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PILGRIMAGES

TO OLD HOMES

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PILGRIMAGES

TO OLD HOMES

By
FLETCHER MOSS

THE OLD PARSONAGE
DIDSBURY, ESQJJIRE

One of His Majesty's Justices of the Pe;ice
for the County Palatine of I,ancaster

ENGLAND

JOHN LANE COMPANY

67 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

MDCCCCVI

'^gOD SAVE YOU, ^JLq%IM^

mjithcr are you hound f'""

All's Well that Ends Well.

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &■ Co.
At the I^).illantym- Press

P r e f a c e

N( 'E upon a time there was a man Avho said
it was wicked to go on pilgrimage ; but that
man soon got into troul)le, though he was
very honest and respectable : for, like the
Ephesians of old, who felt their faith and craft
endangered, the Clhin-ch became alarmed, and the
lawyers scented a job, so they accused him of heresy,
and here are some extracts from his trial.

Eryal of Jlastrr SEiUiam ^Ijorpr Prrstr for IlKrcsur

3 3uUi U07.
Itnoiiim bcut tn all fflen tliat rctic . . .

" Slnli tijc Hrriirbisliop ^niti, ' itHijnt saist tijou — (K\)at mm slniltic
not go on ^Sclarcmacjcs,' . . . anti ^ sait . . . ' tiriamijnr luliosocticr
intll tfaentfc of tljcs i^ilgvimis anti ijr sljall not funtir ttirc Ittcn or
(LHaoinrn ti)at knotoc siirclu a (Tommauntimcnt of #oti, nor can sao
ttiet'r ^atfr^i^ostEV anli 3[ljf fttavia, nor tl)ctr tTrctio rcticlu in ong
mancr of ILanguagc. . . . illjru go fntiicr anti ttiitiifv noiri on \^iU
grimagcs more for tije |]dti)c of tJjcir ISotitcs tijan of tijcir Joules . . .
aul) sprnl^c nukill ifflonrg anti (Tiootirs upon btn'ous hostelers . . . anti
snngc luauton Snugrs anti some oilier iJilgrrmis toill 1)auc iDttli tlicm
38aggc ^ipcs ; soc tiiat currii J"oliinc llicu romc HiroUJC, tnlial njiHi tl)c
i^ousc of tljri'r J^ungingr anti luitli tlir sountic of tlirir IJiping anti
toiH) tije Jiangcloiig of tlirir CTantrvburo Lirllis, anti mitii tiir IS-irhiing
out of ©oggt's after il]nn, thru maUr inorr iloisr tljan if tijr iiung
came tljttc ainaoc toitij all I)is Clarions anti manu oilier IBrnstrrllrs.
Unti if tf)£S fflcn anti JElomrn br a fflonrtli in tlirir IJiglrimagr
manu of tlicm sljall be an lialf=gcar after grrat Jangrlcrs, dlale^
(tellers anti Eoers.'

viii PREFACE

" Hull t!if 3rciifliisliop saiti to mr, ' ILrutir losdl, t'pou sfcst not frvrr
uuougli in tliis matter. . . . IJiltjvrmos linur initli tiirm iicitli ^iingns
anti also ^Jiprvs tliat tolian our of tlirm tliat gortl) bavfotc stvikcili
i)is CToo upon a Stone anti liuvtrtli Inim t-orr anli niakctli liyni to
blctir it is ttrll tionr lliat iir or In's iFcloto brgnn tlian a Sougc or
rise taUc out of l]is Bosomc a Darfgc^pupr for to tiraif alnay luit!)
sodic Iflcrtiic tiir iiuvtr of ijis Jprlotn. JTor luitlj sociK solace tlK
JTraurll anti iLBcrinrssr of t\)t ^^olgrrmcs is lirjiitrlg anti mcrilu broucfhtf
fortbc'

" Hnt) E saili, ' Sir, Sruntr ^aulr tradict ittcn to lucpr luiti] tbcni
tljat rurpc' llnli tlK ilrrl}rbis1ioppr saiti, ' iCUiat janglrtli tliou agrinst
fHnmis Daiocion? ^^H)at sodirr tiiou or sorlj otlirr saij, C say
ti)at t\}t pilgrimarfc tbat nolu is uscti, is to tl)r:ii that tioo it a
prausablc anti a gooti mranc to comr tijc ratiirr to 6 rare. . . . iLtliiat
gcssc m tfiis utiiotc inill sprakc . . .' batilir tlir roustablr to iiaur nic
fortli tfirns in liastc ... to a foul unlioncst prison."

ilftcr tljis it is not knoinn faijat bcramr of Ijim.

As the archbishop had burnt one Lollard, and a
clerk on his knees begged that he might cure this one
in three days, we may guess what became of him. It
is liere recorded, in the words of an archbishop who
used strong language and strong measures, that a
pilgrimage is " praysa])le," Imt all the same let us
examine ourselves carefully as to the complaints of
Master William Thorpe. Firstly : w'e do know the
commandments — fortunately nothing is asked al)out
keeping them. We admit the health of our bodies is
a o-reat consideration with us, and we do spend money
in hostels, but we hope the hostelers are not all vicious.
We deny the singing of wanton songs, or the playing
on bao-pipes. I admit that it takes more than tlie
winter half of the year to Avrite this tale-telling of
our pilgrimages; and the difficulty of knowing wliat is
truth is as great to-day, in spite of all our education,
as it was in the days of Pontius Pilate.

Neither the archbishop nor his victim, the " Leude
losell " (*.<?. ignorant lose-all), had ever heard of bicycles,

PREFACE ix

or they would have known we were more hkely to
tumble on to our heads than to have gone hartbot and
made our " Too l)lede " on a stone. It is strange this
man came from Shrewsbury, which may be said to be
the centre of our pilgrimages, and the tale-telling that
he complains of is solace to more strangers than we
know of. For instance, in a magazine called the Idler,
page 99, October 1905, Mr. R. Barr, the editor, who
bought a copy of my last book, has written : " Get, when
you can, a book entitled ' Pilgrimages to Old Homes,'
which will cost you ten shillings and sixpence, and
will be worth ten and a half times the money. It is
written by the Heverend [.s/c] Fletcher Moss . . . and
is published, as all books should be, by the author, at
the Old Parsonage in Didsbury. The photographs in
this book are most excellent, taken by an amateur,
X, who takes, developes, and prints his own pictures.
They are the best I have ever seen done in any book
or magazine."

Mr. Barr will have no need to buy a copy of this
book ; but as I am rather tired of publishing books at
half-a-guinea and seeing them resold for two or three
guineas, the price of this will begin at a guinea.

And — we would fain go on more pilgrimages, what-
ever the heretics and the critics and the scoffers may
say.

FLETCHER MOSS.

The Old Parsoxagk,
Didsbury.

IN THE BURNESS, STANDON HALL

Contents

loy

I'AGK

WELLS— GLASTONBURY i

WALFORD HALL— STANDON 33

CHARTLEY— SOMERFORD— TUTBURY— CROXDEX . 44

THE STANDISH PEW IN CHORLEY CHURCH, LANCA-
SHIRE

HOGHTON TOWER

YALE— BALA— WREXHAM— YYRNWY

HADDON HALL . .

SOMERSET — BRADFORD - ON - AVON — NORTON ST
PHILIP— MUCHELNEY—ATHELNEY -TAUNTON—
CROWCOMBE — CLEEVE — DUNSTER — EXMOOR —
DULVERTON 124

SOMERSET— BATH— LYTES GARY- NUNNEY— SOUTH
WRAXALL— GREAT CHALFIELD— MONTACUTE —
STOKE-SUB-HAMDON — BARRINGTON COURT —
BUR— DUNSTER 157

COMPTON WYN YATES 220

BADDESLEY CLINTON 236

THE HOUSE OF THE SKULL (VVARDLEY HALL) . .261

WORCESTER— TEWKESBURY — BIRTS- MORTON — HUD-
DINGTON— CLEEVE PRIOR— EVESHA:\I—HARVING-

TON

276

xii CONTENTS

PACK

HANDFOrrrH hall 315

PAIIK HALL 327

SLADE HALL 343

THE BIDDINGS 352

MOEPHANY HALL— BITS OF OLD CHESHIBE . . 354

SPOBT 356

THE OLD PABSONAGE, DIDSBUBY . . -360

INDEX 389

PILGRIMAGES TO

OLD HOMES

WELLS— GLASTONBURY

NO sooner were the last words of my last book
written than I wondered where we should
go on pilgrimage when the summer came
upon the earth again. There was no doubt
that, given health and strength, we should seek and
find some famous, perhaps forgotten, English home ;
but where ? For we have always shunned the noisy
crowd, the beaten track, and wandered oW among the
lonely hihs, or by the quiet brooks, or to the moated
hall, to find the homes of those who have lived and
died in the long ago. Then the happy thought came
to me that we had never seen the birthplace of our
English nation. A thousand years have passed away
since, in a lonely swamp, an English king first kindled
into life our nation, laws, and literature. Xear by
it is the desolate ruin where the relig-ion of Christ
was brouo-ht to our island home of Britain almost
another thousand years before ; and, in the silted
fields below, men now dig the prehistoric graves of
those whose homes were here even before the Christ
was heard of

To the land we now call Somerset, the summer
seat of the Anglo-Saxons, long-recorded legends tell

2 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

that Joseph of Arimathea, \^■ho begged the body of
Christ for burial in his own sepulchre, then left his
country for a better land, found it in the vale or isle
of Avalon. A great prize to the Romans were their
Aqua? Solis, the health-giving waters of the sun, which
even now at Bath are bubbling, boiling, rushing, as
if two thousand years were nought to them. Under
the high-altar at Glastonbury was the grave of Arthur,
the hero of romance, the semi-mythic king of the poets ;
and near by St. Dunstan seized the Devil by the nose
with his tongs, warning him not to come there again.
Here in the marshes of Athelney King Alfred burnt
the cakes, and welded together the scholars and the
soldiers of the English, struggling for life and freedom,
to be the founders of our nation, its history, and its
literature. The great desire of that great king was
the furtherance of education; and my education was
lacking in respect to him until I had })aid a pilgrimage
to the place where lie had struy-o-led for his life, his
lands, and his home.

By the train that Ave had often journeyed by in
other years we ventured further south and booked
for Bristol. Reading was soon dropped to watch the
charming country Hitting past. Here come, and swiftly
go, Combermere obelisk. Battlefield Church, the towers
and spires of Shrewsbury, the white-faced cattle under
the big trees, the lichened roofs of homely farms, the
encircling hills of CJhurch Stretton, a lonely heron
fishing in the On, the ghostly towers of Stokesay, the
stately fane of Ludlow, the hop-yards and orchards
of Hereford, the black mountains of Radnorshire,
the grimy works whose smoke now spoils the })leasant
hills of Wales,- and then, with snorts and jerks, we
rush into the darkness of the Severn Tunnel, to emerge
again into daylight for the short run to Bristol.

Gladly we leave the train and take to the cycles and
the road. Progress is slow, for the hills are so steep

WELLS 3

we cannot ride either up or down. The makers of the
road do not seem to have tried to make o-ood o-radients,
or to have cut oW tlie tops of the Httle steep hills and
filled in the vallevs. Li two hours we had barelv o-one
ten miles, having walked quite as far as we had ridden.
It was wearvino- after the lono- railwav iournev. but
gradually we rise on to the Mendips, where the air is
sharp and the roads are better. They are bounded
with low stone walls brilliant with the flowers of the
golden stonecrop. All around are fine views of rolling
hills and dales. Li the exhilarating air fatigue wears
off, and the last three miles to Wells give us the best
and perhaps the longest free-wheeling that we had ever
had. The descent beo-ios on hio-h gfround, and is not
too steep. At first it is almost above the trees ; then
through the pine-woods with their refreshing aroma ;
then through the beeches, where the air becomes heavier,
the woods more luxuriant, without a check we glide for
miles right into the clean little city of Wells.

Wells is one of the few towns or cities in England
that may be said to be finished. Of course the cathedral
is not finished. Few churches are luckv enoup-h to
escape the restorer, and scaffolding hides the fine west
front of the cathedral. Whether they are merely
scrubbing or whitewashing the statues or taking the
birds' nests we could not properly see. Li the tinv citv
itself there do not seem to be any new buildings, or any
toil or traffic. Xo one appears to hurry ; it would be
undignified to run ; all men move slowly and respectably
as if thev were fullv conscious of behaving decorously
in the shadow of the great cathedral which dominates
the town.

There are many interestiuir thino-s to note. Quaint
old houses built of whitish stone, many of them
having little gardens where the escallonia, magnolia,
and arbutus flourish. On almost every wall the purple
valerian flow^ers in profusion. The gable of a house

4 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

supports a fig-tree full of tigs, and altogether the vege-
tation is of a brighter and more vivid hue than our
northern clime will give to us. Round the bishop's
palace is a moat, the largest we had ever seen, with
clean water slowlv flowino- round. ( )n the outer side
of the moat, by the water's edge and standing close
together, are enormous trees, whose long branches
stretch across the broad water, the raised footpath

THE Mf)AT

beneath them, and the road beyond. Strolling round
about we seek for the famous Vicars' Close, a broad street
of old-fashioned homes, whose gardens nearly meet at
the footpath in the centre, with an elaborate stone gate-
house and arch across the street which se})arates it from
the cathedral. This private way across tlie |)u1jlic road
is a continuation of the cathedral, adjoining the very
handsoiT^ chapter-house and extraordinary stairway of
stone. Whetlier seen fi'om the inside or the outside,
these buildings are verv curious and beautiful. There

GATEHOUSE BETWEEN THE BISHOPS PALACE AND THE MAEMTT-PLACE, WELLS

A 2

6 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

is the grand west front of the cathedral risiiii;' from
its spacious lawn with tine encircling trees : the road
alongside with (juaint old churchy houses, the homes
of vicars clioral, deans, or other dignitaries, all bound
too-ether bv the arched gatewav and the roofed bridue
of stone, while ancient figures, large as life, move on the
cathedral's northern wall to strike the Heetino- hours on
a wondrously elaborated clock.

We wander round the spacious market-place, with its
gushing fountain ; note old buildings in the Crown Inn
yard ; pass under the stately gatehouse, to find we are by
the bishop's moat again, and beyond it is an enormous
barn, centuries old, apparently used now as a gym-
nasium and drill-shed. Further on is an open park, and
in the gathering gloom we linger to listen to the night-
ingale, who gives a trill or two to make us wish for more,
then quietly goes to sleep, leaving us to do the same.

The next morning was wet, and we soon found the
most comfortable place at Wells in which to spend a
rainy day is the beautiful cathedral. We explored
it up and down, even to the crypt and the wonderful
chapter-house. The inverted arches under the central
tower are very strikinpf, with manv other thinirs more
than we can tell. Then we mustered up courage to cross
the broad moat and bang at the massive door in the forti-
fied gateway of the bishop's palace. An old soldier was
on guard, \\-ho let us have a })eep at a charming garden,
wdth one of the oldest houses in England beyond the
spacious lawn. Crumljling ruins, stately towers, deserted
halls, stand all around. Amona" them fiourishes luxuriant
vegetation, trees and shrubs unknown to me. This might
be Paradise if some ano-el were to show us round.

We are told that the bishop and his lady are at
home and must not ])e disturbed ; special leave should
be had for cameras, the grass is very wet, and there
are other objections, all of which melt away before the
magic talisman. The tongue of our guide is urdoosened.

FOETIFIED HOME OF THE BISHOP 7

He is a Crimean veteran who discourses on liistorv
with the dates of various ruins, of the trees witli
their names, of lords, ladies, fossils, bishops, ruins, and
bygones as if he knew them all and liad watched many

THE GATEHOUSK ()F THE BISHOP S PALACE

idle pageant pass. Here is a thorn-tree with
authentic pedigree from tlie Holv Thorn tliat blossomed
at the Nativitv. the staff of Arimathean Joseph from
the Holy Land. When I remark that it is flowering
now in June, he calmly answers, " Come at Christmas ;

•#»*■ , *^5

'>i^^

■?v- . . .. -■'♦•'

THE GARDEN OF THE BISHOP 9

see it then," and I feel that he has been schooled by
the priests. Xear it grew the finest specimen known
of the Ailanthus, the Chinese tree of heaven, but the
winds of heaven in the autunni blew it down, and
in the Fichl newspaper the bishop asked counsel of
common laymen as to the heavenly wood. Here also
flourish the royal tree of Japan, a Catalpa from the
Mississippi, a pomegranate, shrubs and climbers quite
unknown to me, and on the ruined banqueting hall,
now open to the sky, is the finest crojD of figs I ever saw-
The green grass p-rows over this great hall, and
climbers climb and twist among the weathered stones
of towers and ^\•indows. It is a beautiful memorial
of priestly pride and episcopal revelry. Bishop Burnell
l)uilt it in the thirteenth century, and Bisho^j Barlow
destroved it in the sixteenth. Older than it are parts
of the present palace, built bv Bishop Josceline seven
hundred years ago, and not yet worn away. Ralph of
Shrewsbury made the moat and all-encircling massive
wall in the fourteenth. Centuries seem to linger
lovingly here. The years may come and go, as in
our busy cities, but decay and waste look idly on.
Hall or palace, home after home, patched, restored,
rebuilt, or ruined, the rain comes softly down on all
alike, the works of the just and the unjust. From a
terrace raised aloft above the garden one may see them
all, and also see beyond the battlemented walls the
open country and the distant hills. Here Bishop Ken
paced to and fro as he composed those well-known
hvnnis for mornino- and evenino- : —

'* Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run."

" Glory to Thee, my God, this night,
For all the blessings of the light."

Lesser luminaries than a bishop might compose smooth
verses if they had a })lace like this to meditate at

31~H0iI> KSS'S STEPS

THE WATERS OF WELLS 13

eventide. Hifi'h above these ruined li(»ines there shine
the stately towers of the cathedral ; all around them
rushes the never-failing waters of the wells, while in
the garden there is peace.

From these wells, the fon.s ef <>ri(/n of the little
citv, there wells np a bounteous Hood of clear \\'ater
which rolls over a small cascade, then i>-irdles round
the palace, filling the spacious moat, the finest moat
in England, and tlien. till recent vears. sup])li;:'d the
common folk with all they needed in the town. ( )ur
guide says these wells are bottomless ; no plummet vet
has found the bottom, and the water comes straight up.
When I ask him how it is the water is not boiling
hot, he seems quite shocked at levity on a sacred
subject in a bishop's garden. Then it occurs to me
what a tremendous power this supplv of water to the
city must have given to the bishops in the olden time.
If some poor sinners lacked faith or were too ardent
for reform, the bishops merely cut tlieir water off and
jDromptly brought them to believe in anything.

As the day wore on the weather went worse. A
north-east wind brought gloomier skies witli fitful
storms. The roads were bad and the light was bad,
so we decided to leave our things at the inn and go
bv train to Glastonbury to wander round that famous
land, on foot.

The utter ruin that has befallen the famous and
once magnificent abbey of Glastonl^ury has left so little
for the pilgrim of to-day to look upon that one wonders
how so great a destruction could, in England, come to
that shrine where her Christianity began and where
for ages her kings and mighty men were buried. The
scantv remnants of the ^eat abbev are an exceedino-lv
lofty corner of the central tower, broken off about the
chancel arch, and, on the southern side, the pointed
windows with some ornamented bits of wall. The
twentv columns of the lonof - drawn - out nave have

TJIK CATHEDRAL, WKLl S

GLASTONBURY 15

vanished, and beyond, where once the eastern wnidow
stood, a mansion jars on one's senses as an incongruous
receiver of stolen goods. Even the ruins of St. Joseph's
or the Lady Chapel seem to be utterly neglected,
although it has been often extolled as one of the most
beautiful or richly sculptured chapels in the world.
On that site have been chapels for nigh two tliousand
years, the earliest, primitive enough, of wattles and
sticks. That was encased and added to, but in 11 84
the abbey and all were l)urnt, and this marvel of
carved stone was begun. Below It is the well, the
usual fountain of clear water, to which all our ancient
churches came.

The wonderful history of this place cannot now be
lost, as the stately buildings themselves are lost. It
may be hard to tell truth from untruth, actual fact
from more or less mysterious legend, but for a few
rough outlines of what has here happened let us take
the following. Tradition said that the apostles Philip
and James came to this island sanctuary. There were
no doubts in the belief that Joseph of Arimathea, who
begged the body of Christ for burial in his own garden,
fled here with the Holy Grail, the chalice which held
the last drops of the Holy Blood, invisible to all l^ut
the pure, and the Holy Thorn which grew and flourished,
always blossoming at the Nativity. The first abbot was
St. Patrick, who was said to be i 1 1 years old when he
died, and was buried here in 472. That seems very
early in the dark ages. Then came other saints whose
names we have heard before, Bridget and David. The
latter gave a splendid sapphire to the abbey, and when
the authorities prudently asked the Welsh saint where
he got it from, his reply was, " It came down from
heaven," an answer w^iich enormously increased its
value and his fame. But another Welshman came in
time and stole it back again, adding murder to his
crime. He was the great Defender of the Faith who

GLASTONBURY ABBEY

ST. JOSEPH'S CHAPEL, GLASTOXBURY

i8 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

took the je\yels from the house of his God to deck the
attune of his harlots.

Twelve hundred years ago King Ine, the Saxon,
built a church of stone wliere the British had had
theirs of timber, and here was the grave of Arthur,
the semi-mvthic hero of romance whom poets rave
about, the flower of kings, who was to rise again to
lead the Briton in triumph over the hated English.
Centuries after he had passed came Norman kings of
England to satisfy themselves by sight and touch that
he and Guinevere with their £:olden hair were really
in their grave at Glastonbury, and the heir of the
Plantagenets received the name of Arthur tliat he
mitrht be the founder of a line of British kino-s. But his
uncle John killed him, and his mother CVnistance cried —

" Grief tills tlie room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks iip and down with me ;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words.

Oh ! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son I

]My widow's conifc rt and my sorrow-'s cure ! "

The first of the Tudor kings, being of British race, tried
the name again and called his tirst-born Arthur, but they
married the lad too young, and so he died. Many years
afterwards the name did revive in the son of a family who
long ago had settled in the district, for Arthur Wellesley
(or Wesley), Duke of Wellington (Avhom I remember see-
ing in the streets of Manchester), made it popular again.
Many years after Arthur, with all the imaginary
immaculate knights of the Round Table, had gone to
" where beyond these voices there is peace," a more
real man and possibly usefid saint was born near
Glastonbury and called Dunstan. Educated at the
abbey, he became a dreamer, wanderer, outlaw, hermit,
musician, artistic worker in metals, visionary wrestler
with the devil, abbot, teacher, statesman, archbishop,
almost king — a great ruler of men though never popular.

ST. DUNSTAN 19

He died at Canterbury, and was there buried, a.d. 988,
just as the fears of the approaching millennium were
convulsingf Christendom. Two hundi-ed years after his
death, the abbey at Glastonbury, with all its con-
tents, was burnt even to the bones of the saints. So
other relics had to be invented, and three centuries
of wordy warfare went on between Canterbury and
Glastonbury as to who had got Dunstan. As the fame
of his relics at Glastonbury increased, they proved at
Canterbury that his orio-inal s^rave had never been
opened before, and there he w^as. In our days St.
Dunstan's fame mainly rests on his feat of seizing the
devil by the nose with his tongs while metaphorically he
twisted the old o-entleman's tail. We tried to emulate
his good deeds when we were boys, but only got into
trouble. There is still preserved in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford a book of his with scraps of writing
in Greek and Latin, and British or Welsh.

The glories of this great burial-place for generations
of kings and saints increased until Glastonbury was
one of the finest and wealthiest relio-ious houses in the
land. When the great robbery came, it had eleven
thousand ounces of plate besides the gold and the
jewels. The shekels in the treasury, the costly furni-
ture, the rich vestments, all were declared to be meet
only for the king's majesty and for no one else. There-
fore, the king's jninister, Cromwell, wrote an order, of
which this is a facsimile copy —

(FROM ABBOT GASQUET's HISTORY)

— " Item : The Abbott of Glaston to (be) tryed at Glaston
and also executyd there wt his comply cys." So they

20 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

condemned thoni first, then tried them, havuig ah'eady
£^ot the hurdles and the pitch and the old abbot, who
was eighty and sickly, also his accomplices, and without
spending much time on them, dragged them up " Torre
hyll ' — that is, the high Tor whence all the country-side
for many miles could see the "execucyon." All this
was done that the courtiers might grab the spoils, and
the pride and power of the great head of the Church
be increased ; and now, where are they all ?

" The seyde Abbot's bodye being devyded into
foure partes, and the hedde stryken off, whereof oone
(piarter stondythe at Wells, another at Bathe, and at
Ylchester and Bridgwater the rest, and his hedde uppon
the Abbey Gate of Glastonburye." What a glimpse of
Merry Eni2:land in ve olden time !

The celebrated Holy Thorn that blossomed at the
Nativity, what became of it '. There was proof positive
the wicked thing flowered at Christmas, so a zealous
reformer clio|)ped the poor tree down as if it had done
griev^ous sin, and all we know is that he gashed his leg
when chopping, and a sjilinter hit him in the eye. Any
schoolboy would probably say, " Serve him jolly well
riofht."

Bound about the melancholy ruins we wander up to
our knees in the long, wet grass — rich green grass, rank
and luxuriant. Is the dust of heroes, martyrs, saints,
or kings better for manure than that of connnon folk ?
The associations and memories of two thousand years of
history seem to be worth nothing here. The first home
for Christian worship in our land or empire lies deso-
late ; the flycatcher nests in the renmants of its con-
secrated walls ; the shepster chatters and scolds from
her cranny in the broken sculptures ; the carved stones
have been taken for hovels, pigsties, or advertised at
sixpence per cart load to mend the dirty roads. Let us
go hence.

That wonderful building, the abbot's kitchen, was

"'' 'IIP'

THE ABBOTS KITCHEN, GLASIONBURY

B 2

PILGRIMAGES T(J OLD HOMES

the greatest surprise to nie at Glastonbury. In tlie
middle of a field is a beautiful stone hall, forty feet
square at the bottom. Inside, each of the corners has
been made into a fireiilace, h'lg- enouo-h to roast an ox
whole. The chimney flues from these four irreat vaulted
fireplaces turn inwards ; the four corners of the square
are cut off, and the building becomes octagonal, witli eight
ribs of stone to strengthen it. Then it slopes u|)\vard

FIREPLACE

acutely pyramidal to a doul)le lantern seventy-two feet
from the ground. Even the roof w^as of bevelled stone,
all kept in good repair, and very interesting, though it
did rather shock me to see the key to it that we had
borrow^ed had been made in America. The jackdaws
had worked so hard at brincrino- sticks for the nests
they could not build in the lantern or flues that there
was enough for a bonfire in the centre of the hall. The
mournful effigy of an al:)l)ot looked sadly down on the
vanished glory, ;in(l in the gloom I tried to picture to

THE FEASTS OF THE CLERGY 23

myself the good old times when two or three oxen and
as many sheep were being roasted whole for the feasts
known as the church-ales. In the midst of a burning
fiery furnace half inked scullions or serfs would turn the
gigantic spits ; perspiring monks would do the basting,
while the superior clergy would keep an eye on the
toothsome undercut of the loin for their ow)i and the

TITH EBA UN , U l.A.STON HU IIY

lord abbot's table; while at times, it was said, live
hundred pilgrims or paupers waited for the scraps.

Another great monument of the feasting and plenty
of the religious houses still exists in the enormous tithe-
barn. It is of stone, cruciform in shape, ninety feet
long, sixty wide, and thirty-six high, ornamented like
a church, and biir enoufjh for all the horses and the
waoffTons in the country to drive in fullv laden, turn
round, and come empty out.

Having seen the wonderful kitchen and the gigantic

24 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

storehouse, let us visit another monument showing the
care our forefathers took in providing for their daily
bread. In the olden time pilgrims were entertained at
the abbot's expense. That was equivalent to the rate-
payers' expense of the present day ; but the only way in
which we can now enjoy their hospitality is to go into
the tramp ward.

Within the precincts of the Abbey of Glastonbury
there was a guest-house, or hostel for pilgrims, but the
crowds who came increased so much that Abbot Selwood
built and gave another hostel across the road from the
abbey gates, and that identical house is still standing as
an inn or hostel after more than four hundred years of
use. Statements are often made about inns which are
not correct, but the age of this richly-ornamented stone
building is plain on the face of it, and it was originally
built for an inn. The arms of Edward the Fourth are
over the door with other shields, and between each of
the crenellated battlements was a statue of an apostle —
twelve apostles all in a row, watching who went into the
pul)lic-house. Only one of them is there now. It may
i)e the police objected to them. They make such curious
objections nowadays to inns. The vaulted cellars are
the same as they were, but are probably emptier than
they used to be. One of them contains a well of clear
water, which is useful in many ways ; for tradition says
it was used as a cell for the penance of those taken in the
oldest and most respectable of sins, for as the water ran
all over the Ha^iied floor and there were not anv seats
the sinners could be left to cool and repent.

As bona-fide pilgrims we took our ease in a real
original pilgrim's inn where the charges have advanced
with the times. We also visited the charming little
museum where the treasures of the lately discovered
lake- village are preserved. Professor Bovd Dawkins
had urtred me not to miss it or the site of the lonof-
forgotten English Venice. It was certainly very

THE PILGraM'S HOSTEL, GLASTONBURY

26 PILGIIIxAIAGES TO OLD HOMES

interestiiiii-- local relics of all nires leixiblv labelled, with-
out rubbish. Here is a pilgrim's staff that was taken
from beside a skeleton in a stone cotKn in the abbey.
It seems to be from foiu' to five feet Ions:, and to have
been broken and spliced more than once. As it is in
a glass case I could not be sure of the wood. It may
be oak, ash, or crab, but is probably thorn — possibly
from one of the offspring of the original Holy Thorn.
There is no record of its work, but we may siu-mise it
was a companion to its master on a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land. Doubtless he trudged tlie weary way,
painfully grasping his cherished staff in heat or cold,
hunger or thirst, fog or storm. When his wanderings
are done, the journey ended, the victory won, and he
gains his home again — what hath he at last ? A
orave in Glastonbury Abbey, with his treasured staff
beside him. There he rests in peace for ages, until he
and his are all forgotten, and modern Christians violate
his grave, taking the well-worn staff from the well-worn
bon€S that they may show it for twopences. What did
they do with the bones { They should be worth some-
thing, if only for manure.

Other bones and skulls ara here, possibly a thousand
years older than the other long-forgotten ones ; for they
come from the still older, prehistoric village, where
they adorned the palisades around the island homes.
One of these heads has a big crack, showing where
sword or battle-axe ended its aching for ever. Another
looks good enough to have been the liead of Joseph of
Arimathea ; for if he came to these primitive barbarians
telling them of a risen Christ and the strange doctrine
of love to one's enemies, what more likely than that they
should kill the teacher of what, to them, was dangerous
folly, and stick up his head on a spike, as even the Chris-
tian teachers did in recent times '. For after seventeen
hundred and forty-five years of their teaching the head
of a relative of mine was spiked on Temple Bar in

■ PREHTSTOlUf' irOMES ON PILES 27

London, by order of tlie head of the ( 'hin'cli, because
he upheld the cause of the rightful kini;- of Englmid
against the German George,

To return to our dried bones. Some of them show
what the epicures of those days ate. The familiar
swine and cattle are there ; also stags, roe-deer, otter,
and the long-vanished beaver. Swans and cranes
appear to have been common Inrds, and even the strange
pelican. Thousands of hard clay pellets tliat would
be thrown from slings at these various wildfo^vl are
there, with weapons and tools in stone, bone, horn,
wood, bronze, and iron. Pottery and glass, rings and
l)rooches, remnants of looms, crucibles, (pierns — all show
these long-forgotten folk were fairly civilised, and with a
last look at the famous canoe, eighteen feet of an oak-tree's
trunk hollowed out into a substantial boat, we hurry on.

Downhill, across the moors, as they term the
marshes here, we started for our tramp to the long-
buried dwellings that once were built on ])iles amid
the swamp. The rain was ceasing, and the light of
midsummer should not fail for hours or I dare not
have ventured over miles of morass. Ruins of the
abbey showed in walls along the lane, and mullioned
windows let in light to a cart-shed, but soon we were
in a land of dvkes and ditches, deep and Ijroad, in all
directions among the flat fields, with rows of pollard
willows as the only guides to keep the wearied traveller
on his way when another inch or two of water hid the
road from the deep blackness tliat bounded it on
either side. What an impassable, impregnable country
this must once have been !

We found the site of the long-buried, jn-ehistoric
British village, the forgotten homes of the aborigines
of our fen. Circular mounds very slightly raised above
the fields are all there is to see, but every mound once
held a hut built on ])iles of oak above the water, pro-
bably of wickerwork all daubed with clav. There

28 PILGKIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

were sixty or seventy of these huts, with floors of clay
in layers to the depth of five feet. They were eighteen
to tliirty-live feet in diameter, and about six feet high.
They were probably dome-shaped, with a central post,
and thatched with reed. Since they were l)uilt the
peat has accunudated around tliem to the de})th of
six to ten feet. There is now sixteen feet of peat
below the level of the field, and the bottom of the peat
is said to l)e about "mean tide level'' of the sea, which
is fourteen miles distant. Where or how could they
bury their dead { Did they sink them for tlie eels
and the pike? Their island homes were safe refuge
where men could not walk and l)oats could not float.
Sour buttercu})s grow rank over them now, and in
wet herbage to my waist I wandered round a lonely
heron fishing where our web-footed forefathers dwelt.

Carefully feeling my way back to the road and X,
who sat upon a gate, we tramp on. A drowned gold-
finch on the path reminds me how very rare those
showy birds are now. Starlings nest in the pollard
willows, and all around a continuous distant monotone
of cuckoo sounds. In the wet an untended cow has
cast forth lier burden and carefully licks her new-
born calf. E-ats dive in the water at every few steps,
and on the bank a duck cowers over lier brood ready
to tumble all into safer hiding. As tlie daylight slowly
fades, innumerable bats flit all around in constantly
increasing numbers. For two hoin-s we go tramping
on until we reach the little Nornjan church of Goldney
U})on higher ground, and can look back to where the
Tor and Tower of Glastonbury gleam white against
black clouds gathering rovmd the misty fen : —

" The island valley of Aviliui),
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any sn(j\v,
Xor ever wind l)lo\vs loudly ; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns,
And lju\vei-v hollows cnjwned with sununcr sea."

A STORMY SUNDAY 29

Fine poetic language of his lordship, the late Poet
Laureate. It may be poetic licence, for whicli we
use a harsher word as the north-easter howls and
shrieks throuMi us with drenchino; sleet and rain in
the bahny month of June. He that endureth over-
cometh. We must tramj) back and go to bed.

It rained all night, and the next morning, Sunday,
seemed wetter than ever. As Monday was little better,
we abandoned hope and fled homewards. Those three
days made a record for rainfall in that part of the
country. It was said that six inches of rain fell in
the upper Tliames valley, and the cricket ground at
Bath was three feet under water. At Wells, where
we were, the storms from the north-east were almost
incessant, and as the Assizes were being holden in the
city the little procession of the civic dignitaries was
rather damped. I determined to go to the cathedral
service, but X objected to Popish processions. We
had come to the parting of the ways, and for the first
time we parted. Without attempting any description
of the stately, beautiful Cathedral of Wells, I may
say that the chancel or choir is like a church within
the greater church, and at its portals, where many
were being turned away, I ventured to ask if they
could And me a seat. The man's answer surprised
me : " Yes, sir ; I will take you to a stall." Goodness
knows who he mistook me for, but grey homespun
seemed rather out of place under a canopy of sculptured
stone in ample seat of carved oak.

There was a blare of trumpets, and all the rulers of
the little city, the judges, the sherifls, the counsellors,
the treasurers, the clergy, with many humbler folk,
came in long procession to pniy for all sorts and
conditions of men and to look at one another. First
were a few specimens of the majesty of the law, rather
red and swelled about the face. Then the fire brigade,
very uncomfortable in white gloves. A mayor in fur.

o PILGEIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

Aldermen in robes. Common councillors in go-to-meet-
ino- black. Choristers and vicars choral. The Bishop,
bsfore whom stalked an ascetic-looking priest grimly
grasping with l)oth hands a gigantic crozier. Beadles
or vergers (I hope the titles of all these gentlemen are
correctly stated) with beautiful little silver maces. The
blaze of the High Sheriffs uniform, and last, but by
no means least, the towering colossal figure of his
Majesty's Judge of Assize in full-bottomed flapping wig
and robes of scarlet and drab, Mr. Justice Liwrance,
six feet four without his boots and wig.

The service was good, and the sermon was about
two sparrows being sold for a f irthing, though according
to another text the price was less if you took a quantity,
and as we were worth many sparrows we should have
better houses, which was all right with a little more
boiling down. I have somewhere read that after Sedge-
moor, the last battle fought in England and near to
Wells, some of the prisoners were brought to the
cathedral, had a long sermon by the bishop inflicted on
them, and were then hanged. The poor men might
have been hanged flrst. They had thought that among
the manv bastards of his Sacred Majesty, the Duke of
Monmouth must be right, for had he not cured the
King's Evil by his mere touch ?

The grand procession retired with the pomp and
ceremony with which it came. X was waiting in the
nave, where he had been wandering about all the time,
until he found a seat l^ehind the altar where he thought
no one saw him and he could listen to the music. But
he knew not the subtleties of the satellites of tlie
church. They had marked him down for the collection,
followed him even there, and actually said " Thank you,
sir," when they got something.

After lunch the deluge still descended, and in despair
we went to church again. This time X accompanied me,
though it was diflicult to keep him still. His noncon-

THE TRIBUNAL, GLASTONBURY

32 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

formist conscience fidgeted at the elaborate perform-
ance ; only the music soothed him, for music is one of
his pleasures and indulgences. The anthem was Men-
delssohn's " Hear my prayer, God." Suddenly he
was still, with keen gaze and riveted attention. A
boy's voice was pouring forth aspirations for wings,
for the wings of a dove, that he might flee far away
Mnd be at rest, for ever and ever at rest. The storm
might rage witliout, but as those flute like notes rose
amid the chiselled arches and soared aloft where on the
glistening stone the jewelled light shone through glass
of hues so brilliant that none can equal now, dim echoes
seemed to come from far on high — " for ever at rest."
Who doth not long for rest ? Petty troubles seemed to
fade and fly away. Cares and worries were forgotten
as a peaceful calm came o'er us. The nonconformist
conscience sighed itself to rest.

HOIiSlXGTON CROSS

WALFORD HALL

IN the springtide, when " a fuller crimson comes upon
the roljin's breast," I was bidden to a bridal, as
the old folks would say, or, in more modern phrase,
invited to a wedding. An old bachelor who has
survived the perils of life and goes to a wedding is
like the skeleton at Grecian feasts — an object of pity,
scorn, and dread. It is better for all parties that he
should abstain ; but in this case the bride-ale was at
an old home where many generations of my kindred
have lived and died, and therefore I obeved the summons
as to a gathering of the clan.

In my younger days there were several old homes
of the family, but all are now gone, save one. Three
ancient halls were within three miles of one another in
a beautiful, hilly, fertile part of north-western Stafford-
shire. Mees Hall, where my father was born, is now
in ruins, and " the desolate home of my fathers " is
one of the most picturesque illustrations in my last
book. Staiidon Hall, a fine old black and white house,
is mentioned in most of my writings, principally in
" Folk-Lore." Walford Hall is still tenanted by relations,
and four generations of them may be seen there now.
In it my father's mother was born ; from it she was
married at seventeen, and to it she returned as a widow,
to die. It seems stransre to our hurryiniJ- life for
any one to be born, to be married, and (after rearing
a dozen children) to die at the same house.

Walford is a not uncommon name in England.
I believe it to be another form of Wellford. The

33 ^

34 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

nearest field to this iioiise is still called the Wellyard,
and in the manor-rolls is mention of the town well.
The present "town" consists of three farmhouses, one
of them having part of the moat in the garden. Fifty
years ago I helped to empty one of the little pools,
or wells, in the hillside where the cattle drank, and was
astonished to capture some big fish. Two, I remember,

STAXDON HALL

were trout ; the one I took to Didsbury weighing three
and a half pounds.

The manor of Standon, Stauiidon, or Stawn, appears
to have had a Vyse of Walford as bailift' in 1422 ; the
rent of all Walford then being fifty-seven shillings
and twopence. In 1564 Humphrey Vyse of Walford,
gent., buys the manor, and for about two hundred
years the Vyse family hold it and live at Walford Hall,
not at Standon Hall. Tlien the old home is advertised
for sale by auction ; new owners and new tenants come,
and shortly the })icturesque, black and ^^•hite, gabled
Hall with its dormer windows is bricked up into an

AN ANCIENT COFFER 35

ugly, respectable, Georgian farmhouse, the goal of
many a pilgrimage.

A curious relic of the Vyses is their coffer, or deed-
chest, where tliey probably ke|)t, as in a safe, the court-
rolls of the manoi', many of them being now in the
William Salt Library at Stafford. This coffer was, like
some other furniture I have known in country houses,

GRANDMOTHER BESSY MOSS
From a paintiui/ hi/ Ben. Faui,KNEK, c. 1840

too big to l)e got out of the house, and so heavy or
clumsy that nobody liked it. It is made of six slabs
of oak, varying in thickness from an inch to an inch
and a half The length is seven feet four, breadth one
foot five, heiofht two feet seven — from the OTound one
foot. There is no carving whatever, excepting a small
plain cross at each end ; but this probably dates it in
pre-Reformation times. As we know that Hmnphrey

36 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

Yvse of Walford H;ill ])ouo-lit the manor of Staiidon
in 1564, and previously his family had been bailiifs,
we mav be siu'e that oak-trees were cut down at
Walford in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, and
six thick planks of them joined into a coffer within
tlie house, where it remained for centuries, and after
the house was rebuilt around it.

This coffer had sometime been painted white, and
tradition says it had been sold or valued at half-a-
crown. It was used as a blanket-chest, but the heavy
lid trap})ed manv fingers, and it was given to me. Six
men were required to move it ; and all went Avell until
the London and North Wester] 1 Ivailwav Company
got hold. They delivered it at Didsbury witli the
front utterlv smashed and pieces missing. They
denied all liability, as thev had told the waggoner who
took it to them thev would onlv carry it at " owner's
risk," and that it should have been safely packed.
An inch and a half of solid old oak is stron2:er than
a brick wall, and they did not even deliver the pieces.
Another old wooden plank that had held cheese for
generations was used to mend the coffer, and I sat
down with the robbery by the raiL\av company ; for
experience had then been tc-aching me that to go to
law was to fall faster into the clutches of rol)bers, or
as the old folks would say, " Out of the frying-pan
into the fire."

Along the great south road where I have tramped,
ridden on horseback, driven in coach or gig, I now ride
a bike ; and as the reader of my books should know the
Cheshire country fairly well, let us begin this pilgrim-
age on the further side of what is known as Newcastle
in the Potteries.

As we near Trentham we leave the grimy desolation
of the land where wealth is made for the rich beauty
of the land where wealth is spent. Well-kept fences,
young trees carefully guarded, old trees preserved, neat

A FAMILY TALE zi

farms, handsome lodges, are all redolent of a dukedom.
Round sheds thickly thatched, with here and there
a hound or hunter, remind one of the kennels of a
hunt. As the road mounts into the hills of a park-
like country, there are fanciful cottages at the wav-
side, where temperance drinks are displayed Ijy neatly
dressed maids : for the Duchess of Sutherland encourages
temperance ; and it seems doubtful whether the scene
is real, or whether some fair damsel will not step from
cottage garden with a glass of lemonade, singing like
a fairy in an opera.

\vl line air and scenery the road winds upwards,
and memory brings unbidden to my thoughts a family
tradition of mv OTeat-o-randfather, Thomas Moss, who,
in a dark night of the winter of 1772, rode for miles
along this lonely way, then a mere track across desolate
liills. having the dead body of Izaak Wood slung across
the pommel of his saddle. He had seen Wood at New-
castle market ; found him drowned at the ford of a little
river ; hoisted the heavy burden on to his own horse, and
wearily plodded homewards.

At the Ram Inn, Clifford's Wood, which to-day is
a lonely farmhouse on high land at cross roads, he
sought admittance, but was refused. The host in his
bed would not want unnecessary risks, and knew the
dangers of the times and country. Moss and his horse
were tired with the ghastly burden, and he called out :
" If you don'r fot him, I'll swot him." In my boyhood
I was often told if anything had to be dumped, or
tlirown down heavily, to " swot it, like your o-reat-
grandfather did old Izaak Wood."

The drowned man was a freeholder who farmed
his own land, and was known as Wood of Coates. I
remember a orrandson of his who weio-hed three hundred
and sixty pounds ; had nineteen children, and boasted
he could drink twenty glasses of ale at a sitting.
But the times have chansred. If the above authentic

C 2

T,S PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

tip'ures were divided by Iavo, or even by three, the
results would now be considered more fashionable.
Even I, after beino- reared in the faith of " (Jhurch
and State," have forsaken the ways of niy fathers, and
ride a bike instead of the horse of my younger days.
How could any one do the work of a good Samaritan
or carry a corpse on a bicycle ?

The land of my sires is before me : miles of fertile
country all around, and miles of good roads downhill
towards home. There is danger in rabbits that scurry
about and might get mixed up in the wheels. A
brace of partridge are nearly run over as they fluff
themselves in the dust : their tails spread like blazing
fans as they jump into flight. Startled waterhens
scutter away in the lower grounds, and many things
there are to see ; but the pace was too good, as one
rolls downhill in fair weather, to notice aught beyond
the exhilaration of rapid easy movement.

The valley is crossed, and, walking u|)hill, I come to
the little church and churchyard where so many of
my kindred lie. It is nearly hidden in big trees, the
rectory and a few cottages being the only houses near ;
but there is evidently excitement and commotion amono-
the neighbours. The rooks seem noisier than ever, being-
disturbed or jealous of the fuss. The peewits plaintively
Qvy pec-e-ivit-wit-wit , as if fears were mingled with their
iov of the sininoftide. The mallards flit round the yews
of the rector's pool, spreading out their feet when they
liofht on the water ; for their matrimonial eno-ao-ements
are proceeding satisfactorily, as the ducks are sitting and
the fox has not yet taken them.

The future hoers of turnips and milkers of cows are
putting on clean surplices, which hide everything but
their hobnailed boots and shock heads of hair. Trans-
formed into choristers, they will soon be singing " The
voice that breath'd o'er Eden " with voices used to the
" howoop I " the calling u]) of the cows, or the scaring

THE WEDDING

of birds from the corn. From all sides, in many varied
vehicles, there comes a gathering- of the clan, a " knit-
ting sever 'd friendships u[) ' of friends not seen for
years. The bridegroom looks so exuberantlv happv
that it would do any one good to see him. It is verv
meet and right he should be happv, f>r not manv
months before he was lyino- amono- the dead of the

STANDOX CHURCH

The former church was destroyed Ijy Sir Gilbert Scott : only' one Saxon
or Norman arch remains. The photograph is an old one. showing
my mother, when nearly ninety, in the pony-cart.

Black Watch in tlie slaughter-pit of Magersfontein from
Friday to Sunday, shot through the leg, untended and
uncared for ; yet here he is again, lively enough in the
gladness of his heart, for to be left for dead and shot
at by Boers whenever he stirred was far worse than
getting wed.

Others of the family wlio had o-one to that land
of war and not come home again cause mv thoughts,
which must wander when in church, to mino^le " Give

40 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

peace in our time, O Lord," with the exhortations and
advice so freely given to those who embark on the
holy estate of matrimony. Reverently we listen and
fervently we pray that the Merciful Father will bless
" these two persons, that they mav both be fruitful in
procreation of children, and also live tog-ether long in
godly love and honesty." We sing for joy, are thankful
all is safely over, and we hasten oft' to the wedding-
feast.

We go up the steep hill, through a cutting in the
rock, and down again to the old hall, or what remains
of it, where, under the massive oaken beam which still
spans the ingle nook, the bride and bridegroom receive
congratulations. This great beam of the original house
is still in situ, and exactly six feet from the floor. It
interested me greatly to see how well the happy pair
fitted the space ; for all members of the family should
be reared so that their heads will touch the beam
when tliey stand erect beneath it. An allowance of
six inches out of the six feet may be made to fem.ales
or ricklings ; but any below that height are not fitted
for a country life, being more like the little pale-fliced
folk who dwell in towns, striving to make money out
of one another in the slippery paths of honesty.

The head of the bridegroom and the head-dress of
the bride (which was about two inches above her
head), exactly touched the beam ; and not a man or
woman of the family there present was six inches below^
its standard. Much more remarkable was the fact
that the bridegroom's father and brother had to be
careful they did not knock their heads against the
beam or the doorway, for the old man was six foot
six, and the brother tallest of all.

The granny was in her glory. Her children's
children's children are in every quarter of the earth ;
but there were plenty there to talk to. Tongues were
going like bell-clappers. Age has not weakened hers,

ONE GENERATION PASSETH AWAY 41

or more than ninety years of unremitting- work lessened
its power of repartee. The old, old tales of ruination
through free trade and education were ready for me as
soon as I tried to get a word in edgeways. Another
feather in her cap Avas the recent reconversion of the
Tories to "tariff reform,' or "reciprocity," or whatever
it might be called. Had not she persisted in it all her

GRANNY IN HER NINETY-FOURTH YEAR

lono- life ? Now thev were comino' round. Just in
time. It was nearly too late, and every one was ruined.
When I timidly suggested that import duties might
run up the price of fresh butter to half-a-crown a pound,
she did not argue, like a mere member of parliament,
with confusing figures, but boldly said, "So it ought
to be : it's worth it. Stop that foreign grease you
free traders have to eat in towns ; you may well look
poorly."

42 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

As the advice of age should always be treated n-ith
respect, and hers is given freely without any doubts or
misgivings, I thought it would be better for me, as a
member of the Education Committee of Manchester and
a trustee of National Schools, to learn what she would
teach if she had all her own way in everything. After
a little bewailing of the good old times when servants
could not read or write, but could bake, brew, or scrub,
far better than anv could do now — that beinix their
education — and were glad to work for their keep, with,
perhaps, a guinea or two at Christmas, if they were
good all the year round, I persuaded her to begin at
the beginning, and say what she would teach. Her
answer was as follows: "The first thino^ I would teach
a girl would be to wash a plate without breaking it ;
to set and side the breakfast things without knocking
the handles off the cups ; to bake good bread ; to boil a
potato ; to sew ; to darn ; to knit ; to hem. Then, when
she could do those necessary things ]>roperly, she might
learn to read. Tliose donkeys of parsons teach them to
read first, and to submit themselves lowly and reverently
to all their betters. Then, all that they read upsets
everything else, and they are always looking out for
young lords coming a-courting, or some other mischief
they would learn fast enough of themselves. Why, the
blessed parsons and professors themselves don't know
whether a girl should sweep the dust of the kitchen
floor out of the door or into the fire ; and if you tell
some of the fine damsels to skin a rabbit, they turn
pale and cough. Oh dear ! more than eighty years
ago, my poor old uncle Thomas, sitting on that very
settle, said, ' Mark my words, this education will ruin
the country.' It has ruined it ! We have to work
our fingers to the bone to scrat for a living. It's
all mauling, and fending, and slaving. He prophe-
sied it years before that old humbug Gladstone with
his free trade was ever heard of What a fuss they

ANOTHER GENEKATION COMETH 43

made of the old humbug, and now all the clever
folk are coming round to what I always told them ;
but if my poor uncle Thomas knew what is going
on in the country nowadays it would make him
turn in his grave."

A YEAR AFTER

CHARTLEY

SOON after the excitement of the wedding re-
corded in the previous chapter liad somewhat
subsided, I set oif from Walford for a day's
cychng, with the hope of finding the wild white
cattle of Chartley.

Through the primitive park of 8wvnnerton and over
the hills beyond I travel on to Stone and the vale of
Trent. A fine piece of the road to London goes past
the gorgeous gates and park of Sandon Hall, the seat
of the Earl of Harrowby. Beyond tlie park I turn to
the left in country lanes in the direction of Uttoxeter.
Chartley Hall is still in a very secluded district — a
modern house on the side of an island surrounded by
a moat broad enough in one part to be called a
mere. A little further on, in the park and near
to the roadside, the ancient ruined castle stands on
a rock, rising beautifully above the encircling trees.
A few yards more, and there is an unrestored, un-
spoilt, timber-framed Tudor manor-house on the other
side of the road, and after a sharp ascent towards
the higher moors I find a picturesque cottage, where
the head gamekeeper happens to be at home. He
told me the cattle were not always easy to find ; for
the moors were miles across, and strangers were not
allowed to ramble anywhere. Seeing my name and
address, which are plainly printed on the bicycle, he
asked me if I knew Mr. Daniel Adamson (the founder of
the ship canal), wlio had lived at Didsburv ; for he had
"kept " for him in Shropshire. I replied, "Yes, I knew

46 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

liini well. We were near neighbours ; l)iit I did not know
he could shoot." To this the gamekeeper shrewdly re-
marked : "■ Well, he couldn't ; but he found sport for
gents from Manchester, who blazed away at anything
and everything."

We took long sticks, and set off for a tramp up one
of the most primitive, wild, dark moors, that I had
ever trod. There seemed to be no shelter for miles, and
nothing for cattle to eat. All around was cold and
bleak, witli lierbage like coarse brown peat. We soon
found fallow-deer, and then the heads and horns of
lordly stags were seen against the sky. A wild whistle
suddenly rings around, Ivat tlie keeper merely says,
" curlew," and opens a big tield-glass for distant view.
He reports the cattle to be in a distant hollow, where
there is water ; and a cow has a calf which causes her to
be more dangerous than any bull. My breath being
scant, discretion is better than venturing too near : so we
sit on a trough for corn that may be used in the winter,
and there we rest a while. Miles of solitude, almost
desolation, but abundance of invigorating air for any
well-fed animal, are all around us. On other high
ground is a withered tree, where the keeper says, Mary
Queen of Scots was wont to sit. What a mixture of
thoughts, it seems, to talk of that heroine of romance
and w^ild cattle I Let us learn what we ca.n of the latter,
first, and leave the fascinating lady for study in the
winter.

On that day all that were left of the famous
Chartley cattle were thirteen. They were divided in
two small herds, the younger ones being in the park,
and, dreadfLil to relate, one of them was black.

The Chartlev cattle have longer horns tlnin those
in the other Enp'lish wild herds. Their hair is more

shaggy, in rough curls on the forehead, mane, and dew-
lap or brisket. The colour is white, but glossy black on
muzzles, eyes, ears, tongues, teats, and hooves. liouiid

PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

the eves and nose are many small black spots, gTadually
fa din o- awav on the neck, with some on tlie leo-s. In
country parlan.ce, this spotty colouring is known as
flea bitten, or grizzly. They are handsome, good-looking
cattle, from the point of view of either tlie artist or the
butcher. The meat is said to be verv like venison,

>^-. _..^:,';^. _ :.-;^^vv

■-^•^

■■€^.:

'^-*;ii3^^|-^^^

^*y^"

YOUNG WILD CATTLE. CHARTLEY PARK, I903

especially in the fat. Fifty years ago, the herd
numbered forty -eight. Thirty years since, they had
dwindled to twenty-seven. During the next twenty
years there was little change in them; but in 1903
there were only thirteen, and ten when we saw them
the following summer.

About 1878 I rode or drove to Lyme Park, in
Cheshire, to see the remnant of the herd of wild cattle

THE WILD CATTLE

that were there dving^ out. There were then three
cows on the hills, and a young bull that was tied up.
They looked very like the Chartley cows, but all are
now gone. It seems inexplicable how our wealthy
landowners, who waste thousands, grudge the pittance
to keep the remnants of the picturesque, interesting,

ox THE HIGH MOCRS. CHARTLEY. 1934
One old cow shakes her head dangerously.

and useful wild cattle, which are und(»ul)tedlv the
original stock from which our present givers ui' milk
and meat are descended.

In Somerford Park, Cheshire, there is a domesticated
herd which are said to be of pure descent from the
wild ones, but thev have been gradually brtd to be
hornless. I wrote to the owner, Sir Waltei* Shakerley,

50 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

for information about tlieni and leave to photogra})h
them.

The Shakerleys have not been at Somerforcl much
more than a hundred years, and have no records of the
cattle, who were there long before them, though they
liave carefully ]ireserved the breed.

The Somerfords of the Domesday Simireford became
extinct in Tudor times. The park is on the banks of
the Dane, about thirty miles from Chartley and half
that distance from Lvme. The cattle are unmistak-

A SOMEKFORD COW

ably like those of Chartley and Lyme, excepting for the
absence of horns. Li days long since gone, some one has
driven the wild white cattle from the neighbouring hills
into the fine and fertile park of Somerford, kept them
for milk, and by careful breeding developed a hornless
variety from what was probably originally an accidental
or chance sport without the useless excrescences of horns.
Tlie cows certainly look good " Imtcher's beasts"
and good milkers. As in all dairy farms, the calves are
not allowed to suck, and tlie cattle are treated in the
common custom of the coimtrv. Thev are white, with

s^rr?

52 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

black muzzles, ears, teats, and ''flea-bitten" spots on
the necks and legs. The bull appeared to have a very
high-arched neck, Init I kept a very respectful distance
from him, as we could not find any one to go with us.
The herd \\'ere straggling about in a very difterent
manner to the wild herd at Chartley, who " bunched "
together, witli the bull alwavs in front. They are
" dosome, ' and a cheese factor of fifty years' experience
told me the richest cheese in Cheshire came from the
Dane valley. Black calves have been known at rare
intervals, but all tradition or folk-lore is lost, as generally
happens when a family does not live in one house or on
one spot for centuries.

At (Jhillingham, in Northumberland, tlie well-known
herd of wild cattle difiers from that at Chartley in having
red ears instead of black, with horns shorter and more
" cockv, " but their historv shows that orio-inallv the
markings of them were black, like to the others.

At Whalley, in Lancashire, the abbots strictly pre-
served the wild cattle on the surrounding hills, and
Houghton Tower was a noted centre for them. To this
day the chief inns of most of the towns and villages
in Lancashire are called the Bull, or the White Bull.

The Whallev herd seems to have been well pre-
served until the death of Sir John Assheton in 1697.
It was then divided, one half l)eino- sent to Middleton
near Manchester, from wlience the successors were driven,
about 1765, to Gunton, in Norfolk, the seat of Lord
Suftield. Some survivors were recently at Blickling
Hall and Woodbastwick, in Norfolk. The other half
of the Whalley herd were kept at Gisburne, where
the last bull was solemnly killed at 8.35 a.m., 10th
November 1859, and his weight recorded as being 742
pounds of beef, without oftal, all being respectfully done
after his portrait had been painted by Ward, B.A., for
the sign of the White Bull at Gisburne.

At Cadzow, across the Scottish l)order, there is an

THE WILD CATTLE 53

original herd and scattered reiiiuants or survivals in
various parks. As a, rule, it seems as if the wild cattle
did the best on the bleak hills that bisect the northern
half of England. At Vale Koval, in Cheshire, a herd
had been preserved until the Civil War, when all were
plundered ; but one cow escaped, and travelled home
from far away. She was v/hite, with red ears, and was
greatly treasured ever after. Only a few years since I

BRED FUR MILK

had a cow from Staffordshire which was distinctlv like
the Chartley breed. Ordinary cows were then taken
in the park to lev, and tlie old-fashioned cows of
Staffordshire wei'e lono--horned.

Two hundred years ago, white cattle with Ijlack or
red points, and more or less in a state of nature, appear
to have been connnon in our northern district. Xote
the pictures of cows on p}). x, 34, and 72. One hundred
years ago, seven herds of wild ones are recorded.
Now there are tlu^ee, or, it miy be said, oidv two :

D 2

54 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

for as I write these lines, in A})ril 1905, there is news
that the Duke of Bedford has bought the eirjlit beasts
left at Chartley and taken them to Woburn.

Six hundred years ago, when folk believed more
in folk-lore, when there was much less learning but
more simple faith, it was fervently believed, in the
country round Chartley, that a black calf born in the
herd of wliite cattle denoted death or disaster to the
Ferrers family who owned them. The first instance
I have read of is in 1322. There may have been some
coincidences, if not reasons, some instances, for the
popular belief Of course, we superior beings know
it was all rubbish — old wives' fables, &c. The game-
keeper tells me (in confirmation of what I knew long
before) that black calves are sometimes born, l)ut that
he or other custodians would kill them at once, so
that no one, not even the devil himself, should know,
and the evil should be averted. Lately, Earl Ferrers
ridiculed this barbarous practice, and told the keeper
not to do it again. A black heifer calf had been
born and reared in 1902, the year before I went.
In 1904 it had a white calf, and is shown in the
photograph. In the notes of my first visit I expressed
surprise that the keeper had not made the little black
stranger into veal pie. Since then barely two years
have elapsed, but many things have happened. The
uncanny beast has thriven. There have been prosaic
sales l3y auction. Chartley is owned by other lords ;
the wild cattle have left the home where they roamed
for a thousand years ; the white bull and the black
heifer alike have been carried into captivity.

Little time was lost before X with his camera
accompanied me to Chartley ; but one day was not
sufticient for us ; and having in the meantime read
the letters of Sir Amias Poulet, the keeper of the
Scottish queen, I planned another journey that would
take in Tutbury Castle, and also arranged with the

TUTBUEY TOWERS AND TOWS

lii t iS^'' --

DOORWAY TO TUTBUEY CHURCH

TUTBURY

gamekeeper for a day when the weather should be
tine for the moors.

We went by train to Derby ; burst my hind tyre
in the street with their new tram-lines ; had to buy
a new tyre ; then cycled across the country through
an unknown land, where there were many picturesque

A BIT OP TUTBURY CASTLE

old houses (one at Hilton ?) that we knew nothing
about, and had no time to ask, until w^e came to
Tutbury, once a famous stronghold in the Midlands,
but now left severely alone by the great railways
and industries of the present day. The ruins of its
castle are on a steep little hill, and half-way up is a
fine Norman church, securely locked. We had no

PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

time to waste A\'ith parson or verger. Perhaps their
sermons may tell some one that patience and lono-
suftering are characteristic of (Christians, but we shall
not be there to hear. Contrary to custom, X actually
photographed the Norman doorway, and I begged for
a shot at the church from the castle gate. The rooms
that were set apart in the castle, and probably reno-
vated for the use of the queen, are all hi ruins ; but

THE CHAMBERS OF THE QUEEN OF SCOTS IN TUTBCKY CASTLE

we give their pictures, and one of them seems to show
the ghosts of Mary's ladies, if not herself, still lingering
about their former haunts.

A very curious resurrection, though certainly not
a ghostly one, occurred at Tutbury in the freshness
of the summer, the early days of June 1831. For
untold ages the mill had stood upon the river Dove
and the mill-race needed cleansing. Some coins were
discovered in the gravel and silt below the water, and
as most men are fond of finding money, the search was
more and more successfully prolonged, until the good

TREASURE-TROVE 59

folk of Tutbury ftiirly lost their precious wits through
the treasure that was so bountifully bestowed on
them. They dani'd the river, and everything else ;
dug down to — goodness knows where ; found pints,
quarts, or gallons of coins, all ready for spending,
rather dirty — but that was a trifle — good for trade and
drink — especially drink. " Let us drink, for to-morrow
we die."

Two hundred thousand coins of the kings Henry
III., Edward I., and II., with some foreign and some
church-money, were said to have been recovered from
the bed of the little river Dove, which was at one spot
a mass of silver coins. They could not be given to the
Caesars whose image was on them, for the poor Caesars
had been gone five hundred years. Besides, common
folk say, " finding's keepings." They do not know what
treasure-trove means, and do not want to know : their
o-reat regfret would be thev had not found it sooner
and told no one. Antiquaries Ijelieve that here were
the lost or hidden funds for the war of the Earl of
Lancaster, who was in rebellion against the second
Edward in 1322, and who had accused the Abbot of
Burton (where the ale comes from) of having stolen his
treasure. It is now plain that the rebel barons lost
their military chest in their flight across the river
by Tutbury Castle. Ferrers of Chartley was one,
and that year is the first record of a black calf dropt
at Chartley.

Truth stranpfer than fiction ao^ain. To think of the
hungrv and covetous prowling round this stream for
five hundred years, the miller grinding on, the angler
fishing for tiny trout, and the ready money rusting in
peace, when manv of them would have ruined them-
selves, body and soul, to have got it if they had known.
They were kept from it as we were from the locked
church, where we mig^ht have heard old tales about the
love of monev and the fliorht of time ; Ijut we hasten on.

62 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

through Dravcot hi the Olay and Scrnh, or Stuh, lane
to onr rendezvous with the gamekeeper at Chartley.

A long tramp, probably three miles, across the bare
moor, takes us to the dwindlino- herd of wild cattle. X
carried his camera and stand, while I had four })lates.
There were two chances to consider : the bull might
charge us, or the whole herd might bolt. To guard
against the latter, an underkeeper came with a bag of
cake over his shoulder. If the former happened, the
keeper said our only course was to hide ourselves, and
as nothing, not even bracken, grew much higher than
a few inches, there was barely cover for a goose. The
cattle were out in the open, where there was no shelter,
not even a tree-stump, for nearly a mile. We manoeuvred
to approach on the sunny side and let the man with the
cake go first. I was afraid the shining camera ^\•ould
frighten them, and suggested to X that if the bull did
charge, to leave him the camera, put the black cloth
over his head, and let him take his own photographs
while we ran down a rabbit-hole. X focussed, while I
watched Billy and made the exposure. He looked as
pleasant as a cow's husband, as the dairymaids would
say ; but he was wonderfully good, for he was only two
years old and wanted more cake.

We had a long tramp back across the wilderness,
some of the most desolate-looking country in England,
but after a much-needed tea we rushed the eight or nine
miles to Statibrd in forty minutes and caught an express
for home. Safe and sound, fagged, but happy.

Considering everything, our inspection and photo-
graphs of the wild cattle were all we could wish. We
got near to them in good light, and that might never
occur again. The previous year we approached a few
young ones under the shade of a tree in the park while
a gale was blowing, and that was all we could manage.
Another day we never went, for it was hopelessly wet.
An enthusiastic entomoloo^ist tells me that this bleak

CHARTLEY HALL 63

moor of Chartlev is the southern hiiiit of the largfe
heath butterfly : it seems more fitted for curlew or wild
geese.

All that remains of Chartley Castle are two round
towers whose crumbling ruins crest a conical hill rising
above the fine old yews and other trees that clothe its
sides down to the water of a pool or mere that is shaped
like unto a horse-shoe, the ancient badtje of the Ferrers
family. At the heels of tlie shoe stands the hall, but it
looks strarijj-elv modern for its Ions: and romantic history.
Although surrounded by water, two other houses have
been burnt to the ground on the same site — the one that
held the Scottisli (jueen and its successor — and the
modern building is uninhabited. Perhaps it is haunted.
If it isn't, it ought to be. It is to be let, or sold, and
the custodian is discreetly silent. He shows us a bed-
stead, dated 1470, which is said to have been used by the
queen ; but what about the previous fires ? The front
door bell-handle is a horse-shoe, and in the hall are heads
of the wild cattle and a stufied buzzard that was shot
near the castle. By far the most interesting part of the
house is the basement, where the orio-inal duno-eons. with
their ponderous doors, still exist. Along the wall, near
to the water, are strong iron bars, on which are fetters
for the legs of the prisoners who were chained up fast
in the glorious days of Good Queen Bess. Tliev were
bright with use then : now the iron rusts. How the
poor chained wretches must have longed to drown
themselves and their troubles in the deep water which
surrounded and tempted them ! The water laps on the
same stones, by the same fetters, to-day, but water-
lilies grow in it now, and the grass on the bank is mown
smooth. Our picture shows the original round arches
where the dunoeons were.

There is about an acre of lawn and garden within
the moat ; and where the water broadens out into a
small lake is another island, on which a swan serenely

THK BACK OF CHAUTLEY HALL

CHAPa'LEY CASTLE

66 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

sits on her nest in glistering- white ])hnnage conspicuous
from afar.

We went round the mere and clambered up the
castle rock, from whence there was a grand view over
a fertile park and country, to the black moor on one
side and the dark hills of Cannock Chase on the other.
The wind blew like a hurricane, increasing our diffi-
culties in finding a spot to fix the camera for the
taking of a tower. A j^laintive, cheeping sound, that
seemed familiar, attracted mv attention, and as I
searched amid the nettles and grass for the cause of
it, a hen-pheasant rose with a frightful clatter, and, like
lightning, her little chicks disappeared in the herbage.
They had not long been hatched, and their complaining
cheeps as the mother was skulking away were like
those of lost chickens.

For the return journey we set off on another
voyage of discovery, for though I had been to Croxden
Abbey before, the intervening country was quite un-
known to me, and there was a good road as far as
Uttoxeter, the scene of Dr. Johnson's penance ; but
after that the ways were bad indeed. All the country
looks poor and uncared for, as if every one were making
all they could out of it and neglecting it. The hills
are small, but steep. Between them there is generally
an unbridged stream of water, wdiich the cyclist has
to charge at the risk of a bath and the certainty of
wet legs, or he has to dismount and carry his bike
over a plank which is kindly provided for pedestrians.
Another extraordinarv and most unpleasant feature
of the district is a horrible, loud, groaning noise, that
for miles deadens all other sounds. It is caused by
the strongly braked wheels of lorries laden with big
blocks of stone from quarries, that are slowly taken
down the steep hills to the railways or canals in the
valleys. We could not talk to one another, for the
excruciatino- la-oaninir deafened us. It reminded us

CROXDEX ABBEY

of the sermons we used to hear, describiiio- the moans
of the damned reverberating from the bottomless pit.
Amono- these twistino- lanes we find the ruined

CROXDEX ABBEY

Abbev of Croxden. A public road goes through and
about the abbey itself, j^ossibly over the high-altar.
The ruins are visil)lv less tlian wlien I saw them a few

PILGEIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

years before. The Gothic arches are on tlie road itself,
and some are doubtless in it. The hii^'hway tramp may
shelter in the buttressed corners. The swine forage
around, and the hens nest in tlie nettles, for, as usual,
the soundest buildings have been converted into a farm-
stead. The abbey seems to have been mentioned in
history as being the place where King John wished to
have what he called his heart buried. Did the heart

CROXDEN ABBEY

do the abbey any o-ood :' Or the abbey save the heart ?
What are the pigs rooting up '.

Our stay was short, for soon we wandered on to
another famous place of grandeur and magnificence ; I
cannot call it a home. It is known as Alton Towers,
one of the seats of the Earls of Shrewsbury. Unstinted
wealth has been lavished in transforming hills and dales
into enchanted o-ardens strewn with statues, stairs, ter-
races, and bridges, leading to temples, palaces, or pagodas.
Fountains and waterfalls, rocks and caves, natural and
artificial, weary and bewilder one. The monument to

CEOXDEN" ABBEV

E 2

yo PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

the proud old lord who caused all this confusion says :
" He made the desert smile." My wearied eyes would
rather rest on banks of primroses, or the heavenly
blue of hyacinths that once were spread 1)eneath the
oaks, or on the I'usset ripeness of our English orchards,
than see all this Ijelauded grandeur. Whv coulchi't he
let our English desert smile in peace, as it was wont
to smile, without his Grecian gods and naked Ivomans i

These journeys by different ways to and from Chartley
showed us a cold, bleak, and neglected country. Many of
the large houses are emptv or are used as private asylums.
There are plenty of wealthy lunatics in and about Man-
chester, and the care of them is a profitable business.
The gamekeeper told us that Chartley itself would have
been taken for that purpose, but for the encircling moat.
The safeofuard of the surroundino- water was of the p-reat-
est importance in the captivity of the Queen of Scots, for
if she had been found dro\\ned some day, the Queen
of Eno-land would have o-one into mournino- and reioiced
greatly. But, on the other hand, it might be difficult to
keep lunatics out of the water, and to lose customers reck-
lessly is like killincf the o-eese who lay the o-olden ej>'ofs.

Some very interesting letters having been sent from
Chartley during the captivity of the Scottish queen, and
contemporary records being so much better than courtly
histories for giving vivid and life-like pictures of what actu-
ally happened, the following extracts from them are given.

Sir Amias Poulet, from Somerset, was appointed by
Queen Elizabeth, in i 585, to be the custodian of Mary
Queen of Scots, wdio was then in Tut bury C^astle. A
terrible task it proved to him, and he died soon after her.
His descendants or family connections have developed into.
Earl Poulett ; Paulett, Marquis of Winchester ; Powlett,
Duke of ( 'levelancl. He spelt his name Amice, and that
of Cavendish, the previous kee})er, Candish. The spelling
probably gives the former pronunciation. Tlie diplomatic
and cautious term he used for Mary was " this queen."

THE CAPTIVITY IN CHARTLEY 71

The keeper and the kept and all tli<'ii' retinue
complained bitterly of the cold, unconifortahle, badly
furnished castle at Tutbury. The " beggarl}^ little
town " Avas dangerous for plots, and " this Queen had
gotten the hearts of all by her alms, giving twenty
marks in a day, casting down in the street good little
sums to be taken up by them that list to stoop for it."
Laundresses and priests were always passing to and
fro ; they appear t<> have been the special bugbears of
the keeper. Servants were constantly mixing with
the townsfolk, and cochers or coachmen would exercise
horses about the countrv. The ceilings and walls of
the castle were not plastered, and carpets or hangings
were wanted to keep draughts out of the rooms.

On Christmas eve, 1585, the whole company flitted to
Chartley, where, if some troubles were ended, others began.
A. P., as the wily keeper signs a letter, says the sur-
rounding water was a better safeguard than the strongest
wall ; that a bit of paper as big as his finger could not be
conveyed in without his knowledge, and " one commodity
suflicient in itself to recompense many incommodities is
the abundance of water, so the Queen's laundresses may
be lodofed and do their business within the orates."

The retinue were too many for the hall, and as
the governor had thirty soldiers and forty servants
he probably kept them at the neighbouring castle. He
" would not like to have less, for he must be stronger
than the Scocs, or mio-ht have his throat cut and lose his
charge." What could it matter to him about his cliarge
if his throat were cut \ Elsewhere he calls them " seely,
simjjle souls," but one has a " malicious, cankered, traitor-
ous heart, ' when he has taken all his money off him.

" This Queen " had fifty-one in her suite. There
were an apothecary, four grooms of the chamber, two
yeomen of the pantry, two cooks, a pastelar, four
turnbroshes, an embroiderer, gentlemen's gentlemen,
and sixteen females, including both ladies and wenches.

72 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

They liad fifteen chambers, oiilv five of which had
liangings ; that is, supposing the queen had the five
best rooms, there would be ten others without curtains,
and probably without plastered walls and ceilings, for
fifty people. In March, when the weather is bitterly
cold and sea-coal costs ten shilhiigs a load (sav, ten

LOCAL CATTLE

pounds at present values), and my lord Essex, who
owns Chartley, is troubled about his timber, " this
Queen " will persist in having four fires going at once.
The price of a sheep is seven shillings, a veal (an elastic
animal) is nine, and fowls are threepence each. There
are sixteen dishes wanted at both courses, fish-days
and flesh-days. The hungry Scots " fast " in winter,

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS jz

wanting eggs and fish when there are none, and are
everlastingly "craving." The "cavilling" is grievous,
but " the wife's oversight is not unprofitable." Troubles
thicken when a baby is born in the house and another
is expected. Whatever must be done about midwives,
nurses, and priests, even if godfathers and godmothers
are sternly kept at a distance? The much-perplexed
A. P. writes : " There will be no end of marrying in this
great household if they may marry without controlment
according to their own religion ; " and he forbids a priest
to enter. This higli-spirited queen says a priest must
be admitted to christen the child. She scolds them
all round, frets and fumes, and snatches up the babe,
sprinkling it with anything that is handy, and says,
" Mary, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost."

There are many queer little bits recorded about this
romantic Queen of Scots, whose peerless beauty and won-
drous fascination are so belauded in the courtly histories.
Like the authentic portraits of her, they vary greatly.

She indulged in the queenly sport of duck-hunting
with dogs on the pool. A winged duck on the water
is chased by a swimming dog. As the dog gets near
to the duck, the poor thing dives until its breath is
spent, then it has to rise again, and again the dog tries
to grab it. If it gets its teeth fast into the duck, the
dog takes it to its royal mistress, who would doubtless
pet it fondly, and perhaps eat the duck after.

We may also learn that " this Queen " complaineth
of a weak stomach and drinketh much sack. She also
suffers from rheum, which causes a distillation into her
len-s and bereaves her of the use of them. That does
not sound very well, but A. P. considers it rather an
advantage for him if her legs are really bad ; but the
sack, or sherry, is very dear, and " his Queen " is ex-
ceedingly penurious — the perplexities of the poor man
may be seen from the following starthng glimpse into

74 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

the deep deceit of the Jezebel ^^ horn the Low Cliurch
parsons style "the Great and Good."'

Walsing-ham, the muiister of the queen, writes by
his secretary, Davison, both sio-ninof the letter, to Sir
Amias Poulet, telling him that her Gracious Majesty
the Queen is much displeased with him, and blames his
'• lack of tliat care and zeal in her service that you have
not in all this time found out some wav to shorten the
life of that Queen," and '' cast the burthen upon her,
knowing as you do her indisposition to shed blood, espe-
cially of one of that sex and quality, and so near to her
in blood as the said Queen is " : . . " Referring the same
to your good judgments : we conmiit you to the protec-
tion of the Almighty."

How polite they are I They want him to shed the
blood of that sex and quality (by accident), and refer
liim to the Almighty ! They might well want their
letters to be burnt at once, like heretics, or returned.
Wary old A. P. copied them iirst, and kept copies.
Who knew what might happen! If "his" queen were
"got at" first — and hundreds were hungry for the job —
then "this or that" queen would become " his " queen.
Very dangerous, indeed, were some of these glorious days
of " Good Queen Bess." She gave orders face to face,
but would not sign. Stout-hearted, shrewd Sir Amice
struggled painfully on, missed the many pitfalls in his
path, and died in his bed at last.

Chartley had no great hall for a spectacle in blood-
red and black, like Fotheringay ; but it had a deep moat
all round it, and if the Queen of Scots had been found
drowned by the window^ or the garden-side there would
have been another mystery. Would it have been an
accident, or a murder as foul as Darnley's, or even
Rizzio's ? Sir Amias would not do " an act which God
and the law forbiddeth . . . and make so foul a ship-
wreck of my conscience," but he kept a copy of the
order which would have been disowned in anv event.

THISTLES FROM TEARS

/ D

The sun still shines on the fair lands and the glit-
tering pool of Chai'tley as it did when Mary sadly sat
there sighing for the help that never was to come ; the
only deliverance was death. The stately castle's ruins
stand aloft as a remembrance of her, and in their shade
the cattle rest whose forebears were here before queens
were heard of, whose ignorance is bliss, and placid
contentment better far than all the glories of the
throne of hio-h-souled ladies full of bitter strife and
hatred, cousins in blood " of that quality" — two painted
queens who sought to murder one another, at or from
the Hall of CUiai'tlev.

Little is left of them now but tales and thistles.
Idle legends tell that prickly thistles first sprang up
there on the patches of earth that were sodden with
the tears of the Scottish Queen.

THE STANDISH PEW IN CHORLEY
CHURCH, LANCASHIRE

"^ ^\Y T HEX the pilgrim fathers sailed in the Speed-
\ \ / well and the Mayflower, they fortunately

V V had with them Myles Standish, the Puri-
tan captain, who turned out to be the
Oliver Cromwell of the party ; for he feared God and
kept his powder dry, placing his one little howitzer
or cannon on the roof of the church, where it could
speak to some purpose in the conversion of the heathen.
Very little is known of him, though he was a chief
founder of the American nation. Without him, the
little band of pilgrims woidd have been annihilated by
the Indians, for they suffered great hardsliips and had
" plenty of nothing but gospel " ; yet he was blamed
for not converting some of the heathen before killing
anv.

Myles Standish appears first as a soldier in the
Netherlands against the Spaniards. He was a born
fighter and leader of men, studied Caesar and the
Bible, was militarv commander over the budding com-
monwealth of America for its first thirtv-six vears,
nursed the sick when nearly all were in great distress
and refused to take the cloaks of beaver-skin from the
Indian women.

In his wall he left to his son, Alexander, estates in
Lancashire, which, he said, were given to him "as right
heir by lawful descent, but surreptitiously detained
from me, my grandfather being a younger brother from
the house of Standish of Standish." The Standishes

SEATS IN Till; PEW ( F STANDISII OF DLXBUliY

78 PILGKIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

of Standish were, and are to this day, Catholics ; but
the Standishes of Duxburv, their kinsmen, were Protes-
tants, and as he named his place in America, Duxbury,
it is most likely he was one of them. He may have
been illeo-itimate, f>r his relatives said he was, so that
they could keep the estates and send him off for a
soldier of fortune to make his own way in the world.
That was the usual way of disposing of natural sons
for many ages in our history.

The old hall of Duxburv is efone, and I know of
no relic of the Standish family but the pew in Chorley
Church, whicli I happened to see when going with
the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society to
Worden Hall, and at once asked leave to come again
and photograph it. It is a large, square, family pew,
with the arms and crest of Standish of Duxburv carved
in oak over two quaint sadilia, or seats. The crest is
a cock — not an owl, as some say ; therefore Longfellow
was riofht —

" He was a gentleman born : could trace his i)e(ligree plainly
Back to Hugh Standish of Duxbury Hall, in Lancashire, England.

Heir unto vast estates, of which he was basely defrauded,
Still bore the family arms, and had for his crest a cock argent
Combed and wattled gules, and all the rest of the blazon."

If any one has not read " The (Jourtship of Myles
Standish," let him learn how the daring captain of the
Puritans dare not meet Priscilla, the Puritan maiden,
but sent his secretary to do his courtship for him.
John Alden, the secretary, was in love with her him-
self, and therefore in a great quandarv twixt ol)edience
to his chief and love for his girl.

" Still he said to himself, and almost fiercely he said it,
'Let not him that [.utteth his hand to the [ilongli look backwards.'

' Ls it my fault,' he said, 'that the maiden hath chosen between us?
Is it my fault that he failed — my fault that I am the victor?'

STAXDISH OF DUXBURY 79

Then within him there thundered a voice, like the voice of the Proi)het :
' It hath displeased the Lord ! It is the temptation of Satan ! '

' Better to be in my grave in the green old churchyard in England,
Close by my mother's side, and among the dust of my kindred.' "

But Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, " in modest
apparel of lionie-spuu," ended the matter by saying,
" Speak for thyself, John," and Myles the captain
went off on the warpath for the conversion or quiet-
inpf of the lied Indians.

The chancel of the church, we were told, was
owned by the Standishes of Duxbury, and it contains
their memorials and arms. One of the family brought
the bones of St. Laurence out of Normandy in 1442,
accordino; to a certificate of that date whicli is still in
existence, and the mouldering bones may still be seen
in a recess in the eastern wall. Thev were brouo-ht
for the " pfite and auaile of the sayd church to the
intent that the forsayd Sir Bou Standish, Kt., and
Dame Jane . . . with their pdecessors and successors
may be in the sayd church ppetually prayed for."
Precious few of the good folk of Chorley pray for them
now. Some pray for good trade ; some that their
football team may win, and others pray not at all.
The bones are a curiosity for strangers, but I preferred
seeing the carved oak, there being another pew in the
church, with a canopy supported by tine old oaken
columns, each column having two spirals separate from
one another. The church regfisters 1 carefullv examined
for anv record of the baptism of Myles (about 1584) but
could not find his name. The old books are very faded,
stained with damp and much thumbing, but are not
wilfully mutilated.

When Myles Standish w^as studying his Bibles and
Cfesar in the new colony, a namesake of his was killed
at Manchester in the very beginning of the Civil War,
1642. He was on the Bovalists' side. One account

PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

describes liim as Captain Standish of Standish ; another
one as the eldest son of the squire of Duxbury. The
family seem to have been fond of fio-htinof, for as late
as 1812 there was not only litigation about Duxbury
Hall, but blows, ejectment, and imprisonment.

Knight, or squire, or dame, of Standish of Duxbury
sit no more in state under the carved can.opy of their
fine old pew in Chorley Church with the cock on the
helm above. It mav be this is the only memorial left
in England of tlie brave man who for so many years
guarded the Puritan pilgrims in America.

" He was a gentleman born. A gamecock of long pedigree,
Not argent, nor combed, like the crest of the Puritan captain
But sable and gules, a knight without fear or reproach.
Dubbed by the hand of his mast,er, in Didsbury, England."

HOGHTON TOWER

"^ ROM Cliorley we went wandering northwards
along the uninteresting roads of Lancashire. It
was the first time we had gone north, and was
no better tlian if we had gone east to Derby-
shire. It is a melancholy land, devastated with its own
inner wealth. Grimv smuts settle on all thino-s, even
on the faces of the wayfarers, and stay there. The roads
are worn with toil and traffic. The clouds are dull
and lowering, shutting out the brightness of the sky.
Far ahead, on the very top of a high hill, stands Hoghton
Tower, and round it runs the little river locally called
Darren. Milton's ode to the " Chief of men " mentions —

'' Darwen stream with lilood of Scots imbued."

There are more Scots than ever round it now ; but thev
take better care of their blood, and imbue the streams
with Turkey- red dye or other waste refu.se out of which
they have " squozen " all there is to squeeze. All the
land seems given up to mills and pits and dyeworks. It
may be wealth beyond the dreams of avarice even of a
brewer ; but what is the good of it, if the getter is to
be choked with soot and stink in the crettino- of it, and
live in duhiess and depression that he niay (in local
language) "cut up" respectably when he is dead ;'

Hoghton Tower stands conspicuously before us, with
a perfectly straight drive continuously going ujjhill,
and more than a mile in leiio'th. There is somethiiii--
very uncommon in the approach to the house or castle
with the ever-widenino- view over Lancashire. Not
manv centuries ao-o all this land was wood or forest,

HOGHTOX TOWKR IX THE DISTA^X'E

THE OUTKR GATE

84 PILGRIMAGES TU OLD HOMES

noted for its wild cattle and deer, and the wild white
bull is still the cognizance of the family. We toil
slowly upwards to a large, massive castle, ^^'hose l)attle-
mented gatehouse is tianked by towers. A shield of
arms shows a man holding a bull, but the histories say
it is a gritHn ; let any one have the benefit of any doubt.
There are also the lettei-s T. H., standing for Thomas
Houghton, who Iniilt the castle in 1564, and had
a lawsuit with his architect or builder. '' Thomas
Houghton of Houghton, in the (Jountie of Lancaster,
Esquier . . . lawfullie seased in his Demesne as of fee
of and in the Manour of Houp'hton . . . hathe enter-
prysed and begun to buylde a Howse there. ..."

Crossing the first courtyard, we come to a steep
flight of rounded steps with an inner court or enclosure
beyond them, then more steps, and another gatehouse.
The archway through this gatehouse is older than the
greater part of the building, for here was a very strong
tower which the Royalists treacherously and perfidiously
blew up with gunpow^ler when treating for the sur-
render of the castle. Captain Starkey with about
sixty men of the parliamentarian army were blown to
bits, "a wofull blast" and " fearefull spectacle," The
Royalists said it was quite an accident ; but they had
taken care not to be hurt themselves, and having
previously fired the beacon on the tower to rouse the
country-side, the friends of the parliament were very
wroth against " the Papists and Malignants," and
the name of Sir Gilbert Houghton was struck ofi' the
roll of the Justices of the Peace,

Having arrived safely at this furthest court, the
puzzle was to find the front door. There were many
doors, and dogs barking in all directions. We might
be blown up or bitten before we could deliver our letter
from Sir James de Hou-hton, who had kindly ofiven
permission to inspect and photograph. We found a
very substantial, massive castle, built of stone, with
stone roof, many round balls of stone, and everything

THB GATKHOUSE

F 2

THE HALL, HOCIHTON TOWEU

88 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

ke]3t ill l)eaiitifnl order. Tliis was better than was to
be expected from the writings of Ruskiii, or some one
who wrote that any one who would put a sham Norman
prefix to their Anglo-Saxon or English name would be
likely to build a sham Gothic castle, containing other
shams. It was in 1862 that the Hoghtons obtained
leave to affix the word "de" before their name as the
Traftords, Tableys, and others had done, thereby spoiling
a good old English name.

From my earliest years I had heard of Hoghton
Tower as the scene of the tale of the kino; and the
beef, and at last I was to see the historic spot. Pre-
suming that all the world knows that the loin of beef
first became the sirloin when it was knighted by the
pedantic numskull. King James the First, who had found
the making of liaronets to be so profitable, they may
see the })hotograph of the table at which it was done
in the right hand corner of our pictures of the hall.
The king had private apartments, and the table was
then in another room, Avhich we did not photograph.
In those days there was a noted herd of the wild white
cattle in the park or forest round Houghton, and it
seems to me probable that His Sacred Majesty, who
was not altogether without the instincts of an animal,
was served with the juicy undercut of the loin of a
wild heifer, and, scarcely knowing whether it was beef
or venison, the king enjoyed himself exceedingly.

" Ho fishes, drinks, and wastes tlie lamps of night in revel."

The Sir Richard Hougliton of that day certainly
treated his guests well. From the local histories I
copy the bill-of-fare for the dinner on August 1 7,
16 1 7, merely remarking that the ever-famous sirloin
of beef is not mentioned there, therefore the kiti^-
had probably polished that off at breakfast, as the
supper was merely a repetition of the dinner, with the
addition of " wild-l)oar })ye, umble })ve, red-deer pve,
and neat's toiiii-ue tart."

LANCASHIRE HOSPITALITY 89

On the Lord's Day.
" For the Lords Table.

''First course. — Pullets, Ijoiled capon, mutton boiled,
boiled chickens, shoulder of mutton roast, ducks boiled,
loin of veal roast, haunch of venison roast, Ijurred capon,
pasty of venison liot, roast turkey, veal burred, swan
roast, one, and one for to-morrow, chicken pye hot, goose
roasted, rabbits cold, jiggits of nuitton boiled, snipe
pye, breast of veal boiled, capons roast, pullets, beef
roast, tongue pye cold, sprod boiled, herons roast
cold, curlew pye cold, mince pye hot, custards, pig
roast.

" Second course. — Hot pheasant, one, and one for the
king, quails, six for the king, partridge poults, arti-
choke pye, chickens, curlew roast, peas buttered, rabbits,
ducks, plovers, red-deer pye, pig burred, hot herons
roast, three of a dish, lamb roast, gammon of bacon,
pigeons roast, made dish, chicken burred, pear tart,
pullets and grease, dryed tongues, turkey pye, pheasant
tart, hog's cheeks dryed, turkey chicks cold."

The names of all the artists are given : two chief
cooks styled Mr., four labourers for the pastries, four
for the ranges (no nasty cooking in gas-ovens here),
two for boiling, and two for pullets. The last two
probably were dressers of the game and poultry. Dr.
Morton, the Bishop of Chester, preached ; he would
probably give the benediction also, while his mouth
watered for the good things provided. But why did
they boil the ducks, or eat fishy heron or curlew cold ?
Sprod is a local name for salmon-trout when first re-
turned from the sea. A "jiggit" or gigot, of mutton is
the leg and loin. The word " burred " is not to be found
in the dictionaries. I have little doubt it means the
same as the local terms, bishoped, or devilled — that is,
willed on red-hot coals.

90 PILGEIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

On the same day a great petition was presented to
the king from tlie connnon folk of Lancashire, who com-
plained that they had been deprived of all their lawful
recreations on the Sabbath. They were not allowed to
have music, bull-baitings, bear-baitings, games, ales,
wakes, &c.. on the Sabbath, or on holy days. His
Sacred Majesty felt jolly after his good dinner, and
sympathised with them. Shortly after, he issued a
notable proclamation, saying that " papists and puritans
much infested His county of Lancaster, but His pleasure
was, they should either conform or leave." Briefly, the
narrow-minded bio-ot commanded that those who went
to churcli — that is, His church, of ^^■hich He was the
Defender of the Faith — could do as they pleased after-
wards ; but if they did not go to church they must
have no recreation or games, and quit His country.

'• Then to supp. Then about ten o'clock a Maske of
Noblemen, Knights, Gentlemen, and Courtiers, afore
the King, in the middle round in the garden. Some
Speeches, of the rest, dancing the Huckler, Tom Bedlo,
and the Cowp Justice of Peace." This quotation is from
the private journal of Nicholas Assheton, Esquire,
who says that he and other neighbours dressed in the
livery of the Houghtons for the occasion. The vain
king wore green, with a big feather in his cap and a
horn at his side. A further confession says : " Wee
were desvred to be merrie and at nyght were soe. . . .
He to seller and drunk with us kindlie in all manner of
friendlie speake, as merrie as Ilo])in Hood and all his
fellowes. . . . This morning wee plaid the Bacchana-
lians" — "the riot of the tipsy Bacchanals." All parties
appear to have discreetly suppressed any account of
what they drank in the " seller," or any approximate
estimate of the quantity. None of my friends can tell
me anything about " dancing the Huckler." Perhaps
the word should have been spelt " hustler." " Tom
Bedlo ' is evidently Tom-a-Bedlam, a name given to

92 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

madmen who had been, or ought to be, in Bedlam, the
famous madhouse called after Bethlehem. Under the
circumstances we can forgive the author of the journal
some vagaries in spelling. His last-recorded amuse-
ment means Coups or Jousts in Peace — that is, a sham
tournament. Football could be nothing to a tournament,
if the gallant cavaliers were not too drunk to charge.

"Midnight shout and reveh-ie,
Tijisie dance and jollitie.
Braid your locks with rosie twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Eigor now is gone to bed
And Advice with scrup'hms head :
Strict Age and sow re Severitie
With their graue 8awes in slumber lie."

The glorious day at last \vas done, leaving Hoghton
Tower for ever memorable as the place where the wise
king knighted the loin of beef and told his faithful
people what sports lie would allow on Sunday. Then
he caused " The Book of Sports " to be published and
read in all churches on Sundays, and some say that had
an appreciable effect in bringing on the Civil War. It
seems strange that, after all this rejoicing about the first
King James, there shoidd be in the inner courtyard
a PTand statue of the Dutchman who frio-htened his
grandson, the second James, out of England. Why not
rename the statue, William the Conqueror, in the act of
forfeiting the; manors of the conquered English ? The
modern name of the lords is bastard Norman.

The " Howse which Houghton of Houghton, Esquier,
enterprysed to buylde and ffynysh in 1562 " still stands,
a magniricent specimen of the baronial residence when
the Englishman's house was literally his castle, when
wealth increased and times appeared more peaceful. A
relic of the feudal ages, it was perclied on high like the
nest of an eagle, and as if to justify its existence, war, in
its worst form, and horrible treachery followed it. From
its topmost tower the fiery beacon flares no more to rouse

PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

the country-side to war. The smoke that darkens all
the boundless plain around is not the smoke of burning
homes or hostile camps, nor is the stained stream of
Dar'en dyed with blood of Scots or Englishmen, for in
our land in our time, thank God ! there is peace.

Wll ALLEY CROSS

YALE-BALA

ONE of our little pilgrimages that was marred
by the wet weather of rQ03 was to find
Yale, the lonely spot in the Welsh mountains
that was the home of the Yales for ages, and is
still theirs two hundred years after a wandering member
of the fiimily had his name perpetuated in what has
grown to be the great University of Yale in America.

On a fine breezy morning we had taken the train
to Wrexham, struggled uphill for about five miles with
coal-pits or other works around, risen against the wind
for a thousand feet, wrestled with the incomprehensible
language, and finally, like many other intruders into
the wilderness of the Welsh hills, been driven "weather-
beaten back."

The Welsh pronunciation of any language tends to
make an Englishman ill, while the Celtic evasions
exasperate him. The following is a fairly correct
verbatim report of a dialogue, without attempting to
write it phonetically, I had at a small shop near to
diverging roads at Bwlchgwyn : —

" Can you speak English { "

" Yes, indeed, for sure. Yes, yes."

" Would you tell me the ^^'ay, please, to Plas-vn-Yale
or Bryn Eglwys { "

" Oh, well indeed. You can go either way. You
can, sure."

" Which is the better way for good roads ? "

" Well, well, the roads are not so bad indeed.
There's worse roads than these, sure. There's some
downhills. There is. Yes, yes."

" How many miles is it ? "

96 PILGKIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

" Oh, it is some miles. Yes, indeed. It may be
five miles. Oh yes ; it may be ten. It is some miles,
sure ; but there is some downhills, and there's worse
roads than these. Dear me. Yes, yes."

"What place is this?"

"Oh, this! Well, well. This is the coldest place
on earth. It is, sure. And there's winds ; that's why
it's cold. Yes, indeed."

" But what do you call the place ? "

" Oh, its name, sure, in Welsh."

Then he spit out words that sounded as if they
began with capital B's and were made up of double
consonants all through. My approximate rendering of
it would be " Bloody Gulch."

We turned our backs to the storms and wind, and
scudded downhill to return to Wrexham, for there is
a church that is one of the seven wonders of Wales,
and the town apparently rejoices in its civilisation and
prosperity. The smell of the ale in tlie churchyard
was so strong that it would have led or driven many
men to drink. We hear of the connection of beer
and the Bible, but it does seem rather brazen-faced
to put church, brewery, and poorhouse close together.
Perhaps the bad weather affected us, for when I ven-
tured to remark about the time X was taking to
photograph, he said the day was dark and the plates
were like our minds and wanted longer exjDosures.

So I left him and went to church, where I soon
found a brass inscribed with praise and poetry.

" Here lyes a church warden
A choyce flower in that Garden

Witliout doubt he is Blest."

Of course a churchwarden with brass would be
Blest. Could any one with a knowledge of both worlds
doubt it ? But why post it up in the church i Per-
haps the time-honoured j^rayer, " Upon his soul may

WliEXHAM CHURCH

PILGRIMAGES To OLD HOMES

God have mercy," would be thought perilously wicked
here.

The tomb of Yale is in the churchyard l)y the
western door, and as Americans may wish to know
what is written on it, and g'uide-books seldom copy

f^'idji^^^yi

TOMB OF ELIHU YALE, FOUNDER OF YALE UNIVERSITY

anything correctly, I took especial care to haye a correct
version, and check the photograph.

" Born in America ; in Eurojte bred ;
In Africa travell'd, and in Asia wed,
AVhere long he liv'd and tliriv'd ; in London dead.
Mucli good, some ill, lie did : so hope all's even.
And that his soul thro' mercy's gone to Heaven.
You that survive and read this tale, take care,
For this most certain exit to prepare ;
Where, blest in peace, the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in the silent dust."

ELIHU YALE

The other side of the tomb siiii]jly records, under the
letters M. S., the burial of EHugh Yale. Es(|., on 2 2]id
July 1721 ; and on the end we are told it was restored
bv the authorities of Yale Colleo^e, United States.

Yale, I am told, is a corruption of the old Welsh
word lal, meanino- pleasant ; and though the hills of
Yale may be pleasant enough in tlie summer-time,
they look to me as if they had far more of the winter
and rough weather. In the early years of the Civil
War, one David left these pjleasant hills to find a better
home across the ocean. Whether he went for relio-ious
liberty, safety, or from ])enurv we do not know ; Ijut
in America, probably at Newhaven, Connecticut, in
1648 he had a son who was named Elihu.

The family returned to England in 1652, settliuf/
in London, and in 1672 Ehhu went to Lidia in the
service of the East India Company. He appears to have
risen rapidly, as men do in India, unless they die. At
the age of thirty-nine he \vas Governor of Fort St.
George, Madras ; but he nnist have made money too
quickly, for in five years he was suspended and (juariel-
ling with his governors. One tale is that he hanged his
groom and had to pay /, 20,000 fine, which is a big
price for a groom in India. Probablv it is not true,
or the man deserved hanging ; for neai-lv everv one of
the high officials in India were accused of all sorts of
crimes. Those in the ring were jealous of them, and
the lawyers wanted to share the plunder. Even to-day,
if a man is thought to have made monev quicklv he
is lucky if he escape blackmail. The ''most respect-
able " lawyers will prosecute the most unjust cases to
the ruin of any one if thev can sav thev are actinof for
a client, while all the time thev are hired assassins.
The murderers hired by Macbeth or other villains
merely acted for their clients.

After the Honourable East India Companv had
got all they could, they took Ehhu into partnership,

loo PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

making him one of their governors, for he had evidently
something " in him." He brought so many things home
from India that he had a sale by auction of them — that
was about i 700 — and is said to be the first auction sale
that was ever held.

One of the Hakluyt Society's publications gives
several interestino- bits about Governor Yale. " Wee
could likewise desire our new President, Mr. Yale, whom
God hath l^lessed with so great an estate in our Service,
to set on foot another o-enerous charitable work — that is,
the building of a Church for the Protestant blacks . . .
get our common Prayers translated into the Portugueze
Dialect of India. ..." The scandals about the married
women are discreetly forgotten there.

The Company's servants were paid ^5 a year when
they were sent out, with advances up to ^20 and leave to
trade honestlv without prejudice to the Company, They
doubtless learnt the trade with the honesty, and even
Governor Yale was accused of " drivino^ a o-reater trade
than the Company." Here is an extract from a letter
written to him by John Pitt in 1704 : ", , , comfortable
news for you . , . a supercargo dying said he had injured
you. . , , I told him I was your attorney, and if he dy'd
without restitution he would certainly be damn'd. I
made his Confessor give him an hourly memento of the
same and he was very active in it soe that at the last
gasp he began to make a will , . . but before compleated
he dy'd . . . which I gott into our court, recover'd the
money, and have gott it to send you ... or good and
cheap Diamonds," So the attorney and the confessor,
the law and the church, pestered the last gasp out of the
dying man and seized the money without the will, the
next-of-kin being probably halfway across the world.

In 171 8 Yale was appealed to for help to Ijuild the
collefjiate school of CJonnecticut. His father had emi-
grated there, and probal)ly he was l)orn there, seventy
years before. He sent a cargo of books and things

fllA *^1

n ^

WEST END OF WREXHAM CHUKCII. AND TOMB OF ELIJIU VALE

G 2

102 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

which they valued at /,Sco, besides a few minor gifts.
It seems little to us now, but was a great deal then.
The seed w^as opportunely sowed on hard but good
ground. A portrait of Elihu is now in the Yale College.
He is litei-allv " a bio: wio- " and looks well satisfied with
himself and all tilings. His house at Plas Gronow,
Wrexliam, lias gone, and his body was buried in the
churchyard. Its value will increase with the time that
turns it to dust ; for if the Americans make the fuss
they are now doing for the remains of Paul Jones the
pirate, what should they give for the body of their
benefactor \ It will be diamond cut diamond in old-
fashioned bargaining when the Yankee meets the parson ;
and when the latter shuts his eyes and takes the
almighty dollar, may the Archangel Michael with all his
experience be there to see fair-})lay.

As nothing would induce X to face the Welsh hills
and roads again, an.d I had nothing to do in the very fine
Whit-week of 1 905 excepting a share of duty at the
county police court, I took a change of the more neces-
sary clothes on my bicycle, maps and sandwiches in
pocket, and went by train to Wrexham for a lonely
pilgrimage over the stormy hills of Wales. It was I'ain-
ing when I left home ; but the glass was high and the
wdPid in the north-east. On the hills it was fair, and the
wind was with me. The lilacs and hawthorns were
struggling to flower, the date being thirteenth of June,
and ours at Didsbury had been over about a fortnight.
x\. mile beyond where we had turned back, the road
passed through black boggy moorland and then began to
descend ; on the whole, it was fairly good, for there was
no traffic. The wind blew from just the opposite quarter
to what it did when we were on these hills before, and I
scudded before it. The country on my right became
more like a park, and the rabbits were so crowded, even
on the road, that I had to take care they did not get into

THE HOME OF THE YALES 103

my wheels. I could not see a house, Ijut the place was Plas-
yn-Yale ; for soon I saw the little church of Bryn Eglwys
upon its steep mound surrounded with its tine dark yews.
The lane or path to it is a stiff climb for any one, and ends
at an inn which seems to bar tlie way to tlie church. It
is a good example of the primitive custom of having an inn
by a church ; for even if we have no pity on the victims
of long sermons, many a bridal or funeral party would
have to toil and struggle up that steep and narrow patli.

There is little of antiquity to see about this quaint old
church. Two oaken pillars mark the Yale chapel from the
chancel. The pulpit is old, and a framed extract from
the will of Eliza Flora Yale is on the wall. I rested in
the dense shade of the yew-trees and enjoyed the scenery
around. On a knoll in a fertile vale is this hill church ;
whitewashed fjirms are dotted up and down, and the
green fields merge into brow^n moors that, in their turn,
become lost in the bluer mountains.

On the ground adjoining the churchyard, which is
steeper than the roof of a house, an old man and a
young one were earnestly chattering. I went to them
for information. The old man was deaf, or would not
bother with English ; but the young one lifted his cap
as if he had been to a Sunday school, thought slowly
as he mentallv translated my questions into Welsh and
their answers back into English, and civilly told me
all that he could. They were absorbed in the great
question of potatoes, and doubtless knew better how to
grow and cook potatoes there than all the professors in
Yale University could tell them. Their patch of oats and
contentment was better than the wheat-pit of Chicago.

My eye caught a name on a gravestone that rather
shocked me, for I read " Ananias Jones," and wondered
whether some of the pedigrees going back to the
Apostles (and beyond) were correct. Perhaps I misread
the Welsh, but on another stone the name " Maggie
Beans" was evidently very English. I had picked up a

I04 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

book in the road tliat morning; it was called "'The Sinner,"
and inside it was the name, " H. Jones." As I had not
met one person to the mile, it seemed strange to find a
respectable-looking book there. Had it been cast like
bread iijjon the waters, or seed sown by the w^ayside ? I
gave it to the first stonebreaker, although it would Ije hard
to sin at stonebreaking ; but in English as broken as his
stones he said he might know a man named Jones who
perhaps was a sinner, and maybe he would give it to him.

Finding the day kept fine and pleasant, I journeyed
on for Bala. The country was more fertile in the lower
grouiids ; sheep-shearing was in progress, the hawthorns
in bloom, and the voice of the cuckoo wandering round.
A bit of the Holvhead road was an abomination, for
there the motor-cars, with the dust and stink of civilisa-
tion, were an abhorrence ; but 1 soon turned into the hills
again, and was well pleased with the scenery round Bala.

A bed was secured and a good tea enjoyed by post-
time at seven, and then, in a lovelv June evenino^, I
strolled slowly up the road by the side of the lake. A
fairer scene no one could wish for. Lio-ht and shade
chased one another over the hills as the clouds were
blown before the wind, and the sinking sun tinted all
with many colours. The water changed from glittering
silver to deepest blue. The lofty peaks of the Arans
reminded me of the Langdales, but even as I looked the
rolling mists came down them, and heeding not the
warning, I wandered on to the beautiful little church-
yard of Llanycil, the old church of Bala. It stands by
the waterside as churches in Norway where the })eople
come in boats. Grand old yews surround it, and its
God's acre is encircled by the glowing mountains and
the glittering waters of the lake. On its bellcot croaked
a jackdaw, and in the long grass croaked the crakes as
waning light caused me to turn for bed. Soon the big
drops fell, and the village folk were praying for rain.
On a seat under a spreading sycamore I sat and listened

BALA AND THE BERWYNS 105

to the pattering on the leaves as the rain descended and
the hills darkened all around. It was all very pleasant
until the deluge came with a tempest, then I had to
make myself as small as possihle and crouch against the
trunk. The furies lifted up the lake and seemed to
pour the water out upon the land. Everything and
everywhere was soaked. At last I hurried to the hotel,
had a glass of milk, and went to bed.

Up betimes in the morning, by eight o'clock had
started for the pass over the Berwyns, crossing the foot
of the lake by the bridge Mwnogl-y-Llyn, and through
the village of Rhosygwaliau, where is an old house named
Rhiwfedog, meaning bloody cliff, whicli the guide-books
say bears boreal blasts, and was the home of a beautiful
poet who had lost twenty-four sons in battle, but composed
Welsli poetry, for he could not sleep. I was too frightened
of the name to ask about the place. The narrow winding
lane went up and down and round sharp corners, with
children, dogs, and cats all about the village ; but gradu-
ally I got into the woods, where it was cool and dark,
quiet but for the songs of the birds, damp, and refresh -
inp;. Above the woods came the moors in brilliant \hjht.

The trees changed and disappeared, and more inte-
restinof than the varvino^ veofetation was the chanj^e in
the varieties of the birds. Wagtails were common by
the lower streams ; redstarts were in the banks ; a golden -
crested wren hunc: on the end of a fir bouLrh over the
ascending lane ; brown-headed gulls flapped leisurely
over the fields and moors on the higher ground, their
pale wings showing beautifully against the varying
greens ; the wandering cuckoo was all around ; then
came the call of the ^rrouse and the whistle of the
curlew. At stepping-stones across a stream I lay down
and lapped, much to the annoyance of sandpipers who
had a nest or young about the spot. Tlie climb became
very stiff*. It was impossible to cycle even in descent,
for the narrow path was of loose shale, with a precipice

io6 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

of two to three Imndred feet sheer down for nearly
a mile. The first hour I had travelled four miles ; in tlie
second hour three, and was about the top of the pass.
As I went round a corner, a greyish black wolf ap-
parently was asleep in the path. It came liercely
toward me, when a shepherd lazily rose from behind a
rock to scold it. Further on an old man was washino-
his socks and shirt in a stream. It startled me to
wonder whether that was the same water from which
I had been drinking, but consideration comforted me.
On returning I found the old man's washing was drying
on tlie rocks, while he was cleansing tufts of lost wool
that he had found. The water, w4ien he had done
with it, would go to Liverpool, where, no doubt, they
would put sometliing in to kill the microbes.

With botli brakes hard on I bumped down to Lake
Vyrnwy, The gutters made across the path by de-
scending streams were taken by the bicycle as a hunter
takes fences in his stride. It was rough and dangerous
travelling, not fit for vehicles, and yet it is constantly
used, though I never met any one all day.

The sudden and steep drop from the primitive track
over the wild hills brings us to the smooth and stately
road that winds all round the beautiful though artificial
lake of Vyrnwy. For eleven miles we can roll along a
level way in lovely scenery of mountains that descend
into the water in many a steep and shapely curve. It
was a fine June day when I went round, and the broom,
the azalea, the hawthorn, were in their glory though late
in the season ; for their elevation is nearly a thousand feet
above the sea. This great reservoir of water for Liverpool
is a grand work well done ; of supreme utilitv and very
beautiful, for art has added to the charms of nature.

The lonely hotel is perched on high above the
lake, an excellent place to rest — when you have got
there. 1 struggled back to Bala ; after an early tea
went on to C^orwen, where was a train for Manchester,

LAKE VYENWY

107

and I went for home. It was unnecessarily hard work,
for I must have cycled fifty miles, including twice the
steep pass over the Berwyns ; but it was a well-spent
and happy day. The train from Chester to Manchester
went the thirty-eight miles under the hour though it
was in Whit-week, and as the long June day was
darkening I cycled the six miles to home through the
streets of the city in forty minutes.

STUDYING THE MAP

THE HALL

HADDON HALL

CHARMING home of many ages is Haddoii
Hall, well known to all the world, and there-
fore little shall he written of it here : for
tourists throno- its courts and stairs : in corners
giggle about Dorothy ; suck oranges upon its famous
terrace, and munch their '• bao-o-ino- " wherever they can
find a place to rest. It is in the midst of Derbyshire, a
county cyclists should avoid ; i'or if the summer sun
shines warmly, its roads are limekilns, glaring white
with dust that settles in and on and round the
traveller — encrustinfr. irritating: lime. Kain soon turns
the dust to slippery slime ; but, fine or wet, the hills are
many, steep, and Ijare, and the cattle, with every creep-
incr thinof, are of the sort that is known as '^ skinny."

The house itself is such a line example of so many
ages of an English home, and is so well preserved, that
although books of all sizes have been written about it,
we must o;ive some record of it here, \yhen oriirinally
built, it was not allowed to be fortified, and therefore
it escaped sieges and is here now. For about two
hundred years it has not been inhabited. It is well
kept, and has, doubtless, a considerable income.

As might be expected, the oldest bits are in the
chapeL Of the i'ourteenth-century hall we give two
illustration.s. The upright one shows the screen near
to the outer M-all, whereon is the fetter-lock or wristlet
for fastening up a man's arm. When to be "as drunk
as a lord " was a mark of high culture, men ^^■ho would
not or could not drink their share had the drink })()uied

112 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

on them ; but 1 have experienced that in our degenerate
days without any fetter-lock. Even in city feasts " pop "
is now provided for the abstemious. The other picture
of the hall shows the half-closed dosf-fi'ates that were
made to ]irevent the dogs from going upstairs, and
the worn-out high table on the rigiit.

i'i;i\A ri-: uining-uho.m

Behind the dais of the great hall is the more modern
room, now called the dining room. Its panelling and
decorations are interestino- in beincr of c^reat a<2:e, older
than those in the upper rooms, although later than
those in the hall. There is a date 1545, many shields
of arms, portraits in oak, and over the fireplace in
very quaint letters, " Drede God and Honor the Kyng."

HADDON HALL 113

Perhaps some old Tory may say they spelt " Honor" as
if they were Americans and did not quote the Autliorised
Version correctly ; but there were no Yankees, and no
" Authorised Version " when that wood was carved.

The room above is the drawino--room, of later date
and lighter style, with ornamental plaster frieze and
geometric-patterned ceiling. Its walls are hung with
tapestry or panelled, still bearing traces of the green
and gold that once adorned them. Remnants of furniture
are left, and the terraced garden is down below, with the
river further down windino- round- the enclosinof hills.

Several curious, complicated rooms, opening from
one another and the drawing-room, are called the Earl's
apartments, and across a passage are huge semicircular
steps leading to the well-known ballroom or gallery.
The steps and the floor-boards, which are from one to
two feet in breadth, are said to have been made from
one of the park oaks. As chapters innumerable have
been written about this room, we will 2:0 on and see
the door and steps used by Dorothy in her romantic
flight sixty odd years before they were made, for the
prosaic accounts of stewards and the lively imagination
of authors contradict one another.

The state bed is such an awful structure that only
duchesses could be expected to sleep in it. It was
taken to Bel voir for George IV., but was soon brought
back again, although it may not have been all the fault
of the bed if His Gracious Majesty did not sleep com-
fortably. It is fourteen and a half feet high, with
hangings of green silk velvet and white satin em-
broidered with fine needlework wrought by a lady in
the fifteenth century, and has the family cradle beside
it. What more could any one wish for {

There is a verv curious washino--tallv with revolvino-
discs and columns for " Kufies," " Sockes," &c. The floor
of the room is of concrete, and here also are tapestries,
with many other tilings to see, not forgetting tlie rack

THE BALLROOM

THE STATE BED

THE TERRACE, HADDON 117

for stringing bows bv the guard-room beyond, and where
Jewitt's guide-book says '" iiinuinerable bats built tlieir
nests " I

The terraced garden that runs alongside the pro-
jecting bays and oriels of Haddon is the best-known
glory of the place. Other pleasure-grounds there are
higher up the hill ; ;i disused, forgotten butts for
archery ; an acre of bowling-green ; and, nearer to the
hall, a Ijroad avenue of tall sycamores, called Dorothy's
Walk, or the Rookery. Another descent brinijs one
to the ^vinter garden, near to the door of the elope-
ment, Avhere tlie trees are yews and the shade of them
dense enouo-h for any o-irl to i)lay at beino- Dorothy.
It seems heartless to say there could be little or no
shade from them in her time. The balustrade that
runs along this terraced walk, the twenty-six steps
that lead into the upper garden that is below, with
the Vmckgrouiid of oriel windows, dark yews, lofty
sycamores and hill, all together form what is perhaps
the best-known garden scene in the world.

The followino- are .some shortened selections of the
" Expencs ot the howsholde at Haddon " as published by
the custodian of the mumiments there. The first relates
to the immortal Dorothy when she was fiye years old,
and they paid threepence for " a payer of hosse " for her.

" Itm . . . yis Master-schepe dyd loa.sse at ye dys.se . . vj'* viij''

It. payde for iiij Chekyiis for my Mast'" .... iiij''

It. payde for a pound of suger . . " . . xiiij''

It. payde for a pygge fur my M"" . . . . . viij''."

Therefore a pound of sugar was worth nearly two pigs
or fourteen chickens. The price of " Ressyngs, gynger,
nytmvks, Cloyys, Maysse,"' or anything in tlie spice
line, is enormous when compared with wages at a
penny a day for " bearynge of wayter unto ye
sestorne," or skilled workmen at sixpence " ye wyke,"
for whicli there are many entries. About the same
time a cow cost sixteen shillings, " a veylle " three

H 2

*./

I20 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

and foiirpeiice, but " oxe beyffe " was dearer and
wethers were about three shiUings "a pesse."

These Derbvsliire knights and squires amused them-
selves with the time-honoured gentlemanly sports of
cocking, hawking, " ye dysse," " pyping and dauncynge,"
mostly done by others — also the fighting ; for although
they bought " gunpowther, quirashiers, bandilieres," &c.,
the owners of Haddon appear to have discreetly kept
out of war and preserved their home for us to see.
In 1639 — that is, just l)efore the (Jivil War — they bought
some pewter. I wonder wlietlier it is in existence now.

" Pd. for 60 tie dishes of large puter and 1 2 plates

waighing 200, 15 li att I4d. pei- li, m'kd., .Jni.

F., etc

Pd. for hallaiid for my M^ his britches
Pd. for a salt catt for the piggions ....
Pd. for a lycence vnder the greate seale to eate flesh
Pd. for Babbies and a primer and dyall for the

gentlewomen .......

Pd. for catching 18 doz. of Crefishes \\h h;uit' gone

to Bel voire .......

Pd. for Isaac Bradshaw for heliiing to pike and [lun

crabs wh made 3 liogsheads of verjuice

With reference to the last two items, it may be
as well to explain that " crefishes" and "crabs" are not
quite the same, as the former v/ord means crawfish and
the latter apples ; Derbyshire apples making vinegar,
not cider. As times improved, the wages of harvesters
went up to twopence a day and worn-out horses to
eiohteen pence apiece. I cannot find honey mentioned in
the accounts, although some people try to keep l)ees in
Derljyshire at the present time. Milk is also produced
in the county, much to the trouble of our analysts,
though that may not be the fault of the poor cow.

As the fame of Dorothy increases, and it seems
likely she will soon be said to be another of the most
beautiful women who ever lived, we went to Bakewell
to see her etfioy on her tomb. Great care was taken

£oiS ,

■ 03 '

. 6

000 .

■ 03 •

. 6

000 ,

. 01 ,

. 8

005 .

,11.

, 8

000

■ 4

000

. 04 ,

, 6

000

• o.s

&.-'

DOKOTHY VERXON S MONUMENT

SIR GEORGE JIAXXERS'S TOMB

MOPvS ITEK VIT.E 123

to make effigies like the deceased, and from hers she
appears to have been a fairly nice-looking woman ; Ijut
the night must have been very dark when she made
her famous elopement, for Sir John Manners looks like
a vulofar woodcutter with a forehead retreated to the
uttermost. It is said that his skeleton showed that
he had a very long, high nose, and she had plenty of
hair with six brass hairpins, at the premature resur-
recti<iii ill 1S41 when the church was being "restored,'
One of these hairpins was advertised publicly, and this
seems a case when a lawyer might have been useful.

The photographs of the effigies of Sir John and
Lady Dorothy with the quaint little children below,
and of the gorgeous tomb of one of these children who
grew up into being Sir George, with his wife and
family, may give the reader some dim idea of what
these great folks looked like ; and amid all the heraldic
pomp of quartered arms in gorgeous blazonry with pious
mottoes and lono- tales in Latin, it is written : "The
day of man's death is better than his birth."

A FEW WORDS IN THE FAMILY

SOMERSET

THE vear 1903 V)eing' one of tlie wettest ever
known in England, our pilgrimages had been
ratiier damped, especially in the three days'
record of rain that we had had in June
when at Wells. There were a few tine days in Sep-
tember and I wished to go into Somerset again, but
X would not : so I set off alone, feehng like the idle
apprentice or the prodigal son, while he stayed at
home to mind his work and feed the fatted calf ere I
returned again.

It was my intention to wander about the country,
mixing with the humbler folk and talking to the
aborigines, if any were left. Beginning at Bath, I
asked all the railway porters the w^ay to Bradford-on-
Avon by the road. There were about a dozen })orters,
not one of whom could tell me the road to a town six
miles distant. Railway servants are so often shifted
to various stations that they seldom know anything
of the country surrounding them, and their pronuncia-
tion of local names is painfully modern. These men
seemed to be mostly Welsh ; but I found a cabman
who was English, and went on my way. Presently
some heavy traffic caused me to dismount, and I asked
for more directions from a policeman. " Kape to th'
thram loines," was the answer. I said, " Which ? — they
fork." He replied, " Shure I tould ye, Kape to th'
thram loines. Cannot ye take th' roight ones, and what
wud ye be takin' th' wrong ones for '. " I thought of
tellins; him he was an Irishman, but that would have

BRADFORD-ON-AYOX

insulted him, and I migiit be locked up all night to
hear something like this in the morning : " Plaze
yer anners, I tuk up th' prisner, who was most inshultin'
to me in th' execootion o' nw dooty. I tould him e'd
be reparthed. I sarched his phockets, an' shure e's niver
th' bit in them." Experience telling me what to
expect, I silently hastened awav, turned to the right
at Bathfbrd, went up a long hill, and saw Bath across
the valley. It seemed as if I had gone round half

THE MAXOR-HOUSE

a circle, and still mounting higher there was a splendid
view all around me — miles of country lit up with the
0-low of the settinof sun, extendine; even to Salisburv
Plain.

It was quite dark ere I found Bradford-on-Avon,
and the descent into the town is very steep and
dangerous. At the Swan were comfortable quarters,
with chairs worn smooth by a hundred years of use.
Early to bed and early to rise, there was plenty to
see. and no time to be lost. The famous manor-house
which has been copied for exhibition in France and

126 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD JIUMES

America is too well known for me to attempt any
description of it. I went there before breakfast ; saw
the milkman takino- in the milk ; went with him ;
strolled about the garden before any one was up ; noted
the flock of red pigeons on the lawn ; was not enamoured

THE SAXON CHAPEL

with the stately many-windowed Jacobean masterpiece,
and quietly came away.

Then there was the famous chapel to see, the oldest
church in England. Its date is variously said to be
from A.D. Soo to a.d. iooo. A^ery little knowledge
of architecture tells one it is genuine. The stone of
the district is verv durable, and the Imilding for some

128 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

centuries was enclosed in other buildings. It was re-
discovered in 1856, the nave being a charity school
and the chancel a cottage, with a shed on the south
side where the porch should be.

Asking my way to Westwood, I wandered otl* to
find a most beautiful fifteenth- century house with
mullioned windows, turret for stairs, projecting porch,
all of white stone that fairly glistened in the sun,
behind the blood -red leaves of the creepers that clam-
bered over it. A notice told me to beware of dogs, and
judging by the tone of voice of the dogs and women,
thev must be often troubled with unwelcome callers.
This beautiful manor-house is now a farm, and in farm-
houses the work is incessant : so I went to talk to an
old hedsrer and ditcher in the lane. He was one of
those intelligent old husbandmen who know the seed,
breed, and generation of all the country-side — the gentry,
the farmers, and the poor folk ; can give you the folk-
lore, weather -lore, and crop-lore. I learnt that it would
be fine for the day ; that it seldom snows there ; that
the crop of apples was the worst ever known, and the
storm of ten days previous was the worst on record.
He gave me minute instructions about my way, which
I made notes of; but being uncertain as to his pro-
imnciation, I asked him how to spell " Fowley " or
''Farleigh." Tlien he said he had "no larnin'" ; he
" couldn't spell." Suddenly I remembered the words
of my aunt from her ninety years of wisdom : " If you
want a good servant, get one who cannot read or write."
Here was a man who had "no larnin','' "couldn't spell,"
but who knew more of the country-side and the folk
around him than all the Welsh porters, or Irish police,
or bhnd guides in Bath. I shook hands witli him, gave
him an extra tip, and joyfully went on my w^ay.

From Westwood the road was bad and so danger-
ously steej) down to a river and up again that I had to
partly carry the bicycle. On the fui-ther 1);iiik were some

130 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

ruins, probably Farleigh Castle, where some genuine letters
of Oliver Cromwell's were found in an old chest in the
chapel. As time was precious, I trudged on to Norton
St. Pliilip, where is an old inn, " a perfect treasure."
The cider was as good as the house ; just the sort I like —
sweet, strong, and dark coloured, made from bitter-sweet
apples. It is served in two-handled mugs : a pint of
nectar in both hands for twopence. The industrious
apprentice is not having all the fun ; but, if all be well,
he can come next year and photograph the place.

The George Inn is a most peculiar structure. It was
probably built as an inn, with one large room, or "ex-
change," as a fair or mart for their goods, by the monks
of Hinton. In 1638 it was let for fifty-three shillings
and fourpence a year, and was worth five pounds with
" the faire loft for lynnen cloth." This loft has a billowy
floor of plaster or cement, with birds and bats in the
rafters above. It projects over the rooms below it, and
those also project over the main wall. The stairs are
of much-worn hard stone in the round turret in the
yard, and there are signs of galleries having once been
round this yard. In the ceilings in the lower rooms the
immense oaken beams are within a few inches of one
another, the original primitive oaken doors with their
fasteninofs are there, and the deserted room with the
table at which the Duke of Monmouth was sitting when
he was shot at from the lane by the Fleur de Luce Inn
across the road. The Georg-e is an orimnal inn or hostel.
Its name has doubtless been changed, but it was built
for its present use. Though its prosi)erity has departed,
other glories grow around it. Apparently it has never
been restored or "done up" for five hundred years. I
began to wonder if tlie cider was tlie same age ; but
as mine host told me he had made it himself from his
own apples, that could not be.

After Norton St. Philip, or IMiihp Norton — for
either name seems to be used, even by those who have

THE GEORGE INN

fT? .^,--

--f--^'^-

» ^- -*i X'

^.^.SSv^-i^

PASSAGE thuou(;h thk inn and couktyard

I 2

134 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

not bad cider — my Avaiiderings are rather hazv. I went
through Woolverton, where once were wolves, and
Beckington, but wishing to find Athehiey, I availed
me of one of the few trains that crawl around the
country, and travelling from Frome l)y Yeovil to
Langport, I liad change of scene, of society, and rest
1)V the way.

A peculiar, steep green hill, with liat top and
terraced sides, I am told is Cadburv. "Is that where

THE DUKE fiF MONMOUTH'S ROOM

the cocoa comes from ? " No. Cadbury was deserted
about the time of Julius C?esar. King Arthur's silver
horse-shoe was found tliere and stolen not lon^ since.
It's good for nothing now ; would not feed a bullock
to the acre ; might keep a few sheep. My companions
in the train are redolent of tlie beasts on which thev
live. Big -limbed, big -featured Anglo-Saxon horse-
copers wrangle and jangle with peppery, l)lack A\ elsh
cattle-lifters. Thev are still in the same business as

HOESE-COPEPvS AXI) PIG-JOBBERS 135

their forefathers have been from prehistoric times, but
the plunder has to be gotten more legally than it had
in tlie days when patriotism might mean plunder, and
now the lawyers share it, or swallow it. When I was a
child, an uncle had a pot cow with one man pulling
at the horns, another at the tail, while a third milked
it. I was told that work of ;irt represented a lawsuit,
with the lawyer cvettino- all the cream, and the milk
also, and that in the good old times when lawyers
Avere scarce the two men would have killed the lawyer
first and then settled about the milk. It was refreshino-
to hear these fakers and slinkers beino- indio-nant at
villainy far deeper and more subtle than their own
though done under due process of law.

I left the train at Langport ; went through the
little town, under the Hanging Chapel, a curious ruin
above the road and over the old town gate ; tarried
a short time in the churchyard, where there is a far-
stretching view, and went on to Huish Episcopi. Here
there is a most beautiful church-tower, loftv, and
elaborately decorated : also a very fine Norman door-
way. This grand church is less than a mile from
that at Langport, and about a mile from another grand
one at Muchelney. The towers of Somerset, with their
^•listening or lichenecl stone and carved ornaments, are
the most beautiful I have ever seen. The wonder is.
who could conceive them, or who in this wild land
of fen or swamp could build them.

At Muchelney the abbey has been made into a
farm. There seem to be various ruins, and old houses
are wonderfully picturesque ; but apples are lying in
the churchyard o-rass, and I sit on an altar-tomb to
play the part of the prodigal son, eating what the
swine had missed and wondering whether we can come
again to photograph. I cycle on my lonely way down
the marshes of the Parret, knowing that at last I am
in Athelney, the isle of the nobles, the land of Alfred,

136

PIL(ilMMAGES TO ()\A) JIO.MES

or ^■Elf'red as men now spell the name. There is Httle
to see but miles and miles of flat land intersected with
watercourses and a river behind hi^h l)anks. The
soil looks alluvial and rich. There are plenty of cattle
and piijs, Bv a small farm a bhick sow is baskinof
and PTuntim^'- contentedlv while her owner speaks
words of comfort and hope to her. "Bean't er a

"TT^

^^^ I hi^^ > if i

JIUCHELXEY ABBEY

beauty ? " he said to me. I thought her beastly ugly,
for her big ears flapped over her f\\ce ; but she was
happy in the expectation of a family, and had })rovision
for a dozen ; if there were more, they would be ricklings,
destined to clem. He, the lord and master, was happy
in gloating over the wealth they would bring him and
the bacon she could be salted into after they were
reared.

Wondering to myself whether these men and pigs

ALFRED'S JEWEL 137

were descendants of King Alfred's serfs and swine,
and wiietber there were any cakes in the cottajTes, tlie
thought of that curious relic known as Alfred's jewel
came to me, and the time-worn proverb that truth is
stranger than fiction.

Within a few miles of where I was roaming and
dreaming, at North Newton or Petherton Park, there
w^as dug up, in 1693, an antique jewel or work of art
which is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. It
is described as a gold plate, enamelled with a figure, and
protected by rock-crystal, enshrined in a golden frame,
round which is the legend —

AELFRET) MEC HEHT OEWYRCAN

— meanincr, " Alfred me had worked," or " Alfred ordered
me to be made."

There is little or no doubt that it was made by order
of King Alfred, and probably worn in his crown or
helmet. Though history never mentions it, the jewel
bears its own authenticity. Two of the letters — C and G
— are angular, the Anglo-Saxon form ; the otliers are
lioman, which Alfred caused to be more often used. The
commentators on it make many guesses. To me it
would appear most likely the jewel would be treasured
in the Abbey of Athelney until the dissolution, when
it would disappear, only to turn up again near to its
original home in little more than a century.

As I steadily rolled down this land of swamps, a
conical hill with a ruined church on the top became
nearer to me — a steep, isolated hill near to the junction
of the Tone and the Parret. It was Alfred's fort, his last
stronghold in his own land ; and of coiu^se I climbed it,
leaving the bicycle at an inn. Hither should come any
pilgrim student of English history to see where England
began. Without seeing it one cannot realise Avhat an
almost impregnable stronghold this steep little hill in a

i:;S PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

world of morass must have been In those primitive times.
For manv miles in all directions it is even now one vast
swamp, of which the land will be some feet higher than
it was in Alfred's time. Ships could not float nor could
foemen walk across the miry bog : only natives knowing-
slippery paths could live. It was Eastertide 87S when
the fugitive chieftain liere built liis fort. From it there
is to-day an almost l)oundless vision. Churches rise
above the fen in all directions. Glastonbury Tor, Avith
all its memories, is there before us, and utter silence and
solitude. The wind blows keenly, but there is no other
sound ; for the silence of autumn has fallen on bird and
beast. Alone I meditate, till cold and hung-er drive me
down, wondering at the lonescmeness over all the great
plain around me.

Waning light gave little time for rest ere I travelled
on towards Taunton. There were two miles of straight
road across the fen, then about six more through Durston.
Unfortunatelv it was a Friday night, and immense
droves of cattle were being driven to Taunton for the
morrow's stock-market. The labour of having constantly
to dismount from the bicvcle or be knocked over bv pigs,
sheep, cows, or colts, added greatly to my weariness,
and it was quite dark before I reached the town. As it
seemed a busy, noisy place, I asked for the best hotel ;
and just as a bedroom was allotted to me, the liarsli,
raucous voice of a German Jew made me shudder.
Then a little foreigner told me there was table dliote
a la carte, " vot zu vont ? " Instinctively I felt there
would Ije notliing I should l)e likelv to want, so I told
him to bring something, and left it to chance. At the
next table were two men, feeding. One had a soft,
blubbery mouth, and the other had a mouth like a rat-
trap. The one would evidently say anything and be-
lieve anything. The otlier would, like his professional
brother, say anything, but believe nothing. A })arson
and a lawyer ! Did the prodigal son have such luck ?

TAUNTON 139

Til my bewilderment I asked myself if I had left home
for this, or why I had not taken pot-luck, like King
Alfred, in a herdsman's cottage in the marshes of
Athelney and supped off" cake and milk.

To see what the noisy town might be like, I strolled
about among militia-men, shop-lads, shop-ladies, news-
boys ringing bells with fearful din to sell their printed
gossip, cattle-drovers swearing in English. Irish, Welsh,
and Somerset, at their wretched, harried cattle and at
one another, while through all the motlev crowd charf-
inp- trams came with horrible clatter, forcino; all to flee.
I went to my bedroom and sliut the M-indow, ])ut the
Avires of the trams were just outside it, and the constant
clanging was worse than that of many trains. All
night long the poor cattle bleated and l^ellowed inces-
santly, waiting in torture for their death. \\ hat a
relief it would Ije to them when carnivorous man or
beast had eaten them ! Durinof a wretched nitdit I
endured the horrors of civilisation, but day dawned
again, and as soon as breakfast could l)e had, I fled.

Westward Ho, or anywhere out of Taunton, for
the droves of sheep and oxen are still coming in as
if the town were about to hold an autumnal carnival,
I took the road f »r tlie C)uantocks, a-raduallv risino-
through a beautiful country. On my right is one of
those fine church-towers for which Somerset is noted ;
but time is too precious to turn aside for it, as a lonely
journey over a wild country is Ijefore me, where an
accident might be serious, and I must not throw any
chance or time away. Bishops Lydeard is the place,
and here at Conquest farm, in 1666, an urn containing
eighty pounds weight of Roman coins was found. At
another villacre further on, with the curious name of
Stogumber (Stoke-Gomer), a similar treasure has been
found. At Crowcombe I found a treasure in a model
village, where, in close proximity, are church, hall, ruined
school or almshouse with outer stairs, cross, inn, and

I40 PILGKIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

backoToiiiid of stee}) hills with hio- trees. A beautiful
secluded s})ot, and ancient history tells me it was once
the a'ift of Gvtha for the soul of Godwin. The inn
is called the C^arew Arms, and when I pronounce that
name as if it were Carey, I J^m told that liere it is
pronounced Cwrw, and they brew their own. " J'espere
bien" is the motto on the sign, and I may well hope
the home-brewed is not as mixed as is the language
of the sign.

A grand pair of horses comes through the old-
fashioned gatew^ay before the Queen Anne house of
Crowcombe Court, where lives the Honourable Mr.
Trollope. Up steep steps I climb to the beautiful
old church. Its glistening stones look blotched with
blood wliere autunm's breath has dyed the creepers'
leaves a deeper purple. Dark and rich in contrast is
the everlasting green of a giant yew with bole of
shining chestnut, and the steeply slo})ing liill that seems
to crowd upon the church is richly clothed wdth shelter-
ing firs and oaks. The bench-ends were a surprise for
me, for I had never heard of them and know none
better. One is dated Mcccccxxxiiii.

It needs a small sum in arithmetic to add that up
to 1534, and there are many elaborately carved ends
to pews that I could not interpret. There are men
lighting dragons, fearful beasts, Gothic arcliitecture,
linen pattern, scroll-work, &c. Shelves for books are
two inches thick in solid oak, strong enough to hold a
cartload of l)ricks. The door is three inches thick ; and
many other things there are to see, but no one to tell me
anything. In despair I resolve to beard the parson in
his den. He is not in, so I rest a while, and drowsiness
o'ercomes me till I wonder in the (piietude what century
it is up here. Shall I sleep the sleep that knows not
waking, or, like a second Hip van Winkle, tind the world
is whirling on while I am dreaming in the Quantocks?

Four hundred feet of fall rolls me (piiekly towards

142 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

Watchet and the sea. All the way across Somerset I
have seen hundreds of trees hlown down by the great
storm that had raged about ten days before, and every
bit of foliage that was exposed to the south-west wind
was burnt as it were with fire. The soil of this higher
land was brownish red ; and the red earth is the earth
for me. Sheep and pigs are of the same livery, though
the pigs are blotched with black and dirty }'ellow.
Some came to talk to me as I sat on a gate enjoying
the air and scenery. They had enormous rings in their
noses, and huge fiapping ears that hid their little
twinkling eyes. I share my last apple with them — that
is, I give them the peel — and resume my pilgrim's way.

The small ruined Abbey of Cleeve is the next place
at which I halt, and here is a girl tending poultry who
greatly interests me ; for she is fully six feet high, and
thirteen or fourteen stone weight, with an extraor-
dinary name. Cleeva Plevena Clap poetically embodies
the name of the place, the battle of Plevna, and the
family.

When X hears of this girl and abbey I know he
will come and })hotograph, therefore I spend little time
before I journey on for Dunster. ¥;\r on the right
there is the sea, and a station with the romantic name
of Blue Anchor. Then a castled crag comes right in
front, and further round among the wooded hills a
lordly castle. Sharply turning to the left, up a steep
bank, I reach the charming little town of Dunster, and
an inn that w^as built by monks in bygone ages extends
to me its hospitality.

The lamps from the Luttrell Arms threw bright rays
of light into the darkness as I sat by the roadside in
the ancient porch wondering whether the scene around
me was real, or merely painted for some opera, a
pageant that would })ass away. The fresh air of the
hills and woods assured me, and with my fingers I felt
the eyelets, or slits in the stone, through which the

144 PILCxRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

archers of old shot their arrows as they guarded the
portal. It was substantial enough to last a few more
centuries. Close to the inn-door is the quaintest radiat-
ino- market-sted in all the world. It has stood three
hundred years, and civil war, and loss of all its trade.

THE KITCHEN WINDOW OF THE LUTTRELL ARMS

and is now more ])recious than ever. Higli aloft and
near to, is a ghostly tower on a wooded hill shutting
in one end of the little town whose one broad street
slopes away downhill, only to rise again towards another
towered castle, the feudal stronghold of the Luttrells.
Over it is the new moon, shining, with its attendant star,

146 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

and anvthino- more like the iairvlaiid of fairv-tales
I never saw. There are no hghts but the lamps
of heaven, and there are no sounds but the gentle
sio-hinir of the wind, with now and then the foot-
fills of a horse ; for it is eight o'clock, and the natives
seem mostlv ffone to bed. I stroll around to see
what there may be to see. One shop is open ; it
is a butcher's, where, in bits, they sell the local cows
Avhen they can milk no more. The guardian dog
curled up in the doorway is fast asleep. There are
no cats, no police, no lawyers, no motors, no trams.
Oh, what an ideal place 1 All down one side of the
street and up the other I could not find a single
brass plate. There is a church, so probably there will
be a parson somewhere, but })erhaps he leaves his
flock in peace for six days in the seven. Let us to
bed and sleep the sleep of innocence.

My bedroom was over the projecting porch of the
hostelry where long fronds of the polypody fern
luxuriated in the outer walls, and very soon was I
in Paradise. But, ere long, Whoo-oo-oo-oo ! loudly
rang around the little room, startling me from sleep.
Oh, " fatal bellman which gives the steru'st good-
night ! " is it thou? W/ioo-oo-uo-oo ! rang out again
as the bird of ill - omen fiew from by my open
window^ to its " ivy - mantled ' home. Whose turn
is next, thought I, for " blind Furv with the ab-
horred shears to slit the thin-spun life " ? Is it
mine ? Drowsily I thought it best to chance it, and
went to sleep again, but not for long. Strange
sounds steal in upon my slumbers, and half awake
and half asleep I wonder what it is I hear now.
Dimly, old memories revive, something about angels
and pilgrims singing. Like Justice Shallow, I
heard the chimes at midnight. A hymn oft
suno; in boyhood but seldom lieard now in Dids-
bury's old churcli. " O'er earth's green fields and

SUNDAY IN SOMEKSET 147

ocean's wave - beat shore " the bells of Dunster are
pealing —

" Augels ! sing on, your faithful watches keeping.
Sing us sweet fragments of the songs above ;
Till morning's joy shall end the night of weeping,
And life's long shadows break in endless love."

The following morning, being Sunday, I went to
church as usual, and saw one of the largest and finest
rood screens in the countrv. It is said this church
has two owners ; for the chancel and chapels were owned
by the Priory of Dunster, whose property was confis-
cated at what is commonly called the Reformation, and
subsequently bought by the ancestor of the Luttrells
for /;Ss, 1 6s. 8d. ^

Soon after service I started for Minehead and
Porlock. The former appears to be a fashionable resort
for holldavs at the seaside ; the latter is like a primitive
fishing village and much more pleasing to me, but the
road down to it is one of the most dangerous corkscrews
on anv main-road, and vet sundrv vouno- men were
flying down it at a pace of fullv twentv miles an hour.
It looked as if they would all have been dashed to
pieces if it had been done on any other day than
Sunday.

On my return I sought a model village named
Selworthy, up in the hills, where are almshouses deeply
thatched standing round a village green — model cottages,
model iini. model evervthing- that wealth and Ijeautv
of place can give. The way to it is up romantic
Devonshire lanes where the trees meet overhead and
the fern-fronds deck the banks. I trudged up con-
tentedly, anticipating my tea with relish, but had
reckoned without mv host. No one would let me
have any tea, or anything else. Why ? Because it
was Sunday. It would be dreadfully wicked to have
tea on Sunday. I ought to have known that ; for in

148 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

parts of Cheshire cottagers are forbidden to give even
a cup of cold water to thirsty travellers on the Lord's
day. It is said a tenant farmer had to quit his farm
for taking a friend to service in a church in " private "
PTOunds and allowino- the friend to desecrate the
Sabbath by snapshotting the church.

Hungry and tliirsty I had to travel on, thankful
that all my life I had been taught to do either with
or without. Over wild moorland hills, a farmer sent
me on a shorter way which proved a very doubtful
one, and glad was I to reach a better road before the
light was gone and where all the people were not
quite so good.

Early next morning men come to breakfast in
hunting toggery, booted and spurred, ready for the
chase of the red-deer, and all is bustle and excite-
ment. They tell me there are twelve miles of
roadwork with a rise of a thousand feet in three
miles, nearly as much to descend, and then another
rise. I should then have to leave my bicycle and
go on foot if I wanted to see any hunting. Of
course I went ; there could be no hesitation about
that. At fox-hunting I had had many a good gallop,
but never seen a wild stag in chase or at bay.
The road is good and well graded, slowly rising along
a well- wooded ravine with rushing stream below and
gorse-clad hills above. The noted Somerset beacon,
Dunkery, is on my right, and further on the ascent
grows steeper, but the road is always good and
engineered well. At Wheddon Cross on the top of the
watershed is an inn, the " Rest and be thankful." I am
thankful, but have no time to rest. The scenery is
wilder and tlie crowd thicker, for all up this long
tramp horses and horsemen have been constantly over-
taking me. Even on the previous evening I had noticed
many smart grooms with good hunters ; to-day there
were scores of them, and many rode as if they had luid

THE MEET

149

military training. Then come the carriages — dogcarts,
donkey- carts, pony-carts, all sorts and sizes of vehicles,
from the stately landau and pair with men-servants to
the more lordlv coach and four. After a lonir roll
downliill to Exton we turn sharp to the right, up tlie

A DEVONSHIRE LANE

valley of the Exe for Exmoor, and towards Exford
instead of going on by Exebridge for Exeter, and I
regret that X is not with me.

Winsford is a village in the hills, apparently created
for artists and preserved for sportsmen. In the centre
of it two rushing, rambling little rivers join, but there
are no bridges f )r horses, and the place is blocked witli

K 2

ISO PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

tliem. Grand carriages splasli and jolt tlir(»uyh the
rockv stream while the ladies cling to the sides and
scream. I left my bike in the stick-ruck of a cottage
and went towards the Royal Oak Inn, but it was
thronged with sucli a surging crowd of folk, dogs,
and horses that I went of^' u}) the hill, hoping there
would be something left. For three miles I tramped
up a narrow lane where tlie ferns often hung like
tapestr\% and into them I had to squeeze as horse-
men passed. Horsewomen treated pedestrians as dirt ;
but that is no new thinsf. Glittering: horse-shoes were
flashing in all directions, and the crowd became thicker
as we neared the meet.

Cromer's Cross is at the end of some lanes that lose
themselves in the open moor. Here are tlie hounds, and
a horseman being lielped on to a side-saddle is Lord
Ebrington, the master, who has not recovered from
an accident. He looked odd, but I was told there
were ladies riding as cavaliers who looked odder to
those Avho could tell which was which. Rumour had
it that an enterprising Yankee was tliere whose steam-
tug was waiting for him in Porlock Bay wliile he
o-alloi)ed all over Exmoor in a day. '' Ware boo- niv
lords ! " a groom shouts to two boys wlio splash through
a puddle near to me. All sorts and conditions of men
are here. At last I see an aborigine — shepherd, poacher,
gamekeeper, or one of the hangers-on who follow most
packs of hounds ; his rags looked picturesque. In his
greasy cap was a lock of the long coarse hair from the
red-deer's mane or brisket, and hi.s l^oots looked like
fimilv heirlooms. He was gazing intently at tlie top-
boots and l)uckskins of two gentlemen's gentlemen
whose livery alone would have cost more than the
poor man could have earned ni a year. I tried to talk
with him about the deer and their wavs, but it was
very difficult to understand anything he sa.id. Gradu-
ally I learnt there were more deer than the farmers

STAG-HUNTING 151

liked, and they had lately driven five into a funnel,
lassoed, and killed them. For some time he would
not say what liad Ijecome of them, \mt when it slowly
dawned on him tliere was no harm in my foolish
questions, in astonislnnent that any simpleton could
doubt, he blurted out, " Some one's hetten em, o' coorse."
The words are probably not correctly stated, for I was
too amused with mv own io-norance to write them
down at the time. Of course some one ate tlie deer.
All of us and everything get eaten in turn. Venison,
called by them of old time — Venzon — Savoury meat,
such as thy soul loveth. It would make the mouth
of an angel to water, and for seven hours that day,
seven hours of hard work, I tasted nothing but two
apples and a big mushroom that I picked up on the
moor.

The next native fiom wliom 1 seek information is a
big farmer who sits on a good cob for an hour like a
statue, while all around tlie liounds are trying for a stag
which that mornino; was harboured in the wood below
us, or for a smaller one that was at the Punch-bowl.
They lie close and are never found. On the skyline
of all the hills around for miles are horsemen, and
jolting over the ruts and through the heather and
rushes of the moor are carriao-es of all sorts and
sizes. The wind increases in force and chilliness as
the day wears on. As I toiled up the hills in the
morning, I had literally "larded the lean earth," and
now an icy blast blows through me as I cower under
a gorse-bush and still wait for s])ort. But none
comes, and thin rain is driven before a storm from
the Atlantic.

I seek the shelter of the Royal Oak at Winsford,
as did a hard-pressed hind some seasons since. Why
she went into an inn is a mystery ; but hunted deer do
queer things. Perhaps she panted like the well-known
hart when heated by the chase, but not for cooling

PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

water oiilv. They took her in, in very deed — for they
cut her tliroat, and ate her,

" The long easy gallo}» tliat can tire
The hound's deep hate and the liunter's fire"

might have saved her if she had not been ruined by
the temptations of the pubHc-house.

At the cottap-e where I left mv bike in the
thatched stick-ruck I asked the nice old woman, who
had cheeks like red-russety apples, what I owed her.
She, too, stared at me as if I were daft or talked
nonsense ; but when I gave her threejjence, she
dropped an old-fashioned curtsey nearly to the ground,
and, beaming with joy, showed the small fortune to
her daughter.

In heavy rain I started again for a long roll down
the valley of the Exe, turning to the right when I
regained the main road to Exeter. More thaii twenty
miles of free-wheelinp; was before me if I had o-one
on, but the road became slippery, the hills w^ere hidden
by mist, and the rain became a deluge. After endur-
inp; this for some miles I saw a shed below an over-
hano-iiip- rock and took shelter therein. No woodman
or roadman came to claim it, and I saw no one but
now and then galloping horsemen for the hour I
staid there. It was a charming place for a short
rest. Ferns grew through the nicks in the wooden
walls and roof. Lofty hills witli fine vegetation were
all around, and the brawling little river was rapidly
Ijecoming a torrent.

What a wonderful thinjj- has this chase of the red-
deer become ! Far and wide over many miles of country
every noble, squire, farmer, or sojourner at seaside
have tlieir thoughts on the S})ort. Every child who
marks a slot in the lane runs to tell. Every lonely
angler in the mountain streams is an enemy in ambush
against the wily stag who seeks the water for safety.

STOEM ON EXMOOR

^5.

Every hoer of turnips, road-mender, or solitary shepherd
on the hills — in fact, the hand of every man, woman, or
child over twenty miles of country is against the poor
hunted deer. Even at sea, from Watchet to fashionable
Minehead, from Porlock to Lynton, where the cliffs drop
sheer down to the water, the rugged fishermen keep an
eye to the land, for well they know a stag hard ])ressed
by hounds will bound down those steep crags and swim
straight out to sea. Possibly some hounds may struggle

after, and these are tish for lucky fishermen worth tons
of cod or mackerel.

As darkness draws on, I think about a refuge for the
nio-ht, and wonder whether there is a tramp ward at
Dulverton. If the weather had been fine and warm I
could have enjoyed staying out all night, for our County
Stipendiary says there is no crime in sleeping out if one
has money but no matches in his pocket. It is always
well to have ready money, but I was so drenched and
dirty that even with the necessary cash an innkeeper
might refuse me a bed. 1 had to chance it, and knowing

154 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

there were two inns at Dulvertoii named after the
animals that are to he down together at the millennium,
1 happened on the quieter, or inside, animal first, and
went in, pushing the bicycle as an emblem of re-
spectability. The landlord came, saying I could have
a bed, and offered a change of clothes ; but as his
clothes were far smarter than mine, I thought he
was making a sporting offer. The boots acted as
valet ; tea was ready in a few minutes, and rest was
welcome.

Soon after it was dark a galloping horse was pulled
up at the door, and eager voices caused me to go with
others to hear the news. Man and horse looked as if
they had been dragged through a pit, and excitedly we
heard that after the rain came on many had gone
home, but some deer were roused, and the hounds
were quickly on the scent of a stag which had gone
west. There had been a terrific burst ; only five men
saw it through, l)ut they rolled him over in the open.
A cheer went up from the little crowd as for a victoiy
over the Boers. Our friend said he had been gallop-
ing for hours ; had not a dry thread on him, but had
had a rattling day, and was radiantly happy.

''Immortal Gods, for sucli another hour
Then throw my carcase to the dogs of Rome."

We adjourned to the bar-parlour, where everybody
seemed to want a drop of something " short," and I
" broke teetotal." The landlord and company all con-
gratulated one another on the death of the stag, and
when I asked "Why?" they explained that no day
could be successful or properly finished without some-
thing being killed Gradually the atmosphere thickened
like unto that of a committee-room when the cigars
are paid for out of the rates. The talk was of horse,
nothing but horse, until far into the night. It vividly
reminded me how I, too, had talked of horses, night

A HORSEY BAR-PAELOUK 155

after night ; but that was forty years ago, ere age
and work had dulled the keenness for a gallop. With
us, horses are being forgotten, but here in the liorsiest
little town in England I was mixing with a more
primitive people. The baby still wants a whip for the
gee-gee. The boy's glory is to ride ; the proudest day
of his life when he is allowed spurs. The solace of
age is to talk of what he once could do or what he
once had seen. As some one has said, the horse is a
noble creature, but has a most pernicious influence on
every one connected with it.

A sporting butcher offered to trot his little mare,
weight for age, against all creation ; but the company
seemed to know either the mare or her master, for
there was no heed to the generous offer. A young
farmer's grand colt had been taken with colic and
" chucked it afore you could wink." Lady So-and-So's
noted fiery chesnut had sprung a curb and was dead
lame. The squire's old horse had gone thick in the
wind and could be heard half a mile. Bog-spavin,
Bone-spavin, Blood-spavin echoed around. I remem-
bered them all, and the words of Shakspere also : —

" He's mad that trusts a horses health."
"Let us to bed and sleep for more wit.'

As soon as it was lia-Jit the constant clatter of horses'
lioofs awoke me, but when I looked for troops of cavalry,
found hunters at exercise. One stable tiu^ned out
twenty with ten grooms and a stud-groom in the rear.
The boots came with dried thino-s, tellino- me he had
already cleaned the bike, which is rather unusual. The
rain had hardly ceased and the roads were very bad,
but there was a railway station two miles off*, where
a noble lord had given the land for a station and built
an hotel of his own Thither I went, after breakfast

156 PILGRIMAGES To OLD HOMES

and settling my surprising bill, wliich amounted to five
shillings for the lot.

Here my tale should have ended, but curiosity,
when at ease in my own home, made me look in the
Field for the account of the day's stag- -hunting on
Exmoor. There I read of the afternoons storm and
a blank day. Even in this primitive, unsophisticated
moorland inaccuracies will occur, for there was nothing
killed, and the deer all lived to eat more turnips.

GOING TO MARKET

I904
SOMERSET

" Wliaii that Aprille witli his shr)wres sute
The clroghte of March hath perced to the rote

And smale fowles maken nielodye
That slepeii al the nyghte with open ye

Than longen folk to goon on pylgryniages."

THEREFORE, according to Chaucer, when April
came with his sweet showers we were to com-
plete the pilgrimage that had been stopped by
the drenching rains of the previous midsummer.
For this journey we took the express train to Bath.
The weather was fine when we started, became overcast,
and turned to heavy rain. We left our bikes at the
station and went off to see the famous city. Manv are
the bits of folk-lore respecting it, and the time had
come to test them as we could not cycle in the wet.
" Go to Bath and get your head shaved " is a piece of
advice often given. "When at Bath eat Bath 1)niis"
is a simpler recommendation. '' See Bath and die ' is
a much sterner one, and the probable fate of any one
who recklesslv does the two hrst. We beo^an with the
buns. X swallowed his, regardless of consequences. I
struggled with one, but thought it more suital)le f >r a
cab-horse.

Soon we were interested in the never-failing hot
waters that rush from tlie wells, and the works of the
Romans all around them. The citv autlmrities are

158 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

now taking- care of what for ages has been neglected.
Statues of the Roman emperors as large as life stand
as if they were meditating a plunge into the steaming
water when the band stops playing. We sit down in
the damp to watch them. There is the hook-nosed
Julius whose troubles in Gaul were such trouble to us
in our boyhood. He will soon begin —

" Dar'.st thou, Cassius, now
Lea]i in with me into this angry Hood,
And swim to yonder point ? "

Thev are all ready, accoutred as they are, upon this
raw and gusty day, to plunge. Mark Antony has come
to Imry Ca?sar, not to praise him. He will deliver the
oration over the body. As I hesitatingly try to re-
member what S. P. Q. R. stands for, X shuts me up bv
saying, " Small profits and quick returns ; it's onlv the
old bagman's motto; that's what he came here for." The
Bath bun, the brass band, and tlie bad weatlier doubt-
less disturbed his usual tranquillity. The weather we
had to endure. There are many things to see in the
o-ioantic and lono- hidden works of the Romans that
are now being dug up from under the streets of Bath.
Here was civilisation for four centuries, almost before
our history begins, and then came long ages of bar-
barism when our forefathers abjured w^ater, hot or cold.

A bit of the oldest writing in England has lately
been found fifteen feet below the level of the King's
bath. It is on a leaden tablet that was probably cast
into the holy well (as into a spiritual post-office) fifteen
or sixteen hundred years ago, and has now been de-
ciphered by the Bodleian librarian. It is from Vinisius,
a Christian, to Nigra, and mentions Viriconium, that is
our well-known Wriconium or Wrekin citv.

Damp and dismal we wander about the abbey church
and some of the streets feelino- that we cannot cvcle and
liad better go on by train to Wells. The local trains

i6o PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

are very tantalizing ; they struggle slowly in circuitous
ways with trecjuent changes and stops. Nineteen miles
is the distance from Bath to Wells by road, and the
train took two hours for the journey. We were nearly
there when we were taken off at a tangent to a place
with the creepy name of Evercreech, changed again, and
sent ott' in another direction to Glastonbury ; changed
again, and roundabout again. Everywhere and every
thing was wet and our prospects were dull. To keep alive
and warm we tried gymnastics in the railway carriage.
X practises touching the ground without bending his
knees, from standing erect and back to position. What
boys call " touching toes and up again." I kissed my
own toe, or ratlier the boot that enclosed it, but he
said that any puljlic man ought to be too stiff in the
back for such a [)osition, especially one who was sixty
years of age.

The next morning the rain had ceased, and though
the roads were very slippery and dirty we set off cycling
for Glastonbury. There the light was so bad we could
not photograph, and on we \\ent through Street, guided
by maps and countless enquiries for the curious Gothic
manor-house of Lytes Gary.

This old liome of the Lytes is very picturesque,
bewitching for an artist, tantalizing for a photographer.
The projecting gables of the front face to the north-east,
and are therefore acrainst the lio-ht of afternoon. Fruit-
trees crowd on to the cha})el and the little forecourt.
The interior is dark and ruinous. It has long since
passed from the family, but descendants of the old stock
have resumed the name, and Sir 11. (\ M. Lyte, Keeper
of the Records, has written a short history of the place
and its lords, from wlience I have gathered many of
the following particulars. He is a grandson of the
Rev. H. F. Lyte, who composed the well-known liymn,
" Abide w^ith me," and I hope he may ere long buy
back the home of his ancestors.

THE BAY-AVIXDOW. 1 533

i62 PILGRIMAGES To OLD HOMES

The earliest mention of tlie name is of William le
Lyt, in 1255. Peter le Lyt was the fonnder of the
house, and probably built the chapel in 1343. Lyt is a
contraction of "little," not of "light" ; the first of the
name probably l)eino- a little man. A Thomas Lyte, who
is thoug-ht to liave built the hall, had a Pope's Bull in
1439 giving full absolution for the " synnes " of himself
and his wife Joan. The date of 1533, and initials I and E
on either side of the shield of arms on the central band
of the ffreat bav-window, may even be read in our
photograph. The letter I and the swans on the dexter
side of the shield stand for John Lyte, the E and the
horses' heads on the sinister side for liis wife Edith
Horsey. Jolm Lvte also built " two great portclies,
the oriell, and closets. ' Over the porch is the swan
holding the swan - shield of the Lytes, and over the
adjoining oriel is a weather-worn beast holding the
horsey shield of the Horseys.

This John Lyte probably "overbuilt" himself, for
in 1539, when abbeys and religious-houses were falling
fast all around him, he was summoned to appear before
the Abbot of Glastonbury, to whom he owed /, 40. He
paid the one-fourth of the amount on the first Friday
" in the lytyll parlor uppon the righte honde withyn the
gret hall of tlie al)bey " by producing tallies for thirty
quarters of wheat, delivered, at the })rice of tenpence
a bushel. Then " uppon Saynt Petterys day at Myd-
somer then beying Sonday in the gardyng of the said
Abbotte's att Glastonbury whilles hio-lie mass M'as
syngyng made payment unto the said Alibott of thirtye
pounds in good aungell nol)lis."

The Abbot said he could not tlien find the bond,
but would send it. He never did send it. for he was
hano-ed soon after, and John Lyte was ao-ain asked for
payment. John Watts, one of the monks, and Lord
Stourton, bore witness to the money having ])een paid
"in a erber <>f l)ay in tlie gJ^yi'dyng, the Aljbot being

LYTES GARY 163

very glad att that tyiiie that hit was payde in golde for
the schorte tellying as also he wollyd iiott by his wyll
have hit sene att that tyme." It looks as if the old
Abbot was perilously like the unjust steward in the
parable. Why did he want "short" gold and count it
in a garden harbour on Sunday '. It is professional to
take money in church on Sundays, but not to trade
otherwise. Perhaps he was " very glad " to get it
before he was hanged, for he knew it would be no use
to him after.

John's son, Henry Lyte, of Lytes Carye, Esquire,
wrote, or partly translated out of the " Doutche or
Almaigne tongue," " A newe Herball or Historie of
Plantes," and studied the cultivation of fruit-trees, &c.
Forty years after {1618) his son Thomas noted there
were then at Lytes Gary " three skore severall sortes of
Apples, forty four of Pears and wardens, fifteen divers
kynds of Phnnmes, Grapes, Philberts, Figges and many
other fruits."

Thomas Lyte wrote wonderfully. He made out
pedigrees of himself and his king from the Trojan heroes
and a bit beyond. Also something possibly more useful
on " Gookerye," " Husbandrye," "Physike" [might be
dangerous], " Markett matters," " Divers good instruc-
tions wdiich I had found Ijy to deer experience in
husbandrye in our clay countrye to be trew." The
experience about the pedigree was not " to deer," though
he wrote on vellum in a hand fairer than any print, and
illuminated in " ritcli coulers"; for King James gave
him a miniature of himself, by Nicholas Halliard, set
in gold, with his initials in diamonds. This jewel was
lately sold for ^2835, its original cost having probably
been about as many pence.

Another pedigree, more than twelve feet wide,
gives the descendants of his grandparents John and
Edith, wdio were married in 1521, Eight hundred and
thirty-eight of tliem had accumulated in the 1 12 years to

i64 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

A.D. 1633. A great tribute to the industry and luck of
the family. He writes : " This Genealogie was collected
by Tliomas Lyte of Lytes Carie, Esquire, Anno 1633 . . .
not for any ostentation of birth or kinred, knowing, as
saythe Job, that corruption is our mother and the wormes
our sisters and brethren. . . ." Several members of the
family are recorded as being by great misfortune " brent '
or drowned. Jane was " not so fortunat as fayre/'
Another Jane was " twise maried, tasted both of pros-
perity and adversitie.' The portraits of several are
o'iven in their old-fashioned costumes.

In 1 63 I he ''repayred" the chapel, adorning it with
gorgeous shields of arms around the walls ; seventeen
on the north side were of men's only ; twenty of women's
on the south side. Their faded remnants now are
all forlorn.

Other parts of the house are sadly interesting.
The great hall is utterly darkened ; used as a cider-
cellar, its once splendid roof is all decaying, angels on
the corbels hold the proud emblazoned shields of arms,
but their wings drop otf with rot and damp behind
the barrels of the drink below\- The elaborate cornice,
the pierced tracery, the delicate pinnacles, are wasting
their beauty in the dark, unseen and uncared for. The
oaken panelling throughout the rooms is ashen grey,
slowly decaying, but often very fine. Up a round
staircase of wide stone steps we pass through a door-
way into a little vestibule screened oflP from the great
chamber by an oaken screen of linen-{)attern panels
carved with flowers and crested with pinnacles. It
is well worth better preservation, as it is uncommonly
fine. One side of the great chamber is full of win-
dows, and the coved ceiling of ornamental plaster is
decked with the swans of Lyte and the horses' heads
of Horsey.

Dowii the stone stairs we jro to the o-reat vaulted
cellars, reminiscent of the revelry of Ions: agfo. A

THE CHAPEL. LYTES GARY

L 2

i66 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

little slit in the wall by the claTs end of the oriel, or
private dining-room that was built off the great hall,
is another curious relic. Through it scraps of the feast
could be passed by lord or lady to the beggars without,
but as it is onlv the size of the drunistick of a goose
or turkey, when held upright, the charity would be
carefully dispensed. On the inside of the wall there
was probably a shutter, Ijut no glass.

In the country homes of England there was for
ages a custom that no beggar should be turned empty
away. At least something should be given, if only
bread and water. In some great houses the hospitality
was unbounded, but nowadays it is the number of
tramps and vagrants that is unbounded.

Our bicycles were sheltering in an enormous cruci-
form barn. The tenant kindly showed us round and
directed us to another ancient house called the Abbey
farm. At Charlton Makerel Church where the Lytes
were buried many of their effigies or mementoes were
preserved, but all have been lost, for what escaped
the reformer has been destroyed by the restorer.

In the afternoon the light became better and we
hurried back to Glastonbury, where at last we could
photograph, though only for a short time. Then to
the Pilgrim's Inn, where tliey still take pilgrims in.

The next day was Sundav, the weather beinp' fine
but dull. It took us an hour to go three miles up
the Mendips ; then in a bleak country and on bad
roads we cycled another fourteen miles to Norton St.
Philip, where is the wonderful old inn with the rich
brown cider. Here we rested and piiotographed, re-
turning through the town of Frome, where the roads
are steep and twisting like a corkscrew held upright.
The little village of Nunney we ibund asleep among
the hills. Here is a castle or fortitied manor-house
encircled by a moat, a small river bubbling past cottages
built at all angles, with a cliurcli upon tlie furtlier

i68 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

bank. Sir Joliu Delamare liad licence to crenellate
it in 1373. The family tonil)s are in the clinrch.
Leland wrote of it : " A praty castle havynge at eche
End by Northe and Southe 2 praty rownd Towres
gatheryd by Gumpace to joyne into one. The Waulles
be very stronge and thykke, the Stayres narrow, the
lodginge somewhat darke."

We went into a farmyard to photograph the castle,
and iinfortnnately asked permission first instead of after.
A woman came and solemnly asked if we thought the
Lo]'d would prosper such work. I replied that we could
tell better when we saw how the exposures developed.
She told us to go away and come another day. We
replied w^e should never come again. She forbade us to
do any work in her yard that was not " Holy unto the
Lord," and ours was not Avork fit for the Sabbatli.

We e'ot one view of the castle from the lane outside
her gate, and readers must use their own judgment
as to whether or not the Lord blessed the work. We
committed w^orse sins than photographing, for X was
cross, saying it was like narrow-minded church-folk, and
it was throuofh me o-oins: to the cathedral in the morn-
ing to what he called " Early Mass." He felt sure the
woman was a self-righteous church goer, so I offered to
Ijet him that she was a dissenter, one of those rabid
dissenters who would dissent from everything or any-
thing. As the contention was sharp between us, we
went to the inn to settle the matter. They were not
too religious to supply us witli tea at tlie inn, for it was
not far from the cliurch and they would probably be
church-folk, as they seemed deliglited to tell us that
our female lecturer was a " primit-tive."

Refreshed nnd llap})3^ w^e set off again to climb the
Mendips and find our way l)y Shepton Mallet back to
Wells. I constantly preached caution of the misfor-
tunes that suddenly come u})on the wicked, such as
side-slip on the greasy roads; or the jirosperity of the

fjr. ^3;j^.-

NUNNEY CASTLE

lyo PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

ungodly being cut short if they free-wheeled downhill
too fast ; or the calamity that niiMit overtake us in a
motor-car ; but no troubles befell us, for which we were
duly thankful. We are told cycling on the Sabbath is
a sill, photographing another sin, ])etting another, and
entering a pul)lic-house worse and Avorse — iniserair,
miserrDiios. Would it have been better to have spent
that Sunday evenino- in the fresh air of the hills
witli the chorus of the birds in the gladness of spring-
tide, or with a headache in church tryino- to make
sense out of what a parson might shout at you, the
incoherent raving that he thinks is pure Gospel ?

Mile after mile of banks and woods all carpeted A\itli
primroses we rode through — cartloads of primroses,
tons of them, in profusion everywhere. I asked a farmer
who leaned over a gate if there were any Tories in this
country. He replied, " Oh, aye, zur, there be a vew left-
yet." I explained to him that where we came from
every primrose for miles had been stolen or conveyed by
the Tories, and if he could sell those of his they would
fetch more than his wheat. He opened a mouth that
reminded me of a butcher's shop, and would have traded
there and then if it had not been Sunday.

Three miles of Morions rolling- down the hills l^rinos
us to where the o-rev towers of Wells rise above the
encircling mist, and the light fades rapidly as we descend
among the trees of the little city.

Our next day was to be a busy one at Bradford-
on-Avon. We set off by train, but when changing
carriages at Frome a postman marvelled at us as being
not quite right. He was a cyclist, knew the roads,
and said we should go quicker and pleasanter by road
than by the trains of that country, so we tlirew the
railway tickets away and went.

The celebrated Saxon church was the first object
of oin- pilgrimage. I had not previous! v heard the

BRADFOED-OX-AYON

171

theory that it was orin-jnahv hiiilt without either
floors or windows. Then the chapel on the l)ridge we
photographed in intervals of tratBc. Wl:ien used as a
lock-up it would be very convenient to let some of the
baser sort through a false floor into the river below.
This Broad-ford of the Avon has a long; historv. Kinof

BRADFORD-ON-AVON

Lear may have seen the British defeated at Braden-
ford in 652.

The o-rand old manor-house of South Wraxall was
easy to find and well worth the seeing. It is of many
styles and ages. The terraced courtyard reminded
me of Houo-hton Tower, but here roses bloom, and all
seems built for more peaceful neighbours and a milder
clime. The fierce fighting and the wild revelry that
raged round Houghton would here seem out of place,

SOUTH WRAXALL MANOR-HOUSE

174 PILGEIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

even the flimilv leirends are milder, more of a milk-and-
water tyj^e. A second wife makes her stepson drunk
and ahenates his father from him, which is common
enough in any pohce court ; but a httle romance is
woven into the tradition here, for, as the family lawyer
draws up the old man's unjust will, a ghostly hand
three times obscures the light, scaring even " the devil's
own " from the dirty job. But another of the legions
of Evil e'ets it done and the testator dead. Then the
first one tells how he, as an honest lawyer, would not
unduly influence the dying man, and there are words and
scenes, and a renunciation of the will before the burial is
allowed. The bereaved widow, contrary to promise, soon
marries again, and the picture of lier former husband falls
upon her, causing her to weep, while others jeer.

South Wraxall has been owned by the Long family
for centuries. Leland says that a lord Hungerford set
a man named Long Thomas on some land. He, or his
sons, developed into Thomas Long, and one of them
" could skille of the law " and stuck to the land, having
two " sunnes Syr Henrv and Syr Richard." A Sir W.
Long fought at Edgehill for the Parliament sometime
after becomino- Rovalist. Part of the house was built
about 1430, and considerably more at the end of the
sixteenth century. Some of the mantel-})ieces are
dated 1575 and 1598. The drawing-room has a very
elaborate one with figures of Prudentia, quite proper
for the place ; Arithmetica, a female doing sums in a
book ; Geometria, with instruments not very suitable
for a drawing-room ; and Justicia, with scales apjDa-
rently unjustly balanced. Many other details may
be seen in the photograph ; also a bit of the very fine
ceiling, but nothing of the grand window. The mantel-
piece in the dining-room is uncommonly original. Two
Ionic colimms rise to the ceiling ; between them are
two shields or panels having Latin mottoes on them,
and between them sits a baboon on a bracket inscribed

THt; UliAWlNG-ROUM

THE GATEHOUSE

178 PILGEIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

" Mors rapit oiiinia." Around tliem all are flowers, fruit,
and human heads, tor the baboon or death to carry
otf when dinner is over. In the recess in tlie wall is
some tine china, and there are more things worth noting
in this fine old house than we have time for.

The most picturesque bit is the gatehouse, but a
modern architect has put as ugly a modern patch
alongside it as he could imagine. Why any one should
let him do it is more than I can imagine. The gate-
house has narrow, circular stairs, leading to the room
wdth the beautiful oriel window. There are squints
to see who might be at tlie gate, and the chimney is
well worth notice ; also the grotesque gargoyles in the
courtyard.

Within about two miles of South Wraxall is another
fine old house at Great Chalfield. It is jjrobably of
fifteenth century date, but being used as a farm is not
so well preserved as the other. We were told there
was nothing inside the house, and as it was evident
we were not wanted we soon departed. The photo-
graphs had to be taken against the light, and therefore
the extremely beautiful oriel windows, the carved stone,
and the four pinnacles or finials to the gables show
badly. These finials are said to be men in armour of
the time of Henry VI. Masks of stone with perfora-
tions for the eyes are lying hy the wall of tlie house.
They may have been built into the hall at some time
for secret services, but little is known of them or the
history of the house. It is believed a man named
Thomas Tropenell built both the hall and the chapel
about 1450 to 1490, and inscribed his motto on it,
" Le joug tyra bellement." If this means, " The yoke
sits beautifullv," we may infer he married for money
and s])('nt it on the house. Extensive farm-buildings
appear to include ruined fortifications ; the chapel abuts
on the lawn in front of the house, and a moat engirdles
all. The estate is said to be small, to have been owned

BARRIXGTON COUIiT

iSi

by iiiany families, and to have suti'ered, like so many
others, from the lawyers.

The next day, Tuesday, we went by train to
Yeovil, very undecided as to our further journey, but
making Barrington ( Jourt the goal of our day's pil-
Some enterprising land - agent had tried

lit -i 'w^MH^^^^M

^^^H6-v--j3*^^^^

^^^^^.._

...^-.

---'S^^j^^H?^,./,:...'

... ..___t.^ ■"■^5*

'"■■i:*." —iS

_,,

GREAT CHALFIELD MANOR-HOUSE

fo sell Barrington Court to X, telhng him it was one
of the finest houses in Enodand. to be sold for a tithe

of its cost. This is not verv untrue, and we hear it
has since been sold to the Society for the Preservation
of Places of Historic Interest. The ditiicultv is to lind
the place, and that little diihculty rather deliglits us.

If we had known that Trent was the next station
to Yeovil we sliould have visited the village and tried
to have seen the hall, for it has one of the undoubted

M 2

MONTACUTE i8

hiding-holes used by the young Charles for many days
in his flio-ht from Boscobel. We avoided the town
of Yeovil and went west, quite unexpectedly coming to
a very large farmyard with fine old Gothic barn and
house. From the name on tlie carts it is Preston
Abbey farm, and that is all I know about it. It stands
by the roadside, venerable and picturesque.

Ere lone: we came to a villa a'e where even the
cottages looked like bits of abbeys — time-worn stone
and Gothic architecture. The natives have evidently
never known anything else ; and let us hope they never
will. The manor-house is one of the noted houses of
EnofLind, but we have neither letter of introduction
nor time to stay. We did photograph the gatehouse
of the ruined priory. It was built about 1520, and
is now used as a farm. Behind it is the conical hill,
or Moas acutus, which gave the place its name of
Montacute. The hill appears to be called Hamdon,
famous among builders for its quarries of good stone,
among antiquaries for its ancient camp, and among
believers in the miraculous for the finding thereon of
the Holy Cross of Waltham.

Our next stopping-place was Stoke-sub- Hamdon,
where, in our ignorance or natural depravity, w^e never
went to see an ancient church that conq)rises every
known or unknown style of architecture, but spent
some time in an inn, the Fleur-de-Lis, w^iich has an
arched doorway, a big room full of ' ale or cider barrels,
and other signs of having been connected with bygone
ecclesiastical establishments. A " boozy " customer told
us he would show us a rare old castle that was now
a butcher's shop if we would stand him a pint, and
that would cost three-ha'pence. " Woe unto him that
eiveth his neio-hbour drink ! " Hardened sinners as we
are, we chanced it, and were rewarded with a beautiful
jiicture. Tlirough a tine archway of stone we enter
a neglected court, or yard, wherein are remnants of

THE BACK-WAY TO THK BUTCHER'S SHOP, STOKESUB-Jl AM DON

i86 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

ancient buildings, a ruined dovecot, l)ack premises of
modern shops spoiling a gable crowned with bell-cot.
Our guide calls this the castle, though castle, church,
and tombs we cannot see. Lord Beauchamp here built
his fortitied manor-house in 1333, where also were
chapel and college for priests; but all seems to have
vanished into dust as he has, save this picturesque
entry, up which our guide says we can go and buy
mutton-chops. The place, like so many others, was
spoiled in the reign of Edward YL, a small part being
rebuilt by Strode, who left his mark on it in 1585.

It is written : "In the multitude of counsellors is
wisdom,'" but the nudtitude of ways we were told to
o'o from the Fleur-de-Lis to Barrino-ton Court was
rather confusing. We wandered on by many twisting,
devious lanes to the house we sought, to find doctors
in consultation over a case of serious illness, and
therefore we did not enter. Externally, the house is
a magnificent stone building. The pliotograph shows
seven gables in front and otliers at the side, each
crowned with three twisted pinnacles matching twisted
chimneys, and all in Avarm-coloured stone. It is not
known who built it, but the very absence of armorial
bearings would show me it was built by the Colonel
Strode who was so active in the Civil War on the side
of Parliament. He and his wife were of families of
wealthy clothiers who probably had not inherited arms
and disdained the vanity. I had difiiculty in finding
or hearing any history of Barringtoii, when suddenly,
in reading about tlie C^ivil War in Somerset, I came
upon a very drainatic bit.

William Strode, the son of a clothier in Shepton
Mallet, was a factor, or merchant, with Spain, who
married a wealthy heiress named Barnard. He was
one of the first passive resisters, though he was not
very passive ; for, when they seized his cow for ship-
money and sold it for ^3, los. od. when it was worth

BARRIN'GTOX COURT

i88 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

£6, he rescued the cow and sued tlie coustable. The
matter was referred to the bishop, aud he told the
bishop he did uot examine the slieriti' as he should.
What flat blasphemy I

In the next few years he bou^-ht large estates and
was made a Deputy Lieutenant for the Comity. He
advanced money to the parliament and Avas a Colonel
in the army ; was defeated at Glastonbury ; and elected
knight of the shire at Ilchester. Pride's purge tm^ned
him out of parliament. He was imprisoned and fined.
Then his sympathies were for bringing back the king,
but after the restoration he was at loggerheads again
about sending horses and men for the militia. Here
are some of his own words relating to the one day's
history of the old house we had journeyed to see.

"Tuesday, lo September 1661. — Cornett Higdon
with thirty or forty troopers came to Barrington howse
and entred the hall armed, sent for Mr. Strode, seised
upon him in his hall, told him he was his prisoner.
Mr. Strode asked him by Avhat warrant, hee layd liis
hand on his sword and sayd This. . . . Then sayd
Mr. Strode he is very old and weake and desired to
know whither he should go. Higdon told him he
should know that when he came thither. One of the
troopers held him. Mr. Strode showed liim a letter of
protection from the Duke of Ormonde. Higdon ranted
and made a bussell, sayd his authority was by his
side and he would take him dead or alive and would
not let him out of his sight. Soe hee sent for his
bootes and other things and they took him to Ivill-
chester, six miles a wearysome journey and kept him
in an Inne, the George. Guards attendinge him when
he went to bed and he was seventy two years old
and very ill. Savs he was a Presbiterian and had
been soe ever since he knew what religion was . . .
'tis a hard matter to lye in alehouses so longe and be

I90 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

caiTved about in trvumphe three dayes and made a
spectacle of scorne."

Coloner Helver says Strode was a "most dangerous
false person avIio had falsified his word before and the
cornett was chidd. He was a presbiterian and therefore
ao-ainst the kina' and church. He had to go on his
knees before the king- and neighbours and heg pardon
for his manv sins. " History does not say whetlier he
was converted.

What a grand subject for a picture by some fashion-
able artist would this forgotten scene in Barrington
Court be I The fine old hall, with the ofiicer and troopers
of the king, every one of them a model of grace and
beauty, arrayed in the sumptuous trappings of war.
In true cavalier fashion the young cavalier shows liis
sw^ord for his warrant, and one can almost see the old
Presbyterian shrivel up, with sprouting of horns and
tail, as he feels his time has come to be confronted with
his betters, possibly by His Holiness a Bishop. We
have here another glimpse of Merry England at its
merryest. Tlie reaction from Puritanic rigour was
unbounded. The great Norman nobles were extermi-
nated in the Wars of the Roses, and the new nobility,
made of base courtiers wdio had fattened on the plunder
of the charities, were being leavened in their highest
ranks by the bastards of the king.

From Barrinjrton to our bed at Wells was more than
twenty miles of unknown country. I liad notes to
remind me of Martock and Muchelney if we were near
to them, but there was barely time to see one of them.
Martock was further from the homeward way, so we left
it, though the church tower is said to be one of the finest
of the manv fine towers in Somerset. A fine ruined liall
is a worksho]). and a chapel-barn used for " ordinary non-
conformity, whatever that may mean among the two
hundred odd sects of Christians in our free country.

MUCHELXEY ABBEY

191

Mucheliiey Abbev, foiiiided on an island in the
swamps A.D. 939, prospered for centuries, and is now
a farmhouse, where the cliief event of the day is milk-
ing time, and we unfortunately happened on it. The
abbot's room is well preserved and very fine, but we
had to be content with seeing- the cider- cellars, where
fan-vaulted roofs and panelled walls of stone are the
artistic remnants of the '" studious cloysters' pale."

■■^■hs0:

MUCHELNEY ABBEY

Never in om- Avanderincrs had we seen anvthino- like
the ruined religious houses and the still stately churches
that we saw this dav. We had no time to see the in-
side of any churcli, for we wished to cvcle through the
countrv, visitino- the ancient homes : but in a ride of
tliirty to forty miles we pasised Yeovil, Preston Abbey
farm, Montacute Priory, Beauchamp (Jollege or Chapel,
Stoke-sub-Hamdon, South Petherron, Shepton Beau-
champ, Kingslmry Episcopi, Muchelney Church and
Abbev, Huish Episcopi (a magnificent tower and Norman
doorway), Somerton, Glastonburv, Wells — the names

192 PlLGPvTMAOES TO OLD HOMES

alone are suggestive of tlie times and the work of those
who named them. Within a few miles of Barrington
I find on the map six places named after six saints, and
the coinitrv round is sparsely peopled with farmers or
husbandmen. It is said of a district where we wandered
through a few years ago that the chief products of the
land are pigs and parsons ; here the pigs seemed to have

''■^'" : jr-

SOM EETON

gained on the parsons, for although the churches are
wondrously fine, the houses around are comparatively
few and far between. Cattle are tethered in the once
holy precincts, swine have their sties in the courts, and
in many cases the beautifully sculptured liomes of the
religious have fallen into heaps of stones.

" The heathen are come into thine inheritance ;
thy lioly temple have they defiled and made an heap
of stones."

PARSONS 193

After the lapse of nearly four centuries the great
crhne of robbing the charities and the destruction of
the homes and works of art that generations of men
had spent their lives, their labour, and their wealth in
beautifying, is liorrible to those who think of it. It is
doubtful if any king or courtiers, however rapacious
they may have been, could have done it if the people
had resolutely opposed it ; but they all seem to have
been sickened of the monks and clergy, and to have
let the lands left for pious purposes be confiscated by
a vile king instead of having the management of the
charities reformed. It was confiscation, not reformation,
they got, and possibly they deserved it ; but cui boitof

In our Church of England to-day the presentation
of a parson to a " ciu'e of souls" may be bought and
sold. A young man gets up in a pulpit and preaches
nonsense. In any other assembly of men he would be
shown his errors and he miglit improve ; but to con-
tradict the most blatant nonsense, or even in extreme
cases to rebuke insults, would be brawling in church.
If he locks up and leaves idle his church and school for
six days in the seven there is no appeal. The preacher
soon becomes more self-conceited, more convinced of his
own righteousness, if not of his infallibility, intolerant
of others, and quarrelsome until it is often said the
parson is the most intolerant and quarrelsome man in
his parish. He may pluck up and throw aw^ay the
flowers a parishioner has planted on his mother's grave
because that man lias not asked his permission to })lant
in the rector's freehold and })aid a fee for so doing.
Even in our day charities left for the good of all when
filtered through the fingers of a parson are oft diverted
to his favourites only; and reasoning from the present to
the past, it seems to me that in the great da y of trouble
when the clergy were called to account, the people hated
them and let them fall, though in doing so they lost
what was their own.

BUR 195

Wednesday, the next day, was one of the most
satisfactory that we ever had. We were so satisfied
with cycling against the wind on a good road, that
when we had to chmb the Quantocks with a gale
from the Atlantic fnll against us, and encumbered
with luggage, we were almost too tired to walk.

We took the train to Bridgewater, and without
tarrying there — for we had had to change carriages
twice in a few miles — sought the uncommonly quaint
old manor-house of Bur, or West Bower. Tlie curious
turrets of stone contain some charming glass with
forjnal roses and archaic letters. M, that probably
stood for Malet, also stands for Moss, and, as a
new front door was wanted for my house, I copied
the glass and got some old oak beams to make
another door. There is an enormous circular dove-
cot with thatched roof, walls of mud three feet thick,
and nests for one thousand pairs of pigeons. It
is now used as a storehouse for mangolds, and an
excellent storehouse it makes. In this queer old
manor-house Sir John Seymour is said to have had
eight children, the eldest of whom, Jane, became
the mother of King Edward VI. Fortunately for her,
she, in old-fashioned phrase, soon took good ways.

Going westerly, we made our way in pleasant
country towards the Quantock hills. Slightly rising
ground at Nether Stowey caused us to walk, when
suddenly my eye caught a tablet in the wall of a
small liouse by the road, " Here Samuel Taylor Coleridge
made his home, 1 797-1800." He described it as a
miserable hovel, but it has evidently been restored,
so we left it alone. It was along the way on which
we were going that he and Wordsworth conceived
and began that undying poem, "The Bime of the
Ancyent Marinere" — a poem that for all time to come
holds up to scorn the wretch who shot tlie harmless
albatross. It is an easy one for boys to learn, and

%9iff

BUR MANOIJ (OE COUET)

THE DOVECOT

198 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

some like the recitation. The following bits are from
the original version : —

" It is an aiicyeiit Marin ere

And he stoppeth one of three.
By thy long grey beard and glittering eye
Now wherefore stoppest me ?

Water, water, every where.

And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,

Ne any drop to drink."

We saw nothing of the ghastly crew witli tlie
glazing eyes, that could not die ; but we went wdiere —

And—

" The hermit good lived in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea."

" Sometimes a dropping from the sky

We heard the Lavrock sing :
Sometimes all little birds that are
How they seem'd to fill the sea and air

With their sweet jargoning.
A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June
That to the sleeping woods all night

Singeth a quiet tune."

In the wooded hills to our left is Alfoxton Park, an
old manor-house that Wordsworth tenanted, furnished,
f^r £-3 a year. A remote and quiet place in a beautiful
country. But the owners soon gave him notice to quit,
for it was said that he and his sister Dorothv went
mooning about the hills at all times and in all weather,
possibly without their hats. They also consorted witli
two dangerous republicans, Coleridge and Southey, who
were staying in the neighbourhood, and all three of
them wa'ote poetry which w^as not understood in
that country. Wordsworth wrote about a little girl

THE QUANTOCKS 199

with curly bair who could not count seven correctly,
and also of a general merchant to whom —

" A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more."

when he ouo-ht to have known that it would be a
political emVjlem worn by a sect of Christians in the
worship of one of their saints who ate primroses as
salad in the church's Lenten fast.

If the peasants on these lonely hills had anv tradi-
tions of the past they might well be suspicious of
strangers. Here are some extracts, packed or patched
together, of the history of some of the Quantock lands.

Several manors were owned by Henry Courtenay,
Marquis of Exeter, in 1539. He was a possible heir to
the throne, for his mother was daughter to Edward IV.
Therefore the jealous tyrant, Henry VIII., had him
beheaded, and settled his estates upon his tifth new
queen. Then her head was chopped off, and the estates
reverted to the Crown. To the joy of Christendom,
the Head of the Church was taken away, and his son,
Edward VI., gave the estates to the Duke of Somerset,
who was already one of the most prosperous men on
earth ; for he had acquired untold spoils from churches,
schools, and charities. But ere lono- he also literallv
lost his head, and the estates were given to the Duke
of Northumberland. Then the sickly king died. His
sister, " bloodv " Marv, succeeded him. and beofan aofain.
She soon had the duke's head chopped off, and gave
the estates to a Courtenay. Ere long this man died
" on his own," to use a local phrase, so he was luckier
than his predecessors. In about fifteen years there
appear to have been ten changes of ownership — kings
and queens and the greatest nobles in England were
lords of the land. One queen, a couple of dukes, and
an odd marquis, all had their heads chopped off. We

200 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

hear little of their serfs, the poor peasantry, during
these exciting times. They were happiest who lived
their lives most like to their cattle. If they essayed
higher fates, the burning faggot, the hangman's rope,
the sword, or the dagger, awaited them. If the
Anointeds of the Lord, the Heads of the Church, the
illustrious nobles, behaved as they did, is it any wonder
if the lonely dwellers in the Quantocks gave the radical
poets notice to quit ?

Our day's journey was along one of the finest roads
in England, through a country rich and varied in its
soil and scenery, and full of interest, historical, literary,
warlike, and sporting. It was a day of very hard
work, for we were heavily laden, travelling against a
wind that on hig-h. Pfround became a sfale. Rest for
the weary came at Quantockshead. Oh, what a
blessing was tea with Devonshire cream, iiome-made
preserves from native fruit, and butter freshly made
from the juice of cows I I hereby note the remem-
brance of our enjoyment, heedless of the critic's scoff
or scorn when he reviews this book over his dirty
pipe.

We had left Wells in the morning, passing through
Glastonbury, going by Edington, pi'obably the site of
Alfred's great battle of Aethandune against the Danes ;
Sedgemoor, scene of the last great slaughter of English-
men on Eno'lish soil ; alonu- many a mile of rich alluvial
plains where the cattle fatten in peace in green pastures ;
and further on tlie road rises towards the hills, where
the cattle give place to sheep, greyish brown sheep
in greyish brown fields, and higher up are the woods
and the wild hills where remnants of the lordly red-
deer roam, and the sea comes in sight on our right
hand, nearer to us as we mount higher, " the stately
ships go sailing by " ; but the wind from the ocean blows
us to a walk until the corner is turned, and one of
the grandest scenes on England's rocky coast is all

A GLORIOUS SCENE

20I

before us. The hills of the o-reat forest of Exmoor
are brown or blue as light and distance sliade them.
On Minehead's rock the waves are dashing-. 'i'here
seems no limit to the view o'er sea and land, from the
dim coasts of Wales by the islands in the Channel
to the blue haze of hills bevond the Beacon of Dunkerv.

A BIT OF CLKEVE ABBEY

Close below are charming parks and pleasaunces at
St. Audries, where woods and gardens seem to slope
right down to the shore amid the foam of the sea.

Very reluctantly we had to leave the fair scene and
go "'freeling'' down to lower ground. Past Watchet
we went for Cleeve to photograph tlie beautiful ruins
of its little abbey. We found the bio^ youno- woman

202 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

and her father havino- a consultation about some duck-
lings in the cloisters. On seeing me, she said, " Oh, I
know you.' I replied, " Very likely. I'm well known
to the police," and was amused to hear her father say,
" I don't know vou, and I've bin in the force over
thirty yeer."

Our pictures of bits of the Cistercian Abbey of
Cleeve must tell their own tale. Great care is now
taken of the fragments and ruins that are left. In
the custodian's garden, among the beds of onions and
potatoes, are beds of tiles shielded from the sun and
rain. Imperishable tiles that bear the arms of Plan-
tagenets and Norman nobles who once were donors
to the abbey of what they had gotten, possibly, by force
or fraud from others ; and now the tiles alone are all
there is to keep the once proud lords in remembrance.
Even in our time, we are told. Christians come and
steal, or, shall we say, convey, these old armorial
shields, unless they are carefully watched. It is diffi-
cult not to covet many things, but in some the interest
or value is lost when they are torn from their home.
There is a bell-cot, or projecting shelter for a bell,
high up on the wall of the refectory that now is
crowned with polypody ferns, though the bell is gone
that told the monks when the eels were nicely fried
or the carp and egg sauce were ready. It was a
shame to take the bell, as it would be to take even
the ferns from the turret : fortunately they are out
of reach.

At the east end of the once splendid refectory, or
hall, is a large faded painting or fresco of the crucified
Christ. To the right of it is a recess for a pulpit,
where one of the brothers could read scriptural in-
junctions about eating too much or lecture tlie others
on the sin of gluttony while he watched the feeding.

Pigeons, or it might appear more religious to say
doves, cooed among the beams of the roof and hovered

204 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

over the liolv rood. Tlie bird of wisdom snored in
hidden crannies, and chattering shepsters scolded our
intruding presence. Jackdaws w^ere scarce — probably
the police-sergeant took care of his daughter's duck-
lings and chickens ; but all seemed peaceful and
happy now, and we enjoyed our little rest l)efore
the lono- dav's last stao-e to Dunster.

AXCIEXT OVKRMANTEL AT TlllO LUTTKKLL ARMS

On the following morning we began photographing
before breakfast, Ijut the light was dull all day, and it
was our seventh day from liome. A l)ack wing of tlie
Luttrell Arms inn was the first bit to take, and a more
])icturesque kitchen it would be difficult to find if we
omit the grander one at Glastonbury. In an upper
ro(.m ail overmantel in plast(^)' shows some curious

THE PRKSEXT FRONT DOOR OP DUXSTER CASTLE

2o6 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

costumes of about a.d. 1620. The centre panel has
three trees with three dogs eating a man. The women
at the sides look the other way and seem grotesquely
pleased.

Having a letter of invitation from the squire, or
King of Dunster as he is locally termed, to visit him in
the castle, we waited impatiently until it was probable
he was comfortably downstairs and had read his letters
before we presented ourselves. The old gentleman re-
ceived us himself; very kindly showed us round, and left
us to photograph anything we liked. Then the em-
barrassment of riches and fugitive time bothered us.
The very rare, interesting coranii, or leather hangings
required long exposure for some parts, while the shiny
surface reflected light in others. They are believed to
be of seventeenth century date and Venetian or Italian
workmanshi}), painted and glazed, representing Antony
and Cleopatra with their courtiers.

The original Chippendale chairs and settees we
understood better, and were told they had not been out
of the castle since they were made. China teacups with
the arms of Luttrell were made in China before any one
in England could make them. Many other treasures
were courteously shown to us by the squire, his lady,
and daughter. The staircase is w^ondrously massive yet
finely carved, and the profile head of Carolus 11. dates it.
There is a secret and dark hiding-hole behind the bed in
one room. A fireplace is dated 1620 and a coat-of-arms
1589. A ceiling, elaborately ornamented in ])laster and
dated 1681, was shown as being very fine ; but infinitely
finer to me was the view from the window. It would
seem impossible to have a fairer scene than tliat across
the sea to distant Wales and the Quantock hills, with
the park and miles of wooded country far below the
lordly tower on the height.

The extreme top of the tor is now a gardeii or
bowlinof-pfreen, for when the castle was " sleio-hted," or

THE GRAND STAIRCASE, DUXSTER

THE OLDEST DOOK (EDWARDIAN)

2IO PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

reduced, in 1650, the keep and St. Steven's Cliapel, wliich
had been there four hundred years, were totally de-
molished. The buildings that remain are of ages far
apart from one another. Existing documents tell many
interesting bits in the history of Dunster, and have been
fortunately pul)lished or edited by Sir Maxwell Lyte in
" Dunster and its Lords." To that work, and also to
his writings on Lytes Gary, I am much indebted.

The most curious thing in the long and chequered
history of that " right goodly and stronge Gastelle of
Dunestorre '" is that only once has it ever been bought
and sold ; and then l^y one widow to another. At the
Conquest the de Moion, Mohun, Moyon, or Moon, &c.,
turned out Aluric the Saxon and held the Torre. It
was then washed by the sea, and in 1183 the reeve
of Dunster was heavily fined for exporting corn from
England. In 1376 Dame Joan de Mohun, or Moun,
sold the succession to the castle and manor, and the
manors of Minehead and Kelton, and the Hundred of
Carhampton, to Lady Elizabetli Luterel for live thou-
sand marks, the equivalent of ^3333, 6s. 8d. ; but that
sum should be multiplied Ijy a himdred to make the
equivalent more just at present values. The original
recei])t given for the money is still in existence among
the documents of the castle. Lady I^uterel was a
Courtenay, grand-daughter of Edward I., and died
before Dame Joan, but Sir Hugh Lutrell, her son, got
the estates after years of litigation.

Sir Hugh was "Great Seneschall of Xormandie,"
received the surrender of several French towns in the
time of Henry V., and l)uilt the present gatehouse to
the castle in 141 9. Like Sir Hugh Calveley of Cheshire
and others, he was doubtless ei niched with the spoils of
France. Inventories of his plate are in existence ; for
instance, "an liie coppe ycoveryd with ft-theris yplomyd."

In 1460 Jamys, or James, Lutrell took up arms for
the Lancastrians and died of wounds received at the

THE LFTTP.ELLS 211

second battle of 8t. Alhans. Edward IV. gave his
estates to Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who kept them
till the other side had him beheaded, when his son
succeeded him. It was not till after Bosworth fioht

o
and twentv-four years had passed that vonnu" Huirh

Loterel got his own again, with the experience that

lawyers were as bad as civil war.

At the " Reformation " the Lnttrells secured the
Priorv of Duiister. witli its appurttMiancrs : Init when
Queen Marv came to the throne she was told that the
Thomas Luttrell of her day had married a wife to
whom his mother had been godmother, and therefore the
married couple " in religion '' were brother and sister.
This was a crime endano-erino- excommunication, and
only the Pope could rectify the awful consequences.
Of course they got off by paying fees or blackmail ;
but it does seem very hard that such an ideal arrange-
ment as a vouno- man marrviuff a airl to whom his
mother had been godmother, and had therefore known
her from a child, and her parents before her, should
be an excuse for plunder.

Thomas seems to have been impetuous in other
matters, for he died young, leaving his son in ward to a
London laAvyer. Naturally, the lawver robbed every-
body — more or less according to law. He appears to have
Ijought the tithes, and paid a curate eight pounds a year
to do the clergyman's work, to claim a shoulder of every
deer as tithe, and, worst of all, to have young Luttrell,
aged about fifteen, engaged to his daughter, who. the
neighbours said, was "a slutt." and the boy would
be " utterlie cast away in mariing with such a mi.serees
daughter." The young heir was wed at twentv, and
possibly the father-in-law soon died ; for George Luttrell
spent much money in rebuilding parts of the castle.
Somewhere about 1 600 he erected the charming octa-
gonal market-cross in the street near to the inn.

In his son's time came the Civil War, Duiister was

K-v^

THE GATEHOUSE OF I4I9. FROM OUTSIDE

i^ST^-V;

THE GATEHOUSE OF I419. FROM JNSIDE

O 2

2 14 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

held for the parHameiit, given up t<> the king, besieged
b\" parliament for i6o days, and surrendered. Twenty
men of the garrison were killed, and four shillings and
eightpence spent in bell-ringing for the victory. During
the siege a shi]) from Wales anchored at Watchet for
the relief of the g-arrison ; but the tide left it nearly
drv, and Popham's troopers, who were literally liorse-
marines, rode into the water and took the ship.

Omitting all modern history of the most interesting
castle, church, and town of Dunster and its lords, it
should be noted that since the ( ivil War many great
alterations have inevitably been made. In 17 6 a
carriage -drive was made around and up the castle hill,
being further extended, in 1763, with a bold sweep
ascending- to a new front door on the north-west side of
the house, the former front door being on the other side,
on the slope. Important additions were made to the
castle in recent years. Tlie tower on Conygar hill,
which is such a conspicuous landmark at the other end
of the village street, was built in 1775. and in 1825 the
timber-sheds in the main road were swept away, to its
immense improvement.

The Dunster estate corresponds very closely with
that which the Luttrells bought from the Mohuns in
the reign of Edward III., augmented by lands inherited
at Quantockshead and Withycombe. The family arms
generally used were a bend V)et\veen six martlets, but in
the course of time many differences and variations were
adopted. The crest was a fox, and it is amusing to
read in the chapter on the heraldry in the book above
quoted, that when Sir John Lutn-l]. about 1428, took
an otter for his badge, the lawyers oljjected. They
would naturally prefer a fox. It would seem that the
family name may originally have been Norman, meaning
" little otter."

The beautifully illustrated " Loutrell " psalter that is
well known to antiquaries as showing the dress, armour,

2i6 PILdlUMAGES TO OLD HOMES

and arms of its period, was illuminated for Sir Geoffrey
of Iriiham, Lincolnshire, about 1340. Under the head-
ing, " Dns Galfridus Louterell me fieri fecit," he, his
horse, wife, and daughter are represented in full dress,
every inch bedecked with bends and martlets.

Of all the stately homes of England that in our
little wanderings we have seen, Dunster Castle is the
most beautifully stately. The grand houses in the
classic style of Grecian temples or Italian palaces where
many of our English nobles dwell convey no sense of
home to me. They are too stift' and formal for happi-
ness. Comfort could not exist in their frigid grandeur.
The nooks and corners of the many-gabled, timbered
halls of Cheshire and the country round are the homes
for cosy comfort ; or the old gardens where the roses
grow on the walls of the house, and the twilight brings
again the sad and happy memories.

The castle at Dunster has grown with the times, its
stones bearing record to the cha.nges in the liome life
of Englishmen. Graduallv has the fortress become
the comfortable home. No modern sham or classical
monstrosity is here ; neither has the name of castle
or fimily been changed. Morris has not assumed tlie
name and arms of De Montmorency, Vilikins of De
Winton, Hunt of De Yere, or Smith and Jones the
many aristocratic aliases under which they hide.
Louterel is Luttrell still though spelt in many ways,
and the time-honoured Lutrell of Dunster is infinitely
better than any name or title mixed up with the
ridiculous Norman " de."

In the beginning, or as near to it as we can get,
the Tor, or steep rock (possibly the Tor on the downs,
or Dunestor), was the fortress of prehistoric man.
Its crown or summit is now a garden lawn with nothing
more excitinix than a o-ame of bowls where once the
arrows whistled and the bolts of tlie crossbow wliirred.
The castle's stones still show the work of Plantagenet,

.„

r^'

t^-i

,_-

br.

h:^

'—-'

2iS PILGIUMAGES TO OLD HOMES

Tudor, and Stuart times. Oii them are p-rafted all
that art and wealth can give. When the descendant
of a hundred knights and esquires showed me a fine
old ceihng, the view from the Avindow was all that
I could see. Scores of miles of land and sea in varying
light and shade lay far and wide before us. We were
literally pei-ched aloft as in an eagle's eyry with a drop
of some two hundred feet to the park below. On the
right came down the hills of Exmoor to a green and
fertile country. Beyond the ruined Abbey of Cleeve
were the Quantocks, where we had journeyed yesterday.
The isles of Flat-holm and Steep-holm, from whence
Danes ravaged and where hermits dwelt, were in the
glistening sea, and further still were the blue mountains
of Wales and the dim smoke-cloud of its coal.

Tliough this fair scene w^as so far spread and so
rare, the homely feeling of the room was not destroyed ;
perhaps it was strengthened by the simple fact that
tlie footman was removing ihe breakfast things from
the table by the window as we talked of the surrounding
beauty. The blackbird's mellow fluting seemed to say
that here was no Avearying of the golden hours. By
the narrow terrace walk the lauristinus from the shores
of the Mediterranean, the fig-tree of Persia, the camelHa
of China, the Choisya or Mexican orange-flower, the
pampas grass of South America, the Chusan palm of
the isles of the Pacific, flourished luxuriantly ; ^A'hile
on the castle's walls were the flowers of the creeper
known as " lobster claws," and the ripe lemons lunig
in the open air. In England now.

From Bath to Dunster we had joiu'neyed up and
down this land of the Somer-seat. It had been a week
of hard work, of great enjoyment and instruction.
Begun in the wet and ending in wet, the weather had
been fairly good and we had escaj^ed accidents. After
Dunster all would appear tame, and we were homesick ;
so we took the train to Taunton to go on by the

DUNSTEK

219

northern express for home. As one corner of the
land is "wedded to immortal verse," let me end with
some of it learnt more than fifty years ago and well
remember'd : —

" He jn-ayetli well, wLo loveth well,
Both man and bird and beast;
He prayeth best, who loveth best.
All things both great and small :
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

OUTSIDE THE BEDROOM DOOR

COMPTON WYNYATES

THE old liome of the Comptoiis at (/Omptou
Wynyates, or Winyates, has been so belauded
bv enthusiastic searchers for the picturesque
that it seemed to be our bounden duty to
journey thither and see if it were worthy of the praise
that has been bestowed upon it. It is very beautiful.
Architect or artist may see this ideal media? val home,
dream about it and despair, for the realisation of their
fondest dreams could not surpass it. If they built the
like, thev would be o-one long^ before Time's etlacincr
fingers had toned the modern work. It is safe from
the tourist crowd, for it is miles away from everywhere,
hidden in a hollow in the hills. Its seclusion has saved
it, for the wealthy restorer, who may be the architect
of his own fortune but of nothing else, prefers to live
nearer to a railway station, and the nol)le owner pre-
serves it Ijut lives elsewhere.

Our railway tickets were taken for Warwick as we
intended to cycle from there, but at Milverton junction,
which is near to Warwick and to Leamino-ton, the
guard advised us to go to the latter ; so on we went,
and found our bikes had been put on the platform of
the junction while we were talking, and therefore we
had to return at once for them. A tvre had burst
(possibly with the heat of the sun), but we rode on to
Leamincrton and booked for Banburv. X had a new
tyre on his machine, and while we waited I suggested
having some Banljury cakes, but he shuddered and
turned pale. He had had some of those famous cakes

222 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

many years ago, and well remembered them. He asked
me to keep far from liim if I ate any, or we should both
be ill.

"Ride a cock 'oss to Banbury Cross
To see a fine lady ride on a white 'oss,
With rings on lier fingers, and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes."

We found the Cross and also the lieindeer Inn,
where there is a fine Jacobean court -room with great
window and orioinal hicrh table, from which to have
lunch. For worldly-minded pilgrims an inn is more
useful than a cross. On sale are postcards and pictures
of many sizes, showing the court-room, as it is and as
it was, when some gallant cavalier was being tried by
the psalm - singing puritans. The gallant cavalier is
naturally a fine young gentleman in light blue stockings
with flowing golden locks, while his ugly persecutors
are in solemn black ; for if the artist's sympathies were
not on the side of the wealthy, they had to be sup-
pressed or the picture would not sell.

Leaving Banbury, we went ofl" into the lanes of
Warwickshire, guided by a map and faith. We had no
fear of losing our way on a sununer's day and in a
cultivated country, for we had found places i'nv more
outlandish than any that could be in that famous little
country. The country did not seem to me to be as
fertile as I expected. The trees were not over-luxuriant ;
the barley had a bluish tinge, aiid the land generally
looked dry. X had another small accident with his
bike, and not wishino- to disturb him while he tinkered
at it, I sat on a gate and ate ]3an])ury cakes, but nuist
confess that they, being all currants and puff, w^ere not
as wholesome as the fat bacon or the apples of other
years.

As we were carefully going down a very steep and
narrow lane shaded by woods and high hedges, we
suddenly got a glimpse of Compton-in-the-hole, as once

2 24

PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

it was called, in the field or park below us. The name
is interesting, for Winyates is said to be, and probably
is, a corruption of " vineyards." There are many places
named Compton, and in these days they need an
additional name. Here, in the sheltered valley, or cwin
of the British, the wandering Saxon settled to found his
town, and as the English grew in luxury they planted
vinevards. But the native wine would be far too weak
for the native taste. They could make it much better
from gooseberries than from grapes, and even Puritans
^^ould prefer home-brewed ale or cider to sour wine.
Therefore the vineyards were abandoned, probably at
the time of the Reformation, and we may proceed.

A short avenue of gigantic trees leads to a sj^acious
lawn and a fine old house of many colours. It is very
difi'erent from the timber-built halls of Pitchford,
Speke, or Moreton, that we have pictured before ; they
are black and white ; this is a harmony in greys
and browns, of many styles, and of many materials.
Sculptured stone, moulded brick, carved timber, all are
there. From mottled roofs rise twisted chimneys, spiral,
fluted, clustered, zigzagged. Snow-white doves, all pure
from smoke, are perching on them. Roses cluster round
the windows, lichens deck the walls. Glorious sunlight
and cool shade seem to blend in one harmonious whole
— a fine old English home.

About 1 5 19 Sir William Compton, who was a
companion of Henry the Eighth, built this house, partly
from the ruined Fulbrook Castle which stood in the
park where Shakspere did his bit of poaching. The
magnificent timber roof of the lofty hall probably came
from there ; and behind the screen is a spacious
minstrels' gallery in black and white. The gatehouse
is elaborately ornamented with armorial bearings,
heraldic monsters, flowers, fruit, and lizards, all chiselled
in relief on the stone. The well-known portcullis is
there, and what we are told are the triple- towered Castle

COMPTOX WINYATES

226 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

of Castile, and the pomegranate of Granada, sliow that
Katharine of Aragon was in favour when this great
work was done. The well-worn doors are decorated
with the linen pattern, and in the gateway itself there
is much to see and study. Through it the Earl of
Northampton and his three sons went to the light at
Edgehill with tlieir well-equipped regiment of green-
coats, and against it seven hundred soldiers of the
Parliament sat down in siege. Of course they
plundered all things and destroyed tlie church. Tlie
Compton monuments they threw into the moat, but as
they foiuid some pots of money sunk there Providence
must have helped them.

A renuiant of the moat is left, but Avhere it wound
around the house is now a level lawn. The cliurch has
been rebuilt, and there are lovely gardens. An enor-
mous clematis, with a trunk like an anaconda stranelintj-
another tree, attracts my attention ; also the yellow
jessamine. Roses are everywhere ; in fact we had
ridden through miles of tliem. Tliey seem to revel
in AVarwickshire.

Civil war is not the only strife whereby this fine
old house was lost. The armour and furniture and
^50,000 worth of timber, we are told, were sold to pay
election expenses, and that sounds dreadfully prosaic
and modern to a fellow-sufferer.

It was in the good old days when members of
Parliament were openly treated or bribed, and electors
" lived like fighting-cocks," with the extra expense of
strong drink (which the cocks wisely declined). Even
then tliere was something more ruinous than elections,
for when Lord William Compton was to marry the
great heiress, Miss Spencer, she drew up a list of her
demands, from which I make the following few extracts.

" £ I 200 a year, pin-money. Three saddle liorses, two
gentlewomen each to have a horse, six or eight gentle-
men and two coaches lined with velvet and four pairs of

IttiM.

THE tJATKHOL'^SK OK FRONT UOOR

THE TKRRACK (;ARDEX

A DEAR WIFE

229

horses. Spare coaches and horses and coach for gentle-
women, for it would he undecent for them to he mump-
ing alone. Washmaids, laundrymaids, chamhermaids, a
gentleman usher and two footmen, twenty gowns, ^6000
for jewels, and ^4000 for a pearl chain, silver warmijig
pans, &c., &c. ' You ' to pay all wages. ' You ' to pay all
dehts. And all to he douhled when ' vou ' are an Earl."
What a A-ery dear wife I In our salad davs we
were told that no one is poorer for heing married, for

THE CO UXCIL-CH AMBER

the wife shares all the trouhles and expenses and
douhles the comforts.

An oak tahle was left, twentv- three feet lono^ ;
perhaps no one would huy it, and it would he too
hard to chop or hurn.

Yerv interesting is the inside of the house to any
one who can read the liandwriting of the walls and see
why it was built as it was built. (.)ne who has spent
many liours of many years in council-chambers never
saw a council-chamber anything like to this. Subtle

p 2

230 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

brains must have schemed it for terribly troublous
times. In a tower, aloft, above the house, is a small
room that appears to comprise all one floor of the
tower. No one can look in, or listen at the windows.
There are six doors, more or less hidden in the panel-
linof. One flio-ht of stairs p'ives access from below, and
only one ; but there are three separate flights that give
retreat upwards. Why are there three all going up-
wards \ That is rather puzzling. They are all s})iral,
and easily could l)e defended. The hunted might come
down one as the hunters were seeking him up another.
There is a priest's room above, with three little windows
all looking different ways, and there is another hiding-
hole at the back of the big fireplace where some one
might have a warm time as his foes were searching for
him. Our guide had told us of six doors, and as I want
to thoroughlv understand it all, he shows another secret
closet where, through a tmp-door in the floor, a fugitive
might be let down by ropes to the level of the outer
OTound or moat.

What intense excitement tliev must have had in
those "good" old days I (Jur little squabbles are tame
to theirs. We oo into our council-chambers secure from
bodilv harm, fearing only the depression caused by the
dreary drip of oft-repeated declaration. The mischief-
monger who for hatred or malice, or, it may be, for mere
desire for notoriety, seeks to rob us of our good name or
of life itself, for "you take my life when you do take the
means whereby I live," changes the dagger of the assassin
for the envenomed letter in an luiscrupulous press.

This fine old house has many mysterious or sus-
picious bits that are interesting. Recesses and cup-
boards innumerable, seventeen stairways, it is said, and
two hundred and seventy-five glazed windows. There
are long, dark passages where the boards of the floor
could be removed so that the unwary miglit tumble
down and break their own neck without any one being

^>.S^;i|S

232 PlLGPvIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

to blame. Very daiio-eroTis places ibr friend or foe. A
long range of rooms in tbe roof is called the barracks,
for troops were hidden here and fed by Lady Compton
when men were mnstering for the Civil War. On the
gronnd floor is a chapel with fine old carved oak, wliite-
washed oak and panelled drawing-room for a gallery.
Higher up is another chapel. A nice arrangement,
so that the one for tlie faith that ^vas fashionable
at the time could be used and the other closed ; or
that warlike (Jhristians of difterent creeds might avoid
quarrelling by worshipping one above another.

We were rather hurried over these chapels and
drawing-rooms and hiding-holes all mixed up in bewilder-
ing confusion. It is said that bricked-up skeletons have
been found and spirits come again. Well-^^'orn tales
for curates to tell at Christmas-tide. There is no need
of them here. As the sun of a o-lorious summer shines
into theKe hidden holes we cannot help seeing what
terrible troubles we have escaped. Tlie bitter feuds, the
deadly hate, the scheming brains that caused these cun-
ningly devised chambers, these secret stairs, labyrinths
of dark j)assages, holes for stowaways, have gone the
way of all the eartli, but tlie old home has not yet gone.
The rol)ber hawk may l)uild its nest in safety, or the
cunning fox burrow with more exits than one, but some
day strangers come to poke and ])ry about their habi-
tations and to wonder at them. Here the towers and
gables of this once-fortified hall stand erect, more
beautiful than ever now they are toned by lichen, moss,
and time ; and more interesting from the fratricidal
strife of our fathers that once bespattered them with
blood and left its marks of ruin on creeper-clad walls
and bullet-battered door, but has long since ceased —
ceased for ever, let us hope.

All these moralisino-s on other times and other

manners do not affect the cares that so constantly beset
us in our little wanderings. Though we have not this

234 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

day to catch another train, we have to find lodgings
for the night ; and where, oh where can we have some
tea ? This craving for tea becomes intense. There is
not a pubhc-house for miles, and when we come to
one we are told they only sell beer. X asks if I ate
all the Banbury cakes, and chuckles as he says, " You
may w^ell want your tea." If there had been any
cakes left, he might have been tempted and fallen.
Somehow we struggle on to Shipston-on-Stour, and
have a very pleasant ride on a good road towards
Stratford on -Avon. We had tried to plan a route by
the fimous battlefield where England's king first met
his English subjects in fair fight. Edgehill is only
about six miles from Compton Winyates, but it w^as
further round, and Ave went wrong at some of the
confusing corners in twisting lanes.

About midAA'ay between Shipston and Stratford I
noticed a finger-post pointing to the left and marked
Armscott. The name reminded me that at the manor-
house there George Fox, the Quaker, was arrested, and
the house still stands with its orio^inal hidino^-hole.
We hesitated to leave our good highroad and go down
a country lane, for it was after eight o'clock and the
light was fading ; so we kept steadily moving on for
Shakspere's town, and gained it as darkness settled
over all.

After supper we strolled about, and in the church-
yard a little owl chattered at us continually. I threw
my cap up towards it, but it only chattered and gruml)led,
flying from one perch to another. It looked less and
different from " The moping owl that to the moon
complains," and might Ije the bird known as " The
little owl." It might well scold. Where the river
placidly glides past that world-famous church in tlie
ghostly moonlight, X actually wanted to smoke. It
seemed such a desecration. I told him it was time
honest folk were abed.

BADDESLEY CLINTON

SHAKSPERE"S town is so well known all over
the earth that it seems to me superfluous to
notice it here. We took one photograph of the
house where we had slept, as the timbers in the
bedrooms seemed old enough and strong enough to
have been there when the great man was walking in
his native town, and that is more than can be said of
the ugly brick cottages near to the birthplace which
have lately caused some warm discussions.

Our pilgrimage to-day is to Baddesley Clinton, a
secluded, lonelv place some six miles north of Stratford-
on-Avon. In its parish, in i 389, Adam Shakspere held
lands hv military service and left a son John. This is
probaljly an ancestor of the poet and the earliest re-
cord of the name. It has been surmised that Baddes-
ley Clinton was the moated grange in " Measure for
Measure," where Mariana's song of " Take, oh take those
lips away " was interrupted by the friar and Isabella.
Isabella Shakspere died in 1504, the prioress of Wrox-
hall, that being the adjoining parish.

We roll along a good road in pleasant country,
A finger-post points to the left to Snitterfield where
Richard Shakspere, the poet's grandfather, was a farmer,
and soon we come to Warwick, a town o'errun with
tourists. The Leycester Hospital is a quaint survival
of manv ages with memorials of many famous folk,
probably all known to the reader. At the stately
castle we try to take photogra})hs free from modern

crowds, but time witli us is pressing. By the cedars

236

WARWICK

THE LEYCESTER HOSPITAL

WARWICK CASTLE

240 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

oil tlie la\vn we wait, and the cries of a hen and
chickens in distress — a well-known cry to me — show a
bantam hen and her tiny brood being pecked to death
by the mischievous pea-fowl. Their cruel nature
teaches them to kill any hapless chicken, and though
I drove them away, they would soon return to the
torture. As personally conducted tourists we are
shown into the ooro-eous rooms of Warwick Castle, and
thev would have been interesting if we could have seen
them in peace ; but the remarks of the guide and the
e'uided irritated our nerves — all around there twanged
the American accent. We wearied of the grandeur,
and through a side-door fled before the half was shown
to us.

Then I bought two pounds of strawberries and asked
the way to Baddesley Clinton. X was anxious about
me and the strawberries, for he said they would make
any one ill, and could not possibly be carried, even if I
kept upright. But soon we sat on a bank in a country
lane, and as he timidly tried the fruit, it went with
his words, and fear lied before enjoyment.

After manv inquiries we found ourselves in narrow
lanes and fields approacliing the farmstead of a hall
and park that apparently we had gone round without
seeinc. Certainly there was nothing to show that
here, hidden away from all prying eyes, was one of
the most fascinating homes we had yet found.

A stone building of many ages rises straiglit up
from the waters of a square moat. Beyond the bridge
to it there is a massive door that was made in 1459,
the house having been attacked a few years previous.
The bill for this door is still in the house — fivepence a
dav having been paid to William Collett for working
at it, and elevenpence for " spykyngs " for it. The stone
j)ortal shows wliere the drawbridge ^^■ent and where
the porter stood to work it. Beyond is a courtyard,
now a jj-arden, where the arms of Ferrers are em-

BADDESLEV CLINTON'. FROM THE PAIIK

242 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

bLizoned in flower-beds, and the veronica, tlie rose,
and the jessamine lionrish. This little court or garden
Avas probably bounded by open galleries at some former
time, but there are none now, and on one side of it is
tlie moat.

We produce a letter of introduction, and are wel-
comed by one who, in the black cowled habit of the
Benedictines, looks like a living survival from the ages
that are gone and from the old homes whose pictur-
esque ruins we wander up and down to see. We are
shown all over the house — from turret to dungeon, from
chapel to kitchen. It has evidently been a cherished
home for centuries.

Inside the stone walls, and somewhere about the
level of the water in the moat, a passage runs all round
the house. Narrow slits, through which arrows could
be shot, are the only openings for light and air. At the
corner of the house furthest from the drawbridge (or
modern entrance) there is a small door that opens only
from the inside and directly on to the water. A long
plank lies ready in the passage adjoining, which can be
pushed through the trap-door across the moat to form a
brid^re for a fumtive. On other floors of the house are
secret chambers, hidden stairs, or ropes and pulleys, all
skilfully planned for concealment, defence, or escape.
One hiding-hole, where the bolts are inside the door
and the floor is false, is now used as a closet for pickles
and preserves, and it must be more satisfactory to all
parties to have them than to keep some poor priest
preserved, or perhaps in pickle.

The more modern parts of the house — a mantelpiece
being dated 1634 — are quite as interesting and certainly
more comfortable. They are crammed with the finest
old furniture, carvings, paintings, tapestry, china, books,
&c. A very uncommon and beautiful feature is the
stained glass in the windows. Some of it shows the
names as well as the arms of family alliances, and is

■O^^fcK

BRIDGE AND GATEHOUSE

Q 2

246 PILGlllMAGES TO OLD HOMES

of sixteenth-century date. A knowledge of the long
and romantic history of the Ferrers family is necessary
to appreciate the numerous emblazoned shields that
illuminate this old home, where in the last four hundred
years thirteen generations have lived and died.

A WINDOW IX THE HALL

Tile staineJ glass shows six shields of arms and insciiiilions below them. They are
probably aljoiit two hundred years old. On the fifth shield, Ferrers, Earl of Derby,
adopts the arms of Peverel (his mother), and impales his wife's, who was heiress of
Hugli Keveliok and Randle lllnndeville, by whom he obtained Chartley and all the
land between the J!ibl)le and the .Mei-sey.

Ferrers is one of the few names that has undoubtedly
survived from the time of the Normans. The first of
the name would ])robably be the Farrier of the Norman
invaders, and the first cognizance adopted by his de-
scendants was the well-known horse-shoe. After the
Battle of the Standard, in i i 39, Stephen the King made
Robert Ferrers Earl of Derby. Tamworth and Tut-
bury, with miles of wild forest countrv. were parts of the

TUK FIREPLACE IK THE HALL

Seven shields of arms commemorate many family alliances.

THE EXPIATION 249

estates. Chartley and all the lands between Kibble
and Mersey came to the wife of the fourth Earl on the
death of Randle Blondeville ; but Fortune played her
usual pranks, and the earldom of Derby went from the
Ferrers family. The barony of Groby also passed from
them, and in our day Chartley has been sold by auction.
It is a long and chequered history. Here it must suffice
to say that tenth in male descent from the first Earl of
Derby was the last Lord Ferrers of Groby, whose great-
grandson. Sir Edward Ferrers (about 15 i 5), married Con-
stance Brome, and with her got Baddesley Clinton.

A branch of the numerous Clinton family had owned
the old English manor of Baddesley from about 1250
to 1350, and their name clung to the place. Through
others it passed to John Brome, an ardent Lancastrian,
w^ho, in 1468, was stabbed in the porch of the Church
of the Whitefriars, London, by Herthill, the steward of
Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. His son Thomas
saw him "runne through and laughed att itt," but
Nicholas, the second son, bided his time for three years
and then slew Herthill.

Nicholas must have been a man of strong passions
and unbridled revenge, for in after years he " slew y^
minister of Baddesley church, findinge him in his parlor
chockinge his wife under y'' chinne, and to expiatt these
bloody crimes he builte y^ steeple and raysed y"^ church
ten foote hyher. ... I have seene y^ Kinge's pardon for
itt and y*" Pope's pardon and his penaunce there in-
joined him. . . . ' This original document of pardon dated
7 Mav 1496 "for all crimes . . . before 1485'' is still
at Baddeslev with the Great Seal of England attached.

Stranofe are the wavs of Justice. The man who is
wronged is punished, and the wealthy Church benefits.
But there is more wisdom in this judgment than would
appear at first sight. After four hundred years, the
name of Nicholas Brome is still on this church of his
expiation and on one of the bells he gave to it, and

THP] FEKREIIS FAMILY

-Do

there are in our country many congregations who would
be glad to have a new parson and a better church that
cost them nothing.

For many ^particulars here recorded I am indebted
to what was told us in the house and to a history of
Baddesley Clinton by Father Norris of Tamworth.
The Ferrers family have always clung to their old faith
with a tenacity as great as their love for their old home.
They have suffered and survived the long years of per-
secutions, fines, and cruelties. Here are a few extracts
from the diary of Henry, who lived in the house for more
than eighty years. On one Friday he dined with Sir
William on " tw^o carpes," which he may have caught
in the moat as he sat in his arm-chair in his parlour.
They were " boyled in water and sault and layd in
hotter v/ithout cheese or anythinges els.' On another
Friday he had "butter basted turneipes and a rosted
eo; and did eate brown bread and drink water." Another
time he had herrings and apples, so he might well live
to the age of eighty-four in spite of his troubles.

In 1643 the troops of the Parliament took out of
his stables a bright bay gelding that cost ten pounds,
and a grey-coloured mare. They also plundered the
hall and took all the arms, cash, a Geneva Bible valued
at eight shillings, and a new pair of black spurres, &c.
" Two yoke of very large oxen att xi£ per yoake and
eight melch kine at iij.£, vj.s, viij.d. y*" cow." Troops
were quartered on him many times for days together,
payments promised but never made, and ten pounds a
month paid as fines for years.

How strangely sounds the name of Marniion linked
with that of Ferrers ! Marmion conjures up visions of
the whirlwind charge and the war-cries of Flodden, or
the passionate bearding of " the lion in his den, the
Douglas in his hall." In his day this hall stood safe
within its moat with drawbrido^e to lower for friend or
raise for foe, and a Ferrers w^as coming to be its lord.

i ■ ,
1

i.. . * '

r ■ 4

''^<

y _

" '''■■■ ' A^-

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-"v CS ^ o

„ ,»~. 3

- ^ IJ .^

A COKNKR OF THE DKAWING-ROOM

The stained glass is insciilted with the names of Edward Ferrers and Briget
AVindesore, and the shield displays the impaled arms of Ferrers and Windsor. This
Edward was the grandson of the sir Edward whf> acquired Baddesley Clinton jure
uxoris. Lord Windsor had bought this Edward's wardship for ;£2oo when he was a
minor and married him to his daughter Bridget. He was the father of Henry.

256 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

In our day Marmion Ferrers of unbroken male descent
was here, heir male of the House of Ferrers, barons of
Chartley, lords of Tamworth and other places.

To study the antiquities and learn the history of this
unique old home of Baddesley Olinton would take weeks,
not hours only ; and as our minutes are swiftly flying, let
us note the passing scene as we rest and are thankful.

A low, old-fashioned room where the dim religious
light is brilliantly streaked with colour, azure, vert, and
or, where the sun's ravs shine throucrh the emblazoned
shields of generations of the family of Ferrers. The
silver horse-shoes on the sable field pale before the blood
red and the rich gold of later years. The oaken panelled
walls are almost hidden bv the works of art that liaiiof
around. The chairs of Chippendale look modern to the
fashion of Queen Anne and the still older seats of plain
hard oak. Priceless old square-marked Worcester china,
tapestry, paintings, antique books abound. The drowsy
air of a summer afternoon is redolent with roses. The
waters of the moat are lapping on the walls below the
open windows. At times we hear the splash of a rising
fish or the gentle quacking of ducklings as they chase
the flies upon the water. The twittering swallows dart
around for their prey, and the swans add their harsh
croak. Three men are at the table, talking over tea.
The host is a Benedictine Dom in the cowled black habit
of his order. He is versed in the learning of Oxford
and the Church, with a fair knowledge of the outer
world. Another is a Puritan in knickerbockers, a
Passive Pesister, who is willing to suffer for conscience'
sake, but whose little trials fade into utter nothingness
before the fiery persecutions sufiered by those whose
faith he fears ; persecutions to which the secret chambers
and the walls of this old home bear silent testimony.
Extremes have now met, and it seems there is very
little to quarrel about. A fellow-feeling makes us
wondrous kind.

-!-:»

S 2

258 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

The third man is merely a nondescri})t mentally
taking notes ; but there is a fourth Avho should be men-
tioned, for in quaint epauletted livery of black is a
butler whose mien is that of a family servant — not one
that is bought with mere wages, but a survival irom the
times when servants were serfs or chattels, bred and
reared on, and part of, the estate. In thorough harmony
with the place is the Lady of the Manor, a handsome,
courteous elderly lady whose time is spent in works of
charity, and who comes to say a few words of welcome
not only for this day but also for another.

The discussion on religious persecution turns to the
martyrdom of Father Ambrose, alias Edw^ard Barlow,
an account of whose life another Benedictine intends
to write. As these words are being written in the Old
Parsonage, Didsbury, there comes a faint sound of
chanting from the church where Barlow was baptized
three hundred and twenty years ago, and the irrepres-
sible thought comes surging up : What was Didsbury
like then, and what will it be when as many years
have again passed over it '.

How swiftly time flies is often brouo-ht home to us.

In our happy hour it seemed to me the grossest pro-
fanity to utter the horrid words, "Birmingham train";
but it must be done, even if the delicious spell were
broken and our time of trial come. I almost feared
that at the words the solid priest would vanish through
the oaken panelling into the secret chambers that he
knew so well ; that the water of the moat would hiss
and dry away ; and the scent of the roses change into
the stench of the filthy streets of Birmingham, where,
with clang and clatter, engines, belching forth black
smoke, draw hideous cars along pi'ojecting tram-lines.
Stinking mud, some inches deep in places, hides these
dangerous ruts and lines, and lucky was I to tumble in
it only once ; but desperately we struggled through the
grimy horrors, glad to find th(^ comparative comfort of a

^ a;

26o PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

train, X bought evening papers and soon passed one
to me, saying, " There was nothing in it." I promptly
threw it through the open windo^^•, asking him if he had
so soon foro'otten the first hue of that motto over the
portal of tlie chapel in the home we had just left :

" Transit Gloria Muxdi."

A CORNER OF THE II ALL

The stiiiiied glass is inscrilifil with tlie iiaiiies ami dates and shields nf impaled
amis of :

"Walter Giffaid— Philip Whyte. Anno Donii 1588.
Thomas Scvdamnr — Agnes Whyte. Anno Donii 1585."

The three sisters and co-heirs, Jane, Philippa, and Agnes Whyte or White married
Henry Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, Walter Gitfard of Chillington, and Thomas
Scudaniore of a Herefordshire family.

THE HOUSE OF THE SKULL
WARDLEY HALL

DURING our conversation with the Benedictine
Doni at Baddesley Clinton we had promised to
send him a photograpli of the skull of Father
Ambrose if we could get the requisite per-
mission, and I said, at the same time, there would Ije
less doubt about the permission than about our ability
to obtain a good photograph ; for I knew the skull was
kept in a hole in the wall on the staircase, with lixed
glass in front of it. There was very great difficulty in
focussing, for with all our best spectacles on there was
little or nothino- to see in the camera but the reflection

of the light from oif the glass. X prepared me for the
worst and then brought out a good photograph, as he
has often done before and since.

This is the onlv pilgrimage we have ever made
without our bicycles ; but as we were going through a
squalid suburb of the citv, it was more prudent to leave
them l)ehiiid. The reader shall not be trouljled with
any description of the miserable grimy streets of Sal-
ford. In a few miles we came to higher ground, with
fewer houses, but the people were no cleaner. A badly
worn paved road led through a blackened land dotted
with coal-pits, or mills, overhung with a dull pall of
smoke, through which the shrieking engines and the
clanging trams rushed on their hideous way. It was no
use trvino- to think that this wretchedness and wealth
were synonymous. The abomination of desolation
brooded over all, but an end came to our depression

262 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

when we turned a corner and suddenly found ourselves
before a bit from another century, or another country,
standing- alone as if it were forgotten and forlorn.

In a secluded nook in the bare low hills, partly
hidden l)y trees that are struggling for life and en-
vironed by the water of a moat on which wild ducks

THE SKULL OP EDWAKD BARLOW

(F.VTHKR Ambrose, O.S.B.)

are tamely resting, trying to uphold the air of sport
and respectable antiquity stands Wardley Hall, the
house of the skull. Like all the old houses it has been
built and rebuilt at many times and on the ruins of
many that have gone before it. Wherever there was
an island, or a peninsula that could be made into an
island, and on which a dwelling could be l)uilt, there our
earliest forefathers would be certain to make their

WARDLEY HALL 26

home. Because that liome was so safe, not only in the
petty wars that went on all down the long ages, but
in times of peace when any dark winter's night might
bring some dangerous guests. With drawbridge pulled
up the outer world was shut away, and within the last
century there was no access to Wardley Hall but by a
bridge that ended at a door. The drawing made by
N. G. Philips in 1822 shows the gatehouse as a timber-
framed building with high-pitched roof, having other
buildings of various dates and styles on either side of
it that rise from the edge of the water. There was more
black-and-white work when I first saw it than there
is now ; for, like many of the old manor-houses, it
had decayed into being a farmhouse with laljourers'
cottages, but now all has been restored and reconverted
into a gentleman's residence.

There were three generations of the Downes family
who lived at Wardley, and as all the histories, true
and untrue, connect them with the skull, I will try to
disentangle and make plain the facts. From their con-
versions and perversions the family seem to have been
rather eccentric. The first Roger married, twice, Catholic
wives, and embraced their relisfion. The second Rop-er
died young. The third was brought up in the English
Church, but was no credit to it. His mother was a
daughter of Sir Cecil Trafford of Traftbrd, who was a
Protestant. Sir Cecil argued so much about religion
with the first Roger that he himself 'verted to Romanism;
that is, instead of " mn converting um, um converted
um." In mv vomio^er davs we v.-ere delighted with the
arithmetic and altrebra of Colenso. Then we heard the
great man was made a bishop and had gone to con-
vert the heathen. The next tale was that he applied
his arithmetic to the measurements of Noah's ark ; found
that all the animals from the elephant to the kangaroo
could not possibly be got into it ; and finally the Kafiirs
converted him. Great are the powers of arithmetic !

266 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

The histories generally say the skull at Wardley is
that of Roger Downes, alluding to the third of the name.
He was the son of John Downes and Penelope Traflford,
his father dying when he was very young. As he grew
to manhood he became what was then termed a rake or
roysterer. It is said tlie name " rake " was given to those
who, if they saw the reflection of tlie moon in water,
Would rake for it, or for anything else. He was in a
drunken brawl at Epsom Wells and was killed at the age
of twentv-eight. With some friends he was having what
is now called a "lark" or "spree." They were tossing
some fiddlers in a blanket for not fiddling as they were
ordered. Then they broke the constable's head. " Y^
constable cried out murther and one of y'' watch came
behind Mr. Downs and with a spittle staft' cleft his scull.
Y*" Lord Rochester and y" rest ran away and Mr. Downs
having noe sword snatched up a sticke and strikinge
at them they run him into y*^ side with a half })ike and
soe bruised liis arme y^ he wase never able to stir
it after." It could not matter much about bruising his
arm if his skull was cleft and he had a half pike in his
side. They brought him Ijome and buried him at Wigan,
doubtless with all solemn pomp and in the full odour of
sanctity. His head was said to be kept at Wardley.
Then, in after years, there were doubts about this head.
Other lords or squires came into possession of the estate
and did not want to have an old skull knocking about.
But they had to kee}) it. They opened Roger's grave to
make sure about him, and found his head was fast to his
skeleton all right, excepting a bit that had evidently
been chipjied off the top. Whose, then, was the famous
skull ? If anything was done to it, or it was not treated
with proper respect, such commotions arose about the
house that no one dare live in it. Windows were blown
in, cattle pined in the stall, and the things were be-
witched. A friend of mine, who was shooting by the
side of the moat, saw a rabbit lise up from below^ the

268 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

water, swim across, and disappear, he being too scared
to shoot. It miofht have been a hare or a cat, as those
uncanny beasts were always connected with witchcraft,
and there was only its head to see. If that had been
shot the skull would have been injured. Some reckless
scapegrace once tlu'ew the skull into tlie moat to be
rid of it. Init all the water had to be drained off and the
treasure restored, while countless troubles haunted him.
There is plenty of testimony to the ill luck that has
happened when the skull has been disturbed ; and this has
not come from the superstitious only, l)ut from shrewd,
observant men of business, whose word is as good as
their bond, and whose truthfulness is fully equal to, or
rather better than, that of the average man, including
lawyers and parsons.

In this agfe of acrnosticism it is as well to record
another instance in this neighbourhood of disturbance
to a skull bringing ill luck to all around. At Tunsted,
near Chapel-en-le-Frith. which is about twenty miles east
from Didsbury, there is a similar relic which was so
shocked at the profanity of the navvies who were mak-
ing a line of railway from Whaleyl)ridge to Buxton,
that it sunk or blasted their A^ork as fast as it was
done, and the contractors deviated the line to escape
from its sphere of influence. All the powers of steam
and science were mocked by the refusal of the navvies
to endure the ill luck and to work under the ban of
"old Dicky's" skull. This also is in my lifetime and
neighbourhood.

I l)elieve the skull at Wardley to be that of Edward
Barlow, of whom I wrote in my last book, page 384,
and now refer the reader to the chapter on Barlow Hall.
Although it is only three years since that was written
another chano-e has come : the district has amalo^amated
with the neighbouring city, and Barlow Hall is now in
the Didsbury ward of the city of Manchester.

In tlie Didsbury Church registers there is still in

270 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

existence tlie entry or record of the baptism on the
thirtieth of November

y^no J^Onvixr 7S?5".

-£7'=^l^c^(/^/^_^/' j£^ ^ ,o

O ^

FACSIMILK OF EM'llY

The Barlows of Barlow were a long-settled family who
kept to their old faith at the time of the Beformation.
On the sundial and on the chapel window of the present
house is the date 1574. Ten years after this rebuilding
the house was searched for priests, and the master, who
was ill, taken to prison in Manchester. It is said that
he 'verted his custodian, but he soon died and was
buried within a few yards of where I write. He was
the grandfather of Edward. His son was also called
Alexander, and became a kniglit. He had been married
at four years old ; renounced that child-wife, and married
Mary, the daughter of Sir Uryan Brereton of Hon-
ford, now called Handf )rth, a fine old black-and-white
hall five miles south of Didsbury, an account of which
shall be given in another chapter.

Edward Barlow became Father Ambrose, a Bene-
dictine, and acted as a priest in the Iloman Catholic
Church when it was unlaw^ful to do so in England.
On Easter Day 1641, as he was preaching at Morleys
Hall, " a neighbouring minister," probably from Eccles
or Leigh, in his surj^lice and with a mob arrested him,
ransacked the house without warrant, and sent him
with armed escort to Lancaster Gaol ; that is, they

THE MARTYRDOM 271

left their own devotions to stop the other fellow's.
"The better the day the better the deed" parsons will
tell you when it suits them. On Easter Day 1871 the
bishop was to preach at Didsbury, and I, as churchwarden,
was standing by the church door before service when
a stranger came and bought a sitting of game-fowl
eggs, for which he paid me live shillings. I told the
rector, who was shocked at trading on the Sabbath,
but thought the best thing to do was to put the
money in the collection. So the man got the eggs ; the
Church got the money, and I got absolution — all at
the joyous Eastertide.

Barlow was tried at the Assizes for being a Romish
priest when the king had commanded all priests to
depart the realm. This shifty king, or Sacred
Majesty, wath all his progeny, had to rely mainly on
the Catholics when they were in trouble. Careless and
faithless, their turn came. The judge argued with the
priest and told him of his power ; but Barlow, acknow-
ledging himself to be a priest, replied: "If, my lord,
in consequence of so unjust a law, you should condemn
me to die, you would send me to heaven and yourself
to hell." It vexes lawyers to be told they will go to
hell, for there are doubts about there being such a place
for anybody. Barlow was sentenced to be hanged,
drawn, quartered, and boiled in tar. How the neighbour-
ing "ministers," strong in the "odium theologicum," would
enjoy the spectacle ! They followed him, as he was
dragged on a hurdle to the gallows, trying to 'vert
him, and doubtless thanked God that they themselves
were of sound doctrine. I wonder wdiether they wore
their surplices for the ceremony.

The martyr's head would be impaled on high where
he was taken, or on the nearest place of Christian
worship. Morleys Hall is about five miles from Wardley,
the Tyldeslev family having owned both places. Francis
Dowries, son of the first Roger and uncle to the third,

2-2 PILGKIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

was then the Lord of Wardley. He was a strong
CathoHc, and is believed to have rescued the head of

STAIRCASE. SHOWING WHERE THE SKULL IS FIXED

Barlow. The tale of it being- the head of Roo-er was
proljably spread to throw the relic-hunters off the
scent. 8ir Alexander, the brother of Edward Barlow%
appointed "my lovinge cosen Roger Downes of Wardley
esquier A^ice chaniberlaine of the coujitie pallatvne of
Chester to bee overseer " of his will, lioo-er died before
either of the Barlows ; but they were evidently related,
and the relic treasured by Roger's heir. The \\onder is.
How has it been in-eserved through all these vears of
indifference and unbelief, and surrounded hy coal-})its {

There are more skulls in our old halls than the
ordinary mortal knows. Englishmen do not like to
parade the skeleton in the cupboard. Perhaps tlie
tirst genuine pilgrimage I ever made was to Townlev
Hall to see the head of Colonel Townley, who was

SKULLS

''-n

executed with Captain Fletciier in the '45. At tirst,
I was told, it was not there — they knew nothing about
it : Init after some Httle talk the butler told nie it was

TOP OF THE STAIRS

under the altar in the private chapel, and I carefully
handled and examined it. The teeth were perfect,
excepting the two front ones, thev having probably
been taken to wear as a charm ao-ainst toothache
by some philosopher.

At Browsholme in Bowland, where the fainilv of
Parkers have dwelt f>r centuries, there is an ancient
skull, but none of a })arty of antiquaries could tell
anything about it. A medical man thought it had
been a woman's, and priests were present, but nothing-
was told us. A notable relic in the house is the stirrup
or doof oauo-e throuo-h which all doo-s in the Forest
of Bowland had to pass.

Here are a few thouo-hts from the solitude of a
dreamer on the dreamless head of Barlow. AA e have
most of us heard or read of martyrs. Many of the

274 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

tales are sadlv lacking in realism or apparent truth ;
but when a case occurs among our own people, and in
our own neighbourhood, it certainly does come home to
us. A short walk from this Old Parsonage, Didsbury,
down the meadows by the banks of the river Mersey,
takes one to Barlow Hall, where, in country phrase,
Edward Barlow was bred, born, and reared. Booms he
lived in are there now. Within a few yards of wdiere
this is written he was baptized and the kindred of the
Barlows lie ; the family had given priests to this church
of Didsbury centuries before. The names of the scenes
and of the actors in the dark trao-edy are familiar to us.
There are to-day men of the name and lineage of Barlow
of Barlow toiling as day labourers on the land which
bears their name and of which their fathers once were
lords. In our public life to-day we meet men whom we
may know and work with for years without knowing of
what sect they are or what creed, if any, they profess.
Education or indifference increaseth mutual toleration.
To learn how " these Christians love one another," go to
church or mix in the affairs of the CUiurch. As it was
in the beoinninp: it is now. At the oreat festival of the
Christian's year, Easter (not the Passover), Barlow was
arrested without warrant, in a private house, by a mob
headed by a rival priest in his surplice. A})parently
this rival priest wore his sacerdotal vestment to show
that he was doing the work of the Lord on His Holy
day and needed not the sanction or help of the law.
They brought no accusation against him, excepting the
one that he was a Bomish priest — which he acknow-
ledged. He was a hard-working, frugal ascetic, who
would not look at a woman and abstained from flesh and
winGj for he said "wane and women make the wise
apostatise." If he had done endless rapes and nuu'ders
he could not have been condemned to a more horrible
death than the priests and lawyers forced on him.
Milton's " two-handed engine " had to smite more than

IT IS FINISHED"

275

once to quarter the Ijody before it was tlirown in the
boihng tar. A fringe of dark chestnut hair escaped even
that until recent years.

" This skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once."
Even on the gallows it was heard in the '" Miserere" ere
it was hushed in death.

All this happened in our little corner of Merry
England two hundred and sixty-four years ago. The
time is short, l)ut tlie changes are many. They are
many even in my time — what will they be in another
century or two ?

"The bruib'd helm hung up for monument "
A. WAR-WORN THANK-OFFERING FROM A NEIGHBOURING CHURCH

WORCESTER

OUR autumnal pilgrimage this year was to
Worcester, "The Faithful City" of the
ivoyalists, "the crowning mercy" of the
Puritans. liound its old walls are battlefields
of Englishmen, time-worn homes, names familiar to all
who ever read our literature or learn our history. In
its neio'hbourhood are Evesham, where was one of our
earliest fights for freedom ; Tewkesbury — if any one has
not read his Shakspere " his wit's as thick as Tewks-
bury mustard," or as tart as the cider they gave us in
the coffee tavern there ; Huddington, a centre of the
ever-famous Gunpowder Plot ; and other fine old homes
we saw, and many more there are we had not time nor
streno-th to see.

We went by train, intending to alight at Kidder-
minster and cycle on, but the weather had turned to
heavy rain, and we kept our seats for Worcester.
Leaving our things at an hotel, we went at once to
the flimous china-works, where we should be sheltered
from the wet and interested in the china. The nuiseum
is the only one at any works tliat shows specimens of
the continuous products of their manufacture, and the
adherence to oriental designs in all the earlier makes is
very striking. We saw the whole process, beginning with
the bones and the clay that prove tlie truth of the potter's
proverb —

"We i)Otter.s make our pots
Of what we [)otters are."

Sometimes they sadly add — -

"And, like our pots, we break."

276

KING JOHN 277

X5 for a pint mug should not be a breaking price for
the maker and seller. I contented myself with teacups
and saucers Avith my favourite game-fowls painted on
them. X met old friends in the royal lily pattern.

From the china-works we went to the cathedral.
1 had seen them several times before in my Cheltenham
College days when holidays were generally spent at
Worcester, Tewkesbury, or Gloucester. A well- re-
membered boys' tale was that of the skin of the Dane
being on the door of the crypt, and the history of the
burial of Kina* John. Before his time the Norman
kings when dead had merely been salted like bacon,
but John was so precious they embalmed him, dressed
him in all his finery with his sword in his hand, and put
a monk's cowl over his head, so that when some spirit
from another world found him, it would see the cowl
and know that he must have been religious. Time
mocked the emlmlmment, for when some men looked at
him a few years since sword and hand had crumbled
into dust, and one of them saw a maggot which he said
was just the thing for a fish, and hurrying with it to
the river, he soon caught a salmon, and w^anted more.

We also went to the old house known as the
Commanderv, which we left in disgust. The charge
for admission was willingly paid, l)ut the charge of a
guinea for each exposure made in photographing was
rather " too thick." We were told nothing was allowed
to be copied, sketched, or measured, though we might
see the hole where King (Jharles hid and the mantel-
piece hidden from CJromwell. As there is not the
slio-htest evidence that either the king or Oliver were
ever in the house, and we \\'ould not have taken the
trouble to measure or copy anything, we ^vere glad to
get safely out, and see, for nothing, spots undoubtedly
historic.

At the end of a little street there is a small square,
onee used as a corn-market, with an old house at the

s 2

2/8 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

further end, and a narrow passage beside it. Tliat is
the place where the young king made his last stand
in Worcester's famous fight ere he bolted down the
entry and fled all night northwards for Scotland,
morning's dawn finding Whiteladies, and his next

THE NAKROW ENTRY TO THE LEFT IS WHERE THE KING FLED
FROM THE FIGHT

nights were passed in Woolf's barn at Madeley and
with the Pendrills at Boscoljel.

The rain had hardly ceased in the morning and
mists hung thick upon the town and country as we
" held our course for Tewksbury." We began by train
and the weather cleared, A broad highway with grand

TEWKESBURY 279

margins of grass took us past the field where Clarence
stabbed and the Red Hose fell. At the abbey church
X was eager to take photographs, thougli he generally
shuns "state establishments." He would have set up
his camera iti the Holy of Holies, for it was surrounded
with the gorgeous tombs of Princes, Earls, Lords and
Knights, Abbots and Bishops, and most of these fine
folk were his ancestors, or some relation to them, but
what good they were to him I could not quite see.
Wearied with choice he rested a little while on tlie
grave of one of liis forefathers who had been hanged
at Hereford, and I photographed him there. His atti-
tude of meditation and mourning are more natural than
ecclesiastical, Ijut the picture as a whole is good, and
it shows the tomb on the right where the sculptured
skeleton has a mouse gnawing at its bowels, a snake
round its leg, and a snail and a toad in the shroud
at its neck. Perhaps tlie original of this skeleton did
not care to be with those other grand folk whose lives
W'Cre generally cut off short and sudden, for if they
survived the battle, there was the scaffold, poison, or
the dagger waiting for them.

Tewkesbury's fine church is a w^onderfully in-
teresting place. What a blessing it was bought by the
tow^n at the great robbery, when the lead and bells
w^ere valued at ^453 but the extraordinary excellent
sculptured stone -work was of no account. Its architec-
ture is amazing in its strength and massiveness, while
the chiselled stone is made to look like lace, and it
might all have perished. Within its consecrated walls
battle and murder had one great day of riot. The
abbot tried to stop the king in his slaughter, but the
king never had mercy. Any foe of his was killed as
soon as possiV)le, and he generally witnessed the murder.

Days might be v/ell spent in Tewkesbury and its
environs. We had only hours that flew too quickly, for
we had photographed more inside and round a church

THE NAVE OF TEWKESBURY ABBEY CHUKCH

TOMBS AND CHANTRIES OF —

1. Richard Bkauchamp, created Earl of Worcester after Aginermrt.

2. FitzHamon, Founder of the Abbey, and kinsman of tie Conqueror.

3. Sir Hugh i.e Dkspes.ser, whose mother, Eleanor, was heiress of

Gilbert de Clare, io*h Earl of Gloucester and Lord of Tewkes-
bury: killed at Bannocklmrn, and buried here.

BIETS-MOIiTON COURT 28

than we had ever done before, except at Tong. I had
arranged to be at Birts-Morton that afternoon, and the
place was hard to find, Ijeing somewhere on tlie road to
Ledbury. We crossed tlie Avon ])y the Black Bear Inn
and coursed through miles of* fertile country where the
apple-trees were propped to hold aloft their glorious
crop of fruit. AVe found the house, and it w^as worth the
finding ; but the day had gone very dark and gloomy,
making it impossible to photograph inside and spoiling
even the picturesque exterior.

The moated manor-house of Birts-Morton is of
many ages, its oldest part having l)een a Norman keep
and probably Imilt on an island, for even now the water
in the narrowed moat laps the walls of the older parts,
and for lono- it was the court-house of Malvern Chace,
the original door having for knocker what is said to be
a sanctuary ring. The room that was the court is
panelled round and decorated with the names and arms
of the Justices of the Peace, each of whom would sit
beneath his shield of arms. Some of the names are
still familiar. Sir John Scudamore, knight ; Sir Thomas
Throgmorton, knight ; Sir Henry Polle, knight ; John
Blount, of Eye, esquire ; William Rudhall, of liudhall,
esquire ; the Lord Copley, and others. A very fine
mantelj^iece had a hiding-hole Ijehind it, and most
curious relics have been rescued from the moat — horse-
shoes made like pattens that wlien shod on horses
would leave marks like tlie footprints of children, or the
slot of deer or cows. They would be used by fugitives
to throw pursuers off their track, and are interesting
records of the devious ways of our hunted forefathers in
the Merry England of not so very loug ago.

The old banqueting-hall is detached from the present
house and used as a store for cheese and apples. I
enjoyed the once familiar smell : a smell of plenty,
comforting in many an old coinitry hall. The cheese was
called cheddar, and some of the apples weighed a pound

OLD iiOL".-i: IN TEWKESBURY

CARDINAL WOLSEY 287

each. If any one thinks it easy to grow an apple to
weigh a pound, let him try. There was a badger-skin
and trophies of sport and vermin. On the moat we see
wild ducks and water-hens, and in it are five^sorts of
fish. Around it are old yews, prolific orchards, and
a fertile country, all appealing strongly to my taste.
A spaniel lies at the bottom of the stairs near to an
ancient shuftle-board table. We hear tales of ghosts,
legends, history — How are we to know legends from
history ?

The place was named Morton Court before the
Brutes or Birts added their name. Sir John Oldcastle
the Lollard, Hakluyts, Nanfans from Cornwall owned it.
Huskisson, who was killed at the opening of the first
railway, was born here. Cardinal Wolsey in his younger
days was tutor here, probably far happier in his nice
little antique room over the porch than he would be at
Hampton Court. He fell under the shadow of " The
Baofo'ed Stone" and thouoht his luck had p^one. "The
Bagged Stone" is one of the end peaks of the Malv^ern
hills, about two miles distant, and if its shadow falls
on Birts-Morton something dreadful is sure to happen.
It was soon evident to me that the shadow could be
projscted so far about midwinter only, and by the after-
noon sun. Thev answered, "Christmas was the time."
Tlie shadow fell upon the great cardinal long before

" He trol tlie ways of glory
And .sound?d all tlie dejiths and shoals of honour";

long b afore he

'' Shed a tear in all his miseries,"
and felt

" A jteaoe above all earthly dignities,
A still and (|uiet conscience."

One more little tale is of " The Bloody Meadow,"
where a duel ^vas fouo-ht about a ladv fair. One man

THE BANQUETING HALL, BIRTS-MORTON

NEW BRIDtJE AND OLD GATEWAY

290 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

was killed, and the other died, and the o-riet'-stricken
damsel left money for a sermon to be preached every
year for ever airainst the crime of duellino-. So s^reat
is the eloquence or the efficacy of the preaching that
there has never been another duel in that meadow
ever since.

Leaving the Conrt, we went to the adjoining church,
which was being lavishly decorated for the harvest
festival.

The parson kindlv showed the ancient monu-
ments, the alms-box, made from a piece of hollowed
oak, with three locks to it, and worth more than
all the money it could hold ; the sanctuary ring,
wdiich, he said, was genuine ; and this led to further
information, for the court-house, though adjoining
the church, is not in the same parish, and it is
tenanted by Methodists. When I told him we had
photographed the place, with the tower of the church
reflected in the moat, he seemed shocked at the
reflection ; that his tower should reflect itself un-
known to him in the waters of the Methodists was.
sad ; and a former rector, an Irish Orangeman, had
planted the churcliyard full of foreign trees. He
had my sympathetic condolences, hoping he would
soon fell all the foreign trees and preserve the very
curious alms-box and the genuine sanctuary ring. He
could aflbrd to let the Methodists have the shadow
while he had the substance.

This divided parish lacked the usual inn, and we
had to cycle many miles for tea, sustaining ourselves on
the way with the kindly fruits of the orchards. Some-
times the lanes were lined Mdth blackberries, at others
there were not even hedges, but open common with
comfortable farms beyond, and for miles alongside were
the Malvern hills, all glorious in the shaded tints of
evening. Darkness was coming on as we descended to
the little tow^n of Upton-on-Severn, crossed the river,,

lIUDDlXaTON COURT

A home of the Gunpowder Plot

T 2

294 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

and travelled fast across the flat and tamer land to
Worcester.

On the followino- mornino- we set off to find Hud-
dington, or Hodington, Court, one of the old homes
where the Gunpowder Plot was hatched. It is hard to
find now ; it was not found then, or perhaps it would
not be here to-day.

After cycling over miles of lanes, where the pears
and apples lay in the road, or dangling from the
overhanging boughs knocked against the face of
any passer-by, we turned down a narrow stony way
through sliadowing trees and suddenly came upon a
grey and ghostly house that took our breath away. It
looked unreal, as Stokesay and some few other spots
have looked.

Was it real, unreal, or ideal '! It might be any-
thing. Was it shunned and cursed, or merely rotting,
tottering in decay ( No one was about, and not a
sound could be heard on that fine autumnal morning
as we gazed upon it. At intervals ripe fruit dropped,
splash into the slimy greenish water of the moat. A
robin, " messenger of calm decay," twittered sweet bits
of song, and from a bog of nettles came the cackling
of a hen. That was a sound of life where all around
seemed passing into placid death.

We encourao-ed one another to cross the brido^e
and knock upon the open door. A lean cat peeped
at us and fled. Then came a figure — ^Was it witch
or woman ? — with long grey hair in wisps, and two
teeth, one above and one below. Is this Mariana
of the Moated Grange ? More worn, more weary,
and more stricken with care than the one of Tenny-
son's dream. She told us there was nothing to see
in the house. Anything worth having had been
stript and carted to Ingestre. The great oak beams
are ashen grey, though time and damp and vermin

HUDDINGTON COURT

The home of Robert, Thomas, and John Wintour or Winter, who were hanged and
quartered as traitors in the Gunpowder Plot

296 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

seem powerless with them. The cliiinney is fine.
There is a fairly good staircase, and on the diamond
panes were said to be the names of Robert and Thom,
the brothers Winter, or Wintonr, who were in the
inner circle of the ever-famous plot. They were landed
gentry of good ftimily : in the words of Guy Faukes,
they were "gentlemen of blood and name."

To learn more of the great plot I have now read
three books on it, wi-itten from opposite points of view.
One is by Father John Gerard, S.J., a namesake of one
of the suspected priests who fled. It seems certain the
Government- — that is, Cecil — knew of the plot long before
the mysterious letter to Lord Monteagle, but waited to
catch the priests. The Parliament was to meet on the
fifth of November, and iii the preceding night Guy
Faukes and his powder were seized. Then the con-
spirators fled, and on the night of the sixth were at
Huddington, after trying to raise help on the way.

Catesby sent Bates to Coughton to Father Garnet,
the Superior of the Jesuits, and Fathers Hart and
Greenway met the others at Huddington. Here, on
Thursday, the seventh of November 1605, eleven of the
thirteen original conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot,
with about twenty-five friends, heard mass, made confes-
sion, received absolution and the Sacrament, then seized
the arms that were here stored and made ready for war.

The Jesuit, Father Greenway, alias Oswald Tesimond,
escaped. Thomas Winter, who was one of the leaders,
described himself in his confession as of Hoodington,
gent. His elder brother, Robert, who owned the estates,
was also one of the thirteen. They, and a younger
half-brother, John, who had nothing to do with the
plot, were all hanged, drawn, and quartered. What a
terrible time of trouble, and of rebuke, and of blas-
phemy fell on Huddington I and the old home stands
there to-dav looking: weird and sad, wretched and
cursed — the picture of its history.

HUDDIXGTON COURT

The last home where the traitors met for their devotions

298 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

On another of the windows some one had written^
" Past care, past care." But who was past care ? No-
one knows. Not the Lady Winter, who still comes
again amid the ghostly shades of moonlight sadly
sighing over the irrevocable past.

The neighbouring church is like the Court, though
it seems a new life for it is awakening. It is very old
and tiny, but I never saw a church better restored and
treated. The door was not locked, and pictures of the
church with histories of it and the house were ready
for any one to take. I begged of X to photograph the
time-worn porch or carvings, but plates were limited,
and we knew^ not what was before us. There is a high
pew of grey oak with carved sides and slits for peep-
holes ; a long, heavy coffer, somewhat like my own ;
big, solid benches, some ancient tiles, and a brass of
Sir George Wintowre, the grandson of the conspirator
and the last of the name at the Hall. It is not many
years since rabbits burrowed under the walls of the
church and kindled in the place of worship. A hunted
fox sought sanctuary here, and actually got it. Let
it be recorded, for it seems a stranofe tale in our
days.

We sat down to think, though time was flying
elsewhere, even if it stood still here. For two hours of
that lovely aiitinnn morning we had loitered round this
grey and ghostly hall, and seen no human being, nor
spoken to anything but Mariana, who now might be
sadly crooning —

" My life is dreary,

... I am aweary, aweary,
I would that 1 weie dead ! "

Or she might be catching birds, or lapping cream.
There was mystery in the air and charming solitude.
The breath of autumn stirred the trees. Down
dropped ripe pears into the rank grass, and purple

THE TRAITORS' HOME 299

plums of lustrous bloom splashed into the greenish
waters of the moat. We took the o-ood the gods
provided, and lingered lovingly there, wondering what
:strange secrets, arms, armour, or treasures might be
hidden in the accumulated mud of the almost stag-
nant pool.

What strangely neglected spots there are in this
realm of busy England even now, this hurrying
twentieth century I Fascinating spots, forgotten by
^11, slowly changing as the seasons come and go, still
more slowly sleeping their little lives away.

THE AVENUE OF YEWS AT CLEEVE PRIOR

300 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

By many winding, devious ways we travelled
through an unknown country Avhere the names v.^ere
double but the habitations few. Signposts pointed

THE GARDEN SIDE OF CLEEVE PRIOR COURT-HOUSE

down narrow lanes to Flyford Flavell, Wyre Piddle,
Temple Grafton. Then it came to my remembrance
that some searchers say that Shakspere was married,
at Temple Grafton. We were going to Bidford for
lunch — " drunken Bidford." Jangling rhymes came
back to my memory in bits. We were actually in

^^'T^ss^r

THE GLORIOUS COMPANY OF APOSTLES

AND EVANGELISTS IX YEW, CLEEVE PKIOR

304 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

Broom, and every signpost In'oiight memories of
Shakspere.

" Pi[iing Peliworth, Dancing ^Tarston,
Haunted Hillboroiigh, Hungry Grafton,
Dodging Exliall. Papist Wixford,
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford."

We were in the midst of them. From them
the "sippers" came Avho outdrank Shakspere when
the "topers" had gone to Evesham fair. We went
to the drunken town, and at the sign of the Falcon
we also drank.

We crossed the Avon by a fine bridge and asked
our way to Cleeve Prior, where is an old manor-house
famous for its yews. There are sixteen of them in two
rows — twelve for the apostles, and four for the evan-
gelists. They were planted by the monks of Evesham
in pre-Keformation days, and have long survived monks
and abbey and Tudors. They seem to join hands and
form an enormous heds^e with holes cut throuo-h it. A
cat had its nest in one, to the great disgust of a robin,
who was anticipating being eaten. The cat's head may
be seen in the photograph on page 303.

Ov^'er the doorway of the house is an old inscription
with crowned heads on the stone. There is a circular
dovecot, bis: barns, an immense vard, all in ii^ood order
and repair, with a general air of comfort that is sooth-
ing and peaceful. A little way from the gate is an inn
that is very picturesque with brilliant-foliaged creepers
on its irregular walls.

In 1 8 1 I , one Sheppey unearthed at Cleeve Prior
two pots containing Roman coins. One was full of
gold, the other of silver. He fuddled some away, and
then employed others to sell the residue, for which he
received over ^700. It seems to me that every parish
in Eno'land has hidden more or less of Roman coins,
and many have had pots full Who made all the
money, or who lost it and died broken-hearted, we

A FRUITFUL LAND

know — some one has it

305
little

shall never know — some one has it for
while.

Journeying on towards Evesham we see in a field
by a farmyard the enormous tithe - barn of North
Littleton that was built about 1370. There is nothing
in our picture to show the scale, but it is over forty
yards in length, all in one span, with plenty of room

LITTLETON TITHE-BARN"

for a team of horses with wagon-load of corn to drive
in, turn round, and come out again.

As we neared Evesham all the country became one
vast orchard or garden with scores of acres of asparagus
and tomatoes. The crop of fruit was enormous, and
I noted there were very few birds. Horribly dirtv,
smoking men were gathering plums — it being well the
eater of them did not see the gatherer.

After all we had heard of Evesham and its grand
bell-tower we were rather disappointed. There is a
fine old building in the market-place, plastered over

IN KVESHAM

oS PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

and therefore spoilt, so we do not reproduce it. Tliere
are many ancient and picturesque bits, but modern
houses jar against them. The town was busy ; even
at the old inn with the fine sign of " The Rose and
Crown " we were crowded, and glad of the quiet,
leisurely cycling Imck to Worcester.

The next mornino- we cycled northwards for home,
hoping to find Harvington, near to Kidderminster (not
the place of the same name near to Evesham), and to
see the villages of Ombersley and Chaddesley Corbett.
Some writers praise them as being the prettiest villages
in England ; but, in my opinion, they are neither of
them to compare with Weobley. There is a very pic-
turesque inn at the latter of the two, with outer steps,
l)ut we could not photograph it, as our plates were used.

Salwarpe Court is a fine old house near to a church
and rectory, perched high above a canal or river, and far
down a long, winding lane. It was the home of the Beau-
champs, the wife of the "King-maker" being probably
born here. Its name has perhaps come from its salt, for at
Domesday survey there were five salt-pans at Salwarp.

At Ombersley we took two pictures, and found the
outside of the inn was much better than the reception
inside, so we journeyed on and found another inn with
the grand name of " The Mitre Oak." At a much
humbler })lace, where the ceiling w^as low, the fireplace
big and open, the roasting-jack bright, the ingle-nook
ample, and the furniture old, we were well received
and had P"Ood cheer.

Harvington Court or Hall, thougli not so remote
from the haunts of men as Huddington is, is another
grim and ghostly house. Its hiding - holes were not
so famous as those of its neighbour at Henlip, where
tliere were eleven secret rooms, and the schemer of them,
Owen, with Garnet and other Jesuits, were hidden for
seven days and nights of bafi^ed search, cold, cramp,
and hunger Ideating them at last.

UNDER THREE STAIRS IX THE FAR CORNER IS THE ENTRANCE TO
TilE PRINCIPAL SECRET CHAllBER

THE GHOSTLY HOME OF BATS

In the attics of Harvington

312 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

That house is gone, but this can be seen to-day. It
is easy to lose oneself in the labyrinth of passages, the
dark cellars or dungeons, or the forest of oak in the roof.
X left me to roam about by myself, and that certainly
hindered my exploration, from the fear of accidents.
The principal secret chamber is entered from the stair-

IN A COUNTRY PUB

case, which is an exceedingly massive work in oak that
goes from bottom to top of the house, and still bears
marks of dark red paint. About the second floor,
three steps lead from the regular stairw ay to a central
hall. The end of these three steps is movable, and I
crept under to find there was a large room, quite
dark and very low, apparently contrived between the
ceiling of the rooms below and tlie floor of the room
above. I could not see, and dare not go far into it.

314 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

but it seemed a big space, where many men could have
slept if they had been careful not to snore.

The house is a verv large one, and purposely irregu-
larly built. It would be almost impossible to locate
that central liidino'-room from a,nv outside observations
or measurements, and in the various roofs, with vast
numbers of complicated timbers, there miglit be many
secret chambers, for I saw one or two.

The Hall is close to a farmyard. In front the moat
is nearly dry, but very wide at the back and side.
There were many water-hens among the duckweed, and
a good flock of swan-geese. We walked over the bridge;
and clambered about the empty house for some time.
No one interfered with us. No one said, "What doest
thou ? " and the story of it I have none to tell.

HARVINGTON COVRT

1905
HANDFORTH HALL

HANDFORTH HALL, in Cheshire, is five miles
houth of where I write these words in Dids-
biirv, and a sale by auction of its contents
being advertised about the time I wrote of it
in the chapter on Wardley, it occurred to me to give
it a chapter to itself, even if it were only a repetition
of what has already appeared in my " Chronicles of
Cheadle," for all the copies of that book were sold
.long ago, and are not likely to be seen bv readers
of these pilgrimages.

The earliest records of the place are romantic tales
of the Honfords of Honford, who seem to have been a
rough-and-ready breed, only at peace when thev were
fighting, and not very particular as to marriage or
nnuTler. At least one of them was a Crusader, for
when in the Holy Land a star fell from heaven in front
of the armies of Saladin, Honford of Honford instantly
seized it, and, fixing it to his shield, it became the
cognizance of his race. If any Thomas-a-Didymus
doubt, he may see the star in the glass of the Honford
chapel in Cheadle church, where it has borne its silent
testimony for more than three hundred vears.

Another of tlie familv was a witness of the mvsterv
and tragedy of Joan of Arc : and when the fiery cross
went round the Scots for the invasion of Eno-land, and
every manor or parish in Lancashire and Cheshire sent
its best inanhood to meet them, the last Honford of
Honford. tlie last heir-male of his race, fell witli ro

3i6 PlLcaUMAGES TO OLD HOMES

iiiaiiv of his iieiyhlxnirs and kinsfolk on the famous
Cheviot moor.

Sir Edward Stanley, immortalised in " Marmion." was
lord of Bosley near Macclesfield. Christopher Savage,
the mavor of Macclesfield, and so many of the towns-
men fell in the fight that for some years afterwards a
quorum of substantial burgesses could not be formed to
govern the town. Randle Bebington of Bebington,
with William, liandle, James, John and Charles, the
sons of his brother, were all killed. Venables, the
twenty-first lord of Kynderton, Sherd of Disley,
Maisterson of Nantwich, Fouleshurst of Crewe, with
many more of the local squires and gentry, were dead
upon the field. The Abbot of Vale Royal went with
three hundred of his tenantry, and perhaps every name
in Cheshire was represented, for we may read of
Fittons, Duttons, Dones and others. These are they
who won the victory. A Scotchman has written of the
other side^ —

"Tradition, legend, tune, and song,
Shall many an age that wail prolong ;
Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern strife a?id carnage drear
On Flodden's fatal field :
Where shiver'd was fair Scotland's spear
And l)r(iken was her sliield."

Though the last male Honford had fallen, the
romance of the race survived, for the dead squire had
left a little daughter, who was at once married to Sir
John Stanley, a son of the Bishop of Ely, who " lived
with one who was not his sister, and who wanted
nothino- to mnke her his wife save marriaofe." The
united ages of the newly-wedded couple would not be
quite thirty. She was about ten, and heiress to the
estates of the Honfords. He had nought to inherit,
but liis natural father looked after him, and, as our
oldest glee says, " Merrily sang the monks of Ely," so

HANDFORTH JIALL

i8 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

Ely's bishop got his son wed to the heiress, and a

notable man he proved. He was seventeen when he

led four thousand men into the l)attle, and an old
ballad says—

" There never was bairn born
That day bare him better "

Sir Walter's version says —

" Let Stanley charge with spur of fire
With Chester charge and Lancashire,
Full upon Scotland's central host,
Or Victoiy and England's lost."

After the Cheshire bowmen did their fell work, the
cliarge won Flodden for England. Dim traditions tell
of churchyard yews still living that furnished bows for
Flodden. Speke Hall still shows its trophies. Manu-
scrijDt records of witnesses exist, and every parish around
me sent men to that death -grip struggle on Flodden.

The new lord of Honford, or Handford. or Hand-
forthe as it was then variously spelt, was not suffered
to be long in peace. His neighbour, Legh of Adlington,
had married Joan Lark, a cast-off mistress of Cardinal
Wolsey, and a quarrel arose between him and Sir John
Stanley. The Leghs invoked the aid of the all-powerful
cardinal, who had Stanley imprisoned, and it may be
this Joan was the woman referred to by ShaksjDere —

" I'll startle you
Worse than the sacrum bell, when the brown wench
Lay kissing in your arms, Loi'd Cardinal."

Sir John was probably unjustly condemned, for it
seems to have broken his heart. As far as he could,
he settled his affairs, past, present, and future. In
memory of his father, and for prayers for his parents, he
built the Stanley chapel, in the cathedral of Manchester,
and, in the inscription on its portal, dated it with the
date of the battle, as may still be seen. From the Abbot
of Westminster he bought "letters of paternity" for

HANDFORTH HALL

320 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMP^S

himself, wife, and son, gave to trustees all he had,
renounced his wife and all the pomps, vanities,
pleasures and delectations of this world, avowed
chastity, and Ijecame a Benedictine. In the sacristy
of St. Paul's, London, on the 25th June, 1528, " in the
face of the church," the married couple were solemnly
divorced (or released), and he passes from our ken. His
arms may still he seen in tlie churches of Cheadle and
Manchester, always encircled hy the mournful motto on
Vanity ; and as I have written Ijefore— lands and funds
he had already given for pious uses, penny doles to poor
widows and poor maidens, wages to priests or poor who
^^•ould prav for him, with many elaborate safeguards
and quaint old terms long since forgotten, for all has
passed into oblivion, and in our time who lingers the
money or who does the praying no man knoweth.

The wife was to have entered into "religion" also,
but she thought Ijetter of it, and married again. Her
second husband was Uryan, the ninth son of Sir Piandle
Brereton, and he built the hall of Handforth, as the
inscription on the oaken portal shows to-day —

2ri)ts liaullc inas buultirt) In tlir ccnvf of ourr iLovti (Ttoti m.rrcrr.lit't
bg ©Ituan Brcvrtouu I\nirjl)t JLHl^om inarurti Iflartjavct tiauglitcr anti
{)cgrc of iiLlulluam iJantiforti] of ^^Jantiforttic ilrsqugn- ant Ijati Issue
fai sonncs anti ii tiauglitrrs.

This porch and inscription (with necessary ditfer-
ences) were copied in the new hall l)uilt for the
neighbouring manor of Adlington by Thomas Legh
when he married Sibbel, or Sybyl, a daughter of Uryan
and Margaret. Another daughter of Uryan by his
second wife, Alice Tralford, was Mary, the motlier of
Edward Barlow, the martyr. A brother of the Breretons
was mixed up in the little scandal about Queen Anne
Boleyn, and Sir William, the great-grandson of Uryan,
was the connnaiider-in-chief of the armies of Parliament
for (Mieshire and adjacent counties. He must have been

THE POECH, HAXDFORTH HALL

324 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

extraordinarily active, for be fought battles and sieges
in every town of tbe district. In days of peace be
travelled abroad and at home, writing a diary of bis

HELM AND CREST OF BUERETON OF BRERETON
IN BRERETON CHURCH

journevs which is still interesting reading. He liad
men over from Holland to make a decoy for wildfowl ;
the site of it mav be traced to-day down a winding
stream opposite the ball to a small reservoir now used
by calico printers.

AX HISTORIC HOME

o-D

Hanclforth Hall actually figures again iu our last
bit of civil war: the gallant but ill-starred attempt of
I^nnce Charlie to win again the throne of his ancestors
trom the German George in the '45. The Prince left
Manchester by the London road, turned at Eushford
and by Burnage Lane reached Didsburv. where he built
the first bridge across the Mersey and^got to Cheadle
.btockport was avoided because the bridge there was
broken down, and opposition threatelied. From
Cheadle to Macclesfield the route would be bv
Handforth Hall, and there the Prince rested and dined
Is not this enough of English historv for a farm-
house near to a railway station ? Turnips, chairs a
century old, and lumber are being sold bv auction.
ihe thmgs and the folk look worn out. It is eleven
years since X and I were there before, and this time
1 tound a hiding-hole in the stairs that was partly
broken down. Perhaps there are ghosts also-but they
don t pay the rent, and it is the rent that is the bother

HIDING-HOLE IX STAIKWAY

X 2

PARK HALL

PARK HALL, in Salop, Is a splendid specimen
of the black-and-white houses for which the
mid- western counties of England are tamous.
It was i)iiilt in the latter half of the sixteentli
century in the fashion of the time. Fortifications were
then becoming- obsolete. There are no signs of a moat
or even of an inner court. Tlie loftv halls (»})en to
the roof were being superseded l)y those having a
withdrawing-room f >r the (|uaHtv in their upper half:
and instead of the l)uilders name, or coat of arms,
and the date l)eino- above the chief doorwav, there
is a moral precept in Latin, and Latin mottoes up and
down the house.

A Thomas Powell of AVhittington bought part of
the park of the lordshi[) of Whittiugton whereon to
build himself a house in 1563. His family kept it until
1 717, when Sir Thomas Charlton l)Ought it. Nearly
iifty years after it passed to the Kinchants, a familv of
Huguenot descent, one of whom fell at Fontenov and
another at AVatei'loo. This may l)e remembered when
Ave read that thev made the chapel into a gunroom.

Li 1870 mortgagees sold the estate ^^itll tlie hall to
the Honourable Mrs. Stapleton-Cotton, who has since
become Mrs. A. Wvnne Corrie. and who there resides.

(Jn entering the hall one is confronted with an enor-
mous table surpassing all we have ever seen before.
Its top is one plank of oak. twenty-one feet long, four
feet broad, and two inches thick. Fortunately it is
dated is^i, and in the inventorv of the etlects of Job

TilE PORCH

330 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

Charlton in 1761 it is valued at two guineas. This is
a very interesting instance of the great rise in value of
good furniture of authentic date. I should say its value
to-day would be two hundred guineas at least ; for
Moses and Aaron could not make another like it until
thev found and conveved an Enoiisli oak with bole of
sufficient size.

There are records of a far taller tree having: been
used in the gatehouse that once stood before Park Hall.
Oil its oaken beam were ten lines of Latin verse, extol-
ling the beauteous tree, cut down, alas I by frequent
strokes, and groaning under weight of stone, but once
sixty feet in stem without the handsome crest, " Sexa-
ginta pedes." It must be true if it was Latin cut into
the oak ; but where are trees like unto it nowadays (
If anvwhere, this country is the likeliest place to
find tliem ; ibr we are not far from Lymore with its
wondrous stairway and panelling.

Some hio-h-backed chairs are said to be coeval with
the taljle and to have always kept it company. They
are shown in the reduced photograph. Under the table
may be seen one of the old-fashioned man-traps that
Avere used to catch the prowling men or wandering-
children by their legs, as we now catch rats, if they
will go where they are not wanted. There is also a
cannon that Mas dug up at Marston Moor, having been
there buried and forgotten. Here it is, in the very
house where Prince Ptupert has also been. Another
relic of the Civil War is the sword of Fairfax that was
used at Colchester, and a very fine sword that was found
under the floor of an old shop in Oswestry. There are
many other arms and armour, l)lunderbusses, steel-bowled
crossbow, guns, and pistols in variety.

The cabinet that is shown between the " skeletons "
in armoui- must l)e of enormous value. It is mostly of
tortoise-shell framed in silver and ormolu, inlaid with
mosaics and ebony, and bedecked with cameos and

MR. AND 1[RS. A. WYNNE CORRIE AT HOME

334 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

precious stones. The little statuettes in the interior are
of ivory. Nothing is known of it, beyond it appears
to be of early Italian niake and was bought by Mrs.
Corrie's fatlier. the late Mr. Fletcher.

The chapel is the small building that projects from
the house on the left corner (as you approach). It is
curious and impressive from its dark oak and stained
glass, but impossible to photograph. The family pew is
a gallery enclosed with very massive balusters. The
place was consecrated by Archl)ishop Parker, who is
said by some to be the important and necessary link in
the Apostolical succession of the Anglican priesthood.

There is a doorway in the panelhng of the drawing-
room that gives access to the chaj^el, and we thought
when photographing the mantelpiece of the drawing-
room it would be better to have this door open, hoping
it would let light into a dark corner and show some-
thing of the chapel, but it w^as a mistake, as it only
shows a patch of light.

The mantelpiece has had some changes in its little
history. Originally built about 1580, it is thought the
central panel w^as replaced by another in 1640, with a
shield of arms and motto, " Nee vi nee vento." The arms,
but not the date and the motto, were discarded in their
turn (probably another lord had arisen), and a French
clock w,as substituted. Then burglars broke into the
house and stole away the clock. It reappeared in a
pawnbroker's shop at Brighton, and was brought back
again, as if to show there was some truth in the motto
thouofh the buro-lars had not time to a^et it translated.

Behind this mantelpiece and near to the flue is
the hiding-hole or secret chamber of the house. Air
is admitted to it, or taken from it, through the open
mouths of carved heads, for the draught can now be
felt by any one standing at the fireplace, and doubtless
whispered words could be heard and possibly susten-
ance given. The access to this hidden closet was from

PARK JIALL

PARK HALL

338 PILGKIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

a cupboard that was opened by a secret door in the
wall of the room above. This ingenious arrangement
reminded me of the one at Pitchford (described in my
previous book), of which I took very particular notice.
There, one square in the panelling of a room will slide
along if pushed in one direction, then a bolt may be
withdrawn, and a liidden door in the panelling pushed
back ; the fugitive can then enter the little closet, and
when he has shut the door behind him — and not until
it is firmly shut — can he ])ull up the floor and let him-
self down to another hole more secret still. If the
first closet is discovered, tlie second one could not be
as long as the panelled door of the first is pushed open,
for when open it stands over the trap-door that gives
access to the hole below.

It was very soon evident that this fine old house
was packed and crammed with treasures of all kinds.
Furniture, pictures, books, china, arms, curiosities, that
would take days to see, had to l)e simply glanced at.
To write anything like a catalogue is disagreeable to
all parties, and half the things may be generally dis-
missed, if only English are noted : for then, away go
all the works of art of China and Ja})an, the paintings
of Italy and Holland, and the things made in Germany.
For exception, let us take a cup and spoon for poison.
They are very small, of course, being cut from emeralds,
and not for use in England. India was their home,
where the Rajah of Burdwan may have treated his
tired wives, or poor relations, to homreopathic doses.

What a wonderful variety there is in drinking-vessels,
loving-cups, peg-tankards, silver goblets, black-jacks, of
all ages, from the Pompeiian Boar's-liead cup, the old
English cut red glass, the tankard of Dymock the Cham-
pion of the King, down to puzzle jugs or pewter. In
all times and all places, men would drink out of anything,
and with unquenched longings in their hearts preserve
their precious cups although their dregs were drained.

OSWESTKY

340 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

Crown Derby, Nantgarw, and Chelsea, cabinets of
china, we cannot stay to see you now. Nor all these
pictures by the foreign masters. Snyders is well re-
presented, Vandyck, Lely, homely George Morland,
with multitudes of others ; the wealth of Lancashire
is indeed being poured into the treasures in this house.
Furniture is nearly being forgotten, though there is
plenty of it, and mention must be made of one of those
very old-fashioned couches that were placed at the
foot of the oak-post bedsteads. It is thought they
were used by servants or attendants on the sick, but
very few are now left.

Trophies of the chase abound — the antlered monarch
of the moor, and the silvery monarch of the rushing
river, a thirty-six pounds salmon ; also the tyrant of
the mere, a tremendous pike, with many other well-
set-up specimens of bird and l)east, including two of
the biofp-est otters I ever saw. Mr. Corrie has evi-
dently enjoyed himself, and it is said Mrs. Corrie can
wield a bio; salmon-rod also.

The gardens and greenhouses stretch far and wide,
and everything seems flourishing. They grow their
own bananas, but evidently not for profit, as every
finger would cost about a sov^ereign. The variety
and quantity of fruit and roses would interest me
greatly if there were time to see them all, but there
is not time, and we must hurry to the stables, where
the chief pride and pleasure is. A little shelf outside
the stable door always holds a corn basket of sliced
carrots, and the whinnying of the horses soon tells
an experienced ear that they associate carrots with
the sound of a well-known ste}). Most Englishmen
like seeinsr a'ood horses Mell cared for. These are
exceptionally well-fivoured ones, and out of fourteen
carriages in one coach-house any one might be suited.

The (plaint little town of Oswestry is about a
mile from Park Hall, and the "Coach and Dogs" inn

Y 2

342 PIL(;lM^rAGES TO ()\A) HOMES

])V the clnirrh is part ot* the estate. The other house
we ])hotograph was the home of a ])raiu'li of the
Llovd fimilv. the spread eagle having heeii conferred
(so it is said) l)v the Duke of Austria on Maurice
Llovd for his hraverv in a crusade.

The |)hotographer might count the pictures tliat
illustrate this chapter, and then consider that we only
took our usual number of })lates, six each, or twelve
altoofether, and the day was Met and dark.

OLD CJIAIRS IN HALL

SLADE HALL

SLADE HALL is an old home on the north-east
border of Didsbury, that has descended from
father to son for ten generations.

A llichard Syddall, Siddall, or Siidal, a yeo-
man of Withington, appears to have prospered, and
bv his will in 1558 left the lease of his dwelling,
Mylkewalleslade, to his son Edward, on condition that
he, without " coneng craft or gile," surrendered his
'■ meas*^ and ten* in Diddesburye " to Elizabeth his wife.
His " shope in M'Keth strete, Manchester," in default
of Edward's heirs, went to his second son Tom.

Li 1584 Edward bought Milkwall-Slade, with 24
acres of land, garden and orchards, for ^,10 from
Kauif and Joan Slade of Brerehurst, doing fealty to the
lord of the manor. He rebuilt the house, his initials
in a pretty little border, and the date 1585 in another,
being now over the door. His son George apparently
put his mark on also, for the initials G. S. are roughly
cut out of the oaken lintel. The entry of the wedding-
of George Siddall to Margaret Fletcher, 1575, is still
in the Didsbury registers. They shortened the name
of the place to Slade, and the natives pronounce it
Slate.

Li 1 664 Syddall was summoned to give an account
of his arms and crest, but he seems not to have wanted
any, probal)ly thinking he could malve better use of the
money.

Quietly and unostentatiously the years and the gene-
rations slipped away, son succeeding father, begetting
children, and Ijeing gathered to his fithers. In their

humdrum lives there seems little to record. They had

343

344 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

the tenacity to stick to tliier home, and that is why
they are here. Now the old home is gone from them,
not yoluntarily l)ut by com})nlsi()n, for the London and
North- Western Railway Co., after cutting otl'some of the
land, has annexed the house. The oaken seats in the
deep porch are daubed with paint, and oyer them is a
dado stencilled in the latest fashion of railway station
waiting-rooms. The fine old door with its hinges and
handles is still intact : let us hope it will escape im-
proyements for an inquiry office. One of the upper
rooms has yery elaborate plaster work. There are the
royal arms of Elizabeth, the arms of the Stanleys,
Earls of Derby, and possibly those of Alderley, stag-
hunts, figures, &c.

In the pursuit of knowledge, I had the temerity to
ask the present Mr. Siddall, senr., what the estate
realised : for with such a long record tlie history of
its inevitable rise in yalue would l)e yery interesting.
More than thirty years ago I learnt, and haye since
often proved, that the value of land doubles with
every generation. That is the rule, though of course
there are excei)tions to all rules, and cycles of good
and bad years at all times. Taking three generations
to the century, the yalue of land should increase eight-
fold in a hundred years. Let us sum up Slade.

1585. — /, 10 is the price of the estate of 24 acres,
with an old house. In those days a good house, or
part of a church, could be built for ^5, but it will
be better to ignore the house, for it is only a very old
one to-day, and it is the value of the hind that I am
writing about.

1685. — ^80 for the 24 acres would be about the
value. Prices would be improving after the Civil War,
when land was inisaleable.

1785. — ^,640, or /^26 an acre. A fair value for land
in the district. The Napoleonic wars were to bring a
"great rise, and corresponding decline.

1885. — /,'5i20, or /, 313 an acre. Are we getting

346 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

lost in (Geometrical ProoTession !* The iieia'hbom-iiiu-
citv is rapidly advancing. Sites are being songlit for
Imilding on, the days of farming are done, and the
value is much greater than here stated.

1905. — It has all gone, and althongli not one
generation has passed since our last vakiation, the price
has doubled again and again. In ten generations the
original ,/^ 10 has grown into more than ^20,000. There
were no rates in the old time — now they are always
advancino;, and we are told no one can live for them.
Nine-tenths of our politicians and our inflillible Press
(a capital P this time, please) are constantly preaching
and teaching of the ruin of the country from the rural
population Hocking into the towns. Here, the town's
locusts have swarmed on to the country, and in the
once pleasant gardens ar.d orchards of Slade every
ffreen leaf is witherinp- ; there will not he one blade of
grass left, for the desolating trail of the railway and
the soulless builder of vulgar villadom have brought
their blio-ht on all.

Though the elder line of the Syddals lived unevent-
ful lives, their kinsmen in Manchester made history,
scruijlino- not to offer their lives as martyrs for their
kino- and country.

The wills of the two earliest of the family mention
s. shop in Market Street or Market Place that, in
■case of some default, was to go to their younger son
Thomas. The value of the shop or l)urgage was given
as sixpence a year, and that would stand multiplying
many times when we consider that some of the shops
there now are worth ^1000 a year. In 1690 a "Pole"
of Manchester records Thomas Siddall, Avife and son,
livino; in one of the first houses in Market Sted Lane,
and therefore by the market-place.

At the death of Queen Anne, 1714, political and
religious strife was at fever heat. Were the Stuarts to
reign, and the risk to be run of tlie coiuitry shj)ping
into Ivoiiiaii ( atholioism, or sliould a kino- be im-

Liiiiilll

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III X J

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SLADE HALL

348 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

ported iroin Germany, and dismal dissent to have the
Tipper hand '. In Manchester there were riots, and a
mob pulled down the Presbyterian chapel (now the
Unitarian chapel in Cross Street) under the leadership
of Tom Svddall. For that he was })ut in the pillory,
and then in the prison at Lancaster.

The Stnart army, marching south, released all
prisoners, and he joined it, only to be defeated at
Preston and imprisoned again. Then came Lancaster's
'" Bloody Assize '' and thirty-four were hanged, drawn,
and quartered. Five of them were done at Knot Mill,
at a cost of ^8, los., and Syddall's head was stuck up
in the market-place by his own shop door.

There his son Tom daily saw it, and doubtless
vowed, in his boy's way, to be avenged if ever the
opportunity came. Thirty years after, he thought it
came, and hesitated not to Hing himself heart and soul
into raising a regiment in Manchester, to help Prince
Charles Edward in his gallant attem]3t to win again
the crown of his ancestors. The ill-fated regiment
surrendered as prisoners of war at Carlisle, on the
written promise that they " should not be put to the
sword, but reserved for the king's pleasure."

The pleasure of the German king, who was living
with his German harlots at the ex})ense of Englishmen,
was that they should be butchered : hanged, but not
until they were dead ; cut open, their heart and bowels
cast into the fire ; and their limbs distributed.

Tom Syddall died game. When his turn for the
halter came, he took a pinch of snufi", and hoped his
children saw him die. As the hearts of each victim
were cast into the fire, the hangman shouted "God
save Kinp- Georere," and the Hanoverians with the
Presbyterians cried, " Amen.'"

They stuck his head on the Manchester Exchanofe
near to his own shop door, so that his wife could see it
from her l)edroom, where she was confined. Through all
the troul)le her sixth child came, and in her turn became

THE SYDDALLS

349

a mother. Our precious mob, to celebrate Culloden,
broke the windows of the widow, and frightened her
awvay. The adherents of the Stuarts were all called
Papists, who would "'spit, fire, burn, and roast alive all

heretics," when they were only High Cliurch Tories
who believed in the right of the king in lineal descent
to'^reio-n. If our kinoes are to be elected — be it so, but
let -[us have Englishmen. The dull depression of the
Georges weighed us down ibr generations.

350 PILOPvIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

" George the First was always reckon'd
Vile — liut viler George the Second.
And what mortal ever heard
Any good of George the Third ?
When from earth the Fourth descended,
Heav'n be praised, the (leorges ended."

Ill my " Diclisbiirye in the '45" I have given long-
extracts from the written statements deUvered to the
sheriff by the officers, before they were butchered, and
a copy of Hogarth's picture of Temple Bar adorned
with the heads of Colonel Townley and Captain
Fletcher, and somebodv's leo-. It is not unlikelv that
leg would be one of Syddall's, for, as the adjutant
of the regiment, he had been verv active. He was
descriljed as a little man with a big nose ; a peruke
maker and barber by occupation, living in his own
shop with his wife and five children. In those days it
was the fashion to shave and to wear wigs.

There is an entry in the registers of Didsbury that
I think refers to our hero : " Oct. 1730. Thomas Siddall
and Maria Fletcher de Burnage, and paroch Mancum
conj matri per License. Rog. Bolton surr." He w^ould
then be twentv-five years of age, and his wife may
have been sister to Captain George Fletcher, Avho was
a younger man supporting his mother. In 1745, the
Court Leet records give Thomas Syddall and " Mr.
George ffletcher scavangers," or, as we should now
term it, " on the sanitary committee." The next year's
Constables' Accounts solemnly record an expenditure
of ^oo-oi-o6 for "tending the Sheriff the morn
Syddall's and Deacon's heads put up."'

Whether any of Syddall's sons grew^ up and left
sons I have nev^er learnt. It is affectinof to read in his
last address how he thanked God for the exam])le of an
honest father, and prayed that his children might tread
the same dangerous steps, and " also have the courage
and constancy to endure to the end, and despise Human
Power when it stands opposed to Duty."

( 'olonel Townlev's skull I li;i\'e liaiidlcd from under

REBEL OK MARTYR?

the altar of the chapel in Townlev Hall, where it \Yas
long preserved. A Captain Moss was one of the officers,
hut with the lielp of money, tools, and friends, he got
out of Newo-ate with his friend Holker, and fled to
France. I remember an old man at Didsbury named
Oeorge Fletcher, who was christened nfter his uncle
the " Rebel," and it was whispered he was a rebel at
heart, for he was a Chartist and a Radical. Jacobite
Tories and Jaco1)iii Radicals got mixed in the vulgar
mind, 1)ut to call a man a Rebel, and prophesy he
would oet " bowelled," was somethino- verv terrible. To
speak of him as a Martyr would be to court ostracism,
and the brand of a madman or a dangerous Papist.

As an instance of two memories covering the hundred
and fifty years after the famous '45, my great-grand-
mother, Nancy Fletcher, was born in 1729, remembered
it, and was remembered by my mother up to 1900.

GREAT-GRANDMOTJIER XAXCY FLETCHER

THE RIDDINGS

ANOTHER timeworn home, around whose moulder-
/ \ ing Avails stagnates a slimy moat, lies four
/ \ miles to the west of mine. Britons may
have named it from their word for ford being"
I'liijd, or Anglo-Saxons from their ridding up the
forest primeval. The earliest lords we know show
in their names their Norman descent : Yawdreys and
Gerards are not uncommon names in Cheshire history.
But who cares for history now ? Shrieking trains whiz
close past the once-fortified home whose glories have de-
parted. Suburban villas, semi-detached and semi-genteel^
spring up like toadstools along its dirty lane. The new-
tangled folk from them say the water round the house
must be unhealthy — the farmer says it's good enough to
wash the 'taties and the onions for them to buy.

THE RIDJJINUS

352

THE EIDDINGS

— «

THE PLOWSHARK RUSTS

A CHESHIRE LANE

SPORT

A S the chief sport of all ranks of our fithers was

/\ cock-fighting, it seems to me that also might be

/ \ illustrated with their homes ; for although the

rulers of England forbid their subjects watching

cocks fight, they spend vast sums in teaching them to

fight their fellow-Christians, and the cocks have to enjoy

themselves on the quiet when they can. A good cock loves

a fight above all things, and will leave all things for it. Old

proverbs tell us a good cock may come out of a poor bag

— meaning, you should not judge a man by his clothes, and

to live like a fighting-cock is the ideal bliss of many.

Themistocles roused the Athenians to a desperate defence
of their homes by showing them cocks fighting in the
market-place of Athens, who fought to the last, though not
for country, home, or children. Here the camera shows
what happens to the herald of the morn when he goes
what old-fashioned folk call neiefbhourino^.

.^(a«.v'ji^£'v» ,

WHO ARK VOU ?

MIND YOURSELF !

HA BET I

Z 2

CHAIR AND SCREEN AT ABNEY HALL

In 1873 X bought the chair for nine .sliiranais at a sale at ('headle Rectory. It is now valued
at £=,0. The screen of soliil oak came from a shoji in 'Jaunton tliat was once a house of Lord
Portman's. It is said to have come from the Priory Cliurch that was destroyed c. 1600.

The bird of wisdom sits in the tower, watching over the home of X to give
warning of any plague that might come nigh his dwellino-.

THE OLD PARSONAGE, DIDSBURY

IN tlie days when Didsbury Wakes was the great
festival of the many acred townships to the south
of Manchester, the rush -cart was made where the

rushes and the withies grew at Withington, and on
St. Oswald's day was escorted by dancing and singing
men, as if it were the ark of the Lord, to the old church
at Didsbury. Then came a week of hospitality, feasting,
and revelry — unbridled revelry. The church stood high
above the marshlands of the Mersey, surrounded with
black-and-white houses, common land, shooting-butts
for archery, and the two inns so necessary in a large
and straggling parish.

Everything is gone excepting some bits of the
church, of the inns, and possibly of this house of which
and in which I now write. The Wakes are nearly
forgotten, the green is long since enclosed, the roads
are narrowed, the last thatched farmstead has lately
vanished. There are two inns, though the sign of
"The Kino- o' Bells" is crone. He who from the main
road would go to cliurch must pass between them, and
tlierefore when what is sometimes called the Gospel is
being preached, they are likened to " The Gates of
Hell," and lament is made that they are left to temj^t
the sinner from tlie path of duty to the church and
the collection.

Over the stables of the Cock Lui, and extending
into this liouse, is a large upper room called The Wakes
Koom, but why the inn and the parsonage sliould overlap
and have bricked-u|i doorways, I, the owner, never could

5 ««

O ^

62 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD H(3MES

understand. There were more connections between
Church authorities and alehouses wlien church-ales were
common ; and our pilgrimages, as recorded in this book,
have shown us inns or hostels that were built and
maintained out of abbey funds.

In the time of the Commonwealth there was an
agreement made between the inhabitants of the
parish, or ]jarochiall chapelrye, of Didisburye, and their
minister, Mr. Thomas Clayton, from which I make the
followinG: extract : —

"' Item. That the mesuage and tenem'^ assigned
to the use of the minister of the said church, for the
tyme beinge, shall bee valued and acompted at the
rate of tenne pounds p. ann, (towards the said xl^
p. ann.) consiclringe the tymes and that Mr. Clayton
is a single man and soe cannot husband it to ad-
vantage.'

The above-mentioned house is probably the central
part of this old parsonage. The rates alone are now
many times the former rental ; in fact, they would
take all the poor man's /40 of income: so let us
consider the times and be sorry for the tenant and
owner, who is still single and "soe cannot husband it
to advantage."

The ancient history of the place is lost because
there are no very old deeds to any property in Dids-
bury. Even the Mosley family, who bought the manors
of Manchester and Withington about 1 596, have none.
The title to this place begins with an Act of Parliament
of 1786 re the estates of the Bamfords of Bamford,
who had inherited some (this being probably a part)
from a John L^avenport of Stockport. The Act cost
William Bamford ^550, and to raise that sum he sold
for it "All that antient messuage or inn known by the
sign of the Cock, with the barn and shippen thereunto
belonging . . . with three other small antient messuages
or dwelling-houses adjoining . . . orchards, garden, and

THE OLD PARSONAGE :;6

O^J

vacant land," to Sam Bethell, a joiner, to repair or erect
better buildings and pay a small chief rent, which rent
I now pay to the Countess of Dundonald, who inherited
the Bamford-Hesketh estates. Bethell paid the ^550
in 1795, and one Sam Newell, probably a lawyer, wit-
nessed. The Cock Inn and adjoining shop would then
be built, for the former " antient " buildings were timber
framed and thatched. In [804 Bethell sold out for
^1250, the buyer mortgaging for ^1000. The mort-
gage deed consists of live big skins of parchment, though
the original deed of conveyance was only one smaller
skin. A mortgage bond for ^2000 was also given,
though he had only received ^1000, so we may conclude
the poor man fell among lawyers, who stripped him,
leaving him half dead. They also altered the spelling
of " antient shippen " to " ancient shippon."

In 1832 the property was sold for ^2450, so it had
doul)led in value again, and up to the present time I
find it has doubled witli every generation. I have
known many instances in our city and neighbourhood
where the value of land has doubled w^ith each
generation ; that is, it has gone up eightfold in the
century.

In 1832 a Bichard Fletcher of Birch Hall found
^2000, and a William Newall, a grocer, ^450, for the
purchase of this property. They sold to Louisa Titley,
who made it over to trustees, for a marriage " is in-
tended to be had and solemnised " between her and the
Reverend Sam Newall, curate of Didsbury and in the
occupation of the house. They were married, the
young wife soon died, the flock gossiped, the parson
left, but he or his kept the property though they
sold the advowson of the living. As the house was
haunted, and the new parson was always quarrelling
with his landlord (the old one), a new rectory was built
far away from the church about the time the old parish
or parochial chapelry of Didsbury with its four rapidly

364 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

increasing townshi})S was joined ecclesiastically to
Manchester. The patronage of the small and select bit
of parish left w ith the old churcli was kept in private

DOOKWAY TO THE OLD PARSONAGE, SHOWING THE CHURCH
AND THE LYCHGATE

hands, and the "cure of souls'" advertised. Perhaps
this open traffic in the curing of our souls has not been
for the good or the peace of the shorn flock during the
last two centuries. It Avas always likened to the curing

THE (3LD PARSONAGE 365

of bacon, but nowadays few care and very few seem to
know how to cure souls or bacon.

DEUS PROVIDEBIT

Parson Xewall repaired the parsonage house and
added the two higher rooms at the ends. He also
planted the weeping ash on the lawn, about 1840. The
lime trees to the east were put in about 1830. Only a
few of the old trees remain. Forest trees ofrew all
round the garden, but I cut down one every winter,
and at every fall the neighbours howled. There is
a very old filbert close to the house that bears nuts
every year, and very good ones they are. A Keswick
apple also drops its fruit on to the lawn, for we never
gather them, but eat them off the grass, if the birds or
choir-boys leave any.

On March 8, 1865, we became tenants of the house.
It had been empty for some time, the gardens were
overoTown with fruit trees, and we were told it was
very desirable to shut out the churchyard. As we had
onlv flitted from the next house we brouo^ht manv larg-e
evergreens with us, and elsewhere I have kept records
of some of these trees and also of others planted in
later years. The yews and the cedars of Lebanon are
all measured. The apple trees are being choked by
mistletoe, though it never grew in this district before
I sowed its Ijerries here. At the present time there

366 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

are bamboos, pabiis, and camelbas iiourisliiiig in tbe
open ah\ for tbe bouse is on a bank of good gra-vel,
every room faces soutb-south-west, tbe warmest as-
pect it could bave, as tbe sun sbines straight in soon
after one o'cb:)ck. It stands 125 feet above tbe level
of tbe sea, in longitude 2.15.30 west, and therefore
its s(^lar time is nearly ten minutes later than that
of Greenwich.

As a haunted bouse tbe place was famous. There
were shutters or iron bars to every window, but they
did not keep out the ghosts. Servants would not stay
when the bells were often rung: at all hours and tbe
nightly noises were incessant. Tbe parsons should
have laid the ghosts wlien they lived here, but
they didn't ; the ghosts abode, tbe parsons lied. We
became used to them, possibly preferring them to
the others. The wise mother told us they would not
hurt us if we were good and quiet, but as a young man
I have often jumped out of bed and rushed after some-
thing in the passages or on tbe stairs and caught —
nothing, although that notliing could be plainly heard
and seen.

" We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,

A sense of something moving to and fro."

A fuller account of these ffbosts is in mv book on
" Folk-lore." I will here mention only the two instances
where I discovered the cause of tbe disturbance ; there
were hundreds of others that never were discovered.
One nio-bt mv mother awoke me to sav tbe noises in
her bedroom were terrible. Hastily putting on some
clothes I sat bv her bedside to await events. It was
a dark and windv nio-bt. Soon and suddeulv there
came a wild whirling shriek tbat died away in jerks as
if some one was bavin o- liis tln^jat cut slowlv. It was

68 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

a blood-curdler ; but all went still again. I could find
nothing. A little more dai'kness, and again came the
horrible wail. This time it was distinctly from the
wnndow. Was it devil, ghost, or madman ( At last
I found it : a cracked pane of glass, with a bit shaped
like an isosceles triangle wdiose equal sides were about
nine inches long on a base of an inch, tha vibrated
in a gust of wind with a wailing noise like an ^Eolian
harp in an epileptic fit.

The other is a more prosaic tale. I rusbed out one
nip'ht and collared a man in the bushes who had made
noises at the window. It was the village constable wdio
wished to see tbe cook and try if the windows were
securely fastened. Unfortunately for him they were
fastened, but we had killed a pig (or something), and
he wished to know about the disposal of the body. In
a little while tlie cook and the constable were wed,
brought us their pledges of love to see, and "lived
happy ever after."

The reader may say the other ghosts were only
imagination, the product of an evil conscience, or too
much supper, or rats ; but these sceptics should have
seen our friends and guardians, the dogs. They never
became used to the ghosts as we did, and were a
nuisance in their attempts to catch them. They
would stare at vacancy, growl savagely, and with
bristles up go for w^hat they saw or thought they
saw, perhaps stopping suddenly and scratching at the
carpet where they thought something had gone below.
The Gomers, father and son, whose chief delight it
was to worry rats or anything in fur, would sit down
to howl when the church-bells rang, as if tliey knew
that church-bells rang to frighten evil spirits, and
those uncanny things they could not fasten with their
teeth.

Round the ruins of the clerk's house, which stood
with its Imck to this liouse, and had been used as a

GHOSTS

369

school and a smithy, are remnants of many gravestones
with inscriptions on them, saying, " Here Hes the l)ody

of ," when it is evident the stones have been

shuffled al>out, and some there are who say that
accounts for the ghosts who have got lost.

GOMER THE SECOND

All the original timber-framed houses that stood
around the church are now gone, though this one
under the stucco has many timbers in tlie walls, and
I had thouoht of restorinp- it as a black-and-wliite
house, but tlie straiijht roof and additions of Newall
could not be made in accordance. Our stable and
stable-yard are on the site of the skittle-alley of the
Cock Inn.

2 A

THE EAGLE DOOinVAY

THE CRADLE OF THE MOSSES

The Eay-le doorway was erected in 1902. It bad
been the front door of the Spread Eagle Hotel, part
of the family property in Hanging Ditch and Cor-
poration Street, Manchester, that was taken by the
corporatioii (under arbitration) for the widening of
those streets. When the buildings were being pulled
down I bought the doorway as it stood for £\o^
thinkino- it was a o-oocl baro-ain and a nice memejito
of the old place. But it cost me nearly twice the
money to haye it carted to Didsbury, and about six
times as much to erect it again. Tlien professional
builders came to scoff, sayincr they C(juld erect me
genteel yillas in the garden to pay ten per cent., with
less trouble than that thing.

As this house is full of old furniture, china, pictures,
&c., it is well for me to leaye some record of what may
be interestino- to tliose wdio come after. First, let us
take the cradle, for female yisitors generally ask what
that is. I haye to explain that for generations it was
the cradle of the Moss family, who were not reared with
a bottle, but made to walk when they had liyed a year,
and make room for baby. When I first saw this cradle
it was in a pigeon-cote at Walford, not being allowed
in the house, lor my aunt said she had had smallpox
in it, ninety odd years before. The top was broken,
Ijut that I renewed with " Mos of Meos " inscribed
thereon. The letters are copied from a manuscript of
King Alfred which may be older than the oak of the
cradle. Meos is the Anglo-Saxon for moss, and it
became Moss in the name of the man and Mees or
Meece in the name of the place.

In the Domesday survey the place name is spelt
Mess, and in a Court roll of the Stafford Assize,
A.D. 1278, William del Mos is sometimes spelt del
Mes. It was about that time surnames came into
common use, and if men owned land they were called
after it.

372 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

Some of the Barlow stall-ends that stand around
the entrance are shown In the picture of the stairs.
Thev are three inches thick, of solid Eno-lish oak, well

THE OLD STAIRCASE

carved. The old staircase is so uarrowed with them
that X anticipates the day when they will have to
up-end my coliin.

The front door is a new one, made from massive
oak that formed shelves in the dairy of the Broad

A VERY GOTHIC DOOR

173

Oak Farm ; the design of the Gothic tracery came
from Glastonbury, and the stained jjlass from that in
the turrets at Bur Farm (page 196). The knocker 1

PORCJI AND FRONT DOOR

cut out of an oak growing in my field, and fashioned
it on a smaller scale after the knocker on the oldest
door at Dunster Castle.

The grandfather's clocks in the hall and the kitchen,

2 A 2

374 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

with some of the Chippendale ciiairs, had been in
Standon Hall from time immemorial. There are some
curious chairs, apparently made of black balls, that
also came from there. My uncle gave three shillings
and sixpence each for them, about 1843, at a sale at
Charnes Hall. They used them every day for more
than fifty years, when I gave seven and sixpence for

them. Experts differ as to the wood, which is said
to be birch, beech, pear, cherry, &c. A bedstead,
with posts inlaid with brass, came from the same sale
at Charnes.

Since mentioninor some fine old chairs in mv last
book (a photograph of one is on page ^yS), I have
been told that the set of eighteen that were like
them, and sold at the sale at Heaton Hall (the Earl
of Wilton's) to a furniture dealer, were resold to go
to Chicago for a thousand guineas. Mine have been
in Didsbury for a century. They were bought in a

OLD FURNITURE

O/ D

thatched cottage for the price asked, namely, ten
shilhngs each.

All the very good mahogany furniture and the
silver were hought by my parents when they married
in 1835. There are some j^lain Sheraton chairs that
were my grandfather's, and family portraits of four
generations. The copy of a painting by C. Towne,
about 1830, of a favourite horse and dog, is interesting
in showing the fashion in those animals at that date.

My mother had always taken great care of the
china, glass, and silver, as she did of us and every-
thing else, and many things had never seen daylight
for years before she went. Nearly all the china is
without mark, and therefore to "father"' it correctly
I took specimens to the chief makers. Knowing that
some of it was Minton's, I went there first with four
plates of different sets. One of the firm and the
manager took me to a very old servant, who at once
recognised two of the four, saving that " old Tommy
Steele painted them flowers " on tlie dessert-service,
and as Steele was a famous painter of fruit and
flowers whose last years were spent at Minton's, the
value of those plates went up. Tlie dinner-service

3;6 PILGEIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

that is shown round the room on pages Tf^S and 379
thev knew as the cuckoo pattern ; but they also knew
that they had never made that ware since 1848.
Gradnallv I gathered that my father had bought
both services with three vases from Minton's about
1841.

The history of the Oriental cliina that is here
photographed is still more interesting. The tea-service
has never been bought, or sold, or used, since 1775,
when it was used at the christenino- of a child
who in time became the wife of Dr. Astbury, who
lived at Trentham, probably one of the family of
potters, and died about 1850, nearly a hundred years
old. He gave it to an elder sister of my father,
who had taken care of him in liis old age. She
gave it to my mother, and here it still is. It is in
the bottom of the corner cupboard. On the shelf
above is a coffee-pot, which, with a silver one of great
age, shown on page 27 ^-i ^^'^^ given to my mother on
her wedding by her brother-in-law, Charles Bradbury,
a well-known collector of curiosities and antiquities.
He also bought for her, with other fine china, the
vases that are with the coffee - pot. They were
bought at the sale by auction of the collection of
Burdekin, the managing director of the bankrupt
Bank of Manchester, about 1842. They are of won-
derful colours, representing the five-clawed dragon of
the Emperor of China. A self-sufficient connoisseur
lately told me that if it would not hurt my feelings
he could tell me all aljout them. I replied that my
feelings had long since been seared into callousness.
Then he explained how a china Avorks had been set
up at Hong Kong or thereabouts ten years ago, and
the emjieror's mark, or any other mark, was boldly
forged, and these vases were modern forgeries. As
my memory could recall them for more than fifty
years, tlie tale was amusing. There are also ginger-

OLD CHINA

oil

jars with the orighial Uds that came from the same
sale, decorated with the live-clawed drau-on.

VERY FINE OLU CHINESE CHINA

On the middle shelf in the corner cupboard on the
other side of the room are Ihie china statues of two men
preaching. John Wesley is plainly one of them ; the
other was said to be Rowland Hill, On the bottom

CORNERS OF" THE LIBRARY

AT THE OLD PARSONAGE

So PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

shelf is an old silver cup that once was probably a
chalice, and on either side are grandmother's tea-
caddies in ivory, a'old, and tortoise-shell.

Below the cupboard is a curious tray dating from
mv mother's wedding, silver tea-service and a tankard
of mv grandfathers' to the left. On the right is a
gate-legged table of English walnut, having legs cut
in double spiral, and on it is a big copy of " the
vinegar" Bible, with my grandfathers' ale-jugs and
glasses resting thereon. I hesitated to put them on
the Bible to be photographed, but X soon repeated the
old saying about beer and the Bible supporting one
another in the political world, and as even the per-
fume had departed we let them rest. These ale-jugs
have the name or arms of my grandfathers, and the
dates on them.

At the other end of the room, the family cradle
of the Mosses, containing the family Bible of Joseph
and Mary Fletcher, 1797, is in front of a chest, made
from Didsbury oak, by a man named Savage, about
1770, for Birch of the Milngate, Didsbury. The centre-
piece on the chest is a soup tureen marked Brameld,
who ^vas a noted potter ; it is one of the few sur-
vivors of a dinner-service. There are some very old
jugs and a beautiful little teapot in front that was
my great - grandmother's. The dessert-service to the
right is of Coalport make ; it was bought by an uncle
about 1S30.

Connoisseurs in china will be amused with the
following little tale of some china. Twenty odd years
ago, some hundreds of plates, with other furniture,
were bought for the Spread Eagle Hotel, at a sale
by auction of the contents of the Palatine Hotel,
Manchester. When the former hotel liad to come
down for tlie widening of the streets on both sides of
it, I had to buy out the tenant, and have a hurried
sale of the contents, without reserve. With other

382 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

things that I took home were some china dessert
plates that had come from the Palatine Hotel. Some
months after I showed them to a well-known expert
who was looking over my things, and asked him what
they were, as there was no mark on them. He said
they would he imitation Dresden china, made many
years ago at Coalport, and worth ten shillings each.
About two hundred of them had been sold at the
sale of the contents of the Spread Eagle at rather
less than a penny each.

There is a o^ood deal of silver and cut grlass in
the house, that, like the furniture, has been in con-
stant use for seventy years, and is little or none
the worse for wear. Some of it is older still, and
special mention might be made of a grand wardrobe,
and chest of drawers that in 1829 came from what is
now the Wesleyan College, and a set of plain chairs
that were made for the " new" Cock Inn about 1800.

If I were to Avrite the history of half the things
in the house, or of the plants and trees in the
garden or field, this chapter would be sadly too
long : it is better to record in a few brief notes the
changed conditions of life in the neighbourhood from
what they were in the days of my childhood. In
Didsbury then there were no railways, no trams, no
gas, no electric lights, no town's water, no sewers, no
resident policemen or lawyers, and we were happy.
There was one doctor, who struggled with poverty,
while we and the neighbours drank the water from
the holy well by the churchyard, and flourished to a
green old age. It was said to be wicked to forestall
the Almighty, and waste water by watering the roads.
If the ladies went to parties at night in the neigh-
bourhood, we carried lanterns and sticks. We rode on
horseback or walked to business in town. On many
a winter's morning have my brother and I walked the
nearly six miles to Hanging Ditch in an hour.

CHURCHWARDENS

j"o

Our public aftairs were mostly meddled with and
muddled by churchwardens, who were chosen at the
annual vestry. More than thirty years ago I was
chosen to be one of them, and I strutted about with a
long knobbed staff, inspecting the roads and the ale-

PART OF THE FAMILY, 1S5I

The dog. Juke, bad broken liis leg by falling fiom a wheat-riek after a rat.

houses, while the dull church service was drao-o-ing^
its slow length along, from psalms in dismal duet to
black-gowned terrific denunciation of sin, mingled with
gloatings over the everlasting torments that are in store
for the damned. As " consayted " as a churchwarden
had long since passed into a proverb, and the passer-
by would scoff* when told it was not lawful for him to

3S4 PILGRIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

absent himself from cliiircli. ('hurch rates were abol-
ished and new-fangled powers s|)ringing n\). It was
common talk that if the liadicals got; their way rates
would be a shilling in the pound. After years of
schemino- a Local Board was formed for the li-overn-
ment of the district, and solemn assurances given
by men of piety and respectability that under no

CORNER OF LAWN AT THK OLD PARSONAGE

circumstan.ces would its rates exceed two shillings in
the pound. Gradually rumours grew that the Board
were giving the lanes and the footpaths away to save
the expense of keeping them, and their sanitary
advisers urfj-inof them that all houses without drains
and cellai'S were not tit for hal)itati()n, though
most of the houses of the aged, and this among
them, were blessedly witliout either drains or cellars.
Permission had l)een oiven to close the last of the
three fords of tlie river when 1 was elected to be

LIBHAKV WINDOW

2 B

86 PILGKIMAGES TO OLD HOMES

a member of the Board. The roads to two of them I
saved, and miles of footpaths on the river banks. A
plavground was secured, and the sale of the Poor's Field
of three acres for ^120 was stopped. The income from
its little gardens is now tibout ^ 1 8 a year, and it would
be hard to say whether the payers or the receivers of
the rents derive the greater l)enefit therefrom. The
getting of the land on which to build the piers of the
bridge across the Mersey for /, 25, under a clause in
an Act of Parliament, when ^1200 had been demanded
for the right, was one of those pleasant successes that
seldom come in our public life. Sometimes we may be
thanked for our pains, sometimes all we get is bitter
hatred. Every struggle that I have had for public
rights in Didsbury has earned the undying hatred of a
few — but not of many. On the other hand, some of the
best friendships in life have been formed in puljlic work.
The knowledo-e of the need for a ))roader basis for
our local government, as our fast-growing town or
village joined on to the city, caused me to be the first
to advocate the union of the two, and now the union
is accomplished, the way is smoother for another step.
Property that could not be managed by the officials
of a parish may be by the staff of a great city ;
though one is almost in despair when one sees the
historical moated hall at Clayton where Humfrey
Chetham was born, now owned by the city of Man-
chester, and by them "restored" outrageously, for they
have papered its walls with vulgar paper, and daubed
with dirty paint its time-worn oak.

My property is now a part of the city, and to the
city where I have played my part I leave it for the
citizens and the public. What they will do witli it,
the Lord only knows ; l)ut I hope and trust that the
old house will be kept as it is, that succeeding genera-
tions may at least see what a comfortable home of the
olden time was like.

REST AND PEACE

" Light be the hand of ruin laid
Upon the home I love."

2>^7

As the time draws nearer for me to leave it, and be
carried out as I have helped to carry all that was
dearest to me, and in deep thankfulness for the many
happy years lived here with my loving mother, I
leave this our old home for those who have no
home, hoping that they also, if only for a little
while, may here find

Rest and Peace.

A DOOJIED BIT OF CHESHIRE

Index

Abbot of GlastonVmry, 19, 20, 162

Abbot's Kitchen, the, 2 i

Alfred, King, 2, 135-139

Alton Towers, 68

Arimathea, Joseph of, 7, 15, 26

Armorial bearings on glass, 246.

254
Armscott, 234
Arthur, King, 18, 134
Athelney, 135 1 39
Audries, St., 201
Avalon, the Vale of, 28

Baddesley Clinton, 236-260

Bala, 1 04

Banbury, 220-222

Barlow, Edward, 258, 262-275.

320
Barlow Hall, 268, 274
Barringtoii Court, t8i, 186-192
Bath, 20, 29, 124-127, 157
Beauchamp College, 186, 191
Bebington of Bebington, 316
Benedictine, the, 256
Berwyns, the, 105
Bidford, drunken, 304
Birmingham. 2 58
Birts- Morton, 283-291
Bi.shops Lydeard, 139
Bishop's Palace, Wells, 613
Black calves at Chartley, 54. 59
Blue Anchor, 142
Bradford-on-Avon, 125-128. 171

Breretons. the, 320, 324

British village, 26

Browsholme in Bowland, 273

Bryn Eglwys, 103

Bull, the wild, 62

Bur manor-house, 195-197

Cadbuey, 134

Cardinal AVolsey, 287, 318

Cathedral .service. Wells, 29-32

Cattle, wild, 46-54, 60-62

Chaddesley Corbett, 308

Charles Edward, Prince, 325, 348

Charlton Makerel, 166

Chartley, 44-75, 249

Chaucer, 157

Chorley Church, Lancashire, 76-80

Church of the expiation, 249

Cider, good, 130

Civil War, the, 84, 188, 190, 214,

232, 253, 348-351
C lee ve Abbey, [41-143, 201-303
Cleeve Prior, 300-304
Cock-fighting, 356
Cock Inn, 360-363
Coffer, ancient, 35
Coleridge, S. T., 195-198
Compton Winyate.s, 220-233
Council-chamber, 229
Courtenays, the, 199
Cromer's Cross, 150
Crowcombe, 139
Croxden Abbey, 66-69
Crusader, the 315
^ 2 B 2

390

INDEX

Darwen river, 8i, 94 Harvington, 308-314

Didsbury, 268, 271, 325,343. 360- Heads spiked, 20, 26, 349

387
Dorothy Vernon, 120 123
Dove river, 58
Downes family, 263-266
Dulverton, 153
Duukery, 148, 201
Dunstan, St., 19
Dunster, 142-148, 204-219
Duxbury, 78

Edgehill, 226, 234
Edington. 200
Education, 42
Evesham, 304-308
Exmoor, 149-156, 201

FARLEKiH Castle, 130
Feasting at Houghton, 88-90
Ferrers family, 54, 59, 246-256
Fletcher, Captain, 26, 349, 351
Fleur-de-Lis Inn, 130, 183
Flight of the King, 278
Flodden, 316-318
Fromc, 166, 170

Garnet, Father, S.J., 296, 308

George Inn, the, 130 133

Ghosts, 366

Gisburne, white bull of, 52

Glastonbury, 13-28, 160, 166, 191

Goldney, 28

Granny, 41

Great Chalfield. 178-181

Gun})owder Plot, 294-297

Haudon Hall, 108-123
Hamdon Hill, 183
Handforth Hall, 315-325
Hanging Ditch, 369, 382

Henlip, 30S

Hiding-holes, 230, 232, 242, 308,

3i2> 338
Hoghton or Houghton Tower, 81-

94
Honfords of Honford, 315
Horsiiigton Cross, 32
Huddington Court, 293-299
Huish Episeopi, 135, 191

James, King, 88, 92
John, King, 68, 277
Jesuits, the, 296, 308

Lake dwellings, 26

Lancashire hospitality, 89

Langport, 135

Leycester Hospital, 236-238

Littleton tithe-barn, 305

Llanycil, i 04

Luttrell Arms inn, 142-147, 204

Luttrells, the, 2 10-2 i 8

Lyme Park, 48

LytesCary, 159-167

Macclesfield, 3 1 6
Malvern Hills, 287, 290
^Manchester, 348
Marmion, 253
Martock. 190

Mary Queen of Scots, 46, 70-75
Mendips, the, 3, 166, 170
Methodists, 290
Minehead, 147, 153, 201
Moat, the, Wells, 4, 7
Monmouth, Duke of, 130
Montacute, 183, 184, 191
Morley Hall, 271

INDEX

;9r

Morphanv Hall, 354
^loss, 35, 37, 351, 371
Muchelney, 135, 191

"No Larnin'," 128

Norton St. Philip, 130-133,

166
Nuiiiiey (Aistle, 166, 169

Old Parsona(;e, the, 258, 360-

3S7
Ombersley. 308

Oswestry, 339-341

Owen, architect of hiding holes,

308
Owl in Abney Tower, 359

Panelling, ancient, 358
Park Hall. 326-342
Parsons, 170, 193
Pilgrim Puritans, 76-80
Pilgrim's Inn, 25, 166
Plas-yn-Yale, 103
Porlock, 147, 150, 153
Poulet, Sir Amias, 70-74
Prehistoric homes, 26
Preston Abbey farm, 183
" Priniit-tive," a, 168
Priscilla, the Puritan maiden,
78

QuAXTocKs, the, 139, 195, 199
Queen Elizabeth, 70-74
Queen of Scots, 70-75

Reindeer Inn, the, 221
Biddings, the, 352
Piush-cart, the, 360

Salwarpe Court, 307, 308

Saxon Chai)el. i 26

Sedgemoor, 30, 200

Selworthy, 147

Seymour, Jane (Queen), 195

Shakspere, 155, 236, 304

Sirloin of beef, 88

Skulls, 26, 262, 268, 273, 349

Slade Hall, 343-349

Somerford Park, 49 52

Somerset, 124-219

Somerton, 191-192

South "Wraxall, 171-178

Spencer, Miss, the heiress, 226

Stag-hunting, 148-154

Standish, ^Myles, 76-80

Standish pew, 77

Standon Hall, 34

Standon Church, 38

Stanley, Sir John, 316-320

Starkey, Captain, blown u[i, 84

Stoke-sub-Hamdoi], 183-186

Stowey, Nether, 195

Stratford-on-Avon, 234-236

Strode, Colonel, 186-190

Sunday sports, 89-92, 147, 168,

170
Syddalls, the, 343 35°

Taunton, 138
Temple Gi'afton, 300
Tewkeslmry, 279-286
The '45, 325, 348-351
Thorn, the Holy, 7, 20
Tithe-barn, 23, 305
Tories, 170, 351
Torr Hill, 20, 138
Townley's skull. 273, 351
Trati'ord family, 263, 320
Treasure- trove, 59
Tunsted, 268
Tutbury, 55-59, 1 1. 246

392 INDEX

Ueiconium. 158

Verxox tombs, 1 2 i - 1 2 2

Vyrnwy, 106

Vyse of Walford, 34

Walfoed Hall, 33-43
Wardley Hall, 261-275
Warwick, 220, 236-239
Warwick Castle, 239
Watchet, 142, 153, 201
Wells, 3-14, 29-32, 160, 168, 170,
190-191

West Bower, 195-197
Westwood, 128
Whalley, 52, 94
Wheddon Cross, 148
Whittington, 327
Winsford (Exmoor), 149-152
Wintours, the, 296-298
Worcester, 276-278
Wordsworth, 195, 198
Wrexham, 95 102

Yale, Elihu, 98 102
Yeovil, 181, 191

THE END

^00 ks by the same Author

1. A History of Didsbury

The Manchester Guardian

"If there be such a thing as the genius of the place. Mr. Moss is
probably better entitled than any one else to be considered its incarna-
tion. . . . Touches of homely and pungent humour expressed in racy
vernacular."'

The Cheshire County News

"... Intensely attractive. Full of interest to the lover of local lore
and the England of long ago."

2. Didisburye in the '45

3. A History of Cheadle and Gatley

4. Folk-Lore, Old Customs, and Tales

Notes and Queries

"Mr. Moss's book we unhesitatingly commend to our readers. It will
be useful to some and agreeable to all."

The Manchester Courier

"The chief charm of this book is that it supplies in a handsome
form a record of old people, old places, and old customs, compiled with
equal skill and sympathy. Only a true lov^er of his neighbours and of
his country could have entered so truly into the joys and sorrows of rural
life, and only a true literary artist could have given the themes their
proper setting."

5. Pilgrimages in Cheshire and Shropshire

6. Pilgrimages to Old Homes, mostly on

the Welsh Border

^^OA/

D 000 323 314