding
+arcade was erected in 1846. The old one bore the arms of Richard Bere,
+abbot of Glastonbury, who died in 1524. The wall of an adjacent house
+has a piece of stone carving representing a man and a woman clasping
+hands, and tradition asserts that this formed part of the original
+cross. Together with the cross was an old conduit, which frequently
+accompanied the market cross. Cheddar Cross is surrounded by its
+battlemented arcade with grotesque gargoyles, a later erection, the
+shaft going through the roof. Taunton market cross was erected in 1867
+in place of a fifteenth-century structure destroyed in 1780. On its
+steps the Duke of Monmouth was proclaimed king, and from the window of
+the Old Angel Inn Judge Jeffreys watched with pleasure the hanging of
+the deluded followers of the duke from the tie-beams of the Market
+Arcade. Dunster market cross is known as the Yarn Market, and was
+erected in 1600 by George Luttrell, sheriff of the county of Somerset.
+The town <a name="Page_297"></a>was famous for its kersey cloths, sometimes called
+&quot;Dunsters,&quot; which were sold under the shade of this structure.</p>
+
+<p>Wymondham, in the county of Norfolk, standing on the high road between
+Norwich and London, has a fine market cross erected in 1617. A great
+fire raged here in 1615, when three hundred houses were destroyed, and
+probably the old cross vanished with them, and this one was erected to
+supply its place.</p>
+
+<p>The old cross at Wells, built by William Knight, bishop of Bath in
+1542, was taken down in 1783. Leland states that it was &quot;a right
+sumptuous Peace of worke.&quot; Over the vaulted roof was the <i>Domus
+Civica</i> or town hall. The tolls of the market were devoted to the
+support of the choristers of Wells Cathedral. Leland also records a
+market cross at Bruton which had six arches and a pillar in the middle
+&quot;for market folkes to stande yn.&quot; It was built by the last abbot of
+Bruton in 1533, and was destroyed in 1790. Bridgwater Cross was
+removed in 1820, and Milverton in 1850. Happily the inhabitants of
+some towns and villages were not so easily deprived of their ancient
+crosses, and the people of Croscombe, Somerset, deserve great credit
+for the spirited manner in which they opposed the demolition of their
+cross about thirty years ago.</p>
+
+<p>Witney Butter Cross, Oxon, the town whence blankets come, has a
+central pillar which stands on three steps, the superstructure being
+supported on thirteen circular pillars. An inscription on the lantern
+above records the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">GULIEIMUS BLAKE<br />
+Armiger de Coggs<br />
+1683</p>
+<p style="margin-left: 40%">Restored&nbsp;&nbsp;1860<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">1889</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">1894</span></p>
+
+<p>It has a steep roof, gabled and stone-slated, which is <a name="Page_298"></a>not improved
+by the pseudo-Gothic barge-boards, added during the restorations.</p>
+
+<p>Many historical events of great importance have taken place at these
+market crosses which have been so hardly used. Kings were always
+proclaimed here at their accession, and would-be kings have also
+shared that honour. Thus at Lancaster in 1715 the Pretender was
+proclaimed king as James III, and, as we have stated, the Duke of
+Monmouth was proclaimed king at Taunton and Bridgwater. Charles II
+received that honour at Lancaster market cross in 1651, nine years
+before he ruled. Banns of marriage were published here in Cromwell's
+time, and these crosses have witnessed all the cruel punishments which
+were inflicted on delinquents in the &quot;good old days.&quot; The last step of
+the cross was often well worn, as it was the seat of the culprits who
+sat in the stocks. Stocks, whipping-posts, and pillories, of which we
+shall have much to say, always stood nigh the cross, and as late as
+1822 a poor wretch was tied to a cart-wheel at the Colne Cross,
+Lancashire, and whipped.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the cross is only a cross in name, and an obelisk has
+supplanted the Christian symbol. The change is deemed to be
+attributable to the ideas of some of the Reformers who desired to
+assert the supremacy of the Crown over the Church. Hence they placed
+an orb on the top of the obelisk surmounted by a small, plain Latin
+cross, and later on a large crown took the place of the orb and cross.
+At Grantham the Earl of Dysart erected an obelisk which has an
+inscription stating that it occupies the site of the Grantham Eleanor
+cross. This is a strange error, as this cross stood on an entirely
+different site on St. Peter's Hill and was destroyed by Cromwell's
+troopers. The obelisk replaced the old market cross, which was
+regarded with much affection and reverence by the inhabitants, who in
+1779, when it was taken down by the lord of the manor, immediately
+obtained a mandamus for its restoration. The Mayor and Corporation
+still <a name="Page_299"></a><a name="Page_300"></a>proclaim the Lent Fair in quaint and archaic language at this
+poor substitute for the old cross.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P299"></a><img src="./images/il121.png" alt="Under Butter Cross" title="" /><br />
+Under the old Butter Cross, Whitney Oxon</p>
+
+<p>One of the uses of the market cross was to inculcate the sacredness of
+bargains. There is a curious stone erection in the market-place at
+Middleham, Yorkshire, which seems to have taken the place of the
+market cross and to have taught the same truth. It consists of a
+platform on which are two pillars; one carries the effigy of some
+animal in a kneeling posture, resembling a sheep or a cow, the other
+supports an octagonal object traditionally supposed to represent a
+cheese. The farmers used to walk up the opposing flights of steps when
+concluding a bargain and shake hands over the sculptures.<a name="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47"><sup>47</sup></a></p>
+
+
+<h4>BOUNDARY CROSSES</h4>
+
+<p>Crosses marked in medieval times the boundaries of ecclesiastical
+properties, which by this sacred symbol were thus protected from
+encroachment and spoliation. County boundaries were also marked by
+crosses and meare stones. The seven crosses of Oldham marked the
+estate owned by the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CROSSES AT CROSS-ROADS AND HOLY WELLS</h4>
+
+<p>Where roads meet and many travellers passed a cross was often erected.
+It was a wayside or weeping cross. There pilgrims knelt to implore
+divine aid for their journey and protection from outlaws and robbers,
+from accidents and sudden death. At holy wells the cross was set in
+order to remind the frequenters of the sacredness of the springs and
+to wean them from all superstitious thoughts and pagan customs. Sir
+Walter Scott alludes to this connexion of the cross and well in
+<i>Marmion</i>, when he tells of &quot;a little fountain cell&quot; bearing the
+legend:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Drink, weary pilgrim, drink and pray<br />
+For the kind soul of Sybil Grey,<br />
+Who built this cross and well.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><a name="Page_301"></a>&quot;In the corner of a field on the Billington Hall Farm, just
+   outside the parish of Haughton, there lies the base, with a
+   portion of the shaft, of a fourteenth-century wayside cross. It
+   stands within ten feet of an old disused lane leading from
+   Billington to Bradley. Common report pronounced it to be an old
+   font. Report states that it was said to be a stone dropped out of
+   a cart as the stones from Billington Chapel were being conveyed
+   to Bradley to be used in building its churchyard wall. A
+   superstitious veneration has always attached to it. A former
+   owner of the property wrote as follows: 'The late Mr. Jackson,
+   who was a very superstitious man, once told me that a former
+   tenant of the farm, whilst ploughing the field, pulled up the
+   stone, and the same day his team of wagon-horses was all drowned.
+   He then put it into the same place again, and all went on right;
+   and that he himself would not have it disturbed upon any
+   account.' A similar legend is attached to another cross. Cross
+   Llywydd, near Raglan, called The White Cross, which is still
+   complete, and has evidently been whitewashed, was moved by a man
+   from its base at some cross-roads to his garden. From that time
+   he had no luck and all his animals died. He attributed this to
+   his sacrilegious act and removed it to a piece of waste ground.
+   The next owner afterwards enclosed the waste with the cross
+   standing in it.</p>
+
+<p>  &quot;The Haughton Cross is only a fragment&mdash;almost precisely similar
+   to a fragment at Butleigh, in Somerset, of early
+   fourteenth-century date. The remaining part is clearly the top
+   stone of the base, measuring 2 ft. 1&frac12; in. square by 1 ft. 6 in.
+   high, and the lowest portion of the shaft sunk into it, and
+   measuring 1 ft. 1 in. square by 10&frac12; in. high. Careful excavation
+   showed that the stone is probably still standing on its original
+   site.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48"><sup>48</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>  &quot;There is in the same parish, where there are four cross-roads, a
+   place known as 'The White Cross.' Not a vestige of a stone
+   remains. But on a slight mound at the crossing stands a venerable
+   oak, now dying. In Monmouthshire oaks have often been so planted
+   on the sites of crosses; and in some cases the bases of the
+   crosses still remain. There are in that county about thirty sites
+   of such crosses, and in seventeen some stones still exist; and
+   probably there are many more unknown <a name="Page_302"></a>to the antiquary, but
+   hidden away in corners of old paths, and in field-ways, and in
+   ditches that used to serve as roads. A question of great interest
+   arises. What were the origin and use of these wayside crosses?
+   and why were so many of them, especially at cross-roads, known as
+   'The White Cross'? At Abergavenny a cross stood at cross-roads.
+   There is a White Cross Street in London and one in Monmouth,
+   where a cross stood. Were these planted by the White Cross
+   Knights (the Knights of Malta, or of S. John of Jerusalem)? Or
+   are they the work of the Carmelite, or White, Friars? There is
+   good authority for the general idea that they were often used as
+   preaching stations, or as praying stations, as is so frequently
+   the case in Brittany. But did they at cross-roads in any way
+   serve the purpose of the modern sign-post? They are certainly of
+   very early origin. The author of <i>Ecclesiastical Polity</i> says
+   that the erection of wayside crosses was a very ancient practice.
+   Chrysostom says that they were common in his time. Eusebius says
+   that their building was begun by Constantine the Great to
+   eradicate paganism. Juvenal states that a shapeless post, with a
+   marble head of Mercury on it, was erected at cross-roads to point
+   out the way; and Eusebius says that wherever Constantine found a
+   statue of Bivialia (the Roman goddess who delivered from straying
+   from the path), or of Mercurius Triceps (who served the same kind
+   purpose for the Greeks), he pulled it down and had a cross placed
+   upon the site. If, then, these cross-road crosses of later
+   medieval times also had something to do with directions for the
+   way, another source of the designation 'White Cross' is by no
+   means to be laughed out of court, viz. that they were
+   whitewashed, and thus more prominent objects by day, and
+   especially by night. It is quite certain that many of them were
+   whitewashed, for the remains of this may still be seen on them.
+   And the use of whitewash or plaister was far more usual in
+   England than is generally known. There is no doubt that the whole
+   of the outside of the abbey church of St. Albans, and of White
+   Castle, from top to base, were coated with whitewash.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49"><sup>49</sup></a> </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Whether they were whitened or not, or whether they served as
+guide-posts or stations for prayer, it is well that they should be
+carefully preserved and restored as <a name="Page_303"></a>memorials of the faith of our
+forefathers, and for the purpose of raising the heart of the modern
+pilgrim to Christ, the Saviour of men.</p>
+
+
+<h4>SANCTUARY CROSSES</h4>
+
+<p>When criminals sought refuge in ancient sanctuaries, such as Durham,
+Beverley, Ripon, Manchester, and other places which provided the
+privilege, having claimed sanctuary and been provided with a
+distinctive dress, they were allowed to wander within certain
+prescribed limits. At Beverley Minster the fugitive from justice could
+wander with no fear of capture to a distance extending a mile from the
+church in all directions. Richly carved crosses marked the limit of
+the sanctuary. A peculiar reverence for the cross protected the
+fugitives from violence if they kept within the bounds. In Cheshire,
+in the wild region of Delamere Forest, there are several ancient
+crosses erected for the convenience of travellers; and under their
+shadows they were safe from robbery and violence at the hands of
+outlaws, who always respected the reverence attached to these symbols
+of Christianity.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CROSSES AS GUIDE-POSTS</h4>
+
+<p>In wild moorland and desolate hills travellers often lost their way.
+Hence crosses were set up to guide them along the trackless heaths.
+They were as useful as sign-posts, and conveyed an additional lesson.
+You will find such crosses in the desolate country on the borderland
+of Yorkshire and Lancashire. They were usually placed on the summit of
+hills. In Buckinghamshire there are two crosses cut in the turf on a
+spur of the Chilterns, Whiteleaf and Bledlow crosses, which were
+probably marks for the direction of travellers through the wild and
+dangerous woodlands, though popular tradition connects them with the
+memorials of ancient battles between the Saxons and Danes.</p>
+
+<p>From time out of mind crosses have been the rallying point for the
+discussion of urgent public affairs. It was <a name="Page_304"></a>so in London. Paul's
+Cross was the constant meeting-place of the citizens of London
+whenever they were excited by oppressive laws, the troublesome
+competition of &quot;foreigners,&quot; or any attempt to interfere with their
+privileges and liberties. The meetings of the shire or hundred moots
+took place often at crosses, or other conspicuous or well-known
+objects. Hundreds were named after them, such as the hundred of
+Faircross in Berkshire, of Singlecross in Sussex, Normancross in
+Huntingdonshire, and Brothercross and Guiltcross, or Gyldecross, in
+Norfolk.</p>
+
+<p>Stories and legends have clustered around them. There is the famous
+Stump Cross in Cheshire, the subject of one of Nixon's prophecies. It
+is supposed to be sinking into the ground. When it reaches the level
+of the earth the end of the world will come. A romantic story is
+associated with Mab's Cross, in Wigan, Lancashire. Sir William
+Bradshaigh was a great warrior, and went crusading for ten years,
+leaving his beautiful wife, Mabel, alone at Haigh Hall. A dastard
+Welsh knight compelled her to marry him, telling her that her husband
+was dead, and treated her cruelly; but Sir William came back to the
+hall disguised as a palmer. Mabel, seeing in him some resemblance to
+her former husband, wept sore, and was beaten by the Welshman. Sir
+William made himself known to his tenants, and raising a troop,
+marched to the hall. The Welsh knight fled, but Sir William followed
+him and slew him at Newton, for which act he was outlawed a year and a
+day. The lady was enjoined by her confessor to do penance by going
+once a week, bare-footed and bare-legged, to a cross near Wigan, two
+miles from the hall, and it is called Mab's Cross to this day. You can
+see in Wigan Church the monument of Sir William and his lady, which
+tells this sad story, and also the cross&mdash;at least, all that remains
+of it&mdash;the steps, a pedestal, and part of the shaft&mdash;in Standisgate,
+&quot;to witness if I lie.&quot; It is true that Sir William was born ten years
+after the last of the crusades had ended; but what does that <a name="Page_305"></a>matter?
+He was probably fighting for his king, Edward II, against the Scots,
+or he was languishing a prisoner in some dungeon. There was plenty of
+fighting in those days for those who loved it, and where was the
+Englishman then who did not love to fight for his king and country, or
+seek for martial glory in other lands, if an ungrateful country did
+not provide him with enough work for his good sword and ponderous
+lance?</p>
+
+<p>Such are some of the stories that cluster round these crosses. It is a
+sad pity that so many should have been allowed to disappear. More have
+fallen owing to the indifference and apathy of the people of England
+in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than to the wanton and
+iconoclastic destruction of the Puritans. They are holy relics of
+primitive Christianity. On the lonely mountainsides the tired
+traveller found in them a guide and friend, a director of his ways and
+an uplifter of his soul. In the busy market-place they reminded the
+trader of the sacredness of bargains and of the duty of honest
+dealing. Holy truths were proclaimed from their steps. They connected
+by a close and visible bond religious duties with daily life; and not
+only as objects of antiquarian interest, but as memorials of the
+religious feelings, habits, and customs of our forefathers, are they
+worthy of careful preservation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><a name="Page_306"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>STOCKS, WHIPPING-POSTS, AND OLD-TIME PUNISHMENTS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Near the village cross almost invariably stood the parish stocks,
+instruments of rude justice, the use of which has only just passed
+away. The &quot;oldest inhabitant&quot; can remember well the old stocks
+standing in the village green and can tell of the men who suffered in
+them. Many of these instruments of torture still remain, silent
+witnesses of old-time ways. You can find them in multitudes of remote
+villages in all parts of the country, and vastly uncomfortable it must
+have been to have one's &quot;feet set in the stocks.&quot; A well-known artist
+who delights in painting monks a few years ago placed the portly model
+who usually &quot;sat&quot; for him in the village stocks of Sulham, Berkshire,
+and painted a picture of the monk in disgrace. The model declared that
+he was never so uncomfortable in his life and his legs and back ached
+for weeks afterwards. To make the penalty more realistic the artist
+might have prevailed upon some village urchins to torment the sufferer
+by throwing stones, refuse, or garbage at him, some village maids to
+mock and jeer at him, and some mischievous men to distract his ears
+with inharmonious sounds. In an old print of two men in the stocks I
+have seen a malicious wretch scraping piercing noises out of a fiddle
+and the victims trying to drown the hideous sounds by putting their
+fingers into their ears. A few hours in the stocks was no light
+penalty.</p>
+
+<p>These stocks have a venerable history. They date <a name="Page_307"></a>back to Saxon times
+and appear in drawings of that period. It is a pity that they should
+be destroyed; but borough corporations decide that they interfere with
+the traffic of a utilitarian age and relegate them to a museum or doom
+them to be cut up as faggots. Country folk think nothing of
+antiquities, and a local estate agent or the village publican will
+make away with this relic of antiquity and give the &quot;old rubbish&quot; to
+Widow Smith for firing. Hence a large number have disappeared, and it
+is wonderful that so many have hitherto escaped. Let the eyes of
+squires and local antiquaries be ever on the watch lest those that
+remain are allowed to vanish.</p>
+
+<p>By ancient law<a name="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50"><sup>50</sup></a> every town or village was bound to provide a pair
+of stocks. It was a sign of dignity, and if the village had this seat
+for malefactors, a constable, and a pound for stray cattle, it could
+not be mistaken for a mere hamlet. The stocks have left their mark on
+English literature. Shakespeare frequently alludes to them. Falstaff,
+in <i>The Merry Wives of Windsor</i>, says that but for his &quot;admirable
+dexterity of wit the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the
+common stocks.&quot; &quot;What needs all that and a pair of stocks in the
+town,&quot; says Luce in the <i>Comedy of Errors</i>. &quot;Like silly beggars, who
+sitting in stocks refuge their shame,&quot; occurs in <i>Richard II</i>; and in
+<i>King Lear</i> Cornwall exclaims&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&quot;Fetch forth the stocks!<br />
+You stubborn ancient knave.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Who were the culprits who thus suffered? Falstaff states that he only
+just escaped the punishment of being set in the stocks for a witch.
+Witches usually received severer justice, but stocks were often used
+for keeping prisoners safe until they were tried and condemned, and
+possibly Shakespeare alludes in this passage only to the preliminaries
+of a harsher ordeal. Drunkards were the common defaulters who appeared
+in the stocks, and by an Act of 2 James I they were required to endure
+six hours'<a name="Page_308"></a> incarceration with a fine of five shillings. Vagrants
+always received harsh treatment unless they had a licence, and the
+corporation records of Hungerford reveal the fact that they were
+always placed in the pillory and whipped. The stocks, pillory, and
+whipping-post were three different implements of punishment, but, as
+was the case at Wallingford, Berkshire, they were sometimes allied and
+combined. The stocks secured the feet, the pillory &quot;held in durance
+vile&quot; the head and the hands, while the whipping-post imprisoned the
+hands only by clamps on the sides of the post. In the constable's
+accounts of Hungerford we find such items as:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="ctr"><table border="0" summary="">
+<colgroup span="2"><col align="left" /><col align="right" /></colgroup>
+<tr><td>&quot;Pd for cheeke and brace for the pillory</td><td>00,02,00</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Pd for mending the pillory</td><td>00,00,06</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Pd the Widow Tanner for iron geare for the whipping post</td><td>00,03,06&quot;</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Whipping was a very favourite pastime at this old Berkshire town; this
+entry will suffice:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">&quot;Pd to John Savidge for his extraordinary paines this yeare and
+whipping of severall persons &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 00,05,00&quot;</p>
+
+<p>John Savidge was worthy of his name, but the good folks of Hungerford
+tempered mercy with justice and usually gave a monetary consolation to
+those who suffered from the lash. Thus we read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">&quot;Gave a poore man that was whipped and sent
+from Tythinge to Tythinge&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 00,00,04&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Women were whipped at Hungerford, as we find that the same John
+Savidge received 2d. for whipping Dorothy Millar. All this was
+according to law. The first Whipping Act was passed in 1530 when Henry
+VIII reigned, and according to this barbarous piece of legislation the
+victim was stripped naked and tied to a cart-tail, dragged through the
+streets of the town, and whipped &quot;till his body was bloody.&quot; In
+Elizabeth's time the cart-tail went <a name="Page_309"></a>out of fashion and a
+whipping-post was substituted, and only the upper part of the body was
+exposed. The tramp question was as troublesome in the seventeenth
+century as it is to-day. We confine them in workhouse-cells and make
+them break stones or pick oakum; whipping was the solution adopted by
+our forefathers. We have seen John Savidge wielding his whip, which
+still exists among the curiosities at Hungerford. At Barnsley in 1632
+Edward Wood was paid iiijd. &quot;for whiping of three wanderers.&quot; Ten
+years earlier Richard White received only iid. for performing the like
+service for six wanderers. Mr. W. Andrews has collected a vast store
+of curious anecdotes on the subject of whippings, recorded in his
+<i>Bygone Punishments</i>, to which the interested reader is referred. The
+story he tells of the brutality of Judge Jeffreys may be repeated.
+This infamous and inhuman judge sentenced a woman to be whipped, and
+said, &quot;Hangman, I charge you to pay particular attention to this lady.
+Scourge her soundly, man; scourge her till her blood runs down! It is
+Christmas, a cold time for madam to strip. See that you warm her
+shoulders thoroughly.&quot; It was not until 1791 that the whipping of
+female vagrants was expressly forbidden by Act of Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Stocks have been used in quite recent times. So late as 1872, at
+Newbury, one Mark Tuck, a devoted disciple of John Barleycorn,
+suffered this penalty for his misdeeds.<a name="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51"><sup>51</sup></a> He was a rag and bone
+dealer, and knew well the inside of Reading jail. <i>Notes and
+Queries</i><a name="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52"><sup>52</sup></a> contains an account of the proceedings, and states that
+he was &quot;fixed in the stocks for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in
+the Parish Church on Monday evening.&quot; Twenty-six years had elapsed
+since the stocks were last used, and their reappearance created no
+little sensation and amusement, several hundreds of persons being
+attracted to the spot where they were fixed. Tuck was seated on a
+stool, and his legs were secured in the stocks at a few minutes past
+<a name="Page_310"></a>one o'clock, and as the church clock, immediately facing him, chimed
+each quarter, he uttered expressions of thankfulness, and seemed
+anything but pleased at the laughter and derision of the crowd. Four
+hours having passed, Tuck was released, and by a little stratagem on
+the part of the police he escaped without being interfered with by the
+crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday drinking during divine service provided in many places victims
+for the stocks. So late as half a century ago it was the custom for
+the churchwardens to go out of church during the morning service on
+Sundays and visit the public-houses to see if any persons were
+tippling there, and those found <i>in flagrante delicto</i> were
+immediately placed in the stocks. So arduous did the churchwardens
+find this duty that they felt obliged to regale themselves at the
+alehouses while they made their tour of inspection, and thus rendered
+themselves liable to the punishment which they inflicted on others.
+Mr. Rigbye, postmaster at Croston, Lancashire, who was seventy-three
+years of age in 1899, remembered these Sunday-morning searches, and
+had seen drunkards sitting in the stocks, which were fixed near the
+southern step of the village cross. Mr. Rigbye, when a boy, helped to
+pull down the stocks, which were then much dilapidated. A certain
+Richard Cottam, called &quot;Cockle Dick,&quot; was the last man seen in
+them.<a name="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53"><sup>53</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The same morning perambulating of ale-houses was carried on at
+Skipton, the churchwardens being headed by the old beadle, an imposing
+personage, who wore a cocked hat and an official coat trimmed with
+gold, and carried in majestic style a trident staff, a terror to
+evil-doers, at least to those of tender years.<a name="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54"><sup>54</sup></a> At Beverley the
+stocks still preserved in the minster were used as late as 1853; Jim
+Brigham, guilty of Sunday tippling, and discovered <a name="Page_311"></a>by the
+churchwardens in their rounds, was the last victim. Some sympathizer
+placed in his mouth a lighted pipe of tobacco, but the constable in
+charge hastily snatched it away. James Gambles, for gambling on
+Sunday, was confined in the Stanningley stocks, Yorkshire, for six
+hours in 1860. The stocks and village well remain still at Standish,
+near the cross, and also the stone cheeks of those at Eccleston Green
+bearing the date 1656. At Shore Cross, near Birkdale, the stocks
+remain, also the iron ones at Thornton, Lancashire, described in Mrs.
+Blundell's novel <i>In a North Country Village</i>; also at Formby they
+exist, though somewhat dilapidated.</p>
+
+<p>Whether by accident or design, the stocks frequently stand close to
+the principal inn in a village. As they were often used for the
+correction of the intemperate their presence was doubtless intended as
+a warning to the frequenters of the hostelry not to indulge too
+freely. Indeed, the sight of the stocks, pillory, and whipping-post
+must have been a useful deterrent to vice. An old writer states that
+he knew of the case of a young man who was about to annex a silver
+spoon, but on looking round and seeing the whipping-post he
+relinquished his design. The writer asserts that though it lay
+immediately in the high road to the gallows, it had stopped many an
+adventurous young man in his progress thither.</p>
+
+<p>The ancient Lancashire town of Poulton-in-the-Fylde has a fairly
+complete set of primitive punishment implements. Close to the cross
+stand the stocks with massive ironwork, the criminals, as usual,
+having been accustomed to sit on the lowest step of the cross, and on
+the other side of the cross is the rogue's whipping-post, a stone
+pillar about eight feet high, on the sides of which are hooks to which
+the culprit was fastened. Between this and the cross stands another
+useful feature of a Lancashire market-place, the fish stones, an
+oblong raised slab for the display and sale of fish.</p>
+
+<p>In several places we find that movable stocks were in use, which could
+be brought out whenever occasion <a name="Page_312"></a>required. A set of these exists at
+Garstang, Lancashire. The quotation already given from <i>King Lear,</i>
+&quot;Fetch forth the stocks,&quot; seems to imply that in Shakespeare's time
+they were movable. Beverley stocks were movable, and in <i>Notes and
+Queries</i> we find an account of a mob at Shrewsbury dragging around the
+town in the stocks an incorrigible rogue one Samuel Tisdale in the
+year 1851.</p>
+
+<p>The Rochdale stocks remain, but they are now in the churchyard, having
+been removed from the place where the markets were formerly held at
+Church Stile. When these kind of objects have once disappeared it is
+rarely that they are ever restored. However, at West Derby this
+unusual event has occurred, and five years ago the restoration was
+made. It appears that in the village there was an ancient pound or
+pinfold which had degenerated into an unsightly dust-heap, and the old
+stocks had passed into private hands. The inhabitants resolved to turn
+the untidy corner into a garden, and the lady gave back the stocks to
+the village. An inscription records: &quot;To commemorate the long and
+happy reign of Queen Victoria and the coronation of King Edward VII,
+the site of the ancient pound of the Dukes of Lancaster and other
+lords of the manor of West Derby was enclosed and planted, and the
+village stocks set therein. Easter, 1904.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This inscription records another item of vanishing England. Before the
+Inclosure Acts at the beginning of the last century there were in all
+parts of the country large stretches of unfenced land, and cattle
+often strayed far from their homes and presumed to graze on the open
+common lands of other villages. Each village had its pound-keeper,
+who, when he saw these estrays, as the lawyers term the valuable
+animals that were found wandering in any manor or lordship,
+immediately drove them into the pound. If the owner claimed them, he
+had certain fees to pay to the pound-keeper and the cost of the keep.
+If they were not claimed they became the <a name="Page_313"></a>property of the lord of the
+manor, but it was required that they should be proclaimed in the
+church and two market towns next adjoining the place where they were
+found, and a year and a day must have elapsed before they became the
+actual property of the lord. The possession of a pound was a sign of
+dignity for the village. Now that commons have been enclosed and waste
+lands reclaimed, stray cattle no longer cause excitement in the
+village, the pound-keeper has gone, and too often the pound itself has
+disappeared. We had one in our village twenty years ago, but suddenly,
+before he could be remonstrated with, an estate agent, not caring for
+the trouble and cost of keeping it in repair, cleared it away, and its
+place knows it no more. In very many other villages similar happenings
+have occurred. Sometimes the old pound has been utilized by road
+surveyors as a convenient place for storing gravel for mending roads,
+and its original purpose is forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a pleasant task to go through the towns and villages of
+England to discover and to describe traces of these primitive
+implements of torture, but such a record would require a volume
+instead of a single chapter. In Berkshire we have several left to us.
+There is a very complete set at Wallingford, pillory, stocks, and
+whipping-post, now stored in the museum belonging to Miss Hedges in
+the castle, but in western Berkshire they have nearly all disappeared.
+The last pair of stocks that I can remember stood at the entrance to
+the town of Wantage. They have only disappeared within the last few
+years. The whipping-post still exists at the old Town Hall at
+Faringdon, the staples being affixed to the side of the ancient
+&quot;lock-up,&quot; known as the Black Hole.</p>
+
+<p>At Lymm, Cheshire, there are some good stocks by the cross in that
+village, and many others may be discovered by the wandering antiquary,
+though their existence is little known and usually escapes the
+attention of the writers on local antiquities. As relics of primitive
+<a name="Page_314"></a>modes of administering justice, it is advisable that they should be
+preserved.</p>
+
+<p>Yet another implement of rude justice was the cucking or ducking
+stool, which exists in a few places. It was used principally for the
+purpose of correcting scolding women. Mr. Andrews, who knows all that
+can be known about old-time punishments, draws a distinction between
+the cucking and ducking stool, and states that the former originally
+was a chair of infamy where immoral women and scolds were condemned to
+sit with bare feet and head to endure the derision of the populace,
+and had no relation to any ducking in water. But it appears that later
+on the terms were synonymous, and several of these implements remain.
+This machine for quieting intemperate scolds was quite simple. A plank
+with a chair at one end was attached by an axle to a post which was
+fixed on the bank of a river or pond, or on wheels, so that it could
+be run thither; the culprit was tied to the chair, and the other end
+of the plank was alternately raised or lowered so as to cause the
+immersion of the scold in the chilly water. A very effectual
+punishment! The form of the chair varies. The Leominster ducking-stool
+is still preserved, and this implement was the latest in use, having
+been employed in 1809 for the ducking of Jenny Pipes, <i>alias</i> Jane
+Corran, a common scold, by order of the magistrates, and also as late
+as 1817; but in this case the victim, one Sarah Leeke, was only
+wheeled round the town in the chair, and not ducked, as the water in
+the Kenwater stream was too shallow for the purpose. The cost of
+making the stool appears in many corporation accounts. That at
+Hungerford must have been in pretty frequent use, as there are several
+entries for repairs in the constable's accounts.<a name="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55"><sup>55</sup></a> Thus we find the
+item under the year 1669:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="note">&quot;Pd for the Cucking stoole&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 01,10,00&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_315"></a>and in 1676:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="note">&quot;Pd for nailes and workmanship about the stocks and cucking stoole&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; 00,07,00&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At Kingston-upon-Thames in 1572 the accounts show the expenditure:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="ctr"><table border="0" summary="">
+<colgroup span="2"><col align="left" /><col align="right" /></colgroup>
+<tr><td>&quot;The making of the cucking-stool</td><td>8s. 0d.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Iron work for the same</td><td>3s.  0d.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Timber for the same</td><td>7s. 6d.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Three brasses for the same and three wheels</td><td> 4s. 10d.</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td>&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td>&pound;1 3s. 4d.&quot;</td></tr></table></div>
+
+<p>We need not record similar items shown in the accounts of other
+boroughs. You will still find examples of this fearsome implement at
+Leicester in the museum, Wootton Bassett, the wheels of one in the
+church of St. Mary, Warwick; two at Plymouth, one of which was used in
+1808; King's Lynn, Norfolk, in the museum; Ipswich, Scarborough,
+Sandwich, Fordwich, and possibly some other places of which we have no
+record.</p>
+
+<p>We find in museums, but not in common use, another terrible implement
+for the curbing of the rebellious tongues of scolding women. It was
+called the brank or scold's bridle, and probably came to us from
+Scotland with the Solomon of the North, whither the idea of it had
+been conveyed through the intercourse of that region with France. It
+is a sort of iron cage or framework helmet, which was fastened on the
+head, having a flat tongue of iron that was placed on the tongue of
+the victim and effectually restrained her from using it. Sometimes the
+iron tongue was embellished with spikes so as to make the movement of
+the human tongue impossible except with the greatest agony. Imagine
+the poor wretch with her head so encaged, her mouth cut and bleeding
+by this sharp iron tongue, none too gently fitted by her rough
+torturers, and then being dragged about the town amid the jeers of the
+populace, or chained to the pillory in the market-place, an object of
+ridicule <a name="Page_316"></a>and contempt. Happily this scene has vanished from vanishing
+England. Perhaps she was a loud-voiced termagant; perhaps merely the
+ill-used wife of a drunken wretch, who well deserved her scolding; or
+the daring teller of home truths to some jack-in-office, who thus
+revenged himself. We have shrews and scolds still; happily they are
+restrained in a less barbarous fashion. You may still see some
+fearsome branks in museums. Reading, Leeds, York, Walton-on-Thames,
+Congleton, Stockport, Macclesfield, Warrington, Morpeth, Hamstall
+Ridware, in Staffordshire, Lichfield, Chesterfield (now in possession
+of the Walsham family), Leicester, Doddington Park, Lincolnshire (a
+very grotesque example), the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Ludlow,
+Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Whitchurch, Market Drayton, are some of the
+places which still possess scolds' bridles. Perhaps it is wrong to
+infer from the fact that most of these are to be found in the counties
+of Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, that the women of those
+shires were especially addicted to strong and abusive language. It may
+be only that antiquaries in those counties have been more industrious
+in unearthing and preserving these curious relics of a barbarous age.
+The latest recorded occasion of its use was at Congleton in 1824, when
+a woman named Ann Runcorn was condemned to endure the bridle for
+abusing and slandering the churchwardens when they made their tour of
+inspection of the alehouses during the Sunday-morning service. There
+are some excellent drawings of branks, and full descriptions of their
+use, in Mr. Andrews's <i>Bygone Punishments</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Another relic of old-time punishments most gruesome of all are the
+gibbet-irons wherein the bones of some wretched breaker of the laws
+hung and rattled as the irons creaked and groaned when stirred by the
+breeze. <i>Pour l'encouragement des autres</i>, our wise forefathers
+enacted that the bodies of executed criminals should be hanged in
+chains. At least this was a common practice that dated from medieval
+times, though it was not <a name="Page_317"></a>actually legalized until 1752.<a name="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56"><sup>56</sup></a> This Act
+remained in force until 1834, and during the interval thousands of
+bodies were gibbeted and left creaking in the wind at Hangman's Corner
+or Gibbet Common, near the scene of some murder or outrage. It must
+have been ghostly and ghastly to walk along our country lanes and hear
+the dreadful noise, especially if the tradition were true</p>
+
+<p class="poem">That the wretch in his chains, each night took the pains,<br />
+To come down from the gibbet&mdash;and walk.</p>
+
+<p>In order to act as a warning to others the bodies were kept up as long
+as possible, and for this purpose were saturated with tar. On one
+occasion the gibbet was fired and the tar helped the conflagration,
+and a rapid and effectual cremation ensued. In many museums
+gibbet-irons are preserved.</p>
+
+<p>Punishments in olden times were usually cruel. Did they act as
+deterrents to vice? Modern judges have found the use of the lash a
+cure for robbery from the person with violence. The sight of
+whipping-posts and stocks, we learn, has stayed young men from
+becoming topers and drunkards. A brank certainly in one recorded case
+cured a woman from coarse invective and abuse. But what effect had the
+sight of the infliction of cruel punishments upon those who took part
+in them or witnessed them? It could only have tended to make cruel
+natures more brutal. Barbarous punishments, public hangings, cruel
+sports such as bull-baiting, dog-fighting, bear-baiting,
+prize-fighting and the like could not fail to exercise a bad influence
+on the populace; and where one was deterred from vice, thousands were
+brutalized and their hearts and natures hardened, wherein vicious
+pleasures, crime, and lust found a congenial soil. But we can still
+see our stocks on the village greens, our branks, ducking-stools, and
+pillories in museums, and remind ourselves of the customs of former
+days which have not so very long ago passed away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><a name="Page_318"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD BRIDGES</h3>
+
+
+<p>The passing away of the old bridges is a deplorable feature of
+vanishing England. Since the introduction of those terrible
+traction-engines, monstrous machines that drag behind them a whole
+train of heavily laden trucks, few of these old structures that have
+survived centuries of ordinary use are safe from destruction. The
+immense weight of these road-trains are enough to break the back of
+any of the old-fashioned bridges. Constantly notices have to be set up
+stating: &quot;This bridge is only sufficient to carry the ordinary traffic
+of the district, and traction-engines are not allowed to proceed over
+it.&quot; Then comes an outcry from the proprietors of locomotives
+demanding bridges suitable for their convenience. County councils and
+district councils are worried by their importunities, and soon the
+venerable structures are doomed, and an iron-girder bridge hideous in
+every particular replaces one of the most beautiful features of our
+village.</p>
+
+<p>When the Sonning bridges that span the Thames were threatened a few
+years ago, English artists, such as Mr. Leslie and Mr. Holman-Hunt,
+strove manfully for their defence. The latter wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The nation, without doubt, is in serious danger of losing faith
+   in the testimony of our poets and painters to the exceptional
+   beauty of the land which has inspired them. The poets, from
+   Chaucer to the last of his true British successors, with one
+   voice enlarge on the overflowing sweetness of England, her hills
+   and dales, her pastures with sweet flowers, and the loveliness of
+   her <a name="Page_319"></a>silver streams. It is the cherishing of the wholesome
+   enjoyments of daily life that has implanted in the sons of
+   England love of home, goodness of nature, and sweet
+   reasonableness, and has given strength to the thews and sinews of
+   her children, enabling them to defend her land, her principles,
+   and her prosperity. With regard to the three Sonning bridges,
+   parts of them have been already rebuilt with iron fittings in
+   recent years, and no disinterested reasonable person can see why
+   they could not be easily made sufficient to carry all existing
+   traffic. If the bridges were to be widened in the service of some
+   disproportionate vehicles it is obvious that the traffic such
+   enlarged bridges are intended to carry would be put forward as an
+   argument for demolishing the exquisite old bridge over the main
+   river which is the glory of this exceptionally picturesque and
+   well-ordered village; and this is a matter of which even the most
+   utilitarian would soon see the evil in the diminished attraction
+   of the river not only to Englishmen, but to Colonials and
+   Americans who have across the sea read widely of its beauty.
+   Remonstrances must look ahead, and can only now be of avail in
+   recognition of future further danger. We are called upon to plead
+   the cause for the whole of the beauty-loving England, and of all
+   river-loving people in particular.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Gallantly does the great painter express the views of artists, and
+such vandalism is as obnoxious to antiquaries as it is to artists and
+lovers of the picturesque. Many of these old bridges date from
+medieval times, and are relics of antiquity that can ill be spared.
+Brick is a material as nearly imperishable as any that man can build
+with. There is hardly any limit to the life of a brick or stone
+bridge, whereas an iron or steel bridge requires constant supervision.
+The oldest iron bridge in this country&mdash;at Coalbrookdale, in
+Shropshire&mdash;has failed after 123 years of life. It was worn out by old
+age, whereas the Roman bridge at Rimini, and the medieval ones at St.
+Ives, Bradford-on-Avon, and countless other places in this country and
+abroad, are in daily use and are likely to remain serviceable for many
+years to come, unless these ponderous trains break them down.<a name="Page_320"></a></p>
+
+<p>The interesting bridge which crosses the River Conway at Llanrwst was
+built in 1636 by Sir Richard Wynn, then the owner of Gwydir Castle,
+from the designs of Inigo Jones. Like many others, it is being injured
+by traction-trains carrying unlimited weights. Happily the Society for
+the Protection of Ancient Buildings heard the plaint of the old bridge
+that groaned under its heavy burdens and cried aloud for pity. The
+society listened to its pleading, and carried its petition to the
+Carmarthen County Council, with excellent results. This enlightened
+Council decided to protect the bridge and save it from further harm.</p>
+
+<p>The building of bridges was anciently regarded as a charitable and
+religious act, and guilds and brotherhoods existed for their
+maintenance and reparation. At Maidenhead there was a notable bridge,
+for the sustenance of which the Guild of St. Andrew and St. Mary
+Magdalene was established by Henry VI in 1452. An early bridge existed
+here in the thirteenth century, a grant having been made in 1298 for
+its repair. A bridge-master was one of the officials of the
+corporation, according to the charter granted to the town by James II.
+The old bridge was built of wood and supported by piles. No wonder
+that people were terrified at the thought of passing over such
+structures in dark nights and stormy weather. There was often a
+bridge-chapel, as on the old Caversham bridge, wherein they said their
+prayers, and perhaps made their wills, before they ventured to cross.</p>
+
+<p>Some towns owe their existence to the making of bridges. It was so at
+Maidenhead. It was quite a small place, a cluster of cottages, but
+Camden tells us that after the erection of the bridge the town began
+to have inns and to be so frequented as to outvie its &quot;neighbouring
+mother, Bray, a much more ancient place,&quot; where the famous &quot;Vicar&quot;
+lived. The old bridge gave place in 1772 to a grand new one with very
+graceful arches, which was designed by Sir Roland Taylor.</p>
+
+<p>Abingdon, another of our Berkshire towns, has a famous <a name="Page_321"></a>bridge that
+dates back to the fifteenth century, when it was erected by some good
+merchants of the town, John Brett and John Huchyns and Geoffrey
+Barbour, with the aid of Sir Peter Besils of Besselsleigh, who
+supplied the stone from his quarries. It is an extremely graceful
+structure, well worthy of the skill of the medieval builders. It is
+some hundreds of yards in length, spanning the Thames and meadows that
+are often flooded, the main stream being spanned by six arches. Henry
+V is credited with its construction, but he only graciously bestowed
+his royal licence. In fact these merchants built two bridges, one
+called Burford Bridge and the other across the ford at Culham. The
+name Burford has nothing to do with the beautiful old town which we
+have already visited, but is a corruption of Borough-ford, the town
+ford at Abingdon. Two poets have sung their praises, one in atrocious
+Latin and the other in quaint, old-fashioned English. The first poet
+made a bad shot at the name of the king, calling him Henry IV instead
+of Henry V, though it is a matter of little importance, as neither
+monarch had anything to do with founding the structure. The Latin poet
+sings, if we may call it singing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Henricus Quartus quarto fundaverat anno<br />
+Rex pontem Burford super undas atque Culham-ford.</p>
+
+<p>The English poet fixes the date of the bridge, 4 Henry V (1416) and
+thus tells its story:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">King Henry the fyft, in his fourthe yere<br />
+He hath i-founde for his folke a brige in Berkshire<br />
+For cartis with cariage may goo and come clere,<br />
+That many wynters afore were marred in the myre.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Now is Culham hithe<a name="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57"><sup>57</sup></a> i-come to an ende<br />
+And al the contre the better and no man the worse,<br />
+Few folke there were coude that way mende,<br />
+But they waged a cold or payed of ther purse;<br />
+An if it were a beggar had breed in his bagge,<br />
+He schulde be right soone i-bid to goo aboute;<br /><a name="Page_322"></a>
+And if the pore penyless the hireward would have,<br />
+A hood or a girdle and let him goo aboute.<br />
+Culham hithe hath caused many a curse<br />
+I' blyssed be our helpers we have a better waye,<br />
+Without any peny for cart and horse.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Another blyssed besiness is brigges to make<br />
+That there the pepul may not passe after great schowres,<br />
+Dole it is to draw a dead body out of a lake<br />
+That was fulled in a fount stoon and felow of owres.</p>
+
+<p>The poet was grateful for the mercies conveyed to him by the bridge.
+&quot;Fulled in a fount stoon,&quot; of course, means &quot;washed or baptized in a
+stone font.&quot; He reveals the misery and danger of passing through a
+ford &quot;after great showers,&quot; and the sad deaths which befell
+adventurous passengers when the river was swollen by rains and the
+ford well-nigh impassable. No wonder the builders of bridges earned
+the gratitude of their fellows. Moreover, this Abingdon Bridge was
+free to all persons, rich and poor alike, and no toll or pontage was
+demanded from those who would cross it.</p>
+
+<p>Within the memory of man there was a beautiful old bridge between
+Reading and Caversham. It was built of brick, and had ten arches, some
+constructed of stone. About the time of the Restoration some of these
+were ruinous, and obstructed the passage by penning up the water above
+the bridge so that boats could not pass without the use of a winch,
+and in the time of James II the barge-masters of Oxford appealed to
+Courts of Exchequer, asserting that the charges of pontage exacted on
+all barges passing under the bridge were unlawful, claiming exemption
+from all tolls by reason of a charter granted to the citizens of
+Oxford by Richard II. They won their case. This bridge is mentioned in
+the Close Rolls of the early years of Edward I as a place where
+assizes were held. The bridge at Cromarsh and Grandpont outside Oxford
+were frequently used for the same purpose. So narrow was it that two
+vehicles could not pass. For the safety of the foot passenger little
+angles were provided at intervals into which he could step in <a name="Page_323"></a>order
+to avoid being run over by carts or coaches. The chapel on the bridge
+was a noted feature of the bridge. It was very ancient. In 1239
+Engelard de Cyngny was ordered to let William, chaplain of the chapel
+of Caversham, have an oak out of Windsor Forest with which to make
+shingles for the roofing of the chapel. Passengers made offerings in
+the chapel to the priest in charge of it for the repair of the bridge
+and the maintenance of the chapel and priest. It contained many relics
+of saints, which at the Dissolution were eagerly seized by Dr. London,
+the King's Commissioner. About the year 1870 the old bridge was pulled
+down and the present hideous iron-girder erection substituted for it.
+It is extremely ugly, but is certainly more convenient than the old
+narrow bridge, which required passengers to retire into the angle to
+avoid the danger of being run over.</p>
+
+<p>These bridges can tell many tales of battle and bloodshed. There was a
+great skirmish on Caversham Bridge in the Civil War in a vain attempt
+on the part of the Royalists to relieve the siege of Reading. When
+Wallingford was threatened in the same period of the Great Rebellion,
+one part of the bridge was cut in order to prevent the enemy riding
+into the town. And you can still detect the part that was severed.
+There is a very interesting old bridge across the upper Thames between
+Bampton and Faringdon. It is called Radcot Bridge; probably built in
+the thirteenth century, with its three arches and a heavy buttress in
+the middle niched for a figure of the Virgin, and a cross formerly
+stood in the centre. A &quot;cut&quot; has diverted the course of the river to
+another channel, but the bridge remains, and on this bridge a sharp
+skirmish took place between Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Marquis of
+Dublin, and Duke of Ireland, a favourite of Richard II, upon whom the
+King delighted to bestow titles and honours. The rebellious lords met
+the favourite's forces at Radcot, where a fierce fight ensued. De Vere
+was taken in <a name="Page_324"></a>the rear, and surrounded by the forces of the Duke of
+Gloucester and the Earl of Derby, and being hard pressed, he plunged
+into the icy river (it was on the 20th day of December, 1387) with his
+armour on, and swimming down-stream with difficulty saved his life. Of
+this exploit a poet sings:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Here Oxford's hero, famous for his boar,<br />
+While clashing swords upon his target sound,<br />
+And showers of arrows from his breast rebound,<br />
+Prepared for worst of fates, undaunted stood,<br />
+And urged his heart into the rapid flood.<br />
+The waves in triumph bore him, and were proud<br />
+To sink beneath their honourable load.</p>
+
+<p>Religious communities, monasteries and priories, often constructed
+bridges. There is a very curious one at Croyland, probably erected by
+one of the abbots of the famous abbey of Croyland or Crowland. This
+bridge is regarded as one of the greatest curiosities in the kingdom.
+It is triangular in shape, and has been supposed to be emblematical of
+the Trinity. The rivers Welland, Nene, and a drain called Catwater
+flow under it. The ascent is very steep, so that carriages go under
+it. The triangular bridge of Croyland is mentioned in a charter of
+King Edred about the year 941, but the present bridge is probably not
+earlier than the fourteenth century. However, there is a rude statue
+said to be that of King Ethelbald, and may have been taken from the
+earlier structure and built into the present bridge. It is in a
+sitting posture at the end of the south-west wall of the bridge. The
+figure has a crown on the head, behind which are two wings, the arms
+bound together, round the shoulders a kind of mantle, in the left hand
+a sceptre and in the right a globe. The bridge consists of three
+piers, whence spring three pointed arches which unite their groins in
+the centre. Croyland is an instance of a decayed town, the tide of its
+prosperity having flowed elsewhere. Though nominally a market-town, it
+is only a village, with little more than the ruins of its former
+splendour remaining, when the great abbey attracted <a name="Page_325"></a><a name="Page_326"></a>to it crowds of
+the nobles and gentry of England, and employed vast numbers of
+labourers, masons, and craftsmen on the works of the abbey and in the
+supply of its needs.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P325"></a><img src="./images/il122.png" alt="Triangular Bridge" title="" /><br />
+The Triangular Bridge Crowland</p>
+
+<p>All over the country we find beautiful old bridges, though the opening
+years of the present century, with the increase of heavy
+traction-engines, have seen many disappear. At Coleshill,
+Warwickshire, there is a graceful old bridge leading to the town with
+its six arches and massive cutwaters. Kent is a county of bridges,
+picturesque medieval structures which have survived the lapse of time
+and the storms and floods of centuries. You can find several of these
+that span the Medway far from the busy railway lines and the great
+roads. There is a fine medieval fifteenth-century bridge at Yalding
+across the Beult, long, fairly level, with deeply embayed cutwaters of
+rough ragstone. Twyford Bridge belongs to the same period, and
+Lodingford Bridge, with its two arches and single-buttressed cutwater,
+is very picturesque. Teston Bridge across the Medway has five arches
+of carefully wrought stonework and belongs to the fifteenth century,
+and East Farleigh is a fine example of the same period with four
+ribbed and pointed arches and four bold cutwaters of wrought stones,
+one of the best in the country. Aylesford Bridge is a very graceful
+structure, though it has been altered by the insertion of a wide span
+arch in the centre for the improvement of river navigation. Its
+existence has been long threatened, and the Society for the Protection
+of Ancient Buildings has done its utmost to save the bridge from
+destruction. Its efforts are at length crowned with success, and the
+Kent County Council has decided that there are not sufficient grounds
+to justify the demolition of the bridge and that it shall remain. The
+attack upon this venerable structure will probably be renewed some
+day, and its friends will watch over it carefully and be prepared to
+defend it again when the next onslaught is made. It is certainly one
+of the most beautiful bridges in Kent. Little known and <a name="Page_327"></a>seldom seen
+by the world, and unappreciated even by the antiquary or the motorist,
+these Medway bridges continue their placid existence and proclaim the
+enduring work of the English masons of nearly five centuries ago.</p>
+
+<p>Many of our bridges are of great antiquity. The Eashing bridges over
+the Wey near Godalming date from the time of King John and are of
+singular charm and beauty. Like many others they have been threatened,
+the Rural District Council having proposed to widen and strengthen
+them, and completely to alter their character and picturesqueness.
+Happily the bridges were private property, and by the action of the
+Old Guildford Society and the National Trust they have been placed
+under the guardianship of the Trust, and are now secure from
+molestation.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P327"></a><img src="./images/il123.png" alt="Huntingdon Bridge" title="" /><br />
+Huntingdon Bridge</p>
+
+<p>We give an illustration of the Crane Bridge, Salisbury, a small Gothic
+bridge near the Church House, and seen in conjunction with that
+venerable building it forms a very beautiful object. Another
+illustration shows the huge bridge at Huntingdon spanning the Ouse
+with six arches. It is in good preservation, and has an arcade of
+Early Gothic arches, and over it the coaches used to run along the
+great North Road, the scene of the mythical ride of Dick Turpin, and
+doubtless the youthful feet of Oliver Cromwell, who was born at
+Huntingdon, often traversed it. There is another fine bridge at St.
+Neots with a watch-tower in the centre.<a name="Page_328"></a></p>
+
+<p>The little town of Bradford-on-Avon has managed to preserve almost
+more than any other place in England the old features which are fast
+vanishing elsewhere. We have already seen that most interesting
+untouched specimen of Saxon architecture the little Saxon church,
+which we should like to think is the actual church built by St.
+Aldhelm, but we are compelled to believe on the authority of experts
+that it is not earlier than the tenth century. In all probability a
+church was built by St. Aldhelm at Bradford, probably of wood, and was
+afterwards rebuilt in stone when the land had rest and the raids of
+the Danes had ceased, and King Canute ruled and encouraged the
+building of churches, and Bishops Dunstan and &AElig;thelwold of Winchester
+were specially prominent in the work. Bradford, too, has its noble
+church, parts of which date back to Norman times; its famous
+fourteenth-century barn at Barton Farm, which has a fifteenth-century
+porch and gatehouse; many fine examples of the humbler specimens of
+domestic architecture; and the very interesting Kingston House of the
+seventeenth century, built by one of the rich clothiers of Bradford,
+when the little town (like Abingdon) &quot;stondeth by clothing,&quot; and all
+the houses in the place were figuratively &quot;built upon wool-packs.&quot; But
+we are thinking of bridges, and Bradford has two, the earlier one
+being a little footbridge by the abbey grange, now called Barton Farm.
+Miss Alice Dryden tells the story of the town bridge in her <i>Memorials
+of Old Wiltshire</i>. It was originally only wide enough for a string of
+packhorses to pass along it. The ribbed portions of the southernmost
+arches and the piers for the chapel are early fourteenth century, the
+other arches were built later. Bradford became so prosperous, and the
+stream of traffic so much increased, and wains took the place of
+packhorses, that the narrow bridge was not sufficient for it; so the
+good clothiers built in the time of James I a second bridge alongside
+the first. Orders were issued in 1617 and 1621 for &quot;the repair of the
+very fair bridge consisting of many <a name="Page_329"></a><a name="Page_330"></a>goodly arches of freestone,&quot;
+which had fallen into decay. The cost of repairing it was estimated at
+200 marks. There is a building on the bridge corbelled out on a
+specially built pier of the bridge, the use of which is not at first
+sight evident. Some people call it the watch-house, and it has been
+used as a lock-up; but Miss Dryden tells us that it was a chapel,
+similar to those which we have seen on many other medieval bridges. It
+belonged to the Hospital of St. Margaret, which stood at the southern
+end of the bridge, where the Great Western Railway crosses the road.
+This chapel retains little of its original work, and was rebuilt when
+the bridge was widened in the time of James I. Formerly there was a
+niche for a figure looking up the stream, but this has gone with much
+else during the drastic restoration. That a bridge-chapel existed here
+is proved by Aubrey, who mentions &quot;the chapel for masse in the middest
+of the bridge&quot; at Bradford.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P329"></a>
+<a href="./images/il124.png"><img src="./images/il124_th.png" alt="Crane Bridge" title="" /></a><br />
+The Crane Bridge, Salisbury</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes bridges owe their origin to curious circumstances. There was
+an old bridge at Olney, Buckinghamshire, of which Cowper wrote when he
+sang:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">That with its wearisome but needful length<br />
+<span class="i4">Bestrides the flood.</span></p>
+
+<p>The present bridge that spans the Ouse with three arches and a
+causeway has taken the place of the long bridge of Cowper's time. This
+long bridge was built in the days of Queen Anne by two squires, Sir
+Robert Throckmorton of Weston Underwood and William Lowndes of Astwood
+Manor. These two gentlemen were sometimes prevented from paying visits
+to one another by floods, as they lived on opposite sides of the Ouse.
+They accordingly built the long bridge in continuation of an older
+one, of which only a small portion remains at the north end. Sir
+Robert found the material and Mr. Lowndes the labour. This story
+reminds one of a certain road in Berks and Bucks, the milestones along
+which record the distance between Hatfield and Bath? Why Hatfield? It
+<a name="Page_331"></a><a name="Page_332"></a>is not a place of great resort or an important centre of population.
+But when we gather that a certain Marquis of Salisbury was troubled
+with gout, and had frequently to resort to Bath for the &quot;cure,&quot; and
+constructed the road for his special convenience at his own expense,
+we begin to understand the cause of the carving of Hatfield on the
+milestones.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P331"></a><img src="./images/il125.png" alt="Watch House" title="" /><br />
+Watch House On The Bridge Bradford on Avon Wilts</p>
+
+<p>The study of the bridges of England seems to have been somewhat
+neglected by antiquaries. You will often find some good account of a
+town or village in guide-books or topographical works, but the story
+of the bridges is passed over in silence. Owing to the reasons we have
+already stated, old bridges are fast disappearing and are being
+substituted by the hideous erections of iron and steel. It is well
+that we should attempt to record those that are left, photograph them
+and paint them, ere the march of modern progress, evinced by the
+traction-engine and the motor-car, has quite removed and destroyed
+them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV"></a><a name="Page_333"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD HOSPITALS AND ALMSHOUSES</h3>
+
+
+<p>There are in many towns and villages hospitals&mdash;not the large modern
+and usually unsightly buildings wherein the sick are cured, with wards
+all spick and span and up to date&mdash;but beautiful old buildings
+mellowed with age wherein men and women, on whom the snows of life
+have begun to fall thickly, may rest and recruit and take their ease
+before they start on the long, dark journey from which no traveller
+returns to tell to those he left behind how he fared.</p>
+
+<p>Almshouses we usually call them now, but our forefathers preferred to
+call them hospitals, God's hostels, &quot;God huis,&quot; as the Germans call
+their beautiful house of pity at L&uuml;beck, where the tired-out and
+money-less folk might find harbourage. The older hospitals were often
+called &quot;bede-houses,&quot; because the inmates were bound to pray for their
+founder and benefactors. Some medieval hospitals, memorials of the
+charity of pre-Reformation Englishmen, remain, but many were
+suppressed during the age of spoliation; and others have been so
+rebuilt and restored that there is little left of the early
+foundation.</p>
+
+<p>We may notice three classes of these foundations. First, there are the
+pre-Reformation bede-houses or hospitals; the second group is composed
+of those which were built during the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth,
+James I, and Charles I. The Civil War put a stop to the foundation of
+almshouses. The principal landowners were impoverished by the war or
+despoiled by the Puritans, and could not build; the charity of the
+latter was <a name="Page_334"></a>devoted to other purposes. With the Restoration of the
+Church and the Monarchy another era of the building of almshouses set
+in, and to this period very many of our existing institutions belong.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P334"></a><img src="./images/il126.png" alt="Gateway of St. John's" title="" /><br />
+Gateway of St. John's Hospital, Canterbury</p>
+
+<p>Of the earliest group we have several examples left. There is the
+noble hospital of St. Cross at Winchester, founded in the days of
+anarchy during the contest between Stephen and Matilda for the English
+throne. Its hospitable door is still open. Bishop Henry of Blois was
+its founder, and he made provision for thirteen poor men to be housed,
+boarded, and clothed, and for a hundred others to have a meal every
+day. He placed the hospital under the care of the Master of the
+Knights Hospitallers. Fortunately it was never connected with a
+monastery.<a name="Page_335"></a> Hence it escaped pillage and destruction at the
+dissolution of monastic houses. Bishop Henry was a great builder, and
+the church of the hospital is an interesting example of a structure of
+the Transition Norman period, when the round arch was giving way to
+the Early English pointed arch. To this foundation was added in 1443
+by Cardinal Beaufort an extension called the &quot;Almshouse of Noble
+Poverty,&quot; and it is believed that the present domestic buildings were
+erected by him.<a name="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58"><sup>58</sup></a> The visitor can still obtain the dole of bread and
+ale at the gate of St. Cross. Winchester is well provided with old
+hospitals: St. John's was founded in 931 and refounded in 1289; St.
+Mary Magdalen, by Bishop Toclyve in 1173-88 for nine lepers; and
+Christ's Hospital in 1607.</p>
+
+<p>We will visit some less magnificent foundations. Some are of a very
+simple type, resembling a church with nave and chancel. The nave part
+was a large hall divided by partitions on each side of an alley into
+little cells in which the bedesmen lived. Daily Mass was celebrated in
+the chancel, the chapel of hospital, whither the inmates resorted; but
+the sick and infirm who could not leave their cells were able to join
+in the service. St. Mary's Hospital, at Chichester, is an excellent
+example, as it retains its wooden cells, which are still used by the
+inmates. It was formerly a nunnery, but in 1229 the nuns departed and
+the almswomen took their place. It is of wide span with low
+side-walls, and the roof is borne by wooden pillars. There are eight
+cells of two rooms each, and beyond the screen is a little chapel,
+which is still used by the hospitallers.<a name="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59"><sup>59</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Archbishop Chichele founded a fine hospital at Higham Ferrers in
+Northamptonshire, which saw his lowly birth, together with a school
+and college, about the year 1475. The building is still in existence
+and shows a good roof <a name="Page_336"></a>and fine Perpendicular window, but the twelve
+bedesmen and the one sister, who was to be chosen for her plainness,
+no longer use the structure.</p>
+
+<p>Stamford can boast of a fine medieval hospital, the foundation of
+Thomas Browne in 1480 for the accommodation of ten old men and two
+women. A new quadrangle has been built for the inmates, but you can
+still see the old edifice with its nave of two storeys, its
+fifteenth-century stained glass, and its chapel with its screen and
+stalls and altar.</p>
+
+<p>Stamford has another hospital which belongs to our second group. Owing
+to the destruction of monasteries, which had been great benefactors to
+the poor and centres of vast schemes of charity, there was sore need
+for almshouses and other schemes for the relief of the aged and
+destitute. The <i>nouveaux riches</i>, who had fattened on the spoils of
+the monasteries, sought to salve their consciences by providing for
+the wants of the poor, building grammar schools, and doing some good
+with their wealth. Hence many almshouses arose during this period.
+This Stamford home was founded by the great Lord Burghley in 1597. It
+is a picturesque group of buildings with tall chimneys, mullioned and
+dormer windows, on the bank of the Welland stream, and occupies the
+site of a much more ancient foundation.</p>
+
+<p>There is the college at Cobham, in Kent, the buildings forming a
+pleasant quadrangle south of the church. Flagged pathways cross the
+greensward of the court, and there is a fine hall wherein the inmates
+used to dine together.</p>
+
+<p>As we traverse the village streets we often meet with these grey piles
+of sixteenth-century almshouses, often low, one-storeyed buildings,
+picturesque and impressive, each house having a welcoming porch with a
+seat on each side and a small garden full of old-fashioned flowers.
+The roof is tiled, on which moss and lichen grow, and the
+chimney-stacks are tall and graceful. An inscription records the date
+and name of the generous founder with <a name="Page_337"></a>his arms and motto. Such a home
+of peace you will find at Quainton, in Buckinghamshire, founded, as an
+inscription records, &quot;Anno Dom. 1687. These almshouses were then
+erected and endow'd by Richard Winwood, son and heir of Right Hon'ble
+Sir Ralph Winwood, Bart., Principal Secretary of State to King James
+y'e First.&quot; Within these walls dwell (according to the rules drawn up
+by Sir Ralph Verney in 1695) &quot;three poor men&mdash;widowers,&mdash;to be called
+Brothers, and three poor women&mdash;widows,&mdash;to be called Sisters.&quot; Very
+strict were these rules for the government of the almshouses, as to
+erroneous opinions in any principle of religion, the rector of
+Quainton being the judge, the visiting of alehouses, the good conduct
+of the inmates, who were to be &quot;no whisperers, quarrelers, evil
+speakers or contentious.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>These houses at Quainton are very humble abodes; other almshouses are
+large and beautiful buildings erected by some rich merchant, or great
+noble, or London City company, for a large scheme of charity. Such are
+the beautiful almshouses in the Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, founded in
+the early part of the eighteenth century under the terms of the will
+of Sir Robert Geffery. They stand in a garden about an acre in extent,
+a beautiful oasis in the surrounding desert of warehouses, reminding
+the passer-by of the piety and loyal patriotism of the great citizens
+of London, and affording a peaceful home for many aged folk. This
+noble building, of great architectural dignity, with the figure of the
+founder over the porch and its garden with fine trees, has only just
+escaped the hands of the destroyer and been numbered among the bygone
+treasures of vanished England. It was seriously proposed to pull down
+this peaceful home of poor people and sell the valuable site to the
+Peabody Donation Fund for the erection of working-class dwellings. The
+almshouses are governed by the Ironmongers' Company, and this proposal
+was made; but, happily, the friends of ancient buildings made their
+protest to the Charity Commissioners, who have refused their sanction
+<a name="Page_338"></a>to the sale, and the Geffery Almshouses will continue to exist,
+continue their useful mission, and remain the chief architectural
+ornament in a district that sorely needs &quot;sweetness and light.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>City magnates who desired to build and endow hospitals for the aged
+nearly always showed their confidence in and affection for the Livery
+Companies to which they belonged by placing in their care these
+charitable foundations. Thus Sir Richard Whittington, of famous
+memory, bequeathed to the Mercers' Company all his houses and
+tenements in London, which were to be sold and the proceeds
+distributed in various charitable works. With this sum they founded a
+College of Priests, called Whittington College, which was suppressed
+at the Reformation, and the almshouses adjoining the old church of St.
+Michael Paternoster, for thirteen poor folk, of whom one should be
+principal or tutor. The Great Fire destroyed the buildings; they were
+rebuilt on the same site, but in 1835 they were fallen into decay, and
+the company re-erected them at Islington, where you will find
+Whittington College, providing accommodation for twenty-eight poor
+women. Besides this the Mercers have charge of Lady Mico's Almshouses
+at Stepney, founded in 1692 and rebuilt in 1857, and the Trinity
+Hospital at Greenwich, founded in 1615 by Henry Howard, Earl of
+Northampton. This earl was of a very charitable disposition, and
+founded other hospitals at Castle Rising in Norfolk and Clun in
+Shropshire. The Mercers continue to manage the property and have built
+a new hospital at Shottisham, besides making grants to the others
+created by the founder. It is often the custom of the companies to
+expend out of their private income far more than they receive from the
+funds of the charities which they administer.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P339"></a>
+<a href="./images/il127.png"><img src="./images/il127_th.png" alt="Inmate of Trinity" title="" /></a><br />
+Inmate of the Trinity Bede House at Castle Rising,
+Norfolk</p>
+
+<p>The Grocers' Company have almshouses and a Free Grammar School at
+Oundle in Northamptonshire, founded by Sir William Laxton in 1556,
+upon which they have expended vast sums of money. The Drapers
+administer <a name="Page_339"></a><a name="Page_340"></a>the Mile End Almshouses and school founded in 1728 by
+Francis Bancroft, Sir John Jolles's almshouses at Tottenham, founded
+in 1618, and very many others. They have two hundred in the
+neighbourhood of London alone, and many others in different parts of
+the country. Near where I am writing is Lucas's Hospital at Wokingham,
+founded by Henry Lucas in 1663, which he placed in the charge of the
+company. It is a beautiful Carolian house with a central portion and
+two wings, graceful and pleasing in every detail. The chapel is
+situated in one wing and the master's house in the other, and there
+are sets of rooms for twelve poor men chosen from the parishes in the
+neighbourhood. The Fishmongers have the management of three important
+hospitals. At Bray, in Berkshire, famous for its notable vicar, there
+stands the ancient Jesus Hospital, founded in 1616 under the will of
+William Goddard, who directed that there should be built rooms with
+chimneys in the said hospital, fit and convenient for forty poor
+people to dwell and inhabit it, and that there should be one chapel or
+place convenient to serve Almighty God in for ever with public and
+divine prayers and other exercises of religion, and also one kitchen
+and bakehouse common to all the people of the said hospital. Jesus
+Hospital is a quadrangular building, containing forty almshouses
+surrounding a court which is divided into gardens, one of which is
+attached to each house. It has a pleasing entrance through a gabled
+brick porch which has over the Tudor-shaped doorway a statue of the
+founder and mullioned latticed windows. The old people live happy and
+contented lives, and find in the eventide of their existence a
+cheerful home in peaceful and beautiful surroundings. The Fishmongers
+also have almshouses at Harrietsham, in Kent, founded by Mark Quested,
+citizen and fishmonger of London, in 1642, which they rebuilt in 1772,
+and St. Peter's Hospital, Wandsworth, formerly called the Fishmongers'
+Almshouses. The Goldsmiths have a very palatial pile of almshouses at
+Acton Park, called Perryn's Almshouses, with a grand <a name="Page_341"></a><a name="Page_342"></a>entrance
+portico, and most of the London companies provide in this way homes
+for their decayed members, so that they may pass their closing years
+in peace and freedom from care.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P341"></a>
+<a href="./images/il128.png"><img src="./images/il128_th.png" alt="Fisherman Hospital" title="" /></a><br />
+The Hospital for Ancient Fishermen, Great Yarmouth.</p>
+
+<p>Fishermen, who pass their lives in storm and danger reaping the
+harvest of the sea, have not been forgotten by pious benefactors. One
+of the most picturesque buildings in Great Yarmouth is the Fishermen's
+Hospital, of which we give some illustrations. It was founded by the
+corporation of the town in 1702 for the reception of twenty old
+fishermen and their wives. It is a charming house of rest, with its
+gables and dormer windows and its general air of peace and repose. The
+old men look very comfortable after battling for so many years with
+the storms of the North Sea. Charles II granted to the hospital an
+annuity of &pound;160 for its support, which was paid out of the excise on
+beer, but when the duty was repealed the annuity naturally ceased.</p>
+
+<p>The old hospital at King's Lynn was destroyed during the siege, as
+this quaint inscription tells:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">THIS HOSPITAL WAS<br />
+BURNT DOWN AT LIN<br />
+SEGE AND REBULT<br />
+1649 NATH MAXEY<br />
+MAYOR AND EDW<br />
+ROBINSON ALDMAN<br />
+TREASURER PRO TEM</p>
+<p class="signature">P.R.O.</p>
+
+<p>Norwich had several important hospitals. Outside the Magdalen gates
+stood the Magdalen Hospital, founded by Bishop Herbert, the first
+bishop. It was a house for lepers, and some portions of the Norman
+chapel still exist in a farm-building by the roadside. The far-famed
+St. Giles's Hospital in Bishopsgate Street is an ancient foundation,
+erected by Bishop Walter Suffield in 1249 for poor chaplains and other
+poor persons. It nearly vanished at the Reformation era, like so many
+other kindred institutions, but Henry VIII and Edward VI granted it a
+new charter. The poor clergy were, however, <a name="Page_343"></a>left out in the cold, and
+the benefits were confined to secular folk. For the accommodation of
+its inmates the chancel of the church was divided by a floor into an
+upper and a lower storey, and this arrangement still exists, and you
+can still admire the picturesque ivy-clad tower, the wards with cosy
+ingle-nooks at either end and cubicles down the middle, the roof
+decorated with eagles, deemed to be the cognizance of Queen Anne of
+Bohemia, wife of Richard II, the quaint little cloister, and above
+all, the excellent management of this grand institution, the &quot;Old
+Man's Hospital,&quot; as it is called, which provides for the necessities
+of 150 old folk, whose wants are cared for by a master and twelve
+nurses.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P343"></a><img src="./images/il129.png" alt="Hospital Inscription" title="" /><br />
+Inscription on the Hospital, King's Lynn</p>
+
+<p>Let us travel far and visit another charming almshouse, Abbot's
+Hospital, at Guildford, which is an architectural gem and worthy of
+the closest inspection. It was founded by Archbishop Abbot in 1619,
+and is a noble building of mellowed brick with finely carved oak
+doors, graceful chimneys with their curious &quot;crow-rests,&quot; noble
+staircases, interesting portraits, and rare books, amongst which is a
+Vinegar Bible. The chapel with its Flemish windows showing the story
+of Jacob and Esau, and oak carvings and almsbox dated 1619, is
+especially attractive.<a name="Page_344"></a> Here the founder retired in sadness and sorrow
+after his unfortunate day's hunting in Bramshill Park, where he
+accidentally shot a keeper, an incident which gave occasion to his
+enemies to blaspheme and deride him. Here the Duke of Monmouth was
+confined on his way to London after the battle of Sedgemoor. The
+details of the building are worthy of attention, especially the
+ornamented doors and doorways, the elaborate latches, beautifully
+designed and furnished with a spring, and elegant casement-fasteners.
+Guildford must have had a school of great artists of these
+window-fasteners. Near the hospital there is a very interesting house,
+No. 25 High Street, now a shop, but formerly the town clerk's
+residence and the lodgings of the judges of assize; no better series
+in England of beautifully designed window-fasteners can be found than
+in this house, erected in 1683; it also has a fine staircase like that
+at Farnham Castle, and some good plaster ceilings resembling Inigo
+Jones's work and probably done by his workmen.</p>
+
+<p>The good town of Abingdon has a very celebrated hospital founded in
+1446 by the Guild of the Holy Cross, a fraternity composed of &quot;good
+men and true,&quot; wealthy merchants and others, which built the bridge,
+repaired roads, maintained a bridge priest and a rood priest, and held
+a great annual feast at which the brethren consumed as much as 6
+calves, 16 lambs, 80 capons, 80 geese, and 800 eggs. It was a very
+munificent and beneficent corporation, and erected these almshouses
+for thirteen poor men and the same number of poor women. That hospital
+founded so long ago still exists. It is a curious and ancient
+structure in one storey, and is denoted Christ's Hospital. One of our
+recent writers on Berkshire topography, whose historical accuracy is a
+little open to criticism, gives a good description of the building:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blkquot"><p>&quot;It is a long range of chambers built of mellow brick and
+   immemorial oak, having in their centre a small hall, darkly
+   wainscoted, the very table in which makes a collector sinfully
+   covetous. In front of the modest doors of <a name="Page_345"></a>the chambers inhabited
+   by almsmen and almswomen runs a tiny cloister with oak pillars,
+   so that the inmates may visit one another dryshod in any weather.
+   Each door, too, bears a text from the Old or New Testament. A
+   more typical relic of the old world, a more sequestered haven of
+   rest, than this row of lowly buildings, looking up to the great
+   church in front, and with its windows opening on to green turf
+   bordered with flowers in the rear, it could not enter into the
+   heart of man to imagine.&quot;
+<a name="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60"><sup>60</sup></a></p></div>
+
+<p>We could spend endless time in visiting the old almshouses in many
+parts of the country. There is the Ford's Hospital in Coventry,
+erected in 1529, an extremely good specimen of late Gothic work,
+another example of which is found in St. John's Hospital at Rye. The
+Corsham Almshouses in Wiltshire, erected in 1663, are most picturesque
+without, and contain some splendid woodwork within, including a fine
+old reading-desk with carved seat in front. There is a large porch
+with an immense coat-of-arms over the door. In the region of the
+Cotswolds, where building-stone is plentiful, we find a noble set of
+almshouses at Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire, a gabled structure
+near the church with tall, graceful chimneys and mullioned windows,
+having a raised causeway in front protected by a low wall. Ewelme, in
+Oxfordshire, is a very attractive village with a row of cottages half
+a mile long, which have before their doors a sparkling stream dammed
+here and there into watercress beds. At the top of the street on a
+steep knoll stand church and school and almshouses of the mellowest
+fifteenth-century bricks, as beautiful and structurally sound as the
+pious founders left them. These founders were the unhappy William de
+la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk, and his good wife the Duchess Alice.
+The Duke inherited Ewelme through his wife Alice Chaucer, a kinswoman
+of the poet, and &quot;for love of her and the commoditie of her landes
+fell much to dwell in Oxfordshire,&quot; and in 1430-40 was busy building
+<a name="Page_346"></a>a manor-place of &quot;brick and Tymbre and set within a fayre mote,&quot; a
+church, an almshouse, and a school. The manor-place, or &quot;Palace,&quot; as
+it was called, has disappeared, but the almshouse and school remain,
+witnesses of the munificence of the founders. The poor Duke, favourite
+minister of Henry VI, was exiled by the Yorkist faction, and beheaded
+by the sailors on his way to banishment. Twenty-five years of
+widowhood fell to the bereaved duchess, who finished her husband's
+buildings, called the almshouses &quot;God's House,&quot; and then reposed
+beneath one of the finest monuments in England in the church hard by.
+The almshouses at Audley End, Essex, are amongst the most picturesque
+in the country. Such are some of these charming homes of rest that
+time has spared.</p>
+
+<p>The old people who dwell in them are often as picturesque as their
+habitations. Here you will find an old woman with her lace-pillow and
+bobbins, spectacles on nose, and white bonnet with strings, engaged in
+working out some intricate lace pattern. In others you will see the
+inmates clad in their ancient liveries. The dwellers in the Coningsby
+Hospital at Hereford, founded in 1614 for old soldiers and aged
+servants, had a quaint livery consisting of &quot;a fustian suit of ginger
+colour, of a soldier-like fashion, and seemly laced; a cloak of red
+cloth lined with red baize and reaching to the knees, to be worn in
+walks and journeys, and a gown of red cloth, reaching to the ankle,
+lined also with baize, to be worn within the hospital.&quot; They are,
+therefore, known as Red Coats. The almsmen of Ely and Rochester have
+cloaks. The inmates of the Hospital of St. Cross wear as a badge a
+silver cross potent. At Bottesford they have blue coats and blue
+&quot;beef-eater&quot; hats, and a silver badge on the left arm bearing the arms
+of the Rutland family&mdash;a peacock in its pride, surmounted by a coronet
+and surrounded by a garter.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P347"></a><img src="./images/il130.png" alt="Inmates of Fisherman's Hospital" title="" /><br />
+Ancient Inmates of the Fishermen's Hospital, Great Yarmouth</p>
+
+<p>It is not now the fashion to found almshouses. We build workhouses
+instead, vast ugly barracks wherein <a name="Page_347"></a><a name="Page_348"></a>the poor people are governed by
+all the harsh rules of the Poor Law, where husband and wife are
+separated from each other, and &quot;those whom God hath joined together
+are,&quot; by man and the Poor Law, &quot;put asunder&quot;; where the industrious
+labourer is housed with the lazy and ne'er-do-weel. The old almshouses
+were better homes for the aged poor, homes of rest after the struggle
+for existence, and harbours of refuge for the tired and weary till
+they embark on their last voyage.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P348"></a><img src="./images/il131.png" alt="Cottages" title="" /><br />
+Cottages at Evesham</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><a name="Page_349"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>VANISHING FAIRS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The &quot;oldest inhabitants&quot; of our villages can remember many changes in
+the social conditions of country life. They can remember the hard time
+of the Crimean war when bread was two shillings and eightpence a
+gallon, when food and work were both scarce, and starvation wages were
+doled out. They can remember the &quot;machine riots,&quot; and tumultuous
+scenes at election times, and scores of interesting facts, if only you
+can get them to talk and tell you their recollections. The changed
+condition of education puzzles them. They can most of them read, and
+perhaps write a little, but they prefer to make their mark and get you
+to attest it with the formula, &quot;the mark of J&mdash;&mdash;N.&quot; Their schooling
+was soon over. When they were nine years of age they were ploughboys,
+and had a rough time with a cantankerous ploughman who often used to
+ply his whip on his lad or on his horses quite indiscriminately. They
+have seen many changes, and do not always &quot;hold with&quot; modern notions;
+and one of the greatest changes they have seen is in the fairs. They
+are not what they were. Some, indeed, maintain some of their
+usefulness, but most of them have degenerated into a form of mild
+Saturnalia, if not into a scandal and a nuisance; and for that reason
+have been suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>Formerly quite small villages had their fairs. If you look at an old
+almanac you will see a list of fair-days with the names of the
+villages which, when the appointed days come round, cannot now boast
+of the presence of a single stall or merry-go-round. The day of the
+fair was nearly <a name="Page_350"></a>always on or near the festival of the patron saint to
+whom the church of that village is dedicated. There is, of course, a
+reason for this. The word &quot;fair&quot; is derived from the Latin word
+<i>feria</i>, which means a festival, the parish feast day. On the festival
+of the patron saint of a village church crowds of neighbours from
+adjoining villages would flock to the place, the inhabitants of which
+used to keep open house, and entertain all their relations and friends
+who came from a distance. They used to make booths and tents with
+boughs of trees near the church, and celebrated the festival with much
+thanksgiving and prayer. By degrees they began to forget their prayers
+and remembered only the feasting; country people flocked from far and
+near; the pedlars and hawkers came to find a market for their wares.
+Their stalls began to multiply, and thus the germ of a fair was
+formed.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P350"></a><img src="./images/il132.png" alt="Banbury Fair Stalls" title="" /><br />
+Stalls at Banbury Fair</p>
+
+<p>In such primitive fairs the traders paid no toll or rent for their
+stalls, but by degrees the right of granting permission <a name="Page_351"></a>to hold a
+fair was vested in the King, who for various considerations bestowed
+this favour on nobles, merchant guilds, bishops, or monasteries. Great
+profits arose from these gatherings. The traders had to pay toll on
+all the goods which they brought to the fair, in addition to the
+payment of stallage or rent for the ground on which they displayed
+their merchandise, and also a charge on all the goods they sold.
+Moreover, the trades-folk of the town were obliged to close their
+shops during the days of the fair, and to bring their goods to the
+fair, so that the toll-owner might gain good profit withal.</p>
+
+<p>We can imagine, or try to imagine, the roads and streets leading to
+the market-place thronged with traders and chapmen, the sellers of
+ribbons and cakes, minstrels and morris-dancers, smock-frocked
+peasants and sombre-clad monks and friars. Then a horn was sounded,
+and the lord of the manor, or the bishop's bailiff, or the mayor of
+the town proclaimed the fair; and then the cries of the traders, the
+music of the minstrels, the jingling of the bells of the
+morris-dancers, filled the air and added animation to the spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>There is a curious old gateway, opposite the fair-ground at
+Smithfield, which has just recently narrowly escaped destruction, and
+very nearly became part of the vanished glories of England. Happily
+the donations of the public poured in so well that the building was
+saved. This Smithfield gateway dates back to the middle of the
+thirteenth century, the entrance to the Priory of St. Bartholomew,
+founded by Rahere, the court jester of Henry I, a century earlier.
+Every one knows the story of the building of this Priory, and has
+followed its extraordinary vicissitudes, the destruction of its nave
+at the dissolution of monasteries, the establishment of a fringe
+factory in the Lady Chapel, and the splendid and continuous work of
+restoration which has been going on during the last forty years. We
+are thankful that this choir of St. Bartholomew's Church should have
+been preserved <a name="Page_352"></a>for future generations as an example of the earliest
+and most important ecclesiastical buildings in London. But we are
+concerned now with this gateway, the beauty of which is partially
+concealed by the neighbouring shops and dwellings that surround it, as
+a poor and vulgar frame may disfigure some matchless gem of artistic
+painting. Its old stones know more about fairs than do most things. It
+shall tell its own history. You can still admire the work of the Early
+English builders, the receding orders with exquisite mouldings and
+dog-tooth ornament&mdash;the hall-mark of the early Gothic artists. It
+looks upon the Smithfield market, and how many strange scenes of
+London history has this gateway witnessed! Under its arch possibly
+stood London's first chronicler, Fitzstephen, the monk, when he saw
+the famous horse fairs that took place in Smithfield every Friday,
+which he described so graphically. Thither flocked earls, barons,
+knights, and citizens to look on or buy. The monk admired the nags
+with their sleek and shining coats, smoothly ambling along, the young
+blood colts not yet accustomed to the bridle, the horses for burden,
+strong and stout-limbed, and the valuable chargers of elegant shape
+and noble height, with nimbly moving ears, erect necks, and plump
+haunches. He waxes eloquent over the races, the expert jockeys, the
+eager horses, the shouting crowds. &quot;The riders, inspired with the love
+of praise and the hope of victory, clap spurs to their flying horses,
+lashing them with their whips, and inciting them by their shouts&quot;; so
+wrote the worthy monk Fitzstephen. He evidently loved a horse-race,
+but he need not have given us the startling information, &quot;their chief
+aim is to prevent a competitor getting before them.&quot; That surely would
+be obvious even to a monk. He also examined the goods of the peasants,
+the implements of husbandry, swine with their long sides, cows with
+distended udders, <i>Corpora magna boum, lanigerumque pecus</i>, mares
+fitted for the plough or cart, some with frolicsome colts running by
+their sides. A very animated scene, which must have <a name="Page_353"></a>delighted the
+young eyes of the stone arch in the days of its youth, as it did the
+heart of the monk.</p>
+
+<p>Still gayer scenes the old gate has witnessed. Smithfield was the
+principal spot in London for jousts, tournaments, and military
+exercises, and many a grand display of knightly arms has taken place
+before this priory gate. &quot;In 1357 great and royal jousts were then
+holden in Smithfield; there being present the Kings of England,
+France, and Scotland, with many other nobles and great estates of
+divers lands,&quot; writes Stow. Gay must have been the scene in the
+forty-eighth year of Edward III, when Dame Alice Perrers, the King's
+mistress, as Lady of the Sun, rode from the Tower of London to
+Smithfield accompanied by many lords and ladies, every lady leading a
+lord by his horse-bridle, and there began a great joust which endured
+seven days after. The lists were set in the great open space with
+tiers of seats around, a great central canopy for the Queen of Beauty,
+the royal party, and divers tents and pavilions for the contending
+knights and esquires. It was a grand spectacle, adorned with all the
+pomp and magnificence of medieval chivalry. Froissart describes with
+consummate detail the jousts in the fourteenth year of Richard II,
+before a grand company, when sixty coursers gaily apparelled for the
+jousts issued from the Tower of London ridden by esquires of honour,
+and then sixty ladies of honour mounted on palfreys, each lady leading
+a knight with a chain of gold, with a great number of trumpets and
+other instruments of music with them. On arriving at Smithfield the
+ladies dismounted, the esquires led the coursers which the knights
+mounted, and after their helmets were set on their heads proclamation
+was made by the heralds, the jousts began, &quot;to the great pleasure of
+the beholders.&quot; But it was not all pomp and pageantry. Many and deadly
+were the fights fought in front of the old gate, when men lost their
+lives or were borne from the field mortally wounded, or contended for
+honour and life against unjust accusers. That must have been a sorry
+<a name="Page_354"></a>scene in 1446, when a rascally servant, John David, accused his
+master, William Catur, of treason, and had to face the wager of battle
+in Smithfield. The master was well beloved, and inconsiderate friends
+plied him with wine so that he was not in a condition to fight, and
+was slain by his servant. But Stow reminds us that the prosperity of
+the wicked is frail. Not long after David was hanged at Tyburn for
+felony, and the chronicler concludes: &quot;Let such false accusers note
+this for example, and look for no better end without speedy
+repentance.&quot; He omits to draw any moral from the intemperance of the
+master and the danger of drunkenness.</p>
+
+<p>But let this suffice for the jousts in Smithfield. The old gateway
+heard on one occasion strange noises in the church, Archbishop
+Boniface raging with oaths not to be recited, and sounds of strife and
+shrieks and angry cries. This foreigner, Archbishop of Canterbury, had
+dared to come with his armed retainers from Provence to hold a
+visitation of the priory. The canons received him with solemn pomp,
+but respectfully declined to be visited by him, as they had their own
+proper visitor, a learned man, the Bishop of London, and did not care
+for another inspector. Boniface lost his temper, struck the sub-prior,
+saying, &quot;Indeed, doth it become you English traitors so to answer me?&quot;
+He tore in pieces the rich cope of the sub-prior; the canons rushed to
+their brother's rescue and knocked the Archbishop down; but his men
+fell upon the canons and beat them and trod them under foot. The old
+gateway was shocked and grieved to see the reverend canons running
+beneath the arch bloody and miry, rent and torn, carrying their
+complaint to the Bishop and then to the King at Westminster. After
+which there was much contention, and the whole city rose and would
+have torn the Archbishop into small pieces, shouting, &quot;Where is this
+ruffian? that cruel smiter!&quot; and much else that must have frightened
+and astonished Master Boniface and made him wish that he had never set
+foot in England, but stayed quietly in peaceful Provence.<a name="Page_355"></a></p>
+
+<p>But this gateway loved to look upon the great fair that took place on
+the Feast of St. Bartholomew. This was granted to Rahere the Prior and
+to the canons and continued for seven centuries, until the abuses of
+modern days destroyed its character and ended its career. The scene of
+the actual fair was within the priory gates in the churchyard, and
+there during the three days of its continuance stood the booths and
+standings of the clothiers and drapers of London and of all England,
+of pewterers, and leather-sellers, and without in the open space
+before the priory were tents and booths and a noisy crowd of traders,
+pleasure-seekers, friars, jesters, tumblers, and stilt-walkers. This
+open space was just outside the turreted north wall of the city, and
+was girt by tall elms, and near it was a sheet of water whereon the
+London boys loved to skate when the frost came. It was the city
+playground, and the city gallows were placed there before they were
+removed to Tyburn. This dread implement of punishment stood under the
+elms where Cow Lane now runs: and one fair day brave William Wallace
+was dragged there in chains at the tails of horses, bruised and
+bleeding, and foully done to death after the cruel fashion of the age.
+All this must have aged the heart of the old gateway, and especially
+the sad sight of the countless burials that took place in the year of
+the Plague, 1349, when fifty thousand were interred in the burial
+ground of the Carthusians, and few dared to attend the fair for fear
+of the pestilence.</p>
+
+<p>Other terrible things the gateway saw: the burning of heretics. Not
+infrequently did these fires of persecution rage. One of the first of
+these martyrs was John Bedley, a tailor, burnt in Smithfield in 1410.
+In Fox's <i>Book of Martyrs</i> you can see a woodcut of the burning of
+Anne Ascue and others, showing a view of the Priory and the crowd of
+spectators who watched the poor lady die. Not many days afterwards the
+fair-folk assembled, while the ground was still black with her ashes,
+and dogs danced and women tumbled and the <a name="Page_356"></a>devil jeered in the miracle
+play on the spot where martyrs died.</p>
+
+<p>We should need a volume to describe all the sights of this wondrous
+fair, the church crowded with worshippers, the halt and sick praying
+for healing, the churchyard full of traders, the sheriff proclaiming
+new laws, the young men bowling at ninepins, pedlars shouting their
+wares, players performing the miracle play on a movable stage, bands
+of pipers, lowing oxen, neighing horses, and bleating sheep. It was a
+merry sight that medieval Bartholomew Fair.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P356"></a>
+<a href="./images/il133.png"><img src="./images/il133_th.png" alt="Old English Fair" title="" /></a><br />
+An Old English Fair</p>
+
+<p>We still have Cloth Fair, a street so named, with a remarkable group
+of timber houses with over-sailing storeys and picturesque gables. It
+is a very dark and narrow thoroughfare, and in spite of many changes
+it remains a veritable &quot;bit&quot; of old London, as it was in the
+seventeenth century. These houses have sprung up <a name="Page_357"></a>where in olden days
+the merchants' booths stood for the sale of cloth. It was one of the
+great annual markets of the nation, the chief cloth fair in England
+that had no rival. Hither came the officials of the Merchant Tailors'
+Company bearing a silver yard measure, to try the measures of the
+clothiers and drapers to see if they were correct. And so each year
+the great fair went on, and priors and canons lived and died and were
+buried in the church or beneath the grass of the churchyard. But at
+length the days of the Priory were numbered, and it changed masters.
+The old gateway wept to see the cowled Black Canons depart when Henry
+VIII dissolved the monastery; its heart nearly broke when it heard the
+sounds of axes and hammers, crowbars and saws, at work on the fabric
+of the church pulling down the grand nave, and it scowled at the new
+owner, Sir Richard Rich, a prosperous political adventurer, who bought
+the whole estate for &pound;1064 11s. 3d., and made a good bargain.</p>
+
+<p>The monks, a colony of Black Friars, came in again with Queen Mary,
+but they were driven out again when Elizabeth reigned, and Lord Rich
+again resumed possession of the estate, which passed to his heirs, the
+Earls of Warwick and Holland. Each Sunday, however, the old gate
+welcomed devout worshippers on their way to the church, the choir
+having been converted into the parish church of the district, and was
+not sorry to see in Charles's day a brick tower rising at the west
+end.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the changes of ownership the fair went on increasing with
+the increase of the city. But the scene has changed. In the time of
+James I the last elm tree had gone, and rows of houses, fair and
+comely buildings, had sprung up. The old muddy plain had been drained
+and paved, and the traders and pleasure-seekers could no longer dread
+the wading through a sea of mud. We should like to follow the fair
+through the centuries, and see the sights and shows. The puppet shows
+were always attractive, and the wild beasts, the first animal ever
+exhibited being &quot;a large and beautiful young camel <a name="Page_358"></a>from Grand Cairo
+in Egypt. This creature is twenty-three years old, his head and neck
+like those of a deer.&quot; One Flockton during the last half of the
+eighteenth century was the prince of puppet showmen, and he called his
+puppets the Italian Fantocinni. He made his figures work in a most
+lifelike style. He was a conjurer too, and the inventor of a wonderful
+clock which showed nine hundred figures at work upon a variety of
+trades. &quot;Punch and Judy&quot; always attracted crowds, and we notice the
+handbills of Mr. Robinson, conjurer to the Queen, and of Mr. Lane, who
+sings:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">It will make you to laugh, it will drive away gloom,<br />
+To see how the eggs will dance round the room;<br />
+And from another egg a bird there will fly,<br />
+Which makes all the company all for to cry, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The booths for actors were a notable feature of the fair. We read of
+Fielding's booth at the George Inn, of the performance of the
+<i>Beggar's Opera</i> in 1728, of Penkethman's theatrical booth when <i>Wat
+Taylor and Jack Straw</i> was acted, of the new opera called <i>The
+Generous Free Mason or the Constant Lady</i>, of <i>Jephthah's Rash Vow</i>,
+and countless other plays that saw the light at Bartholomew Fair. The
+audience included not only the usual frequenters of fairs, but even
+royal visitors, noblemen, and great ladies flocked to the booths for
+amusement, and during its continuance the playhouses of London were
+closed.</p>
+
+<p>I must not omit to mention the other attractions, the fireproof lady,
+Madam Giradelli, who put melted lead in her mouth, passed red-hot iron
+over her body, thrust her arm into fire, and washed her hands in
+boiling oil; Mr. Simon Paap, the Dutch dwarf, twenty-eight inches
+high; bear-dancing, the learned pig, the &quot;beautiful spotted negro
+boy,&quot; peep-shows, Wombell's royal menagerie, the learned cats, and a
+female child with two perfect heads.</p>
+
+<p>But it is time to ring down the curtain. The last days of the fair
+were not edifying. Scenes of riot and debauch, of violence and
+lawlessness disgraced the assembly. Its <a name="Page_359"></a>usefulness as a gathering for
+trade purposes had passed away. It became a nuisance and a disgrace to
+London. In older days the Lord Mayor used to ride in his grand coach
+to our old gateway, and there proclaim it with a great flourish of
+trumpets. In 1850 his worship walked quietly to the accustomed place,
+and found that there was no fair to proclaim, and five years later the
+formality was entirely dispensed with, and silence reigned over the
+historic ground over which century after century the hearts of our
+forefathers throbbed with the outspoken joys of life. The old gateway,
+like many aged folk, has much on which to meditate in its advanced
+age.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P359"></a><img src="./images/il134.png" alt="Net maker" title="" /><br />
+An Ancient Maker of Nets in a Kentish Fair</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_360"></a>Many other fairs have been suppressed in recent years, but some
+survive and thrive with even greater vigour than ever. Some are hiring
+fairs, where you may see young men with whipcord in their caps
+standing in front of inns ready to be hired by the farmers who come to
+seek labourers. Women and girls too come to be hired, but their number
+decreases every year. Such is the Abingdon fair, which no rustic in
+the adjoining villages ever thinks of missing. We believe that the
+Nottingham Goose Fair, which is attended by very large crowds, is also
+a hiring fair. &quot;Pleasure fairs&quot; in several towns and cities show no
+sign of diminished popularity. The famous St. Giles's Fair at Oxford
+is attended by thousands, and excursion trains from London, Cardiff,
+Reading, and other large towns bring crowds to join in the humours of
+the gathering, the shows covering all the broad space between St.
+Giles's Church and George Street. Reading Michaelmas Pleasure Fair is
+always a great attraction. The fair-ground is filled from end to end
+with roundabouts driven by steam, which also plays a hideous organ
+that grinds out popular tunes, swings, stalls, shows, menageries, and
+all &quot;the fun of the fair.&quot; You can see biographs, hear phonographs,
+and a penny-in-the-slot will introduce you to wonderful sights, and
+have your fortune told, or shy at coco-nuts or Aunt Sally, or witness
+displays of boxing, or have a photograph taken of yourself, or watch
+weird melodramas, and all for a penny or two. No wonder the fair is
+popular.</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P361"></a><img src="./images/il135.png" alt="Outside the Lamb Inn" title="" /><br />
+Outside The &quot;Lamb Inn&quot;. Burford, Oxon</p>
+
+<p>There is no reverence paid in these modern gatherings to old-fashioned
+ways and ancient picturesque customs, but in some places these are
+still observed with punctilious exactness. The quaint custom of
+&quot;proclaiming the fair&quot; at Honiton, in Devonshire, is observed every
+year, the town having obtained the grant of a fair from the lord of
+the manor so long ago as 1257. The fair still retains some of the
+picturesque characteristics of bygone days. The town crier, dressed in
+old-world uniform, and carrying a pole decorated with gay flowers and
+surmounted by <a name="Page_361"></a><a name="Page_362"></a>a large gilt model of a gloved hand, publicly
+announces the opening of the fair as follows: &quot;Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! The
+fair's begun, the glove is up. No man can be arrested till the glove
+is taken down.&quot; Hot coins are then thrown amongst the children. The
+pole and glove remain displayed until the end of the fair.</p>
+
+<p>Nor have all the practical uses of fairs vanished. On the Berkshire
+downs is the little village of West Ilsley; there from time immemorial
+great sheep fairs are held, and flocks are brought thither from
+districts far and wide. Every year herds of Welsh ponies congregate at
+Blackwater, in Hampshire, driven thither by inveterate custom. Every
+year in an open field near Cambridge the once great Stourbridge fair
+is held, first granted by King John to the Hospital for Lepers, and
+formerly proclaimed with great state by the Vice-Chancellor of the
+University and the Mayor of Cambridge. This was one of the largest
+fairs in Europe. Merchants of all nations attended it. The booths were
+planted in a cornfield, and the circuit of the fair, which was like a
+well-governed city, was about three miles. All offences committed
+therein were tried, as at other fairs, before a special court of
+<i>pie-poudre</i>, the derivation of which word has been much disputed, and
+I shall not attempt to conjecture or to decide. The shops were built
+in rows, having each a name, such as Garlick Row, Booksellers' Row, or
+Cooks' Row; there were the cheese fair, hop fair, wood fair; every
+trade was represented, and there were taverns, eating-houses, and in
+later years playhouses of various descriptions. As late as the
+eighteenth century it is said that one hundred thousand pounds' worth
+of woollen goods were sold in a week in one row alone. But the glories
+of Stourbridge fair have all departed, and it is only a ghost now of
+its former greatness.</p>
+
+<p>The Stow Green pleasure fair, in Lincolnshire, which has been held
+annually for upwards of eight hundred years, having been established
+in the reign of Henry III, has practically ceased to exist. Held on an
+isolated <a name="Page_363"></a>common two miles from Billingborough, it was formerly one of
+the largest fairs in England for merchandise, and originally lasted
+for three weeks. Now it is limited to two days, and when it opened
+last year there were but few attractions.</p>
+
+<p>Fairs have enriched our language with at least one word. There is a
+fair at Ely founded in connexion with the abbey built by St.
+Etheldreda, and at this fair a famous &quot;fairing&quot; was &quot;St. Audrey's
+laces.&quot; St. Audrey, or Etheldreda, in the days of her youthful vanity
+was very fond of wearing necklaces and jewels. &quot;St. Audrey's laces&quot;
+became corrupted into &quot;Tawdry laces&quot;; hence the adjective has come to
+be applied to all cheap and showy pieces of female ornament.</p>
+
+<p>Trade now finds its way by means of other channels than fairs.
+Railways and telegrams have changed the old methods of conducting the
+commerce of the country. But, as we have said, many fairs have
+contrived to survive, and unless they degenerate into a scandal and a
+nuisance it is well that they should be continued. Education and the
+increasing sobriety of the nation may deprive them of their more
+objectionable features, and it would be a pity to prevent the rustic
+from having some amusements which do not often fall to his lot, and to
+forbid him from enjoying once a year &quot;all the fun of the fair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr"><a name="IL_P363"></a><img src="./images/il136.png" alt="Tail Piece" title="" /></p>
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><a name="Page_364"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DISAPPEARANCE OF OLD DOCUMENTS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The history of England is enshrined in its ancient documents. Some of
+it may be read in its stone walls and earthworks. The builders of our
+churches stamped its story on their stones, and by the shape of arch
+and design of window, by porch and doorway, tower and buttress you can
+read the history of the building and tell its age and the dates of its
+additions and alterations. Inscriptions, monuments, and brasses help
+to fill in the details; but all would be in vain if we had no
+documentary evidence, no deeds and charters, registers and wills, to
+help us to build up the history of each town and monastery, castle and
+manor. Even after the most careful searches in the Record Office and
+the British Museum it is very difficult oftentimes to trace a manorial
+descent. You spend time and labour, eyesight and midnight oil in
+trying to discover missing links, and very often it is all in vain;
+the chain remains broken, and you cannot piece it together. Some of us
+whose fate it is to have to try and solve some of these genealogical
+problems, and spend hours over a manorial descent, are inclined to
+envy other writers who fill their pages <i>currente calamo</i> and are
+ignorant of the joys and disappointments of research work.</p>
+
+<p>In the making of the history of England patient research and the
+examination of documents are, of course, all-important. In the parish
+chest, in the municipal charters and records, in court rolls, in the
+muniment-rooms of guilds and city companies, of squire and noble, <a name="Page_365"></a>in
+the Record Office, Pipe Rolls, Close Rolls, royal letters and papers,
+etc., the real history of the country is contained. Masses of Rolls
+and documents of all kinds have in these late years been arranged,
+printed, and indexed, enabling the historical student to avail himself
+of vast stores of information which were denied to the historian of an
+earlier age, or could only be acquired by the expenditure of immense
+toil.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, we have to deplore the disappearance of large numbers of
+priceless manuscripts, the value of which was not recognized by their
+custodians. Owing to the ignorance and carelessness of these keepers
+of historic documents vast stores have been hopelessly lost or
+destroyed, and have vanished with much else of the England that is
+vanishing. We know of a Corporation&mdash;that of Abingdon, in Berkshire,
+the oldest town in the royal county and anciently its most
+important&mdash;which possessed an immense store of municipal archives.
+These manuscript books would throw light upon the history of the
+borough; but in their wisdom the members of the Corporation decided
+that they should be sold for waste paper! A few gentlemen were deputed
+to examine the papers in order to see if anything was worth
+preserving. They spent a few hours on the task, which would have
+required months for even a cursory inspection, and much expert
+knowledge, which these gentlemen did not possess, and reported that
+there was nothing in the documents of interest or importance, and the
+books and papers were sold to a dealer. Happily a private gentleman
+purchased the &quot;waste paper,&quot; which remains in his hands, and was not
+destroyed: but this example only shows the insecurity of much of the
+material upon which local and municipal history depends.</p>
+
+<p>Court rolls, valuable wills and deeds are often placed by noble owners
+and squires in the custody of their solicitors. They repose in peace
+in safes or tin boxes with the name of the client printed on them.
+Recent legislation has made it possible to prove a title without
+reference <a name="Page_366"></a>to all the old deeds. Hence the contents of these boxes are
+regarded only as old lumber and of no value. A change is made in the
+office. The old family solicitor dies, and the new man proceeds with
+the permission of his clients to burn all these musty papers, which
+are of immense value in tracing the history of a manor or of a family.
+Some years ago a leading family solicitor became bankrupt. His office
+was full of old family deeds and municipal archives. What happened? A
+fire was kindled in the garden, and for a whole fortnight it was fed
+with parchment deeds and rolls, many of them of immense value to the
+genealogist and the antiquary. It was all done very speedily, and no
+one had a chance to interfere. This is only one instance of what we
+fear has taken place in many offices, the speedy disappearance of
+documents which can never be replaced.</p>
+
+<p>From the contents of the parish chests, from churchwardens'
+account-books, we learn much concerning the economic history of the
+country, and the methods of the administration of local and parochial
+government. As a rule persons interested in such matters have to
+content themselves with the statements of the ecclesiastical law books
+on the subject of the repair of churches, the law of church rates, the
+duties of churchwardens, and the constitution and power of vestries.
+And yet there has always existed a variety of customs and practices
+which have stood for ages on their prescriptive usage with many
+complications and minute differentiations. These old account-books and
+minute-books of the churchwardens in town and country are a very large
+but a very perishable and rapidly perishing treasury of information on
+matters the very remembrance of which is passing away. Yet little care
+is taken of these books. An old book is finished and filled up with
+entries; a new book is begun. No one takes any care of the old book.
+It is too bulky for the little iron register safe. A farmer takes
+charge of it; his children tear out pages on which to make their
+drawings; it is torn, mutilated, and forgotten, and the <a name="Page_367"></a>record
+perishes. All honour to those who have transcribed these documents
+with much labour and endless pains and printed them. They will have
+gained no money for their toil. The public do not show their gratitude
+to such laborious students by purchasing many copies, but the
+transcribers know that they have fitted another stone in the Temple of
+Knowledge, and enabled antiquaries, genealogists, economists, and
+historical inquirers to find material for their pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>The churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's, Thame, and some of the most
+interesting in the kingdom, are being printed in the <i>Berks, Bucks,
+and Oxon Arch&aelig;ological Journal</i>. The originals were nearly lost.
+Somehow they came into the possession of the Buckinghamshire
+Arch&aelig;ological Society. The volume was lent to the late Rev. F. Lee, in
+whose library it remained and could not be recovered. At his death it
+was sold with his other books, and found its way to the Bodleian
+Library at Oxford. There it was transcribed by Mr. Patterson Ellis,
+and then went back to the Buckinghamshire Society after its many
+wanderings. It dates back to the fifteenth century, and records many
+curious items of pre-Reformation manners and customs.</p>
+
+<p>From these churchwardens' accounts we learn how our forefathers raised
+money for the expenses of the church and of the parish. Provision for
+the poor, mending of roads, the improvement of agriculture by the
+killing of sparrows, all came within the province of the vestry, as
+well as the care of the church and churchyard. We learn about such
+things as &quot;Gatherings&quot; at Hocktide, May-day, All Hallow-day,
+Christmas, and Whitsuntide, the men stopping the women on one day and
+demanding money, while on the next day the women retaliated, and
+always gained more for the parish fund than those of the opposite sex:
+Church Ales, the Holy Loaf, Paschal Money, Watching the Sepulchre, the
+duties of clerks and clergymen, and much else, besides the general
+principles of local self-government, which the vestrymen <a name="Page_368"></a>carried on
+until quite recent times. There are few books that provide greater
+information or more absorbing interest than these wonderful books of
+accounts. It is a sad pity that so many have vanished.</p>
+
+<p>The parish register books have suffered less than the churchwardens'
+accounts, but there has been terrible neglect and irreparable loss.
+Their custody has been frequently committed to ignorant parish clerks,
+who had no idea of their utility beyond their being occasionally the
+means of putting a shilling into their pockets for furnishing
+extracts. Sometimes they were in the care of an incumbent who was
+forgetful, careless, or negligent. Hence they were indifferently kept,
+and baptisms, burials, and marriages were not entered as they ought to
+have been. In one of my own register books an indignant parson writes
+in the year 1768: &quot;There does not appear any one entry of a Baptism,
+Marriage, or Burial in the old Register for nine successive years,
+viz. from the year 1732 till the year 1741, when this Register
+commences.&quot; The fact was that the old parchment book beginning A.D.
+1553 was quite full and crowded with names, and the rector never
+troubled to provide himself with a new one. Fortunately this sad
+business took place long before our present septuagenarians were born,
+or there would be much confusion and uncertainty with regard to
+old-age pensions.</p>
+
+<p>The disastrous period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth caused
+great confusion and many defects in the registers. Very often the
+rector was turned out of his parish; the intruding minister, often an
+ignorant mechanic, cared naught for registers. Registrars were
+appointed in each parish who could scarcely sign their names, much
+less enter a baptism. Hence we find very frequent gaps in the books
+from 1643 to 1660. At Tarporley, Cheshire, there is a break from 1643
+to 1648, upon which a sorrowful vicar remarks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;This Intermission hapned by reason of the great wars
+   obliterating memorials, wasting fortunes, and slaughtering
+   persons of all sorts.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p><a name="Page_369"></a>The Parliamentary soldiers amused themselves by tearing out the leaves
+in the registers for the years 1604 to the end of 1616 in the parish
+of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire.</p>
+
+<p>There is a curious note in the register of Tunstall, Kent. There seems
+to have been a superfluity of members of the family of Pottman in this
+parish, and the clergyman appears to have been tired of recording
+their names in his books, and thus resolves:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">&quot;1557&nbsp;  Mary Pottman nat. &amp; bapt. 15 Apr.<br />
+Mary Pottman n. &amp; b. 29 Jan.<br />
+Mary Pottman sep. 22 Aug.<br />
+1567<br />
+From henceforw<sup>d</sup> I omitt the Pottmans.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Fire has played havoc with parish registers. The old register of
+Arborfield, Berkshire, was destroyed by a fire at the rectory. Those
+at Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, were burnt in a fire which consumed
+two-thirds of the town in 1676, and many others have shared the same
+fate. The Spaniards raided the coast of Cornwall in 1595 and burnt the
+church at Paul, when the registers perished in the conflagration.</p>
+
+<p>Wanton destruction has caused the disappearance of many parish books.
+There was a parish clerk at Plungar in Leicestershire who combined his
+ecclesiastical duties with those of a grocer. He found the pages of
+the parish register very useful for wrapping up his groceries. The
+episcopal registry of Ely seems to have been plundered at some time of
+its treasures, as some one purchased a book entitled <i>Registrum
+causarum Consistorii Eliensis de Tempore Domini Thome de Arundele
+Episcopi Eliensis</i>, a large quarto, written on vellum, containing 162
+double pages, which was purchased as waste paper at a grocer's shop at
+Cambridge together with forty or fifty old books belonging to the
+registry of Ely. The early registers at Christ Church, Hampshire, were
+destroyed by a curate's wife who had made kettle-holders of them, and
+would perhaps have consumed the whole parish archives in this <a name="Page_370"></a>homely
+fashion, had not the parish clerk, by a timely interference, rescued
+the remainder. One clergyman, being unable to transcribe certain
+entries which were required from his registers, cut them out and sent
+them by post; and an Essex clerk, not having ink and paper at hand for
+copying out an extract, calmly took out his pocket-knife and cut out
+two leaves, handing them to the applicant. Sixteen leaves of another
+old register were cut out by the clerk, who happened to be a tailor,
+in order to supply himself with measures. Tradesmen seem to have found
+these books very useful. The marriage register of Hanney, Berkshire,
+from 1754 to 1760 was lost, but later on discovered in a grocer's
+shop.</p>
+
+<p>Deplorable has been the fate of these old books, so valuable to the
+genealogist. Upon the records contained there the possession of much
+valuable property may depend. The father of the present writer was
+engaged in proving his title to an estate, and required certificates
+of all the births, deaths, and marriages that had occurred in the
+family during a hundred years. All was complete save the record of one
+marriage. He discovered that his ancestor had eloped with a young
+lady, and the couple had married in London at a City church. The name
+of the church where the wedding was said to have taken place was
+suggested to him, but he discovered that it had been pulled down.
+However, the old parish clerk was discovered, who had preserved the
+books; the entry was found, and all went well and the title to the
+estate established. How many have failed to obtain their rights and
+just claims through the gross neglect of the keepers or custodians of
+parochial documents?</p>
+
+<p>An old register was kept in the drawer of an old table, together with
+rusty iron and endless rubbish, by a parish clerk who was a poor
+labouring man. Another was said to be so old and &quot;out of date&quot; and so
+difficult to read by the parson and his neighbours, that it had been
+tossed about the church and finally carried off by children and torn
+to pieces. The leaves of an old parchment register <a name="Page_371"></a>were discovered
+sewed together as a covering for the tester of a bedstead, and the
+daughters of a parish clerk, who were lace-makers, cut up the pages of
+a register for a supply of parchment to make patterns for their lace
+manufacture. Two Leicestershire registers were rescued, one from the
+shop of a bookseller, the other from the corner cupboard of a
+blacksmith, where it had lain perishing and unheard of more than
+thirty years. The following extract from <i>Notes and Queries</i> tells of
+the sad fate of other books:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;On visiting the village school of Colton it was discovered that
+   the 'Psalters' of the children were covered with the leaves of
+   the Parish Register; some of them were recovered, and replaced in
+   the parish chest, but many were totally obliterated and cut away.
+   This discovery led to further investigation, which brought to
+   light a practice of the Parish Clerk and Schoolmaster of the day,
+   who to certain 'goodies' of the village, gave the parchment
+   leaves for hutkins for their knitting pins.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Still greater desecration has taken place. The registers of South
+Otterington, containing several entries of the great families of
+Talbot, Herbert, and Falconer, were kept in the cottage of the parish
+clerk, who used all those preceding the eighteenth century for waste
+paper, and devoted not a few to the utilitarian employment of singeing
+a goose. At Appledore the books were lost through having been kept in
+a public-house for the delectation of its frequenters.</p>
+
+<p>But many parsons have kept their registers with consummate care. The
+name of the Rev. John Yate, rector of Rodmarton, Gloucestershire, in
+1630, should be mentioned as a worthy and careful custodian on account
+of his quaint directions for the preservation of his registers. He
+wrote in the volume:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;If you will have this Book last, bee sure to aire it att the
+   fier or in the Sunne three or foure times a yeare&mdash;els it will
+   grow dankish and rott, therefore look to it. It will not be
+   amisse when you finde it dankish to wipe over the <a name="Page_372"></a>leaves with a
+   dry woollen cloth. This place is very much subject to
+   dankishness, therefore I say looke to it.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Sometimes the parsons adorned their books with their poetical
+effusions either in Latin or English. Here are two examples, the first
+from Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire; the second from Ruyton, Salop:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">Hic puer &aelig;tatem, his Vir sponsalia noscat.<br />
+Hic decessorum funera quisque sciat.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">No Flatt'ry here, where to be born and die<br />
+Of rich and poor is all the history.<br />
+Enough, if virtue fill'd the space between,<br />
+Prov'd, by the ends of being, to have been.</p>
+
+<p>Bishop Kennet urged his clergy to enter in their registers not only
+every christening, wedding, or burial, which entries have proved some
+of the best helps for the preserving of history, but also any notable
+events that may have occurred in the parish or neighbourhood, such as
+&quot;storms and lightning, contagion and mortality, droughts, scarcity,
+plenty, longevity, robbery, murders, or the like casualties. If such
+memorable things were fairly entered, your parish registers would
+become chronicles of many strange occurrences that would not otherwise
+be known and would be of great use and service for posterity to know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The clergy have often acted upon this suggestion. In the registers of
+Cranbrook, Kent, we find a long account of the great plague that raged
+there in 1558, with certain moral reflections on the vice of
+&quot;drunkeness which abounded here,&quot; on the base characters of the
+persons in whose houses the Plague began and ended, on the vehemence
+of the infection in &quot;the Inns and Suckling houses of the town, places
+of much disorder,&quot; and tells how great dearth followed the Plague
+&quot;with much wailing and sorrow,&quot; and how the judgment of God seemed but
+to harden the people in their sin.</p>
+
+<p>The Eastwell register contains copies of the Protestation of 1642, the
+Vow and Covenant of 1643, and the Solemn League and Covenant of the
+same year, all <a name="Page_373"></a>signed by sundry parishioners, and of the death of the
+last of the Plantagenets, Richard by name, a bricklayer by trade, in
+1550, whom Richard III acknowledged to be his son on the eve of the
+battle of Bosworth. At St. Oswalds, Durham, there is the record of the
+hanging and quartering in 1590 of &quot;Duke, Hyll, Hogge and Holyday, iiij
+Semynaryes, Papysts, Tretors and Rebels for their horrible offences.&quot;
+&quot;Burials, 1687 April 17th Georges Vilaus Lord dooke of bookingham,&quot; is
+the illiterate description of the Duke who was assassinated by Felton
+and buried at Helmsley. It is impossible to mention all the gleanings
+from parish registers; each parish tells its tale, its trades, its
+belief in witchcraft, its burials of soldiers killed in war, its
+stories of persecution, riot, sudden deaths, amazing virtues, and
+terrible sins. The edicts of the laws of England, wise and foolish,
+are reflected in these pages, e.g. the enforced burial in woollen; the
+relatives of those who desired to be buried in linen were obliged to
+pay fifty shillings to the informer and the same sum to the poor of
+the parish. The tax on marriages, births, and burials, levied by the
+Government on the estates of gentlemen in 1693, is also recorded in
+such entries as the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;1700. Mr. Thomas Cullum buried 27 Dec. As the said Mr. Cullum was a
+gentleman, there is 24s. to be paid for his buriall.&quot; The practice of
+heart-burial is also frequently demonstrated in our books.
+Extraordinary superstitions and strong beliefs, the use of talismans,
+amulets, and charms, astrological observations, the black art,
+scandals, barbarous punishments, weird customs that prevailed at man's
+most important ceremonies, his baptism, marriage and burial, the
+binding of apprenticeships, obsolete trades, such as that of the
+person who is styled &quot;aquavity man&quot; or the &quot;saltpetre man,&quot; the mode
+of settling quarrels and disputes, duels, sports, games, brawls, the
+expenses of supplying a queen's household, local customs and
+observances&mdash;all these find a place in these amazing records. In
+short, there is <a name="Page_374"></a>scarcely any feature of the social life of our
+forefathers which is not abundantly set forth in our parish registers.
+The loss of them would indeed be great and overwhelming.</p>
+
+<p>As we have said, many of them have been lost by fire and other
+casualties, by neglect and carelessness. The guarding of the safety of
+those that remain is an anxious problem. Many of us would regret to
+part with our registers and to allow them to leave the church or town
+or village wherein they have reposed so long. They are part of the
+story of the place, and when American ladies and gentlemen come to
+find traces of their ancestors they love to see these records in the
+village where their forefathers lived, and to carry away with them a
+photograph of the church, some ivy from the tower, some flowers from
+the rectory garden, to preserve in their western homes as memorials of
+the place whence their family came. It would not be the same thing if
+they were to be referred to a dusty office in a distant town. Some
+wise people say that all registers should be sent to London, to the
+Record Office or the British Museum. That would be an impossibility.
+The officials of those institutions would tremble at the thought, and
+the glut of valuable books would make reference a toil that few could
+undertake. The real solution of the difficulty is that county councils
+should provide accommodation for all deeds and documents, that all
+registers should be transcribed, that copies should be deposited in
+the county council depository, and that the originals should still
+remain in the parish chest where they have lain for three centuries
+and a half.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><a name="Page_375"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD CUSTOMS THAT ARE VANISHING</h3>
+
+<p>Many writers have mourned over the decay of our ancient customs which
+the restlessness of modern life has effectually killed. New manners
+are ever pushing out the old, and the lover of antiquity may perhaps
+be pardoned if he prefers the more ancient modes. The death of the old
+social customs which added such diversity to the lives of our
+forefathers tends to render the countryman's life one continuous round
+of labour unrelieved by pleasant pastime, and if innocent pleasures
+are not indulged in, the tendency is to seek for gratification in
+amusements that are not innocent or wholesome.</p>
+
+<p>The causes of the decline and fall of many old customs are not far to
+seek. Agricultural depression has killed many. The deserted farmsteads
+no longer echo with the sounds of rural revelry; the cheerful
+log-fires no longer glow in the farmer's kitchen; the harvest-home
+song has died away; and &quot;largess&quot; no longer rewards the mummers and
+the morris-dancers. Moreover, the labourer himself has changed; he has
+lost his simplicity. His lot is far better than it was half a century
+ago, and he no longer takes pleasure in the simple joys that delighted
+his ancestors in days of yore. Railways and cheap excursions have made
+him despise the old games and pastimes which once pleased his
+unenlightened soul. The old labourer is dead, and his successor is a
+very &quot;up-to-date&quot; person, who reads the newspapers and has his ideas
+upon politics and social questions that would have startled his less
+cultivated sire. The modern system of <a name="Page_376"></a>elementary education also has
+much to do with the decay of old customs.</p>
+
+<p>Still we have some left. We can only here record a few that survive.
+Some years ago I wrote a volume on the subject, and searched
+diligently to find existing customs in the remote corners of old
+England.<a name="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61"><sup>61</sup></a> My book proved useful to Sir Benjamin Stone, M.P., the
+expert photographer of the House of Commons, who went about with his
+camera to many of the places indicated, and by his art produced
+permanent presentments of the scenes which I had tried to describe. He
+was only just in time, as doubtless many of these customs will soon
+pass away. It is, however, surprising to find how much has been left;
+how tenaciously the English race clings to that which habit and usage
+have established; how deeply rooted they are in the affections of the
+people. It is really remarkable that at the present day, in spite of
+ages of education and social enlightenment, in spite of centuries of
+Christian teaching and practice, we have now amongst us many customs
+which owe their origin to pagan beliefs and the superstitions of our
+heathen forefathers, and have no other <i>raison d'&ecirc;tre</i> for their
+existence than the wild legends of Scandinavian mythology.</p>
+
+<p>We have still our Berkshire mummers at Christmas, who come to us
+disguised in strange garb and begin their quaint performance with the
+doggerel rhymes&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">I am King George, that noble champion bold,<br />
+And with my trusty sword I won ten thousand pounds in gold;<br />
+'Twas I that fought the fiery dragon, and brought him to the slaughter,<br />
+And by these means I won the King of Egypt's daughter.
+<a name="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62"><sup>62</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Other counties have their own versions. In Staffordshire they are
+known as the &quot;Guisers,&quot; in Cornwall as the &quot;Geese-dancers,&quot; in Sussex
+as the &quot;Tipteerers.&quot; Carolsingers are still with us, but often instead
+of the old carols they sing very badly and irreverently modern hymns,
+<a name="Page_377"></a>though in Cambridgeshire you may still hear &quot;God bless you, merry
+gentlemen,&quot; and the vessel-boxes (a corruption of wassail) are still
+carried round in Yorkshire. At Christmas Cornish folk eat giblet-pie,
+and Yorkshiremen enjoy furmenty; and mistletoe and the kissing-bush
+are still hung in the hall; and in some remote parts of Cornwall
+children may be seen dancing round painted lighted candles placed in a
+box of sand. The devil's passing-bell tolls on Christmas Eve from the
+church tower at Dewsbury, and a muffled peal bewails the slaughter of
+the children on Holy Innocents' Day. The boar's head is still brought
+in triumph into the hall of Queen's College. Old women &quot;go a-gooding&quot;
+or mumping on St. Thomas's Day, and &quot;hoodening&quot; or horse-head mumming
+is practised at Walmer, and bull-hoodening prevails at Kingscote, in
+Gloucestershire. The ancient custom of &quot;goodening&quot; still obtains at
+Braughing, Herts. The <i>Hertfordshire Mercury</i> of December 28, 1907,
+states that on St. Thomas's Day (December 21) certain of the more
+sturdy widows of the village went round &quot;goodening,&quot; and collected &pound;4
+14s. 6d., which was equally divided among the eighteen needy widows of
+the parish. In 1899 the oldest dame who took part in the ceremony was
+aged ninety-three, while in 1904 a widow &quot;goodened&quot; for the thirtieth
+year in succession. In the <i>Herts and Cambs Reporter</i> for December 23,
+1904, is an account of &quot;Gooding Day&quot; at Gamlingay. It appears that in
+1665 some almshouses for aged women (widows) were built there by Sir
+John Jacob, Knight. &quot;On Wednesday last (St. Thomas's Day),&quot; says this
+journal, &quot;an interesting ceremony was to be seen. The old women were
+gathered at the central doorway ... preparatory to a pilgrimage to
+collect alms at the houses of the leading inhabitants. This old
+custom, which has been observed for nearly three hundred years, it is
+safe to say, will not fall into desuetude, for it usually results in
+each poor widow realising a gold coin.&quot; In the north of England
+first-footing on New Year's Eve is common, and a dark-complexioned
+<a name="Page_378"></a>person is esteemed as a herald of good fortune. Wassailing exists in
+Lancashire, and the apple-wassailing has not quite died out on Twelfth
+Night. Plough Monday is still observed in Cambridgeshire, and the
+&quot;plough-bullocks&quot; drag around the parishes their ploughs and perform a
+weird play. The Haxey hood is still thrown at that place in
+Lincolnshire on the Feast of the Epiphany, and valentines are not
+quite forgotten by rural lovers.</p>
+
+<p>Shrovetide is associated with pancakes. The pancake bell is still rung
+in many places, and for some occult reason it is the season for some
+wild football games in the streets and lanes of several towns and
+villages. At St. Ives on the Monday there is a grand hurling match,
+which resembles a Rugby football contest without the kicking of the
+ball, which is about the size of a cricket-ball, made of cork or light
+wood. At Ashbourne on Shrove-Tuesday thousands join in the game, the
+origin of which is lost in the mists of antiquity. As the old church
+clock strikes two a little speech is made, the National Anthem sung,
+and then some popular devotee of the game is hoisted on the shoulders
+of excited players and throws up the ball. &quot;She's up,&quot; is the cry, and
+then the wild contest begins, which lasts often till nightfall.
+Several efforts have been made to stop the game, and even the judge of
+the Court of Queen's Bench had to decide whether it was legal to play
+the game in the streets. In spite of some opposition it still
+flourishes, and is likely to do so for many a long year. Sedgefield,
+Chester-le-Street, Alnwick, Dorking also have their famous football
+fights, which differ much from an ordinary league match. In the latter
+thousands look on while twenty-two men show their skill. In these old
+games all who wish take part in them, all are keen champions and know
+nothing of professionalism.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ycleping,&quot; or, as it is now called, clipping churches, is another
+Shrovetide custom, when the children join hands round the church and
+walk round it. It has just been revived at Painswick, in the
+Cotswolds, where <a name="Page_379"></a>after being performed for many hundred years it was
+discontinued by the late vicar. On the patron saint's day (St. Mary's)
+the children join hands in a ring round the church and circle round
+the building singing. It is the old Saxon custom of &quot;ycleping,&quot; or
+naming the church on the anniversary of its original dedication.</p>
+
+<p>Simnels on Mothering Sunday still exist, reminding us of Herrick's
+lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">I'll to thee a Simnel bring,<br />
+'Gainst thou goes a mothering;<br />
+So that when she blesseth thee<br />
+Half the blessing thou'lt give me.</p>
+
+<p>Palm Sunday brings some curious customs. At Roundway Hill, and at
+Martinsall, near Marlborough, the people bear &quot;palms,&quot; or branches of
+willow and hazel, and the boys play a curious game of knocking a ball
+with hockey-sticks up the hill; and in Buckinghamshire it is called
+Fig Sunday, and also in Hertfordshire. Hertford, Kempton,
+Edlesborough, Dunstable are homes of the custom, nor is the practice
+of eating figs and figpies unknown in Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire,
+Oxfordshire, Wilts, and North Wales. Possibly the custom is connected
+with the withering of the barren fig-tree.</p>
+
+<p>Good Friday brings hot-cross-buns with the well-known rhyme. Skipping
+on that day at Brighton is, I expect, now extinct. Sussex boys play
+marbles, Guildford folk climb St. Martha's Hill, and poor widows pick
+up six-pences from a tomb in the churchyard of St. Bartholomew the
+Great, London, on the same Holy Day.</p>
+
+<p>Easter brings its Pace eggs, symbols of the Resurrection, and
+Yorkshire children roll them against one another in fields and
+gardens. The Biddenham cakes are distributed, and the Hallaton
+hare-scramble and bottle-kicking provide a rough scramble and a
+curious festival for Easter Monday. On St. Mark's Day the ghosts of
+all who will die during the year in the villages of Yorkshire pass at
+midnight before the waiting people, and<a name="Page_380"></a> Hock-tide brings its quaint
+diversions to the little Berkshire town of Hungerford.</p>
+
+<p>The diversions of May Day are too numerous to be chronicled here, and
+I must refer the reader to my book for a full description of the
+sports that usher in the spring; but we must not forget the remarkable
+Furry Dance at Helston on May 8th, and the beating of the bounds of
+many a township during Rogation Week. Our boys still wear oak-leaves
+on Royal Oak Day, and the Durham Cathedral choir sing anthems on the
+top of the tower in memory of the battle of Neville's Cross, fought so
+long ago as the year 1346.</p>
+
+<p>Club-feasts and morris-dancers delight the rustics at Whitsuntide, and
+the wakes are well kept up in the north of England, and rush-beating
+at Ambleside, and hay-strewing customs in Leicestershire. The horn
+dance at Abbot Bromley is a remarkable survival. The fires on
+Midsummer Eve are still lighted in a few places in Wales, but are fast
+dying out. Ratby, in Leicestershire, is a home of old customs, and has
+an annual feast, when the toast of the immortal memory of John of
+Gaunt is drunk with due solemnity. Harvest customs were formerly very
+numerous, but are fast dying out before the reaping-machines and
+agricultural depression. The &quot;kern-baby&quot; has been dead some years.</p>
+
+<p>Bonfire night and the commemoration of the discovery of Gunpowder Plot
+and the burning of &quot;guys&quot; are still kept up merrily, but few know the
+origin of the festivities or concern themselves about it. Soul cakes
+and souling still linger on in Cheshire, and cattering and clemmening
+on the feasts of St. Catherine and St. Clement are still observed in
+East Sussex.</p>
+
+<p>Very remarkable are the local customs which linger on in some of our
+towns and villages and are not confined to any special day in the
+year. Thus, at Abbots Ann, near Andover, the good people hang up
+effigies of arms and hands in memory of girls who died unmarried, and
+gloves and garlands of roses are sometimes hung for the same <a name="Page_381"></a>purpose.
+The Dunmow Flitch is a well-known matrimonial prize for happy couples
+who have never quarrelled during the first year of their wedded life;
+while a Skimmerton expresses popular indignation against quarrelsome
+or licentious husbands and wives.</p>
+
+<p>Many folk-customs linger around wells and springs, the haunts of
+nymphs and sylvan deities who must be propitiated by votive offerings
+and are revengeful when neglected. Pins, nails, and rags are still
+offered, and the custom of &quot;well-dressing,&quot; shorn of its pagan
+associations and adapted to Christian usage, exists in all its glory
+at Tissington, Youlgrave, Derby, and several other places.</p>
+
+<p>The three great events of human life&mdash;birth, marriage, and death&mdash;have
+naturally drawn around them some of the most curious beliefs. These
+are too numerous to be recorded here, and I must again refer the
+curious reader to my book on old-time customs. We should like to dwell
+upon the most remarkable of the customs that prevail in the City of
+London, in the halls of the Livery Companies, as well as in some of
+the ancient boroughs of England, but this record would require too
+large a space. Bell-ringing customs attract attention. The curfew-bell
+still rings in many towers; the harvest-bell, the gleaning-bell, the
+pancake-bell, the &quot;spur-peal,&quot; the eight-hours' bell, and sundry
+others send out their pleasing notice to the world. At Aldermaston
+land is let by means of a lighted candle. A pin is placed through the
+candle, and the last bid that is made before that pin drops out is the
+occupier of the land for a year. The Church Acre at Chedzoy is let in
+a similar manner, and also at Todworth, Warton, and other places.
+Wiping the shoes of those who visit a market for the first time is
+practised at Brixham, and after that little ceremony they have to &quot;pay
+their footing.&quot; At St. Ives raffling for Bibles continues, according
+to the will of Dr. Wilde in 1675, and in church twelve children cast
+dice for six Bibles. Court, Bar, and Parliament have each their
+<a name="Page_382"></a>peculiar customs which it would be interesting to note, if space
+permitted; and we should like to record the curious bequests, doles,
+and charities which display the eccentricities of human nature and the
+strange tenures of land which have now fallen into disuse.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be hoped that those who are in a position to preserve any
+existing custom in their own neighbourhood will do their utmost to
+prevent its decay. Popular customs are a heritage which has been
+bequeathed to us from a remote past, and it is our duty to hand down
+that heritage to future generations of English folk.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><a name="Page_383"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VANISHING OF ENGLISH SCENERY AND NATURAL BEAUTY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Not the least distressing of the losses which we have to mourn is the
+damage that has been done to the beauty of our English landscapes and
+the destruction of many scenes of sylvan loveliness. The population of
+our large towns continues to increase owing to the insensate folly
+that causes the rural exodus. People imagine that the streets of towns
+are paved with gold, and forsake the green fields for a crowded slum,
+and after many vicissitudes and much hardship wish themselves back
+again in their once despised village home. I was lecturing to a crowd
+of East End Londoners at Toynbee Hall on village life in ancient and
+modern times, and showed them views of the old village street, the
+cottages, manor-houses, water-mills, and all the charms of rural
+England, and after the lecture I talked with many of the men who
+remembered their country homes which they had left in the days of
+their youth, and they all wished to go back there again, if only they
+could find work and had not lost the power of doing it. But the rural
+exodus continues. Towns increase rapidly, and cottages have to be
+found for these teeming multitudes. Many a rural glade and stretch of
+woodland have to be sacrificed, and soon streets are formed and rows
+of unsightly cottages spring up like magic, with walls terribly thin,
+that can scarcely stop the keenness of the wintry blasts, so thin that
+each neighbour <a name="Page_384"></a>can hear your conversation, and if a man has a few
+words with his wife all the inhabitants of the row can hear him.</p>
+
+<p>Garden cities have arisen as a remedy for this evil, carefully planned
+dwelling-places wherein some thought is given to beauty and
+picturesque surroundings, to plots for gardens, and to the comfort of
+the fortunate citizens. But some garden cities are garden only in
+name. Cheap villas surrounded by unsightly fields that have been
+spoilt and robbed of all beauty, with here and there unsightly heaps
+of rubbish and refuse, only delude themselves and other people by
+calling themselves garden cities. Too often there is no attempt at
+beauty. Cheapness and speedy construction are all that their makers
+strive for.</p>
+
+<p>These growing cities, ever increasing, ever enclosing fresh victims in
+their hideous maw, work other ills. They require much food, and they
+need water. Water must be found and conveyed to them. This has been no
+easy task for many corporations. For many years the city of Liverpool
+drew its supply from Rivington, a range of hills near Bolton-le-Moors,
+where there were lakes and where they could construct others. Little
+harm was done there; but the city grew and the supply was
+insufficient. Other sources had to be found and tapped. They found one
+in Wales. Their eyes fell on the Lake Vyrnwy, and believed that they
+found what they sought. But that, too, could not supply the millions
+of gallons that Liverpool needed. They found that the whole vale of
+Llanwddyn must be embraced. A gigantic dam must be made at the lower
+end of the valley, and the whole vale converted into one great lake.
+But there were villages in the vale, rural homes and habitations,
+churches and chapels, and over five hundred people who lived therein
+and must be turned out. And now the whole valley is a lake. Homes and
+churches lie beneath the waves, and the graves of the &quot;women that
+sleep,&quot; of the rude forefathers of the hamlet, of bairns and dear
+<a name="Page_385"></a>ones are overwhelmed by the pitiless waters. It is all very
+deplorable.</p>
+
+<p>And now it seems that the same thing must take place again: but this
+time it is an English valley that is concerned, and the people are the
+country folk of North Hampshire. There is a beautiful valley not far
+from Kingsclere and Newbury, surrounded by lovely hills covered with
+woodland. In this valley in a quiet little village appropriately
+called Woodlands, formed about half a century ago out of the large
+parish of Kingsclere, there is a little hamlet named Ashford Hill, the
+modern church of St. Paul, Woodlands, pretty cottages with pleasant
+gardens, a village inn, and a dissenting chapel. The churchyard is
+full of graves, and a cemetery has been lately added. This pretty
+valley with its homes and church and chapel is a doomed valley. In a
+few years time if a former resident returns home from Australia or
+America to his native village he will find his old cottage gone from
+the light of the sun and buried beneath the still waters of a huge
+lake. It is almost certain that such will be the case with this
+secluded rural scene. The eyes of Londoners have turned upon the
+doomed valley. They need water, and water must somehow be procured.
+The great city has no pity. The church and the village will have to be
+removed. It is all very sad. As a writer in a London paper says:
+&quot;Under the best of conditions it is impossible to think of such an
+eviction without sympathy for the grief that it must surely cause to
+some. The younger residents may contemplate it cheerfully enough; but
+for the elder folk, who have spent lives of sunshine and shade, toil,
+sorrow, joy, in this peaceful vale, it must needs be that the removal
+will bring a regret not to be lightly uttered in words. The soul of
+man clings to the localities that he has known and loved; perhaps, as
+in Wales, there will be some broken hearts when the water flows in
+upon the scenes where men and women have met and loved and wedded,
+where children have been born, where the beloved dead have been laid
+to rest.&quot;<a name="Page_386"></a></p>
+
+<p>The old forests are not safe. The Act of 1851 caused the destruction
+of miles of beautiful landscape. Peacock, in his story of <i>Gryll
+Grange</i>, makes the announcement that the New Forest is now enclosed,
+and that he proposes never to visit it again. Twenty-five years of
+ruthless devastation followed the passing of that Act. The deer
+disappeared. Stretches of open beechwood and green lawns broken by
+thickets of ancient thorn and holly vanished under the official axe.
+Woods and lawns were cleared and replaced by miles and miles of
+rectangular fir plantations. The Act of 1876 with regard to forest
+land came late, but it, happily, saved some spots of sylvan beauty.
+Under the Act of 1851 all that was ancient and delightful to the eye
+would have been levelled, or hidden in fir-wood. The later Act stopped
+this wholesale destruction. We have still some lofty woods, still some
+scenery that shows how England looked when it was a land of blowing
+woodland. The New Forest is maimed and scarred, but what is left is
+precious and unique. It is primeval forest land, nearly all that
+remains in the country. Are these treasures safe? Under the Act of
+1876 managers are told to consider beauty as well as profit, and to
+abstain from destroying ancient trees; but much is left to the
+decision and to the judgment of officials, and they are not always to
+be depended on.</p>
+
+<p>After having been threatened with demolition for a number of years,
+the famous Winchmore Hill Woods are at last to be hewn down and the
+land is to be built upon. These woods, which it was Hood's and Charles
+Lamb's delight to stroll in, have become the property of a syndicate,
+which will issue a prospectus shortly, and many of the fine old oaks,
+beeches, and elms already bear the splash of white which marks them
+for the axe. The woods have been one of the greatest attractions in
+the neighbourhood, and public opinion is strongly against the
+demolition.</p>
+
+<p>One of the greatest services which the National Trust is doing for the
+country is the preserving of the natural <a name="Page_387"></a>beauties of our English
+scenery. It acquires, through the generosity of its supporters,
+special tracts of lovely country, and says to the speculative builder
+&quot;Avaunt!&quot; It maintains the landscape for the benefit of the public.
+People can always go there and enjoy the scenery, and townsfolk can
+fill their lungs with fresh air, and children play on the greensward.
+These oases afford sanctuary to birds and beasts and butterflies, and
+are of immense value to botanists and entomologists. Several
+properties in the Lake District have come under the &aelig;gis of the Trust.
+Seven hundred and fifty acres around Ullswater have been purchased,
+including Gowbarrow Fell and Aira Force. By this, visitors to the
+English lakes can have unrestrained access over the heights of
+Gowbarrow Fell, through the glen of Aira and along a mile of Ullswater
+shore, and obtain some of the loveliest views in the district. It is
+possible to trespass in the region of the lakes. It is possible to
+wander over hills and through dales, but private owners do not like
+trespassers, and it is not pleasant to be turned back by some
+officious servant. Moreover, it needs much impudence and daring to
+traverse without leave another man's land, though it be bare and
+barren as a northern hill. The Trust invites you to come, and you are
+at peace, and know that no man will stop you if you walk over its
+preserves. Moreover, it holds a delectable bit of country on Lake
+Derwentwater, known as the Brandlehow Park Estate. It extends for
+about a mile along the shore of the lake and reaches up the fell-side
+to the unenclosed common on Catbels. It is a lovely bit of woodland
+scenery. Below the lake glistens in the sunlight and far away the
+giant hills Blencatha, Skiddaw, and Borrowdale rear their heads. It
+cost the Trust &pound;7000, but no one would deem the money ill-spent.
+Almost the last remnant of the primeval fenland of East Anglia, called
+Wicken Fen, has been acquired by the Trust, and also Burwell Fen, the
+home of many rare insects and plants. Near London we see many bits of
+picturesque land that have been rescued, where the <a name="Page_388"></a>teeming population
+of the great city can find rest and recreation. Thus at Hindhead,
+where it has been said villas seem to have broken out upon the once
+majestic hill like a red skin eruption, the Hindhead Preservation
+Committee and the Trust have secured 750 acres of common land on the
+summit of the hill, including the Devil's Punch Bowl, a bright oasis
+amid the dreary desert of villas. Moreover, the Trust is waging a
+battle with the District Council of Hambledon in order to prevent the
+Hindhead Commons from being disfigured by digging for stone for
+mending roads, causing unsightliness and the sad disfiguring of the
+commons. May it succeed in its praiseworthy endeavour. At Toy's Hill,
+on a Kentish hillside, overlooking the Weald, some valuable land has
+been acquired, and part of Wandle Park, Wimbledon, containing the
+Merton Mill Pond and its banks, adjoining the Recreation Ground
+recently provided by the Wimbledon Corporation, is now in the
+possession of the Trust. It is intended for the quiet enjoyment of
+rustic scenery by the people who live in the densely populated area of
+mean streets of Merton and Morden, and not for the lovers of the more
+strenuous forms of recreation. Ide Hill and Crockham Hill, the
+properties of the Trust, can easily be reached by the dwellers in
+London streets.</p>
+
+<p>We may journey in several directions and find traces of the good work
+of the Trust. At Barmouth a beautiful cliff known as Dinas-o-lea,
+Llanlleiana Head, Anglesey, the fifteen acres of cliff land at
+Tintagel, called Barras Head, looking on to the magnificent pile of
+rocks on which stand the ruins of King Arthur's Castle, and the summit
+of Kymin, near Monmouth, whence you can see a charming view of the Wye
+Valley, are all owned and protected by the Trust. Every one knows the
+curious appearance of Sarsen stones, often called Grey Wethers from
+their likeness to a flock of sheep lying down amidst the long grass of
+a Berkshire or Wiltshire down. These stones are often useful for
+building purposes and for <a name="Page_389"></a>road-mending. There is a fine collection of
+these curious stones, which were used in prehistoric times for
+building Stonehenge, at Pickle Dean and Lockeridge Dean. These are
+adjacent to high roads and would soon have fallen a prey to the road
+surveyor or local builder. Hence the authorities of this Trust stepped
+in; they secured for the nation these characteristic examples of a
+unique geological phenomenon, and preserved for all time a curious and
+picturesque feature of the country traversed by the old Bath Road. All
+that the Trust requires is &quot;more force to its elbow,&quot; increased funds
+for the preservation of the natural beauty of our English scenery, and
+the increased appreciation on the part of the public and of the owners
+of unspoilt rural scenes to extend its good work throughout the
+counties of England.</p>
+
+<p>A curious feature of vanished or vanishing England is the decay of our
+canals, which here and there with their unused locks, broken towpaths,
+and stagnant waters covered with weeds form a pathetic and melancholy
+part of the landscape. If you look at the map of England you will see,
+besides the blue curvings that mark the rivers, other threads of blue
+that show the canals. Much was expected of them. They were built just
+before the railway era. The whole country was covered by a network of
+canals. Millions were spent upon their construction. For a brief space
+they were prosperous. Some places, like our Berkshire Newbury, became
+the centres of considerable traffic and had little harbours filled
+with barges. Barge-building was a profitable industry. Fly-boats sped
+along the surface of the canals conveying passengers to towns or
+watering-places, and the company were very bright and enjoyed
+themselves. But all are dead highways now, strangled by steam and by
+the railways. The promoters of canals opposed the railways with might
+and main, and tried to protect their properties. Hence the railways
+were obliged to buy them up, and then left them lone and neglected.
+The change was tragic. You can, even now, travel all over the country
+<a name="Page_390"></a>by the means of these silent waterways. You start from London along
+the Regent's Canal, which joins the Grand Junction Canal, and this
+spreads forth northwards and joins other canals that ramify to the
+Wash, to Manchester and Liverpool and Leeds. You can go to every great
+town in England as far as York if you have patience and endless time.
+There are four thousand miles of canals in England. They were not well
+constructed; we built them just as we do many other things, without
+any regular system, with no uniform depth or width or carrying
+capacity, or size of locks or height of bridges. Canals bearing barges
+of forty tons connect with those capable of bearing ninety tons. And
+now most of them are derelict, with dilapidated banks, foul bottoms,
+and shallow horse haulage. The bargemen have taken to other callings,
+but occasionally you may see a barge looking gay and bright drawn by
+an unconcerned horse on the towpath, with a man lazily smoking his
+pipe at the helm and his family of water gipsies, who pass an
+open-air, nomadic existence, tranquil, and entirely innocent of
+schooling. He is a survival of an almost vanished race which the
+railways have caused to disappear.</p>
+
+<p>Much destruction of beautiful scenery is, alas! inevitable. Trade and
+commerce, mills and factories, must work their wicked will on the
+landscapes of our country. Mr. Ruskin's experiment on the painting of
+Turner, quoted in our opening chapter, finds its realisation in many
+places. There was a time, I suppose, when the Mersey was a pure river
+that laved the banks carpeted with foliage and primroses on which the
+old Collegiate Church of Manchester reared its tower. It is now, and
+has been for years, an inky-black stream or drain running between
+stone walls, where it does not hide its foul waters for very shame
+beneath an arched culvert. There was a time when many a Yorkshire
+village basked in the sunlight. Now they are great overgrown towns
+usually enveloped in black smoke. The only day when you can <a name="Page_391"></a>see the
+few surviving beauties of a northern manufacturing town or village is
+Sunday, when the tall factory chimneys cease to vomit their clouds of
+smoke which kills the trees, or covers the struggling leaves with
+black soot. We pay dearly for our commercial progress in this
+sacrifice of Nature's beauties.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX"></a><a name="Page_392"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>CONCLUSION</h3>
+
+<p>Whatever method can be devised for the prevention of the vanishing of
+England's chief characteristics are worthy of consideration. First
+there must be the continued education of the English people in the
+appreciation of ancient buildings and other relics of antiquity. We
+must learn to love them, or we shall not care to preserve them. An
+ignorant squire or foolish landowner may destroy in a day some
+priceless object of antiquity which can never be replaced. Too often
+it is the agent who is to blame. Squires are very much in the hands of
+their agents, and leave much to them to decide and carry out. When
+consulted they do not take the trouble to inspect the threatened
+building, and merely confirm the suggestions of the agents. Estate
+agents, above all people, need education in order that the destruction
+of much that is precious may be averted.</p>
+
+<p>The Government has done well in appointing commissions for England,
+Scotland, and Wales to inquire into and report on the condition of
+ancient monuments, but we lag behind many other countries in the task
+of protecting and preserving the memorials of the past.</p>
+
+<p>In France national monuments of historic or artistic interest are
+scheduled under the direction of the Minister of Public Instruction
+and Fine Arts. In cases in which a monument is owned by a private
+individual, it usually may not be scheduled without the consent of the
+owner, but if his consent is withheld the State Minister is empowered
+to purchase compulsorily. No monument so scheduled may be destroyed or
+subjected to works of <a name="Page_393"></a>restoration, repair, or alteration without the
+consent of the Minister, nor may new buildings be annexed to it
+without permission from the same quarter. Generally speaking, the
+Minister is advised by a commission of historical monuments,
+consisting of leading officials connected with fine arts, public
+buildings, and museums. Such a commission has existed since 1837, and
+very considerable sums of public money have been set apart to enable
+it to carry on its work. In 1879 a classification of some 2500
+national monuments was made, and this classification has been adopted
+in the present law. It includes megalithic remains, classical remains,
+and medieval, Renaissance, and modern buildings and ruins.<a name="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63"><sup>63</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>We do not suggest that in England we should imitate the very drastic
+restorations to which some of the French abbeys and historic buildings
+are subjected. The authorities have erred greatly in destroying so
+much original work and their restorations, as in the case of Mont St.
+Michel, have been practically a rebuilding.</p>
+
+<p>The Belgian people appear to have realized for a very long time the
+importance of preserving their historic and artistic treasures. By a
+royal decree of 1824 bodies in charge of church temporalities are
+reminded that they are managers merely, and while they are urged to
+undertake in good time the simple repairs that are needed for the
+preservation of the buildings in their charge, they are strictly
+forbidden to demolish any ecclesiastical building without authority
+from the Ministry which deals with the subject of the fine arts. By
+the same decree they are likewise forbidden to alienate works of art
+or historical monuments placed in churches. Nine years later, in 1835,
+in view of the importance of assuring the preservation of all national
+monuments remarkable for their antiquity, their association, or their
+artistic value, another <a name="Page_394"></a>decree was issued constituting a Royal
+Commission for the purpose of advising as to the repairs required by
+such monuments. Nearly 200,000 francs are annually voted for
+expenditure for these purposes. The strict application of these
+precautionary measures has allowed a number of monuments of the
+highest interest in their relation to art and arch&aelig;ology to be
+protected and defended, but it does not appear that the Government
+controls in any way those monuments which are in the hands of private
+persons.<a name="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64"><sup>64</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>In Holland public money to the extent of five or six thousand pounds a
+year is spent on preserving and maintaining national monuments and
+buildings of antiquarian and architectural interest. In Germany steps
+are being taken which we might follow with advantage in this country,
+to control and limit the disfigurement of landscapes by advertisement
+hoardings.</p>
+
+<p>A passage from the ministerial order of 1884 with reference to the
+restoration of churches may be justly quoted:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;If the restoration of a public building is to be completely
+   successful, it is absolutely essential that the person who
+   directs it should combine with an enlightened &aelig;sthetic sense an
+   artistic capacity in a high degree, and, moreover, be deeply
+   imbued with feelings of veneration for all that has come down to
+   us from ancient times. If a restoration is carried out without
+   any real comprehension of the laws of architecture, the result
+   can only be a production of common and dreary artificiality,
+   recognizable perhaps as belonging to one of the architectural
+   styles, but wanting the stamp of true art, and, therefore,
+   incapable of awakening the enthusiasm of the spectator.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>And again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;In consequence of the removal or disfigurement of monuments
+   which have been erected during the course of centuries&mdash;monuments
+   which served, as it were, as documents of the historical
+   development of past periods of culture, which have, moreover, a
+   double interest and value if left undisturbed on the spot where
+   they were <a name="Page_395"></a>originally erected&mdash;the sympathy of congregations with
+   the history of their church is diminished, and, a still more
+   lamentable consequence, a number of objects of priceless artistic
+   value destroyed or squandered, whereby the property of the church
+   suffers a serious loss.&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>How much richer might we be here in England if only our central
+authorities had in the past circulated these admirable doctrines!</p>
+
+<p>Very wisely has the Danish Government prohibited the removal of stones
+from monuments of historic interest for utilitarian purposes, such as
+is causing the rapid disappearance of the remains on Dartmoor in this
+country; and the Greeks have stringent regulations to ensure the
+preservation of antiquities, which are regarded as national property,
+and may on no account be damaged either by owner or lessee. It has
+actually been found necessary to forbid the construction of limekilns
+nearer than two miles from any ancient ruins, in order to remove the
+temptation for the filching of stones. In Italy there are stringent
+laws for the protection of historical and ancient monuments.
+Road-mending is a cause of much destruction of antiquarian objects in
+all countries, even in Italy, where the law has been invoked to
+protect ancient monuments from the highway authorities.</p>
+
+<p>We need not record the legal enactments of other Governments, so
+admirably summarized by Mr. Bond in his paper read before the Dorset
+Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club. We see what other
+countries much poorer than our own are doing to protect their national
+treasures, and though the English Government has been slow in
+realizing the importance of the ancient monuments of this country, we
+believe that it is inclined to move in the right direction, and to do
+its utmost to preserve those that have hitherto escaped the attacks of
+the iconoclasts, and the heedlessness and stupidity of the Gallios
+&quot;who care for none of these things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When an old building is hopelessly dilapidated, what methods can be
+devised for its restoration and preservation?<a name="Page_396"></a> To pull it down and
+rebuild it is to destroy its historical associations and to make it
+practically a new structure. Happily science has recently discovered a
+new method for the preserving of these old buildings without
+destroying them, and this good angel is the grouting machine, the
+invention of Mr. James Greathead, which has been the means of
+preventing much of vanishing England. Grout, we understand, is a
+mixture of cement, sand, and water, and the process of grouting was
+probably not unknown to the Romans. But the grouting machine is a
+modern invention, and it has only been applied to ancient buildings
+during the last six or seven years.<a name="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65"><sup>65</sup></a> It is unnecessary to describe
+its mechanism, but its admirable results may be summarized. Suppose an
+old building shows alarming cracks. By compressed air you blow out the
+old decayed mortar, and then damping the masonry by the injection of
+water, you insert the nozzle of the machine and force the grout into
+the cracks and cavities, and soon the whole mass of decayed masonry is
+cemented together and is as sound as ever it was. This method has been
+successfully applied to Winchester Cathedral, the old walls of
+Chester, and to various churches and towers. It in no way destroys the
+characteristics and features of the building, the weatherworn surfaces
+of the old stones, their cracks and deformations, and even the moss
+and lichen which time has planted on them need not be disturbed.
+Pointing is of no avail to preserve a building, as it only enters an
+inch or two in depth. Underpinning is dangerous if the building be
+badly cracked, and may cause collapse. But if you shore the structure
+with timber, and then weld its stones together by applying the
+grouting machine, you turn the whole mass of masonry into a monolith,
+and can then strengthen the foundations in any way that may be found
+necessary. The following story of the saving of an old church, as told
+by Mr. Fox, proclaims the merits of this <a name="Page_397"></a>scientific invention better
+than any description can possibly do:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>&quot;The ancient church of Corhampton, near Bishops Waltham, in
+   Hampshire, is an instance. This Saxon church, 1300 years old, was
+   in a sadly dilapidated condition. In the west gable there were
+   large cracks, one from the ridge to the ground, another nearer
+   the side wall, both wide enough for a man's arm to enter; whilst
+   at the north-west angle the Saxon work threatened to fall bodily
+   off. The mortar of the walls had perished through age, and the
+   ivy had penetrated into the interior of the church in every
+   direction. It would have been unsafe to attempt any examination
+   of the foundations for fear of bringing down the whole fabric;
+   consequently the grouting machine was applied all over the
+   building. The grout escaped at every point, and it occupied the
+   attention of the masons both inside and outside to stop it
+   promptly by plastering clay on to the openings from which it was
+   running.</p>
+
+<p>  &quot;After the operation had been completed and the clay was removed,
+   the interior was found to be completely filled with cement set
+   very hard; and sufficient depth having been left for fixing the
+   flint work outside and tiling inside, the result was that no
+   trace of the crack was visible, and the walls were stronger and
+   better than they had ever been before. Subsequent steps were then
+   taken to examine and, where necessary, to underpin the walls, and
+   the church is saved, as the vicar, the Rev. H. Churton, said,
+   'all without moving one of the Saxon &quot;long and short&quot; stones.'&quot; </p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In our chapter on the delightful and picturesque old bridges that form
+such beautiful features of our English landscapes, we deplored the
+destruction now going on owing to the heavy traction-engines which
+some of them have to bear and the rush and vibration of motor-cars
+which cause the decay of the mortar and injure their stability. Many
+of these old bridges, once only wide enough for pack-horses to cross,
+then widened for the accommodation of coaches, beautiful and graceful
+in every way, across which Cavaliers rode to fight the Roundheads, and
+were alive with traffic in the old coaching days, have been pulled
+down and replaced by the <a name="Page_398"></a>hideous iron-girder arrangements which now
+disfigure so many of our streams and rivers. In future, owing to this
+wonderful invention of the grouting machine, these old bridges can be
+saved and made strong enough to last another five hundred years. Mr.
+Fox tells us that an old Westmoreland bridge in a very bad condition
+has been so preserved, and that the celebrated &quot;Auld Brig o' Ayr&quot; has
+been saved from destruction by this means. A wider knowledge of the
+beneficial effects of this wonderful machine would be of invaluable
+service to the country, and prevent the passing away of much that in
+these pages we have mourned. By this means we may be able to preserve
+our old and decaying buildings for many centuries, and hand down to
+posterity what Ruskin called the great entail of beauty bequeathed to
+us.</p>
+
+<p>Vanishing England has a sad and melancholy sound. Nevertheless, the
+examples we have given of the historic buildings, and the beauties of
+our towns and villages, prove that all has not yet disappeared which
+appeals to the heart and intellect of the educated Englishman. And
+oftentimes the poor and unlearned appreciate the relics that remain
+with quite as much keenness as their richer neighbours. A world
+without beauty is a world without hope. To check vandalism, to stay
+the hand of the iconoclast and destroyer, to prevent the invasion and
+conquest of the beauties bequeathed to us by our forefathers by the
+reckless and ever-engrossing commercial and utilitarian spirit of the
+age, are some of the objects of our book, which may be useful in
+helping to preserve some of the links that connect our own times with
+the England of the past, and in increasing the appreciation of the
+treasures that remain by the Englishmen of to-day.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="Page_399"></a><a name="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2>
+
+<p><a name="Page_400"></a>Abbey towns,<a href="#Page_210">210-29</a><br />
+Abbot's Ann, <a href="#Page_381">381</a><br />
+---- Hospital, Guildford, <a href="#Page_343">343</a><br />
+Abingdon, <a href="#Page_278">278</a><br />
+---- bridge, <a href="#Page_320">320</a><br />
+---- hospital, <a href="#Page_344">344</a><br />
+---- archives of, <a href="#Page_365">365</a><br />
+Age, a progressive, <a href="#Page_2">2</a><br />
+Albans, St., Abbey, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br />
+---- inn at, <a href="#Page_254">254</a><br />
+Aldeburgh, <a href="#Page_18">18</a><br />
+Aldermaston, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a><br />
+Alfriston, <a href="#Page_256">256</a><br />
+Allington Castle, <a href="#Page_124">124</a><br />
+Alnwick, <a href="#Page_31">31</a><br />
+Almshouses, <a href="#Page_333">333-48</a><br />
+Almsmen's liveries, <a href="#Page_346">346</a><br />
+American rapacity, <a href="#Page_6">6-7</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br />
+Ancient Monuments Commission, <a href="#Page_392">392</a><br />
+<i>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle</i> on Castles, <a href="#Page_116">116</a><br />
+Armour, <a href="#Page_184">184</a><br />
+Art treasures dispersed, <a href="#Page_5">5</a><br />
+Ashbury camp, <a href="#Page_208">208</a><br />
+Atleburgh, Norfolk, <a href="#Page_147">147</a><br />
+Avebury, stone circle at, <a href="#Page_207">207</a><br />
+---- manor-house, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br />
+Aylesbury, Vale of, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a><br />
+---- inn at, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></p>
+
+<p>Bainbridge, inn at, <a href="#Page_254">254</a><br />
+Banbury, <a href="#Page_83">83</a><br />
+Barkham, <a href="#Page_148">148</a><br />
+Barnard Castle, <a href="#Page_119">119</a><br />
+Barrington Court, <a href="#Page_189">189</a><br />
+Bartholomew's, St., Priory, <a href="#Page_351">351-9</a><br />
+Bath, city of, <a href="#Page_220">220</a><br />
+Beauty of English scenery vanishing, <a href="#Page_383">383-91</a><br />
+Berkeley Castle, <a href="#Page_118">118</a><br />
+Berwick-on-Tweed, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a><br />
+Beverley, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a><br />
+Bewcastle Cross, <a href="#Page_288">288</a><br />
+Bledlow Crosses, <a href="#Page_303">303</a><br />
+Bodiam Castle, <a href="#Page_125">125</a><br />
+Bonfires of old deeds, <a href="#Page_366">366</a><br /><a name="Page_401"></a>
+Bosham, <a href="#Page_16">16</a><br />
+Bournemouth, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Bowthorpe, <a href="#Page_139">139</a><br />
+Boxford, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br />
+Bradford-on-Avon, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a><br />
+Branks, <a href="#Page_315">315</a><br />
+Bray, Jesus Hospital at, <a href="#Page_340">340</a><br />
+Bridges, destruction of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a><br />
+---- old, <a href="#Page_318">318-32</a><br />
+Bridgwater Bay, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Bridlington, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Bristol Cathedral, <a href="#Page_220">220</a><br />
+Burford, <a href="#Page_94">94</a><br />
+Burgh-next-Walton, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Burgh Castle, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></p>
+
+<p>Caister Castle, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+Canals, <a href="#Page_389">389</a><br />
+Canterbury Cathedral, <a href="#Page_211">211</a><br />
+---- inns at, <a href="#Page_248">248</a><br />
+Capel, Surrey, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br />
+Castles, old, <a href="#Page_111">111-32</a><br />
+Cathedral cities, <a href="#Page_210">210-29</a><br />
+Caversham bridge, <a href="#Page_322">322</a><br />
+Chalfont St. Giles, <a href="#Page_88">88</a><br />
+Charms of villages, <a href="#Page_67">67</a><br />
+Chester, <a href="#Page_50">50</a><br />
+Chests, church, <a href="#Page_159">159</a><br />
+Chests in houses, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+Chichester, <a href="#Page_164">164</a><br />
+---- hospital at, <a href="#Page_335">335</a><br />
+Chingford, Essex, <a href="#Page_141">141</a><br />
+Chipping Campden, <a href="#Page_345">345</a><br />
+Chipping monuments, <a href="#Page_164">164</a><br />
+Church, a painted, <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br />
+---- furniture, <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br />
+---- plate, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br />
+Churches, Vanishing or Vanished, <a href="#Page_133">133-65</a><br />
+Churchwarden's account-books, <a href="#Page_366">366</a><br />
+Cinque Ports, <a href="#Page_23">23</a><br />
+Cirencester, <a href="#Page_270">270</a><br />
+Clipping churches, <a href="#Page_378">378</a><br />
+Clock at Wells, <a href="#Page_214">214</a><br />
+Cloth Fair, Smithfield, <a href="#Page_356">356</a><br />
+Coast erosion, <a href="#Page_15">15-27</a><br />
+Coastguards, their uses, <a href="#Page_27">27</a><br /><a name="Page_402"></a>
+Cobham, <a href="#Page_336">336</a><br />
+Coleshill bridge, <a href="#Page_326">326</a><br />
+Colston Bassett, <a href="#Page_139">139</a><br />
+Commonwealth, spoliation during the, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a><br />
+Compton Wynyates, <a href="#Page_174">174</a><br />
+Conway, <a href="#Page_31">31</a><br />
+Corhampton church, <a href="#Page_397">397</a><br />
+Cornwall, prehistoric remains in, <a href="#Page_204">204</a><br />
+Corsham, <a href="#Page_345">345</a><br />
+Cottages, beauties of old, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a><br />
+Covehithe, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Coventry, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a><br />
+Cowper at Weston, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br />
+Cranbrook registers, <a href="#Page_372">372</a><br />
+Crane bridge, Salisbury, <a href="#Page_327">327</a><br />
+Cromer, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Crosses, <a href="#Page_283">283-305</a><br />
+---- wayside, <a href="#Page_293">293</a><br />
+---- market, <a href="#Page_293">293</a><br />
+---- boundary, <a href="#Page_300">300</a><br />
+---- at Cross-roads and Holy Wells, <a href="#Page_300">300</a><br />
+---- sanctuary, <a href="#Page_303">303</a><br />
+---- as guide-posts, <a href="#Page_303">303</a><br />
+Crowhurst, <a href="#Page_181">181</a><br />
+Croyland bridge, <a href="#Page_324">324</a><br />
+Cucking stool, <a href="#Page_314">314</a><br />
+Curious entries in registers, <a href="#Page_373">373</a><br />
+Customs that are vanishing, <a href="#Page_375">375-82</a></p>
+
+<p>Deal, <a href="#Page_86">86</a><br />
+Derby, West, stocks restored, <a href="#Page_312">312</a><br />
+Devizes, inn at, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br />
+Dickens, C., and inns, <a href="#Page_242">242</a><br />
+Disappearance of England, <a href="#Page_15">15-27</a><br />
+Documents, disappearance of old, <a href="#Page_364">364-74</a><br />
+Dover Castle, <a href="#Page_117">117</a><br />
+Dowsing, W., spoliator, <a href="#Page_148">148</a><br />
+Dunwich, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></p>
+
+<p>Eashing bridge, <a href="#Page_327">327</a><br />
+Eastbourne, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Easter customs, <a href="#Page_379">379</a><br />
+Easton Bavent, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Edwardian castles, <a href="#Page_123">123</a><br />
+Elizabethan house, an, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a><br />
+Ely fair, <a href="#Page_363">363</a><br />
+---- registry plundered, <a href="#Page_369">369</a><br />
+England, disappearance of, <a href="#Page_15">15-27</a><br />
+Essex, <a href="#Page_100">100</a><br />
+Estate agents, <a href="#Page_10">10</a><br />
+Evesham, <a href="#Page_223">223</a><br />
+Ewelme, <a href="#Page_345">345</a><br />
+Exeter town hall, <a href="#Page_280">280</a><br />
+Experience, a weird, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_403"></a>
+Fairs, vanishing, <a href="#Page_349">349-63</a><br />
+Fastolfe, Sir John, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br />
+Felixstowe, <a href="#Page_18">18</a><br />
+Fig Sunday, <a href="#Page_379">379</a><br />
+Fires in houses, <a href="#Page_166">166</a><br />
+Fishermen's Hospital, <a href="#Page_342">342</a><br />
+Fitzstephen on Smithfield Fair, <a href="#Page_352">352</a><br />
+Flagon, a remarkable, <a href="#Page_194">194</a><br />
+Football in streets, <a href="#Page_378">378</a><br />
+Forests destroyed, <a href="#Page_386">386</a><br />
+Foreign governments and monuments, <a href="#Page_392">392-5</a><br />
+Friday, Good, customs on, <a href="#Page_379">379</a><br />
+Furniture, old, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+---- church, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></p>
+
+<p>Galleting, <a href="#Page_78">78</a><br />
+Garden cities, <a href="#Page_384">384</a><br />
+Gates of Chester, <a href="#Page_51">51</a><br />
+Geffery Almshouses, <a href="#Page_337">337</a><br />
+Gibbet-irons, <a href="#Page_316">316</a><br />
+Glastonbury, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a><br />
+---- powder horn found at, <a href="#Page_192">192</a><br />
+Gloucester, <a href="#Page_252">252</a><br />
+Goodening custom, <a href="#Page_377">377</a><br />
+Gorleston, <a href="#Page_45">45</a><br />
+Gosforth Cross, <a href="#Page_289">289</a><br />
+Grantham, inns at, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br />
+---- crosses at, <a href="#Page_298">298</a><br />
+Greenwich, the &quot;Ship&quot; at, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br />
+Grouting machine, <a href="#Page_396">396</a><br />
+Guildford, <a href="#Page_343">343</a><br />
+Guildhalls, <a href="#Page_268">268</a><br />
+Guildhall at Lynn, <a href="#Page_38">38</a><br />
+Gundulf, a builder of castles, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></p>
+
+<p>Hall, Bishop, his palace, <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br />
+Halton Cross, <a href="#Page_291">291</a><br />
+Hampton, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Happisburgh, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Hardy, T., on restoration, <a href="#Page_156">156</a><br />
+Hartwell House, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+Heckfield, <a href="#Page_160">160</a><br />
+Herne Bay, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Hever Castle, <a href="#Page_124">124</a><br />
+Higham Ferrers, <a href="#Page_335">335</a><br />
+<i>Hints to Churchwardens</i>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a><br />
+Holinshed quoted, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a><br />
+Holman Hunt, Mr., on bridges, <a href="#Page_318">318</a><br />
+Honiton Fair, <a href="#Page_360">360</a><br />
+Hornby Cross, <a href="#Page_292">292</a><br />
+Horsham slates, <a href="#Page_80">80</a><br />
+Horsmonden, Kent, <a href="#Page_82">82</a><br />
+Hospitals, old, <a href="#Page_333">333-48</a><br />
+Houses, old, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a><br />
+---- destroyed, <a href="#Page_5">5</a><br />
+---- half-timber, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a><br />
+Hungate, St. Peter, Norwich, <a href="#Page_140">140</a><br /><a name="Page_404"></a>
+Hungerford, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a><br />
+Huntingdon, inn at, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br />
+---- bridge at, <a href="#Page_327">327</a></p>
+
+<p>Ilsley, West, sheep fair, <a href="#Page_362">362</a><br />
+Inns, signs of, <a href="#Page_262">262</a><br />
+---- old, <a href="#Page_230">230-65</a><br />
+---- retired from business, <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br />
+---- at Banbury, <a href="#Page_84">84</a><br />
+Intwood, Norfolk, <a href="#Page_140">140</a><br />
+Ipswich, <a href="#Page_45">45</a><br />
+Irving, Washington, on Inns, <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br />
+Ivy, evils of, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></p>
+
+<p>Jessop, spoliator, <a href="#Page_150">150</a><br />
+Jousts at Smithfield, <a href="#Page_353">353</a></p>
+
+<p>Kent bridges, <a href="#Page_326">326</a><br />
+Keswick, Norfolk, <a href="#Page_140">140</a><br />
+Kilnsea, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a><br />
+Kirby Bedon, <a href="#Page_139">139</a><br />
+Kirkstead, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></p>
+
+<p>Leeds Cross, <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br />
+---- Castle, <a href="#Page_123">123</a><br />
+Leominster, <a href="#Page_314">314</a><br />
+Levellers at Burford, <a href="#Page_97">97</a><br />
+Lichgate at Chalfont, <a href="#Page_90">90</a><br />
+Links with past severed, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br />
+Liscombe, Dorset, <a href="#Page_140">140</a><br />
+Littleport, <a href="#Page_86">86</a><br />
+Llanrwst bridge, <a href="#Page_320">320</a><br />
+Llanwddyn vale destroyed, <a href="#Page_384">384</a><br />
+London, vanishing, <a href="#Page_11">11</a><br />
+---- churches, <a href="#Page_135">135</a><br />
+---- growth of, <a href="#Page_70">70</a><br />
+---- Inns, <a href="#Page_238">238</a><br />
+---- Livery Companies' Almshouses, <a href="#Page_338">338</a><br />
+---- Paul's Cross, <a href="#Page_304">304</a><br />
+---- St. Bartholomew's Fair, <a href="#Page_351">351-9</a><br />
+---- water supply threatens a village, <a href="#Page_385">385</a><br />
+Lowestoft, <a href="#Page_150">150</a><br />
+Lynn Bay, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Lynn Regis, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></p>
+
+<p>Mab's Cross, Wigan, <a href="#Page_304">304</a><br />
+Maidstone, <a href="#Page_280">280</a><br />
+Maidenhead bridge, <a href="#Page_320">320</a><br />
+Maldon, <a href="#Page_103">103</a><br />
+Manor-houses, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br />
+Mansions, old, <a href="#Page_166">166-202</a><br />
+Marlborough, inn at, <a href="#Page_259">259</a><br />
+Martyrs burnt at Smithfield, <a href="#Page_353">353</a><br /><a name="Page_405"></a>
+Megalithic remains, <a href="#Page_203">203</a><br />
+Memory, folk, instance of, <a href="#Page_208">208</a><br />
+Menhirs, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a><br />
+Merchant Guilds, <a href="#Page_267">267</a><br />
+Milton's Cottage, <a href="#Page_88">88</a><br />
+&quot;Mischief, the Load of,&quot; <a href="#Page_262">262</a><br />
+Monmouthshire castles, <a href="#Page_128">128</a><br />
+Mothering Sunday, <a href="#Page_379">379</a><br />
+<i>Mottes</i>, Norman, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br />
+Mumming at Christmas, <a href="#Page_376">376</a><br />
+Municipal buildings, old, <a href="#Page_266">266-82</a></p>
+
+<p>National Trust for the Protection of Places of Historic Interest, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a><br />
+Newbury, stocks at, <a href="#Page_309">309</a><br />
+---- town hall, <a href="#Page_274">274</a><br />
+Newcastle, <a href="#Page_111">111</a><br />
+---- walls, <a href="#Page_34">34</a><br />
+New Forest partly destroyed, <a href="#Page_386">386</a><br />
+Newton-by-Corton, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Norham Castle, <a href="#Page_120">120</a><br />
+Norton St. Philip, <a href="#Page_255">255</a><br />
+Nottingham Goose Fair, <a href="#Page_360">360</a><br />
+Norwich, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a><br />
+---- hospitals at, <a href="#Page_342">342</a></p>
+
+<p>Ockwells, Berks, <a href="#Page_187">187</a><br />
+Olney bridge, <a href="#Page_330">330</a><br />
+Orford Castle, <a href="#Page_118">118</a><br />
+Oundle, <a href="#Page_338">338</a><br />
+Oxford, <a href="#Page_70">70</a><br />
+---- St. Giles's Fair, <a href="#Page_360">360</a></p>
+
+<p>Palimpsest brasses, <a href="#Page_147">147</a><br />
+Palm Sunday customs, <a href="#Page_379">379</a><br />
+Pakefield, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Paston family, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a><br />
+Penshurst, <a href="#Page_181">181</a><br />
+Pevensey Castle, <a href="#Page_112">112</a><br />
+Plaster, the use of, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br />
+Plough Monday, <a href="#Page_378">378</a><br />
+Pontefract Castle, <a href="#Page_121">121</a><br />
+Poole, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Porchester Castle, <a href="#Page_112">112</a><br />
+Ports and harbours, <a href="#Page_84">84</a><br />
+Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_86">86</a><br />
+Poulton-in-the-Fylde, <a href="#Page_311">311</a><br />
+Pounds, <a href="#Page_312">312</a><br />
+Prehistoric remains,  destruction of, <a href="#Page_203">203-9</a><br />
+Preservation of registers, <a href="#Page_374">374</a><br />
+Progress, <a href="#Page_2">2</a><br />
+Punishments, old-time, <a href="#Page_306">306-17</a></p>
+
+<p>Quainton, Bucks, <a href="#Page_337">337</a></p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_406"></a>
+Radcot bridge, <a href="#Page_323">323</a><br />
+Ranton, house at, <a href="#Page_107">107</a><br />
+---- priory, <a href="#Page_138">138</a><br />
+Ravensburgh, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a><br />
+Reading, guild hall at, <a href="#Page_274">274</a><br />
+---- Fair, <a href="#Page_360">360</a><br />
+Rebels' heads on gateways, <a href="#Page_32">32</a><br />
+Reculver, <a href="#Page_23">23</a><br />
+Reformation, iconoclasm at, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a><br />
+Register books, parish, <a href="#Page_368">368</a><br />
+Restoration, evils of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a><br />
+Richard II., murder of, <a href="#Page_121">121</a><br />
+Richmond, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br />
+Ringstead, <a href="#Page_140">140</a><br />
+Rochester, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a><br />
+Rollright stones, <a href="#Page_204">204</a><br />
+Roman fortresses, <a href="#Page_114">114</a><br />
+Rood-screens removed, <a href="#Page_158">158</a><br />
+Roudham, <a href="#Page_140">140</a><br />
+Rows at Yarmouth, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br />
+---- &mdash;&mdash; Portsmouth, <a href="#Page_86">86</a><br />
+Ruskin, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a><br />
+Ruthwell Cross, <a href="#Page_289">289</a><br />
+Rye, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></p>
+
+<p>Saffron Walden, <a href="#Page_100">100</a><br />
+Salisbury, halls of guilds at, <a href="#Page_281">281</a><br />
+Sandwich, <a href="#Page_34">34</a><br />
+St. Albans Cathedral, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br />
+---- inn at, <a href="#Page_254">254</a><br />
+St. Audrey's laces, <a href="#Page_363">363</a><br />
+St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, <a href="#Page_351">351-9</a><br />
+St. Margaret's Bay, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Salisbury, halls of guilds at, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a><br />
+Sandwich, <a href="#Page_34">34</a><br />
+Saxon churches, <a href="#Page_144">144</a><br />
+Scenery, vanishing of English, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_383">383-91</a><br />
+Scold's bridle, <a href="#Page_315">315</a><br />
+Sea-serpent at Heybridge, <a href="#Page_104">104</a><br />
+Selsea, <a href="#Page_23">23</a><br />
+&quot;Seven Stars&quot; at Manchester, <a href="#Page_252">252</a><br />
+Shingle, flow of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a><br />
+Shrewsbury, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a><br />
+Shrivenham, Berks, <a href="#Page_165">165</a><br />
+Shrovetide customs, <a href="#Page_378">378</a><br />
+Signboards, <a href="#Page_264">264</a><br />
+Sieges of towns, <a href="#Page_32">32</a><br />
+Simnels, <a href="#Page_379">379</a><br />
+Skegness, <a href="#Page_21">21</a><br />
+Skipton, <a href="#Page_310">310</a><br />
+Smithfield Fair, <a href="#Page_351">351-9</a><br />
+Smuggling, <a href="#Page_258">258</a><br />
+Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a><br />
+Somerset, Duke of, spoliator, <a href="#Page_146">146</a><br /><a name="Page_407"></a>
+Somerset crosses, <a href="#Page_296">296</a><br />
+Sonning bridges, <a href="#Page_318">318</a><br />
+Southport, <a href="#Page_16">16</a><br />
+Southwell, inn at, <a href="#Page_144">144</a><br />
+Southwold, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a><br />
+Staircases, old, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+Staffordshire churches, <a href="#Page_136">136</a><br />
+Stamford, hospitals at, <a href="#Page_336">336</a><br />
+Stilton, inn at, <a href="#Page_243">243</a><br />
+Stocks, <a href="#Page_306">306-17</a><br />
+&mdash; in literature, <a href="#Page_307">307</a><br />
+Stonehenge, <a href="#Page_205">205</a><br />
+Storeys, projecting, <a href="#Page_72">72</a><br />
+Stourbridge Fair, <a href="#Page_362">362</a><br />
+Stow Green Fair, <a href="#Page_362">362</a><br />
+Strategic position of castles, <a href="#Page_114">114</a><br />
+Streets and lanes, in, <a href="#Page_67">67-110</a><br />
+Stump Cross, <a href="#Page_304">304</a><br />
+Suffolk coast, <a href="#Page_20">20</a><br />
+Surrey cottages, <a href="#Page_76">76</a><br />
+Sussex coast, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Sussex, Robert, Earl of, spoliator, <a href="#Page_147">147</a><br />
+Swallowfield Park, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></p>
+
+<p><i>Tancred</i>, description of an inn, <a href="#Page_236">236</a><br />
+Taunton Castle, <a href="#Page_129">129</a><br />
+Tewkesbury, inns at, <a href="#Page_252">252</a><br />
+Thame, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a><br />
+Thatch for roofing, <a href="#Page_78">78</a><br />
+Thorpe-in-the-Fields, <a href="#Page_139">139</a><br />
+Tile-hung cottages, <a href="#Page_77">77</a><br />
+Tournaments at Smithfield, <a href="#Page_353">353</a><br />
+Towns, old walled, <a href="#Page_28">28-66</a><br />
+---- abbey, <a href="#Page_210">210-29</a><br />
+---- decayed, <a href="#Page_266">266</a><br />
+---- halls, <a href="#Page_266">266-82</a><br />
+Turpin's ride to York, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br />
+Tyneside, coast erosion at, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></p>
+
+<p>Udimore, Sussex, <a href="#Page_94">94</a><br />
+Uxbridge, inn at, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></p>
+
+<p>Viking legends, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></p>
+
+<p>Walberswick, Suffolk, <a href="#Page_148">148</a><br />
+Walled towns, old, <a href="#Page_28">28-66</a><br />
+Walls, city, destroyed, <a href="#Page_12">12</a><br />
+Wallingford, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a><br />
+Warwick, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a><br />
+Wash, land gaining on sea, <a href="#Page_16">16</a><br />
+Water-clock, <a href="#Page_196">196</a><br />
+Well customs, <a href="#Page_381">381</a><br />
+Wells, cross at, <a href="#Page_297">297</a><br />
+Wells Cathedral, <a href="#Page_213">213-16</a><br />
+Welsh castles, <a href="#Page_130">130</a><br /><a name="Page_408"></a>
+Weston house, <a href="#Page_170">170</a><br />
+Whipping-posts, <a href="#Page_306">306-17</a><br />
+White Horse Hill, <a href="#Page_206">206</a><br />
+Whitewash, the era of, <a href="#Page_157">157</a><br />
+Whittenham Clumps, <a href="#Page_207">207</a><br />
+Whittenham, Little, <a href="#Page_152">152</a><br />
+Whitling church, <a href="#Page_139">139</a><br />
+Whittington College, <a href="#Page_338">338</a><br />
+Winchester, St. Cross, <a href="#Page_334">334</a><br />
+Winchmore Hill Woods, destroyed, <a href="#Page_386">386</a><br />
+Window tax, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br />
+Winster, <a href="#Page_278">278</a><br /><a name="Page_409"></a>
+Witney Butter Cross, <a href="#Page_297">297</a><br />
+Wirral, Cheshire, <a href="#Page_25">25</a><br />
+Wokingham, <a href="#Page_277">277</a><br />
+---- Lucas's Hospital at, <a href="#Page_340">340</a><br />
+Wood, Anthony, at Thame, <a href="#Page_93">93</a><br />
+Wymondham, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></p>
+
+<p>Yarmouth, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a><br />
+York, <a href="#Page_48">48</a><br />
+---- walls of, <a href="#Page_34">34</a><br />
+Yorkshire coast, <a href="#Page_17">17</a><br />
+Ypres Tower, Rye, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="FOOTNOTES"></a>FOOTNOTES</h2>
+
+<div class="note">
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1">1</a> <i>History of Oxfordshire</i>, by J. Meade Falkner.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2">2</a> It is now in possession of Mr. Kenneth M. Clark, by whose
+permission the accompanying plan, reproduced from the <i>Memorials of
+Old Suffolk</i>, was made.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3">3</a> <i>Memorials of Old Suffolk</i>, edited by V.B. Redstone, p.
+226.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4">4</a> <i>The Builder</i>, April 16, 1904.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5">5</a> <i>History of Renaissance Architecture</i>, by R. Blomfield.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6">6</a> Cf. <i>Memorials of Suffolk</i>, edited by V.B. Redstone.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7">7</a> The Chester folk have a proverb, &quot;When the daughter is
+stolen, shut Pepper-gate&quot;&mdash;referring to the well-known story of a daughter of a Mayor of Chester having made her escape with her lover
+through this gate, which he ordered to be closed, but too late to prevent the fugitives.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8">8</a> The Rev. T. Auden, <i>Shrewsbury</i> (Methuen and Co.).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9">9</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, p. 48.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10">10</a> <i>The Charm of the English Village</i> (Batsford).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11">11</a> <i>The Charm of the English Village</i>, pp. 50-7.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12">12</a> <i>Old West Surrey</i>, by Gertrude Jekyll, p. 206.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13">13</a> <i>Highways and Byways in Sussex</i>, by E.V. Lucas.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14">14</a> I fear the poet's plans will never be passed by the
+rural district council.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15">15</a> The rood-loft has unfortunately disappeared.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16">16</a> <i>Excursions in Essex</i>, published in 1819, states: &quot;The
+old market cross and gaol are taking down. The market cross has long
+been considered a nuisance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17">17</a> These tiles have now found a place in the excellent
+local museum.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18">18</a> A payment to the superior lord for protection.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19">19</a> Cf. <i>Memorials of Old Suffolk</i>, p. 65.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20">20</a> Grose's <i>Antiquities.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21">21</a> <i>Taunton and its Castle</i>, by D.P. Alford (Memorials of
+Old Somerset), p. 149.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22">22</a> A fine linen cloth made in Brittany (cf. <i>Coriolanus</i>,
+Act ii. sc. 1).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23">23</a> A rich sort of stuff interwoven with gold and silver,
+made at Tournay, which was formerly called Dorneck, in Flanders.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24">24</a> An alloy of copper and zinc.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25">25</a> Large standard candlesticks.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26">26</a> The Lent cloth, hung before the altar during Lent.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27">27</a> A Pax.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28">28</a> <i>History of the Church in England</i>, p. 401.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29">29</a> Doubtless our author means Norman.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30">30</a> A china punch-bowl was actually presented by Sir T.
+Drake to be used as a font at Woodbury, Devon.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31">31</a> <i>English Church Furniture</i>, by Dr. Cox and A. Harvey.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32">32</a> <i>The Parish Councillor</i>, an article by Dr. Jessop,
+September 20, 1895.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33">33</a> Canon F.E. Warren recently reported to the Suffolk
+Institute of Arch&aelig;ology that while he was dining at a friend's house
+he saw two chalices on the table.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34">34</a> <i>Memorials of Old Warwickshire</i>, edited by Miss Alice
+Dryden.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35">35</a> The present Marquis of Northampton in his book contends
+that the house was mainly built in the reign of Henry VII by Edmund
+Compton, Sir William's father, and that Sir William only enlarged and
+added to the house. We have not space to record the arguments in
+favour of or against this view.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36">36</a> <i>The Progresses of James I</i>, by Nichols.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37">37</a> <i>Old-time Parson</i>, by P.H. Ditchfield, 1908.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38">38</a> <i>Country Life</i>, September 17th, 1904.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39">39</a> Farmers.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40">40</a> Stand away.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41">41</a> One just.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42">42</a> <i>The Builder</i>, March 6, 1909.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43">43</a> It is erroneously styled Bishop Hall's Palace. An
+episcopal palace is the official residence of the bishop in his
+cathedral city. Not even a country seat of a bishop is correctly
+called a palace, much less the residence of a bishop when ejected from
+his see.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44">44</a> <i>History of Newbury</i>, by Walter Money, F.S.A.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45">45</a> Report of the State of Lancashire in 1590 (Chetham
+Society, Vol. XCVI, p. 5).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46">46</a> <i>Ancient Crosses of Lancashire</i>, by Henry Taylor.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47">47</a> <i>Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire,</i> by Henry
+Taylor, F.S.A.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48">48</a> <i>Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire,</i> by Henry
+Taylor, F.S.A.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49">49</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50">50</a> Act of Parliament, 1405.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51">51</a> <i>History of Hungerford</i>, by W. Money, p. 38.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52">52</a> <i>Notes and Queries</i>, 4th series, X, p. 6.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53">53</a> <i>Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire</i>, by H.
+Taylor, F.S.A., p. 37.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54">54</a> <i>History of Skipton</i>, W.H. Dawson, quoted in <i>Bygone
+Punishments</i>, p. 199.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55">55</a> The corporation of Hungerford is peculiar, the head
+official being termed the constable, who corresponded with the mayor
+in less original boroughs.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56">56</a> Act of Parliament 25 George II.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57">57</a> Ferry.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58">58</a> Mr. Nisbett gives a good account of the hospital in
+<i>Memorials of Old Hampshire</i>, and Mr. Champneys fully describes the
+buildings in the <i>Architectural Review</i>, October, 1903, and April,
+1904.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59">59</a> The <i>Treasury</i>, November, 1907, an article on hospitals
+by Dr. Hermitage Day.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60">60</a> <i>Highways and Byways in Berkshire</i>.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61">61</a> <i>Old English Customs Extant at the Present Time</i>
+(Methuen and Co.).</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62">62</a> The book of words is printed in <i>Old English Customs</i>,
+by P.H. Ditchfield.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63">63</a> A paper read by Mr. Nigel Bond, Secretary of the
+National Trust, at a meeting of the Dorset Natural History and
+Antiquarian Field Club, to which paper the writer is indebted for the
+subsequent account of the proceeding's of foreign governments with
+regard to the preservation of their ancient monuments.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64">64</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p>
+<p><a name="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65">65</a> A full account of this useful invention was given in the
+<i>Times</i> Engineering Supplement, March 18th, 1908, by Mr. Francis Fox,
+M. Inst. C.E.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
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@@ -0,0 +1,11612 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vanishing England, by P. H. Ditchfield,
+Illustrated by Fred Roe
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Vanishing England
+
+Author: P. H. Ditchfield
+
+Release Date: January 20, 2005  [eBook #14742]
+
+Language: en
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANISHING ENGLAND***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Victoria Woosley, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 14742-h.htm or 14742-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/4/14742/14742-h/14742-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/4/14742/14742-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+VANISHING ENGLAND
+
+The Book
+
+by
+
+P. H. DITCHFIELD
+M.A., F.S.A., F.H.S.L., F.R.HIST.S.
+
+The Illustrations by FRED ROE, R.I.
+
+Methuen & Co. Ltd.
+36 Essex Street W.C.
+London
+
+1910
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset]
+
+
+[Illustration: Canopy over Doorway of Buckingham House, Portsmouth]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER
+
+        I. INTRODUCTION
+
+       II. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ENGLAND
+
+      III. OLD WALLED TOWNS
+
+       IV. IN STREETS AND LANES
+
+        V. OLD CASTLES
+
+       VI. VANISHING OR VANISHED CHURCHES
+
+      VII. OLD MANSIONS
+
+     VIII. THE DESTRUCTION OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS
+
+       IX. CATHEDRAL CITIES AND ABBEY TOWNS
+
+        X. OLD INNS
+
+       XI. OLD MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS
+
+      XII. OLD CROSSES
+
+     XIII. STOCKS AND WHIPPING-POSTS
+
+      XIV. OLD BRIDGES
+
+       XV. OLD HOSPITALS AND ALMSHOUSES
+
+      XVI. VANISHING FAIRS
+
+     XVII. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF OLD DOCUMENTS
+
+    XVIII. OLD CUSTOMS THAT ARE VANISHING
+
+      XIX. THE VANISHING OF ENGLISH SCENERY
+
+       XX. CONCLUSION
+
+           INDEX
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    The George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset (Frontispiece)
+
+    Canopy over Doorway of Buckingham House, Portsmouth (Title page)
+
+    Rural Tenements, Capel, Surrey
+
+    Detail of Seventeenth-century Table in Milton's Cottage,
+      Chalfont St. Giles
+
+    Seventeenth-century Trophy
+
+    Old Shop, formerly standing in Cliffe High Street, Lewes
+
+    Paradise Square, Banbury
+
+    Norden's Chart of the River Ore and Suffolk Coast
+
+    Disused Mooring-post on bank of the Rother, Rye
+
+    Old Houses built on the Town Wall, Rye
+
+    Bootham Bar, York
+
+    Half-timbered House with early Fifteenth-century Doorway,
+      King's Lynn, Norfolk
+
+    The "Bone Tower," Town Walls, Great Yarmouth
+
+    Row No. 83, Great Yarmouth
+
+    The Old Jetty, Gorleston
+
+    Tudor House, Ipswich, near the Custom House
+
+    Three-gabled House, Fore Street, Ipswich
+
+    "Melia's Passage," York
+
+    Detail of Half-timbered House in High Street, Shrewsbury
+
+    Tower on the Town Wall, Shrewsbury
+
+    House that the Earl of Richmond stayed in before the Battle of
+      Bosworth. Shrewsbury
+
+    Old Houses formerly standing in Spon Street, Coventry
+
+    West Street, Rye
+
+    Monogram and Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye
+
+    Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye
+
+    Relic of Lynn Siege in Hampton Court, King's Lynn
+
+    Hampton Court, King's Lynn, Norfolk
+
+    Mill Street, Warwick
+
+    Tudor Tenements, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford (now demolished)
+
+    Gothic Corner-post. The Half Moon Inn, Ipswich
+
+    Timber-built House, Shrewsbury
+
+    Missbrook Farm, Capel, Surrey
+
+    Cottage at Capel, Surrey
+
+    Farm-house, Horsmonden, Kent
+
+    Seventeenth-century Cottages, Stow Langtoft, Suffolk
+
+    The "Fish House," Littleport, Cambs.
+
+    Sixteenth-century Cottage, formerly standing in Upper Deal, Kent
+
+    Gable, Upper Deal, Kent
+
+    A Portsmouth "Row"
+
+    Lich-gate, Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks
+
+    Fifteenth-century Handle on Church Door, Monk's Risborough, Bucks
+
+    Weather-boarded Houses, Crown Street, Portsmouth
+
+    Inscription on Font, Parish Church, Burford, Oxon
+
+    Detail of Fifteenth-century Barge-board, Burford, Oxon
+
+    The George Inn, Burford, Oxon
+
+    Maldon, Essex. Sky-line of the High Street at twilight
+
+    St. Mary's Church, Maldon
+
+    Norman Clamp on door of Heybridge Church, Essex
+
+    Tudor Fire-place. Now walled up in the passage of a shop
+      in Banbury
+
+    Cottages in Witney Street, Burford, Oxon
+
+    Burgh Castle, Suffolk
+
+    Caister Castle, Norfolk
+
+    Defaced Arms, Taunton Castle
+
+    Knightly Basinet (_temp._ Henry V) in Norwich Castle
+
+    Saxon Doorway in St. Lawrence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts.
+
+    St. George's Church, Great Yarmouth
+
+    Carving on Rood-screen, Alcester Church, Warwick
+
+    Fourteenth-century Coffer in Faversham Church, Kent
+
+    Flanders Chest in East Dereham Church, Norfolk, _temp_.
+      Henry VIII
+
+    Reversed Rose carved on "Miserere" in Norwich Cathedral
+
+    Oak Panelling. Wainscot of Fifteenth Century, with addition _circa_
+      late Seventeenth Century, fitted on to it in
+      angle of room in the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent
+
+    Section of Mouldings of Cornice on Panelling, the Church House,
+      Goudhurst
+
+    The Wardrobe House, the Close, Salisbury
+
+    Chimney at Compton Wynyates
+
+    Window-catch, Brockhall, Northants
+
+    Gothic Chimney, Norton St. Philip, Somerset
+
+    The Moat, Crowhurst Place, Surrey
+
+    Arms of the Gaynesfords in window, Crowhurst Place, Surrey
+
+    Cupboard Hinge, Crowhurst Place, Surrey
+
+    Fixed Bench in the hall, Crowhurst Place, Surrey
+
+    Gothic Door-head, Goudhurst, Kent
+
+    Knightly Basinet (_temp._ Henry V) in Norwich Castle
+
+    Hilt of Thirteenth-century Sword in Norwich Museum
+
+    "Hand-and-a-half" Sword. Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A.
+
+    Seventeenth-century Boot, in the possession of Ernest
+      Crofts, Esq., R.A.
+
+    Chapel de Fer at Ockwells, Berks
+
+    Tudor Dresser Table, in the possession of Sir Alfred Dryden,
+      Canon's Ashby, Northants
+
+    Seventeenth-century Powder-horn, found in the wall of an
+      old house at Glastonbury. Now in Glastonbury Museum
+
+    Seventeenth-century Spy-glass in Taunton Museum
+
+    Fourteenth-century Flagon. From an old Manor House in Norfolk
+
+    Elizabethan Chest, in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B.
+
+    Staircase Newel, Cromwell House, Highgate
+
+    Piece of Wood Carved with Inscription. Found with a sword (_temp._
+      Charles II) in an old house at Stoke-under-Ham, Somerset
+
+    Seventeenth-century Water-clock, in Norwich Museum
+
+    Sun-dial. The Manor House, Sutton Courtenay
+
+    Half-timber Cottages, Waterside, Evesham
+
+    Quarter Jacks over the Clock on exterior of north wall of Wells
+      Cathedral
+
+    The Gate House, Bishop's Palace, Well
+
+    House in which Bishop Hooper was imprisoned, Westgate Street,
+      Gloucester
+
+    The "Stone House," Rye, Sussex
+
+    Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham
+
+    Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham
+
+    Fifteenth-century House in Cowl Street, Evesham
+
+    Half-timber House, Alcester, Warwick
+
+    Half-timber House at Alcester
+
+    The Wheelwrights' Arms, Warwick
+
+    Entrance to the Reindeer Inn, Banbury
+
+    The Shoulder of Mutton Inn, King's Lynn
+
+    A Quaint Gable, the Bell Inn, Stilton
+
+    The Bell Inn, Stilton
+
+    The "Briton's Arms," Norwich
+
+    The Dolphin Inn, Heigham, Norwich
+
+    Shield and Monogram on doorway of the Dolphin Inn, Heigham
+
+    Staircase Newel at the Dolphin Inn
+
+    The Falstaff Inn, Canterbury
+
+    The Bear and Ragged Staff Inn, Tewkesbury
+
+    Fire-place in the George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset
+
+    The Green Dragon Inn, Wymondham, Norfolk
+
+    The Star Inn, Alfriston, Sussex
+
+    Courtyard of the George Inn, Norton St. Philip, Somerset
+
+    The Dark Lantern Inn, Aylesbury, Bucks
+
+    Spandril. The Marquis of Granby Inn, Colchester
+
+    The Town Hall, Shrewsbury
+
+    The Greenland Fishery House, King's Lynn.
+      An old Guild House of the time of James I
+
+    The Market House, Wymondham, Norfolk
+
+    Guild Mark and Date on doorway, Burford, Oxon
+
+    Stretham Cross, Isle of Ely
+
+    The Market Cross, Salisbury
+
+    Under the Butter Cross, Witney, Oxon
+
+    The Triangular Bridge, Crowland
+
+    Huntingdon Bridge
+
+    The Crane Bridge, Salisbury
+
+    Watch House on the Bridge, Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts
+
+    Gateway of St. John's Hospital, Canterbury
+
+    Inmate of the Trinity Bede House at Castle Rising, Norfolk
+
+    The Hospital for Ancient Fishermen, Great Yarmouth
+
+    Inscription on the Hospital, King's Lynn
+
+    Ancient Inmates of the Fishermen's Hospital, Great Yarmouth
+
+    Cottages at Evesham
+
+    Stalls at Banbury Fair
+
+    An Old English Fair
+
+    An Ancient Maker of Nets in a Kentish Fair
+
+    Outside the Lamb Inn, Burford
+
+    Tail Piece
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+This book is intended not to raise fears but to record facts. We wish
+to describe with pen and pencil those features of England which are
+gradually disappearing, and to preserve the memory of them. It may be
+said that we have begun our quest too late; that so much has already
+vanished that it is hardly worth while to record what is left.
+Although much has gone, there is still, however, much remaining that
+is good, that reveals the artistic skill and taste of our forefathers,
+and recalls the wonders of old-time. It will be our endeavour to tell
+of the old country houses that Time has spared, the cottages that
+grace the village green, the stern grey walls that still guard some
+few of our towns, the old moot halls and public buildings. We shall
+see the old-time farmers and rustics gathering together at fair and
+market, their games and sports and merry-makings, and whatever relics
+of old English life have been left for an artist and scribe of the
+twentieth century to record.
+
+Our age is an age of progress. _Altiora peto_ is its motto. The spirit
+of progress is in the air, and lures its votaries on to higher
+flights. Sometimes they discover that they have been following a mere
+will-o'-the-wisp, that leads them into bog and quagmire whence no
+escape is possible. The England of a century, or even of half a
+century ago, has vanished, and we find ourselves in the midst of a
+busy, bustling world that knows no rest or peace. Inventions tread
+upon each other's heels in one long vast bewildering procession. We
+look back at the peaceful reign of the pack-horse, the rumbling wagon,
+the advent of the merry coaching days, the "Lightning" and the
+"Quicksilver," the chaining of the rivers with locks and bars, the
+network of canals that spread over the whole country; and then the
+first shriek of the railway engine startled the echoes of the
+countryside, a poor powerless thing that had to be pulled up the steep
+gradients by a chain attached to a big stationary engine at the
+summit. But it was the herald of the doom of the old-world England.
+Highways and coaching roads, canals and rivers, were abandoned and
+deserted. The old coachmen, once lords of the road, ended their days
+in the poorhouse, and steam, almighty steam, ruled everywhere.
+
+Now the wayside inns wake up again with the bellow of the motor-car,
+which like a hideous monster rushes through the old-world villages,
+startling and killing old slow-footed rustics and scampering children,
+dogs and hens, and clouds of dust strive in very mercy to hide the
+view of the terrible rushing demon. In a few years' time the air will
+be conquered, and aeroplanes, balloons, flying-machines and air-ships,
+will drop down upon us from the skies and add a new terror to life.
+
+  Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,
+  Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
+
+Life is for ever changing, and doubtless everything is for the best in
+this best of possible worlds; but the antiquary may be forgiven for
+mourning over the destruction of many of the picturesque features of
+bygone times and revelling in the recollections of the past. The
+half-educated and the progressive--I attach no political meaning to
+the term--delight in their present environment, and care not to
+inquire too deeply into the origin of things; the study of evolution
+and development is outside their sphere; but yet, as Dean Church once
+wisely said, "In our eagerness for improvement it concerns us to be
+on our guard against the temptation of thinking that we can have the
+fruit or the flower, and yet destroy the root.... It concerns us that
+we do not despise our birthright and cast away our heritage of gifts
+and of powers, which we may lose, but not recover."
+
+Every day witnesses the destruction of some old link with the past
+life of the people of England. A stone here, a buttress there--it
+matters not; these are of no consequence to the innovator or the
+iconoclast. If it may be our privilege to prevent any further
+spoliation of the heritage of Englishmen, if we can awaken any respect
+or reverence for the work of our forefathers, the labours of both
+artist and author will not have been in vain. Our heritage has been
+sadly diminished, but it has not yet altogether disappeared, and it is
+our object to try to record some of those objects of interest which
+are so fast perishing and vanishing from our view, in order that the
+remembrance of all the treasures that our country possesses may not
+disappear with them.
+
+The beauty of our English scenery has in many parts of the country
+entirely vanished, never to return. Coal-pits, blasting furnaces,
+factories, and railways have converted once smiling landscapes and
+pretty villages into an inferno of black smoke, hideous mounds of
+ashes, huge mills with lofty chimneys belching forth clouds of smoke
+that kills vegetation and covers the leaves of trees and plants with
+exhalations. I remember attending at Oxford a lecture delivered by the
+late Mr. Ruskin. He produced a charming drawing by Turner of a
+beautiful old bridge spanning a clear stream, the banks of which were
+clad with trees and foliage. The sun shone brightly, and the sky was
+blue, with fleeting clouds. "This is what you are doing with your
+scenery," said the lecturer, as he took his palette and brushes; he
+began to paint on the glass that covered the picture, and in a few
+minutes the scene was transformed. Instead of the beautiful bridge a
+hideous iron girder structure spanned the stream, which was no longer
+pellucid and clear, but black as the Styx; instead of the trees arose
+a monstrous mill with a tall chimney vomiting black smoke that spread
+in heavy clouds, hiding the sun and the blue sky. "That is* what you
+are doing with your scenery," concluded Mr. Ruskin--a true picture of
+the penalty we pay for trade, progress, and the pursuit of wealth. We
+are losing faith in the testimony of our poets and painters to the
+beauty of the English landscape which has inspired their art, and much
+of the charm of our scenery in many parts has vanished. We happily
+have some of it left still where factories are not, some interesting
+objects that artists love to paint. It is well that they should be
+recorded before they too pass away.
+
+   *Transcriber's Note: Original "it".
+
+[Illustration: Rural Tenements, Capel, Surrey]
+
+Old houses of both peer and peasant and their contents are sooner or
+later doomed to destruction. Historic mansions full of priceless
+treasures amassed by succeeding generations of old families fall a
+prey to relentless fire. Old panelled rooms and the ancient
+floor-timbers understand not the latest experiments in electric
+lighting, and yield themselves to the flames with scarce a struggle.
+Our forefathers were content with hangings to keep out the draughts
+and open fireplaces to keep them warm. They were a hardy race, and
+feared not a touch or breath of cold. Their degenerate sons must have
+an elaborate heating apparatus, which again distresses the old timbers
+of the house and fires their hearts of oak. Our forefathers, indeed,
+left behind them a terrible legacy of danger--that beam in the
+chimney, which has caused the destruction of many country houses.
+Perhaps it was not so great a source of danger in the days of the old
+wood fires. It is deadly enough when huge coal fires burn in the
+grates. It is a dangerous, subtle thing. For days, or even for a week
+or two, it will smoulder and smoulder; and then at last it will blaze
+up, and the old house with all its precious contents is wrecked.
+
+The power of the purse of American millionaires also tends greatly to
+the vanishing of much that is English--the treasures of English art,
+rare pictures and books, and even of houses. Some nobleman or
+gentleman, through the extravagance of himself or his ancestors, or on
+account of the pressure of death duties, finds himself impoverished.
+Some of our great art dealers hear of his unhappy state, and knowing
+that he has some fine paintings--a Vandyke or a Romney--offer him
+twenty-five or thirty thousand pounds for a work of art. The
+temptation proves irresistible. The picture is sold, and soon finds
+its way into the gallery of a rich American, no one in England having
+the power or the good taste to purchase it. We spend our money in
+other ways. The following conversation was overheard at Christie's:
+"Here is a beautiful thing; you should buy it," said the speaker to a
+newly fledged baronet. "I'm afraid I can't afford it," replied the
+baronet. "Not afford it?" replied his companion. "It will cost you
+infinitely less than a baronetcy and do you infinitely more credit."
+The new baronet seemed rather offended. At the great art sales rare
+folios of Shakespeare, pictures, Sevres, miniatures from English
+houses are put up for auction, and of course find their way to
+America. Sometimes our cousins from across the Atlantic fail to secure
+their treasures. They have striven very eagerly to buy Milton's
+cottage at Chalfont St. Giles, for transportation to America; but this
+effort has happily been successfully resisted. The carved table in
+the cottage was much sought after, and was with difficulty retained
+against an offer of L150. An old window of fifteenth-century
+workmanship in an old house at Shrewsbury was nearly exploited by an
+enterprising American for the sum of L250; and some years ago an
+application was received by the Home Secretary for permission to
+unearth the body of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, from
+its grave in the burial-ground of Jordans, near Chalfont St. Giles,
+and transport it to Philadelphia. This action was successfully opposed
+by the trustees of the burial-ground, but it was considered expedient
+to watch the ground for some time to guard against the possibility of
+any illicit attempts at removal.
+
+[Illustration: Detail of Seventeenth-century Table in Milton's
+Cottage, Chalfont St. Giles]
+
+It was reported that an American purchaser had been more successful at
+Ipswich, where in 1907 a Tudor house and corner-post, it was said, had
+been secured by a London firm for shipment to America. We are glad to
+hear that this report was incorrect, that the purchaser was an English
+lord, who re-erected the house in his park.
+
+Wanton destruction is another cause of the disappearance of old
+mansions. Fashions change even in house-building. Many people prefer
+new lamps to old ones, though the old ones alone can summon genii and
+recall the glories of the past, the associations of centuries of
+family life, and the stories of ancestral prowess. Sometimes fashion
+decrees the downfall of old houses. Such a fashion raged at the
+beginning of the last century, when every one wanted a brand-new house
+built after the Palladian style; and the old weather-beaten pile that
+had sheltered the family for generations, and was of good old English
+design with nothing foreign or strange about it, was compelled to give
+place to a new-fangled dwelling-place which was neither beautiful nor
+comfortable. Indeed, a great wit once advised the builder of one of
+these mansions to hire a room on the other side of the road and spend
+his days looking at his Palladian house, but to be sure not to live
+there.
+
+Many old houses have disappeared on account of the loyalty of their
+owners, who were unfortunate enough to reside within the regions
+harassed by the Civil War. This was especially the case in the county
+of Oxford. Still you may see avenues of venerable trees that lead to
+no house. The old mansion or manor-house has vanished. Many of them
+were put in a posture of defence. Earthworks and moats, if they did
+not exist before, were hastily constructed, and some of these houses
+were bravely defended by a competent and brave garrison, and were
+thorns in the sides of the Parliamentary army. Upon the triumph of the
+latter, revenge suffered not these nests of Malignants to live. Others
+were so battered and ruinous that they were only fit residences for
+owls and bats. Some loyal owners destroyed the remains of their homes
+lest they should afford shelter to the Parliamentary forces. David
+Walter set fire to his house at Godstow lest it should afford
+accommodation to the "Rebels." For the same reason Governor Legge
+burnt the new episcopal palace, which Bancroft had only finished ten
+years before at Cuddesdon. At the same time Thomas Gardiner burnt his
+manor-house in Cuddesdon village, and many other houses were so
+battered that they were left untenanted, and so fell to ruin.[1] Sir
+Bulstrode Whitelock describes how he slighted the works at Phillis
+Court, "causing the bulwarks and lines to be digged down, the grafts
+[i.e. moats] filled, the drawbridge to be pulled up, and all levelled.
+I sent away the great guns, the granadoes, fireworks, and ammunition,
+whereof there was good store in the fort. I procured pay for my
+soldiers, and many of them undertook the service in Ireland." This is
+doubtless typical of what went on in many other houses. The famous
+royal manor-house of Woodstock was left battered and deserted, and
+"haunted," as the readers of _Woodstock_ will remember, by an "adroit
+and humorous royalist named Joe Collins," who frightened the
+commissioners away by his ghostly pranks. In 1651 the old house was
+gutted and almost destroyed. The war wrought havoc with the old
+houses, as it did with the lives and other possessions of the
+conquered.
+
+  [1] _History of Oxfordshire_, by J. Meade Falkner.
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Trophy]
+
+But we are concerned with times less remote, with the vanishing of
+historic monuments, of noble specimens of architecture, and of the
+humble dwellings of the poor, the picturesque cottages by the wayside,
+which form such attractive features of the English landscape. We have
+only to look at the west end of St. Albans Abbey Church, which has
+been "Grimthorped" out of all recognition, or at the over-restored
+Lincoln's Inn Chapel, to see what evil can be done in the name of
+"Restoration," how money can be lavishly spent to a thoroughly bad
+purpose.
+
+Property in private hands has suffered no less than many of our
+public buildings, even when the owner is a lover of antiquity and does
+not wish to remove and to destroy the objects of interest on his
+estate. Estate agents are responsible for much destruction. Sir John
+Stirling Maxwell, Bart., F.S.A., a keen archaeologist, tells how an
+agent on his estate transformed a fine old grim sixteenth-century
+fortified dwelling, a very perfect specimen of its class, into a house
+for himself, entirely altering the character of its appearance, adding
+a lofty oriel and spacious windows with a new door and staircase,
+while some of the old stones were made to adorn a rockery in the
+garden. When he was abroad the elaborately contrived entrance for the
+defence of a square fifteenth-century keep with four square towers at
+the corners, very curious and complete, were entirely obliterated by a
+zealous mason. In my own parish I awoke one day to find the old
+village pound entirely removed by order of an estate agent, and a very
+interesting stand near the village smithy for fastening oxen when they
+were shod disappeared one day, the village publican wanting the posts
+for his pig-sty. County councils sweep away old bridges because they
+are inconveniently narrow and steep for the tourists' motors, and
+deans and chapters are not always to be relied upon in regard to their
+theories of restoration, and squire and parson work sad havoc on the
+fabrics of old churches when they are doing their best to repair them.
+Too often they have decided to entirely demolish the old building, the
+most characteristic feature of the English landscape, with its square
+grey tower or shapely spire, a tower that is, perhaps, loopholed and
+battlemented, and tells of turbulent times when it afforded a secure
+asylum and stronghold when hostile bands were roving the countryside.
+Within, piscina, ambrey, and rood-loft tell of the ritual of former
+days. Some monuments of knights and dames proclaim the achievements of
+some great local family. But all this weighs for nothing in the eyes
+of the renovating squire and parson. They must have a grand, new,
+modern church with much architectural pretension and fine decorations
+which can never have the charm which attaches to the old building. It
+has no memories, this new structure. It has nothing to connect it with
+the historic past. Besides, they decree that it must not cost too
+much. The scheme of decoration is stereotyped, the construction
+mechanical. There is an entire absence of true feeling and of any real
+inspiration of devotional art. The design is conventional, the pattern
+uniform. The work is often scamped and hurried, very different from
+the old method of building. We note the contrast. The medieval
+builders were never in a hurry to finish their work. The old fanes
+took centuries to build; each generation doing its share, chancel or
+nave, aisle or window, each trying to make the church as perfect as
+the art of man could achieve. We shall see how much of this sound and
+laborious work has vanished, a prey to restoration and ignorant
+renovation. We shall see the house-breaker at work in rural hamlet and
+in country town. Vanishing London we shall leave severely alone. Its
+story has been already told in a large and comely volume by my friend
+Mr. Philip Norman. Besides, is there anything that has not vanished,
+having been doomed to destruction by the march of progress, now that
+Crosby Hall has gone the way of life in the Great City? A few old
+halls of the City companies remain, but most of them have given way to
+modern palaces; a few City churches, very few, that escaped the Great
+Fire, and every now and again we hear threatenings against the
+masterpieces of Wren, and another City church has followed in the wake
+of all the other London buildings on which the destroyer has laid his
+hand. The site is so valuable; the modern world of business presses
+out the life of these fine old edifices. They have to make way for
+new-fangled erections built in the modern French style with sprawling
+gigantic figures with bare limbs hanging on the porticoes which seem
+to wonder how they ever got there, and however they were to keep
+themselves from falling. London is hopeless! We can but delve its soil
+when opportunities occur in order to find traces of Roman or medieval
+life. Churches, inns, halls, mansions, palaces, exchanges have
+vanished, or are quickly vanishing, and we cast off the dust of London
+streets from our feet and seek more hopeful places.
+
+[Illustration: Old Shop, formerly standing in Cliffe High Street,
+Lewes]
+
+But even in the sleepy hollows of old England the pulse beats faster
+than of yore, and we shall only just be in time to rescue from
+oblivion and the house-breaker some of our heritage. Old city walls
+that have defied the attacks of time and of Cromwell's Ironsides are
+often in danger from the wiseacres who preside on borough
+corporations. Town halls picturesque and beautiful in their old age
+have to make way for the creations of the local architect. Old shops
+have to be pulled down in order to provide a site for a universal
+emporium or a motor garage. Nor are buildings the only things that are
+passing away. The extensive use of motor-cars and highway vandalism
+are destroying the peculiar beauty of the English roadside. The
+swift-speeding cars create clouds of white dust which settles upon the
+hedges and trees, covering them with it and obscuring the wayside
+flowers and hiding all their attractiveness. Corn and grass are
+injured and destroyed by the dust clouds. The charm and poetry of the
+country walk are destroyed by motoring demons, and the wayside
+cottage-gardens, once the most attractive feature of the English
+landscape, are ruined. The elder England, too, is vanishing in the
+modes, habits, and manners of her people. Never was the truth of the
+old oft-quoted Latin proverb--_Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in
+illis_--so pathetically emphatic as it is to-day. The people are
+changing in their habits and modes of thought. They no longer take
+pleasure in the simple joys of their forefathers. Hence in our
+chronicle of Vanishing England we shall have to refer to some of those
+strange customs which date back to primeval ages, but which the
+railways, excursion trains, and the schoolmaster in a few years will
+render obsolete.
+
+In recording the England that is vanishing the artist's pencil will
+play a more prominent part than the writer's pen. The graphic sketches
+that illustrate this book are far more valuable and helpful to the
+discernment of the things that remain than the most effective
+descriptions. We have tried together to gather up the fragments that
+remain that nothing be lost; and though there may be much that we have
+not gathered, the examples herein given of some of the treasures that
+are left may be useful in creating a greater reverence for the work
+bequeathed to us by our forefathers, and in strengthening the hands of
+those who would preserve them. Happily we are still able to use the
+present participle, not the past. It is vanishing England, not
+vanished, of which we treat; and if we can succeed in promoting an
+affection for the relics of antiquity that time has spared, our
+labours will not have been in vain or the object of this book
+unattained.
+
+[Illustration: Paradise Square, Banbury]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ENGLAND
+
+
+Under this alarming heading, "The Disappearance of England," the
+_Gaulois_ recently published an article by M. Guy Dorval on the
+erosion of the English coasts. The writer refers to the predictions of
+certain British men of science that England will one day disappear
+altogether beneath the waves, and imagines that we British folk are
+seized by a popular panic. Our neighbours are trembling for the fate
+of the _entente cordiale_, which would speedily vanish with vanishing
+England; but they have been assured by some of their savants that the
+rate of erosion is only one kilometre in a thousand years, and that
+the danger of total extinction is somewhat remote. Professor Stanislas
+Meunier, however, declares that our "panic" is based on scientific
+facts. He tells us that the cliffs of Brighton are now one kilometre
+farther away from the French coast than in the days of Queen
+Elizabeth, and that those of Kent are six kilometres farther away than
+in the Roman period. He compares our island to a large piece of sugar
+in water, but we may rest assured that before we disappear beneath the
+waves the period which must elapse would be greater than the longest
+civilizations known in history. So we may hope to be able to sing
+"Rule Britannia" for many a long year.
+
+Coast erosion is, however, a serious problem, and has caused the
+destruction of many a fair town and noble forest that now lie beneath
+the seas, and the crumbling cliffs on our eastern shore threaten to
+destroy many a village church and smiling pasture. Fishermen tell you
+that when storms rage and the waves swell they have heard the bells
+chiming in the towers long covered by the seas, and nigh the
+picturesque village of Bosham we were told of a stretch of sea that
+was called the Park. This as late as the days of Henry VIII was a
+favourite royal hunting forest, wherein stags and fawns and does
+disported themselves; now fish are the only prey that can be slain
+therein.
+
+The Royal Commission on coast erosion relieves our minds somewhat by
+assuring us that although the sea gains upon the land in many places,
+the land gains upon the sea in others, and that the loss and gain are
+more or less balanced. As a matter of area this is true. Most of the
+land that has been rescued from the pitiless sea is below high-water
+mark, and is protected by artificial banks. This work of reclaiming
+land can, of course, only be accomplished in sheltered places, for
+example, in the great flat bordering the Wash, which flat is formed by
+the deposit of the rivers of the Fenland, and the seaward face of this
+region is gradually being pushed forward by the careful processes of
+enclosure. You can see the various old sea walls which have been
+constructed from Roman times onward. Some accretions of land have
+occurred where the sea piles up masses of shingle, unless foolish
+people cart away the shingle in such quantities that the waves again
+assert themselves. Sometimes sand silts up as at Southport in
+Lancashire, where there is the second longest pier in England, a mile
+in length, from the end of which it is said that on a clear day with a
+powerful telescope you may perchance see the sea, that a distinguished
+traveller accustomed to the deserts of Sahara once found it, and that
+the name Southport is altogether a misnomer, as it is in the north and
+there is no port at all.
+
+But however much as an Englishman I might rejoice that the actual area
+of "our tight little island," which after all is not very tight,
+should not be diminishing, it would be a poor consolation to me, if I
+possessed land and houses on the coast of Norfolk which were fast
+slipping into the sea, to know that in the Fenland industrious farmers
+were adding to their acres. And day by day, year by year, this
+destruction is going on, and the gradual melting away of land. The
+attack is not always persistent. It is intermittent. Sometimes the
+progress of the sea seems to be stayed, and then a violent storm
+arises and falling cliffs and submerged houses proclaim the sway of
+the relentless waves. We find that the greatest loss has occurred on
+the east and southern coasts of our island. Great damage has been
+wrought all along the Yorkshire sea-board from Bridlington to Kilnsea,
+and the following districts have been the greatest sufferers: between
+Cromer and Happisburgh, Norfolk; between Pakefield and Southwold,
+Suffolk; Hampton and Herne Bay, and then St. Margaret's Bay, near
+Dover; the coast of Sussex, east of Brighton, and the Isle of Wight;
+the region of Bournemouth and Poole; Lyme Bay, Dorset, and Bridgwater
+Bay, Somerset.
+
+All along the coast from Yarmouth to Eastbourne, with a few
+exceptional parts, we find that the sea is gaining on the land by
+leaps and bounds. It is a coast that is most favourably constructed
+for coast erosion. There are no hard or firm rocks, no cliffs high
+enough to give rise to a respectable landslip; the soil is composed of
+loose sand and gravels, loams and clays, nothing to resist the
+assaults of atmospheric action from above or the sea below. At
+Covehithe, on the Suffolk coast, there has been the greatest loss of
+land. In 1887 sixty feet was claimed by the sea, and in ten years
+(1878-87) the loss was at the rate of over eighteen feet a year. In
+1895 another heavy loss occurred between Southwold and Covehithe and a
+new cove formed. Easton Bavent has entirely disappeared, and so have
+the once prosperous villages of Covehithe, Burgh-next-Walton, and
+Newton-by-Corton, and the same fate seems to be awaiting Pakefield,
+Southwold, and other coast-lying towns. Easton Bavent once had such a
+flourishing fishery that it paid an annual rent of 3110 herrings; and
+millions of herrings must have been caught by the fishermen of
+disappeared Dunwich, which we shall visit presently, as they paid
+annually "fish-fare" to the clergy of the town 15,377 herrings,
+besides 70,000 to the royal treasury.
+
+The summer visitors to the pleasant watering-place Felixstowe, named
+after St. Felix, who converted the East Anglians to Christianity and
+was their first bishop, that being the place where the monks of the
+priory of St. Felix in Walton held their annual fair, seldom reflect
+that the old Saxon burgh was carried away as long ago as 1100 A.D.
+Hence Earl Bigot was compelled to retire inland and erect his famous
+castle at Walton. But the sea respected not the proud walls of the
+baron's stronghold; the strong masonry that girt the keep lies beneath
+the waves; a heap of stones, called by the rustics Stone Works, alone
+marks the site of this once powerful castle. Two centuries later the
+baron's marsh was destroyed by the sea, and eighty acres of land was
+lost, much to the regret of the monks, who were thus deprived of the
+rent and tithe corn.
+
+The old chroniclers record many dread visitations of the relentless
+foe. Thus in 1237 we read: "The sea burst with high tides and tempests
+of winds, marsh countries near the sea were flooded, herds and flocks
+perished, and no small number of men were lost and drowned. The sea
+rose continually for two days and one night." Again in 1251: "On
+Christmas night there was a great thunder and lightning in Suffolk;
+the sea caused heavy floods." In much later times Defoe records:
+"Aldeburgh has two streets, each near a mile long, but its breadth,
+which was more considerable formerly, is not proportionable, and the
+sea has of late years swallowed up one whole street." It has still
+standing close to the shore its quaint picturesque town hall, erected
+in the fifteenth century. Southwold is now practically an island,
+bounded on the east by the sea, on the south-west by the Blyth River,
+on the north-west by Buss Creek. It is only joined to the mainland by
+a narrow neck of shingle that divides Buss Creek from the sea. I think
+that I should prefer to hold property in a more secure region. You
+invest your savings in stock, and dividends decrease and your capital
+grows smaller, but you usually have something left. But when your land
+and houses vanish entirely beneath the waves, the chapter is ended and
+you have no further remedy except to sue Father Neptune, who has
+rather a wide beat and may be difficult to find when he is wanted to
+be served with a summons.
+
+[Illustration: Norden's Chart of the River Ore and Suffolk Coast]
+
+But the Suffolk coast does not show all loss. In the north much land
+has been gained in the region of Beccles, which was at one time close
+to the sea, and one of the finest spreads of shingle in England
+extends from Aideburgh to Bawdry. This shingle has silted up many a
+Suffolk port, but it has proved a very effectual barrier against the
+inroads of the sea. Norden's map of the coast made in 1601[2] shows
+this wonderful mass of shingle, which has greatly increased since
+Norden's day. It has been growing in a southerly direction, until the
+Aide River had until recently an estuary ten miles in length. But in
+1907 the sea asserted itself, and "burst through the stony barrier,
+making a passage for the exit of the river one mile further north, and
+leaving a vast stretch of shingle and two deserted river-channels as a
+protection to the Marshes of Hollesley from further inroads of the
+sea."[3] Formerly the River Alde flowed direct to the sea just south
+of the town of Aldeburgh. Perhaps some day it may be able to again
+force a passage near its ancient course or by Havergate Island. This
+alteration in the course of rivers is very remarkable, and may be
+observed at Christ Church, Hants.
+
+  [2] It is now in possession of Mr. Kenneth M. Clark, by whose
+  permission the accompanying plan, reproduced from the _Memorials
+  of Old Suffolk_, was made.
+
+  [3] _Memorials of Old Suffolk_, edited by V.B. Redstone, p. 226.
+
+It is pathetic to think of the historic churches, beautiful villages,
+and smiling pastures that have been swept away by the relentless sea.
+There are no less than twelve towns and villages in Yorkshire that
+have been thus buried, and five in Suffolk. Ravensburgh, in the former
+county, was once a flourishing seaport. Here landed Henry IV in 1399,
+and Edward IV in 1471. It returned two members to Parliament. An old
+picture of the place shows the church, a large cross, and houses; but
+it has vanished with the neighbouring villages of Redmare,
+Tharlethorp, Frismarch, and Potterfleet, and "left not a wrack
+behind." Leland mentions it in 1538, after which time its place in
+history and on the map knows it no more. The ancient church of Kilnsea
+lost half its fabric in 1826, and the rest followed in 1831. Alborough
+Church and the Castle of Grimston have entirely vanished. Mapleton
+Church was formerly two miles from the sea; it is now on a cliff with
+the sea at its feet, awaiting the final attack of the all-devouring
+enemy. Nearly a century ago Owthorne Church and churchyard were
+overwhelmed, and the shore was strewn with ruins and shattered
+coffins. On the Tyneside the destruction has been remarkable and
+rapid. In the district of Saltworks there was a house built standing
+on the cliff, but it was never finished, and fell a prey to the waves.
+At Percy Square an inn and two cottages have been destroyed. The edge
+of the cliff in 1827 was eighty feet seaward, and the banks of Percy
+Square receded a hundred and eighty feet between the years 1827 and
+1892. Altogether four acres have disappeared. An old Roman building,
+locally known as "Gingling Geordie's Hole," and large masses of the
+Castle Cliff fell into the sea in the 'eighties. The remains of the
+once flourishing town of Seaton, on the Durham coast, can be
+discovered amid the sands at low tide. The modern village has sunk
+inland, and cannot now boast of an ancient chapel dedicated to St.
+Thomas of Canterbury, which has been devoured by the waves.
+
+Skegness, on the Lincolnshire coast, was a large and important town;
+it boasted of a castle with strong fortifications and a church with a
+lofty spire; it now lies deep beneath the devouring sea, which no
+guarding walls could conquer. Far out at sea, beneath the waves, lies
+old Cromer Church, and when storms rage its bells are said to chime.
+The churchyard wherein was written the pathetic ballad "The Garden of
+Sleep" is gradually disappearing, and "the graves of the fair women
+that sleep by the cliffs by the sea" have been outraged, and their
+bodies scattered and devoured by the pitiless waves.
+
+One of the greatest prizes of the sea is the ancient city of Dunwich,
+which dates back to the Roman era. The Domesday Survey shows that it
+was then a considerable town having 236 burgesses. It was girt with
+strong walls; it possessed an episcopal palace, the seat of the East
+Anglian bishopric; it had (so Stow asserts) fifty-two churches, a
+monastery, brazen gates, a town hall, hospitals, and the dignity of
+possessing a mint. Stow tells of its departed glories, its royal and
+episcopal palaces, the sumptuous mansion of the mayor, its numerous
+churches and its windmills, its harbour crowded with shipping, which
+sent forth forty vessels for the king's service in the thirteenth
+century. Though Dunwich was an important place, Stow's description of
+it is rather exaggerated. It could never have had more than ten
+churches and monasteries. Its "brazen gates" are mythical, though it
+had its Lepers' Gate, South Gate, and others. It was once a thriving
+city of wealthy merchants and industrious fishermen. King John granted
+to it a charter. It suffered from the attacks of armed men as well as
+from the ravages of the sea. Earl Bigot and the revolting barons
+besieged it in the reign of Edward I. Its decay was gradual. In 1342,
+in the parish of St. Nicholas, out of three hundred houses only
+eighteen remained. Only seven out of a hundred houses were standing in
+the parish of St. Martin. St. Peter's parish was devastated and
+depopulated. It had a small round church, like that at Cambridge,
+called the Temple, once the property of the Knights Templars, richly
+endowed with costly gifts. This was a place of sanctuary, as were the
+other churches in the city. With the destruction of the houses came
+also the decay of the port which no ships could enter. Its rival,
+Southwold, attracted the vessels of strangers. The markets and fairs
+were deserted. Silence and ruin reigned over the doomed town, and the
+ruined church of All Saints is all that remains of its former glories,
+save what the storms sometimes toss along the beach for the study and
+edification of antiquaries.
+
+As we proceed down the coast we find that the sea is still gaining on
+the land. The old church at Walton-on-the-Naze was swept away, and is
+replaced by a new one. A flourishing town existed at Reculver, which
+dates back to the Romans. It was a prosperous place, and had a noble
+church, which in the sixteenth century was a mile from the sea.
+Steadily have the waves advanced, until a century ago the church fell
+into the sea, save two towers which have been preserved by means of
+elaborate sea-walls as a landmark for sailors.
+
+The fickle sea has deserted some towns and destroyed their prosperity;
+it has receded all along the coast from Folkestone to the Sussex
+border, and left some of the famous Cinque Ports, some of which we
+shall visit again, Lymne, Romney, Hythe, Richborough, Stonor,
+Sandwich, and Sarre high and dry, with little or no access to the sea.
+Winchelsea has had a strange career. The old town lies beneath the
+waves, but a new Winchelsea arose, once a flourishing port, but now
+deserted and forlorn with the sea a mile away. Rye, too, has been
+forsaken. It was once an island; now the little Rother stream conveys
+small vessels to the sea, which looks very far away.
+
+We cannot follow all the victories of the sea. We might examine the
+inroads made by the waves at Selsea. There stood the first cathedral
+of the district before Chichester was founded. The building is now
+beneath the sea, and since Saxon times half of the Selsea Bill has
+vanished. The village of Selsea rested securely in the centre of the
+peninsula, but only half a mile now separates it from the sea. Some
+land has been gained near this projecting headland by an industrious
+farmer. His farm surrounded a large cove with a narrow mouth through
+which the sea poured. If he could only dam up that entrance, he
+thought he could rescue the bed of the cove and add to his acres. He
+bought an old ship and sank it by the entrance and proceeded to drain.
+But a tiresome storm arose and drove the ship right across the cove,
+and the sea poured in again. By no means discouraged, he dammed up the
+entrance more effectually, got rid of the water, increased his farm by
+many acres, and the old ship makes an admirable cow-shed.
+
+[Illustration: Disused Mooring-Post on bank of the Rother, Rye]
+
+The Isle of Wight in remote geological periods was part of the
+mainland. The Scilly Isles were once joined with Cornwall, and were
+not severed until the fourteenth century, when by a mighty storm and
+flood, 140 churches and villages were destroyed and overwhelmed, and
+190 square miles of land carried away. Much land has been lost in the
+Wirral district of Cheshire. Great forests have been overwhelmed, as
+the skulls and bones of deer and horse and fresh-water shell-fish have
+been frequently discovered at low tide. Fifty years ago a distance of
+half a mile separated Leasowes Castle from the sea; now its walls are
+washed by the waves. The Pennystone, off the Lancashire coast by
+Blackpool, tells of a submerged village and manor, about which cluster
+romantic legends.
+
+Such is the sad record of the sea's destruction, for which the
+industrious reclamation of land, the compensations wrought by the
+accumulation of shingle and sand dunes and the silting of estuaries
+can scarcely compensate us. How does the sea work this? There are
+certain rock-boring animals, such as the Pholas, which help to decay
+the rocks. Each mollusc cuts a series of augur-holes from two to four
+inches deep, and so assists in destroying the bulwarks of England.
+Atmospheric action, the disintegration of soft rocks by frost and by
+the attack of the sea below, all tend in the same direction. But the
+foolish action of man in removing shingle, the natural protection of
+our coasts, is also very mischievous. There is an instance of this in
+the Hall Sands and Bee Sands, Devon. A company a few years ago
+obtained authority to dredge both from the foreshore and sea-bed. The
+Commissioners of Woods and Forests and the Board of Trade granted this
+permission, the latter receiving a royalty of L50 and the former L150.
+This occurred in 1896. Soon afterwards a heavy gale arose and caused
+an immense amount of damage, the result entirely of this dredging. The
+company had to pay heavily, and the royalties were returned to them.
+This is only one instance out of many which might be quoted. We are an
+illogical nation, and our regulations and authorities are weirdly
+confused. It appears that the foreshore is under the control of the
+Board of Trade, and then a narrow strip of land is ruled over by the
+Commissioners of Woods and Forests. Of course these bodies do not
+agree; different policies are pursued by each, and the coast suffers.
+Large sums are sometimes spent in coast-defence works. At Spurn no
+less than L37,433 has been spent out of Parliamentary grants, besides
+L14,227 out of the Mercantile Marine Fund. Corporations or county
+authorities, finding their coasts being worn away, resolve to protect
+it. They obtain a grant in aid from Parliament, spend vast sums, and
+often find their work entirely thrown away, or proving itself most
+disastrous to their neighbours. If you protect one part of the coast
+you destroy another. Such is the rule of the sea. If you try to beat
+it back at one point it will revenge itself on another. If only you
+can cause shingle to accumulate before your threatened town or
+homestead, you know you can make the place safe and secure from the
+waves. But if you stop this flow of shingle you may protect your own
+homes, but you deprive your neighbours of this safeguard against the
+ravages of the sea. It was so at Deal. The good folks of Deal placed
+groynes in order to stop the flow of shingle and protect the town.
+They did their duty well; they stopped the shingle and made a good
+bulwark against the sea. With what result? In a few years' time they
+caused the destruction of Sandown, which had been deprived of its
+natural protection. Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., who has walked along the
+whole coast from Norfolk to Cornwall, besides visiting other parts of
+our English shore, and whose contributions to the Report of the Royal
+Commission on Coast Erosion are so valuable, remembers when a boy the
+Castle of Sandown, which dated from the time of Henry VIII. It was
+then in a sound condition and was inhabited. Now it is destroyed, and
+the batteries farther north have gone too. The same thing is going on
+at Dover. The Admiralty Pier causes the accumulation of shingle on its
+west side, and prevents it from following its natural course in a
+north-easterly direction. Hence the base of the cliffs on the other
+side of the pier and harbour is left bare and unprotected; this aids
+erosion, and not unfrequently do we hear of the fall of the chalk
+cliffs.
+
+Isolated schemes for the prevention of coast erosion are of little
+avail. They can do no good, and only increase the waste and
+destruction of land in neighbouring shores. Stringent laws should be
+passed to prevent the taking away of shingle from protecting beaches,
+and to prohibit the ploughing of land near the edge of cliffs, which
+greatly assists atmospheric destructive action from above. The State
+has recently threatened the abandonment of the coastguard service.
+This would be a disastrous policy. Though the primary object of
+coastguards, the prevention of smuggling, has almost passed away, the
+old sailors who act as guardians of our coast-line render valuable
+services to the country. They are most useful in looking after the
+foreshore. They save many lives from wrecked vessels, and keep watch
+and ward to guard our shores, and give timely notice of the advance of
+a hostile fleet, or of that ever-present foe which, though it affords
+some protection for our island home from armed invasion, does not fail
+to exact a heavy tithe from the land it guards, and has destroyed so
+many once flourishing towns and villages by its ceaseless attack.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+OLD WALLED TOWNS
+
+
+The destruction of ancient buildings always causes grief and distress
+to those who love antiquity. It is much to be deplored, but in some
+cases is perhaps inevitable. Old-fashioned half-timbered shops with
+small diamond-paned windows are not the most convenient for the
+display of the elegant fashionable costumes effectively draped on
+modelled forms. Motor-cars cannot be displayed in antiquated old
+shops. Hence in modern up-to-date towns these old buildings are
+doomed, and have to give place to grand emporiums with large
+plate-glass windows and the refinements of luxurious display. We hope
+to visit presently some of the old towns and cities which happily
+retain their ancient beauties, where quaint houses with oversailing
+upper stories still exist, and with the artist's aid to describe many
+of their attractions.
+
+Although much of the destruction is, as I have said, inevitable, a
+vast amount is simply the result of ignorance and wilful perversity.
+Ignorant persons get elected on town councils--worthy men doubtless,
+and able men of business, who can attend to and regulate the financial
+affairs of the town, look after its supply of gas and water, its
+drainage and tramways; but they are absolutely ignorant of its
+history, its associations, of architectural beauty, of anything that
+is not modern and utilitarian. Unhappily, into the care of such men as
+these is often confided the custody of historic buildings and
+priceless treasures, of ruined abbey and ancient walls, of objects
+consecrated by the lapse of centuries and by the associations of
+hundreds of years of corporate life; and it is not surprising that in
+many cases they betray their trust. They are not interested in such
+things. "Let bygones be bygones," they say. "We care not for old
+rubbish." Moreover, they frequently resent interference and
+instruction. Hence they destroy wholesale what should be preserved,
+and England is the poorer.
+
+Not long ago the Edwardian wall of Berwick-on-Tweed was threatened
+with demolition at the hands of those who ought to be its
+guardians--the Corporation of the town. An official from the Office of
+Works, when he saw the begrimed, neglected appearance of the two
+fragments of this wall near the Bell Tower, with a stagnant pool in
+the fosse, bestrewed with broken pitchers and rubbish, reported that
+the Elizabethan walls of the town which were under the direction of
+the War Department were in excellent condition, whereas the Edwardian
+masonry was utterly neglected. And why was this relic of the town's
+former greatness to be pulled down? Simply to clear the site for the
+erection of modern dwelling-houses. A very strong protest was made
+against this act of municipal barbarism by learned societies, the
+Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, and others, and we
+hope that the hand of the destroyer has been stayed.
+
+Most of the principal towns in England were protected by walls, and
+the citizens regarded it as a duty to build them and keep them in
+repair. When we look at some of these fortifications, their strength,
+their height, their thickness, we are struck by the fact that they
+were very great achievements, and that they must have been raised with
+immense labour and gigantic cost. In turbulent and warlike times they
+were absolutely necessary. Look at some of these triumphs of medieval
+engineering skill, so strong, so massive, able to defy the attacks of
+lance and arrow, ram or catapult, and to withstand ages of neglect and
+the storms of a tempestuous clime. Towers and bastions stood at
+intervals against the wall at convenient distances, in order that
+bowmen stationed in them could shoot down any who attempted to scale
+the wall with ladders anywhere within the distance between the
+towers. All along the wall there was a protected pathway for the
+defenders to stand, and machicolations through which boiling oil or
+lead, or heated sand could be poured on the heads of the attacking
+force. The gateways were carefully constructed, flanked by defending
+towers with a portcullis, and a guard-room overhead with holes in the
+vaulted roof of the gateway for pouring down inconvenient substances
+upon the heads of the besiegers. There were several gates, the usual
+number being four; but Coventry had twelve, Canterbury six, and
+Newcastle-on-Tyne seven, besides posterns.
+
+[Illustration: Old Houses built on the Town Wall, Rye]
+
+Berwick-upon-Tweed, York, Chester, and Conway have maintained their
+walls in good condition. Berwick has three out of its four gates still
+standing. They are called Scotchgate, Shoregate, and Cowgate, and in
+the last two still remain the original massive wooden gates with their
+bolts and hinges. The remaining fourth gate, named Bridgate, has
+vanished. We have alluded to the neglect of the Edwardian wall and its
+threatened destruction. Conway has a wall a mile and a quarter in
+length, with twenty-one semicircular towers along its course and three
+great gateways besides posterns. Edward I built this wall in order to
+subjugate the Welsh, and also the walls round Carnarvon, some of which
+survive, and Beaumaris. The name of his master-mason has been
+preserved, one Henry le Elreton. The muniments of the Corporation of
+Alnwick prove that often great difficulties arose in the matter of
+wall-building. Its closeness to the Scottish border rendered a wall
+necessary. The town was frequently attacked and burnt. The inhabitants
+obtained a licence to build a wall in 1433, but they did not at once
+proceed with the work. In 1448 the Scots came and pillaged the town,
+and the poor burgesses were so robbed and despoiled that they could
+not afford to proceed with the wall and petitioned the King for aid.
+Then Letters Patent were issued for a collection to be made for the
+object, and at last, forty years after the licence was granted,
+Alnwick got its wall, and a very good wall it was--a mile in
+circumference, twenty feet in height and six in thickness; "it had
+four gateways--Bondgate, Clayport, Pottergate, and Narrowgate. Only
+the first-named of these is standing. It is three stories in height.
+Over the central archway is a panel on which was carved the Brabant
+lion, now almost obliterated. On either side is a semi-octagonal
+tower. The masonry is composed of huge blocks to which time and
+weather have given dusky tints. On the front facing the expected foes
+the openings are but little more than arrow-slits; on that within,
+facing the town, are well-proportioned mullioned and transomed
+windows. The great ribbed archway is grooved for a portcullis, now
+removed, and a low doorway on either side gives entrance to the
+chambers in the towers. Pottergate was rebuilt in the eighteenth
+century and crowns a steep street; only four corner-stones marked T
+indicate the site of Clayport. No trace of Narrowgate remains."[4]
+
+As the destruction of many of our castles is due to the action of
+Cromwell and the Parliament, who caused them to be "slighted" partly
+out of revenge upon the loyal owners who had defended them, so several
+of our town-walls were thrown down by order of Charles II at the
+Restoration on account of the active assistance which the townspeople
+had given to the rebels. The heads of rebels were often placed on
+gateways. London Bridge, Lincoln, Newcastle, York, Berwick,
+Canterbury, Temple Bar, and other gates have often been adorned with
+these gruesome relics of barbarous punishments.
+
+How were these strong walls ever taken in the days before gunpowder
+was extensively used or cannon discharged their devastating shells?
+Imagine you are present at a siege. You would see the attacking force
+advancing a huge wooden tower, covered with hides and placed on
+wheels, towards the walls. Inside this tower were ladders, and when
+the "sow" had been pushed towards the wall the soldiers rushed up
+these ladders and were able to fight on a level with the garrison.
+Perhaps they were repulsed, and then a shed-like structure would be
+advanced towards the wall, so as to enable the men to get close enough
+to dig a hole beneath the walls in order to bring them down. The
+besieged would not be inactive, but would cast heavy stones on the
+roof of the shed. Molten lead and burning flax were favourite means of
+defence to alarm and frighten away the enemy, who retaliated by
+casting heavy stones by means of a catapult into the town.
+
+  [4] _The Builder_, April 16, 1904.
+
+[Illustration: Bootham Bar, York]
+
+Amongst the fragments of walls still standing, those at Newcastle are
+very massive, sooty, and impressive. Southampton has some grand walls
+left and a gateway, which show how strongly the town was fortified.
+The old Cinque Port, Sandwich, formerly a great and important town,
+lately decayed, but somewhat renovated by golf, has two gates left,
+and Rochester and Canterbury have some fragments of their walls
+standing. The repair of the walls of towns was sometimes undertaken by
+guilds. Generous benefactors, like Sir Richard Whittington, frequently
+contributed to the cost, and sometimes a tax called murage was levied
+for the purpose which was collected by officers named muragers.
+
+The city of York has lost many of its treasures, and the City Fathers
+seem to find it difficult to keep their hands off such relics of
+antiquity as are left to them. There are few cities in England more
+deeply marked with the impress of the storied past than York--the long
+and moving story of its gates and walls, of the historical
+associations of the city through century after century of English
+history. About eighty years ago the Corporation destroyed the
+picturesque old barbicans of the Bootham, Micklegate, and Monk Bars,
+and only one, Walmgate, was suffered to retain this interesting
+feature. It is a wonder they spared those curious stone half-length
+figures of men, sculptured in a menacing attitude in the act of
+hurling large stones downwards, which vaunt themselves on the summit
+of Monk Bar--probably intended to deceive invaders--or that
+interesting stone platform only twenty-two inches wide, which was the
+only foothold available for the martial burghers who guarded the city
+wall at Tower Place. A year or two ago the City Fathers decided, in
+order to provide work for the unemployed, to interfere with the city
+moats by laying them out as flower-beds and by planting shrubs and
+making playgrounds of the banks. The protest of the Yorks
+Archaeological Society, we believe, stayed their hands.
+
+The same story can be told of far too many towns and cities. A few
+years ago several old houses were demolished in the High Street of the
+city of Rochester to make room for electric tramways. Among these was
+the old White Hart Inn, built in 1396, the sign being a badge of
+Richard II, where Samuel Pepys stayed. He found that "the beds were
+corded, and we had no sheets to our beds, only linen to our mouths" (a
+narrow strip of linen to prevent the contact of the blanket with the
+face). With regard to the disappearance of old inns, we must wait
+until we arrive at another chapter.
+
+We will now visit some old towns where we hope to discover some
+buildings that are ancient and where all is not distressingly new,
+hideous, and commonplace. First we will travel to the old-world town
+of Lynn--"Lynn Regis, vulgarly called King's Lynn," as the royal
+charter of Henry VIII terms it. On the land side the town was defended
+by a fosse, and there are still considerable remains of the old wall,
+including the fine Gothic South Gates. In the days of its ancient
+glory it was known as Bishop's Lynn, the town being in the hands of
+the Bishop of Norwich. Bishop Herbert de Losinga built the church of
+St. Margaret at the beginning of the twelfth century, and gave it with
+many privileges to the monks of Norwich, who held a priory at Lynn;
+and Bishop Turbus did a wonderfully good stroke of business, reclaimed
+a large tract of land about 1150 A.D., and amassed wealth for his see
+from his markets, fairs, and mills. Another bishop, Bishop Grey,
+induced or compelled King John to grant a free charter to the town,
+but astutely managed to keep all the power in his own hands. Lynn was
+always a very religious place, and most of the orders--Benedictines,
+Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelite and Augustinian Friars, and the
+Sack Friars--were represented at Lynn, and there were numerous
+hospitals, a lazar-house, a college of secular canons, and other
+religious institutions, until they were all swept away by the greed of
+a rapacious king. There is not much left to-day of all these religious
+foundations. The latest authority on the history of Lynn, Mr. H.J.
+Hillen, well says: "Time's unpitying plough-share has spared few
+vestiges of their architectural* grandeur." A cemetery cross in the
+museum, the name "Paradise" that keeps up the remembrance of the cool,
+verdant cloister-garth, a brick arch upon the east bank of the Nar,
+and a similar gateway in "Austin" Street are all the relics that
+remain of the old monastic life, save the slender hexagonal "Old
+Tower," the graceful lantern of the convent of the grey-robed
+Franciscans. The above writer also points out the beautifully carved
+door in Queen Street, sole relic of the College of Secular Canons,
+from which the chisel of the ruthless iconoclast has chipped off the
+obnoxious _Orate pro anima_.
+
+  *Transcriber's Note: Original "achitectural"
+
+The quiet, narrow, almost deserted streets of Lynn, its port and quays
+have another story to tell. They proclaim its former greatness as one
+of the chief ports in England and the centre of vast mercantile
+activity. A thirteenth-century historian, Friar William Newburg,
+described Lynn as "a noble city noted for its trade." It was the key
+of Norfolk. Through it flowed all the traffic to and from northern
+East Anglia, and from its harbour crowds of ships carried English
+produce, mainly wool, to the Netherlands, Norway, and the Rhine
+Provinces. Who would have thought that this decayed harbour ranked
+fourth among the ports of the kingdom? But its glories have departed.
+Decay set in. Its prosperity began to decline.
+
+Railways have been the ruin of King's Lynn. The merchant princes who
+once abounded in the town exist here no longer. The last of the long
+race died quite recently. Some ancient ledgers still exist in the
+town, which exhibit for one firm alone a turnover of something like a
+million and a half sterling per annum. Although possessed of a
+similarly splendid waterway, unlike Ipswich, the trade of the town
+seems to have quite decayed. Few signs of commerce are visible, except
+where the advent of branch stations of enterprising "Cash" firms has
+resulted in the squaring up of odd projections and consequent
+overthrow of certain ancient buildings. There is one act of vandalism
+which the town has never ceased to regret and which should serve as a
+warning for the future. This is the demolition of the house of Walter
+Coney, merchant, an unequalled specimen of fifteenth-century domestic
+architecture, which formerly stood at the corner of the Saturday
+Market Place and High Street. So strongly was this edifice constructed
+that it was with the utmost difficulty that it was taken to pieces, in
+order to make room for the ugly range of white brick buildings which
+now stands upon its site. But Lynn had an era of much prosperity
+during the rise of the Townshends, when the agricultural improvements
+brought about by the second Viscount introduced much wealth to
+Norfolk. Such buildings as the Duke's Head Hotel belong to the second
+Viscount's time, and are indicative of the influx of visitors which
+the town enjoyed. In the present day this hotel, though still a
+good-sized establishment, occupies only half the building which it
+formerly did. An interesting oak staircase of fine proportions, though
+now much warped, may be seen here.
+
+[Illustration: Half-timbered House with early Fifteenth-century
+Doorway, King's Lynn, Norfolk]
+
+In olden days the Hanseatic League had an office here. The Jews were
+plentiful and supplied capital--you can find their traces in the name
+of the "Jews' Lane Ward"--and then came the industrious Flemings, who
+brought with them the art of weaving cloth and peculiar modes of
+building houses, so that Lynn looks almost like a little Dutch town.
+The old guild life of Lynn was strong and vigorous, from its Merchant
+Guild to the humbler craft guilds, of which we are told that there
+have been no less than seventy-five. Part of the old Guildhall,
+erected in 1421, with its chequered flint and stone gable still stands
+facing the market of St. Margaret with its Renaissance porch, and a
+bit of the guild hall of St. George the Martyr remains in King Street.
+The custom-house, which was originally built as an exchange for the
+Lynn merchants, is a notable building, and has a statue of Charles II
+placed in a niche.
+
+This was the earliest work of a local architect, Henry Bell, who is
+almost unknown. He was mayor of King's Lynn, and died in 1717, and his
+memory has been saved from oblivion by Mr. Beloe of that town, and is
+enshrined in Mr. Blomfield's _History of Renaissance Architecture_:--
+
+  "This admirable little building originally consisted of an open
+  loggia about 40 feet by 32 feet outside, with four columns down
+  the centre, supporting the first floor, and an attic storey above.
+  The walls are of Portland stone, with a Doric order to the ground
+  storey supporting an Ionic order to the first floor. The cornice
+  is of wood, and above this is a steep-pitched tile roof with
+  dormers, surmounted by a balustrade inclosing a flat, from which
+  rises a most picturesque wooden cupola. The details are extremely
+  refined, and the technical knowledge and delicate sense of scale
+  and proportion shown in this building are surprising in a designer
+  who was under thirty, and is not known to have done any previous
+  work."[5]
+
+  [5] _History of Renaissance Architecture_, by R. Blomfield.
+
+A building which the town should make an effort to preserve is the old
+"Greenland Fishery House," a tenement dating from the commencement of
+the seventeenth century.
+
+The Duke's Head Inn, erected in 1689, now spoilt by its coating of
+plaster, a house in Queen's Street, the old market cross, destroyed in
+1831 and sold for old materials, and the altarpieces of the churches
+of St. Margaret and St. Nicholas, destroyed during "restoration," and
+North Runcton church, three miles from Lynn, are other works of this
+very able artist.
+
+Until the Reformation Lynn was known as Bishop's Lynn, and galled
+itself under the yoke of the Bishop of Norwich; but Henry freed the
+townsfolk from their bondage and ordered the name to be changed to
+Lynn Regis. Whether the good people throve better under the control of
+the tyrant who crushed all their guilds and appropriated the spoil
+than under the episcopal yoke may be doubtful; but the change pleased
+them, and with satisfaction they placed the royal arms on their East
+Gate, which, after the manner of gates and walls, has been pulled
+down. If you doubt the former greatness of this old seaport you must
+examine its civic plate. It possesses the oldest and most important
+and most beautiful specimen of municipal plate in England, a grand,
+massive silver-gilt cup of exquisite workmanship. It is called "King
+John's Cup," but it cannot be earlier than the reign of Edward III. In
+addition to this there is a superb sword of state of the time of Henry
+VIII, another cup, four silver maces, and other treasures. Moreover,
+the town had a famous goldsmiths' company, and several specimens of
+their handicraft remain. The defences of the town were sorely tried in
+the Civil War, when for three weeks it sustained the attacks of the
+rebels. The town was forced to surrender, and the poor folk were
+obliged to pay ten shillings a head, besides a month's pay to the
+soldiers, in order to save their homes from plunder. Lynn has many
+memories. It sheltered King John when fleeing from the revolting
+barons, and kept his treasures until he took them away and left them
+in a still more secure place buried in the sands of the Wash. It
+welcomed Queen Isabella during her retirement at Castle Rising,
+entertained Edward IV when he was hotly pursued by the Earl of
+Warwick, and has been worthy of its name as a loyal king's town.
+
+Another walled town on the Norfolk coast attracts the attention of all
+who love the relics of ancient times, Great Yarmouth, with its
+wonderful record of triumphant industry and its associations with many
+great events in history. Henry III, recognizing the important
+strategical position of the town in 1260, granted a charter to the
+townsfolk empowering them to fortify the place with a wall and a moat,
+but more than a century elapsed before the fortifications were
+completed. This was partly owing to the Black Death, which left few
+men in Yarmouth to carry on the work. The walls were built of cut
+flint and Caen stone, and extended from the north-east tower in St.
+Nicholas Churchyard, called King Henry's Tower, to Blackfriars Tower
+at the south end, and from the same King Henry's Tower to the
+north-west tower on the bank of the Bure. Only a few years ago a large
+portion of this, north of Ramp Row, now called Rampart Road, was taken
+down, much to the regret of many. And here I may mention a grand
+movement which might be with advantage imitated in every historic
+town. A small private company has been formed called the "Great
+Yarmouth Historical Buildings, Limited." Its object is to acquire
+and preserve the relics of ancient Yarmouth. The founders deserve the
+highest praise for their public spirit and patriotism. How many
+cherished objects in Vanishing England might have been preserved if
+each town or county possessed such a valuable association! This
+Yarmouth society owns the remains of the cloisters of Grey Friars and
+other remains of ancient buildings. It is only to be regretted that it
+was not formed earlier. There were nine gates in the walls of the
+town, but none of them are left, and of the sixteen towers which
+protected the walls only a very few remain.
+
+[Illustration: The "Bone Tower", Town walls, Great Yarmouth]
+
+These walls guard much that is important. The ecclesiastical buildings
+are very fine, including the largest parish church in England, founded
+by the same Herbert de Losinga whose good work we saw at King's Lynn.
+The church of St. Nicholas has had many vicissitudes, and is now one
+of the finest in the country. It was in medieval times the church of a
+Benedictine Priory; a cell of the monastery at Norwich and the Priory
+Hall remains, and is now restored and used as a school. Royal guests
+have been entertained there, but part of the buildings were turned
+into cottages and the great hall into stables. As we have said, part
+of the Grey Friars Monastery remains, and also part of the house of
+the Augustine Friars. The Yarmouth rows are a great feature of the
+town. They are not like the Chester rows, but are long, narrow streets
+crossing the town from east to west, only six feet wide, and one row
+called Kitty-witches only measures at one end two feet three inches.
+It has been suggested that this plan of the town arose from the
+fishermen hanging out their nets to dry and leaving a narrow passage
+between each other's nets, and that in course of time these narrow
+passages became defined and were permanently retained. In former days
+rich merchants and traders lived in the houses that line these rows,
+and had large gardens behind their dwellings; and sometimes you can
+see relics of former greatness--a panelled room or a richly decorated
+ceiling. But the ancient glory of the rows is past, and the houses
+are occupied now by fishermen or labourers. These rows are so narrow
+that no ordinary vehicle could be driven along them. Hence there arose
+special Yarmouth carts about three and a half feet wide and twelve
+feet long with wheels underneath the body. Very brave and gallant have
+always been the fishermen of Yarmouth, not only in fighting the
+elements, but in defeating the enemies of England. History tells of
+many a sea-fight in which they did good service to their king and
+country. They gallantly helped to win the battle of Sluys, and sent
+forty-three ships and one thousand men to help with the siege of
+Calais in the time of Edward III. They captured and burned the town
+and harbour of Cherbourg in the time of Edward I, and performed many
+other acts of daring.
+
+[Illustration: Row No. 83, Great Yarmouth]
+
+One of the most interesting houses in the town is the Tolhouse, the
+centre of the civic life of Yarmouth. It is said to be six hundred
+years old, having been erected in the time of Henry III, though some
+of the windows are decorated, but may have been inserted later. Here
+the customs or tolls were collected, and the Corporation held its
+meetings. There is a curious open external staircase leading to the
+first floor, where the great hall is situated. Under the hall is a
+gaol, a wretched prison wherein the miserable captives were chained to
+a beam that ran down the centre. Nothing in the town bears stronger
+witness to the industry and perseverance of the Yarmouth men than the
+harbour. They have scoured the sea for a thousand years to fill their
+nets with its spoil, and made their trade of world-wide fame, but
+their port speaks louder in their praise. Again and again has the
+fickle sea played havoc with their harbour, silting it up with sand
+and deserting the town as if in revenge for the harvest they reap from
+her. They have had to cut out no less than seven harbours in the
+course of the town's existence, and royally have they triumphed over
+all difficulties and made Yarmouth a great and prosperous port.
+
+Near Yarmouth is the little port of Gorleston with its old jetty-head,
+of which we give an illustration. It was once the rival of Yarmouth.
+The old magnificent church of the Augustine Friars stood in this
+village and had a lofty, square, embattled tower which was a landmark
+to sailors. But the church was unroofed and despoiled at the
+Reformation, and its remains were pulled down in 1760, only a small
+portion of the tower remaining, and this fell a victim to a violent
+storm at the beginning of the last century. The grand parish church
+was much plundered at the Reformation, and left piteously bare by the
+despoilers.
+
+[Illustration: The Old Jetty, Gorleston]
+
+The town, now incorporated with Yarmouth, has a proud boast:--
+
+        Gorleston was Gorleston ere Yarmouth begun,
+        And will be Gorleston when Yarmouth is done.
+
+Another leading East Anglian port in former days was the county town
+of Suffolk, Ipswich. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
+ships from most of the countries of Western Europe disembarked their
+cargoes on its quays--wines from Spain, timber from Norway, cloth from
+Flanders, salt from France, and "mercerie" from Italy left its crowded
+wharves to be offered for sale in the narrow, busy streets of the
+borough. Stores of fish from Iceland, bales of wool, loads of untanned
+hides, as well as the varied agricultural produce of the district,
+were exposed twice in the week on the market stalls.[6] The learned
+editor of the _Memorials of Old Suffolk_, who knows the old town so
+well, tells us that the stalls of the numerous markets lay within a
+narrow limit of space near the principal churches of the town--St.
+Mary-le-Tower, St. Mildred, and St. Lawrence. The Tavern Street of
+to-day was the site of the flesh market or cowerye. A narrow street
+leading thence to the Tower Church was the Poultry, and Cooks' Row,
+Butter Market, Cheese and Fish markets were in the vicinity. The
+manufacture of leather was the leading industry of old Ipswich, and
+there was a goodly company of skinners, barkers, and tanners employed
+in the trade. Tavern Street had, as its name implies, many taverns,
+and was called the Vintry, from the large number of opulent vintners
+who carried on their trade with London and Bordeaux. Many of these men
+were not merely peaceful merchants, but fought with Edward III in his
+wars with France and were knighted for their feats of arms. Ipswich
+once boasted of a castle which was destroyed in Stephen's reign. In
+Saxon times it was fortified by a ditch and a rampart which were
+destroyed by the Danes, but the fortifications were renewed in the
+time of King John, when a wall was built round the town with four
+gates which took their names from the points of the compass. Portions
+of these remain to bear witness to the importance of this ancient
+town. We give views of an old building near the custom-house in
+College Street and Fore Street, examples of the narrow, tortuous
+thoroughfares which modern improvements have not swept away.
+
+  [6] Cf. _Memorials of Suffolk_, edited by V.B. Redstone.
+
+[Illustration: Tudor House, Ipswich, near the Custom House]
+
+[Illustration: Three-gabled House, Fore Street, Ipswich]
+
+We cannot give accounts of all the old fortified towns in England and
+can only make selections. We have alluded to the ancient walls of
+York. Few cities can rival it in interest and architectural beauty,
+its relics of Roman times, its stately and magnificent cathedral, the
+beautiful ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, the numerous churches exhibiting
+all the grandeur of the various styles of Gothic architecture, the old
+merchants' hall, and the quaint old narrow streets with gabled houses
+and widely projecting storeys. And then there is the varied history of
+the place dating from far-off Roman times. Not the least interesting
+feature of York are its gates and walls. Some parts of the walls are
+Roman, that curious thirteen-sided building called the multangular
+tower forming part of it, and also the lower part of the wall leading
+from this tower to Bootham Bar, the upper part being of later origin.
+These walls have witnessed much fighting, and the cannons in the Civil
+War during the siege in 1644 battered down some portions of them and
+sorely tried their hearts. But they have been kept in good
+preservation and repaired at times, and the part on the west of the
+Ouse is especially well preserved. You can see some Norman and Early
+English work, but the bulk of it belongs to Edwardian times, when York
+played a great part in the history of England, and King Edward I made
+it his capital during the war with Scotland, and all the great nobles
+of England sojourned there. Edward II spent much time there, and the
+minster saw the marriage of his son. These walls were often sorely
+needed to check the inroads of the Scots. After Bannockburn fifteen
+thousand of these northern warriors advanced to the gates of York. The
+four gates of the city are very remarkable. Micklegate Bar consists of
+a square tower built over a circular arch of Norman date with
+embattled turrets at the angles. On it the heads of traitors were
+formerly exposed. It bears on its front the arms of France as well as
+those of England.
+
+[Illustration: "Melia's Passage," York]
+
+Bootham Bar is the main entrance from the north, and has a Norman arch
+with later additions and turrets with narrow slits for the discharge
+of arrows. It saw the burning of the suburb of Bootham in 1265 and
+much bloodshed, when a mighty quarrel raged between the citizens and
+the monks of the Abbey of St. Mary owing to the abuse of the privilege
+of sanctuary possessed by the monastery. Monk Bar has nothing to do
+with monks. Its former name was Goodramgate, and after the Restoration
+it was changed to Monk Bar in honour of General Monk. The present
+structure was probably built in the fourteenth century. Walmgate Bar,
+a strong, formidable structure, was built in the reign of Edward I,
+and as we have said, it is the only gate that retains its curious
+barbican, originally built in the time of Edward III and rebuilt in
+1648. The inner front of the gate has been altered from its original
+form in order to secure more accommodation within. The remains of the
+Clifford's Tower, which played an important part in the siege, tell of
+the destruction caused by the blowing up of the magazine in 1683, an
+event which had more the appearance of design than accident. York
+abounds with quaint houses and narrow streets. We give an illustration
+of the curious Melia's Passage; the origin of the name I am at a loss
+to conjecture.
+
+Chester is, we believe, the only city in England which has retained
+the entire circuit of its walls complete. According to old unreliable
+legends, Marius, or Marcius, King of the British, grandson of
+Cymbeline, who began his reign A.D. 73, first surrounded Chester with
+a wall, a mysterious person who must be classed with Leon Gawr, or
+Vawr, a mighty strong giant who founded Chester, digging caverns in
+the rocks for habitations, and with the story of King Leir, who first
+made human habitations in the future city. Possibly there was here a
+British camp. It was certainly a Roman city, and has preserved the
+form and plan which the Romans were accustomed to affect; its four
+principal streets diverging at right angles from a common centre, and
+extending north, east, south, and west, and terminating in a gate, the
+other streets forming insulae as at Silchester. There is every reason
+to believe that the Romans surrounded the city with a wall. Its
+strength was often tried. Hither the Saxons came under Ethelfrith and
+pillaged the city, but left it to the Britons, who were not again
+dislodged until Egbert came in 828 and recovered it. The Danish
+pirates came here and were besieged by Alfred, who slew all within its
+walls. These walls were standing but ruinous when the noble daughter
+of Alfred, Ethelfleda, restored them in 907. A volume would be needed
+to give a full account of Chester's varied history, and our main
+concern is with the treasures that remain. The circumference of the
+walls is nearly two miles, and there are four principal gates besides
+posterns--the North, East, Bridge-gate, and Water-gate. The North Gate
+was in the charge of the citizens; the others were held by persons who
+had that office by serjeanty under the Earls of Chester, and were
+entitled to certain tolls, which, with the custody of the gates, were
+frequently purchased by the Corporation. The custody of the
+Bridge-gate belonged to the Raby family in the reign of Edward III. It
+had two round towers, on the westernmost of which was an octagonal
+water-tower. These were all taken down in 1710-81 and the gate
+rebuilt. The East Gate was given by Edward I to Henry Bradford, who
+was bound to find a crannoc and a bushel for measuring the salt that
+might be brought in. Needless to say, the old gate has vanished. It
+was of Roman architecture, and consisted of two arches formed by large
+stones. Between the tops of the arches, which were cased with Norman
+masonry, was the whole-length figure of a Roman soldier. This gate was
+a _porta principalis_, the termination of the great Watling Street
+that led from Dover through London to Chester. It was destroyed in
+1768, and the present gate erected by Earl Grosvenor. The custody of
+the Water-gate belonged to the Earls of Derby. It also was destroyed,
+and the present arch erected in 1788. A new North Gate was built in
+1809 by Robert, Earl Grosvenor. The principal postern-gates were Cale
+Yard Gate, made by the abbot and convent in the reign of Edward I as a
+passage to their kitchen garden; New-gate, formerly Woolfield or
+Wolf-gate, repaired in 1608, also called Pepper-gate;[7] and
+Ship-gate, or Hole-in-the-wall, which alone retains its Roman arch,
+and leads to a ferry across the Dee.
+
+  [7] The Chester folk have a proverb, "When the daughter is stolen,
+  shut Pepper-gate"--referring to the well-known story of a daughter
+  of a Mayor of Chester having made her escape with her lover
+  through this gate, which he ordered to be closed, but too late to
+  prevent the fugitives.
+
+The walls are strengthened by round towers so placed as not to be
+beyond bowshot of each other, in order that their arrows might reach
+the enemy who should attempt to scale the walls in the intervals. At
+the north-east corner is Newton's Tower, better known as the Phoenix
+from a sculptured figure, the ensign of one of the city guilds,
+appearing over its door. From this tower Charles I saw the battle of
+Rowton Heath and the defeat of his troops during the famous siege of
+Chester. This was one of the most prolonged and deadly in the whole
+history of the Civil War. It would take many pages to describe the
+varied fortunes of the gallant Chester men, who were at length
+constrained to feed on horses, dogs, and cats. There is much in the
+city to delight the antiquary and the artist--the famous rows, the
+three-gabled old timber mansion of the Stanleys with its massive
+staircase, oaken floors, and panelled walls, built in 1591, Bishop
+Lloyd's house in Water-gate with its timber front sculptured with
+Scripture subjects, and God's Providence House with its motto "God's
+Providence is mine inheritance," the inhabitants of which are said to
+have escaped one of the terrible plagues that used to rage frequently
+in old Chester.
+
+[Illustration: Detail of Half-timbered House in High Street,
+Shrewsbury]
+
+Journeying southwards we come to Shrewsbury, another walled town,
+abounding with delightful half-timbered houses, less spoiled than any
+town we know. It was never a Roman town, though six miles away, at
+Uriconium, the Romans had a flourishing city with a great basilica,
+baths, shops, and villas, and the usual accessories of luxury.
+Tradition says that its earliest Celtic name was Pengwern, where a
+British prince had his palace; but the town Scrobbesbyrig came into
+existence under Offa's rule in Mercia, and with the Normans came Roger
+de Montgomery, Shrewsbury's first Earl, and a castle and the stately
+abbey of SS. Peter and Paul. A little later the town took to itself
+walls, which were abundantly necessary on account of the constant
+inroads of the wild Welsh.
+
+        For the barbican's massy and high,
+                  Bloudie Jacke!
+        And the oak-door is heavy and brown;
+        And with iron it's plated and machicolated,
+        To pour boiling oil and lead down;
+                  How you'd frown
+        Should a ladle-full fall on your crown!
+
+        The rock that it stands on is steep,
+                  Bloudie Jacke!
+        To gain it one's forced for to creep;
+        The Portcullis is strong, and the Drawbridge is long,
+        And the water runs all round the Keep;
+                  At a peep
+        You can see that the moat's very deep!
+
+So rhymed the author of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, when in his "Legend
+of Shropshire" he described the red stone fortress that towers over
+the loop of the Severn enclosing the picturesque old town of
+Shrewsbury. The castle, or rather its keep, for the outworks have
+disappeared, has been modernized past antiquarian value now. Memories
+of its importance as the key of the Northern Marches, and of the
+ancient custom of girding the knights of the shire with their swords
+by the sheriffs on the grass plot of its inner court, still remain.
+The town now stands on a peninsula girt by the Severn. On the high
+ground between the narrow neck stood the castle, and under its shelter
+most of the houses of the inhabitants. Around this was erected the
+first wall. The latest historian of Shrewsbury[8] tells us that it
+started from the gate of the castle, passed along the ridge at the
+back of Pride Hill, at the bottom of which it turned along the line of
+High Street, past St. Julian's Church which overhung it, to the top
+of Wyle Cop, when it followed the ridge back to the castle. Of the
+part extending from Pride Hill to Wyle Cop only scant traces exist at
+the back of more modern buildings.
+
+  [8] The Rev. T. Auden, _Shrewsbury_ (Methuen and Co.).
+
+The town continued to grow and more extensive defences were needed,
+and in the time of Henry III, Mr. Auden states that this followed the
+old line at the back of Pride Hill, but as the ground began to slope
+downwards, another wall branched from it in the direction of Roushill
+and extended to the Welsh Bridge. This became the main defence,
+leaving the old wall as an inner rampart. From the Welsh Bridge the
+new wall turned up Claremont Bank to where St. Chad's Church now
+stands, and where one of the original towers stood. Then it passed
+along Murivance, where the only existing tower is to be seen, and so
+along the still remaining portion of the wall to English Bridge, where
+it turned up the hill at the back of what is now Dogpole, and passing
+the Watergate, again joined the fortifications of the castle.[9] The
+castle itself was reconstructed by Prince Edward, the son of Henry
+III, at the end of the thirteenth century, and is of the Edwardian
+type of concentric castle. The Norman keep was incorporated within a
+larger circle of tower and wall, forming an inner bailey; besides this
+there was formerly an outer bailey, in which were various buildings,
+including the chapel of St. Nicholas. Only part of the buildings on
+one side of the inner bailey remains in its original form, but the
+massive character of the whole may be judged from the fragments now
+visible.
+
+  [9] _Ibid._, p. 48.
+
+These walls guarded a noble town full of churches and monasteries,
+merchants' houses, guild halls, and much else. We will glance at the
+beauties that remain: St. Mary's, containing specimens of every style
+of architecture from Norman downward, with its curious foreign glass;
+St. Julian's, mainly rebuilt in 1748, though the old tower remains;
+St. Alkmund's; the Church of St. Chad; St. Giles's Church; and the
+nave and refectory pulpit of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul. It
+is distressing to see this interesting gem of fourteenth-century
+architecture amid the incongruous surroundings of a coalyard. You can
+find considerable remains of the domestic buildings of the Grey
+Friars' Monastery near the footbridge across the Severn, and also of
+the home of the Austin Friars in a builder's yard at the end of Baker
+Street.
+
+[Illustration: Tower on the Town Wall, Shrewsbury]
+
+In many towns we find here and there an old half-timbered dwelling,
+but in Shrewsbury there is a surprising wealth of them--streets full
+of them, bearing such strange medieval names as "Mardel" or "Wyle
+Cop." Shrewsbury is second to no other town in England in the interest
+of its ancient domestic buildings. There is the gatehouse of the old
+Council House, bearing the date 1620, with its high gable and carved
+barge-boards, its panelled front, the square spaces between the
+upright and horizontal timbers being ornamented with cut timber. The
+old buildings of the famous Shrewsbury School are now used as a Free
+Library and Museum and abound in interest. The house remains in which
+Prince Rupert stayed during his sojourn in 1644, then owned by "Master
+Jones the lawyer," at the west end of St. Mary's Church, with its fine
+old staircase. Whitehall, a fine mansion of red sandstone, was built
+by Richard Prince, a lawyer, in 1578-82, "to his great chardge with
+fame to hym and hys posterite for ever." The Old Market Hall in the
+Renaissance style, with its mixture of debased Gothic and classic
+details, is worthy of study. Even in Shrewsbury we have to record the
+work of the demon of destruction. The erection of the New Market Hall
+entailed the disappearance of several old picturesque houses.
+Bellstone House, erected in 1582, is incorporated in the National
+Provincial Bank. The old mansion known as Vaughan's Place is swallowed
+up by the music-hall, though part of the ancient dwelling-place
+remains. St. Peter's Abbey Church in the commencement of the
+nineteenth century had an extraordinary annexe of timber and plaster,
+probably used at one time as parsonage house, which, with several
+buttressed remains of the adjacent conventual buildings, have long ago
+been squared up and "improved" out of existence. Rowley's mansion, in
+Hill's Lane, built of brick in 1618 by William Rowley, is now a
+warehouse. Butcher Row has some old houses with projecting storeys,
+including a fine specimen of a medieval shop. Some of the houses in
+Grope Lane lean together from opposite sides of the road, so that
+people in the highest storey can almost shake hands with their
+neighbours across the way. You can see the "Olde House" in which Mary
+Tudor is said to have stayed, and the mansion of the Owens, built in
+1592 as an inscription tells us, and that of the Irelands, with its
+range of bow-windows, four storeys high, and terminating in gables,
+erected about 1579. The half-timbered hall of the Drapers' Guild, some
+old houses in Frankwell, including the inn with the quaint sign--the
+String of Horses, the ancient hostels--the Lion, famous in the
+coaching age, the Ship, and the Raven--Bennett's Hall, which was the
+mint when Shrewsbury played its part in the Civil War, and last, but
+not least, the house in Wyle Cop, one of the finest in the town, where
+Henry Earl of Richmond stayed on his way to Bosworth field to win the
+English Crown. Such are some of the beauties of old Shrewsbury which
+happily have not yet vanished.
+
+[Illustration: House that the Earl of Richmond stayed in before the
+Battle of Bosworth, Shrewsbury]
+
+Not far removed from Shrewsbury is Coventry, which at one time could
+boast of a city wall and a castle. In the reign of Richard II this
+wall was built, strengthened by towers. Leland, writing in the time of
+Henry VIII, states that the city was begun to be walled in when Edward
+II reigned, and that it had six gates, many fair towers, and streets
+well built with timber. Other writers speak of thirty-two towers and
+twelve gates. But few traces of these remain. The citizens of Coventry
+took an active part in the Civil War in favour of the Parliamentary
+army, and when Charles II came to the throne he ordered these defences
+to be demolished. The gates were left, but most of them have since
+been destroyed. Coventry is a city of fine old timber-framed
+fifteenth-century houses with gables and carved barge-boards and
+projecting storeys, though many of them are decayed and may not last
+many years. The city has had a fortunate immunity from serious fires.
+We give an illustration of one of the old Coventry streets called Spon
+Street, with its picturesque houses. These old streets are numerous,
+tortuous and irregular. One of the richest and most interesting
+examples of domestic architecture in England is St. Mary's Hall,
+erected in the time of Henry VI. Its origin is connected with ancient
+guilds of the city, and in it were stored their books and archives.
+The grotesquely carved roof, minstrels' gallery, armoury, state-chair,
+great painted window, and a fine specimen of fifteenth-century
+tapestry are interesting features of this famous hall, which furnishes
+a vivid idea of the manners and civic customs of the age when Coventry
+was the favourite resort of kings and princes. It has several fine
+churches, though the cathedral was levelled with the ground by that
+arch-destroyer Henry VIII. Coventry remains one of the most
+interesting towns in England.
+
+One other walled town we will single out for especial notice in this
+chapter--the quaint, picturesque, peaceful, placid town of Rye on the
+Sussex coast. It was once wooed by the sea, which surrounded the rocky
+island on which it stands, but the fickle sea has retired and left it
+lonely on its hill with a long stretch of marshland between it and the
+waves. This must have taken place about the fifteenth century. Our
+illustration of a disused mooring-post (p. 24) is a symbol of the
+departed greatness of the town as a naval station. The River Rother
+connects it with the sea, and the few barges and humble craft and a
+few small shipbuilding yards remind it of its palmy days when it was
+a member of the Cinque Ports, a rich and prosperous town that sent
+forth its ships to fight the naval battles of England and win honour
+for Rye and St. George. During the French wars English vessels often
+visited French ports and towns along the coast and burned and pillaged
+them. The French sailors retaliated with equal zest, and many of our
+southern towns have suffered from fire and sword during those
+adventurous days.
+
+[Illustration: Old Houses formerly standing in Spon Street Coventry]
+
+Rye was strongly fortified by a wall with gates and towers and a
+fosse, but the defences suffered grievously from the attacks of the
+French, and the folk of Rye were obliged to send a moving petition to
+King Richard II, praying him "to have consideration of the poor town
+of Rye, inasmuch as it had been several times taken, and is unable
+further to repair the walls, wherefore the town is, on the sea-side,
+open to enemies." I am afraid that the King did not at once grant
+their petition, as two years later, in 1380, the French came again and
+set fire to the town. With the departure of the sea and the
+diminishing of the harbour, the population decreased and the
+prosperity of Rye declined. Refugees from France have on two notable
+occasions added to the number of its inhabitants. After the Massacre
+of St. Bartholomew seven hundred scared and frightened Protestants
+arrived at Rye and brought with them their industry, and later on,
+after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, many Huguenots settled
+here and made it almost a French town. We need not record all the
+royal visits, the alarms of attack, the plagues, and other incidents
+that have diversified the life of Rye. We will glance at the relics
+that remain. The walls seem never to have recovered from the attack of
+the French, but one gate is standing--the Landgate on the north-east
+of the town, built in 1360, and consisting of a broad arch flanked by
+two massive towers with chambers above for archers and defenders.
+Formerly there were two other gates, but these have vanished save only
+the sculptured arms of the Cinque Ports that once adorned the Strand
+Gate. The Ypres tower is a memorial of the ancient strength of the
+town, and was originally built by William de Ypres, Earl of Kent, in
+the twelfth century, but has received later additions. It has a stern,
+gaunt appearance, and until recent times was used as a jail. The
+church possesses many points of unique interest. The builders began in
+the twelfth century to build the tower and transepts, which are
+Norman; then they proceeded with the nave, which is Transitional; and
+when they reached the choir, which is very large and fine, the style
+had merged into the Early English. Later windows were inserted in the
+fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The church has suffered with the
+town at the hands of the French invaders, who did much damage. The old
+clock, with its huge swinging pendulum, is curious. The church has a
+collection of old books, including some old Bibles, including a
+Vinegar and a Breeches Bible, and some stone cannon-balls, mementoes
+of the French invasion of 1448.
+
+[Illustration: West Street, Rye]
+
+Near the church is the Town Hall, which contains several relics of
+olden days. The list of mayors extends from the time of Edward I, and
+we notice the long continuance of the office in families. Thus the
+Lambs held office from 1723 to 1832, and the Grebells from 1631 to
+1741. A great tragedy happened in the churchyard. A man named Breedes
+had a grudge against one of the Lambs, and intended to kill him. He
+saw, as he thought, his victim walking along the dark path through the
+shrubs in the churchyard, attacked and murdered him. But he had made a
+mistake; his victim was Mr. Grebell. The murderer was hanged and
+quartered. The Town Hall contains the ancient pillory, which was
+described as a very handy affair, handcuffs, leg-irons, special
+constables' staves, which were always much needed for the usual riots
+on Gunpowder Plot Day, and the old primitive fire-engine dated 1745.
+The town has some remarkable plate. There is the mayor's handbell
+with the inscription:--
+
+      O MATER DEI
+      MEMENTO MEI.
+         1566.
+    PETRUS GHEINEUS
+       ME FECIT.
+
+The maces of Queen Elizabeth with the date 1570 and bearing the
+fleur-de-lis and the Tudor rose are interesting, and the two silver
+maces presented by George III, bearing the arms of Rye and weighing
+962 oz., are said to be the finest in Europe.
+
+[Illustration: Monogram and Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye]
+
+The chief charm of Rye is to walk along the narrow streets and lanes,
+and see the picturesque rows and groups of old fifteenth-and
+sixteenth-century houses with their tiled roofs and gables,
+weather-boarded or tile-hung after the manner of Sussex cottages,
+graceful bay-windows--altogether pleasing. Wherever one wanders one
+meets with these charming dwellings, especially in West Street and
+Pump Street; the oldest house in Rye being at the corner of the
+churchyard. The Mermaid Inn is delightful both outside and inside,
+with its low panelled rooms, immense fire-places and dog-grates. We
+see the monogram and names and dates carved on the stone fire-places,
+1643, 1646, the name Loffelholtz seeming to indicate some foreign
+refugee or settler. It is pleasant to find at least in one town in
+England so much that has been left unaltered and so little spoilt.
+
+[Illustration: Inscription in the Mermaid Inn, Rye]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+IN STREETS AND LANES
+
+
+I have said in another place that no country in the world can boast of
+possessing rural homes and villages which have half the charm and
+picturesqueness of our English cottages and hamlets.[10] They have to
+be known in order that they may be loved. The hasty visitor may pass
+them by and miss half their attractiveness. They have to be wooed in
+varying moods in order that they may display their charms--when the
+blossoms are bright in the village orchards, when the sun shines on
+the streams and pools and gleams on the glories of old thatch, when
+autumn has tinged the trees with golden tints, or when the hoar frost
+makes their bare branches beautiful again with new and glistening
+foliage. Not even in their summer garb do they look more beautiful.
+There is a sense of stability and a wondrous variety caused by the
+different nature of the materials used, the peculiar stone indigenous
+in various districts and the individuality stamped upon them by
+traditional modes of building.
+
+  [10] _The Charm of the English Village_ (Batsford).
+
+We have still a large number of examples of the humbler kind of
+ancient domestic architecture, but every year sees the destruction of
+several of these old buildings, which a little care and judicious
+restoration might have saved. Ruskin's words should be writ in bold,
+big letters at the head of the by-laws of every district council.
+
+  "Watch an old building with anxious care; guard it as best you
+  may, and at any cost, from any influence of dilapidation. Count
+  its stones as you would the jewels of a crown. Set watchers about
+  it, as if at the gate of a besieged city; bind it together with
+  iron when it loosens; stay it with timber when it declines. Do not
+  care about the unsightliness of the aid--better a crutch than a
+  lost limb; and do this tenderly and reverently and continually,
+  and many a generation will still be born and pass away beneath its
+  shadow."
+
+[Illustration: Relic of Lynn Siege in Hampton Court, King's Lynn]
+
+[Illustration: Hampton Court, King's Lynn, Norfolk]
+
+If this sound advice had been universally taken many a beautiful old
+cottage would have been spared to us, and our eyes would not be
+offended by the wondrous creations of the estate agents and local
+builders, who have no other ambition but to build cheaply. The
+contrast between the new and the old is indeed deplorable. The old
+cottage is a thing of beauty. Its odd, irregular form and various
+harmonious colouring, the effects of weather, time, and accident,
+environed with smiling verdure and sweet old-fashioned garden flowers,
+its thatched roof, high gabled front, inviting porch overgrown with
+creepers, and casement windows, all combine to form a fair and
+beautiful home. And then look at the modern cottage with its glaring
+brick walls, slate roof, ungainly stunted chimney, and note the
+difference. Usually these modern cottages are built in a row, each one
+exactly like its fellow, with door and window frames exactly alike,
+brought over ready-made from Norway or Sweden. The walls are thin, and
+the winds of winter blow through them piteously, and if a man and his
+wife should unfortunately "have words" (the pleasing country euphemism
+for a violent quarrel) all their neighbours can hear them. The scenery
+is utterly spoilt by these ugly eyesores. Villas at Hindhead seem to
+have broken out upon the once majestic hill like a red skin eruption.
+The jerry-built villa is invading our heaths and pine-woods; every
+street in our towns is undergoing improvement; we are covering whole
+counties with houses. In Lancashire no sooner does one village end its
+mean streets than another begins. London is ever enlarging itself,
+extending its great maw over all the country round. The Rev. Canon
+Erskine Clarke, Vicar of Battersea, when he first came to reside near
+Clapham Junction, remembers the green fields and quiet lanes with
+trees on each side that are now built over. The street leading from
+the station lined with shops forty years ago had hedges and trees on
+each side. There were great houses situated in beautiful gardens and
+parks wherein resided some of the great City merchants, county
+families, the leaders in old days of the influential "Clapham sect."
+These gardens and parks have been covered with streets and rows of
+cottages and villas; some of the great houses have been pulled down
+and others turned into schools or hospitals, valued only at the rent
+of the land on which they stand. All this is inevitable. You cannot
+stop all this any more than Mrs. Partington could stem the Atlantic
+tide with a housemaid's mop. But ere the flood has quite swallowed up
+all that remains of England's natural and architectural beauties, it
+may be useful to glance at some of the buildings that remain in town
+and country ere they have quite vanished.
+
+[Illustration: Mill Street, Warwick]
+
+Beneath the shade of the lordly castle of Warwick, which has played
+such an important part in the history of England, the town of Warwick
+sprang into existence, seeking protection in lawless times from its
+strong walls and powerful garrison. Through its streets often rode
+in state the proud rulers of the castle with their men-at-arms--the
+Beauchamps, the Nevilles, including the great "King-maker," Richard
+Neville, the Dudleys, and the Grevilles. They contributed to the
+building of their noble castle, protected the town, and were borne to
+their last resting-place in the fine church, where their tombs remain.
+The town has many relics of its lords, and possesses many
+half-timbered graceful houses. Mill Street is one of the most
+picturesque groups of old-time dwellings, a picture that lingers in
+our minds long after we have left the town and fortress of the grim
+old Earls of Warwick.
+
+Oxford is a unique city. There is no place like it in the world.
+Scholars of Cambridge, of course, will tell me that I am wrong, and
+that the town on the Cam is a far superior place, and then point
+triumphantly to "the backs." Yes, they are very beautiful, but as a
+loyal son of Oxford I may be allowed to prefer that stately city with
+its towers and spires, its wealth of college buildings, its exquisite
+architecture unrivalled in the world. Nor is the new unworthy of the
+old. The buildings at Magdalen, at Brazenose, and even the New Schools
+harmonize not unseemly with the ancient structures. Happily Keble is
+far removed from the heart of the city, so that that somewhat
+unsatisfactory, unsuccessful pile of brickwork interferes not with its
+joy. In the streets and lanes of modern Oxford we can search for and
+discover many types of old-fashioned, humble specimens of domestic
+art, and we give as an illustration some houses which date back to
+Tudor times, but have, alas! been recently demolished.
+
+[Illustration: Tudor Tenements, New Inn Hall St, Oxford. Now
+demolished]
+
+Many conjectures have been made as to the reason why our forefathers
+preferred to rear their houses with the upper storeys projecting out
+into the streets. We can understand that in towns where space was
+limited it would be an advantage to increase the size of the upper
+rooms, if one did not object to the lack of air in the narrow street
+and the absence of sunlight. But we find these same projecting storeys
+in the depth of the country, where there could have been no
+restriction as to the ground to be occupied by the house. Possibly the
+fashion was first established of necessity in towns, and the
+traditional mode of building was continued in the country. Some say
+that by this means our ancestors tried to protect the lower part of
+the house, the foundations, from the influence of the weather; others
+with some ingenuity suggest that these projecting storeys were
+intended to form a covered walk for passengers in the streets, and to
+protect them from the showers of slops which the careless housewife of
+Elizabethan times cast recklessly from the upstairs windows.
+Architects tell us that it was purely a matter of construction. Our
+forefathers used to place four strong corner-posts, framed from the
+trunks of oak trees, firmly sunk into the ground with their roots left
+on and placed upward, the roots curving outwards so as to form
+supports for the upper storeys. These curved parts, and often the
+posts also, were often elaborately carved and ornamented, as in the
+example which our artist gives us of a corner-post of a house in
+Ipswich.
+
+In _The Charm of the English Village_ I have tried to describe the
+methods of the construction of these timber-framed houses,[11] and it
+is perhaps unnecessary for me to repeat what is there recorded. In
+fact, there were three types of these dwelling-places, to which have
+been given the names Post and Pan, Transom Framed, and Intertie Work.
+In judging of the age of a house it will be remembered that the nearer
+together the upright posts are placed the older the house is. The
+builders as time went on obtained greater confidence, set their posts
+wider apart, and held them together by transoms.
+
+  [11] _The Charm of the English Village_, pp. 50-7.
+
+[Illustration: Gothic Corner-post. The Half Moon Inn, Ipswich]
+
+Surrey is a county of good cottages and farm-houses, and these have
+had their chroniclers in Miss Gertrude Jekyll's delightful _Old West
+Surrey_ and in the more technical work of Mr. Ralph Nevill, F.S.A. The
+numerous works on cottage and farm-house building published by Mr.
+Batsford illustrate the variety of styles that prevailed in different
+counties, and which are mainly attributable to the variety in the
+local materials in the counties. Thus in the Cotswolds,
+Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Westmorland, Somersetshire,
+and elsewhere there is good building-stone; and there we find charming
+examples of stone-built cottages and farm-houses, altogether
+satisfying. In several counties where there is little stone and large
+forests of timber we find the timber-framed dwelling flourishing in
+all its native beauty. In Surrey there are several materials for
+building, hence there is a charming diversity of domiciles. Even the
+same building sometimes shows walls of stone and brick, half-timber
+and plaster, half-timber and tile-hanging, half-timber with panels
+filled with red brick, and roofs of thatch or tiles, or stone slates
+which the Horsham quarries supplied.
+
+[Illustration: Timber-built House, Shrewsbury]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+These Surrey cottages have changed with age. Originally they were
+built with timber frames, the panels being filled in with wattle and
+daub, but the storms of many winters have had their effect upon the
+structure. Rain drove through the walls, especially when the ends of
+the wattle rotted a little, and draughts were strong enough to blow
+out the rushlights and to make the house very uncomfortable. Oak
+timbers often shrink. Hence the joints came apart, and being exposed
+to the weather became decayed. In consequence of this the buildings
+settled, and new methods had to be devised to make them weather-proof.
+The villages therefore adopted two or three means in order to attain
+this end. They plastered the whole surface of the walls on the
+outside, or they hung them with deal boarding or covered them with
+tiles. In Surrey tile-hung houses are more common than in any other
+part of the country. This use of weather-tiles is not very ancient,
+probably not earlier than 1750, and much of this work was done in that
+century or early in the nineteenth. Many of these tile-hung houses are
+the old sixteenth-century timber-framed structures in a new shell.
+Weather-tiles are generally flatter and thinner than those used for
+roofing, and when bedded in mortar make a thoroughly weather-proof
+wall. Sometimes they are nailed to boarding, but the former plan makes
+the work more durable, though the courses are not so regular. These
+tiles have various shapes, of which the commonest is semicircular,
+resembling a fish-scale. The same form with a small square shoulder is
+very generally used, but there is a great variety, and sometimes those
+with ornamental ends are blended with plain ones. Age imparts a very
+beautiful colour to old tiles, and when covered with lichen they
+assume a charming appearance which artists love to depict.
+
+The mortar used in these old buildings is very strong and good. In
+order to strengthen the mortar used in Sussex and Surrey houses and
+elsewhere, the process of "galleting" or "garreting" was adopted. The
+brick-layers used to decorate the rather wide and uneven mortar joint
+with small pieces of black ironstone stuck into the mortar. Sussex was
+once famous for its ironwork, and ironstone is found in plenty near
+the surface of the ground in this district. "Galleting" dates back to
+Jacobean times, and is not to be found in sixteenth-century work.
+
+Sussex houses are usually whitewashed and have thatched roofs, except
+when Horsham slates or tiles are used. Thatch as a roofing material
+will soon have altogether vanished with other features of vanishing
+England. District councils in their by-laws usually insert regulations
+prohibiting thatch to be used for roofing. This is one of the
+mysteries of the legislation of district councils. Rules, suitable
+enough for towns, are applied to the country villages, where they are
+altogether unsuitable or unnecessary. The danger of fire makes it
+inadvisable to have thatched roofs in towns, or even in some villages
+where the houses are close together, but that does not apply to
+isolated cottages in the country. The district councils do not compel
+the removal of thatch, but prohibit new cottages from being roofed
+with that material. There is, however, another cause for the
+disappearance of thatched roofs, which form such a beautiful feature
+in the English landscape. Since mowing-machines came into general use
+in the harvest fields the straw is so bruised that it is not fit for
+thatching, at least it is not so suitable as the straw which was cut
+by the hand. Thatching, too, is almost a lost art in the country.
+Indeed ricks have to be covered with thatch, but "the work for this
+temporary purpose cannot compare with that of the old roof-thatcher,
+with his 'strood' or 'frail' to hold the loose straw, and his
+spars--split hazel rods pointed at each end--that with a dexterous
+twist in the middle make neat pegs for the fastening of the straw rope
+that he cleverly twists with a simple implement called a 'wimble.' The
+lowest course was finished with an ornamental bordering of rods with a
+diagonal criss-cross pattern between, all neatly pegged and held down
+by the spars."[12]
+
+  [12] _Old West Surrey_, by Gertrude Jekyll, p. 206.
+
+[Illustration: Missbrook Farm. Capel, Surrey.]
+
+Horsham stone makes splendid roofing material. This stone easily
+flakes into plates like thick slates, and forms large grey flat slabs
+on which "the weather works like a great artist in harmonies of moss
+lichen and stain. No roofing so combines dignity and homeliness, and
+no roofing, except possibly thatch (which, however, is short-lived),
+so surely passes into the landscape."[13] It is to be regretted that
+this stone is no longer used for roofing--another feature of vanishing
+England. The stone is somewhat thick and heavy, and modern rafters are
+not adapted to bear their weight. If you want to have a roof of
+Horsham stone, you can only accomplish your purpose by pulling down an
+old cottage and carrying off the slabs. Perhaps the small Cotswold
+stone slabs are even more beautiful. Old Lancashire and Yorkshire
+cottages have heavy stone roofs which somewhat resemble those
+fashioned with Horsham slabs.
+
+  [13] _Highways and Byways in Sussex_, by E.V. Lucas.
+
+The builders and masons of our country cottages were cunning men, and
+adapted their designs to their materials. You will have noticed that
+the pitch of the Horsham-slated roof is unusually flat. They observed
+that when the sides of the roof were deeply sloping, as in the case of
+thatched roofs, the heavy stone slates strained and dragged at the
+pegs and laths and fell and injured the roof. Hence they determined
+to make the slope less steep. Unfortunately the rain did not then
+easily run off, and in order to prevent the water penetrating into the
+house they were obliged to adopt additional precautions. Therefore
+they cemented their roofs and stopped them with mortar.
+
+[Illustration: Cottage at Capel, Surrey ]
+
+Very lovely are these South Country cottages, peaceful, picturesque,
+pleasant, with their graceful gables and jutting eaves, altogether
+delightful. Well sang a loyal Sussex poet:--
+
+        If I ever become a rich man,
+          Or if ever I grow to be old,
+        I will build a house with deep thatch[14]
+          To shelter me from the cold;
+        And there shall the Sussex songs be sung
+          And the story of Sussex told.
+
+  [14] I fear the poet's plans will never be passed by the rural
+  district council.
+
+We give some good examples of Surrey cottages at the village of Capel
+in the neighbourhood of Dorking, a charming region for the study of
+cottage-building. There you can see some charming ingle-nooks in the
+interior of the dwellings, and some grand farm-houses. Attached to the
+ingle-nook is the oven, wherein bread is baked in the old-fashioned
+way, and the chimneys are large and carried up above the floor of the
+first storey, so as to form space for curing bacon.
+
+[Illustration: Farm-house, Horsmonden, Kent]
+
+Horsmonden, Kent, near Lamberhurst, is beautifully situated among
+well-wooded scenery, and the farm-house shown in the illustration is a
+good example of the pleasant dwellings to be found therein.
+
+East Anglia has no good building-stone, and brick and flint are the
+principal materials used in that region. The houses built of the
+dark, dull, thin old bricks, not of the great staring modern
+varieties, are very charming, especially when they are seen against a
+background of wooded hills. We give an illustration of some cottages
+at Stow Langtoft, Suffolk.
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Cottages, Stow Langtoft, Suffolk]
+
+The old town of Banbury, celebrated for its cakes, its Cross, and its
+fine lady who rode on a white horse accompanied by the sound of bells,
+has some excellent "black and white" houses with pointed gables and
+enriched barge-boards pierced in every variety of patterns, their
+finials and pendants, and pargeted fronts, which give an air of
+picturesqueness contrasting strangely with the stiffness of the
+modern brick buildings. In one of these is established the old Banbury
+Cake Shop. In the High Street there is a very perfect example of these
+Elizabethan houses, erected about the year 1600. It has a fine oak
+staircase, the newels beautifully carved and enriched with pierced
+finials and pendants. The market-place has two good specimens of the
+same date, one of which is probably the front of the Unicorn Inn, and
+had a fine pair of wooden gates bearing the date 1684, but I am not
+sure whether they are still there. The Reindeer Inn is one of the
+chief architectural attractions of the town. We see the dates 1624 and
+1637 inscribed on different parts of the building, but its chief glory
+is the Globe Room, with a large window, rich plaster ceiling, good
+panelling, elaborately decorated doorways and chimney-piece. The
+courtyard is a fine specimen of sixteenth-century architecture. A
+curious feature is the mounting-block near the large oriel window. It
+must have been designed not for mounting horses, unless these were of
+giant size, but for climbing to the top of coaches. The Globe Room is
+a typical example of Vanishing England, as it is reported that the
+whole building has been sold for transportation to America. We give an
+illustration of some old houses in Paradise Square, that does not
+belie its name. The houses all round the square are thatched, and the
+gardens in the centre are a blaze of colour, full of old-fashioned
+flowers. The King's Head Inn has a good courtyard. Banbury suffered
+from a disastrous fire in 1628 which destroyed a great part of the
+town, and called forth a vehement sermon from the Rev. William
+Whateley, of two hours' duration, on the depravity of the town, which
+merited such a severe judgment. In spite of the fire much old work
+survived, and we give an illustration of a Tudor fire-place which you
+cannot now discover, as it is walled up into the passage of an
+ironmonger's shop.
+
+[Illustration: The "Fish House," Littleport, Cambs]
+
+The old ports and harbours are always attractive. The old fishermen
+mending their nets delight to tell their stories of their adventures,
+and retain their old customs and usages, which are profoundly
+interesting to the lovers of folk-lore. Their houses are often
+primitive and quaint. There is the curious Fish House at Littleport,
+Cambridgeshire, with part of it built of stone, having a gable and
+Tudor weather-moulding over the windows. The rest of the building was
+added at a later date.
+
+[Illustration: Sixteenth-century Cottage, formerly standing in Upper
+Deal, Kent]
+
+In Upper Deal there is an interesting house which shows Flemish
+influence in the construction of its picturesque gable and octagonal
+chimney, and contrasted with it an early sixteenth-century cottage
+much the worse for wear.
+
+We give a sketch of a Portsmouth row which resembles in narrowness
+those at Yarmouth, and in Crown Street there is a battered,
+three-gabled, weather-boarded house which has evidently seen better
+days. There is a fine canopy over the front door of Buckingham House,
+wherein George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was assassinated by John
+Felton on August 23rd, 1628.
+
+[Illustration: Gable, Upper Deal, Kent]
+
+The Vale of Aylesbury is one of the sweetest and most charmingly
+characteristic tracts of land in the whole of rural England,
+abounding with old houses. The whole countryside literally teems with
+picturesque evidences of the past life and history of England. Ancient
+landmarks and associations are so numerous that it is difficult to
+mention a few without seeming to ignore unfairly their equally
+interesting neighbours. Let us take the London road, which enters the
+shire from Middlesex and makes for Aylesbury, a meandering road with
+patches of scenery strongly suggestive of Birket Foster's landscapes.
+Down a turning at the foot of the lovely Chiltern Hills lies the
+secluded village of Chalfont St. Giles. Here Milton, the poet, sought
+refuge from plague-stricken London among a colony of fellow Quakers,
+and here remains, in a very perfect state, the cottage in which he
+lived and was visited by Andrew Marvel. It is said that his neighbour
+Elwood, one of the Quaker fraternity, suggested the idea of "Paradise
+Regained," and that the draft of the latter poem was written upon a
+great oak table which may be seen in one of the low-pitched rooms on
+the ground floor. I fancy that Milton must have beautified and
+repaired the cottage at the period of his tenancy. The mantelpiece
+with its classic ogee moulding belongs certainly to his day, and some
+other minor details may also be noticed which support this inference.
+It is not difficult to imagine that one who was accustomed to
+metropolitan comforts would be dissatisfied with the open hearth
+common to country cottages of that poet's time, and have it enclosed
+in the manner in which we now see it. Outside the garden is brilliant
+with old-fashioned flowers, such as the poet loved. A stone scutcheon
+may be seen peeping through the shrubbery which covers the front of
+the cottage, but the arms which it displays are those of the
+Fleetwoods, one time owners of these tenements. Between the years 1709
+and 1807 the house was used as an inn. Milton's cottage is one of our
+national treasures, which (though not actually belonging to the
+nation) has successfully resisted purchase by our American cousins and
+transportation across the Atlantic.
+
+[Illustration: A Portsmouth "Row"]
+
+The entrance to the churchyard in Chalfont St. Giles is through a
+wonderfully picturesque turnstile or lich-gate under an ancient house
+in the High Street. The gate formerly closed itself mechanically by
+means of a pulley to which was attached a heavy weight. Unfortunately
+this weight was not boxed in--as in the somewhat similar example at
+Hayes, in Middlesex--and an accident which happened to some children
+resulted in its removal.
+
+[Illustration: Lich-gate, Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks]
+
+A good many picturesque old houses remain in the village, among them
+being one called Stonewall Farm, a structure of the fifteenth century
+with an original billet-moulded porch and Gothic barge-boards.
+
+There is a certain similarity about the villages that dot the Vale of
+Aylesbury. The old Market House is usually a feature of the High
+Street--where it has not been spoilt as at Wendover. Groups of
+picturesque timber cottages, thickest round the church, and shouldered
+here and there by their more respectable and severe Georgian brethren,
+are common to all, and vary but little in their general aspect and
+colouring. Memories and legends haunt every hamlet, the very names of
+which have an ancient sound carrying us vaguely back to former days.
+Prince's Risborough, once a manor of the Black Prince; Wendover, the
+birthplace of Roger of Wendover, the medieval historian, and author of
+the Chronicle _Flores Historiarum, or History of the World from the
+Creation to the year 1235_, in modern language a somewhat "large
+order"; Hampden, identified to all time with the patriot of that name;
+and so on indefinitely. At Monk's Risborough, another hamlet with an
+ancient-sounding name, but possessing no special history, is a church
+of the Perpendicular period containing some features of exceptional
+interest, and internally one of the most charmingly picturesque of its
+kind. The carved tie-beams of the porch with their masks and tracery
+and the great stone stoup which appears in one corner have an
+_unrestored_ appearance which is quite delightful in these days of
+over-restoration. The massive oak door has some curious iron fittings,
+and the interior of the church itself displays such treasures as a
+magnificent early Tudor roof and an elegant fifteenth-century
+chancel-screen, on the latter of which some remains of ancient
+painting exist.[15]
+
+  [15] The rood-loft has unfortunately disappeared.
+
+[Illustration: Fifteenth-century Handle on Church Door, Monk's
+Risborough, Bucks]
+
+Thame, just across the Oxfordshire border, is another town of the
+greatest interest. The noble parish church here contains a number of
+fine brasses and tombs, including the recumbent effigies of Lord John
+Williams of Thame and his wife, who flourished in the reign of Queen
+Mary. The chancel-screen is of uncommon character, the base being
+richly decorated with linen panelling, while above rises an arcade in
+which Gothic form mingles freely with the grotesqueness of the
+Renaissance. The choir-stalls are also lavishly ornamented with the
+linen-fold decoration.
+
+The centre of Thame's broad High Street is narrowed by an island of
+houses, once termed Middle Row, and above the jumble of tiled roofs
+here rises like a watch-tower a most curious and interesting medieval
+house known as the "Bird Cage Inn." About this structure little is
+known; it is, however, referred to in an old document as the "tenement
+called the Cage, demised to James Rosse by indenture for the term of
+100 years, yielding therefor by the year 8s.," and appears to have
+been a farm-house. The document in question is a grant of Edward IV to
+Sir John William of the Charity or Guild of St. Christopher in Thame,
+founded by Richard Quartemayne, _Squier_, who died in the year 1460.
+This house, though in some respects adapted during later years from
+its original plan, is structurally but little altered, and should be
+taken in hand and _intelligently_ restored as an object of local
+attraction and interest. The choicest oaks of a small forest must have
+supplied its framework, which stands firm as the day when it was
+built. The fine corner-posts (now enclosed) should be exposed to view,
+and the mullioned windows which jut out over a narrow passage should
+be opened up. If this could be done--and not overdone--the "Bird Cage"
+would hardly be surpassed as a miniature specimen of medieval timber
+architecture in the county. A stone doorway of Gothic form and a kind
+of almery or safe exist in its cellars.
+
+A school was founded at Thame by Lord John Williams, whose recumbent
+effigy exists in the church, and amongst the students there during the
+second quarter of the seventeenth century was Anthony Wood, the Oxford
+antiquary. Thame about this time was the centre of military operations
+between the King's forces and the rebels, and was continually being
+beaten up by one side or the other. Wood, though but a boy at the
+time, has left on record in his narrative some vivid impressions of
+the conflicts which he personally witnessed, and which bring the
+disjointed times before us in a vision of strange and absolute
+reality.
+
+He tells of Colonel Blagge, the Governor of Wallingford Castle, who
+was on a marauding expedition, being chased through the streets of
+Thame by Colonel Crafford, who commanded the Parliamentary garrison at
+Aylesbury, and how one man fell from his horse, and the Colonel "held
+a pistol to him, but the trooper cried 'Quarter!' and the rebels came
+up and rifled him and took him and his horse away with them." On
+another occasion, just as a company of Roundhead soldiers were sitting
+down to dinner, a Cavalier force appeared "to beat up their quarters,"
+and the Roundheads retired in a hurry, leaving "A.W. and the
+schoolboyes, sojourners in the house," to enjoy their venison pasties.
+
+He tells also of certain doings at the Nag's Head, a house that still
+exists--a very ancient hostelry, though not nearly so old a building
+as the Bird Cage Inn. The sign is no longer there, but some
+interesting features remain, among them the huge strap hinges on the
+outer door, fashioned at their extremities in the form of
+fleurs-de-lis. We should like to linger long at Thame and describe the
+wonders at Thame Park, with its remains of a Cistercian abbey and the
+fine Tudor buildings of Robert King, last abbot and afterward the
+first Bishop of Oxford. The three fine oriel windows and stair-turret,
+the noble Gothic dining-hall and abbot's parlour panelled with oak in
+the style of the linen pattern, are some of the finest Tudor work in
+the country. The Prebendal house and chapel built by Grossetete are
+also worthy of the closest attention. The chapel is an architectural
+gem of Early English design, and the rest of the house with its later
+Perpendicular windows is admirable. Not far away is the interesting
+village of Long Crendon, once a market-town, with its fine church and
+its many picturesque houses, including Staple Hall, near the church,
+with its noble hall, used for more than five centuries as a manorial
+court-house on behalf of various lords of the manor, including Queen
+Katherine, widow of Henry V. It has now fortunately passed into the
+care of the National Trust, and its future is secured for the benefit
+of the nation. The house is a beautiful half-timbered structure, and
+was in a terribly dilapidated condition. It is interesting both
+historically and architecturally, and is note-worthy as illustrating
+the continuity of English life, that the three owners from whom the
+Trust received the building, Lady Kinloss, All Souls' College, and the
+Ecclesiastical Commissioners, are the successors in title of three
+daughters of an Earl of Pembroke in the thirteenth century. It is
+fortunate that the old house has fallen into such good hands. The
+village has a Tudor manor-house which has been restored.
+
+Another court-house, that at Udimore, in Sussex, near Rye, has, we
+believe, been saved by the Trust, though the owner has retained
+possession. It is a picturesque half-timbered building of two storeys
+with modern wings projecting at right angles at each end. The older
+portion is all that remains of a larger house which appears to have
+been built in the fifteenth century. The manor belonged to the Crown,
+and it is said that both Edward I and Edward III visited it. The
+building was in a very dilapidated condition, and the owner intended
+to destroy it and replace it with modern cottages. We hope that this
+scheme has now been abandoned, and that the old house is safe for many
+years to come.
+
+[Illustration: Weather-boarded Houses, Crown Street, Portsmouth]
+
+At the other end of the county of Oxfordshire remote from Thame is the
+beautiful little town of Burford, the gem of the Cotswolds. No
+wonder that my friend "Sylvanus Urban," otherwise Canon Beeching,
+sings of its charm:--
+
+        Oh fair is Moreton in the marsh
+          And Stow on the wide wold,
+        Yet fairer far is Burford town
+          With its stone roofs grey and old;
+        And whether the sky be hot and high,
+          Or rain fall thin and chill,
+        The grey old town on the lonely down
+          Is where I would be still.
+
+        O broad and smooth the Avon flows
+          By Stratford's many piers;
+        And Shakespeare lies by Avon's side
+          These thrice a hundred years;
+        But I would be where Windrush sweet
+          Laves Burford's lovely hill--
+        The grey old town on the lonely down
+          Is where I would be still.
+
+It is unlike any other place, this quaint old Burford, a right
+pleasing place when the sun is pouring its beams upon the fantastic
+creations of the builders of long ago, and when the moon is full there
+is no place in England which surpasses it in picturesqueness. It is
+very quiet and still now, but there was a time when Burford cloth,
+Burford wool, Burford stone, Burford malt, and Burford saddles were
+renowned throughout the land. Did not the townsfolk present two of its
+famous saddles to "Dutch William" when he came to Burford with the
+view of ingratiating himself into the affections of his subjects
+before an important general election? It has been the scene of
+battles. Not far off is Battle Edge, where the fierce kings of Wessex
+and Mercia fought in 720 A.D. on Midsummer Eve, in commemoration of
+which the good folks of Burford used to carry a dragon up and down the
+streets, the great dragon of Wessex. Perhaps the origin of this
+procession dates back to early pagan days before the battle was
+fought, but tradition connects it with the fight. Memories cluster
+thickly around one as you walk up the old street. It was the first
+place in England to receive the privilege of a Merchant Guild. The
+gaunt Earl of Warwick, the King-maker, owned the place, and
+appropriated to himself the credit of erecting the almshouses, though
+Henry Bird gave the money. You can still see the Earl's signature at
+the foot of the document relating to this foundation--R.
+Warrewych--the only signature known save one at Belvoir. You can see
+the ruined Burford Priory. It is not the conventual building wherein
+the monks lived in pre-Reformation days and served God in the grand
+old church that is Burford's chief glory. Edmund Harman, the royal
+barber-surgeon, received a grant of the Priory from Henry VIII for
+curing him from a severe illness. Then Sir Laurence Tanfield, Chief
+Baron of the Exchequer, owned it, who married a Burford lady,
+Elizabeth Cobbe. An aged correspondent tells me that in the days of
+her youth there was standing a house called Cobb Hall, evidently the
+former residence of Lady Tanfield's family. He built a grand
+Elizabethan mansion on the site of the old Priory, and here was born
+Lucius Gary, Lord Falkland, who was slain in Newbury fight. That Civil
+War brought stirring times to Burford. You have heard of the fame of
+the Levellers, the discontented mutineers in Cromwell's army, the
+followers of John Lilburne, who for a brief space threatened the
+existence of the Parliamentary regime. Cromwell dealt with them with
+an iron hand. He caught and surprised them at Burford and imprisoned
+them in the church, wherein carved roughly on the font with a dagger
+you can see this touching memorial of one of these poor men:--
+
+   ANTHONY SEDLEY PRISNER 1649.
+
+[Illustration: Inscription on Font, Parish Church, Burford, Oxon]
+
+Three of the leaders were shot in the churchyard on the following
+morning in view of the other prisoners, who were placed on the leaden
+roof of the church, and you can still see the bullet-holes in the old
+wall against which the unhappy men were placed. The following entries
+in the books of the church tell the sad story tersely:--
+
+   _Burials._--"1649 Three soldiers shot to death in Burford
+   Churchyard May 17th."
+
+   "Pd. to Daniel Muncke for cleansinge the Church when the
+   Levellers were taken 3s. 4d."
+
+[Illustration: Detail of Fifteenth-century Barge-board, Burford,
+Oxon.]
+
+A walk through the streets of the old town is refreshing to an
+antiquary's eyes. The old stone buildings grey with age with tile
+roofs, the old Tolsey much restored, the merchants' guild mark over
+many of the ancient doorways, the noble church with its eight
+chapels and fine tombs, the plate of the old corporation, now in the
+custody of its oldest surviving member (Burford has ceased to be an
+incorporated borough), are all full of interest. Vandalism is not,
+however, quite lacking, even in Burford. One of the few Gothic
+chimneys remaining, a gem with a crocketed and pinnacled canopy, was
+taken down some thirty years ago, while the Priory is said to be in
+danger of being pulled down, though a later report speaks only of its
+restoration. In the coaching age the town was alive with traffic, and
+Burford races, established by the Merry Monarch, brought it much
+gaiety. At the George Inn, now degraded from its old estate and cut up
+into tenements, Charles I stayed. It was an inn for more than a
+century before his time, and was only converted from that purpose
+during the early years of the nineteenth century, when the proprietor
+of the Bull Inn bought it up and closed its doors to the public with a
+view to improving the prosperity of his own house. The restoration of
+the picturesque almshouses founded by Henry Bird in the time of the
+King-maker, a difficult piece of work, was well carried out in the
+decadent days of the "twenties," and happily they do not seem to have
+suffered much in the process.
+
+[Illustration: The George Inn, Burford, Oxon]
+
+During our wanderings in the streets and lanes of rural England we
+must not fail to visit the county of Essex. It is one of the least
+picturesque of our counties, but it possesses much wealth of
+interesting antiquities in the timber houses at Colchester, Saffron
+Walden, the old town of Maldon, the inns at Chigwell and Brentwood,
+and the halls of Layer Marney and Horsham at Thaxted. Saffron Walden
+is one of those quaint agricultural towns whose local trade is a thing
+of the past. From the records which are left of it in the shape of
+prints and drawings, the town in the early part of the nineteenth
+century must have been a medieval wonder. It is useless now to rail
+against the crass ignorance and vandalism which has swept away so many
+irreplaceable specimens of bygone architecture only to fill their
+sites with brick boxes, "likely indeed and all alike."
+
+Itineraries of the Georgian period when mentioning Saffron Walden
+describe the houses as being of "mean appearance,"[16] which remark,
+taking into consideration the debased taste of the times, is
+significant. A perfect holocaust followed, which extending through
+that shocking time known as the Churchwarden Period has not yet spent
+itself in the present day. Municipal improvements threaten to go
+further still, and in these commercial days, when combined capital
+under such appellations as the "Metropolitan Co-operative" or the
+"Universal Supply Stores" endeavours to increase its display behind
+plate-glass windows of immodest size, the life of old buildings seems
+painfully insecure.
+
+  [16] _Excursions in Essex_, published in 1819, states: "The old
+  market cross and gaol are taking down. The market cross has long
+  been considered a nuisance."
+
+A good number of fine early barge-boards still remain in Saffron
+Walden, and the timber houses which have been allowed to remain speak
+only too eloquently of the beauties which have vanished. One of these
+structures--a large timber building or collection of buildings, for
+the dates of erection are various--stands in Church Street, and was
+formerly the Sun Inn, a hostel of much importance in bygone times.
+This house of entertainment is said to have been in 1645 the quarters
+of the Parliamentary Generals Cromwell, Ireton, and Skippon. In 1870,
+during the conversion of the Sun Inn into private residences, some
+glazed tiles were discovered bricked up in what had once been an open
+hearth. These tiles were collectively painted with a picture on each
+side of the hearth, and bore the inscription "W.E. 1730," while on one
+of them a bust of the Lord Protector was depicted, thus showing the
+tradition to have been honoured during the second George's time.[17]
+Saffron Walden was the rendezvous of the Parliamentarian forces after
+the sacking of Leicester, having their encampment on Triplow Heath. A
+remarkable incident may be mentioned in connexion with this fact. In
+1826 a rustic, while ploughing some land to the south of the town,
+turned up with his share the brass seal of Leicester Hospital, which
+seal had doubtless formed part of the loot acquired by the rebel army.
+
+  [17] These tiles have now found a place in the excellent local museum.
+
+The Sun Inn, or "House of the Giants," as it has sometimes been
+called, from the colossal figures which appear in the pargeting over
+its gateway, is a building which evidently grew with the needs of the
+town, and a study of its architectural features is curiously
+instructive.
+
+The following extract from Pepys's _Diary_ is interesting as referring
+to Saffron Walden:--
+
+  "1659, Feby. 27th. Up by four o'clock. Mr. Blayton and I took
+  horse and straight to Saffron Walden, where at the White Hart we
+  set up our horses and took the master to show us Audley End House,
+  where the housekeeper showed us all the house, in which the
+  stateliness of the ceilings, chimney-pieces, and form of the whole
+  was exceedingly worth seeing. He took us into the cellar, where we
+  drank most admirable drink, a health to the King. Here I played on
+  my flageolette, there being an excellent echo. He showed us
+  excellent pictures; two especially, those of the four Evangelists
+  and Henry VIII. In our going my landlord carried us through a very
+  old hospital or almshouse, where forty poor people were
+  maintained; a very old foundation, and over the chimney-piece was
+  an inscription in brass: 'Orato pro anima Thomae Bird,' &c. They
+  brought me a draft of their drink in a brown bowl, tipt with
+  silver, which I drank off, and at the bottom was a picture of the
+  Virgin with the child in her arms done in silver. So we took
+  leave...."
+
+The inscription and the "brown bowl" (which is a mazer cup) still
+remain, but the picturesque front of the hospital, built in the reign
+of Edward VI, disappeared during the awful "improvements" which took
+place during the "fifties." A drawing of it survives in the local
+museum.
+
+Maldon, the capital of the Blackwater district, is to the eye of an
+artist a town for twilight effects. The picturesque skyline of its
+long, straggling street is accentuated in the early morning or
+afterglow, when much undesirable detail of modern times below the
+tiled roofs is blurred and lost. In broad daylight the quaintness of
+its suburbs towards the river reeks of the salt flavour of W.W.
+Jacobs's stories. Formerly the town was rich with such massive timber
+buildings as still appear in the yard of the Blue Boar--an ancient
+hostelry which was evidently modernized externally in Pickwickian
+times. While exploring in the outhouses of this hostel Mr. Roe lighted
+on a venerable posting-coach of early nineteenth-century origin among
+some other decaying vehicles, a curiosity even more rare nowadays than
+the Gothic king-posts to be seen in the picturesque half-timbered
+billiard-room.
+
+[Illustration: Maldon, Essex. Sky-line of the High Street at twilight]
+
+The country around Maldon is dotted plentifully with evidences of
+past ages; Layer Marney, with its famous towers; D'Arcy Hall, noted
+for containing some of the finest linen panelling in England; Beeleigh
+Abbey, and other old-world buildings. The sea-serpent may still be
+seen at Heybridge, on the Norman church-door, one of the best of its
+kind, and exhibiting almost all its original ironwork, including the
+chimerical decorative clamp.
+
+[Illustration: St. Mary's Church, Maldon]
+
+The ancient house exhibited at the Franco-British Exhibition at
+Shepherd's Bush was a typical example of an Elizabethan dwelling. It
+was brought from Ipswich, where it was doomed to make room for the
+extension of Co-operative Stores, but so firmly was it built that, in
+spite of its age of three hundred and fifty years, it defied for some
+time the attacks of the house-breakers. It was built in 1563, as the
+date carved on the solid lintel shows, but some parts of the structure
+may have been earlier. All the oak joists and rafters had been
+securely mortised into each other and fixed with stout wooden pins. So
+securely were these pins fixed, that after many vain attempts to knock
+them out, they had all to be bored out with augers. The mortises and
+tenons were found to be as sound and clean as on the day when they
+were fitted by the sixteenth-century carpenters. The foundations and
+the chimneys were built of brick. The house contained a large
+entrance-hall, a kitchen, a splendidly carved staircase, a
+living-room, and two good bedrooms, on the upper floor. The whole
+house was a fine specimen of East Anglian half-timber work. The
+timbers that formed the framework were all straight, the diamond and
+curved patterns, familiar in western counties, signs of later
+construction, being altogether absent. One of the striking features of
+this, as of many other timber-framed houses, is the carved corner or
+angle post. It curves outwards as a support to the projecting first
+floor to the extent of nearly two feet, and the whole piece was hewn
+out of one massive oak log, the root, as was usual, having been placed
+upwards, and beautifully carved with Gothic floriations. The full
+overhang of the gables is four feet six inches. In later examples this
+distance between the gables and the wall was considerably reduced,
+until at last the barge-boards were flush with the wall. The joists of
+the first floor project from under a finely carved string-course, and
+the end of each joist has a carved finial. All the inside walls were
+panelled with oak, and the fire-place is of the typical old English
+character, with seats for half a dozen people in the ingle-nook. The
+principal room had a fine Tudor door, and the frieze and some of the
+panels were enriched with an inlay of holly. When the house was
+demolished many of the choicest fittings which were missing from their
+places were found carefully stowed under the floor boards. Possibly a
+raid or a riot had alarmed the owners in some distant period, and they
+hid their nicest things and then were slain, and no one knew of the
+secret hiding-place.
+
+[Illustration: Norman Clamp on door of Heybridge Church, Essex]
+
+[Illustration: Tudor Fire-place. Now walled up in the passage of a
+shop in Banbury]
+
+The Rector of Haughton calls attention to a curious old house which
+certainly ought to be preserved if it has not yet quite vanished.
+
+  "It is completely hidden from the public gaze. Right away in the
+  fields, to be reached only by footpath, or by strangely circuitous
+  lane, in the parish of Ranton, there stands a little old
+  half-timbered house, known as the Vicarage Farm. Only a very
+  practised eye would suspect the treasures that it contains.
+  Entering through the original door, with quaint knocker intact,
+  you are in the kitchen with a fine open fire-place, noble beam,
+  and walls panelled with oak. But the principal treasure consists
+  in what I have heard called 'The priest's room.' I should venture
+  to put the date of the house at about 1500--certainly
+  pre-Reformation. How did it come to be there? and what purpose did
+  it serve? I have only been able to find one note which can throw
+  any possible light on the matter. Gough says that a certain Rose
+  (Dunston?) brought land at Ranton to her husband John Doiley; and
+  he goes on: 'This man had the consent of William, the Prior of
+  Ranton, to erect a chapel at Ranton.' The little church at Ranton
+  has stood there from the thirteenth century, as the architecture
+  of the west end and south-west doorway plainly testify. The church
+  and cell (or whatever you may call it) must clearly have been an
+  off-shoot from the Priory. But the room: for this is what is
+  principally worth seeing. The beam is richly moulded, and so is
+  the panelling throughout. It has a very well carved course of
+  panelling all round the top, and this is surmounted by an
+  elaborate cornice. The stone mantelpiece is remarkably fine and of
+  unusual character. But the most striking feature of the room is a
+  square-headed arched recess, or niche, with pierced spandrels.
+  What was its use? It is about the right height for a seat, and
+  what may have been the seat is there unaltered. Or was it a niche
+  containing a Calvary, or some figure? I confess I know nothing. Is
+  this a unique example? I cannot remember any other. But possibly
+  there may be others, equally hidden away, comparison with which
+  might unfold its secret. In this room, and in other parts of the
+  house, much of the old ironwork of hinges and door-fasteners
+  remains, and is simply excellent. The old oak sliding shutters are
+  still there, and two more fine stone mantelpieces; on one hearth
+  the original encaustic tiles with patterns, chiefly a Maltese
+  cross, and the oak cill surrounding them, are _in situ_. I confess
+  I tremble for the safety of this priceless relic. The house is in
+  a somewhat dilapidated condition; and I know that one attempt was
+  made to buy the panelling and take it away. Surely such a monument
+  of the past should be in some way guarded by the nation."
+
+The beauty of English cottage-building, its directness, simplicity,
+variety, and above all its inevitable quality, the intimate way in
+which the buildings ally themselves with the soil and blend with the
+ever-varied and exquisite landscape, the delicate harmonies, almost
+musical in their nature, that grow from their gentle relationship with
+their surroundings, the modulation from man's handiwork to God's
+enveloping world that lies in the quiet gardening that binds one to
+the other without discord or dissonance--all these things are
+wonderfully attractive to those who have eyes to see and hearts to
+understand. The English cottages have an importance in the story of
+the development of architecture far greater than that which concerns
+their mere beauty and picturesqueness. As we follow the history of
+Gothic art we find that for the most part the instinctive art in
+relation to church architecture came to an end in the first quarter of
+the sixteenth century, but the right impulse did not cease.
+House-building went on, though there was no church-building, and we
+admire greatly some of those grand mansions which were reared in the
+time of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts; but art was declining, a
+crumbling taste causing disintegration of the sense of real beauty and
+refinement of detail. A creeping paralysis set in later, and the end
+came swiftly when the dark days of the eighteenth century blotted out
+even the memory of a great past. And yet during all this time the
+people, the poor and middle classes, the yeomen and farmers, were ever
+building, building, quietly and simply, untroubled by any thoughts
+of style, of Gothic art or Renaissance; hence the cottages and
+dwellings of the humblest type maintained in all their integrity the
+real principles that made medieval architecture great. Frank, simple,
+and direct, built for use and not for the establishment of
+architectural theories, they have transmitted their messages to the
+ages and have preserved their beauties for the admiration of mankind
+and as models for all time.
+
+[Illustration: Wilney Street Burford]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+OLD CASTLES
+
+
+Castles have played a prominent part in the making of England. Many
+towns owe their existence to the protecting guard of an old fortress.
+They grew up beneath its sheltering walls like children holding the
+gown of their good mother, though the castle often proved but a harsh
+and cruel stepmother, and exacted heavy tribute in return for partial
+security from pillage and rapine. Thus Newcastle-upon-Tyne arose about
+the early fortress erected in 1080 by Robert Curthose to guard the
+passage of the river at the Pons Aelii. The poor little Saxon village
+of Monkchester was then its neighbour. But the castle occupying a fine
+strategic position soon attracted townsfolk, who built their houses
+'neath its shadow. The town of Richmond owes its existence to the
+lordly castle which Alain Rufus, a cousin of the Duke of Brittany,
+erected on land granted to him by the Conqueror. An old rhyme tells
+how he
+
+        Came out of Brittany
+        With his wife Tiffany,
+        And his maid Manfras,
+        And his dog Hardigras.
+
+He built his walls of stone. We must not imagine, however, that an
+early Norman castle was always a vast keep of stone. That came later.
+The Normans called their earliest strongholds _mottes_, which
+consisted of a mound with stockades and a deep ditch and a
+bailey-court also defended by a ditch and stockades. Instead of the
+great stone keep of later days, "foursquare to every wind that blew,"
+there was a wooden tower for the shelter of the garrison. You can see
+in the Bayeux tapestry the followers of William the Conqueror in the
+act of erecting some such tower of defence. Such structures were
+somewhat easily erected, and did not require a long period for their
+construction. Hence they were very useful for the holding of a
+conquered country. Sometimes advantage was taken of the works that the
+Romans had left. The Normans made use of the old stone walls built by
+the earliest conquerors of Britain. Thus we find at Pevensey a Norman
+fortress born within the ancient fortress reared by the Romans to
+protect that portion of the southern coast from the attacks of the
+northern pirates. Porchester Keep rose in the time of the first Henry
+at the north-west angle of the Roman fort. William I erected his
+castle at Colchester on the site of the Roman _castrum_. The old Roman
+wall of London was used by the Conqueror for the eastern defence of
+his Tower that he erected to keep in awe the citizens of the
+metropolis, and at Lincoln and Colchester the works of the first
+conquerors of Britain were eagerly utilized by him.
+
+One of the most important Roman castles in the country is Burgh
+Castle, in North Suffolk, with its grand and noble walls. The late Mr.
+G.E. Fox thus described the ruins:--
+
+  "According to the plan on the Ordnance Survey map, the walls
+  enclose a quadrangular area roughly 640 feet long by 413 wide, the
+  walls being 9 feet thick with a foundation 12 feet in width. The
+  angles of the station are rounded. The eastern wall is
+  strengthened by four solid bastions, one standing against each of
+  the rounded angles, the other two intermediate, and the north and
+  south sides have one each, neither of them being in the centre of
+  the side, but rather west of it. The quaggy ground between the
+  camp and the stream would be an excellent defence against sudden
+  attack."
+
+[Illustration: Burgh Castle]
+
+Burgh Castle, according to the late Canon Raven, was the Roman station
+_Gariannonum_ of the _Notitia Imperii_. Its walls are built of
+flint-rubble concrete, and there are lacing courses of tiles. There
+is no wall on the west, and Canon Raven used to contend that one
+existed there but has been destroyed. But this conjecture seems
+improbable. That side was probably defended by the sea, which has
+considerably receded. Two gates remain, the principal one being the
+east gate, commanded by towers a hundred feet high; while the north is
+a postern-gate about five feet wide. The Romans have not left many
+traces behind them. Some coins have been found, including a silver one
+of Gratian and some of Constantine. Here St. Furseus, an Irish
+missionary, is said to have settled with a colony of monks, having
+been favourably received by Sigebert, the ruler of the East Angles, in
+633 A.D. Burgh Castle is one of the finest specimens of a Roman fort
+which our earliest conquerors have left us, and ranks with Reculver,
+Richborough, and Pevensey, those strong fortresses which were erected
+nearly two thousand years ago to guard the coasts against foreign
+foes.
+
+In early days, ere Norman and Saxon became a united people, the castle
+was the sign of the supremacy of the conquerors and the subjugation of
+the English. It kept watch and ward over tumultuous townsfolk and
+prevented any acts of rebellion and hostility to their new masters.
+Thus London's Tower arose to keep the turbulent citizens in awe as
+well as to protect them from foreign foes. Thus at Norwich the castle
+dominated the town, and required for its erection the destruction of
+over a hundred houses. At Lincoln the Conqueror destroyed 166 houses
+in order to construct a strong _motte_ at the south-west corner of the
+old _castrum_ in order to overawe the city. Sometimes castles were
+erected to protect the land from foreign foes. The fort at Colchester
+was intended to resist the Danes if ever their threatened invasion
+came, and Norwich Castle was erected quite as much to drive back the
+Scandinavian hosts as to keep in order the citizens. Newcastle and
+Carlisle were of strategic importance for driving back the Scots, and
+Lancaster Keep, traditionally said to have been reared by Roger de
+Poitou, but probably of later date, bore the brunt of many a marauding
+invasion. To check the incursions of the Welsh, who made frequent and
+powerful irruptions into Herefordshire, many castles were erected in
+Shropshire and Herefordshire, forming a chain of fortresses which are
+more numerous than in any other part of England. They are of every
+shape and size, from stately piles like Wigmore and Goodrich, to the
+smallest fortified farm, like Urishay Castle, a house half mansion,
+half fortress. Even the church towers of Herefordshire, with their
+walls seven or eight feet thick, such as that at Ewias Harold, look as
+if they were designed as strongholds in case of need. On the western
+and northern borders of England we find the largest number of
+fortresses, erected to restrain and keep back troublesome neighbours.
+
+The story of the English castles abounds in interest and romance. Most
+of them are ruins now, but fancy pictures them in the days of their
+splendour, the abodes of chivalry and knightly deeds, of "fair ladies
+and brave men," and each one can tell its story of siege and
+battle-cries, of strenuous attack and gallant defence, of prominent
+parts played in the drama of English history. To some of these we
+shall presently refer, but it would need a very large volume to record
+the whole story of our English fortresses.
+
+We have said that the earliest Norman castle was a _motte_ fortified
+by a stockade, an earthwork protected with timber palings. That is the
+latest theory amongst antiquaries, but there are not a few who
+maintain that the Normans, who proved themselves such admirable
+builders of the stoutest of stone churches, would not long content
+themselves with such poor fortresses. There were stone castles before
+the Normans, besides the old Roman walls at Pevensey, Colchester,
+London, and Lincoln. And there came from Normandy a monk named Gundulf
+in 1070 who was a mighty builder. He was consecrated Bishop of
+Rochester and began to build his cathedral with wondrous architectural
+skill. He is credited with devising a new style of military
+architecture, and found much favour with the Conqueror, who at the
+time especially needed strong walls to guard himself and his hungry
+followers. He was ordered by the King to build the first beginnings of
+the Tower of London. He probably designed the keep at Colchester and
+the castle of his cathedral town, and set the fashion of building
+these great ramparts of stone which were so serviceable in the
+subjugation and overawing of the English. The fashion grew, much to
+the displeasure of the conquered, who deemed them "homes of wrong and
+badges of bondage," hateful places filled with devils and evil men who
+robbed and spoiled them. And when they were ordered to set to work on
+castle-building their impotent wrath knew no bounds. It is difficult
+to ascertain how many were constructed during the Conqueror's reign.
+Domesday tells of forty-nine. Another authority, Mr. Pearson, mentions
+ninety-nine, and Mrs. Armitage after a careful examination of
+documents contends for eighty-six. But there may have been many
+others. In Stephen's reign castles spread like an evil sore over the
+land. His traitorous subjects broke their allegiance to their king and
+preyed upon the country. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ records that
+"every rich man built his castles and defended them against him, and
+they filled the land full of castles. They greatly oppressed the
+wretched people by making them work at these castles, and when the
+castles were finished they filled them with devils and evil men. Then
+they took those whom they suspected to have any goods, by night and by
+day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their
+gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable, for never
+were any martyrs tormented as these were. They hung some up by their
+feet and smoked them with foul smoke; some by their thumbs or by the
+head, and they hung burning things on their feet. They put a knotted
+string about their heads, and twisted it till it went into the brain.
+They put them into dungeons wherein were adders and snakes and toads,
+and thus wore them out. Some they put into a crucet-house, that is,
+into a chest that was short and narrow and not deep, and they put
+sharp stones in it, and crushed the man therein so that they broke all
+his limbs. There were hateful and grim things called Sachenteges in
+many of the castles, and which two or three men had enough to do to
+carry. The Sachentege was made thus: it was fastened to a beam, having
+a sharp iron to go round a man's throat and neck, so that he might
+noways sit, nor lie, nor sleep, but that he must bear all the iron.
+Many thousands they exhausted with hunger. I cannot, and I may not,
+tell of all the wounds and all the tortures that they inflicted upon
+the wretched men of this land; and this state of things lasted the
+nineteen years that Stephen was king, and ever grew worse and worse.
+They were continually levying an exaction from the towns, which they
+called Tenserie,[18] and when the miserable inhabitants had no more to
+give, then plundered they and burnt all the towns, so that well
+mightest thou walk a whole day's journey nor ever shouldest thou find
+a man seated in a town or its lands tilled."
+
+  [18] A payment to the superior lord for protection.
+
+More than a thousand of these abodes of infamy are said to have been
+built. Possibly many of them were timber structures only. Countless
+small towns and villages boast of once possessing a fortress. The name
+Castle Street remains, though the actual site of the stronghold has
+long vanished. Sometimes we find a mound which seems to proclaim its
+position, but memory is silent, and the people of England, if the
+story of the chronicler be true, have to be grateful to Henry II, who
+set himself to work to root up and destroy very many of these
+adulterine castles which were the abodes of tyranny and oppression.
+However, for the protection of his kingdom, he raised other
+strongholds, in the south the grand fortress of Dover, which still
+guards the straits; in the west, Berkeley Castle, for his friend
+Robert FitzHarding, ancestor of Lord Berkeley, which has remained in
+the same family until the present day; in the north, Richmond,
+Scarborough, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and in the east, Orford Keep.
+The same stern Norman keep remains, but you can see some changes in
+the architecture. The projection of the buttresses is increased, and
+there is some attempt at ornamentation. Orford Castle, which some
+guide-books and directories will insist on confusing with Oxford
+Castle and stating that it was built by Robert D'Oiley in 1072, was
+erected by Henry II to defend the country against the incursions of
+the Flemings and to safeguard Orford Haven. Caen stone was brought for
+the stone dressings to windows and doors, parapets and groins, but
+masses of septaria found on the shore and in the neighbouring marshes
+were utilized with such good effect that the walls have stood the
+attacks of besiegers and weathered the storms of the east coast for
+more than seven centuries. It was built in a new fashion that was made
+in France, and to which our English eyes were unaccustomed, and is
+somewhat similar in plan to Conisborough Castle, in the valley of the
+Don. The plan is circular with three projecting towers, and the keep
+was protected by two circular ditches, one fifteen feet and the other
+thirty feet distant from its walls. Between the two ditches was a
+circular wall with parapet and battlements. The interior of the castle
+was divided into three floors; the towers, exclusive of the turrets,
+had five, two of which were entresols, and were ninety-six feet high,
+the central keep being seventy feet.[19] The oven was at the top of
+the keep. The chapel is one of the most interesting chambers, with its
+original altar still in position, though much damaged, and also
+piscina, aumbrey, and ciborium. This castle nearly vanished with other
+features of vanishing England in the middle of the eighteenth century,
+Lord Hereford proposing to pull it down for the sake of the material;
+but "it being a necessary sea-mark, especially for ships coming from
+Holland, who by steering so as to make the castle cover or hide the
+church thereby avoid a dangerous sandbank called the Whiting,
+Government interfered and prevented the destruction of the
+building."[20]
+
+  [19] Cf. _Memorials of Old Suffolk_, p. 65.
+
+  [20] Grose's _Antiquities._
+
+In these keeps the thickness of the walls enabled them to contain
+chambers, stairs, and passages. At Guildford there is an oratory with
+rude carvings of sacred subjects, including a crucifixion. The first
+and second floors were usually vaulted, and the upper ones were of
+timber. Fireplaces were built in most of the rooms, and some sort of
+domestic comfort was not altogether forgotten. In the earlier
+fortresses the walls of the keep enclosed an inner court, which had
+rooms built up to the great stone walls, the court afterwards being
+vaulted and floors erected. In order to protect the entrance there
+were heavy doors with a portcullis, and by degrees the outward
+defences were strengthened. There was an outer bailey or court
+surrounded by a strong wall, with a barbican guarding the entrance,
+consisting of a strong gate protected by two towers. In this lower or
+outer court are the stables, and the mound where the lord of the
+castle dispenses justice, and where criminals and traitors are
+executed. Another strong gateway flanked by towers protects the inner
+bailey, on the edge of which stands the keep, which frowns down upon
+us as we enter. An immense household was supported in these castles.
+Not only were there men-at-arms, but also cooks, bakers, brewers,
+tailors, carpenters, smiths, masons, and all kinds of craftsmen; and
+all this crowd of workers had to be provided with accommodation by the
+lord of the castle. Hence a building in the form of a large hall was
+erected, sometimes of stone, usually of wood, in the lower or upper
+bailey, for these soldiers and artisans, where they slept and had
+their meals.
+
+Amongst other castles which arose during this late Norman and early
+English period of architecture we may mention Barnard Castle, a mighty
+stronghold, held by the royal house of Balliol, the Prince Bishops of
+Durham, the Earls of Warwick, the Nevilles, and other powerful
+families. Sir Walter Scott immortalized the Castle in _Rokeby_. Here
+is his description of the fortress:--
+
+        High crowned he sits, in dawning pale,
+        The sovereign of the lovely vale.
+        What prospects from the watch-tower high
+        Gleam gradual on the warder's eye?
+        Far sweeping to the east he sees
+        Down his deep woods the course of Tees,
+        And tracks his wanderings by the steam
+        Of summer vapours from the stream;
+        And ere he pace his destined hour
+        By Brackenbury's dungeon tower,
+        These silver mists shall melt away
+        And dew the woods with glittering spray.
+        Then in broad lustre shall be shown
+        That mighty trench of living stone.
+        And each huge trunk that from the side,
+        Reclines him o'er the darksome tide,
+        Where Tees, full many a fathom low,
+        Wears with his rage no common foe;
+        Nor pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here,
+        Nor clay-mound checks his fierce career,
+        Condemned to mine a channelled way
+        O'er solid sheets of marble grey.
+
+This lordly pile has seen the Balliols fighting with the Scots, of
+whom John Balliol became king, the fierce contests between the warlike
+prelates of Durham and Barnard's lord, the triumph of the former, who
+were deprived of their conquest by Edward I, and then its surrender in
+later times to the rebels of Queen Elizabeth.
+
+Another northern border castle is Norham, the possession of the Bishop
+of Durham, built during this period. It was a mighty fortress, and
+witnessed the gorgeous scene of the arbitration between the rival
+claimants to the Scottish throne, the arbiter being King Edward I of
+England, who forgot not to assert his own fancied rights to the
+overlordship of the northern kingdom. It was, however, besieged by the
+Scots, and valiant deeds were wrought before its walls by Sir William
+Marmion and Sir Thomas Grey, but the Scots captured it in 1327 and
+again in 1513. It is now but a battered ruin. Prudhoe, with its
+memories of border wars, and Castle Rising, redolent with the memories
+of the last years of the wicked widow of Edward II, belong to this age
+of castle-architecture, and also the older portions of Kenilworth.
+
+Pontefract Castle, the last fortress that held out for King Charles in
+the Civil War, and in consequence slighted and ruined, can tell of
+many dark deeds and strange events in English history. The De Lacys
+built it in the early part of the thirteenth century. Its area was
+seven acres. The wall of the castle court was high and flanked by
+seven towers; a deep moat was cut on the western side, where was the
+barbican and drawbridge. It had terrible dungeons, one a room
+twenty-five feet square, without any entrance save a trap-door in the
+floor of a turret. The castle passed, in 1310, by marriage to Thomas
+Earl of Lancaster, who took part in the strife between Edward II and
+his nobles, was captured, and in his own hall condemned to death. The
+castle is always associated with the murder of Richard II, but
+contemporary historians, Thomas of Walsingham and Gower the poet,
+assert that he starved himself to death; others contend that his
+starvation was not voluntary; while there are not wanting those who
+say that he escaped to Scotland, lived there many years, and died in
+peace in the castle of Stirling, an honoured guest of Robert III of
+Scotland, in 1419. I have not seen the entries, but I am told in the
+accounts of the Chamberlain of Scotland there are items for the
+maintenance of the King for eleven years. But popular tales die hard,
+and doubtless you will hear the groans and see the ghost of the
+wronged Richard some moonlight night in the ruined keep of Pontefract.
+He has many companion ghosts--the Earl of Salisbury, Richard Duke of
+York, Anthony Wydeville, Earl Rivers and Grey his brother, and Sir
+Thomas Vaughan, whose feet trod the way to the block, that was worn
+hard by many victims. The dying days of the old castle made it
+illustrious. It was besieged three times, taken and retaken, and saw
+amazing scenes of gallantry and bravery. It held out until after the
+death of the martyr king; it heard the proclamation of Charles II, but
+at length was compelled to surrender, and "the strongest inland
+garrison in the kingdom," as Oliver Cromwell termed it, was slighted
+and made a ruin. Its sister fortress Knaresborough shared its fate.
+Lord Lytton, in _Eugene Aram_, wrote of it:--
+
+  "You will be at a loss to recognise now the truth of old Leland's
+  description of that once stout and gallant bulwark of the north,
+  when 'he numbrid 11 or 12 Toures in the walles of the Castel, and
+  one very fayre beside in the second area.' In that castle the four
+  knightly murderers of the haughty Becket (the Wolsey of his age)
+  remained for a whole year, defying the weak justice of the times.
+  There, too, the unfortunate Richard II passed some portion of his
+  bitter imprisonment. And there, after the battle of Marston Moor,
+  waved the banner of the loyalists against the soldiers of
+  Lilburn."
+
+An interesting story is told of the siege. A youth, whose father was
+in the garrison, each night went into the deep, dry moat, climbed up
+the glacis, and put provisions through a hole where his father stood
+ready to receive them. He was seen at length, fired on by the
+Parliamentary soldiers, and sentenced to be hanged in sight of the
+besieged as a warning to others. But a good lady obtained his respite,
+and after the conquest of the place was released. The castle then,
+once the residence of Piers Gaveston, of Henry III, and of John of
+Gaunt, was dismantled and destroyed.
+
+During the reign of Henry III great progress was made in the
+improvement and development of castle-building. The comfort and
+convenience of the dwellers in these fortresses were considered, and
+if not very luxurious places they were made more beautiful by art and
+more desirable as residences. During the reigns of the Edwards this
+progress continued, and a new type of castle was introduced. The
+stern, massive, and high-towering keep was abandoned, and the
+fortifications arranged in a concentric fashion. A fine hall with
+kitchens occupied the centre of the fortress; a large number of
+chambers were added. The stronghold itself consisted of a large square
+or oblong like that at Donnington, Berkshire, and the approach was
+carefully guarded by strong gateways, advanced works, walled
+galleries, and barbicans. Deep moats filled with water increased their
+strength and improved their beauty.
+
+We will give some examples of these Edwardian castles, of which Leeds
+Castle, Kent, is a fine specimen. It stands on three islands in a
+sheet of water about fifteen acres in extent, these islands being
+connected in former times by double drawbridges. It consists of two
+huge piles of buildings which with a strong gate-house and barbican
+form four distinct forts, capable of separate defence should any one
+or other fall into the hands of an enemy. Three causeways, each with
+its drawbridge, gate, and portcullis, lead to the smallest island or
+inner barbican, a fortified mill contributing to the defences. A stone
+bridge connects this island with the main island. There stands the
+Constable's Tower, and a stone wall surrounds the island and within is
+the modern mansion. The Maiden's Tower and the Water Tower defend the
+island on the south. A two-storeyed building on arches now connects
+the main island with the Tower of the Gloriette, which has a curious
+old bell with the Virgin and Child, St. George and the Dragon, and the
+Crucifixion depicted on it, and an ancient clock. The castle withstood
+a siege in the time of Edward II because Queen Isabella was refused
+admission. The King hung the Governor, Thomas de Colepepper, by the
+chain of the drawbridge. Henry IV retired here on account of the
+Plague in London, and his second wife, Joan of Navarre, was imprisoned
+here. It was a favourite residence of the Court in the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries. Here the wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester,
+was tried for witchcraft. Dutch prisoners were confined here in 1666
+and contrived to set fire to some of the buildings. It is the home of
+the Wykeham Martin family, and is one of the most picturesque castles
+in the country.
+
+In the same neighbourhood is Allington Castle, an ivy-mantled ruin,
+another example of vanished glory, only two tenements occupying the
+princely residence of the Wyatts, famous in the history of State and
+Letters. Sir Henry, the father of the poet, felt the power of the
+Hunchback Richard, and was racked and imprisoned in Scotland, and
+would have died in the Tower of London but for a cat. He rose to great
+honour under Henry VII, and here entertained the King in great style.
+At Allington the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt was born, and spent his days in
+writing prose and verse, hunting and hawking, and occasionally
+dallying after Mistress Anne Boleyn at the neighbouring castle of
+Hever. He died here in 1542, and his son Sir Thomas led the
+insurrection against Queen Mary and sealed the fate of himself and his
+race.
+
+Hever Castle, to which allusion has been made, is an example of the
+transition between the old fortress and the more comfortable mansion
+of a country squire or magnate. Times were less dangerous, the country
+more peaceful when Sir Geoffrey Boleyn transformed and rebuilt the
+castle built in the reign of Edward III by William de Hever, but the
+strong entrance-gate flanked by towers, embattled and machicolated,
+and defended by stout doors and three portcullises and the surrounding
+moat, shows that the need of defence had not quite passed away. The
+gates lead into a courtyard around which the hall, chapel, and
+domestic chambers are grouped. The long gallery Anne Boleyn so often
+traversed with impatience still seems to re-echo her steps, and her
+bedchamber, which used to contain some of the original furniture, has
+always a pathetic interest. The story of the courtship of Henry VIII
+with "the brown girl with a perthroat and an extra finger," as
+Margaret More described her, is well known. Her old home, which was
+much in decay, has passed into the possession of a wealthy American
+gentleman, and has been recently greatly restored and transformed.
+
+Sussex can boast of many a lordly castle, and in its day Bodiam must
+have been very magnificent. Even in its decay and ruin it is one of
+the most beautiful in England. It combined the palace of the feudal
+lord and the fortress of a knight. The founder, Sir John Dalyngrudge,
+was a gallant soldier in the wars of Edward III, and spent most of his
+best years in France, where he had doubtless learned the art of making
+his house comfortable as well as secure. He acquired licence to
+fortify his castle in 1385 "for resistance against our enemies." There
+was need of strong walls, as the French often at that period ravaged
+the coast of Sussex, burning towns and manor-houses. Clark, the great
+authority on castles, says that "Bodiam is a complete and typical
+castle of the end of the fourteenth century, laid out entirely on a
+new site, and constructed after one design and at one period. It but
+seldom happens that a great fortress is wholly original, of one, and
+that a known, date, and so completely free from alterations or
+additions." It is nearly square, with circular tower sixty-five feet
+high at the four corners, connected by embattled curtain-walls, in the
+centre of each of which square towers rise to an equal height with the
+circular. The gateway is a large structure composed of two flanking
+towers defended by numerous oiletts for arrows, embattled parapets,
+and deep machicolations. Over the gateway are three shields bearing
+the arms of Bodiam, Dalyngrudge, and Wardieu. A huge portcullis still
+frowns down upon us, and two others opposed the way, while above are
+openings in the vault through which melted lead, heated sand, pitch,
+and other disagreeable things could be poured on the heads of the foe.
+In the courtyard on the south stands the great hall with its oriel,
+buttery, and kitchen, and amidst the ruins you can discern the chapel,
+sacristy, ladies' bower, presence chamber. The castle stayed not long
+in the family of the builder, his son John probably perishing in the
+wars, and passed to Sir Thomas Lewknor, who opposed Richard III, and
+was therefore attainted of high treason and his castle besieged and
+taken. It was restored to him again by Henry VII, but the Lewknors
+never resided there again. Waller destroyed it after the capture of
+Arundel, and since that time it has been left a prey to the rains and
+frosts and storms, but manages to preserve much of its beauty, and to
+tell how noble knights lived in the days of chivalry.
+
+Caister Castle is one of the four principal castles in Norfolk. It is
+built of brick, and is one of the earliest edifices in England
+constructed of that material after its rediscovery as suitable for
+building purposes. It stands with its strong defences not far from the
+sea on the barren coast. It was built by Sir John Fastolfe, who fought
+with great distinction in the French wars of Henry V and Henry VI, and
+was the hero of the Battle of the Herrings in 1428, when he defeated
+the French and succeeded in convoying a load of herrings in triumph to
+the English camp before Orleans. It is supposed that he was the
+prototype of Shakespeare's Falstaff, but beyond the resemblance in the
+names there is little similarity in the exploits of the two "heroes."
+Sir John Fastolfe, much to the chagrin of other friends and relatives,
+made John Paston his heir, who became a great and prosperous man,
+represented his county in Parliament, and was a favourite of Edward
+IV. Paston loved Caister, his "fair jewell"; but misfortunes befell
+him. He had great losses, and was thrice confined in the Fleet Prison
+and then outlawed. Those were dangerous days, and friends often
+quarrelled. Hence during his troubles the Duke of Norfolk and Lord
+Scales tried to get possession of Caister, and after his death laid
+siege to it. The Pastons lacked not courage and determination, and
+defended it for a year, but were then forced to surrender. However, it
+was restored to them, but again forcibly taken from them. However, not
+by the sword but by negotiations and legal efforts, Sir John again
+gained his own, and an embattled tower at the north-west corner, one
+hundred feet high, and the north and west walls remain to tell the
+story of this brave old Norfolk family, who by their _Letters_ have
+done so much to guide us through the dark period to which they relate.
+
+[Illustration: Caister Castle 7 Aug 1908]
+
+[Illustration: Defaced Arms. Taunton Castle]
+
+We will journey to the West Country, a region of castles. The Saxons
+were obliged to erect their rude earthen strongholds to keep back the
+turbulent Welsh, and these were succeeded by Norman keeps.
+Monmouthshire is famous for its castles. Out of the thousand erected
+in Norman times twenty-five were built in that county. There is
+Chepstow Castle with its Early Norman gateway spanned by a circular
+arch flanked by round towers. In the inner court there are gardens
+and ruins of a grand hall, and in the outer the remains of a chapel
+with evidences of beautifully groined vaulting, and also a winding
+staircase leading to the battlements. In the dungeon of the old keep
+at the south-east corner of the inner court Roger de Britolio, Earl of
+Hereford, was imprisoned for rebellion against the Conqueror, and in
+later times Henry Martin, the regicide, lingered as a prisoner for
+thirty years, employing his enforced leisure in writing a book in
+order to prove that it is not right for a man to be governed by one
+wife. Then there is Glosmont Castle, the fortified residence of the
+Earl of Lancaster; Skenfrith Castle, White Castle, the _Album Castrum_
+of the Latin records, the Landreilo of the Welsh, with its six towers,
+portcullis and drawbridge flanked by massive towers, barbican, and
+other outworks; and Raglan Castle with its splendid gateway, its
+Elizabethan banqueting-hall ornamented with rich stone tracery, its
+bowling-green, garden terraces, and spacious courts--an ideal place
+for knightly tournaments. Raglan is associated with the gallant
+defence of the castle by the Marquis of Worcester in the Civil War.
+
+Another famous siege is connected with the old castle of Taunton.
+Taunton was a noted place in Saxon days, and the castle is the
+earliest English fortress by some two hundred years of which we have
+any written historical record.[21] The Anglo-Saxon chronicler states,
+under the date 722 A.D.: "This year Queen Ethelburge overthrew
+Taunton, which Ina had before built." The buildings tell their story.
+We see a Norman keep built to the westward of Ina's earthwork,
+probably by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, the warlike brother
+of King Stephen. The gatehouse with the curtain ending in drum towers,
+of which one only remains, was first built at the close of the
+thirteenth century under Edward I; but it was restored with
+Perpendicular additions by Bishop Thomas Langton, whose arms with the
+date 1495 may be seen on the escutcheon above the arch. Probably
+Bishop Langton also built the great hall; whilst Bishop Home, who is
+sometimes credited with this work, most likely only repaired the hall,
+but tacked on to it the southward structure on pilasters, which shows
+his arms with the date 1577. The hall of the castle was for a long
+period used as Assize Courts. The castle was purchased by the Taunton
+and Somerset Archaeological Society, and is now most appropriately a
+museum. Taunton has seen many strange sights. The town was owned by
+the Bishop of Winchester, and the castle had its constable, an office
+held by many great men. When Lord Daubeney of Barrington Court was
+constable in 1497 Taunton saw thousands of gaunt Cornishmen marching
+on to London to protest against the king's subsidy, and they aroused
+the sympathy of the kind-hearted Somerset folk, who fed them, and were
+afterwards fined for "aiding and comforting" them. Again, crowds of
+Cornishmen here flocked to the standard of Perkin Warbeck. The gallant
+defence of Taunton by Robert Blake, aided by the townsfolk, against
+the whole force of the Royalists, is a matter of history, and also the
+rebellion of Monmouth, who made Taunton his head-quarters. This
+castle, like every other one in England, has much to tell us of the
+chief events in our national annals.
+
+  [21] _Taunton and its Castle_, by D.P. Alford (Memorials of Old
+  Somerset), p. 149.
+
+In the principality of Wales we find many noted strong holds--Conway,
+Harlech, and many others. Carnarvon Castle, the repair of which is
+being undertaken by Sir John Puleston, has no rival among our medieval
+fortresses for the grandeur and extent of the ruins. It was commenced
+about 1283 by Edward I, but took forty years to complete. In 1295 a
+playful North Walian, named Madoc, who was an illegitimate son of
+Prince David, took the rising stronghold by surprise upon a fair day,
+massacred the entire garrison, and hanged the constable from his own
+half-finished walls. Sir John Puleston, the present constable, though
+he derives his patronymic from the "base, bloody, and brutal Saxon,"
+is really a warmly patriotic Welshman, and is doing a good work in
+preserving the ruins of the fortress of which he is the titular
+governor.
+
+We should like to record the romantic stories that have woven
+themselves around each crumbling keep and bailey-court, to see them in
+the days of their glory when warders kept the gate and watching
+archers guarded the wall, and the lord and lady and their knights and
+esquires dined in the great hall, and knights practised feats of arms
+in the tilting-ground, and the banner of the lord waved over the
+battlements, and everything was ready for war or sport, hunting or
+hawking. But all the glories of most of the castles of England have
+vanished, and naught is to be seen but ruined walls and deserted
+halls. Some few have survived and become royal palaces or noblemen's
+mansions. Such are Windsor, Warwick, Raby, Alnwick, and Arundel, but
+the fate of most of them is very similar. The old fortress aimed at
+being impregnable in the days of bows and arrows; but the progress of
+guns and artillery somewhat changed the ideas with regard to their
+security. In the struggle between Yorkists and Lancastrians many a
+noble owner lost his castle and his head. Edward IV thinned down
+castle-ownership, and many a fine fortress was left to die. When the
+Spaniards threatened our shores those who possessed castles tried to
+adapt them for the use of artillery, and when the Civil War began many
+of them were strengthened and fortified and often made gallant
+defences against their enemies, such as Donnington, Colchester,
+Scarborough, and Pontefract. When the Civil War ended the last bugle
+sounded the signal for their destruction. Orders were issued for their
+destruction, lest they should ever again be thorns in the sides of the
+Parliamentary army. Sometimes they were destroyed for revenge, or
+because of their materials, which were sold for the benefit of the
+Government or for the satisfaction of private greed. Lead was torn
+from the roofs of chapels and banqueting-halls. The massive walls were
+so strong that they resisted to the last and had to be demolished
+with the aid of gunpowder. They became convenient quarries for stone
+and furnished many a farm, cottage and manor-house with materials for
+their construction. Henceforth the old castle became a ruin. In its
+silent marshy moat reeds and rushes grow, and ivy covers its walls,
+and trees have sprung up in the quiet and deserted courts. Picnic
+parties encamp on the green sward, and excursionists amuse themselves
+in strolling along the walls and wonder why they were built so thick,
+and imagine that the castle was always a ruin erected for the
+amusement of the cheap-tripper for jest and playground. Happily care
+is usually bestowed upon the relics that remain, and diligent
+antiquaries excavate and try to rear in imagination the stately
+buildings. Some have been fortunate enough to become museums, and some
+modernized and restored are private residences. The English castle
+recalls some of the most eventful scenes in English history, and its
+bones and skeleton should be treated with respect and veneration as an
+important feature of vanishing England.
+
+[Illustration: Knightly Bascinet (_temp._ Henry V) in Norwich Castle]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+VANISHING OR VANISHED CHURCHES
+
+
+No buildings have suffered more than our parish churches in the course
+of ages. Many have vanished entirely. A few stones or ruins mark the
+site of others, and iconoclasm has left such enduring marks on the
+fabric of many that remain that it is difficult to read their story
+and history. A volume, several volumes, would be needed to record all
+the vandalism that has been done to our ecclesiastical structures in
+the ages that have passed. We can only be thankful that some churches
+have survived to proclaim the glories of English architecture and the
+skill of our masons and artificers who wrought so well and worthily in
+olden days.
+
+In the chapter that relates to the erosion of our coasts we have
+mentioned many of the towns and villages which have been devoured by
+the sea with their churches. These now lie beneath the waves, and the
+bells in their towers are still said to ring when storms rage. We need
+not record again the submerged Ravenspur, Dunwich, Kilnsea, and other
+unfortunate towns with their churches where now only mermaids can form
+the congregation.
+
+       And as the fisherman strays
+       When the clear cold eve's declining,
+       He sees the round tower of other days
+       In the wave beneath him shining.
+
+In the depths of the country, far from the sea, we can find many
+deserted shrines, many churches that once echoed with the songs of
+praise of faithful worshippers, wherein were celebrated the divine
+mysteries, and organs pealed forth celestial music, but now forsaken,
+desecrated, ruined, forgotten.
+
+        The altar has vanished, the rood screen flown,
+        Foundation and buttress are ivy-grown;
+        The arches are shattered, the roof has gone,
+        The mullions are mouldering one by one;
+        Foxglove and cow-grass and waving weed
+        Grow over the scrolls where you once could read
+        Benedicite.
+
+Many of them have been used as quarries, and only a few stones remain
+to mark the spot where once stood a holy house of God. Before the
+Reformation the land must have teemed with churches. I know not the
+exact number of monastic houses once existing in England. There must
+have been at least a thousand, and each had its church. Each parish
+had a church. Besides these were the cathedrals, chantry chapels,
+chapels attached to the mansions, castles, and manor-houses of the
+lords and squires, to almshouses and hospitals, pilgrim churches by
+the roadside, where bands of pilgrims would halt and pay their
+devotions ere they passed along to the shrine of St. Thomas at
+Canterbury or to Our Lady at Walsingham. When chantries and guilds as
+well as monasteries were suppressed, their chapels were no longer used
+for divine service; some of the monastic churches became cathedrals or
+parish churches, but most of them were pillaged, desecrated, and
+destroyed. When pilgrimages were declared to be "fond things vainly
+invented," and the pilgrim bands ceased to travel along the pilgrim
+way, the wayside chapel fell into decay, or was turned into a barn or
+stable.
+
+It is all very sad and deplorable. But the roll of abandoned shrines
+is not complete. At the present day many old churches are vanishing.
+Some have been abandoned or pulled down because they were deemed too
+near to the squire's house, and a new church erected at a more
+respectful distance. "Restoration" has doomed many to destruction. Not
+long ago the new scheme for supplying Liverpool with water
+necessitated the converting of a Welsh valley into a huge reservoir
+and the consequent destruction of churches and villages. A new scheme
+for supplying London with water has been mooted, and would entail the
+damming up of a river at the end of a valley and the overwhelming of
+several prosperous old villages and churches which have stood there
+for centuries. The destruction of churches in London on account of the
+value of their site and the migration of the population, westward and
+eastward, has been frequently deplored. With the exception of All
+Hallows, Barking; St. Andrew's Undershaft; St. Catherine Cree; St.
+Dunstan's, Stepney; St. Giles', Cripplegate; All Hallows, Staining;
+St. James's, Aldgate; St. Sepulchre's; St. Mary Woolnoth; all the old
+City churches were destroyed by the Great Fire, and some of the above
+were damaged and repaired. "Destroyed by the Great Fire, rebuilt by
+Wren," is the story of most of the City churches of London. To him
+fell the task of rebuilding the fallen edifices. Well did he
+accomplish his task. He had no one to guide him; no school of artists
+or craftsmen to help him in the detail of his buildings; no great
+principles of architecture to direct him. But he triumphed over all
+obstacles and devised a style of his own that was well suitable for
+the requirements of the time and climate and for the form of worship
+of the English National Church. And how have we treated the buildings
+which his genius devised for us? Eighteen of his beautiful buildings
+have already been destroyed, and fourteen of these since the passing
+of the Union of City Benefices Act in 1860 have succumbed. With the
+utmost difficulty vehement attacks on others have been warded off, and
+no one can tell how long they will remain. Here is a very sad and
+deplorable instance of the vanishing of English architectural
+treasures. While we deplore the destructive tendencies of our
+ancestors we have need to be ashamed of our own.
+
+We will glance at some of these deserted shrines on the sites where
+formerly they stood. The Rev. Gilbert Twenlow Royds, Rector of
+Haughton and Rural Dean of Stafford, records three of these in his
+neighbourhood, and shall describe them in his own words:--
+
+  "On the main road to Stafford, in a field at the top of Billington
+  Hill, a little to the left of the road, there once stood a chapel.
+  The field is still known as Chapel Hill; but not a vestige of the
+  building survives; no doubt the foundations were grubbed up for
+  ploughing purposes. In a State paper, describing 'The State of the
+  Church in Staffs, in 1586,' we find the following entry:
+  'Billington Chappell; reader, a husbandman; pension 16 groats; no
+  preacher.' This is under the heading of Bradeley, in which parish
+  it stood. I have made a wide search for information as to the
+  dates of the building and destruction of this chapel. Only one
+  solitary note has come to my knowledge. In Mazzinghi's _History of
+  Castle Church_ he writes: 'Mention is made of Thomas Salt the son
+  of Richard Salt and C(lem)ance his wife as Christened at
+  Billington Chapel in 1600.' Local tradition says that within the
+  memory of the last generation stones were carted from this site to
+  build the churchyard wall of Bradley Church. I have noticed
+  several re-used stones; but perhaps if that wall were to be more
+  closely examined or pulled down, some further history might
+  disclose itself. Knowing that some of the stones were said to be
+  in a garden on the opposite side of the road, I asked permission
+  to investigate. This was most kindly granted, and I was told that
+  there was a stone 'with some writing on it' in a wall. No doubt we
+  had the fragment of a gravestone! and such it proved to be. With
+  some difficulty we got the stone out of the wall; and, being an
+  expert in palaeography, I was able to decipher the inscription. It
+  ran as follows: 'FURy. Died Feb. 28, 1864.' A skilled antiquary
+  would probably pronounce it to be the headstone of a favourite
+  dog's grave; and I am inclined to think that we have here a not
+  unformidable rival of the celebrated
+
+              +
+           BIL ST
+             UM
+            PS HI
+             S.M.
+             ARK
+
+  of the _Pickwick Papers_.
+
+  "Yet another vanished chapel, of which I have even less to tell
+  you. On the right-hand side of the railway line running towards
+  Stafford, a little beyond Stallbrook Crossing, there is a field
+  known as Chapel Field. But there is nothing but the name left.
+  From ancient documents I have learnt that a chapel once stood
+  there, known as Derrington Chapel (I think in the thirteenth
+  century), in Seighford parish, but served from Ranton Priory. In
+  1847 my father built a beautiful little church at Derrington, in
+  the Geometrical Decorated style, but not on the Chapel Field. I
+  cannot tell you what an immense source of satisfaction it would be
+  to me if I could gather some further reliable information as to
+  the history, style, and annihilation of these two vanished
+  chapels. It is unspeakably sad to be forced to realize that in so
+  many of our country parishes no records exist of things and events
+  of surpassing interest in their histories.
+
+  "I take you now to where there is something a little more
+  tangible. There stand in the park of Creswell Hall, near Stafford,
+  the ruins of a little thirteenth-century chapel. I will describe
+  what is left. I may say that some twenty years ago I made certain
+  excavations, which showed the ground plan to be still complete. So
+  far as I remember, we found a chamfered plinth all round the nave,
+  with a west doorway. The chancel and nave are of the same width,
+  the chancel measuring about 21 ft. long and the nave _c._ 33 ft.
+  The ground now again covers much of what we found. The remains
+  above ground are those of the chancel only. Large portions of the
+  east and north walls remain, and a small part of the south wall.
+  The north wall is still _c._ 12 ft. high, and contains two narrow
+  lancets, quite perfect. The east wall reaches _c._ 15 ft., and has
+  a good base-mould. It contains the opening, without the head, of a
+  three-light window, with simply moulded jambs, and the glass-line
+  remaining. A string-course under the window runs round the angle
+  buttresses, or rather did so run, for I think the north buttress
+  has been rebuilt, and without the string. The south buttress is
+  complete up to two weatherings, and has two strings round it. It
+  is a picturesque and valuable ruin, and well worth a visit. It is
+  amusing to notice that Creswell now calls itself a rectory, and an
+  open-air service is held annually within its walls. It was a
+  pre-bend of S. Mary's, Stafford, and previously a Free Chapel, the
+  advowson belonging to the Lord of the Manor; and it was sometimes
+  supplied with preachers from Ranton Priory. Of the story of its
+  destruction I can discover nothing. It is now carefully preserved
+  and, I have heard it suggested that it might some day be rebuilt
+  to meet the spiritual needs of its neighbourhood.
+
+  "We pass now to the most stately and beautiful object in this
+  neighbourhood. I mean the tower of Ranton Priory Church. It is
+  always known here as Ranton Abbey. But it has no right to the
+  title. It was an off-shoot of Haughmond Abbey, near Shrewsbury,
+  and was a Priory of Black Canons, founded _temp._ Henry II. The
+  church has disappeared entirely, with the exception of a bit of
+  the south-west walling of the nave and a Norman doorway in it.
+  This may have connected the church with the domestic buildings. In
+  Cough's Collection in the Bodleian, dated 1731, there is a sketch
+  of the church. What is shown there is a simple parallelogram, with
+  the usual high walls, in Transition-Norman style, with flat
+  pilaster buttresses, two strings running round the walls, the
+  upper one forming the dripstones of lancet windows, a corbel-table
+  supporting the eaves-course, and a north-east priest's door. But
+  whatever the church may have been (and the sketch represents it as
+  being of severe simplicity), some one built on to it a west tower
+  of great magnificence. It is of early Perpendicular date,
+  practically uninjured, the pinnacles only being absent, though,
+  happily, the stumps of these remain. Its proportion appears to me
+  to be absolutely perfect, and its detail so good that I think you
+  would have to travel far to find its rival. There is a very
+  interesting point to notice in the beautiful west doorway. It will
+  be seen that the masonry of the lower parts of its jambs is quite
+  different from that of the upper parts, and there can, I think, be
+  no doubt that these lower stones have been re-used from a
+  thirteenth-century doorway of some other part of the buildings.
+  There is a tradition that the bells of Gnosall Church were taken
+  from this tower. I can find no confirmation of this, and I cannot
+  believe it. For the church at Gnosall is of earlier date and
+  greater magnificence than that of Ranton Priory, and was, I
+  imagine, quite capable of having bells of its own."
+
+It would be an advantage to archaeology if every one were such a
+careful and accurate observer of local antiquarian remains as the
+Rural Dean of Stafford. Wherever we go we find similar deserted and
+abandoned shrines. In Derbyshire alone there are over a hundred
+destroyed or disused churches, of which Dr. Cox, the leading authority
+on the subject, has published a list. Nottinghamshire abounds in
+instances of the same kind. As late as 1892 the church at Colston
+Bassett was deliberately turned into a ruin. There are only mounds and a
+few stones to show the site of the parish church of Thorpe-in-the-fields,
+which in the seventeenth century was actually used as a beer-shop. In
+the fields between Elston and East Stoke is a disused church with a
+south Norman doorway. The old parochial chapel of Aslacton was long
+desecrated, and used in comparatively recent days as a beer-shop. The
+remains of it have, happily, been reclaimed, and now serve as a
+mission-room. East Anglia, famous for its grand churches, has to mourn
+over many which have been lost, many that are left roofless and
+ivy-clad, and some ruined indeed, though some fragment has been made
+secure enough for the holding of divine service. Whitling has a
+roofless church with a round Norman tower. The early Norman church of
+St. Mary at Kirby Bedon has been allowed to fall into decay, and for
+nearly two hundred years has been ruinous. St. Saviour's Church,
+Surlingham, was pulled down at the beginning of the eighteenth century
+on the ground that one church in the village was sufficient for its
+spiritual wants, and its materials served to mend roads.
+
+A strange reason has been given for the destruction of several of
+these East Anglian churches. In Norfolk there were many recusants,
+members of old Roman Catholic families, who refused in the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries to obey the law requiring them to attend
+their parish church. But if their church were in ruins no service
+could be held, and therefore they could not be compelled to attend.
+Hence in many cases the churches were deliberately reduced to a
+ruinous state. Bowthorpe was one of these unfortunate churches which
+met its fate in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It stands in a
+farm-yard, and the nave made an excellent barn and the steeple a
+dovecote. The lord of the manor was ordered to restore it at the
+beginning of the seventeenth century. This he did, and for a time it
+was used for divine service. Now it is deserted and roofless, and
+sleeps placidly girt by a surrounding wall, a lonely shrine. The
+church of St. Peter, Hungate, at Norwich, is of great historical
+interest and contains good architectural features, including a very
+fine roof. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century by John Paston and
+Margaret, his wife, whose letters form part of that extraordinary
+series of medieval correspondence which throws so much light upon the
+social life of the period. The church has a rudely carved record of
+their work outside the north door. This unhappy church has fallen into
+disuse, and it has been proposed to follow the example of the London
+citizens to unite the benefice with another and to destroy the
+building. Thanks to the energy and zeal of His Highness Prince
+Frederick Duleep Singh, delay in carrying out the work of destruction
+has been secured, and we trust that his efforts to save the building
+will be crowned with the success they deserve.
+
+Not far from Norwich are the churches of Keswick and Intwood. Before
+1600 A.D. the latter was deserted and desecrated, being used for a
+sheep-fold, and the people attended service at Keswick. Then Intwood
+was restored to its sacred uses, and poor Keswick church was compelled
+to furnish materials for its repair. Keswick remained ruinous until a
+few years ago, when part of it was restored and used as a cemetery
+chapel. Ringstead has two ruined churches, St. Andrew's and St.
+Peter's. Only the tower of the latter remains. Roudham church two
+hundred years ago was a grand building, as its remains plainly
+testify. It had a thatched roof, which was fired by a careless
+thatcher, and has remained roofless to this day. Few are acquainted
+with the ancient hamlet of Liscombe, situated in a beautiful Dorset
+valley. It now consists of only one or two houses, a little Norman
+church, and an old monastic barn. The little church is built of flint,
+stone, and large blocks of hard chalk, and consists of a chancel and
+nave divided by a Transition-Norman arch with massive rounded columns.
+There are Norman windows in the chancel, with some later work
+inserted. A fine niche, eight feet high, with a crocketed canopy,
+stood at the north-east corner of the chancel, but has disappeared.
+The windows of the nave and the west doorway have perished. It has
+been for a long time desecrated. The nave is used as a bakehouse.
+There is a large open grate, oven, and chimney in the centre, and the
+chancel is a storehouse for logs. The upper part of the building has
+been converted into an upper storey and divided into bedrooms, which
+have broken-down ceilings. The roof is of thatch. Modern windows and a
+door have been inserted. It is a deplorable instance of terrible
+desecration.
+
+The growth of ivy unchecked has caused many a ruin. The roof of the
+nave and south aisle of the venerable church of Chingford, Essex, fell
+a few years ago entirely owing to the destructive ivy which was
+allowed to work its relentless will on the beams, tiles, and rafters
+of this ancient structure.
+
+Besides those we have mentioned there are about sixty other ruined
+churches in Norfolk, and in Suffolk many others, including the
+magnificent ruins of Covehithe, Flixton, Hopton, which was destroyed
+only forty-four years ago through the burning of its thatched roof,
+and the Old Minster, South Elmham.
+
+Attempts have been made by the National Trust and the Society for the
+Protection of Ancient Buildings to save Kirkstead Chapel, near
+Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire. It is one of the very few surviving
+examples of the _capella extra portas_, which was a feature of every
+Cistercian abbey, where women and other persons who were not allowed
+within the gates could hear Mass. The abbey was founded in 1139, and
+the chapel, which is private property, is one of the finest examples
+of Early English architecture remaining in the country. It is in a
+very decaying condition. The owner has been approached, and the
+officials of the above societies have tried to persuade him to repair
+it himself or to allow them to do so. But these negotiations have
+hitherto failed. It is very deplorable when the owners of historic
+buildings should act in this "dog-in-the-manger" fashion, and surely
+the time has come when the Government should have power to
+compulsorily acquire such historic monuments when their natural
+protectors prove themselves to be incapable or unwilling to preserve
+and save them from destruction.
+
+We turn from this sorry page of wilful neglect to one that records the
+grand achievement of modern antiquaries, the rescue and restoration of
+the beautiful specimen of Saxon architecture, the little chapel of St.
+Lawrence at Bradford-on-Avon. Until 1856 its existence was entirely
+unknown, and the credit of its discovery was due to the Rev. Canon
+Jones, Vicar of Bradford. At the Reformation with the dissolution of
+the abbey at Shaftesbury it had passed into lay hands. The chancel was
+used as a cottage. Round its walls other cottages arose. Perhaps part
+of the building was at one time used as a charnel-house, as in an old
+deed it is called the Skull House. In 1715 the nave and porch were
+given to the vicar to be used as a school. But no one suspected the
+presence of this exquisite gem of Anglo-Saxon architecture, until
+Canon Jones when surveying the town from the height of a neighbouring
+hill recognized the peculiarity of the roof and thought that it might
+indicate the existence of a church. Thirty-seven years ago the
+Wiltshire antiquaries succeeded in purchasing the building. They
+cleared away the buildings, chimney-stacks, and outhouses that had
+grown up around it, and revealed the whole beauties of this lovely
+shrine. Archaeologists have fought many battles over it as to its date.
+Some contend that it is the identical church which William of
+Malmesbury tells us St. Aldhelm built at Bradford-on-Avon about 700
+A.D., others assert that it cannot be earlier than the tenth century.
+It was a monastic cell attached to the Abbey of Malmesbury, but
+Ethelred II gave it to the Abbess of Shaftesbury in 1001 as a secure
+retreat for her nuns if Shaftesbury should be threatened by the
+ravaging Danes. We need not describe the building, as it is well
+known. Our artist has furnished us with an admirable illustration of
+it. Its great height, its characteristic narrow Saxon doorways, heavy
+plain imposts, the string-courses surrounding the building, the
+arcades of pilasters, the carved figures of angels are some of its
+most important features. It is cheering to find that amid so much that
+has vanished we have here at Bradford a complete Saxon church that
+differs very little from what it was when it was first erected.
+
+[Illustration: Saxon Doorway in St. Lawrence's Church,
+Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts.]
+
+Other Saxon remains are not wanting. Wilfrid's Crypt at Hexham, that
+at Ripon, Brixworth Church, the church within the precincts of Dover
+Castle, the towers of Barnack, Barton-upon-Humber, Stow, Earl's
+Barton, Sompting, Stanton Lacy show considerable evidences of Saxon
+work. Saxon windows with their peculiar baluster shafts can be seen at
+Bolam and Billingham, Durham; St. Andrew's, Bywell, Monkwearmouth,
+Ovington, Sompting, St. Mary Junior, York, Hornby, Wickham (Berks),
+Waithe, Holton-le-Clay, Glentworth and Clee (Lincoln), Northleigh,
+Oxon, and St. Alban's Abbey. Saxon arches exist at Worth, Corhampton,
+Escomb, Deerhurst, St. Benet's, Cambridge, Brigstock, and Barnack.
+Triangular arches remain at Brigstock, Barnack, Deerhurst, Aston
+Tirrold, Berks. We have still some Saxon fonts at Potterne, Wilts;
+Little Billing, Northants; Edgmond and Bucknell, Shropshire; Penmon,
+Anglesey; and South Hayling, Hants. Even Saxon sundials exist at
+Winchester, Corhampton, Bishopstone, Escomb, Aldborough, Edston, and
+Kirkdale. There is also one at Daglingworth, Gloucestershire. Some
+hours of the Saxon's day in that village must have fled more swiftly
+than others, as all the radii are placed at the same angle. Even some
+mural paintings by Saxon artists exist at St. Mary's, Guildford; St.
+Martin's, Canterbury; and faint traces at Britford, Headbourne,
+Worthing, and St. Nicholas, Ipswich, and some painted consecration
+crosses are believed to belong to this period.
+
+Recent investigations have revealed much Saxon work in our churches,
+the existence of which had before been unsuspected. Many circumstances
+have combined to obliterate it. The Danish wars had a disastrous
+effect on many churches reared in Saxon times. The Norman Conquest
+caused many of them to be replaced by more highly finished structures.
+But frequently, as we study the history written in the stonework of
+our churches, we find beneath coatings of stucco the actual walls
+built by Saxon builders, and an arch here, a column there, which link
+our own times with the distant past, when England was divided into
+eight kingdoms and when Danegelt was levied to buy off the marauding
+strangers.
+
+It is refreshing to find these specimens of early work in our
+churches. Since then what destruction has been wrought, what havoc
+done upon their fabric and furniture! At the Reformation iconoclasm
+raged with unpitying ferocity. Everybody from the King to the
+churchwardens, who sold church plate lest it should fall into the
+hands of the royal commissioners, seems to have been engaged in
+pillaging churches and monasteries. The plunder of chantries and
+guilds followed. Fuller quaintly describes this as "the last dish of
+the course, and after cheese nothing is to be expected." But the
+coping-stone was placed on the vast fabric of spoliation by sending
+commissioners to visit all the cathedrals and parish churches, and
+seize the superfluous plate and ornaments for the King's use. Even
+quite small churches possessed many treasures which the piety of many
+generations had bestowed upon them.
+
+There is a little village in Berkshire called Boxford, quite a small
+place. Here is the list of church goods which the commissioners found
+there, and which had escaped previous ravages:--
+
+  "One challice, a cross of copper & gilt, another cross of timber
+  covered with brass, one cope of blue velvet embroidered with
+  images of angles, one vestment of the same suit with an albe of
+  Lockeram,[22] two vestments of Dornexe,[23] and three other very
+  old, two old & coarse albes of Lockeram, two old copes of Dornexe,
+  iiij altar cloths of linen cloth, two corporals with two cases
+  whereof one is embroidered, two surplices, & one rochet, one bible
+  & the paraphrases of Erasmus in English, seven banners of lockeram
+  & one streamer all painted, three front cloths for altars whereof
+  one of them is with panes of white damask & black satin, & the
+  other two of old vestments, two towels of linen, iiij candlesticks
+  of latten[24] & two standertes[25] before the high altar of
+  latten, a lent vail[26] before the high altar with panes blue and
+  white, two candlesticks of latten and five branches, a peace,[27]
+  three great bells with one saunce bell xx, one canopy of cloth, a
+  covering of Dornixe for the Sepulchre, two cruets of pewter, a
+  holy-water pot of latten, a linen cloth to draw before the rood.
+  And all the said parcels safely to be kept & preserved, & all the
+  same & every parcel thereof to be forthcoming at all times when it
+  shall be of them [the churchwardens] required."
+
+  [22] A fine linen cloth made in Brittany (cf. _Coriolanus_, Act
+  ii. sc. 1).
+
+  [23] A rich sort of stuff interwoven with gold and silver, made at
+  Tournay, which was formerly called Dorneck, in Flanders.
+
+  [24] An alloy of copper and zinc.
+
+  [25] Large standard candlesticks.
+
+  [26] The Lent cloth, hung before the altar during Lent.
+
+  [27] A Pax.
+
+This inventory of the goods of one small church enables us to judge of
+the wealth of our country churches before they were despoiled. Of
+private spoliators their name was legion. The arch-spoliator was
+Protector Somerset, the King's uncle, Edward Seymour, formerly Earl of
+Hertford and then created Duke of Somerset. He ruled England for three
+years after King Henry's death. He was a glaring and unblushing
+church-robber, setting an example which others were only too ready to
+follow. Canon Overton[28] tells how Somerset House remains as a
+standing memorial of his rapacity. In order to provide materials for
+building it he pulled down the church of St. Mary-le-Strand and three
+bishops' houses, and was proceeding also to pull down the historical
+church of St. Margaret, Westminster; but public opinion was too strong
+against him, the parishioners rose and beat off his workmen, and he
+was forced to desist, and content himself with violating and
+plundering the precincts of St. Paul's. Moreover, the steeple and most
+of the church of St. John of Jerusalem, Smithfield, were mined and
+blown up with gunpowder that the materials might be utilized for the
+ducal mansion in the Strand. He turned Glastonbury, with all its
+associations dating from the earliest introduction of Christianity
+into our island, into a worsted manufactory, managed by French
+Protestants. Under his auspices the splendid college of St.
+Martin-le-Grand in London was converted into a tavern, and St.
+Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, served the scarcely less incongruous
+purpose of a Parliament House. All this he did, and when his
+well-earned fall came the Church fared no better under his successor,
+John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and afterwards Duke of Northumberland.
+
+  [28] _History of the Church in England_, p. 401.
+
+Another wretch was Robert, Earl of Sussex, to whom the King gave the
+choir of Atleburgh, in Norfolk, because it belonged to a college.
+"Being of a covetous disposition, he not only pulled down and spoiled
+the chancel, but also pulled up many fair marble gravestones of his
+ancestors with monuments of brass upon them, and other fair good
+pavements, and carried them and laid them for his hall, kitchen, and
+larder-house." The church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, has many
+monumental stones, the brasses of which were in 1551 sent to London to
+be cast into weights and measures for the use of the town. The shops
+of the artists in brass in London were full of broken brass memorials
+torn from tombs. Hence arose the making of palimpsest brasses, the
+carvers using an old brass and on the reverse side cutting a memorial
+of a more recently deceased person.
+
+After all this iconoclasm, spoliation, and robbery it is surprising
+that anything of value should have been left in our churches. But
+happily some treasures escaped, and the gifts of two or three
+generations added others. Thus I find from the will of a good
+gentleman, Mr. Edward Ball, that after the spoliation of Barkham
+Church he left the sum of five shillings for the providing of a
+processional cross to be borne before the choir in that church, and I
+expect that he gave us our beautiful Elizabethan chalice of the date
+1561. The Church had scarcely recovered from its spoliation before
+another era of devastation and robbery ensued. During the Cromwellian
+period much destruction was wrought by mad zealots of the Puritan
+faction. One of these men and his doings are mentioned by Dr. Berwick
+in his _Querela Cantabrigiensis_:--
+
+  "One who calls himself John [it should be William] Dowsing and by
+  Virtue of a pretended Commission, goes about y^{e} country like a
+  Bedlam, breaking glasse windows, having battered and beaten downe
+  all our painted glasses, not only in our Chappels, but (contrary
+  to order) in our Publique Schools, Colledge Halls, Libraries, and
+  Chambers, mistaking, perhaps, y^{e} liberall Artes for Saints
+  (which they intend in time to pull down too) and having (against
+  an order) defaced and digged up y^{e} floors of our Chappels, many
+  of which had lien so for two or three hundred years together, not
+  regarding y^{e} dust of our founders and predecessors who likely
+  were buried there; compelled us by armed Souldiers to pay forty
+  shillings a Colledge for not mending what he had spoyled and
+  defaced, or forth with to goe to prison."
+
+We meet with the sad doings of this wretch Dowsing in various places
+in East Anglia. He left his hideous mark on many a fair church. Thus
+the churchwardens of Walberswick, in Suffolk, record in their
+accounts:--
+
+  "1644, April 8th, paid to Martin Dowson, that came with the
+  troopers to our church, about the taking down of Images and
+  Brasses off Stones 6 0."
+
+  "1644 paid that day to others for taking up the brasses of grave
+  stones before the officer Dowson came 1 0."
+
+[Illustration: St. George's Church, Great Yarmouth]
+
+The record of the ecclesiastical exploits of William Dowsing has been
+preserved by the wretch himself in a diary which he kept. It was
+published in 1786, and the volume provides much curious reading. With
+reference to the church of Toffe he says:--
+
+  "Will: Disborugh Church Warden Richard Basly and John Newman
+  Cunstable, 27 Superstitious pictures in glass and ten other in
+  stone, three brass inscriptions, Pray for y^{e} Soules, and a
+  Cross to be taken of the Steeple (6s. 8d.) and there was divers
+  Orate pro Animabus in ye windows, and on a Bell, Ora pro Anima
+  Sanctae Catharinae."
+
+  "_Trinity Parish, Cambridge_, M. Frog, Churchwarden, December 25,
+  we brake down 80 Popish pictures, and one of Christ and God y^{e}
+  Father above."
+
+  "At _Clare_ we brake down 1000 pictures superstitious."
+
+  "_Cochie_, there were divers pictures in the Windows which we
+  could not reach, neither would they help us to raise the ladders."
+
+  "1643, Jan^{y} 1, Edwards parish, we digged up the steps, and
+  brake down 40 pictures, and took off ten superstitious
+  inscriptions."
+
+It is terrible to read these records, and to imagine all the beautiful
+works of art that this ignorant wretch ruthlessly destroyed. To all
+the inscriptions on tombs containing the pious petition _Orate pro
+anima_--his ignorance is palpably displayed by his _Orate pro
+animabus_--he paid special attention. Well did Mr. Cole observe
+concerning the last entry in Dowsing's diary:--
+
+  "From this last Entry we may clearly see to whom we are obliged
+  for the dismantling of almost all the gravestones that had brasses
+  on them, both in town and country: a sacrilegious sanctified
+  rascal that was afraid, or too proud, to call it St. Edward's
+  Church, but not ashamed to rob the dead of their honours and the
+  Church of its ornaments. W.C."
+
+He tells also of the dreadful deeds that were being done at Lowestoft
+in 1644:--
+
+  "In the same year, also, on the 12th of June, there came one
+  Jessop, with a commission from the Earl of Manchester, to take
+  away from gravestones all inscriptions on which he found _Orate
+  pro anima_--a wretched Commissioner not able to read or find out
+  that which his commission enjoyned him to remove--he took up in
+  our Church so much brasse, as he sold to Mr. Josiah Wild for five
+  shillings, which was afterwards (contrary to my knowledge) runn
+  into the little bell that hangs in the Town-house. There were
+  taken up in the Middle Ayl twelve pieces belonging to twelve
+  generations of the Jettours."
+
+The same scenes were being enacted in many parts of England.
+Everywhere ignorant commissioners were rampaging about the country
+imitating the ignorant ferocity of this Dowsing and Jessop. No wonder
+our churches were bare, pillaged, and ruinated. Moreover, the
+conception of art and the taste for architecture were dead or dying,
+and there was no one who could replace the beautiful objects which
+these wretches destroyed or repair the desolation they had caused.
+
+Another era of spoliation set in in more recent times, when the
+restorers came with vitiated taste and the worst ideals to reconstruct
+and renovate our churches which time, spoliation, and carelessness had
+left somewhat the worse for wear. The Oxford Movement taught men to
+bestow more care upon the houses of God in the land, to promote His
+honour by more reverent worship, and to restore the beauty of His
+sanctuary. A rector found his church in a dilapidated state and talked
+over the matter with the squire. Although the building was in a sorry
+condition, with a cracked ceiling, hideous galleries, and high pews
+like cattle-pens, it had a Norman doorway, some Early English carved
+work in the chancel, a good Perpendicular tower, and fine Decorated
+windows. These two well-meaning but ignorant men decided that a
+brand-new church would be a great improvement on this old tumble-down
+building. An architect was called in, or a local builder; the plan of
+a new church was speedily drawn, and ere long the hammers and axes
+were let loose on the old church and every vestige of antiquity
+destroyed. The old Norman font was turned out of the church, and
+either used as a cattle-trough or to hold a flower-pot in the rectory
+garden. Some of the beautifully carved stones made an excellent
+rockery in the squire's garden, and old woodwork, perchance a
+fourteenth-century rood-screen, encaustic tiles bearing the arms of
+the abbey with which in former days the church was connected,
+monuments and stained glass, are all carted away and destroyed, and
+the triumph of vandalism is complete.
+
+That is an oft-told tale which finds its counterpart in many towns and
+villages, the entire and absolute destruction of the old church by
+ignorant vandals who work endless mischief and know not what they do.
+There is the village of Little Wittenham, in our county of Berks, not
+far from Sinodun Hill, an ancient earthwork covered with trees, that
+forms so conspicuous an object to the travellers by the Great Western
+Railway from Didcot to Oxford. About forty years ago terrible things
+were done in the church of that village. The vicar was a Goth. There
+was a very beautiful chantry chapel on the south side of the choir,
+full of magnificent marble monuments to the memory of various members
+of the Dunce family. This family, once great and powerful, whose great
+house stood hard by on the north of the church--only the terraces of
+which remain--is now, it is believed, extinct. The vicar thought that
+he might be held responsible for the dilapidations of this old
+chantry; so he pulled it down, and broke all the marble tombs with
+axes and hammers. You can see the shattered remains that still show
+signs of beauty in one of the adjoining barns. Some few were set up in
+the tower, the old font became a pig-trough, the body of the church
+was entirely renewed, and vandalism reigned supreme. In our county of
+Berks there were at the beginning of the last century 170 ancient
+parish churches. Of these, thirty have been pulled down and entirely
+rebuilt, six of them on entirely new sites; one has been burnt down,
+one disused; before 1890 one hundred were restored, some of them most
+drastically, and several others have been restored since, but with
+greater respect to old work.
+
+A favourite method of "restoration" was adopted in many instances. A
+church had a Norman doorway and pillars in the nave; sundry additions
+and alterations had been made in subsequent periods, and examples of
+Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles of architecture
+were observable, with, perhaps, a Renaissance porch or other later
+feature. What did the early restorers do? They said, "This is a Norman
+church; all its details should be Norman too." So they proceeded to
+take away these later additions and imitate Norman work as much as
+they could by breaking down the Perpendicular or Decorated tracery in
+the windows and putting in large round-headed windows--their
+conception of Norman work, but far different from what any Norman
+builder would have contrived. Thus these good people entirely
+destroyed the history of the building, and caused to vanish much that
+was interesting and important. Such is the deplorable story of the
+"restoration" of many a parish church.
+
+An amusing book, entitled _Hints to Some Churchwardens, with a few
+Illustrations Relative to the Repair and Improvement of Parish
+Churches_, was published in 1825. The author, with much satire,
+depicts the "very many splendid, curious, and convenient ideas which
+have emanated from those churchwardens who have attained perfection as
+planners and architects." He apologises for not giving the names of
+these superior men and the dates of the improvements they have
+achieved, but is sure that such works as theirs must immortalize them,
+not only in their parishes, but in their counties, and, he trusts, in
+the kingdom at large. The following are some of the "hints":--
+
+  "_How to affix a porch to an old church._
+
+  "If the church is of stone, let the porch be of brick, the roof
+  slated, and the entrance to it of the improved Gothic called
+  modern, being an arch formed by an acute angle. The porch should
+  be placed so as to stop up what might be called a useless window;
+  and as it sometimes happens that there is an ancient Saxon[29]
+  entrance, let it be carefully bricked up, and perhaps plastered,
+  so as to conceal as much as possible of the zigzag ornament used
+  in buildings of this kind. Such improvements cannot fail to ensure
+  celebrity to churchwardens of future ages.
+
+  "_How to add a vestry to an old church._
+
+  "The building here proposed is to be of bright brick, with a
+  slated roof and sash windows, with a small door on one side; and
+  it is, moreover, to be adorned with a most tasty and ornamental
+  brick chimney, which terminates at the chancel end. The position
+  of the building should be against two old Gothic windows; which,
+  having the advantage of hiding them nearly altogether, when
+  contrasted with the dull and uniform surface of an old stone
+  church, has a lively and most imposing effect.
+
+  "_How to ornament the top or battlements of a tower belonging to
+  an ancient church_.
+
+  "Place on each battlement, vases, candlesticks, and pineapples
+  alternately, and the effect will be striking. Vases have many
+  votaries amongst those worthy members of society, the
+  churchwardens. Candlesticks are of ancient origin, and represent,
+  from the highest authority, the light of the churches: but as in
+  most churches weathercocks are used, I would here recommend the
+  admirers of novelty and improvement to adopt a pair of snuffers,
+  which might also be considered as a useful emblem for
+  reinvigorating the lights from the candlesticks. The pineapple
+  ornament having in so many churches been judiciously substituted
+  for Gothic, cannot fail to please. Some such ornament should also
+  be placed at the top of the church, and at the chancel end. But as
+  this publication does not restrict any churchwarden of real taste,
+  and as the ornaments here recommended are in a common way made of
+  stone, if any would wish to distinguish his year of office,
+  perhaps he would do it brilliantly by painting them all bright
+  red...."
+
+  [29] Doubtless our author means Norman.
+
+Other valuable suggestions are made in this curious and amusing work,
+such as "how to repair Quartre-feuille windows" by cutting out all
+the partitions and making them quite round; "how to adapt a new church
+to an old tower with most taste and effect," the most attractive
+features being light iron partitions instead of stone mullions for the
+windows, with shutters painted yellow, bright brick walls and slate
+roof, and a door painted sky-blue. You can best ornament a chancel by
+placing colossal figures of Moses and Aaron supporting the altar, huge
+tables of the commandments, and clusters of grapes and pomegranates in
+festoons and clusters of monuments. Vases upon pillars, the
+commandments in sky-blue, clouds carved out of wood supporting angels,
+are some of the ideas recommended. Instead of a Norman font you can
+substitute one resembling a punch-bowl,[30] with the pedestal and legs
+of a round claw table; and it would be well to rear a massive pulpit
+in the centre of the chancel arch, hung with crimson and gold lace,
+with gilt chandeliers, large sounding-board with a vase at the top. A
+stove is always necessary. It can be placed in the centre of the
+chancel, and the stove-pipe can be carried through the upper part of
+the east window, and then by an elbow conveyed to the crest of the
+roof over the window, the cross being taken down to make room for the
+chimney. Such are some of the recommendations of this ingenious
+writer, which are ably illustrated by effective drawings. They are not
+all imaginative. Many old churches tell the tragic story of their
+mutilation at the hands of a rector who has discovered Parker's
+_Glossary_, knows nothing about art, but "does know what he likes,"
+advised by his wife who has visited some of the cathedrals, and by an
+architect who has been elaborately educated in the principles of Roman
+Renaissance, but who knows no more of Lombard, Byzantine, or Gothic
+art than he does of the dynasties of ancient Egypt. When a church has
+fallen into the hands of such renovators and been heavily "restored,"
+if the ghost of one of its medieval builders came to view his work he
+would scarcely recognize it. Well says Mr. Thomas Hardy: "To restore
+the great carcases of mediaevalism in the remote nooks of western
+England seems a not less incongruous act than to set about renovating
+the adjoining crags themselves," and well might he sigh over the
+destruction of the grand old tower of Endelstow Church and the
+erection of what the vicar called "a splendid tower, designed by a
+first-rate London man--in the newest style of Gothic art and full of
+Christian feeling."
+
+  [30] A china punch-bowl was actually presented by Sir T. Drake to
+  be used as a font at Woodbury, Devon.
+
+The novelist's remarks on "restoration" are most valuable:--
+
+  "Entire destruction under the saving name has been effected on so
+  gigantic a scale that the protection of structures, their being
+  kept wind and weather-proof, counts as nothing in the balance. Its
+  enormous magnitude is realized by few who have not gone personally
+  from parish to parish through a considerable district, and
+  compared existing churches there with records, traditions, and
+  memories of what they formerly were. The shifting of old windows
+  and other details irregularly spaced, and spacing them at exact
+  distances, has been one process. The deportation of the original
+  chancel arch to an obscure nook and the insertion of a wider new
+  one, to throw open the view of the choir, is a practice by no
+  means extinct. Next in turn to the re-designing of old buildings
+  and parts of them comes the devastation caused by letting
+  restorations by contract, with a clause in the specification
+  requesting the builder to give a price for 'old materials,' such
+  as the lead of the roofs, to be replaced by tiles or slates, and
+  the oak of the pews, pulpit, altar-rails, etc., to be replaced by
+  deal. Apart from these irregularities it has been a principle that
+  anything later than Henry VIII is anathema and to be cast out. At
+  Wimborne Minster fine Jacobean canopies have been removed from
+  Tudor stalls for the offence only of being Jacobean. At a hotel in
+  Cornwall a tea-garden was, and probably is still, ornamented with
+  seats constructed of the carved oak from a neighbouring church--no
+  doubt the restorer's perquisite.
+
+  "Poor places which cannot afford to pay a clerk of the works
+  suffer much in these ecclesiastical convulsions. In one case I
+  visited, as a youth, the careful repair of an interesting Early
+  English window had been specified, but it was gone. The
+  contractor, who had met me on the spot, replied genially to my
+  gaze of concern: 'Well, now, I said to myself when I looked at the
+  old thing, I won't stand upon a pound or two. I'll give 'em a new
+  winder now I am about it, and make a good job of it, howsomever.'
+  A caricature in new stone of the old window had taken its place.
+  In the same church was an old oak rood-screen in the Perpendicular
+  style with some gilding and colouring still remaining. Some
+  repairs had been specified, but I beheld in its place a new screen
+  of varnished deal. 'Well,' replied the builder, more genial than
+  ever, 'please God, now I am about it, I'll do the thing well, cost
+  what it will.' The old screen had been used up to boil the
+  work-men's kettles, though 'a were not much at that.'"
+
+Such is the terrible report of this amazing iconoclasm.
+
+Some wiseacres, the vicar and churchwardens, once determined to pull
+down their old church and build a new one. So they met in solemn
+conclave and passed the following sagacious resolutions:--
+
+    1. That a new church should be built.
+
+    2. That the materials of the old church should be used in the
+    construction of the new.
+
+    3. That the old church should not be pulled down until the new
+    one be built.
+
+How they contrived to combine the second and third resolutions history
+recordeth not.
+
+Even when the church was spared the "restorers" were guilty of strange
+enormities in the embellishment and decoration of the sacred building.
+Whitewash was vigorously applied to the walls and pews, carvings,
+pulpit, and font. If curious mural paintings adorned the walls, the
+hideous whitewash soon obliterated every trace and produced "those
+modest hues which the native appearance of the stone so pleasingly
+bestows." But whitewash has one redeeming virtue, it preserves and
+saves for future generations treasures which otherwise might have been
+destroyed. Happily all decoration of churches has not been carried out
+in the reckless fashion thus described by a friend of the writer. An
+old Cambridgeshire incumbent, who had done nothing to his church for
+many years, was bidden by the archdeacon to "brighten matters up a
+little." The whole of the woodwork wanted repainting and varnishing, a
+serious matter for a poor man. His wife, a very capable lady, took the
+matter in hand. She went to the local carpenter and wheelwright and
+bought up the whole of his stock of that particular paint with which
+farm carts and wagons are painted, coarse but serviceable, and of the
+brightest possible red, blue, green, and yellow hues. With her own
+hands she painted the whole of the interior--pulpit, pews, doors,
+etc., and probably the wooden altar, using the colours as her fancy
+dictated, or as the various colours held out. The effect was
+remarkable. A succeeding rector began at once the work of restoration,
+scraping off the paint and substituting oak varnish; but when my
+friend took a morning service for him the work had not been completed,
+and he preached from a bright green pulpit.
+
+[Illustration: Carving on Rood-screen, Alcester Church, Warwick]
+
+The contents of our parish churches, furniture and plate, are rapidly
+vanishing. England has ever been remarkable for the number and beauty
+of its rood-screens. At the Reformation the roods were destroyed and
+many screens with them, but many of the latter were retained, and
+although through neglect or wanton destruction they have ever since
+been disappearing, yet hundreds still exist.[31] Their number is,
+however, sadly decreased. In Cheshire "restoration" has removed nearly
+all examples, except Ashbury, Mobberley, Malpas, and a few others. The
+churches of Bunbury and Danbury have lost some good screen-work since
+1860. In Derbyshire screens suffered severely in the nineteenth
+century, and the records of each county show the disappearance of many
+notable examples, though happily Devonshire, Somerset, and several
+other shires still possess some beautiful specimens of medieval
+woodwork. A large number of Jacobean pulpits with their curious
+carvings have vanished. A pious donor wishes to give a new pulpit to a
+church in memory of a relative, and the old pulpit is carted away to
+make room for its modern and often inferior substitute. Old stalls and
+misericordes, seats and benches with poppy-head terminations have
+often been made to vanish, and the pillaging of our churches at the
+Reformation and during the Commonwealth period and at the hands of the
+"restorers" has done much to deprive our churches of their ancient
+furniture.
+
+  [31] _English Church Furniture_, by Dr. Cox and A. Harvey.
+
+Most churches had two or three chests or coffers for the storing of
+valuable ornaments and vestments. Each chantry had its chest or ark,
+as it was sometimes called, e.g. the collegiate church of St. Mary,
+Warwick, had in 1464, "ij old irebound coofres," "j gret olde arke to
+put in vestments," "j olde arke at the autere ende, j old coofre
+irebonde having a long lok of the olde facion, and j lasse new coofre
+having iij loks called the tresory cofre and certain almaries." "In
+the inner house j new hie almarie with ij dores to kepe in the
+evidence of the Churche and j great old arke and certain olde
+Almaries, and in the house afore the Chapter house j old irebounde
+cofre having hie feet and rings of iron in the endes thereof to heve
+it bye."
+
+  "It is almost exceptional to find any parish of five hundred
+  inhabitants which does not possess a parish chest. The parish
+  chest of the parish in which I am writing is now in the vestry of
+  the church here. It has been used for generations as a coal box.
+  It is exceptional to find anything so useful as wholesome fuel
+  inside these parish chests; their contents have in the great
+  majority of instances utterly perished, and the miserable
+  destruction of those interesting parish records testifies to the
+  almost universal neglect which they have suffered at the hands,
+  not of the parsons, who as a rule have kept with remarkable care
+  the register books for which they have always been responsible,
+  but of the churchwardens and overseers, who have let them perish
+  without a thought of their value.
+
+  "As a rule the old parish chests have fallen to pieces, or worse,
+  and their contents have been used to light the church stove,
+  except in those very few cases where the chests were furnished
+  with two or more keys, each key being of different wards from the
+  other, and each being handed over to a different functionary when
+  the time of the parish meeting came round."[32]
+
+  [32] _The Parish Councillor_, an article by Dr. Jessop, September
+  20, 1895.
+
+When the ornaments and vestments were carted away from the church in
+the time of Edward VI, many of the church chests lost their use, and
+were sold or destroyed, the poorest only being kept for registers and
+documents. Very magnificent were some of these chests which have
+survived, such as that at Icklington, Suffolk, Church Brampton,
+Northants, Rugby, Westminster Abbey, and Chichester. The old chest at
+Heckfield may have been one of those ordered in the reign of King John
+for the collection of the alms of the faithful for the fifth crusade.
+The artist, Mr. Fred Roe, has written a valuable work on chests, to
+which those who desire to know about these interesting objects can
+refer.
+
+Another much diminishing store of treasure belonging to our churches
+is the church plate. Many churches possess some old plate--perhaps a
+pre-Reformation chalice. It is worn by age, and the clergyman,
+ignorant of its value, takes it to a jeweller to be repaired. He is
+told that it is old and thin and cannot easily be repaired, and is
+offered very kindly by the jeweller in return for this old chalice a
+brand-new one with a paten added. He is delighted, and the old chalice
+finds its way to Christie's, realizes a large sum, and goes into the
+collection of some millionaire. Not long ago the Council of the
+Society of Antiquaries issued a memorandum to the bishops and
+archdeacons of the Anglican Church calling attention to the increasing
+frequency of the sale of old or obsolete church plate. This is of two
+kinds: (1) pieces of plate or other articles of a domestic character
+not especially made, nor perhaps well fitted for the service of the
+Church; (2) chalices, patens, flagons, or plate generally, made
+especially for ecclesiastical use, but now, for reasons of change of
+fashion or from the articles themselves being worn out, no longer
+desired to be used. A church possibly is in need of funds for
+restoration, and an effort is naturally made to turn such articles
+into money. The officials decide to sell any objects the church may
+have of the first kind. Thus the property of the Church of England
+finds its way abroad, and is thus lost to the nation. With regard to
+the sacred vessels of the second class, it is undignified, if not a
+desecration, that vessels of such a sacred character should be
+subjected to a sale by auction and afterwards used as table ornaments
+by collectors to whom their religious significance makes no appeal. We
+are reminded of the profanity of Belshazzar's feast.[33] It would be
+far better to place such objects for safe custody and preservation in
+some local museum. Not long ago a church in Knightsbridge was removed
+and rebuilt on another site. It had a communion cup presented by
+Archbishop Laud. Some addition was required for the new church, and it
+was proposed to sell the chalice to help in defraying the cost of this
+addition. A London dealer offered five hundred guineas for it, and
+doubtless by this time it has passed into private hands and left the
+country. This is only one instance out of many of the depletion of the
+Church of its treasures. It must not be forgotten that although the
+vicar and churchwardens are for the time being trustees of the church
+plate and furniture, yet the property really is vested in the
+parishioners. It ought not to be sold without a faculty, and the
+chancellors of dioceses ought to be extremely careful ere they allow
+such sales to take place. The learned Chancellor of Exeter very wisely
+recently refused to allow the rector of Churchstanton to sell a
+chalice of the date 1660 A.D., stating that it was painfully repugnant
+to the feelings of many Churchmen that it should be possible that a
+vessel dedicated to the most sacred service of the Church should
+figure upon the dinner-table of a collector. He quoted a case of a
+chalice which had disappeared from a church and been found afterwards
+with an inscription showing that it had been awarded as a prize at
+athletic sports. Such desecration is too deplorable for words suitable
+to describe it. If other chancellors took the same firm stand as Mr.
+Chadwyck-Healey, of Exeter, we should hear less of such alienation of
+ecclesiastical treasure.
+
+  [33] Canon F.E. Warren recently reported to the Suffolk Institute
+  of Archaeology that while he was dining at a friend's house he saw
+  two chalices on the table.
+
+[Illustration: Fourteenth-century Coffer in Faversham Church, Kent
+From _Old Oak Furniture_, by Fred Roe]
+
+[Illustration: Flanders Chest in East Dereham Church, Norfolk, _temp._
+Henry VIII From _Old Oak Furniture_]
+
+Another cause of mutilation and the vanishing of objects of interest
+and beauty is the iconoclasm of visitors, especially of American
+visitors, who love our English shrines so much that they like to chip
+off bits of statuary or wood-carving to preserve as mementoes of their
+visit. The fine monuments in our churches and cathedrals are
+especially convenient to them for prey. Not long ago the best portions
+of some fine carving were ruthlessly cut and hacked away by a party of
+American visitors. The verger explained that six of the party held him
+in conversation at one end of the building while the rest did their
+deadly and nefarious work at the other. One of the most beautiful
+monuments in the country, that of the tomb of Lady Maud FitzAlan at
+Chichester, has recently been cut and chipped by these unscrupulous
+visitors. It may be difficult to prevent them from damaging such works
+of art, but it is hoped that feelings of greater reverence may grow
+which would render such vandalism impossible. All civilized persons
+would be ashamed to mutilate the statues of Greece and Rome in our
+museums. Let them realize that these monuments in our cathedrals and
+churches are just as valuable, as they are the best of English art,
+and then no sacrilegious hand would dare to injure them or deface them
+by scratching names upon them or by carrying away broken chips as
+souvenirs. Playful boys in churchyards sometimes do much mischief. In
+Shrivenham churchyard there is an ancient full-sized effigy, and two
+village urchins were recently seen amusing themselves by sliding the
+whole length of the figure. This must be a common practice of the boys
+of the village, as the effigy is worn almost to an inclined plane. A
+tradition exists that the figure represents a man who was building the
+tower and fell and was killed. Both tower and effigy are of the same
+period--Early English--and it is quite possible that the figure may be
+that of the founder of the tower, but its head-dress seems to show
+that it represents a lady. Whipping-posts and stocks are too light a
+punishment for such vandalism.
+
+The story of our vanished and vanishing churches, and of their
+vanished and vanishing contents, is indeed a sorry one. Many efforts
+are made in these days to educate the public taste, to instil into the
+minds of their custodians a due appreciation of their beauties and of
+the principles of English art and architecture, and to save and
+protect the treasures that remain. That these may be crowned with
+success is the earnest hope and endeavour of every right-minded
+Englishman.
+
+[Illustration: Reversed Rose carved on "Miserere" in Norwich
+Cathedral]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+OLD MANSIONS
+
+
+One of the most deplorable features of vanishing England is the
+gradual disappearance of its grand old manor-houses and mansions. A
+vast number still remain, we are thankful to say. We have still left
+to us Haddon and Wilton, Broughton, Penshurst, Hardwick, Welbeck,
+Bramshill, Longleat, and a host of others; but every year sees a
+diminution in their number. The great enemy they have to contend with
+is fire, and modern conveniences and luxuries, electric lighting and
+the heating apparatus, have added considerably to their danger. The
+old floors and beams are unaccustomed to these insidious wires that
+have a habit of fusing, hence we often read in the newspapers:
+"DISASTROUS FIRE--HISTORIC MANSION ENTIRELY DESTROYED." Too often not
+only is the house destroyed, but most of its valuable contents is
+devoured by the flames. Priceless pictures by Lely and Vandyke,
+miniatures of Cosway, old furniture of Chippendale and Sheraton, and
+the countless treasures which generations of cultured folk with ample
+wealth have accumulated, deeds, documents and old papers that throw
+valuable light on the manners and customs of our forefathers and on
+the history of the country, all disappear and can never be replaced. A
+great writer has likened an old house to a human heart with a life of
+its own, full of sad and sweet reminiscences. It is deplorably sad
+when the old mansion disappears in a night, and to find in the morning
+nothing but blackened walls--a grim ruin.
+
+Our forefathers were a hardy race, and did not require hot-water
+pipes and furnaces to keep them warm. Moreover, they built their
+houses so surely and so well that they scarcely needed these modern
+appliances. They constructed them with a great square courtyard, so
+that the rooms on the inside of the quadrangle were protected from the
+winds. They sang truly in those days, as in these:--
+
+        Sing heigh ho for the wind and the rain,
+        For the rain it raineth every day.
+
+[Illustration: Oak Panelling. Wainscot of Fifteenth Century, with
+addition _circa_ late Seventeenth Century, fitted on to it in angle of
+room in the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent]
+
+So they sheltered themselves from the wind and rain by having a
+courtyard or by making an E or H shaped plan for their dwelling-place.
+Moreover, they made their walls very thick in order that the winds
+should not blow or the rain beat through them. Their rooms, too, were
+panelled or hung with tapestry--famous things for making a room warm
+and cosy. We have plaster walls covered with an elegant wall-paper
+which has always a cold surface, hence the air in the room, heated by
+the fire, is chilled when it comes into contact with the cold wall and
+creates draughts. But oak panelling or woollen tapestry soon becomes
+warm, and gives back its heat to the room, making it delightfully
+comfortable and cosy.
+
+One foolish thing our forefathers did, and that was to allow the great
+beams that help to support the upper floor to go through the chimney.
+How many houses have been burnt down owing to that fatal beam! But our
+ancestors were content with a dog-grate and wood fires; they could not
+foresee the advent of the modern range and the great coal fires, or
+perhaps they would have been more careful about that beam.
+
+[Illustration: Section of Mouldings of Cornice on Panelling, the
+Church House, Goudhurst]
+
+Fire is, perhaps, the chief cause of the vanishing of old houses, but
+it is not the only cause. The craze for new fashions at the beginning
+of the last century doomed to death many a noble mansion. There seems
+to have been a positive mania for pulling down houses at that period.
+As I go over in my mind the existing great houses in this country, I
+find that by far the greater number of the old houses were wantonly
+destroyed about the years 1800-20, and new ones in the Italian or some
+other incongruous style erected in their place. Sometimes, as at
+Little Wittenham, you find the lone lorn terraces of the gardens of
+the house, but all else has disappeared. As Mr. Allan Fea says: "When
+an old landmark disappears, who does not feel a pang of regret at
+parting with something which linked us with the past? Seldom an old
+house is threatened with demolition but there is some protest, more
+perhaps from the old associations than from any particular
+architectural merit the building may have." We have many pangs of
+regret when we see such wanton destruction. The old house at Weston,
+where the Throckmortons resided when the poet Cowper lived at the
+lodge, and when leaving wrote on a window-shutter--
+
+        Farewell, dear scenes, for ever closed to me;
+        Oh! for what sorrows must I now exchange ye!
+
+may be instanced as an example of a demolished mansion. Nothing is now
+left of it but the entrance-gates and a part of the stables. It was
+pulled down in 1827. It is described as a fine mansion, possessing
+secret chambers which were occupied by Roman Catholic priests when it
+was penal to say Mass. One of these chambers was found to contain,
+when the house was pulled down, a rough bed, candlestick, remains of
+food, and a breviary. A Roman Catholic school and presbytery now
+occupy its site. It is a melancholy sight to see the "Wilderness"
+behind the house, still adorned with busts and urns, and the graves of
+favourite dogs, which still bear the epitaphs written by Cowper on Sir
+John Throckmorton's pointer and Lady Throckmorton's pet spaniel.
+"Capability Brown" laid his rude, rough hand upon the grounds, but you
+can still see the "prosed alcove" mentioned by Cowper, a wooden
+summer-house, much injured
+
+        By rural carvers, who with knives deface
+        The panels, leaving an obscure rude name.
+
+Sometimes, alas! the old house has to vanish entirely through old age.
+It cannot maintain its struggle any longer. The rain pours through the
+roof and down the insides of the walls. And the family is as decayed
+as their mansion, and has no money wherewith to defray the cost of
+reparation.
+
+[Illustration: The Wardrobe House. The Close. Salisbury. Evening.]
+
+Our artist, Mr. Fred Roe, in his search for the picturesque, had one
+sad and deplorable experience, which he shall describe in his own
+words:--
+
+  "One of the most weird and, I may add, chilling experiences in
+  connection with the decline of county families which it was my lot
+  to experience, occurred a year or two ago in a remote corner of
+  the eastern counties. I had received, through a friend, an
+  invitation to visit an old mansion before the inmates (descendants
+  of the owners in Elizabethan times) left and the contents were
+  dispersed. On a comfortless January morning, while rain and sleet
+  descended in torrents to the accompaniment of a biting wind, I
+  detrained at a small out-of-the-way station in ----folk. A
+  weather-beaten old man in a patched great-coat, with the oldest
+  and shaggiest of ponies and the smallest of governess-traps,
+  awaited my arrival. I, having wedged myself with the Jehu into
+  this miniature vehicle, was driven through some miles of muddy
+  ruts, until turning through a belt of wooded land the broken
+  outlines of an extensive dilapidated building broke into view.
+  This was ---- Hall.
+
+  "I never in my life saw anything so weirdly picturesque and
+  suggestive of the phrase 'In Chancery' as this semi-ruinous
+  mansion. Of many dates and styles of architecture, from Henry VIII
+  to George III, the whole seemed to breathe an atmosphere of
+  neglect and decay. The waves of affluence and successive rise of
+  various members of the family could be distinctly traced in the
+  enlargements and excrescences which contributed to the casual plan
+  and irregular contour of the building. At one part an addition
+  seemed to denote that the owner had acquired wealth about the time
+  of the first James, and promptly directed it to the enlargement of
+  his residence. In another a huge hall with classic brick frontage,
+  dating from the commencement of the eighteenth century, spoke of
+  an increase of affluence--probably due to agricultural
+  prosperity--followed by the dignity of a peerage. The latest
+  alterations appear to have been made during the Strawberry Hill
+  epoch, when most of the mullioned windows had been transformed to
+  suit the prevailing taste. Some of the building--a little of
+  it--seemed habitable, but in the greater part the gables were
+  tottering, the stucco frontage peeling and falling, and the
+  windows broken and shuttered. In front of this wreck of a
+  building stretched the overgrown remains of what once had been a
+  terrace, bounded by large stone globes, now moss-grown and half
+  hidden under long grass. It was the very picture of desolation and
+  proud poverty.
+
+  "We drove up to what had once been the entrance to the servants'
+  hall, for the principal doorway had long been disused, and
+  descending from the trap I was conducted to a small panelled
+  apartment, where some freshly cut logs did their best to give out
+  a certain amount of heat. Of the hospitality meted out to me that
+  day I can only hint with mournful appreciation. I was made welcome
+  with all the resources which the family had available. But the
+  place was a veritable vault, and cold and damp as such. I think
+  that this state of things had been endured so long and with such
+  haughty silence by the inmates that it had passed into a sort of
+  normal condition with them, and remained unnoticed except by
+  new-comers. A few old domestics stuck by the family in its fallen
+  fortunes, and of these one who had entered into their service some
+  quarter of a century previous waited upon us at lunch with
+  dignified ceremony. After lunch a tour of the house commenced.
+  Into this I shall not enter into in detail; many of the rooms were
+  so bare that little could be said of them, but the Great Hall, an
+  apartment modelled somewhat on the lines of the more palatial
+  Rainham, needs the pen of the author of _Lammermoor_ to describe.
+  It was a very large and lofty room in the pseudo-classic style,
+  with a fine cornice, and hung round with family portraits so
+  bleached with damp and neglect that they presented but dim and
+  ghostly presentments of their originals. I do not think a fire
+  could have been lit in this ghostly gallery for many years, and
+  some of the portraits literally sagged in their frames with
+  accumulations of rubbish which had dropped behind the canvases.
+  Many of the pictures were of no value except for their
+  associations, but I saw at least one Lely, a family group, the
+  principal figure in which was a young lady displaying too little
+  modesty and too much bosom. Another may have been a Vandyk, while
+  one or two were early works representing gallants of Elizabeth's
+  time in ruffs and feathered caps. The rest were for the most part
+  but wooden ancestors displaying curled wigs, legs which lacked
+  drawing, and high-heeled shoes. A few old cabinets remained, and a
+  glorious suite of chairs of Queen Anne's time--these, however,
+  were perishing, like the rest--from want of proper care and
+  firing.
+
+  "The kitchens, a vast range of stone-flagged apartments, spoke of
+  mighty hospitality in bygone times, containing fire-places fit to
+  roast oxen at whole, huge spits and countless hooks, the last
+  exhibiting but one dependent--the skin of the rabbit shot for
+  lunch. The atmosphere was, if possible, a trifle more penetrating
+  than that of the Great Hall, and the walls were discoloured with
+  damp.
+
+  "Upstairs, besides the bedrooms, was a little chapel with some
+  remains of Gothic carving, and a few interesting pictures of the
+  fifteenth century; a cunningly contrived priest-hole, and a long
+  gallery lined with dusty books, whither my lord used to repair on
+  rainy days. Many of the windows were darkened by creepers, and
+  over one was a flap of half-detached plaster work which hung like
+  a shroud. But, oh, the stained glass! The eighteenth-century
+  renovators had at least respected these, and quarterings and coats
+  of arms from the fifteenth century downwards were to be seen by
+  scores. What an opportunity for the genealogist with a history in
+  view, but that opportunity I fear has passed for ever. The ----
+  Hall estate was evidently mortgaged up to the hilt, and nothing
+  intervened to prevent the dispersal of these treasures, which
+  occurred some few months after my visit. Large though the building
+  was, I learned that its size was once far greater, some two-thirds
+  of the old building having been pulled down when the hall was
+  constituted in its present form. Hard by on an adjoining estate a
+  millionaire manufacturer (who owned several motor-cars) had set up
+  an establishment, but I gathered that his tastes were the reverse
+  of antiquarian, and that no effort would be made to restore the
+  old hall to its former glories and preserve such treasures as yet
+  remained intact--a golden opportunity to many people of taste with
+  leanings towards a country life. But time fled, and the ragged
+  retainer was once more at the door, so I left ---- Hall in a
+  blinding storm of rain, and took my last look at its gaunt facade,
+  carrying with me the seeds of a cold which prevented me from
+  visiting the Eastern Counties for some time to come."
+
+Some historic houses of rare beauty have only just escaped
+destruction. Such an one is the ancestral house of the Comptons,
+Compton Wynyates, a vision of colour and architectural beauty--
+
+        A Tudor-chimneyed bulk
+        Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.
+
+Owing to his extravagance and the enormous expenses of a contested
+election in 1768, Spencer, the eighth Earl of Northampton, was reduced
+to cutting down the timber on the estate, selling his furniture at
+Castle Ashby and Compton, and spending the rest of his life in
+Switzerland. He actually ordered Compton Wynyates to be pulled down,
+as he could not afford to repair it; happily the faithful steward of
+the estate, John Berrill, did not obey the order. He did his best to
+keep out the weather and to preserve the house, asserting that he was
+sure the family would return there some day. Most of the windows were
+bricked up in order to save the window-tax, and the glorious old
+building within whose walls kings and queens had been entertained
+remained bare and desolate for many years, excepting a small portion
+used as a farm-house. All honour to the old man's memory, the faithful
+servant, who thus saved his master's noble house from destruction, the
+pride of the Midlands. Its latest historian, Miss Alice Dryden,[34]
+thus describes its appearance:--
+
+  "On approaching the building by the high road, the entrance front
+  now bursts into view across a wide stretch of lawn, where formerly
+  it was shielded by buildings forming an outer court. It is indeed
+  a most glorious pile of exquisite colouring, built of small red
+  bricks widely separated by mortar, with occasional chequers of
+  blue bricks; the mouldings and facings of yellow local stone, the
+  woodwork of the two gables carved and black with age, the stone
+  slates covered with lichens and mellowed by the hand of time; the
+  whole building has an indescribable charm. The architecture, too,
+  is all irregular; towers here and there, gables of different
+  heights, any straight line embattled, few windows placed exactly
+  over others, and the whole fitly surmounted by the elaborate
+  brick chimneys of different designs, some fluted, others
+  zigzagged, others spiral, or combined spiral and fluted."
+
+  [34] _Memorials of Old Warwickshire_, edited by Miss Alice Dryden.
+
+An illustration is given of one of these chimneys which form such an
+attractive feature of the house.
+
+[Illustration: Chimney at Compton Wynyates]
+
+It is unnecessary to record the history of Compton Wynyates. The
+present owner, the Marquis of Northampton, has written an admirable
+monograph on the annals of the house of his ancestors. Its builder was
+Sir William Compton,[35] who by his valour in arms and his courtly
+ways gained the favour of Henry VIII, and was promoted to high honour
+at the Court. Dugdale states that in 1520 he obtained licence to
+impark two thousand acres at Overcompton and Nethercompton, _alias_
+Compton Vyneyats, where he built a "fair mannour house," and where he
+was visited by the King, "for over the gateway are the arms of France
+and England, under a crown, supported by the greyhound and griffin,
+and sided by the rose and the crown, probably in memory of Henry
+VIII's visit here."[36] The Comptons ever basked in the smiles of
+royalty. Henry Compton, created baron, was the favourite of Queen
+Elizabeth, and his son William succeeded in marrying the daughter of
+Sir John Spencer, richest of City merchants. All the world knows of
+his ingenious craft in carrying off the lady in a baker's basket, of
+his wife's disinheritance by the irate father, and of the subsequent
+reconciliation through the intervention of Queen Elizabeth at the
+baptism of the son of this marriage. The Comptons fought bravely for
+the King in the Civil War. Their house was captured by the enemy, and
+besieged by James Compton, Earl of Northampton, and the story of the
+fighting about the house abounds in interest, but cannot be related
+here. The building was much battered by the siege and by Cromwell's
+soldiers, who plundered the house, killed the deer in the park,
+defaced the monuments in the church, and wrought much mischief. Since
+the eighteenth-century disaster to the family it has been restored,
+and remains to this day one of the most charming homes in England.
+
+  [35] The present Marquis of Northampton in his book contends that
+  the house was mainly built in the reign of Henry VII by Edmund
+  Compton, Sir William's father, and that Sir William only enlarged
+  and added to the house. We have not space to record the arguments
+  in favour of or against this view.
+
+  [36] _The Progresses of James I_, by Nichols.
+
+[Illustration: Window-catch, Brockhall, Northants]
+
+"The greatest advantages men have by riches are to give, to build, to
+plant, and make pleasant scenes." So wrote Sir William Temple,
+diplomatist, philosopher, and true garden-lover. And many of the
+gentlemen of England seem to have been of the same mind, if we may
+judge from the number of delightful old country-houses set amid
+pleasant scenes that time and war and fire have spared to us. Macaulay
+draws a very unflattering picture of the old country squire, as of the
+parson. His untruths concerning the latter I have endeavoured to
+expose in another place.[37] The manor-houses themselves declare the
+historian's strictures to be unfounded. Is it possible that men so
+ignorant and crude could have built for themselves residences bearing
+evidence of such good taste, so full of grace and charm, and
+surrounded by such rare blendings of art and nature as are displayed
+so often in park and garden? And it is not, as a rule, in the greatest
+mansions, the vast piles erected by the great nobles of the Court,
+that we find such artistic qualities, but most often in the smaller
+manor-houses of knights and squires. Certainly many higher-cultured
+people of Macaulay's time and our own could learn a great deal from
+them of the art of making beautiful homes.
+
+  [37] _Old-time Parson_, by P.H. Ditchfield, 1908.
+
+[Illustration: Gothic Chimney, Norton St. Philip, Somerset]
+
+Holinshed, the Chronicler, writing during the third quarter of the
+sixteenth century, makes some illuminating observations on the
+increasing preference shown in his time for stone and brick buildings
+in place of timber and plaster. He wrote:--
+
+  "The ancient maners and houses of our gentlemen are yet for the
+  most part of strong timber. How beit such as be lately buylded are
+  commonly either of bricke or harde stone, their rowmes large and
+  stately, and houses of office farder distant fro their lodgings.
+  Those of the nobilitie are likewise wrought with bricke and harde
+  stone, as provision may best be made; but so magnificent and
+  stately, as the basest house of a barren doth often match with
+  some honours of princes in olde tyme: so that if ever curious
+  buylding did flourishe in Englande it is in these our dayes,
+  wherein our worckemen excel and are in maner comparable in skill
+  with old Vitruvius and Serle."
+
+He also adds the curious information that "there are olde men yet
+dwelling in the village where I remayn, which have noted three things
+to be marveylously altered in Englande within their sound
+remembrance. One is, the multitude of chimnies lately erected,
+whereas, in their young dayes there were not above two or three, if so
+many, in most uplandish townes of the realme (the religious houses and
+mannour places of their lordes alwayes excepted, and peradventure some
+great personages [parsonages]), but each one made his fire against a
+reredosse in the halle, where he dined and dressed his meate," This
+want of chimneys is noticeable in many pictures of, and previous to,
+the time of Henry VIII. A timber farm-house yet remains (or did until
+recently) near Folkestone, which shows no vestige of either chimney or
+hearth.
+
+Most of our great houses and manor-houses sprang up in the great
+Elizabethan building epoch, when the untold wealth of the monasteries
+which fell into the hands of the courtiers and favourites of the King,
+the plunder of gold-laden Spanish galleons, and the unprecedented
+prosperity in trade gave such an impulse to the erection of fine
+houses that the England of that period has been described as "one
+great stonemason's yard." The great noblemen and gentlemen of the
+Court were filled with the desire for extravagant display, and built
+such clumsy piles as Wollaton and Burghley House, importing French and
+German artisans to load them with bastard Italian Renaissance detail.
+Some of these vast structures are not very admirable with their
+distorted gables, their chaotic proportions, and their crazy
+imitations of classic orders. But the typical Elizabethan mansion,
+whose builder's means or good taste would not permit of such a
+profusion of these architectural luxuries, is unequalled in its
+combination of stateliness with homeliness, in its expression of the
+manner of life of the class for which it was built. And in the humbler
+manors and farm-houses the latter idea is even more perfectly
+expressed, for houses were affected by the new fashions in
+architecture generally in proportion to their size.
+
+[Illustration: The Moat, Crowhurst Place, Surrey]
+
+Holinshed tells of the increased use of stone or brick in his age in
+the district wherein he lived. In other parts of England, where the
+forests supplied good timber, the builders stuck to their
+half-timbered houses and brought the "black and white" style to
+perfection. Plaster was extensively used in this and subsequent ages,
+and often the whole surface of the house was covered with rough-cast,
+such as the quaint old house called Broughton Hall, near Market
+Drayton. Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, is an attractive example of the
+plastered house. The irregular roof-line, the gables, and the
+white-barred windows, and the contrast of the white walls with the
+rich green of the vines and surrounding trees combine to make a
+picture of rare beauty. Part of the house is built of stone and part
+half-timber, but a coat of thin plaster covers the stonework and makes
+it conform with the rest. To plaster over stone-work is a somewhat
+daring act, and is not architecturally correct, but the appearance of
+the house is altogether pleasing.
+
+The Elizabethan and Jacobean builder increased the height of his
+house, sometimes causing it to have three storeys, besides rooms in
+attics beneath the gabled roof. He also loved windows. "Light, more
+light," was his continued cry. Hence there is often an excess of
+windows, and Lord Bacon complained that there was no comfortable place
+to be found in these houses, "in summer by reason of the heat, or in
+winter by reason of the cold." It was a sore burden to many a
+house-owner when Charles II imposed the iniquitous window-tax, and so
+heavily did this fall upon the owners of some Elizabethan houses that
+the poorer ones were driven to the necessity of walling up some of the
+windows which their ancestors had provided with such prodigality. You
+will often see to this day bricked-up windows in many an old
+farm-house. Not every one was so cunning as the parish clerk of
+Bradford-on-Avon, Orpin, who took out the window-frames from his
+interesting little house near the church and inserted numerous small
+single-paned windows which escaped the tax.
+
+Surrey and Kent afford an unlimited field for the study of the better
+sort of houses, mansions, and manor-houses. We have already alluded to
+Hever Castle and its memories of Anne Boleyn. Then there is the
+historic Penshurst, the home of the Sidneys, haunted by the shades of
+Sir Philip, "Sacharissa," the ill-fated Algernon, and his handsome
+brother. You see their portraits on the walls, the fine gallery, and
+the hall, which reveals the exact condition of an ancient noble's hall
+in former days.
+
+[Illustration: Arms of the Gaynesfords in window, Crowhurst Place,
+Surrey]
+
+Not far away are the manors of Crittenden, Puttenden, and Crowhurst.
+This last is one of the most picturesque in Surrey, with its moat,
+across which there is a fine view of the house, its half-timber work,
+the straight uprights placed close together signifying early work, and
+the striking character of the interior. The Gaynesford family became
+lords of the manor of Crowhurst in 1337, and continued to hold it
+until 1700, a very long record. In 1903 the Place was purchased by the
+Rev. ---- Gaynesford, of Hitchin, a descendant of the family of the
+former owners. This is a rare instance of the repossession of a
+medieval residence by an ancient family after the lapse of two hundred
+years. It was built in the fifteenth century, and is a complete
+specimen of its age and style, having been unspoilt by later
+alterations and additions. The part nearer the moat is, however, a
+little later than the gables further back. The dining-room is the
+contracted remains of the great hall of Crowhurst Place, the upper
+part of which was converted into a series of bedrooms in the
+eighteenth century. We give an illustration of a very fine hinge to a
+cupboard door in one of the bedrooms, a good example of the
+blacksmith's skill. It is noticeable that the points of the linen-fold
+in the panelling of the door are undercut and project sharply. We see
+the open framed floor with moulded beams. Later on the fashion
+changed, and the builders preferred to have square-shaped beams. We
+notice the fine old panelling, the elaborate mouldings, and the fixed
+bench running along one end of the chamber, of which we give an
+illustration. The design and workmanship of this fixture show it to
+belong to the period of Henry VIII. All the work is of stout timber,
+save the fire-place. The smith's art is shown in the fine candelabrum
+and in the knocker or ring-plate, perforated with Gothic design, still
+backed with its original morocco leather. It is worthy of a sanctuary,
+and doubtless many generations of Crowhurst squires have found a very
+dear sanctuary in this grand old English home. This ring-plate is in
+one of the original bedrooms. Immense labour was often bestowed upon
+the mouldings of beams in these fifteenth-century houses. There was a
+very fine moulded beam in a farm-house in my own parish, but a recent
+restoration has, alas! covered it. We give some illustrations of the
+cornice mouldings of the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent, and of a fine
+Gothic door-head.
+
+[Illustration: Cupboard Hinge, Crowhurst Place, Surrey]
+
+It is impossible for us to traverse many shires in our search for old
+houses. But a word must be said for the priceless contents of many of
+our historic mansions and manors. These often vanish and are lost for
+ever. I have alluded to the thirst of American millionaires for these
+valuables, which causes so many of our treasures to cross the Atlantic
+and find their home in the palaces of Boston and Washington and
+elsewhere. Perhaps if our valuables must leave their old
+resting-places and go out of the country, we should prefer them to go
+to America than to any other land. Our American cousins are our
+kindred; they know how to appreciate the treasures of the land that,
+in spite of many changes, is to them their mother-country. No nation
+in the world prizes a high lineage and a family tree more than the
+Americans, and it is my privilege to receive many inquiries from
+across the Atlantic for missing links in the family pedigree, and the
+joy that a successful search yields compensates for all one's trouble.
+So if our treasures must go we should rather send them to America than
+to Germany. It is, however, distressing to see pictures taken from
+the place where they have hung for centuries and sent to Christie's,
+to see the dispersal of old libraries at Sotherby's, and the contents
+of a house, amassed by generations of cultured and wealthy folk,
+scattered to the four winds and bought up by the _nouveaux riches_.
+
+[Illustration: Fixed Bench in the Hall, Crowhurst Place, Surrey]
+
+There still remain in many old houses collections of armour that bears
+the dints of many fights. Swords, helmets, shields, lances, and other
+weapons of warfare often are seen hanging on the walls of an ancestral
+hall. The buff coats of Cromwell's soldiers, tilting-helmets, guns and
+pistols of many periods are all there, together with man-traps--the
+cruel invention of a barbarous age.
+
+[Illustration: Gothic Door-head, Goudhurst, Kent]
+
+The historic hall of Littlecote bears on its walls many suits worn
+during the Civil War by the Parliamentary troopers, and in countless
+other halls you can see specimens of armour. In churches also much
+armour has been stored. It was the custom to suspend over the tomb the
+principal arms of the departed warrior, which had previously been
+carried in the funeral procession. Shakespeare alludes to this custom
+when, in _Hamlet_, he makes Laertes say:--
+
+        His means of death, his obscure burial--
+        No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
+        No noble rite, nor formal ostentation.
+
+You can see the armour of the Black Prince over his tomb at
+Canterbury, and at Westminster the shield of Henry V that probably did
+its duty at Agincourt. Several of our churches still retain the arms
+of the heroes who lie buried beneath them, but occasionally it is not
+the actual armour but sham, counterfeit helmets and breastplates made
+for the funeral procession and hung over the monument. Much of this
+armour has been removed from churches and stored in museums. Norwich
+Museum has some good specimens, of which we give some illustrations.
+There is a knight's basinet which belongs to the time of Henry V
+(_circa_ 1415). We can compare this with the salads, which came into
+use shortly after this period, an example of which may be seen at the
+Porte d'Hal, Brussels. We also show a thirteenth-century sword, which
+was dredged up at Thorpe, and believed to have been lost in 1277, when
+King Edward I made a military progress through Suffolk and Norfolk,
+and kept his Easter at Norwich. The blade is scimitar-shaped, is
+one-edged, and has a groove at the back. We may compare this with the
+sword of the time of Edward IV now in the possession of Mr. Seymour
+Lucas. The development of riding-boots is an interesting study. We
+show a drawing of one in the possession of Mr. Ernest Crofts, R.A.,
+which was in use in the time of William III.
+
+[Illustration: Knightly Basinet (_temp._ Henry V) in Norwich Castle]
+
+[Illustration: Hilt of Thirteenth-century Sword in Norwich Museum]
+
+An illustration is given of a chapel-de-fer which reposes in the
+noble hall of Ockwells, Berkshire, much dented by use. It has
+evidently seen service. In the same hall is collected by the friends
+of the author, Sir Edward and Lady Barry, a vast store of armour and
+most interesting examples of ancient furniture worthy of the beautiful
+building in which they are placed. Ockwells Manor House is goodly to
+look upon, a perfect example of fifteenth-century residence with its
+noble hall and minstrels' gallery, its solar, kitchens, corridors, and
+gardens. Moreover, it is now owned by those who love and respect
+antiquity and its architectural beauties, and is in every respect an
+old English mansion well preserved and tenderly cared for. Yet at one
+time it was almost doomed to destruction. Not many years ago it was
+the property of a man who knew nothing of its importance. He
+threatened to pull it down or to turn the old house into a tannery.
+Our Berks Archaeological Society endeavoured to raise money for its
+purchase in order to preserve it. This action helped the owner to
+realise that the house was of some commercial value. Its destruction
+was stayed, and then, happily, it was purchased by the present owners,
+who have done so much to restore its original beauties.
+
+[Illustration: "Hand-and-a-half" Sword. Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A.]
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Boot, in the possession of Ernest
+Crofts, Esq., R.A.]
+
+[Illustration: Chapel de Fer at Ockwells, Berks]
+
+Ockwells was built by Sir John Norreys about the year 1466. The chapel
+was not completed at his death in 1467, and he left money in his will
+"to the full bilding and making uppe of the Chapell with the Chambres
+ajoyng with'n my manoir of Okholt in the p'rish of Bray aforsaid not
+yet finisshed XL li." This chapel was burnt down in 1778. One of the
+most important features of the hall is the heraldic glass,
+commemorating eighteen worthies, which is of the same date as the
+house. The credit of identifying these worthies is due to Mr. Everard
+Green, Rouge Dragon, who in 1899 communicated the result of his
+researches to Viscount Dillon, President of the Society of
+Antiquaries. There are eighteen shields of arms. Two are royal and
+ensigned with royal crowns. Two are ensigned with mitres and fourteen
+with mantled helms, and of these fourteen, thirteen support a crest.
+Each achievement is placed in a separate light on an ornamental
+background composed of quarries and alternate diagonal stripes of
+white glass bordered with gold, on which the motto
+
+    Feyth-fully-serve
+
+is inscribed in black-letter. This motto is assigned by some to the
+family of Norreys and by others as that of the Royal Wardrobe. The
+quarries in each light have the same badge, namely, three golden
+distaffs, one in pale and two in saltire, banded with a golden and
+tasselled ribbon, which badge some again assign to the family of
+Norreys and others to the Royal Wardrobe. If, however, the Norreys
+arms are correctly set forth in a compartment of a door-head remaining
+in the north wall, and also in one of the windows--namely, argent a
+chevron between three ravens' heads erased sable, with a beaver for a
+dexter supporter--the second conjecture is doubtless correct.
+
+These shields represent the arms of Sir John Norreys, the builder of
+Ockwells Manor House, and of his sovereign, patrons, and kinsfolk. It
+is a _liber amicorum_ in glass, a not unpleasant way for light to come
+to us, as Mr. Everard Green pleasantly remarks. By means of heraldry
+Sir John Norreys recorded his friendships, thereby adding to the
+pleasures of memory as well as to the splendour of his great hall. His
+eye saw the shield, his memory supplied the story, and to him the
+lines of George Eliot,
+
+        O memories,
+        O Past that IS,
+
+were made possible by heraldry.
+
+The names of his friends and patrons so recorded in glass by their
+arms are: Sir Henry Beauchamp, sixth Earl of Warwick; Sir Edmund
+Beaufort, K.G.; Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI, "the dauntless
+queen of tears, who headed councils, led armies, and ruled both king
+and people"; Sir John de la Pole, K.G.; Henry VI; Sir James Butler;
+the Abbey of Abingdon; Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury from
+1450 to 1481; Sir John Norreys himself; Sir John Wenlock, of Wenlock,
+Shropshire; Sir William Lacon, of Stow, Kent, buried at Bray; the arms
+and crest of a member of the Mortimer family; Sir Richard Nanfan, of
+Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire; Sir John Norreys with his arms
+quartered with those of Alice Merbury, of Yattendon, his first wife;
+Sir John Langford, who married Sir John Norreys's granddaughter; a
+member of the De la Beche family (?); John Purye, of Thatcham, Bray,
+and Cookham; Richard Bulstrode, of Upton, Buckinghamshire, Keeper of
+the Great Wardrobe to Queen Margaret of Anjou, and afterwards
+Comptroller of the Household to Edward IV. These are the worthies
+whose arms are recorded in the windows of Ockwells. Nash gave a
+drawing of the house in his _Mansions of England in the Olden Time_,
+showing the interior of the hall, the porch and corridor, and the east
+front; and from the hospitable door is issuing a crowd of gaily
+dressed people in Elizabethan costume, such as was doubtless often
+witnessed in days of yore. It is a happy and fortunate event that this
+noble house should in its old age have found such a loving master and
+mistress, in whose family we hope it may remain for many long years.
+
+Another grand old house has just been saved by the National Trust and
+the bounty of an anonymous benefactor. This is Barrington Court, and
+is one of the finest houses in Somerset. It is situated a few miles
+east of Ilminster, in the hundred of South Petherton. Its exact age is
+uncertain, but it seems probable that it was built by Henry, Lord
+Daubeney, created Earl of Bridgewater in 1539, whose ancestors had
+owned the place since early Plantagenet times. At any rate, it appears
+to date from about the middle of the sixteenth century, and it is a
+very perfect example of the domestic architecture of that period. From
+the Daubeneys it passed successively to the Duke of Suffolk, the
+Crown, the Cliftons, the Phelips's, the Strodes; and one of this last
+family entertained the Duke of Monmouth there during his tour in the
+west in 1680. The house, which is E-shaped, with central porch and
+wings at each end, is built of the beautiful Ham Hill stone which
+abounds in the district; the colour of this stone greatly enhances the
+appearance of the house and adds to its venerable aspect. It has
+little ornamental detail, but what there is is very good, while the
+loftiness and general proportions of the building--its extent and
+solidity of masonry, and the taste and care with which every part has
+been designed and carried out, give it an air of dignity and
+importance.
+
+  "The angle buttresses to the wings and the porch rising to twisted
+  terminals are a feature surviving from mediaeval times, which
+  disappeared entirely in the buildings of Stuart times. These
+  twisted terminals with cupola-like tops are also upon the gables,
+  and with the chimneys, also twisted, give a most pleasing and
+  attractive character to the structure. We may go far, indeed,
+  before we find another house of stone so lightly and gracefully
+  adorned, and the detail of the mullioned windows with their arched
+  heads, in every light, and their water-tables above, is admirable.
+  The porch also has a fine Tudor arch, which might form the
+  entrance to some college quadrangle, and there are rooms above and
+  gables on either hand. The whole structure breathes the spirit of
+  the Tudor age, before the classic spirit had exercised any marked
+  influence upon our national architecture, while the details of the
+  carving are almost as rich as is the moulded and sculptured work
+  in the brick houses of East Anglia. The features in other parts of
+  the exterior are all equally good, and we may certainly say of
+  Barrington Court that it occupies a most notable place in the
+  domestic architecture of England. It is also worthy of remark that
+  such houses as this are far rarer than those of Jacobean
+  times."[38]
+
+  [38] _Country Life_, September 17th, 1904.
+
+But Barrington Court has fallen on evil days; one half of the house
+only is now habitable, the rest having been completely gutted about
+eighty years ago. The great hall is used as a cider store, the
+wainscoting has been ruthlessly removed, and there have even been
+recent suggestions of moving the whole structure across England and
+re-erecting it in a strange county. It has several times changed hands
+in recent years, and under these circumstances it is not surprising
+that but little has been done to ensure the preservation of what is
+indeed an architectural gem. But the walls are in excellent condition
+and the roofs fairly sound. The National Trust, like an angel of
+mercy, has spread its protecting wings over the building; friends have
+been found to succour the Court in its old age; and there is every
+reason to hope that its evil days are past, and that it may remain
+standing for many generations.
+
+[Illustration: Tudor Dresser Table, in the possession of Sir Alfred
+Dryden, Canon's Ashby, Northants]
+
+The wealth of treasure to be found in many country houses is indeed
+enormous. In Holinshed's _Chronicle of Englande, Scotlande and
+Irelande_, published in 1577, there is a chapter on the "maner of
+buylding and furniture of our Houses," wherein is recorded the
+costliness of the stores of plate and tapestry that were found in the
+dwellings of nobility and gentry and also in farm-houses, and even in
+the homes of "inferior artificers." Verily the spoils of the
+monasteries and churches must have been fairly evenly divided. These
+are his words:--
+
+  "The furniture of our houses also exceedeth, and is growne in
+  maner even to passing delicacie; and herein I do not speake of the
+  nobilitie and gentrie onely, but even of the lowest sorte that
+  have anything to take to. Certes in noble men's houses it is not
+  rare to see abundance of array, riche hangings of tapestry, silver
+  vessell, and so much other plate as may furnish sundrie cupbordes
+  to the summe ofte times of a thousand or two thousand pounde at
+  the leaste; wherby the value of this and the reast of their stuffe
+  doth grow to be inestimable. Likewise in the houses of knightes,
+  gentlemen, marchauntmen, and other wealthie citizens, it is not
+  geson to beholde generallye their great provision of tapestrie
+  Turkye worke, _pewter_, _brasse_, fine linen, and thereto costly
+  cupbords of plate woorth five or six hundred pounde, to be demed
+  by estimation. But as herein all these sortes doe farre exceede
+  their elders and predecessours, so in tyme past the costly
+  furniture _stayed there_, whereas now it is descended yet lower,
+  even unto the inferior artificiers and most fermers[39] who have
+  learned to garnish also their cupbordes with plate, their beddes
+  with tapestrie and silk hanginges, and their table with fine
+  naperie whereby the wealth of our countrie doth infinitely
+  appeare...."
+
+  [39] Farmers.
+
+Much of this wealth has, of course, been scattered. Time, poverty,
+war, the rise and fall of families, have caused the dispersion of
+these treasures. Sometimes you find valuable old prints or china in
+obscure and unlikely places. A friend of the writer, overtaken by a
+storm, sought shelter in a lone Welsh cottage. She admired and bought
+a rather curious jug. It turned out to be a somewhat rare and valuable
+ware, and a sketch of it has since been reproduced in the _Connoisseur_.
+I have myself discovered three Bartolozzi engravings in cottages in
+this parish. We give an illustration of a seventeenth-century
+powder-horn which was found at Glastonbury by Charles Griffin in 1833
+in the wall of an old house which formerly stood where the Wilts and
+Dorset Bank is now erected. Mr. Griffin's account of its discovery is
+as follows:--
+
+  "When I was a boy about fifteen years of age I took a ladder up
+  into the attic to see if there was anything hid in some holes that
+  were just under the roof.... Pushing my hand in the wall ... I
+  pulled out this carved horn, which then had a metal rim and
+  cover--of silver, I think. A man gave me a shilling for it, and he
+  sold it to Mr. Porch."
+
+It is stated that a coronet was engraved or stamped on the silver rim
+which has now disappeared.
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Powder-horn, found in the wall of
+an old house at Glastonbury. Now in Glastonbury Museum]
+
+Monmouth's harassed army occupied Glastonbury on the night of June 22,
+1685, and it is extremely probable that the powder-horn was deposited
+in its hiding-place by some wavering follower who had decided to
+abandon the Duke's cause. There is another relic of Monmouth's
+rebellion, now in the Taunton Museum, a spy-glass, with the aid of
+which Mr. Sparke, from the tower of Chedzoy, discovered the King's
+troops marching down Sedgemoor on the day previous to the fight, and
+gave information thereof to the Duke, who was quartered at Bridgwater.
+It was preserved by the family for more than a century, and given by
+Miss Mary Sparke, the great-granddaughter of the above William Sparke,
+in 1822 to a Mr. Stradling, who placed it in the museum. The
+spy-glass, which is of very primitive construction, is in four
+sections or tubes of bone covered with parchment. Relics of war and
+fighting are often stored in country houses. Thus at Swallowfield
+Park, the residence of Lady Russell, was found, when an old tree was
+grubbed up, some gold and silver coins of the reign of Charles I. It
+is probable that a Cavalier, when hard pressed, threw his purse into a
+hollow tree, intending, if he escaped, to return and rescue it. This,
+for some reason, he was unable to do, and his money remained in the
+tree until old age necessitated its removal. The late Sir George
+Russell, Bart., caused a box to be made of the wood of the tree, and
+in it he placed the coins, so that they should not be separated after
+their connexion of two centuries and a half.
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Spy-glass in Taunton Museum]
+
+We give an illustration of a remarkable flagon of bell-metal for
+holding spiced wine, found in an old manor-house in Norfolk. It is of
+English make, and was manufactured about the year 1350. It is embossed
+with the old Royal Arms of England crowned and repeated several times,
+and has an inscription in Gothic letters:--
+
+        God is grace Be in this place.
+          Amen.
+        Stand uttir[40] from the fier
+        And let onjust[41] come nere.
+
+  [40] Stand away.
+
+  [41] One just.
+
+[Illustration: Fourteenth-century Flagon. From an old Manor House in
+Norfolk]
+
+This interesting flagon was bought from the Robinson Collection in
+1879 by the nation, and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
+
+Many old houses, happily, contain their stores of ancient furniture.
+Elizabethan bedsteads wherein, of course, the Virgin Queen reposed
+(she made so many royal progresses that it is no wonder she slept in
+so many places), expanding tables, Jacobean chairs and sideboards, and
+later on the beautiful productions of Chippendale, Sheraton, and
+Hipplethwaite. Some of the family chests are elaborate works of art.
+We give as an illustration a fine example of an Elizabethan chest. It
+is made of oak, inlaid with holly, dating from the last quarter of the
+sixteenth century. Its length is 5 ft. 2 in., its height 2 ft. 11 in.
+It is in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B., of the
+manor-house, Warborough, in Oxfordshire. The staircases are often
+elaborately carved, which form a striking feature of many old houses.
+The old Aldermaston Court was burnt down, but fortunately the huge
+figures on the staircase were saved and appear again in the new Court,
+the residence of a distinguished antiquary, Mr. Charles Keyser, F.S.A.
+Hartwell House, in Buckinghamshire, once the residence of the exiled
+French Court of Louis XVIII during the Revolution and the period of
+the ascendancy of Napoleon I, has some curiously carved oaken figures
+adorning the staircase, representing Hercules, the Furies, and various
+knights in armour. We give an illustration of the staircase newel in
+Cromwell House, Highgate, with its quaint little figure of a man
+standing on a lofty pedestal.
+
+[Illustration: Elizabethan Chest, in the possession of Sir Coleridge
+Grove, K.C.B. Height, 2 ft. 11 in.; length, 5 ft. 2 in.]
+
+Sometimes one comes across strange curiosities in old houses, the odds
+and ends which Time has accumulated. On p. 201 is a representation of
+a water-clock or clepsydra which was made at Norwich by an ingenious
+person named Parson in 1610. It is constructed on the same principle
+as the timepieces used by the Greeks and Romans. The brass tube was
+filled with water, which was allowed to run out slowly at the
+bottom. A cork floated at the top of the water in the tube, and as it
+descended the hour was indicated by the pointer on the dial above.
+This ingenious clock has now found its way into the museum in Norwich
+Castle. The interesting contents of old houses would require a volume
+for their complete enumeration.
+
+In looking at these ancient buildings, which time has spared us, we
+seem to catch a glimpse of the Lamp of Memory which shines forth in
+the illuminated pages of Ruskin. The men, our forefathers, who built
+these houses, built them to last, and not for their own generation. It
+would have grieved them to think that their earthly abode, which had
+seen and seemed almost to sympathize in all their honour, their
+gladness or their suffering--that this, with all the record it bare of
+them, and of all material things that they had loved and ruled over,
+and set the stamp of themselves upon--was to be swept away as soon as
+there was room made for them in the grave. They valued and prized the
+house that they had reared, or added to, or improved. Hence they loved
+to carve their names or their initials on the lintels of their doors
+or on the walls of their houses with the date. On the stone houses of
+the Cotswolds, in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, wherever good
+building stone abounds, you can see these inscriptions, initials
+usually those of husband and wife, which preserved the memorial of
+their names as long as the house remained in the family. Alas! too
+often the memorial conveys no meaning, and no one knows the names they
+represent. But it was a worthy feeling that prompted this building for
+futurity. There is a mystery about the inscription recorded in the
+illustration "T.D. 1678." It was discovered, together with a sword
+(_temp._ Charles II), between the ceiling and the floor when an old
+farm-house called Gundry's, at Stoke-under-Ham, was pulled down. The
+year was one of great political disturbance, being that in which the
+so-called "Popish Plot" was exploited by Titus Oates. Possibly
+"T.D." was fearful of being implicated, concealed this inscription,
+and effected his escape.
+
+[Illustration: Staircase Newel Cromwell House, Highgate]
+
+Our forefathers must have been animated by the spirit which caused Mr.
+Ruskin to write: "When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
+Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it
+be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think,
+as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones
+will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men
+will say as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them,
+'See! this our fathers did for us.'"
+
+[Illustration: Piece of Wood Carved with Inscription Found with a
+sword (_temp._ Charles II) in an old house at Stoke-under-Ham,
+Somerset]
+
+[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Water-clock, in Norwich Museum]
+
+Contrast these old houses with the modern suburban abominations,
+"those thin tottering foundationless shells of splintered wood and
+imitated stone," "those gloomy rows of formalised minuteness, alike
+without difference and without fellowship, as solitary as similar," as
+Ruskin calls them. These modern erections have no more relation to
+their surroundings than would a Pullman-car or a newly painted piece
+of machinery. Age cannot improve the appearance of such things. But
+age only mellows and improves our ancient houses. Solidly built of
+good materials, the golden stain of time only adds to their beauties.
+The vines have clothed their walls and the green lawns about them have
+grown smoother and thicker, and the passing of the centuries has
+served but to tone them down and bring them into closer harmony with
+nature. With their garden walls and hedges they almost seem to have
+grown in their places as did the great trees that stand near by. They
+have nothing of the uneasy look of the parvenu about them. They have
+an air of dignified repose; the spirit of ancient peace seems to rest
+upon them and their beautiful surroundings.
+
+[Illustration: Sun-dial. The Manor House, Sutton Courtenay]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DESTRUCTION OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS
+
+
+We still find in various parts of the country traces of the
+prehistoric races who inhabited our island and left their footprints
+behind them, which startle us as much as ever the print of Friday's
+feet did the indomitable Robinson Crusoe. During the last fifty years
+we have been collecting the weapons and implements of early man, and
+have learnt that the history of Britain did not begin with the year
+B.C. 55, when Julius Caesar attempted his first conquest of our island.
+Our historical horizon has been pushed back very considerably, and
+every year adds new knowledge concerning the Palaeolithic and Neolithic
+races, and the first users of bronze and iron tools and weapons. We
+have learnt to prize what they have left, to recognize the immense
+archaeological value of these remains, and of their inestimable
+prehistoric interest. It is therefore very deplorable to discover that
+so much has been destroyed, obliterated, and forgotten.
+
+We have still some left. Examples are still to be seen of megalithic
+structures, barrows, cromlechs, camps, earthen or walled castles,
+hut-circles, and other remains of the prehistoric inhabitants of these
+islands. We have many monoliths, called in Wales and Cornwall, as also
+in Brittany, menhirs, a name derived from the Celtic word _maen_ or
+_men_, signifying a stone, and _hir_ meaning tall. They are also
+called logan stones and "hoar" stones, _hoar_ meaning a boundary,
+inasmuch as they were frequently used in later times to mark the
+boundary of an estate, parish, or manor. A vast number have been torn
+down and used as gateposts or for building purposes, and a recent
+observer in the West Country states that he has looked in vain for
+several where he knew that not long ago they existed. If in the Land's
+End district you climb the ascent of Bolleit, the Place of Blood,
+where Athelstan fought and slew the Britons, you can see "the Pipers,"
+two great menhirs, twelve and sixteen feet high, and the Holed Stone,
+which is really an ancient cross, but you will be told that the cruel
+Druids used to tie their human victims for sacrifice to this stone,
+and you would shudder at the memory if you did not know that the
+Druids were very philosophical folk, and never did such dreadful
+deeds.
+
+Another kind of megalithic monument are the stone circles, only they
+are circles no longer, many stones having been carted away to mend
+walls. If you look at the ordnance map of Penzance you will find large
+numbers of these circles, but if you visit the spots where they are
+supposed to be, you will find that many have vanished. The "Merry
+Maidens," not far from the "Pipers," still remain--nineteen great
+stones, which fairy-lore perhaps supposes to have been once fair
+maidens who danced to the tune the pipers played ere a Celtic Medusa
+gazed at them and turned them into stone. Every one knows the story of
+the Rollright stones, a similar stone circle in Oxfordshire, which
+were once upon a time a king and his army, and were converted into
+stone by a witch who cast a fatal spell upon them by the words--
+
+        Move no more; stand fast, stone;
+        King of England thou shalt none.
+
+The solitary stone is the ambitious monarch who was told by an oracle
+that if he could see Long Compton he would be king of England; the
+circle is his army, and the five "Whispering Knights" are five of his
+chieftains, who were hatching a plot against him when the magic spell
+was uttered. Local legends have sometimes helped to preserve these
+stones. The farmers around Rollright say that if these stones are
+removed from the spot they will never rest, but make mischief till
+they are restored. There is a well-known cromlech at Stanton Drew, in
+Somerset, and there are several in Scotland, the Channel Islands, and
+Brittany. Some sacrilegious persons transported a cromlech from the
+Channel Islands, and set it up at Park Place, Henley-on-Thames. Such
+an act of antiquarian barbarism happily has few imitators.
+
+Stonehenge, with its well-wrought stones and gigantic trilitha, is one
+of the latest of the stone circles, and was doubtless made in the Iron
+Age, about two hundred years before the Christian era. Antiquarians
+have been very anxious about its safety. In 1900 one of the great
+upright stones fell, bringing down the cross-piece with it, and
+several learned societies have been invited by the owner, Sir Edmund
+Antrobus, to furnish recommendations as to the best means of
+preserving this unique memorial of an early race. We are glad to know
+that all that can be done will be done to keep Stonehenge safe for
+future generations.
+
+We need not record the existence of dolmens, or table-stones, the
+remains of burial mounds, which have been washed away by denudation,
+nor of what the French folk call _alignements_, or lines of stones,
+which have suffered like other megalithic monuments. Barrows or tumuli
+are still plentiful, great mounds of earth raised to cover the
+prehistoric dead. But many have disappeared. Some have been worn down
+by ploughing, as on the Berkshire Downs. Others have been dug into for
+gravel. The making of golf-links has disturbed several, as at
+Sunningdale, where several barrows were destroyed in order to make a
+good golf-course. Happily their contents were carefully guarded, and
+are preserved in the British Museum and in that of Reading. Earthworks
+and camps still guard the British ancient roads and trackways, and
+you still admire their triple vallum and their cleverly protected
+entrance. Happily the Earthworks Committee of the Congress of
+Archaeological Societies watches over them, and strives to protect them
+from injury. Pit-dwellings and the so-called "ancient British
+villages" are in many instances sorely neglected, and are often buried
+beneath masses of destructive briers and ferns. We can still trace the
+course of several of the great tribal boundaries of prehistoric times,
+the Grim's dykes that are seen in various parts of the country,
+gigantic earthworks that so surprised the Saxon invaders that they
+attributed them to the agency of the Devil or Grim. Here and there
+much has vanished, but stretches remain with a high bank twelve or
+fourteen feet high and a ditch; the labour of making these earthen
+ramparts must have been immense in the days when the builders of them
+had only picks made out of stag's horns and such simple tools to work
+with.
+
+Along some of our hillsides are curious turf-cut monuments, which
+always attract our gaze and make us wonder who first cut out these
+figures on the face of the chalk hill. There is the great White Horse
+on the Berkshire Downs above Uffington, which we like to think was cut
+out by Alfred's men after his victory over the Danes on the Ashdown
+Hills. We are told, however, that that cannot be, and that it must
+have been made at least a thousand years before King Alfred's glorious
+reign. Some of these monuments are in danger of disappearing. They
+need scouring pretty constantly, as the weeds and grass will grow over
+the face of the bare chalk and tend to obliterate the figures. The
+Berkshire White Horse wanted grooming badly a short time ago, and the
+present writer was urged to approach the noble owner, the Earl of
+Craven, and urge the necessity of a scouring. The Earl, however,
+needed no reminder, and the White Horse is now thoroughly groomed, and
+looks as fit and active as ever. Other steeds on our hillsides have in
+modern times been so cut and altered in shape that their nearest
+relations would not know them. Thus the White Horse at Westbury, in
+Wiltshire, is now a sturdy-looking little cob, quite up to date and
+altogether modern, very different from the old shape of the animal.
+
+The vanishing of prehistoric monuments is due to various causes.
+Avebury had at one time within a great rampart and a fosse, which is
+still forty feet deep, a large circle of rough unhewn stones, and
+within this two circles each containing a smaller concentric circle.
+Two avenues of stones led to the two entrances to the space surrounded
+by the fosse. It must have been a vast and imposing edifice, much more
+important than Stonehenge, and the area within this great circle
+exceeds twenty-eight acres, with a diameter of twelve hundred feet.
+But the spoilers have been at work, and "Farmer George" and other
+depredators have carted away so many of the stones, and done so much
+damage, that much imagination is needed to construct in the eye of the
+mind this wonder of the world.
+
+Every one who journeys from London to Oxford by the Great Western
+Railway knows the appearance of the famous Wittenham Clumps, a few
+miles from historic Wallingford. If you ascend the hill you will find
+it a paradise for antiquaries. The camp itself occupies a commanding
+position overlooking the valley of the Thames, and has doubtless
+witnessed many tribal fights, and the great contest between the Celts
+and the Roman invaders. In the plain beneath is another remarkable
+earthwork. It was defended on three sides by the Thames, and a strong
+double rampart had been made across the cord of the bow formed by the
+river. There was also a trench which in case of danger could have been
+filled with water. But the spoiler has been at work here. In 1870 a
+farmer employed his men during a hard winter in digging down the west
+side of the rampart and flinging the earth into the fosse. The farmer
+intended to perform a charitable act, and charity is said to cover a
+multitude of sins; but his action was disastrous to antiquaries and
+has almost destroyed a valuable prehistoric monument. There is a
+noted camp at Ashbury, erroneously called "Alfred's Castle," on an
+elevated part of Swinley Down, in Berkshire, not far from Ashdown
+Park, the seat of the Earl of Craven. Lysons tells us that formerly
+there were traces of buildings here, and Aubrey says that in his time
+the earthworks were "almost quite defaced by digging for sarsden
+stones to build my Lord Craven's house in the park." Borough Hill
+Camp, in Boxford parish, near Newbury, has little left, so much of the
+earth having been removed at various times. Rabbits, too, are great
+destroyers, as they disturb the original surface of the ground and
+make it difficult for investigators to make out anything with
+certainty.
+
+Sometimes local tradition, which is wonderfully long-lived, helps the
+archaeologist in his discoveries. An old man told an antiquary that a
+certain barrow in his parish was haunted by the ghost of a soldier who
+wore golden armour. The antiquary determined to investigate and dug
+into the barrow, and there found the body of a man with a gold or
+bronze breastplate. I am not sure whether the armour was gold or
+bronze. Now here is an amazing instance of folk-memory. The chieftain
+was buried probably in Anglo-Saxon times, or possibly earlier. During
+thirteen hundred years, at least, the memory of that burial has been
+handed down from father to son until the present day. It almost seems
+incredible.
+
+It seems something like sacrilege to disturb the resting-places of our
+prehistoric ancestors, and to dig into barrows and examine their
+contents. But much knowledge of the history and manners and customs of
+the early inhabitants of our island has been gained by these
+investigations. Year by year this knowledge grows owing to the patient
+labours of industrious antiquaries, and perhaps our predecessors would
+not mind very much the disturbing of their remains, if they reflected
+that we are getting to know them better by this means, and are almost
+on speaking terms with the makers of stone axes, celts and
+arrow-heads, and are great admirers of their skill and ingenuity. It
+is important that all these monuments of antiquity should be carefully
+preserved, that plans should be made of them, and systematic
+investigations undertaken by competent and skilled antiquaries. The
+old stone monuments and the later Celtic crosses should be rescued
+from serving such purposes as brook bridges, stone walls,
+stepping-stones, and gate-posts and reared again on their original
+sites. They are of national importance, and the nation should do this.
+
+[Illustration: Half-timber Cottages, Waterside, Evesham]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+CATHEDRAL CITIES AND ABBEY TOWNS
+
+
+There is always an air of quietude and restfulness about an ordinary
+cathedral city. Some of our cathedrals are set in busy places, in
+great centres of population, wherein the high towering minster looks
+down with a kind of pitying compassion upon the toiling folk and
+invites them to seek shelter and peace and the consolations of
+religion in her quiet courts. For ages she has watched over the city
+and seen generation after generation pass away. Kings and queens have
+come to lay their offerings on her altars, and have been borne there
+amid all the pomp of stately mourning to lie in the gorgeous tombs
+that grace her choir. She has seen it all--times of pillage and alarm,
+of robbery and spoliation, of change and disturbance, but she lives
+on, ever calling men with her quiet voice to look up in love and faith
+and prayer.
+
+But many of our cathedral cities are quite small places which owe
+their very life and existence to the stately church which pious hands
+have raised centuries ago. There age after age the prayer of faith,
+the anthems of praise, and the divine services have been offered.
+
+In the glow of a summer's evening its heavenly architecture stands
+out, a mass of wondrous beauty, telling of the skill of the masons and
+craftsmen of olden days who put their hearts into their work and
+wrought so surely and so well. The greensward of the close, wherein
+the rooks caw and guard their nests, speaks of peace and joy that is
+not of earth. We walk through the fretted cloisters that once echoed
+with the tread of sandalled monks and saw them illuminating and
+copying wonderful missals, antiphonaries, and other manuscripts which
+we prize so highly now. The deanery is close at hand, a venerable
+house of peace and learning; and the canons' houses tell of centuries
+of devoted service to God's Church, wherein many a distinguished
+scholar, able preacher, and learned writer has lived and sent forth
+his burning message to the world, and now lies at peace in the quiet
+minster.
+
+The fabric of the cathedrals is often in danger of becoming part and
+parcel of vanishing England. Every one has watched with anxiety the
+gallant efforts that have been made to save Winchester. The insecure
+foundations, based on timbers that had rotted, threatened to bring
+down that wondrous pile of masonry. And now Canterbury is in danger.
+
+The Dean and Chapter of Canterbury having recently completed the
+reparation of the central tower of the cathedral, now find themselves
+confronted with responsibilities which require still heavier
+expenditure. It has recently been found that the upper parts of the
+two western towers are in a dangerous condition. All the pinnacles of
+these towers have had to be partially removed in order to avoid the
+risk of dangerous injury from falling stones, and a great part of the
+external work of the two towers is in a state of grievous decay.
+
+The Chapter were warned by the architect that they would incur an
+anxious responsibility if they did not at once adopt measures to
+obviate this danger.
+
+Further, the architect states that there are some fissures and shakes
+in the supporting piers of the central tower within the cathedral, and
+that some of the stonework shows signs of crushing. He further reports
+that there is urgent need of repair to the nave windows, the south
+transept roof, the Warriors' Chapel, and several other parts of the
+building. The nave pinnacles are reported by him to be in the last
+stage of decay, large portions falling frequently, or having to be
+removed.
+
+In these modern days we run "tubes" and under-ground railways in close
+proximity to the foundations of historic buildings, and thereby
+endanger their safety. The grand cathedral of St. Paul, London, was
+threatened by a "tube," and only saved by vigorous protest from having
+its foundations jarred and shaken by rumbling trains in the bowels of
+the earth. Moreover, by sewers and drains the earth is made devoid of
+moisture, and therefore is liable to crack and crumble, and to disturb
+the foundations of ponderous buildings. St. Paul's still causes
+anxiety on this account, and requires all the care and vigilance of
+the skilful architect who guards it.
+
+The old Norman builders loved a central tower, which they built low
+and squat. Happily they built surely and well, firmly and solidly, as
+their successors loved to pile course upon course upon their Norman
+towers, to raise a massive superstructure, and often crown them with a
+lofty, graceful, but heavy spire. No wonder the early masonry has, at
+times, protested against this additional weight, and many mighty
+central towers and spires have fallen and brought ruin on the
+surrounding stonework. So it happened at Chichester and in several
+other noble churches. St. Alban's tower very nearly fell. There the
+ingenuity of destroyers and vandals at the Dissolution had dug a hole
+and removed the earth from under one of the piers, hoping that it
+would collapse. The old tower held on for three hundred years, and
+then the mighty mass began to give way, and Sir Gilbert Scott tells
+the story of its reparation in 1870, of the triumphs of the skill of
+modern builders, and their bravery and resolution in saving the fall
+of that great tower. The greatest credit is due to all concerned in
+that hazardous and most difficult task. It had very nearly gone. The
+story of Peterborough, and of several others, shows that many of these
+vast fanes which have borne the storms and frosts of centuries are by
+no means too secure, and that the skill of wise architects and the
+wealth of the Englishmen of to-day are sorely needed to prevent them
+from vanishing. If they fell, new and modern work would scarcely
+compensate us for their loss.
+
+We will take Wells as a model of a cathedral city which entirely owes
+its origin to the noble church and palace built there in early times.
+The city is one of the most picturesque in England, situated in the
+most delightful country, and possessing the most perfect
+ecclesiastical buildings which can be conceived. Jocelyn de Wells, who
+lived at the beginning of the thirteenth century (1206-39), has for
+many years had the credit of building the main part of this beautiful
+house of God. It is hard to have one's beliefs and early traditions
+upset, but modern authorities, with much reason, tell us that we are
+all wrong, and that another Jocelyn--one Reginald Fitz-Jocelyn
+(1171-91)--was the main builder of Wells Cathedral. Old documents
+recently discovered decide the question, and, moreover, the style of
+architecture is certainly earlier than the fully developed Early
+English of Jocelyn de Wells. The latter, and also Bishop Savaricus
+(1192-1205), carried out the work, but the whole design and a
+considerable part of the building are due to Bishop Reginald
+Fitz-Jocelyn. His successors, until the middle of the fifteenth
+century, went on perfecting the wondrous shrine, and in the time of
+Bishop Beckington Wells was in its full glory. The church, the
+outbuildings, the episcopal palace, the deanery, all combined to form
+a wonderful architectural triumph, a group of buildings which
+represented the highest achievement of English Gothic art.
+
+Since then many things have happened. The cathedral, like all other
+ecclesiastical buildings, has passed through three great periods of
+iconoclastic violence. It was shorn of some of its glory at the
+Reformation, when it was plundered of the treasures which the piety of
+many generations had heaped together. Then the beautiful Lady Chapel
+in the cloisters was pulled down, and the infamous Duke of Somerset
+robbed it of its wealth and meditated further sacrilege. Amongst these
+desecrators and despoilers there was a mighty hunger for lead. "I
+would that they had found it scalding," exclaimed an old chaplain of
+Wells; and to get hold of the lead that covered the roofs--a valuable
+commodity--Somerset and his kind did much mischief to many of our
+cathedrals and churches. An infamous bishop of York, at this period,
+stripped his fine palace that stood on the north of York Minster, "for
+the sake of the lead that covered it," and shipped it off to London,
+where it was sold for L1000; but of this sum he was cheated by a noble
+duke, and therefore gained nothing by his infamy. During the Civil War
+it escaped fairly well, but some damage was done, the palace was
+despoiled; and at the Restoration of the Monarchy much repair was
+needed. Monmouth's rebels wrought havoc. They came to Wells in no
+amiable mood, defaced the statues on the west front, did much wanton
+mischief, and would have caroused about the altar had not Lord Grey
+stood before it with his sword drawn, and thus preserved it from the
+insults of the ruffians. Then came the evils of "restoration." A
+terrible renewing was begun in 1848, when the old stalls were
+destroyed and much damage done. Twenty years later better things were
+accomplished, save that the grandeur of the west front was belittled
+by a pipey restoration, when Irish limestone, with its harsh hue, was
+used to embellish it.
+
+A curiosity at Wells are the quarter jacks over the clock on the
+exterior north wall of the cathedral. Local tradition has it that the
+clock with its accompanying figures was part of the spoil removed from
+Glastonbury Abbey. The ecclesiastical authorities at Wells assert in
+contradiction to this that the clock was the work of one Peter
+Lightfoot, and was placed in the cathedral in the latter part of the
+fourteenth century. A minute is said to exist in the archives of
+repairs to the clock and figures in 1418. It is Mr. Roe's opinion that
+the defensive armour on the quarter jacks dates from the first half of
+the fifteenth century, the plain oviform breastplates and basinets, as
+well as the continuation of the tassets round the hips, being very
+characteristic features of this period. The halberds in the hands of
+the figures are evidently restorations of a later time. It may be
+mentioned that in 1907, when the quarter jacks were painted, it was
+discovered that though the figures themselves were carved out of solid
+blocks of oak hard as iron, the arms were of elm bolted and braced
+thereon. Though such instances of combined materials are common enough
+among antiquities of medieval times, it may yet be surmised that the
+jar caused by incessant striking may in time have necessitated repairs
+to the upper limbs. The arms are immovable, as the figures turn on
+pivots to strike.
+
+[Illustration: Quarter Jacks over the Clock on exterior of North Wall
+of Wells Cathedral.]
+
+An illustration is given of the palace at Wells, which is one of the
+finest examples of thirteenth-century houses existing in England. It
+was begun by Jocelyn. The great hall, now in ruins, was built by
+Bishop Burnell at the end of the thirteenth century, and was destroyed
+by Bishop Barlow in 1552. The chapel is Decorated. The gatehouse, with
+its drawbridge, moat, and fortifications, was constructed by Bishop
+Ralph, of Shrewsbury, who ruled from 1329 to 1363. The deanery was
+built by Dean Gunthorpe in 1475, who was chaplain to Edward IV. On the
+north is the beautiful vicar's close, which has forty-two houses,
+constructed mainly by Bishop Beckington (1443-64), with a common hall
+erected by Bishop Ralph in 1340 and a chapel by Budwith (1407-64), but
+altered a century later. You can see the old fireplace, the pulpit
+from which one of the brethren read aloud during meals, and an ancient
+painting representing Bishop Ralph making his grant to the kneeling
+figures, and some additional figures painted in the time of Queen
+Elizabeth.
+
+[Illustration: The Gate House, Bishop's Palace, Wells]
+
+When we study the cathedrals of England and try to trace the causes
+which led to the destruction of so much that was beautiful, so much of
+English art that has vanished, we find that there were three great
+eras of iconoclasm. First there were the changes wrought at the time
+of the Reformation, when a rapacious king and his greedy ministers set
+themselves to wring from the treasures of the Church as much gain and
+spoil as they were able. These men were guilty of the most daring acts
+of shameless sacrilege, the grossest robbery. With them nothing was
+sacred. Buildings consecrated to God, holy vessels used in His
+service, all the works of sacred art, the offerings of countless pious
+benefactors were deemed as mere profane things to be seized and
+polluted by their sacrilegious hands. The land was full of the most
+beautiful gems of architectural art, the monastic churches. We can
+tell something of their glories from those which were happily spared
+and converted into cathderals or parish churches. Ely, Peterborough
+the pride of the Fenlands, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, Westminster,
+St. Albans, Beverley, and some others proclaim the grandeur of
+hundreds of other magnificent structures which have been shorn of
+their leaden roofs, used as quarries for building-stone, entirely
+removed and obliterated, or left as pitiable ruins which still look
+beautiful in their decay. Reading, Tintern, Glastonbury, Fountains,
+and a host of others all tell the same story of pitiless iconoclasm.
+And what became of the contents of these churches? The contents
+usually went with the fabric to the spoliators. The halls of
+country-houses were hung with altar-cloths; tables and beds were
+quilted with copes; knights and squires drank their claret out of
+chalices and watered their horses in marble coffins. From the accounts
+of the royal jewels it is evident that a great deal of Church plate
+was delivered to the king for his own use, besides which the sum of
+L30,360 derived from plate obtained by the spoilers was given to the
+proper hand of the king.
+
+The iconoclasts vented their rage in the destruction of stained glass
+and beautiful illuminated manuscripts, priceless tomes and costly
+treasures of exceeding rarity. Parish churches were plundered
+everywhere. Robbery was in the air, and clergy and churchwardens sold
+sacred vessels and appropriated the money for parochial purposes
+rather than they should be seized by the king. Commissioners were sent
+to visit all the cathedral and parish churches and seize the
+superfluous ornaments for the king's use. Tithes, lands, farms,
+buildings belonging to the church all went the same way, until the
+hand of the iconoclast was stayed, as there was little left to steal
+or to be destroyed. The next era of iconoclastic zeal was that of the
+Civil War and the Cromwellian period. At Rochester the soldiers
+profaned the cathedral by using it as a stable and a tippling place,
+while saw-pits were made in the sacred building and carpenters plied
+their trade. At Chichester the pikes of the Puritans and their wild
+savagery reduced the interior to a ruinous desolation. The usual
+scenes of mad iconoclasm were enacted--stained glass windows broken,
+altars thrown down, lead stripped from the roof, brasses and effigies
+defaced and broken. A creature named "Blue Dick" was the wild leader
+of this savage crew of spoliators who left little but the bare walls
+and a mass of broken fragments strewing the pavement. We need not
+record similar scenes which took place almost everywhere.
+
+[Illustration: House in which Bishop Hooper was imprisoned, Westgate
+Street, Gloucester]
+
+The last and grievous rule of iconoclasm set in with the restorers,
+who worked their will upon the fabric of our cathedrals and churches
+and did so much to obliterate all the fragments of good architectural
+work which the Cromwellian soldiers and the spoliators at the time of
+the Reformation had left. The memory of Wyatt and his imitators is not
+revered when we see the results of their work on our ecclesiastical
+fabrics, and we need not wonder that so much of English art has
+vanished.
+
+The cathedral of Bristol suffered from other causes. The darkest spot
+in the history of the city is the story of the Reform riots of 1831,
+sometimes called "the Bristol Revolution," when the dregs of the
+population pillaged and plundered, burnt the bishop's palace, and were
+guilty of the most atrocious vandalism.
+
+[Illustration: The "Stone House," Rye, Sussex]
+
+The city of Bath, once the rival of Wells--the contention between the
+monks of St. Peter and the canons of St. Andrews at Wells being hot
+and fierce--has many attractions. Its minster, rebuilt by Bishop
+Oliver King of Wells (1495-1503), and restored in the seventeenth
+century, and also in modern times, is not a very interesting building,
+though it lacks not some striking features, and certainly contains
+some fine tombs and monuments of the fashionable folk who flocked to
+Bath in the days of its splendour. The city itself abounds in
+interest. It is a gem of Georgian art, with a complete homogeneous
+architectural character of its own which makes it singular and unique.
+It is full of memories of the great folks who thronged its streets,
+attended the Bath and Pump Room, and listened to sermons in the
+Octagon. It tells of the autocracy of Beau Nash, of Goldsmith,
+Sheridan, David Garrick, of the "First Gentleman of Europe," and many
+others who made Bath famous. And now it is likely that this unique
+little city with its memories and its charming architectural features
+is to be mutilated for purely commercial reasons. Every one knows Bath
+Street with its colonnaded loggias on each side terminated with a
+crescent at each end, and leading to the Cross Bath in the centre of
+the eastern crescent. That the original founders of Bath Street
+regarded it as an important architectural feature of the city is
+evident from the inscription in abbreviated Latin which was engraved
+on the first stone of the street when laid:--
+
+              PRO
+        VRBIS DIG: ET AMP:
+        HAEC PON: CVRAV:
+              SC:
+            DELEGATI
+         A: D: MDCCXCI.
+       I: HORTON, PRAET:
+     T: BALDWIN, ARCHITECTO.
+
+which may be read to the effect that "for the dignity and enlargement
+(of the city) the delegates I. Horton, Mayor, and T. Baldwin,
+architect, laid this (stone) A.D. 1791."
+
+It is actually proposed by the new proprietors of the Grand Pump Hotel
+to entirely destroy the beauty of this street by removing the
+colonnaded loggia on one side of this street and constructing a new
+side to the hotel two or three storeys higher, and thus to change the
+whole character of the street and practically destroy it. It is a sad
+pity, and we should have hoped that the city Council would have
+resisted very strongly the proposal that the proprietors of the hotel
+have made to their body. But we hear that the Council is lukewarm in
+its opposition to the scheme, and has indeed officially approved it.
+It is astonishing what city and borough councils will do, and this
+Bath Council has "the discredit of having, for purely commercial
+reasons, made the first move towards the destruction architecturally
+of the peculiar charm of their unique and beautiful city."[42]
+
+  [42] _The Builder_, March 6, 1909.
+
+Evesham is entirely a monastic town. It sprang up under the sheltering
+walls of the famous abbey--
+
+        A pretty burgh and such as Fancy loves
+        For bygone grandeurs.
+
+This abbey shared the fate of many others which we have mentioned. The
+Dean of Gloucester thus muses over the "Vanished Abbey":--
+
+  "The stranger who knows nothing of its story would surely smile if
+  he were told that beneath the grass and daisies round him were
+  hidden the vast foundation storeys of one of the mightiest of our
+  proud mediaeval abbeys; that on the spot where he was standing were
+  once grouped a forest of tall columns bearing up lofty fretted
+  roofs; that all around once were altars all agleam with colour and
+  with gold; that besides the many altars were once grouped in that
+  sacred spot chauntries and tombs, many of them marvels of grace
+  and beauty, placed there in the memory of men great in the service
+  of Church and State--of men whose names were household words in
+  the England of our fathers; that close to him were once stately
+  cloisters, great monastic buildings, including refectories,
+  dormitories, chapter-house, chapels, infirmary, granaries,
+  kitchens--all the varied piles of buildings which used to make up
+  the hive of a great monastery."
+
+It was commenced by Bishop Egwin, of Worcester, in 702 A.D., but the
+era of its great prosperity set in after the battle of Evesham when
+Simon de Montford was slain, and his body buried in the monastic
+church. There was his shrine to which was great pilgrimage, crowds
+flocking to lay their offerings there; and riches poured into the
+treasury of the monks, who made great additions to their house, and
+reared noble buildings. Little is left of its former grandeur. You can
+discover part of the piers of the great central tower, the cloister
+arch of Decorated work of great beauty erected in 1317, and the abbey
+fishponds. The bell tower is one of the glories of Evesham. It was
+built by the last abbot, Abbot Lichfield, and was not quite completed
+before the destruction of the great abbey church adjacent to it. It is
+a grand specimen of Perpendicular architecture.
+
+[Illustration: Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham]
+
+At the corner of the Market Place there is a picturesque old house
+with gable and carved barge-boards and timber-framed arch, and we see
+the old Norman gateway named Abbot Reginald's Gateway, after the name
+of its builder, who also erected part of the wall enclosing the
+monastic buildings. A timber-framed structure now stretches across the
+arcade, but a recent restoration has exposed the Norman columns which
+support the arch. The Church House, always an interesting building in
+old towns and villages, wherein church ales and semi-ecclesiastical
+functions took place, has been restored. Passing under the arch we see
+the two churches in one churchyard--All Saints and St. Laurence. The
+former has some Norman work at the inner door of the porch, but its
+main construction is Decorated and Perpendicular. Its most
+interesting feature is the Lichfield Chapel, erected by the last
+abbot, whose initials and the arms of the abbey appear on escutcheons
+on the roof. The fan-tracery roof is especially noticeable, and the
+good modern glass. The church of St. Laurence is entirely
+Perpendicular, and the chantry of Abbot Lichneld, with its fan-tracery
+vaulting, is a gem of English architecture.
+
+[Illustration: Fifteenth-century House, Market Place, Evesham]
+
+[Illustration: Fifteenth-century House in Cowl Street, Evesham]
+
+Amongst the remains of the abbey buildings may be seen the Almonry,
+the residence of the almoner, formerly used as a gaol. An interesting
+stone lantern of fifteenth-century work is preserved here. Another
+abbey gateway is near at hand, but little evidence remains of its
+former Gothic work. Part of the old wall built by Abbot William de
+Chyryton early in the fourteenth century remains. In the town there is
+a much-modernized town hall, and near it the old-fashioned Booth Hall,
+a half-timbered building, now used as shops and cottages, where
+formerly courts were held, including the court of pie-powder, the
+usual accompaniment of every fair. Bridge Street is one of the most
+attractive streets in the borough, with its quaint old house, and the
+famous inn, "The Crown." The old house in Cowl Street was formerly the
+White Hart Inn, which tells a curious Elizabethan story about "the
+Fool and the Ice," an incident supposed to be referred to by
+Shakespeare in _Troilus and Cressida_ (Act iii. sc. 3): "The fool
+slides o'er the ice that you should break." The Queen Anne house in
+the High Street, with its wrought-iron railings and brackets, called
+Dresden House and Almswood, one of the oldest dwelling-houses in the
+town, are worthy of notice by the students of domestic architecture.
+
+[Illustration: Half-timber House, Alcester, Warwick]
+
+[Illustration: Half-timber House at Alcester]
+
+There is much in the neighbourhood of Evesham which is worthy of note,
+many old-fashioned villages and country towns, manor-houses, churches,
+and inns which are refreshing to the eyes of those who have seen so
+much destruction, so much of the England that is vanishing. The old
+abbey tithe-barn at Littleton of the fourteenth century, Wickhamford
+Manor, the home of Penelope Washington, whose tomb is in the adjoining
+church, the picturesque village of Cropthorne, Winchcombe and its
+houses, Sudeley Castle, the timbered houses at Norton and Harvington,
+Broadway and Campden, abounding with beautiful houses, and the old
+town of Alcester, of which some views are given--all these contain
+many objects of antiquarian and artistic interest, and can easily be
+reached from Evesham. In that old town we have seen much to interest,
+and the historian will delight to fight over again the battle of
+Evesham and study the records of the siege of the town in the Civil
+War.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OLD INNS
+
+
+The trend of popular legislation is in the direction of the
+diminishing of the number of licensed premises and the destruction of
+inns. Very soon, we may suppose, the "Black Boy" and the "Red Lion"
+and hosts of other old signs will have vanished, and there will be a
+very large number of famous inns which have "retired from business."
+Already their number is considerable. In many towns through which in
+olden days the stage-coaches passed inns were almost as plentiful as
+blackberries; they were needed then for the numerous passengers who
+journeyed along the great roads in the coaches; they are not needed
+now when people rush past the places in express trains. Hence the
+order has gone forth that these superfluous houses shall cease to be
+licensed premises and must submit to the removal of their signs.
+Others have been so remodelled in order to provide modern comforts and
+conveniences that scarce a trace of their old-fashioned appearance can
+be found. Modern temperance legislators imagine that if they can only
+reduce the number of inns they will reduce drunkenness and make the
+English people a sober nation. This is not the place to discuss
+whether the destruction of inns tends to promote temperance. We may,
+perhaps, be permitted to doubt the truth of the legend, oft repeated
+on temperance platforms, of the working man, returning homewards from
+his toil, struggling past nineteen inns and succumbing to the syren
+charms of the twentieth. We may fear lest the gathering together of
+large numbers of men in a few public-houses may not increase rather
+than diminish their thirst and the love of good fellowship which in
+some mysterious way is stimulated by the imbibing of many pots of
+beer. We may, perhaps, feel some misgiving with regard to the
+temperate habits of the people, if instead of well-conducted hostels,
+duly inspected by the police, the landlords of which are liable to
+prosecution for improper conduct, we see arising a host of ungoverned
+clubs, wherein no control is exercised over the manners of the members
+and adequate supervision impossible. We cannot refuse to listen to the
+opinion of certain royal commissioners who, after much sifting of
+evidence, came to the conclusion that as far as the suppression of
+public-houses had gone, their diminution had not lessened the
+convictions for drunkenness.
+
+But all this is beside our subject. We have only to record another
+feature of vanishing England, the gradual disappearance of many of its
+ancient and historic inns, and to describe some of the fortunate
+survivors. Many of them are very old, and cannot long contend against
+the fiery eloquence of the young temperance orator, the newly fledged
+justice of the peace, or the budding member of Parliament who tries to
+win votes by pulling things down.
+
+We have, however, still some of these old hostelries left; medieval
+pilgrim inns redolent of the memories of the not very pious companies
+of men and women who wended their way to visit the shrines of St.
+Thomas of Canterbury or Our Lady at Walsingham; historic inns wherein
+some of the great events in the annals of England have occurred; inns
+associated with old romances or frequented by notorious highwaymen, or
+that recall the adventures of Mr. Pickwick and other heroes and
+villains of Dickensian tales. It is well that we should try to depict
+some of these before they altogether vanish.
+
+There was nothing vulgar or disgraceful about an inn a century ago.
+From Elizabethan times to the early part of the nineteenth century
+they were frequented by most of the leading spirits of each
+generation. Archbishop Leighton, who died in 1684, often used to say
+to Bishop Burnet that "if he were to choose a place to die in it
+should be an inn; it looked like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this
+world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion
+of it." His desire was fulfilled. He died at the old Bell Inn in
+Warwick Lane, London, an old galleried hostel which was not demolished
+until 1865. Dr. Johnson, when delighting in the comfort of the
+Shakespeare's Head Inn, between Worcester and Lichfield, exclaimed:
+"No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by
+which so much happiness is provided as by a good tavern or inn." This
+oft-quoted saying the learned Doctor uttered at the Chapel House Inn,
+near King's Norton; its glory has departed; it is now a simple
+country-house by the roadside. Shakespeare, who doubtless had many
+opportunities of testing the comforts of the famous inns at Southwark,
+makes Falstaff say: "Shall I not take mine ease at mine inn?"; and
+Shenstone wrote the well-known rhymes on a window of the old Red Lion
+at Henley-on-Thames:--
+
+        Whoe'er has travelled life's dull road,
+          Where'er his stages may have been,
+        May sigh to think he still has found
+          The warmest welcome at an inn.
+
+Fynes Morrison tells of the comforts of English inns even as early as
+the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1617 he wrote:--
+
+  "The world affords not such inns as England hath, for as soon as a
+  passenger comes the servants run to him; one takes his horse and
+  walks him till he be cold, then rubs him and gives him meat; but
+  let the master look to this point. Another gives the traveller his
+  private chamber and kindles his fire, the third pulls off his
+  boots and makes them clean; then the host or hostess visits
+  him--if he will eat with the host--or at a common table it will be
+  4d. and 6d. If a gentleman has his own chamber, his ways are
+  consulted, and he has music, too, if he likes."
+
+[Illustration: The Wheelwrights' Arms, Warwick]
+
+The literature of England abounds in references to these ancient inns.
+If Dr. Johnson, Addison, and Goldsmith were alive now, we should find
+them chatting together at the Authors' Club, or the Savage, or the
+Athenaeum. There were no literary clubs in their days, and the public
+parlours of the Cock Tavern or the "Cheshire Cheese" were their clubs,
+wherein they were quite as happy, if not quite so luxuriously housed,
+as if they had been members of a modern social institution. Who has
+not sung in praise of inns? Longfellow, in his _Hyperion_, makes
+Flemming say: "He who has not been at a tavern knows not what a
+paradise it is. O holy tavern! O miraculous tavern! Holy, because no
+carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain; and miraculous,
+because of the spits which of themselves turned round and round." They
+appealed strongly to Washington Irving, who, when recording his visit
+to the shrine of Shakespeare, says: "To a homeless man, who has no
+spot on this wide world which he can truly call his own, there is a
+momentary feeling of something like independence and territorial
+consequence, when after a weary day's travel he kicks off his boots,
+thrusts his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn
+fire. Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall,
+so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time
+being, the very monarch of all he surveys.... 'Shall I not take mine
+ease in mine inn?' thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back
+in my elbow chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlour
+of the Red Horse at Stratford-on-Avon."
+
+[Illustration: Entrance to the Reindeer Inn, Banbury]
+
+And again, on Christmas Eve Irving tells of his joyous long day's ride
+in a coach, and how he at length arrived at a village where he had
+determined to stay the night. As he drove into the great gateway of
+the inn (some of them were mighty narrow and required much skill on
+the part of the Jehu) he saw on one side the light of a rousing
+kitchen fire beaming through a window. He "entered and admired, for
+the hundredth time, that picture of convenience, neatness, and broad
+honest enjoyment--the kitchen of an English inn." It was of spacious
+dimensions, hung round with copper and tin vessels highly polished,
+and decorated here and there with Christmas green. Hams, tongues, and
+flitches of bacon were suspended from the ceiling; a smoke-jack made
+its ceaseless clanking beside the fire-place, and a clock ticked in
+one corner. A well-scoured deal table extended along one side of the
+kitchen, with a cold round of beef and other hearty viands upon it,
+over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting guard.
+Travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout
+repast, while others sat smoking and gossiping over their ale on two
+high-backed oaken settles beside the fire. Trim housemaids were
+hurrying backwards and forwards under the directions of a fresh
+bustling landlady; but still seizing an occasional moment to exchange
+a flippant word, and have a rallying laugh with the group round the
+fire.
+
+Such is the cheering picture of an old-fashioned inn in days of yore.
+No wonder that the writers should have thus lauded these inns! Imagine
+yourself on the box-seat of an old coach travelling somewhat slowly
+through the night. It is cold and wet, and your fingers are frozen,
+and the rain drives pitilessly in your face; and then, when you are
+nearly dead with misery, the coach stops at a well-known inn. A
+smiling host and buxom hostess greets you; blazing fires thaw you back
+to life, and good cheer awaits your appetite. No wonder people loved
+an inn and wished to take their ease therein after the dangers and
+hardships of the day. Lord Beaconsfield, in his novel _Tancred_,
+vividly describes the busy scene at a country hostelry in the busy
+coaching days. The host, who is always "smiling," conveys the pleasing
+intelligence to the passengers: "'The coach stops here half an hour,
+gentlemen: dinner quite ready.' 'Tis a delightful sound. And what a
+dinner! What a profusion of substantial delicacies! What mighty and
+iris-tinted rounds of beef! What vast and marble-veined ribs! What
+gelatinous veal pies! What colossal hams! These are evidently prize
+cheeses! And how invigorating is the perfume of those various and
+variegated pickles. Then the bustle emulating the plenty; the ringing
+of bells, the clash of thoroughfare, the summoning of ubiquitous
+waiters, and the all-pervading feeling of omnipotence from the guests,
+who order what they please to the landlord, who can produce and
+execute everything they can desire. 'Tis a wondrous sight!"
+
+[Illustration: The Shoulder of Mutton Inn, King's Lynn]
+
+And then how picturesque these old inns are, with their swinging
+signs, the pump and horse-trough before the door, a towering elm or
+poplar overshadowing the inn, and round it and on each side of the
+entrance are seats, with rustics sitting on them. The old house has
+picturesque gables and a tiled roof mellowed by age, with moss and
+lichen growing on it, and the windows are latticed. A porch protects
+the door, and over it and up the walls are growing old-fashioned
+climbing rose trees. Morland loved to paint the exteriors of inns
+quite as much as he did to frequent their interiors, and has left us
+many a wondrous drawing of their beauties. The interior is no less
+picturesque, with its open ingle-nook, its high-backed settles, its
+brick floor, its pots and pans, its pewter and brass utensils. Our
+artist has drawn for us many beautiful examples of old inns, which we
+shall visit presently and try to learn something of their old-world
+charm. He has only just been in time to sketch them, as they are fast
+disappearing. It is astonishing how many noted inns in London and the
+suburbs have vanished during the last twenty or thirty years.
+
+Let us glance at a few of the great Southwark inns. The old "Tabard,"
+from which Chaucer's pilgrims started on their memorable journey, was
+destroyed by a great fire in 1676, rebuilt in the old fashion, and
+continued until 1875, when it had to make way for a modern "old
+Tabard" and some hop merchant's offices. This and many other inns had
+galleries running round the yard, or at one end of it, and this yard
+was a busy place, frequented not only by travellers in coach or
+saddle, but by poor players and mountebanks, who set up their stage
+for the entertainment of spectators who hung over the galleries or
+from their rooms watched the performance. The model of an inn-yard was
+the first germ of theatrical architecture. The "White Hart" in
+Southwark retained its galleries on the north and east side of its
+yard until 1889, though a modern tavern replaced the south and main
+portion of the building in 1865-6. This was a noted inn, bearing as
+its sign a badge of Richard II, derived from his mother Joan of Kent.
+Jack Cade stayed there while he was trying to capture London, and
+another "immortal" flits across the stage, Master Sam Weller, of
+_Pickwick_ fame. A galleried inn still remains at Southwark, a great
+coaching and carriers' hostel, the "George." It is but a fragment of
+its former greatness, and the present building was erected soon after
+the fire in 1676, and still retains its picturesqueness.
+
+The glory has passed from most of these London inns. Formerly their
+yards resounded with the strains of the merry post-horn, and carriers'
+carts were as plentiful as omnibuses now are. In the fine yard of the
+"Saracen's Head," Aldgate, you can picture the busy scene, though the
+building has ceased to be an inn, and if you wished to travel to
+Norwich there you would have found your coach ready for you. The old
+"Bell Savage," which derives its name from one Savage who kept the
+"Bell on the Hoop," and not from any beautiful girl "La Belle
+Sauvage," was a great coaching centre, and so were the "Swan with two
+Necks," Lad Lane, the "Spread Eagle" and "Cross Keys" in Gracechurch
+Street, the "White Horse," Fetter Lane, and the "Angel," behind St.
+Clements. As we do not propose to linger long in London, and prefer
+the country towns and villages where relics of old English life
+survive, we will hie to one of these noted hostelries, book our seats
+on a Phantom coach, and haste away from the great city which has dealt
+so mercilessly with its ancient buildings. It is the last few years
+which have wrought the mischief. Many of these old inns lingered on
+till the 'eighties. Since then their destruction has been rapid, and
+the huge caravanserais, the "Cecil," the "Ritz," the "Savoy," and the
+"Metropole," have supplanted the old Saracen's Heads, the Bulls, the
+Bells, and the Boars that satisfied the needs of our forefathers in a
+less luxurious age.
+
+Let us travel first along the old York road, or rather select our
+route, going by way of Ware, Tottenham, Edmonton, and Waltham Cross,
+Hatfield and Stevenage, or through Barnet, until we arrive at the
+Wheat Sheaf Inn on Alconbury Hill, past Little Stukeley, where the two
+roads conjoin and "the milestones are numbered agreeably to that
+admeasurement," viz. to that from Hicks' Hall through Barnet, as
+_Patterson's Roads_ plainly informs us. Along this road you will find
+several of the best specimens of old coaching inns in England. The
+famous "George" at Huntingdon, the picturesque "Fox and Hounds" at
+Ware, the grand old inns at Stilton and Grantham are some of the best
+inns on English roads, and pleadingly invite a pleasant pilgrimage. We
+might follow in the wake of Dick Turpin, if his ride to York were not
+a myth. The real incident on which the story was founded occurred
+about the year 1676, long before Turpin was born. One Nicks robbed a
+gentleman on Gadshill at four o'clock in the morning, crossed the
+river with his _bay_ mare as soon as he could get a ferry-boat at
+Gravesend, and then by Braintree, Huntingdon, and other places reached
+York that evening, went to the Bowling Green, pointedly asked the
+mayor the time, proved an alibi, and got off. This account was
+published as a broadside about the time of Turpin's execution, but it
+makes no allusion to him whatever. It required the romance of the
+nineteenth century to change Nicks to Turpin and the bay mare to Black
+Bess. But _revenir a nos moutons_, or rather our inns. The old "Fox
+and Hounds" at Ware is beautiful with its swinging sign suspended by
+graceful and elaborate ironwork and its dormer windows. The "George"
+at Huntingdon preserves its gallery in the inn-yard, its projecting
+upper storey, its outdoor settle, and much else that is attractive.
+Another "George" greets us at Stamford, an ancient hostelry, where
+Charles I stayed during the Civil War when he was journeying from
+Newark to Huntingdon.
+
+And then we come to Grantham, famous for its old inns. Foremost among
+them is the "Angel," which dates back to medieval times. It has a fine
+stone front with two projecting bays, an archway with welcoming doors
+on either hand, and above the arch is a beautiful little oriel window,
+and carved heads and gargoyles jut out from the stonework. I think
+that this charming front was remodelled in Tudor times, and judging
+from the interior plaster-work I am of opinion that the bays were
+added in the time of Henry VII, the Tudor rose forming part of the
+decoration. The arch and gateway with the oriel are the oldest parts
+of the front, and on each side of the arch is a sculptured head, one
+representing Edward III and the other his queen, Philippa of Hainault.
+The house belonged in ancient times to the Knights Templars, where
+royal and other distinguished travellers were entertained. King John
+is said to have held his court here in 1213, and the old inn witnessed
+the passage of the body of Eleanor, the beloved queen of Edward I, as
+it was borne to its last resting-place at Westminster. One of the
+seven Eleanor crosses stood at Grantham on St. Peter's Hill, but it
+shared the fate of many other crosses and was destroyed by the
+troopers of Cromwell during the Civil War. The first floor of the
+"Angel" was occupied by one long room, wherein royal courts were held.
+It is now divided into three separate rooms. In this room Richard III
+condemned to execution the Duke of Buckingham, and probably here
+stayed Cromwell in the early days of his military career and wrote his
+letter concerning the first action that made him famous. We can
+imagine the silent troopers assembling in the market-place late in the
+evening, and then marching out twelve companies strong to wage an
+unequal contest against a large body of Royalists. The Grantham folk
+had much to say when the troopers rode back with forty-five prisoners
+besides divers horses and arms and colours. The "Angel" must have seen
+all this and sighed for peace. Grim troopers paced its corridors, and
+its stables were full of tired horses. One owner of the inn at the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, though he kept a hostel, liked
+not intemperance. His name was Michael Solomon, and he left an annual
+charge of 40s. to be paid to the vicar of the parish for preaching a
+sermon in the parish church against the sin of drunkenness. The
+interior of this ancient hostelry has been modernized and fitted with
+the comforts which we modern folk are accustomed to expect.
+
+Across the way is the "Angel's" rival the "George," possibly identical
+with the hospitium called "Le George" presented with other property by
+Edward IV to his mother, the Duchess of York. It lacks the appearance
+of age which clothes the "Angel" with dignity, and was rebuilt with
+red brick in the Georgian era. The coaches often called there, and
+Charles Dickens stayed the night and describes it as one of the best
+inns in England. He tells of Squeers conducting his new pupils through
+Grantham to Dotheboys Hall, and how after leaving the inn the luckless
+travellers "wrapped themselves more closely in their coats and cloaks
+... and prepared with many half-suppressed moans again to encounter
+the piercing blasts which swept across the open country." At the
+"Saracen's Head" in Westgate Isaac Newton used to stay, and there are
+many other inns, the majority of which rejoice in signs that are blue.
+We see a Blue Horse, a Blue Dog, a Blue Ram, Blue Lion, Blue Cow, Blue
+Sheep, and many other cerulean animals and objects, which proclaim the
+political colour of the great landowner. Grantham boasts of a unique
+inn-sign. Originally known as the "Bee-hive," a little public-house in
+Castlegate has earned the designation of the "Living Sign," on account
+of the hive of bees fixed in a tree that guards its portals. Upon the
+swinging sign the following lines are inscribed:--
+
+        Stop, traveller, this wondrous sign explore,
+        And say when thou hast viewed it o'er and o'er,
+        Grantham, now two rarities are thine--
+        A lofty steeple and a "Living Sign."
+
+The connexion of the "George" with Charles Dickens reminds one of the
+numerous inns immortalized by the great novelist both in and out of
+London. The "Golden Cross" at Charing Cross, the "Bull" at Rochester,
+the "Belle Sauvage" (now demolished) near Ludgate Hill, the "Angel" at
+Bury St. Edmunds, the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich, the "King's
+Head" at Chigwell (the original of the "Maypole" in _Barnaby Rudge_),
+the "Leather Bottle" at Cobham are only a few of those which he by his
+writings made famous.
+
+[Illustration: A Quaint Gable. The Bell Inn, Stilton]
+
+Leaving Grantham and its inns, we push along the great North Road to
+Stilton, famous for its cheese, where a choice of inns awaits us--the
+"Bell" and the "Angel," that glare at each other across the broad
+thoroughfare. In the palmy days of coaching the "Angel" had stabling
+for three hundred horses, and it was kept by Mistress Worthington, at
+whose door the famous cheeses were sold and hence called Stilton,
+though they were made in distant farmsteads and villages. It is quite
+a modern-looking inn as compared with the "Bell." You can see a date
+inscribed on one of the gables, 1649, but this can only mean that the
+inn was restored then, as the style of architecture of "this dream in
+stone" shows that it must date back to early Tudor times. It has a
+noble swinging sign supported by beautifully designed ornamental
+ironwork, gables, bay-windows, a Tudor archway, tiled roof, and a
+picturesque courtyard, the silence and dilapidation of which are
+strangely contrasted with the continuous bustle, life, and animation
+which must have existed there before the era of railways.
+
+Not far away is Southwell, where there is the historic inn the
+"Saracen's Head." Here Charles I stayed, and you can see the very room
+where he lodged on the left of the entrance-gate. Here it was on May
+5th, 1646, that he gave himself up to the Scotch Commissioners, who
+wrote to the Parliament from Southwell "that it made them feel like
+men in a dream." The "Martyr-King" entered this inn as a sovereign; he
+left it a prisoner under the guard of his Lothian escort. Here he
+slept his last night of liberty, and as he passed under the archway of
+the "Saracen's Head" he started on that fatal journey that terminated
+on the scaffold at Whitehall. You can see on the front of the inn over
+the gateway a stone lozenge with the royal arms engraved on it with
+the date 1693, commemorating this royal melancholy visit. In later
+times Lord Byron was a frequent visitor.
+
+On the high, wind-swept road between Ashbourne and Buxton there is an
+inn which can defy the attacks of the reformers. It is called the
+Newhaven Inn and was built by a Duke of Devonshire for the
+accommodation of visitors to Buxton. King George IV was so pleased
+with it that he gave the Duke a perpetual licence, with which no
+Brewster Sessions can interfere. Near Buxton is the second highest inn
+in England, the "Cat and Fiddle," and "The Traveller's Rest" at Flash
+Bar, on the Leek road, ranks as third, the highest being the Tan Hill
+Inn, near Brough, on the Yorkshire moors.
+
+[Illustration: The Bell Inn, Stilton]
+
+Norwich is a city remarkable for its old buildings and famous inns. A
+very ancient inn is the "Maid's Head" at Norwich, a famous hostelry
+which can vie in interest with any in the kingdom. Do we not see there
+the identical room in which good Queen Bess is said to have reposed on
+the occasion of her visit to the city in 1578? You cannot imagine a
+more delightful old chamber, with its massive beams, its wide
+fifteenth-century fire-place, and its quaint lattice, through which
+the moonbeams play upon antique furniture and strange, fantastic
+carvings. This oak-panelled room recalls memories of the Orfords,
+Walpoles, Howards, Wodehouses, and other distinguished guests whose
+names live in England's annals. The old inn was once known as the
+Murtel or Molde Fish, and some have tried to connect the change of
+name with the visit of Queen Elizabeth; unfortunately for the
+conjecture, the inn was known as the Maid's Head long before the days
+of Queen Bess. It was built on the site of an old bishop's palace, and
+in the cellars may be seen some traces of Norman masonry. One of the
+most fruitful sources of information about social life in the
+fifteenth century are the _Paston Letters_. In one written by John
+Paston in 1472 to "Mestresse Margret Paston," he tells her of the
+arrival of a visitor, and continues: "I praye yow make hym goode cheer
+... it were best to sette hys horse at the Maydes Hedde, and I shall
+be content for ther expenses." During the Civil War this inn was the
+rendezvous of the Royalists, but alas! one day Cromwell's soldiers
+made an attack on the "Maid's Head," and took for their prize the
+horses of Dame Paston stabled here.
+
+We must pass over the records of civic feasts and aldermanic
+junketings, which would fill a volume, and seek out the old "Briton's
+Arms," in the same city, a thatched building of venerable appearance
+with its projecting upper storeys and lofty gable. It looks as if it
+may not long survive the march of progress.
+
+The parish of Heigham, now part of the city of Norwich, is noted as
+having been the residence of Bishop Hall, "the English Seneca," and
+author of the _Meditations_, on his ejection from the bishopric in
+1647 till his death in 1656[43] The house in which he resided, now
+known as the Dolphin Inn, still stands, and is an interesting
+building with its picturesque bays and mullioned windows and
+ingeniously devised porch. It has actually been proposed to pull down,
+or improve out of existence, this magnificent old house. Its front is
+a perfect specimen of flint and stone sixteenth-century architecture.
+Over the main door appears an episcopal coat of arms with the date
+1587, while higher on the front appears the date of a restoration (in
+two bays):--
+
+  [43] It is erroneously styled Bishop Hall's Palace. An episcopal
+  palace is the official residence of the bishop in his cathedral
+  city. Not even a country seat of a bishop is correctly called a
+  palace, much less the residence of a bishop when ejected from his
+  see.
+
+[Illustration: The "Briton's Arms," Norwich]
+
+[Illustration: ANNO DOMINI 1615]
+
+Just inside the doorway is a fine Gothic stoup into which bucolic
+rustics now knock the fag-ends of their pipes. The staircase newel is
+a fine piece of Gothic carving with an embattled moulding, a
+poppy-head and heraldic lion. Pillared fire-places and other tokens of
+departed greatness testify to the former beauty of this old
+dwelling-place.
+
+[Illustration: The Dolphin Inn, Heigham, Norwich]
+
+We will now start back to town by the coach which leaves the "Maid's
+Head" (or did leave in 1762) at half-past eleven in the forenoon, and
+hope to arrive in London on the following day, and thence hasten
+southward to Canterbury. Along this Dover road are some of the best
+inns in England: the "Bull" at Dartford, with its galleried courtyard,
+once a pilgrims' hostel; the "Bull" and "Victoria" at Rochester,
+reminiscent of _Pickwick_; the modern "Crown" that supplants a
+venerable inn where Henry VIII first beheld Anne of Cleves; the "White
+Hart"; and the "George," where pilgrims stayed; and so on to
+Canterbury, a city of memories, which happily retains many features of
+old English life that have not altogether vanished. Its grand
+cathedral, its churches, St. Augustine's College, its quaint streets,
+like Butchery Lane, with their houses bending forward in a friendly
+manner to almost meet each other, as well as its old inns, like the
+"Falstaff" in High Street, near West Gate, standing on the site of a
+pilgrims' inn, with its sign showing the valiant and portly knight,
+and supported by elaborate ironwork, its tiled roof and picturesque
+front, all combine to make Canterbury as charming a place of modern
+pilgrimage as it was attractive to the pilgrims of another sort who
+frequented its inns in days of yore.
+
+[Illustration: Shield and Monogram on doorway of the Dolphin Inn,
+Heigham]
+
+[Illustration: Staircase Newel at the Dolphin Inn. From _Old Oak
+Furniture_, by Fred Roe]
+
+And now we will discard the cumbersome old coaches and even the
+"Flying Machines," and travel by another flying machine, an airship,
+landing where we will, wherever a pleasing inn attracts us. At
+Glastonbury is the famous "George," which has hardly changed its
+exterior since it was built by Abbot Selwood in 1475 for the
+accommodation of middle-class pilgrims, those of high degree being
+entertained at the abbot's lodgings. At Gloucester we find ourselves
+in the midst of memories of Roman, Saxon, and monastic days. Here too
+are some famous inns, especially the quaint "New Inn," in Northgate
+Street, a somewhat peculiar sign for a hostelry built (so it is said)
+for the use of pilgrims frequenting the shrine of Edward II in the
+cathedral. It retains all its ancient medieval picturesqueness. Here
+the old gallery which surrounded most of our inn-yards remains. Carved
+beams and door-posts made of chestnut are seen everywhere, and at the
+corner of New Inn Lane is a very elaborate sculpture, the lower part
+of which represents the Virgin and Holy Child. Here, in Hare Lane, is
+also a similar inn, the Old Raven Tavern, which has suffered much in
+the course of ages. It was formerly built around a courtyard, but only
+one side of it is left.
+
+[Illustration: The Falstaff Inn, Canterbury]
+
+There are many fine examples of old houses that are not inns in
+Gloucester, beautiful half-timbered black and white structures, such
+as Robert Raikes's house, the printer who has the credit of founding
+the first Sunday-school, the old Judges' House in Westgate Street, the
+old Deanery with its Norman room, once the Prior's Lodge of the
+Benedictine Abbey. Behind many a modern front there exist curious
+carvings and quaintly panelled rooms and elaborate ceilings. There is
+an interesting carved-panel room in the Tudor House, Westgate Street.
+The panels are of the linen-fold pattern, and at the head of each are
+various designs, such as the Tudor Rose and Pomegranate, the Lion of
+England, etc. The house originally known as the Old Blue Shop has some
+magnificent mantelpieces, and also St. Nicholas House can boast of a
+very elaborately carved example of Elizabethan sculpture.
+
+We journey thence to Tewkesbury and visit the grand silver-grey abbey
+that adorns the Severn banks. Here are some good inns of great
+antiquity. The "Wheat-sheaf" is perhaps the most attractive, with its
+curious gable and ancient lights, and even the interior is not much
+altered. Here too is the "Bell," under the shadow of the abbey tower.
+It is the original of Phineas Fletcher's house in the novel _John
+Halifax, Gentleman_. The "Bear and the Ragged Staff" is another
+half-timbered house with a straggling array of buildings and curious
+swinging signboard, the favourite haunt of the disciples of Izaak
+Walton, under the overhanging eaves of which the Avon silently flows.
+
+The old "Seven Stars" at Manchester is said to be the most ancient in
+England, claiming a licence 563 years old. But it has many rivals,
+such as the "Fighting Cocks" at St. Albans, the "Dick Whittington" in
+Cloth Fair, St. Bartholomews, the "Running Horse" at Leatherhead,
+wherein John Skelton, the poet laureate of Henry VIII, sang the
+praises of its landlady, Eleanor Rumming, and several others. The
+"Seven Stars" has many interesting features and historical
+associations. Here came Guy Fawkes and concealed himself in "Ye Guy
+Faux Chamber," as the legend over the door testifies. What strange
+stories could this old inn tell us! It could tell us of the Flemish
+weavers who, driven from their own country by religious persecutions
+and the atrocities of Duke Alva, settled in Manchester in 1564, and
+drank many a cup of sack at the "Seven Stars," rejoicing in their
+safety. It could tell us of the disputes between the clergy of the
+collegiate church and the citizens in 1574, when one of the preachers,
+a bachelor of divinity, on his way to the church was stabbed three
+times by the dagger of a Manchester man; and of the execution of three
+popish priests, whose heads were afterwards exposed from the tower of
+the church. Then there is the story of the famous siege in 1642, when
+the King's forces tried to take the town and were repulsed by the
+townsfolk, who were staunch Roundheads. "A great and furious skirmish
+did ensue," and the "Seven Stars" was in the centre of the fighting.
+Sir Thomas Fairfax made Manchester his head-quarters in 1643, and the
+walls of the "Seven Stars" echoed with the carousals of the
+Roundheads. When Fairfax marched from Manchester to relieve Nantwich,
+some dragoons had to leave hurriedly, and secreted their mess plate in
+the walls of the old inn, where it was discovered only a few years
+ago, and may now be seen in the parlour of this interesting hostel. In
+1745 it furnished accommodation for the soldiers of Prince Charles
+Edward, the Young Pretender, and was the head-quarters of the
+Manchester regiment. One of the rooms is called "Ye Vestry," on
+account of its connexion with the collegiate church. It is said that
+there was a secret passage between the inn and the church, and,
+according to the Court Leet Records, some of the clergy used to go to
+the "Seven Stars" in sermon-time in their surplices to refresh
+themselves. _O tempora!_ _O mores!_ A horseshoe at the foot of the
+stairs has a story to tell. During the war with France in 1805 the
+press-gang was billeted at the "Seven Stars." A young farmer's lad was
+leading a horse to be shod which had cast a shoe. The press-gang
+rushed out, seized the young man, and led him off to serve the king.
+Before leaving he nailed the shoe to a post on the stairs, saying,
+"Let this stay till I come from the wars to claim it." So it remains
+to this day unclaimed, a mute reminder of its owner's fate and of the
+manners of our forefathers.
+
+[Illustration: The Bear and Ragged Staff Inn, Tewkesbury]
+
+Another inn, the "Fighting Cocks" at St. Albans, formerly known as "Ye
+Old Round House," close to the River Ver, claims to be the oldest
+inhabited house in England. It probably formed part of the monastic
+buildings, but its antiquity as an inn is not, as far as I am aware,
+fully established.
+
+The antiquary must not forget the ancient inn at Bainbridge, in
+Wensleydale, which has had its licence since 1445, and plays its
+little part in _Drunken Barnaby's Journal_.
+
+[Illustration: Fire-place in the George Inn, Norton St. Philip,
+Somerset]
+
+Many inns have played an important part in national events. There is
+the "Bull" at Coventry, where Henry VII stayed before the battle of
+Bosworth Field, where he won for himself the English crown. There Mary
+Queen of Scots was detained by order of Elizabeth. There the
+conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot met to devise their scheme for
+blowing up the Houses of Parliament. The George Inn at Norton St.
+Philip, Somerset, took part in the Monmouth rebellion. There the Duke
+stayed, and there was much excitement in the inn when he informed his
+officers that it was his intention to attack Bristol. Thence he
+marched with his rude levies to Keynsham, and after a defeat and a
+vain visit to Bath he returned to the "George" and won a victory over
+Faversham's advanced guard. You can still see the Monmouth room in the
+inn with its fine fire-place.
+
+The Crown and Treaty Inn at Uxbridge reminds one of the meeting of the
+Commissioners of King and Parliament, who vainly tried to arrange a
+peace in 1645; and at the "Bear," Hungerford, William of Orange
+received the Commissioners of James II, and set out thence on his
+march towards London and the English throne.
+
+The Dark Lantern Inn at Aylesbury, in a nest of poor houses, seems to
+tell by its unique sign of plots and conspiracies.
+
+Aylesbury is noted for its inns. The famous "White Hart" is no more.
+It has vanished entirely, having disappeared in 1863. It had been
+modernized, but could boast of a timber balcony round the courtyard,
+ornamented with ancient wood carvings brought from Salden House, an
+old seat of the Fortescues, near Winslow. Part of the inn was built by
+the Earl of Rochester in 1663, and many were the great feasts and
+civic banquets that took place within its hospitable doors. The
+"King's Head" dates from the middle of the fifteenth century and is a
+good specimen of the domestic architecture of the Tudor period. It
+formerly issued its own tokens. It was probably the hall of some guild
+or fraternity. In a large window are the arms of England and Anjou.
+The George Inn has some interesting paintings which were probably
+brought from Eythrope House on its demolition in 1810, and the "Bull's
+Head" has some fine beams and panelling.
+
+[Illustration: The Green Dragon Inn, Wymondham, Norfolk]
+
+Some of the inns of Burford and Shrewsbury we have seen when we
+visited those old-world towns. Wymondham, once famous for its abbey,
+is noted for its "Green Dragon," a beautiful half-timbered house with
+projecting storeys, and in our wanderings we must not forget to see
+along the Brighton road the picturesque "Star" at Alfriston with its
+three oriel windows, one of the oldest in Sussex. It was once a
+sanctuary within the jurisdiction of the Abbot of Battle for persons
+flying from justice. Hither came men-slayers, thieves, and rogues of
+every description, and if they reached this inn-door they were safe.
+There is a record of a horse-thief named Birrel in the days of Henry
+VIII seeking refuge here for a crime committed at Lydd, in Kent. It
+was intended originally as a house for the refreshment of mendicant
+friars. The house is very quaint with its curious carvings, including
+a great red lion that guards the side, the figure-head of a wrecked
+Dutch vessel lost in Cuckmen Haven. Alfriston was noted as a great
+nest of smugglers, and the "Star" was often frequented by Stanton
+Collins and his gang, who struck terror into their neighbours,
+daringly carried on their trade, and drank deep at the inn when the
+kegs were safely housed. Only fourteen years ago the last of his gang
+died in Eastbourne Workhouse. Smuggling is a vanished profession
+nowadays, a feature of vanished England that no one would seek to
+revive. Who can tell whether it may not be as prevalent as ever it
+was, if tariff reform and the imposition of heavy taxes on imports
+become articles of our political creed?
+
+[Illustration: The Star Inn, Afriston Sussex. Fred Roe, 16 Sep 97]
+
+Many of the inns once famous in the annals of the road have now
+"retired from business" and have taken down their signs. The First and
+Last Inn, at Croscombe, Somerset, was once a noted coaching hostel,
+but since coaches ceased to run it was not wanted and has closed its
+doors to the public. Small towns like Hounslow, Wycombe, and Ashbourne
+were full of important inns which, being no longer required for the
+accommodation of travellers, have retired from work and converted
+themselves into private houses. Small villages like Little Brickhill,
+which happened to be a stage, abounded with hostels which the ending
+of the coaching age made unnecessary. The Castle Inn at Marlborough,
+once one of the finest in England, is now part of a great public
+school. The house has a noted history. It was once a nobleman's
+mansion, being the home of Frances Countess of Hereford, the patron of
+Thomson, and then of the Duke of Northumberland, who leased it to Mr.
+Cotterell for the purpose of an inn. Crowds of distinguished folk have
+thronged its rooms and corridors, including the great Lord Chatham,
+who was laid up here with an attack of gout for seven weeks in 1762
+and made all the inn-servants wear his livery. Mr. Stanley Weyman has
+made it the scene of one of his charming romances. It was not until
+1843 that it took down its sign, and has since patiently listened to
+the conjugation of Greek and Latin verbs, to classic lore, and other
+studies which have made Marlborough College one of the great and
+successful public schools. Another great inn was the fine Georgian
+house near one of the entrances to Kedleston Park, built by Lord
+Scarsdale for visitors to the medicinal waters in his park. But these
+waters have now ceased to cure the mildest invalid, and the inn is now
+a large farm-house with vast stables and barns.
+
+It seems as if something of the foundations of history were crumbling
+to read that the "Star and Garter" at Richmond is to be sold at
+auction. That is a melancholy fate for perhaps the most famous inn in
+the country--a place at which princes and statesmen have stayed, and
+to which Louis Philippe and his Queen resorted. The "Star and Garter"
+has figured in the romances of some of our greatest novelists. One
+comes across it in Meredith and Thackeray, and it finds its way into
+numerous memoirs, nearly always with some comment upon its unique
+beauty of situation, a beauty that was never more real than at this
+moment when the spring foliage is just beginning to peep.
+
+The motor and changing habits account for the evil days upon which the
+hostelry has fallen. Trains and trams have brought to the doors almost
+of the "Star and Garter" a public that has not the means to make use
+of its 120 bedrooms. The richer patrons of other days flash past on
+their motors, making for those resorts higher up the river which are
+filling the place in the economy of the London Sunday and week-end
+which Richmond occupied in times when travelling was more difficult.
+These changes are inevitable. The "Ship" at Greenwich has gone, and
+Cabinet Ministers can no longer dine there. The convalescent home,
+which was the undoing of certain Poplar Guardians, is housed in an
+hotel as famous as the "Ship," in its days once the resort of Pitt and
+his bosom friends. Indeed, a pathetic history might be written of the
+famous hostelries of the past.
+
+Not far from Marlborough is Devizes, formerly a great coaching centre,
+and full of inns, of which the most noted is the "Bear," still a
+thriving hostel, once the home of the great artist Sir Thomas
+Lawrence, whose father was the landlord.
+
+[Illustration: Courtyard of the George Inn, Norton St. Philip
+Somerset]
+
+It is impossible within one chapter to record all the old inns of
+England, we have still a vast number left unchronicled, but perhaps a
+sufficient number of examples has been given of this important feature
+of vanishing England. Some of these are old and crumbling, and may die
+of old age. Others will fall a prey to licensing committees. Some have
+been left high and dry, deserted by the stream of guests that flowed
+to them in the old coaching days. Motor-cars have resuscitated some
+and brought prosperity and life to the old guest-haunted chambers. We
+cannot dwell on the curious signs that greet us as we travel along the
+old highways, or strive to interpret their origin and meaning. We are
+rather fond in Berkshire of the "Five Alls," the interpretation of
+which is cryptic. The Five Alls are, if I remember right--
+
+        "I rule all" [the king].
+        "I pray for all" [the bishop].
+        "I plead for all" [the barrister].
+        "I fight for all" [the soldier].
+        "I pay for all" [the farmer].
+
+One of the most humorous inn signs is "The Man Loaded with Mischief,"
+which is found about a mile from Cambridge, on the Madingley road. The
+original Mischief was designed by Hogarth for a public-house in Oxford
+Street. It is needless to say that the signboard, and even the name,
+have long ago disappeared from the busy London thoroughfare, but the
+quaint device must have been extensively copied by country
+sign-painters. There is a "Mischief" at Wallingford, and a "Load of
+Mischief" at Norwich, and another at Blewbury. The inn on the
+Madingley road exhibits the sign in its original form. Though the
+colours are much faded from exposure to the weather, traces of
+Hogarthian humour can be detected. A man is staggering under the
+weight of a woman, who is on his back. She is holding a glass of gin
+in her hand; a chain and padlock are round the man's neck, labelled
+"Wedlock." On the right-hand side is the shop of "S. Gripe,
+Pawnbroker," and a carpenter is just going in to pledge his tools.
+
+[Illustration: "The Dark Lantern" Inn, Aylesbury 16 Aug 1902]
+
+The art of painting signboards is almost lost, and when they have to
+be renewed sorry attempts are made to imitate the old designs. Some
+celebrated artists have not thought it below their dignity to paint
+signboards. Some have done this to show their gratitude to their
+kindly host and hostess for favours received when they sojourned at
+inns during their sketching expeditions. The "George" at Wargrave has
+a sign painted by the distinguished painters Mr. George Leslie, R.A.,
+and Mr. Broughton, R.A., who, when staying at the inn, kindly painted
+the sign, which is hung carefully within doors that it may not be
+exposed to the mists and rains of the Thames valley. St. George is
+sallying forth to slay the dragon on the one side, and on the reverse
+he is refreshing himself with a tankard of ale after his labours. Not
+a few artists in the early stages of their career have paid their
+bills at inns by painting for the landlord. Morland was always in
+difficulties and adorned many a signboard, and the art of David Cox,
+Herring, and Sir William Beechey has been displayed in this homely
+fashion. David Cox's painting of the Royal Oak at Bettws-y-Coed was
+the subject of prolonged litigation, the sign being valued at L1000,
+the case being carried to the House of Lords, and there decided in
+favour of the freeholder.
+
+Sometimes strange notices appear in inns. The following rather
+remarkable one was seen by our artist at the "County Arms," Stone,
+near Aylesbury:--
+
+  "A man is specially engaged to do all the cursing and swearing
+  that is required in this establishment. A dog is also kept to do
+  all the barking. Our prize-fighter and chucker-out has won
+  seventy-five prize-fights and has never been beaten, and is a
+  splendid shot with the revolver. An undertaker calls here for
+  orders every morning."
+
+Motor-cars have somewhat revived the life of the old inns on the great
+coaching roads, but it is only the larger and more important ones
+that have been aroused into a semblance of their old life. The cars
+disdain the smaller establishments, and run such long distances that
+only a few houses along the road derive much benefit from them. For
+many their days are numbered, and it may be useful to describe them
+before, like four-wheelers and hansom-cabs, they have quite vanished
+away.
+
+[Illustration: Spandril. The Marquis of Granby Inn, Colchester]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+OLD MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS
+
+
+No class of buildings has suffered more than the old town halls of our
+country boroughs. Many of these towns have become decayed and all
+their ancient glories have departed. They were once flourishing places
+in the palmy days of the cloth trade, and could boast of fairs and
+markets and a considerable number of inhabitants and wealthy
+merchants; but the tide of trade has flowed elsewhere. The invention
+of steam and complex machinery necessitating proximity to coal-fields
+has turned its course elsewhere, to the smoky regions of Yorkshire and
+Lancashire, and the old town has lost its prosperity and its power.
+Its charter has gone; it can boast of no municipal corporation; hence
+the town hall is scarcely needed save for some itinerant Thespians, an
+occasional public meeting, or as a storehouse of rubbish. It begins to
+fall into decay, and the decayed town is not rich enough, or
+public-spirited enough, to prop its weakened timbers. For the sake of
+the safety of the public it has to come down.
+
+On the other hand, an influx of prosperity often dooms the aged town
+hall to destruction. It vanishes before a wave of prosperity. The
+borough has enlarged its borders. It has become quite a great town and
+transacts much business. The old shops have given place to grand
+emporiums with large plate-glass windows, wherein are exhibited the
+most recent fashions of London and Paris, and motor-cars can be
+bought, and all is very brisk and up-to-date. The old town hall is now
+deemed a very poor and inadequate building. It is small, inconvenient,
+and unsuited to the taste of the municipal councillors, whose ideas
+have expanded with their trade. The Mayor and Corporation meet, and
+decide to build a brand-new town hall replete with every luxury and
+convenience. The old must vanish.
+
+And yet, how picturesque these ancient council chambers are. They
+usually stand in the centre of the market-place, and have an
+undercroft, the upper storey resting on pillars. Beneath this shelter
+the market women display their wares and fix their stalls on market
+days, and there you will perhaps see the fire-engine, at least the old
+primitive one which was in use before a grand steam fire-engine had
+been purchased and housed in a station of its own. The building has
+high pointed gables and mullioned windows, a tiled roof mellowed with
+age, and a finely wrought vane, which is a credit to the skill of the
+local blacksmith. It is a sad pity that this "thing of beauty" should
+have to be pulled down and be replaced by a modern building which is
+not always creditable to the architectural taste of the age. A law
+should be passed that no old town halls should be pulled down, and
+that all new ones should be erected on a different site. No more
+fitting place could be found for the storage of the antiquities of the
+town, the relics of its old municipal life, sketches of its old
+buildings that have vanished, and portraits of its worthies, than the
+ancient building which has for so long kept watch and ward over its
+destinies and been the scene of most of the chief events connected
+with its history.
+
+Happily several have been spared, and they speak to us of the old
+methods of municipal government; of the merchant guilds, composed of
+rich merchants and clothiers, who met therein to transact their common
+business. The guild hall was the centre of the trade of the town and
+of its social and commercial life. An amazing amount of business was
+transacted therein. If you study the records of any ancient borough
+you will discover that the pulse of life beat fast in the old guild
+hall. There the merchants met to talk over their affairs and "drink
+their guild." There the Mayor came with the Recorder or "Stiward" to
+hold his courts and to issue all "processes as attachementes, summons,
+distresses, precepts, warantes, subsideas, recognissaunces, etc." The
+guild hall was like a living thing. It held property, had a treasury,
+received the payments of freemen, levied fines on "foreigners" who
+were "not of the guild," administered justice, settled quarrels
+between the brethren of the guild, made loans to merchants, heard the
+complaints of the aggrieved, held feasts, promoted loyalty to the
+sovereign, and insisted strongly on every burgess that he should do
+his best to promote the "comyn weele and prophite of ye saide gylde."
+It required loyalty and secrecy from the members of the common council
+assembled within its walls, and no one was allowed to disclose to the
+public its decisions and decrees. This guild hall was a living thing.
+Like the Brook it sang:--
+
+        "Men may come and men may go,
+        But I flow on for ever."
+
+Mayor succeeded mayor, and burgess followed burgess, but the old guild
+hall lived on, the central mainspring of the borough's life. Therein
+were stored the archives of the town, the charters won, bargained for,
+and granted by kings and queens, which gave them privileges of trade,
+authority to hold fairs and markets, liberty to convey and sell their
+goods in other towns. Therein were preserved the civic plate, the
+maces that gave dignity to their proceedings, the cups bestowed by
+royal or noble personages or by the affluent members of the guild in
+token of their affection for their town and fellowship. Therein they
+assembled to don their robes to march in procession to the town church
+to hear Mass, or in later times a sermon, and then refreshed
+themselves with a feast at the charge of the hall. The portraits of
+the worthies of the town, of royal and distinguished patrons, adorned
+the walls, and the old guild hall preached daily lessons to the
+townsfolk to uphold the dignity and promote the welfare of the
+borough, and good feeling and the sense of brotherhood among
+themselves.
+
+[Illustration: The Town Hall, Shrewsbury]
+
+We give an illustration of the town hall of Shrewsbury, a notable
+building and well worthy of study as a specimen of a municipal
+building erected at the close of the sixteenth century. The style is
+that of the Renaissance with the usual mixture of debased Gothic and
+classic details, but the general effect is imposing; the arches and
+parapet are especially characteristic. An inscription over the arch at
+the north end records:--
+
+  "The xv^{th} day of June was this building begonne, William Jones
+  and Thomas Charlton, Gent, then Bailiffes, and was erected and
+  covered in their time, 1595."
+
+A full description of this building is given in Canon Auden's history
+of the town. He states that "under the clock is the statue of Richard
+Duke of York, father of Edward IV, which was removed from the old
+Welsh Bridge at its demolition in 1791. This is flanked by an
+inscription recording this fact on the one side, and on the other by
+the three leopards' heads which are the arms of the town. On the other
+end of the building is a sun-dial, and also a sculptured angel holding
+a shield on which are the arms of England and France. This was removed
+from the gate of the town, which stood at the foot of the castle, on
+its demolition in 1825. The principal entrance is on the west, and
+over this are the arms of Queen Elizabeth and the date 1596. It will
+be noticed that one of the supporters is not the unicorn, but the red
+dragon of Wales. The interior is now partly devoted to various
+municipal offices, and partly used as the Mayor's Court, the roof of
+which still retains its old character." It was formerly known as the
+Old Market Hall, but the business of the market has been transferred
+to the huge but tasteless building of brick erected at the top of
+Mardol in 1869, the erection of which caused the destruction of
+several picturesque old houses which can ill be spared.
+
+Cirencester possesses a magnificent town hall, a stately
+Perpendicular building, which stands out well against the noble church
+tower of the same period. It has a gateway flanked by buttresses and
+arcades on each side and two upper storeys with pierced battlements at
+the top which are adorned with richly floriated pinnacles. A great
+charm of the building are the three oriel windows extending from the
+top of the ground-floor division to the foot of the battlements. The
+surface of the wall of the facade is cut into panels, and niches for
+statues adorn the faces of the four buttresses. The whole forms a most
+elaborate piece of Perpendicular work of unusual character. We
+understand that it needs repair and is in some danger. The aid of the
+Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has been called in,
+and their report has been sent to the civic authorities, who will, we
+hope, adopt their recommendations and deal kindly and tenderly with
+this most interesting structure.
+
+Another famous guild hall is in danger, that at Norwich. It has even
+been suggested that it should be pulled down and a new one erected,
+but happily this wild scheme has been abandoned. Old buildings like
+not new inventions, just as old people fear to cross the road lest
+they should be run over by a motor-car. Norwich Guildhall does not
+approve of electric tram-cars, which run close to its north side and
+cause its old bones to vibrate in a most uncomfortable fashion. You
+can perceive how much it objects to these horrid cars by feeling the
+vibration of the walls when you are standing on the level of the
+street or on the parapet. You will not therefore be surprised to find
+ominous cracks in the old walls, and the roof is none too safe, the
+large span having tried severely the strength of the old oak beams. It
+is a very ancient building, the crypt under the east end, vaulted in
+brickwork, probably dating from the thirteenth century, while the main
+building was erected in the fifteenth century. The walls are well
+built, three feet in thickness, and constructed of uncut flints; the
+east end is enriched with diaper-work in chequers of stone and knapped
+flint. Some new buildings have been added on the south side within
+the last century. There is a clock turret at the east end, erected in
+1850 at the cost of the then Mayor. Evidently the roof was giving the
+citizens anxiety at that time, as the good donor presented the clock
+tower on condition that the roof of the council chamber should be
+repaired. This famous old building has witnessed many strange scenes,
+such as the burning of old dames who were supposed to be witches, the
+execution of criminals and conspirators, the savage conflicts of
+citizens and soldiers in days of rioting and unrest. These good
+citizens of Norwich used to add considerably to the excitement of the
+place by their turbulence and eagerness for fighting. The crypt of the
+Town Hall is just old enough to have heard of the burning of the
+cathedral and monastery by the citizens in 1272, and to have seen the
+ringleaders executed. Often was there fighting in the city, and this
+same old building witnessed in 1549 a great riot, chiefly directed
+against the religious reforms and change of worship introduced by the
+first Prayer Book of Edward VI. It was rather amusing to see Parker,
+afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, addressing the rioters from a
+platform, under which stood the spearmen of Kett, the leader of the
+riot, who took delight in pricking the feet of the orator with their
+spears as he poured forth his impassioned eloquence. In an important
+city like Norwich the guild hall has played an important part in the
+making of England, and is worthy in its old age of the tenderest and
+most reverent treatment, and even of the removal from its proximity of
+the objectionable electric tram-cars.
+
+As we are at Norwich it would be well to visit another old house,
+which though not a municipal building, is a unique specimen of the
+domestic architecture of a Norwich citizen in days when, as Dr. Jessop
+remarks, "there was no coal to burn in the grate, no gas to enlighten
+the darkness of the night, no potatoes to eat, no tea to drink, and
+when men believed that the sun moved round the earth once in 365
+days, and would have been ready to burn the culprit who should dare to
+maintain the contrary." It is called Strangers' Hall, a most
+interesting medieval mansion which had never ceased to be an inhabited
+house for at least 500 years, till it was purchased in 1899 by Mr.
+Leonard Bolingbroke, who rescued it from decay, and permits the public
+to inspect its beauties. The crypt and cellars, and possibly the
+kitchen and buttery, were portions of the original house owned in 1358
+by Robert Herdegrey, Burgess in Parliament and Bailiff of the City,
+and the present hall, with its groined porch and oriel window, was
+erected later over the original fourteenth-century cellars. It was
+inhabited by a succession of merchants and chief men of Norwich, and
+at the beginning of the sixteenth century passed into the family of
+Sotherton. The merchant's mark of Nicholas Sotherton is painted on the
+roof of the hall. You can see this fine hall with its screen and
+gallery and beautifully-carved woodwork. The present Jacobean
+staircase and gallery, big oak window, and doorways leading into the
+garden are later additions made by Francis Cook, grocer of Norwich,
+who was mayor of the city in 1627. The house probably took its name
+from the family of Le Strange, who settled in Norwich in the sixteenth
+century. In 1610 the Sothertons conveyed the property to Sir le
+Strange Mordant, who sold it to the above-mentioned Francis Cook. Sir
+Joseph Paine came into possession just before the Restoration, and we
+see his initials, with those of his wife Emma, and the date 1659, in
+the spandrels of the fire-places in some of the rooms. This beautiful
+memorial of the merchant princes of Norwich, like many other old
+houses, fell into decay. It is most pleasant to find that it has now
+fallen into such tender hands, that its old timbers have been saved
+and preserved by the generous care of its present owner, who has thus
+earned the gratitude of all who love antiquity.
+
+Sometimes buildings erected for quite different purposes have been
+used as guild halls. There was one at Reading, a guild hall near the
+holy brook in which the women washed their clothes, and made so much
+noise by "beating their battledores" (the usual style of washing in
+those days) that the mayor and his worthy brethren were often
+disturbed in their deliberations, so they petitioned the King to grant
+them the use of the deserted church of the Greyfriars' Monastery
+lately dissolved in the town. This request was granted, and in the
+place where the friars sang their services and preached, the mayor and
+burgesses "drank their guild" and held their banquets. When they got
+tired of that building they filched part of the old grammar school
+from the boys, making an upper storey, wherein they held their council
+meetings. The old church then was turned into a prison, but now
+happily it is a church again. At last the corporation had a town hall
+of their own, which they decorated with the initials S.P.Q.R., Romanus
+and Readingensis conveniently beginning with the same letter. Now they
+have a grand new town hall, which provides every accommodation for
+this growing town.
+
+[Illustration: The Greenland Fishery House, King's Lynn. An old Guild
+House of the time of James I]
+
+The Newbury town hall, a Georgian structure, has just been demolished.
+It was erected in 1740-1742, taking the place of an ancient and
+interesting guild hall built in 1611 in the centre of the
+market-place. The councillors were startled one day by the collapse of
+the ceiling of the hall, and when we last saw the chamber tons of
+heavy plaster were lying on the floor. The roof was unsound; the
+adjoining street too narrow for the hundred motors that raced past the
+dangerous corners in twenty minutes on the day of the Newbury races;
+so there was no help for the old building; its fate was sealed, and it
+was bound to come down. But the town possesses a very charming Cloth
+Hall, which tells of the palmy days of the Newbury cloth-makers, or
+clothiers, as they were called; of Jack of Newbury, the famous John
+Winchcombe, or Smallwoode, whose story is told in Deloney's humorous
+old black-letter pamphlet, entitled _The Most Pleasant and Delectable
+Historie of John Winchcombe, otherwise called Jacke of Newberie_,
+published in 1596. He is said to have furnished one hundred men
+fully equipped for the King's service at Flodden Field, and mightily
+pleased Queen Catherine, who gave him a "riche chain of gold," and
+wished that God would give the King many such clothiers. You can see
+part of the house of this worthy, who died in 1519. Fuller stated in
+the seventeenth century that this brick and timber residence had been
+converted into sixteen clothiers' houses. It is now partly occupied by
+the Jack of Newbury Inn. A fifteenth-century gable with an oriel
+window and carved barge-board still remains, and you can see a massive
+stone chimney-piece in one of the original chambers where Jack used to
+sit and receive his friends. Some carvings also have been discovered
+in an old house showing what is thought to be a carved portrait of the
+clothier. It bears the initials J.W., and another panel has a raised
+shield suspended by strap and buckle with a monogram I.S., presumably
+John Smallwoode. He was married twice, and the portrait busts on each
+side are supposed to represent his two wives. Another carving
+represents the Blessed Trinity under the figure of a single head with
+three faces within a wreath of oak-leaves with floriated
+spandrels.[44] We should like to pursue the subject of these Newbury
+clothiers and see Thomas Dolman's house, which is so fine and large
+and cost so much money that his workpeople used to sing a doggerel
+ditty:--
+
+  Lord have mercy upon us miserable sinners,
+  Thomas Dolman has built a new house and turned away all his spinners.
+
+  [44] _History of Newbury_, by Walter Money, F.S.A.
+
+The old Cloth Hall which has led to this digression has been recently
+restored, and is now a museum.
+
+The ancient town of Wallingford, famous for its castle, had a guild
+hall with selds under it, the earliest mention of which dates back to
+the reign of Edward II, and occurs constantly as the place wherein the
+burghmotes were held. The present town hall was erected in 1670--a
+picturesque building on stone pillars. This open space beneath the
+town hall was formerly used as a corn-market, and so continued until
+the present corn-exchange was erected half a century ago. The slated
+roof is gracefully curved, is crowned by a good vane, and a neat
+dormer window juts out on the side facing the market-place. Below this
+is a large Renaissance window opening on to a balcony whence orators
+can address the crowds assembled in the market-place at election
+times. The walls of the hall are hung with portraits of the worthies
+and benefactors of the town, including one of Archbishop Laud. A
+mayor's feast was, before the passing of the Municipal Corporations
+Act, a great occasion in most of our boroughs, the expenses of which
+were defrayed by the rates. The upper chamber in the Wallingford town
+hall was formerly a kitchen, with a huge fire-place, where mighty
+joints and fat capons were roasted for the banquet. Outside you can
+see a ring of light-coloured stones, called the bull-ring, where
+bulls, provided at the cost of the Corporation, were baited. Until
+1840 our Berkshire town of Wokingham was famous for its annual
+bull-baiting on St. Thomas's Day. A good man, one George Staverton,
+was once gored by a bull; so he vented his rage upon the whole bovine
+race, and left a charity for the providing of bulls to be baited on
+the festival of this saint, the meat afterwards to be given to the
+poor of the town. The meat is still distributed, but the bulls are no
+longer baited. Here at Wokingham there was a picturesque old town hall
+with an open undercroft, supported on pillars; but the townsfolk must
+needs pull it down and erect an unsightly brick building in its stead.
+It contains some interesting portraits of royal and distinguished folk
+dating from the time of Charles I, but how the town became possessed
+of these paintings no man knoweth.
+
+Another of our Berkshire towns can boast of a fine town hall that has
+not been pulled down like so many of its fellows. It is not so old as
+some, but is in itself a memorial of some vandalism, as it occupies
+the site of the old Market Cross, a thing of rare beauty, beautifully
+carved and erected in Mary's reign, but ruthlessly destroyed by Waller
+and his troopers during the Civil War period. Upon the ground on which
+it stood thirty-four years later--in 1677--the Abingdon folk reared
+their fine town hall; its style resembles that of Inigo Jones, and it
+has an open undercroft--a kindly shelter from the weather for market
+women. Tall and graceful it dominates the market-place, and it is
+crowned with a pretty cupola and a fine vane. You can find a still
+more interesting hall in the town, part of the old abbey, the gateway
+with its adjoining rooms, now used as the County Hall, and there you
+will see as fine a collection of plate and as choice an array of royal
+portraits as ever fell to the lot of a provincial county town. One of
+these is a Gainsborough. One of the reasons why Abingdon has such a
+good store of silver plate is that according to their charter the
+Corporation has to pay a small sum yearly to their High Stewards, and
+these gentlemen--the Bowyers of Radley and the Earls of Abingdon--have
+been accustomed to restore their fees to the town in the shape of a
+gift of plate.
+
+We might proceed to examine many other of these interesting buildings,
+but a volume would be needed for the purpose of recording them all.
+Too many of the ancient ones have disappeared and their places taken
+by modern, unsightly, though more convenient buildings. We may mention
+the salvage of the old market-house at Winster, in Derbyshire, which
+has been rescued by that admirable National Trust for Places of
+Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, which descends like an angel of
+mercy on many a threatened and abandoned building and preserves it for
+future generations. The Winster market-house is of great age; the
+lower part is doubtless as old as the thirteenth century, and the
+upper part was added in the seventeenth. Winster was at one time an
+important place; its markets were famous, and this building must for
+very many years have been the centre of the commercial life of a large
+district. But as the market has diminished in importance, the old
+market-house has fallen out of repair, and its condition has caused
+anxiety to antiquaries for some time past. Local help has been
+forthcoming under the auspices of the National Trust, in which it is
+now vested for future preservation.
+
+[Illustration: The Market House, Wymondham, Norfolk]
+
+Though not a town hall, we may here record the saving of a very
+interesting old building, the Palace Gatehouse at Maidstone, the
+entire demolition of which was proposed. It is part of the old
+residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, near the Perpendicular
+church of All Saints, on the banks of the Medway, whose house at
+Maidstone added dignity to the town and helped to make it the
+important place it was. The Palace was originally the residence of the
+Rector of Maidstone, but was given up in the thirteenth century to the
+Archbishop. The oldest part of the existing building is at the north
+end, where some fifteenth-century windows remain. Some of the rooms
+have good old panelling and open stone fire-places of the
+fifteenth-century date. But decay has fallen on the old building. Ivy
+is allowed to grow over it unchecked, its main stems clinging to the
+walls and disturbing the stones. Wet has begun to soak into the walls
+through the decayed stone sills. Happily the gatehouse has been saved,
+and we doubt not that the enlightened Town Council will do its best to
+preserve this interesting building from further decay.
+
+The finest Early Renaissance municipal building is the picturesque
+guild hall at Exeter, with its richly ornamented front projecting over
+the pavement and carried on arches. The market-house at Rothwell is a
+beautifully designed building erected by Sir Thomas Tresham in 1577.
+Being a Recusant, he was much persecuted for his religion, and never
+succeeded in finishing the work. We give an illustration of the quaint
+little market-house at Wymondham, with its open space beneath, and the
+upper storey supported by stout posts and brackets. It is entirely
+built of timber and plaster. Stout posts support the upper floor,
+beneath which is a covered market. The upper chamber is reached by a
+quaint rude wooden staircase. Chipping Campden can boast of a handsome
+oblong market-house, built of stone, having five arches with three
+gables on the long sides, and two arches with gables over each on the
+short sides. There are mullioned windows under each gable.
+
+[Illustration: Guild Mark and Date on doorway, Burford, Oxon]
+
+The city of Salisbury could at one time boast of several halls of the
+old guilds which flourished there. There was a charming island of old
+houses near the cattle-market, which have all disappeared. They were
+most picturesque and interesting buildings, and we regret to have to
+record that new half-timbered structures have been erected in their
+place with sham beams, and boards nailed on to the walls to represent
+beams, one of the monstrosities of modern architectural art. The old
+Joiners' Hall has happily been saved by the National Trust. It has a
+very attractive sixteenth-century facade, though the interior has been
+much altered. Until the early years of the nineteenth century it was
+the hall of the guild or company of the joiners of the city of New
+Sarum.
+
+Such are some of the old municipal buildings of England. There are
+many others which might have been mentioned. It is a sad pity that so
+many have disappeared and been replaced by modern and uninteresting
+structures. If a new town hall be required in order to keep pace with
+the increasing dignity of an important borough, the Corporation can at
+least preserve their ancient municipal hall which has so long watched
+over the fortunes of the town and shared in its joys and sorrows, and
+seek a fresh site for their new home without destroying the old.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CROSSES
+
+
+A careful study of the ordnance maps of certain counties of England
+reveals the extraordinary number of ancient crosses which are
+scattered over the length and breadth of the district. Local names
+often suggest the existence of an ancient cross, such as Blackrod, or
+Black-rood, Oakenrod, Crosby, Cross Hall, Cross Hillock. But if the
+student sally forth to seek this sacred symbol of the Christian faith,
+he will often be disappointed. The cross has vanished, and even the
+recollection of its existence has completely passed away. Happily not
+all have disappeared, and in our travels we shall be able to discover
+many of these interesting specimens of ancient art, but not a tithe of
+those that once existed are now to be discovered.
+
+Many causes have contributed to their disappearance. The Puritans
+waged insensate war against the cross. It was in their eyes an idol
+which must be destroyed. They regarded them as popish superstitions,
+and objected greatly to the custom of "carrying the corse towards the
+church all garnished with crosses, which they set down by the way at
+every cross, and there all of them devoutly on their knees make
+prayers for the dead."[45] Iconoclastic mobs tore down the sacred
+symbol in blind fury. In the summer of 1643 Parliament ordered that
+all crucifixes, crosses, images, and pictures should be obliterated or
+otherwise destroyed, and during the same year the two Houses passed a
+resolution for the destruction of all crosses throughout the kingdom.
+They ordered Sir Robert Harlow to superintend the levelling to the
+ground of St. Paul's Cross, Charing Cross, and that in Cheapside, and
+a contemporary print shows the populace busily engaged in tearing down
+the last. Ladders are placed against the structure, workmen are busy
+hammering the figures, and a strong rope is attached to the actual
+cross on the summit and eager hands are dragging it down. Similar
+scenes were enacted in many other towns, villages, and cities of
+England, and the wonder is that any crosses should have been left. But
+a vast number did remain in order to provide further opportunities for
+vandalism and wanton mischief, and probably quite as many have
+disappeared during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as those
+which were destroyed by Puritan iconoclasts. When trade and commerce
+developed, and villages grew into towns, and sleepy hollows became
+hives of industry, the old market-places became inconveniently small,
+and market crosses with their usually accompanying stocks and
+pillories were swept away as useless obstructions to traffic.[46] Thus
+complaints were made with regard to the market-place at Colne. There
+was no room for the coaches to turn. Idlers congregated on the steps
+of the cross and interfered with the business of the place. It was
+pronounced a nuisance, and in 1882 was swept away. Manchester market
+cross existed until 1816, when for the sake of utility and increased
+space it was removed. A stately Jacobean Proclamation cross remained
+at Salford until 1824. The Preston Cross, or rather obelisk,
+consisting of a clustered Gothic column, thirty-one feet high,
+standing on a lofty pedestal which rested on three steps, was taken
+down by an act of vandalism in 1853. The Covell Cross at Lancaster
+shared its fate, being destroyed in 1826 by the justices when they
+purchased the house now used as the judges' lodgings. A few years ago
+it was rebuilt as a memorial of the accession of King Edward VII.
+
+  [45] Report of the State of Lancashire in 1590 (Chetham Society,
+  Vol. XCVI, p. 5).
+
+  [46] _Ancient Crosses of Lancashire_, by Henry Taylor.
+
+Individuals too, as well as corporations, have taken a hand in the
+overthrow of crosses. There was a wretch named Wilkinson, vicar of
+Goosnargh, Lancashire, who delighted in their destruction. He was a
+zealous Protestant, and on account of his fame as a prophet of evil
+his deeds were not interfered with by his neighbours. He used to
+foretell the deaths of persons obnoxious to him, and unfortunately
+several of his prophecies were fulfilled, and he earned the dreaded
+character of a wizard. No one dared to prevent him, and with his own
+hands he pulled down several of these venerable monuments. Some
+drunken men in the early years of the nineteenth century pulled down
+the old market cross at Rochdale. There was a cross on the
+bowling-green at Whalley in the seventeenth century, the fall of which
+is described by a cavalier, William Blundell, in 1642. When some
+gentlemen came to use the bowling-green they found their game
+interfered with by the fallen cross. A strong, powerful man was
+induced to remove it. He reared it, and tried to take it away by
+wresting it from edge to edge, but his foot slipped; down he fell, and
+the cross falling upon him crushed him to death. A neighbour
+immediately he heard the news was filled with apprehension of a
+similar fate, and confessed that he and the deceased had thrown down
+the cross. It was considered a dangerous act to remove a cross, though
+the hope of discovering treasure beneath it often urged men to essay
+the task. A farmer once removed an old boundary stone, thinking it
+would make a good "buttery stone." But the results were dire. Pots and
+pans, kettles and crockery placed upon it danced a clattering dance
+the livelong night, and spilled their contents, disturbed the farmer's
+rest, and worrited the family. The stone had to be conveyed back to
+its former resting-place, and the farm again was undisturbed by
+tumultuous spirits. Some of these crosses have been used for
+gate-posts. Vandals have sometimes wanted a sun-dial in their
+churchyards, and have ruthlessly knocked off the head and upper part
+of the shaft of a cross, as they did at Halton, Lancashire, in order
+to provide a base for their dial. In these and countless other ways
+have these crosses suffered, and certainly, from the aesthetic and
+architectural point of view, we have to bewail the loss of many of the
+most lovely monuments of the piety and taste of our forefathers.
+
+We will now gather up the fragments of the ancient crosses of England
+ere these also vanish from our country. They served many purposes and
+were of divers kinds. There were preaching-crosses, on the steps of
+which the early missionary or Saxon priest stood when he proclaimed
+the message of the gospel, ere churches were built for worship. These
+wandering clerics used to set up crosses in the villages, and beneath
+their shade preached, baptized, and said Mass. The pagan Saxons
+worshipped stone pillars; so in order to wean them from their
+superstition the Christian missionaries erected these stone crosses
+and carved upon them the figures of the Saviour and His Apostles,
+displaying before the eyes of their hearers the story of the Cross
+written in stone. The north of England has many examples of these
+crosses, some of which were fashioned by St. Wilfrid, Archbishop of
+York, in the eighth century. When he travelled about his diocese a
+large number of monks and workmen attended him, and amongst these were
+the cutters in stone, who made the crosses and erected them on the
+spots which Wilfrid consecrated to the worship of God. St. Paulinus
+and others did the same. Hence arose a large number of these Saxon
+works of art, which we propose to examine and to try to discover the
+meaning of some of the strange sculptures found upon them.
+
+[Illustration: Strethem Cross, Isle of Ely.]
+
+In spite of iconoclasm and vandalism there remains in England a vast
+number of pre-Norman crosses, and it will be possible to refer only to
+the most noted and curious examples. These belong chiefly to four main
+schools of art--the Celtic, Saxon, Roman, and Scandinavian. These
+various streams of northern and classical ideas met and were blended
+together, just as the wild sagas of the Vikings and the teaching of
+the gospel showed themselves together in sculptured representations
+and symbolized the victory of the Crucified One over the legends of
+heathendom. The age and period of these crosses, the greater influence
+of one or other of these schools have wrought differences; the beauty
+and delicacy of the carving is in most cases remarkable, and we stand
+amazed at the superabundance of the inventive faculty that could
+produce such wondrous work. A great characteristic of these early
+sculptures is the curious interlacing scroll-work, consisting of
+knotted and interlaced cords of divers patterns and designs. There is
+an immense variety in this carving of these early artists. Examples
+are shown of geometrical designs, of floriated ornament, of which the
+conventional vine pattern is the most frequent, and of rope-work and
+other interlacing ornament. We can find space to describe only a few
+of the most remarkable.
+
+The famous Bewcastle Cross stands in the most northern corner of the
+county of Cumberland. Only the shaft remains. In its complete
+condition it must have been at least twenty-one feet high. A runic
+inscription on the west side records that it was erected "in memory of
+Alchfrith lately king" of Northumbria. He was the son of Oswy, the
+friend and patron of St. Wilfrid, who loved art so much that he
+brought workmen from Italy to build churches and carve stone, and he
+decided in favour of the Roman party at the famous Synod of Whitby. On
+the south side the runes tell that the cross was erected in "the first
+year of Ecgfrith, King of this realm," who began to reign 670 A.D. On
+the west side are three panels containing deeply incised figures, the
+lowest one of which has on his wrist a hawk, an emblem of nobility;
+the other three sides are filled with interlacing, floriated, and
+geometrical ornament. Bishop Browne believes that these scrolls and
+interlacings had their origin in Lombardy and not in Ireland, that
+they were Italian and not Celtic, and that the same sort of designs
+were used in the southern land early in the seventh century, whence
+they were brought by Wilfrid to this country.
+
+Another remarkable cross is that of Ruthwell, now sheltered from wind
+and weather in the Durham Cathedral Museum. It is very similar to that
+at Bewcastle, though probably not wrought by the same hands. In the
+panels are sculptures representing events in the life of our Lord. The
+lowest panel is too defaced for us to determine the subject; on the
+second we see the flight into Egypt; on the third figures of Paul, the
+first hermit, and Anthony, the first monk, are carved; on the fourth
+is a representation of our Lord treading under foot the heads of
+swine; and on the highest there is the figure of St. John the Baptist
+with the lamb. On the reverse side are the Annunciation, the
+Salutation, and other scenes of gospel history, and the other sides
+are covered with floral and other decoration. In addition to the
+figures there are five stanzas of an Anglo-Saxon poem of singular
+beauty expressed in runes. It is the story of the Crucifixion told in
+touching words by the cross itself, which narrates its own sad tale
+from the time when it was a growing tree by the woodside until at
+length, after the body of the Lord had been taken down--
+
+        The warriors left me there
+        Standing defiled with blood.
+
+On the head of the cross are inscribed the words "Caedmon made
+me"--Caedmon the first of English poets who poured forth his songs in
+praise of Almighty God and told in Saxon poetry the story of the
+Creation and of the life of our Lord.
+
+Another famous cross is that at Gosforth, which is of a much later
+date and of a totally different character from those which we have
+described. The carvings show that it is not Anglian, but that it is
+connected with Viking thought and work. On it is inscribed the story
+of one of the sagas, the wild legends of the Norsemen, preserved by
+their scalds or bards, and handed down from generation to generation
+as the precious traditions of their race. On the west side we see
+Heimdal, the brave watchman of the gods, with his sword withstanding
+the powers of evil, and holding in his left hand the Gialla horn, the
+terrible blast of which shook the world. He is overthrowing Hel, the
+grim goddess of the shades of death, who is riding on the pale horse.
+Below we see Loki, the murderer of the holy Baldur, the blasphemer of
+the gods, bound by strong chains to the sharp edges of a rock, while
+as a punishment for his crimes a snake drops poison upon his face,
+making him yell with pain, and the earth quakes with his convulsive
+tremblings. His faithful wife Sigyn catches the poison in a cup, but
+when the vessel is full she is obliged to empty it, and then a drop
+falls on the forehead of Loki, the destroyer, and the earth shakes on
+account of his writhings. The continual conflict between good and evil
+is wonderfully described in these old Norse legends. On the reverse
+side we see the triumph of Christianity, a representation of the
+Crucifixion, and beneath this the woman bruising the serpent's head.
+In the former sculptures the monster is shown with two heads; here it
+has only one, and that is being destroyed. Christ is conquering the
+powers of evil on the cross. In another fragment at Gosforth we see
+Thor fishing for the Midgard worm, the offspring of Loki, a serpent
+cast into the sea which grows continually and threatens the world with
+destruction. A bull's head is the bait which Thor uses, but fearing
+for the safety of his boat, he has cut the fishing-line and released
+the monstrous worm; giant whales sport in the sea which afford pastime
+to the mighty Thor. Such are some of the strange tales which these
+crosses tell.
+
+There is an old Viking legend inscribed on the cross at Leeds. Volund,
+who is the same mysterious person as our Wayland Smith, is seen
+carrying off a swan-maiden. At his feet are his hammer, anvil,
+bellows, and pincers. The cross was broken to pieces in order to make
+way for the building of the old Leeds church hundreds of years ago,
+but the fragments have been pieced together, and we can see the
+swan-maiden carried above the head of Volund, her wings hanging down
+and held by two ropes that encircle her waist. The smith holds her by
+her back hair and by the tail of her dress. There were formerly
+several other crosses which have been broken up and used as building
+material.
+
+At Halton, Lancashire, there is a curious cross of inferior
+workmanship, but it records the curious mingling of Pagan and
+Christian ideas and the triumph of the latter over the Viking deities.
+On one side we see emblems of the Four Evangelists and the figures of
+saints; on the other are scenes from the Sigurd legend. Sigurd sits at
+the anvil with hammer and tongs and bellows, forging a sword. Above
+him is shown the magic blade completed, with hammer and tongs, while
+Fafni writhes in the knotted throes that everywhere signify his death.
+Sigurd is seen toasting Fafni's heart on a spit. He has placed the
+spit on a rest, and is turning it with one hand, while flames ascend
+from the faggots beneath. He has burnt his finger and is putting it to
+his lips. Above are the interlacing boughs of a sacred tree, and sharp
+eyes may detect the talking pies that perch thereon, to which Sigurd
+is listening. On one side we see the noble horse Grani coming
+riderless home to tell the tale of Sigurd's death, and above is the
+pit with its crawling snakes that yawns for Gunnar and for all the
+wicked whose fate is to be turned into hell. On the south side are
+panels filled with a floriated design representing the vine and
+twisted knot-work rope ornamentation. On the west is a tall
+Resurrection cross with figures on each side, and above a winged and
+seated figure with two others in a kneeling posture. Possibly these
+represent the two Marys kneeling before the angel seated on the stone
+of the holy sepulchre on the morning of the Resurrection of our Lord.
+
+A curious cross has at last found safety after many vicissitudes in
+Hornby Church, Lancashire. It is one of the most beautiful fragments
+of Anglian work that has come down to modern times. One panel shows a
+representation of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. At the foot
+are shown the two fishes and the five loaves carved in bold relief. A
+conventional tree springs from the central loaf, and on each side is a
+nimbed figure. The carving is still so sharp and crisp that it is
+difficult to realize that more than a thousand years have elapsed
+since the sculptor finished his task.
+
+It would be a pleasant task to wander through all the English counties
+and note all pre-Norman crosses that remain in many a lonely
+churchyard; but such a lengthy journey and careful study are too
+extended for our present purpose. Some of them were memorials of
+deceased persons; others, as we have seen, were erected by the early
+missionaries; but preaching crosses were erected and used in much
+later times; and we will now examine some of the medieval examples
+which time has spared, and note the various uses to which they were
+adapted. The making of graves has often caused the undermining and
+premature fall of crosses and monuments; hence early examples of
+churchyard crosses have often passed away and medieval ones been
+erected in their place. Churchyard crosses were always placed at the
+south side of the church, and always faced the east. The carving and
+ornamentation naturally follow the style of architecture prevalent at
+the period of their erection. They had their uses for ceremonial and
+liturgical purposes, processions being made to them on Palm Sunday,
+and it is stated in Young's _History of Whitby_ that "devotees creeped
+towards them and kissed them on Good Fridays, so that a cross was
+considered as a necessary appendage to every cemetery." Preaching
+crosses were also erected in distant parts of large parishes in the
+days when churches were few, and sometimes market crosses were used
+for this purpose.
+
+
+WAYSIDE OR WEEPING CROSSES
+
+Along the roads of England stood in ancient times many a roadside or
+weeping cross. Their purpose is well set forth in the work _Dives et
+Pauper_, printed at Westminster in 1496. Therein it is stated: "For
+this reason ben ye crosses by ye way, that when folk passynge see the
+crosses, they sholde thynke on Hym that deyed on the crosse, and
+worshyppe Hym above all things." Along the pilgrim ways doubtless
+there were many, and near villages and towns formerly they stood, but
+unhappily they made such convenient gate-posts when the head was
+knocked off. Fortunately several have been rescued and restored. It
+was a very general custom to erect these wayside crosses along the
+roads leading to an old parish church for the convenience of funerals.
+There were no hearses in those days; hence the coffin had to be
+carried a long way, and the roads were bad, and bodies heavy, and the
+bearers were not sorry to find frequent resting-places, and the
+mourners' hearts were comforted by constant prayer as they passed
+along the long, sad road with their dear ones for the last time. These
+wayside crosses, or weeping crosses, were therefore of great practical
+utility. Many of the old churches in Lancashire were surrounded by a
+group of crosses, arranged in radiating lines along the converging
+roads, and at suitable distances for rest. You will find such ranges
+of crosses in the parishes of Aughton, Ormskirk, and Burscough Priory,
+and at each a prayer for the soul of the departed was offered or the
+_De profundis_ sung. Every one is familiar with the famous Eleanor
+crosses erected by King Edward I to mark the spots where the body of
+his beloved Queen rested when it was being borne on its last sad
+pilgrimage to Westminster Abbey.
+
+
+MARKET CROSSES
+
+Market crosses form an important section of our subject, and are an
+interesting feature of the old market-places wherein they stand. Mr.
+Gomme contends that they were the ancient meeting-places of the local
+assemblies, and we know that for centuries in many towns they have
+been the rallying-points for the inhabitants. Here fairs were
+proclaimed, and are still in some old-fashioned places, beginning with
+the quaint formula "O yes, O yes, O yes!" a strange corruption of the
+old Norman-French word _oyez_, meaning "Hear ye." I have printed in my
+book _English Villages_ a very curious proclamation of a fair and
+market which was read a few years ago at Broughton-in-Furness by the
+steward of the lord of the manor from the steps of the old market
+cross. Very comely and attractive structures are many of these ancient
+crosses. They vary very much in different parts of the country and
+according to the period in which they were erected. The earliest are
+simple crosses with steps. Later on they had niches for sculptured
+figures, and then in the southern shires a kind of penthouse, usually
+octagonal in shape, enclosed the cross, in order to provide shelter
+from the weather for the market-folk. In the north the hardy
+Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians recked not for rain and storms, and few
+covered-in crosses can be found. You will find some beautiful
+specimens of these at Malmesbury, Chichester, Somerton, Shepton
+Mallet, Cheddar, Axbridge, Nether Stowey, Dunster, South Petherton,
+Banwell, and other places.
+
+Salisbury market cross, of which we give an illustration, is
+remarkable for its fine and elaborate Gothic architectural features,
+its numerous niches and foliated pinnacles. At one time a sun-dial and
+ball crowned the structure, but these have been replaced by a cross.
+It is usually called the Poultry Cross. Near it and in other parts of
+the city are quaint overhanging houses. Though the Guildhall has
+vanished, destroyed in the eighteenth century, the Joiners' Hall, the
+Tailors' Hall, the meeting-places of the old guilds, the Hall of John
+Halle, and the Old George are still standing with some of their
+features modified, but not sufficiently altered to deprive them of
+interest.
+
+[Illustration: The Market Cross, Salisbury, Wilts. Oct. 1908]
+
+Sometimes you will find above a cross an overhead chamber, which was
+used for the storing of market appurtenances. The reeve of the lord of
+the manor, or if the town was owned by a monastery, or the market and
+fair had been granted to a religious house, the abbot's official sat
+in this covered place to receive dues from the merchants or
+stall-holders.
+
+There are no less than two hundred old crosses in Somerset, many of
+them fifteenth-century work. Saxon crosses exist at Rowberrow and
+Kelston; a twelfth-century cross at Harptree; Early English crosses at
+Chilton Trinity, Dunster, and Broomfield; Decorated crosses at
+Williton, Wiveliscombe, Bishops-Lydeard, Chewton Mendip, and those at
+Sutton Bingham and Wraghall are fifteenth century. But not all these
+are market crosses. The south-west district of England is particularly
+rich in these relics of ancient piety, but many have been allowed to
+disappear. Glastonbury market cross, a fine Perpendicular structure
+with a roof, was taken down in 1808, and a new one with no surrounding
+arcade was erected in 1846. The old one bore the arms of Richard Bere,
+abbot of Glastonbury, who died in 1524. The wall of an adjacent house
+has a piece of stone carving representing a man and a woman clasping
+hands, and tradition asserts that this formed part of the original
+cross. Together with the cross was an old conduit, which frequently
+accompanied the market cross. Cheddar Cross is surrounded by its
+battlemented arcade with grotesque gargoyles, a later erection, the
+shaft going through the roof. Taunton market cross was erected in 1867
+in place of a fifteenth-century structure destroyed in 1780. On its
+steps the Duke of Monmouth was proclaimed king, and from the window of
+the Old Angel Inn Judge Jeffreys watched with pleasure the hanging of
+the deluded followers of the duke from the tie-beams of the Market
+Arcade. Dunster market cross is known as the Yarn Market, and was
+erected in 1600 by George Luttrell, sheriff of the county of Somerset.
+The town was famous for its kersey cloths, sometimes called
+"Dunsters," which were sold under the shade of this structure.
+
+Wymondham, in the county of Norfolk, standing on the high road between
+Norwich and London, has a fine market cross erected in 1617. A great
+fire raged here in 1615, when three hundred houses were destroyed, and
+probably the old cross vanished with them, and this one was erected to
+supply its place.
+
+The old cross at Wells, built by William Knight, bishop of Bath in
+1542, was taken down in 1783. Leland states that it was "a right
+sumptuous Peace of worke." Over the vaulted roof was the _Domus
+Civica_ or town hall. The tolls of the market were devoted to the
+support of the choristers of Wells Cathedral. Leland also records a
+market cross at Bruton which had six arches and a pillar in the middle
+"for market folkes to stande yn." It was built by the last abbot of
+Bruton in 1533, and was destroyed in 1790. Bridgwater Cross was
+removed in 1820, and Milverton in 1850. Happily the inhabitants of
+some towns and villages were not so easily deprived of their ancient
+crosses, and the people of Croscombe, Somerset, deserve great credit
+for the spirited manner in which they opposed the demolition of their
+cross about thirty years ago.
+
+Witney Butter Cross, Oxon, the town whence blankets come, has a
+central pillar which stands on three steps, the superstructure being
+supported on thirteen circular pillars. An inscription on the lantern
+above records the following:--
+
+    GULIEIMUS BLAKE
+    Armiger de Coggs
+        1683
+    Restored 1860
+             1889
+             1894
+
+It has a steep roof, gabled and stone-slated, which is not improved
+by the pseudo-Gothic barge-boards, added during the restorations.
+
+Many historical events of great importance have taken place at these
+market crosses which have been so hardly used. Kings were always
+proclaimed here at their accession, and would-be kings have also
+shared that honour. Thus at Lancaster in 1715 the Pretender was
+proclaimed king as James III, and, as we have stated, the Duke of
+Monmouth was proclaimed king at Taunton and Bridgwater. Charles II
+received that honour at Lancaster market cross in 1651, nine years
+before he ruled. Banns of marriage were published here in Cromwell's
+time, and these crosses have witnessed all the cruel punishments which
+were inflicted on delinquents in the "good old days." The last step of
+the cross was often well worn, as it was the seat of the culprits who
+sat in the stocks. Stocks, whipping-posts, and pillories, of which we
+shall have much to say, always stood nigh the cross, and as late as
+1822 a poor wretch was tied to a cart-wheel at the Colne Cross,
+Lancashire, and whipped.
+
+Sometimes the cross is only a cross in name, and an obelisk has
+supplanted the Christian symbol. The change is deemed to be
+attributable to the ideas of some of the Reformers who desired to
+assert the supremacy of the Crown over the Church. Hence they placed
+an orb on the top of the obelisk surmounted by a small, plain Latin
+cross, and later on a large crown took the place of the orb and cross.
+At Grantham the Earl of Dysart erected an obelisk which has an
+inscription stating that it occupies the site of the Grantham Eleanor
+cross. This is a strange error, as this cross stood on an entirely
+different site on St. Peter's Hill and was destroyed by Cromwell's
+troopers. The obelisk replaced the old market cross, which was
+regarded with much affection and reverence by the inhabitants, who in
+1779, when it was taken down by the lord of the manor, immediately
+obtained a mandamus for its restoration. The Mayor and Corporation
+still proclaim the Lent Fair in quaint and archaic language at this
+poor substitute for the old cross.
+
+[Illustration: Under the old Butter Cross, Whitney Oxon]
+
+One of the uses of the market cross was to inculcate the sacredness of
+bargains. There is a curious stone erection in the market-place at
+Middleham, Yorkshire, which seems to have taken the place of the
+market cross and to have taught the same truth. It consists of a
+platform on which are two pillars; one carries the effigy of some
+animal in a kneeling posture, resembling a sheep or a cow, the other
+supports an octagonal object traditionally supposed to represent a
+cheese. The farmers used to walk up the opposing flights of steps when
+concluding a bargain and shake hands over the sculptures.[47]
+
+  [47] _Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire,_ by Henry
+  Taylor, F.S.A.
+
+
+BOUNDARY CROSSES
+
+Crosses marked in medieval times the boundaries of ecclesiastical
+properties, which by this sacred symbol were thus protected from
+encroachment and spoliation. County boundaries were also marked by
+crosses and meare stones. The seven crosses of Oldham marked the
+estate owned by the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem.
+
+
+CROSSES AT CROSS-ROADS AND HOLY WELLS
+
+Where roads meet and many travellers passed a cross was often erected.
+It was a wayside or weeping cross. There pilgrims knelt to implore
+divine aid for their journey and protection from outlaws and robbers,
+from accidents and sudden death. At holy wells the cross was set in
+order to remind the frequenters of the sacredness of the springs and
+to wean them from all superstitious thoughts and pagan customs. Sir
+Walter Scott alludes to this connexion of the cross and well in
+_Marmion_, when he tells of "a little fountain cell" bearing the
+legend:--
+
+        Drink, weary pilgrim, drink and pray
+        For the kind soul of Sybil Grey,
+        Who built this cross and well.
+
+  "In the corner of a field on the Billington Hall Farm, just
+  outside the parish of Haughton, there lies the base, with a
+  portion of the shaft, of a fourteenth-century wayside cross. It
+  stands within ten feet of an old disused lane leading from
+  Billington to Bradley. Common report pronounced it to be an old
+  font. Report states that it was said to be a stone dropped out of
+  a cart as the stones from Billington Chapel were being conveyed to
+  Bradley to be used in building its churchyard wall. A
+  superstitious veneration has always attached to it. A former owner
+  of the property wrote as follows: 'The late Mr. Jackson, who was a
+  very superstitious man, once told me that a former tenant of the
+  farm, whilst ploughing the field, pulled up the stone, and the
+  same day his team of wagon-horses was all drowned. He then put it
+  into the same place again, and all went on right; and that he
+  himself would not have it disturbed upon any account.' A similar
+  legend is attached to another cross. Cross Llywydd, near Raglan,
+  called The White Cross, which is still complete, and has evidently
+  been whitewashed, was moved by a man from its base at some
+  cross-roads to his garden. From that time he had no luck and all
+  his animals died. He attributed this to his sacrilegious act and
+  removed it to a piece of waste ground. The next owner afterwards
+  enclosed the waste with the cross standing in it.
+
+  "The Haughton Cross is only a fragment--almost precisely similar
+  to a fragment at Butleigh, in Somerset, of early
+  fourteenth-century date. The remaining part is clearly the top
+  stone of the base, measuring 2 ft. 11/2 in. square by 1 ft. 6 in.
+  high, and the lowest portion of the shaft sunk into it, and
+  measuring 1 ft. 1 in. square by 101/2 in. high. Careful excavation
+  showed that the stone is probably still standing on its original
+  site."[48]
+
+  "There is in the same parish, where there are four cross-roads, a
+  place known as 'The White Cross.' Not a vestige of a stone
+  remains. But on a slight mound at the crossing stands a venerable
+  oak, now dying. In Monmouthshire oaks have often been so planted
+  on the sites of crosses; and in some cases the bases of the
+  crosses still remain. There are in that county about thirty sites
+  of such crosses, and in seventeen some stones still exist; and
+  probably there are many more unknown to the antiquary, but hidden
+  away in corners of old paths, and in field-ways, and in ditches
+  that used to serve as roads. A question of great interest arises.
+  What were the origin and use of these wayside crosses? and why
+  were so many of them, especially at cross-roads, known as 'The
+  White Cross'? At Abergavenny a cross stood at cross-roads. There
+  is a White Cross Street in London and one in Monmouth, where a
+  cross stood. Were these planted by the White Cross Knights (the
+  Knights of Malta, or of S. John of Jerusalem)? Or are they the
+  work of the Carmelite, or White, Friars? There is good authority
+  for the general idea that they were often used as preaching
+  stations, or as praying stations, as is so frequently the case in
+  Brittany. But did they at cross-roads in any way serve the purpose
+  of the modern sign-post? They are certainly of very early origin.
+  The author of _Ecclesiastical Polity_ says that the erection of
+  wayside crosses was a very ancient practice. Chrysostom says that
+  they were common in his time. Eusebius says that their building
+  was begun by Constantine the Great to eradicate paganism. Juvenal
+  states that a shapeless post, with a marble head of Mercury on it,
+  was erected at cross-roads to point out the way; and Eusebius says
+  that wherever Constantine found a statue of Bivialia (the Roman
+  goddess who delivered from straying from the path), or of
+  Mercurius Triceps (who served the same kind purpose for the
+  Greeks), he pulled it down and had a cross placed upon the site.
+  If, then, these cross-road crosses of later medieval times also
+  had something to do with directions for the way, another source of
+  the designation 'White Cross' is by no means to be laughed out of
+  court, viz. that they were whitewashed, and thus more prominent
+  objects by day, and especially by night. It is quite certain that
+  many of them were whitewashed, for the remains of this may still
+  be seen on them. And the use of whitewash or plaister was far more
+  usual in England than is generally known. There is no doubt that
+  the whole of the outside of the abbey church of St. Albans, and of
+  White Castle, from top to base, were coated with whitewash."[49]
+
+
+  [48] _Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire,_ by Henry
+  Taylor, F.S.A.
+
+  [49] _Ibid._
+
+Whether they were whitened or not, or whether they served as
+guide-posts or stations for prayer, it is well that they should be
+carefully preserved and restored as memorials of the faith of our
+forefathers, and for the purpose of raising the heart of the modern
+pilgrim to Christ, the Saviour of men.
+
+
+SANCTUARY CROSSES
+
+When criminals sought refuge in ancient sanctuaries, such as Durham,
+Beverley, Ripon, Manchester, and other places which provided the
+privilege, having claimed sanctuary and been provided with a
+distinctive dress, they were allowed to wander within certain
+prescribed limits. At Beverley Minster the fugitive from justice could
+wander with no fear of capture to a distance extending a mile from the
+church in all directions. Richly carved crosses marked the limit of
+the sanctuary. A peculiar reverence for the cross protected the
+fugitives from violence if they kept within the bounds. In Cheshire,
+in the wild region of Delamere Forest, there are several ancient
+crosses erected for the convenience of travellers; and under their
+shadows they were safe from robbery and violence at the hands of
+outlaws, who always respected the reverence attached to these symbols
+of Christianity.
+
+
+CROSSES AS GUIDE-POSTS
+
+In wild moorland and desolate hills travellers often lost their way.
+Hence crosses were set up to guide them along the trackless heaths.
+They were as useful as sign-posts, and conveyed an additional lesson.
+You will find such crosses in the desolate country on the borderland
+of Yorkshire and Lancashire. They were usually placed on the summit of
+hills. In Buckinghamshire there are two crosses cut in the turf on a
+spur of the Chilterns, Whiteleaf and Bledlow crosses, which were
+probably marks for the direction of travellers through the wild and
+dangerous woodlands, though popular tradition connects them with the
+memorials of ancient battles between the Saxons and Danes.
+
+From time out of mind crosses have been the rallying point for the
+discussion of urgent public affairs. It was so in London. Paul's
+Cross was the constant meeting-place of the citizens of London
+whenever they were excited by oppressive laws, the troublesome
+competition of "foreigners," or any attempt to interfere with their
+privileges and liberties. The meetings of the shire or hundred moots
+took place often at crosses, or other conspicuous or well-known
+objects. Hundreds were named after them, such as the hundred of
+Faircross in Berkshire, of Singlecross in Sussex, Normancross in
+Huntingdonshire, and Brothercross and Guiltcross, or Gyldecross, in
+Norfolk.
+
+Stories and legends have clustered around them. There is the famous
+Stump Cross in Cheshire, the subject of one of Nixon's prophecies. It
+is supposed to be sinking into the ground. When it reaches the level
+of the earth the end of the world will come. A romantic story is
+associated with Mab's Cross, in Wigan, Lancashire. Sir William
+Bradshaigh was a great warrior, and went crusading for ten years,
+leaving his beautiful wife, Mabel, alone at Haigh Hall. A dastard
+Welsh knight compelled her to marry him, telling her that her husband
+was dead, and treated her cruelly; but Sir William came back to the
+hall disguised as a palmer. Mabel, seeing in him some resemblance to
+her former husband, wept sore, and was beaten by the Welshman. Sir
+William made himself known to his tenants, and raising a troop,
+marched to the hall. The Welsh knight fled, but Sir William followed
+him and slew him at Newton, for which act he was outlawed a year and a
+day. The lady was enjoined by her confessor to do penance by going
+once a week, bare-footed and bare-legged, to a cross near Wigan, two
+miles from the hall, and it is called Mab's Cross to this day. You can
+see in Wigan Church the monument of Sir William and his lady, which
+tells this sad story, and also the cross--at least, all that remains
+of it--the steps, a pedestal, and part of the shaft--in Standisgate,
+"to witness if I lie." It is true that Sir William was born ten years
+after the last of the crusades had ended; but what does that matter?
+He was probably fighting for his king, Edward II, against the Scots,
+or he was languishing a prisoner in some dungeon. There was plenty of
+fighting in those days for those who loved it, and where was the
+Englishman then who did not love to fight for his king and country, or
+seek for martial glory in other lands, if an ungrateful country did
+not provide him with enough work for his good sword and ponderous
+lance?
+
+Such are some of the stories that cluster round these crosses. It is a
+sad pity that so many should have been allowed to disappear. More have
+fallen owing to the indifference and apathy of the people of England
+in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than to the wanton and
+iconoclastic destruction of the Puritans. They are holy relics of
+primitive Christianity. On the lonely mountainsides the tired
+traveller found in them a guide and friend, a director of his ways and
+an uplifter of his soul. In the busy market-place they reminded the
+trader of the sacredness of bargains and of the duty of honest
+dealing. Holy truths were proclaimed from their steps. They connected
+by a close and visible bond religious duties with daily life; and not
+only as objects of antiquarian interest, but as memorials of the
+religious feelings, habits, and customs of our forefathers, are they
+worthy of careful preservation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+STOCKS, WHIPPING-POSTS, AND OLD-TIME PUNISHMENTS
+
+
+Near the village cross almost invariably stood the parish stocks,
+instruments of rude justice, the use of which has only just passed
+away. The "oldest inhabitant" can remember well the old stocks
+standing in the village green and can tell of the men who suffered in
+them. Many of these instruments of torture still remain, silent
+witnesses of old-time ways. You can find them in multitudes of remote
+villages in all parts of the country, and vastly uncomfortable it must
+have been to have one's "feet set in the stocks." A well-known artist
+who delights in painting monks a few years ago placed the portly model
+who usually "sat" for him in the village stocks of Sulham, Berkshire,
+and painted a picture of the monk in disgrace. The model declared that
+he was never so uncomfortable in his life and his legs and back ached
+for weeks afterwards. To make the penalty more realistic the artist
+might have prevailed upon some village urchins to torment the sufferer
+by throwing stones, refuse, or garbage at him, some village maids to
+mock and jeer at him, and some mischievous men to distract his ears
+with inharmonious sounds. In an old print of two men in the stocks I
+have seen a malicious wretch scraping piercing noises out of a fiddle
+and the victims trying to drown the hideous sounds by putting their
+fingers into their ears. A few hours in the stocks was no light
+penalty.
+
+These stocks have a venerable history. They date back to Saxon times
+and appear in drawings of that period. It is a pity that they should
+be destroyed; but borough corporations decide that they interfere with
+the traffic of a utilitarian age and relegate them to a museum or doom
+them to be cut up as faggots. Country folk think nothing of
+antiquities, and a local estate agent or the village publican will
+make away with this relic of antiquity and give the "old rubbish" to
+Widow Smith for firing. Hence a large number have disappeared, and it
+is wonderful that so many have hitherto escaped. Let the eyes of
+squires and local antiquaries be ever on the watch lest those that
+remain are allowed to vanish.
+
+By ancient law[50] every town or village was bound to provide a pair
+of stocks. It was a sign of dignity, and if the village had this seat
+for malefactors, a constable, and a pound for stray cattle, it could
+not be mistaken for a mere hamlet. The stocks have left their mark on
+English literature. Shakespeare frequently alludes to them. Falstaff,
+in _The Merry Wives of Windsor_, says that but for his "admirable
+dexterity of wit the knave constable had set me i' the stocks, i' the
+common stocks." "What needs all that and a pair of stocks in the
+town," says Luce in the _Comedy of Errors_. "Like silly beggars, who
+sitting in stocks refuge their shame," occurs in _Richard II_; and in
+_King Lear_ Cornwall exclaims--
+
+        "Fetch forth the stocks!
+        You stubborn ancient knave."
+
+  [50] Act of Parliament, 1405.
+
+Who were the culprits who thus suffered? Falstaff states that he only
+just escaped the punishment of being set in the stocks for a witch.
+Witches usually received severer justice, but stocks were often used
+for keeping prisoners safe until they were tried and condemned, and
+possibly Shakespeare alludes in this passage only to the preliminaries
+of a harsher ordeal. Drunkards were the common defaulters who appeared
+in the stocks, and by an Act of 2 James I they were required to endure
+six hours' incarceration with a fine of five shillings. Vagrants
+always received harsh treatment unless they had a licence, and the
+corporation records of Hungerford reveal the fact that they were
+always placed in the pillory and whipped. The stocks, pillory, and
+whipping-post were three different implements of punishment, but, as
+was the case at Wallingford, Berkshire, they were sometimes allied and
+combined. The stocks secured the feet, the pillory "held in durance
+vile" the head and the hands, while the whipping-post imprisoned the
+hands only by clamps on the sides of the post. In the constable's
+accounts of Hungerford we find such items as:--
+
+    "Pd for cheeke and brace for the pillory                  00,02,00
+    Pd for mending the pillory                                00,00,06
+    Pd the Widow Tanner for iron geare for the whipping post  00,03,06"
+
+Whipping was a very favourite pastime at this old Berkshire town; this
+entry will suffice:--
+
+    "Pd to John Savidge for his extraordinary
+    paines this yeare and whipping of severall persons        00,05,00"
+
+John Savidge was worthy of his name, but the good folks of Hungerford
+tempered mercy with justice and usually gave a monetary consolation to
+those who suffered from the lash. Thus we read:--
+
+    "Gave a poore man that was whipped and sent
+    from Tythinge to Tythinge                                 00,00,04"
+
+Women were whipped at Hungerford, as we find that the same John
+Savidge received 2d. for whipping Dorothy Millar. All this was
+according to law. The first Whipping Act was passed in 1530 when Henry
+VIII reigned, and according to this barbarous piece of legislation the
+victim was stripped naked and tied to a cart-tail, dragged through the
+streets of the town, and whipped "till his body was bloody." In
+Elizabeth's time the cart-tail went out of fashion and a
+whipping-post was substituted, and only the upper part of the body was
+exposed. The tramp question was as troublesome in the seventeenth
+century as it is to-day. We confine them in workhouse-cells and make
+them break stones or pick oakum; whipping was the solution adopted by
+our forefathers. We have seen John Savidge wielding his whip, which
+still exists among the curiosities at Hungerford. At Barnsley in 1632
+Edward Wood was paid iiijd. "for whiping of three wanderers." Ten
+years earlier Richard White received only iid. for performing the like
+service for six wanderers. Mr. W. Andrews has collected a vast store
+of curious anecdotes on the subject of whippings, recorded in his
+_Bygone Punishments_, to which the interested reader is referred. The
+story he tells of the brutality of Judge Jeffreys may be repeated.
+This infamous and inhuman judge sentenced a woman to be whipped, and
+said, "Hangman, I charge you to pay particular attention to this lady.
+Scourge her soundly, man; scourge her till her blood runs down! It is
+Christmas, a cold time for madam to strip. See that you warm her
+shoulders thoroughly." It was not until 1791 that the whipping of
+female vagrants was expressly forbidden by Act of Parliament.
+
+Stocks have been used in quite recent times. So late as 1872, at
+Newbury, one Mark Tuck, a devoted disciple of John Barleycorn,
+suffered this penalty for his misdeeds.[51] He was a rag and bone
+dealer, and knew well the inside of Reading jail. _Notes and
+Queries_[52] contains an account of the proceedings, and states that
+he was "fixed in the stocks for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in
+the Parish Church on Monday evening." Twenty-six years had elapsed
+since the stocks were last used, and their reappearance created no
+little sensation and amusement, several hundreds of persons being
+attracted to the spot where they were fixed. Tuck was seated on a
+stool, and his legs were secured in the stocks at a few minutes past
+one o'clock, and as the church clock, immediately facing him, chimed
+each quarter, he uttered expressions of thankfulness, and seemed
+anything but pleased at the laughter and derision of the crowd. Four
+hours having passed, Tuck was released, and by a little stratagem on
+the part of the police he escaped without being interfered with by the
+crowd.
+
+  [51] _History of Hungerford_, by W. Money, p. 38.
+
+  [52] _Notes and Queries_, 4th series, X, p. 6.
+
+Sunday drinking during divine service provided in many places victims
+for the stocks. So late as half a century ago it was the custom for
+the churchwardens to go out of church during the morning service on
+Sundays and visit the public-houses to see if any persons were
+tippling there, and those found _in flagrante delicto_ were
+immediately placed in the stocks. So arduous did the churchwardens
+find this duty that they felt obliged to regale themselves at the
+alehouses while they made their tour of inspection, and thus rendered
+themselves liable to the punishment which they inflicted on others.
+Mr. Rigbye, postmaster at Croston, Lancashire, who was seventy-three
+years of age in 1899, remembered these Sunday-morning searches, and
+had seen drunkards sitting in the stocks, which were fixed near the
+southern step of the village cross. Mr. Rigbye, when a boy, helped to
+pull down the stocks, which were then much dilapidated. A certain
+Richard Cottam, called "Cockle Dick," was the last man seen in
+them.[53]
+
+  [53] _Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire_, by H. Taylor,
+  F.S.A., p. 37.
+
+The same morning perambulating of ale-houses was carried on at
+Skipton, the churchwardens being headed by the old beadle, an imposing
+personage, who wore a cocked hat and an official coat trimmed with
+gold, and carried in majestic style a trident staff, a terror to
+evil-doers, at least to those of tender years.[54] At Beverley the
+stocks still preserved in the minster were used as late as 1853; Jim
+Brigham, guilty of Sunday tippling, and discovered by the
+churchwardens in their rounds, was the last victim. Some sympathizer
+placed in his mouth a lighted pipe of tobacco, but the constable in
+charge hastily snatched it away. James Gambles, for gambling on
+Sunday, was confined in the Stanningley stocks, Yorkshire, for six
+hours in 1860. The stocks and village well remain still at Standish,
+near the cross, and also the stone cheeks of those at Eccleston Green
+bearing the date 1656. At Shore Cross, near Birkdale, the stocks
+remain, also the iron ones at Thornton, Lancashire, described in Mrs.
+Blundell's novel _In a North Country Village_; also at Formby they
+exist, though somewhat dilapidated.
+
+  [54] _History of Skipton_, W.H. Dawson, quoted in _Bygone
+  Punishments_, p. 199.
+
+Whether by accident or design, the stocks frequently stand close to
+the principal inn in a village. As they were often used for the
+correction of the intemperate their presence was doubtless intended as
+a warning to the frequenters of the hostelry not to indulge too
+freely. Indeed, the sight of the stocks, pillory, and whipping-post
+must have been a useful deterrent to vice. An old writer states that
+he knew of the case of a young man who was about to annex a silver
+spoon, but on looking round and seeing the whipping-post he
+relinquished his design. The writer asserts that though it lay
+immediately in the high road to the gallows, it had stopped many an
+adventurous young man in his progress thither.
+
+The ancient Lancashire town of Poulton-in-the-Fylde has a fairly
+complete set of primitive punishment implements. Close to the cross
+stand the stocks with massive ironwork, the criminals, as usual,
+having been accustomed to sit on the lowest step of the cross, and on
+the other side of the cross is the rogue's whipping-post, a stone
+pillar about eight feet high, on the sides of which are hooks to which
+the culprit was fastened. Between this and the cross stands another
+useful feature of a Lancashire market-place, the fish stones, an
+oblong raised slab for the display and sale of fish.
+
+In several places we find that movable stocks were in use, which could
+be brought out whenever occasion required. A set of these exists at
+Garstang, Lancashire. The quotation already given from _King Lear,_
+"Fetch forth the stocks," seems to imply that in Shakespeare's time
+they were movable. Beverley stocks were movable, and in _Notes and
+Queries_ we find an account of a mob at Shrewsbury dragging around the
+town in the stocks an incorrigible rogue one Samuel Tisdale in the
+year 1851.
+
+The Rochdale stocks remain, but they are now in the churchyard, having
+been removed from the place where the markets were formerly held at
+Church Stile. When these kind of objects have once disappeared it is
+rarely that they are ever restored. However, at West Derby this
+unusual event has occurred, and five years ago the restoration was
+made. It appears that in the village there was an ancient pound or
+pinfold which had degenerated into an unsightly dust-heap, and the old
+stocks had passed into private hands. The inhabitants resolved to turn
+the untidy corner into a garden, and the lady gave back the stocks to
+the village. An inscription records: "To commemorate the long and
+happy reign of Queen Victoria and the coronation of King Edward VII,
+the site of the ancient pound of the Dukes of Lancaster and other
+lords of the manor of West Derby was enclosed and planted, and the
+village stocks set therein. Easter, 1904."
+
+This inscription records another item of vanishing England. Before the
+Inclosure Acts at the beginning of the last century there were in all
+parts of the country large stretches of unfenced land, and cattle
+often strayed far from their homes and presumed to graze on the open
+common lands of other villages. Each village had its pound-keeper,
+who, when he saw these estrays, as the lawyers term the valuable
+animals that were found wandering in any manor or lordship,
+immediately drove them into the pound. If the owner claimed them, he
+had certain fees to pay to the pound-keeper and the cost of the keep.
+If they were not claimed they became the property of the lord of the
+manor, but it was required that they should be proclaimed in the
+church and two market towns next adjoining the place where they were
+found, and a year and a day must have elapsed before they became the
+actual property of the lord. The possession of a pound was a sign of
+dignity for the village. Now that commons have been enclosed and waste
+lands reclaimed, stray cattle no longer cause excitement in the
+village, the pound-keeper has gone, and too often the pound itself has
+disappeared. We had one in our village twenty years ago, but suddenly,
+before he could be remonstrated with, an estate agent, not caring for
+the trouble and cost of keeping it in repair, cleared it away, and its
+place knows it no more. In very many other villages similar happenings
+have occurred. Sometimes the old pound has been utilized by road
+surveyors as a convenient place for storing gravel for mending roads,
+and its original purpose is forgotten.
+
+It would be a pleasant task to go through the towns and villages of
+England to discover and to describe traces of these primitive
+implements of torture, but such a record would require a volume
+instead of a single chapter. In Berkshire we have several left to us.
+There is a very complete set at Wallingford, pillory, stocks, and
+whipping-post, now stored in the museum belonging to Miss Hedges in
+the castle, but in western Berkshire they have nearly all disappeared.
+The last pair of stocks that I can remember stood at the entrance to
+the town of Wantage. They have only disappeared within the last few
+years. The whipping-post still exists at the old Town Hall at
+Faringdon, the staples being affixed to the side of the ancient
+"lock-up," known as the Black Hole.
+
+At Lymm, Cheshire, there are some good stocks by the cross in that
+village, and many others may be discovered by the wandering antiquary,
+though their existence is little known and usually escapes the
+attention of the writers on local antiquities. As relics of primitive
+modes of administering justice, it is advisable that they should be
+preserved.
+
+Yet another implement of rude justice was the cucking or ducking
+stool, which exists in a few places. It was used principally for the
+purpose of correcting scolding women. Mr. Andrews, who knows all that
+can be known about old-time punishments, draws a distinction between
+the cucking and ducking stool, and states that the former originally
+was a chair of infamy where immoral women and scolds were condemned to
+sit with bare feet and head to endure the derision of the populace,
+and had no relation to any ducking in water. But it appears that later
+on the terms were synonymous, and several of these implements remain.
+This machine for quieting intemperate scolds was quite simple. A plank
+with a chair at one end was attached by an axle to a post which was
+fixed on the bank of a river or pond, or on wheels, so that it could
+be run thither; the culprit was tied to the chair, and the other end
+of the plank was alternately raised or lowered so as to cause the
+immersion of the scold in the chilly water. A very effectual
+punishment! The form of the chair varies. The Leominster ducking-stool
+is still preserved, and this implement was the latest in use, having
+been employed in 1809 for the ducking of Jenny Pipes, _alias_ Jane
+Corran, a common scold, by order of the magistrates, and also as late
+as 1817; but in this case the victim, one Sarah Leeke, was only
+wheeled round the town in the chair, and not ducked, as the water in
+the Kenwater stream was too shallow for the purpose. The cost of
+making the stool appears in many corporation accounts. That at
+Hungerford must have been in pretty frequent use, as there are several
+entries for repairs in the constable's accounts.[55] Thus we find the
+item under the year 1669:--
+
+    "Pd for the Cucking stoole                   01,10,00"
+
+and in 1676:--
+
+    "Pd for nailes and workmanship about
+    the stocks and cucking stoole                00,07,00"
+
+  [55] The corporation of Hungerford is peculiar, the head official
+  being termed the constable, who corresponded with the mayor in
+  less original boroughs.
+
+At Kingston-upon-Thames in 1572 the accounts show the expenditure:--
+
+    "The making of the cucking-stool        .     8s.    0d.
+    Iron work for the same  .      .        .     3s.    0d.
+    Timber for the same     .      .        .     7s.    6d.
+    Three brasses for the same and three wheels   4s.   10d.
+                                                ------------
+                                             L1   3s.    4d."
+
+We need not record similar items shown in the accounts of other
+boroughs. You will still find examples of this fearsome implement at
+Leicester in the museum, Wootton Bassett, the wheels of one in the
+church of St. Mary, Warwick; two at Plymouth, one of which was used in
+1808; King's Lynn, Norfolk, in the museum; Ipswich, Scarborough,
+Sandwich, Fordwich, and possibly some other places of which we have no
+record.
+
+We find in museums, but not in common use, another terrible implement
+for the curbing of the rebellious tongues of scolding women. It was
+called the brank or scold's bridle, and probably came to us from
+Scotland with the Solomon of the North, whither the idea of it had
+been conveyed through the intercourse of that region with France. It
+is a sort of iron cage or framework helmet, which was fastened on the
+head, having a flat tongue of iron that was placed on the tongue of
+the victim and effectually restrained her from using it. Sometimes the
+iron tongue was embellished with spikes so as to make the movement of
+the human tongue impossible except with the greatest agony. Imagine
+the poor wretch with her head so encaged, her mouth cut and bleeding
+by this sharp iron tongue, none too gently fitted by her rough
+torturers, and then being dragged about the town amid the jeers of the
+populace, or chained to the pillory in the market-place, an object of
+ridicule and contempt. Happily this scene has vanished from vanishing
+England. Perhaps she was a loud-voiced termagant; perhaps merely the
+ill-used wife of a drunken wretch, who well deserved her scolding; or
+the daring teller of home truths to some jack-in-office, who thus
+revenged himself. We have shrews and scolds still; happily they are
+restrained in a less barbarous fashion. You may still see some
+fearsome branks in museums. Reading, Leeds, York, Walton-on-Thames,
+Congleton, Stockport, Macclesfield, Warrington, Morpeth, Hamstall
+Ridware, in Staffordshire, Lichfield, Chesterfield (now in possession
+of the Walsham family), Leicester, Doddington Park, Lincolnshire (a
+very grotesque example), the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Ludlow,
+Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Whitchurch, Market Drayton, are some of the
+places which still possess scolds' bridles. Perhaps it is wrong to
+infer from the fact that most of these are to be found in the counties
+of Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, that the women of those
+shires were especially addicted to strong and abusive language. It may
+be only that antiquaries in those counties have been more industrious
+in unearthing and preserving these curious relics of a barbarous age.
+The latest recorded occasion of its use was at Congleton in 1824, when
+a woman named Ann Runcorn was condemned to endure the bridle for
+abusing and slandering the churchwardens when they made their tour of
+inspection of the alehouses during the Sunday-morning service. There
+are some excellent drawings of branks, and full descriptions of their
+use, in Mr. Andrews's _Bygone Punishments_.
+
+Another relic of old-time punishments most gruesome of all are the
+gibbet-irons wherein the bones of some wretched breaker of the laws
+hung and rattled as the irons creaked and groaned when stirred by the
+breeze. _Pour l'encouragement des autres_, our wise forefathers
+enacted that the bodies of executed criminals should be hanged in
+chains. At least this was a common practice that dated from medieval
+times, though it was not actually legalized until 1752.[56] This Act
+remained in force until 1834, and during the interval thousands of
+bodies were gibbeted and left creaking in the wind at Hangman's Corner
+or Gibbet Common, near the scene of some murder or outrage. It must
+have been ghostly and ghastly to walk along our country lanes and hear
+the dreadful noise, especially if the tradition were true
+
+        That the wretch in his chains, each night took the pains,
+        To come down from the gibbet--and walk.
+
+In order to act as a warning to others the bodies were kept up as long
+as possible, and for this purpose were saturated with tar. On one
+occasion the gibbet was fired and the tar helped the conflagration,
+and a rapid and effectual cremation ensued. In many museums
+gibbet-irons are preserved.
+
+Punishments in olden times were usually cruel. Did they act as
+deterrents to vice? Modern judges have found the use of the lash a
+cure for robbery from the person with violence. The sight of
+whipping-posts and stocks, we learn, has stayed young men from
+becoming topers and drunkards. A brank certainly in one recorded case
+cured a woman from coarse invective and abuse. But what effect had the
+sight of the infliction of cruel punishments upon those who took part
+in them or witnessed them? It could only have tended to make cruel
+natures more brutal. Barbarous punishments, public hangings, cruel
+sports such as bull-baiting, dog-fighting, bear-baiting,
+prize-fighting and the like could not fail to exercise a bad influence
+on the populace; and where one was deterred from vice, thousands were
+brutalized and their hearts and natures hardened, wherein vicious
+pleasures, crime, and lust found a congenial soil. But we can still
+see our stocks on the village greens, our branks, ducking-stools, and
+pillories in museums, and remind ourselves of the customs of former
+days which have not so very long ago passed away.
+
+  [56] Act of Parliament 25 George II.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+OLD BRIDGES
+
+
+The passing away of the old bridges is a deplorable feature of
+vanishing England. Since the introduction of those terrible
+traction-engines, monstrous machines that drag behind them a whole
+train of heavily laden trucks, few of these old structures that have
+survived centuries of ordinary use are safe from destruction. The
+immense weight of these road-trains are enough to break the back of
+any of the old-fashioned bridges. Constantly notices have to be set up
+stating: "This bridge is only sufficient to carry the ordinary traffic
+of the district, and traction-engines are not allowed to proceed over
+it." Then comes an outcry from the proprietors of locomotives
+demanding bridges suitable for their convenience. County councils and
+district councils are worried by their importunities, and soon the
+venerable structures are doomed, and an iron-girder bridge hideous in
+every particular replaces one of the most beautiful features of our
+village.
+
+When the Sonning bridges that span the Thames were threatened a few
+years ago, English artists, such as Mr. Leslie and Mr. Holman-Hunt,
+strove manfully for their defence. The latter wrote:--
+
+  "The nation, without doubt, is in serious danger of losing faith
+  in the testimony of our poets and painters to the exceptional
+  beauty of the land which has inspired them. The poets, from
+  Chaucer to the last of his true British successors, with one voice
+  enlarge on the overflowing sweetness of England, her hills and
+  dales, her pastures with sweet flowers, and the loveliness of her
+  silver streams. It is the cherishing of the wholesome enjoyments
+  of daily life that has implanted in the sons of England love of
+  home, goodness of nature, and sweet reasonableness, and has given
+  strength to the thews and sinews of her children, enabling them to
+  defend her land, her principles, and her prosperity. With regard
+  to the three Sonning bridges, parts of them have been already
+  rebuilt with iron fittings in recent years, and no disinterested
+  reasonable person can see why they could not be easily made
+  sufficient to carry all existing traffic. If the bridges were to
+  be widened in the service of some disproportionate vehicles it is
+  obvious that the traffic such enlarged bridges are intended to
+  carry would be put forward as an argument for demolishing the
+  exquisite old bridge over the main river which is the glory of
+  this exceptionally picturesque and well-ordered village; and this
+  is a matter of which even the most utilitarian would soon see the
+  evil in the diminished attraction of the river not only to
+  Englishmen, but to Colonials and Americans who have across the sea
+  read widely of its beauty. Remonstrances must look ahead, and can
+  only now be of avail in recognition of future further danger. We
+  are called upon to plead the cause for the whole of the
+  beauty-loving England, and of all river-loving people in
+  particular."
+
+Gallantly does the great painter express the views of artists, and
+such vandalism is as obnoxious to antiquaries as it is to artists and
+lovers of the picturesque. Many of these old bridges date from
+medieval times, and are relics of antiquity that can ill be spared.
+Brick is a material as nearly imperishable as any that man can build
+with. There is hardly any limit to the life of a brick or stone
+bridge, whereas an iron or steel bridge requires constant supervision.
+The oldest iron bridge in this country--at Coalbrookdale, in
+Shropshire--has failed after 123 years of life. It was worn out by old
+age, whereas the Roman bridge at Rimini, and the medieval ones at St.
+Ives, Bradford-on-Avon, and countless other places in this country and
+abroad, are in daily use and are likely to remain serviceable for many
+years to come, unless these ponderous trains break them down.
+
+The interesting bridge which crosses the River Conway at Llanrwst was
+built in 1636 by Sir Richard Wynn, then the owner of Gwydir Castle,
+from the designs of Inigo Jones. Like many others, it is being injured
+by traction-trains carrying unlimited weights. Happily the Society for
+the Protection of Ancient Buildings heard the plaint of the old bridge
+that groaned under its heavy burdens and cried aloud for pity. The
+society listened to its pleading, and carried its petition to the
+Carmarthen County Council, with excellent results. This enlightened
+Council decided to protect the bridge and save it from further harm.
+
+The building of bridges was anciently regarded as a charitable and
+religious act, and guilds and brotherhoods existed for their
+maintenance and reparation. At Maidenhead there was a notable bridge,
+for the sustenance of which the Guild of St. Andrew and St. Mary
+Magdalene was established by Henry VI in 1452. An early bridge existed
+here in the thirteenth century, a grant having been made in 1298 for
+its repair. A bridge-master was one of the officials of the
+corporation, according to the charter granted to the town by James II.
+The old bridge was built of wood and supported by piles. No wonder
+that people were terrified at the thought of passing over such
+structures in dark nights and stormy weather. There was often a
+bridge-chapel, as on the old Caversham bridge, wherein they said their
+prayers, and perhaps made their wills, before they ventured to cross.
+
+Some towns owe their existence to the making of bridges. It was so at
+Maidenhead. It was quite a small place, a cluster of cottages, but
+Camden tells us that after the erection of the bridge the town began
+to have inns and to be so frequented as to outvie its "neighbouring
+mother, Bray, a much more ancient place," where the famous "Vicar"
+lived. The old bridge gave place in 1772 to a grand new one with very
+graceful arches, which was designed by Sir Roland Taylor.
+
+Abingdon, another of our Berkshire towns, has a famous bridge that
+dates back to the fifteenth century, when it was erected by some good
+merchants of the town, John Brett and John Huchyns and Geoffrey
+Barbour, with the aid of Sir Peter Besils of Besselsleigh, who
+supplied the stone from his quarries. It is an extremely graceful
+structure, well worthy of the skill of the medieval builders. It is
+some hundreds of yards in length, spanning the Thames and meadows that
+are often flooded, the main stream being spanned by six arches. Henry
+V is credited with its construction, but he only graciously bestowed
+his royal licence. In fact these merchants built two bridges, one
+called Burford Bridge and the other across the ford at Culham. The
+name Burford has nothing to do with the beautiful old town which we
+have already visited, but is a corruption of Borough-ford, the town
+ford at Abingdon. Two poets have sung their praises, one in atrocious
+Latin and the other in quaint, old-fashioned English. The first poet
+made a bad shot at the name of the king, calling him Henry IV instead
+of Henry V, though it is a matter of little importance, as neither
+monarch had anything to do with founding the structure. The Latin poet
+sings, if we may call it singing:--
+
+        Henricus Quartus quarto fundaverat anno
+        Rex pontem Burford super undas atque Culham-ford.
+
+The English poet fixes the date of the bridge, 4 Henry V (1416) and
+thus tells its story:--
+
+        King Henry the fyft, in his fourthe yere
+        He hath i-founde for his folke a brige in Berkshire
+        For cartis with cariage may goo and come clere,
+        That many wynters afore were marred in the myre.
+
+        Now is Culham hithe[57] i-come to an ende
+        And al the contre the better and no man the worse,
+        Few folke there were coude that way mende,
+        But they waged a cold or payed of ther purse;
+        An if it were a beggar had breed in his bagge,
+        He schulde be right soone i-bid to goo aboute;
+        And if the pore penyless the hireward would have,
+        A hood or a girdle and let him goo aboute.
+        Culham hithe hath caused many a curse
+        I' blyssed be our helpers we have a better waye,
+        Without any peny for cart and horse.
+
+        Another blyssed besiness is brigges to make
+        That there the pepul may not passe after great schowres,
+        Dole it is to draw a dead body out of a lake
+        That was fulled in a fount stoon and felow of owres.
+
+  [57] Ferry.
+
+The poet was grateful for the mercies conveyed to him by the bridge.
+"Fulled in a fount stoon," of course, means "washed or baptized in a
+stone font." He reveals the misery and danger of passing through a
+ford "after great showers," and the sad deaths which befell
+adventurous passengers when the river was swollen by rains and the
+ford well-nigh impassable. No wonder the builders of bridges earned
+the gratitude of their fellows. Moreover, this Abingdon Bridge was
+free to all persons, rich and poor alike, and no toll or pontage was
+demanded from those who would cross it.
+
+Within the memory of man there was a beautiful old bridge between
+Reading and Caversham. It was built of brick, and had ten arches, some
+constructed of stone. About the time of the Restoration some of these
+were ruinous, and obstructed the passage by penning up the water above
+the bridge so that boats could not pass without the use of a winch,
+and in the time of James II the barge-masters of Oxford appealed to
+Courts of Exchequer, asserting that the charges of pontage exacted on
+all barges passing under the bridge were unlawful, claiming exemption
+from all tolls by reason of a charter granted to the citizens of
+Oxford by Richard II. They won their case. This bridge is mentioned in
+the Close Rolls of the early years of Edward I as a place where
+assizes were held. The bridge at Cromarsh and Grandpont outside Oxford
+were frequently used for the same purpose. So narrow was it that two
+vehicles could not pass. For the safety of the foot passenger little
+angles were provided at intervals into which he could step in order
+to avoid being run over by carts or coaches. The chapel on the bridge
+was a noted feature of the bridge. It was very ancient. In 1239
+Engelard de Cyngny was ordered to let William, chaplain of the chapel
+of Caversham, have an oak out of Windsor Forest with which to make
+shingles for the roofing of the chapel. Passengers made offerings in
+the chapel to the priest in charge of it for the repair of the bridge
+and the maintenance of the chapel and priest. It contained many relics
+of saints, which at the Dissolution were eagerly seized by Dr. London,
+the King's Commissioner. About the year 1870 the old bridge was pulled
+down and the present hideous iron-girder erection substituted for it.
+It is extremely ugly, but is certainly more convenient than the old
+narrow bridge, which required passengers to retire into the angle to
+avoid the danger of being run over.
+
+These bridges can tell many tales of battle and bloodshed. There was a
+great skirmish on Caversham Bridge in the Civil War in a vain attempt
+on the part of the Royalists to relieve the siege of Reading. When
+Wallingford was threatened in the same period of the Great Rebellion,
+one part of the bridge was cut in order to prevent the enemy riding
+into the town. And you can still detect the part that was severed.
+There is a very interesting old bridge across the upper Thames between
+Bampton and Faringdon. It is called Radcot Bridge; probably built in
+the thirteenth century, with its three arches and a heavy buttress in
+the middle niched for a figure of the Virgin, and a cross formerly
+stood in the centre. A "cut" has diverted the course of the river to
+another channel, but the bridge remains, and on this bridge a sharp
+skirmish took place between Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Marquis of
+Dublin, and Duke of Ireland, a favourite of Richard II, upon whom the
+King delighted to bestow titles and honours. The rebellious lords met
+the favourite's forces at Radcot, where a fierce fight ensued. De Vere
+was taken in the rear, and surrounded by the forces of the Duke of
+Gloucester and the Earl of Derby, and being hard pressed, he plunged
+into the icy river (it was on the 20th day of December, 1387) with his
+armour on, and swimming down-stream with difficulty saved his life. Of
+this exploit a poet sings:--
+
+        Here Oxford's hero, famous for his boar,
+        While clashing swords upon his target sound,
+        And showers of arrows from his breast rebound,
+        Prepared for worst of fates, undaunted stood,
+        And urged his heart into the rapid flood.
+        The waves in triumph bore him, and were proud
+        To sink beneath their honourable load.
+
+Religious communities, monasteries and priories, often constructed
+bridges. There is a very curious one at Croyland, probably erected by
+one of the abbots of the famous abbey of Croyland or Crowland. This
+bridge is regarded as one of the greatest curiosities in the kingdom.
+It is triangular in shape, and has been supposed to be emblematical of
+the Trinity. The rivers Welland, Nene, and a drain called Catwater
+flow under it. The ascent is very steep, so that carriages go under
+it. The triangular bridge of Croyland is mentioned in a charter of
+King Edred about the year 941, but the present bridge is probably not
+earlier than the fourteenth century. However, there is a rude statue
+said to be that of King Ethelbald, and may have been taken from the
+earlier structure and built into the present bridge. It is in a
+sitting posture at the end of the south-west wall of the bridge. The
+figure has a crown on the head, behind which are two wings, the arms
+bound together, round the shoulders a kind of mantle, in the left hand
+a sceptre and in the right a globe. The bridge consists of three
+piers, whence spring three pointed arches which unite their groins in
+the centre. Croyland is an instance of a decayed town, the tide of its
+prosperity having flowed elsewhere. Though nominally a market-town, it
+is only a village, with little more than the ruins of its former
+splendour remaining, when the great abbey attracted to it crowds of
+the nobles and gentry of England, and employed vast numbers of
+labourers, masons, and craftsmen on the works of the abbey and in the
+supply of its needs.
+
+[Illustration: The Triangular Bridge Crowland]
+
+All over the country we find beautiful old bridges, though the opening
+years of the present century, with the increase of heavy
+traction-engines, have seen many disappear. At Coleshill,
+Warwickshire, there is a graceful old bridge leading to the town with
+its six arches and massive cutwaters. Kent is a county of bridges,
+picturesque medieval structures which have survived the lapse of time
+and the storms and floods of centuries. You can find several of these
+that span the Medway far from the busy railway lines and the great
+roads. There is a fine medieval fifteenth-century bridge at Yalding
+across the Beult, long, fairly level, with deeply embayed cutwaters of
+rough ragstone. Twyford Bridge belongs to the same period, and
+Lodingford Bridge, with its two arches and single-buttressed cutwater,
+is very picturesque. Teston Bridge across the Medway has five arches
+of carefully wrought stonework and belongs to the fifteenth century,
+and East Farleigh is a fine example of the same period with four
+ribbed and pointed arches and four bold cutwaters of wrought stones,
+one of the best in the country. Aylesford Bridge is a very graceful
+structure, though it has been altered by the insertion of a wide span
+arch in the centre for the improvement of river navigation. Its
+existence has been long threatened, and the Society for the Protection
+of Ancient Buildings has done its utmost to save the bridge from
+destruction. Its efforts are at length crowned with success, and the
+Kent County Council has decided that there are not sufficient grounds
+to justify the demolition of the bridge and that it shall remain. The
+attack upon this venerable structure will probably be renewed some
+day, and its friends will watch over it carefully and be prepared to
+defend it again when the next onslaught is made. It is certainly one
+of the most beautiful bridges in Kent. Little known and seldom seen
+by the world, and unappreciated even by the antiquary or the motorist,
+these Medway bridges continue their placid existence and proclaim the
+enduring work of the English masons of nearly five centuries ago.
+
+Many of our bridges are of great antiquity. The Eashing bridges over
+the Wey near Godalming date from the time of King John and are of
+singular charm and beauty. Like many others they have been threatened,
+the Rural District Council having proposed to widen and strengthen
+them, and completely to alter their character and picturesqueness.
+Happily the bridges were private property, and by the action of the
+Old Guildford Society and the National Trust they have been placed
+under the guardianship of the Trust, and are now secure from
+molestation.
+
+[Illustration: Huntingdon Bridge]
+
+We give an illustration of the Crane Bridge, Salisbury, a small Gothic
+bridge near the Church House, and seen in conjunction with that
+venerable building it forms a very beautiful object. Another
+illustration shows the huge bridge at Huntingdon spanning the Ouse
+with six arches. It is in good preservation, and has an arcade of
+Early Gothic arches, and over it the coaches used to run along the
+great North Road, the scene of the mythical ride of Dick Turpin, and
+doubtless the youthful feet of Oliver Cromwell, who was born at
+Huntingdon, often traversed it. There is another fine bridge at St.
+Neots with a watch-tower in the centre.
+
+The little town of Bradford-on-Avon has managed to preserve almost
+more than any other place in England the old features which are fast
+vanishing elsewhere. We have already seen that most interesting
+untouched specimen of Saxon architecture the little Saxon church,
+which we should like to think is the actual church built by St.
+Aldhelm, but we are compelled to believe on the authority of experts
+that it is not earlier than the tenth century. In all probability a
+church was built by St. Aldhelm at Bradford, probably of wood, and was
+afterwards rebuilt in stone when the land had rest and the raids of
+the Danes had ceased, and King Canute ruled and encouraged the
+building of churches, and Bishops Dunstan and AEthelwold of Winchester
+were specially prominent in the work. Bradford, too, has its noble
+church, parts of which date back to Norman times; its famous
+fourteenth-century barn at Barton Farm, which has a fifteenth-century
+porch and gatehouse; many fine examples of the humbler specimens of
+domestic architecture; and the very interesting Kingston House of the
+seventeenth century, built by one of the rich clothiers of Bradford,
+when the little town (like Abingdon) "stondeth by clothing," and all
+the houses in the place were figuratively "built upon wool-packs." But
+we are thinking of bridges, and Bradford has two, the earlier one
+being a little footbridge by the abbey grange, now called Barton Farm.
+Miss Alice Dryden tells the story of the town bridge in her _Memorials
+of Old Wiltshire_. It was originally only wide enough for a string of
+packhorses to pass along it. The ribbed portions of the southernmost
+arches and the piers for the chapel are early fourteenth century, the
+other arches were built later. Bradford became so prosperous, and the
+stream of traffic so much increased, and wains took the place of
+packhorses, that the narrow bridge was not sufficient for it; so the
+good clothiers built in the time of James I a second bridge alongside
+the first. Orders were issued in 1617 and 1621 for "the repair of the
+very fair bridge consisting of many goodly arches of freestone,"
+which had fallen into decay. The cost of repairing it was estimated at
+200 marks. There is a building on the bridge corbelled out on a
+specially built pier of the bridge, the use of which is not at first
+sight evident. Some people call it the watch-house, and it has been
+used as a lock-up; but Miss Dryden tells us that it was a chapel,
+similar to those which we have seen on many other medieval bridges. It
+belonged to the Hospital of St. Margaret, which stood at the southern
+end of the bridge, where the Great Western Railway crosses the road.
+This chapel retains little of its original work, and was rebuilt when
+the bridge was widened in the time of James I. Formerly there was a
+niche for a figure looking up the stream, but this has gone with much
+else during the drastic restoration. That a bridge-chapel existed here
+is proved by Aubrey, who mentions "the chapel for masse in the middest
+of the bridge" at Bradford.
+
+[Illustration: The Crane Bridge, Salisbury]
+
+Sometimes bridges owe their origin to curious circumstances. There was
+an old bridge at Olney, Buckinghamshire, of which Cowper wrote when he
+sang:--
+
+        That with its wearisome but needful length
+              Bestrides the flood.
+
+The present bridge that spans the Ouse with three arches and a
+causeway has taken the place of the long bridge of Cowper's time. This
+long bridge was built in the days of Queen Anne by two squires, Sir
+Robert Throckmorton of Weston Underwood and William Lowndes of Astwood
+Manor. These two gentlemen were sometimes prevented from paying visits
+to one another by floods, as they lived on opposite sides of the Ouse.
+They accordingly built the long bridge in continuation of an older
+one, of which only a small portion remains at the north end. Sir
+Robert found the material and Mr. Lowndes the labour. This story
+reminds one of a certain road in Berks and Bucks, the milestones along
+which record the distance between Hatfield and Bath? Why Hatfield? It
+is not a place of great resort or an important centre of population.
+But when we gather that a certain Marquis of Salisbury was troubled
+with gout, and had frequently to resort to Bath for the "cure," and
+constructed the road for his special convenience at his own expense,
+we begin to understand the cause of the carving of Hatfield on the
+milestones.
+
+[Illustration: Watch House On The Bridge Bradford on Avon Wilts. 8 Oct
+1908]
+
+The study of the bridges of England seems to have been somewhat
+neglected by antiquaries. You will often find some good account of a
+town or village in guide-books or topographical works, but the story
+of the bridges is passed over in silence. Owing to the reasons we have
+already stated, old bridges are fast disappearing and are being
+substituted by the hideous erections of iron and steel. It is well
+that we should attempt to record those that are left, photograph them
+and paint them, ere the march of modern progress, evinced by the
+traction-engine and the motor-car, has quite removed and destroyed
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+OLD HOSPITALS AND ALMSHOUSES
+
+
+There are in many towns and villages hospitals--not the large modern
+and usually unsightly buildings wherein the sick are cured, with wards
+all spick and span and up to date--but beautiful old buildings
+mellowed with age wherein men and women, on whom the snows of life
+have begun to fall thickly, may rest and recruit and take their ease
+before they start on the long, dark journey from which no traveller
+returns to tell to those he left behind how he fared.
+
+Almshouses we usually call them now, but our forefathers preferred to
+call them hospitals, God's hostels, "God huis," as the Germans call
+their beautiful house of pity at Luebeck, where the tired-out and
+money-less folk might find harbourage. The older hospitals were often
+called "bede-houses," because the inmates were bound to pray for their
+founder and benefactors. Some medieval hospitals, memorials of the
+charity of pre-Reformation Englishmen, remain, but many were
+suppressed during the age of spoliation; and others have been so
+rebuilt and restored that there is little left of the early
+foundation.
+
+We may notice three classes of these foundations. First, there are the
+pre-Reformation bede-houses or hospitals; the second group is composed
+of those which were built during the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth,
+James I, and Charles I. The Civil War put a stop to the foundation of
+almshouses. The principal landowners were impoverished by the war or
+despoiled by the Puritans, and could not build; the charity of the
+latter was devoted to other purposes. With the Restoration of the
+Church and the Monarchy another era of the building of almshouses set
+in, and to this period very many of our existing institutions belong.
+
+[Illustration: Gateway of St. John's Hospital, Canterbury]
+
+Of the earliest group we have several examples left. There is the
+noble hospital of St. Cross at Winchester, founded in the days of
+anarchy during the contest between Stephen and Matilda for the English
+throne. Its hospitable door is still open. Bishop Henry of Blois was
+its founder, and he made provision for thirteen poor men to be housed,
+boarded, and clothed, and for a hundred others to have a meal every
+day. He placed the hospital under the care of the Master of the
+Knights Hospitallers. Fortunately it was never connected with a
+monastery. Hence it escaped pillage and destruction at the
+dissolution of monastic houses. Bishop Henry was a great builder, and
+the church of the hospital is an interesting example of a structure of
+the Transition Norman period, when the round arch was giving way to
+the Early English pointed arch. To this foundation was added in 1443
+by Cardinal Beaufort an extension called the "Almshouse of Noble
+Poverty," and it is believed that the present domestic buildings were
+erected by him.[58] The visitor can still obtain the dole of bread and
+ale at the gate of St. Cross. Winchester is well provided with old
+hospitals: St. John's was founded in 931 and refounded in 1289; St.
+Mary Magdalen, by Bishop Toclyve in 1173-88 for nine lepers; and
+Christ's Hospital in 1607.
+
+  [58] Mr. Nisbett gives a good account of the hospital in
+  _Memorials of Old Hampshire_, and Mr. Champneys fully describes
+  the buildings in the _Architectural Review_, October, 1903, and
+  April, 1904.
+
+We will visit some less magnificent foundations. Some are of a very
+simple type, resembling a church with nave and chancel. The nave part
+was a large hall divided by partitions on each side of an alley into
+little cells in which the bedesmen lived. Daily Mass was celebrated in
+the chancel, the chapel of hospital, whither the inmates resorted; but
+the sick and infirm who could not leave their cells were able to join
+in the service. St. Mary's Hospital, at Chichester, is an excellent
+example, as it retains its wooden cells, which are still used by the
+inmates. It was formerly a nunnery, but in 1229 the nuns departed and
+the almswomen took their place. It is of wide span with low
+side-walls, and the roof is borne by wooden pillars. There are eight
+cells of two rooms each, and beyond the screen is a little chapel,
+which is still used by the hospitallers.[59]
+
+  [59] The _Treasury_, November, 1907, an article on hospitals by
+  Dr. Hermitage Day.
+
+Archbishop Chichele founded a fine hospital at Higham Ferrers in
+Northamptonshire, which saw his lowly birth, together with a school
+and college, about the year 1475. The building is still in existence
+and shows a good roof and fine Perpendicular window, but the twelve
+bedesmen and the one sister, who was to be chosen for her plainness,
+no longer use the structure.
+
+Stamford can boast of a fine medieval hospital, the foundation of
+Thomas Browne in 1480 for the accommodation of ten old men and two
+women. A new quadrangle has been built for the inmates, but you can
+still see the old edifice with its nave of two storeys, its
+fifteenth-century stained glass, and its chapel with its screen and
+stalls and altar.
+
+Stamford has another hospital which belongs to our second group. Owing
+to the destruction of monasteries, which had been great benefactors to
+the poor and centres of vast schemes of charity, there was sore need
+for almshouses and other schemes for the relief of the aged and
+destitute. The _nouveaux riches_, who had fattened on the spoils of
+the monasteries, sought to salve their consciences by providing for
+the wants of the poor, building grammar schools, and doing some good
+with their wealth. Hence many almshouses arose during this period.
+This Stamford home was founded by the great Lord Burghley in 1597. It
+is a picturesque group of buildings with tall chimneys, mullioned and
+dormer windows, on the bank of the Welland stream, and occupies the
+site of a much more ancient foundation.
+
+There is the college at Cobham, in Kent, the buildings forming a
+pleasant quadrangle south of the church. Flagged pathways cross the
+greensward of the court, and there is a fine hall wherein the inmates
+used to dine together.
+
+As we traverse the village streets we often meet with these grey piles
+of sixteenth-century almshouses, often low, one-storeyed buildings,
+picturesque and impressive, each house having a welcoming porch with a
+seat on each side and a small garden full of old-fashioned flowers.
+The roof is tiled, on which moss and lichen grow, and the
+chimney-stacks are tall and graceful. An inscription records the date
+and name of the generous founder with his arms and motto. Such a home
+of peace you will find at Quainton, in Buckinghamshire, founded, as an
+inscription records, "Anno Dom. 1687. These almshouses were then
+erected and endow'd by Richard Winwood, son and heir of Right Hon'ble
+Sir Ralph Winwood, Bart., Principal Secretary of State to King James
+y'e First." Within these walls dwell (according to the rules drawn up
+by Sir Ralph Verney in 1695) "three poor men--widowers,--to be called
+Brothers, and three poor women--widows,--to be called Sisters." Very
+strict were these rules for the government of the almshouses, as to
+erroneous opinions in any principle of religion, the rector of
+Quainton being the judge, the visiting of alehouses, the good conduct
+of the inmates, who were to be "no whisperers, quarrelers, evil
+speakers or contentious."
+
+These houses at Quainton are very humble abodes; other almshouses are
+large and beautiful buildings erected by some rich merchant, or great
+noble, or London City company, for a large scheme of charity. Such are
+the beautiful almshouses in the Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, founded in
+the early part of the eighteenth century under the terms of the will
+of Sir Robert Geffery. They stand in a garden about an acre in extent,
+a beautiful oasis in the surrounding desert of warehouses, reminding
+the passer-by of the piety and loyal patriotism of the great citizens
+of London, and affording a peaceful home for many aged folk. This
+noble building, of great architectural dignity, with the figure of the
+founder over the porch and its garden with fine trees, has only just
+escaped the hands of the destroyer and been numbered among the bygone
+treasures of vanished England. It was seriously proposed to pull down
+this peaceful home of poor people and sell the valuable site to the
+Peabody Donation Fund for the erection of working-class dwellings. The
+almshouses are governed by the Ironmongers' Company, and this proposal
+was made; but, happily, the friends of ancient buildings made their
+protest to the Charity Commissioners, who have refused their sanction
+to the sale, and the Geffery Almshouses will continue to exist,
+continue their useful mission, and remain the chief architectural
+ornament in a district that sorely needs "sweetness and light."
+
+City magnates who desired to build and endow hospitals for the aged
+nearly always showed their confidence in and affection for the Livery
+Companies to which they belonged by placing in their care these
+charitable foundations. Thus Sir Richard Whittington, of famous
+memory, bequeathed to the Mercers' Company all his houses and
+tenements in London, which were to be sold and the proceeds
+distributed in various charitable works. With this sum they founded a
+College of Priests, called Whittington College, which was suppressed
+at the Reformation, and the almshouses adjoining the old church of St.
+Michael Paternoster, for thirteen poor folk, of whom one should be
+principal or tutor. The Great Fire destroyed the buildings; they were
+rebuilt on the same site, but in 1835 they were fallen into decay, and
+the company re-erected them at Islington, where you will find
+Whittington College, providing accommodation for twenty-eight poor
+women. Besides this the Mercers have charge of Lady Mico's Almshouses
+at Stepney, founded in 1692 and rebuilt in 1857, and the Trinity
+Hospital at Greenwich, founded in 1615 by Henry Howard, Earl of
+Northampton. This earl was of a very charitable disposition, and
+founded other hospitals at Castle Rising in Norfolk and Clun in
+Shropshire. The Mercers continue to manage the property and have built
+a new hospital at Shottisham, besides making grants to the others
+created by the founder. It is often the custom of the companies to
+expend out of their private income far more than they receive from the
+funds of the charities which they administer.
+
+[Illustration: Inmate of the Trinity Bede House at Castle Rising,
+Norfolk]
+
+The Grocers' Company have almshouses and a Free Grammar School at
+Oundle in Northamptonshire, founded by Sir William Laxton in 1556,
+upon which they have expended vast sums of money. The Drapers
+administer the Mile End Almshouses and school founded in 1728 by
+Francis Bancroft, Sir John Jolles's almshouses at Tottenham, founded
+in 1618, and very many others. They have two hundred in the
+neighbourhood of London alone, and many others in different parts of
+the country. Near where I am writing is Lucas's Hospital at Wokingham,
+founded by Henry Lucas in 1663, which he placed in the charge of the
+company. It is a beautiful Carolian house with a central portion and
+two wings, graceful and pleasing in every detail. The chapel is
+situated in one wing and the master's house in the other, and there
+are sets of rooms for twelve poor men chosen from the parishes in the
+neighbourhood. The Fishmongers have the management of three important
+hospitals. At Bray, in Berkshire, famous for its notable vicar, there
+stands the ancient Jesus Hospital, founded in 1616 under the will of
+William Goddard, who directed that there should be built rooms with
+chimneys in the said hospital, fit and convenient for forty poor
+people to dwell and inhabit it, and that there should be one chapel or
+place convenient to serve Almighty God in for ever with public and
+divine prayers and other exercises of religion, and also one kitchen
+and bakehouse common to all the people of the said hospital. Jesus
+Hospital is a quadrangular building, containing forty almshouses
+surrounding a court which is divided into gardens, one of which is
+attached to each house. It has a pleasing entrance through a gabled
+brick porch which has over the Tudor-shaped doorway a statue of the
+founder and mullioned latticed windows. The old people live happy and
+contented lives, and find in the eventide of their existence a
+cheerful home in peaceful and beautiful surroundings. The Fishmongers
+also have almshouses at Harrietsham, in Kent, founded by Mark Quested,
+citizen and fishmonger of London, in 1642, which they rebuilt in 1772,
+and St. Peter's Hospital, Wandsworth, formerly called the Fishmongers'
+Almshouses. The Goldsmiths have a very palatial pile of almshouses at
+Acton Park, called Perryn's Almshouses, with a grand entrance
+portico, and most of the London companies provide in this way homes
+for their decayed members, so that they may pass their closing years
+in peace and freedom from care.
+
+[Illustration: The Hospital for Ancient Fishermen, Great Yarmouth. Aug
+1908]
+
+Fishermen, who pass their lives in storm and danger reaping the
+harvest of the sea, have not been forgotten by pious benefactors. One
+of the most picturesque buildings in Great Yarmouth is the Fishermen's
+Hospital, of which we give some illustrations. It was founded by the
+corporation of the town in 1702 for the reception of twenty old
+fishermen and their wives. It is a charming house of rest, with its
+gables and dormer windows and its general air of peace and repose. The
+old men look very comfortable after battling for so many years with
+the storms of the North Sea. Charles II granted to the hospital an
+annuity of L160 for its support, which was paid out of the excise on
+beer, but when the duty was repealed the annuity naturally ceased.
+
+The old hospital at King's Lynn was destroyed during the siege, as
+this quaint inscription tells:--
+
+     THIS HOSPITAL WAS
+    BURNT DOWN AT LIN
+     SEGE AND REBULT
+     1649 NATH MAXEY
+      MAYOR AND EDW
+     ROBINSON ALDMAN
+    TREASURER PRO TEM
+               P.R.O.
+
+Norwich had several important hospitals. Outside the Magdalen gates
+stood the Magdalen Hospital, founded by Bishop Herbert, the first
+bishop. It was a house for lepers, and some portions of the Norman
+chapel still exist in a farm-building by the roadside. The far-famed
+St. Giles's Hospital in Bishopsgate Street is an ancient foundation,
+erected by Bishop Walter Suffield in 1249 for poor chaplains and other
+poor persons. It nearly vanished at the Reformation era, like so many
+other kindred institutions, but Henry VIII and Edward VI granted it a
+new charter. The poor clergy were, however, left out in the cold, and
+the benefits were confined to secular folk. For the accommodation of
+its inmates the chancel of the church was divided by a floor into an
+upper and a lower storey, and this arrangement still exists, and you
+can still admire the picturesque ivy-clad tower, the wards with cosy
+ingle-nooks at either end and cubicles down the middle, the roof
+decorated with eagles, deemed to be the cognizance of Queen Anne of
+Bohemia, wife of Richard II, the quaint little cloister, and above
+all, the excellent management of this grand institution, the "Old
+Man's Hospital," as it is called, which provides for the necessities
+of 150 old folk, whose wants are cared for by a master and twelve
+nurses.
+
+[Illustration: Inscription on the Hospital, King's Lynn]
+
+Let us travel far and visit another charming almshouse, Abbot's
+Hospital, at Guildford, which is an architectural gem and worthy of
+the closest inspection. It was founded by Archbishop Abbot in 1619,
+and is a noble building of mellowed brick with finely carved oak
+doors, graceful chimneys with their curious "crow-rests," noble
+staircases, interesting portraits, and rare books, amongst which is a
+Vinegar Bible. The chapel with its Flemish windows showing the story
+of Jacob and Esau, and oak carvings and almsbox dated 1619, is
+especially attractive. Here the founder retired in sadness and sorrow
+after his unfortunate day's hunting in Bramshill Park, where he
+accidentally shot a keeper, an incident which gave occasion to his
+enemies to blaspheme and deride him. Here the Duke of Monmouth was
+confined on his way to London after the battle of Sedgemoor. The
+details of the building are worthy of attention, especially the
+ornamented doors and doorways, the elaborate latches, beautifully
+designed and furnished with a spring, and elegant casement-fasteners.
+Guildford must have had a school of great artists of these
+window-fasteners. Near the hospital there is a very interesting house,
+No. 25 High Street, now a shop, but formerly the town clerk's
+residence and the lodgings of the judges of assize; no better series
+in England of beautifully designed window-fasteners can be found than
+in this house, erected in 1683; it also has a fine staircase like that
+at Farnham Castle, and some good plaster ceilings resembling Inigo
+Jones's work and probably done by his workmen.
+
+The good town of Abingdon has a very celebrated hospital founded in
+1446 by the Guild of the Holy Cross, a fraternity composed of "good
+men and true," wealthy merchants and others, which built the bridge,
+repaired roads, maintained a bridge priest and a rood priest, and held
+a great annual feast at which the brethren consumed as much as 6
+calves, 16 lambs, 80 capons, 80 geese, and 800 eggs. It was a very
+munificent and beneficent corporation, and erected these almshouses
+for thirteen poor men and the same number of poor women. That hospital
+founded so long ago still exists. It is a curious and ancient
+structure in one storey, and is denoted Christ's Hospital. One of our
+recent writers on Berkshire topography, whose historical accuracy is a
+little open to criticism, gives a good description of the building:--
+
+  "It is a long range of chambers built of mellow brick and
+  immemorial oak, having in their centre a small hall, darkly
+  wainscoted, the very table in which makes a collector sinfully
+  covetous. In front of the modest doors of the chambers inhabited
+  by almsmen and almswomen runs a tiny cloister with oak pillars, so
+  that the inmates may visit one another dryshod in any weather.
+  Each door, too, bears a text from the Old or New Testament. A more
+  typical relic of the old world, a more sequestered haven of rest,
+  than this row of lowly buildings, looking up to the great church
+  in front, and with its windows opening on to green turf bordered
+  with flowers in the rear, it could not enter into the heart of man
+  to imagine."[60]
+
+  [60] _Highways and Byways in Berkshire_.
+
+We could spend endless time in visiting the old almshouses in many
+parts of the country. There is the Ford's Hospital in Coventry,
+erected in 1529, an extremely good specimen of late Gothic work,
+another example of which is found in St. John's Hospital at Rye. The
+Corsham Almshouses in Wiltshire, erected in 1663, are most picturesque
+without, and contain some splendid woodwork within, including a fine
+old reading-desk with carved seat in front. There is a large porch
+with an immense coat-of-arms over the door. In the region of the
+Cotswolds, where building-stone is plentiful, we find a noble set of
+almshouses at Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire, a gabled structure
+near the church with tall, graceful chimneys and mullioned windows,
+having a raised causeway in front protected by a low wall. Ewelme, in
+Oxfordshire, is a very attractive village with a row of cottages half
+a mile long, which have before their doors a sparkling stream dammed
+here and there into watercress beds. At the top of the street on a
+steep knoll stand church and school and almshouses of the mellowest
+fifteenth-century bricks, as beautiful and structurally sound as the
+pious founders left them. These founders were the unhappy William de
+la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk, and his good wife the Duchess Alice.
+The Duke inherited Ewelme through his wife Alice Chaucer, a kinswoman
+of the poet, and "for love of her and the commoditie of her landes
+fell much to dwell in Oxfordshire," and in 1430-40 was busy building
+a manor-place of "brick and Tymbre and set within a fayre mote," a
+church, an almshouse, and a school. The manor-place, or "Palace," as
+it was called, has disappeared, but the almshouse and school remain,
+witnesses of the munificence of the founders. The poor Duke, favourite
+minister of Henry VI, was exiled by the Yorkist faction, and beheaded
+by the sailors on his way to banishment. Twenty-five years of
+widowhood fell to the bereaved duchess, who finished her husband's
+buildings, called the almshouses "God's House," and then reposed
+beneath one of the finest monuments in England in the church hard by.
+The almshouses at Audley End, Essex, are amongst the most picturesque
+in the country. Such are some of these charming homes of rest that
+time has spared.
+
+The old people who dwell in them are often as picturesque as their
+habitations. Here you will find an old woman with her lace-pillow and
+bobbins, spectacles on nose, and white bonnet with strings, engaged in
+working out some intricate lace pattern. In others you will see the
+inmates clad in their ancient liveries. The dwellers in the Coningsby
+Hospital at Hereford, founded in 1614 for old soldiers and aged
+servants, had a quaint livery consisting of "a fustian suit of ginger
+colour, of a soldier-like fashion, and seemly laced; a cloak of red
+cloth lined with red baize and reaching to the knees, to be worn in
+walks and journeys, and a gown of red cloth, reaching to the ankle,
+lined also with baize, to be worn within the hospital." They are,
+therefore, known as Red Coats. The almsmen of Ely and Rochester have
+cloaks. The inmates of the Hospital of St. Cross wear as a badge a
+silver cross potent. At Bottesford they have blue coats and blue
+"beef-eater" hats, and a silver badge on the left arm bearing the arms
+of the Rutland family--a peacock in its pride, surmounted by a coronet
+and surrounded by a garter.
+
+[Illustration: Ancient Inmates of the Fishermen's Hospital, Great
+Yarmouth]
+
+It is not now the fashion to found almshouses. We build workhouses
+instead, vast ugly barracks wherein the poor people are governed by
+all the harsh rules of the Poor Law, where husband and wife are
+separated from each other, and "those whom God hath joined together
+are," by man and the Poor Law, "put asunder"; where the industrious
+labourer is housed with the lazy and ne'er-do-weel. The old almshouses
+were better homes for the aged poor, homes of rest after the struggle
+for existence, and harbours of refuge for the tired and weary till
+they embark on their last voyage.
+
+[Illustration: Cottages at Evesham]
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+VANISHING FAIRS
+
+
+The "oldest inhabitants" of our villages can remember many changes in
+the social conditions of country life. They can remember the hard time
+of the Crimean war when bread was two shillings and eightpence a
+gallon, when food and work were both scarce, and starvation wages were
+doled out. They can remember the "machine riots," and tumultuous
+scenes at election times, and scores of interesting facts, if only you
+can get them to talk and tell you their recollections. The changed
+condition of education puzzles them. They can most of them read, and
+perhaps write a little, but they prefer to make their mark and get you
+to attest it with the formula, "the mark of J----N." Their schooling
+was soon over. When they were nine years of age they were ploughboys,
+and had a rough time with a cantankerous ploughman who often used to
+ply his whip on his lad or on his horses quite indiscriminately. They
+have seen many changes, and do not always "hold with" modern notions;
+and one of the greatest changes they have seen is in the fairs. They
+are not what they were. Some, indeed, maintain some of their
+usefulness, but most of them have degenerated into a form of mild
+Saturnalia, if not into a scandal and a nuisance; and for that reason
+have been suppressed.
+
+Formerly quite small villages had their fairs. If you look at an old
+almanac you will see a list of fair-days with the names of the
+villages which, when the appointed days come round, cannot now boast
+of the presence of a single stall or merry-go-round. The day of the
+fair was nearly always on or near the festival of the patron saint to
+whom the church of that village is dedicated. There is, of course, a
+reason for this. The word "fair" is derived from the Latin word
+_feria_, which means a festival, the parish feast day. On the festival
+of the patron saint of a village church crowds of neighbours from
+adjoining villages would flock to the place, the inhabitants of which
+used to keep open house, and entertain all their relations and friends
+who came from a distance. They used to make booths and tents with
+boughs of trees near the church, and celebrated the festival with much
+thanksgiving and prayer. By degrees they began to forget their prayers
+and remembered only the feasting; country people flocked from far and
+near; the pedlars and hawkers came to find a market for their wares.
+Their stalls began to multiply, and thus the germ of a fair was
+formed.
+
+[Illustration: Stalls at Banbury Fair]
+
+In such primitive fairs the traders paid no toll or rent for their
+stalls, but by degrees the right of granting permission to hold a
+fair was vested in the King, who for various considerations bestowed
+this favour on nobles, merchant guilds, bishops, or monasteries. Great
+profits arose from these gatherings. The traders had to pay toll on
+all the goods which they brought to the fair, in addition to the
+payment of stallage or rent for the ground on which they displayed
+their merchandise, and also a charge on all the goods they sold.
+Moreover, the trades-folk of the town were obliged to close their
+shops during the days of the fair, and to bring their goods to the
+fair, so that the toll-owner might gain good profit withal.
+
+We can imagine, or try to imagine, the roads and streets leading to
+the market-place thronged with traders and chapmen, the sellers of
+ribbons and cakes, minstrels and morris-dancers, smock-frocked
+peasants and sombre-clad monks and friars. Then a horn was sounded,
+and the lord of the manor, or the bishop's bailiff, or the mayor of
+the town proclaimed the fair; and then the cries of the traders, the
+music of the minstrels, the jingling of the bells of the
+morris-dancers, filled the air and added animation to the spectacle.
+
+There is a curious old gateway, opposite the fair-ground at
+Smithfield, which has just recently narrowly escaped destruction, and
+very nearly became part of the vanished glories of England. Happily
+the donations of the public poured in so well that the building was
+saved. This Smithfield gateway dates back to the middle of the
+thirteenth century, the entrance to the Priory of St. Bartholomew,
+founded by Rahere, the court jester of Henry I, a century earlier.
+Every one knows the story of the building of this Priory, and has
+followed its extraordinary vicissitudes, the destruction of its nave
+at the dissolution of monasteries, the establishment of a fringe
+factory in the Lady Chapel, and the splendid and continuous work of
+restoration which has been going on during the last forty years. We
+are thankful that this choir of St. Bartholomew's Church should have
+been preserved for future generations as an example of the earliest
+and most important ecclesiastical buildings in London. But we are
+concerned now with this gateway, the beauty of which is partially
+concealed by the neighbouring shops and dwellings that surround it, as
+a poor and vulgar frame may disfigure some matchless gem of artistic
+painting. Its old stones know more about fairs than do most things. It
+shall tell its own history. You can still admire the work of the Early
+English builders, the receding orders with exquisite mouldings and
+dog-tooth ornament--the hall-mark of the early Gothic artists. It
+looks upon the Smithfield market, and how many strange scenes of
+London history has this gateway witnessed! Under its arch possibly
+stood London's first chronicler, Fitzstephen, the monk, when he saw
+the famous horse fairs that took place in Smithfield every Friday,
+which he described so graphically. Thither flocked earls, barons,
+knights, and citizens to look on or buy. The monk admired the nags
+with their sleek and shining coats, smoothly ambling along, the young
+blood colts not yet accustomed to the bridle, the horses for burden,
+strong and stout-limbed, and the valuable chargers of elegant shape
+and noble height, with nimbly moving ears, erect necks, and plump
+haunches. He waxes eloquent over the races, the expert jockeys, the
+eager horses, the shouting crowds. "The riders, inspired with the love
+of praise and the hope of victory, clap spurs to their flying horses,
+lashing them with their whips, and inciting them by their shouts"; so
+wrote the worthy monk Fitzstephen. He evidently loved a horse-race,
+but he need not have given us the startling information, "their chief
+aim is to prevent a competitor getting before them." That surely would
+be obvious even to a monk. He also examined the goods of the peasants,
+the implements of husbandry, swine with their long sides, cows with
+distended udders, _Corpora magna boum, lanigerumque pecus_, mares
+fitted for the plough or cart, some with frolicsome colts running by
+their sides. A very animated scene, which must have delighted the
+young eyes of the stone arch in the days of its youth, as it did the
+heart of the monk.
+
+Still gayer scenes the old gate has witnessed. Smithfield was the
+principal spot in London for jousts, tournaments, and military
+exercises, and many a grand display of knightly arms has taken place
+before this priory gate. "In 1357 great and royal jousts were then
+holden in Smithfield; there being present the Kings of England,
+France, and Scotland, with many other nobles and great estates of
+divers lands," writes Stow. Gay must have been the scene in the
+forty-eighth year of Edward III, when Dame Alice Perrers, the King's
+mistress, as Lady of the Sun, rode from the Tower of London to
+Smithfield accompanied by many lords and ladies, every lady leading a
+lord by his horse-bridle, and there began a great joust which endured
+seven days after. The lists were set in the great open space with
+tiers of seats around, a great central canopy for the Queen of Beauty,
+the royal party, and divers tents and pavilions for the contending
+knights and esquires. It was a grand spectacle, adorned with all the
+pomp and magnificence of medieval chivalry. Froissart describes with
+consummate detail the jousts in the fourteenth year of Richard II,
+before a grand company, when sixty coursers gaily apparelled for the
+jousts issued from the Tower of London ridden by esquires of honour,
+and then sixty ladies of honour mounted on palfreys, each lady leading
+a knight with a chain of gold, with a great number of trumpets and
+other instruments of music with them. On arriving at Smithfield the
+ladies dismounted, the esquires led the coursers which the knights
+mounted, and after their helmets were set on their heads proclamation
+was made by the heralds, the jousts began, "to the great pleasure of
+the beholders." But it was not all pomp and pageantry. Many and deadly
+were the fights fought in front of the old gate, when men lost their
+lives or were borne from the field mortally wounded, or contended for
+honour and life against unjust accusers. That must have been a sorry
+scene in 1446, when a rascally servant, John David, accused his
+master, William Catur, of treason, and had to face the wager of battle
+in Smithfield. The master was well beloved, and inconsiderate friends
+plied him with wine so that he was not in a condition to fight, and
+was slain by his servant. But Stow reminds us that the prosperity of
+the wicked is frail. Not long after David was hanged at Tyburn for
+felony, and the chronicler concludes: "Let such false accusers note
+this for example, and look for no better end without speedy
+repentance." He omits to draw any moral from the intemperance of the
+master and the danger of drunkenness.
+
+But let this suffice for the jousts in Smithfield. The old gateway
+heard on one occasion strange noises in the church, Archbishop
+Boniface raging with oaths not to be recited, and sounds of strife and
+shrieks and angry cries. This foreigner, Archbishop of Canterbury, had
+dared to come with his armed retainers from Provence to hold a
+visitation of the priory. The canons received him with solemn pomp,
+but respectfully declined to be visited by him, as they had their own
+proper visitor, a learned man, the Bishop of London, and did not care
+for another inspector. Boniface lost his temper, struck the sub-prior,
+saying, "Indeed, doth it become you English traitors so to answer me?"
+He tore in pieces the rich cope of the sub-prior; the canons rushed to
+their brother's rescue and knocked the Archbishop down; but his men
+fell upon the canons and beat them and trod them under foot. The old
+gateway was shocked and grieved to see the reverend canons running
+beneath the arch bloody and miry, rent and torn, carrying their
+complaint to the Bishop and then to the King at Westminster. After
+which there was much contention, and the whole city rose and would
+have torn the Archbishop into small pieces, shouting, "Where is this
+ruffian? that cruel smiter!" and much else that must have frightened
+and astonished Master Boniface and made him wish that he had never set
+foot in England, but stayed quietly in peaceful Provence.
+
+But this gateway loved to look upon the great fair that took place on
+the Feast of St. Bartholomew. This was granted to Rahere the Prior and
+to the canons and continued for seven centuries, until the abuses of
+modern days destroyed its character and ended its career. The scene of
+the actual fair was within the priory gates in the churchyard, and
+there during the three days of its continuance stood the booths and
+standings of the clothiers and drapers of London and of all England,
+of pewterers, and leather-sellers, and without in the open space
+before the priory were tents and booths and a noisy crowd of traders,
+pleasure-seekers, friars, jesters, tumblers, and stilt-walkers. This
+open space was just outside the turreted north wall of the city, and
+was girt by tall elms, and near it was a sheet of water whereon the
+London boys loved to skate when the frost came. It was the city
+playground, and the city gallows were placed there before they were
+removed to Tyburn. This dread implement of punishment stood under the
+elms where Cow Lane now runs: and one fair day brave William Wallace
+was dragged there in chains at the tails of horses, bruised and
+bleeding, and foully done to death after the cruel fashion of the age.
+All this must have aged the heart of the old gateway, and especially
+the sad sight of the countless burials that took place in the year of
+the Plague, 1349, when fifty thousand were interred in the burial
+ground of the Carthusians, and few dared to attend the fair for fear
+of the pestilence.
+
+Other terrible things the gateway saw: the burning of heretics. Not
+infrequently did these fires of persecution rage. One of the first of
+these martyrs was John Bedley, a tailor, burnt in Smithfield in 1410.
+In Fox's _Book of Martyrs_ you can see a woodcut of the burning of
+Anne Ascue and others, showing a view of the Priory and the crowd of
+spectators who watched the poor lady die. Not many days afterwards the
+fair-folk assembled, while the ground was still black with her ashes,
+and dogs danced and women tumbled and the devil jeered in the miracle
+play on the spot where martyrs died.
+
+We should need a volume to describe all the sights of this wondrous
+fair, the church crowded with worshippers, the halt and sick praying
+for healing, the churchyard full of traders, the sheriff proclaiming
+new laws, the young men bowling at ninepins, pedlars shouting their
+wares, players performing the miracle play on a movable stage, bands
+of pipers, lowing oxen, neighing horses, and bleating sheep. It was a
+merry sight that medieval Bartholomew Fair.
+
+[Illustration: An Old English Fair]
+
+We still have Cloth Fair, a street so named, with a remarkable group
+of timber houses with over-sailing storeys and picturesque gables. It
+is a very dark and narrow thoroughfare, and in spite of many changes
+it remains a veritable "bit" of old London, as it was in the
+seventeenth century. These houses have sprung up where in olden days
+the merchants' booths stood for the sale of cloth. It was one of the
+great annual markets of the nation, the chief cloth fair in England
+that had no rival. Hither came the officials of the Merchant Tailors'
+Company bearing a silver yard measure, to try the measures of the
+clothiers and drapers to see if they were correct. And so each year
+the great fair went on, and priors and canons lived and died and were
+buried in the church or beneath the grass of the churchyard. But at
+length the days of the Priory were numbered, and it changed masters.
+The old gateway wept to see the cowled Black Canons depart when Henry
+VIII dissolved the monastery; its heart nearly broke when it heard the
+sounds of axes and hammers, crowbars and saws, at work on the fabric
+of the church pulling down the grand nave, and it scowled at the new
+owner, Sir Richard Rich, a prosperous political adventurer, who bought
+the whole estate for L1064 11s. 3d., and made a good bargain.
+
+The monks, a colony of Black Friars, came in again with Queen Mary,
+but they were driven out again when Elizabeth reigned, and Lord Rich
+again resumed possession of the estate, which passed to his heirs, the
+Earls of Warwick and Holland. Each Sunday, however, the old gate
+welcomed devout worshippers on their way to the church, the choir
+having been converted into the parish church of the district, and was
+not sorry to see in Charles's day a brick tower rising at the west
+end.
+
+In spite of the changes of ownership the fair went on increasing with
+the increase of the city. But the scene has changed. In the time of
+James I the last elm tree had gone, and rows of houses, fair and
+comely buildings, had sprung up. The old muddy plain had been drained
+and paved, and the traders and pleasure-seekers could no longer dread
+the wading through a sea of mud. We should like to follow the fair
+through the centuries, and see the sights and shows. The puppet shows
+were always attractive, and the wild beasts, the first animal ever
+exhibited being "a large and beautiful young camel from Grand Cairo
+in Egypt. This creature is twenty-three years old, his head and neck
+like those of a deer." One Flockton during the last half of the
+eighteenth century was the prince of puppet showmen, and he called his
+puppets the Italian Fantocinni. He made his figures work in a most
+lifelike style. He was a conjurer too, and the inventor of a wonderful
+clock which showed nine hundred figures at work upon a variety of
+trades. "Punch and Judy" always attracted crowds, and we notice the
+handbills of Mr. Robinson, conjurer to the Queen, and of Mr. Lane, who
+sings:
+
+        It will make you to laugh, it will drive away gloom,
+        To see how the eggs will dance round the room;
+        And from another egg a bird there will fly,
+        Which makes all the company all for to cry, etc.
+
+The booths for actors were a notable feature of the fair. We read of
+Fielding's booth at the George Inn, of the performance of the
+_Beggar's Opera_ in 1728, of Penkethman's theatrical booth when _Wat
+Taylor and Jack Straw_ was acted, of the new opera called _The
+Generous Free Mason or the Constant Lady_, of _Jephthah's Rash Vow_,
+and countless other plays that saw the light at Bartholomew Fair. The
+audience included not only the usual frequenters of fairs, but even
+royal visitors, noblemen, and great ladies flocked to the booths for
+amusement, and during its continuance the playhouses of London were
+closed.
+
+I must not omit to mention the other attractions, the fireproof lady,
+Madam Giradelli, who put melted lead in her mouth, passed red-hot iron
+over her body, thrust her arm into fire, and washed her hands in
+boiling oil; Mr. Simon Paap, the Dutch dwarf, twenty-eight inches
+high; bear-dancing, the learned pig, the "beautiful spotted negro
+boy," peep-shows, Wombell's royal menagerie, the learned cats, and a
+female child with two perfect heads.
+
+But it is time to ring down the curtain. The last days of the fair
+were not edifying. Scenes of riot and debauch, of violence and
+lawlessness disgraced the assembly. Its usefulness as a gathering for
+trade purposes had passed away. It became a nuisance and a disgrace to
+London. In older days the Lord Mayor used to ride in his grand coach
+to our old gateway, and there proclaim it with a great flourish of
+trumpets. In 1850 his worship walked quietly to the accustomed place,
+and found that there was no fair to proclaim, and five years later the
+formality was entirely dispensed with, and silence reigned over the
+historic ground over which century after century the hearts of our
+forefathers throbbed with the outspoken joys of life. The old gateway,
+like many aged folk, has much on which to meditate in its advanced
+age.
+
+[Illustration: An Ancient Maker of Nets in a Kentish Fair]
+
+Many other fairs have been suppressed in recent years, but some
+survive and thrive with even greater vigour than ever. Some are hiring
+fairs, where you may see young men with whipcord in their caps
+standing in front of inns ready to be hired by the farmers who come to
+seek labourers. Women and girls too come to be hired, but their number
+decreases every year. Such is the Abingdon fair, which no rustic in
+the adjoining villages ever thinks of missing. We believe that the
+Nottingham Goose Fair, which is attended by very large crowds, is also
+a hiring fair. "Pleasure fairs" in several towns and cities show no
+sign of diminished popularity. The famous St. Giles's Fair at Oxford
+is attended by thousands, and excursion trains from London, Cardiff,
+Reading, and other large towns bring crowds to join in the humours of
+the gathering, the shows covering all the broad space between St.
+Giles's Church and George Street. Reading Michaelmas Pleasure Fair is
+always a great attraction. The fair-ground is filled from end to end
+with roundabouts driven by steam, which also plays a hideous organ
+that grinds out popular tunes, swings, stalls, shows, menageries, and
+all "the fun of the fair." You can see biographs, hear phonographs,
+and a penny-in-the-slot will introduce you to wonderful sights, and
+have your fortune told, or shy at coco-nuts or Aunt Sally, or witness
+displays of boxing, or have a photograph taken of yourself, or watch
+weird melodramas, and all for a penny or two. No wonder the fair is
+popular.
+
+[Illustration: Outside The "Lamb Inn". Burford, Oxon]
+
+There is no reverence paid in these modern gatherings to old-fashioned
+ways and ancient picturesque customs, but in some places these are
+still observed with punctilious exactness. The quaint custom of
+"proclaiming the fair" at Honiton, in Devonshire, is observed every
+year, the town having obtained the grant of a fair from the lord of
+the manor so long ago as 1257. The fair still retains some of the
+picturesque characteristics of bygone days. The town crier, dressed in
+old-world uniform, and carrying a pole decorated with gay flowers and
+surmounted by a large gilt model of a gloved hand, publicly
+announces the opening of the fair as follows: "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! The
+fair's begun, the glove is up. No man can be arrested till the glove
+is taken down." Hot coins are then thrown amongst the children. The
+pole and glove remain displayed until the end of the fair.
+
+Nor have all the practical uses of fairs vanished. On the Berkshire
+downs is the little village of West Ilsley; there from time immemorial
+great sheep fairs are held, and flocks are brought thither from
+districts far and wide. Every year herds of Welsh ponies congregate at
+Blackwater, in Hampshire, driven thither by inveterate custom. Every
+year in an open field near Cambridge the once great Stourbridge fair
+is held, first granted by King John to the Hospital for Lepers, and
+formerly proclaimed with great state by the Vice-Chancellor of the
+University and the Mayor of Cambridge. This was one of the largest
+fairs in Europe. Merchants of all nations attended it. The booths were
+planted in a cornfield, and the circuit of the fair, which was like a
+well-governed city, was about three miles. All offences committed
+therein were tried, as at other fairs, before a special court of
+_pie-poudre_, the derivation of which word has been much disputed, and
+I shall not attempt to conjecture or to decide. The shops were built
+in rows, having each a name, such as Garlick Row, Booksellers' Row, or
+Cooks' Row; there were the cheese fair, hop fair, wood fair; every
+trade was represented, and there were taverns, eating-houses, and in
+later years playhouses of various descriptions. As late as the
+eighteenth century it is said that one hundred thousand pounds' worth
+of woollen goods were sold in a week in one row alone. But the glories
+of Stourbridge fair have all departed, and it is only a ghost now of
+its former greatness.
+
+The Stow Green pleasure fair, in Lincolnshire, which has been held
+annually for upwards of eight hundred years, having been established
+in the reign of Henry III, has practically ceased to exist. Held on an
+isolated common two miles from Billingborough, it was formerly one of
+the largest fairs in England for merchandise, and originally lasted
+for three weeks. Now it is limited to two days, and when it opened
+last year there were but few attractions.
+
+Fairs have enriched our language with at least one word. There is a
+fair at Ely founded in connexion with the abbey built by St.
+Etheldreda, and at this fair a famous "fairing" was "St. Audrey's
+laces." St. Audrey, or Etheldreda, in the days of her youthful vanity
+was very fond of wearing necklaces and jewels. "St. Audrey's laces"
+became corrupted into "Tawdry laces"; hence the adjective has come to
+be applied to all cheap and showy pieces of female ornament.
+
+Trade now finds its way by means of other channels than fairs.
+Railways and telegrams have changed the old methods of conducting the
+commerce of the country. But, as we have said, many fairs have
+contrived to survive, and unless they degenerate into a scandal and a
+nuisance it is well that they should be continued. Education and the
+increasing sobriety of the nation may deprive them of their more
+objectionable features, and it would be a pity to prevent the rustic
+from having some amusements which do not often fall to his lot, and to
+forbid him from enjoying once a year "all the fun of the fair."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF OLD DOCUMENTS
+
+
+The history of England is enshrined in its ancient documents. Some of
+it may be read in its stone walls and earthworks. The builders of our
+churches stamped its story on their stones, and by the shape of arch
+and design of window, by porch and doorway, tower and buttress you can
+read the history of the building and tell its age and the dates of its
+additions and alterations. Inscriptions, monuments, and brasses help
+to fill in the details; but all would be in vain if we had no
+documentary evidence, no deeds and charters, registers and wills, to
+help us to build up the history of each town and monastery, castle and
+manor. Even after the most careful searches in the Record Office and
+the British Museum it is very difficult oftentimes to trace a manorial
+descent. You spend time and labour, eyesight and midnight oil in
+trying to discover missing links, and very often it is all in vain;
+the chain remains broken, and you cannot piece it together. Some of us
+whose fate it is to have to try and solve some of these genealogical
+problems, and spend hours over a manorial descent, are inclined to
+envy other writers who fill their pages _currente calamo_ and are
+ignorant of the joys and disappointments of research work.
+
+In the making of the history of England patient research and the
+examination of documents are, of course, all-important. In the parish
+chest, in the municipal charters and records, in court rolls, in the
+muniment-rooms of guilds and city companies, of squire and noble, in
+the Record Office, Pipe Rolls, Close Rolls, royal letters and papers,
+etc., the real history of the country is contained. Masses of Rolls
+and documents of all kinds have in these late years been arranged,
+printed, and indexed, enabling the historical student to avail himself
+of vast stores of information which were denied to the historian of an
+earlier age, or could only be acquired by the expenditure of immense
+toil.
+
+Nevertheless, we have to deplore the disappearance of large numbers of
+priceless manuscripts, the value of which was not recognized by their
+custodians. Owing to the ignorance and carelessness of these keepers
+of historic documents vast stores have been hopelessly lost or
+destroyed, and have vanished with much else of the England that is
+vanishing. We know of a Corporation--that of Abingdon, in Berkshire,
+the oldest town in the royal county and anciently its most
+important--which possessed an immense store of municipal archives.
+These manuscript books would throw light upon the history of the
+borough; but in their wisdom the members of the Corporation decided
+that they should be sold for waste paper! A few gentlemen were deputed
+to examine the papers in order to see if anything was worth
+preserving. They spent a few hours on the task, which would have
+required months for even a cursory inspection, and much expert
+knowledge, which these gentlemen did not possess, and reported that
+there was nothing in the documents of interest or importance, and the
+books and papers were sold to a dealer. Happily a private gentleman
+purchased the "waste paper," which remains in his hands, and was not
+destroyed: but this example only shows the insecurity of much of the
+material upon which local and municipal history depends.
+
+Court rolls, valuable wills and deeds are often placed by noble owners
+and squires in the custody of their solicitors. They repose in peace
+in safes or tin boxes with the name of the client printed on them.
+Recent legislation has made it possible to prove a title without
+reference to all the old deeds. Hence the contents of these boxes are
+regarded only as old lumber and of no value. A change is made in the
+office. The old family solicitor dies, and the new man proceeds with
+the permission of his clients to burn all these musty papers, which
+are of immense value in tracing the history of a manor or of a family.
+Some years ago a leading family solicitor became bankrupt. His office
+was full of old family deeds and municipal archives. What happened? A
+fire was kindled in the garden, and for a whole fortnight it was fed
+with parchment deeds and rolls, many of them of immense value to the
+genealogist and the antiquary. It was all done very speedily, and no
+one had a chance to interfere. This is only one instance of what we
+fear has taken place in many offices, the speedy disappearance of
+documents which can never be replaced.
+
+From the contents of the parish chests, from churchwardens'
+account-books, we learn much concerning the economic history of the
+country, and the methods of the administration of local and parochial
+government. As a rule persons interested in such matters have to
+content themselves with the statements of the ecclesiastical law books
+on the subject of the repair of churches, the law of church rates, the
+duties of churchwardens, and the constitution and power of vestries.
+And yet there has always existed a variety of customs and practices
+which have stood for ages on their prescriptive usage with many
+complications and minute differentiations. These old account-books and
+minute-books of the churchwardens in town and country are a very large
+but a very perishable and rapidly perishing treasury of information on
+matters the very remembrance of which is passing away. Yet little care
+is taken of these books. An old book is finished and filled up with
+entries; a new book is begun. No one takes any care of the old book.
+It is too bulky for the little iron register safe. A farmer takes
+charge of it; his children tear out pages on which to make their
+drawings; it is torn, mutilated, and forgotten, and the record
+perishes. All honour to those who have transcribed these documents
+with much labour and endless pains and printed them. They will have
+gained no money for their toil. The public do not show their gratitude
+to such laborious students by purchasing many copies, but the
+transcribers know that they have fitted another stone in the Temple of
+Knowledge, and enabled antiquaries, genealogists, economists, and
+historical inquirers to find material for their pursuits.
+
+The churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's, Thame, and some of the most
+interesting in the kingdom, are being printed in the _Berks, Bucks,
+and Oxon Archaeological Journal_. The originals were nearly lost.
+Somehow they came into the possession of the Buckinghamshire
+Archaeological Society. The volume was lent to the late Rev. F. Lee, in
+whose library it remained and could not be recovered. At his death it
+was sold with his other books, and found its way to the Bodleian
+Library at Oxford. There it was transcribed by Mr. Patterson Ellis,
+and then went back to the Buckinghamshire Society after its many
+wanderings. It dates back to the fifteenth century, and records many
+curious items of pre-Reformation manners and customs.
+
+From these churchwardens' accounts we learn how our forefathers raised
+money for the expenses of the church and of the parish. Provision for
+the poor, mending of roads, the improvement of agriculture by the
+killing of sparrows, all came within the province of the vestry, as
+well as the care of the church and churchyard. We learn about such
+things as "Gatherings" at Hocktide, May-day, All Hallow-day,
+Christmas, and Whitsuntide, the men stopping the women on one day and
+demanding money, while on the next day the women retaliated, and
+always gained more for the parish fund than those of the opposite sex:
+Church Ales, the Holy Loaf, Paschal Money, Watching the Sepulchre, the
+duties of clerks and clergymen, and much else, besides the general
+principles of local self-government, which the vestrymen carried on
+until quite recent times. There are few books that provide greater
+information or more absorbing interest than these wonderful books of
+accounts. It is a sad pity that so many have vanished.
+
+The parish register books have suffered less than the churchwardens'
+accounts, but there has been terrible neglect and irreparable loss.
+Their custody has been frequently committed to ignorant parish clerks,
+who had no idea of their utility beyond their being occasionally the
+means of putting a shilling into their pockets for furnishing
+extracts. Sometimes they were in the care of an incumbent who was
+forgetful, careless, or negligent. Hence they were indifferently kept,
+and baptisms, burials, and marriages were not entered as they ought to
+have been. In one of my own register books an indignant parson writes
+in the year 1768: "There does not appear any one entry of a Baptism,
+Marriage, or Burial in the old Register for nine successive years,
+viz. from the year 1732 till the year 1741, when this Register
+commences." The fact was that the old parchment book beginning A.D.
+1553 was quite full and crowded with names, and the rector never
+troubled to provide himself with a new one. Fortunately this sad
+business took place long before our present septuagenarians were born,
+or there would be much confusion and uncertainty with regard to
+old-age pensions.
+
+The disastrous period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth caused
+great confusion and many defects in the registers. Very often the
+rector was turned out of his parish; the intruding minister, often an
+ignorant mechanic, cared naught for registers. Registrars were
+appointed in each parish who could scarcely sign their names, much
+less enter a baptism. Hence we find very frequent gaps in the books
+from 1643 to 1660. At Tarporley, Cheshire, there is a break from 1643
+to 1648, upon which a sorrowful vicar remarks:--
+
+  "This Intermission hapned by reason of the great wars obliterating
+  memorials, wasting fortunes, and slaughtering persons of all
+  sorts."
+
+The Parliamentary soldiers amused themselves by tearing out the leaves
+in the registers for the years 1604 to the end of 1616 in the parish
+of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire.
+
+There is a curious note in the register of Tunstall, Kent. There seems
+to have been a superfluity of members of the family of Pottman in this
+parish, and the clergyman appears to have been tired of recording
+their names in his books, and thus resolves:--
+
+    "1557   Mary Pottman nat. & bapt. 15 Apr.
+            Mary Pottman n. & b. 29 Jan.
+            Mary Pottman sep. 22 Aug.
+                     1567
+        From henceforw^{d} I omitt the Pottmans."
+
+Fire has played havoc with parish registers. The old register of
+Arborfield, Berkshire, was destroyed by a fire at the rectory. Those
+at Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, were burnt in a fire which consumed
+two-thirds of the town in 1676, and many others have shared the same
+fate. The Spaniards raided the coast of Cornwall in 1595 and burnt the
+church at Paul, when the registers perished in the conflagration.
+
+Wanton destruction has caused the disappearance of many parish books.
+There was a parish clerk at Plungar in Leicestershire who combined his
+ecclesiastical duties with those of a grocer. He found the pages of
+the parish register very useful for wrapping up his groceries. The
+episcopal registry of Ely seems to have been plundered at some time of
+its treasures, as some one purchased a book entitled _Registrum
+causarum Consistorii Eliensis de Tempore Domini Thome de Arundele
+Episcopi Eliensis_, a large quarto, written on vellum, containing 162
+double pages, which was purchased as waste paper at a grocer's shop at
+Cambridge together with forty or fifty old books belonging to the
+registry of Ely. The early registers at Christ Church, Hampshire, were
+destroyed by a curate's wife who had made kettle-holders of them, and
+would perhaps have consumed the whole parish archives in this homely
+fashion, had not the parish clerk, by a timely interference, rescued
+the remainder. One clergyman, being unable to transcribe certain
+entries which were required from his registers, cut them out and sent
+them by post; and an Essex clerk, not having ink and paper at hand for
+copying out an extract, calmly took out his pocket-knife and cut out
+two leaves, handing them to the applicant. Sixteen leaves of another
+old register were cut out by the clerk, who happened to be a tailor,
+in order to supply himself with measures. Tradesmen seem to have found
+these books very useful. The marriage register of Hanney, Berkshire,
+from 1754 to 1760 was lost, but later on discovered in a grocer's
+shop.
+
+Deplorable has been the fate of these old books, so valuable to the
+genealogist. Upon the records contained there the possession of much
+valuable property may depend. The father of the present writer was
+engaged in proving his title to an estate, and required certificates
+of all the births, deaths, and marriages that had occurred in the
+family during a hundred years. All was complete save the record of one
+marriage. He discovered that his ancestor had eloped with a young
+lady, and the couple had married in London at a City church. The name
+of the church where the wedding was said to have taken place was
+suggested to him, but he discovered that it had been pulled down.
+However, the old parish clerk was discovered, who had preserved the
+books; the entry was found, and all went well and the title to the
+estate established. How many have failed to obtain their rights and
+just claims through the gross neglect of the keepers or custodians of
+parochial documents?
+
+An old register was kept in the drawer of an old table, together with
+rusty iron and endless rubbish, by a parish clerk who was a poor
+labouring man. Another was said to be so old and "out of date" and so
+difficult to read by the parson and his neighbours, that it had been
+tossed about the church and finally carried off by children and torn
+to pieces. The leaves of an old parchment register were discovered
+sewed together as a covering for the tester of a bedstead, and the
+daughters of a parish clerk, who were lace-makers, cut up the pages of
+a register for a supply of parchment to make patterns for their lace
+manufacture. Two Leicestershire registers were rescued, one from the
+shop of a bookseller, the other from the corner cupboard of a
+blacksmith, where it had lain perishing and unheard of more than
+thirty years. The following extract from _Notes and Queries_ tells of
+the sad fate of other books:--
+
+  "On visiting the village school of Colton it was discovered that
+  the 'Psalters' of the children were covered with the leaves of the
+  Parish Register; some of them were recovered, and replaced in the
+  parish chest, but many were totally obliterated and cut away. This
+  discovery led to further investigation, which brought to light a
+  practice of the Parish Clerk and Schoolmaster of the day, who to
+  certain 'goodies' of the village, gave the parchment leaves for
+  hutkins for their knitting pins."
+
+Still greater desecration has taken place. The registers of South
+Otterington, containing several entries of the great families of
+Talbot, Herbert, and Falconer, were kept in the cottage of the parish
+clerk, who used all those preceding the eighteenth century for waste
+paper, and devoted not a few to the utilitarian employment of singeing
+a goose. At Appledore the books were lost through having been kept in
+a public-house for the delectation of its frequenters.
+
+But many parsons have kept their registers with consummate care. The
+name of the Rev. John Yate, rector of Rodmarton, Gloucestershire, in
+1630, should be mentioned as a worthy and careful custodian on account
+of his quaint directions for the preservation of his registers. He
+wrote in the volume:--
+
+   "If you will have this Book last, bee sure to aire it att the
+   fier or in the Sunne three or foure times a yeare--els it will
+   grow dankish and rott, therefore look to it. It will not be
+   amisse when you finde it dankish to wipe over the leaves with a
+   dry woollen cloth. This place is very much subject to
+   dankishness, therefore I say looke to it."
+
+Sometimes the parsons adorned their books with their poetical
+effusions either in Latin or English. Here are two examples, the first
+from Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire; the second from Ruyton, Salop:--
+
+        Hic puer aetatem, his Vir sponsalia noscat.
+        Hic decessorum funera quisque sciat.
+
+        No Flatt'ry here, where to be born and die
+        Of rich and poor is all the history.
+        Enough, if virtue fill'd the space between,
+        Prov'd, by the ends of being, to have been.
+
+Bishop Kennet urged his clergy to enter in their registers not only
+every christening, wedding, or burial, which entries have proved some
+of the best helps for the preserving of history, but also any notable
+events that may have occurred in the parish or neighbourhood, such as
+"storms and lightning, contagion and mortality, droughts, scarcity,
+plenty, longevity, robbery, murders, or the like casualties. If such
+memorable things were fairly entered, your parish registers would
+become chronicles of many strange occurrences that would not otherwise
+be known and would be of great use and service for posterity to know."
+
+The clergy have often acted upon this suggestion. In the registers of
+Cranbrook, Kent, we find a long account of the great plague that raged
+there in 1558, with certain moral reflections on the vice of
+"drunkeness which abounded here," on the base characters of the
+persons in whose houses the Plague began and ended, on the vehemence
+of the infection in "the Inns and Suckling houses of the town, places
+of much disorder," and tells how great dearth followed the Plague
+"with much wailing and sorrow," and how the judgment of God seemed but
+to harden the people in their sin.
+
+The Eastwell register contains copies of the Protestation of 1642, the
+Vow and Covenant of 1643, and the Solemn League and Covenant of the
+same year, all signed by sundry parishioners, and of the death of the
+last of the Plantagenets, Richard by name, a bricklayer by trade, in
+1550, whom Richard III acknowledged to be his son on the eve of the
+battle of Bosworth. At St. Oswalds, Durham, there is the record of the
+hanging and quartering in 1590 of "Duke, Hyll, Hogge and Holyday, iiij
+Semynaryes, Papysts, Tretors and Rebels for their horrible offences."
+"Burials, 1687 April 17th Georges Vilaus Lord dooke of bookingham," is
+the illiterate description of the Duke who was assassinated by Felton
+and buried at Helmsley. It is impossible to mention all the gleanings
+from parish registers; each parish tells its tale, its trades, its
+belief in witchcraft, its burials of soldiers killed in war, its
+stories of persecution, riot, sudden deaths, amazing virtues, and
+terrible sins. The edicts of the laws of England, wise and foolish,
+are reflected in these pages, e.g. the enforced burial in woollen; the
+relatives of those who desired to be buried in linen were obliged to
+pay fifty shillings to the informer and the same sum to the poor of
+the parish. The tax on marriages, births, and burials, levied by the
+Government on the estates of gentlemen in 1693, is also recorded in
+such entries as the following:--
+
+"1700. Mr. Thomas Cullum buried 27 Dec. As the said Mr. Cullum was a
+gentleman, there is 24s. to be paid for his buriall." The practice of
+heart-burial is also frequently demonstrated in our books.
+Extraordinary superstitions and strong beliefs, the use of talismans,
+amulets, and charms, astrological observations, the black art,
+scandals, barbarous punishments, weird customs that prevailed at man's
+most important ceremonies, his baptism, marriage and burial, the
+binding of apprenticeships, obsolete trades, such as that of the
+person who is styled "aquavity man" or the "saltpetre man," the mode
+of settling quarrels and disputes, duels, sports, games, brawls, the
+expenses of supplying a queen's household, local customs and
+observances--all these find a place in these amazing records. In
+short, there is scarcely any feature of the social life of our
+forefathers which is not abundantly set forth in our parish registers.
+The loss of them would indeed be great and overwhelming.
+
+As we have said, many of them have been lost by fire and other
+casualties, by neglect and carelessness. The guarding of the safety of
+those that remain is an anxious problem. Many of us would regret to
+part with our registers and to allow them to leave the church or town
+or village wherein they have reposed so long. They are part of the
+story of the place, and when American ladies and gentlemen come to
+find traces of their ancestors they love to see these records in the
+village where their forefathers lived, and to carry away with them a
+photograph of the church, some ivy from the tower, some flowers from
+the rectory garden, to preserve in their western homes as memorials of
+the place whence their family came. It would not be the same thing if
+they were to be referred to a dusty office in a distant town. Some
+wise people say that all registers should be sent to London, to the
+Record Office or the British Museum. That would be an impossibility.
+The officials of those institutions would tremble at the thought, and
+the glut of valuable books would make reference a toil that few could
+undertake. The real solution of the difficulty is that county councils
+should provide accommodation for all deeds and documents, that all
+registers should be transcribed, that copies should be deposited in
+the county council depository, and that the originals should still
+remain in the parish chest where they have lain for three centuries
+and a half.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+OLD CUSTOMS THAT ARE VANISHING
+
+
+Many writers have mourned over the decay of our ancient customs which
+the restlessness of modern life has effectually killed. New manners
+are ever pushing out the old, and the lover of antiquity may perhaps
+be pardoned if he prefers the more ancient modes. The death of the old
+social customs which added such diversity to the lives of our
+forefathers tends to render the countryman's life one continuous round
+of labour unrelieved by pleasant pastime, and if innocent pleasures
+are not indulged in, the tendency is to seek for gratification in
+amusements that are not innocent or wholesome.
+
+The causes of the decline and fall of many old customs are not far to
+seek. Agricultural depression has killed many. The deserted farmsteads
+no longer echo with the sounds of rural revelry; the cheerful
+log-fires no longer glow in the farmer's kitchen; the harvest-home
+song has died away; and "largess" no longer rewards the mummers and
+the morris-dancers. Moreover, the labourer himself has changed; he has
+lost his simplicity. His lot is far better than it was half a century
+ago, and he no longer takes pleasure in the simple joys that delighted
+his ancestors in days of yore. Railways and cheap excursions have made
+him despise the old games and pastimes which once pleased his
+unenlightened soul. The old labourer is dead, and his successor is a
+very "up-to-date" person, who reads the newspapers and has his ideas
+upon politics and social questions that would have startled his less
+cultivated sire. The modern system of elementary education also has
+much to do with the decay of old customs.
+
+Still we have some left. We can only here record a few that survive.
+Some years ago I wrote a volume on the subject, and searched
+diligently to find existing customs in the remote corners of old
+England.[61] My book proved useful to Sir Benjamin Stone, M.P., the
+expert photographer of the House of Commons, who went about with his
+camera to many of the places indicated, and by his art produced
+permanent presentments of the scenes which I had tried to describe. He
+was only just in time, as doubtless many of these customs will soon
+pass away. It is, however, surprising to find how much has been left;
+how tenaciously the English race clings to that which habit and usage
+have established; how deeply rooted they are in the affections of the
+people. It is really remarkable that at the present day, in spite of
+ages of education and social enlightenment, in spite of centuries of
+Christian teaching and practice, we have now amongst us many customs
+which owe their origin to pagan beliefs and the superstitions of our
+heathen forefathers, and have no other _raison d'etre_ for their
+existence than the wild legends of Scandinavian mythology.
+
+  [61] _Old English Customs Extant at the Present Time_ (Methuen and
+  Co.).
+
+We have still our Berkshire mummers at Christmas, who come to us
+disguised in strange garb and begin their quaint performance with the
+doggerel rhymes--
+
+  I am King George, that noble champion bold,
+  And with my trusty sword I won ten thousand pounds in gold;
+  'Twas I that fought the fiery dragon, and brought him to the slaughter,
+  And by these means I won the King of Egypt's daughter.[62]
+
+  [62] The book of words is printed in _Old English Customs_, by
+  P.H. Ditchfield.
+
+Other counties have their own versions. In Staffordshire they are
+known as the "Guisers," in Cornwall as the "Geese-dancers," in Sussex
+as the "Tipteerers." Carolsingers are still with us, but often instead
+of the old carols they sing very badly and irreverently modern hymns,
+though in Cambridgeshire you may still hear "God bless you, merry
+gentlemen," and the vessel-boxes (a corruption of wassail) are still
+carried round in Yorkshire. At Christmas Cornish folk eat giblet-pie,
+and Yorkshiremen enjoy furmenty; and mistletoe and the kissing-bush
+are still hung in the hall; and in some remote parts of Cornwall
+children may be seen dancing round painted lighted candles placed in a
+box of sand. The devil's passing-bell tolls on Christmas Eve from the
+church tower at Dewsbury, and a muffled peal bewails the slaughter of
+the children on Holy Innocents' Day. The boar's head is still brought
+in triumph into the hall of Queen's College. Old women "go a-gooding"
+or mumping on St. Thomas's Day, and "hoodening" or horse-head mumming
+is practised at Walmer, and bull-hoodening prevails at Kingscote, in
+Gloucestershire. The ancient custom of "goodening" still obtains at
+Braughing, Herts. The _Hertfordshire Mercury_ of December 28, 1907,
+states that on St. Thomas's Day (December 21) certain of the more
+sturdy widows of the village went round "goodening," and collected L4
+14s. 6d., which was equally divided among the eighteen needy widows of
+the parish. In 1899 the oldest dame who took part in the ceremony was
+aged ninety-three, while in 1904 a widow "goodened" for the thirtieth
+year in succession. In the _Herts and Cambs Reporter_ for December 23,
+1904, is an account of "Gooding Day" at Gamlingay. It appears that in
+1665 some almshouses for aged women (widows) were built there by Sir
+John Jacob, Knight. "On Wednesday last (St. Thomas's Day)," says this
+journal, "an interesting ceremony was to be seen. The old women were
+gathered at the central doorway ... preparatory to a pilgrimage to
+collect alms at the houses of the leading inhabitants. This old
+custom, which has been observed for nearly three hundred years, it is
+safe to say, will not fall into desuetude, for it usually results in
+each poor widow realising a gold coin." In the north of England
+first-footing on New Year's Eve is common, and a dark-complexioned
+person is esteemed as a herald of good fortune. Wassailing exists in
+Lancashire, and the apple-wassailing has not quite died out on Twelfth
+Night. Plough Monday is still observed in Cambridgeshire, and the
+"plough-bullocks" drag around the parishes their ploughs and perform a
+weird play. The Haxey hood is still thrown at that place in
+Lincolnshire on the Feast of the Epiphany, and valentines are not
+quite forgotten by rural lovers.
+
+Shrovetide is associated with pancakes. The pancake bell is still rung
+in many places, and for some occult reason it is the season for some
+wild football games in the streets and lanes of several towns and
+villages. At St. Ives on the Monday there is a grand hurling match,
+which resembles a Rugby football contest without the kicking of the
+ball, which is about the size of a cricket-ball, made of cork or light
+wood. At Ashbourne on Shrove-Tuesday thousands join in the game, the
+origin of which is lost in the mists of antiquity. As the old church
+clock strikes two a little speech is made, the National Anthem sung,
+and then some popular devotee of the game is hoisted on the shoulders
+of excited players and throws up the ball. "She's up," is the cry, and
+then the wild contest begins, which lasts often till nightfall.
+Several efforts have been made to stop the game, and even the judge of
+the Court of Queen's Bench had to decide whether it was legal to play
+the game in the streets. In spite of some opposition it still
+flourishes, and is likely to do so for many a long year. Sedgefield,
+Chester-le-Street, Alnwick, Dorking also have their famous football
+fights, which differ much from an ordinary league match. In the latter
+thousands look on while twenty-two men show their skill. In these old
+games all who wish take part in them, all are keen champions and know
+nothing of professionalism.
+
+"Ycleping," or, as it is now called, clipping churches, is another
+Shrovetide custom, when the children join hands round the church and
+walk round it. It has just been revived at Painswick, in the
+Cotswolds, where after being performed for many hundred years it was
+discontinued by the late vicar. On the patron saint's day (St. Mary's)
+the children join hands in a ring round the church and circle round
+the building singing. It is the old Saxon custom of "ycleping," or
+naming the church on the anniversary of its original dedication.
+
+Simnels on Mothering Sunday still exist, reminding us of Herrick's
+lines:--
+
+        I'll to thee a Simnel bring,
+        'Gainst thou goes a mothering;
+        So that when she blesseth thee
+        Half the blessing thou'lt give me.
+
+Palm Sunday brings some curious customs. At Roundway Hill, and at
+Martinsall, near Marlborough, the people bear "palms," or branches of
+willow and hazel, and the boys play a curious game of knocking a ball
+with hockey-sticks up the hill; and in Buckinghamshire it is called
+Fig Sunday, and also in Hertfordshire. Hertford, Kempton,
+Edlesborough, Dunstable are homes of the custom, nor is the practice
+of eating figs and figpies unknown in Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire,
+Oxfordshire, Wilts, and North Wales. Possibly the custom is connected
+with the withering of the barren fig-tree.
+
+Good Friday brings hot-cross-buns with the well-known rhyme. Skipping
+on that day at Brighton is, I expect, now extinct. Sussex boys play
+marbles, Guildford folk climb St. Martha's Hill, and poor widows pick
+up six-pences from a tomb in the churchyard of St. Bartholomew the
+Great, London, on the same Holy Day.
+
+Easter brings its Pace eggs, symbols of the Resurrection, and
+Yorkshire children roll them against one another in fields and
+gardens. The Biddenham cakes are distributed, and the Hallaton
+hare-scramble and bottle-kicking provide a rough scramble and a
+curious festival for Easter Monday. On St. Mark's Day the ghosts of
+all who will die during the year in the villages of Yorkshire pass at
+midnight before the waiting people, and Hock-tide brings its quaint
+diversions to the little Berkshire town of Hungerford.
+
+The diversions of May Day are too numerous to be chronicled here, and
+I must refer the reader to my book for a full description of the
+sports that usher in the spring; but we must not forget the remarkable
+Furry Dance at Helston on May 8th, and the beating of the bounds of
+many a township during Rogation Week. Our boys still wear oak-leaves
+on Royal Oak Day, and the Durham Cathedral choir sing anthems on the
+top of the tower in memory of the battle of Neville's Cross, fought so
+long ago as the year 1346.
+
+Club-feasts and morris-dancers delight the rustics at Whitsuntide, and
+the wakes are well kept up in the north of England, and rush-beating
+at Ambleside, and hay-strewing customs in Leicestershire. The horn
+dance at Abbot Bromley is a remarkable survival. The fires on
+Midsummer Eve are still lighted in a few places in Wales, but are fast
+dying out. Ratby, in Leicestershire, is a home of old customs, and has
+an annual feast, when the toast of the immortal memory of John of
+Gaunt is drunk with due solemnity. Harvest customs were formerly very
+numerous, but are fast dying out before the reaping-machines and
+agricultural depression. The "kern-baby" has been dead some years.
+
+Bonfire night and the commemoration of the discovery of Gunpowder Plot
+and the burning of "guys" are still kept up merrily, but few know the
+origin of the festivities or concern themselves about it. Soul cakes
+and souling still linger on in Cheshire, and cattering and clemmening
+on the feasts of St. Catherine and St. Clement are still observed in
+East Sussex.
+
+Very remarkable are the local customs which linger on in some of our
+towns and villages and are not confined to any special day in the
+year. Thus, at Abbots Ann, near Andover, the good people hang up
+effigies of arms and hands in memory of girls who died unmarried, and
+gloves and garlands of roses are sometimes hung for the same purpose.
+The Dunmow Flitch is a well-known matrimonial prize for happy couples
+who have never quarrelled during the first year of their wedded life;
+while a Skimmerton expresses popular indignation against quarrelsome
+or licentious husbands and wives.
+
+Many folk-customs linger around wells and springs, the haunts of
+nymphs and sylvan deities who must be propitiated by votive offerings
+and are revengeful when neglected. Pins, nails, and rags are still
+offered, and the custom of "well-dressing," shorn of its pagan
+associations and adapted to Christian usage, exists in all its glory
+at Tissington, Youlgrave, Derby, and several other places.
+
+The three great events of human life--birth, marriage, and death--have
+naturally drawn around them some of the most curious beliefs. These
+are too numerous to be recorded here, and I must again refer the
+curious reader to my book on old-time customs. We should like to dwell
+upon the most remarkable of the customs that prevail in the City of
+London, in the halls of the Livery Companies, as well as in some of
+the ancient boroughs of England, but this record would require too
+large a space. Bell-ringing customs attract attention. The curfew-bell
+still rings in many towers; the harvest-bell, the gleaning-bell, the
+pancake-bell, the "spur-peal," the eight-hours' bell, and sundry
+others send out their pleasing notice to the world. At Aldermaston
+land is let by means of a lighted candle. A pin is placed through the
+candle, and the last bid that is made before that pin drops out is the
+occupier of the land for a year. The Church Acre at Chedzoy is let in
+a similar manner, and also at Todworth, Warton, and other places.
+Wiping the shoes of those who visit a market for the first time is
+practised at Brixham, and after that little ceremony they have to "pay
+their footing." At St. Ives raffling for Bibles continues, according
+to the will of Dr. Wilde in 1675, and in church twelve children cast
+dice for six Bibles. Court, Bar, and Parliament have each their
+peculiar customs which it would be interesting to note, if space
+permitted; and we should like to record the curious bequests, doles,
+and charities which display the eccentricities of human nature and the
+strange tenures of land which have now fallen into disuse.
+
+It is to be hoped that those who are in a position to preserve any
+existing custom in their own neighbourhood will do their utmost to
+prevent its decay. Popular customs are a heritage which has been
+bequeathed to us from a remote past, and it is our duty to hand down
+that heritage to future generations of English folk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE VANISHING OF ENGLISH SCENERY AND NATURAL BEAUTY
+
+
+Not the least distressing of the losses which we have to mourn is the
+damage that has been done to the beauty of our English landscapes and
+the destruction of many scenes of sylvan loveliness. The population of
+our large towns continues to increase owing to the insensate folly
+that causes the rural exodus. People imagine that the streets of towns
+are paved with gold, and forsake the green fields for a crowded slum,
+and after many vicissitudes and much hardship wish themselves back
+again in their once despised village home. I was lecturing to a crowd
+of East End Londoners at Toynbee Hall on village life in ancient and
+modern times, and showed them views of the old village street, the
+cottages, manor-houses, water-mills, and all the charms of rural
+England, and after the lecture I talked with many of the men who
+remembered their country homes which they had left in the days of
+their youth, and they all wished to go back there again, if only they
+could find work and had not lost the power of doing it. But the rural
+exodus continues. Towns increase rapidly, and cottages have to be
+found for these teeming multitudes. Many a rural glade and stretch of
+woodland have to be sacrificed, and soon streets are formed and rows
+of unsightly cottages spring up like magic, with walls terribly thin,
+that can scarcely stop the keenness of the wintry blasts, so thin that
+each neighbour can hear your conversation, and if a man has a few
+words with his wife all the inhabitants of the row can hear him.
+
+Garden cities have arisen as a remedy for this evil, carefully planned
+dwelling-places wherein some thought is given to beauty and
+picturesque surroundings, to plots for gardens, and to the comfort of
+the fortunate citizens. But some garden cities are garden only in
+name. Cheap villas surrounded by unsightly fields that have been
+spoilt and robbed of all beauty, with here and there unsightly heaps
+of rubbish and refuse, only delude themselves and other people by
+calling themselves garden cities. Too often there is no attempt at
+beauty. Cheapness and speedy construction are all that their makers
+strive for.
+
+These growing cities, ever increasing, ever enclosing fresh victims in
+their hideous maw, work other ills. They require much food, and they
+need water. Water must be found and conveyed to them. This has been no
+easy task for many corporations. For many years the city of Liverpool
+drew its supply from Rivington, a range of hills near Bolton-le-Moors,
+where there were lakes and where they could construct others. Little
+harm was done there; but the city grew and the supply was
+insufficient. Other sources had to be found and tapped. They found one
+in Wales. Their eyes fell on the Lake Vyrnwy, and believed that they
+found what they sought. But that, too, could not supply the millions
+of gallons that Liverpool needed. They found that the whole vale of
+Llanwddyn must be embraced. A gigantic dam must be made at the lower
+end of the valley, and the whole vale converted into one great lake.
+But there were villages in the vale, rural homes and habitations,
+churches and chapels, and over five hundred people who lived therein
+and must be turned out. And now the whole valley is a lake. Homes and
+churches lie beneath the waves, and the graves of the "women that
+sleep," of the rude forefathers of the hamlet, of bairns and dear
+ones are overwhelmed by the pitiless waters. It is all very
+deplorable.
+
+And now it seems that the same thing must take place again: but this
+time it is an English valley that is concerned, and the people are the
+country folk of North Hampshire. There is a beautiful valley not far
+from Kingsclere and Newbury, surrounded by lovely hills covered with
+woodland. In this valley in a quiet little village appropriately
+called Woodlands, formed about half a century ago out of the large
+parish of Kingsclere, there is a little hamlet named Ashford Hill, the
+modern church of St. Paul, Woodlands, pretty cottages with pleasant
+gardens, a village inn, and a dissenting chapel. The churchyard is
+full of graves, and a cemetery has been lately added. This pretty
+valley with its homes and church and chapel is a doomed valley. In a
+few years time if a former resident returns home from Australia or
+America to his native village he will find his old cottage gone from
+the light of the sun and buried beneath the still waters of a huge
+lake. It is almost certain that such will be the case with this
+secluded rural scene. The eyes of Londoners have turned upon the
+doomed valley. They need water, and water must somehow be procured.
+The great city has no pity. The church and the village will have to be
+removed. It is all very sad. As a writer in a London paper says:
+"Under the best of conditions it is impossible to think of such an
+eviction without sympathy for the grief that it must surely cause to
+some. The younger residents may contemplate it cheerfully enough; but
+for the elder folk, who have spent lives of sunshine and shade, toil,
+sorrow, joy, in this peaceful vale, it must needs be that the removal
+will bring a regret not to be lightly uttered in words. The soul of
+man clings to the localities that he has known and loved; perhaps, as
+in Wales, there will be some broken hearts when the water flows in
+upon the scenes where men and women have met and loved and wedded,
+where children have been born, where the beloved dead have been laid
+to rest."
+
+The old forests are not safe. The Act of 1851 caused the destruction
+of miles of beautiful landscape. Peacock, in his story of _Gryll
+Grange_, makes the announcement that the New Forest is now enclosed,
+and that he proposes never to visit it again. Twenty-five years of
+ruthless devastation followed the passing of that Act. The deer
+disappeared. Stretches of open beechwood and green lawns broken by
+thickets of ancient thorn and holly vanished under the official axe.
+Woods and lawns were cleared and replaced by miles and miles of
+rectangular fir plantations. The Act of 1876 with regard to forest
+land came late, but it, happily, saved some spots of sylvan beauty.
+Under the Act of 1851 all that was ancient and delightful to the eye
+would have been levelled, or hidden in fir-wood. The later Act stopped
+this wholesale destruction. We have still some lofty woods, still some
+scenery that shows how England looked when it was a land of blowing
+woodland. The New Forest is maimed and scarred, but what is left is
+precious and unique. It is primeval forest land, nearly all that
+remains in the country. Are these treasures safe? Under the Act of
+1876 managers are told to consider beauty as well as profit, and to
+abstain from destroying ancient trees; but much is left to the
+decision and to the judgment of officials, and they are not always to
+be depended on.
+
+After having been threatened with demolition for a number of years,
+the famous Winchmore Hill Woods are at last to be hewn down and the
+land is to be built upon. These woods, which it was Hood's and Charles
+Lamb's delight to stroll in, have become the property of a syndicate,
+which will issue a prospectus shortly, and many of the fine old oaks,
+beeches, and elms already bear the splash of white which marks them
+for the axe. The woods have been one of the greatest attractions in
+the neighbourhood, and public opinion is strongly against the
+demolition.
+
+One of the greatest services which the National Trust is doing for the
+country is the preserving of the natural beauties of our English
+scenery. It acquires, through the generosity of its supporters,
+special tracts of lovely country, and says to the speculative builder
+"Avaunt!" It maintains the landscape for the benefit of the public.
+People can always go there and enjoy the scenery, and townsfolk can
+fill their lungs with fresh air, and children play on the greensward.
+These oases afford sanctuary to birds and beasts and butterflies, and
+are of immense value to botanists and entomologists. Several
+properties in the Lake District have come under the aegis of the Trust.
+Seven hundred and fifty acres around Ullswater have been purchased,
+including Gowbarrow Fell and Aira Force. By this, visitors to the
+English lakes can have unrestrained access over the heights of
+Gowbarrow Fell, through the glen of Aira and along a mile of Ullswater
+shore, and obtain some of the loveliest views in the district. It is
+possible to trespass in the region of the lakes. It is possible to
+wander over hills and through dales, but private owners do not like
+trespassers, and it is not pleasant to be turned back by some
+officious servant. Moreover, it needs much impudence and daring to
+traverse without leave another man's land, though it be bare and
+barren as a northern hill. The Trust invites you to come, and you are
+at peace, and know that no man will stop you if you walk over its
+preserves. Moreover, it holds a delectable bit of country on Lake
+Derwentwater, known as the Brandlehow Park Estate. It extends for
+about a mile along the shore of the lake and reaches up the fell-side
+to the unenclosed common on Catbels. It is a lovely bit of woodland
+scenery. Below the lake glistens in the sunlight and far away the
+giant hills Blencatha, Skiddaw, and Borrowdale rear their heads. It
+cost the Trust L7000, but no one would deem the money ill-spent.
+Almost the last remnant of the primeval fenland of East Anglia, called
+Wicken Fen, has been acquired by the Trust, and also Burwell Fen, the
+home of many rare insects and plants. Near London we see many bits of
+picturesque land that have been rescued, where the teeming population
+of the great city can find rest and recreation. Thus at Hindhead,
+where it has been said villas seem to have broken out upon the once
+majestic hill like a red skin eruption, the Hindhead Preservation
+Committee and the Trust have secured 750 acres of common land on the
+summit of the hill, including the Devil's Punch Bowl, a bright oasis
+amid the dreary desert of villas. Moreover, the Trust is waging a
+battle with the District Council of Hambledon in order to prevent the
+Hindhead Commons from being disfigured by digging for stone for
+mending roads, causing unsightliness and the sad disfiguring of the
+commons. May it succeed in its praiseworthy endeavour. At Toy's Hill,
+on a Kentish hillside, overlooking the Weald, some valuable land has
+been acquired, and part of Wandle Park, Wimbledon, containing the
+Merton Mill Pond and its banks, adjoining the Recreation Ground
+recently provided by the Wimbledon Corporation, is now in the
+possession of the Trust. It is intended for the quiet enjoyment of
+rustic scenery by the people who live in the densely populated area of
+mean streets of Merton and Morden, and not for the lovers of the more
+strenuous forms of recreation. Ide Hill and Crockham Hill, the
+properties of the Trust, can easily be reached by the dwellers in
+London streets.
+
+We may journey in several directions and find traces of the good work
+of the Trust. At Barmouth a beautiful cliff known as Dinas-o-lea,
+Llanlleiana Head, Anglesey, the fifteen acres of cliff land at
+Tintagel, called Barras Head, looking on to the magnificent pile of
+rocks on which stand the ruins of King Arthur's Castle, and the summit
+of Kymin, near Monmouth, whence you can see a charming view of the Wye
+Valley, are all owned and protected by the Trust. Every one knows the
+curious appearance of Sarsen stones, often called Grey Wethers from
+their likeness to a flock of sheep lying down amidst the long grass of
+a Berkshire or Wiltshire down. These stones are often useful for
+building purposes and for road-mending. There is a fine collection of
+these curious stones, which were used in prehistoric times for
+building Stonehenge, at Pickle Dean and Lockeridge Dean. These are
+adjacent to high roads and would soon have fallen a prey to the road
+surveyor or local builder. Hence the authorities of this Trust stepped
+in; they secured for the nation these characteristic examples of a
+unique geological phenomenon, and preserved for all time a curious and
+picturesque feature of the country traversed by the old Bath Road. All
+that the Trust requires is "more force to its elbow," increased funds
+for the preservation of the natural beauty of our English scenery, and
+the increased appreciation on the part of the public and of the owners
+of unspoilt rural scenes to extend its good work throughout the
+counties of England.
+
+A curious feature of vanished or vanishing England is the decay of our
+canals, which here and there with their unused locks, broken towpaths,
+and stagnant waters covered with weeds form a pathetic and melancholy
+part of the landscape. If you look at the map of England you will see,
+besides the blue curvings that mark the rivers, other threads of blue
+that show the canals. Much was expected of them. They were built just
+before the railway era. The whole country was covered by a network of
+canals. Millions were spent upon their construction. For a brief space
+they were prosperous. Some places, like our Berkshire Newbury, became
+the centres of considerable traffic and had little harbours filled
+with barges. Barge-building was a profitable industry. Fly-boats sped
+along the surface of the canals conveying passengers to towns or
+watering-places, and the company were very bright and enjoyed
+themselves. But all are dead highways now, strangled by steam and by
+the railways. The promoters of canals opposed the railways with might
+and main, and tried to protect their properties. Hence the railways
+were obliged to buy them up, and then left them lone and neglected.
+The change was tragic. You can, even now, travel all over the country
+by the means of these silent waterways. You start from London along
+the Regent's Canal, which joins the Grand Junction Canal, and this
+spreads forth northwards and joins other canals that ramify to the
+Wash, to Manchester and Liverpool and Leeds. You can go to every great
+town in England as far as York if you have patience and endless time.
+There are four thousand miles of canals in England. They were not well
+constructed; we built them just as we do many other things, without
+any regular system, with no uniform depth or width or carrying
+capacity, or size of locks or height of bridges. Canals bearing barges
+of forty tons connect with those capable of bearing ninety tons. And
+now most of them are derelict, with dilapidated banks, foul bottoms,
+and shallow horse haulage. The bargemen have taken to other callings,
+but occasionally you may see a barge looking gay and bright drawn by
+an unconcerned horse on the towpath, with a man lazily smoking his
+pipe at the helm and his family of water gipsies, who pass an
+open-air, nomadic existence, tranquil, and entirely innocent of
+schooling. He is a survival of an almost vanished race which the
+railways have caused to disappear.
+
+Much destruction of beautiful scenery is, alas! inevitable. Trade and
+commerce, mills and factories, must work their wicked will on the
+landscapes of our country. Mr. Ruskin's experiment on the painting of
+Turner, quoted in our opening chapter, finds its realisation in many
+places. There was a time, I suppose, when the Mersey was a pure river
+that laved the banks carpeted with foliage and primroses on which the
+old Collegiate Church of Manchester reared its tower. It is now, and
+has been for years, an inky-black stream or drain running between
+stone walls, where it does not hide its foul waters for very shame
+beneath an arched culvert. There was a time when many a Yorkshire
+village basked in the sunlight. Now they are great overgrown towns
+usually enveloped in black smoke. The only day when you can see the
+few surviving beauties of a northern manufacturing town or village is
+Sunday, when the tall factory chimneys cease to vomit their clouds of
+smoke which kills the trees, or covers the struggling leaves with
+black soot. We pay dearly for our commercial progress in this
+sacrifice of Nature's beauties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+Whatever method can be devised for the prevention of the vanishing of
+England's chief characteristics are worthy of consideration. First
+there must be the continued education of the English people in the
+appreciation of ancient buildings and other relics of antiquity. We
+must learn to love them, or we shall not care to preserve them. An
+ignorant squire or foolish landowner may destroy in a day some
+priceless object of antiquity which can never be replaced. Too often
+it is the agent who is to blame. Squires are very much in the hands of
+their agents, and leave much to them to decide and carry out. When
+consulted they do not take the trouble to inspect the threatened
+building, and merely confirm the suggestions of the agents. Estate
+agents, above all people, need education in order that the destruction
+of much that is precious may be averted.
+
+The Government has done well in appointing commissions for England,
+Scotland, and Wales to inquire into and report on the condition of
+ancient monuments, but we lag behind many other countries in the task
+of protecting and preserving the memorials of the past.
+
+In France national monuments of historic or artistic interest are
+scheduled under the direction of the Minister of Public Instruction
+and Fine Arts. In cases in which a monument is owned by a private
+individual, it usually may not be scheduled without the consent of the
+owner, but if his consent is withheld the State Minister is empowered
+to purchase compulsorily. No monument so scheduled may be destroyed or
+subjected to works of restoration, repair, or alteration without the
+consent of the Minister, nor may new buildings be annexed to it
+without permission from the same quarter. Generally speaking, the
+Minister is advised by a commission of historical monuments,
+consisting of leading officials connected with fine arts, public
+buildings, and museums. Such a commission has existed since 1837, and
+very considerable sums of public money have been set apart to enable
+it to carry on its work. In 1879 a classification of some 2500
+national monuments was made, and this classification has been adopted
+in the present law. It includes megalithic remains, classical remains,
+and medieval, Renaissance, and modern buildings and ruins.[63]
+
+  [63] A paper read by Mr. Nigel Bond, Secretary of the National
+  Trust, at a meeting of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian
+  Field Club, to which paper the writer is indebted for the
+  subsequent account of the proceeding's of foreign governments with
+  regard to the preservation of their ancient monuments.
+
+We do not suggest that in England we should imitate the very drastic
+restorations to which some of the French abbeys and historic buildings
+are subjected. The authorities have erred greatly in destroying so
+much original work and their restorations, as in the case of Mont St.
+Michel, have been practically a rebuilding.
+
+The Belgian people appear to have realized for a very long time the
+importance of preserving their historic and artistic treasures. By a
+royal decree of 1824 bodies in charge of church temporalities are
+reminded that they are managers merely, and while they are urged to
+undertake in good time the simple repairs that are needed for the
+preservation of the buildings in their charge, they are strictly
+forbidden to demolish any ecclesiastical building without authority
+from the Ministry which deals with the subject of the fine arts. By
+the same decree they are likewise forbidden to alienate works of art
+or historical monuments placed in churches. Nine years later, in 1835,
+in view of the importance of assuring the preservation of all national
+monuments remarkable for their antiquity, their association, or their
+artistic value, another decree was issued constituting a Royal
+Commission for the purpose of advising as to the repairs required by
+such monuments. Nearly 200,000 francs are annually voted for
+expenditure for these purposes. The strict application of these
+precautionary measures has allowed a number of monuments of the
+highest interest in their relation to art and archaeology to be
+protected and defended, but it does not appear that the Government
+controls in any way those monuments which are in the hands of private
+persons.[64]
+
+  [64] _Ibid._
+
+In Holland public money to the extent of five or six thousand pounds a
+year is spent on preserving and maintaining national monuments and
+buildings of antiquarian and architectural interest. In Germany steps
+are being taken which we might follow with advantage in this country,
+to control and limit the disfigurement of landscapes by advertisement
+hoardings.
+
+A passage from the ministerial order of 1884 with reference to the
+restoration of churches may be justly quoted:--
+
+  "If the restoration of a public building is to be completely
+  successful, it is absolutely essential that the person who directs
+  it should combine with an enlightened aesthetic sense an artistic
+  capacity in a high degree, and, moreover, be deeply imbued with
+  feelings of veneration for all that has come down to us from
+  ancient times. If a restoration is carried out without any real
+  comprehension of the laws of architecture, the result can only be
+  a production of common and dreary artificiality, recognizable
+  perhaps as belonging to one of the architectural styles, but
+  wanting the stamp of true art, and, therefore, incapable of
+  awakening the enthusiasm of the spectator."
+
+And again:--
+
+  "In consequence of the removal or disfigurement of monuments which
+  have been erected during the course of centuries--monuments which
+  served, as it were, as documents of the historical development of
+  past periods of culture, which have, moreover, a double interest
+  and value if left undisturbed on the spot where they were
+  originally erected--the sympathy of congregations with the
+  history of their church is diminished, and, a still more
+  lamentable consequence, a number of objects of priceless artistic
+  value destroyed or squandered, whereby the property of the church
+  suffers a serious loss."
+
+How much richer might we be here in England if only our central
+authorities had in the past circulated these admirable doctrines!
+
+Very wisely has the Danish Government prohibited the removal of stones
+from monuments of historic interest for utilitarian purposes, such as
+is causing the rapid disappearance of the remains on Dartmoor in this
+country; and the Greeks have stringent regulations to ensure the
+preservation of antiquities, which are regarded as national property,
+and may on no account be damaged either by owner or lessee. It has
+actually been found necessary to forbid the construction of limekilns
+nearer than two miles from any ancient ruins, in order to remove the
+temptation for the filching of stones. In Italy there are stringent
+laws for the protection of historical and ancient monuments.
+Road-mending is a cause of much destruction of antiquarian objects in
+all countries, even in Italy, where the law has been invoked to
+protect ancient monuments from the highway authorities.
+
+We need not record the legal enactments of other Governments, so
+admirably summarized by Mr. Bond in his paper read before the Dorset
+Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club. We see what other
+countries much poorer than our own are doing to protect their national
+treasures, and though the English Government has been slow in
+realizing the importance of the ancient monuments of this country, we
+believe that it is inclined to move in the right direction, and to do
+its utmost to preserve those that have hitherto escaped the attacks of
+the iconoclasts, and the heedlessness and stupidity of the Gallios
+"who care for none of these things."
+
+When an old building is hopelessly dilapidated, what methods can be
+devised for its restoration and preservation? To pull it down and
+rebuild it is to destroy its historical associations and to make it
+practically a new structure. Happily science has recently discovered a
+new method for the preserving of these old buildings without
+destroying them, and this good angel is the grouting machine, the
+invention of Mr. James Greathead, which has been the means of
+preventing much of vanishing England. Grout, we understand, is a
+mixture of cement, sand, and water, and the process of grouting was
+probably not unknown to the Romans. But the grouting machine is a
+modern invention, and it has only been applied to ancient buildings
+during the last six or seven years.[65] It is unnecessary to describe
+its mechanism, but its admirable results may be summarized. Suppose an
+old building shows alarming cracks. By compressed air you blow out the
+old decayed mortar, and then damping the masonry by the injection of
+water, you insert the nozzle of the machine and force the grout into
+the cracks and cavities, and soon the whole mass of decayed masonry is
+cemented together and is as sound as ever it was. This method has been
+successfully applied to Winchester Cathedral, the old walls of
+Chester, and to various churches and towers. It in no way destroys the
+characteristics and features of the building, the weatherworn surfaces
+of the old stones, their cracks and deformations, and even the moss
+and lichen which time has planted on them need not be disturbed.
+Pointing is of no avail to preserve a building, as it only enters an
+inch or two in depth. Underpinning is dangerous if the building be
+badly cracked, and may cause collapse. But if you shore the structure
+with timber, and then weld its stones together by applying the
+grouting machine, you turn the whole mass of masonry into a monolith,
+and can then strengthen the foundations in any way that may be found
+necessary. The following story of the saving of an old church, as told
+by Mr. Fox, proclaims the merits of this scientific invention better
+than any description can possibly do:--
+
+  "The ancient church of Corhampton, near Bishops Waltham, in
+  Hampshire, is an instance. This Saxon church, 1300 years old, was
+  in a sadly dilapidated condition. In the west gable there were
+  large cracks, one from the ridge to the ground, another nearer the
+  side wall, both wide enough for a man's arm to enter; whilst at
+  the north-west angle the Saxon work threatened to fall bodily off.
+  The mortar of the walls had perished through age, and the ivy had
+  penetrated into the interior of the church in every direction. It
+  would have been unsafe to attempt any examination of the
+  foundations for fear of bringing down the whole fabric;
+  consequently the grouting machine was applied all over the
+  building. The grout escaped at every point, and it occupied the
+  attention of the masons both inside and outside to stop it
+  promptly by plastering clay on to the openings from which it was
+  running.
+
+  "After the operation had been completed and the clay was removed,
+  the interior was found to be completely filled with cement set
+  very hard; and sufficient depth having been left for fixing the
+  flint work outside and tiling inside, the result was that no trace
+  of the crack was visible, and the walls were stronger and better
+  than they had ever been before. Subsequent steps were then taken
+  to examine and, where necessary, to underpin the walls, and the
+  church is saved, as the vicar, the Rev. H. Churton, said, 'all
+  without moving one of the Saxon "long and short" stones.'"
+
+  [65] A full account of this useful invention was given in the
+  _Times_ Engineering Supplement, March 18th, 1908, by Mr. Francis
+  Fox, M. Inst. C.E.
+
+In our chapter on the delightful and picturesque old bridges that form
+such beautiful features of our English landscapes, we deplored the
+destruction now going on owing to the heavy traction-engines which
+some of them have to bear and the rush and vibration of motor-cars
+which cause the decay of the mortar and injure their stability. Many
+of these old bridges, once only wide enough for pack-horses to cross,
+then widened for the accommodation of coaches, beautiful and graceful
+in every way, across which Cavaliers rode to fight the Roundheads, and
+were alive with traffic in the old coaching days, have been pulled
+down and replaced by the hideous iron-girder arrangements which now
+disfigure so many of our streams and rivers. In future, owing to this
+wonderful invention of the grouting machine, these old bridges can be
+saved and made strong enough to last another five hundred years. Mr.
+Fox tells us that an old Westmoreland bridge in a very bad condition
+has been so preserved, and that the celebrated "Auld Brig o' Ayr" has
+been saved from destruction by this means. A wider knowledge of the
+beneficial effects of this wonderful machine would be of invaluable
+service to the country, and prevent the passing away of much that in
+these pages we have mourned. By this means we may be able to preserve
+our old and decaying buildings for many centuries, and hand down to
+posterity what Ruskin called the great entail of beauty bequeathed to
+us.
+
+Vanishing England has a sad and melancholy sound. Nevertheless, the
+examples we have given of the historic buildings, and the beauties of
+our towns and villages, prove that all has not yet disappeared which
+appeals to the heart and intellect of the educated Englishman. And
+oftentimes the poor and unlearned appreciate the relics that remain
+with quite as much keenness as their richer neighbours. A world
+without beauty is a world without hope. To check vandalism, to stay
+the hand of the iconoclast and destroyer, to prevent the invasion and
+conquest of the beauties bequeathed to us by our forefathers by the
+reckless and ever-engrossing commercial and utilitarian spirit of the
+age, are some of the objects of our book, which may be useful in
+helping to preserve some of the links that connect our own times with
+the England of the past, and in increasing the appreciation of the
+treasures that remain by the Englishmen of to-day.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abbey towns, 210-29
+Abbot's Ann, 381
+---- Hospital, Guildford, 343
+Abingdon, 278
+---- bridge, 320
+---- hospital, 344
+---- archives of, 365
+Age, a progressive, 2
+Albans, St., Abbey, 212
+---- inn at, 254
+Aldeburgh, 18
+Aldermaston, 196, 381
+Alfriston, 256
+Allington Castle, 124
+Alnwick, 31
+Almshouses, 333-48
+Almsmen's liveries, 346
+American rapacity, 6-7, 164, 183
+Ancient Monuments Commission, 392
+_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ on Castles, 116
+Armour, 184
+Art treasures dispersed, 5
+Ashbury camp, 208
+Atleburgh, Norfolk, 147
+Avebury, stone circle at, 207
+---- manor-house, 180
+Aylesbury, Vale of, 86, 91
+---- inn at, 256
+
+Bainbridge, inn at, 254
+Banbury, 83
+Barkham, 148
+Barnard Castle, 119
+Barrington Court, 189
+Bartholomew's, St., Priory, 351-9
+Bath, city of, 220
+Beauty of English scenery vanishing, 383-91
+Berkeley Castle, 118
+Berwick-on-Tweed, 29, 31
+Beverley, 303, 310
+Bewcastle Cross, 288
+Bledlow Crosses, 303
+Bodiam Castle, 125
+Bonfires of old deeds, 366
+Bosham, 16
+Bournemouth, 17
+Bowthorpe, 139
+Boxford, 145
+Bradford-on-Avon, 142, 328
+Branks, 315
+Bray, Jesus Hospital at, 340
+Bridges, destruction of, 10
+---- old, 318-32
+Bridgwater Bay, 17
+Bridlington, 17
+Bristol Cathedral, 220
+Burford, 94
+Burgh-next-Walton, 17
+Burgh Castle, 112
+
+Caister Castle, 126
+Canals, 389
+Canterbury Cathedral, 211
+---- inns at, 248
+Capel, Surrey, 82
+Castles, old, 111-32
+Cathedral cities, 210-29
+Caversham bridge, 322
+Chalfont St. Giles, 88
+Charms of villages, 67
+Chester, 50
+Chests, church, 159
+Chests in houses, 196
+Chichester, 164
+---- hospital at, 335
+Chingford, Essex, 141
+Chipping Campden, 345
+Chipping monuments, 164
+Church, a painted, 158
+---- furniture, 158
+---- plate, 160
+Churches, Vanishing or Vanished, 133-65
+Churchwarden's account-books, 366
+Cinque Ports, 23
+Cirencester, 270
+Clipping churches, 378
+Clock at Wells, 214
+Cloth Fair, Smithfield, 356
+Coast erosion, 15-27
+Coastguards, their uses, 27
+Cobham, 336
+Coleshill bridge, 326
+Colston Bassett, 139
+Commonwealth, spoliation during the, 148, 220
+Compton Wynyates, 174
+Conway, 31
+Corhampton church, 397
+Cornwall, prehistoric remains in, 204
+Corsham, 345
+Cottages, beauties of old, 68, 108
+Covehithe, 17
+Coventry, 58, 255, 345
+Cowper at Weston, 170
+Cranbrook registers, 372
+Crane bridge, Salisbury, 327
+Cromer, 17
+Crosses, 283-305
+---- wayside, 293
+---- market, 293
+---- boundary, 300
+---- at Cross-roads and Holy Wells, 300
+---- sanctuary, 303
+---- as guide-posts, 303
+Crowhurst, 181
+Croyland bridge, 324
+Cucking stool, 314
+Curious entries in registers, 373
+Customs that are vanishing, 375-82
+
+Deal, 86
+Derby, West, stocks restored, 312
+Devizes, inn at, 260
+Dickens, C., and inns, 242
+Disappearance of England, 15-27
+Documents, disappearance of old, 364-74
+Dover Castle, 117
+Dowsing, W., spoliator, 148
+Dunwich, 22
+
+Eashing bridge, 327
+Eastbourne, 17
+Easter customs, 379
+Easton Bavent, 17
+Edwardian castles, 123
+Elizabethan house, an, 104, 178
+Ely fair, 363
+---- registry plundered, 369
+England, disappearance of, 15-27
+Essex, 100
+Estate agents, 10
+Evesham, 223
+Ewelme, 345
+Exeter town hall, 280
+Experience, a weird, 171
+Fairs, vanishing, 349-63
+Fastolfe, Sir John, 126
+Felixstowe, 18
+Fig Sunday, 379
+Fires in houses, 166
+Fishermen's Hospital, 342
+Fitzstephen on Smithfield Fair, 352
+Flagon, a remarkable, 194
+Football in streets, 378
+Forests destroyed, 386
+Foreign governments and monuments, 392-5
+Friday, Good, customs on, 379
+Furniture, old, 196
+---- church, 158
+
+Galleting, 78
+Garden cities, 384
+Gates of Chester, 51
+Geffery Almshouses, 337
+Gibbet-irons, 316
+Glastonbury, 147, 250
+---- powder horn found at, 192
+Gloucester, 252
+Goodening custom, 377
+Gorleston, 45
+Gosforth Cross, 289
+Grantham, inns at, 240
+---- crosses at, 298
+Greenwich, the "Ship" at, 260
+Grouting machine, 396
+Guildford, 343
+Guildhalls, 268
+Guildhall at Lynn, 38
+Gundulf, a builder of castles, 115
+
+Hall, Bishop, his palace, 246
+Halton Cross, 291
+Hampton, 17
+Happisburgh, 17
+Hardy, T., on restoration, 156
+Hartwell House, 196
+Heckfield, 160
+Herne Bay, 17
+Hever Castle, 124
+Higham Ferrers, 335
+_Hints to Churchwardens_, 153
+Holinshed quoted, 177, 191
+Holman Hunt, Mr., on bridges, 318
+Honiton Fair, 360
+Hornby Cross, 292
+Horsham slates, 80
+Horsmonden, Kent, 82
+Hospitals, old, 333-48
+Houses, old, 104, 171
+---- destroyed, 5
+---- half-timber, 57, 74, 107
+Hungate, St. Peter, Norwich, 140
+Hungerford, 308, 314
+Huntingdon, inn at, 240
+---- bridge at, 327
+
+Ilsley, West, sheep fair, 362
+Inns, signs of, 262
+---- old, 230-65
+---- retired from business, 259
+---- at Banbury, 84
+Intwood, Norfolk, 140
+Ipswich, 45
+Irving, Washington, on Inns, 234
+Ivy, evils of, 141
+
+Jessop, spoliator, 150
+Jousts at Smithfield, 353
+
+Kent bridges, 326
+Keswick, Norfolk, 140
+Kilnsea, 17, 21
+Kirby Bedon, 139
+Kirkstead, 141
+
+Leeds Cross, 290
+---- Castle, 123
+Leominster, 314
+Levellers at Burford, 97
+Lichgate at Chalfont, 90
+Links with past severed, 3
+Liscombe, Dorset, 140
+Littleport, 86
+Llanrwst bridge, 320
+Llanwddyn vale destroyed, 384
+London, vanishing, 11
+---- churches, 135
+---- growth of, 70
+---- Inns, 238
+---- Livery Companies' Almshouses, 338
+---- Paul's Cross, 304
+---- St. Bartholomew's Fair, 351-9
+---- water supply threatens a village, 385
+Lowestoft, 150
+Lynn Bay, 17
+Lynn Regis, 35, 342
+
+Mab's Cross, Wigan, 304
+Maidstone, 280
+Maidenhead bridge, 320
+Maldon, 103
+Manor-houses, 177
+Mansions, old, 166-202
+Marlborough, inn at, 259
+Martyrs burnt at Smithfield, 353
+Megalithic remains, 203
+Memory, folk, instance of, 208
+Menhirs, 203, 204
+Merchant Guilds, 267
+Milton's Cottage, 88
+"Mischief, the Load of," 262
+Monmouthshire castles, 128
+Mothering Sunday, 379
+_Mottes_, Norman, 111, 115
+Mumming at Christmas, 376
+Municipal buildings, old, 266-82
+
+National Trust for the Protection of Places of Historic Interest, 141,
+  189, 278, 281, 386
+Newbury, stocks at, 309
+---- town hall, 274
+Newcastle, 111
+---- walls, 34
+New Forest partly destroyed, 386
+Newton-by-Corton, 17
+Norham Castle, 120
+Norton St. Philip, 255
+Nottingham Goose Fair, 360
+Norwich, 244, 271
+---- hospitals at, 342
+
+Ockwells, Berks, 187
+Olney bridge, 330
+Orford Castle, 118
+Oundle, 338
+Oxford, 70
+---- St. Giles's Fair, 360
+
+Palimpsest brasses, 147
+Palm Sunday customs, 379
+Pakefield, 17
+Paston family, 126, 140, 246
+Penshurst, 181
+Pevensey Castle, 112
+Plaster, the use of, 180
+Plough Monday, 378
+Pontefract Castle, 121
+Poole, 17
+Porchester Castle, 112
+Ports and harbours, 84
+Portsmouth, 86
+Poulton-in-the-Fylde, 311
+Pounds, 312
+Prehistoric remains,  destruction of, 203-9
+Preservation of registers, 374
+Progress, 2
+Punishments, old-time, 306-17
+
+Quainton, Bucks, 337
+
+Radcot bridge, 323
+Ranton, house at, 107
+---- priory, 138
+Ravensburgh, 20, 21
+Reading, guild hall at, 274
+---- Fair, 360
+Rebels' heads on gateways, 32
+Reculver, 23
+Reformation, iconoclasm at, 145, 218
+Register books, parish, 368
+Restoration, evils of, 9, 10, 151, 153, 156, 220
+Richard II., murder of, 121
+Richmond, 111, 260
+Ringstead, 140
+Rochester, 35, 248
+Rollright stones, 204
+Roman fortresses, 114
+Rood-screens removed, 158
+Roudham, 140
+Rows at Yarmouth, 42
+---- ---- Portsmouth, 86
+Ruskin, 3, 67, 198, 200
+Ruthwell Cross, 289
+Rye, 60
+
+Saffron Walden, 100
+Salisbury, halls of guilds at, 281
+Sandwich, 34
+St. Albans Cathedral, 212
+---- inn at, 254
+St. Audrey's laces, 363
+St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, 351-9
+St. Margaret's Bay, 17
+Salisbury, halls of guilds at, 281, 294
+Sandwich, 34
+Saxon churches, 144
+Scenery, vanishing of English, 3, 383-91
+Scold's bridle, 315
+Sea-serpent at Heybridge, 104
+Selsea, 23
+"Seven Stars" at Manchester, 252
+Shingle, flow of, 26
+Shrewsbury, 52, 270
+Shrivenham, Berks, 165
+Shrovetide customs, 378
+Signboards, 264
+Sieges of towns, 32
+Simnels, 379
+Skegness, 21
+Skipton, 310
+Smithfield Fair, 351-9
+Smuggling, 258
+Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings, 141, 320, 326
+Somerset, Duke of, spoliator, 146
+Somerset crosses, 296
+Sonning bridges, 318
+Southport, 16
+Southwell, inn at, 144
+Southwold, 17, 18
+Staircases, old, 196
+Staffordshire churches, 136
+Stamford, hospitals at, 336
+Stilton, inn at, 243
+Stocks, 306-17
+-- in literature, 307
+Stonehenge, 205
+Storeys, projecting, 72
+Stourbridge Fair, 362
+Stow Green Fair, 362
+Strategic position of castles, 114
+Streets and lanes, in, 67-110
+Stump Cross, 304
+Suffolk coast, 20
+Surrey cottages, 76
+Sussex coast, 17
+Sussex, Robert, Earl of, spoliator, 147
+Swallowfield Park, 194
+
+_Tancred_, description of an inn, 236
+Taunton Castle, 129
+Tewkesbury, inns at, 252
+Thame, 91, 367
+Thatch for roofing, 78
+Thorpe-in-the-Fields, 139
+Tile-hung cottages, 77
+Tournaments at Smithfield, 353
+Towns, old walled, 28-66
+---- abbey, 210-29
+---- decayed, 266
+---- halls, 266-82
+Turpin's ride to York, 240
+Tyneside, coast erosion at, 21
+
+Udimore, Sussex, 94
+Uxbridge, inn at, 256
+
+Viking legends, 290, 291
+
+Walberswick, Suffolk, 148
+Walled towns, old, 28-66
+Walls, city, destroyed, 12
+Wallingford, 276, 313
+Warwick, 70, 159
+Wash, land gaining on sea, 16
+Water-clock, 196
+Well customs, 381
+Wells, cross at, 297
+Wells Cathedral, 213-16
+Welsh castles, 130
+Weston house, 170
+Whipping-posts, 306-17
+White Horse Hill, 206
+Whitewash, the era of, 157
+Whittenham Clumps, 207
+Whittenham, Little, 152
+Whitling church, 139
+Whittington College, 338
+Winchester, St. Cross, 334
+Winchmore Hill Woods, destroyed, 386
+Window tax, 180
+Winster, 278
+Witney Butter Cross, 297
+Wirral, Cheshire, 25
+Wokingham, 277
+---- Lucas's Hospital at, 340
+Wood, Anthony, at Thame, 93
+Wymondham, 256, 297
+
+Yarmouth, 17, 40, 147, 342
+York, 48
+---- walls of, 34
+Yorkshire coast, 17
+Ypres Tower, Rye, 64
+
+
+
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