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diff --git a/39685.txt b/39685.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f80d79a --- /dev/null +++ b/39685.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6862 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nooks and Corners of Old England, by Allan Fea + +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: Nooks and Corners of Old England + +Author: Allan Fea + +Release Date: September 11, 2012 [EBook #39685] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOOKS AND CORNERS OF OLD ENGLAND *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire. This book was produced from +scanned images of public domain material from the Google +Print archive. + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Book Cover] + + + + +NOOKS AND CORNERS +OF OLD ENGLAND + + + + +[Illustration: Queen Eleanor's Cross +at Geddington] + + + + +NOOKS AND CORNERS +OF OLD ENGLAND + + +BY + +ALLAN FEA + +AUTHOR OF +"SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING PLACES" "PICTURESQUE OLD HOUSES" +"FLIGHT OF THE KING" ETC. + + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS +BY THE AUTHOR + + +NEW YORK +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS +1908 + + + + +TO +MY OLD FRIEND +SEYMOUR LUCAS, R.A., F.S.A. +THIS BOOK +IS AFFECTIONATELY +INSCRIBED + + + + +A recent glance over some old Ordnance Maps, the companions of many a +ramble in the corners of Old England, has suggested the idea of jotting +down a few fragmentary notes, which we trust may be of interest. + +Upon a former occasion we wandered with pencil and camera haphazard off +the beaten track mainly in the counties surrounding the great +Metropolis; and though there are several tempting "Nooks" still near at +hand, we have now extended our range of exploration. + +We only trust the reader will derive a little of the pleasure we have +found in compiling this little volume. + + A. F. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + NOOKS IN HUNTINGDONSHIRE AND NORTH NORTHANTS 1 + SOME SUFFOLK NOOKS 22 + NOOKS IN NORFOLK 40 + NOOKS IN WARWICKSHIRE AND BORDERLAND 59 + SOME NOOKS IN WORCESTERSHIRE AND GLOUCESTERSHIRE 78 + NOOKS IN NORTHERN WILTSHIRE 102 + EASTERN AND SOUTHERN SOMERSET 123 + IN WESTERN SOMERSET 147 + IN DEVON AND DORSET 162 + HERE AND THERE IN SALOP AND STAFFORDSHIRE 181 + IN NORTHERN DERBYSHIRE 200 + NOOKS IN YORKSHIRE 225 + INDEX 269 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + QUEEN ELEANOR'S CROSS AT GEDDINGTON _Frontispiece_ + THE BELL, STILTON _Facing page_ 8 + KIRBY HALL 18 + WOTHORPE MANOR-HOUSE 18 + DOORWAY, KIRBY HALL 20 + GATEWAY, KIRBY HALL 20 + ERWARTON HALL 36 + WALSINGHAM 42 + WALSINGHAM 42 + EAST BARSHAM MANOR 44 + FONT CANOPY, TRUNCH 44 + WYMONDHAM 52 + HAUTBOYS HALL 52 + CHASTLETON 64 + PIRTON COURT 80 + THE WHITE HOUSE, PIXHAM 80 + SEVERN END 82 + SEVERN END 82 + RIPPLE 86 + STANTON 86 + STANWAY HOUSE 90 + STANWAY HOUSE 90 + POSTLIP HALL 98 + STOCKS, PAINSWICK 98 + NAILSWORTH 100 + BEVERSTONE CASTLE 100 + GATE-HOUSE, SPYE PARK 104 + LACOCK 104 + LACOCK 106 + BEWLEY COURT 106 + LACOCK 108 + LACOCK ABBY 108 + CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE 112 + CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE 112 + CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE 114 + CASTLE COMBE 114 + YATTON KEYNELL MANOR 116 + BULLICH MANOR-HOUSE 116 + SHELDON MANOR 118 + SHELDON MANOR 118 + SOUTH WRAXALL MANOR-HOUSE 120 + SOUTH WRAXALL MANOR-HOUSE 120 + THE GEORGE, NORTON ST. PHILIP 124 + THE GEORGE, NORTON ST. PHILIP 124 + CHARTERHOUSE HINTON 128 + WELLOW MANOR-HOUSE 128 + OLD HOUSE NEAR CROSCOMBE 130 + BECKINGTON CASTLE 130 + CROSCOMBE CHURCH 132 + CROSCOMBE 132 + LYTES CARY MANOR-HOUSE 134 + LYTES CARY MANOR-HOUSE 134 + ANCIENT SCREEN, CURRY RIVEL CHURCH 136 + FIREPLACE, LYTES CARY 136 + BARRINGTON COURT 138 + HINTON ST. GEORGE 140 + SANDFORD ORCAS MANOR-HOUSE 140 + MONTACUTE HOUSE 144 + MONTACUTE PRIORY 144 + CROWCOMBE 148 + OLD HOUSE, CROWCOMBE 148 + COMBE SYDENHAM 152 + COMBE SYDENHAM 152 + CROWCOMBE CHURCH 156 + DUNSTER 156 + BINDON 168 + BINDON 168 + WYLDE COURT 170 + THE GOLDEN LION, BARNSTAPLE 170 + MAPPERTON MANOR-HOUSE 172 + MELPLASH COURT 172 + WATERSTONE 174 + ATHELHAMPTON 174 + ATHELHAMPTON 176 + ATHELHAMPTON 176 + MONMOUTH'S TREE 178 + SERVANTS' HALL, CHIRK CASTLE 182 + SERVANTS' HALL, CHIRK CASTLE 184 + MARKET DRAYTON 190 + MARKET DRAYTON 190 + BLACKLADIES 198 + GREAT HALL, HADDON 202 + GREAT HALL, HADDON 202 + COURTYARD, HADDON 204 + DRAWING-ROOM, HADDON 204 + WITHDRAWING-ROOM, HADDON 206 + WITHDRAWING-ROOM, HADDON 206 + DOORWAY, HADDON 208 + INTERIOR COURTYARD, HADDON 208 + GREAT HALL, HADDON 212 + HARDWICK HALL 212 + GARLANDS, ASHFORD CHURCH 220 + GATEWAY, KNOWSTHORPE HALL 240 + TOMB, DARFIELD CHURCH 240 + LEATHLEY STOCKS 244 + STOCKS AT WESTON 244 + MIDDLEHAM CASTLE 252 + SWINSTY HALL 252 + QUEEN'S GAP, LEYBURN "SHAWL" 254 + BELLERBY OLD HALL 256 + BOLTON CASTLE 256 + ASKRIGG 260 + NAPPA HALL 260 + RICHMOND 266 + EASBY ABBEY 266 + + + + +NOOKS IN HUNTINGDONSHIRE +AND NORTH NORTHANTS + + +At Huntingdon we are on familiar ground with Samuel Pepys. When he +journeyed northwards to visit his parental house or to pay his respects +to Lord Sandwich's family at Hinchinbrooke, he usually found suitable +accommodation at "Goody Gorums" and "Mother" somebody else who lived +over against the "Crown." Neither the famous posting-house the "George" +nor the "Falcon" are mentioned in the _Diary_, but he speaks of the +"Chequers"; however, the change of names of ancient hostelries is +common, so in picturing the susceptible Clerk of the Admiralty chucking +a pretty chambermaid under the chin in the old galleried yard of the +"George," we may not be far out of our reckoning. + +But altogether the old George Inn is somewhat disappointing. Its +balustraded galleries are there sure enough, with the queer old +staircase leading up to them in one of the corners; but it has the same +burnished-up appearance of the courtyard of the Leicester Hospital at +Warwick. How much more pleasing both would strike the eye were there +less paint and varnish. The Inn has been refronted, and from the street +has quite a modern appearance. + +Huntingdon recalls the sterner name of Cromwell. Strange that this +county, so proud of the Lord Protector (for has it not recently set up a +gorgeous statue at St. Ives to his memory?), should still harbour +red-hot Jacobites! According to _The Legitimist Calendar_, mysterious +but harmless meetings are still held hereabouts on Oak Apple Day: a day +elsewhere all but forgotten. Huntingdon was the headquarters of the +Royalist army certainly upon many occasions, and when evil days fell +upon the "Martyr King," some of his staunchest friends were here +secretly working for his welfare.[1] When Charles passed through the +town in 1644, the mayor, loyal to the back-bone, had prepared a speech +to outrival the flowery welcome of his fellow-magistrates: "Although +Rome's Hens," he said, "should daily hatch of its preposterous eggs, +chrocodilicall chickens, yet under the Shield of Faith, by you our most +Royal Sovereigne defended and by the King of Heavens as I stand and your +most medicable councell, would we not be fearful to withstand them."[2] +Though the sentence is somewhat involved, the worthy magnate doubtless +meant well. + +It was the custom, by the way, so Evelyn tells us, when a monarch passed +through Huntingdon, to meet him with a hundred ploughs as a symbol of +the fruitful soil: the county indeed at one time was rich in vines and +hops, and has been described by old writers as the garden of England. +Still here as elsewhere the farmers' outlook is a poor one to-day, +although there are, of course, exceptions. + +At historic Hinchinbrooke (on June 4, 1647), King Charles slept the +first night after he was removed from Holdenby House by Cornet Joyce: +the first stage of his _progress_ to the scaffold. In the grounds of the +old mansion, the monarch, when Prince of Wales, and little Oliver played +together, for the owner in those days of the ancient seat of the +Montagues and Cromwells was the future Protector's uncle and godfather. +Upon one occasion the boys had a stand-up fight, and the commoner, the +senior by only one year, made his royal adversary's nose bleed,--an +augury for fatal events to follow. The story is told how little Oliver +fell into the Ouse and was fished out by a Royalist piscatorial parson. +Years afterwards, when the Protector revisited the scenes of his youth +in the midst of his triumphant army, he encountered his rescuer, and +asked him whether he remembered the occurrence. + +"Truly do I," was the prompt reply; "and the Lord forgive me, but I wish +I'd let thee drown." + +The Montagues became possessed of the estate in 1627. Pepys speaks of +"the brave rooms and good pictures," which pleased him better than those +at Audley End. The Diarist's parental house remains at Brampton, a +little to the west of Huntingdon. In characteristic style he records a +visit there in October 1667: "So away for Huntingdon mightily pleased +all along the road to remember old stories, and come to Brampton at +about noon, and there found my father and sister and brother all well: +and here laid up our things, and up and down to see the gardens with my +father, and the house; and do altogether find it very pretty, especially +the little parlour and the summer-houses in the garden, only the wall do +want greens up it, and the house is too low roofed; but that is only +because of my coming from a house with higher ceilings." + +Before turning our steps northwards, let us glance at the mediaeval +bridge that spans the river Ouse, to Godmanchester, which is referred to +by the thirteenth-century historian _Henry of Huntingdon_ as "a noble +city." But its nobility has long since departed, and some modern +monstrosities in architecture make the old Tudor buildings which +remain, blush for such brazen-faced obtrusion. Its ancient water-mill +externally looks so dilapidated, that one would think the next +"well-formed depression" from America would blow it to atoms. Not a bit +of it. Its huge timber beams within, smile at such fears. It is a +veritable fortress of timber. But although this solid wooden structure +defies the worst of gales, there are rumours of coming electric +tramways, and then, alas! the old mill will bow a dignified departure, +and the curfew, which yet survives, will then also perhaps think it is +time to be gone. + +At Little Stukeley, on the Great North Road some three miles above +Huntingdon, is a queer old inn, the "Swan and Salmon," bearing upon its +sign the date 1676. It is a good example of the brickwork of the latter +half of the seventeenth century. Like many another ancient hostelry on +the road to York, it is associated with Dick Turpin's exploits; and to +give colour to the tradition, mine host can point at a little masked +hiding-place situated somewhere at the back of the sign up in its gable +end. It certainly looks the sort of place that could relate stories of +highwaymen; a roomy old building, which no doubt in its day had +trap-doors and exits innumerable for the convenience of the gentlemen of +the road. + +A little off the ancient "Ermine Street," to the north-west of Stukeley, +is the insignificant village of Coppingford, historically interesting +from the fact that when Charles I. fled from Oxford in disguise in 1646, +he stopped the night there at a little obscure cottage or alehouse, on +his way to seek protection of the Scots at Southwell. "This day one +hundred years ago," writes Dr. Stukeley in his _Memoirs_ on May 3, 1746, +"King Charles, Mr. John Ashburnham, and Dr. Hudson came from Coppingford +in Huntingdonshire and lay at Mr. Alderman Wolph's house, now mine, on +Barn Hill; all the day obscure." Hudson, from whom Sir Walter drew his +character of Dr. Rochecliffe in _Woodstock_, records the fact in the +following words: "We lay at Copingforde in Huntingdonshire one Sunday, 3 +May; wente not to church, but I read prayers to the King; and at six at +night he went to Stamforde. I writte from Copingforde to Mr. Skipwith +for a horse, and he sente me one, which was brought to me at Stamforde. +---- at Copingforde the King and me, with my hoste and hostis and two +children, were by the fire in the hall. There was noe other chimney in +the house."[3] The village of Little Gidding, still farther to the +north-west, had often before been visited by Charles in connection with +a religious establishment that had been founded there by the Ferrar +family. A curious old silk coffer, which was given by Charles to the +nieces of the founder, Nicholas Ferrar, upon one of these occasions, +some years ago came into the possession of our late queen, and is still +preserved at Windsor. + +A few miles to the north-east is Glatton, another remote village where +old May-day customs yet linger. There are some quaint superstitions in +the rural districts hereabouts. A favourite remedy for infectious +disease is to open the window of the sickroom not so much to let in the +fresh air as to admit the gnats, which are believed to fly away with the +malady and die. The beneficial result is never attributed to oxygen! + +The Roman road (if, indeed, it is the same, for some authorities incline +to the opinion that it ran parallel at some little distance away) is +unpicturesque and dreary. Towering double telegraph poles recur at set +intervals with mathematical regularity, and the breeze playing upon the +wires aloft brings forth that long-drawn melancholy wail only to make +the monotony more depressing. Half a mile from the main road, almost due +east of Glatton, stands Connington Hall, where linger sad memories of +the fate of Mary Queen of Scots. When the castle of Fotheringay was +demolished in 1625, Sir Robert Cotton had the great Hall in which she +was beheaded removed here. The curious carved oak chair which was used +by the poor Queen at Fotheringay until the day of her death may now be +seen in Connington Church, where also is the Tomb of Sir Robert, the +founder of the famous Cottonian Library. + +[Illustration: THE BELL, STILTON] + +A couple of miles or so to the north is Stilton, which bears an air of +decayed importance. A time-mellowed red-brick Queen Anne house, whose +huge wooden supports, like cripples' crutches, keep it from toppling +over, comes first in sight. In striking contrast, with its formal style +of architecture, is the picturesque outline of the ancient inn beyond. A +complicated flourish of ornamental ironwork, that would exasperate the +most expert freehand draughtsman, supports the weather-beaten sign of +solid copper. Upon the right-hand gable stands the date 1642, bringing +with it visions of the coming struggle between King and Parliament. But +the date is misleading, as may be seen from the stone groining upon the +adjoining masonry. The main building was certainly erected quite a +century earlier. Here and there modern windows have been inserted in +place of the Tudor mullioned ones, as also have later doorways, for part +of the building is now occupied as tenements. The archway leading into +the courtyard has also been somewhat modernised, as may be judged from +the corresponding internal arch, with its original curved dripstone +above. + +We came upon this inn, tramping northwards in a bitter day in March. +It looked homely and inviting, the waning sunlight tinting the stonework +and lighting up the window casements. Enthusiastic with pleasing +imaginings of panelled chambers and ghostly echoing corridors, we +entered only to have our dreams speedily dispersed. In vain we sought +for such a "best room" as greeted Mr. Chester at the "Maypole." There +were no rich rustling hangings here, nor oaken screens enriched with +grotesque carvings. Alas! not even a cheery fire of fagots. Nor, indeed, +was there a bed to rest our weary bones upon. Spring cleaning was +rampant, and the merciless east wind sweeping along the bare passages +made one shudder more than usual at the thought of that terrible annual +necessity (but the glory of energetic house-wives). But surely mine +hostess of the good old days would have scrupled to thrust the traveller +from her door: moreover to a house of refreshment, or rather +eating-house, a stone's-throw off, uncomfortably near that rickety +propped-up red-brick residence. + +With visions of the smoking bowl and lavender-scented sheets dashed to +the ground, we turned away. But, lo! and behold a good _angel_ had come +to the rescue. So absorbed had we been with the possibilities of the +"Bell" that the "Angel" opposite had quite been overlooked. This rival +inn of Georgian date furnished us with cosy quarters. From our +flower-bedecked window the whole front of the old "Bell" could be +leisurely studied in all its varying stages of light and shade--an inn +with a past; an object-lesson for the philosopher to ruminate upon. Yes, +in its day one can picture scenes of lavish, shall we say Ainsworthian +hospitality. There is a smack of huge venison pasties, fatted capons, +and of roasted peacocks about this hoary hostel. And its stables; one +has but to stroll up an adjacent lane to get some idea of the once vast +extent of its outbuildings. The ground they covered must have occupied +nearly half the village. Here was stabling for over eighty horses, and +before the birth of trains, thirty-six coaches pulled up daily at the +portal for hungry passengers to refresh or rest. + +The famous cheese, by the way, was first sold at this inn; but why it +was dubbed Stilton instead of Dalby in Leicestershire, where it was +first manufactured, is a mystery. Like its _vis-a-vis_, the "Angel" is +far different from what it was in its flourishing days. The main +building is now occupied for other purposes, and its dignity has long +since departed. To-day Stilton looks on its last legs. The goggled +motor-fiend sweeps by to Huntingdon or Peterborough while Stilton rubs +its sleepy eyes. But who can tell but that its fortunes may yet revive. +Was not Broadway dying a natural death when Jonathan, who invariably +tells us what treasures we possess, stepped in and made it popular? Some +enterprising landlord might do worse than take the old "Bell" in hand +and ring it to a profitable tune. But judging by appearances, visitors +to-day, at least in March, are few and far between. + +Half the charm of Stilton lies in the fact that there is no hurry. It is +quite refreshing in these days of rush. For instance, you want to catch +a train at Peterborough,--at least we did, for that was the handiest way +of reaching Oundle, some seven miles to the west of Stilton as the crow +flies. Sitting on thorns, we awaited the convenience of the horse as to +whether his accustomed jog-trot would enable us to catch our train. We +_did_ catch it truly, but the anxiety was a terrible experience. + +Oundle is full of old inns. The "Turk's Head," facing the church, is a +fine and compact specimen of Jacobean architecture. It was a brilliant +morning when we stood in the churchyard looking up at the +ball-surmounted gables standing out in bold relief against the clear +blue sky, while the caw of a colony of rooks sailing overhead seemed +quite in harmony with the old-world surroundings. + +More important and flourishing is the "Talbot," which looks +self-conscious of the fact that in its walls are incorporated some of +the remains of no less historic a building than Fotheringay Castle, +whose moat and fragmentary walls are to be seen some three and a half +miles to the north of the town. The fortress, with its sad and tragic +memories of Mary Queen of Scots, was demolished after James came to the +throne, and its fine oak staircase, by repute the same by which she +descended to the scaffold, was re-erected in the "Talbot." The courtyard +is picturesque. The old windows which light the staircase, which also +are said to have come from Fotheringay, are angular at the base, and +have an odd and pleasing appearance. + +Two ancient almshouses, with imposing entrance gates, are well worth +inspection. There is a graceful little pinnacle surmounting one of the +gable ends, at which we were curiously gazing when one of the aged +inmates came out in alarm to see if the chimney was on fire. + +Fotheringay church, with its lantern tower and flying buttresses, is +picturesquely situated close to the river Nene, and with the bridge +makes a charming picture. The older bridge of Queen Mary's time was +angular, with square arches, as may be seen from a print of the early +part of the eighteenth century. In this is shown the same scanty remains +of the historic Castle: a wall with a couple of Gothic doorways, all +that survived of the formidable fortress that was the unfortunate +queen's last prison-house. As at Cumnor, where poor Amy Robsart was +done to death in a manner which certainly Elizabeth hinted at regarding +her troublesome cousin, there is little beyond the foundations from +which to form an idea of the building. It was divided by a double moat, +which is still to be seen, as well as the natural earthwork upon which +the keep stood. The queen's apartments, that towards the end were +stripped of all emblems of royalty, were situated above and to the south +of the great hall, into which she had to descend by a staircase to the +scaffold. Some ancient thorn trees now flourish upon the spot. The +historian Fuller, who visited the castle prior to its demolition, found +the following lines from an old ballad scratched with a diamond upon a +window-pane of Mary's prison-chamber: + + "From the top of all my trust + Mishap hath laid me in the dust." + +Though Mary's mock trial took place at Fotheringay in the "Presence +Chamber," she was actually condemned in the Star Chamber at Westminster; +and it may here be stated that that fine old room may yet be seen not +very many miles away, at Wormleighton, near the Northamptonshire border +of south-east Warwickshire. A farmhouse near Fotheringay is still +pointed out where the executioner lodged the night before the deed; and +some claim this distinction for the ancient inn in which are +incorporated some remains of the castle. + +As is known, the Queen of Scots' body was buried first in Peterborough +Cathedral, whence it was removed to Westminster Abbey. There is a +superstition in Northamptonshire that if a body after interment be +removed, it bodes misfortune to the surviving members of the family. +This was pointed out at the time to James I.; but superstitious as he +was, he did not alter his plans, and the death of Prince Henry shortly +afterwards seemed to confirm this belief.[4] + +But there are other memories of famous names in history, for the head of +the White Rose family, Richard of York, was buried in the church, and +his duchess, Cecilia Neville, as well as Edward of York, whose death at +Agincourt is immortalised by Shakespeare. When the older church was +dismantled and the bodies removed to their present destination, a silver +ribbon was discovered round the Duchess Cecilia's neck upon which a +pardon from Rome was clearly written. The windows of the church once +were rich in painted glass; and at the fine fifteenth-century font it is +conjectured Richard III. was baptized, for he was born at the Castle. +Crookback's badge, the boar, may still be seen in the church, and the +Yorkist falcon and fetterlock are displayed on the summit of the vane +upon the tower. Also some carved stalls, which came from here, in the +churches of Tansor and Hemington to the south of Fotheringay, bear the +regal badges and crest. The falcon and the fetterlock also occur in the +monuments to the Dukes of York, which were rebuilt by Queen Elizabeth +when the older tombs had fallen to decay. The allegiance to the +fascinating Queen of Scots is far from dead, for in February 1902, and +doubtless more recently, a gentleman journeyed specially from Edinburgh +to Fotheringay to place a tribute to her martyrdom in the form of a +large cross of immortelles bearing the Scots crown and Mary's monogram, +and a black bordered white silk sash attached. + +A few miles to the west of this historic spot are the fine Tudor houses +Deene and Kirby: the former still a palatial residence; the latter, +alas! a ruin fast falling to decay. Deene, with its battlemented towers +and turrets and buttressed walls, is a noble-looking structure, with +numerous shields of arms and heraldic devices carved upon the masonry. +These are of the great families, Brudenel, Montagu, Bruce, Bulstrode, +etc., whose intermarriages are emblazoned in painted glass in the top of +the mullioned windows of the hall. Sir Thomas Brudenel, the first Earl +of Cardigan, who died three years after the Restoration, was a typical +old cavalier after the style of Sir Henry Lee in _Woodstock_; and in +the manor are preserved many of his manuscripts written during his +twenty years' confinement in the Tower. In the great hall there is a +blocked-up entrance to a subterranean passage running towards Kirby, and +through this secret despatches are said to have been carried in the time +of the Civil War; and at the back of a fireplace in the same apartment +is a hiding-place sufficiently large to contain a score of people +standing up. One of the rooms is called Henry VII.'s room, as that +monarch when Earl of Richmond is said to have ridden from Bosworth Field +to seek refuge at Deene, then a monastery. + +[Illustration: WOTHORPE MANOR-HOUSE.] + +Among the numerous portraits are the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was slain +by the second Duke of Buckingham in the notorious duel, and his wife +Lady Anne Brudenel, who was daughter of the second Earl of Cardigan. +Some time before the poor plain little duchess suspected that she had a +formidable rival in the beautiful countess, she was returning from a +visit to Deene to her house near Stamford, where her reckless husband +just then found it convenient to hide himself, as a warrant for high +treason was out against him, when she noticed a suspicious little +cavalcade travelling in the same direction. Ordering the horses to be +whipped up, she arrived in time to give the alarm. The duke had just set +out for Burleigh House with some ladies in his company, and, says +Clarendon, the sergeant "made so good haste that he was in view of the +coach, and saw the duke alight out of the coach and lead a lady into the +house, upon which the door of the court was shut before he could get to +it. He knocked loudly at that and other doors that were all shut, so +that he could not get into the house though it were some hours before +sunset in the month of May."[5] Pepys was strolling in the park and met +Sergeant Bearcroft "who was sent for the Duke of Buckingham, to have +brought his prisoner to the Tower. He come to towne this day and brings +word that being overtaken and outrid by the Duchesse of Buckingham +within a few miles of the duke's house of Westhorp, he believes she got +thither about a quarter of an hour before him, and so had time to +consider; so that when he came, the doors were kept shut against him. +The next day, coming with officers of the neighbour market-town +[Stamford] to force open the doors, they were open for him, but the duke +gone, so he took horse presently and heard upon the road that the Duke +of Buckingham was gone before him for London. So that he believes he is +this day also come to towne before him; but no newes is yet heard of +him."[6] Many blunders have been made in reference to the duke's house +of "Westhorp." Some have called it "Owthorp" and others "Westhorpe" in +Suffolk, the demolished mansion of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. The +place referred to is really Wothorpe manor-house, the remains of which +stand some two miles to the south of Stamford and ten to the north of +Deene. The existing portion consists of four towers, the lower part of +which is square and the upper octagonal, presumably having been at one +time surmounted by cupolas. The windows are long and narrow, having only +one mullion running parallel across. Beneath the moulding of the summit +of each tower are circular loopholes. It is evidently of Elizabethan +date, but much of the ornamental detail is lost in the heavy mantle of +ivy and the trees which encircle it. + +[Illustration: KIRBY HALL.] + +That that stately Elizabethan mansion, Kirby Hall (which is close to +Deene), should ever have been allowed to fall to ruin is most +regrettable and deplorable. It was one of John Thorpe's masterpieces, +the architect of palatial Burleigh, of Holland House and Audley End, and +other famous historic houses. He laid the foundation-stone in 1570, and +that other great master Inigo Jones made additions in the reign of +Charles I. The founder of Kirby was Sir Christopher Hatton, who is said +to have first danced into the virgin queen's favour at a masque at +Court. The Earl of Leicester probably first was famous in this way, if +we may judge from the quaint painting at Penshurst, where he is bounding +her several feet into the air; but was not so accomplished as Sir +Christopher, who in his official robes of Lord Chancellor danced in the +Hall of the Inner Temple with the seals and mace of his office before +him, an undignified proceeding, reminding one of the scene in one of the +Gilbert and Sullivan operas. + +[Illustration: DOORWAY, KIRBY HALL.] + +[Illustration: GATEWAY, KIRBY HALL.] + +Kirby must have been magnificent in its day; and when we consider that +it was in occupation by the Chancellor's descendant, the Earl of +Winchelsea, in 1830 or even later, one may judge by seeing it how +rapidly a neglected building can fall into decay. Even in our own memory +a matter of twenty years has played considerable havoc, and cleared off +half the roof. Standing in the deserted weed-grown courtyard, one cannot +but grieve to see the widespread destruction of such beautiful +workmanship. The graceful fluted Ionic pilasters that intersect the +lofty mullioned windows are falling to pieces bit by bit, and the +fantastic stone pinnacles above and on the carved gable ends are +disappearing one by one. But much of the glass is still in the windows, +and some of the rooms are not all yet open to the weather, and the great +hall and music gallery and the "Library" with fine bay window are both +in a fair state of preservation. Is it yet too much to hope that pity +may be taken upon what is undoubtedly one of the finest Elizabethan +houses in England? The north part of the Inner Court is represented in +S. E. Waller's pathetic picture "The Day of Reckoning," which has been +engraved. + +Some three miles to the south of Kirby is the village of Corby, famous +for its surrounding woods, and a curious custom called the "Poll Fair," +which takes place every twenty years. Should a stranger happen to be +passing through the village when the date falls due, he is liable to be +captured and carried on a pole to the stocks, which ancient instrument +of punishment is there, and put to use on these occasions. He may +purchase his liberty by handing over any coin he happens to have. It +certainly is a rather eccentric way of commemorating the charter granted +by Elizabeth and confirmed by Charles II. by which the residents (all of +whom are subjected to similar treatment) are exempt from market tolls +and jury service. + +A pair of stocks stood formerly at the foot of the steps of the graceful +Eleanor Cross at Geddington to the south of Corby. Of the three +remaining memorials said to have been erected by Edward I. at every +place where the coffin of his queen rested on its way from Hardeby in +Lincolnshire to Westminster Abbey, Geddington Cross is by far the most +graceful and in the best condition. The other two are at Waltham and +Northampton. Originally there were fifteen Eleanor crosses, including +Hardeby, Lincoln, Stony Stratford, Woburn, Dunstable, St. Albans, +Cheapside, and Charing Cross. The last two, the most elaborate of all, +as is known, were destroyed by order of Lord Mayor Pennington in 1643 +and 1647, accompanied by the blast of trumpets. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _See Memoirs of the Martyr King._ + +[2] _Evelyn's Diary_, vol. iv. p. 134, 1870 ed. + +[3] See _Memoirs of the Martyr King_, p. 73. + +[4] See _Turner's History of Remarkable Providences_, 1677. + +[5] _Continuation of the Life of Lord Clarendon._ + +[6] _Diary_, 3 March 1666-67. + + + + +SOME SUFFOLK NOOKS + + +The idea of calling pretty little Mildenhall in north-west Suffolk a +town, seems out of place. It is snug and sleepy and prosperous-looking, +an inviting nook to forget the noise and bustle of a town in the +ordinary sense of the word. May it long continue so, and may the day be +long distant when that terrible invention, the electric tram, is +introduced to spoil the peace and harmony. Mildenhall is one of those +old-world places where one may be pretty sure in entering the snug old +courtyard of its ancient inn, that one will be treated rather as a +friend than a traveller. Facing the "Bell" is the church, remarkable for +the unique tracery of its early-English eastern window, and for its +exceptionally fine open hammer-beam carved oak roof, with bold carved +spandrels and large figures of angels with extended wings, and the +badges of Henry V., the swan and antelope, displayed in the south aisle. + +In a corner of the little market-square is a curious hexagonal timber +market-cross of this monarch's time, roofed with slabs of lead set +diagonally, and adding to the picturesque effect. The centre part runs +through the roof to a considerable height, and is surmounted by a +weather-cock. Standing beneath the low-pitched roof, one may get a good +idea of the massiveness of construction of these old Gothic structures; +an object-lesson to the jerry builder of to-day. The oaken supports are +relieved with graceful mouldings. + +Within bow-shot of the market-cross is the gabled Jacobean manor-house +of the Bunburys, a weather-worn wing of which abuts upon the street. The +family name recalls associations with the beautiful sisters whom +Goldsmith dubbed "Little Comedy" and the "Jessamy Bride." The original +"Sir Joshua" of these ladies may be seen at Barton Hall, another seat of +the Bunburys a few miles away, where they played good-natured practical +jokes upon their friend the poet. In a room of the Mildenhall mansion +hangs a portrait of a less beautiful woman, but sufficiently attractive +to meet with the approval of a critical connoisseur. When the Merry +Monarch took unto himself a wife, this portrait of the little Portuguese +woman was sent for him to see; and presumably it was flattering, for +when Catherine arrived in person, his Majesty was uncivil enough to +inquire whether they had sent him a bat instead of a woman. + +A delightful walk by shady lanes and cornfields, and along the banks of +the river Lark, leads to another fine old house, Wamil Hall, a portion +only of the original structure; but it would be difficult to find a more +pleasing picture than is formed by the remaining wing. It is a typical +manor-house, with ball-surmounted gables, massive mullioned windows, and +a fine Elizabethan gateway in the lofty garden wall, partly ivy-grown, +and with the delicate greys and greens of lichens upon the old stone +masonry. + +In a south-easterly direction from Mildenhall there is charming open +heathy country nearly all the way to West Stow Hall, some seven or eight +miles away. The remains of this curious old structure consist +principally of the gatehouse, octagonal red-brick towers surmounted by +ornamental cupolas with a pinnacled step-gable in the centre and the +arms of Mary of France beneath it, and ornamental Tudor brickwork above +the entrance. The passage leading from this entrance to the main +structure consists of an open arcade, and the upper portion and +adjoining wing are of half-timber construction. This until recently has +been cased over in plaster; but the towers having become unsafe, some +restorations have been absolutely necessary, the result of which is that +the plaster is being stripped off, revealing the worn red-brick and +carved oak beams beneath. Moreover, the moat, long since filled up, is +to be reinstated, and, thanks to the noble owner, Lord Cadogan, all its +original features will be most carefully brought to light. In a room +above are some black outline fresco paintings of figures in Elizabethan +costume, suggestive of four of the seven ages of man. Most conspicuous +is the lover paying very marked attentions to a damsel who may or may +not represent Henry VIII.'s sister at the time of her courtship by the +valiant Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; anyway the house was built by Sir John +Crofts, who belonged to the queen-dowager's household, and he may have +wished to immortalise that romantic attachment. A gentleman with a +parrot-like hawk upon his wrist says by an inscription, "Thus do I all +the day"; while the lover observes, "Thus do I while I may." A third +person, presumably getting on in years, says with a sigh, "Thus did I +while I might"; and he of the "slippered pantaloon" age groans, "Good +Lord, will this world last for ever!" In a room adjoining, we were told, +Queen Elizabeth slept during one of her progresses through the country, +or maybe it was Mary Tudor who came to see Sir John; but the "White +Lady" who issues from one of the rooms in the main building at 12 +o'clock p.m. so far has not been identified. + +In his lordship's stables close by we had the privilege of seeing "a +racer" who had won sixteen or more "seconds," as well as a budding Derby +winner of the future. Culford is a stately house in a very trim and +well-cared-for park. It looks quite modern, but the older mansion has +been incorporated with it. In Charles II.'s day his Majesty paid +occasional visits to Culford _en route_ from Euston Hall to Newmarket, +and Pepys records an incident there which was little to his host's +(Lord Cornwallis') credit. The rector's daughter, a pretty girl, was +introduced to the king, whose unwelcome attentions caused her to make a +precipitate escape, and, leaping from some height, she killed herself, +"which, if true," says Pepys, "is very sad." Certainly Charles does not +show to advantage in Suffolk. The Diarist himself saw him at Little +Saxham Hall[7] (to the south-west of Culford), the seat of Lord Crofts, +going to bed, after a heavy drinking bout with his boon companions +Sedley, Buckhurst, and Bab May. + +The church is in the main modern, but there is a fine tomb of Lady +Bacon, who is represented life-size nursing her youngest child, while on +either side in formal array stand her other five children. Her husband +is reclining full length at her feet. + +Hengrave Hall, one of the finest Tudor mansions in England, is close to +Culford. Shorn of its ancient furniture and pictures (for, alas! a few +years ago there was a great sale here), the house is still of +considerable interest; but the absence of colour--its staring whiteness +and bare appearance--on the whole is disappointing, and compared with +less architecturally fine houses, such as Kentwell or Rushbrooke, it is +inferior from a picturesque point of view. Still the outline of gables +and turreted chimneys is exceptionally fine and stately. It was built +between the years 1525 and 1538. The gatehouse has remarkable +mitre-headed turrets, and a triple bay-window bearing the royal arms of +France and England quarterly, supported by a lion and a dragon. The +entrance is flanked on either side by an ornamental pillar similar in +character to the turrets. The house was formerly moated and had a +drawbridge, as at Helmingham in this county. These were done away with +towards the end of the eighteenth century, when a great part of the +original building was demolished and the interior entirely +reconstructed. The rooms included the "Queen's Chamber," where Elizabeth +slept when she was entertained here after the lavish style at Kenilworth +in 1578, by Sir Thomas Kytson. From the Kitsons, Hengrave came to the +Darcys and Gages. + +In the vicinity of Bury there are many fine old houses, but for +historical interest none so interesting as Rushbrooke Hall, which stands +about the same distance from the town as Hengrave in the opposite +direction, namely, to the south-west. It is an Elizabethan house, with +corner octagonal turrets to which many alterations were made in the next +century: the windows, porch, etc., being of Jacobean architecture. It is +moated, with an array of old stone piers in front, upon which the +silvery green lichen stands out in harmonious contrast with the rich +purple red of the Tudor brickwork. The old mansion is full of Stuart +memories. Here lived the old cavalier Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, +who owed his advancement to Queen Henrietta Maria, to whom he acted as +secretary during the Civil War, and to whom he was privately married +when she became a widow and lived in Paris. He was a handsome man, as +may be judged from his full-length portrait here by Vandyck, though he +is said to have been somewhat ungainly. In the "State drawing-room," +where the maiden queen held Court when she visited the earl's ancestor +Sir Robert Jermyn in 1578, may be seen two fine inlaid cabinets of wood +set with silver, bearing the monogram of Henrietta Maria. Jermyn +survived his royal wife the dowager-queen over fourteen years. Evelyn +saw him a few months before he died. "Met My Lord St. Albans," he says, +"now grown so blind that he could not see to take his meat. He has lived +a most easy life, in plenty even abroad, whilst His Majesty was a +sufferer; he has lost immense sums at play, which yet, at about eighty +years old, he continues, having one that sits by him to name the spots +on the cards. He eat and drank with extraordinary appetite. He is a +prudent old courtier, and much enriched since His Majesty's return."[8] + +Charles I.'s leather-covered travelling trunk is also preserved at +Rushbrooke as well as his night-cap and night-shirt, and the silk +brocade costume of his great-grandson, Prince Charles Edward. An emblem +of loyalty to the Stuarts also may be seen in the great hall, a +bas-relief in plaster representing Charles II. concealed in the Boscobel +oak. Many of the bedrooms remain such as they were two hundred years +ago, with their fine old tapestries, faded window curtains, and tall +canopied beds. One is known as "Heaven" and another as "Hell," from the +rich paintings upon the walls and ceilings. The royal bedchamber, +Elizabeth's room, contains the old bed in which she slept, with its +velvet curtains and elaborately worked counter-pane. The house is rich +in portraits, and the walls of the staircase are lined from floor to +ceiling with well-known characters of the seventeenth century, from +James I. to Charles II.'s confidant, Edward Progers, who died in 1714, +at the age of ninety-six, of the anguish of cutting four new teeth.[9] +Here also is Agnes de Rushbrooke, who haunts the Hall. There is a grim +story told of her body being cast into the moat; moreover, there is a +certain bloodstain pointed out to verify the tale. + +Then there is the old ballroom, and the Roman Catholic chapel, now a +billiard-room, and the library, rich in ancient manuscripts and +elaborate carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The old gardens also are quite +in character with the house, with its avenues of hornbeams known as +Lovers' Walk, and the site of the old labyrinth or maze. + +Leaving Rushbrooke with its Stuart memories, our way lies to the +south-east; but to the south-west there are also many places of +interest, such as Hardwick, Hawstead, Plumpton, etc. At the last-named +place, in an old house with high Mansard roofs resembling a French +chateau, lived an eccentric character of whom many anecdotes are told, +old Alderman Harmer, one of which is that in damp weather he used to sit +in a kind of pulpit in one of the topmost rooms, with wooden boots on! + +For the remains of Hawstead Place, once visited in State by Queen +Elizabeth, who dropped her fan in the moat to test the gallantry of her +host, we searched in vain. A very old woman in mob-cap in pointing out +the farm so named observed, "T'were nowt of much account nowadays, tho' +wonderful things went on there years gone by." This was somewhat vague. +We went up to the house and asked if an old gateway of which we had +heard still existed. The servant girl looked aghast. Had we asked the +road to Birmingham she could scarcely have been more dumbfounded. "No, +there was no old gateway there," she said. We asked another villager, +but he shook his head. "There was a lady in the church who died from a +box on the ear!" This was scarcely to the point, and since we have +discovered that the ancient Jacobean gateway is at Hawstead Place after +all, we cannot place the Suffolk rustic intelligence above the average. +It is in the kitchen garden, and in the alcoves of the pillars are +moulded bricks with initials and hearts commemorating the union of Sir +Thomas Cullum with the daughter of Sir Henry North. The moat is still to +be seen, but the bridge spanning it has given way. The principal ruins +of the old mansion were removed about a century ago. + +Gedding Hall, midway between Bury and Needham Market, is moated and +picturesque, and before it was restored must have been a perfect +picture, for as it is now it just misses being what it might have been +under very careful treatment. A glaring red-brick tower has been added, +which looks painfully new and out of keeping; and beneath two quaint old +gables, a front door has been placed which would look very well in +Fitz-John's Avenue or Bedford Park, but certainly not here. When old +houses are nowadays so carefully restored so that occasionally it is +really difficult to see where the old work ends and the new begins, one +regrets that the care that is being bestowed upon West Stow could not +have been lavished here. + +We come across another instance of bad restoration at Bildeston. There +is a good old timber house at the top of the village street which, +carefully treated, would have been a delight to the eye; but the carved +oak corner-post has been enveloped in hideous yellow brickwork in such a +fashion that one would rather have wished the place had been pulled +down. But at the farther end of the village there is another old timber +house, Newbury Farm, with carved beams and very lofty porch, which +affords a fine specimen of village architecture of the fifteenth +century. Within, there is a fine black oak ceiling of massive moulded +beams, a good example of the lavish way in which oak was used in these +old buildings. + +Hadleigh is rich in seventeenth-century houses with ornamental plaster +fronts and carved oak beams and corbels. One with wide projecting eaves +and many windows bears the date 1676, formed out of the lead setting of +the little panes of glass. Some bear fantastical designs upon the +pargeting, half obliterated by continual coats of white or yellow wash, +with varying dates from James I. to Dutch William. + +A lofty battlemented tower in the churchyard, belonging to the rectory, +was built towards the end of the fifteenth century by Archdeacon +Pykenham. Some mural paintings in one of its rooms depict the adjacent +hills and river and the interior of the church, and a turret-chamber has +a kind of hiding-place or strong-room, with a stout door for defence. +Not far from this rectory gatehouse is a half-timber building almost +contemporary, with narrow Gothic doors, made up-to-date with an artistic +shade of green. The exterior of the church is fine, but the interior is +disappointing in many ways. It was restored at that period of the +Victorian era when art in the way of church improvement had reached its +lowest ebb. But the church had suffered previously, for a puritanical +person named Dowsing smashed the majority of the painted windows as +"superstitious pictures." Fortunately some fine linen panelling in the +vestry has been preserved. The old Court Farm, about half a mile to the +north of the town, has also suffered considerably; for but little +remains beyond the entrance gate of Tudor date. By local report, +Cromwell is here responsible; but the place was a monastery once, and +Thomas Cromwell dismantled it. It would be interesting to know if the +Lord Protector ever wrote to the editor of the _Weekly Post_, to refute +any connection with his namesake of the previous century. Though the +"White Lion" Inn has nothing architecturally attractive, there is an +old-fashioned comfort about it. The courtyard is festooned round with +clematis of over a century's growth, and in the summer you step out of +your sleeping quarters into a delightful green arcade. The ostler, too, +is a typical one of the good old coaching days, and doubtless has a +healthy distaste for locomotion by the means of petrol. + +The corner of the county to the south-east of Hadleigh, and bounded by +the rivers Stour and Orwell, could have no better recommendation for +picturesqueness than the works of the famous painter Constable. He was +never happier than at work near his native village, Flatford, where +to-day the old mill affords a delightful rural studio to some painters +of repute. The old timber bridge and the willow-bordered Stour, winding +in and out the valley, afford charming subjects for the brush; and +Dedham on the Essex border is delightful. Gainsborough also was very +partial to the scenery on the banks of the Orwell. + +In the churchyard of East Bergholt, near Flatford, is a curious, +deep-roofed wooden structure, a cage containing the bells, which are +hung upside down. Local report says that his Satanic Majesty had the +same objection to the completion of the sacred edifices that he had for +Cologne Cathedral, consequently the tower still remains conspicuous by +its absence. The "Hare and Hounds" Inn has a finely moulded plaster +ceiling. It is worthy of note that the Folkards, an old Suffolk family, +have owned the inn for upwards of six generations. + +Little and Great Wenham both possess interesting manor-houses: the +former particularly so, as it is one of the earliest specimens of +domestic architecture in the kingdom, or at least the first house where +Flemish bricks were used in construction. For this reason, no doubt, +trippers from Ipswich are desirous of leaving the measurements of their +boots deep-cut into the leads of the roof with their initials duly +recorded. Naturally the owner desires that some discrimination be now +shown as to whom may be admitted. The building is compact, with but few +rooms; but the hall on the first floor and the chapel are in a +wonderfully good state of repair,--indeed the house would make a much +more desirable residence than many twentieth-century dwellings of equal +dimensions. Great Wenham manor-house is of Tudor date, with pretty +little pinnacles at the corners of gable ends which peep over a high +red-brick wall skirting the highroad. + +From here to Erwarton, which is miles from anywhere near the tongue of +land dividing the two rivers, some charming pastoral scenery recalls +peeps we have of it from the brush of Constable. At one particularly +pretty spot near Harkstead some holiday folks had assembled to enjoy +themselves, and looked sadly bored at a company of Salvationists who had +come to destroy the peace of the scene. + +[Illustration: ERWARTON HALL.] + +Erwarton Hall is a ghostly looking old place, with an odd-shaped +early-Jacobean gateway, with nine great pinnacles rising above its roof. +It faces a wide and desolate stretch of road, with ancient trees and +curious twisted roots, in front, and a pond: picturesque but melancholy +looking. The house is Elizabethan, of dark red-brick, and the old +mullioned windows peer over the boundary-wall as if they would like to +see something of the world, even in this remote spot. In the mansion, +which this succeeded, lived Anne Boleyn's aunt, Amata, Lady Calthorpe, +and here the unfortunate queen is said to have spent some of the +happiest days of girlhood,--a peaceful spot, indeed, compared with her +subsequent surroundings. Local tradition long back has handed down the +story that it was the queen's wish her heart should be buried at +Erwarton; and it had well-nigh been forgotten, when some sixty-five +years ago a little casket was discovered during some alterations to one +of the walls of the church. It was heart-shaped, and contained but dust, +and was eventually placed in a vault of the Cornwallis family. Sir W. +Hastings D'Oyly, Bart., in writing an interesting article upon this +subject a few years back,[10] pointed out that it has never been +decided where Anne Boleyn's remains actually are interred, though they +were buried, of course, in the first instance by her brother, Viscount +Rochford, in the Tower. There are erroneous traditions, both at Salle in +Norfolk and Horndon-on-the-Hill in Essex, that Anne Boleyn was buried +there. There are some fine old monuments in the Erwarton church, a +cross-legged crusader, and a noseless knight and lady, with elaborate +canopy, members of the Davilliers family. During the Civil War five of +the bells were removed from the tower and broken up for shot for the +defence of the old Hall against the Parliamentarians. At least so goes +the story. An octagonal Tudor font is in a good state of preservation, +and a few old rusty helmets would look better hung up on the walls than +placed upon the capital of a column. + +The story of Anne Boleyn's heart recalls that of Sir Nicholas Crispe, +whose remains were recently reinterred when the old London church of St. +Mildred's in Bread Street was pulled down. The heart of the cavalier, +who gave large sums of money to Charles I. in his difficulties, is +buried in Hammersmith Old Church, and by the instructions of his will +the vessel which held it was to be opened every year and a glass of wine +poured upon it. + +Some curious vicissitudes are said to have happened to the heart of the +great Montrose. It came into the possession of Lady Napier, his nephew's +wife, who had it embalmed and enclosed in a steel case of the size of an +egg, which opened with a spring, made from the blade of his sword, and +the relic was given by her to the then Marchioness of Montrose. Soon +afterwards it was lost, but eventually traced to a collection of curios +in Holland, and returned into the possession of the fifth Lord Napier, +who gave it to his daughter. When she married she went to reside in +Madeira, where the little casket was stolen by a native, under the +belief that it was a magic charm, and sold to an Indian chief, from whom +it was at length recovered; but the possessor in returning to Europe in +1792, having to spend some time in France during that revolutionary +period, thought it advisable to leave the little treasure in possession +of a lady friend at Boulogne; but as luck would have it, this lady died +unexpectedly, and no clue was forthcoming as to where she had hidden the +relic. + +But a still more curious story is told of the heart of Louis XIV. An +ancestor of Sir William Harcourt, at the time of the French Revolution +had given to him by a canon of St. Denis the great monarch's heart, +which he had annexed from a casket at the time the royal tombs were +demolished by the mob. It resembled a small piece of shrivelled leather, +an inch or so long. Many years afterwards the late Dr. Buckland, Dean of +Westminster, during a visit to the Harcourts was shown the curiosity. We +will quote the rest in Mr Labouchere's words, for he it was who related +the story in _Truth_. "He (Dr. Buckland) was then very old. He had some +reputation as a man of science, and the scientific spirit moved him to +wet his finger, rub it on the heart, and put the finger to his mouth. +After that, before he could be stopped, he put the heart in his mouth +and swallowed it, whether by accident or design will never be known. +Very shortly afterwards he died and was buried in Westminster Abbey. It +is impossible that he could ever have digested the thing. It must have +been a pretty tough organ to start with, and age had almost petrified +it. Consequently the heart of Louis XIV. must now be reposing in +Westminster Abbey enclosed in the body of an English dean." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] The old Hall was pulled down in 1771. + +[8] _Evelyn's Diary_, Sept. 18, 1683. + +[9] Descendants of Proger, or Progers, are still living in Bury St. +Edmunds. + +[10] _The Antiquary_, vol. xxxviii. + + + + +NOOKS IN NORFOLK + + +Wells-next-the-Sea, on the north coast of Norfolk, sounds attractive, +and looks attractive on the map; but that is about all that can be said +in its favour, for a more depressing place would be difficult to find. +Even Holkham, with all its art treasures, leaves a pervading impression +of chill and gloom. The architects of the middle of the eighteenth +century had no partiality for nooks and corners in the mansions they +designed. Vastness and discomfort seems to have been their principal +aim. Well might the noble earl for whom it was built have observed, "It +is a melancholy thing to stand alone in one's own country." The advent +of the motor car must indeed be welcome, to bring the place in touch +with life. + +We were attracted to the village of Stiffkey, to the east of Wells, +mainly by a magazine article fresh in our memory, of some of its +peculiarities, conspicuous among which was its weird red-headed +inhabitants. The race of people, however, must have died out, for what +few villagers we encountered were very ordinary ones: far from +ill-favoured. Possibly they still invoke the aid of the local "wise +woman," as they do in many other parts of Norfolk, so therein they are +no further behind the times than their neighbours. + +We heard of an instance farther south, for example, where the head of an +establishment, as was his wont, having disposed of his crop of potatoes, +disappeared for a week with the proceeds; and returning at length in a +very merry condition, his good wife, in the hopes of frightening him, +unknown to him removed his watch from his pocket. Next morning in sober +earnest he went with his sole remaining sixpence to consult the wise +woman of the village, who promptly told him the thief was in his own +house. Consequently the watch was produced, and the lady who had +purloined it, instead of teaching a lesson, was soundly belaboured with +a broom-handle! + +[Illustration: EAST BARSHAM MANOR.] + +Stiffkey Hall is a curious Elizabethan gabled building with a massive +flint tower, built, it is said, by Sir Nathaniel Bacon, the brother of +the philosopher, but it never was completed. Far more picturesque and +interesting are the remains of East Barsham manor-house, some seven +miles to the south of Wells. Although it contained some of the finest +ornamental Tudor brickwork in England when we were there, and possibly +still, the old place could have been had for a song. It had the +reputation of being haunted, and was held in awe. The gatehouse, bearing +the arms and ensigns of Henry VIII., reminds one of a bit of Hampton +Court, and the chimneys upon the buildings on the northern side of the +Court are as fine as those at Compton Wyniates. The wonder is that in +these days of appreciation of beautiful architecture nobody has restored +it back into a habitable mansion. That such ruins as this or Kirby Hall +or Burford Priory should remain to drop to pieces, seems a positive sin. +A couple of miles to the west of Barsham is Great Snoring, whose +turreted parsonage is also rich in early-Tudor moulded brickwork, as is +also the case at Thorpland Hall to the south. + +One grieves to think that the old Hall of the Townshends on the other +side of Fakenham has been shorn of its ancestral portraits. What a +splendid collection, indeed, was this, and how far more dignified did +the full-length Elizabethan warriors by Janssen look here than upon the +walls at Christie's a year or so ago. The famous haunted chambers have a +far less awe-inspiring appearance than some other of the bedrooms with +their hearse-like beds and nodding plumes. We do not know when the +"Brown Lady" last made her appearance, but there are rumours that she +was visible before the decease of the late Marquis Townshend. Until then +the stately lady in her rich brown brocade had absented herself for half +a century. She had last introduced herself unbecoming a modest ghost, to +two gentlemen visitors of a house party who were sitting up late at +night. One of these gentlemen, a Colonel Loftus, afterwards made a +sketch of her from memory which possibly is still in existence. + +[Illustration: WALSINGHAM.] + +[Illustration: WALSINGHAM.] + +Walsingham, midway between Fakenham and Wells, is a quaint old town; its +timber houses and its combined Gothic well, lock-up, and cross in the +market-place giving it quite a mediaeval aspect. Before the image of Our +Lady of Walsingham was consigned to the flames by Wolsey's confidential +servant Cromwell, the pilgrimages to the Priory were in every respect as +great as those to Canterbury, and the "way" through Brandon and +Newmarket may be traced like that in Kent. Notwithstanding the fact that +Henry VIII. himself had been a barefoot pilgrim, and had bestowed a +costly necklace on the image, his gift as well as a host of other riches +from the shrine came in very handy at the Dissolution. A relic of Our +Lady's milk enclosed in crystal, says Erasmus, was occasionally like +chalk mixed with the white of eggs. It had been brought from +Constantinople in the tenth century; but this and a huge bone of St +Peter's finger, of course, did not survive. The site of the chapel, +containing the altar where the pilgrims knelt, stood somewhere to the +north-west of the ruins of the Priory. These are approached from the +street through a fine old early fifteenth-century gateway. The +picturesque remains of the refectory date from the previous century, the +western window being a good example of the purest Gothic. The old +pilgrims' entrance was in "Knight Street," which derives its name from +the miracle of a horseman who had sought sanctuary passing through the +extraordinarily narrow limits of the wicket. Henry III. is said to have +set the fashion for walking to Walsingham, and we strongly recommend +the tourists of to-day, who may find themselves stranded at +Wells-next-the-Sea, to do likewise. + +[Illustration: FONT CANOPY, TRUNCH.] + +The little seaside resort Mundesley is an improvement on Wells; but dull +as it is now, what must it have been in Cowper's time: surely a place +ill-calculated to improve the poor poet's melancholia! There is little +of interest beyond the ruined church on the cliffs and the Rookery Farm +incorporated in the remains of the old monastery. A priest's hole is, or +was not long since, to be seen in one of the gabled roofs. The churches +of Trunch and Knapton to the south-west both are worth a visit for their +fine timber roofs. The font at Trunch is enclosed by a remarkable canopy +of oak supported by graceful wooden pillars from the floor. It is +probably of early-Elizabethan date, and is certainly one of the most +remarkable baptistries in the country. Here and in other parts of +Norfolk when there are several babies to be christened the ceremony is +usually performed on the girls last, as otherwise when they grew up they +would develop beards! + +Ten miles to the south-west as the crow flies is historic Blickling, one +of the reputed birthplaces of the ill-fated Anne Boleyn. By some +accounts Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire claims her nativity as well as +Rochford Hall in Essex and Hever Castle in Kent; but, though Hever is +the only building that will go back to that date, she probably was born +in the older Hall of Blickling, the present mansion dating only from the +reign of James I. + +Upon the occasion of our visit the house was closed, so we can only +speak of the exterior, and of the very extensive gardens, where in vain +we sought the steward, who was said to be somewhere on the premises. + +The rampant bulls, bearing shields, perched on the solid piers that +guard the drawbridge across the moat, duly impress one with the +ancestral importance of the Hobarts, whose arms and quarterings, +surmounted by the helmet and ancient crest, adorn the principal +entrance. Like Hatfield and Bramshill, the mellowed red-brick gives it a +charm of colour which only the lapse of centuries will give; and though +not so old as Knole or Hatfield, the main entrance is quite as +picturesque. The gardens, however, immediately surrounding the Hall look +somewhat flat in comparison. + +Although Henry VIII. did the principal part of his courting at Hever, it +was at Blickling that he claimed his bride, and by some accounts was +married to her there and not at Calais. The old earl, the unfortunate +queen's father, survived her only two years; and after his death the +estate was purchased by Sir Henry Hobart,[11] who built the present +noble house. Among the relics preserved at Blickling of the unhappy +queen are her morning-gown and a set of night-caps, and her toilet case +containing mirrors, combs, etc. Sir John the third baronet entertained +Charles II. and his queen here in 1671, upon which occasion the host's +son and heir, then aged thirteen, was knighted. The royal visit is duly +recorded in the parish register as follows: "King Charles the Second, +with Queene Katherine, and James, Duke of Yorke, accompanied with the +Dukes of Monmouth, Richmond, and Buckingham, and with divers Lords, +arrived and dined at Sir John Hubart's, at Blicklinge Hall, the King, +Queene, Duke of Yorke, and Duchesse of Richmond, of Buckingham etc., in +the great dining-roomes, the others in the great parloure beneath it, +upon Michmasday 1671. From whence they went, the Queene to Norwich, the +King to Oxneads and lodged there, and came through Blicklinge the next +day about one of the clock, going to Rainham to the Lord Townsends."[12] + +Queen Catherine slept that night and the following in the Duke's Palace +at Norwich, but joined her royal spouse at lunch at Oxnead, which fine +Elizabethan house has, alas! been pulled down, and the statues and +fountain from there are now at Blickling. "Next morne (being Saterday)," +writes a local scribe in 1671, "her Maty parted so early from Norwich +as to meet ye King againe at Oxnead ere noone; Sr Robt Paston haveing +got a vast dinner so early ready, in regard that his Maty was to goe +that same afternoone (as he did) twenty myles to supper to the Ld +Townshend's, wher he stayd all yesterday, and as I suppose, is this +evening already return'd to Newmarket, extremely well satisfied with our +Lord Lieuts reception.... Her Maty haveinge but seven myles back to +Norwich that night from Sr Robt Pastons was pleased for about two +houres after dinner to divert herselfe at cards with the Court ladies +and my Lady Paston, who had treated her so well and yet returned early +to Norwich that eveninge to the same quarters as formerly; and on Sunday +morne (after her devotions perform'd and a plentifull breakfast) shee +tooke coach, extreamely satisfied with the dutifull observances of all +this countie and city, and was conducted by the Ld Howard and his +sonnes as far as Attleburough where fresh coaches atended to carry her +back to the Rt Hoble the Ld Arlington's at Euston."[13] + +Sidelights of this royal progress are obtained from the diarist Evelyn +and Lord Dartmouth. Among the attractions provided for the king's +amusement at Euston was the future Duchess of Portsmouth. The Duchess of +Richmond (La belle Stuart), in the queen's train, must have been +reminded how difficult had been her position before she eloped with her +husband four years previously. For the duke's sake let us hope he was as +overcome as his Majesty when the latter let his tongue wag with more +than usual freedom during the feast at Raynham. "After her marriage," +says Dartmouth, speaking of the duchess, "she had more complaisance than +before, as King Charles could not forbear telling the Duke of Richmond, +when he was drunk at Lord Townshend's in Norfolk." Evelyn did not think +much of the queen's lodgings at Norwich, which he describes as "an old +wretched building," partly rebuilt in brick, standing in the +market-place, which in his opinion would have been better had it been +demolished and erected somewhere else. + +Not far from Blickling to the north-east is Mannington Hall, a mansion +built in the reign of Henry VI., which possesses one of the best +authenticated ghost stories of modern times. The story is the more +interesting as it is recorded by that learned and delightful chronicler +Dr. Jessop, chaplain to His Majesty the King. The strange experiences of +his visit in October 1879 are duly recorded in the _Athenaeeum_ of the +following January. The rest of the household had retired to rest, and +Dr. Jessop was sitting up making extracts from some rare books in an +apartment adjoining the library. Absorbed in his study, time had slipped +away and it was after one o'clock. "I was just beginning to think that +my work was drawing to a close," says the doctor, "when, as I was +actually writing, I saw a large white hand within a foot of my elbow. +Turning my head, there sat a figure of a somewhat large man, with his +back to the fire, bending slightly over the table, and apparently +examining the pile of books that I had been at work upon. The man's face +was turned away from me, but I saw his closely-cut, reddish brown hair, +his ear and shaved cheek, the eyebrow, the corner of his right eye, the +side of the forehead, and the large high cheekbone. He was dressed in +what I can only describe as a kind of ecclesiastical habit of thick +corded silk, or some such material, close up to the throat, and a narrow +rim or edging of about an inch broad of satin or velvet serving as a +stand-up collar and fitting close to the chin. The right hand, which had +first attracted my attention, was clasping, without any great pressure, +the left hand; both hands were in perfect repose, and the large blue +veins of the right hand were conspicuous. I remember thinking that the +hand was like the hand of Velasquez's magnificent 'Dead Knight' in the +National Gallery. I looked at my visitor for some seconds, and was +perfectly sure that he was a reality. A thousand thoughts came crowding +upon me, but not the least feeling of alarm or even of uneasiness. +Curiosity and a strong interest were uppermost. For an instant I felt +eager to make a sketch of my friend, and I looked at a tray on my right +for a pencil: then thought, 'Upstairs I have a sketch-book; shall I +fetch it?' There he sat and I was fascinated, afraid not of his staying, +but lest he should go. Stopping in my writing, I lifted my left hand +from the paper, stretched it out to a pile of books and moved the top +one. I cannot explain why I did this. My arm passed in front of the +figure, and it vanished. Much astonished, I went on with my writing +perhaps for another five minutes, and had actually got to the last few +words of the extract when the figure appeared again, exactly in the same +place and attitude as before. I saw the hand close to my own; I turned +my head again to examine him more closely, and I was framing a sentence +to address to him when I discovered that I did not dare to speak. I was +afraid of the sound of my own voice! There he sat, and there sat I. I +turned my head again to my work, and finished the two or three words +still remaining to be written. The paper and my notes are at this moment +before me, and exhibit not the slightest tremor or nervousness. I could +point out the words I was writing when the phantom came, and when he +disappeared. Having finished my task I shut the book and threw it on the +table: it made a slight noise as it fell--the figure vanished." Not +until now did the doctor feel nervous, but it was only for a second. He +replaced the books in the adjoining room, blew out the candles on the +table, and retired to his rooms marvelling at his calmness under such +strange circumstances. + +[Illustration: WYMONDHAM.] + +The old-fashioned town Wymondham, to the south-west of Norwich, contains +an interesting church and market-cross, and one or two fine Gothic +houses, all in good preservation. But stay, the quaint octagonal +Jacobean timber structure in the market-place was holding forth a +petition for contributions, as it was feeling somewhat decrepit. This +was six or seven years ago, so probably by now it has entered upon a new +lease of life. How much more picturesque are these old timbered +structures than the jubilee clock-towers which have sprung up in many +old-fashioned towns, putting everything out of harmony. But few towns +are proud of their old buildings. They must be up to date with flaring +red-brick, and electric tramways, and down comes everything with any +claim to antiquity, without a thought of its past associations or +picturesque value. But let us hope that Wymondham may be exempt from +these terrible tramways for many years to come, as its population is, or +was, decreasing. + +The abbey and the church appear to have got rather mixed up; but having +come to a satisfactory arrangement, present a most pleasing group, and, +in the twilight, with two lofty towers and a ruined archway, it looks +far more like a castle on the Rhine than a church in Norfolk. The effect +doubtless would be heightened if we could see the rebel Kett dangling in +chains from the tower as he did in the reign of Bloody Mary. The timber +roof is exceptionally fine, with its long array of carved oak bosses and +projecting angels. + +Near Wymondham is the moated Hall of Stanfield, picturesque with its +numerous pinnacles. Here the heroine of the delightful romance +_Kenilworth_ was born in 1532; but poor Amy's marriage, far from being +secret, was celebrated with great pomp at Sheen in Surrey in 1550, and +is recorded in the _Diary of Edward VI._ now in the British Museum. +"Lydcote," the old house in North Devon where she lived for some +years, was pulled down not many years ago. Her bedstead from there we +believe is still preserved at Great Torrington Rectory. + +[Illustration: HAUTBOYS HALL. +(_Photo by W. B. Redfern, Esq._)] + +Somewhat similar to Stanfield, though now only a farmhouse, is the very +pretty old Tudor house Hautboys Hall. It stands a few miles to the +south-east of Oxnead. + +Of all the moated mansions in Norfolk, Oxburgh Hall, near Stoke Ferry, +is the most interesting, and is a splendid example of the fortified +manor-house of the end of the fifteenth century, and it is one of the +few houses in England that have always been occupied by one family. Sir +Edmund Bedingfield built it in the reign of Richard III., and Sir +Richard Bedingfield resides there at the present time. The octagonal +towers which flank the entrance gate rise from the broad moat to a +considerable height. There is a quaint projecting turret on the eastern +side which adds considerably to the picturesque outline of stepped +gables and quaint battlements. High above the ponderous oak gates the +machicolation behind the arch that joins the towers shows ample +provision for a liberal supply of molten lead, and in an old guard-room +may be seen the ancient armour and weapons to which the retainers of the +Hall were wont to have recourse in case of siege. The room recalls +somehow the defence of the tower of Tillietudlem in _Old Mortality_, and +one can picture the little household guard running the old culverins +and sakers into position on the battlements. + +The great mullioned window beneath the Tudor arch and over the entrance +gate belongs to the "King's room," a fine old tapestried chamber +containing the bed, with green and gold hangings, where Henry VII. +slept; and it is no difficult matter to repeople it in the imagination +with the inhabitants of that time in their picturesque costumes. There +is a richness in the colouring of the faded tapestry and hangings in +contrast with the red-brick Tudor fireplace far more striking than if +the restorer had been allowed a liberal hand. It is like a bit of +Haddon, and such rooms are as rarely met with nowadays as unrestored +churches. The remarkable hiding-place at Oxburgh we have described in +detail elsewhere.[14] It is situated in the little projecting turret of +the eastern tower, and is so cleverly constructed beneath the solid +brick floor, that no one would believe until they saw the solid masonry +move upwards that there was sufficient space beneath to conceal a man. +The Bedingfields are an old Roman Catholic family, and it is usually in +the mansions of those of that faith that these ingenious contrivances +are to be seen. + +A priest's hole was discovered quite recently in Snowre Hall, a curious +Tudor house some ten miles to the west of Oxburgh. It is entered through +a shaft from the roof, and measures five feet by six feet and four feet +high, and beneath it is an inner and smaller hiding-place. Mr. Pratt (in +whose family the house has been for two centuries) when he made the +discovery had to remove four barrow-loads of jackdaws' nests. The +discovery of this secret room is an interesting sequel to the fact that +on April 29, 1646, Charles I. slept at Snowre Hall. It will be +remembered that before he delivered himself up to the Scots army, he +spent some days wandering about the eastern counties in disguise, like +his son did in the western counties five years later. The owner of the +house in those days was a Mr. Ralph Skipwith, who, to put the spies that +were lurking about the vicinity off the track, provided the king with +his own grey riding-jacket in place of the clergyman's black coat he was +wearing, for that disguise had been widely advertised by his enemies. +Dr. Hudson, who was acting as scout, joined Charles and his companion, +Mr. Ashburnham, at Downham Market, where the "King's Walk" by the town +side, where they met, may still be seen. It is recorded by Dr. Stukeley +that Charles scratched some motto or secret instructions to his friends +on a pane of glass in the Swan Inn, where he put up awaiting Hudson's +return from Southwell. The fugitives proceeded thence to the Cherry Inn +at Mundford, some fourteen miles from Downham, and back to Crimplesham, +where they halted at an inn to effect the disguise above referred to. +The regicide Miles Corbet, who was on the track with Valentine Walton, +gave information as follows: + +"Since our coming to Lyn we have done what service we were able. We have +taken some examinations, and it doth appeare to us that Mr. Hudson, the +parson that came from Oxford with the king, was at Downham in Norfolk +with two other gentlemen upon Thursday the last of April. We cannot yet +learn where they were Friday night; but Saturday morning, the 2 of May +they came to a blind alehouse at Crimplesham, about 8 miles from Lyn. +From thence Mr. Hudson did ride on Saturday to Downham again, and there +two soldiers met with him, and had private speech with him. Hudson was +then in a scarlet coat. Ther he met with Mr. Ralf Skipwith of his former +acquaintance, and with him he did exchange his horse; and Skipwith and +the said Hudson did ride to Southrie ferrie a privat way to go towards +Ely; and went by the way to Crimplesham, and ther were the other +two--one in a parsons habit, which by all description was the king. +Hudson procured the said Skipwith to get a gray coat for the Dr. (as he +called the king), which he did. And ther the king put off his black coat +and long cassock, and put on Mr. Skipwith his gray coat. The king bought +a new hat at Downham, and on Saturday went into the Isle of Ely. +Wherever they came they were very private and always writing. Hudson +tore some papers when they came out of the house. Hudson did enquire for +a ship to go to the north or Newcastel, but could get none. We hear at +the same time there were 6 soldiers and officers as is thought at +Oxborough at another blind alehouse."[15] + +It is worthy of remark that Miles Corbet, whom Pepys saw on the morning +of April 19, 1662, looking "very cheerful" upon his way to Tyburn, was a +native of Norfolk, and his monument may be seen in Sprowston Church near +Norwich. + +The "Swan" at Downham still exists, but it was modernised some fifteen +years ago. It would be interesting to know what became of the historical +pane of glass. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[11] The Miss Hobart who figures in de Gramont's _Memoirs_ was Sir +John's sister, one of the first baronet's sixteen children. + +[12] There is an illustration of the room that Monmouth slept in at +Raynham upon this occasion in _King Monmouth_. + +[13] _A Narrative of the Visit of His Majesty King Charles the Second to +Norwich, 1671_ (1846). + +[14] See _Secret Chambers and Hiding-Places_. + +[15] See _Memoirs of the Martyr King_. + + + + +NOOKS IN WARWICKSHIRE AND +BORDERLAND + + +The outline of Warwickshire is something in the form of a turnip, and +the stem of it, which, like an isthmus, projects into Gloucestershire +and Oxfordshire, contains many old-world places. + +Long Compton, the most southern village of all, is grey and straggling +and picturesque, with orchards on all sides, and a fine old church, amid +a group of thatched cottages, whose interior was restored or mangled at +a period when these things were not done with much antiquarian taste. We +have pleasant recollections of a sojourn at the "Old Red Lion," where +mine host in 1880, a typical Warwickshire farmer, was the most +hospitable and cheery to be found in this or any other county: an +innkeeper of the old school that it did one's heart good to see. + +But this welcome house of call is by no means the only Lion of the +neighbourhood, for on the ridge of the high land which forms the +boundary of Oxfordshire are the "Whispering Knights," the "King's +Stone," and a weird Druidical circle. These are the famous Rollright +Stones, about which there is a story that a Danish prince came over to +invade England, and when at Dover he consulted the oracle as to the +chances of success. He was told that + + "When Long Compton you shall see, + You shall King of England be." + +Naturally he and his soldiers made a bee-line for Long Compton, and, +arriving at the spot where the circle is now marked by huge boulders, he +was so elated that he stepped in advance of his followers, who stood +round him, saying, "It is not meet that I should remain among my +subjects, I will go before." But for his conceit some unkind spirit +turned the whole party into stone, which doesn't seem quite fair. +"King's Stone" stands conspicuous from the rest on the other side of the +road, and, being very erect, looks as if the prince still prided himself +upon his folly. The diameter of the circle is over a hundred feet. In an +adjoining field is a cluster of five great stones. These are the +"Whispering Knights"; and the secret among themselves is that they will +not consent to budge an inch, and woe to the farmer who attempts to +remove them. The story goes that one of the five was once carted off to +make a bridge; but the offender had such a warm time of it that he +speedily repented his folly and reinstated it. + +There is a delightful walk across the fields from Long Compton to Little +Compton, with a glorious prospect of the Gloucestershire and +Warwickshire hills. This village used to be in the former county, but +now belongs to Warwickshire. Close to the quaint saddle-back towered +church stands the gabled Elizabethan manor-house, with the Juxon arms +carved over the entrance. Its exterior has been but little altered since +the prelate lived here in retirement after the execution of Charles I. A +gruesome relic was kept in one of the rooms, the block upon which the +poor monarch's head was severed. This and King Charles' chair and some +of the archbishop's treasured books disappeared from the manor-house +after the death of his descendant Lady Fane. Internally the house has +been much altered, but there are many nooks and corners to carry the +memory back to the hunting bishop, for his pack of hounds was one of the +best managed in the country. Upon one occasion a complaint was made to +the Lord Protector that Juxon's hounds had followed the scent through +Chipping Norton churchyard at the time of a puritanical assembly there. +But Oliver would hear none of it, and only replied, "Let the bishop +enjoy his hunting unmolested." + +[Illustration: CHASTLETON.] + +When Little Compton church had an Independent minister to hold forth to +the congregation, the prelate held divine service every Sunday at +Chastleton, the grand old home of the loyalist family of Jones. This +stately Jacobean mansion is close to Little Compton, but is really in +Oxfordshire. It has an old-world charm about it entirely its own; and +few ancestral homes can take us back to the days of Cavalier and +Roundhead with such realism, for the old furniture and pictures and +relics have never been disturbed since the house was built by Walter +Jones between the years 1603 and 1630. He purchased the estate from +Robert Catesby, the projector of the Gunpowder Plot, who sold the manor +to provide funds for carrying on that notorious conspiracy. + +The great hall is a noble apartment, with raised dais and carved screen; +and the Royalist Joneses looking down upon you on all sides, conspicuous +among whom is Thomas Jones and valiant Captain Arthur Jones, whose sword +beside him shows the good service he did at Worcester fight. When the +day was lost, and Charles was journeying towards Boscobel, the captain +managed to ride his tired horse back to Chastleton. But a party of +Cromwellian soldiers were at his heels, and his wife had only just time +to hurry him into an ingeniously contrived hiding-place when the enemy +confronted her, and refused to budge from the very bedroom behind whose +panelled walls the fugitive was secreted. But Mrs. Arthur Jones had her +share of tact, and in preparing her unwelcome guests some refreshment, +she added a narcotic to the wine, which in time had effect. Her husband +was then released, and with a fresh horse he was soon beyond danger. The +little oak wainscoted chamber and the adjoining bedroom may still be +seen where this exciting episode took place. The drawing-room is very +rich in oak carvings, and the lofty marble chimney-piece bears in the +centre the Jones' arms. The ceiling with its massive pendants is a fine +example of the period.[16] The bedrooms are all hung with the original +tapestry and arras that was made for them. One of them contains the +State bed from old Woodstock Palace; and there are everywhere antique +dressing-tables, mirrors, and quaint embroidered coverlets, and old +chests and cabinets innumerable containing queer old dresses and coats +of the Georgian period, and, what is more remarkable, the identical +Jacobean ruffs and frills which are depicted in the old portraits in the +hall. Then there are cupboards full of delightful old china, and +decanters and wine glasses which were often produced to drink a health +to the "King over the water." But of more direct historic interest is +Charles I.'s Bible, which was given by the widow of the last baronet of +the Juxon family--a grand-nephew of the archbishop--to the then +proprietor of Chastleton, John Jones. It is bound in gold stamped +leather, and bears the Royal arms with the initials C. R. It is dated +1629, and is full of queer old maps and illustrations, and upon the +fly-leaf is written--"Juxon, Compton, Gloucestershire." + +Some of the ancient cabinets at Chastleton are full of secret drawers, +and in one of them some years ago a very curious miniature of the martyr +king was discovered. It is painted on copper, and represents Charles I. +with the Order of St. George, and a set of designs drawn on talc, +illustrating the life of the ill-fated monarch from his coronation to +his execution. They are thus described by one of the past owners of +Chastleton: "They consist of a face and bust in one miniature, in a case +accompanied with a set of eight or nine pictures drawn on talc, being +different scenes or dresses, which are to be laid on the miniature so +that the face of the miniature appears through a hole left for that +purpose: and thus the one miniature does duty in every one of the talc +pictures. These were accidentally discovered some twenty years ago.[17] +The miniature was well known, and was supposed to be complete in itself; +but one day whilst being handled by one of the family, then quite a +child, it fell to the ground, and being in that way forced open at the +back, those talc pictures were brought to light. The careful manner in +which they had been concealed, and the miniature thereby made to appear +no more than an ordinary portrait, seems to warrant the suggestion that +they were in the first instance the property of some affectionate +adherent of Charles, whose prudence persuaded him to conceal what his +loyalty no doubt taught him to value very highly. There is no direct +evidence to show that they belonged to Bishop Juxon; nor is there any +tradition that I ever heard connected with them. The two concluding +pictures of the series represent the decapitated head in the hand of the +executioner, and a hand placing the martyr's crown upon the brows." + +There are two huge oak staircases running up to the top of the house, +where is the old gallery or ballroom, with a coved ceiling of ornamented +plaster-work, and above the mullioned windows grotesque monster heads +devised in the pargeting. + +The grounds and gardens are quite in character: not made to harmonise, +as are so many gardens nowadays, but the original quaint cut box hedges +and trim walks. The grand old house in the centre with its rusty roof of +lichen, and hard by the little church nestling by its side with the +picturesque entrance gateway and dovecot, form together a delightful +group. Chastleton church contains some good brasses. The tower is oddly +placed over the south porch. + +A couple of miles to the north, and the same distance beyond, are two +other interesting manor-houses, Barton-on-the-Heath and Little Woolford. +The former, a gabled Jacobean house, was once the seat of the +unfortunate Sir Thomas Overbury, who was done to death in the Tower by +the machinations of that evil couple, Carr, Earl of Somerset, and his +countess. Overbury, it will be remembered, had written the Court +favourite's love letters and poems, and knew too much of that guilty +courtship. + +There are some good monuments to the Overburys in the church: a Norman +one with saddle-back tower. Near here is the Four-Shire Stone, described +by Leland as "a large bigge stone; a Three-Mile-Stone from Rollerich +Stones, which is a very mark or line of Gloucestershire, Whichester +(Worcestershire), Warwickshire, and Oxfordshire." + +Little Woolford manor-house, the old seat of the Ingrams, is now, or was +some years ago, used as a school. It is very picturesque, and its gables +of half-timber, facing the little courtyard, remind one of the +quadrangle of Ightham Mote. Opposite the Tudor entrance-gate is the +hall, with its open timber roof, minstrels' gallery, panelled walls, and +tall windows, still containing their ancient painted glass. Barton, +which properly should have its ghost, presumably is not so favoured; but +here there are two at least,--a certain "White Lady," who, fortunately +for the juvenile scholars, does not appear until midnight; and the last +of the Ingrams, who has a restless way of tearing about on horseback in +the adjacent fields. This gentleman could not die decently in his bed, +but must needs, upon the point of dying, rush into the stable, mount his +favourite steed, and plunge into the raging tempest to meet his +adversary Death. What a pity there are not more educational +establishments like this. They might possibly make the pupils less +matter-of-fact and more imaginative. But we had almost forgotten a +moral lesson that is to be learned from a rude projection in the masonry +on the left-hand side of the entrance gateway. This is the oven, which +opens at the back of a wide hearth; and here some seventeenth-century +I O U's are said to have been found for money lost at play; while some +Cavaliers were concealed there in the time of the Civil Wars. But the +punishment for gambling was providentially arranged. Some Cromwellian +soldiers dropping in at the manor-house, lighted a tremendous fire, and +gave the unfortunate fugitives a roasting which they did not readily +forget. This is roughly as the story goes; indeed it goes further, for +by local report King Charles himself was one of the victims. + +Brailes, a few miles to the north-east, is famous for its church, the +cathedral of southern Warwickshire; but it is principally interesting +exteriorly, the old benches having been long since cleared away and many +nineteenth-century "improvements" made. Still there are parts of the +fourteenth-century roof and a fine font, some ancient monuments, +particularly melodious old bells; and the lofty embattled +fifteenth-century tower is exceptionally graceful. + +Buried in a hollow, and hidden from view by encircling trees and hills, +is that wonderful old mansion Compton Wyniates. The name (derived from +the ancient family of Compton and Wyniates, a corruption of vineyard, +for at an early period the vine was here cultivated) is suggestive of +something quaint, and indeed a more curious old house could not be +found. Its innumerable gables and twisted chimneys seem to be heaped up +in the most delightful confusion, in abandoned opposition to any +architectural regularity. The eye wanders from tower and turret until it +becomes bewildered by so many twists and angles. Look at the square box +of a house like Moor Park, for example, and wonder how it is that having +arrived at such picturesque perfection, taste should so degenerate. But +half the fascination of Compton Wyniates is its colour; its time-worn +dark-red brick and the grey-green lichens of ancient roofs. Upon one +side the curious gables and countless chimney clusters are reflected in +the moat, part of which now does service as a sunken garden. + +Passing through the bullet-battered door of the main entrance, over +which are the Royal arms of England supported by a griffin and a dog, we +enter a quadrangular court and thence pass into the great hall, with its +open timber roof black with the smoke of centuries. The screen beneath +the music gallery is elaborately carved with leaf tracery, grotesque +figures of mounted knights, and the escutcheon of the Compton arms. +Above the gallery we notice the huge oak beams which form the +half-timber portion of one of the principal gables, and cannot help +comparing these tremendous oak trunks with the modern laths plastered in +front of houses: a futile attempt to imitate this popular style, without +aiming at its _object_--strength. + +The screen of the chapel, like that of the hall, is ornamented with +grotesque carvings, including a battle royal between some monks and his +Satanic Majesty, who by the way has one of the ninety rooms all to +himself, and reached by a special spiral staircase. Near the "Devil's +chamber" is another small room whose ghostly occupant is evidently a +member of the fresh-air league, for he will persist in having the window +open, and no matter how often it is closed it is always found to be +open. What a pity this sanitary ghost does not take up his abode where +oxygen is scarcer. But these are by no means the only mysterious rooms +at Compton Wyniates, for not a few have secret entrances and exits, and +one dark corridor is provided with a movable floor, which when removed, +drawbridge fashion, makes an excellent provision for safety so long as +you are on the right side of the chasm. Such ingenious arrangements were +as necessary in a private residence, miles from anywhere, as the +bathroom is in a suburban villa. There are secret "barracks" in the +roof, with storage for a regiment of soldiers, if necessary. The popish +chapel, too, has ample provision for the security of its priest. There +are four staircases leading up to it, and a regular rabbit-warren +between the beams of the roof and the wainscoting, where if needs be he +could run in case of danger. + +"Henry VIII.'s room," and "Charles I.'s room," are both pointed out. +The latter slept a night here prior to the battle of Edgehill, and the +bluff king honoured the builder of the mansion, Sir William Compton, +with a visit in memory of old days, when his host as a boy had been his +page. Dugdale tells us that Sir William got his building material from +the ruinous castle of Fulbrooke, so his bricks were mellowed with time +when the house was first erected. The knight's grandson became Baron +Compton in Elizabeth's reign, and his son William, Earl of Northampton +in 1618. A romantic episode in the life of this nobleman was his +elopement with Elizabeth Spencer of Canonbury Tower, Islington. The lady +was a very desirable match, being the only daughter of Sir John Spencer, +the richest heiress of her time. Notwithstanding her strict seclusion at +Canonbury, Lord William Compton, of whom she was enamoured, succeeded in +the absence of her father in gaining admission to the house in the +disguise of a baker, and carried her off in his basket. To perform so +muscular a feat was proof enough of his devotion, so at the end of a +year all was forgotten and forgiven. Their son, the valiant second earl, +Spencer Compton, won his spurs and lost his life fighting for the king +at Hopton Heath. His portrait by Janssen may be seen at Castle Ashby. + +His son James, the third earl, also fought for Charles, and attended his +son at the Restoration; but his younger brother Henry, Bishop of London, +aided the Revolution, and crowned Dutch William and his queen. + +Only within the last half-century has the mansion been occupied as a +residence. For nearly a century before it was neglected and deserted. +The rooms were bare of furniture, for, alas! its contents, including +Henry VIII.'s State bed, had been removed or sold. That delightful +writer William Howitt in 1840 said the house had not been inhabited for +ninety years, with the exception of a portion of the east front, which +was used by the bailiff. The rooms were empty and the walls were naked. +His concluding wish fortunately long since has been realised--namely, +that its noble owner would yet cause the restoration and refitting of +Compton Wyniates to all its ancient state. + +Warwickshire is rich in ancestral houses and mediaeval castles. Take, for +example, the fortresses of Kenilworth, Warwick, Maxstoke, and Tamworth, +or the fine old houses Coombe Abbey, Charlecote, and Baddesley Clinton. +The last named perhaps is least known of these, but by no means the +least interesting. This old moated Hall of the Ferrers family is buried +in the thickly wooded country on the high tableland which occupies the +very heart of England. As to the actual centre, there are two places +which claim this distinction; but oddly enough they are quite twelve +miles apart. The one between Leamington and Warwick, the other to the +west of Coventry. The latter spot is marked by the village cross of +Meriden, and the former by an old oak tree by the main road. Baddesley +Clinton is nearly equidistant from both, south of Meriden and north-west +of Leamington and Warwick. + +Few houses so thoroughly retain their ancient appearance as Baddesley. +It dates from the latter part of the fifteenth century, and is a +singularly well-preserved specimen of a moated and fortified manor-house +of that period. Like Compton Wyniates, its situation is very secluded in +its densely wooded park, and formerly there was a double moat for extra +defence; but for all its retiredness and security, the old house has a +kindly greeting for those who are interested in such monuments of the +past. A stone bridge across the moat leads to a projecting embattled +tower with a wide depressed archway, showing provision for a portcullis +with a large mullioned window over it. In general appearance the front +resembles the moated house of Ightham, with which it is coeval, and the +half-timbered gables of the courtyard are somewhat similar. Unlike +Charlecote, the interior is as untouched as the exterior. Everywhere +there are quaint old "linen" panelled rooms and richly carved +chimney-pieces--windows of ancient heraldic glass, and old furniture, +tapestry, and paintings. The hall is not like some, that never look cosy +unless there is a blazing log fire in the hearth. There is something +particularly inviting in this old room, with its deep-recessed mullioned +window by the great freestone Jacobean fireplace. What pictures could +not the imagination conjure up in this cosy corner in the twilight of an +autumn day! On the first floor over the entrance archway is the +"banqueting-room," with high coved ceiling and tapestry-lined walls. +Beyond this is "Lord Charles' room," haunted, it is said, by a handsome +youth with raven hair. Many years ago this spectre was seen by two of +the late Mr. Marmion Ferrers' aunts when they were children, and they +long remembered his face and steadfast gaze. A mysterious lady dressed +in rich black brocade is occasionally encountered in the corridors in +broad daylight, like the famous "Brown Lady" of Raynham Hall. + +The ancient chapel was set up by Sir Edward Ferrers when the little +parish church was taken from the family at the Reformation. In the +thickness of the wall close at hand there is a secret passage which +leads down to a little water-gate by the moat beneath which a narrow +passage runs, so that there were two ready means of escape in troublous +times; and in the roof on the east side of the house there is a priest's +hole provided with a fixed bench. Marmion Ferrers above alluded to, who +died in 1884, was the eighth in descent from father to son from Henry +Ferrers of Elizabeth's time. Both were learned antiquarians. Marmion +Ferrers was a typical squire of the old school, and we well remember +with what pride he showed us round his ancestral home. But his pride +ended there, as is shown by the following anecdote. One day he +encountered an old woman in the park who had been gathering sticks +without permission. She dropped her heavy bundle and was about to offer +apologies for trespassing, when the good old squire, seeing that her +load was too much for her strength, without a word slung the burden on +his shoulder and carried it to the woman's humble dwelling. + +This calls to mind a story of a contemporary squire who lived some fifty +miles away in the adjoining county, an antiquary who was also known for +his acts of kindness and hospitality. In the vicinity of his ancient +Hall a tramp had found a job, and the baronet was anxious to test his +butler's honesty. He therefore offered to lend the man a hand and help +him carry some bundles of faggots into an adjacent yard, if he would +share profits. This was agreed upon, and when the work was done the +tramp went off to the Hall to ask for his money, promising to join his +assistant in a lane at the back of the house. Meanwhile the squire +hurried to his study, and when the butler made his appearance handed him +five shillings. Then donning his shabby coat and hat he hastened back. +Presently the tramp came up with beaming countenance and held out half a +crown, saying they were both well rewarded with one and threepence each. +But the assistant grumbled, and said it was miserable pay, and at length +persuaded the man to return and ask to see the squire and explain the +amount of work that had been done. Again he returned to his sanctum, and +hearing the bell ring told the butler to admit the man, and he would +hear what he had to say. Having enjoyed the fun--the tramp's surprise +and the butler's discomfort, he dismissed them both--one with half a +guinea, the other from his service. + +Baddesley Clinton church, shut in by tall trees a bow-shot from the +Hall, is famous for its eastern window of heraldic glass, which shows +the various noble families with whom the Ferrers intermarried. By the +union of Marmion Ferrers' father with the Lady Harriet Anne, daughter of +the second Marquis Townshend, the Chartley and Tamworth lines of the +family were united with that of Baddesley. The altar tomb of Sir Edward +Ferrers, Knight, the founder of the family at Baddesley, his wife Dame +Constance, and son who predeceased him, has above shields of the +alliances with the Bromes, Hampdens, etc. He was the son of Sir Henry +Ferrers, Knight, of Tamworth Castle, and grandson of William, Lord +Ferrers of Groby. Marmion was the thirteenth in descent from this Sir +Edward, not many links between the fifteenth and end of the nineteenth +century. The day of the good old squire's burial on August 25, 1884, +fell upon the three hundred and forty-ninth anniversary of the death of +the first Ferrers of Baddesley. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[16] There is an engraving of this room in Nash's _Mansions_. + +[17] The description was written more than twenty years ago. + + + + +SOME NOOKS IN WORCESTERSHIRE +AND GLOUCESTERSHIRE + + +[Illustration: THE WHITE HOUSE, PIXHAM.] + +Not far from Powick Bridge, where after two hours' hard fighting the +Royalists were defeated by General Fleetwood, stands a quaint old house +of timber and plaster, with nine gables facing three sides of the +compass, and a high three-gabled oaken porch in front. It is called +Priors Court, or the White House of Pixham, and since "the battle of +Powick Bridge" it has been occupied by the same family, though the name +by inter-marriage has changed from time to time. A branch of the Lanes +of Bentley were the representatives in the seventeenth century, and +according to tradition the famous Jane Lane lived here for a time. +Though the house belongs to the Tudor period, many alterations were made +early in the eighteenth century, but the little interior quadrangle +remains much in its original condition. One expects to find within, the +usual comfortable chimney corners and cosy panelled rooms, and perhaps +some ancient furniture; but it comes as a surprise to find a museum of +relics and heirlooms taking us back to the days of the Tudors and +Stuarts. + +From the hall, we pass up the great oak staircase to bedrooms and +corridors containing chests and cabinets full of ancient deeds and +manuscripts, not the least remarkable of which is a parchment roll upon +which is painted a series of mysterious astrological and other pictures, +supposed once upon a time to have been the property of the necromancer +Dr. John Dee, who lived for some time in the neighbouring town of +Upton-on-Severn. If this is really a document of Dr. Dee's, one would +like to see it preserved with the famous crystal in the British Museum. +The old presses and cupboards are full of the richly embroidered +bed-hangings and homespun sheets wrought by the ladies of the house in +the days when their energies were devoted to domestic purposes, and the +idea of hockey or ladies' clubs would have made their hair to stand +erect. There are piles of arras carefully packed away when wall-paper +came in fashion. There are chairs and tables dating back three centuries +or more, and mirrors which have reflected fair faces patched, with +head-gear piled up mountain high. + +In a corner stands a spinning-wheel, distaff, and reel complete, as if +some dainty damsel at work had fled at the approach of footsteps; and +there beyond is a dusty pillion which conjures up a picture of Mistress +Lane seated behind "Will Jackson" upon their way to Bristol. The ancient +glass and china, too, would whet the appetite of the most exacting +connoisseur. But we must not linger longer, or we shall envy these +choice possessions. + +[Illustration: PIRTON COURT.] + +[Illustration: SEVERN END.] + +[Illustration: SEVERN END.] + +Pirton Court, not far away, has not been plastered over like many houses +with elaborate wooden "magpie" work beneath, and the ornamental timber +in circular design is unimpaired. But the quaintest timber gables were +those at Severn End, the ancient seat of the Lechmeres, some five miles +to the south-west. Alas! that this ancient mansion should have been +destroyed by fire,--a loss as great as that of Clevedon or Ingestre, +greater, perhaps, as its architecture was so quaint: a delightful +mixture of the Tudor and Stuart periods to which it was no easy matter +to fix a date, for the timber portions looked much older than the +seventeenth century, when they were built by Sir Nicholas Lechmere, a +nephew of Sir Thomas Overbury, a worthy and learned judge whose +manuscripts give a very realistic peep into the domestic life of the +times and the orderly way in which his establishment was conducted. Both +front and back of the house were strikingly picturesque, but the front +was the most curious, half black and white angular gables and half +curved and rounded red-brick Jacobean gables. On either side of the +entrance porch were two great chimney-stacks, and in the corners where +the wings abutted, small square towers, one of which was sharpened to a +point like a lead pencil. At the back, facing smooth lawns (where the +judge used to sit and study), attached to the main building was what +looked like a distinct structure, the sort of overhanging half-timbered +house with carved barge-boards, pendants, and hip-knobs that are +familiar objects at Shrewsbury or Tewkesbury. The lower part of this was +of red-brick, and beside it on the right was a smaller abutting +half-timber gable. The great oak staircases had fantastic newels and +balusters, and around the panelled hall was a fixed oak settle, and +armour on the walls: carved oak cabinets and chairs, and tables. The +room in which Charles I. slept was pointed out, and that of +Major-General Massey, for Severn End was that great soldier's +headquarters before the battle of Worcester. + +A few miles to the south-west, within the boundary of the once wild +district, Malvern Chase, is another remarkable old house, Birtsmorton +Court, a moated and fortified manor-house in a singularly good state of +preservation. Though quiet and peaceful enough, its embattled gateway +has a formidable look, showing the teeth of its portcullis, like a +bull-dog on the alert for intruders. The drawbridge is also there, and +walls of immense thickness, both speaking of the insecurity of the days +when it was built. The "parlour," with windows looking out upon the +moat, is richly panelled with the various quarterings of the ancient +lords, the Nanfans, executed in colours around the cornice. The arms and +crest also occur upon the elaborately carved oak fireplace. On the +left-hand side of this fireplace there was formerly the entrance to a +hiding-place concealed in the wainscoting, but there is nothing now but +a very visible cupboard which leads nowhere. Tradition asserts that +Henry V.'s old associate, Sir John Oldcastle, sought refuge here before +he was captured and burned as a Lollard. But as that happened in 1417, +the date does not tally with the period to which the room belongs, +namely, a century later. But the original apartments have been divided +(some are dilapidated chambers, now used as a storeroom for Gloucester +cheeses), so that it is difficult to trace how they were placed. There +is also a story of a passage running beneath the moat into the adjacent +woods; but whether Sir John got so far, or whether after his escape from +the Tower he even got farther than his own castle of Cowling in Kent, +when he was hunted down by orders of his former boon companions, we +cannot say. By local report Edward IV. and Margaret of Anjou as well as +the little Lancastrian Prince of Wales sought shelter at Birtsmorton. +But for Margaret another house nearer Tewkesbury claims the honour of +offering a refuge from the battlefield. This is an old timber-framed +building with carved barge-boards, near the village of Bushley, called +Payne's Place, or Yew Tree Farm, which once belonged to Thomas Payne and +Ursula his wife, whose brasses may be seen in the church. In the eastern +wing of this old house Queen Margaret's bedroom is pointed out. The hall +with open timber roof is still intact but divided, and upon the oak +beams a century after the battle of Tewkesbury the following lines were +painted on a frieze: + + "To lyve as wee shoulde alwayes dye it were a goodly trade, + To change lowe Death for Lyfe so hye, no better change is made; + For all our worldly thynges are vayne, in them is there no truste, + Wee see all states awhyle remayne, and then they turn to duste." + +Had the lines existed then, would the poor queen have derived comfort +when the news reached her of her son's death on the battlefield? + +Birtsmorton is associated with the early career of Cardinal Wolsey, for +here he acted as chaplain during the retirement of Sir Richard Nanfan +from service to the State. Through Sir Richard's Court influence Wolsey +was promoted to the service of Henry VIII. + +The "Bloody Meadow" near Birtsmorton must not be confused with that near +Tewkesbury, the scene of the last battle between the Houses of York and +Lancaster. This one was the scene of a single combat between a Nanfan +and his sister's lover, in which the latter was slain. The heart-broken +lady left a sum of money that a sermon should be annually preached at +Berrow church (the burial-place of the Nanfans) against duelling; and +this we believe is done to this day. The cruciform church has been +painfully restored, but contains a fine altar-tomb to Sir John, Sir +Richard Nanfan's grandfather, Squire of the Body to King Henry VI.; but +beyond a leper's window and a queer old alms-box there is nothing else +remarkable. + +[Illustration: RIPPLE.] + +Two of the prettiest villages hereabouts are Ripple and Strensham, the +former on the Severn, the latter on the Avon. At Ripple, in a cosy +corner backed by creeper-grown timber cottages, is the lofty stone shaft +of the cross, and by the steps at the base the stocks and whipping-post. +Strensham is famous as the birthplace of the witty author of _Hudibras_. +It is a peaceful little place, with a few thatched cottages, a fine old +church near the winding river, embosomed in trees. The church is +remarkable for its fine rood-loft with painted panels of saints, which +at some time has been made into a gallery at the west end, and we hope +may be replaced one of these days. + +Following the river Avon to Evesham and Stratford-on-Avon, there are +many charming old-world villages rich in timber and thatched cottages. +Such a village is Offenham above Evesham. The village street leads +nowhere, and at the end of it stands a tapering Maypole, as much as to +say, "Go on with your modern improvement elsewhere if you like, but here +I intend to stay"; and we believe it is duly decorated and danced around +in the proper fashion, though the inhabitants by the "new style" of the +calendar can scarcely dispense with overcoats. We will not follow the +course of the river so far as "drunken Bidford" (where the immortal bard +and some convivial friends are said to have been overcome by the effects +of the strong ale at the "Falcon"), but turn our steps southwards to +Broadway, which of recent years has had an invasion from America. But +the great broad street of substantial Tudor and Jacobean houses deserves +all the praise that has been lavished upon it. We were there before it +had particularly attracted Jonathan's eye, and after a fortnight's fare +of bread and cheese and eggs and bacon (the usual fare of a walking +tour), we alighted upon a princely pigeon pie at the "Lygon Arms." Under +such circumstances one naturally grows enthusiastic; but even if the +fine old hostelry had offered as cold a reception as that at Stilton, we +could not but help feeling kindly disposed towards so stately a roadside +inn. Like the "Bell" at Stilton, it is stone-built, with mullioned +windows and pointed gables; but here there is a fine carved doorway, +which gives it an air of grandeur. There are roomy corridors within, +leading by stout oak doors to roomier apartments, some oak panelled, and +others with moulded ceilings and carved stone fireplaces. One of these +is known as "Cromwell's room," and one ought to be called "Charles' +room" also, for during the Civil Wars the martyr king slept there on +more than one occasion. The wide oak staircase with its deep set window +on the first landing, reminds one of the staircase leading out of the +great hall of Haddon. There is a little wicket gate to keep the dogs +below. Farther up the village street stands Tudor House, which with its +ball-surmounted gable ends and bay-window with heraldic shields above, +bears a cloak-and-rapier look about it; but it was built, according to +the date upon it, when the old Cavalier was poor and soured, and had +sheathed his sword, but nevertheless was counting the months when the +king should come to his own again. The house was empty, and presumably +had been shut up for years. Referring to some notes, we find the +following memoranda by the friend who was with us upon the occasion of +our visit. "We could obtain no information as to the ownership, or still +more important, the holder of the keys. One old man, who might have +remembered it being built but was slightly hazy on the subject, said no +one ever went inside. Other inquiries in the village led only to intense +astonishment at our desire. And the whole concluded in a large +contingent of the inhabitants standing speechless, marvelling before the +house itself; in which position we left them and it." + +The old church of Edward IV.'s time is now, or was, deserted in favour +of an early-Victorian one much out of keeping with the village, or +rather town that it once was. + +Another decayed town, once of more importance still, is Chipping +Campden, four miles to the north-east of Broadway, in a corner of +Gloucestershire. Here again we have the great wide street with a +profusion of grey stone gables on either side, and projecting inn signs, +and sundials in profusion. At one extremity a noble elm tree and at the +other a huge chestnut, stand like sentinels over the ancient buildings +that they may not share the fate of the neighbouring manor-house, which +was burned down by its loyal owner, the third Viscount Campden, during +the Civil War, to save it from the ignoble fate of being seized and +garrisoned for the Parliamentarians. From the imposing entrance gate and +two remaining curious pavilions at either end of a long terrace, one may +judge it must have been a fine early-Jacobean mansion. Strange that +Campden House, their ancient town residence, should have perished in the +flames also, but over two centuries afterwards. Near the entrance gate +are the almshouses, a very picturesque line of pointed gables and lofty +chimneys. Above them rises the graceful early-Perpendicular church +tower, which in design and proportions is worthy of a cathedral. But the +quaint Jacobean pillared market-house, the Court-house with its handsome +panelled buttresses, and a house of the time of Richard III. with +two-storied bay-window, and an ancient hall, are among the most +interesting buildings in the town. One of the many sign-boards displays +a poetic effusion by a Campden chimney-sweep, a modernised version of +the original which ran as follows: + + "John Hunter Campden doe live here, + Sweeps chimbleys clean and not too deare. + And if your chimbley be a-fire, + He'll put it out if you desire." + +The "Red Lion" is a typical hostelry of the Stuart days, and a +contemporary house opposite, bearing the date 1656, is well worth +notice: the "Green Dragon" also, dated 1690. + +The interior of the church is disappointing; its new benches, windows, +roof, and chancel giving it a modern look; but there are some fine old +monuments to the ancient lords of the manor, especially that of the +first Viscount Campden and his countess, and there are some fine +fifteenth-century brasses in the chancel. + +[Illustration: STANTON.] + +Norton House, to the north of the town, near Dover Hill (famous for the +Cotswold games in "the good old days"), is a picturesque, many-gabled +house; and at Mickleton, to the north-east, there are some curious old +buildings. Farther north are the remains of Long Marston manor-house, +still containing the roasting-jack which Charles II. as pseudo +scullery-man omitted to wind up, and brought the wrath of the cook upon +his head, much as King Arthur did when he burnt the cakes. But our way +lies southwards through Broadway to Buckland, Stanton, and a place that +should be sylvan according to its name--Stanway-in-the-Woods. Buckland +church and rectory are both of interest. The former has a fine +Perpendicular tower with some grotesque gargoyle demons at the corners. +The benches are good, and a window dated 1585 retains some ancient +painted glass, as the roof does its old colouring, in which the Yorkist +rose is conspicuous. The hall of the rectory has a fine open-timber roof +with central arch richly carved, and upon a window is depicted a rebus +representing one William Grafton, rector of Buckland from 1450 to 1506. +The manor-house also once possessed a hall with lofty timber-framed roof +and huge fireplace of the fourteenth century; but, sad to relate, it was +destroyed when the house was modernised some years ago, but there still +remains a pretty old staircase of a later date. + +Farther south the country becomes more wooded and hilly. The high ground +rises on the left above Stanton, and at the foot of the hill near the +village nestle the pretty old church and gabled manor-house, with its +complement of old farm buildings adjacent. The village street, like +Broadway, consists of rows of grey stone gables, at the end of which +stands the sundial-surmounted cross. The interior of the church has not +been spoiled; the carved oak canopied pulpit towering above the ancient +pews is quite in keeping with the old-world village. The Stanways are +about two miles to the south, but there are so few houses that one +wonders where the children come from to attend the village school. Wood +Stanway is not disappointing like many places possessing picturesque +names that we could quote, for it is enveloped in trees, and so is +Church Stanway for that matter. + +[Illustration: STANWAY HOUSE.] + +[Illustration: STANWAY HOUSE.] + +Turning a corner of the road one comes suddenly upon a wonderful old +gateway with fantastic gables and a noble Jacobean doorway. On one side +of it is a high garden wall with great circular holes in it, and over +the wall peep the gables and ornamental perforated parapet of a fine +mansion of Charles I.'s time. This is always a most fascinating picture; +but to see it at its best is when the roses are in bloom, for above the +old wall and through the rounded apertures, the queen of flowers +flourishes in gay festoons as if rejoicing at its surroundings. But if +one is so fortunate as to obtain admission to the gardens then may he or +she rejoice also, for upon the other side of that grey old wall are the +prettiest of gardens and the grandest trees, one of which, an ancient +yew, is no less than twenty-two feet in girth. There are terraces, stone +summer-houses, and nooks and corners such as one only sees in the +grounds of our ancestral homes. Within, the mansion has been much +restored and somewhat modernised, but the great hall and other rooms +take one back to the time of Inigo Jones, who designed the entrance +gateway. In the churchyard close by is buried the most popular local man +of his time, Robert Dover. If he lived in our day he surely would be the +president of the "Anti-Puritanical League," for he it was who made a +successful crusade against the spirit of religious austerity, the +tendency of which was to put down holidays of sport and merry-making. As +a result of his efforts, the hills above Chipping Camden were annually +at Whitsuntide the scene of a revival of the mediaeval days of festivity +and manly exercise. Upon these occasions the originator acted as master +of the ceremonies, and was duly respected, for he always wore a suit of +King James' own clothes. Dover died at the beginning of the Civil War, +so, fortunately for him, he did not live through the rigid rule of +Cromwell. The Cotswold games, however, were revived at the Restoration. +To this public benefactor (the shadow of whose cloak has surely fallen +on the shoulders of Lord Avebury) Drayton wrote in eulogy: + + "We'll have thy statue in some rock cut out + With brave inscriptions garnished about, + And under written, 'Lo! this is the man + Dover, that first these noble sports began.' + Lads of the hills and lasses of the vale + In many a song and many a merry tale + Shall mention thee; and having leave to play, + Unto thy name shall make a holiday." + +Yet nobody did set up his statue, as should have been done on "Dover +Hill" by Chipping Camden. + +Some odd cures for certain ailments are prescribed in remote parts of +the Cotswolds. Garden snails, for instance, which in Wiltshire are sold +for ordinary consumption, namely, food, as "wall fruit," are used here +externally as a remedy for ague: and roasted mouse is a specific for the +whooping-cough. But for the latter complaint as efficacious a result may +be obtained by the pleasanter mode of riding on a donkey's back nine +times round a finger-post. This remedy, however, properly belongs to +Worcestershire. + +If we continue in a south-westerly direction we shall pass historic +Sudeley, near Winchcombe, Postlip Hall, and Southam House. Sudeley +Castle must have been magnificent before it was dismantled in the Civil +War. Bravely it stood two sieges, but at length capitulated; and being +left a ruin by Cromwell's soldiers, the magnificent fifteenth-century +mansion was left for close upon two centuries to act as a quarry for the +neighbourhood. Under such disadvantages was its restoration commenced, +and it is wonderful what has been done; yet there has been a certain +admixture of Edwardian and Elizabethan portions which is somewhat +confusing. The banqueting room, with its noble oriel windows (originally +glazed with beryl), the keep with its dungeons, and the kitchen with its +huge fireplace four yards across, speak of days of lordly greatness, and +the names of many weighty nobles as well as kings and queens are closely +associated with the castle. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was once +possessed of it; the youngest son of Owen Tudor and Henry V.'s widow +lived there; so did Sir Thomas Seymour, Edward VI.'s uncle, who married +and buried there Henry VIII.'s last queen, at which ceremony Lady Jane +Grey was chief mourner. Elizabeth was here upon one of her progresses, +and Charles I. was the last sovereign who slept there. The restored +rooms are full of historical furniture, pictures, and relics. Here may +be seen Amy Robsart's bed, or one of them, from Cumnor Hall: and the bed +upon which the martyr king slept, not here but at Kineton, before +Edgehill. There are numerous relics of the queen, who had the tact to +outlive her august spouse, and the foolishness to marry a fourth +husband. Catherine Parr's various books and literary compositions may +here be studied, including the letter in which she accepted Seymour's +offer of marriage. He was by no means the best of husbands, but a vast +improvement on the royal tyrant who had coldly planned the queen's +destruction; but owing to her ready wit his wrath was turned upon +Wriothesley, who was to have arrested her; for when he came to perform +that office, Henry called him an "an errant knave and a beast." There +are lockets containing locks of her auburn hair, and portions of the +dress she wore. But the main interest is centred in the chapel where the +queen was buried. This building was dismantled with the rest in 1649, +and the fine Chandos monuments destroyed. Catherine's tomb, which was +within the altar rails, probably shared the fate of the rest, and its +position was soon forgotten. However, after the lapse of nearly a +century and a half, a plain slab of alabaster in the north wall, +doubtless part of the original monument, led to the discovery of a +leaden case in the shape of a human form lying immediately below, only a +foot or so beneath the surface of the ground. Upon the breast was the +following inscription: + + K. P. + Here lyethe QUENE + KATERYN wife to KYNG + HENRY THE VIII., and + Last the wife of Thomas + Lord of Sudeley, highe + Admiyrall of England + And vncle to Kyng + Edward the VI. + dyed + 5 September + MCCCCC + XLVIII. + +The cerecloth, hard with wax and gums, was removed from a portion of the +arm, which was discovered after close upon three centuries to be still +white and soft. According to another account, when the covering of the +face was removed, not only the features, but the eyes were in perfect +preservation. The body was reinterred, but treated with no decent +respect, for the spot was occupied as an enclosure for rabbits; and upon +one occasion it was dug up by some drunken men, who by local tradition, +as a reward for their desecration, all came to an untimely end. The +alabaster block may still be seen in the north wall of the chapel, but +the body now lies beneath a recumbent figure in white marble which has +been placed to the queen's memory. + +[Illustration: POSTLIP HALL.] + +Postlip Hall stands high in a picturesque spot not far from the main +road to Cheltenham. It is a many-gabled Elizabethan house, preserving +its original character, but spoiled by the insertion of plate-glass +windows. Within there is one particularly fine room of elaborate oak +carvings (and the arms of the Broadways who built the house) of +sufficient importance to form the subject of one of the plates in Nash's +_Mansions_. The house has or had the reputation of being haunted; but +that was long ago in the days when it stood neglected and uninhabited. + +Southam House, or Southam-de-la-Bere, to the south-west (also depicted +in Nash), is a curious early-Tudor building of timber and stone, and has +the advantage over Sudeley, as it was not of sufficient military +importance to be roughly handled by the Parliamentarian soldiers. The +ancient painted glass in the windows and an elaborate chimney-piece +bearing shields of arms came from Hayles Abbey. The ceilings are oak +panelled, and the arms of Henry VII. occur in numerous places. The +situation of the house is fine, and the view over the vast stretch of +country towards Worcestershire and Herefordshire magnificent. The +builder of the mansion was Sir John Huddleston, whose wife was the queen +Jane Seymour's aunt. The de-la-Beres, to whom the estate passed by +marriage, were closely allied with the Plantagenet kings, two sisters +marrying Thomas Plantagenet, Edward III.'s son, and Henry Plantagenet, +Duke of Lancaster. + +Avoiding Cheltenham, we will pick up the road to Stroud at Birdlip, a +favourite meeting-place of the hounds on account of the surrounding +woods. Coming from the south there is a gradual climb through those +delightful woods until you burst upon a gorgeous view, with the ancient +"Ermine Street" running, like a white wand lying upon the level pattern +work of meadowland, to Gloucester, and the hills of Malvern away in the +distance. Whether it was the great dark mass of hill in the foreground +contrasted against the level stretch of country, or whether it was the +stormy sky when we visited Birdlip on a late autumnal day, that gave the +scene such a wild, romantic look, it would be difficult to say, but we +remember no view with such breadth of contrast of light and shade, or +one so fitted to lead the imagination into the mystic realms of +fairyland. + +Up in these heights, and in so secluded a spot, it came as a surprise to +find a museum. This we believe long since has been dispersed by the +hammer, but we remember some really interesting things. The lady +curator, the proprietress of the "Black Horse," had been given many of +the exhibits by the neighbouring gentry, and was not a little proud of +her collection. Valuable coins, flint weapons, fossils, pictures, and +the usual medley. There was one little oil painting on a panel, the head +of a beautiful girl with high powdered hair of the Georgian period, +which had all the vigour of a Romney, and undoubtedly was by a master +craftsman. Two curiosities we remember in particular: a pair of leggings +said to have been worn by the great Duke of Marlborough, and the wooden +finger-stocks from a village dame-school. It would be interesting to +know where these curiosities are now. The only other finger-stocks we +know of are in Ashby-de-la-Zouch church, Leicestershire. + +[Illustration: STOCKS, PAINSWICK.] + +Painswick, to the south-west, is a sleepy old town with a fine +Perpendicular church much restored internally, but containing some +handsome monuments. The churchyard is noted for its formal array of +clipped yew trees, probably unique. They have the same peculiarity as +Stonehenge, for it is said nobody can count them twice the same. As, +however, we did not visit the adjacent inn, we managed to accomplish the +task. Close to the church wall are the stocks--iron ones. + +[Illustration: NAILSWORTH.] + +Upon the way to Stroud many weird old buildings are passed which once +were, and some are still, cloth mills; but some are deserted and +dilapidated, and have a sad look, as if remembering more prosperous +days; and when the leaves are fast falling in the famous golden valley +they look indeed forlorn. One would think there can be little poetry +about an old cloth mill, but ere one gives an opinion one must visit the +golden valley in the autumn. Around Nailsworth, Rodborough, and +Woodchester there are many ancient houses which have degenerated into +poor tenements. Such a one at Nailsworth has the brief address "No. 5 +Egypt," which by all appearance was an important house in its day. A +gentleman who resided in a more squalid part related how he had +discovered a cavalier's rapier up in the roof of a mansion, but in a +weak moment had parted with it for half a crown. "Southfield" at +Woodchester is perhaps the most picturesque of these stately houses, a +house which near London would fetch a formidable rent, but here a +ridiculously low one. Some six miles out of Stroud a really decent +house, garden, and orchard may be had for next to a song. A light +railway may have now sent prices up, by striking northwards, but not +many years back we saw one very excellent little place "to let," the +rent of which was only sixpence a week, and the tenant had given notice +because the landlord had been so grasping as to raise it to sixpence +halfpenny! + +[Illustration: BEVERSTONE CASTLE.] + +Between Nailsworth and Tetbury are Beverstone Castle and the secluded +manor-house Chavenage within a mile of it. The castle stands near the +road, an ivy-covered ruin of the time of Edward III., but with portions +dating from the Conquest. Incorporated are some Tudor remains and some +old farm buildings, forming together a pleasing picture. + +To Major-General Massey, Beverstone, like Sudeley, is indebted for its +battered appearance. It held out for the king, but Massey with three +hundred and eighty men came and took it by storm. The general having +done as much damage as possible in Gloucestershire during the Civil War, +at length made some repairs by fighting on the other side at Worcester; +and perhaps it was as well, for had he been on the victorious side he +might have treated "the faithful city" with as little respect as +Beverstone. In the peaceful days of the Restoration, which Massey +lived to see, as there were no more castles to blow up he dabbled +in the pyrotechnic art, suggestive of the pathetic passage in +_Patience_--Yearning for whirlwinds, and having to do the best you can +with the bellows. + +The regicide squire of Chavenage must also have been skilled in the +noble art, for by common report at his death a few months after that of +the martyr king, he vanished in flames of fire! But there was a +ceremonious preliminary before this simple and effective mode of +cremation. A sable coach driven by a headless coachman with a star upon +his breast arrived at the dead man's door, and the shrouded form of the +regicide was seen to glide into it. But bad as Nathaniel Stephens may +have been, it is scarcely just that all future lords of Chavenage must +make their exit in this manner. + +The old house is unpretentious in appearance. Built in the form of the +letter E, it has tall latticed windows lighting a great hall (famous +once for its collection of armour), and a plain wing on either side, +with narrow Elizabethan Gothic-headed windows. There is a ghostly look +about it. It stands back from the road, but sufficiently near that one +may see the entrance porch (bearing the date 1579) and the ruts of the +carriage wheels upon the trim carriage drive. Arguments as strong as any +in _Ingoldsby_ to prove the mystic story must be true. + + + + +NOOKS IN NORTHERN +WILTSHIRE + + +After a sojourn in north-west Wilts it is refreshing to dip into the +wooded lanes of the Home Counties and see again the red-brick cottages +and homesteads which have such a snug and homely look after the cold +grey stone and glaring chalk roads. For old-world villages and +manor-houses, however, one could not choose a better exploring ground, +but not, please note, for the craze of picking up bits of old oak, +judging by what we overheard the very first day we stopped in one of the +most out-of-the-way places of all. + +"Anything old inside?" asked somebody at the doorway, having led gently +and gracefully up to it so as not to arouse suspicion. "Nothing," was +the reply. "May I look round inside?" was asked. "No." Then after a +pause. "Any other of the cottagers got any old chairs, or china?" "One +or two of them _had_ some, but they sold what they had to Mrs. ---- of +----." "_Of_ course," was the disgusted reply; "she's _always_ first, and +gets everything!" + +The conversation gives but an idea of the systematic way that a crusade +for the antique is carried on. If the hunter makes a "find," and the +owner will not part, that unfortunate cottager is persecuted until he or +she does part, sooner or later to regret the folly. And, alas! churches +are not even sacred from these sharks. How often have we not seen some +curious piece of furniture mentioned as being in the church, and, lo! it +has vanished--where? And do not the empty brackets over many an ancient +tomb tell a tale? What have become of the helmets of the ancient lords +of the manors? We can quote an instance offhand. In the fine old church +of Bromham, three of the helmets of the manorial lords, the Bayntons, +are still there, two of them perhaps only funereal helmets, and not the +actual casques of warfare; but there are three if not four vacant +brackets which perchance once supported the envied headpieces with +pointed visor of the fifteenth century. Aloft also are some rusty +gauntlets, and one of the helmets still bears the crest of the eagle's +head. The manor descended from the Beauchamps to the Bayntons, the last +of whom was the nineteenth in descent from Sir Henry Baynton, Knight +Marshal of the household to Henry the Second. His mother was the eldest +daughter and co-heiress of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, and Miss +Malet the runaway heiress. A recumbent effigy of Sir Roger Touchet in +alabaster (resembling in a remarkable degree the late Sir Henry Irving +as Richard III.) is covered with the carved initials of vandal visitors, +not, we may add, only of our own and fathers' and grandfathers' time, +but dating back from the reign of Elizabeth; so it is comforting to see +that our ancestors were as prone to disfigure monuments in this way as +is the modern 'Arry. One of the initials, I. W., perhaps may be that of +the witty and wicked Earl of Rochester, who by repute made Spye an +occasional residence, although the Bayntons certainly held the estate +some years after the Lady Anne, his daughter's death in 1703. The +ceiling of the Baynton chapel is richly carved, and the bosses and +brackets show their original faded colouring of blue and gold. There are +also coloured niches for saints; and on a canopied tomb of Elizabeth +Touchet, a brass of a kneeling figure, and a tablet of the coat of arms +is enamelled in colours. There also is a fine brass of John Baynton in +Gothic armour. + +[Illustration: GATE-HOUSE, SPYE PARK.] + +All that remains of the old Jacobean house of Spye is a subterranean +passage beneath the terrace; but the Tudor entrance gate to the +picturesque park stands on the left-hand side of the road to Lacock just +before the road begins its winding precipitous descent. Evelyn saw the +house soon after it was built, and likened it to a long barn. The view +is superb, but, strangely enough, not a single window looked out upon +the prospect! After dining and a game of bowls with Sir Edward Baynton, +the Diarist took coach; but, says Evelyn, "in the meantime our coachmen +were made so exceeding drunk, that in returning home we escaped great +dangers. This, it seems, was by order of the knight, that all +gentlemen's servants be so treated; but the custom is barbarous and much +unbecoming a knight, still less a Christian." + +A mile or so to the east of the entrance gate of Spye is Sandy Lane, a +tiny hamlet with trim thatched cottages and a sturdy seventeenth-century +hostelry, the "George," looking down the street; and farther along in +the direction of Devizes stands the "Bell," another ancient roadside +inn, which, judging from its mullioned windows, knobbed gables, and +rustic porch, must date back to the days of the first Charles. + +In Bromham village also there are some pretty half-timber buildings, not +forgetting the "lock-up" by the churchyard. The exterior of the church +is richly sculptured; a fine example of the purest Gothic. + +[Illustration: LACOCK.] + +[Illustration: LACOCK.] + +Sleepy old Lacock, with its numerous overhanging gables, is a typical +unspoiled village. It was once upon a time a town, but by all +appearances it never can have been a flourishing one; and let us hope it +will remain in its dormant state now that there is nothing out of +harmony, for the Lacock of to-day must look very much as it did two +hundred years or more ago. It consists mainly of two wide streets, with +a fine old church at the end of one and a lofty seventeenth-century inn +at the other. Opposite the latter is a monastic barn with blocked-up +arched doorway, and facing it a fine row of timbered houses. Wherever +you go the pervading tone is grey, and one misses the little front +gardens with bright flowers and creepers. By the school stands the +village cross. Farther along a great wide porch projects into the +street, and over it a charming traceried wooden window. Nearer the +church the road narrows, and a group of timber cottages make a pleasing +picture, one of them with a wide entrance of carved oak spandrels above +an earlier stone doorway. The church, a noble edifice, has a very +graceful spire and some good tombs, including two wooden mural monuments +to Edward Baynard who lived in Elizabeth's reign, and to Lady Ursula +Baynard in the reign of Charles I. + +The monument of Sir John Talbot of Lacock describes him as born of the +most noble family of the Duke of Shrewsbury, which is somewhat +confusing. Sir John was descended from John, second Earl of Shrewsbury, +who died in 1460, and his monument was erected when the twelfth earl and +first duke was living. Sir John died in 1713, and his son and heir +predeceased him, as mentioned on the monument. + +[Illustration: LACOCK.] + +[Illustration: LACOCK ABBEY.] + +But the principal object of interest at Lacock, of course, is its famous +abbey, the early fifteenth-century cloisters being, it is said, the most +perfect example in England. It has been a residence since the +Dissolution, when the estate was granted by Henry VIII. to Sir William +Sherrington, the daughter of whose brother Sir Henry married a Talbot of +Salwarpe, the ancestor of the present owner, C. H. Talbot, Esq., a +learned antiquary, by whose care and skill so many points of interest +have been brought to light. The cloisters, refectory, chapter-house, +sacristy, etc., are in an excellent state of preservation, and there +are some fine hooded fireplaces, and among the curiosities, a great +stone tank in which fish were kept; and the nuns' cauldron, something +after the style of Guy of Warwick's porridge-pot. The groined roof of +the cloister is remarkable, the bosses showing their original colouring, +nearly two hundred or more all being of different design. The sides +facing the road are flanked by an octagonal tower of singular beauty, +ornamented with balustrades, and a staircase turret crowned with a +cupola. This contains the muniment-room, in which is preserved Henry +III.'s Magna Charta, which belonged to the foundress, Ela, Countess of +Shrewsbury, the widow of William Longespee, the son of Henry II. and +Fair Rosamond. Dugdale tells us that the site "Snaile's Mede" was +pointed out to this good lady in a vision. An epitaph to the abbess Ela +may still be seen within the cloisters. + +Sir John Talbot of Lacock was a staunch Royalist, and the first person +who received the Merry Monarch in his arms at Dover upon his landing in +1660. Both Sir John and his son Sharington Talbot figure as duellists in +the diaries of Pepys and Evelyn. The former was one of the six +combatants in that famous encounter at Barn Elms, where Buckingham +mortally wounded Francis Talbot, the eleventh Earl of Shrewsbury. Sir +John proved a better swordsman than his antagonist Captain William +Jenkins, for the latter was left dead upon the field. The Royal pardon +from Charles II. is still preserved in Lacock Abbey. The duel between +the younger Talbot and Captain Love at Glastonbury, in July 1685, is +mentioned by Evelyn. Both commanded a company of militia against +Monmouth at Sedgemoor, and after the battle an argument arose as to +which fought the best. The discussion grew heated, swords were drawn, +and Talbot was killed. He was the eldest and only surviving son of the +knight, and had he left issue, upon the death of the eleventh Earl of +Shrewsbury's son, the first and only duke, the Lacock Talbots would by +priority have become Earls of Shrewsbury. + +[Illustration: BEWLEY COURT.] + +Beyond the village, just before the road winds upwards towards Spye +Park, is Bewley Court, an interesting old farm, with trefoil windows and +Gothic entrance door of fine proportions. Its hall is intact, having its +wide open fireplace and open timber roof with carved beams. A reed-grown +canal, with one of those queer hand drawbridges, serves as the moat of +yore. Bewley by some is corrupted into "Brewery," for close by there is +such an establishment, and the ancient name has become submerged. There +are said to have been four Courts originally belonging to Lacock Abbey, +but this is the only remaining one. + +Each approach to Lacock is picturesque, but the most pleasing is from +the lane which runs up to Gastard and Corsham. This joins the Melksham +road by a charming old gabled and timbered cottage, not architecturally +remarkable, but pleasing in outline and colour. From the lane above, +this roadside cottage stands out against a background of wooded hill, +and when the sun is low it presents a picture which must have tempted +many an artist. On the way to Gastard and thence to Neston there are +many tumble-down old places which seem to be entirely out of touch with +the twentieth century. But at the highest point there is a startling +notice which might alarm a motorist should he lose his way up in these +narrow lanes. "Beware of the trams" is posted up in big letters! You +look around in astonishment, for silence reigns supreme; but by and bye +you come upon a stone quarry near the dilapidated entrance to what was +once probably a manor house, and a light falls upon the meaning of the +"trams." An artistic projecting signboard not far off bears the +inscription: + + "Arise, get up the Season now + Drive up Brave Boys + God speed the Plough." + +Up a narrow lane is a tiny chapel with a stone mullioned window cut down +into a semicircle at the top. A little stone sundial over the entrance +door, and the smallest burial-ground we have ever seen, are worth +notice for their quaintness. Farther to the west is Wormwood Farm, whose +ivy-clad gables give the house a more homely look than most hereabouts. +Higher up in a very bleak position is Chapel Plaster Hermitage, an older +building, whose little belfry surely cannot summon many worshippers. It +was a halting-place of pilgrims to Glastonbury, and in Georgian days of +lonely travellers, who were eased of their purses by a gentleman of the +road named Baxter, who afterwards was hung up as a warning on Claverton +Down. Near the wood, the resort of this highwayman, is Hazelbury House, +a sixteenth-century mansion, much reduced in size, whose formidable +battlemented garden walls are worthy of a fortress. It was once a seat +of the Strodes, whose arms are displayed on the lofty piers of the +entrance gate. On the other side of the Great Bath road is Cheney Court, +another gabled mansion which has been of importance in its day, and +within half a mile, Coles Farm, a smaller building, alas! fast falling +to decay. Its windows are broken and its panelled rooms are open to the +weather. We ploughed our way through garden, or what was once a garden, +waist-high with weeds, to a Tudor doorway whose door presumably was more +accustomed to be opened than closed. At the foot of the staircase was a +little wicket gate leading to the capacious cellars. Somebody had +scrawled above an ancient fireplace close by, a plea against wanton +mischief; but that was the only sign that anybody was interested in the +place. But we learned something from an intelligent farmer who was +picking apples in one of the surrounding orchards. It was very sad, he +said, but so it had remained for years. The owner was abroad, and though +various people had tried to buy it, there were legal difficulties which +prevented it. "But why not find a tenant?" we asked. "That would surely +be better than allowing it to fall to pieces!" He shook his head. "'Tis +too far gone," he said, "and there's no money to put it in repair." So +Coles Farm, situated in the midst of lovely hills and orchards, gives +the cold shoulder to many a willing tenant. + +It is a precipitous climb from here to Colerne, which across the valley +looks old and inviting from the Bath road. But the place is sadly +disappointing, and Hunters' Hall, which once upon a time was used as an +inn and possessed some remarkably fine oak carvings, is now a shell, and +scarcely worth notice. + +[Illustration: CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE.] + +[Illustration: CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE.] + +[Illustration: CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE.] + +The village of Corsham, approached either from the north or south, is +equally picturesque. By the former there is a long row of sturdy Tudor +cottages with mullioned windows and deep-set doorways; by the latter, +the grey gables of the ancient Hungerford Hospital, and beyond the huge +piers of the entrance to Corsham Court. An inscription over the +almshouse porch and beneath the elaborate sculptured arms of the +Hungerfords, says that it was founded by Lady Margaret Hungerford, +daughter of William Halliday, alderman of London, and Susan, daughter of +Sir Henry Row, Knight, Lord Mayor of London. The chapel is on the +right-hand side, and contains the original Jacobean pulpit, seats, and +gallery. The pulpit is a two-decker, and the seat beneath a comfortable +armchair of large proportions with an ingenious folding footstool. The +screen is a fine piece of Jacobean carving, with pilasters and +semicircular arches of graceful design, with the Hungerford arms upon +two shields. There is a good oak staircase and a quaint exterior +corridor leading to the several dwellings, with trim little square +gardens allotted to each. Corsham Court has a stately and dignified +appearance. The second entrance gate has colossal piers, which quite +dwarf the others previously mentioned. Beyond are the stables, a +picturesque row of Elizabethan gables and pinnacles. The south front of +the house preserves its original character in the form of the letter E +with the arms and the crest of the builder, William Halliday, on +pinnacles over the gables, and seven bay-windows. The interior of the +mansion has been much modernised, but the picture collection contains +some of the choicest old masters. Some of Lord Methuen's ancestors by +Reynolds and Gainsborough are wonderfully vigorous. Here is Vandyck's +Charles I. on horseback, with which one is so familiar. How many +replicas must there be of this famous picture! Charles II. hangs +opposite his favourite son in one of the corridors--a fine portrait of +the handsome Monmouth. One of the most curious pictures is a group by +Sir Peter Lely, representing himself in mediaeval costume playing the +violoncello to his own family in light and airy dress. One would have +thought that he would have clad his wife and daughters more fully than +some of his famous beauties: on the contrary. The church, whose tower is +detached, has been restored from time to time, and looks by no means +lacking in funds. The carved parclose of stone and two altar-tombs to +the Hanhams are the chief points of interest. There is a simple +recumbent effigy of one of the Methuens, a little girl, which in its +natural sleeping pose is strangely pathetic, even to those who know +nothing of the story of her early death. + +[Illustration: CASTLE COMBE.] + +Biddestone, above Corsham, has many good old houses round its village +green. The little bell turret to the church is singular, but the eye is +detracted by an ugly stove-pipe which sticks out of the roof close by. +There is some Roman work within, but the high box pews look out of +keeping. About three miles to the north-west is Castle Combe, one of +the sweetest villages in Wiltshire or in any other county. It is +surrounded by hills and hanging woods, and lies deep down and hidden +from view. As you descend, the banks on either side show glimpses, here +and there; a grey gable peeping out of the dense foliage or grey +cottages perched up high. Still downward, the road winds in the shade of +lofty trees, then suddenly you find yourself looking down upon the +quaint old market-cross, with the grey church tower peering over some +ancient roofs. This presumably is the market-place,--not a busy one by +any means, for beyond an aged inhabitant resting on the solid stone +base, or perhaps a child or two climbing up and down the steps (for it +is a splendid playground)--all is still. The village pump alongside the +cross, truly, supplies occasional buckets of water for the various +gabled stone cottages around, indeed (as is invariably the case when +one's camera is in position) people seemed to spring up from nowhere, +and the pump handle was exceptionally busy. The cross is richly +sculptured with shields and roses at the base, and the shaft rises high +above the picturesque old roof, which is supported by four moulded stone +supports. Undoubtedly it is one of the most perfect fifteenth-century +crosses in England. The road still winds downwards to a rushing stream +crossed by a little bridge, and here there is a group of pretty cottages +with prettier gardens abutting on the road. We have seen these under +very different aspects, in March with snow upon the creepers, and in +October when the creepers were brilliant scarlet, and scarcely know +which made the prettier picture. The sound of rushing water adds romance +to this sweet village. + +The ancient family of Scrope has been seated here for over five +centuries and a half. The "Castle Inn" by the market-cross remains +primitive in its arrangements, although the "tripping" season makes +great demands upon its supplies. Though ordinarily quiet enough, +occasionally there is a swarm, and a sudden demand of a hundred or so +"teas" is enough to try the resources of any hostess. But it was too +much for the poor lady here; her health was bad, and she would have to +flee before another season came round. Strange to say, it is the +slackness of business that usually sends folks away. The graceful +fifteenth-century pinnacled and embattled tower of the church gives the +ancient building a grand appearance. The church is rich in stained +glass, containing the arms of the various lords of the manor. + +[Illustration: YATTON KEYNELL MANOR.] + +Yatton Keynell, a couple of miles eastwards, possesses a fine Jacobean +manor-house, with a curious porch and very uncommon mullioned window. +The wing to the right was demolished not many years ago, so that now a +front of three gables is all that remains; and though it looks fairly +capacious, there are but few rooms, the space being taken up with +staircase (a fine one) and attics. The exterior of the church is good, +but the interior is "as new as ninepence," saving a fine +fifteenth-century stone rood-screen. The spiral staircase up to the +summit has been cut through, which is a pity, as otherwise the organ +would have been less conspicuous. The steps of the village cross now +serve as a basement for the village inn. + +[Illustration: BULLICH MANOR-HOUSE.] + +The churches of Stanton St. Quinton and Kingston St. Michael have +suffered internally as much as that of Yatton Keynell, and, alas! the +fourteenth-century manor-house of the St. Quintons is now no more. An +aged person working in the churchyard, though very proud that he had +helped to pull it down, insisted on pointing out the "ould dov-cart" +This may be pure "Wilshire," but until we saw the dovecot we did not +grasp the meaning. Nearer Chippenham is Bullich House, which fortunately +has been left in peace. Beside the entrance gate two queer little +"gazebos" were covered with Virginia creeper in its bright autumn tints. +The remains of the clear moat washed the garden wall, over which peeped +the gables of the house with the waning red sunlight reflected in the +casements--this was a picture to linger in one's memory; and there is +no telling how far one's fancy might not have been led by speculating +upon the meaning of two grim heads which form pinnacles above the porch, +had the stillness not been broken by the harsh sounds of the gramophone +issuing from a neighbouring cottage! If Bullich possesses a ghost, as it +ought to, judging by appearances, surely an up-to-date music-hall ditty +should "lay" him in the moat in desperation. + +[Illustration: SHELDON MANOR.] + +[Illustration: SHELDON MANOR.] + +About a mile away on the western side of the main road from Chippenham +to Yatton Keynell is Sheldon Manor, a charming old residence with a +great Gothic porch like a church, and a Gothic window over it belonging +to what is called the "Priest's chamber." Upon the gable end, over it, +is one of those queer little box sundials one occasionally sees in +Wiltshire. As you enter the porch the massive staircase faces you, with +its picturesque newels and pendants, and the little carved oak gate, +which was there to keep the dogs downstairs. In the wall to the right, +just beyond the entrance door, is a curious stone trough of fair +capacity. It is screened by a door, and exteriorly looks like a +cupboard; but what was the use of this trough we are at a loss to +conjecture, unless in old days the horses were admitted. + +[Illustration: SOUTH WRAXALL MANOR-HOUSE.] + +[Illustration: SOUTH WRAXALL.] + +But two of the finest old houses in the county are certainly South +Wraxall and Great Chaldfield, situated within a couple of miles from one +another to the west of Melksham. The former has recently been converted +from a farmhouse again into a mansion, and the latter is now undergoing +careful restoration. Though the exterior of Great Chaldfield is +unimpaired, and as perfect a specimen of an early fifteenth-century +house as one could wish to see, sad havoc has been played inside. The +great hall many years ago was so divided up that it was difficult to +guess at its original proportions. The finest Gothic windows with +groined roofs, ornamental bosses, and fireplaces, and carved oak beams, +have long since been blocked up and their places filled with mean ones +of the Georgian period or later. To fully comprehend the wholesale +obliteration of the original work, one has only to see the thousand bits +of sculptured masonry laid out upon the lawn of the back garden. To +place the pieces of the puzzle correctly together must be a task to try +the knowledge and patience of the most expert in such matters, but piece +by piece each is going into its proper place. The huge stone heads with +scooped-out eyes, through which the ancient lord of the manor could +watch what was going on below in the hall without being observed, once +again will be reinstated. There are three of them, and the hollowed eyes +have sharp edges, as if they were cut out only yesterday. Then there is +an ungainly grinning figure of the fifteenth century, locally known as +"Blue Beard," who within living memory has sat on the lawn in front of +the mansion; but his proper place is up aloft on top of one of the gable +ends, and there, of course, he will go, and, like Sister Ann, be able to +survey the road to Broughton Gifford to see whether anybody is coming. +Among the rooms now under course of repair is "Blue Beard's chamber," +and naturally enough the neighbouring children of the past generation +(we do not speak of the present, for doubtless up-to-date education has +made them far too knowing to treat such things seriously--the more's the +pity) used to hold the house in holy dread. But there certainly is a +creepy look about it, especially towards dusk, when the light of the +western sky shines through the shell of a beautiful oriel window, and +makes the monsters on the gable ends stand out while the front courtyard +is wrapt in shade. The reed-grown moat gives the house a neglected and +sombre look. The group of buildings, with curious little church with its +crocketed bell turret on one side and a great barn on the other, is +altogether remarkable. How it got the name of "Blue Beard's Castle" we +could not learn. Recently a "priest's hole" has been discovered up +against the ceiling in a corner of his chamber; but whether he concealed +himself here or some of his wives we cannot say. + +At the back of the manor there used to be a tumble-down old mill, which +unfortunately is now no more. The little church contains a good stone +screen (which has been removed from its original position), and some +stained glass in the windows. The pulpit, a canopied two-decker, and the +capacious high-backed pews (half a dozen at the most) have the +appearance of a pocket place of worship. But Great Chaldfield is a +parish by itself without a village; the congregation also is a pocket +one. + +As before stated, South Wraxall manor-house is restored to all its +ancient dignity; but somehow or other, though much care and money have +been bestowed upon it, it seems to have lost half of its poetry, for the +walls and gardens are now so trim and orderly, that it is almost +difficult to recognise it as the same when the gardens were weed-grown +and the walls toned with lichen and moss. Moreover, the road has been +diverted, so that now the fine old gatehouse stands not against the +highway, but well within the boundary walls. Inside are some remarkably +fine old rooms with linen panelling. The drawing-room has a superb stone +sculptured mantelpiece, upon which are represented Prudentia, +Arithmetica, Geometrica, and Justicia, and Pan occupies the middle +pedestal supporting the frieze, while four larger figures support the +mantel. The ceiling is coved, and ornamented with enormous pendants, and +the cornice above the great bay mullioned-window is enriched with a +curious design. A remarkable feature of the room is a three-sided +projection of the wall, the upper part of which is panelled, having +scooped-out niches for five seats, one in the middle and two on either +side. The banqueting-room also is a typical room of Queen Elizabeth's +time, and the "Guest chamber" is one of the many rooms in England which +claim the honour of inhaling the first fumes from a tobacco-pipe in +England. But Raleigh's pipe here is said to have been of solid silver; +moreover, tradition does not state that it was so rudely extinguished as +elsewhere, with a bucket of water: so, at any rate, here the story is +more dignified. To settle definitely where Sir Walter smoked his first +pipe would be as difficult a problem as to decide which was the mansion +where the bride hid herself in the oak chest, or which was King John's +favourite hunting lodge. + + + + +EASTERN AND SOUTHERN +SOMERSET + + +[Illustration: THE GEORGE, NORTON ST. PHILIP.] + +[Illustration: THE GEORGE, NORTON ST. PHILIP.] + +Somersetshire abounds in old-world villages, more particularly the +eastern division, or rather the eastern side--to the east, say, of a +line drawn from Bristol to Crewkerne. This line would intersect such +famous historic places as Wells and Glastonbury, but in our limited +space we must confine our attention more particularly to more remote +spots. One of these, for example, is the village of Norton St. Philip, +midway between Bath and Frome, which possesses one of the oldest and +most picturesque inns in England. This wonderful timber building of +projecting storeys dates mainly from the fifteenth century, although it +has been a licensed house since 1397, and upon its solid basement of +stone the "George" looks good for many centuries to come. It was +formerly known as the "Old House," not that the other buildings at +Norton St. Philip are by any means new. It is merely, comparatively +speaking, a matter of a couple of hundred years or so. + +Many are the local stories and traditions of "Philips Norton Fight," for +here it was that the Duke of Monmouth's followers had the first real +experience of warfare; and the encounter with the Royalist soldiers was +a sharp one while it lasted. Monmouth's intention of attacking Bristol +had been abandoned, and during a halt at Norton on June 27, 1685, his +little army was overtaken by the king's forces under the young Duke of +Grafton, Monmouth's half-brother. The lane where fighting was briskest +used to be remembered as "Monmouth Street," possibly the same steep and +narrow lane now called Bloody Lane, which winds round to the back of the +Manor Farm (some remains of which go back quite a century before +Monmouth's time), through the courtyard of which the duke marched his +regiment to attack the enemy in flank. The other end of the lane was +barricaded, so Grafton was caught in a trap, and had difficulty in +fighting his way through. + +Both armies sought protection of the high hedges, which, take it all +round, got the worst of it; but Grafton lost considerably more men than +Monmouth, although a cannonade of six hours on both sides only had one +victim. An old resident living fifty years ago, whose great-grandfather +fought for "King Monmouth," used to relate how the duke's field pieces +were planted by the "Old House," his grace's headquarters; and the +tradition yet lingers in the inn that Colonel Holmes, on Monmouth's +side, finished the amputation of his own arm, which was shattered with a +shot, with a carving knife. Some of the ancient farmhouses between Bath +and Frome preserve some story or another in connection with "Norton +Fight," and George Roberts relates in his excellent Life of Monmouth +that early in the nineteenth century the song was still sung: + + "The Duke of Monmouth is at Norton Town + All a fighting for the Crown + Ho-boys-ho." + +There are some curious old rooms in the "George"; and it is astonishing +the amount of space that is occupied by the attics, the timbers of which +are enormous. Up in these dimly lighted wastes, report says that a cloth +fair was held three times a year; and one may see the shaft or well up +which the cloth was hauled from a side entrance in the street. The fair +survives in a very modified form on one of the dates, May 1st. Upon +the first floor, approached by a spiral stone staircase, is "Monmouth's +room," the windows of which look up the road to Trowbridge. The open +Tudor fireplace, the oaken beams and uneven floor, carries the mind back +to the illustrious visitor who already was well aware that he was +playing a losing game, and knew what he might expect from the +unforgiving James. At the back of the old inn is the galleried yard, a +very primitive one, now almost ruinous, with rooms, leading from the +open corridors, tumbling to pieces, and floors unsafe to walk upon. +Through the gaps may be seen the cellars below, containing three huge +beer barrels, each of a thousand gallons' capacity. A fine stone +fireplace in one will make a plunge below ere very long. + +But Somersetshire owns another remarkable fifteenth-century hostelry, +the "George" at Glastonbury, in character entirely different from that +at Norton St. Philip. The panelled and traceried Gothic stonework of the +front, with its graceful bay-window rising to the roof, is perhaps more +beautiful but not so quaint, nor has it that rugged vastness of the +other which somehow impresses us with the rough-and-tumble hospitality +of the Middle Ages. "Ye old Pilgrimme Inn," as the "George" at +Glastonbury once was called, was built in Edward IV.'s reign, whose arms +are displayed over the entrance gateway. Here is, or was, preserved the +bedstead said to have been used by Henry VIII. when he paid a visit to +the famous abbey. + +A mile or so before one gets to Norton, travelling up the main road from +Frome, there is one of those exasperating signposts which are +occasionally planted about the country. The road divides, and the sign +points directly in the middle at a house between. It says "To Bath," and +that is all; and people have to ask the way to that fashionable place at +the aforesaid house. The inmate wearily came to the door. How many times +had he been asked the same question! He was driven to desperation, and +was going to invest in some black paint and a brush for his own as well +as travellers' comfort. But how much worse when there is no habitation +where to make inquiries! You are often led carefully up to a desolate +spot, and then abandoned in the most heartless fashion. The road forks, +and either there is no signpost, or the place you are nearing is not +mentioned at all. Unless your intuitive perception is beyond the +ordinary, you must either toss up for it, or sit down and wait +peacefully until some one may chance to pass by. + +[Illustration: CHARTERHOUSE HINTON.] + +[Illustration: WELLOW MANOR-HOUSE.] + +The church and manor-house of the pretty village of Wellow, above Norton +to the north-west, are rich in oak carvings. The latter was one of the +seats of the Hungerfords, and was built in the reign of Charles I. In +the rubbish of the stable-yard, for it is now a farm, a friend of ours +picked up a spur of seventeenth-century date, which probably had lain +there since the Royalist soldiers were quartered upon their way to meet +the Monmouth rebels. Another seat of the Hungerfords was Charterhouse +Hinton Manor, to the east of Wellow, a delightful old ivy-clad dwelling, +incorporated with the remains of a thirteenth-century priory. Corsham +and Heytesbury also belonged to this important family; but their +residence for over three centuries was the now ruinous castle of +Farleigh, midway between Hinton and Norton to the east. These formidable +walls and round towers, embowered in trees and surrounded by orchards, +are romantically placed above a ravine whose beauty is somewhat marred +by a factory down by the river. The entrance gatehouse is fairly +perfect, but the clinging ivy obliterates its architectural details and +the carved escutcheon over the doorway. But were it not for this natural +protection the gatehouse would probably share the fate of one of the +round towers of the northern court, whose ivy being removed some sixty +years ago brought it down with a run. The castle chapel is full of +interest, with frescoed walls and flooring of black and white marble. +The magnificent monuments of the Hungerfords duly impress one with their +importance. The recumbent effigies of the knights and dames, with the +numerous shields of arms and their various quarterings, are quite +suggestive of a corner in Westminster Abbey, though not so dark and +dismal. Here lie the bodies of Sir Thomas, Sir Walter, and Sir Edward +Hungerford, the first of whom fought at Crecy and the last on the +Parliamentary side, when his fortress was held for the king, and +surrendered in September 1645. His successor and namesake did his best +to squander away his fortune of thirty thousand pounds a year. His +numerous mansions were sold, including the castle, and his town house +pulled down and converted into the market at Charing Cross, where his +bewigged bust was set up in 1682. His son Edward, who predeceased him +before he came to man's estate (or what was left of his father's), +married the Lady Althea Compton, who was well endowed. In the letters +preserved at Belvoir we learn that the union was without her sire's +consent. "She went out with Mis Grey," writes Lady Chaworth in one of +her letters to Lord Roos, "as to a play, but went to Sir Edward +Hungerford's, where a minister, a ring, and the confidents were wayting +for them, and so young Hungerford maried her; after she writ to the +Bishop of London to acquaint and excuse her to her father, upon which he +sent a thundering command for her to come home that night which she did +obey." A week later she made her escape. But the runaway couple were +soon to be parted. Eight months passed, and she was dead; and the +youthful widower survived only three years. Old Sir Edward lived +sufficiently long to repent his extravagant habits, for he is said to +have died in poverty at five score and fifteen! + +[Illustration: OLD HOUSE NEAR CROSCOMBE.] + +[Illustration: BECKINGTON CASTLE.] + +Beckington, about four miles to the south of Farleigh, has another +castle, but more a castle in name than anything else. It is a fine +many-gabled house, by all appearances not older than the reign of James +I. or perhaps Elizabeth. It is close against the road, and practically +in the village, where are other lofty houses similar in character. There +is an erroneous tradition that James II. slept here the night before the +battle of Sedgemoor, regardless of the fact that his sacred Majesty was +snug in London. The house was long neglected and deserted, and owing to +stories of ghostly visitors and subterranean passages could not find a +purchaser at L100! But this was many years ago, as will be seen from an +advertisement quoted in an old number of _Notes and Queries_. Things are +different now, for ghosts and subterranean passages have a marketable +value. + +Somersetshire abounds in superstitions as well as in old-world villages. +From the southern part of the county come tales of people being +bewitched, and it is a good thing for many an aged crone that their +supposed offences are thought lightly of nowadays. + +Some five years ago a notorious "wise man" of Somerset, known as Dr. +Stacey, fell down stairs and broke his neck. The doctor's clients +doubtless had expected a more dignified ending to his career, for, +judging from his powers of keeping evil or misfortune at arm's-length, +it was a regular thing for people who had been "overlooked" to seek a +consultation so as to get the upper hand of the evil influence. His +patients were usually received at midnight, when incantations were held +and mysterious powders burned. In most instances this was done where +there had been continual losses in stock, or on farms where the cattle +had fallen sick. + +A remarkable instance of credulity only the other day came from the East +End of London, which, happening in the twentieth century, is too +astonishing not to be recorded here. A young Jewess sought the aid of a +Russian "wise woman" to bring the husband back who had deserted her. The +process was a little complicated. Eighteen pennyworth of candles stuck +all round with pins were burned. Pins also had to be sewn into the +lady's garments, and some "clippings" from a black cat had to be burned +in the fire. The cost of these mysterious charms altogether amounted to +nearly six pounds, which was expensive considering the truant husband +did not return. During some recent alterations to an old house near +Kilrush, Ireland, beneath the flooring was discovered a doll dressed +to personify a woman against whom a former occupant owed a deadly +grudge. It was stabbed through the breast with a dagger-shaped hairpin, +which presumably it was hoped would bring about a more speedy death than +the slower process of melting a diminutive waxen effigy. + +Cases of ague in Somerset are said to succumb if a spider is captured +and starved to death! Consumptives also are said to be cured by carrying +them through a flock of sheep in the morning when the animals are first +let out of the fold. It is said to bode good luck if, when drinking, a +fly should drop into one's cup or glass. When this happens, we have +somewhere heard, that a person's nationality may be discovered; but beer +must be the liquid. A Spaniard leaves his drink and is mute. A Frenchman +leaves it also untouched, but uses strong language. An Englishman pours +the beer away and orders another glass. A German extracts the fly with +his finger and finishes his beer. A Russian drinks the beer, fly and +all. And a Chinaman fishes out the fly, swallows it, and throws away the +beer. + +But enough of these peculiarities. + +[Illustration: CROSCOMBE CHURCH.] + +[Illustration: CROSCOMBE.] + +In the wooded vale between Shepton Mallet and Wells is a pretty +straggling village of whitewashed houses with Tudor mullioned windows +and, some of them, Tudor fireplaces within. This is Croscombe, which, +like Crowcombe in western Somerset, has its village cross, but a +mutilated one, and a church rich in Jacobean woodwork. The canopied +pulpit, dated 1616, and the chancel screen, reaching almost to the roof, +bearing the Royal arms, are perhaps the finest examples of the period to +be found anywhere. An inn, once a priory, near the cross has panelled +ceilings and other features of the fifteenth century. Some old cloth +mills, with their emerald green mill-ponds, are one of the peculiarities +of Croscombe. Shepton Mallet is depressing, perhaps because crape is +manufactured there. A lonely old hostelry to the south of the town known +as "Cannard's Grave," not a cheery sign under the most favourable +circumstances, but with padlocked doors and windows boarded up as we saw +it, had a forbidding look, and seemed to warrant the mysterious stories +that are told about it. The cross in the market-place was erected in +1500, but it has been too scraped and restored to classify it with those +at Cheddar or Malmesbury. The church contains a fine oak roof and some +ancient tombs, mainly to the Strodes, an important Somersetshire family +with Republican tendencies, one of whom harboured the Duke of Monmouth +in his house the night after his defeat at Sedgemoor. The remains of +this house, "Downside," stand about a mile from Shepton Mallet, but it +has been altered and restored from time to time, so that now it has +lost much of its ancient appearance. The pistols which the duke left +here remained in the possession of descendants until about eight years +ago, when they were lost. Monmouth's host, Edward Strode, also owned +what is now called "Monmouth House," from the fact that the duke slept +there on June 23rd and 30th, 1685, upon his march from Bridgwater +towards Bristol and back again. Monmouth's room may yet be seen, and not +many years ago possessed its original furniture.[18] + +[Illustration: LYTES CARY MANOR-HOUSE.] + +[Illustration: LYTES CARY MANOR-HOUSE.] + +[Illustration: FIREPLACE, LYTES CARY.] + +At Cannard's Grave we strike into the old Foss way, and if we follow it +through West Lydford towards Ilchester we shall find on the left-hand +side, a quarter of a mile or so from the road, Lytes Cary, one of the +most compact little manor-houses in western England. But the fine old +rooms are bare and almost ruinous. The arms of the Lytes occur in some +shields of arms in the "decorated" chapel (which is now a cider cellar), +and upon a projecting bay-window near a fine embattled and pierced +parapet. The hall is entered from the entrance porch (over which is a +graceful oriel), and has its timber roof and rich cornice intact. On the +first floor is a spacious panelled room with Tudor bay-window (dated +1533) and open fireplace, which if carefully restored would make a +delightful dwelling room; and it seems a thousand pities that this and +other apartments dating from the fourteenth century should be in their +present neglected state. The front of the manor-house reminds one of +Great Chaldfield in Wiltshire, but on a smaller scale and exteriorly +less elaborate in architectural detail. + +The eastern corner of the western division of Somerset is especially +rich in picturesque old villages and mansions--that is to say, the +country enclosed within or just beyond the four towns Langport, +Somerton, Chard, and Yeovil. Within this area, or a mile or so beyond, +we have the grand seats of Montacute, Brympton D'Eversy, Hinton St +George, and Barrington Court; the smaller but equally interesting +manor-houses of Sandford Orcas, South Petherton, and Tintinhull, and the +quaint old villages and churches of Trent, Martock, Curry Rivel, etc. + +[Illustration: ANCIENT SCREEN. CURRY RIVEL CHURCH.] + +The ancient county town of Somerton having been left severely alone by +the railway, remains in a very dormant state, and, of course, is +picturesque in proportion, as will be seen by its octagonal canopied +market-cross and the group of buildings adjacent Langport lies low, and +is uninviting, with marshy pools around, with to the north-west +Bridgwater way the villages of Chedzoy, Middlezoy, and Weston Zoyland, +full of memories of the fight at Sedgemoor. The church of Curry Rivel, +to the west of Langport, has many ancient carvings, and retains its +beautiful oak screen and bench-ends of the fifteenth century. Within its +ancient ornamented ironwork railing is a curious Jacobean tomb, +representing the recumbent effigies of two troopers, Marmaduke and +Robert Jennings. It seems selfish that they should thus lie in state +while their wives are kneeling below by two little cribs containing +their children tucked up in orderly rows like mummified bambinoes. On +the summit of a circular arch above, five painted cherubs are reclining +at their ease, and chained to one of the iron railings is a little +coffer which gives a touch of mystery to the whole. What does this +little sealed coffer contain?--for it must have been in its present +position since the monument was erected. Are the warriors' hearts +therein, or the bones of the five bambinoes? There is another Jacobean +tomb, just like a cumbrous cabinet of the period. It is hideous enough +for anything, and obscures one of three interesting fourteenth-century +mural monuments. + +In the old farmhouse of Burrow, near Curry Rivel, some swords and +jack-boots of the time of Charles II. were preserved. They are now in +the museum at Taunton, where we regret to say the buckle worn by the +Duke of Monmouth, and Lord Feversham's dish are now no longer[19] with +the other interesting relics of the fight at Sedgemoor. + +[Illustration: BARRINGTON COURT.] + +At Barrington Court and White Lackington manor-house, both near +Ilminster, Monmouth was entertained in princely state during his +progress through the western counties to win popularity. The latter is a +plain gabled house (a portion only of the original) which has suffered +by the insertion of sash windows. It seems to bear out its name, for it +is very white and staring. But Barrington is one of the most perfect +Elizabethan houses in Somersetshire, that is to say exteriorly, for the +inside has long since been stripped and modernised. The myriad of +pinnacles upon its gable ends, and its general appearance, recall the +stately Sussex mansion Wakehurst: the situation, however, is vastly +different, for it stands bare of trees on a wide extensive flat. The +Spekes of White Lackington and the Strodes of Barrington, it goes +without saying, were notorious Whigs; and though the duke's hosts +favoured his cause, they both managed to save their necks when the +terrible Jeffreys came down upon his memorable Progress. But the name of +Speke was enough for the judge, and the youngest son of White +Lackington, whose sins did not extend beyond shaking hands with his +father's illustrious guest, was swung up on a tree at Ilminster. In +the lovely fields around the manor-house it is difficult to imagine a +throng of twenty thousand who accompanied the popular duke. The giant +Spanish chestnut tree beneath which Monmouth dined in public, and which +had braved the tempests of many centuries, fell, alas! a victim to the +storm of March, 2, 1897, and with the destruction of "Monmouth's tree" a +link with 1680 has departed never to return. Barrington, we understand, +has recently been taken under the protecting wing of the Society for the +Preservation of Ancient Buildings, for which all those interested in +domestic architecture as well as buildings of historic association must +feel grateful. + +[Illustration: HINTON ST. GEORGE.] + +The little town of South Petherton, midway between Ilminster and +Ilchester, is full of old nooks and corners, from its ancient cruciform +church to the old hostelry in the High Street. From a very early date it +was a place of great importance; but since the days of the Saxon monarch +who resided there, the Daubeneys have stamped their identity upon King +Ina's palace, of which there are picturesque Tudor remains incorporated +in a modern dwelling, which to our mind has robbed it of the poetry it +possessed when in a ruinous condition. The villages of Martock above and +Hinton St George below are also full of interest; and both possess +their ancient market-crosses, but now curtailed and converted into +sundials with stone-step massive bases. But the glory of Martock is its +grand old church (where Fairfax and Cromwell offered up a prayer for the +capture of Bridgwater in 1645), whose carved black oak roof is one of +the finest in the west of England.[20] The ancient seat of the Pouletts +is an extensive but by no means beautiful house. It has a squat +appearance, being only two storeys high, with battlemented towers at the +angles and Georgian and Victorian Gothic sash-windows; but on the +southern side, a pierced parapet and classic windows give it a less +barrack-like appearance. Sir Amias Poulett (or Paulet, as it was +formerly spelled), the grandson of the builder of the house, who won his +spurs at the battle of Newark-on-Trent, is principally famous from the +fact that he put Wolsey in the stocks when that great person held the +living of Lymington, and upon one occasion took more than was good for +him. But the cardinal afterwards had his revenge, and put fine upon Sir +Amias to build the gate of the Middle Temple, which formerly bore the +prelate's arms elaborately carved, as a peace-offering from Sir Amias. +Lymington in Hampshire is often associated with the stocks' episode, but +Lymington near Ilchester, and some ten miles from Hinton, was the place. +Sir Amias had the custody of Mary Queen of Scots during the latter part +of her long imprisonment, and to him the "Good Queen" (?) more than +hinted that it would be a kindness to hasten her victim's end by private +assassination. Paulet, however, had a conscience, so Elizabeth had to +take upon herself the responsibility of Mary's execution. + +The historic stocks of Lymington are now no more, but beneath a big elm +tree on the village green at Tintinhull, close by, they still are +flourishing. Tintinhull, like Trent and other neighbouring villages, is +full of picturesque old houses, sturdy stone Jacobean and Tudor +cottages, with garden borderings of slabs of stone set up edgeways, and +slabs of stone running along the footway in a delightfully primitive +fashion. Tintinhull Court is a stately old pile dating from the reign of +Henry VIII. Its oldest side faces the garden, but the main front is a +good type of the seventeenth century. We will not repeat here the +particulars of Charles II.'s concealment at the old seat of the Wyndhams +after the battle of Worcester;[21] but on the spot, and though the +greater part of the house has been rebuilt, one may realise the +incidents in that romantic episode, for the village of Trent to-day is +much the same as the village of 1651. + +[Illustration: SANDFORD ORCAS MANOR-HOUSE.] + +The manor-house of Sandford Orcas, to the north-east of Trent (which by +the way now belongs to Dorset), is quite a gem of early-Elizabethan +architecture, with crests upon the gable ends, and the Tudor and Knoyle +arms and graceful panels upon the warm-coloured walls of Ham Hill stone. +Though a small house, it has its great hall with carved oak screen; and +most of the rooms are panelled, and have their original fireplaces. The +wide arched Tudor gateway spanning the road bears the arms of the +Knoyles, a monument to whom may be seen in the south aisle of the church +close by, the tower of which rises picturesquely above the gabled roof +of the manor-house. The village, the little there is of it, is buried in +orchards, between which the mill-stream winds, the haunt of a colony of +quacking ducks whose noisy gossip makes up for the paucity of +inhabitants. + +Some eight miles away, on the other side of Yeovil, there is a +manor-house, which for picturesqueness must take the palm of even +Sandford Orcas. This is Brympton D'Eversy, a remarkable mixture of the +domestic architecture of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth +centuries. One would think that the various styles would not harmonise, +but they do in a remarkable degree. Add to these the styles of the +thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which are conspicuous in portions +of the adjacent church, and there is indeed a field from which to study. +The northern front of the mansion, with its embattled Gothic bays and +rows of latticed windows, is flanked by the quaint little turreted +church, and together they form a most striking group not only in +outline, but attractive in colour, for grey-green lichens and the +peculiar rusty tint of stone blend in perfect sympathy. Picture this +house and church in crude white stone, unmellowed and toned by time, and +half its charm would be gone. Does not this open up a question worth +consideration? A modern house is built with conscientious exactitude in +imitation of some beautiful existing example of Gothic or Renaissance +architecture. Every detail is perfect, but the result is harsh and new. +One must wait almost a lifetime before it makes a picture really +pleasing to the eye. Therefore why not take some measures to tone down +the staring stone or obtrusive red-brick before the masonry is +constructed? True, there are a few exceptions where additions have been +made to ancient houses, which cannot be detected; but in the case of an +entirely new house, does it often occur to the builder how much more +pleasing would be the result if the exterior of his house were more in +harmony with the old oak fittings and ancient furniture with which it is +his ambition to fill it? Would that all such houses were built of Ham +Hill stone, for it has the peculiarity of imparting age much more +rapidly than any other. + +[Illustration: MONTACUTE HOUSE.] + +It is this that gives so venerable an appearance to Montacute House; +for, compared with many mansions coeval with it, the ancestral seat of +the Phelips family looks quite double the age. The imposing height of +Montacute as compared, for instance, with Hinton St. George, gives it +stateliness and grandeur, while the other has none. Like Hardwick, the +front of the house is one mass of windows; but it has not that formal +spare appearance, for here there are rounded gables to break the +outline. In niches between the windows and over the central gable stand +the stone representations of such varied celebrities as Charlemagne, +King Arthur, Pompey, Caesar, Alexander the Great, Moses, Joshua, Godfrey +de Bouillon, and Judas Maccabeus. They look down upon a trim old garden +walled in by a balustraded and pinnacled enclosure, with Moorish-like +pavilions or music-rooms at the corners. As a specimen of elaborate +Elizabethan architecture within and without, Montacute is unique. In +Nash's _Mansions_ there is a drawing of the western front, which is +still more elaborate in detail, and is earlier in date than the rest of +the house; and this may be accounted for as it was added when Clifton +Maybank (another house of the Phelips') was dismantled many years ago. +But of this old house there are yet some interesting remains.[22] Inside +there is a similarity also to Hardwick with its wide stone staircase and +its ornamental Elizabethan doorways and fireplaces. The hospitality in +the good old days was in keeping with the lordly appearance of the +mansion. Over the entrance may still be read the cheery greeting: + + "Through this wide opening gate, + None come too early, none return too late." + +But in these degenerate days the odds are that advantage would be taken +of such hospitality; and one marvels at the open-handed generosity such +as existed at old Bramall Hall in Cheshire, where the common road led +right through the squire's great hall,[23] where there was always kept a +plentiful supply of strong ale to cheer the traveller on his way. There +can have been but few tramps in those days, or they must have been far +more modest than they are to-day. + +[Illustration: MONTACUTE PRIORY.] + +Montacute Priory, near the village, has a fine Perpendicular tower and +other picturesque remains. To see it at its best, one should visit the +village late in autumn, when the Virginia creeper, which covers the +ancient walls, has turned to brilliant red. Other buildings under +similar conditions may look as lovely, but we can recollect nothing to +equal this old farmstead in its clinging robes of gold and scarlet. + +There are many interesting old inns in this part of Somersetshire, +notably in the town of Yeovil, where the "George" and "Angel" are +_vis-a-vis_, and can compare notes as to whose recollections go back the +farthest. The wide open fireplaces and mullioned windows of the former +are of the time of Elizabeth or earlier, but the stone Gothic arched +doorway and traceried windows of the latter can go a century better. But +important as they both have been in their day, neither has had the luck +or energy to keep pace with the times sufficiently to hold younger +generations of inns subservient. The old "Green Dragon" at Combe St. +Nicholas, near Ilminster, possessed a remarkable carved oak settle in +its bar-parlour. It was elaborately carved, the back being lined with +the graceful linen-fold panels. At the arm or corner were two figures, +one suspended over the other, the upper one representing a bishop in the +act of preaching. They were known as "the parson and clerk"; but when we +saw the settle the "parson" was missing, having mysteriously disappeared +some time before. The "clerk" was so worn out, having occupied his post +so for centuries, that his features were scarcely recognisable; but who +can wonder when he had been preached to for close upon four hundred +years! To be "overlooked" in remote parts of Somersetshire means certain +misfortune. Many a poor unoffending old woman, suspected of +"overlooking" people, has been knocked on the head that her blood might +be "drawn" to counteract the spell. Probably the parson's attitude +aroused suspicion, and he was quietly put away; but as his head had not +been broken neither had the spell, and the last we heard of the "Green +Dragon" was that it had been burnt down. + +The old landlady we remember had a firm belief that the death of one of +her sons was foretold by a death's-head moth flying in at the window and +settling on his forehead when he was asleep in his cradle. The child, a +beautiful boy, then in perfect health, was doomed, and her eldest son +immediately set forth with his gun to shoot the first bird he chanced to +see, to break the spell. However, that night the child died; and upon +the wall in a glass case was the stuffed bird as well as the moth, a +melancholy memento of the tragedy of thirty years ago. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] See _King Monmouth_. + +[19] Illustrations of these relics are in _King Monmouth_. + +[20] The open roof of the manor-house, now a cooper's shop, is also +worth inspection. + +[21] See _The Flight of the King_ and _After Worcester Fight_. + +[22] See illustration in _King Monmouth_. + +[23] This was formerly the case at "Payne's Place," Worcestershire, a +house mentioned in another chapter. + + + + +IN WESTERN SOMERSET + + +Some of the prettiest nooks of old-world "Zoomerzet" are to be found +under the lovely heather-clad Quantock Hills. The beauty of the scenery +has inspired Coleridge, Wordsworth, and many famous men, not the least +of whom was poor Richard Jeffreys, who has written sympathetically of +the delightful vale to the west of the range. + +To the north and north-west of Taunton the churches of Kingston and +Bishop's Lydeard are both remarkable for their graceful early-Tudor +towers. Of the two, the former is the finer specimen of Perpendicular +work, the soft salmon-yellow colour of the Ham stone being particularly +pleasing to the eye. The situation of the church is fine, commanding +grand views; and at the intersection of the roads to Asholt and +Bridgwater one gets a glorious prospect of Taunton and the blue +Blackdown Hills beyond on one side, and on the other the sea and the +distant Welsh mountains. + +Both churches have good bench-ends full four hundred years old, the +designs upon them being as clearly cut as if they had been executed only +a few years ago. One of them at Bishop's Lydeard represents a windmill, +from which we gather that those useful structures were much the same as +those with which we are familiar to-day. + +At Cothelstone to the north, approached by a romantic winding road +embosomed in lofty beech trees which dip suddenly down into a +picturesque dell, the church and manor-house nestle cosily together, +surrounded by hills and hanging woods. It is a typical Jacobean +manor-house of stone, with ball-surmounted gables and heavy mullioned +windows, approached from the road through an imposing archway, with a +gatehouse beyond containing curious little niches and windows. In the +gardens an old banqueting-room and ruined summer-house complete the +picturesque group of buildings. The church has some fine tombs. One of +the lords of the earlier manor-house reclines full length in Edwardian +armour, his gauntleted hands bearing a remarkable resemblance to a pair +of boxing-gloves. A descendant, Sir John Stawel, who fought valiantly +for Charles in the Civil War, lies also in the church. For his loyalty +his house was ruined and his estate sold by the Parliament, but his son +was made a peer by the Merry Monarch in acknowledgment of his father's +services. "The Lodge," an old landmark at Cothelstone, can boast a view +of no less than fourteen counties, and from a gap in the Blackdown +Hills, Halsdown by Exeter may be seen, while close at hand Will's Neck +looms dark against the sky. + +[Illustration: CROWCOMBE.] + +[Illustration: OLD HOUSE, CROWCOMBE.] + +Beneath the rolling Quantocks the road runs seawards, and at Crowcombe, +embowered in woods, brings us to another picturesque group: the church +on one side and a dilapidated Tudor building on the other. It is called +the "Church House," and, alas! by its ruinous condition one may judge +its days are numbered, although its solid timber Gothic roof, now open +to the sky, looks still good for a couple of centuries more. A crazy +flight of stone steps leads to the upper storey, or rather what remains +of it, the floor boards having long since disappeared. In the basement, +nature has asserted itself, and weeds and brambles are growing in +profusion. This lower part of the building was once used as almshouses, +the Tudor-headed doors leading into the several apartments. The upper +storey was the schoolroom, and had a distinct landlord from the +basement. Difficulties consequently arose; for when the owner of the +schoolroom suggested restorations to the roof, the proprietor of the +almshouses declined to participate in the expense, declaring that it was +his intention to pull his portion of the building down! A more +striking example of a house divided against itself could not be found, +hence the forlorn condition of the joint establishment of youth and age. + +[Illustration: CROWCOMBE CHURCH.] + +There are fine carved bench-ends in the church, one bearing the date +1534 in Roman figures. Upon another is represented two men in desperate +combat with a double-headed dragon. In the churchyard there is a cross, +and facing the village street another, the cross complete, which is +exceptional. + +Crowcombe Court, a stately red-brick house of the latter part of the +seventeenth century, has replaced the older seat of the Carews. Among +the fine collection of Vandycks is a full-length of Charles I. and his +queen, given by the second Charles to the family in acknowledgment of +their loyalty. Queen Henrietta looks prettier here than in many of her +portraits. There is also a fine Vandyck of James Stuart, Duke of +Richmond, and of Lady Herbert, and some of Lely's beauties, including +Nell Gwynn and the Countess of Falmouth, whose buxom face recalls some +of de Gramont's liveliest pages. + +A few miles to the east of Crowcombe, on the other side of the range of +hills, is the moated castle of Enmore, whose ponderous drawbridge can +still be raised and lowered like that at Helmingham. It is a formidable +barrack-like building of red stone, not of any great antiquity. In the +earlier structure lived Elizabeth Malet, the handsome young heiress with +whom the madcap Earl of Rochester ran away. Pepys on May 28, 1665, +relates "a story of my Lord Rochester's running away on Friday night +last with Mrs. Mallett, the great beauty of fortune and the north, who +had supped at Whitehall with Mrs. Stewart, and was going home to her +lodgings with her grandfather my Lord Haly [Hawley] by coach; and was at +Charing Cross seized on by both horse and foot men, and forcibly taken +from him and put into a coach with six horses, and two women provided to +receive her, and carried away. Upon immediate pursuit, my Lord of +Rochester (for whom the king had spoken to the lady often, but with no +success) was taken at Uxbridge; but the lady is not yet heard of, and +the king mighty angry, and the lord sent to the Tower." As may be +supposed, with so flighty a husband the pair did not live happily ever +after.[24] + +The Enmore estate passed to Anne, the eldest of their three daughters, +who married a Baynton of Spye Park near Melksham, where memories of the +profligate earl linger, as they do at Adderbury. + +The famous "Abode" at Spaxton, as impenetrable as Enmore although it has +no drawbridge, is close at hand. An adjacent hill, locally said to be a +short cut to heaven, commands a superb view of the surrounding country. +The original founder of the sect could scarcely have found a prettier +nook in England. + +A few miles to the north-west of Crowcombe is the picturesque village of +Monksilver, the church of which is rich in oak carvings of the fifteenth +century. The pulpit and bench-ends are particularly fine, but the screen +has been much mutilated. There are some grotesque gargoyles, one +representing a large-mouthed gentleman having his teeth extracted. + +[Illustration: COMBE SYDENHAM.] + +[Illustration: COMBE SYDENHAM.] + +Near Monksilver is the old seat of the Sydenhams, Combe Sydenham, a fine +old mansion, whose lofty square tower is un-English in appearance. The +house was built by Sir George Sydenham in 1580, who is locally said +still to have an unpleasant way of galloping down the glen at midnight. +Perhaps he is uneasy in his mind about the huge cannon-ball in the hall, +which he is said to have fired as a sign to his lady-love that he was +going to follow after and claim her as his bride. There are portraits of +some bewigged Sydenhams of the following century, the famous doctor, +perchance, and his soldier brother, Colonel William the Parliamentarian. +Some rusty old swords hang on the walls, and there is a curious painted +screen of Charles II.'s time which is sadly in need of repairs. The +servants' hall, with its open fireplace and tall-backed settle, remains +much as it has been for two hundred years or more. All these things +point to the fact that the same family has been in possession for +generations: at least it was owned by a Sydenham not so many years ago. +An effigy of Sir George with his two wives (perhaps this is the cause of +his uneasiness) may be seen in Stogumber church, about a mile away. + +At the back of Combe Sydenham are the remains of an old mill. The wheel +has disappeared, and the waterfall splashing in the streamlet below, +together with an ancient barn adjacent, form a delightful picture. + +To the west is Nettlecombe, a fine old gabled house, dating from the +latter part of Elizabeth's reign, containing ancestral portraits of the +Trevelyans and some curious relics, among which is a miniature of +Charles the martyr worked in his own hair. The estate belonged +originally to the Raleighs, whose name is retained in Raleigh Down and +Raleigh's Cross by Brendon Hill. + +Elworthy church, to the south-east, commands a fine position, and boasts +a painted screen bearing the date 1632 and some carved bench-ends. But +the churchyard looked sadly neglected and weed-grown. The great limb of +a huge yew tree overhangs the stocks, which we are grateful to observe +have been restored, and not allowed to decay as those at Crowcombe. + +From here we went farther to the south-east in search of a place locally +called "Golden Farm," or properly Gaulden, where, depicted on a plaster +ceiling of ancient date, are various scenes from biblical history, from +the temptation of Adam downwards. Now, whether the good gentleman who +rents the farm has been besieged by classes for the young anxious to +learn on the Kindergarten system, or whether the arms of the Turberville +family that figure upon a mantelpiece has connected the house with a +certain well-known novel and brought about an American invasion, the +fact remains that his equanimity has evidently become disturbed. His +door was closed, and he was proud that he could boast that he had turned +people away who had come expressly across the Atlantic! Sadly we turned +away, but with inward congratulations that we had not come quite so far, +when, lo! the worthy farmer showed signs of relenting. We might come in +for half a guinea, he said condescendingly. We thanked him kindly and +declined, observing that the fee at Windsor Castle was more than ten +times less. 'Tis little wonder that they call it "Golden Farm." + +Equidistant from Monksilver to the north-west is Old Cleeve, a pretty +little village near the coast, whose ruined Cistercian abbey has nooks +and corners to delight the artist or antiquarian. The grey old +gatehouse, with a little stream close by, make a delightful picture, +indeed from every point of view the ancient walls and arches, with their +farmyard surroundings, form picturesque groups. In one of the walls is a +huge circular window: the rose window of the sacristy that has lost its +tracery. Viewed from the interior, the round picture of blue sky and +meadows gay with buttercups makes a striking contrast with the deep +shadow within the cold grey walls. A flight of stone steps leads to the +refectory, whose rounded carved oak roof and projecting figure ornaments +and bosses are in excellent preservation. There is a great open +fireplace and the tracery in the windows is intact. A painting in +distemper on the farther wall represents the Crucifixion, and as far as +artistic merit is concerned better by far than the colossal figure +conspicuous in the Roman Catholic cathedral at Westminster. + +[Illustration: DUNSTER.] + +The road from here to Dunster is delightful, and as you approach the +quaint old town--for it is a town, difficult as it is to believe it--the +castle stands high up on the left embosomed in trees, a real fairy-tale +sort of fortress it appears, with a watch-tower perched up on another +wooded hill to balance it. The Luttrells have lived here for centuries, +and during the Civil War it was for long a Royalist stronghold, held by +Colonel Wyndham, the governor. The gallant colonel's spirited answer to +the threat of the Parliamentarians to place his aged mother in their +front ranks to receive the fury of his cannon should he refuse to +deliver up the castle, is a fine example of loyalty. "If ye doe what you +threaten," he said, "you doe the most barbarous and villanous act was +ever done. My mother I honour, but the cause I fight for and the masters +I serve, are God and the King. Mother, doe you forgive me and give me +your blessing, and tell the rebells answer for spilling that blood of +yours which I would save with the loss of mine own, if I had enough for +both my master and your selfe." But fortunately matters did not come to +a climax, for Lord Wentworth appeared upon the scene with a strong force +and relieved the beleaguered garrison. The loyalty of old Lady Wyndham +and her son was further put to the test a few years afterwards when +young King Charles lay concealed in their house at Trent near +Sherborne.[25] + +Within the castle there is a curious hiding-place which carries us back +to those troublous times. Local tradition has connected it in error with +the visit of the second Charles, whose room is still pointed out; but +the king was then not a fugitive, otherwise doubtless this secret +chamber would have proved as useful to him as that at Trent House in +1651. + +The main street of Dunster, with its irregular outline of houses +climbing up a hill, and the quaintest old market-house at the top backed +by a dense maze of foliage beyond, is exceedingly picturesque. Judging +from the hole made by a cannon-ball from the castle in one of the oaken +beams of this remarkable "yarn market," poor Lady Wyndham had a lucky +escape. The marvel is the old structure has remained until now in so +delightful an unrestored condition. It has the colour which age alone +can impart, a red purple-grey which, contrasted with the background as +we saw it of laburnum and may, formed a picture long to be remembered. +The old inn, the "Luttrell Arms," has many points of interest--some fine +fifteenth-century woodwork, in the courtyard, a carved ceiling, and a +rich Elizabethan fireplace; but doubtless from the fact that the +landlord gets too many inquiries about these things, he is tardy in +showing them. The church has one of the finest carved oak screens of +Henry VI.'s reign in England, which to our mind looks much better in its +unpainted state. One has but to go to Carhampton, close by, to make a +comparison. The paint may be in excellent taste, and like it was +originally; but when the original paint has gone, is it not best to +leave the woodwork plain? Under these conditions the screen at least +looks old, but the fine screen at Carhampton does not. A smaller +screen in the transept of Dunster church presents yet more bold and +beautiful design in the carving; and about this and the ancient tombs +and altar, the bright and intelligent old lady who shows one round has a +fund of information to impart. She is very proud, and naturally so, of +the interesting building under her charge. Up a side street is the +nunnery with its slate-hung front: a lofty, curious building some three +centuries old or more. + +Minehead Church is equally interesting. It stands high up overlooking +the sea, and commands a magnificent prospect of the hanging-woods of +Dunster and the heights of Dunkery. The rood-screen is good, but has +been mutilated in parts. The ancient oak coffer is remarkable for the +bold relief of its carving, representing the arms of Fitz-James +quartered with Turberville as it occurs in Bere Regis church. + +There is a fine recumbent effigy of a man in robes, said to be a famous +lawyer named Bracton, although he has much the appearance of a cleric. +Whether it was considered conclusive proof that the person interred was +a lawyer from the fact that on being opened the skull revealed a double +row of upper teeth, we do not know, but there are other evidences. A +victim of insomnia is said to resemble a lawyer, because he lies on one +side then turns round and lies on the other; and this is precisely what +this effigy did. We had the good fortune to fall in with the organist of +St. Michael, and he declared that he had taken a photograph of the +worthy in which the figure had _changed its position_, the head being +where the feet should be--everything else in the picture being precisely +in its right position! + +In the church is one of those quaint little figures which in former +years was worked by the clock "Jack-smite-the-clock," of which there are +examples at Southwold, Blythborough, etc. The former rector held the +living for seventy years, and some trouble was caused because he had +willed that some of the ancient parish documents were to be interred +with him robed in his Geneva gown. It is said his wish was duly carried +out, but the papers were afterwards rescued. + +Bossington, on the coast to the north-west of Porlock, is a delightful +little village, lying at the foot of the great heather-clad hills. The +rushing stream and the moss and lichen everywhere add much to its +picturesqueness, but we should imagine there is too much shade and damp +to be enjoyable in the winter. In the middle of the narrow road stands a +very ancient walnut tree with twisted limbs and roots, one of many +walnut trees in the village. There are cosy ancient thatched cottages +in Porlock, and the "Ship Inn," with its panelled walls, is the most +inviting of hostelries, but the popular novel _Lorna Doone_ has rather +spoiled the primitive aspect of the place by introducing some buildings +out of keeping with the rest. + +The weary traveller has a great treat in store, for the view from the +top of Porlock Hill is remarkable. But it is well worth the climb, and +by the old road it is indeed a climb! When we were there it was a misty +day in June, and we never remember so remarkable a prospect as from the +summit. The brilliant gorse stood out against the varying shades of +green and purple of the moorland, and below all that could be seen was +one solid mass of snow-white cloud, the outline of which was sharply +defined against a distant glimpse of the soft blue sea and the deep blue +Glamorganshire hills, looking wonderfully like a glacier-field. Next +morning came the news that in the mist the warship _Montagu_ had run on +the rocks by Lundy. + +The romantic scenery of Lynmouth and Lynton is too well known to call +for any particular description here. Little wonder that one sees so many +honeymoon couples wandering everywhere about the lovely lanes. Lovers of +old oak, too, will find all that they desire at Lynmouth, for here is +the most tempting antique repository, calculated to make tourist +collectors of Chippendale and oak wish they had economised more in their +hotel bills. Motor cars sail easily down into the valley from Porlock, +but a sudden twist in the steep ascent to Lynton causes many a snort and +groan accompanied by an extra scent of petrol. + +But we have overstepped the county line and are in Devon. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] See _Some Beauties of the Seventeenth Century_. + +[25] See _Flight of the King_ and _After Worcester Fight_. + + + + +IN DEVON AND DORSET + + +Those who have never been to Clovelly can have no idea of its +quaintness, no matter what descriptions they have read or pictures they +may have seen. One goes there expecting to find the little place exactly +as he imagines it to be, and is agreeably surprised to find it is quite +different. It is so unlike any other place, that one looks back at it +more as a dream than a real recollection. We do not hint that the +everlasting climb up and down may be likened to a nightmare. Not a bit +of it. Though we gasp and sink with fatigue, we have still breath enough +left in our body to sing in praise. Were the steps more steep and less +rambling, perhaps we should not be so satisfied. What excellent exercise +for muscular-leg development. But how about the older part of the +inhabitants? + +We had the honour to converse with the oldest Clovellian, a hale and +hearty fisherman, who, by no means tardy in introducing himself, +promptly proceeded to business. For twopence we might take his +photograph. We thanked him kindly, and having disbursed that sum +reserved our plates for inanimate curiosities. + +It is gratifying to learn that there is no room for "improvement" at +Clovelly, and there are fewer houses than there used to be. +Consequently there is nothing new and out of harmony. The cottages are +really old and quaint, not as we expected to find them, imitations, like +half the houses in Chester. + +Even the "New Inn" is delightfully old, with queer little rooms and +corners, and little weather-cock figures above the sign, of the time of +Nelson. It is a novel experience to arrive there in the dusk and +walk (?) down the High Street to the sea. The most temperate will +stumble and roll about as if he had sampled the cellar through, and ten +to one but he doesn't finally take an unexpected header into the sea. + +But granted he reaches the end of the little pier (which projects after +the fashion of the "Cobb" at Lyme Regis), he will find a hundred lights +from the cottages as if lanterns were hung on the hillside, their long +reflections rippling in the water. + +The place is as much a surprise as ever in broad daylight. One might be +in Spain or Italy. Donkeys travel up and down the weed-grown cobble +steps carrying projecting loads balanced on their backs. Indeed, one is +quite surprised to hear the people speaking English, or rather +Devonshire, the prettiest dialect. In the daylight the little +balconied-houses overhanging the sea look more like pigeon-cots nailed +to the steep rock, and one almost wonders how the inhabitants can get +in. Long may Clovelly remain as it is now, the quaintest little place in +England! + +[Illustration: CEILING IN THE GOLDEN LION, BARNSTAPLE.] + +The town of Barnstaple is an excellent centre for exploration, and the +antiquity of the "Golden Lion" is a guarantee of comfort. It was a +mansion of the Earls of Bath, and upon a richly moulded ceiling, with +enormous pendants of the date of James the First, are depicted biblical +subjects, including the whole contents of the Ark, or a good proportion +of it. The spire of the church of SS. Peter and Paul looks quite as out +of the perpendicular as the spire at Chesterfield. There are some good +Jacobean tombs, but nothing else in particular. + +The aged inmates of the almshouses point out the bullet-marks in their +oaken door, made when the Royalists fortified the town in 1645. Lord +Clarendon, who was governor of the town, tells us that here it was +Prince Charles first received the fatal news of the battle of Naseby. +The prince had been sent to Barnstaple for security. The house he lodged +at in the High Street was formerly pointed out, but has disappeared. + +The poet Gay was a native of the town, and early in the nineteenth +century some of his manuscripts were discovered in the secret drawer of +an old oak chair that had passed from a kinsman on to a dealer in +antiques who lived in the High Street. + +Close to the town is Pilton, whose church is full of interest. The +carved oak hood of the prior's chair, which dates from Henry VII.'s +reign, serves the purpose now to support the cover of the font. At the +side may be seen an iron staple to which in former years the Bible was +chained. From the fine Gothic stone pulpit projects a painted metal arm +and hand which holds a Jacobean hour-glass. The screen and parclose +screen are also good, and the communion rails and table in the vestry +are of Elizabethan date. The church pewter is also worth notice, as well +as an old pitch pipe for starting the choir. The porch bears evidence +that the tower was roughly handled when Fairfax captured Barnstaple in +1646. The existing tower was built fifty years later. + +Nowhere have we seen so fine and perfect a collection of carved oak +benches as at Braunton, a few miles to the north-west of Pilton. They +are as firm and solid as when first set up in Henry VII.'s reign, and +are rich in carvings, as is the graceful wide-spanned roof. One of the +bosses represents a sow and her litter, who by tradition suggested the +idea of the holy edifice being erected by Saint Branock. A window +showing some of this good person's belongings, spoken of in the tenth +commandment, is mentioned by Leland, but since then possibly some local +antiquary may have disregarded what is forbidden in that ancient law. +Presumably there have been attempts also to annex the ruins of the +patron-saint's chapel, for the villagers pride themselves that all +attempts to remove them have failed. What an object-lesson to the jerry +builders of to-day! + +Farther to the north-west and we get to Croyde Bay, which perhaps one +day may have a future on account of its open sea and sands. At present +it looks in the early transition state. + +Tawstock, to the south of Barnstaple, is said to possess the best manor, +the noblest mansion, the finest church, and the richest rectory in the +county. Certainly the church could not easily be rivalled (the +"Westminster of the West," as it is called) in its picturesque position, +surrounded by hills and woods, with the old gateway of the manor-house, +the sole remains of the original "Court," flanking the winding road +which leads down to it: we almost feel justified in adding to these +superlatives the "handsomest Jacobean tomb, and the most elaborate +Elizabethan pew," but will not commit ourselves so far. The former, on +the left-hand side of the altar, is that of the first Earl of Bath +(Bourchier) and his wife. Above their recumbent effigies is a great +display of armorial bearings, with sixty-four quarterings hung upon a +vine, showing the intermarriages of the principal families of England. +There are many other fine monuments, that of Rachael, the last Countess +of Bath, who died in Charles II.'s reign, representing a lifelike and +exceedingly graceful figure in white marble. She was the daughter of +Francis, Earl of Westmoreland, and married secondly, Lionel, third Earl +of Middlesex, who predeceased her. The Elizabethan pew of the +Bourchier-Wrays, lords of the manor, has a canopy, and is richly carved; +but it was originally of larger dimensions. Close by are some fine +bench-ends, one of which displays the arms of Henry VII. High aloft is a +curious Elizabethan oak gallery by which the ringers reach the tower, +upon which are carvings of the vine pattern, a favourite design in +Devon. An early effigy in wood must not be forgotten, the recumbent +figure of a female, supposed to be a Hankford, who brought the Tawstock +estates into the Bourchiers' possession. + +From northern Devonshire let us turn our attention to some nooks in the +easternmost corner and in the adjoining part of Dorset. + +Of all the villages along the coast-line here, Branscombe is the most +beautiful and old-fashioned. Many of the ancient thatched and +whitewashed cottages have Tudor doors and windows. Some of the best, +alas! were condemned as being unsafe some fifteen years ago, among them +one which in the old smuggling days had many convenient hiding-places +for that industry, for Branscombe was every bit as notorious as the +little bay of Beer. The church is, or was not long since, delightfully +unrestored, for fortunately the good rector is one who does not believe +in up-to-date things, and the sweeping changes which are rampant in +places more accessible. It is the sort of comfortable old country church +that we associate with the early days of David Copperfield or with +Little Nell. Truly the high box-pews are not loved by antiquarians, but +is it not better to leave them than replace them with something modern +and uncomfortable? If the original oak benches of the fifteenth or +sixteenth centuries could be replaced, that is entirely another matter. +But they cannot, therefore let those who love old associations not +banish the Georgian pews without a thought that they also form a link +with the past. The church is cruciform, and principally of the Early +English and Early Decorated periods, the old grey tower in the centre +standing picturesquely out in the beautifully wooded valley. The village +of Beer is also very charming, and the fisher folk fine types of men. It +is delightful to watch the little fleet set sail; but in the summer the +air in the tiny bay is oppressive, and the effluvia of fish somewhat +overpowering. The extensive caves here have done good service in the +smuggling days. + +[Illustration: BINDON.] + +[Illustration: BINDON.] + +Another charming village is Axmouth, situated on the river which gives +its name. Old-fashioned cottages with gay little gardens straggle up the +hill, down which the clearest of streams runs merrily, affording delight +to a myriad of ducks who dip and paddle to their hearts' content. The +church has Norman features, and the tower some quaint projecting +gargoyles. From the other side of the river at high tide the old church +and cluster of cottages around it, backed by the graceful slope of +Hawksdown Hill behind, make a charming picture. High up in the hills, +through typical Devonshire fern-clad lanes, is Bindon, an interesting +Tudor house containing a chapel of the fifteenth century. The entrance +from the road, with its circular stone gateway and gables with latticed +mullioned-windows peeping over the moss-grown wall, is charming, as are +also the old farm-buildings at the back, in which an enormous canopied +well is conspicuous. But more gigantic still is the well at Bovey, +another Tudor house, near Beer, which bears the reputation of being +haunted. But with the exception of some gables at the back, Bovey is +less picturesque than Bindon, owing, perhaps, to the fact that the roof +has been re-slated. + +More interesting are the remains of old Shute House, which lies inland +some six or seven miles. This was a far more extensive mansion, as will +be seen by the imposing embattled gateway and a remaining wing, which +rather remind one of a bit of Haddon. Here during the Monmouth Rebellion +the Royalist commander Christopher, second Duke of Albemarle, encamped +on June 18, 1685, the same day that the other duke, the boon companion +of his wilder days, entered Taunton. The house belonged then, as it does +still, to the De la Poles. + +Most of the old houses hereabouts are associated in some sort of way +with the rebellion. Close upon the county border to the north-east +stands Coaxden, a much modernised old farm, where stories are told of +fugitives from Sedgemoor. How its occupant, Richard Cogan, being +suspected as a Monmouth adherent, fled from his house to Axminster, +where in the "Old Green Dragon Inn" the landlord's daughter secreted him +between a feather-bed and the sacking of a bedstead. Kirke's "lambs" +traced him to the house, but failed to hit upon his hiding-place. The +story ends as all such stories should, the girl who preserved his life +became his wife. The house is further interesting as the birthplace in +1602 of Sir Symonds D'Ewes the historian. + +[Illustration: WYLDE COURT.] + +A couple of miles or so to the west is Wylde Court, another interesting +old farmhouse, much less restored, dating from Elizabeth's reign, with +numerous pinnacled gable ends and characteristic entrance porch and oak +panelled rooms. This and Pilsdon, another Tudor house a few miles to the +west, at the foot of Pilsdon Pen, belonged to the Royalist Wyndhams, and +in the troublous times they were looked upon with suspicion, and +searched on one or two occasions by the Parliamentary soldiers. +"Hellyer's Close," near Wylde Court, is so named because a Royalist +commander, Colonel Hellyer, was taken prisoner and executed here by +Cromwell's soldiers. At the time that Charles II., in 1651, attempted to +get away to France from the coast of Dorset, Pilsdon was visited by a +party of Cromwellian soldiers, and Sir Hugh Wyndham and his family +secured in the hall while the house was thoroughly searched, suspicion +even falling upon one of the ladies that she was the king in +disguise.[26] Sir Hugh's monument may be seen at Silton in the extreme +north corner of the county. + +Chideock is a charming old-world village in the valley between Charmouth +and Bridport, snugly perched between the cone-shaped eminence Colmer's +Hill and Golden Cap, the gorse-covered headland, said to be the highest +point between Dover and the Land's End. The castle of the De Chideocks +and Arundells, a famous stronghold built in Richard II.'s reign, long +since has disappeared, but its moat can be traced. The fine old church +exteriorly is one of the most picturesque in Dorsetshire, but the inside +has been much restored and modernised. A handsome tomb of Sir John +Arundell in armour is in the south aisle. + +Longevity seems to be the order of the day round "Golden Cap." At Cold +Harbour we chatted with a hearty old man enjoying his pipe by his +cottage door. He was close on eighty; but there was still a generation +over his head, for his father, evidently to show his son a good example, +was hard at work digging potatoes in the back garden. We solicited the +honour to photograph the pair, and asked the elder of the two if he +would have a pipe. No, he didn't smoke, but he could drink, he said; and +so, of course, we took the hint, and he with equal promptitude toddled +up the lane, as digging potatoes at the age of ninety-nine is thirsty +work. + +There is a deep picturesque lane near Chideock called "Skenkzies" which +at night-time is particularly dark, and held in awe, for there are +stories of evil spirits lurking about; and little wonder, for close at +hand is a farmhouse called "Hell!" Old customs and superstitions die +hard in western Dorset. Forlorn and love-sick maidens as a special +inducement for their lovers to appear, place their boots at right angles +to one another in the form of a T upon retiring to roost. The charm is +said to be irresistible; but there have been cases where it has failed, +when the size has exceeded "men's eights." + +[Illustration: MAPPERTON MANOR-HOUSE.] + +[Illustration: MELPLASH COURT.] + +To the north-west of Bridport and the south-west of Beaminster are two +old houses within a couple of miles of one another, the manor-houses of +Melplash and Mapperton. The former, a plain Elizabethan gabled house, is +said to have been one of the many residences of Nell Gwyn. Whether the +old Hall of Parnham, the seat of the Strodes, was honoured by a visit of +the Merry Monarch we do not know. If so, it is possible Nell may have +been housed at Melplash. Mapperton is a remarkably picturesque house, +with projecting bays and a balustraded roof, above which are little +dormer windows. Part of the house is evidently Jacobean and part dates +from the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and the combination of +styles, the niched entrance gates surmounted by eagles, the ornamental +pinnacles, and the "upping-stock" beside the wall, make a most fantastic +whole. It was once the seat of the Coker family. + +[Illustration: WATERSTONE.] + +There are some interesting old mansions within a few miles of +Dorchester. Wolverton or Wolfeton manor-house, for example, and +Waterstone and Athelhampton, the last two of which appear in Nash's +_Mansions_. Each one is entirely different from the other. Waterstone is +a small late-Elizabethan or early-Jacobean house, with a quaint +balustraded bay over the entrance porch, and some elaborate and graceful +stonework upon a projecting gable that stands at right angles to it. +This presumably was once the principal entrance. It is certainly quite +unique and somewhat perplexing. At Wiston House in Sussex we remember +having seen some very elaborate Elizabethan ornamentation upon a gable +which really had no business there, although the effect was very +pleasing: and here, perhaps, we have the same sort of thing. Wolverton +is a fine early-Tudor building with battlemented tower and a stately +array of lofty mullioned windows, and careful restoration has added to +its picturesque appearance. + +[Illustration: ATHELHAMPTON.] + +[Illustration: ATHELHAMPTON.] + +[Illustration: ATHELHAMPTON.] + +But sympathetic restoration may be seen at its best at Athelhampton. We +took some photographs many years ago, when it was occupied as a +farmhouse, and upon a recent visit could scarcely recognise it as the +same. Not that the house has been much altered exteriorly, but the +quaint old-fashioned gardens, with pinnacled Elizabethan walls, ancient +fish-ponds and fountains, have sprung up and matured in a manner that +had one not seen the gardens as they were, one would scarcely credit it. +Wonders have been done within as well, and the great hall is very +different from what it was before the present owner came into +possession. There are suits of armour and Gothic cabinets to carry us +back to the days of doublet and trunk-hose and square-toed shoes. Where +formerly were pigsties is now a terrace walk, and the quaint old +circular dovecot has been carried off bodily and planted where it +balances to best advantage. But one thing we should like to see, and +that is the ancient gatehouse that was standing in Nash's time. There is +his drawing to go by, and where everything has been done in such +excellent taste one need have little fear that in a few years a new +building would settle down harmoniously with the rest. + +Close by is Puddletown, a pretty old village with a remarkable church, +where, as at Athelhampton, everything is in harmony. It is the sort of +church one reads about in novels, yet so seldom meets; and now we come +to think of it, this village does figure in a popular Wessex novel. +Doubtless there are some lovers of ecclesiastical architecture who would +like to see the Jacobean woodwork cleared out and _modern_ Henry VII. +benches introduced to make the whole coeval. The towering three-decker +pulpit is delightful, and so are the ancient pews, and the old gallery +and staircase leading up to it. Within the Athelhampton chapel are +mailed effigies, and several ancient brasses to the Martin family who +originally owned the mansion. + +Bere Regis church, some six miles to the east of Puddletown, is also +remarkable, particularly for its open hammer-beam roof from which +project huge life-size figures of pilgrims, cardinals, bishops, etc., +and monster heads suggestive of the pantomime. The whole is coloured, +and the effect very rich and strikingly original. One can imagine how +the younger school-children must be impressed with these awe-inspiring +figures looking down upon them with steady gaze. There are two fine +canopied tombs (one containing brasses dated 1596) to the Turburvilles, +who possessed a moiety of the lordship since the Conquest. Their old +manor-house, a few miles south at Wool, a red-brick Jacobean gabled +house with roomy porch in which a great pendant is conspicuous, +picturesquely situated by an old bridge and the winding reed-grown +river, has of recent years obtained notoriety by Mr. Thomas Hardy's pen. +We photographed the old house some years ago before it had been thus +immortalised. Upon a recent visit we found the house desolate and empty. +Had the good farmer flown in consequence, and sought an abode that had +not become a literary landmark? + +But the vicinity of Bere Regis had obtained notoriety of a tragic kind +many centuries before the birth of _Tess of the d'Urbervilles_, for that +very undesirable lady, Queen Elfrida, retired there for peace and +quietness after various deeds of darkness, one of which, according to +the _Annals_ of Ely, is said to have been inserting red-hot nails into +Abbot Brithnoth's armpits; and from Lytchet Maltravers to the east of +Bere came Sir John Maltravers to whose tender mercies the unfortunate +Edward II. was delivered before he was done to death at Berkeley Castle. +Sir John's monument is in the church; but as it was not the fashion in +those days to enumerate the various virtues of the departed in laudatory +verse, this particular act of charity is not recorded in suitable +effusion. + +[Illustration: MONMOUTH'S TREE.] + +Wimborne Minster to the north-east is too world-famed to call for any +particular description here, but a word may be said about the first Free +Library in the country. In past days, when there was no good Mr. +Carnegie to cater for the welfare of millions, nor the finest classics +to be purchased for sixpence, it was only natural, books being rare, +that the local authorities should not have placed the same implicit +trust in would-be readers as is shown by the British Museum Library +authorities. The rusty iron chains securing the aged tomes to an iron +rod above the queer old desks even after the lapse of centuries would +hold their own. The literature cannot be said to be of a much lighter +nature than the bulky volumes in weight. The rarest specimens are placed +in glass cases, and are calculated to make the mildest bibliomaniac +full of envy. Before the Reformation the Minster was rich in holy +relics, conspicuous among which was a part of St Agatha's thigh. One of +the most curious things still to be seen is a coffin brilliantly painted +with armorial devices, placed in the niche of a wall, which according to +the will of the occupant has to be touched up from year to year; and +thus the memory of the worthy magistrate, Anthony Ettrick, is kept more +actively alive than good King Ethelred who rests beneath the pavement by +the altar. Ettrick lived at Holt Lodge near Woodlands, a few miles away +in the direction of Cranborne; and when the Duke of Monmouth was +captured in rustic garb in the vicinity, he was brought before the +magistrate and removed from Holt to Ringwood, where at the "Angel Inn" +the room in which he was kept prisoner is still pointed out. We have +elsewhere described the old ash tree near Crowther's Farm beneath which +the unfortunate fugitive from Sedgemoor was found. It is propped up, and +has lost a limb, but is alive to-day, and surely should be protected by +a railing and an inscription like other historic trees. To the north is +St. Giles, the ancestral home of the Earls of Shaftesbury, the first +representative of which title, Anthony Ashley Cooper, worked so +skilfully on Monmouth's ambition. When the Merry Monarch visited the +noble politician at St. Giles, he little thought that his favourite son +would be taken a prisoner as a traitor within only a mile or so of the +mansion. A memento of the royal visit is still preserved in the form of +a medicine chest that the king left behind, which in those days +doubtless contained some of his favourite specific "Jesuit drops." + +Another historic mansion is Kingston Lacy, to the west of Wimborne, +the old seat of the Bankes family, which is rich in Stuart portraits +as well as other valuable works of art. It is a typical square +comfortable-looking Charles II. house, with dormer-windowed roof and +wide projecting eaves. The staunch Royalist, James Buder, the great Duke +of Ormonde, lived here in his latter years, and died here in 1688. The +duke's intimate friend, Sir Robert Southwell, has left a graphic account +of the last hours of the good old nobleman, which he concludes with the +following:--"His Grace could remember some things that passed when he +was but three years old. He was only four years old when his +great-great-uncle Earl Thomas died in 1614, but he retained a perfect +remembrance of him. That Earl lived in the reigns of King Henry the +Eighth, King Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and King +James; and His Grace had seen King James the First, King Charles the +First, King Charles the Second, and King James the Second; so that +between them both they were contemporary with nine princes who ruled +this land!"[27] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[26] See _Flight of the King_. + +[27] _Hist., MSS. Com. Rep._ 7 App. p. 758. + + + + +HERE AND THERE IN SALOP +AND STAFFORDSHIRE + + +The important and ancient capital of Salop would indeed be insulted were +it called a "nook" or "corner." Could it so be named, we might be +allowed to let our enthusiasm run wild in this most delightful old town. +Shrewsbury and Tewkesbury are to our mind far more interesting than +Chester, which has so many imitation old houses to spoil the general +harmony. At Shrewsbury or Tewkesbury there are very few mock antiques, +and at every turn and corner there are ancient buildings to carry our +fancy back to the important historical events that have happened in +these places. One cannot but be thankful to the local authorities for +preserving the mediaeval aspect, and let us offer up a solemn prayer that +the electric tramway fiend may never be permitted to enter. + +Chirk Castle is so close upon the boundaries of Salop that we may +include this corner of Denbighshire. It is the only border fortress of +Wales still inhabited, and is remarkably situated on an eminence high +above the grand old trees of the park, or rather forest, surrounding it. +It has stood many a siege, but its massive external walls look little +the worse for it. They are of immense thickness, and so wide that two +people abreast can walk upon the battlements. The huge round towers, +with deep-set windows and loopholes, have a very formidable appearance +as you climb the steep ascent from the picturesque vale beneath. It was +built by the powerful family of Mortimer early in the fourteenth +century. From the Mortimers and Beauchamps it came into the possession +of Henry VIII.'s natural son, the Duke of Richmond and Somerset, and to +Lord Seymour, brother of the Protector Somerset. Then the Earl of +Leicester owned it in Elizabeth's time, and eventually Sir Thomas +Myddelton, Lord Mayor in James I.'s reign. His son, Sir Thomas, fought +valiantly for the Parliamentary side, and in 1644 had to besiege his own +fortress. A letter from the governor, Sir John Watts, to Prince Rupert, +which still hangs in the great hall, describes how the owner "attempted +to worke into the castle with iron crowes and pickers under great +plancks and tables, which they had erected against the castle side for +their shelter: but my stones beate them off." In the following year +Charles I. slept there on two occasions; and it was here that he learned +the defeat of the great Montrose. After the king's execution, Sir +Thomas, like many others, began to show favour to the other side; and +the year before the Restoration he was mixed up in Sir George Booth's +Cheshire rising, and had to fortify his castle against General Lambert, +to whom he eventually surrendered. But the general did not depart until +he had disabled the fortress, and the damage done after the Restoration +took L30,000 to repair. It was Sir Hugh, the younger brother of the +first Sir Thomas Myddelton, who made the New River, which was opened on +Michaelmas Day, 1613. A share in 1633 was valued at L3, 4s. 2d., and in +1899 one was sold for L125,000! + +[Illustration: SERVANT'S HALL, CHIRK CASTLE.] + +The various apartments are ranged round a large quadrangle, parts of +which remind one somewhat of Haddon. On one side is the great hall, and +opposite the servants' hall. The former, with its minstrels' gallery, +heraldic glass, and ancient furniture, is full of interest. The walls +are hung with various pieces of armour, and weapons, and a Cavalier +drum, saddle, and hat, the latter with its leather travelling case, +which is probably unique. There is a gorgeous coloured pedigree to the +first Sir Thomas Myddelton, recording ancestors centuries before, though +perhaps not quite so far back as the pedigree in the long gallery at +Hatfield, which is said to go back to Adam. + +[Illustration: SERVANTS' HALL, CHIRK CASTLE.] + +The servants' hall is a delightful old room, with long black oak tables +and settles, those against the wall being fixtures to the panelling. +There is a raised dais, and a seat of state to make distinction at the +board. There are queer old portraits of ancient retainers, one the +bellman who used to ring the great bell in the corner turret of the +quadrangle, and another very jolly looking porter, who has his eye on an +antique beer barrel perched on wheels in a corner of the room. This +apparatus has done good service in its day, as have the great pewter +dishes and copper jugs. Above the wide open fireplace are the Myddelton +arms. The servants' hall was an orderly apartment: + + "No noise nor strife nor swear at all, + But all be decent in the Hall," + +is written up for everybody to see, with the following rules:--That +every servant must take off his hat at entering; and sit in his proper +place, and drink in his turn, and refrain from telling tales or speaking +disrespectfully, and various other things, which misdeeds were to be +punished in the first instance by the offender being deprived of his +allowance of beer; for the second offence, three days' beer; and the +third, a week. + +The castle is rich in portraits, especially by Lely and Kneller, many of +which hang in the oak gallery, which extends the whole length of the +eastern wing; and there are several fine oak cabinets, one of which, of +ebony and tortoise-shell with silver chasings, was given to the third +Sir Thomas Myddelton by the Merry Monarch. + +The wrought-iron entrance gates of very elaborate workmanship were made +in 1719 by the local blacksmith. + +At the ancient seat of the Trevors, Brynkinalt, nearer to Chirk village, +are some interesting portraits of the Stuart period, notably of Charles +II.; James, Duke of York; Nell Gwyn, the Duchess of Portsmouth, and +Barbara Villiers. + +Chirk village is insignificant, but has a fine church in which are some +interesting monuments, notably that of the gallant knight who besieged +his own castle as before described. He and his second wife are +represented in marble busts. It was their son Charles who married the +famous beauty of Charles II.'s reign; she was the daughter of Sir Robert +Needham, and her younger sister, Eleanor, became the Duke of Monmouth's +mistress. There is an old brick mansion called Plas Baddy, near Ruabon, +where "La Belle Myddelton" and her husband lived when the diversions of +the Court proved tedious; but buried in these wilds, she must have felt +sadly out of her element without the large following of admirers at her +feet. She had more brains, though, than most Court beauties, and being a +talented artist, was not entirely dependent upon flattery. + +Near the entrance of the Ceiriog valley, to the west of Chirk, is a farm +called Pontfaen, and beyond, across some meadows, there is a remarkable +Druidical circle. Gigantic stones are riveted to the crosspieces of +archways, having the appearance of balancing themselves in a most +remarkable manner. The entrance to the circle has two pillars in which +are holes through which was passed a pole to act as wicket; and in front +of the altar is a rock in which may be seen cavities for the feet, where +the officiating priest is supposed to have stood. It is secluded, +solemn, and ghostly, especially by moonlight when we saw it for the +first time. The villages hereabouts, though picturesquely situated, are +far from interesting: whitewashed and red-brick cottages of a very plain +and ordinary type, and very few ancient buildings. + +Some of the most picturesque old houses in England are to be found in +the southern and central part of Salop. Take, for example, Stokesay +Castle, which is quite unique. A battlemented Early English tower with +lancet windows and the great hall are the principal remains. The latter, +entered from above by a primitive wooden staircase, is a noble apartment +with a fine open timber roof. The exterior has been altered and added to +at a later period, making a very quaint group of gables, with a +projecting storey of half-timber of the sixteenth century. This is +lighted by lattice windows, and the bay or projection is held by timber +supports from the earlier masonry. It has a deep roof, and the whole +effect is odd and un-English. Not the least interesting feature is an +Elizabethan timber gatehouse with carved barge-boards, entrance gate, +and corner brackets, and the timbers shaped in diamonds and other +devices. Then there is picturesque Pitchford Hall and Condover close by: +the former a fine half-timber mansion, the latter a stately Elizabethan +pile of stone. Pitchford we believe has been very much burnished up and +considerably enlarged since we were there, but we should not like to see +it with its new embellishments, for from our recollection of the old +house, half its charm was owing to the fact that there was nothing +modern-antique about it: a dear old black-and-white homestead, which +looked too perfect a picture for the restorer to set to work upon it and +spoil its poetry; but for all that it may be improved. The courtyard +presents quite a dazzling arrangement of geometric patterns in the +timber work, and over the central porch there is a quaint Elizabethan +gable of wood quite unlike anything we have seen before. The side facing +the north is, or was, quite a picture for the artist's brush. The +stately lofty gables of Condover are in striking contrast with the more +homely looking ones of Pitchford; and the builder was an important +person in his day, as may be judged from his elaborate effigy in +Westminster Abbey, namely, Judge Owen, who claimed descent from one of +the ancient Welsh kings. Like most Elizabethan houses, Condover Hall is +built in the form of a letter E, but the central compartment was +probably added to later on by Inigo Jones. The doorway and bay-windows +above are of fine proportions, and full of dignity. + +At Eaton Constantine, to the east, is the quaint old timber house where +Richard Baxter lived; and at Langley, to the south-east, a fine old +timber gatehouse; as well as Plash Hall, famous for its elaborate +twisted chimneys. Then there is Ludlow with its ruined castle, where +poor young Edward V. was proclaimed king before he set out for London: +and its famous "Feathers" hostelry with black-oak panelled rooms, its +old town-gate, and the ancient bridge of Ludford to the south. The +country between Ludlow and Shrewsbury is remarkably beautiful, +especially in the vicinity of Church Stretton, which of recent years has +grown rabidly as a health resort, meaning, of course, the springing up +of modern dwellings to mar its old-world snugness. + +There is, or was some twenty years ago, a narrow street of old houses, +behind which, backed by beautiful woods, stood the manor-house, long +since converted into an inn, and the church. Beyond the woods rise a +range of lofty hills; and if we take the trouble to clamber up to the +highest peak (which rises to upwards of 1600 feet), we are well rewarded +for our pains. Two of the highest points are Caradoc and Lawley, famous +landmarks for miles around. The "Raven," when we visited it, was a +quaint old hostelry, and an ideal place to make headquarters for +exploring the romantic scenery all around. + +At the pretty little village of Winnington, close upon the county +border, and fourteen miles as the crow flies to the north-west of Church +Stretton, stands a tiny little cottage at the foot of the Briedden +Hills. Here lived the famous old Parr, who was born there in the reign +of Edward IV. and died in that of Charles I., having lived in the reigns +of no less than ten monarchs. In his hundred and fifty-second year he +went to London for change of air, which unfortunately proved fatal. His +gravestone in Westminster Abbey will be remembered near Saint-Evremond's +and Chiffinch's, near the Poets' Corner. + +[Illustration: MARKET DRAYTON.] + +[Illustration: MARKET DRAYTON.] + +The quiet little town of Market Drayton, some eighteen miles to the +north-east of Shrewsbury, contains many interesting timber houses. There +is still an old-fashioned air about the place of which the footsore +pedestrian stumbling over the cobble stones soon becomes conscious. The +quaint overhanging gables in the narrow streets are rich with ornamental +carvings. One long range of buildings at the corner of Shropshire and +Cheshire Streets is a fine specimen of "magpie" architecture. Let us +hope the row of antiquated shops on the basement will remain content +with their limited space; for so far those imposing modern structures, +which have a way of throwing everything out of harmony, are conspicuous +by their absence. Nor has the demon electric tram come to destroy this +quiet peaceful corner of Salop, as, alas! it has to so many of our old +towns. One dreads to think what England will be like in another fifty +years. Farther along Shropshire Street we find a little antiquated inn, +the "Dun Cow," with great timber beams and thick thatch roof, and the +"King's Arms" opposite bearing the date 1674 upon the gable abutting +upon the roof, which does not say much for the sobriety of the person +who set it up. Hard by is a good Queen Anne house standing a little +back, as if it didn't like to associate with such neighbours. It looked +deserted, and was "To Let"; and we couldn't help thinking how this +compact little house would be picked up were it only situated in +Kensington or Hampstead. + +The church, an imposing building finely situated, is disappointing, +though there is some good Norman work about it. It has been reseated, +and the only thing worth noting is an old tomb showing the quaint female +costume of Elizabeth's day, and a tall-backed oak settle facing the +communion table. The latter looks as if it ought to be facing an open +fireplace in some manorial farm. + +Many superstitions linger hereabouts. The old people can recollect the +dread in which a certain road was held at night for fear of a ghostly +lady, who had an unpleasant way of jumping upon the backs of the farmers +as they returned from market. Tradition does not record whether those +who were thus favoured were total abstainers; possibly not, for the lady +by all accounts had a grudge against those who occasionally took a +glass; and in a certain inn cellar, when jugs had to be replenished, it +was discomforting to find her seated on the particular barrel required, +like the goblin seen by Gabriel Grub upon the tombstone. + +There was a custom among the old Draytonites for some reason, not to +permit their aged to die on a feather-bed. It was believed to make them +die hard, and so _in extremis_ it was dragged from beneath the +unfortunate person. The sovereign remedy they had for whooping-cough is +worth remembering, as it is so simple. All you have to do is to cut some +hair from the nape of the invalid child's neck, place it between a piece +of bread and butter, and hand the sandwich to a dog. If he devours it +the malady is cured; if he doesn't, well, the life of the dog at least +is spared. + +A few miles to the east of the town, in the adjoining county, is the +famous battlefield of Bloreheath, where the Houses of Lancaster and +York fought desperately in 1459. The latter under the Earl of +Salisbury came off victorious, while the commander of Henry's forces was +slain. A stone pedestal marks the spot, originally distinguished by a +wooden cross, where Lord Audley fell. + +Of less historical moment but more romantic interest, is the fact that +here close upon a couple of centuries later the diamond George of +Charles II. was concealed, while its royal wearer by right was lurking +fifteen miles away at Boscobel. The gallant Colonel Blague, who had had +the charge of this tell-tale treasure, was captured and thrown into the +Tower, where no less a celebrity than peaceful Isaak Walton managed to +smuggle it. Blague eventually escaped, and so the George found its way +to the king in France. At Blore also Buckingham remained concealed, +disguised as a labourer, before he got away into Leicestershire and +thence to London and the coast. "Buckingham's hole," the cave where his +grace was hidden, is still pointed out; and a very aged man who lived in +the neighbourhood a few years ago prided himself that he could show the +exact place where the duke fell and broke his arm; and he ought to have +known, as his great-grandfather was personally acquainted with "old +Elias Bradshaw," who was present when the accident happened. + +Broughton Hall, a fine old Jacobean mansion, stands to the east of +Blore. It is a gloomy house, and has some ghostly traditions. We are +reminded of the rather startling fact that upon developing a negative of +the fine oak staircase there, the transparent figure of an old woman in +a mob-cap stood in the foreground! Here was proof positive for the +Psychological Society. But, alas! careful investigation upset the +mystery. The shadowy outline proved to be painfully like the ancient +housekeeper. The subject had required a long exposure, and the lady must +have wished to be immortalised, for she certainly must have stood in +front of the lens for at least a minute or so. It is strange this desire +to be pictured. Any amateur photographer must have experienced the +difficulties to be encountered in a village street. The hours of twelve +and four are fatal. School children in thousands will crop up to fill up +the foreground. In such a predicament a friend of ours was inspired with +an ingenious remedy. Having covered his head with the black cloth, he +was horrified to see a myriad of faces instead of the subject he wished +to take. However, he got his focus adjusted somehow, and having placed +his dark slide in position ready for exposure, he placed the cloth over +the lens-end of the camera as if focussing in the opposite direction. +Immediately there was a stampede for the other side, with considerable +struggling as to who should be foremost. The cherished little bit of +village architecture was now free, the cloth whipped away, and the +exposure given. "Are we all taken in, mister?" asked one of the boys a +little suspiciously. "Yes, my lads," was the response given, "you've all +been taken in." And so they had, but went home rejoicing. + +Beside the staircase, there is little of interest inside Broughton. +There was a hiding-place once in one of the rooms which was screened by +an old oil painting, but it is now merged into tradition. The road from +Newport passes through wild and romantic scenery. At Croxton, farther to +the east, there is, or was, a Maypole, one of those old-world villages +where ancient customs die hard. Swinnerton Hall, a fine Queen Anne house +to the north-east, and nearer to Stone, is the seat of the ancient +family of Fitzherbert, the beautiful widow of one of whose members was +in 1785 married to the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV. + +The palatial Hall of Trentham, farther to the north, is rather beyond +our province, being in the main modern. One grieves that the fine old +house represented in Dr. Plot's quaint history of the county has passed +away; one grieves, indeed, that so many of these fine Staffordshire +houses are no more. The irreparable loss of Ingestre Hall, Wrothesley +Hall, Enville Hall, and of Severn End in the adjoining county, makes one +shudder at the dangers of fire in these ancestral mansions. Coombe +Abbey in Warwickshire was only quite recently saved from a like fate by +Lord Craven's activity and presence of mind. + +But the old gatehouse of Tixall to the east of Stafford, and Wootton +Lodge to the north of Uttoxeter, fortunately still remain intact. The +former presents much the same appearance as in Plot's drawing of 1686, +but the curious gabled timber mansion beyond has long since disappeared, +and the classic building that occupies its site looks hardly in keeping +with so perfect an example of Elizabethan architecture. The romantic +situation of Wootton Lodge is well described by Howitt. The majestic +early-Jacobean mansion (the work of Inigo Jones) has a compactness and +dignity quite its own, and there is nothing like it anywhere in England, +though more classic, perhaps, than the majority of houses of its period. +It has a battlemented roof surmounted by an array of massive chimneys, +mullioned windows innumerable, and a graceful flight of steps leading to +the ornamental porch. It was not at this stately house that the +eccentric Jean Jacques came to bury himself for over a year, but at the +Hall, a far less picturesque building. The philosopher and his companion +Theresa le Vasseur were looked at askance by the country folk; and "old +Ross Hall," as they called him, botanising in the secluded lanes in his +strange striped robe and grotesque velvet cap with gold tassels and +pendant, was a holy terror to the children. It was supposed he was in +search of "lost spirits," as indeed was the case, for his melancholia at +length led to his departure under the suspicion that there was a plot to +poison him. + +A bee-line drawn across Staffordshire, say from Bridgnorth in Salop to +Haddon in Derbyshire, would intersect some of the most interesting +spots. In addition to Wootton and Ingestre, we have Throwley Hall, +Croxden and Calwich Abbeys, and Tissington (in Derbyshire) to the +north-east (not to mention Alton and Ham), and Boscobel, Whiteladies, +Tong, etc., to the south-east. + +Of Boscobel and Whiteladies we have dealt with elsewhere too +particularly to call for any fresh description here; but not so with the +picturesque village of Tong, whose church is certainly the most +interesting example of early-Perpendicular architecture in the county. +Would that the interiors of our old churches were as carefully preserved +as is the case here. There is nothing modern and out of harmony. The +rich oak carvings of the screens and choir stalls; the monumental +effigies of the Pembrugges, Pierrepoints, Vernons, and Stanleys; the +Golden Chapel, or Vernon chantry--all recall nooks and corners in +Westminster Abbey. It was Sir Edward Stanley, whose recumbent effigy in +plate armour is conspicuous, who married Margaret Vernon, the sister of +the runaway heiress of Haddon, and thus inherited Tong Castle, as his +brother-in-law did the famous Derbyshire estate. + +The early-Tudor castle was demolished in the eighteenth century, when +the present Strawberry-Hill Gothic fortress of reddish-coloured stone +was erected by a descendant of the Richard Durant whose initials may +still be seen on the old house in the Corn Market at Worcester, where +Charles II. lodged before the disastrous battle.[28] Unromantic as were +Georgian squires, as a rule, the Eastern Gothic architecture of their +houses and the fantastic and unnatural grottoes in their grounds show +signs of sentimental hankering. At Tong they went one better, for there +are traditions of AEolian harps set in the masonry of the farmyard of the +castle. The mystic music must indeed have been thrown unto the winds! + +But the Moorish-looking mansion, if architecturally somewhat a +monstrosity, is nevertheless picturesque, with its domed roofs and +pinnacles. A fine collection of pictures was dispersed in 1870, +including an interesting portrait of Nell Gwyn, and of Charles I., which +has been engraved. + +In the older building (which somewhat resembled old Hendlip Hall) was +born the famous seventeenth-century beauty, Lady Venetia Digby, _nee_ +Stanley, of whom Vandyck has left us many portraits, notably the one at +Windsor Castle,--an allegorical picture representing the triumph of +innocence over calumny, for she certainly was a lady with "a past." The +learned and eccentric Sir Kenelm Digby, her husband, endeavoured to +preserve her charms by administering curious mixtures, such as viper +wine; and this, though it was very well meant, probably ended her career +before she was thirty-three. One can scarcely be surprised that at the +post-mortem examination they discovered but very little brains; but this +her husband attributed to his viper wine getting into her head! + +Not far from Tong, in a secluded lane, is a tiny cottage called Hobbal +Grange, which is associated with the wanderings of Charles II. when a +fugitive from Worcester. Here lived the mother of the loyal Penderel +brothers, who risked their lives in harbouring their illustrious guest. +We mention Hobbal more particularly as since the _Flight of the King_ +was written we have had it pointed out pretty conclusively that "the +Grange" of to-day is only a small portion of the original "Grange Farm" +converted into a labourer's dwelling. The greater part of the original +house was pulled down in the eighteenth century. In an old plan, dated +1739, of which we have a tracing before us, there are no less than seven +buildings comprising the farm, which was the largest on the Tong estate. +In 1855 it was reduced to eighty-six acres. In 1716, Richard Penderel's +grandson, John Rogers, was still in residence at Hobbal. + +[Illustration: BLACKLADIES.] + +Near Whiteladies is the rival establishment Blackladies, a picturesque +red-brick house with step-gables and mullioned bays. As the name +implies, this also was a nunnery, but there are but scanty remains of +the original building. There is a stone cross, and some other fragments +are built into the masonry; and in the stables may be seen the chapel, +where services were held until sixty years ago. Part of the moat also +remains. A lane near at hand is still known as "Spirit Lane," because +the Black Nuns of centuries ago have been seen to walk there. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] See _Flight of the King_. + + + + +IN NORTHERN DERBYSHIRE + + +Our first impression of romantic Derbyshire vividly recalled one of the +opening chapters of _Adam Bede_. Having secured lodgings at a pretty +village not many miles from Haddon, we were somewhat disturbed with +nocturnal hammerings issuing from an adjacent wheelwright's. Somebody +had had the misfortune to fall into the river and was drowned, so we +learned in the morning, and the rest we could guess. Somewhat depressed, +we were on the point of sallying forth when the local policeman arrived +and demanded our presence at the inquest, as one of the jurymen had +failed to put in an appearance. A cheerful beginning to a holiday! + +[Illustration: GREAT HALL, HADDON.] + +[Illustration: GREAT HALL, HADDON.] + +There is something about dear old Haddon Hall that makes it quite +unique, and few ancient baronial dwellings are so rich in the poetry of +association. In the first place, though a show house, one is not +admitted by one door and ejected from another with a jumbled idea of +what we have seen and an undigested store of historical information. One +forgets it is a show place at all. It is more like the enchanted castle +of the fairy story, where the occupants have been asleep for centuries; +and in passing through the grand old rooms one would scarcely be +surprised to encounter people in mediaeval costume, or knights in +clanking armour. The lovers of historical romance for once will find +pictures of their imagination realised. They can fit in favourite scenes +and characters with no fear of stumbling across modern "improvements" +to destroy the illusion and bring them back to the twentieth century. +Compare the time-worn grey old walls of this baronial house with those +of Windsor Castle, and one will see the havoc that has been done to the +latter by centuries of restoration. Events that have happened at Haddon +appear to us real; but at Windsor, so full of historic memories, there +is but little to assist the imagination. + +[Illustration: COURTYARD, HADDON.] + +The picturesqueness of Haddon is enhanced by its lack of uniformity. The +rooms and courtyards and gardens are all on different levels, and we are +continually climbing up or down stairs. The first ascent to the great +entrance gate is precipitous, and some of the stone steps are almost +worn away with use. Entering the first courtyard (there are two, with +buildings around each) there is another ascent, with a quaint external +staircase beyond, leading to the State apartments, and to the left again +there are steps by which the entrance of the banqueting-hall is reached. + +Opposite is the chapel, with its panelled, balustraded pews and +two-decker Jacobean pulpit, which is very picturesque; and the second +courtyard beyond, to the south of which is the Long Gallery or ballroom, +with bay-windows looking upon the upper garden, from which ascend those +well-known and much photographed balustraded stone steps to the shaded +terrace-walk and winter garden, above which, and approached by another +flight of steps, is Dorothy Vernon's Walk, a romantic avenue of lime and +sycamore. Facing the steps and screened by a great yew tree is yet +another flight, with ball-surmounted pillars, leading to the "Lord's +Parlour," or Orange Parlour as it was formerly called; and from this +picturesque exit the Haddon heiress eloped with the gallant John +Manners, and by so doing brought the noble estate into the possession of +the Dukes of Rutland. + +An elaborately carved Elizabethan doorway leads here from the ballroom, +which is rich in carved oak panelling and has a coved ceiling bearing +the arms and crest of the Manners and Vernons. By repute, all the +woodwork, including the circular oak steps leading to the apartment, was +cut from a single tree in the park. The ash-grey colour of the wood is +caused by a light coat of distemper, which it has been surmised was +added at some time to give it the appearance of cedar. Not many years +ago there was a controversy upon this subject, which resulted in some +ill-advised person obtaining leave to anoint a portion of the panelling +with boiled oil. The result was disastrous, and led to an indignant +outcry from artists and architects; but fortunately the act of vandalism +was stopped in time, and the muddy substance removed. The wainscoting +consists of a series of semicircular arches divided by fluted and +ornamental pillars of different heights and sizes, the smaller panels +being surmounted by the shields of arms and crests of the ancient owners +of the Hall, above which is a bold turreted and battlemented cornice. + +[Illustration: DRAWING-ROOM, HADDON.] + +[Illustration: WITHDRAWING ROOM, HADDON.] + +[Illustration: WITHDRAWING ROOM, HADDON.] + +The old banqueting-hall is rather cosier looking than the famous hall of +Penshurst. The narrow, long oak table with its rustic settle is somewhat +similar, but later in character than those at Penshurst, and has a +grotesque arrangement of projecting feet. The hall is all nooks and +corners. Below a projecting gallery is a recess for the wide +well-staircase, with its little gates to keep the dogs downstairs, and a +lattice-paned window lighting up the uneven lines of the floor. The +walls are panelled, and there is a wide open fireplace, and the screen +has Gothic carvings. Attached to the framework is an iron bracelet, to +enforce the duty of a man drinking his due portion in the good old days. +The penalty was before him, so should he fail, he knew his lot, namely, +to have the contents of the capacious black jack emptied down his +sleeve. The withdrawing-room to the south of the hall is richly +wainscoted in carved oak, with a recessed window containing a fixed +settle and a step leading down to a genuine cosy-corner. There are some +who believe our ancestors had no idea of comfort; but picture this fine +old room in the winter, with blazing logs upon the fantastic fire-dogs, +the warm red light playing upon the various armorial carvings of the +frieze, and the quaint little oriel window half-cast in shadow. The +apartment immediately above has a still more elaborate frieze of +ornamental plaster above the rich tapestry hangings, and the bay-window +in the wainscoted recess, like that beneath, looks upon the gardens, +with the graceful terrace on the left and the winding Wye and venerable +bridge below. The circular brass fire-dogs are remarkable.[29] The +"Earl's Bedchamber" and "Dressing-Room" and the "Lady's Dressing-Room" +have tapestried walls and snug recessed windows. The "State Bedroom" was +formerly the "Blue Drawing-room." This also is hung with tapestry, and +the recessed window has a heavy ornamental frieze above. Near the lofty +plumed bedstead, with green silk-velvet hangings, is a queer old cradle, +which formerly was in the chaplain's room on the right-hand side of the +entrance gate. But to describe the numerous rooms in detail would be +tedious. Everything is on a huge and ponderous scale in the kitchens and +offices; one is almost reminded of the giant's kitchen in the pantomime. +Among the curious and obsolete instruments one encounters here and +there, there is a wooden instrument like a colossal boot-jack for +stringing bows. It stands against the wall as if it were in daily use. +Though there is some good old furniture, one would wish to see the rooms +less bare. But let us turn to the famous Belvoir manuscripts, which not +so very long ago were discovered much rat-eaten in a loft of that +historic seat of the Earls of Rutland. It is interesting after a visit +to Haddon to dip into these papers and get some idea of what the old +Hall was like in its most flourishing days. The great bare ballroom must +have looked very grand in the days of Charles I., with the coved ceiling +brilliant with paint and gilt. In addition to a "gilded organ," were two +"harpsicalls" and a "viall chest with a bandora and vialls; a +shovel-board table on tressels; a large looking-glass of seventy-two +glasses, and four pictures of shepherds and shepherdesses." Sixteen +suits of armour adorned the screen of the great hall. The massive oaken +tables and cabinets displayed a wealth of silver and gilt plate, +including a "greate quilte doble sault with a peacock" (the crest of the +Manners) "on the top"; silver basins, ewers, and drinking bowls; a +warming-pan, two little boats; four porringers with spoons for the +children, a "maudlin" cup and cover, etc. + +[Illustration: DOORWAY, HADDON.] + +[Illustration: INTERIOR COURTYARD, HADDON.] + +Among the rooms were the "Green Chamber," the "Rose Chamber," the "Great +Chamber," the "Best Lodging," the "Hunters' Chamber," the "School-house +Chamber," the "Nursery," the "Smoothing Chamber," the "Partridge +Chamber," "Windsor," the "Little Gallery," etc. "The uppermost chamber +in the nether tower" is almost suggestive of something gruesome, while +"my mistress's sweetmeat closet" sounds tempting; and a list of contents +included things to make the juvenile palate water--"Glasses of apricots, +marmalett, and currants, cherry marmalett, dried pears and plums and +apricots, preserved and grated oranges, raspberry and currant cakes, +conserved roses, syrup of violets," etc. These things perhaps are +trivial, but there is a domesticity about them by which we may think of +Haddon as a country home as well as a historic building. + +[Illustration: GREAT HALL, HADDON.] + +Haddon ceased to be a residence of the Dukes of Rutland more than a +century ago. In the days of the Merry Monarch the ninth earl kept open +house in a very lavish style. It is said the servants alone amounted to +one hundred and forty; and capacious as are the ancient walls, it is a +marvel how they all were housed. The romantic Dorothy, who a century +before ran away upon the evening of a great ball, was the daughter of +the "King of the Peak," Sir George Vernon, thus nicknamed for his lordly +and open-handed way of living. She died in 1584, and Sir George Manners, +the eldest of her four children, sided with the Parliament during the +Civil Wars. But his mode of living was by no means puritanical, and +Haddon was kept up in its traditional lavish style. In Bakewell church +there is a fine marble tomb representing him and his wife and children, +as well as the tomb of the famous Dorothy and her husband, Sir John +Manners. The family crest, a Peacock in his pride, that is, with his +tail displayed, so conspicuous with the Vernon boar's head in the +panelling and parqueting of Haddon, gives its name to the most +delightful of ancient hostelries at Rowsley. The proximity of the +mansion must have made its fortune over and over again, apart from its +piscatorial attractions. The gable ends and latticed windows, and the +ivy-grown battlemented porch and trim gardens, are irresistible, and no +one could wish for quarters more in harmony with the old baronial Hall. + +In striking contrast to the sturdy ruggedness of hoary Haddon is +princely Chatsworth. The comparison may be likened to that between a +mediaeval knight and a gorgeous cavalier. The art treasures and sumptuous +magnificence of Chatsworth, the elaborate and graceful carvings (which +by the way are not nearly all by the hand of Gibbons, but by a local man +named Samuel Watson), and the beauty of the gardens, make it rightly +named the "Palace of the Peak." But it is its association with the +luckless Mary Queen of Scots which adds romantic interest to the +mansion,--not that the existing classical structure can claim that +honour, for nothing now remains of the older building, a battlemented +Tudor structure with an entrance like the gatehouse of Kenilworth +Castle, and a "gazebo" on either side of the western front. It is odd, +however, that Lord Burleigh should have selected it as "a mete house for +good preservation" of a prisoner "having no toure of resort wher any +ambushes might lye," for there were no less than eight towers, but +presumably not the kind the Lord High Treasurer meant. During her twelve +years' captivity in Sheffield (where, by the way, "Queen Mary's +Chamber," with its curious heraldic ceiling, may still be seen in the +manor-house), she was frequently at Chatsworth and Wingfield Manor under +the guardianship of George Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, the fourth +husband of that remarkable woman, Bess of Hardwick, who was not a little +jealous of her husband's fascinating captive, and circulated various +scandalous stories, about which the Earl thought fit to justify himself +in his own epitaph in St Peter's church, Sheffield. When the important +prisoner was under his custody in that town, she was not permitted to go +beyond the courtyard, and usually took her exercise upon the leads. But +at Chatsworth her surveillance was less strict, although truly John +Beaton, the master of her household (who predeceased his mistress, and +was buried at Edensor close by, where a brass to his memory remains), +had strict instructions regarding her. Her attendants, thirty-nine in +all, were none of them allowed to go beyond the precincts of the grounds +without special permission, nor was anybody allowed to wait upon the +queen between nine o'clock at night and six in the morning. None were +sanctioned to carry arms; and when the fair prisoner wished to take the +air, Lord Shrewsbury had to be informed an hour beforehand, that he and +his staff might be upon the alert. One can picture Mary and her maids of +honour engaged in needlework upon the picturesque moated and balustraded +stone "Bower" near the river, with guards around ever on the watch. This +and the old Hunting-tower high up among the trees, a massive structure +with round Elizabethan towers, are the only remains to take us back to +the days of the Scots queen's captivity. + +To see Chatsworth to perfection it should be visited when the wooded +heights in the background are rich in their autumnal colouring. The +approach from Beeley village through the park and along the bank of the +Derwent at this season of the year, and the view from the house and +avenues of the river and park, are particularly beautiful. The elaborate +waterworks recall the days of the grand monarque, and an _al fresco_ +shower-bath may be enjoyed beneath a copper willow tree, the kind of +practical joke that was popular in the old Spring Gardens in London in +Charles II.'s time. In addition to the splendid paintings, are numerous +sketches by Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, etc., which came from the +famous forty days' sale of 1682, when the works collected by Sir Peter +Lely were dispersed. + +Of the stately mansions erected by Bess of Hardwick, the building +Countess of Shrewsbury,--Chatsworth, Oldcotes, Hardwick, Bolsover, and +Worksop,--Hardwick is the most untouched and perfect. The last remaining +bit of the older Chatsworth House was removed just a century after +Bess's death, so the present building must not be associated with her +name, nor indeed can any rooms at Hardwick have been occupied by Mary +Queen of Scots, as is sometimes stated, for the house was not begun +until after her death. If the queen was ever at Hardwick, it was in the +older mansion, of which very considerable ruins remain. The error, of +course, arises from one of the rooms at Hardwick being named "Mary Queen +of Scots' room," which contains the bed and furniture from the room she +occupied at Chatsworth; and the velvet hangings of the bed bearing her +monogram, and the rich coverlet, are indeed in her own needlework. + +Bess of Hardwick in many respects was like her namesake the +strong-minded queen; and when her fourth better-half had gained his +experience and sought sympathy from the Bishop of Lichfield, he received +the following consoling reply: "Some will say in yor L. behalfe tho' +the Countesse is a sharpe and bitter shrewe, and, therefore, licke +enough to shorten yr life, if shee shulde kepe you company. Indede, my +good Lo. I have heard some say so; but if shrewdnesse or sharpnesse may +be a just cause of sep[ar]acon betweene a man and wiefe, I thinke fewe +men in Englande woulde keepe their wiefes longe; for it is a common +jeste, yet treue in some sense, that there is but one shrewe in all the +worlde, and evy man bathe her; and so evy man might be rydd of his wife, +that wolde be rydd of a shrewe." But with all her faults the existence +of Hardwick and Bolsover alone will cover a multitude of sins. A +fortune-teller predicted that so long as she kept building she would +never die; and had not the severity of the winter of 1607 thrown her +masons out of employment, her ladyship might have survived to show us +what she could do with the vacant space at Aldwych. + +[Illustration: HARDWICK HALL.] + +There is something peculiarly majestic and stately about Hardwick Hall. +It is one mass of lofty windows. It is rarely occupied as a dwelling, +and one would like to see it lighted up like Chatsworth at Christmas +time. But with the setting sun shining on the windows it looks a blaze +of light--a huge beacon in the distance. With the exception of the +ornamental stone parapet of the roofs, in which Bess' initials "E.S." +stand out conspicuously, the mansion is all horizontal and perpendicular +lines; but the regularity is relieved by the broken outline of the +garden walls, with their picturesque array of tall halberd-like +pinnacles. + +Like Knole and Ham House, the interior is untouched, and every room is +in the same condition since the time of its erection. Some of the +wonderful old furniture came from the older Chatsworth House, including, +as before stated, the bedroom furniture of Mary Queen of Scots. Nowhere +in England may be seen finer tapestries than at Hardwick; they give a +wealth of colour to the interior, and in the Presence-chamber the +parget-work in high relief is also richly coloured. Here is Queen +Elizabeth's State chair overhung by a canopy, and the Royal arms and +supporters are depicted on the pargeting. The tapestries lining the +walls of the grand stone staircase are superb, and the silk needlework +tapestry in some of the smaller rooms a feast of colour. Everywhere are +the grandest old cushioned chairs and settees, and inlaid cabinets and +tables. The picture-gallery extends the entire length of the house, and +abounds in historical portraits, including Bess of Hardwick dressed in +black, perhaps for one of her many husbands, with a black head-dress, +large ruff, and chain of pearls. Here also is a full-length portrait of +her rival, the luckless queen, very sad and very pale, painted, during +her nineteen years of captivity, at Sheffield in 1678, and a portrait of +her little son James at the age of eight,--a picture sent to comfort the +poor mother in her seclusion. The future king's cold indifference to his +mother's fate was not the least unpleasant trait of his selfish +character. In a discourse between Sir John Harrington and the monarch, +the latter did his best to avoid any reference to the poor queen's fate; +but he might have saved himself the trouble, for he was more affected by +the superstitious omens preceding her execution. His Highness, he says, +"told me her death was visible in Scotland before it did really happen, +being, as he said, spoken of in secret by those whose power of sight +presented to them a bloody head dancing in the air." From James we may +turn to little Lady Arabella Stuart in a white gown, nursing a doll in +still more antiquated costume, in blissful ignorance of her unhappy +future. She was the granddaughter of Bess of Hardwick, and was born at +Chatsworth close upon the time when the Queen of Scots was there. +Looking at these two portraits of this baby and the boy, it is difficult +to imagine that the latter should have sent his younger cousin to linger +away her life and lose her reason in the Tower from the fact that she +had the misfortune to be born a Stuart. + +Horace Walpole in speaking of this room says: "Here and in all the great +mansions of that age is a gallery remarkable only for its extent." But +it is remarkable for its two huge fireplaces of black marble and +alabaster, for its fine moulded plaster ceiling, for its +fifteenth-century tapestry, and quaint Elizabethan easy-chairs. The +great hall is a typical one of the period, with open screen and +balustraded gallery, a flat ceiling, big open fireplace, and walls +embellished with antlers and ancient pieces of armour. When the mansion +was completed in 1597 the older one was discarded and the furniture +removed, and the walls were gradually allowed to fall into ruin. It is +now but a shell; but one may get a good idea of the style of building +and extent, as well as of the internal decorations. It appears to be of +Tudor date, almost Elizabethan in character, and over the wide +fireplaces are colossal figures in bold relief, emblematic, perhaps, of +the giant energy of Bess of Hardwick, who spent the greater part of her +lifetime in those old rooms. Tradition says she died immensely rich, but +without a friend. She survived her fourth husband seventeen years and +was interred in the church of All-Saints', Derby, where the mural +monument of her recumbent effigy had been erected under her own +superintendence. + +To the south-west of Hardwick, and midway between Derby and Sheffield, +are the ruinous remains of another old residence of Lord Shrewsbury's, +associated with the captivity of Mary Queen of Scots. This is South +Wingfield manor-house, whither she was removed from Tutbury Castle prior +to her first sojourn at Chatsworth, and whence she was removed back to +Tutbury in 1585. By this time Shrewsbury had freed himself of the +responsible custodianship: a thankless and trying office, for Elizabeth +was ever suspicious that he erred on the side of leniency. A letter +addressed from Wingfield Manor, from Sir Ralph Sadleir to John Manners, +among the Belvoir manuscripts, and dated January 6, 1584-85, runs as +follows: "The queenes majestie hath given me in chardge to remove the +Queene of Scots from hence to Tutbury, and to the end she should be the +better accompanyed and attended from thither, her highness hath +commanded me to gyve warning to some of the gentlemen of best reputation +in this contry to prepare themselfs to attend upon her at the time of +her removing. I have thought good to signify the same unto you emonge +others, and to require you on her Majesties behalf to take so much paine +as to be heere at Wingfield upon wednesday the xiiith of this moneth at +a convenient tyme before noone to attend upon the said queene the same +day to Derby and the next day after to Tutbury." Of the State apartments +occupied by her there are no remains beyond an external wall, but the +battlemented tower with which they communicated, and from which the +royal prisoner is said to have been in secret touch with her friends, is +still tolerably perfect. + +In the Civil War the brave old manor-house stood out stoutly for the +Royalists, but at length was taken by Lord Grey. The governor, Colonel +Dalby, was on the point of making his escape from the stables in +disguise when he was recognised and shot. The stronghold shortly +afterwards was dismantled, but in Charles II.'s reign was patched up +again and made a residence, and so it continued until little more than a +century ago. The village of Ashover, midway between Wingfield and +Chesterfield, is charmingly situated on the river Amber amidst most +picturesque scenery. Here in 1660, says the parish register, a certain +Dorothy Mady "forswore herself, whereupon the ground opened and she sank +overhead!" There are some old tombs to the Babingtons, of which family +was Anthony of Dethick-cum-Lea, nearer Matlock, where are slight remains +of the old family seat incorporated in a farmhouse. As is well known, it +was the seizure of the Queen of Scots' correspondence with this young +desperado, who with Tichborne, Salisbury, and other associates was +plotting Elizabeth's assassination, that hastened her tragic end at +Fotheringay. + +Bolsover Castle, which lies directly north of Hardwick, has a style of +architecture peculiar to itself. It is massive, and grim, and +prison-like, with a strange array of battlements and pinnacles; and Bess +of Hardwick showed her genius in making it as different as possible from +her other residences. And the interior is as fantastic and original as +the exterior. Altogether there is something suggestive of the fairy-tale +castle; and the main entrance, guarded by a giant overhead and bears on +either side, has something ogre-like about it. The rooms are vaulted and +supported by pillars, some of them in imitation of the earlier castle of +the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They are a peculiar mixture of +early-English and Renaissance, but the effect is very pleasing and +picturesque. The main arches of the ceiling of the "Pillar parlour" are +panelled and rest on Elizabethan vaulting-shafts, and the ribs are +centred in heavy bosses. The semicircular intersections of the walls are +wainscoted walnut wood, richly gilt and elaborately carved, and there +are early-Jacobean hooded fireplaces and queer old painted and inlaid +doors and window-shutters. The largest of these rooms is the "Star +chamber," so called from the golden stars on the ceiling depicted on +blue ground, representing the firmament. In these gorgeous rooms Charles +I. was sumptuously entertained by the first Duke of Newcastle. In what +is called the "Riding house," a roofless Jacobean ruin of fine +proportions, Ben Jonson's masque, _Love's Welcome_, was performed before +the king and queen. Clarendon speaks of the stupendous entertainment +(that cost some fifteen thousand pounds) and excess of feasting, which, +he says, "God be thanked!--no man ever after imitated." The duke (then +marquis), who had been the king's tutor, was a playwriter of some +repute, though Pepys does not speak highly of his ability, saying his +works were silly and tedious.[30] His eccentric wife had also literary +inclinations, and wrote, among other things, a high-flown biography of +her spouse, which the Diarist said showed her to be "a mad, conceited, +ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes +to him and of him." This romantic and theatrical lady was one of the +sights of London when she came to town in her extravagant and antiquated +dress, and always had a large crowd around her. The practical joke +played upon her at the ball at Whitehall, mentioned in de Gramont's +_Memoirs_, is amusing, but commands our sympathy, and is a specimen of +the bad taste of Society at the time. + +The romantic situation of the castle, perched upon a steep promontory +overlooking a dense mass of trees, must have been quite to the old +duchess's taste; and one can picture her walking in state in the curious +old gardens as she appears in her theatrical-looking portrait at +Welbeck. According to local tradition there is a subterranean passage +leading from the castle to the church, which was formerly entered by a +secret staircase running from the servants' hall; and there are stories +of a hidden chapel beneath the crypt, and ghosts in Elizabethan ruffles. +The Cavendish Chapel in the church was erected by Bess of Hardwick's +younger son, Sir Charles Cavendish, father of the first Duke of +Newcastle, and contains his tomb, a gorgeous Jacobean monument. + +[Illustration: GARLANDS, ASHFORD CHURCH. +(_Photo by Rev. J. R. Luxmoore._)] + +Some of the remote villages in the wild and beautiful Peak district have +strong faith in their traditional superstitions and customs. An +excellent way for a young damsel to discover who her future husband is +to be is to go to the churchyard on St. Valentine's Eve, and when the +clock strikes the hour of midnight, if she runs round the church she +will see the happy man running after her. It has never been known to +fail, perhaps from the fact that it has never been tried, for it is very +doubtful if a girl could be found in Derbyshire or any other county with +sufficient pluck to test it. An old remedy for the toothache was to +attract the "worm" into a glass of water by first inhaling the smoke of +some dried herbs. Those who had plenty of faith, and some imagination, +have actually seen the tiny offender. Maypoles and the parish stocks are +still to be found in nooks and corners of the Peak and farther south, +and that pretty custom once prevailed of hanging garlands in memory of +the village maidens who died young. From a little crown made of +cardboard, with paper rosettes and ornaments, pairs of gloves cut out of +paper were suspended fingers downwards, with the name of the young +deceased and her age duly recorded upon them. And so they hang from the +oak beams of the roof. In Ashford church, near Haddon, there is quite a +collection of them suspended from a pole in the north aisle. The oldest +dates from 1747, but the custom was discontinued about ninety years ago. +In Hampshire, however, these "virgins' crowns" are still made. At the +ancient village church of Abbotts Ann, near Andover, there are about +forty of them, and only the other day one was added with due ceremony. +The garland was made of thin wood covered with paper, and decorated with +black and white rosettes, with fine paper gloves suspended in the +middle. It was carried before the coffin by two young girls dressed in +white, with white shawls and hoods, who each held one end of a white +wand from which the crown depended. During the service it was placed +upon the coffin by one of the bearers, and at the close was again +suspended from the wand and borne to the grave. It was afterwards laid +on a thin iron rod branching from a small shield placed high up on the +wall of the nave of the church. One of these garlands may still be seen +in St. Albans Abbey. + +Another pretty custom is that of "well-dressing," which yet survives at +the village of Tissington above Ashbourne, and of recent years has been +revived in other Derbyshire villages, like the modern modified May-day +festivities. It dates from the time of the Emperor Nero, when the +philosopher Lucius Seneca told the people that they should show their +gratitude to the natural springs by erecting altars and offering +sacrifices. The floral tributes of to-day, which are placed around the +wells and springs on Holy Thursday, are of various devices, made mostly +of wild flowers bearing biblical texts; and the village maidens take +these in formal procession and present them after a little consecration +service in the church. One would like to see this pretty custom revived +in other counties. + +At Hathersage, beautifully situated among the hills some eight miles +above Bakewell, Oak Apple Day is kept in memory by suspending a wreath +of flowers on one of the pinnacles of the church tower. The interior, +with its faded green baize-lined box-pews duly labelled with brass +plates bearing the owners' names, has a charming old-world appearance. +In the church is a fine altar-tomb and brasses to the Eyres of North +Lees, an ancient house among the hills of the Hoodbrook valley. + +The ancient ceremony of rush-bearing at Glossop, formerly connected with +the church, has, we understand, degenerated into a "public-house show"; +which is a pity. In Huntingdonshire, however, there was until some years +back a somewhat similar custom of strewing green rushes, from the banks +of the river Ouse, on the floor of the old church of Fenstanton, near +St. Ives; but in Old Weston, in the same county, newly mown grass is +still strewn upon the floor of the parish church upon the village feast +Sunday: the festival of St. Swithin. The original ceremony of +"rush-bearing," a survival of the ancient custom of strewing the floors +of dwellings with marsh rushes, was a pretty sight. A procession of +village maidens, dressed in white, carried the bundles of rushes into +the church (accompanied, of course, by the inevitable band), and hung +garlands of flowers upon the chancel rails. The festival at Glossop, and +in places in the adjoining county of Cheshire, however, was more like +the last survival of May-day: the monopoly of sweeps,--a cart-load of +rushes was drawn round the village by gaily bedecked horses with a +motley band of morris-dancers accompanying it, who, having made a +collection, resorted to the public-house before taking their bundles to +the church. Had they reversed the order of things it is possible the +custom in some places would have been suffered to continue. Until a +comparatively recent date the floor of Norwich Cathedral was strewn with +rushes on Mayor's day; and there is still preserved among the civic +treasures a wonderful green wickerwork dragon hobby-horse, or rather +hobby-dragon, with wings, and movable jaws studded with nails for teeth, +which always made its appearance in the streets on these days of public +festival. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[29] They have been reproduced most carefully for the drawing-room of +the Cedar House at Hillingdon. + +[30] _Pepys' Diary_, March 18, 1667-68. + + + + + +NOOKS IN YORKSHIRE + + +In a journey across our largest county, so famous for its grand +cathedrals and ruined castles and abbeys, one could not wish for greater +variety either in scenery or association. Between the Queen of Scots' +prison in Sheffield Manor and the reputed Dotheboys Hall a few miles +below the mediaeval-looking town of Barnard Castle, there is vast +difference of romance; and yet what more unromantic places than Bowes or +Sheffield! Indeed, take them all round, the towns and villages of +Yorkshire have a grey and dreary look about them; and the houses partake +of the pervading character, or want of character, of the busy +manufacturing centres. But the natural scenery is quite another matter, +and with such lovely surroundings one often sighs that the picturesque +and the utilitarian are so opposed to one another. We do not, however, +merely allude to the buildings in the southern part of the county, for +many villages in the prettiest parts have nothing architecturally +attractive about their houses. The snug creeper-clad cottage, so +familiar in the south of England, is, comparatively speaking, a rarity, +and one misses the warmth of colour amid the everlasting grey. + +The express having dropped us in nearly the southernmost corner, our +object is to get out of the busy town of Sheffield as quickly as +possible; but, as before stated, romance lingers around the remains of +the ancient seat of the sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, who lies buried in the +parish church, for under his charge the Scots' queen remained here a +prisoner for many years; and Wolsey, too, was brought here on his way +to Leicester. + +Upon the road to Barnsley there is little to delay us until we come to a +turning to the right a couple of miles or so to the south of the town. +After the continual chimney-shafts the little village of Worsborough is +refreshing. The church has many points of interest. The entrance porch +has a fine oak ceiling with carved bosses, and the original oak door is +decorated with carved oak tracery. The most interesting thing within is +the monument to Sir Roger Rockley, a sixteenth-century knight whose +effigy in armour lies beneath a canopy supported by columns very much +resembling a four-poster of the time of Henry VII. The similarity is +heightened by the fact that the tomb is entirely of carved oak, painted +and gilded. The bed, however, has two divisions, and beneath the +recumbent wooden effigy of Sir Roger with staring white eyes, is the +gruesome figure of a skeleton in a shroud, also made more startling by +its colouring. How the juvenile Worsboroughites must dread this spectre, +for its position in the church is conspicuous! There is a brass to +Thomas Edmunds, secretary to William, Earl of Strafford, who lived in +the manor-house close by, a plain stone gabled house with two wings and +a small central projection. It is a gloomy looking place, and once +possessed some gloomy relics of the martyr king, including the stool +upon which he knelt on Whitehall scaffold. These relics belonged to Sir +Thomas Herbert, the close attendant upon Charles during the later days +of his imprisonment, and descended to the Edmunds family by the marriage +of his widow with Henry Edmunds of Worsborough.[31] The park presumably +has become public property, and the road running through it is much +patronised by the black-faced gentlemen of the neighbouring collieries. +Nor are the ladies of the mining districts picturesque, although they +seem to affect the costume of the dames of old Peru by showing scarcely +more than an eye beneath their shawls. + +Some three miles to the west of Worsborough is Wentworth Castle (a +successor to the older castle, the remains of which stood on the high +ground above), called by some Stainborough Hall to distinguish it from +Wentworth Woodhouse. The historic house stands high, commanding fine +views, but marred by mining chimney-shafts on the adjacent hills. The +exterior of the mansion is classic and formal, and exteriorly there is +little older than the time of George I.; the interior, however, takes us +back another century or more, and the panelled porters' hall and carved +black oak staircase were old when powdered wigs were introduced. In +Queen Anne's State rooms and in the cosy ante-chambers there are rich +tapestries, wonderful old cabinets, and costly china, reminding one of +the treasures of Holland House. But the finest room is the picture +gallery, one hundred and eighty feet in length and twenty-four feet in +breadth, and very lofty. The ceiling represents the sky with large gold +stars, and has a curious effect of making it appear much higher than it +really is. It belongs to the time of the second Earl of Strafford, who +built all this part of the house. The unfortunate first earl looks down +from the wall with dark melancholy eyes: a face full of character and +determination, and different vastly from the dreamy weakness revealed in +the profile of the sovereign who cut his head off. The despotic ruler of +Ireland is said to walk the chambers of the castle with his head under +his arm, which, strangely enough, seems to be the fashion with +decapitated ghosts; and Strafford is a busy ghost, for he has to divide +his haunting among two other mansions, Wentworth Woodhouse and Temple +Newsam. Here is Oliver, too, who made as great a mistake as Charles did +by resorting to the axe. The young Earl of Pembroke looks handsome in +his long fair ringlets; and so does the youthful Henrietta, Baroness +Wentworth (a pretty childish figure fondling a dog), whose end was every +way as tragic as her kinsman's. + +Many of the bedrooms are named after birds and flowers, a pretty idea +that we have not met elsewhere. The colour blue predominates in those we +call to mind, namely, the "Blue-tit room," the "Kingfisher room," the +"Peacock room," the "Cornflower room," and the "Forget-me-not room." +Just outside the park, near a house that was formerly kept as a +menagerie, is a comfortable old-fashioned inn, the "Strafford Arms," +the landlord of which was butler to two generations of the +Vernon-Wentworths, and in consequence he is quite an authority on +genealogical matters; and where his memory does not serve, has Debrett +handy at his elbow. Being a Somersetshire man he has brought the +hospitality of the western counties with him to the northern heights. He +points with pride to the cricket-ground behind the inn, the finest +"pitch" in Yorkshire. + +[Illustration: TOMB, DARFIELD CHURCH.] + +Let us avoid the town of Barnsley and turn eastwards towards Darfield, +whose interest is centred in its church. The ceilings of the aisles, +presumably like the picture gallery at Wentworth Castle, are supposed to +represent the heavens, but the colour is inclined to be sea-green, and +the clouds and stars are feathery. A fine Perpendicular font is +surmounted by an elaborate Jacobean cover; opposite, at the east +end of the church, is a fine but rather dilapidated tomb of a +fourteenth-century knight and his dame, and the effigy of the latter +gives a good idea of the costume of Richard II.'s time. Upon a wooden +stand close by there is a chained Bible, and the support looks so light +that one would think the whole could be carried off bodily, until one +tries its prodigious weight. + +Another tomb, of the Willoughbys of Parham, bears upon it some strange +devices, including an owl with a crown upon its head. The +seventeenth-century oak pews and some earlier ones with carved +bench-ends, add considerably to the interest of the interior. The +ancient coffer in the vestry, as well as a carved oak chest and chairs, +must not pass unnoticed. + +Barnborough to the east, and Great Houghton to the north-east, are both +famous in their way; the former for a traditional fight between a man +and a wild cat, which for ferocity knocked points off the Kilkenny +record. The Hall was once the property of Sir Thomas More (another of +those beheaded martyrs who are doomed to walk the earth with their heads +under their arms), and contains a "priest's hole," which, had it existed +in the Chancellor's day, might have tempted him to try and save his +life. Great Houghton Hall, the ancient seat of the Roders (a brass to +whom may be seen in Darfield church), is now an inn, indeed has been an +inn for over half a century. Once having been a stately mansion, it has +an air of mystery and romance; and there are rumours that before it +lost caste, in the transition stage between private and public life, one +of its chambers remained draped in black, in mourning for the Earl of +Strafford's beheading on Tower Hill in 1641. It is a huge building of +many mullioned windows and pinnacled gables; but within the last two +years the upper part of the big bays of the front have been destroyed, +and a verandah introduced which spoils this side, and whoever planned +this alteration can have had but little reverence for ancient buildings. +The rooms on the ground floor are mostly bare; but ascending a wide +circular stone staircase, with carved oak arches overhead, there are +pleasant surprises in store. You step into the spacious "Picture +gallery," devoid of ancestral portraits truly, but with panelled walls +and Tudor doorways. The mansion was stripped of its furniture over a +century and a half ago, but there are chairs of the Chippendale period +to compensate, and a great wardrobe of the Stuart period too big +presumably to get outside. Two bedrooms are panelled from floor to +ceiling and have fine overmantels, one of which has painted panels +depicting "Life" and "Death." But a great portion of the house is +dilapidated, and to see its ornamental plaster ceilings one would have +to risk disappearing through the floors below, like the demon in the +pantomime. Mine host of the "Old Hall Inn" is genuinely sympathetic, and +is quite of the opinion that the oak fittings that have been removed +would look best in their original position; and this is only natural, +for he has lived there all his life, and his mother was born in the +house; and he proudly points at the Jacobean pew in the adjacent church +where as a child he sat awestruck, holding his grandfather's hand while +the good old gentleman took his forty winks. The little church in its +cabbage-grown enclosure is quite an untouched gem, with formal array of +seventeenth-century pews with knobby ends, a fine carved oak pulpit and +sounding-board. Its exterior is non-ecclesiastical in appearance, with +rounded stone balustrade ornamentation. While photographing the building +an interested party observed that he had lived at Houghton all his life, +but had never observed there was a door on that side,--a proof that +residents in a place rarely see the most familiar objects. Nevertheless, +he discovered the door of the "Old Hall," and entered. + +Pontefract Castle, so rich in historical associations, is disappointing, +because there is so little of it left. It is difficult in these +fragmentary but ponderous walls to imagine the fortress as it appeared +in the days of Elizabeth. From an ancient print of that time it looks +like a fortified city, with curious pinnacles and turrets upon its many +towers. The great round towers of the keep had upon the summit quite a +collection, like intermediate pawns and castles from a chessboard. The +curtain walls connected seven round towers, and there were a multitude +of square towers within. There is something very suggestive of the +Duncan-Macbeth stronghold in the narrow stairway between those giant +rounded towers. It is like a tomb, and one shudders at the thought of +the "narrow damp chambers" in the thickness of the wall of the Red +Tower, where tradition says King Richard II. was done to death. By the +irony of fate it was the lot of many proud barons during some part of +their career to occupy the least desirable apartment of their castles; +and thus it was with Edward II.'s cousin, Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of +Lancaster, who from his own dungeon was brought forth to be beheaded. In +a garden near the highwayman's resort, Ferrybridge, above Pontefract, +may be seen a stone coffin which was dug up in a field on the outskirts +of the castle, and supposed to be that of the unfortunate earl. At +Pontefract, too, Lord Rivers, Sir Thomas Vaughan, Sir Richard Grey, and +others were hurried into another world by the Protector Richard; so +altogether the castle holds a good record for deeds of darkness, and the +creepy feeling one has in that narrow stairway between those massive +walls is fully justified by past events. The old castle held out stoutly +for the king in the Civil Wars. For many months, in 1645, it stood a +desperate siege by Fairfax and General Poyntz before the garrison +capitulated. Three years later it was captured again for the Royalists +by Colonel Morrice, and held with great gallantry against General +Lambert even after the execution of Charles I. In the March following, +the stronghold surrendered, saving Morrice and five others who had not +shown mercy to Colonel Rainsborough when he fell into their hands. These +six had the option of escaping if they could within a week. "The +garrison," says Lord Clarendon, "made several sallies to effect the +desired escape, in one of which Morrice and another escaped; in another, +two more got away; and when the six days were expired and the other two +remained in the castle, their friends concealed them so effectually, +with a stock of provisions for a month, that rendering the castle and +assuring Lambert that the six were all gone, and he was unable to find +them after the most diligent search, and had dismantled the castle, they +at length got off also." There are still some small chambers hewn out of +the solid rock on which the castle is built, reached by a subterranean +passage on the north side; and perhaps here was the successful +lurking-place. Colonel Morrice and his companion, Cornet Blackburn, were +afterwards captured in disguise at Lancaster. + +In the pleasure gardens of to-day, with various inscription boards +specifying the position of the Clifford Tower, Gascoyne's Tower, the +King's Tower, and so forth, we get but a hazy idea of this once +practically impregnable fortress, covering an area of seven acres. +Concerning Richard II.'s death, it is doubtful whether the truth will +ever be arrived at. The story that he escaped, and died nineteen years +afterwards in Scotland, is less likely than the supposition that he died +from the horrors of starvation; on the other hand, the story of the +attack by Sir Piers Exton's assassins is almost strengthened by the +evidence of a seventeenth-century tourist, who, prior to its destruction +in the Civil War, records: "The highest of the seven towers is the Round +Tower, in which that unfortunate prince was enforced to flee round a +poste till his barbarous butchers inhumanly deprived him of life. _Upon +that poste the cruell hackings and fierce blowes doe still remaine._" +Mr. Andrew Lang perhaps can solve this historic mystery; or perhaps he +has already done so? New Hall, close at hand, must have been a grand old +house; but it is now roofless, and crumbling to decay. It is a +picturesque late-Tudor mansion, with a profusion of mullioned windows +and a central bay. The little glass that remains only adds to its +forlorn appearance. + +Ferrybridge and Brotherton both have an old-world look. The latter +place is famous for the battle fought there between Yorkists and +Lancastrians; and as the birthplace of Thomas de Brotherton, the fifth +son of King Edward I. The old inns of Ferrybridge recall the prosperous +coaching days; but the revival of business on the road which has been +brought about by cycle and motor, will have but little effect on this +village with a past. The hostelry by the fine stone bridge that gives +the place its name, has a past connected with notorious gentlemen of the +road, and an entry in an old account-book runs as follows: "A traveller +in a gold-laced coat ordered and drank two bottles of wine--doubtless +mischief to-night, for the traveller, methinks, is that villain Dick +Turpyn." How vividly this recalls that excellent picture by Seymour +Lucas, R.A., where a landlord of the Joe Willet type is eyeing, between +the whiffs from his long churchwarden, a suspicious guest, who having +tasted mine host's vintage has dropped asleep, regardless of the fact +that his brace of flintlocks are conspicuously visible. + +Between here and Leeds are two fine mansions, Ledston Hall and Kippax +Park. The former is a very uncommon type of Elizabethan architecture, +almost un-English in character. It is a stone-built house of the time of +James I., with Dutch-like gables and narrow square towers. In the reign +of Charles I. it belonged to Thomas, Earl of Strafford; but his son, the +second earl, sold the estate. Kippax in its way is original in +construction, but savours somewhat of Strawberry Hill Gothic. The +ancient family of Bland have been seated here since the time of +Elizabeth, the direct male line, however, dying out in the middle of the +eighteenth century. Sir Thomas Bland was one of the gallant Royalists +who defended Pontefract Castle during the Civil War. + +A few miles to the north-west is the grand old mansion, Temple Newsam. +Like Hatfield House, which in many respects it resembles, it is built of +red-brick with stone coigns, and the time-toned warm colour is +acceptable in this county of grey stone. It was built like many +so-called Elizabethan houses in the reign of James I., and, like Castle +Ashby, has around the three sides of the quadrangle a parapet of letters +in open stone work which runs as follows: "All glory and praise be given +to God the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost on high, peace on earth, +goodwill towards men, honour and true allegiance to our gracious king, +loving affections amongst his subjects, health and plenty within this +house." The loyal sentiments are not those of Mary Queen of Scots' +husband, Lord Darnley, who was born in the earlier house, but of the +builder, Sir Anthony Ingram, who bought the estate from the Duke of +Lennox. Of all the spacious rooms, the picture gallery is the finest. +It is over a hundred feet in length and contains a fine collection of +old masters and some remarkable china. Albert Durer's hard and +microscopic art is well represented, as well as the opposite extreme in +Rembrandt's breadth of style. But the gem of all is a head by Reynolds +(of, we think, a Lady Gordon), a picture that connoisseurs would rave +about. A small picture of Thomas Ingram is almost identical with that of +the Earl of Pembroke we have mentioned at Wentworth Castle. In one of +the bedrooms (famous for their tapestry hangings and ancient beds) are +full-length portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth, and James +I., the first like the well-known portraits at Hardwick and Welbeck. On +one of the staircases is an interesting picture of Henrietta, Duchess of +Orleans, in a turban, with the favourite spaniel who appears in many of +her portraits. She holds in her hand the picture of her lord and master, +the duke who was so jealous of her. A new grand staircase with +elaborately carved newels, after the style of that at Hatfield, has been +added to the mansion recently, and harmonises admirably with its more +ancient surroundings. + +The park is fine and extensive, but beyond, the signs of the proximity +of busy Leeds obtrude and spoil the scenery. We went from here to the +undesirable locality of Hunslet in search of a place called Knowsthorpe +Hall, but had some considerable difficulty in finding it, for nobody +seemed to know it by that name. "You warnts the Island," observed a +mining gentleman, a light dawning upon him. So we got nearer by +inquiring for "the Island," but then the clue was lost. Thousands of +factory hands were pouring out of a very unlikely looking locality, but +nobody knew such a place. In desperation we plunged into a primitive +coffee-stall, around which black bogies were sitting at their mid-day +meal. One of them with more intelligence than the rest knew the place, +but couldn't describe how to get to it. "Go up yon road," he said, "and +ask for 'Whitakers.'" We followed the advice, and at the turning asked +for 'Whitakers.' "Is it the dressmakers ye mean?" was the reply of a +small boy to whom we put the question. "Yes," we said, in entire +ignorance whether it was the dressmakers or the almanac people. But +having got so far there were landmarks that did the rest, and presently +a big entrance gate was seen with painted on its side-pillars, +"Knowsthorpe Olde Hall." + +[Illustration: GATEWAY, KNOWSTHORPE HALL.] + +But there was no Island, not even a moat. The smoke of Leeds has given +the stone walls a coat of black, but otherwise it is not unpicturesque, +and would be more so if this original gateway remained. Within the last +two years this has been removed as well as the steps leading down from +the terrace. The gateway was called the "Stone Chairs," because of the +niches or seats on either side of it. It is now, we understand, at Hoare +Cross, near Burton-on-Trent. There is much oak within the house, and one +panelled room has a very fine carved mantelpiece. The oak staircase, +too, is graceful as well as uncommon in design. Close against one side +of the house is a stone archway with sculptured figures of the time of +James I. on either side of it, and the old lady in charge related the +history of this happy pair, how the gentleman had wooed the damsel (a +Maynard), but as he had not been to the wars she would have nothing to +say to him. Consequently he buckled on his sword and engaged in the +nearest battle; and to prove his valour, brought back with him as a +love-token the arm which he had lost,--a statement sounding somewhat +contradictory. Naturally after that she fell into his--other arm, and +accepted him on the spot. This daughter of Mars, of course, now +"revisits the glimpses of the moon" with her lover's arm, not around her +waist in the ordinary fashion, but in her hand; and those who doubt the +story may see her effigy thus represented. But the dignity of this happy +pair is somewhat marred, for the only use to which they are now put is +to form a stately entrance to--a hen-coop! + +There are some interesting old houses between Leeds and Otley, the "Low" +Halls of Rawdon and Yeadon, for instance. The former is a good +Elizabethan house, and contains some interesting rooms. Low Hall, +Yeadon, dates farther back, though its chief characteristics are of the +same period. The interior is rich in ancient furniture, and there are +some Knellers, which the artist is said to have painted on the spot. The +saturnine features of the Merry Monarch are to be seen on one side of +the huge Tudor fireplace, and near at hand Nell Gwyn, probably a more +correct likeness than a flattering one. There are ancient cabinets, +chests, and tables contemporary with the house; and what is more +interesting still, the cabinets and chests contain relics of Mary Queen +of Scots, and the ruffs and collars that were fashionable three +centuries ago. A gallery, wainscoted with large panels of a later +period, extends the length of the house; and at the western extremity of +it a bedroom, also panelled, possesses a hiding-place or secret cupboard +which it would baffle the most persevering to discover, but when the +panel is pushed aside, the trick of it looks so very simple. Of the +Stuart relics we shall speak presently in referring to Mary Queen of +Scots' imprisonment at Bolton Castle. + +Passing through Guiseley, which is situated in the midst of worsted +mills, with the stocks by a lamp-post in the middle of the street as if +they were a present-day necessity, you climb a hill and then come +suddenly upon a lovely view, with Otley, "the Switzerland of Yorkshire," +lying in the Wharfe valley below. The Chevin Hill is over nine hundred +feet in height, and from it you are supposed to see York Cathedral on +one side and the mountains of Westmoreland on the other. As the Chevin +is the lion of the place, it is the duty of visitors to go to the top. +Alpine climbers may enjoy this sort of task, but there are some people +who do not even wish to say that they have seen a city some +six-and-twenty miles away; but such as these who go to Otley and do not +inconvenience themselves would be looked upon by the Otleyites with +pity. But there is another thing which the town is proud of too, and +that is its lofty Maypole, which, standing in a firm socket of stone, is +guarded round by iron rails. There are far more Maypoles in Yorkshire +than in any other county, and it is pleasing to find the people are thus +conservative; though truly when they get blown down, they don't often +trouble themselves enough to put them up again. There are some +interesting monuments in the church, one on the right of the chancel to +General Fairfax's grandparents, two stately recumbent effigies of James +I.'s time. There are mural monuments to the Fawkeses of Farnley Hall (a +much altered Elizabethan mansion, containing Cromwellian relics: the +Lord Protector's hat, sword, and watch, and Fairfax's drum) and a +Vavasour of Weston Hall, who was a philanthropist in his way, for he was +buried in wool to promote the local trade. He is represented on his +monument neatly packed, and looks so cosy that the bas-relief is +suggestive of the undertaker's advertisement, "Why live and be wretched +when you can be buried comfortably for five pound ten?" In the vestry +there is a splendid set of old oak chairs of which the verger is not a +little proud. + +[Illustration: LEATHLEY STOCKS.] + +[Illustration: STOCKS AT WESTON.] + +A pleasant meadow walk by the riverside leads to Leathley, which has a +Norman church, but can scarcely be called a village, for there is no +inn. A formidable pair of stocks stand ready by the churchyard; but as +nothing stronger than milk can be procured, they have not been worn out +with too much work. Again, at Weston on the other side of the Wharfe +river we come across the roadside stocks (like the usual Yorkshire type, +with two uprights of stone) by the spreading roots of an ancient tree. +Weston Hall is a long low Tudor building, with at one end a broad bay of +three storeys. An old banqueting-house in the grounds is ornamented +with shields of arms; and formerly the windows of it were full of +heraldic stained glass, some of which is now in the windows of the Hall. +From here we went northwards in search of Swinsty Hall, over a lonely +moorland district. The road goes up and up until you are not surprised +when you come to a signpost pointing to "To Snowdon." To the left, you +are told, leads to "Blubberhouses," wherever that may be. For preference +we chose the latter road, and soon got completely lost in the wilds. The +only sign of civilisation was a barn, where we had the fortune to find +an old man who presumably spoke the pure dialect, for we couldn't make +head or tail of it. "Swinsty--ai, you go on ter road until it is," was +the direction he gave, and we went on and until it _wasn't_. At length, +however, after plodding knee deep in marshy land and saturated heather, +we found the object of our search perched in a lonely meadow above a +wide stretch of water. It looked as if it had a gloomy history; and no +wonder that some of the upper rooms are held in awe, for there the ghost +of a person with the unromantic name of Robinson is said to count over +his ill-gotten gains, which he brought down from London in waggons when +the Plague of 1666 was raging. He had the good fortune to escape +contamination, and once back with his plundered wealth he meant to have +what nowadays we call "a good time"; but the story has a moral, for it +got winded abroad how he got his gold, and nobody would have anything to +do with him or his money, and by the irony of fate he had to spend the +rest of his days in trying to wash away the germs of infection. + +[Illustration: SWINSTY HALL.] + +The hall is entered through a spacious porch in the roof of which is +hung an enormous bell. The room you enter is by no means gloomy. A +carved oak staircase with balustrade of peculiar form leads to other +rooms panelled to the ceiling, with fine overmantels. The leads of the +small window-panes are of fanciful design; one bears the date 1627 and +the initials I. W. H., and these occur again with the date 1639 in some +oak carving in one of the bedrooms. A "well" stone staircase between +rough-hewn stone walls leads up to the attics, which have open timber +roofs with semicircular span to the main beams. They look as if they +were but recently put up, so fresh does the wood look, and the pegs that +join the timbers still protrude as if they had just been hammered in, +and awaited the workman's axe to cut them level. A word upon the subject +of these old roofs may not be out of place. When old houses are +restored, of course it is the proper thing to open out an original +timber roof where the original hall or chamber has been divided and +partitioned, but in so many instances nowadays flat ceilings are +removed to show the open timbers which were _never intended to be +seen_. Bedrooms are thus made cold and bare, with not nearly enough +protection from the draughts from the tiles. The attics at Swinsty are a +proof of this, there being no great distance between the floor and the +roof. Another thing, if the floors were done away with here, Mr. +Robinson would have to come down a storey, and that is not desirable. + +On the way to Swinsty, by the bye, a ruinous house is passed on the +right about midway between there and Otley. It is of no great +architectural interest, but is singular in construction, having a +projecting turret containing a spiral staircase at the back, which +presumably was the only entrance. It is lofty, and has square windows +with a bay in the centre, but it is now only a shell. Mr. Ingram in his +_Haunted Homes_ relates that Dob Park Lodge, as the place is called, is +reputed to be haunted by a huge black dog who has the power of speech, +and is said to watch over a hidden treasure in the vaults, like the dog +with saucer eyes in Hans Andersen. The entrance to these is locally +supposed to be somewhere at the foot of the winding stair, and so far +only one person has ventured to explore the depths; but when he did, he +actually saw a great chest of gold!--but then we must take into account +that he was very drunk. Fewston village, not far from Swinsty, is +picturesquely situated on a knoll above the lake or reservoir; but the +church, mostly of William III.'s time, has nothing of interest save a +few stalls and a pretty little font cover. The wooden spiked altar +rails might almost be the palings of a suburban garden, whilst the crude +square panes of red and blue of the chancel windows should be anywhere +but in a church. + +To the north-east is "Catch'em Corner"; but it is uncertain what is to +be caught except a chill, for the position is very bleak. Striking +northwards we get into the delightful Nidd valley. To the right lies +Ripley, famous for the rood screen, the ancient glass, and Edwardian +tomb of the Ingilbys of the castle, which Tudor structure surrendered to +the Parliament a day or so before Marston Moor was fought. Here Cromwell +is said to have sat up all night before the battle, hob-a-nob with his +unwilling hostess. + +Going northwards from Fewston, the prettiest part of the road to Pateley +is struck near the village of Dacre. The romantic rocks and glens +hereabouts are famous, and much frequented by tourists, consequently +sixpences and threepences have to be frequently disbursed. The price is +cheap enough, but the romance is spoiled. Hack Fall, near Masham, to the +north-east, is as lovely a spot as one could wish to see, but there are +too many signs of civilisation about. It is like taming a lion. The +guide-book tells you to go along until you get to a "refreshment +house," which almost reads like an advertisement in disguise. + +There is a sculptured Saxon cross in Masham churchyard, and the church +contains a fine monument to the Wyvells of Burton Constable manor, an +old house near Finghall, to the north-west, where members of the family +are also buried. The famous Jervaulx Abbey ruins nestle in a hollow on +the right of the road to Middleham. When close upon it we asked the way +of a yokel, but he shook his head; and then it dawned upon him what we +meant: "It's Jarvey ye warnt," he said, and pointed straight ahead. +Scott's worthy, Prior Aylmer, would surely beam with joy at the tender +care bestowed upon the remains of the establishment over which he once +presided; and the park might grace the finest modern dwelling, judging +by the well-kept lawns and walks; but all this trimness looks less +natural to a ruin than the more rustic surroundings of Easby, for +example. The remains of the Cistercian monastery are rather fragmentary, +consisting mainly of some graceful octagonal pillars and a row of lofty +lancet windows in the wall of the refectory, and some round-headed +arches of the chapter-house. It was destroyed in 1539, and the beautiful +screen of the church carried off to Aysgarth, where it may now be seen. + +Continuing along the road to Middleham, Danby Hall, the ancient seat of +the Scropes, is seen in the distance on the right; but the river +intervenes, and one has to go beyond East Witton before a crossing can +be obtained. This village, built on either side of a wide green, has +nothing out of the common except its Maypole and its very conspicuous +Blue Lion rampant. A blue lion is a little change after the hackneyed +red, and the beast looks proud of his originality. Witton probably was +much prettier before the jubilee celebration of George III.'s reign, +when the old church and most of the old houses were pulled down. + +By the old grey bridge (with the pillar of a sundial in the centre, +dated 1674) the Cover and Yore Rivers join hands with not a little fuss, +like the enthusiasm of a new-made friendship. The road to Danby Hall +runs level with the river then branches to the left. The mansion is +Elizabethan; but the stone balustrade was added in the middle of the +seventeenth century, and the small cupola-crowned towers were added +subsequently. The oldest part is a square tower to the north-east, +where, in the time of religious persecution, there was a small oratory +or chapel for secret services. In the heraldic glass of the windows the +ancient family of Scrope may be traced from Lord Scrope who fought at +Flodden up to the present day, and their history may be followed by the +portraits of the various generations on the walls. A curious discovery +was made here in the early part of the last century. One of the chimneys +in a stack of four could not be accounted for, and a plummet of lead was +dropped down each of them, three of which found an outlet but the fourth +could not be found. To get at the bottom of the mystery, a not too bulky +party was lowered down, and he found himself in a small chamber full of +long cut-and-thrust swords, flintlock pistols, and the ancient saddlery +of untanned leather for a troop of fifty horse. Not much value was set +upon such things in those days, so the harness was put to good account +and utilised for cart-horse gear upon the farm. But the dispersal of the +ancient weapons has a history too, for at the time that England was +trembling with the fear of an invasion from the dreaded "Boney," a +cottage caught light one night on one of the surrounding hills; and this +being taken as a signal of alarm, the beacon on top of Penhill was +fired. The terror-stricken villagers rushed everywhere for weapons, but +none could be provided, and the good squire of Danby speedily +distributed the secret store which had been hidden in the house for the +Jacobite insurrection of 1715. In time the yokels returned, and there +was a week's rejoicing and merry-making that the blazing beacon after +all had only proved a flash in the pan. The pistols and swords, however, +were not returned save one, which may still be seen with the armourer's +marks on the blade, "Shotley" on one side and "Bridge" on the +other.[32] Another has found its way into the little museum at Bolton +Castle. In demolishing a cottage at Middleham it was discovered up in +the thatch roof, where it was put, perhaps, pending another alarm. The +hiding-place was converted into a butler's room by Major Scrope's +grandfather. + +Among the portraits are some good Lelys, including two of Sir Carr +Scrope who was so enamoured of the Court physician's daughter.[33] +Another Lely of a handsome girl is said to represent one of the Royalist +Stricklands of Sizergh. Above the black oak staircase of James I.'s time +hangs a rare portrait of Mary of Modena; for one seldom sees her when +the beauty of youth had departed, for naturally she did not like to be +handed thus down to posterity. The queen looks sour here, which tallies +with the accounts we have of her in later life; but truly she had cause +enough to make her sour. + +[Illustration: MIDDLEHAM CASTLE.] + +From the Yore River the ground ascends to Middleham, now only a sleepy +looking village but called a "town." Above the roof-tops at the summit +of the hill stands the mediaeval castle where resided in great pomp that +turbulent noble, Warwick the "kingmaker." Here it was that he +imprisoned Edward IV., the monarch he had helped to put upon the throne, +for daring to marry the widowed daughter of Sir Richard Woodville in +preference to a Nevill. When, the year after reinstating Henry VI. for a +brief space, the great feudal baron ended his career on Barnet +battlefield, his castle at Middleham was handed over by Edward to his +brother Richard, who had also a claim upon it by his marriage with the +"kingmaker's" daughter. Here "Crookback," or rather "Crouchback," was +living before he usurped the Crown in 1483; and here his son the young +Prince Edward died upon the first anniversary, as a providential +punishment for the death of his little cousins in the Tower. Richard, by +the way, is said to have had another natural son who lived into the +reign of Edward VI. and died in a small house on the Eastwell estate +near Wye in Kent. Richard Plantagenet's death is duly recorded in the +parish register, distinguished by the mark of a V, which distinguishes +other entries of those of noble birth, and a plain tomb in the chancel +is supposed to be his place of interment. Until an old man he preserved +his incognito, when Sir Thomas Moyle discovered that a mason at work +upon his house was none other than a king's son. His youth had been +spent under charge of a schoolmaster, who had taken him to Bosworth +field and introduced him into Richard's tent. The king received him in +his arms and told him he was his father, and if he survived the battle +he would acknowledge him to be his son; but if fortune should go against +him, he should on no account reveal who he was. On the following day in +entering Leicester a naked figure lying across a horse's back was +pointed out to him as the same great person whose star and gaiter had +inspired him with awe. + +The walls of the Norman castle keep are of immense thickness, and +protected without by others almost as formidable of a later date. The +great hall was on the first floor, and the tower where little Edward +Plantagenet was born (the Red Tower) at the south-west corner; but +tradition hasn't kept alive much to carry the imagination back to the +time when the powerful Nevill reigned here in his glory. The escape of +Edward IV. has been made realistic in the immortal bard's _King Henry +VI._, and Scene v. Part iii. might be read in less romantic spots than +in Wensleydale, with this grand old ruin standing out in the distance +like one of Dore's castles. In this case, distance "lends enchantment," +as Middleham itself is by no means lovely. The ancient market-cross +would look far less commonplace and tomb-like were the top of it again +knocked off. The site of the swine market bears the cognosance of +"Crouchback," which is scarcely a compliment to his memory; but this +antique monument is put vastly in the shade by a jubilee fountain, the +only up-to-date thing in the place, and quite out of harmony with the +ring where bulls were baited within living memory. + +In Spennithorne church, near Middleham, there is an ancient altar-tomb +of John Fitz-Randolph, of the family of the early lords of the castle +before the Nevills became possessed of it. Along the font are several +coloured shields of arms of the various families with whom they +intermarried. The nave of the church has an odd appearance, as the north +and south aisles are separated by a series of distinct arches, the +latter Early English, the former pure Norman. A very interesting +thirteenth-century screen was originally at Jervaulx Abbey. On the west +wall there is a large fresco of Father Time, dating perhaps two hundred +years later. The rector must be commended for hanging in his church a +brief summary of the points of interest, and many might follow this +laudable example. + +[Illustration: QUEEN'S GAP, LEYBURN "SHAWL."] + +[Illustration: BOLTON CASTLE.] + +[Illustration: BELLERBY OLD HALL.] + +Leyburn stands high among the hills, and must have been a picturesque +old market-place before the ancient town-hall, market-cross, and two +stately elms were removed. The great wide street has now a bare and by +no means attractive appearance, and were it not for the lovely +surroundings it would not form so popular a centre for exploring. The +"Shawl," the huge natural terrace, on a rocky base high up above the +tree-tops of the woods below, is, of course, its great feature, and a +more delightful walk could not be found in England, with the softest +turf to walk upon and the glorious panorama in front. Conspicuous among +the heights is flat-topped Penhill, standing boldly out against the wide +expanse of dale, upon whose crest are the ruins of a chapel of the old +Knights Templars. A gap in the rock, with a path running westwards +through the woods, is known as "Queen's Gap," for Mary Queen of Scots +when she fled from Bolton Castle got thus far when she was overtaken in +attempting to urge her horse through the narrow ravine. In consequence +of this, the "Shawl" locally is said to derive its name from the shawl +the prisoner dropped upon the way, giving her pursuers a clue; which on +the face of it is ridiculous, as the name is derived either from the +Saxon _Sholl_ or Scandinavian _Schall_. Bolton is some five miles away +to the west, and the poor captive was to have gone northwards to +Richmond and thence to her native land; and at Bellerby, between +Richmond and Leyburn, a halt was to have been made at the Hall, the seat +of the Royalist family of Scott, where a company of Scots guards was +stationed ready to receive her. The old Hall still stands on the +left-hand side of the village green as you enter, and looks as if it had +a history. + +At Bolton the window may be seen from which she was lowered to the +ground, and one can trace the way she took in a north-easterly direction +across the rocky bed of the rushing stream into the woods below the +"Shawl." The window from which she escaped is the upper one of the three +running horizontally with the south-western tower. There is another +window to the prison-room which looks into the inner courtyard. The +apartment is grim and bare, with a small fireplace, and steps leading +down into a larger bare apartment, once the "drawing-room." Though +externally the castle is not so picturesque as Middleham, it is much +more perfect and interesting. The hooded stone fireplaces remain in the +walls, and various rooms can be located, from the hall and chapel to the +vault-like stables in the basement. The well, too, is perfect, with +scooped-out wall to the upper chambers, not forgetting the awful dungeon +in the solid rock. A large apartment with wide Tudor fireplace has been +converted into a museum, and the curiosities are of a varied nature, +from cocking spurs and boxing-gloves from the sporting centres of +Leyburn and Middleham to the bull-fight banderillos of Spain. There is +quite an assortment of weird-looking instruments of torture, which, +after all, are only toasting-dogs, huge cumbrous things like +antediluvian insects or much magnified microbes. How is it these +appurtenances of domestic comfort have entirely died out like the now +extinct warming-pan? But this museum can no way be compared with Mr. +Home's wonderful collections at Leyburn. Here you can learn something +about everything, for the kindly proprietor of the museum takes a pride +in describing his curios. Those who have been to Middleham and seen the +castle immortalised by Shakespere, may here study Edward IV.'s fair +hair. As rare a curiosity is a valentine of the time of William III. +From the treasures of Egyptian tombs you skip to the first invented +matches; from Babylonian inscriptions to early-Victorian samplers. And +the learned antiquarian relates how he was educated in the old Yore mill +at Aysgarth by old John Drummond, the grandson of the Jacobite Earl of +Perth, who had to hide himself in a farm in Bishopdale (How Rig) for his +hand in the '45, when the Scotch estates were confiscated for aiding the +cause of the Bonnie Prince. Were it not for Mr. Home's interest in +old-time customs, the bull-ring in the market-place would have +disappeared, for the socket was nearly worn through when he had it +repaired. He relates how at the last bull-baiting the infuriated beast +got away and sent the whole sportsmen flying, and at length was shot in +Wensley village. + +Wensley nestles in the valley, surrounded by hills. The interior of the +church is rich in carvings from the ruinous abbey of Easby, near +Richmond. The stalls from Easby have at the ends exceptionally bold and +elaborate carvings with heraldic shields and arms, dating from the days +of Edward IV. A nearly life-size brass, of the third Edward's time, is +of its kind one of the finest in England,--an ecclesiastic in robes, +with crossed hands pointing downwards. By the entrance door is a quaint +old poor-box; but what first strikes the eye as you enter, is the +parclose screen from Easby Abbey, which, ill fitting its confined space, +partially blocks the windows; but the effect of the elaborate carving +against the tracery is very striking. It is early-Tudor in date, and +belonged to the Scrope chantry, whose arms appear upon it, with those of +Fitz-Hugh, Marmion, and other noble families. Within this screen, +evidently a good many years later, a manorial pew was made, the side of +which is within the parclose. To amalgamate the two, the latter has been +somewhat mangled, doors having been added, with a pendant aloft to +balance other large hollow pendants in the various arches. Unfortunately +the whole has been painted with a dull grey and grained, a feeble +attempt to represent marble, and parts of it are also gilt. A fixed +settle has been added to the interior, so unless carefully examined it +is difficult to detect how the parclose and pew were made into one. The +two-decker pulpit and the wide old-fashioned pews lined with faded green +baize and pink rep, bring us back to more modern times; but one would be +loath to see them removed if restoration funds were lavish. Beneath the +great manorial pew lie at rest the remains of the daughter of the +thirteenth Lord Scrope, who by marriage with the first Duke of Bolton +brought the castle into the Poulett family: until then the Scropes had +held possession through marriage with an heiress of the Nevills. The +third wife of Charles Poulett, second Duke of Bolton, was Henrietta +Crofts, the daughter of the Duke of Monmouth and Eleanor Needham.[34] + +The Scrope who had charge of the Scots queen at Bolton Castle was Henry, +the eleventh lord, whose wife was sister to the captive's plotting +lover, the Duke of Norfolk, who also lost his head through these +ambitious schemes; and doubtless it was the duke who contrived the +queen's escape. She had been brought from the castle of Carlisle in July +1568, but after her attempt to escape was promptly removed (on January +26) to Tutbury Castle under charge of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The +furniture of her private altar at Bolton, the altar-cloth, part of a +rosary, a small bronze crucifix, and an alms-bag, are now preserved at +Low Hall, Yeadon, mentioned earlier in this chapter. Her hawking gloves +also: these are said to have been given to Lord Scrope upon her leaving. + +Some miles to the west of Bolton is Nappa Hall (where the ancient family +of Metcalfe lived since the reign of Henry VI., and where Metcalfes live +to-day), a fortified manor-house with square towers (suggestive of +Haddon), which also claims association with the unfortunate queen. By +some accounts she slept here one night, by others two or more; and the +tradition in the Metcalfe family says nine, in the highest chamber of +the tallest tower. The date is not known, but probably she was brought +here on her way from Carlisle Castle. The bed on which she slept, the +top of which was very low, is now at Newby Hall, near Ripon. Our +sanitary views being very distinct from those enlightened times, the +pillars of these sixteenth-century beds are frequently raised (in some +cases unnecessarily high), and unless one wished to be half-smothered, +this is a natural thing to do if the bed is to be put to practical use; +but nowadays the collectors of ancient furniture are again reducing the +height, and bringing them down to their original proportions. + +[Illustration: ASKRIGG.] + +[Illustration: NAPPA HALL.] + +In asking the way to Nappa from the village of Askrigg, we were told to +follow a "gentleman with a flock of sheep who was going up that way"; +but as the distance was the matter of a couple of miles--and Yorkshire +miles too, we preferred to follow the telegraph poles, which, after all, +was more expeditious and quite as reliable. We give this as an instance +of the ordinary pace at which things move in these parts; and perhaps it +is as well, otherwise the old Hall built by William Taunton in 1678 (so +it says on the door), with its upper balcony of wood looking upon the +quaint old market-cross where the bull-ring used to be, might have given +way to co-operative stores or some new hideous building. + +The village-green of Bainbridge to the west is quite shut in with hills, +and in the centre are the stocks, or rather the stone supports minus the +most important part, with a rough rock seat which must have added +considerably to the victim's discomfort. The principal curiosity, +however, is the ancient custom prevailing here of blowing a horn at 10 +p.m. during the summer months, to guide belated travellers on the moors. +This was an excellent provision for safety hundreds of years ago, when +Bainbridge was practically in the midst of a forest, and even in the +twentieth century may have its uses. The older horn, that was used +half a century ago, is now in Bolton Castle Museum. It is very large, +and curiously twisted. The houses at Bainbridge are of the ordinary ugly +Yorkshire type; but on high ground overlooking a ravine stands a nice +old gabled grange, which must have tempted many an artist and +photographer to pause upon their way to the famous Falls. These, of +course, are very fine, but to our mind far less beautiful than the +single plunge of water just below the grange, from a wide and +scooped-out bed of precipitous rock. Nor are the high, low, and middle +Falls of Aysgarth half so picturesque, though in a sense they are more +boisterous, like coppery boiling water. + +Aysgarth church is perched up high, and you have to climb up many steps +to reach it from the moss-grown bridge. The doors of most of the +Yorkshire churches we found were kept unlocked; but this was an +exception, so down those steps we had to come, to go in search of a key; +but reaching the bottom of the flight, up we had to go again to try and +find the rectory. Oh! the time that may be lost in hunting for a church +key, and what a blessing it would be if notices were stuck up in the +porches to say where they were kept. The interior of Aysgarth has a new +appearance, but the splendid painted screen from Jervaulx (placed east +and west instead of across the chancel) is worth a hunt for the key. +Another screen, dated 1536, has upon it the grotesque carving of a +fool's head with long-eared cap. Here again in the village are the +stocks; but the Maypole, which once was its pride, long since has made +its exit. + +[Illustration: RICHMOND.] + +By far the nearest way to Richmond from Leyburn is across the moor, a +rough and desolate road, but preferable to the terrible long way by +Catterick, more than double the distance (by rail it is four times the +distance!). This is the prettiest village of any on the way (which is +not saying much, be it said). The early fifteenth-century church has +some good monuments and brasses, one of the latter to a lady who for +many years before she died carried her winding-sheet about with her; and +one would naturally suppose one with such gruesome ideas would still +walk the earth for the edification of the timid, but she doesn't. + +The entrance to Richmond by the nearest way is very charming. You come +suddenly upon the castle perched up over the river, and as you wind down +the hill the grouping of its towers is thrown into perspective, forming +a delightful picture with the river and the bridge for a foreground. +Three kings have been prisoners within these formidable Norman walls: +two kings of Scotland, William and David Bruce, and after the lapse of +three centuries, Charles I., who passed here on his way to Holdenby. The +stalls and misericordes in the fine old church came from Easby Abbey. +They are boldly carved, and one of them represents a sow playing a +fiddle for the edification of her little pigs. There is a curious +coloured mural monument, on the east side of the chancel, of Sir Timothy +Hutton and his wife and children--twelve of them, including four babes, +beneath two of which are these verses: + + "As carefull mothers do to sleeping say, + Their babes that would too long the wanton play; + So to prevent my youths approaching crimes, + Nature my nurse had me to bed betimes." + +The next is less involved: + + "Into this world as strangers to an inn + This infant came, guest wise; + Where when 't had been and found no entertainment worth her stay, + She only broke her fast and went away." + +Altogether it is a cheery tomb. Faith, Hope and Charity are there, one +of whom acts as nurse to one of the babes. Her ladyship's expression is +somewhat of the Aunt Sally type, but that was the sculptor's fault. The +ancient church plate includes a chalice dated 1640. The registers are +beautifully neat and clean, and full of curious matter, such as the +banns being read by the market-cross. + +Apropos of Yorkshire marriages, the odd custom prevails in some parts of +emptying a kettle of boiling water, down--not the backs of the happy +pair, but down the steps of the front door as they drive away, that the +threshold may be "kept warm for another bride," we presume for _another_ +swain. The way also of ascertaining whether the future career of those +united will be attended with happiness is simple and effective. All you +have to do is, as the bride steps out of the carriage, to fling a plate +containing small pieces of the wedding-cake out of a window upon the +heads of the onlookers. If the crowd is a small one, and the plate +arrives on the pavement and is smashed to pieces, all will go well; but +if somebody's head intervenes, the augury is ominous; which, after all, +is only natural, for is it not likely that one thus greeted would call +at the house to bestow his blessing upon somebody? What a pity this +pretty custom is not introduced into the fashionable marriages of St +George's, Hanover Square. It would at least create a sensation. + +For the rest of Richmond church, well--it was restored by Sir Gilbert +Scott. It is regrettable to find the piscina on a level with the floor, +beneath a pew seat! + +The curfew still rings at Richmond, telling the good people when to go +to bed; but whether they go or not is another matter. We are told it is, +or was, also rung for them to get up again at six o'clock; and the aged +official whose duty it was to ring the morning bell, like a wise man, +did so at his leisure, lying in bed with the rope hanging from the +ceiling.[35] + +[Illustration: EASBY ABBEY.] + +From the churchyard, Easby Abbey is seen in the distance in a romantic +spot by the river: and the walk there is delightful, along the terrace +above the Swale. Like the rest of these fine structures, it was +destroyed by the vindictive Henry in 1535. The water close at hand, the +old abbot's elm, and the little church and gatehouse beyond, altogether +make this a spot in which to linger and ruminate. The church walls are +covered with curious and very well preserved paintings of the twelfth +century, giving a good idea of the costume of the period. The tempting +serpent, too, is shown twisted in artistic coils around a very +pre-Raphael looking tree; and in another scene the partakers of the +fruit are doubled up with remorse, or dyspepsia. + +So close at hand as is Bolton on Swale, to the east, it would be a pity +not to mention Henry Jenkins, who died there in 1670, aged one hundred +and sixty-nine!--a man in Charles II.'s reign who remembered the +dissolution of the monasteries, and who recollected as a boy assisting +in carrying arrows in a cart to the battle of Flodden field (where +veteran soldiers remembered the accession of King Edward IV.), was a +wonder compared with the feeble memory of our present-day centenarians, +who rarely recollect anything worth recording. When we think how nearly +we are linked with 1670 by the life of Mrs. William Stuart, who died in +the late queen's reign, and who heard from the lips of her grandmother +how she had been taken to Court in a black-draped Sedan when Whitehall +was in mourning for the death of the king's sister, Henrietta, Duchess +of Orleans,--it would have been possible for the little girl to have +spoken with old Jenkins, and thus with only three lives to have linked +the early part of the reign of Henry VIII. with that of Victoria. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] We have described these relics (now in the possession of Mrs. +Martin-Edmunds) in detail in the _Memoirs of the Martyr King_. + +[32] In the account in _Secret Chambers_ of the inscription on the +swords, it is given in error as "Shortly." + +[33] See _Some Beauties of the Seventeenth Century_. + +[34] See _King Monmouth_. + +[35] This and other information we have derived from Mr. Harry Speight's +interesting work, _Romantic Richmond_. + + + + +INDEX + + + + Abbotts Ann, 221. + Amber, river, 217. + "Angel," Ringwood, 178. + "Angel," Stilton, 10. + "Angel," Yeovil, 145. + Ashford, 221. + Ashover, 217. + Askrigg, 261. + Athelhampton, 173, 174, 175. + Avon, river, 84, 85. + Axmouth, 169. + Aysgarth, 249, 262, 263. + + Baddesley Clinton, 72, 73, 76. + Bainbridge, 262. + Barnard Castle, 225. + Barnborough, 230. + Barnstaple, 164, 165, 166. + Barrington Court, 135, 137, 138. + Barton Hall, 23. + Barton-on-the-Heath, 66, 67. + Beckington Castle, 130. + Beeley, 210. + Beer, 168, 169. + Bellerby, 256. + "Bell," Mildenhall, 22. + "Bell," Sandy Lane, 105. + "Bell," Stilton, 10, 86. + Bere Regis, 158, 176, 177. + Beverstone Castle, 100. + Bewley Court, 109. + Biddestone, 114. + Bildeston, 32. + Bindon, 169. + Birdlip, 97. + Birtsmorton Court, 81, 83, 84. + Bishop's Lydeard, 147, 148. + "Black Horse," Birdlip, 98. + Blackladies, 199. + Blickling Hall, 45, 46, 47, 49. + Blore Heath, 192, 193. + "Blue Lion," East Witton, 249. + Bolsover Castle, 210, 217. + Bolton Castle, 251, 256, 260, 262. + Bolton-on-Swale, 267. + Bossington, 159. + Bovey, 169. + Bowes, 225. + Brailes, 68. + Brampton, 4. + Branscombe, 167, 168. + Braunton, 165. + Broadway, 85, 87, 89, 90. + Bromham, 103, 105. + Brotherton, 236. + Broughton Hall, 193, 194. + Brympton D'Eversy, 135, 141. + Brynkinalt, 185. + Buckingham's hole, Blore, 192. + Buckland, 89, 90. + Bullich House, Allington, 117. + Burrow Farm, 136. + Burton Constable, 248. + Bury St. Edmund's, 27, 31. + Bushley, 83. + + "Cannard's Grave," Shepton Mallet, 133, 134. + Carhampton, 157, 158. + Castle Combe, 114. + "Castle Inn," Castle Combe, 116. + Catterick, 263. + Chapel Plaster Hermitage, 110. + Charlcote, 72, 73. + Charterhouse Hinton, 128. + Chastleton, 62, 64, 66. + Chatsworth, 208, 210. + Chavenage Manor House, 100, 101. + Chedzoy, 135. + Cheney Court, 111. + Chevin Hill, 242. + Chideock, 171, 172. + Chipping Campden, 87, 92. + Chipping Norton, 61. + Chirk Castle, 181. + Church House, Crowcombe, 149. + Church Stanway, 90. + Church Stretton, 188, 189. + Claverton Down, 111. + Clifton Maybank, 143. + Clovelly, 162, 163. + Coaxden, 170. + Colerne, 112. + Coles Farm, Box, 111, 112. + Combe St. Nicholas, 145. + Combe Sydenham 152, 153. + Compton Wyniates, 42, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73. + Condover Hall, 187, 188. + Connington Hall, 7. + Coombe Abbey, 72, 195. + Coppingford, 6. + Corby, 20, 21. + Corsham Court, 109, 112, 113, 114, 128. + Cothelstone, 148. + Court Farm, Hadleigh, 33. + Cover, river, 250. + Crimplesham, 56. + Croscombe, 132, 133. + Crowcombe, 132, 149, 150, 152, 153. + Crowther's Farm, 178. + Croxton, 194. + Croyde Bay, 166. + Culford, 26. + Curry Rivel, 135, 136. + + Dacre, 248. + Dalby, 10. + Danby Hall, 249, 250. + Darfield, 230. + Dedham, 34. + Deene, 15, 16, 18. + Derwent, river, 210. + Dethick-cum-Lea, 217. + Dob Park Lodge, 247. + Dover Hill, 89, 92. + Downham Market, 56. + Downside, Shepton Mallet, 133. + "Dun Cow," Market Drayton, 190. + Dunster Castle, 155, 157, 158. + + Easby, 249, 258, 259, 264, 266. + East Barsham Manor House, 41, 42. + East Bergholt, 34. + East Witton, 249. + Eaton Constantine, 188. + Edensor, 209. + Eleanor Crosses, 21. + Elworthy, 153. + Enmore Castle, 150, 151. + Ermine Street. 6, 97. + Erwarton Hall, 36. + + Fakenham, 42, 43. + Farleigh Castle, 128, 136. + Farnley Hall, 243. + "Feathers," Ludlow, 188. + Fenstanton, 223. + Ferrybridge, 236. + Fewstone, 247, 248. + Finghall, 248. + Flatford, 34, 35. + Foss way, 134. + Fotheringay Castle, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15. + Four-Shire Stone, 66. + + Gastard, 109, 110. + Gaulden, 154. + Gedding Hall, 31. + Geddington, 21. + "George," Glastonbury, 126. + "George," Huntingdon, 2. + "George," Norton St. Philip, 125. + "George," Sandy Lane, 105. + "George," Yeovil, 145. + Glatton, 7. + Glossop, 222, 223. + Godmanchester, 4. + "Golden Lion," Barnstaple, 164. + Great Chaldfield, 118, 121, 135. + Great Houghton, 230. + Great Snoring, 42. + Great Torrington, 53. + Great Wenham, 35. + "Green Dragon," Chipping Campden, 88. + "Green Dragon," Combe St. Nicholas, 145. + Guiseley, 242. + + Hack Fall, 248. + Haddon Hall, 54, 86, 170, 183, 196, 200. + Hadleigh, 32, 34. + Hardeby, 21. + Hardwick, Derby, 143, 210, 212, 239. + Hardwick, Suffolk, 30. + "Hare and Hounds," East Bergholt, 35. + Harkstead, 36. + Hathersage, 222. + Hautboys Hall, 53. + Hawstead Place, 30, 31. + Hazelbury House, Box, 111. + Helmingham, 27, 150. + Hemington, 15. + Hengrave Hall, 26, 27, 28. + Heytesbury, 128. + Hinchinbrooke, 1, 3. + Hinton St George, 135, 138, 139, 143. + Hoare Cross, 240. + Hobbal Grange, 198, 199. + Holkham Hall, 40. + Holt Lodge, 178. + Hungerford Hospital, Corsham, 112. + Hunslet, 239. + Hunters' Hall, Colerne, 112. + Huntingdon, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11. + + Jervaulx Abbey, 248, 255, 263. + + Kenilworth, 27, 72. + Kineton, 94. + "King's Arms," Market Drayton, 190. + Kingston, 147. + Kingston Lacy, 179. + Kingston St Michael, 117. + Kippax Park, 237. + Kirby Hall, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 42. + Knapton, 44. + Knowsthorpe Hall, 239. + + Lacock Abbey, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109. + Langley, 188. + Langport, 135. + Lark, river, 24. + Leathley, 244. + Ledston Hall, 237. + Leyburn, 255, 256, 257, 263. + Little Compton, 61, 62. + Little Gidding, 7. + Little Saxham Hall, 26. + Little Stukeley, 5,6. + Little Wenham, 35. + Little Woolford, 66. + Long Compton, 59, 60, 61. + Long Marston, 89. + Low Hall, Rawdon, 241. + Low Hall, Yeadon, 241, 260. + Ludford, 188. + Ludlow Castle, 188. + "Luttrell Arms," Dunster, 157. + Lydcote, 53. + "Lygon Arms," Broadway, 85. + Lymington, 139, 140. + Lynmouth, 160. + Lynton, 160, 161. + Lytes Cary, 134. + + Malvern Chase, 81. + Mannington Hall, 49. + Manor Farm, Norton St Philip, 124. + Mapperton Manor House, 173. + Market Drayton, 189. + Martock, 135, 138. + Masham, 248. + Maxstoke Castle, 72. + Melksham, 109, 118, 151. + Melplash Court, 173. + Menden, 72, 73. + Mickleton, 89. + Middleham, 248, 249, 251, 252, 254, 257. + Middlesoy, 135. + Mildenhall, 22, 23, 24. + Minehead, 158. + Monksilver, 152, 154. + Monmouth House, Shepton Mallet, 134. + Montacute House, 135, 142, 143. + Montacute Priory, 144. + Mundesley, Rookery Farm, 44. + Mundford, 56. + + Nailsworth, 99, 100. + Nappa Hall, 260, 261. + Needham Market, 31. + Nene, river, 12. + Neston, 110. + Nettlecombe, 153. + Newbury Farm, Bildeston, 32. + Newby Hall, 261. + "New Inn," Clovelly, 163. + North Lees, Hathersage, 222. + Norton House, Chipping Campden, 89. + Norton St Philip, 123, 126, 127, 128. + + Offenham, 85. + Old Cleeve, 154. + "Old Hall Inn," Great Houghton, 231. + "Old Red Lion," Long Compton, 59. + Old Weston, 223. + Orwell, river, 34. + Otley, 242, 243, 246. + Oundle, 11. + Ouse, river, 4, 223. + Oxburgh Hall, 53, 54, 55. + Oxnead Hall, 47, 53. + + Painswick, 98. + Parnham Hall, 173. + Payne's Place, Bushley, 83, 144. + "Peacock," Rowsley, 207. + Penhill, 251, 255. + Pilsdon, 171. + Pilton, 165. + Pirton Court, 80. + Pitchford Hall, 187, 188. + Pixham, 78. + Plas Baddy, 185. + Plash Hall, 188. + Plumpton Hall, 30. + Pontefract Castle, 283. + Pontfaen, 186. + Porlock, 159, 160, 161. + Postlip Hall, 93, 96. + Powick Bridge, 78. + Priors Court, 78. + Puddletown, 175, 176. + + Raynham Hall, 42, 47, 48, 74. + "Raven," Church Stretton, 189. + Rawdon, 241. + "Red Lion," Chipping Camden, 88. + Richmond, Yorkshire, 256, 258, 263, 264, 266. + Ripley, 247. + Ripple, 84. + Rodborough, 99. + Rollright Stones, 60. + Rushbrooke Hall, 27, 28, 29, 30. + + St. Giles Park, 178, 179. + Sandford Orcas, 135, 140, 141. + Severn End, 80, 81, 195. + Severn, river, 84. + Sheffield Manor House, 208, 213, 225. + Sheldon Manor, 118. + Shepton Mallet, 132, 133. + "Ship Inn," Porlock, 160. + Shrewsbury, 81, 181, 188, 189. + Shute House, 170. + Silton, 171. + Snowre Hall, 55. + Somerton, 135. + Southam House, 93, 96. + Southfield, Woodchester, 99. + South Petherton, 135, 138. + South Wraxall, 118, 121. + Spaxton, 151. + Spennithorne, 254. + Sprowston, 58. + Spye Park, 104, 105, 109, 151. + Stainborough Hall, 228. + Stamford, 16, 18. + Stanfield Hall, 53. + Stanton, 89, 90. + Stanton St. Quinton, 117. + Stanway-in-the-Woods, 89. + Stiffkey Hall, 41. + Stilton, 8, 10, 11, 86. + Stogumber, 153. + Stoke Ferry, 53. + Stokesay Castle, 186. + Stour, river, 34. + "Strafford Arms," Stainborough, 229. + Strensham, 84. + Sudeley Castle, 93, 96, 100. + Swale, river, 266. + "Swan and Salmon," Little Stukeley, 5. + "Swan Inn," Downham Market, 56, 58. + Swinnerton Hall, 194. + Swinsty Hall, 244. + + "Talbot," Oundle, 12. + Tamworth Castle, 72. + Tansor, 15. + Taunton, 136, 147. + Tawstock, 166, 167. + Temple Newsam, 229, 237. + Tetbury, 100. + Tewkesbury, 81, 83, 84, 181. + Thorpland Hall, 42. + Tintinhull Court, 135, 140. + Tissington, 221. + Tixall, 195. + Tong, 196, 197, 199. + Trent House, 135, 140, 156. + Trentham, 195. + Trunch, 44. + Tudor House, Broadway, 86. + "Turk's Head," Oundle, 11. + Tutbury Castle, 260. + + Walsingham, 43, 44. + Wamil Hall, 24. + Warwick Castle, 72. + Waterstone, 173, 174. + Wellow, 127, 128. + Wells-next-the-Sea, 40, 43, 44. + Wensley, 258. + Wentworth Castle, 227, 230, 237. + Wentworth Woodhouse, 228, 229. + West Lydford, 134. + Weston Hall, 244. + Weston Zoyland, 135. + West Stow Hall, 24, 32. + Wharfe, river, 242, 244. + White House of Pixham, 78. + White Lackington, 137. + "White Lion," Hadleigh, 34. + Wimborne Minster, 177, 179. + Winchcombe, 93. + Wingfield Manor, 209, 215. + Winnington, 189. + Wolverton, 173, 174. + Woodchester, 99. + Woodlands, 178. + Wood Stanway, 90. + Wool, 176. + Wootton Lodge, 195, 196. + Wormleighton, 13. + Wormwood Farm, Neston, 110. + Worsborough, 226, 227. + Wothorpe Hall, 18. + Wye, river, 204. + Wylde Court, 171. + Wymondham, 51, 52, 53. + + Yatton Keynell, 116, 117, 118. + Yeadon, 241. + Yew Tree Farm, Bushley, 83. + Yore, river, 250, 252. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Nooks and Corners of Old England, by Allan Fea + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 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