THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ?«1WM5' ■r#^: %$^% *• ««-:3 (^ ;> .>?;^r '-'J _w.-.. '*■: .^^^ ■• "■ pm 1 o^frM^^etA , A KEY TO ENGLISH ANTIQUITIES: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE BY EiLLJ^ s. j^ la is^r I T j^ G- E , Author ot "The Childhood of thk English Nation;" " The Connection of England and Scotland," &c. Late Honorary Assistant Commissioner to the Royal Commission i)N Secondary Education. SHEFFIELD : WILLIAM TOWNSEND. BiNGiiET: Harrison & Sons, 1897. BINGLEY : HARRISON & SONS, PRINTERS, BOOKBINDERS, &C., QUEEN STREET. 1897. 670 17:3 YfeA- PREFACE. THE aim of tliis book is to bring a great pleasure within the reach of many persons who would never think of themselves as antiquarians. It is a pleasure which appeals to the instinct of the chase within us ; for antiquities must be hunted over hill and dale, through highways and byways, and the interest of looking for them is only equalled by the interest of finding them. It is a pleasure which kindles the imagination, and puts us into living touch with the ages long gone by, and makes us realize that in all ages man was still man, and that nothing human is foreign to us. In a country like England, which teems with antiquities, it is a thousand pities that they should not be much more widely used as a means of mental enlargement and delight. The enjoy- ment of antiquities has too generally been supposed to be the private privilege of the rich and noble. Antiquaries have usually published their books in huge folios, as though they sought to make them useful to as few people as possible. And the study of antiquities is so entirely neglected in our schools that we cannot wonder that people in general take very little interest in them. We blame the landlord or the farmer who levels some ancient barrow in his fields, or destroys a camp, but we forget 921031 tV. PREFACE. that he has never been taught to know the interest and value of these thmgs. This little book aims at putting into the hands of the people of Sheffield and Eotherham a key to the antiquities of their neighbourhood, Avhicli will help them to under- stand and enjoy — for to understand is to enjoy — antiquities all over the kingdom. Though written primarily for the use of the inhabitants of tliis district, I hope that the various types of ancient remains are described with suf- ficient fulness to make the book useful as a beginner's manual to the study of English antiquities in general. But I wish at the outset to utter a few words of caution to beginners in the study of antiquities. This study, more than any other, has been the happy hunting ground of people who have been content to take theories, and especially their own theories, instead of facts. Volumes of rubbish have been written about the early history and antiquities of Britain, and it is only with extreme caution that we can pick our way through them to a few facts. I would say with emphasis to the young antiquarian. Beware of Druids; beware of Beltane fires, Baal worship, phallic rites, and all the other stock in trade of the antiquaries of fifty years ago ; these things have led astray the most respectable old gentlemen. Be- ware of confident attempts to identify the sites of King Arthur's battles ; beware of etymologies of place-names which are propounded by unscientific people ; for ety- mology is now a science, and it is no more admissible for a person who has not studied its laws to guess at the PREFACE. V. meaning of a word than it would be for him to guess at a question of physics. Beware of books which use Geoffrey of Monmouth or Richard of Cirencester or Ingulf of Croy- land as authorities, for the writers who do so have not taken the trouble to master the elements of their subject. I have endeavoured to distinguish conjecture from fact in this book by the constant use of the words "it is supposed " or "it appears "; a use so frequent that it may possibly be wearisome to the reader. But nothing is more necessary, in the present state of English archaeology, than carefully to distinguish between facts and conjectures. We shall never have an English archaeology which is worthy of the name of a science until people have ceased to put forth their conjectures as facts, or to accept on the same level as facts the conjectures of even experts in the subject. Though a brief sketch will be found in the Introductory Chapter of the more important historical characters whose names are associated with this neighbourhood, it has not been my intention to write a history of the district, but to describe and explain the concrete remains of the past which are still so richly to be found there. And in order to do this adequately, I have thought it necessary to indicate at some length the place which the social and religious institutions represented by Norman castles and monastic houses occupied in the history of civilization in England. As it was necessary to draw the line somewhere, I have seldom concerned inyself with antiquities later than the It. PREFACE. IGth centui'}', and county families, pedigrees, and heraldry, are very rarely touched upon. It has been unfortunate that I have been obliged to complete this book at a distance from the country which I describe. Though I have visited every church, ruin,- or earthwork described m these pages, these visits have unavoidably been much briefer than I could have desired. My chapter on the ancient churches of the district would have been more satisfactory if I could have given days instead of hours to the study of them. I trust however that it may be the means of revealing to some who have never known it before how fascinating an amusement is the attempt to trace the architectural history of an ancient church. I regret that I have been unable to visit the ancient churches of Hooton Pagnell, Frickley, Hickleton, and Carlton -in -Lindrick, which ought by rights to have been included in these pages. ^ly thanks are due to many friends and acquaintances who have kindly supplied me with information in answer to questions, amongst whom I would mention with grati- tude Joseph Anderson, Esq., L.L.D.; f the Rev. Canon Bennett, Rector of Thrybergh ; the Rev. Canon Browne, now Bishop of Stepney ; D. H. S. Cranage, Esq., M.A., author of " The Churches of Shropshire "; Professor Boyd Dawkins ; the Rev. Canon Greenwell, whose work on British Barrows is one of the greatest books in English • With the single exception of Walling Wells. t To whose admirable books "Scotland in Pagan Times" and "Scot- land in Early Christian Times" I am especially indebted. PREFACE. Vlt. archeology; Charles Hadfield, Esq., F.R.I.B.A. ; R. D. Leader, Esq. ; J. G. Roukesley, Esq. ; and Professor Toller, of the Owens College. I wish also to tender my thanks to several clergymen and others who have most courte- ously answered questions which I addressed to them hy letter. Ella S. Armitage, WestJiolm, Rawdon, Leeds. \ CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Introductory. PAGES. This district a border district — The kingdom of Elmete — Doncaster — Harold, Edwin, and Waltheof — The great Norman landholders — Sheffield — Sherwood Forest — Thomas of Rotherham — Roth- erham College — Mary Queen of Scots— Sheffield Manor — Bess of Hardwick. - t to 15 CHAPTER II. Prehistoric Remains : Long and Round Barrows, AND Rude Stone Monuments. The Derbyshire Moors — Long Barrows — The Chambered Barrows — The Dinnington and Mar Barrows — Grave Goods — Uncham- bered Yorkshire Barrows — Round Barrows — Metal Implements — Pottery — Facts and Conjectures — Stone and Bronze Age Civilization — Sheffield Museum — Stone Monuments — Arbor Low — Eyam and other circles. - - - - 16 to 33 CHAPTER III. Camps and Earthworks. Wincobank Camp — Castle Holmes — Stainborough Low — Blow Hall — Carl Wark — Mam Tor— The Roman Rig— The Double Dyke — The Bar Dyke -Local Names— Camps of Refuge — Boundar)' Earthworks — Penistone Circles. - - 34 t° 44 CHAPTER IV. Roman Remains. Templeborough— Petilius Cerealis and the Brigantes — The Ryknield Street — The Long Causey — Roman Camp at Brough — The Nature of the Anglo-Saxon Conquest — The Ickles and Rother- ham — The Roman Tower at York. - - - 45 '^^ 5' X. CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. Moated Hillocks. These Hillocks a Special Type of Earthwork — Possibly Norman — Laugh ton — Mexborough — Bradfield — Bakewell — Hope — Hath- ersage — Holmesfield — Worksop — Transition to Norman Castles. 52 to 58 CHAPTER VI. The History of Architecture in England. Anglo-Saxon Architecture — 'Norman — Transition Norman— Early English — Decorated — Perpendicular — The Renascence— Alould- ings — Norman, Early English, &c. - - - - 59 to 88 CHAPTER YII. Norman Castles. Tickhill — Roger de Busli— Robert de Belesme — Sieges of Tickhill — Conisborough — Earl Warenne — Hamlyn Plantagenet — Richard Duke of York — The Earthworks — The Keep— Peak Castle — William Peverel — Henry II. — Bolsover Castle — Stormed in John's reign — Bess o( Hardwick's House — The Ruins of the Cavendish House— The Earthwork — Castles and Social Life. 89 to 1 10 CHAPTER VUI. The Evolution of the Country House, The Edwardian Castles — The Anglo-Saxon Hall — -The Baronial Hall — The Hall superseded — Tudor Houses — Haddon Hall — The ChajK'l. - - - - - - - iiitoiio CHAPTER IX. The Medi.eval Church and Monasticisji. Roman Authority in England — The Church and Daily Life— Tie Chri>.tianity of the Miiidle Ages — The great Purgatoiy Trade — Asceticism — The Monasteries — The Benedictines — Cistercians, Franciscans, and Dominicans — The Failure of Monasticism — Religious Houses in this District — Hospitals — Ecclesfield Priory CONTENTS. XI. Walling Wells Nunnery — Bretton Priory — Hampole Nunnery — Richard RoUe — Doncaster Convents and Hospital— Tickhill— Canons — Premonstratensian and Augustinian —Worksop Priory — Beauchief Abbey — The Puritan Reformation. - 1:110145 CHAPTER X. Roche Abbey. History of the Abbey — The Dissolution —The Ruins — The Church — The Chapter-house — The Cloister and Monastic Buildings — Daily Life of Cistercian Monks. - - - - 14610160 CHAPTER XI. Pakish Churches. The Chancel— The Sanctuary — The Norman Revival— Changes and Additions — Towers — Clerestoiy — Windows — The Altar — Sedilia — Piscina — Easter Sepulchre — Rood-loft — Screens — Pulpits— How the Money was Raised— Guilds — Chantries — Squints— Fonts. - - - - - - - 161 to 176 CHAPTER XII. Tombs and Crosses. Founders' Tombs— Sculptured Slabs — Effigies— Semi-effigial Monu- ments — Canopies — Brasses — Inscriptions — Armour — Ring-mail — The Surcoat — Armour in the Early English Period— In the Decorated Period — The Transition Decorated, or Camail Period — The Lancastrian Period— The Yorkist Period— The Early Tudor Period — Civil Costume— Ladies' Costume— The Family Monument — Ecclesiastics — Crosses — Anglo-Saxon Crosses — Knotwork Decoration— Keltic Crosses — Crosses in Ecclesfield Church— In Bradfield Church— At Bakewell— At Hope— At Eyam — At Doncaster— At Braithwell— At Bamborough— At Thrj-bergh— At Maltby. - - - - - 17710203 CHAPTER XIII. Ancient Churches of this District. Difficulties in deciding the Dates of Buildings — Proportion of Styles in this District — Adwick-on-Dearne — Adwick-le-Street — Xll. INDEX TO APPENDIX. Anston — Aston — Bakewell — Barlborougli — Barlow — Bain- borough — Baslovv — Beighton — Bolsover — Bolton-on-Deame — Bradfield — Braithwell — Bram]Hon — Brodsworth — Castleton — Chesterfield — Clown — Conishorough — Darfield — Dion field — Eckington — Ecclesfield — Edlington — Eyam — Handsworth — Haithill — Hathersage — Hooton Roberts — Hope— Killamarsh — Laughton — ■ I.oversal — Maltby — Marr— Melton — Mexboroiigh — Norton — Padley Chapel — Penistone — Rawmarsh — Rotherham — Bridge Chapel — Sheffield — Silkstone — South Kirk by — Sprot- borough — Stainton — Staveley — Steetk-y — Tankersley — Thorpe Sal V in — Thrybergli — Tickhill — Todwick — Treton — Wadworth — Wales — Wath — Wentvvorth — Whitvvell — Wombwell — Worsborough. ---.._. 204 to 304. Note A. »i B. »» C. 11 D. '» E. n F. »» G. »1 H M I I> J 11 K. 11 L. 11 M. 11 N. 11 11 P. 11 Q 11 K 11 S. H T. 11 U 1 1 V. 11 w II X 11 Y 11 Z Glossal- List of Index INDEX TO APPENDIX. , The Bonudaries of Elmete . . Robin Hood , The Rotherhnin Grammar School . Bess of Hardwick . Sites of Tumuli , Inhumation and Cremation . . . Prehistoric Races . Dolmens and Barrows . . . Development of Stoae Circles . Rude Stone Monuments , Origin of the word Ickles Norman Earthworks . The words Castle and Bailey . . . Dates of Architectural Styles. . . Lincoln IMinster , Roger de Hnsli's foundation at Blytlie . The living-rooms in the Keep of Conisborough . The Fascination of the Middle Ages The Importance of the Friars . The Canonical Rule . The Lay Brethren . Tombs in Roche Abbey . The position of the Ilospitium The shape of Fonts . Kuotwork Patterns . The Washington Family y of Architectural Terms Books PAGE 305 305 305 306 306 306 307 308 308 309 310 310 311 311 311 312 312 312 312 313 313 ■Sli 314 315 315 317 319 322 325 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. .nil. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, Bolsover Castle Flint Implements aud Pottery Bronze Age Weapons Sepulchral Pottery of the Bronze Age . . Section of a Moated Hillock and Platform Moated Hillock from the Bayeiix Tapestry Anglo-Saxon Arch at Laughton . . Norman Capitals, Bases, and Mouldings Norman Arches Norman Vaulting . . Early English Capitals, Bases and Mouldings Early English Grouped Pillar Early English Windows . . Geometrical Window Flowing Tracery . . Early English Arches Decorated Capital, Mouldings and Bases Decorated Ogee Arch Perpendicular Belfry Arch Perpendicular Window Perpendicular Capitals, Bases and Mouldings Square-headed Perpendicular Arch Early English Capital Transition Early English Capital Decorated Capital . . Perpendicular Capital Profiles of Common Bases and Capitals. . Decorated Square-headed Window Perpendicular Sqiiare-headed Window . • PAGE Frontispiece. 20 24 25 53 54 61 G2 64 65 68 68 69 70 70 71 72 73 75 76 77 78 81 82 84 85 86 88 88 XIV. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Monks, Friars, and Canons Reticulated Window at Roche Abbey Plan of liochc Abbey Norman Font at Tliorpe Salvia . . Early English Font at Norton . . Perpendicular Font at Langhton. . Armour and Costume in the Early English Period Armour and Costume in the Decorated Period. . Ai-mour and Costume in the Camail Period Armour and Costume in the Lanca'^trian Period Armour and Costume in the Yorkist Period Armour and Costume in the Eai-ly Tudor Period Costume in the Elizabethan Period The Sheffield Cross Crosses at Ecclesfield, Barnborough, and Thrybergh Washington Tomb at Adwick-le-Street . . Effigy at Anston . . Effigy at Barnborough Norman Tomb at Conisborough . . Intersecting Window Tracery at Penistone Fitzwilliam Effigies at Sprotborongh Early English Tomb-slab at Tickliill Semi-cffigial Effigy at Wadworth Map of the District PAGE .face 1-21 153 lo4 175 175 176 .face 183 .face 184: 185 186 face 186 face 188 ./((cel93 197 198 209 211 220 236 265 282 293 297 .facedOi ERRATA AND ADDENDA. XV. EKRATA AND ADDENDA. Page 2. Mr. Addy in his " Hall of Waltlieof " gives a list of what he helieves to be Scandinavian place-names near Sheffield ; but with the single exception of tJvraite in Butterthwaite, the commonest Scandinavian test-words are conspicuous by their absence. Page 23. Note f for P. read F. Page 34, Chapter III. I regret that Mr. Addy's book " The Hall of Waltheof." did not fall into my hands till these sheets had passed through the press, or I should have added to my list of prehistoiic earthworks the following: (1) 300 feet to the N.W. of the Bar Dyke is an earthen circle about 70 feet in diameter (Addy, p. 28). It is called in the Ordnance Map " Site of the Apronful of Stones," but this is incorrect, as the cairn which went by that name, and which is now removed, stood near the milestone at the junction of the two roads near the Bar Dyke (p. 84). (2) A mile N.W. of the Bar Dyke is another entrenchment, parallel with it, about | mile long, with the ditch on the N. side. Close to its side are a number of tumuli. (3) A short distance to the N. is another circle, 53 feet in diameter, of short upright stones embedded in a rather wide ring of earth. (4) Near the W. edge of Great Roe Wood, which is about ^ mile N.E. of Shirecliffe Hall, Pitsmoor, are vestiges of a circular earthwork with an outer ditch, about 200 feet from N. to S. and 190 feet from E. to W. Mr. Addy also mentions that a cinerary urn of the Bronze Age type with a small "incense-cup" inside, and a bent bronze knife (purposely injured, in conformity with a very wide-spread primitive funereal custom) was found at Crookes in 1887, and is now in the Weston Park Museum at Sheffield. Page 38, line 12. The Roman Eig ; a perfect portion near Grimes- thorpe. Such at least there was a few years ago ; I cannot say whether it still remains. Mr. Addy states that the Roman Rig can be- *Vi'l. ERRATA AND ADDENDA. traced np to the camp on Wincolmuk Hill. (" Hall of Waltheof,'' p. 237.) I failed to see auy such connection on my visits to the camp. What I did see was that the Rig coasts the face of the hill at a considerahle distance below the camp, from the point where it is cut oH' by the quarry to the place where the Wincobank road crosses it. Its line can be distinctly seen from the Midland Railway between Brightside and Wincobank. Page 56. Bailey Hill at Braillield. Mr. Addy, who has given a partial plan of this earthwork, has omitted to notice that traces of the bank and ditch remain on the E. side as well as on the S. The absolute conformity of this earthwork to the type of those at Mex- borough, Laughtou, and Tickhill is not a conjecture, but a fact, which anyone can verify by observation. Page 137, lines 2 and 3, dele "the Ayenbite of Inwit" and read "the Prick of Conscience has been edited by Mr. Morris for the Philological Society." Page 218, line 18. Strictly speaking, the central pillars only rest on Transition-Norman bases. Page 223, line 15, dele 13th century. Page 251, line 8. This is accounted for, if the church, as Mr. Irvine says, was recased in the 15th century. Mr. Irvine considers the piscina in the chancel Dec, but the sedilia E.E. Derbyshire Archajological Society's Journal, IV, 89. lb., line 9. The chancel of Hope Cliurch was rebuilt in 1881. lb., line 18. For "a pair of pincers" read "a hunting horn." These tine slabs were found under tlie walls of the older chancel. Derb. Arch. Journ., IV., 92. A KEY TO ENGLISH ANTIQUITIES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE SHEFFIELD AND ROTHERHAM DISTRICT. CHAPTER I. Introductory. This district a border district — The kingdom of Elmete — Doncaster —Harold, Edwin, and Waltheof — The great Norman landholders — ShefTield — Sherwood Forest — Thomas of Rotherham — Roth- erham College — Mary Queen of Scots — Sheffield Manor— Bess of Hardwick. IT is no part of the plan of this book to give a history of the part of Yorkshire with which it is concerned. The district has been chosen simply with a view to the convenience of the inhabitants of Sheffield and Eother- ham, and has no historical unity, except that it is, and always has been, emphatically a Ixji-dcr district. At the time of the Roman invasion of Britain, the district which we now call Yorkshire was occupied by the Keltic tribe of the Brigantes, v hose dommion appears to have formed a kingdom separate from both its northern and southern neighbours. And after the conquest of Britain by our English forefathers, the tract of country which forms the subject of this book lay partly in the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria, and partly in Mercia. There can be little doubt that long after the establishment of the Anglian kingdom of Deira or Yorkshire (whicli eventually formed B Z INTRODUCTION. the southern half of the kiiigdom of Northumbria) a con- siderable part of the district Avhich \\c are about to examine lay ^villlill the borders of the Welsh kingdom of Elmete, which did not come under English rule till its conquest by Edwin, King of Northumbria, in the middle of the 7th century. The exact limits of Elmete are not known, but it was a territory of GOO hides, and its extent is vaguely indicated by the names Leeds in Elmete, Barwick-in- Elmete, Sherburn in Elmete, and South Kirby in Elmete.* The border line between Northumbria and Mercia varied with the varying fortunes of those two kingdoms. Eccle- siastical divisions gave fixity to what afterwards became county boundaries ; and thus the modern line between Yorkshire and Derbyshire marks the boundary between the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia at the period when the Northumbrian see of York, and the Mercian see of Lichfield were delimitated,! But whether to the north or the south of this boundary, the inhabitants were of the same race, as Mercia and Northumbria were both colonized by the Anglian wing of the great English immigration. And this unity of race appears to have been little affected by the Danish settle- ments of the ninth century, which have left so deep a mark on other parts of Yorkshire. The Danish place- names ill hij, so common in Yorkshire and Leicestershire, * See Appendix. Note A. t Kemhle, in Iiis Saxons in England, was the first to point out that the early English dioceses were co-terminous with the early Anglo-Saxon kingdom,-. 'The diocese of Lichfield, until Henry \'lll created the see of Ciiester, included Clvj^hii-e, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and that part of" I-anca^hire which lay -outh of the Kihhle. INTRODUCTION. 6 are only found on the extreme eastern edge of our district, and there but seldom. Perhaps we may ascribe to this absence of the Danish element the marked difference which distinguishes the inhabitants of Sheffield and Eoth- erliam from those of the other large towns of the "West Riding. Their characteristics are those of the Midlands of England, rather than those of Yorkshire proper.- The oldest town in the district is undoubtedly Doncas- ter. It was a Roman station, and from its Roman name of Danum came the Anglian Donceastre, which shows that remains of the Roman fortifications were in existence when the Saxons (or rather Anglians) took possession. A few coins, some pottery, and an altar which is now in the museum at York are all the remains of Roman civilization which have been found here. The Roman road from Lincoln to York passed through Doncaster, and the pres- ent road from Doncaster to Castleford coincides with it for about a mile ; it separates from it at the first toll-bar, and according to Hunterf and the ordnance-map it may be traced, with a few intermissions, all the way to Castleford, on the left of the new road. It is a heap of gravel and loose stones..^ * There are however several Danish names, such as Sweyn, Siward, Ketel, Acun ( = Hakon), mentioned in Domesday as those of landed proprietors in this district. t Deanery of Doncaster, 1. vi. * All the aiitliorities say that this is a Roman road : hut I must confess that I have doubts whether it is a road at all, judging from the portion I have seen myself. It looks much more like a boundary earthwork. This does not traverse the fact that one of the great northern roads of the Romans, which the Anglo-Saxons called the Ermin Street, ran throuo-h Doncaster to Castleford and York. 4 INTRODUCTION. Bede states that Edwin, king of Norlhuuibria had a royal residence at Campodunum, and as the Saxon version translates this Donafeld, it has been supposed ^\ith much probability that Doncaster was the place alluded to, and that it was here that the missionary Paulinus built one of the first Christian churches among the Anglians. Other places, however, claim this honour. Doncaster and Dades- ley (now Tickhill) are the only places in our district mentioned in Domesday Book as having biirt/enses or citi- zens. In mediieval times Doncaster was a flourishing home of monasticism, and the fact that it contained no less than five religious houses shows how mucli more important a town it was in the middle ages than Sheffield or Rotherham, where no such establishments existed.- The town appears never to have been walled, except with an earthwork, some traces of which remained in 1744. The gates were still standing in Leland's time (1544). " That on the west side is a pretty tower of stone," he says, "but St. Mary's gate is the fairest." He mentions that the whole town of Doncaster was built of wood ; this may explain why its old buildings have so entirely per- ished. The old church, which was celebrated for its lofty Perpendicular tower, was burnt down in 1823 ; the new one was built by Sir Gilbert Scott, and has the highest tower of any parish church in England, except Boston in Lincolnshire. No town so ancient as Doncaster has fewer relics of the past to show. We shall allude in a later chapter to its monastic establishments. At the time of the Noi'man conquest three of the most interesting persons in Anglo-Saxon history held lands in * Except tlu- h()s]-)it;il of St. Leonard, at Sheffield. INTRODUCTION. 5 the Yorkshire part of the district that we are about to describe, which then formed part of the earldom of North- umbria. King Harold himself, son of Earl Godwin, held Conisborough, a place whose name indicates that it was once a king's stronghold. Edwin, Earl of Mercia, who was afterwards betrothed to the Conqueror's daughter, but who lost his life in an unlucky rebellion, held Laughton-in-le- Morthen, and had a hall there. Earl Waltheof, the last of the Anglo-Saxon nobles, who afterwards perished on the scaffold, was the owner of Hallam, and had a hall there, the site of which is absolutely unknown. These facts are recorded in Domesday book, which also tells us that almost all the villages whose names we are familiar with now in the district round Sheffield and Rotherham were in existence before the Norman conquest, and were as busy in ploughing and reaping as they are now. As a specimen of the kind of information which we get from Domesday book, we give its brief account of Eotherham : " In Eodreham, Acun had one manor of five carucates to be taxed, where there may be three ploughs. Nigel has there in the demesne one plough, and eight villeins and three bordars having one plough and a half, and one mill of ten shillings. A church and a priest. Meadow four acres. Wood pasture seven acres. The whole ten quaren- teins in length, and five and a half in breadth. Value in King Edward's time, four pounds ; at present, thirty shillings."- * For the elucidation of the terms used in Domesday, and the early land system of England, see Ellis' " Introduction to Domesday Book ": See- bohm's "English Village Community' : and Vinogradoti's "Villeinage in England." 6 INTRODUCTION. The estates of the Saxon earl Waltheof passed into Norman hands after his execution, as those of the other Saxon hmdholders in the district had done before. The Lovetots held Sheffield until they were succeeded by the Furnivals. Roger de Busli, or Bouilli, established himself at Tickhill ; he was one of the most richly endowed of all the followers of the Conqueror, and appears to have been the most powerful landholder in the district ;■■■ for though the king's half-brother, the earl of Mortain, held Rother- ham, he granted it out to Nigel Fossard, tlie Nigel of Domesday book ; and from him it passed to the family of the De Vescis. The celebrated earl William de "Wareinie held Conisborough. All these great landholders however are to us mere names, for little or nothing is known about them, with the exception of William de Warenne. The point about which we have most evidence is their rehgious zeal. The Lovetots founded Worksop Abbey. Roger de Busli richly endowed the priory of Ely the. His soil, in conjunction with another Norman lord, founded Roche Abbey. A De Vesci, in the reign of Henry HI, gave all his lands in Rotherham to the Cistercian convent of Rufford.t In the reign of Henry III, Thomas de Furnival received royal permission to build a strnw castle at Sheffield, from which it would appear tliat the previous castle (of which there is a notice in the reign of Heiu-y II) had been of • Sec HuntL-r, "Deanery of Doncaster," I, 2:3. Strictly speaking, Roger (le Busli preceded the Lovetots at Sheffield, which he held of the Countess Judith, widow of Waltheof; hut the Lovetots are found there early in Henry I's reign. t Guest's "History ol' Rotherham," p. 25. INTRODUCTION. / wootl, or it may have consisted chiefly of earthworks, with a wooden house. The new castle stood on what is now called Castle Hill, and occupied the whole space between the Waingate, Dixon Lane, and the two rivers Sheaf and Don.- It was described in Charles I's time as being *' strongly fortified, with a broad trench 18 feet deep, and water in it, a strong breast-work pallisadoed, and a wall round, 2 yards thick." After it had been taken by Craw- furd in 1G44, it was ordered by the Commonwealth to be " sleighted " or ruined. Not a trace of it remains above ground. The greater part of the district, no doubt, w^as covered with forest in both Anglo-Saxon and Norman times, and joined the great woodlands of Sherwood Forest in Notting- hamshire. Here some of the most ancient English poetry places the haunts of Robin Hood. t Loxley Chase, near Bradfield, has been claimed to be the Loxley of the old ballads. A tomb in Hathersage churchyard pretends to be the tomb of Little John ; and a bow which tradition declares to have been Robin Hood's once hung in Hather- sage church, and is now preserved in Cannon Hall, near Barnsley. So that the district of which we are treating is not without its native romance, as well as the imported glamour which Sir Walter Scott has thrown around Conis- borouah. D The woods of Wharncliffe Chase still preserve a good deal of what must have been the primitive aspect of the * Hunter's "History of Hallamshire," p. 183. t See Appendix, Note 3 H INTRODUCTION. whole country. Oii the highest point of the rocks over- looking the valley of the Don, one Sir Thomas Wovtley, in 1510, built a lodge in the niitlst of the woods "for his plesor to her the hartes bel," according to an ancient inscription cut in the rock, and now illegible,- which once asked prayers for his soul. The principal trade of Sheftield dates from a very early period. Tlie site of some ancient bloomeries once worked by the monks of Kirkstead in Lincolnshire, was to be seen some years ago between Grange and the Blackburn stream near Rotherham, marked by some heaps of scoriiB.f Chaucer speaks of the Sheffield tlnnjdl : and Leland, writing in Henry VIII's reign, says that "in Hotherham be veri good smithes for all cutting tooles ;" and " a mile from Rotherham be veri good pittes of cole." The whole district in mediaeval times abounded with knife-smiths, scythe-smiths, and arrow-smiths.; George, earl of Shrewsbury, in IHizabeth's reign, sent a present of Sheffield knives to Lord Burleigh, calling them " such poor things as his poore country afforded with fame throughout the rcalme." The greatest man whom the district has produced is undoubtedly Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York in the reign of Edward I\', and though biography does not * Hunter, " History of Sheffield," p. 2. A lociil legend accuses tliis Sir 'I'homas of having destroyed a village to clear his hunting-ground hetween Wharnclille and Penistone, in pu:ii-.hment for whicli deed he eventually went mad. and '• heUed " like a stag. t Hunter, '-Deanery of Doncaster," II. :-. \ Addy, I'iie Sjieffield Thwitel, in - Yorks. Archa-ol. Journal," Vol. VIII. I! Hunter's " Hallamshire," ]). 59. INTRODUCTION. enter into the plan of this book, he deserves more than a passing mention here, so closely is he connected with the most important of the antiquities of Rotherham, namely its church. Thomas was born in Rotherham in 1423, in the very part of the town where he afterwards planted his college. Edward IV made him bishop of Rochester and Lincoln successively, and finally Archbishop of York, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and Lord High Chancellor of England. He fell from his high political offices through his loyalty to Edward's family, and was committed to the Tower by Richard III. At Henry YII's accession he was released, but the Lancastrian king never took the Yorkist archbishop into his favour, and he spent the rest of his life in the comparative retirement of his own diocese. Archbishop Thomas was one of the best representatives of of the Renascence of the 15th century ; he was as full of zeal for true religion as of desire for the spread of learn- ing. In the college which he founded at Rotherham he had the double end in view of promoting both religious reformation and education. The five chantry priests who were attached to Rotherham church had become a cause of scandal on account of the irregularity of their lives. The archbishop ordained that they should henceforth live in college, and employ themselves in teaching in the three schools Avhich he provided, in listening to the lectures of the provost, and in studying in the library. The provost, who was set at the head of the college, was to preach the word of God in Rotherham and the other places in the diocese thereunto adjoining. He was to be assisted by two Fellows, one of whom was to teach grammar {i.e. Latin), poetry, and rhetoric, the other music, especially singing. 10 INTRODUCTION. The arclibishop liimsulf tells us his reason for appointing this music-fellowship: "many parishioners" he says, " belong to the church, and there resort to it many rough mountain men, who may be induced to love Christianity more, and to visit the church more frequently, if the services are skilfully performed."- Six poor boys were to receive their education and maintenance gratis in the college. In his will, the Archbishop provided for a further development of his scheme, by instituting a third Fellow, who was to teach writing and arithmetic to boys intended for handicrafts or trades, "forasmuch as among the people of tlie neighbourhood there are many who are exceedingly sharp-watted." The schoolmasters were bound to teach all children resorting to the school, without payment. Thomas made a splendid provision for his college, consist- ing of lands in various parts of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Notts.! Leland describes the college in Henry VIII's time as "a very fair college, sumptuously builded of brike." The Chantry Certificates speak of " the mansion house of the sayd college, w^th a garden and an orchard wythyn the clausture of the same, inverounde Avyth a brike walle, conteyning by estimacioun two acres, and one house nere unto the sayd college, wherein the three scoles be kept and taught."! * Hunter, "Deanery ol Doncaster," II, p. 8. t They are enumerated in the Chantry Certificates, puh. by t!ie Surtees .Society. I Chantry Certificates, Surtees Soc. Vol. I, p. 201. The " three free schools" are simply the three branches taugiit by the three Fellows. INTRODUCTION. 11 This splendid foundation was ruined by the greed of the party who came into power during the minority of Edward VI, and who under the pretence of reformation obtained for the Crown a continuation of the powers Avhich had been granted to Henry VIII personally in the last year of his reign, for the " alteration " of chantries, colleges, and guilds. It was the misfortune of the English Eeformation that it came before public opinion was sufficiently ripe or powerful to defend the public interests, and thus not only were ecclesiastical revenues which might have been used for education squandered on greedy courtiers, but educa- tional endowments themsel-ves were plundered to meet political needs. Some faint idea of the claims of education Avas in the air, for the Commissioners who carried out the Act I Edward VI had discretionary power to continue such grammar-schools supported by the revenues of chan- tries as they thought necessary ; and the school at Rother- ham was one of those which they decided to contiime. But the second ill-adv'sed expedition of the Protector Somerset into Scotland during the following year led to a further drain on the public money, and little if any was left to education from the funds of the chantries. Hunter says that the possessions o^ Rotherham College were seized and granted out in parcels to different persons.- One Robert Swift, a successful mercer of Rotherham, and his son William, were the principal receivers of the stolen property.! The building itself, so altered as to be quite * Hunter, " Deano-y of Doncaster," [, 9. t Guest, "History of Rotherham," p. 144. Guest confuses him with his grandson, Sir Robert Swift. 12 INTRODUCTION. unrecognizable, has now become an inn, and the Rother- hani court-house is built upon a portion of the college site. College Street takes its name from the stolen glory of Rotherham. - There are two other personalities who have left so ineradicable a mark on this district that we must briefly allude to them . Mary, Queen of Scots and Bess of Hard- wick. The captivity of that bewitching queen, whose spell is so strong even in death that men dispute about her now with almost the same vivacity that they did in the Kith century, was passed chielly at Sheffield Castle or ut one or other of the seats of George Talbot, sixth earl of Shrews- bury, I who was her gaoler for lii'teen years. His second wife and assistant gaoler was the celebrated "Bess of Hardwick," daughter of a plain country gentleman of that name, but already risen high in the world through three successive marriages. Her second husband had been a Cavendish, who settled at Chatsworth, and began the bnildinsT of a house there ; it was thus that Chatsworth became one of tiie prison-houses of the Scottish queen.]; Mary's confinement was lenient at first, and she was allowed to ride out on horseback, if properly attended. But after the discovery of her correspondence with the * Sec Ai)])L-iuiix. Note C. + 'I'he Talbots succeeded hy miiniage to the estates of the Funiivals. The Talhut of Henry Vlll's time got ])ossession at tlie Dissolu:ion of tlie Abbey of RuHbrd, with all its lands and rights, 'fhis made him lord of the manor of Rotherham, and patron of tlie church. * Mary's first prison under Shrewsbury's care was 'I'u'buiy Castle, in 1569. From 'I'utljury she was removetl to W'ingfield Manor, and then to Chatsworth. INTRODUCTION. 13 Duke of Norfolk, she was mucli more strictly guarded. She was removed to Slieflfield Castle in 1570, and there she was only allowed to walk out upon the leads or in the court-yard, and either the earl or the countess had always to be present at these airings. In 1572 she was removed to Sheffield Manor, that her rooms might be cleaned. It is believed by those who have most carefully investigated the matter that the small building now shewn as Queen Mary's Lodge in Sheffield Manor was the prison expressly built by the Earl of Shrewsbury for his royal charge. Two small rooms, one over the other, are reached by a small staircase from a guard-room below, and have a further staircase leading to the roof. The upper room has a beautiful plaster ceiling, and a fireplace decorated with pargetting work, bearing the arms of the sixth Earl of Shrewsbury. Round the cornice of both the rooms run hooks for tapestry. Here then we may imagine the unhappy captive queen spending many of her dreary days, weaving her webs of skilful but vain plotting, or busying her fingers in the beautiful embroidery of which so much is still preserved at Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall, and other places. The Manor House,- which rose on the opposite side of the courtyard to her prison, and which is now a shattered ruin, was itself full of remembrances of departed greatness. Here Cardinal Wolsey, one of the greatest ministers that England ever had, spent eighteen bitter days on his last journey to Leicester Abbey, where he died three days after leaving Sheffield. The fallen minister was often seen • Sheffield Manor House was built early in the reign of Heniy VIII. 14 INTRODUCTION. pacing up iiud dov.ii the long gallery of the Manor House, in dejection so deep that no kindness of his host could overcome it. It was a younger and more vigorous victim of fate that Shelheld Manor held within its walls in the person of Mary. For fifteen years, from 15G9 to 1584, she battled for life and freedom in her prison-houses in Sheffield and the neighbourhood. It is however no part of our plan to follow her history there, or her wanderings to Buxton, Chatsworth, and Worksop in search of health ; and we will refer the reader to an able work by a citizen of Sheffield in which the record of her captivity in this neighbourhood is fully written.- Bess of ILirdwick, the Countess of Shrewsbury who assisted in the custody of ^thiry, was a hard selfish woman of no ordinary strength of character, who pursued one object through life with steady persistency, the aggrand- isement of herself and her offspring. For a long time she stood high in Elizabeth's favour, but she overreached herself at last by promoting a marriage between her youngest daughter and Charles Stuart, younger brother of Henry Darnley, a marriage which would have given her descendants a claim to the crown. This brought upon her the displeasure of Elizabeth, She wore out her husband's affection Ijy her imperious temper, and perpetual quarrels with her embittered the latter days of his life. i She was a great builder, and llardwick Hall, Bolsover Castle, and Chatsworth, were completely rebuilt by her. * " Mary, (^uccii of Scot> in Captivity, 1569- 1584,'' hy J. D. Leader, t See Hunter's "History of ShefHekl,'' p. 78, wliere some very ciiaracter- istic letters wliich jxisseil between iier and her inisijantl are given. See also Ap))endix, Note D. INTRODUCTION. 15 Slieftield and Rotlierliam both stood for the parliament- ary cause in Charles I's reign, and both were taken by the Eoyalists, and afterwards retaken by the Parliamentarians. The adventures of the Puritan Vicar of Rotherham, John Shaw, form an interesting chapter in Hunter's Hhtdnj of Shcffiehl. But we must not give further space to personal reminiscences, as the business of this book is Avith the material remains which are still to be seen near Sheftield and Rotherham, and to these we must now address our- selves. 16 PREHISTORIC REMAINS. CHAPTER 11. Prehistoric Remains : Long and Round Barrows, AND Rude Stone Monuments. The DerhyshiiL- Moors — Long; Bairo\v> — Tlie Chambered Barrows — 'I'lit- Dimiingtoii and Mar Barrows — Grave Goods — Uncham- bered Yorkshire Barrows — Round Barrows — Metal Implements — Pottery — Facts and Conjectures — Stone and Bronze Age Civilization — Sheffield Museum — Stone Monuments — Arbor Low — Eyam and other circles. THE breezy moors of Derbyshire and the Yorksliire borderland are dehghtf'ul enough in themselves to be a constant attraction to the inhabitants of Sheffield and Rotherham. J hit to the antiquary they are a happy hunting-ground indeed, for they are rich in those monu- ments of tlie mysterious past, the secret of which has only partially been unravelled. You cannot walk far on these heathery uplands without coming upon the burial places of the unknown races who dwelt in Britain before the dawn of history. If you are careless, you may easily pass many a stone circle or rifled barrow- without seeing it, so overgrown are they with heather ; but a glance at the Ordnance Map, where the names of antiquities are printed in Old English type, will show liow thickly these barrows * Barrow, from A. S. ht'orh, a hill, a grave-mound. Skeat's " Etymologi- •cal Dictionary." PREHISTORIC REMAINS. 17 or luirs bestud the hills of Derbyshire and North Stafford- shire. There was once such a barrow near Sheffield, at Kinging Low, as the name shows, for hue is an Anglo- Saxon word for a tumulus. An ancient document, the "Perambulations of the Manor of Sheffield,"- tells us that in 1574 there was "a great heape of stones called Kinging Lawe, from which one Thomas Lee had taken and carted away a great sort of stones." Would that we could get hold of Thomas Lee, and ask him what else he found under that heap of stones, whether there were any bones or pottery ! Numbers of barrows have in this way been improved off' the face of the earth ; and it seems probable that instead of being only reared on wild and lonely moors, the chief places where we find them now, they were once to be found all over the country, and have been gradually destroyed by the progress of cultivation.! There are two chief classes of barrows in Britain, the long and the round. The long barrows are assumed to be the oldest, because they undoubtedly belong to the Stone Age, the period when man used tools and weapons only of stone or bone. No metal has ever been found in any primary interment in a long barrow\:J Another peculiarity of the long barrows is that when they have been carefully investigated they have proved to be ossuaries or bone- houses rather than graves. They are generally found to * Quoted in Hunter's "Hallamshire," p. i8. f See Appendix, Note E. + Secondary interments of later periods, even as late as Anglo-Saxon times, are very frequently found in both long and round barrows ; and when they are mixed up together by ignorant explorers, as has very often happened, they confuse the data of archjEology. C 18 PREHISTORIC REMAINS. contain a number of skeletons lying pell-mell together, and often in such positions as to prove that the flesh had left the bones before the final burial was made. This custom is known to have existed among some of the Indians of both North and South America.* The third distinguishing feature of the long barrows is that they are frequently chambered barrows. This is not the case with all of them ; those of Yorkshire, as far as they have been yet explored, are without chambers, and very few of the long barrows of Derbyshire have been found to possess them. The most complete development of the chambered barrow is to be found in the extreme North of Scotland, and in Gloucestershire.! Certain long barrows there have their ends curiously extended in the outline of horns ; from the east end, a passage built of large stones leads into a well-built chamber, all of dry walling, which is generally divided into three parts, the central one being covered with a kind of dome, formed by the projection of stone over stone. In these cases the original barrow has been built up with one or more retaining walls, so that it is not a mere heap of stones, but belongs to that class of tombs which in Egypt are called mastobas. It is a strange thing that our country possesses monuments so remarkable as these, but yet takes so little interest in them. There are many long barrows in Derbyshire, and one or two of them appear to be of the chambered type, such as Ringhara Low, near Moneyash ; Stoney Low, on Brassing- • Greenwell, "British Barrows," p. 17. f See Anderson, " Scotland in Pagan Times," Stone age, cli. IV. Greenwell, "British Barrows," pp. 513-541. PREHISTORIC REMAINS. 19 ton Moor; and Five Wells Hill, near Tadclington.- There was once a long barrow at Dinnington near Rotlierhara ; it was levelled in 1862, and a large number of skeletons of both sexes and all ages was found inside ; they were not arranged in any regular order, and no weapons or orna- ments were found with them.f The skulls are now in the Oxford museum ; they are of the long-headed type which is usually found in the long barrows. The long barrows yield only a very scanty supply of grave goods. Weapons and implements are rare, and when found are always of stone or bone ; hammer-heads, flint arrow-heads, flint knives, flint scrapers, and bone needles, are among the most common finds. The arrow * See Bateman's " Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire," and his "Ten Years' Diggings." Unfortunately he does not tell us whether the barrows he explored were long or round. There is a long barrow at Perry Foot, not far from the Castleton and Buxton Road, which appears to have been only partially explored. Pennington, " Barrows and Bone Caves of Derbyshire." t Memoirs read before the Anthropological Society of London, Vol. I, p. 132. Another long barrow was destroyed in 1829, at Hangman Stone near Marr, which from the description preserved in Hunter ("Dean- ery of Doncaster," II, 489) seems to have corresponded in a remarkable way to the cremation long barrows opened by Canon Greenwell on the Yorkshire wolds. There was a floor of limestone, covered with wood and vegetable material, on which the bodies had been laid, and more stone placed above. The whole was then fused into a solid mass. The bones found were " lying promiscuously," though belonging to several skeletons. Several urns of coarse clay were found, rudely ornamented with dots and lines ; one contained small bones. These suggest secondary burials of the bronze age. But one urn had a deep overhanging rim turned back. A piece of iron was found which may have belonged to some still later burial. 20 PREHISTORIC REMAINS. SxoNK Age Implements and Pottery. 1. — Stone axe. 2. — Hammer-head. 3. — Leaf-shaped flint arrow-head. 4.— Barbed flint arrow-head. 5.— Flint knife. 0-7.— Bowls found in long barrows. Partly from Anderson's "Scotland in Pagan Times." PREHISTORIC REMAINS. 21 heads are not barbed,- but leaf-shaped (fig. 3). Pottery is even more rare than implements, so rare as to render doubtful any general deductions as to its difference from that of barrows of the Bronze Age. Yet a peculiar type of urn, round-bottomed, dark coloured, and thick-lipped, (fig. 6), has been found in Stone Age barrows as far apart as Caithness,! Argyllshire, § Yorkshire,]: Gloucestershire, and Sussex. :[::[ The long barrows all over Britain resemble one another in form ; they are generally, though not invariably, laid approximately east and west, and are higher and broader at the east end than the west. The east end, as a rule, contains the interments. These barrows are sometimes 180 or even 240 feet long, but their height does not exceed 10 or 12 feet. When so small a part of the barrow was used for burial, one wonders at its needless length. Was it intended for future funeral chambers, to be excavated in it when the first were filled ? or did the makers seek to honour the dead by building their monuments long, be- cause they were unable to build them high ? A number of the unchambered long barrows of Y^'orkshire have been carefully examined by Canon Greenwell, and * A barbed arrow-head was found in the Stone Age cairn of Unstan in Orkney. This was a round cairn. Anderson's "Scotland in Pagan Times," Stone Age, p. 298. On the orher hand, leat-shaped arrows are not unfrequently found in round harrows. f "Scotland in Pagan Times," p. 252. § Ih. p. 271. X "Journal of Anthropological Institute," Vol. XI : Green well's "British Barrows," Willerby, Market Weighton, and Eyford. + + "Journal of Anthrop. Inst." Vol. V. Cissbury Camp. 22 PREHISTORIC REMAINS. have been fouiul to be, in eftect, kihts, in which a number of bones, and in some cases a few complete bodies as well, were placed at one time, with wood and stone carefully arranged round them ; the barrow was then heaped up above them. How the fire was kindled has not yet been found out, but examination of the barrows shows that it frequently did not catch properly along the whole line of burial, and that consequently some bones were only im- perfectly burnt, and some not at all. The chambered long barrows of Gloucester and Wilts seldom show any traces of burning. It is quite possible that the interments here were made at different times, and indeed the existence of the passage leading to the sepulchral chamber from the outside seems to render the theory of successive interments very probable in these cases. But with the unchambered long barrows of the south-west of England, containing unburnt bones, the case is otherwise, as the bones have plainly never been disturbed since they were first laid on the surface of the ground.- There are a few chambered round barrows in Scotland, which appear by their contents to belong to the Stone Age.f But in the Bronze Age round barrows were universal. They are far more numerous in England than the long barrows. They are sometimes of heaped-up earth, some- times of loose stones ; sometimes of imposing size, sometimes so small as hardly to be noticed.]: The grave where the body was laid is generally dug in the original • GreenwcU, " British Barrows," p. 547. t See Anderson, "Scotland in Pagan Times," cli. V. J Rouiul i)arro\vs are very numerous on the Derbyshire moors. There is a group of them on the hill top above Manners Wood, near Bakewell. PREHISTORIC REMAINS. 23 surface of the ground. Frequently (though not univer- sally) the body is placed in a ciat, a sort of rude box, composed of six or more flags set on end, with a covering of one or more.- As in the Stone Age, so in the Bronze Age, the bodies were sometimes burnt and sometimes unburnt.f When burnt, the ashes were sometimes placed in a rude urn ; this however was by no means invariably the case, and often the ashes were merely laid in a heap on the ground. "When the body was buried unburnt, it was almost invariably laid on its side in a contracted position, the knees being doubled up till they nearly touched the chin.]: A whole barrow has often been found containing only a single burial, which has sometimes been that of a woman or a child. It is only in the round barrows that metal is found, and bronze appears to have been the first metal known in Britain. But though the round barrows were raised in the period which is known as the Bronze Age, some of them appear to have been constructed when bronze was, to say the least, very rare in Britain. Some of these barrows contain bronze axes which have evidently been copied from the simple forms of the Stone Age axes.§ There are several not far from the circle called the Nine Ladies on Stanton Moor, in one of which an urn of coarse clay, enclosing a smaller vessel, human bones, and some blue glass beads, were found by Major Rooke. * There are no cists in the barrows on the York Wolds, where stone slabs are not common. Greenwell, "British Barrows." t See Appendix, Note B. J This is also the case in the long barrows, whenever the bodies have been buried whole. § Greenwell, " British Barrows.'' 24 PREHISTORIC REMAINS. ^^2-^ -^ 10 II Bronze Age Weapons. 8-9. — Bronze daggers. 10. — Bronze axe, older type. 11. — Ditto, later type. From Wright's " Celt, Roman and Saxon," (fig. 10). But other round barrows, probably later in date, contain bronze axes with phlanges, and with loops for attaching the blade to the handle (fig. 11) ; and as the clay moulds have also been found, it is plain that these axes were made in Britain. Axes, knives, daggers, and awls arc the chief bronze instruments found in the round barrows ; but a very much larger assortment of bronze weapons has been found in hoards, such as swords, PREHISTOHIC EEilAINS. 25 spear-lieads, and shields of elaborate workmanship. Gold is the only other metal which is found in barrows of the Bronze Age ; it has occurred in some few instances in Britain.- Sepclchbal Potteby of the Bkonze Ace. From Greenwell's " Biithh Earrow?." lb. p. 55. 2G PREHISTORIC REMAINS. The pottery of the Bronze Age barrows is much more extensive than that of the long barrows. The vases found are generally of the follownig types : (1) — cinerary urns, (fig. 12), thick, rudely baked urns, which contained the burnt bones ; (2) — -shorter urns, of a bulgy character (fig. 13), to which the name food- vessel was given by the older antiquaries, and which probably did contain food, to feed the soul of the departed on its long journey ; (3) — thinner and rather better made vases (fig. 14) called drinking cups by the older antiquaries, but which are too porous to have held liquid ; they appear to contain the remains of animal matter; (4) — the so-called incense-cups (fig. 15) which are small cups, sometimes of open work, and nearly always with holes drilled in them ; the purport of these is quite unknown. •■ They are only found with burnt bones. Now who were the races who built these barrows ? The scientific study of their remains has been so recent, and is still so imperfect, that perhaps we are scarcely yet in a position to give a positive answer to this question. We must carefully distinguish between the facts which have been discovered and the conjectures which have been made. The /nets are these : We find in the long barrows the remains of a people of short stature and small bones, with skulls of the long-headed or dolico-cephalic type, with • Mr. Albert Way suggested that they were vessels for carrying the sacred fire to the funeral pyre, and Canon Greenwell accepts this theory. Canon Greenwell gives some interesting reasons for believing that the pottery above described was expressly made for sepulchral use. " British Barrows," p. io6. PEEHISTORIC REMAINS. 27 narrow faces, oval brows, and receding chins. No metal objects have ever been found buried with their remains. In the round barrows on the other hand, we find the bones of men at least 4 inches taller, strongly made, with round skulls (brachy-cephalic), beetling brows, high cheek bones, and prognathous faces, the jaws and chni projecting forward. The two sets of skulls, the long and the round, "are well nigh as distinct and as sharply contrasted as any other sets of skulls which it is possible to put along- side each other from either ancient or modern times."- But while the long barrows only yield long skulls, the round barrows contain long skulls as well as round, in some districts in almost equal numbers ; and a middle type of skull (mesati-cephalic) is also found in the round barrows. The covjectures of most recent date by which these facts are explained are these : The long-headed man of the long barrows belongs to a race akin to the Iberians and Basques, a race which was once distributed all over the west of Europe.! The Silurians of South Wales, of whose small stature and swarthy faces Tacitus speaks, belonged to the same race, and the type still survives in South Wales, and even in Wiltshire. This race was invaded and conquered by the large-limbed, fair-haired Kelts, who not long after their conquest of Britain became acquainted with bronze. They did not however destroy the long- headed people, but inter-married with them, and hence a • Rolleston, in Greenvvell's "British Barrows," p. 645. t See Boyd Dawkins, "Early Man in Britain," p. 330; Greenvvell's "British Barrows," p. ii8, Sec. 28 PREHISTORIC REMAINS. type of skull intcnnediate between the long and the round was produced. But the long-headed people being the most numerous, their type of head eventually prevailed ; and this accounts for the fact that the modern Kelt is long- headed. So far the conjectures ; of which we may say that those of their supporters who know the most of the subject are the most modest in putting them forward. There are other antiquaries who maintain that we have not enough data at present to come to positive conclusions.- The identification of the Stone Age people of the long barrows with the Basques and Iberians seems to have a good deal to say for it. On the other hand the identification of the round-headed bronze-using men of the round barrows with the Kelts has this fact against it, that the system of decoration employed on the pottery and weapons of the Bronze Age is entirely one of straight lines, while the system of decoration which we know to be early Keltic is one of curved lines. If we accept the theory that the Neolithic or Stone Age people became amicably fused with the Eoundheads of the Bronze Age, we can the better understand the continuity of their civilization, and even of their customs, which is shown by the barrows. The long barrows generally have round barrows for their immediate neighbours, showing that the Bronze people occupied tlie same sites as their predecessors. An explorer of the Derbyshire barrows says " The only difference I have observed between stone users and bronze users has been an improvement in old arts * See Appendix, Note G. PREHISTORIC REMAINS. 29 not the introduction of new ones. There is an improve- ment in pottery, and the workers in stone are able to drill holes in hammers to put the haft in. - - - Both practised the same two kinds of burial ; both were acquainted with the art of polishing stone celts ; both adorned themselves with jet and amber ; both made coarse pottery, rudely ornamented with the same designs, and both hunted and fed upon the same animals."- Canon Greenwell's explor- ations in Yorkshire have brought out the curious fact that the custom of delaying the final burial of the skeleton till the flesh had left the bones, which was so prevalent in the Stone Age, was practised by some of the round-headed people of the round barrows. The Sheffield Museum contains a most valuable collec- tion of antiquities of the Stone and Bronze Ages, formed by the late Mr. Bateman during his Derbyshire diggings. No attempt has yet been made to classify these antiquities according to the period to which they belong, and no doubt the task would be difficult, as the information supplied by Mr. Bateman himself is so very imperfect.! The skulls are not so ari*anged as to separate the dolico-cephalic from the brachy-cephalic specimens, but it is possible to pick out some of the long-headed ones by observation. In the table-cases all the varieties of tools and weapons used in the Stone and Bronze Ages are to be seen, as well as the ornaments of bone, jet, and even gold, which were worn in those early times. * Pennington's "Barrows and Bone Caves of Derbyshire." t In his first book "Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire" he never tells us whether the barrows which he opened were long or round ; in his second book " Ten Years' Diggings," he has partially repaired this omission.. 30 PREHISTORIC REMAINS. We must not fail to notice the deep significance of these buried treasures. The food vessels, as well as the bones of domestic animals which are often found buried with or near the dead without vessels, point without doubt to provision for the soul of the departed. Primitive man had a spark of that unmortal hope which is the birth-right of our race ; he refused to believe in death, even when the apparent facts of it were staring him in the face. And the frequency with which those ancient people buried with their dead the implements and ornaments which must have been so difficult to procure, point to feelings of love and respect and self-sacrifice which were as real then as now. These things are the touches of humanity which make the whole world kin.- The round barrows are not the only burial places of the primeval races which have been preserved. I have yet to speak of the rude stone monuments, the menhirs, dolmens, and cromlechs, \ which are by far the most striking class of remains which have come down to us from this remote time. About menhirs, or solitary standing stones, we can never be certain that they did not once form part of a circle or avenue which has been destroyed. Dolmens are rude structures of unhewn stones, resembling stone tables, one large block being supported on several others. They are not unlike a magnified form of the cist in which bodies of the bronze period were frequently buried. Actual cists • See Bateman, "Ten Years' Diggings," Introduction, iii ; and Ander- son, "Scotland in Pagan Times," p. 96. f These words are taken from the Breton names of these monuments, which are so common in Britanny. The word cromlech is sometimes mistakenly used lor dolmen, but it properly means a stone circle. PREHISTORIC REMAINS. 81 have sometimes been found buried beneath them.- Crom- lechs, or stone circles, consist of a varying number of stones arranged in a circle ; sometimes they stand upon an embankment, sometimes on the surface of the ground.! These stone circles are often called Druidical temples, this being a favourite theory with the antiquaries of the last century. But there is not the slightest vestige of evidence, either historical or archaeological, to connect these struc- tures with the Druids. The burials of the Stone and Bronze Ages hint at ancestor worship, as far as they hint at worship at all ; whereas we know from history that the Druidical system was a deification of the powers of nature. There is no doubt among antiquaries now that these stone circles are sepulchral in their origin ; and burials have been found in the centre of some of them which have been associated with implements of bronze, or with urns of the Bronze Age type.;^ There are no dolmens in the district I am describing, § and no menhirs of any importance, but there are many stone circles. The great circle at Arbor Low in Derbyshire is one of the finest in England, and though it is beyond the limits which I have set to this work, it ought to be mentioned here. It is easily reached from Sheffield, as it is about 9 miles from Bakewell Station. Arbor Lowe is a circular rampart of earth, about 18 feet high, on the top • See Appendix, Note H. t See Appendix, Note I. I See Appendix, Note J. § Bateman says that there are i large dolmens at the top of a barrow called Minning Lowe, near Brassington, " as they now appear from the soil being removed from them.'' "Ten Years' Diggings," p. 82. 32 PREHISTORIC REMAINS. of which are about 30 large stones, the largest being 12 feet long,- Strange to say, they are all lying prostrate. Inside the rampart is a broad ditch ; the platform which it encloses is 1G7 feet in diameter. There are, or were, two entrances across the ditch ; one has been obliterated by a road. There are some large stones in the centre of the platform, which have probably once formed part of a central dolmen. f This is a circle of the first magnitude, but smaller ones are to be found within our district which conform to this type. The circle on Wet Withens Moor, near Eyam, comes next in point of size ; it is about 34 yards in diam- eter, and has 14 stones still standing, placed on a small rampart, but it has no ditch. These stones are only of small size..|. The Nine Ladies on Stanton Moor, according to a drawing by Mr. Llewelyn Jewitt,S is also a rampart circle with nine stones rising out of it ; but when I saw it, the rampart was not to be traced through the thick growth of heather.* This circle has a solitary stone or menhir (called the King Stone) standing about 34 yards to the W. of it. An outstanding stone, to the W. or S. W. is a • See Ferguson, "Rude Stone Monument.'," p. 159, for a plan and measurements of Arl)or Lowe. + There are many stone circles, especially in Ireland, wliicli have dolmens in the centre of them. + Near this circle is a very curious caiin, which appeared to me to be formed of several small cells, whether for habitation or for burial. § Reproduced in Ferguson's " Rude Stone Monuments," p. 49. 5[ This circle is very difficult to find : it lies about 300 yards to the N. W. of the tower on the moor, and aliout half way between the tower and the next quarrj' is a path whicli leads straight to it. Ten stones, not nine^ can be counted. PREHISTORIC REMAINS. 33 frequent accompaniment of stone circles. On Froggatt Edge, right above the Mason's Arms, on the E. side of the drive which runs along the top of the moor, there is a small circle with a low rampart, which has standing stones on each side of its bank,;]: one of them being at least 4 feet high. It has two well marked entrances, N. and S. There is a well-preserved circle on Moscar Moor, near Hordron Edge, about a mile from the Sheffield Road. It consists of nine stones, some of which are rather more than 3 feet high. It differs from the circles spoken of previously in having no rampart ; the stones rise out of the ground. It is about IG yards in diameter. There are some other circles marked on the Ordnance Map, but I have not been able to visit them. Although for the present we must leave in abeyance the question as to what races of men built these prehistoric works, there is one conclusion which comes out with increasing clearness from modern discovery and discussion. It is that special customs are not confined to special races ; but from the earliest times of which any vestige is left us waves of influence, social or religious changes, have passed over different races, even when far removed from each other. In other words, man, as long as we know anything of him, has been a progressive animal, and the Zeitgeist has ever been stronger than the traditions of race. * I have seen other circles in Yorkshire constructed in this way. 34 CAMPS AND EARTHWORKS. CHAPTEK III. Camps and Earthworks. Wincohank C'limp — Castk- Holmes — Stainhoroiigh Low — Blow Hall — Carl Wark — Mam Tor — The Roman Rig — The Double Dyke — The Bar Dyke— Local Names — Camps of Refuge — Boundary Earthworks — Penistone Circles. THE barrows are by no means the most striking of the prehistoric remains to be found in the neighbour- hood of Sheffield and Eotherham. There are several remarkable earthworks of much more imposing appear- ance. One of these is the camp on the top of Wincobank Hill. Like so many prehistoric camps, it stands in a splendid situation, with a wide view of the surrounding country, and its beacon fires would no doubt be visible over a vast extent of territory. It is oval in shape, and measures 132 yards from N.E. to S.W., and 103 yards from N.W. to S.E. This oval form of the fort furnishes a clear proof that it is not Roman, for Eoman camps are always rect- angular. The vallum is surrounded with a deep ditch, which had a bank on the countemcnr]), or outside edge of the ditch, still to be seen on the S. and S.E. sides. This bank on the counterscarp frequently occurs in primeval CAMPS AND EARTHWORKS. 35 defences, and is a great puzzle ; modern fort builders would regard it as furnishing cover for an enemy. There was formerly a doable rampart on the N. side, which may still be traced ; and a good spring of water existed just outside the fort, until it was drained away recently through coal-workings underneath. In the interior of these ancient strongholds it is not uncommon to find circles of rude dry-walling, from ten to thirty feet in diameter ; these were the bases of ancient wig-wams, the dwellings of the former inhabitants of the fort. There are none of these to be seen at Wincobank. What ought to be sought for here and in all other primi- tive camps is the ancient hearths and refuse heaps. If the fort was ever inhabited, these probably still exist, and would give us valuable information about the former inhabitants. A similar stronghold to Wincobank is Cfesar's Camp, or Castle Holmes, as it is called in the Ordnance Map, though it appears to be better known in the neighbourhood by the former name. It is in the heart of Scholes Wood, near Rotherham, and is itself overgrown with trees, so that it is difficult to examine. It is a circular dyke, about 200 paces round, with a ditch enclosing it. There is an entrance on the N. side. A portion of the bank has been cut through by the path running through Scholes Wood, but it reappears on the other side of the path. The large earthen circle called Stainborough Low near Wentworth Castle, though it is now disguised by a modern wall on the top and other additions, is undoubtedly 36 CAMPS AND EARTHWORKS. an ancient earthwork of the same kind.- There are several circles of stones and earth in Edlington Woods near Conisborough ; one, which was known by the name of Blow Hall, has lately been removed by the woodman to mend the roads, and the same fate has befallen a large cairn which stood about 250 yards from it. It is impossible to say whether these circles were defensive or sepulchral, since there has been no adequate examination of them.f There are two most interesting prehistoric camps in Derbyshire which are of a rather different type to those described above : the Carl ^Yark on Hathersage moor, and the entrenchments on Mam Tor near Castleton. The Carl Wark is built on a rocky headland which rises out of the moors near Burbage Bridge, on the road between Fox House and Hathersage. This headland was so well defended by nature that it was easily turned into a fortress by building a wall across the only accessible slope, a method of fort-building which has been used by primitive races all over the world. The Carl Wark is in excellent preservation, the front towards the enemy being well built of unhewn stones, without mortar, while it is banked with a broad bank of earth and stones, sloping gradually to the inside. The north and east sides of the headland thus enclosed are precipitous, but as the south side is less so, it has been defended by a hedge of large unhewn blocks •The antiquai-y' Dodswortli mentions it in 1628 as "an ancient fortress." The tower and walls now standing on it were built in 1730. + The woodman found no hones in those which he has destroyed ; hut he told me that he found what he called a properly l)uilt hearth in one. It is deplorable that he should be allowed to destroy these antiquities. CAMPS AND EARTHWORKS. 37 round the edge of the platform. Through this, near the point where it joins the western rampart, there was a well defended entrance, still plainly to be seen. There are no traces of hut circles on the platform, w'hich is strewn with huge natural boulders. Here again, if we could find the primitive hearths, we could hope for more information. The entrenchments on Mam Tor are surprising by their vast extent. A whole army could have been contained in the circle of dyke and ditch, nearly 1200 yards in circum- ference, which encloses the crown of the hill. Bateman tells us that it occupies rather more than 16 acres of ground. It has a perennial spring of water at the N.E. corner, and near the S.W. side are [or were?] two barrows, one of which was opened in Bateman's time. A bronze celt and some fragments of an unbaked urn were found in it. This camp probably had a double line of dyke and ditch all round, as this is still distinctly to be seen on the Castleton side. Part of the dyke has been carried away by the landslips to which Mam Tor is subject. FHnt arrow-heads have been often found along the line of the dyke. We now come to another class of earthworks, those which extend themselves in long lines across considerable tracts of country. Our chief example of these is the so-called Roman Rig, that mysterious bank which coasts the face of the hills all the way from Sheffield to Mex- borough, a distance of about 11 miles. It is a bank made of loose stones and earth, about 8 feet high in the places where it is most perfect ; it had originally a ditch on the southern side, and a small bank on the counterscarp. 88 CAMPS AND EARTHWOBKS. Both of these can still be traced in those parts of its course where it is well preserved. It runs from South- west to North-east, keeping generally just below the crest of the hills which rise on the Western or left bank of the river Don. To follow its course, we must start from Sheffield by the upper Grimesthorpe road. Near the point where the Osgathorpe road turns out of the Grimesthorpe road we may see the first traces of the dyke. Here it is gnawed away to its original core of stones, and very little of that ; but follow it to the point where it descends the hill into the Grimesthorpe valley, making a sharp turn to the left, and it will be found as perfect as anywhere in its course. On the opposite side of the valley it has been entirely cut off by a quarry ; but it reappears at a point which shews that without climbing to the camp which crowns the Wincobank Hill, it ran like a terrace along the side of that hill, and followed the line of a remarkable fault or upheaval of the sand-stone strata, till it crossed the Blackburn valley, where the Yorkshire engine works have destroyed all trace of it. But cross the valley and it will be found again near Meadow Hall, first on the right, and then on the left hand side of the road ; and an interesting walk may be taken from Sheffield to Mexborough by trying to follow the former course of this ancient earth- work. Often when all trace of dyke or ditch is gone, a footpath still preserves the memory of the former embank- ment, and of the right of way which it must have furnished from the time that its primeval functions ceased. At a certain point in its course, somewhere in what is CAMPS AND EARTHWORKS. 39 now called Lady Rockingham's wood, it sends out a branch, and henceforth runs towards Mexborough in a double line, sometimes as much as a mile apart. Its course is by no means always straight, but sometimes turns sharply at right angles, as for example near the road by "Roman Terrace" at Mexborough. A very fine piece, showing well the ditch and counterscarps, may be seen in Wentworth Park, near the Greasborough entrance. At Mexborough the local name for it is the " barmkin." There is another embankment Avhicli probably belongs to the boundary class, the Double Dyke which runs through Edlington Wood near Conisborough, from S.E. to N.W. It is not absolutely impossible that it may be a continuation of the Roman .Rig.='' It is very difficult to find, and there is not much of it when found. Another fragment of a boundary earthwork is a strip of earthwork, about half a mile long, for the most part in good preservation, called the Bar Dyke, about 2 miles from Bradfield. It runs across a high table-land, N.W. to S.E., and appears to have ended sharply on the brow of each hill. Its ditch is to the W. and has an embanked counterscarp. On the table-land which it defends, near the place called Handsome Cross, are traces ( almost obliterated except on land which is still moor) of an elliptical enclosure, ditched and banked. W^ithin its circuit I picked up a flint scraper ; but tins is no evidence as to its date. There are (or were) many tumuli in this neigh- bourhood. * The woodman informed me that he had traced it as far as Hoober House in Wentworth Park ! 40 CAMPS AND EARTHWORKS. To what races of men must wc attribute these camps and earthworks ? We are at present without the means of givhig a positive answer to this question. Earthworks of very different ages are so very much Hke one another that only careful excavation, revealing the traces invariably dropped by the ancient builders, or the hearths which they formerly used, can shew to what age they belonged. I may remarlv* in passing that such local names as the Roman Rig, Caesar's Camp, the Danes' Dyke, and so forth, are not of the slightest value as guides to the real origin of the works they are applied to. Numbers of earthworks in England are ascribed to the Romans, the Danes, or the Devil, which had really nothing to do with any of them. These names only prove that the people who gave them, whether our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, or the peasantry of more recent times, wondering at these mysterious tokens of the past, and ignorant of their real origin, connected them with the names which had most powerfully im- pressed their own imagination. Thus the Grimes Dyke in Cambridgeshire receives its name from Grim, one of the giants of Teutonic mythology ; and when we find the village of Grimesthorpe built close to the Roman Rig, we get a hint that the first Anglo-Saxon settlers connected this remarkable earthwork with some mysterious super- human power;- and if this proves nothing else, it proves that they did not build it themselves, and did not know • The local name for tliu vallum of Antoninus is the Grimes Dyke ; there is also a Grim's Dyke near Salisbury, a Grimcsditch in Cheshire, Grimthorpe on the Yorkshire Wolds, and Grimston Moor near Gilling, all sites of ancient earthworks or barrows. Grimes' Graves in Norfolk are some neolithic flint diggings. CAJIPS AND EARTHWORKS. 41 who built it. In like manner the name Carl Wark shows that the origin of that fort was mysterious and unknown to the first English settlers in that neighbourhood ; the Carl being a synonym for the Old Man or the Devil.- But while we must wait for future explorations before we can decide with certainty to what epoch these monu- ments belong, w^e are not W'ithout data which may help us towards a guess at their relative age. The results of General Pitt-Eivers' long and unique experience in digging into earthworks have led him to regard prehistoric camps like those of Wincobank and Carl Wark, not as parts of a system of combined defences (a favourite theory with some antiquaries) but as places of refuge built by some local tribe, to which they fled on the approach of an enemy, and where they waited till the hostile force had returned to the place from which it came.t The longer lines of defence, such as the Roman Rig, shew, in the opinion of the same investigator, a more advanced state of civilization, and are therefore probably of later date. No long earthwork which has yet been excavated has been found to go back so far as the Neolithic period. The ^Yansdyke and Bokerley Dyke, wiiich were formerly supposed to be pre-Eoman, have been proved by General Pitt-Eivers' excavations to be post-Eoman. The Eomans themselves built earthen ram- parts of this kind to defend the borders of their provinces, * General Pitt Rivers' excavations in the Danes' Dyke near Flamborough Head have proved that it was built by the people of the early Bronze Age. t See "Excavations in Cranbourne Chase," by Lieut. -General Pitt Rivers. 3 Vols. 42 CAMPS AND EARTHWORKS. such as the great Limes Gcniinnitr on tlie German frontier, and the Wall of Severus in Britain. It is not an impos- sible supposition that the Roman Rig may have been built after the departure of the Romans, to defend some remains of British territory against the advance of the Anglian conquerors. And if (as again seems not impossible) it was formerly connected with the boundary earthwork near Bradfield, and with those fragments which are still to be traced going in a northerly direction on the line of the great Roman road known as the Ermine Street, may it not have formed the boundary of the British kingdom of Elmete, which was not conquered by the Anglians till tlie time of King Edwin, in the 7th century'?- This is merely a conjecture, but the use of conjecture is to stimulate observation and research. Such camps as those of Wincobank, Caesar's Camp, Mam Tor, and Carl Wark, we may therefore with a reasonable amount of probability refer to a prehistoric period. But for absolute certainty on these points we must wait for the spade to do its work.f With regard to the vast extent ,of some of these pre- historic fortifications, such as those on Mam Tor, General • The Roman Rig proves plainly that it was not built by the Romans, as it has its ditch to the S.W. side, shewing that the enemy was expected from that quarter. + It is greatly to be desired tliat the camps and earthworks of our district sliould receive careful and scientific investigation. General Pitt- Rivers expresses his belief that there is not one of the enormous number of camps scattered over the country, the approximate date of which might not be fixed by sections cut through the rampart. " Excavations in Cran- bourne Chase," III, p. xi. CAMPS AND EARTHWORKS. 43 Pitt-Rivers is of opinion that it was not the intention of the ancient builders to defend the whole line of the works at once, but that their main object was to have an elevated position commanding all the approaches, from which to hurl missiles at the advancing enemy.- The banks were no doubt generally defended by stockades or hedges on the top.t There are two circles in the neighbourhood of Penistone which do not appear to be of military origin. In both cases, the vallum is rapidly disappearing, and can scarcely ever have been comparable in size to that of the camp at Wincobank. One is near Heath Hall, about 2 miles S. of Penistone ; it lies in low wet ground, and has a vallum, scarcely more than a foot high, on each side of the ditch. It is about 100 paces in diameter, and has a well-marked entrance on the N. side. The other, which is about the same size, is about two miles further to the West, on the top of a hill near the hamlet of Langsett, commanding an extensive view.j Though this is in a more defensible situation, I am inclined to think (though I am only expressing my own conjecture) that these circles enclosed the huts planted by some primitive family for their * See a paper on the "Hill Forts of Sussex," by Colonel Lane-Fox (now Gen. Pitt-Rivers) in Archsologia, Vol. XLII. t The remains of such palisading have been discovered in the vallum of Uffington Castle in the vale of the White Horse. " Crania Britannica." I It has been said of both these camps that they are circles having the ditch inside instead of outside the vallum. I believe this is a mistake arising from confounding the bank on the counterscarp with the main vallum. Certainly in several cases which I have seen ol circles like these, the outer bank looks more important than the inner one ; but possibly the inner one was anciently defended by a hedge or stockade. 44 CAMPS AND EARTHWORKS. summer migrations into the hills, where they w^ent to pasture their cattle, and that the large enclosure was intended to protect their flocks from wolves.- The earthworks at Laughton, Mexborough and Brad- field, which belong to quite a different class, will be described in a subsequent chapter. * Near Addingham in Wharfedale there are two similar circles on the hill side, which are hoth enclosed in extensive lines of circumvaliation, probably for the protection by night of the herds of several families, or a tribe, who made their summer abodes there. ROMAN REMAINS. 45 CHAPTER IV. Roman Remains. Templeborough — Petilius Cerealis and the Brigantes— The Rykiiield Street — The Long Causey — Roman Camp at Broiigh — The Nature of the Anglo-Saxon Conquest — The Ickles and Rother- ham — The Roman Tower at York. WE have already shown that the " Roman Rig " does not belong to Roman tmies at all. But there was an important Roman station near Rotherham, the remains of which were partially excavated a few years ago. It is deplorable that they have lately been covered up by the farmer, who wants the use of the land. When the history of Britain comes to be known and valued by the people of Britain, this field will be bought by the Rotherham Corporation, and the excavations will be renewed and completed, and without doubt many highly interesting discoveries will be made. The site of this Roman station has from time immem- orial been called Templeborough, a name which must have been given when the columnar building, which was discovered in excavating the ruins, was still standing. The Romans loved to place their camps on tongues of land defended by two rivers, and Templeborough stands in this position, in the angle caused by the junction of the 46 ROMAN REMAINS. Don aiiiT tlie Rother. lu the time of the antiquary Hunter (1831), the camp Avas still surroundetl by a double bank, " the outer line considerably exceeding the inner in height and thickness." In liS77 it was "a remarkably well-defined quadrangular earthwork, rather longer from N. to S. than from E. to W." We may remark here that Roman camps are always rectangular, either square or oblong, and thus it is easy to tell them from all other fortifications in this island, whether Neolithic, British, or Anglo-Saxon, for these are either circular, oval, or irreg- ular in shape. The field in which Templeborough is buried used to be called the Castle Garth ; it lies on the right hand of the road from Rotherham to Sheffield, a little further out than the Bessemer Works. The excavations which were carried on here in 1877 showed that the Roman settlement had twice been burnt to the ground and then built up again on its own ruins. Coins were discovered in various parts of the ruins ranging from the time of the emperor Augustus to that of Cons tan - tine, shewing that the station was first founded at an early period. In the oldest part of the remains, the foundations of a largo hall were found, which had had rows of stone pillars on the S. and E. sides. Its rooms had been warmed by a Jn/jKicrdtst, or arrangement of pipes for carrying hot air. The stone thresholds were much worn by the tread of feet. " On the east of the building lay the main road through the station, and beyond it a large open space, rudely laid with boulder pitching, in which no foundations were found. This seemingly open area extended to the E. rampart, and abutting upon it, in ROMAN REMAINS. 47 tlie S.E. angle of the camp, was found a circular well of Roman construction, 29 feet deep. A number of leather soles of sandals of the ordinary Roman type were found at the bottom of this well. The columnar building was probably the Pretorium or Town Hall, the open space the Forum or Market-place."- Very few buildings with columns of the Roman period have as yet been found in Britain. As there were no capitals found with the columns, it is thought that the entablature, that is the capitals and cornice, were of wood, as well as the roof, which accounts for the quantity of charcoal found in the remains of this hall. It was evidently destroyed by fire, for its ruined stones shew marks of great heat. Afterwards a new settlement was built on the ruins of the older one, and a well-made road was found right over the broken columns. This second settlement also was destroyed by fire, and in time the ground was occupied again, but this time by a people who did not build in stone, but threw up banks of earth on the lines of the old Roman ramparts, and even buried part of the Roman pavement in this earthwork, a fact which shows that the bank was made long after the Roman buildings. Mr. G. T. Clark believes that it was thrown up by the Romanized Britons, after the Roman legions had left the island, and after the destruction of the Roman buildings by some foray of the Picts and Scots. "We can easily believe that this Roman camp at Temple - borough was first thrown up when the Roman general * Paper on Roman Rotherham, by J. D. Leader, pub. in Guest's "History of Rotherham," p. 593. 48 ROMAN REMAINS. Petilius Cerealis was attacldng the Brigantes, whom lie reduced under the dominion of Kome in the year A.I). 70 to 7o. It was not without many battles, and some of them bloody,- that he accomplished this work. After the Brigantes were subdued, their chief towns became Roman stations, and thus arose Eboracmn or York, Isuriuui or Aldborough, and Cataractonium or Catterick. These and the other Roman stations in Britain were connected by the far-famed Roman roads. The Ryknield Street, a name given by our English forefathers to the great Roman road which ran from Bath to York, is known to have run from Little Chester near Derby to Chesterfield, and it is not improbable that it ran from Chesterfield through Beighton to Templeborough. It is said that portions of a Roman road might once be traced on Brinsworth Common, which is close to Templeborough. At Templeborough the road crossed the Don by a ford, and went north to Legiolio (now Castleford) where it joined the great Roman road from Lincoln to York, called Ermyn Street by the ancient English, after the name of one of their gods. It is supposed (by Mr. Thomson Watkinj) that. Templeborough is the ancient Roman station of Morbium, which appears on the line of the Ryknield Street in one of the Roman accounts of Britain. There appears to have been also a road from the camp at Templeborough to the westward, in the direction of Sheffield.! The Romans imin have had a station at Sheffield, though the tradition that the present parish * I'acitus, Agricola i y, "miilta prslia, et aliquando non incnienta." t See Guest's "History of Rotherham," p. 595. ROMAN REMAINS. 49 churchyard of Sheffield was once a Roman camp, is probably of modern manufacture. =- A Roman road led from Sheffield across the moors to Brough, near Hope m Derbyshire, and a road which bears the name of the Long Causey is said to mark its route. "On the moors between Redmires and Stanedge, the large paving-stones of which it was formed in many parts remain. Above Bamford it still remains in much perfection, and descends in a straight and very steep line down to the Derwent, which it crossed by a ford. From thence to Brough the exact line of road has been lost."t At Brough there existed, until a few years ago, the remains of a Roman camp ; it has now been destroyed by the farmer, but a Roman altar may still be seen there, built into the wall of a house. From Brough to Buxton, which also was once a Roman station, the line of the road can be traced on the Ordnance Map. It is known as Batham Gate. There is one other trace of the Romans in our district, the remains of a camp near Hornsey Lane, about a mile west of South Kirkby ; being rectangular, it is probably of Roman work. But to return to Templeborough. It suggests some interesting questions relating to the conquest of Britain by our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. Did they exterminate ♦ The name Campo Lane, given to the alley W. of the church, probably means a football field. See Leader's " Reminiscences of Old Sheffield," p. 304, note. f Paper on Roman Rotherham, by J. D. Leader, in Guest's "History of Rotherham," p. 593. E 50 ROMAN REMAINS. the native population, and with them the Roman civiHza- tion which was existing in Britain ? or did they largely spare the conquered, and taking wives from among them, learn their arts and customs ? Our strongest historical school adopts the former view, helieving that the Anglo- Saxon conquest was largely of an exterminating nature, and that only a very small and insignificant part of the Britons wore retained as slaves. But this view, after a short period of domination, has seriously been called in question lately, and it is maintained by its opponents that the Keltic inhabitants very largely survived the conquest, and intermingled with their conquerors. The question is too large a one to be discussed here ; it can only be said that all the evidence to be obtained from the Roman remains near Rotherham supports the former theory. Here we have a Roman town, which at some distant epoch was destroyed by fire, and after that destruction, the site was abandoned. The name of the nearest hamlet, the Icldes, jiossibli/ shews that there was a Christian church there in Roman-British times, as the word Ickles, like the Eccles which we find in so many parts of the country, is probably derived from the Greek rJcldcsia, a church, from which comes the Welsh form Eglwys.- But the church at the Ickles, if ever there was one, was deserted and forgotten. The English town of Rotherham (the home on the Rothor) grew up at a distance from the ruins of the Roman town, for the English conqueror generally feared the goblin-haunted ruins of the past ; and its church, when it came to possess one, had no connexion with the British Ickles. * See Appendix, Note K. ROMAN REMAINS. 51 The Romans were splendid builders ; they used good materials, and their masonry was excellent. They fre- quently used bricks, or rather tiles, for bonding courses in stone walls. An example of this may be seen in the multangular tower which once formed part of the Roman defences of York, and which is still to be seen in the grounds of the Philosophical Society at York. Though X^atched and mended in every century, the lower part of this tower is in the main a genuine piece of Roman work, which can be readily distinguished from the mediaeval part which has been added to it above. Another very interesting specimen of Roman building which can be easily visited in a day's excursion from Rotherham, is the Roman gateway at Lincoln, the most perfect example of a Roman town-gate which now exists in this country. If the reader wishes for a complete picture of Roman life in Britain, he cannot do better than visit the admirable collection of Roman antiquities preserved in the Museum of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, in the former Hospitium of St. Mary's Abbey at York. 52 MOATED HILLOCKS. CHAPTER y. Moated Hillocks. These Hillocks a Special Type of Earthwork — Possibly Norman — Laughton — Mexborough — Bradfield — Bakewell — Hope — Hath- ersage — Holmesfield — Worksop — Transition to Norman Castles. I HAVE now to speak of a type of earthwork which is very common in our district, but whose date must still be pronounced uncertain. I alkule to the moated hillock, with the platform or bailey-court attached. The hillock is generally lofty, in shape like a truncated cone, and completely surrounded with a ditch ; the platform, which is usually of a horse-shoe shape, is also ditched round, and has a strong bank on the counterscarp of the ditch. These earthworks differ markedly from the British or prehistoric strongholds described in Chapter III ; firstly, because they all have the conical mound, which was probably intended for a post of observation ; secondly, because instead of being situated on the tops of hills, and obviously built as places of refuge, they are in the lowlands, often in the centres of villages, often in sites which were the chief places of important estates. Mr. G. T. Clark,=i= who was the first English antiquary to pay special attention to this very marked type of earthwork, believes it to have * "Medieval and Military Architecture," by G. T. Clark. MOATED HILLOCKS. 53 been the form adopted in England during the invasions of the Danes, in the 9th and 10th centuries. But the evidence for this is not conclusive ; and on the other hand, there are facts which suggest the probability that these earthworks were thrown up by the Normans, before the erection of stone castles, to secure themselves in their new possessions in England. Fig. 16 a. Section of a Moateu Hillock and Platform. -The Hillock. B.— Moat. C.— Platform or Bailey-court. D. — Bank on Counterscarp. Ordericus Vitalis, and Wace, the contemporary histor- ians of the Norman conquest, expressly say that the English had very few fortifications in their country at the time of the Norman invasion, and they mention this as one of the causes why the country was so easily con- quered.- But if all the moated mounds which now remain existed then, England must have bristled with fortifica- tions. In Normandy, earthworks of this class are very common ; and there is a picture of one in the Bayeux tapestry, representing the taking of Dinant, in Brittany, by William, duke of Normandy. The same tapestry shews • See Freeman," Norman Conquest," II, 605. 54 MOATED HILLOCKS. \ r\ - Fig. Ifi B. Moated Hillock at Disant, from the Bayecx Tai'estey. a mound of tins very kind in course of erection at Hastings. In the former case, the mound is represented "with a wooden citadel or look-out tower on the top of it, to which two men are attempting to set fire ;- and it is connected by a wooden bridge with the bailey-court below. Mounds of this kind were therefore constructed in Nor- mandy and Britanny before the conquest, and it is exceed- ingly probable that when the Normans came to England, where they would need fortifications which could be quickly thrown up at little expense, they would construct the earthworks to which they were accustomed in Nor- mandy. But the question cannot be settled decisively until a number of these earthworks have been examined by the spade. In the only case (that I am aware of) that one of these moated mounds has been thoroughly excavated, it was found to be Norman. f • TliL- men art- omittctl in tlic illustration, fig. i 6 h. t Cajsar's Camp, above Folkestone, excavated by General Pitt-Rivers. " Arch. Journal," V. 1883, p. 58. See Appendix, Note L. MOATED HILLOCKS. 55 It is probable, whoever constructed these earthworks, that the high conical mound was always intended to carry a look-out tower of wood, while on the platform would stand the buildings, also of wood in the first instance, where the lord and his household lived. The enclosing banks were no doubt surmounted with a wooden palisade ; such a palisade was still standing on the earth- works of Tickhill Castle when Cromwell took it.- At Cardiff the struts of the wooden bridge which connected the mound with the platform have recently been uncov- ered.! It is an interesting fact that these ea-rthworks are almost always known as " Castle Hill" or " Bailey Hill." Now these are not dead, but living names ; instead of attributing these earthworks to fairies or giants, they assign them to the use for which they were first intended, and it is not without significance that they do so in words of Norman speech. The hcdley is still the proper word for the enclosed courtyard of a castle. | There are a number of earthworks in our district which conform, some very completely, and others more remotely to this type, and which I will now briefly enumerate, Laughton is a fine typical instance of this kind of earthwork. ^ The hillock is perfect, with the ditch all round it, and the platform attached. Domesday says that * Hunter, "Deanery of Doncaster," Tickhill. t Clark, " Militaiy Architecture," I, 340. + See Appendix, Note M. ^ Called " Site cf a Roman Encampment" in the Ordnance Map. 56 MOATED HILLOCKS. Earl Edwin ( the brother of Morkar ) had a hall at Laughton, and it is therefore frequently assumed that these earthworks are the site of it. But there is no evidence to prove it, and they may just as well have been thrown up by Roger de Busli, the first Norman lord of this estate. Mexborough (Castle Hill) is another very good specimen of the class ; the hillock is much worn down from its original height. Here in addition to the usual hillock and platform there is another half-moon enclosure annexed ; perhaps as a place of safety for the flocks and herds of the lord. The platform here has its bank, and the bank on the counterscarp is also to be seen. Bradfield has two distinct sets of earthworks, the Bailey Hill and the Castle Hill. The Bailey Hill has a remark- ably lofty mound. The platform is of an irregularly circular shape, following the outline of the ground, which slopes away steeply to the W. and N,, so as to form a sufficient defence on that side. On the S. side the plat- form is defended by a magnificently high bank ; traces of it remain on the E. side also. The earthworks on the Castle Hill appear to belong to the same type, but they are so much worn as to bo ill-defined ; there is a mound, partially scooped away, and a small platform. There is no ditch on the W. side, which is very steep, but there is a bank at some distance from the bottom of the hill. The ditch on the opposite side seems to have contained the approach. At Bakewell there is an earthwork called Castle Hill, but I am doubtful whether it belongs to the type I am MOATED HILLOCKS. 57 describing. There is a platform and a very small momid, which may only be the covered ruins of a to^Yer. There is no ditch. As it is recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that Ethelfleda, the Lady of Mercia, fortified Bakewell, one would like to know if anything remains of her work. Excavation only can decide." There is an earthen mound at Hope, but whether there is a platform attached I was unable to find out, as it is now part of a private garden. There was a castle at Hope in the time of Edward I. At Hathersage there is a fine circular earthwork, called Camp Green, which by its proximity to the village and the church, conforms to the type which I am describing ; but it has no hillock. I mention it here because its situation classes it with the later fortifications rather than with the hill-camps of the prehistoric period. At Holmesfield there are vestiges of an earthwork, which appears to have been a hillock, with a ditch round it, but no platform remains. At Worksop there is a Castle Hill, which is apparently a natural mound, steeply scarped on one side, probably artificially, and with the ditch remaining on all the other sides. It is much larger than the typical look-out hillock of the earthworks we are now describing, but we occasion- ally find that when a natural site has been used for a mound, the mound chosen may be large enough for a * It is rather remarkable that in this place where there certainly was a Saxon earthwork, the mound which is supposed by some to be character- istically Saxon should be absent. 58 MOATED HILLOCKS. whole castle, as at Conisborongli, but the bailey-court is attacliecl to it in conformity with the usual pattern. The houses of ^Yorksop have encroached so much on the mound in question that it is impossible to say if there has been a bailey-court annexed or not. Lelandsays: "There is a place now invyronyd with trees, cawlid the Castelle Hille, where the Lovetofts had sumtime a castell. The stones of the castell Avere fetchid, as sum say, to make the faire lodge in Wyrkesoppe Park, not yet finished." Whether the moated hillocks, with platforms attached, were Norman or Saxon in their original construction, it is quite certain that the earliest Norman castles in England were built on this ground-plan. Even when they were built of stone, we have the hillock of earth with a stone keep upon it instead of a wooden one, and the moated platform is surrounded by a stone wall on top of an earthen bank. The four castles described in a subsequent chapter will be seen to conform in their general features to the plan which we find in the earthworks of Laughton and Mexborough. THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 59 CHAPTER VI. The History of Architecture in England. Anglo-Saxon Architecture — Norman — Transition Norman — Early English — Decorated — Perpendicular — The Renascence — Mould- ings — Norman, Early English, &c. AS the remains of antiquity with which we have to deal in the rest of this book are almost all archi- tectural, it is desirable that we should have some general notions of the historical development of English architec- ture. Our Anglian and Saxon forefathers, when they came to Britain, knew little or nothing of building in stone ; but they found plenty of examples of Roman buildings to copy, and they also received a direct building impulse from Rome when their conversion to Christianity brought them into contact with the civilization of the ancient capital of the world. Thus arose the so-called Anglo-Saxon style of architecture, which, as Mr. Freeman remarks, "is simply a style common to England with the rest of Europe, and which is best distinguished by the name of Primitive Rom.anesgue."'^-' We are told that Benedict Biscop, in the 7th century, brought architects from Gaul to build a stone * " Norman Conquest," V. p. 631. €0 THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. church at Monk Wearmoutli " according to the manner of the Romans, which he greatly loved."- In the fragments of Anglo-Saxon architecture which are scattered over England, we trace the mighty influence of Rome over the receptive minds of our forefathers. We have unfortunately no remains of the better class of churches built by the Anglo-Saxons, for the Norman prelates who came into possession of the English sees after the Conquest were inspired by a passion for building in the newer style which was then developing in Normandy ; consequently they destroyed all the Anglo-Saxon cathedrals to make room for others. It is not surprising therefore that the frag- ments of Saxon work which have come down to our own day should be for the most part rude, and almost entirely devoid of decoration. Evidence exists however which leads us to conjecture that the best Anglo-Saxon churches were decorated in a most effective way with very elaborate carved stone-work. f The characteristics of this Primitire Romanesque, more generally called Anglo-Saxon architecture, are found in the " long and short work," that is, the use of long stones laid alternately horizontally and vertically in the jambs of doors and the quoins (angles) of walls (see fig. 17) : the use of what are called baluster columns, short plump pillars which look as though they had been turned in a lathe (see fig. 27) : the use of these columns as uiid-wall * Beda, " Historia Abbatum," V. t The only specimens of Anglo-Saxon architecture in our district are the N.W. door of Laughton church, (fig. 17) and the tower of Maltby. The beautiful crosses which still preserve for us specimens of Anglo-Saxon decoration, are described in Ch. XII. See also Appendix Y. THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. Gl '■-.T-r cr Fig. 17. Anglo-Saxon Akch at Laughton ; Showing long-and-short work to the left of the arch, inner doorway is of later date. The shafts in windows, a feature never seen in Norman archi- tecture : the decoration of the outer wall by pilaster slips. The arch (except in glazed windows) goes straight through the wall, without those orders or rows of receding columns which we find in the Norman style ; the windows on the other hand when intended to be glazed have often a large splaij both within and without ; they are generally set 62 THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. high ill the wiilL The towers are tall and narrow, and their vertical line unbroken by buttresses, like the old campaniles of Italy. i.5 2.^ Norman Cai'itals, "Baser, akd Mouldings. 18.— Cushion capital. 1!).— Scalloped capital, showing (a) Norman abacus, quirked and chamfered; (b) the quirk or groove; (c) the chamfer; (dj the bell; (e) the astragal. 20.— Volute capital. 21. — Attic base (common in Norman). 22.— A common Norman base. 23.— Transition Norman capital. 24.— Billet moulding. 25.— Chevron moulding. 26. — Beak-head moulding. The succeeding styles of architecture are generally dated as follows : — Norman 10(50 1175. Early English ... 1175 1275. Decorated 1275 1375. Perpendicular ... 1875 1575. We must bear in mind that these dates are only approximate, and are intended as helps to memory rather THE HISTORY OP ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 63 than as strict registers of facts.-- We take certain moments in architecture and classify them according to their signs, but in reality architecture was always in a constant state of growth and change. Each style slid gradually into the next ; and just as at the present day some people are seen wearing the newest fashions of dress wdnle others are wearing the fashions of two years ago, so churches in some parts of the country continued to be built in the older styles after the newer styles had reached their full development in other places. This makes it difficult sometimes to decide the date of a building by its archi- tecture alone. A great building and re-building epoch set in with the Norman Conquest (10G6) and by the 12th century the triumph of Norman architecture was complete, and it was only in some out-of-the-way parts of the country that Saxon churches survived. The Norman style however was only a development of the Eomanesque which had been general all over the Eoman empire. It retained the round arches, but its most marked innovation was the breaking up of the wall-opening into a group of receding arches with their accompanying columns, called orders by architects. In like manner the piers between the nave and aisles were broken up into groups of square shafts, or had round shafts added to them. The huge round column is very characteristic of English Norman, but the grouped shafts are quite as ancient ; Edward the Confessor used them at * See Appendix, Note N. 64 THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. •27. Norman Arches : The arches are of Roman bi-icks; the left hauci spandril shews herring- bone work ; the 2ucl sliaft is an Anglo-Saxon baluster shaft used again by the Norman builders. From St. Albans. THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 65 Westminster.'- The cushiun capital (fig. 18) was the prevaihng one in early Norman work, but capitals with volutes (fig. 20) which are descended from Roman and 27 B. — NoEJiAX Vaulting. A. — Plaiu groined vault. B. — Square-edged arch. C. — Soffit-rib. * The I'ragmeiits of Edward the Confessor's building which still remain at Westminster Abbey show that the Norman >tyle was introduced into England^even before the Norman conquest. 66 THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. Greek prototypes, were also common tlirougliout this period. The scallop is also a frequently recurring form (fig. 19). The early Norman vaults, used in the aisles of churches, were quite plain, though (/ruined (intersecting fig. 27 b) ; about the year 1125 ribbed groins were intro- duced. Stone vaulting was not at first attempted in the naves of churches, the English architects adhering to wooden ceilings for some 50 years after the Norman conquest. Early Norman windows are small, and have no mouldings, but are splayed from the outside inwards at an angle of some 45 degrees. One very sure mark of Norman work !s the fiat buttress, which was not used in any of the later styles. In general, early Norman work is rude and plain, and the masonry bad and Avide-jointed."-- About 1150, Norman architecture became lighter and more decorative. The arches were now enriched with many kinds of decorative mouldings. Fine carved bosses adorn the intersections of the arch groinings. But the greatest change which marks the Traymtion Norman is the pointed arch. The date of its introduction into England has been much discussed, but it seems probable that it Avas popularized in this country by the Cistercian monks, when they built their monasteries at Fountains (1143), Kirkstall (1152) and other places, where the pointed arch » The finest specimens of Norn^;in arcliitectiire in our district are to be seen in tlie clnuclies of Wliitwell, Watli, Eckington, Edlington, and Thorpe Salvin, and in the castles of Conisborough and the Peak. But many other churches contain Norman portions. Steetley Chapel is a gem of late Norman. See Apjiendix, Note O, for tlie Norman work at Lincoln Cathedral. THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. G7 is found in all the main arcades.- This was some years before the French architect, William of Sens, used it in the rebuilding of Canterbury Cathedral after the fire of 1174. The spread of the Transition architecture in Eng- land ^Yas the accompaniment if not the effect of a great religious revival, the revival promoted by the Cistercian order of monks. Our great Cistercian abbeys, Fountains, Kirkstall, Roche, Rievaulx, Jervaux, Byland, Furness, and Tintern, were all founded in the 12th century. f The arches of the Transition Norman style are pointed as a rule, but we often find that while the pointed arch is used for the main arcades, on account of its superior constructive value, the round arch is still used for windows and decorative work. The masonry in the latter part of the Norman period was excellent.]: The Transition Nor- man led into The Earhj English, which we find full-blown at Lincoln towards the end of the 12th century, while at Ely and Peterborough the Norman style was still being used. Early English, sometimes called the first Gothic style, was severely plain in character at first. The arches were all pointed ; and though enriched with many and deeply- cut mouldings, they were mostly plain, the dog-tooth • The earliest instance known of its use in England is in the Bene- dictine abbey of Malmesbury, built between 1115 and 1139. Parker's "Introduction to Gothic Architecture," p. 68. t Mr. Micklethwaite has remarked on the singularly uniform character of Cistercian work wherever it is found. "Yorks. Arch. Journ.," VII, 239. + This neighbourhood has three splendid monuments of the Transition Norman period in Roche Abbey, Worksop Abbey, and the W. bay of Tickhill church. 68 THE HISTORY DF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. moulding (fig. 32) being tlio only decoration employed at first. The arcades of the Early English period were supported by columns surrounded with detached shafts, and this detachment of the shaft from the central pier is a marked feature of the style. These smaller shafts are frequently tied together with a band lialf way up their 30 31 9Z 33 34 Early Engijsh Capitals, Basks and Mouldings. 28.— Plain Ciipital. '2'J.— Ditto sliowiuj: Nail-head Moulding. 30 & 31.— Early English Bases, waterholding. 32. — Dog- tooth Moulding. 33. — Keeled Bowtell. 34.— Roll and Fillet. 35. — Eakly English Grouped Pillar. THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 69 length (fig. 35). Early English buttresses have a bolder projection than Norman ones, but the projection is less than the width, in the uppermost stage. The flying buttress is introduced. A pecuhar feature of Early EngHsh is its lancet fenestration, a row of narrow lancet windows 36. 37. Early English Windows. 3G.— Lancet. 37.— Double Lancet. 38.— Plate Tracery. fining the east wall of a choir for example. It was not uncommon to place a small circular window above two lancet lights at the end of a gable ; then the two lancets and the circle were drawn together under one arch, or a quatrefoiled aperture was pierced through the stone plate which filled up the head of the arch in the way which is now called plffte-tmcery, (fig. 38). From plate-tracery to bar tracery was an easy development ; but there do not appear to have been any windows with real bar-tracery before 1245, when they appear in Westminster Abbey. Geometrical window patterns, consisting of circles and segments of circles, were the first forms of bar-tracery. Early English capitals were at first extremely plain, trimmed only with plain ring-mouldings (fig. 28, 29). But as the 13th century advanced, the style became more decorative, until the richest and most lovely carving adorns the capitals, mouldings, and spandrils. 70 THE HISTOIIV OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 39 .—Geometrical 'Win-dow. The Transition between Early English and Decorated, which took place in the reign of Edward I, is perhaps the most beautiful moment in English architecture.- * It is remarkable that Early Eng- lish is comparatively rare among the cliurches of our district. The naves of Dronfield and Brampton, the chan- cels of Handsvvortii, antl Adwick-Ie- Street, the Lady-chapel at Wath, and the ^V. front of Tickhill, are the best specimens. Flowing Tracery. — The Rose Window at Lincoln. THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 71 " Not even the great Pharaonic era in Egypt, tlie age of Pericles in Greece, nor the great period of the Roman empire, will bear comparison with the 18th century in Europe, whether we look to the extent of the buildings 41. — Early English Arches, from Lincoln. 72 THK HISTonV OK ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. executed, their won- derful variety and constructive ele- gance, the daring imagination that conceived them, or the power of poetry and of lofty religious feeling that is ex- pressed in every feature and in every part of them."f Decorated Cai-ital, Mouldis(;s and Bases. 42.— Plain Decorated Capital. 43.— Scroll moiililinj;;. 44. — Ciu'vc-aiul-slant niould- in^c ; found in other styles, but most com- mon in Dec. 45. — Sunk quarter round. 46. — Sunk chamfer. 47, 51. — Decorated bases. 48. — Wave moulding. 49. — Ogee moulding. 50. — Ball-ttowor moulding. f Ferguson, "History of Architecture," I, 193. Southwell Minster, which can he easily visited Irom Sheffield, has in its Ciiajiter-house perhaps the most exquisite specimen of Transition Early Eng- lish in the kingdom. THE HISTORY OF AKCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 78 52 Decokated Ogee Arch. 74 THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTUBK IN ENGLAND. The Jh'conited period, Avliicli grew out of the Early Ensfhsh, takes its name from its extensive use of decora- tion. The stone seems now to break into fohage, flower, and fruit. The pointed arches of the Decorated period are generally wider than those of the Early Enghsh ; and a new form of arch, the ot/ee (fig. 52) becomes common in this style. Square-headed windows, enclos- ing little arches, also become common, especially in country churches. Geometric window tracery (fig. 39) continued to be used in England till nearly the middle of the 14th century, long after it had given way in France to the flowing forms called Fhoiibni/diit (fig. 40). But, "during the time that flowing forms were used in England (in the 14th century) they gave rise to some of the most beautiful creations in window tracery that are anywhere to be found."* Bound or octagonal pillars are most used in the Decorated style, especially in village churches, though clustered shafts are still to bo found ; but these, instead of being (letuched, as in Early English, are now eiujaiicd for nearly half their circumference in the central pier. The number of ribs in the groined vaults of roofs is increased in this style. Buttresses are frequently set diagonally at the angles of buildings ; this is also common in early work of the next style, especially in towers. Decorated buttresses have their projection and their width about equal in the upper stage.! * Ferguson, "History oi Architecture," Vol. 11, p. i6i. t There are a great many Decorated churches in our District ; Chester- field, and the chancel of Dronfield are the finest examples. THE HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 75 All this time windows have been getting larger and larger, but in the Perpendicular style they reach their m a X i m u ni . The Perpendicular is peculiar to England, and we can hardly congratulate our- selves on its special characteristics, the stone window niulli- ons which go straight up into the window arch, which they seem to pierce, and the transoms which break up the great windows into square lines (fig. 64). These features must always be repellant to an eye which has ':^~] fed on the curves used by the Gothic architects of the best time, who never allowed a straight mullion to approach the arch head. As the style advanced, arches became flattened, as though they were half ashamed of their Gothic origin (fig. 61), and wished to return to the square entablature FI& Si: Peependicular Belfry Arch. 70 THK HISTORY OF ARCHITECTl UK IN ENGLAND. of classical times.-- In- deed, we constantly find a square moulding enclosing' the arch (fig. 05). But the English architects achieved some noble build- ings in the Perpendicular style, through their just sense of proportion, and through confining their aims to practicable effects. Pillars in the Perpen- dicular style are elonga- ted in plan, the length running N. and S., and are either octagonal or composed of alternate half circles and hollows, tending to become merely vertical mouldings. The capitals are generally trimmed with plain rings, (fig. 55 I'c 57) or with very shallow-cut foliage ; very often there are no capitals at all, but the arch-mouldings are continued straight down the shaft. Perpendicular buttresses have greater projection than width. f 54. — Perpendicular Wini>o\v. * Pugin dates the introduction of the flattened or four-centred arch at ahout 1440. "Specimens of Gotliic Aicliitectuie." + Th ere can he no finer specimens of the Perpendicular style than Rotlierlium churcli, and the nave ol Tickiiill. THE HISTOKY OF ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. 77 Peependicular Capitals, Mouldings, etc. 55, 57. — Perpendicular Capitals. 56. — Perpendicular Base. 58. — Perpendicular Wave Moulding fcompare with Decorated Wave Mould- ing, tig. 48). 59.— Decorated Double Ogee Moulding. 60. — Perpen- dicular Double Ogee Moulding. 61. — Four-centred Arch, showing the Peii^endicular Cavetto. 62 — Four-petalled flower. Decorated. 63. — Four-petalled flower, Perpendicular. 64. — Common Perpendicular Cornice Ornament. 78 THE HISTORY 01' ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. G5. Square-heaued PERPEXincuLAr. Arch. From Rickman's "Gothic Architecture." Tlirougli the Pcri/oKlicular, -wliicli in its later stages is called the Tudor and the FJiz C3 r— « w ^ P3 """^ is: i'. tij o w yi o < o ^ ?-, rt u < 5 J5 i e(5 THE MEDI.EVAL, CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. 121 CHAPTER IX. The Medi.eval Church and Monasticism. Roman Authority in England — The Church and Daily Life— The Christianity of the Middle Ages^The great Purgatory Trade — Asceticism — The Monasteries — The Benedictines — Cistercians, Franciscans, and Dominicans — The Failure of Monasticism — Religious Houses in this District — Hospitals — Ecclesfield Priory Walling Wells Nunnery — Bretton Priory — Hampole Nunnery — Richard Rolle — Doncaster Convents and Hospital — Tickhill — Canons — Premonstratensian and Augustinian— Worksop Priory — Beauchief Abbey — The Puritan Reformation. • WE have outlined the history of architectural devel- opment in England ; but before we visit the buildings which are to be found in our district we must have a key to the great governing factors of the middle ages to which these remains bear witiiess ; the Mediaeval Church and Monasticism. The church of England in the middle ages was of course in dependent union with the church of Eome. It would be unnecessary to , insist . upon this, were it not that many and persistent attempts have been made of late years to prove that there existed in the middle ages an Anglican church which was independent of Eome, and that the Reformation was only an assertion of that 122 THE medi.t:val church and jionasticism. independence against new claims put forward by Rome. Such attempts to pervert history are shattered by one simple fact ; the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the heads of the English church, did not regard themselves as fully archbishops until they had received from the pope the pallium, a consecrated woollen collar which was the sign of metropolitan dignity ; and before they could receive it they had to take a very stringent oath of obedience to the pope.* The pope's authority over the English church was only limited by the authority of the king, who gener- ally made the best fight he could to be supreme in all matters which touched his regal dignity. The struggle between Church and State went on all through the middle acres, but between Church and Church there never was any struggle from the Synod of Whitby in 664 to the Reformation. To this close connexion with Rome England owed nearly all the civilizing and refining influences which educated her people during the mediajval period.! To this supremacy of Rome it was due that the nations of Europe during that period lived in the main a life of common ideas and common aspirations, which were a most influential part of the training of Christendom. How entirely the daily life of our forefathers was dom- inated by the church is a thing which is difficult for us to realize at the present day, when so many sources of power, • V. Stubhs, "Ecclesiastical History," III, p. 297. t It would be wrong to ignore the labours of the Scoto-Irish church of lona, to whom the North of England, and no small part of the South, chiefly owes its Christianity. But this church also derived its civilization from the Roman empire. THE JIEDI.EVAL CHURCH AXD MONASTICISM. 123 interest, or amusement are open to us. Nearly all the tilings which we now regard as common benefits of life were in the middle ages connected with the church.'- There wei'e no schools, hospitals, or literature, except in connection with the church. The church was the intimate companion of every man and woman from the cradle to the grave. It was not only at the more solemn seasons of life that her aid was invoked for baptism, marriage, extreme unction or burial ; she had a legal control over all questions of personal agreements, such as wills, trusts, and contracts, which led to her constant interference in the daily business of life. The poor man preferred to seek justice in her courts, rather than in the king's. From the sculpture and painting which adorned the walls of her buildings he learned nearly all the religious teaching he ever got. Her stately services, her processions and festi- vals provided him with a perpetual source of interest. The great events of the life of Christ were yearly acted in a sort of mimic drama within the walls of the parish church ; many of these churches still contain the niche in which at Easter a representation of the Eesurrection was arranged. Even amusements were blessed and patronized by the church ; and the English drama had its origin in the miracle plays which were once acted in monastic schools. We might be led to infer from this all-pervading influence of the church that the middle ages were pecu- liarly religious, and this claim has often been made for them. A closer acquaintance with them will dissipate this delusion. The Christianity of the middle ages was only * See "Childhood of the English Nation,'' p. 159. 124 THE MEDI.EVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. skin-deep. The men of the middle ages were semi- barbarians, and though words of piety were ever on their lips, the contrast between theory and practise was never so deplorable as then. Let us make no mistake about this ; there never has been such an age of faith as our own. The medijBval time was indeed an age of credulity ; but it was also in a marked degree an age of hypocrisy. What doubt there was (and there was plenty) did not dare to speak out ; but kings and nobles, priests and commoners, dared to dress up evil purposes in pious words in a way which the worst of us would shrink from to-day. There could not be a stronger proof of the general low tone of religion in the middle ages than the rise of the great jiuiyKtory trade, which has left such a marked in:ipress architecturally on our cathedrals and churches. Those who have lived amongst savage peoples, and closely observed them, tell us that they are always under the influence of fear. In all the powers of nature, in the trifling incidents of daily life, in the human eye even, they find hostile forces lurking, and their religion is mainly an effort to counteract these evils by enchantments. In the skin-deep Christianity of the middle ages, this state of fear continued. The man retained all his old fear of hobgob- lins and witches, but too generally he regarded God also mainly as an object of dread, to be propitiated by alms and gifts and masses. There is nothing unreasonable in the doctrine of purgatory, if it means that those whose spiritual education here has been incomplete are sent to school again in the other world. But to the middle ages, purgatory meant an abode of gross material suffering. THE MEDI.15VAL CHURCH AND JIONASTICISM. 125 where a cruel God exacted the last pound of flesh from his victims, unless he could be bribed by the services and offerings of the living to let them off. Could any notion be more irreligious than this? But nearly all the religious foundations of the middle ages drew their endowments from the desire of some wealthy persons to have masses said perpetually to redeem their souls from purgatory. After monasteries ceased to be founded for this purpose (in the 13tli century) chantries in churches were founded in increasing numbers for the same end. I shall return to this subject of the chantries in the next chapter. Only the very greatest souls of the middle ages realised the elementary truth that salvation is a matter of clumtcter. But there always were elect souls who had the root of Christianity in them, and it is these men and women who are the glory of the middle ages. They were the spiritual giants who fought the fight of faith in the hardest conflict through which Christendom has ever had to pass, and I believe it is chiefly owing to them that the middle ages have for us to-day a charm and a fascination such as no other period of history possesses.- But with the exception of a few kings and nobles who recognised that they owed duties to the world, all these elect souls sought for the purification of the church in one way, the way of Asceticism. The method of asceticism is to try to get rid of sin by getting rid of temptation. Marriage is a temptation, because it leads a man to care for his wife and children more than for the things of God; * Vide Appendix, Note R. 126 THE MEDI.EVAIi CHURCH AND MONASTICISJI. therefore, get rid of marriage. Wealth is a temptation, because it leads to luxury and selfishness ; therefore, get rid of wealth. Of course it is a simple answer to this to say that the one thing needful is not to get rid of the sources of temptation, but to make the man himself superior to the power of temptation. This is doubtless true, but still we must give the men of the middle ages credit for that general common sense which leads each age to choose the best means of doing its own particular work. And when we see that for some twelve hundred years the Christian church persistently trod the way of asceticism, we must at least believe that she found it the most practicable and useful way of preaching Christianity to those with whom she had to deal. Even now, we can see uses in some kinds of asceticism ; nearly all great specialists are ascetics, that is, they limit the development of many sides of their nature in order that they may develope one. Temperance societies, too, are instances of the ascetic method of trying to get rid of a sin by removing the source of temptation ; they assert that the magnitude of the temptation is so great that there is no other way of dealing with it. We take it then that since Asceticism, and its great embodiment Monasticism, were the special forms which religious efibrt took for about 1200 years, they were, in the main, suited to the times. We cannot but regard it as a great calamity that for those 1200 years the position of women, and the home life, remained to a great extent under a cloud. But no one can help seeing the great THE MEDI,i:VAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. 127 things wlaicli were accomplished by Monasticism. The Monasteries were the first attempts to reahze human brotherhood ; in them men of all claGses, ignoring the caste feelings which were dominant in their day, lived together as equals. They were the sole refuges where the learning and art of the past were preserved for future times. They, and they alone, taught the world that honest work was noble, when both the Koman and the Teuton regarded it as the portion of slaves. For it Avas part of the rule of St. Benedict, the great organizer of Western Monachism, that his monks should live by the labour of their hands. The Order of St. Benedict had numerous monasteries in England in Anglo-Saxon times, but they suffered so much in the long wars with the Danes that at the time of the Norman Conquest no monasteries existed at all in the north of England, and monasticism throughout the country was at a very low ebb. But the end of the eleventh century saw a great revival of religion, which took the form, as all religious revivals did then, of an attempt to reform and revive monasticism. Of the many orders of reformed Benedictines which arose at the end of the 11th century or early in the 12th, the most important was that of the Cistercians, founded in 1098 at Citeaux in Burgundy. The Benedictines had become corrupted by wealth, which led to laxity and idleness ; they had relaxed the law of their founder, which ordained that every monk should take his share of manual labour, and turned over the work of their monasteries and estates to their servants and serfs. The Cistercians therefore aimed at a stricter 128 THE medi.t:val church and monasticism. asceticism, and a return to labour. Their rule was very severe ; they might never speak except to the abbot or the prior ; they might only take food once a day ; and might never eat meat, except when sick. They were all obliged to work in tlie fields for part of the day. The Cistercians were immensely popular at first, and they carried a wave of religious revival through the prin- cipal countries of Europe. Within a century of their foundation, the parent cloister of Citeaux numbered 3000 affiliated monasteries, amongst them some of our most famous English abbeys, Fountains, Kirkstall, Byland, Rievaulx, Furness, and Tintern. Founding their first settlements in lonely and wild situations, they speedily converted the country around into a garden. They devoted themselves to agriculture and cattle-breeding, and to them. England became indebted for her finer wool, which after- wards became so important an article of commerce with Flanders, and for her improved breed of horses and her superior farming.- ]5ut their industry brought them wealth and temptation, their rule was relaxed, and before the end of the 12tli century they were objects of general satire for their rapacity and luxuriousness. The fortunes of the church were at a very low ebb at the beginning of the 13th century. One of the ablest of the popes, Innocent III, Avas struggling with very little success to enforce the rights of the papacy in an age which was already falling away from the church, either in open heresy or in secret disgust. In the year 1212 • See Brewer, Preface to Giraldiis' Speculum Ecclesia;, Rolls Series. THE MEDI.f:VAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. 129 Innocent was one day walking on the terrace of the Lateran palace, when a beggar dressed in the meanest rags appeared before him, with a scheme to convert the world by poverty and humility. The pope dismissed him with contempt. But that night Innocent dreamed that he saw the fabric of the church tottering to its foundations, when a man rushed forward, and putting his shoulder in the place of the quaking columns of the church, upheld it with his own strength ; and in the face of that man Innocent recognised the beggar who had visited him in the morning. The beggar was recalled ; he was Francis of Assisi.- The order which he had already founded received the papal sanction ; and in conjunction with the order of St. Dominic, which arose about the same time, it did most truly fulfil the vision, and save the falling church. The principle of both these orders was the same as that of the older ones in that they sought safety from the temptations of wealth by a more absolute rule of poverty, but it was very different in another respect, and was a distinct admission of the more modern spirit which was beginning to work. The Franciscans and Dominicans were not to separate themselves from the world, and work for their own salvation in solitude, they were to mix with the world, and work for the salvation of the world. They considered themselves the brothers of all men, and hence * Such at least is the story, which has been preserved in one of the most authentic lives ol St. Francis, that of the Tres Socii. Its spiritual truth is undeniable. 130 THE MEDI.EVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. they got tlie name of the Friars. Tlieir convents arose not in deserts, but in the most thickly populated quarters of towns, where they tended the sick, the lepers, and the outcasts. Both orders, besides communities of monks and of nuns, comprehended a third order of men and women who were not bound by monastic vows, but only bound to fulfil the duties of their station and their religion with pious faithfulness; another remarkable advance, and a departure from the purely ascetic spirit of older monas- ticism. No less important was the devotion of both orders to the work of preaching, which had fallen into general disuse. At the present day there are no pulpits to be found in our churches which are older than the 15th century ; but it was the Franciscans and Dominicans who first set themselves earnestly to the work of the Christian instruction of the people. Their preaching was the great power by which the influence of the church again made itself vitally felt in the hearts of the people ; and there can be no doubt that it staved off the Reformation for 200 years.- And this was not an evil, for if the men of the 16th century blundered as they did with the Reformation, we may be quite sure the men of the 13th century would have done much worse. But great as was the success of the Friars, and im- portant as was the work which they accomplished, they did not escape the doomed circle which all the monastic orders were compelled to trace — popularity, wealth, luxury, corruption. By the beginning of the 11th century their • See Appendix, Note S. THE MEDI.EVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. 131 fall had begun ; by the end of that century they were denounced by Wycliffe as sturdy beggars. The reader will perhaps think that by this time we have got very far from the antiquities of Sheffield and Kotherham. Not so. When we visit the ruins of the beautiful monastic buildings which we have in such pro- fusion in Yorkshire, it is important that we should realize that the spiritual interest of these ruins lies in the fact that they were the scene of a great religious experiment, which though it did not realize all that was expected of it, has nevertheless left precious legacies of spiritual discovery and achievement for all succeeding; time. ^63 The failure of monasticism is clearly proved by the fact that for 150 years before the Reformation no more monas- teries were founded in England. Nearly all the monasteries in Yorkshire were founded before the year 1200, in that great epoch of monastic development, the 12th century. But after the middle of the 13th century men began to give up founding monasteries, and to give their money to other things, chantries, hospitals, and finally colleges. We can get a very good idea of the importance of monasticism in English medieval life by considering the number of religious houses which there were in the district treated of here. Within a circle of about 24 miles in diameter we find the following :* Beauchief Abbey ; Premonstratensian Canons (White Canons); founded 1172— 1176. * Fig. 8 1 gives the dress of these various orders. 132 THE medi,t;val church and monasticism. Bretton Priory; Cluuiac Monks; founded 1157. Doncaster ; Franciscans (Grey Friars) ; first mentioned in 1291. Doncaster ; Dominicans (Black Friars) ; date of founda- tion unknown. Doncaster; Carmelites (White Friars); founded in 1350. Ecclesfield; Benedictines (Black Monks); founded about 1100. Hampole ; Cistercian Nuns ; founded in 1170. Roche Abbey; Cistercian Monks (White Monks); founded 1147. Tickhill ; Augustinian Friars ; date of foundation un- known. Walling Wells ; Augustinian Nuns; founded in Stephen's reign. Worksop Priory ; Augustinian Canons (Black Canons) ; founded 1123. But the list is not complete unless we add to it the hospitals, which in the middle ages were strictly rehgious houses, being under the care of persons who obeyed some religious rule, generally the one which went by the name of St. Augustine. They were not however invariably hospitals for the sick; sometimes they were more like alms-houses, places for the reception of poor and impotent persons ; sometimes they were places where hospitality was shewn to travellers, like the Hospice of the great St. Bernard. The fact that there were at least twelve of them in so small a district, when the population must have been less than a twentieth of what it is now, is a very high testimony to th€ activity of Christian charity in THE MEDI.EVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. 133 the middle ages. These hospitals are nearly all of early date. As far as I have been able to find out, they were the following : Barnsley ; three almshouses ; founded in 1498. Chesterfield ; hospital for lepers ; existing in 1199. Doncaster ; hospital of St. James ; for sick and lepers ; existing in 1287. Doncaster ; hospital of St. Nicholas ; mentioned in 1231. Hope ; hospital of St. Mary ; for poor persons ; existing before 1339. Sheffield ; hospital of St. Leonard ; for sick ; founded in twelfth century. Sprotborough ; hospital of St. Edmund ; existing in 1280. Tickhill ; hospital of St. Leonard ; existing before 1223. Tickhill ; Maison Dieu ; for old persons ; founded by John of Gaunt. Tickhill ; a hospital on the Blythe Road. When we remember that every one of these religious houses held lands scattered over the district (as well as over the whole county and even other counties), so that there was scarcely a parish in the neighbourhood where some monastery had not rights of property, we shall realize how all-pervading must have been the influence of monasticism. I reserve for the next chapter a more detailed account of monastic life, which will come most fitly with the description of the most important monastic ruin of this 134 THE MEDI.'EVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. neighbourhood, the Cistercian abbey of Roche. I will now briefly describe the other remains of monastic origin. I. — -Ecclesfield ; tlie Priory of St. Wandregisle. I men- tion this first because it is the only Benedictine house in the district, and it may also claim to be the oldest monastic foundation, as it was founded by Roger de Lovetot, lord of Hallamshirc, in the reign of Henry I.- A Priory is always subordinate to an Abbey somewhere else, which appoints a Prior to manage it. Ecclesfield belonged to St. Wandregisle's monastery at Fontanelle in Normandy, and was therefore one of those (tlicn jirioncH which became sources of trouble as the English national spirit developed, because the intrusion of foreign monks into English monasteries was so much disliked. During the long French war the foreign monasteries lost their hold on England, and in many cases the king took possession of their priories. Richard II gave the priory of Ecclesfield to the Carthusian house of St. Anne at Coventry. The Carthusians were one of the most interesting of the reformed Benedictine orders, as theirs was almost the only order which seems to have preserved its first purity up to the Reformation, It was never however very popular, and had only nine houses in England. The existing remains of the Priory have undergone many transforma- tions, and are now converted into a charming clergy house. Part of the refectory and dormitory still exist, and a small oratory, with a piscina and aumry, the latter still * Dr. Gatty states this in "Life at one Living," and refers to the Registerof Archbishop Melton, THE MEDIiEVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. 135 retaining its original oaken door, a thing not often seen. These buildings are of the 13th century. II. — Walhng Wells Abbey (in Nottinghamshire) was founded in the reign of Stephen for nuns of the order of St. Augustine. The original charter, which is preserved, makes it an independent convent, but says nothing about the rule. Dugdale calls the nuns Benedictines. Some few fragments of the abbey remain in Sir Thomas Woollas- ton's park at Walling Wells. It was only a small one ; there were eight nuns at the time of the Dissolution. III. — Burton or Bretton Priory, more properly called the Priory of St. Mary Magdalene at Lund, was founded in 1157 by Adam Fitz-Sweyn, and belonged to the Cluniac monks at Pontefract, who were themselves subject to the abbey of La Charite, in France. The Cluniac order was the first of the many attempts to reform and restore the rule of St. Benedict ; it was introduced into England shortly after the Conquest, and it established at least 42 priories in this country.- At the time of the Dissolution Bretton Priory contained 13 monks. A catalogue of their library still exists, and is printed by Hunter, f The remains of the Priory are scanty ; they consist of two beautiful Dec. arches belonging to the E. end of the church, and of a Perp. gate-house, which has a hand- some niche over a round arch. One or two Norman arches are to be seen in the other fragments. ^'O'^ * Dugdale, " Monasticon," V. p. iv. t "Deanery of Doncaster," II, p. 175. 136 THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. There is another archway with some tumble-down build- ings of the Tudor period attached to it. The rest of the Priory has been converted into a farm-house, which con- tains an original staircase of polished oak. The ruins are half a mile from Stairfoot station. IV. — Hampole is the only conventual establishment for women in this district except Walling Wells ; it was for Cistercian nuns. A finial, a corbel, and a poor little national school-room, are all that remain of the nunnery of Hampole. It was founded about 1170 by William de Clarefaix and Avicia de Tani ; at the Dissolution it con- tained 18 nuns. A letter of the Archbishop of York, in 1278, to the Prioress of Hampole, and the other Cistercian houses in his diocese, is preserved, in which he orders them to admit the Minorites and Preaching Friars (Franciscans and Dominicans) as their confessors, notwithstanding the prohibition of the general Abbot of the Cistercian order. The Friars, he says, shine like the splendour of the firmament.- In the 14th century, the nunnery of Hampole gave shelter to a celebrated hermit, Richard Rolle, who probably lived in a hutch or ankerholdj- attached to the external wall of the church, with a loophole into the chancel to enable him to watch the celebration of mass. Richard Rolle was a man whose character would lead us to re-consider the very severe judgment which was generally passed on hermits in mediaeval times. He was a man of fervent evangelical piety, and was no doubt one of the powerful religious influences of his day. His writings * Dugdale, " Monasticon," V. f Anker, from anchorite, was the old Englisli name for a hermit. THE MEDI.EYAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. 137 are interesting examples of the Engiisli of the 14th century ; one of them, the Ayenbite of In wit (the Prick of Conscience) has been pubHshed by the Early English Text Society. After his death, his tomb at Hampole became a place of pilgrimage.* V, — Doncaster had three houses of Friars; White, Black, and Grey, in the middle ages, and two Hospitals, St. James' and St. Nicholas'. " There was a right goodly house of white freres in the middle of the town, now defaced," says Leland, "where lay buried in a goodly tomb of white marble, a countess of Westmoreland." The White Friars were the Carmelites ; their house was close to the site of the present Post Office. The last Prior was hanged at Tyburn in 1540, for his share in the Pilgrimage of Grace. t As the Friars always had their establishments in towns, very few of their buildings have survived in England.^ The convent of the Grey Friars in Doncaster, like all Franciscan monasteries, stood in the poorest part of the town, at the N. end of the ancient bridge. Some vestiges of its church were discovered in 1842, when the Eiver Don navigation canal was cut through its site. The Hospital of St. James, for sick and leprous people, had * Lawton's " Religious Houses of Yorkshire," p. 60. f See in " Yoricshire Archxological Journal," Vol. XIII, a paper by Dr. Fairbank on the Carmelites of Doncaster ; and another on the Grey Friars of Doncaster, by the same author, in the volume for 1893. + In London the church of the Franciscans (Grey Friars) still survives as Christ's Hospital, but not a fragment remains of the once extensive buildings of the Dominicans (Black Friars). 138 THE MEDI.EVAX, CHURCH AND MONASTICISJI. become a free chapel with a chantry before the Dissolu- tion.- Every vestige of these religious houses is now swept away. VI. — Tickhill had once a Priory of Augustine Friars,! which has been converted into a private house. A corbel head over the garden gateway may possibly be intended for St. Augustine. That Tickhill also possessed three hospitals is a striking testimony to its former importance. One called the Maison Dieu, near the church, was founded by John of Gaunt ; in Hunter's time it had become an almshouse. There was also a Hospital dedicated to St. Leonard, which still exists in the street called Northgate ; the present building has an interesting black and white timbered front, with very characteristic Perp. pillars with battlemented capitals, and bears the date 1470, but the foundation dates from the 13th century at the latest, as in 1225 Archbishop Walter de Grey recommended it to the charity of all good people,. on account of its poverty-stricken condition.]: The site of the Hospital on the Blythe Eoad is now occupied by the modern residence of Sandrock. Of the other hospitals mentioned on my list not a vestige remains, though the ruins of St. Edmund's Hospital near Sprotborough were standing in the memory of persons living in 1850. 'o • Dugdale, " Monasticon," VII, 780. t The Augustinian or Austin Friars were an order formed late in the i3tli century, when Pojie Innocent IV attempted to incorporate under one rule the hermits, recluses, and small miscellaneous religious communities, which had hitherto been independent and numerous. Luther belonged to the Austin Friars. J Tanner, " Notitia Monastica," 684. THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. 139 I have not yet spoken of the Canonical establishments, of which we have two notable memorials within our circuit. The institution of Canons arose in the 8th century, at a time of deplorable immorality among the clergy. It was an attempt to bring the clergy of cathedral churches to order by making them live together under a common rule, in a common building ; it aimed also at educating them, and obliged them to devote a part of every day to reading and prayer. Although the Canons were not monks, and were never called monks, it was under the influence of the monastic example that the canonical rule arose, and in the 11th century, when a reform of the canonical order became necessary, an attempt was made to make the canonical rule still more monastic, by insisting that the property of the Canons should be held in common. The name of St. Augustine was attached to the new rule of Canons, because that father was supposed to favour community of property among the clergy. In the 12th century arose an even stricter order of reformed Canons, founded by St. Norbert at Premontre in Picardy, and taking from that place the name Premonstratensian. These Canons wore a white habit, and were hence called White Canons, to distinguish them from the Black Canons, or Augustinians. The Canons it must be borne in mind, were in the first place clergy, and differed from the monks in that they existed for the sake of the church with which they were connected, and not the church for the sake of them. Houses or colleges of canons were sometimes placed in the country, as at Beauchief, and then the canons had certain duties con- nected with the parish churches of the neighbourhood. 110 THE MEDIAEVAL CHURCH AND .MONASTICISM. Frequently too, they had .schools for the instruction of youth." The two canonical foundations in this neighbourhood are Worksop and Beauchief. The Priory of Worksop in Nottinghamshire was founded by William de Lovetot between 1123 and 1139, for the Augustinian Canons who had previously been attached to the church of St. Cuthbort in Worksop. The present church is only the nave of the ancient one ; the Eastern wall, which divides it from what was formerly the central tower, dates from the restoration of 1850. Even the eastermost bay of the nave, which is the oldest part of the church, is not older than the second half of the 12th century, while the rest of the church probably dates from 1170 to 1180. This eastermost bay, the pillars of which have scalloped capitals, marks the termination of the part of the church which belonged peculiarly to the canons ; and was separated by a stout wall from the rest of the nave, which was the parish church, where the services were originally conducted by the canons. But owing to the difficulties which so frequently arose in the adminis- tration of a parish by a body of canons, permanent vicars were appointed as early as 127G. There were 15 canons and a prior at Worksop at the time of the Dissolution. After that event, the Priory was allowed to go to ruin, and even after the establishment of Protestant services the church seems to have been very ill cared for ; the vaulting of the aisles fell in during this century, and the * See Appendix, Note T. THE MEDI.^EVAL CHUKCH AND M0NASTICIS3I. 141 triforiuni arches had previously been disfigured by making them into windows. The church Avas restored by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1850 ;. both aisle walls were rebuilt, as well as the E. wall, and new windows placed in them, the triforium was restored, a new roof built and new pavement laid, and new bases given to the pillars. A good deal of the church therefore- is modern, but there is enough of the ancient work left to make it a very fine specimen of Transition-Norman ; especially the W. front with its two towers, its very large West window, and its richly ornamented W. doorway. This doorway shows the Norman chevron and nail-head mouldings combined with the E. E. dog-tooth ; similarly in the towers we see two E. E. pointed lancets enclosed under a round Norman arch. The nave has the immense length which is usual in canonical churches (it is 140 feet long), and the large deep galleries which are characteristic of Norman work. The pillars of the nave are alternately round and octagonal, the arches round, and the capitals have the Norman volute and the E.E. dog-tooth ornament. The ancient doorways have been inserted in the new walls ; that on the S. side has a door covered with good iron scroll-work. In the N. aisle is a sepulchral arch of" the 13th century ; and there are three mutilated effigies, supposed to be those of Thomas de Furnival -f 1366 ; William de Furnival + 1406 ; and Maud Nevil, the heiress who carried the Furnival property into the Talbot family.=:= * Dugdale has printed a long and curious piece of ancient doggrel, which describes the tombs formerly existing in Worksop church. " Mon- asticon," VI, 122. 142 THE MEDI.n:VAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISJI. While the excellent masonry and the profuse use of the ■dog-tooth ornament shew that this church belongs to the latter part of the 12th century, the general character of the work has the heaviness of the Norman style rather than the lightness of the Transition. The S. porch is Perp. and bears the arms of Talbot ; the pinnacles and battlements of the towers are of the same epoch. Behind the present church the piers which once supported the central tower, and which have scalloped capitals, can still be seen, and there are traces of a Norman transept. There are also some remains of a Lady chapel opening out of the S. transept, of excellent E. E. work; it contains a beautiful double piscina, aumry, and an arch for a single sedile. The monastic buildings are on the N. side of the church, but very little remains of them. To the N. W. of the •church is a fine Norman doorway, leading into a groined passage, w-liich is now made into a vestry. This passage formerly led into the cloisters. To the left of it are the ruins of a vaulted building which was probably the under- ■croft of the dormitory. The Priory well still exists in the middle of the former cloister-garth. The gate-house of the Priory precinct is in fair preser- vation, and has been a handsome piece of Dec. work, probably belonging to the first quarter of the 14th century. It has been richly storied with religious sculpture, which is now much mutilated. The statues on each side of the fine segmental-arched window represent St. Augustine and St. Cuthbert. Over the window of a very ornamental THE MEDIAEVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. 143 porch on the right hand side of the archway, which is probably of somewhat later Dec. than the gatehouse itself, a representation of the Adoration of the Magi can still be traced; and on the E. front of the gateway, the Salutation. The oak roof of the archway is original.- Beauchief Abbey f was founded by Robert Fitz Kanulph of Alfreton between 1172 and 1176, for Premonstratensian or White Canons, and dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket. It is a popular error, long ago refuted, that the founder was one of the murdei'ers of Becket. Beauchief was a small and poor house. The abbot was only once sum- moned to Parliament. In 1461, one of the abbots was deposed for wastefulness, incontinence, and other crimes. Not many years after, when the Abbey was visited accord- ing to custom by the head of the Premonstratensian order in Britain, it was found that the canons were given to drinking, and to going in and out of the convent alone, contrary to rule. The convent was MQO in debt, and the granaries only held one weeks' provision. The newly elected abbot was ordered to amend these things. But in 1478, four canons were excommunicated, and later in the same year six were cited to appear before a meeting of Premonstratensian abbots in the chapter-house of the Grey Friars at Doncaster. We find a wave of the educa- tional enthusiasm of the Renascence reaching as far as » See " Worksop, the Dukery, and Sherwood Forest," by Robert White. Worksop, 1875. •f See Pegge's "History of Beauchief Abbey," and a paper by Mr Gordon Hills on Beauchief Abbey, in "Journal of Arch. Association, Vol. XXX. 144 THE MEDIEVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISJI. Beauchief, when in 1490 the convent engaged a teacher to mstruct "such boys or novices as the convent should name" in grammar and singing. The visitors sent by Henry VIII found no fault with the convent. After the Dissolution the abbey church stood empty and unused for nearly a hundred years, until it was restored for public worship through the zeal of a Puritan vicar of Sheffield, named Toller. Numbers of out-lying churches went out of use like Beauchief after the Reformation, and some were never reclaimed for religious service. The truth is that the English Reformation was most unfortunately conducted, and was made the pretext, by kings and great people, for a shameful spoliation of the medisBval church. The true revival and reformation of religion came from the Puritans. We have so often to deplore as antiquaries the destructiveness of the Puritans, their iconoclastic ravages in the sculpture and stained glass of our English churches, that we must not omit to notice their construc- tiveness, which was far more important. It was the spiritual church which they sought to build ; and they did build it. The church of Beauchief Abbey is described soon after the Dissolution as having been "very spacious, having a fair chancel where was an altar, and a large steeple where were five bells." Nothing is left now but the tower and a portion of the nave which is used as a parish church. The late Norman doorway placed to the N. of the tower, and a round-headed window in the N. wall of the church, are the only relics of the Norman church, but the doorway THE MEDI-EVAL CHURCH AND MONASTICISM. 145 has been removed from its previous situation on the N. side of the nave. To the S. of the tower is another doorway, late Transition, which came from the W. wing of the Priory. The tower (what is left of it) is a fine Decorated tower, and has buttresses and a blocked up W. window of that date. The W. doorway however is Transition Norman, and seems to indicate that there was an earlier tower of that period. There is really very little to see at Beauchief. In 1671, the materials of the Abbey were used to build Beauchief Hall, which stands hard by. What is supposed to be the old altar-piece of the Abbey, a representation of the murder of Becket, is still preserved at Osberton Hall, Notts. 14G ROCHE ABBEY. CHAPTER X. EocHE Abbey. History of the Abbey — The Dissolution — The Ruins — The Cluiich — The Cliaptei- house — The Cloister and Monastic Buildings — Daily Life of Cistercian Monks. ROCHE Abbey was founded by a colony of monks from Newminster Abbey in Northumberland, which itself was a daughter of Fountains." Durandus, the first abbot of Roche, after wandering about in the forests of South Yorkshire, followed by twelve monks, came to this little valley, and was struck by finding among the lime- stone rocks which shelter the valley from the North, a strange resemblance to a crucifix. He at once decided on the spot as the site of his future monastery. For some time he and his monks lived in huts, feeding on boiled leaves and herbs. But the two great Norman landholders of the district, Richard de Busli.f who lived at Tickhill Castle, and Richard Fitz Turgis, lord of Hooton, joined together to give them lands on each side the stream, for the founding of an Abbey, the monks of which were to pray for the souls of the joint founders and of their * Aveling's "History of Roche Abbey," and Hunter's "Deaneiy of Doncaster," are the principal authorities tor the local part of this chapter, f Son of Roger de Busli. See page 90. EOCHE ABBEY. 147 ancestors. The charter which they gave is dated 1147, but the abbey whose ruins exist was probably built in Henry II's reign, as its architecture is in the Transition Norman style. =:= The Abbey was rich and flourishing for two hundred years ; its abbot was an important and busy man, fre- quently summoned to the councils of kings, who always looked to the wealthy abbeys when they wanted advances of money for their wars with France or Scotland. We find the Abbot of Roche constantly summoned to Parlia- ment, after that institution had received its more popular form at the hands of Simon de Montfort. The visitors whom Henry VIII sent to Roche Abbey before the Dissolution bring a charge of gross profligacy against five of the monks. The character of these visitors is not regarded as absolutely trustworthy, and it is well known that Henry was determined to have the wealth of the monasteries. One thing only is certain, that monasticism had done all the good it was capable of doing, and was now dead and useless. Roche Abbey had decreased in revenue at the time of the Dissolution, and was £20 in debt;f a fact which looks like bad manage- ment, to say the least. The Abbey was confiscated in June 1536. When the monks were dismissed, they all received pensions for life, and were allowed to sell the furniture * See Scott, "Lectures on Medieval Architecture," II, 109. Mr. Aveling puts the date of the abbey in the last ten years o{ the 12th century. This seems rather too late. I Equal to jeioo of our money. 148 ROCHE ABBEY. and woodwork of their cells for their own profit; "and everything was to be had good cheap."! The visitors generally brought with them carpenters, masons, and plumbers, to carry out the work of demolition, for it was part of the royal plan that the monasteries should be thoroughly demolished, to prevent any future revival of monasticism. The only buildings ordered to be preserved were the farm buildings. A sale was made of the materials of the Abbey. " It would have pitied any heart," says the letter quoted above, '* to see what tearing up of lead there was, and plucking up of boards, and throwing down of spars, and how the lead was thrown down and cast into the church, and the tombs in the church all broken, and all things of price either spoiled, carped away, or defaced to the uttermost." When the lead, with which the roof was covered, was torn down, the wooden seats in the choir, which we are told were "like those in minsters," and therefore no doubt beautifully carved, were plucked up to make a fire to melt the lead. During the excava- tions in 1888, it was found that a fire had been kindled for melting the lead over one of the tombs in the nave, causing the slab to crack in several pieces ; near it, several feet of dross of lead were found. Generally the masonry of abbeys was too solid to be torn down at once, and the buildings were allowed to stand and go gradually to ruin, though the sale of the stone was still reserved. But though the king thus tried t Mr. Avuling has printed a letter of one Cutlihert Shirebrook which gives a vivid account of wliat took place on the day of the dissolution of the Abbey. ROCHE ABBEY. 149 to get his price for everything, there seems to have been plenty of downright stealing (besides his own) on the day that Eoche Abbey was spoiled. The populace crowded in and filched whatever they could. Iron hooks, locks, and bolts were torn away ; the parchment missals were carried oft" and used for mending waggon-hoods ; and among the limestone rocks which overhang the abbey were found pewter vessels which thieves had placed there, intending to take them away at leisure. We find that in other places the mob greedily joined in the plunder of the monasteries, not that they had any zeal against the old religion, but that the opportunity was too tempting. Even Catholics, when they saw that all was put to the spoil, determined not to lose their share.* Let us now examine the ruins. About 120 years ago, a wretched landscape gardener was let loose upon them. He actually pulled down some portions which were then standing, and covered up the rest till the solitary arches which remain rose out of a neat bowling green. This was his idea of an elegant ruin. Thanks to the energy of the present owner, the Earl of Scarborough, the site has now been excavated, and the ground-plan of the ancient Abbey has re-appeared. The first building which we see is the gatehouse, which stood detached from the Abbey buildings, on the ancient wall which can still be traced, surrounding the Abbey precinct. The actual gate hung in the central arch, where the holes for the hinges and staples can yet be • See the letter in Aveling's " History of Roche Abbey," quoted above. 150 ROCHE ABBEY. seen. Into the large open porch, which forms the front lialf of the gate-house we can imagine the poor of the neighbourhood crowding, as they did at those times when the monks distributed bread, a custom whereby they probably did more harm than good.- The porter always kept a store of loaves to be given to wayfarers. In the N. W. corner of the inner room of the gate-house is a stone stair-case, of the spiral kind called a newell, which formerly led up to some rooms in an upper storey. The gate-house is not as old as the Abbey, but belongs to the 14th century. The ruins of the Abbey itself are at some distance from the gate-house. All that remains standnig is a fragment of the Abbey church, enough to show what a beautiful building it once was. The Cistercians were ordered to build their churches with extreme plainness, but in those days people knew how to build simply and nobly at the same time. The Cistercians too, like the Quakers, liked to have things 'jood, and such a thing as a badly built Cistercian wall is unknown.! The Cistercian order, as I have already remarked, came to England at the time when the Norman architecture of the 11th and 12th centuries was passing into the Early English of the 13th century. Hence so many of our great Cistercian abbeys are built in the Transition-Norman style. This Transition style is what we find at Roche. We find that what windows or • Giraldus Cambrensis praises the Carthusians at the expense of the Cistercians, and says that the former do not have crowds of poor at their gate=, who are mostly vagabonds, but try to relieve the really deserving poor. Spec. Ecc. III. XX, t Micklethwaite, " Yorkshire Archseolog. Journal," VII, 239. EOCHE ABBEY. 151 parts of windows remain have the round arches of the Norman style, except two in the S. chapels, which have evidently been put in during the 14th century. But the grouped pillars of the nave have the pointed or keeled shafts which belong to the Transition and to Early English. Mr. Aveling says : " The church, there is little doubt, was according to the usual custom commenced at the east end, and here accordingly we find marks of the earliest character ; such for instance as the mixing of round and pointed shafts in piers, with square edges at the angles, while the mixture entirely disappears when we get to the west of the crossing, where all the shafts of the pillars have assumed the pointed form." During the recent excavations, the lower part of the W. front of the Abbey church has been uncovered, so that we can now enter the church by the W. doorway. The floor of the church has been excavated from end to end, though pious respect for the stately elms which add so much to the beauty of the picture has hindered the clearing out of the whole area. The three doorways of the W. front are now plainly revealed, and we can trace the bases of 12 out of the 16 pillars which once supported the roof of the nave. On the right, in the S. W. corner, is a small doorway which once led to the staircase leading to the dormitory.- It was by this doorway, in some abbeys^ • There is some uncertainty about the position of the dormitory in Cistercian monasteries ; sometimes it was over the chapter house, some- times on the W, side of the cloister, over the. Ambulatory which was attached to that side. When it was over the chapter-house, the upper room on the W. side of the cloister was the apartment of the Conversi, or Lay brethren, who would use this staircase and doorway in the manner described. For the Lay brethren see Appendix, Note U. 152 ROCHE ABBKY. that the monks came seven times in the 24 hours to the services of the church. A projection at the foot of the second pillar has probably been used to hold a lamp for their guidance, as they pattered over the stone floor on the dark winter mornings, ghostly figures in their long white frocks. The flat tombstones which we see on the floor remind us of one of the rules of the Cistercians that all tombs should be level with the floor ; a rule often broken in later times, when we find Matilda Countess of Cambridge ordering herself a handsome alabaster tomb "raised aloft, with an effigy," in the S. chapel of this very church. f About half way up the church we can still see the lower part of the stone screen which marked the entrance to the choir, which in Cistercian churches, and indeed in Norman churches generally, was always carried down beyond the crossing into the body of the nave. Here the monks sat or stood during divine service. On the last pillar but one of the nave, on the left hand side, notice a place cut out where a small brass figure has probably been inserted. A large square stone, orna- mentally carved, with a hole in the middle, lying on the floor at the foot of the S. pillar of the crossing, is a ground piscina, and marks the site of a former chantry. The beautiful fragment before us is of course the E. end of the church. The church has been cruciform, but the transepts have never had W. aisles; their E. aisles have been converted into chantry chapels, two on each side of the chancel. The chapels of the S. transept are t No remains of this tomb were found during the recent excavations. See Appendix, Note V. EOCHE ABBEY. 15a still entire, with their vaulted stone roofs ; they are separated by a low wall. Their windows are insertions of the Decorated period, as is shown by the remains of tracery in one of them ; when entire, it must have been as in the illustration (fig. 82). In the upper wall of the N. chapel, over the N. window, can be seen one of the door- ways to the triforium gallery, which once ran round the church. 82. — Reticulated Window at Roche Abbey. From Aveling's " History of Roche Abbey." In the chancel, the found- ations of the high altar are very plainly to be seen. On the S. wall of the chancel, a round arch remains which once enclosed three Norman sedilia ; changed at a later date to sedilia of a more elaborate style. On the same wall are remains of a piscina and an aumry or cupboard, where the sacred vessels for the mass were kept. On the opposite side of the chancel are the traces of some rich canopied work of the Decorated period, which may have been a tomb of the 14th century, or a site for an Easter sepulchre.- To the west of this is a shallow niche, also canopied but of lower dimensions. The plan of a Cistercian monastery is nearly always exactly the same.t We can therefore say with tolerable See chapter XII. t See plan of Roche Abbey. 154 ROCHK ABBEY. certainty where the principal rooms of Roche Abbey stood, though their foundations have not yet all been cleared. A round arch in the S. wall of the S. transept i "° I "" 1 "^ Plan of Roche Abbey. ROCHE ABBEY. 155 leads into a small room wliicli was called the Slyj)e ; it was used as a Sacristy, and it also served as a Library, in the days when books were few in number. Through it the bodies of the monks were carried out for burial in the cemetery garth. Out of the Slype opens the Chapter-house, always a handsome apartment, and here vaulted on two pillars, one single-shafted, the other grouped. Here the Abbot and the brethren met to transact the solemn business of their order. A letter written in this chapter- house about the election of a new abbot 'in 1479, is still extant. West of the chapter-house, and flanking the S. wall of the nave, was formerly the Cloister Garth, a square court surrounded by a flagged and covered colonnade, which in England, in the later days of monasticism, was generally glazed. Here the monks usually sat and read or wrote, when they were not busied in the fields. On the S. side of the cloister was the monks' dining-hall, the Frater or Refectory. Here was a pulpit from which one of the monks read to the others during meals. The Hospitium, where guests were entertained, was on the outer or W. side of the cloister ;-•■ the Kitchen and other domestic offices of the monastery were on the E. side of the Refectory. The Kitchen has two large fire-places side by side ; it opens into a small court, through which runs the great culvert by which the monastery was drained. There are two small chambers which appear to be store- rooms between the Kitchen and the Cloister ; the Buttery appears to have been on the W. side of the Refectory. There are signs of a staircase leading upwards over these rooms, rendering it probable that the monks' dormitory at * See Appendix, Note W. 15G ROCHE ABBEY, Roche was over the Chapter-house. The large room running parallel with the Kitchen, to the E. of it, the foundations of which have been recently cleared, was the Calij'dcturium or Day-room of the monks. The Cloister Garth was never used as a burying ground ; in the centre of it was a fountain, the stone basin of which is still to be seen near the bridge beyond the Abbey. Here the monks washed their hands before entering the Refectory. The burying ground of the monks was outside the E. end of the church, where some of their graves are still to be seen. Interments were sometimes made in the E. and S. walks of the Cloister, and in the Chapter-house. We can form a very good idea of the daily life of these Cistercian monks.- Their rule, as I have said, was very severe. They slept in a common dormitory on beds of straw,! the abbot sleeping in their midst. At a later period the abbot had a house to himself, and a sumptuous one too. A rough woollen cloth was laid over their straw beds, and they had a similar one for a covering. They lay down dressed in the same tunic, cowl, and stockings as they wore during the day, with their hoods drawn over their heads. A lamp burned all night in the dormitory. • The following account is taken chiefly from Newman's " Life of Stephen Harding," ch. XV., "A Day at Citeaux." See also a paper on "The Cistercian Plan," by J. '1'. Micklethwaite, " Yorks. Archseolog. Journal," VII, 239. Bloxam's •• Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Arch- itecture," Vol. II. Foslirookc's " British Monachism." t Such at least was the case in the early days of the Rule, hut it is evident from the letter of Cuthbert Shirebrook that at the time of the Dissolution the monks had separate cells. ROCHE ABBEY. 157 At about 2 o'clock (the hour varied according to the season of the year) the sacristan rang the great bell for matins ; instantly the monks all sprang out of bed and crossed themselves, and one by one the white figures glided into the church. They sat there on seats ranged on each side of the choir, like the stalls of a cathedral. I have already mentioned that those in Roche Abbey were "like those in minsters," probably beautifully carved. The stall of the Abbot was on the right hand in the western part of the choir, and the Prior's place was on the opposite side. Matins lasted for about two hours ; the brethren did not return to their beds after it, but either remained in prayer in the church, or sat in the cloister reading until Lauds, which were held at day-break. In winter there was a considerable interval between Matins and Lauds, and this was the freest time that a monk had. After Lauds, an interval was allowed, in which the monks might go to the lavatories, which were just outside the dormitory, to wash themselves, and to change some parts of the dress in which they had slept. When it was fully dawn, Prime was sung, and after that the monks went into the chapter-house. There the history of the saint whose day it happened to be, or a sermon, was read aloud ; after that a portion of the rule of St. Benedict ; and then every brother who had in the slightest way transgressed the rule, came forward and confessed it aloud before the whole convent, and received his appointed penance. But there was better sport to follow ; when all had confessed their faults, they were allowed to accuse each other. " Our dear brother has committed a fault," 158 ROCHE ABBEY. said each accuser in turn ; and the monk who was shewn to have committed a grievous oft'ence stripped himself to the waist, and received correction on his knees at the hands of another brother before the whole convent. After this performance, they went out to hard work in the fields ; but this was not their only form of labour ; each took his turn to be cook, cellarer, porter, or at other offices. They worked in the fields till the fourth service in church, called Tierce, after which the daily mass followed immediately. Then there was another interval in which they might either read in the cloister, or remain praying in the church. It will be observed that all this time they have not had a scrap to eat, and it was not till after Sext, which came at 11-30, that they at last got into the refectory. Their first meal consisted of one pound of the coarsest bread, and two dishes of difierent sorts of vegetables, boiled without grease. Their drink was thin beer or wine, or a decoction of herbs. After the meal they had an hour's sleep in the dormitory. Then the bell rang them up again, and they washed themselves, and went to sit in the cloister or the church till yoncx, at 2-30. Then they might have a drink of water in the refectory, before they again went to manual labour. After about two hours' work they had a slight meal in the refectory, consisting of the remainder of their pound of bread, with a few raw vegetables, such as radishes, lettuces, or apples. Then they went to the cloister, where some collection of the lives of the saints was read aloud, until it was time for Compline. When Compline was over, the abbot rose, and BOCHE ABBEY. 159* sprinkled each brother with holy water as he went out. They then pulled their cowls over their heads, and went to bed, in winter at about seven, in summer at about eight o'clock. The cloister was the ordinary sitting-room of the monks, and a very cold place it must have been. One of our monkish chroniclers complains that his fingers became numb while he was writing in the cloister. But there was a room called the Calefactorium, where a fire was kindled on Christmas night, and all the monks were allowed to gather round it. There is no mention of a fire at any other time, but it is easy to believe that one of the first relaxations of the rule which crept in would be the more frequent use of the Calefactorium. We know that in later times the cloisters were glazed for the sake of warmth. How long was the Cistercian Kule observed in its original strictness ? This is a question very difficult to answer. The original rule allowed no talking at all, not even by signs, except when one brother motioned to another to take care of his book, if he were called out of the cloister. But the abbot had the power of granting the privilege of conversation to those whom he judged worthy of it. He had indeed discretionary power to alter or temper the Kule according to the circumstances of the convent ; he could allow extra pittances of food and exemptions from work, and it was probably the use of this discretion which in time reduced the Eule to a dead letter. Another cause which led to the relaxation of the Eule was IGO ROCHE ABBEY. the practice of sending out a small number of monks to look after distant farms belonging to the convent. The monks enjoyed this so much that it became a proverbial saying, "sooner than do this, I will return to my monas- tery."- It is certain that not many years after the •Cistercian abbeys of England were built the Cistercians had quite lost their character for sanctity, and were regarded as one of the most grasping and unscrupulous of the religious orders. I • CJiiaklus Cambrcnsis, Spec. Ecc. -\ Giraldus, Spec. Ecc. XIX., and Brewer's preface to the same work. PARISH CHUKCHES. 161 CHAPTER XI. Parish Churches. The Chancel — The Sanctuary — The Norman Revival — Changes and Additions — Towers — Clerestor}' — Windows — The Altar— Sediiia — Piscina — Easter Sepulchre — Rood-loft — Screens — Pulpits — How the Money was Raised — Guilds — Chantries — Squints — Fonts. "TTIROM Roche Abbey we must go back for several -L hundred years to take up the history of our parish churches. It is the history of their structure only which concerns us here ; the origin of the parish is lost in the obscurity of early history. Our parish churches are the slow product of the religious life of many generations. It is rare indeed to find an ancient church which is all of one date. The hopes and fears, the love and care of generation after generation have gone to the building up of its fabric. For this very reason there is scarcely an ancient church in England that does not offer us an interesting problem in the history of its structure which we may spend hours in trying to solve. Although the cruciform ground-plan for churches was introduced in the earliest days of Christianity in Britain, two other ground-plans, of simpler form, were common in L 102 PARISH CHURCHES. Anglo-Saxon times, especially in country churches. Both consisted of a nave and chancel, but in the one type the chancel was round-ended, in the other rectangular. The round apse was undoubtedly the Roman type, introduced by the Roman missionaries ; the square chancel is sup- posed to have been the type introduced by the Scoto-Irish missionaries to whose labours the northern half of Eng- land and no small part of the southern half, chiefly owes its Christianity. It is certainly the fact that in this district, and in England generally, the rectangular chancel is the rule for country churches. Very few churches or cathedrals retain the round or polygonal apses which are so frequent on the continent. We have only one round apse in our district, but it is a very beautiful example, the little Norman chapel of Steetley. When the Early English style came into fashion, the Norman round apses were mostly destroyed, and churches reverted to the rectangular chancel.- These ancient churches were generally extremely small. We must bear in mind that they were not built for preaching, or for any kind of service which could be called congregational. They were built for celebrating the mass, a service to which a mystical and magical value had become attached long before Rome sent Augustine to Britain. Already therefore the chancel had developed into the Holy of Holies in every church, where the clergy and their assistants alone might penetrate, while the lay congregation followed the service in the body of the church, separated from the chancel by a screen or a * See Scott, " Lectures on Medisval Architecture," Lecture X. PARISH CHURCHES. 163 curtain. In Anglo-Saxon clnirches, we find the arch between the nave and the chancel extremely narrow, and we hear of a curtain being drawn across it, so that the sacred mysteries must have been actually invisible to the worshippers. At what time the third division was intro- duced into churches, by surrounding the altar with low rails or cancelU, which separated the Sanctuary from the Choir, has not yet been decided. Some of these cancelli are of great antiquity. But it is obvious that in small country churches, where the service was performed by one priest with at most tM'o assistants (if any) a separation between the chancel and the sanctuary was unnecessary.- It seems probable therefore that the earliest and rudest churches in England had only two divisions, one of which was both chancel and sanctuary.! No one can visit the country churches of any district in England without being struck by the remarkable building activity of the Normans. We know from history that they pulled down nearly all the Saxon cathedrals, and rebuilt them from their foundations ; we can see from observation that they largely did the same by our parish churches. So that architecture would tell us of a religious revival brought in after the Norman conquest even if history were silent. The solid massive shafts supporting • The Sanctuary is the part enclosed by the cancelU, and containing the altar it is also called the Presbytery, and in Greek churches the Bema. The division between the Choir and the Bema has always been much more marked in Eastern churches than in M^estern. See Smith's "Dictionary of Christian Antiquities," art, CancelU. t The oldest Irish churches retain a still earlier type, which has no chancel at all. 164 PARISH CHURCHES. the arches of Norman aisles arc among the most indes- tructible features of Norman churches ; whether to save the cost and trouble of making new pillars, or from some other reason, they were frequently retained when the whole fabric of the church was altered ; and thus we frequently find Norman columns supporting arches of a much later style. In particular, we shall often find that the responds of the W, and E. walls of the nave are the most ancient things in the church. The highly orna- mented Norman doorways also, with their elaborate rows of quaintly carved mouldings, seem to have been admired even when the fashion of architecture had entirely changed, as they have often been preserved in churches which have been completely rebuilt in Decorated or even in Perpen- dicular times. Suppose that the original church of the Norman period was a small oblong building, with a round apse, and without aisles ; if population increased in the neighbour- hood, and a larger church became necessary, the first addition would be to build aisles, or as frequently was the case, one aisle only. This aisle would generally be on the N. side, as the S. side of the church was occupied by the graveyard, so that when a S. aisle was added, it had to be put up at the expense of the graveyard, an encroachment which was avoided as long as possible. The graves were always placed by preference on the sunny side of the church-yard. This explains why so many of our country churches have only N. aisles. ••- * There are some instances of cliurclies vvitli S. aisles only, where the N. wall has originally been built without windows, for the sake of greater warmth. PAKISH CHURCHES. 165 If the masonry of the church was good, as was generally the case in the later Norman period, the church would now last for another hundred years at least, and this perhaps explains why there is so much less work of the Early English type in this district than of any other style.- Probably the alteration most commonly made in the Early English period would be the change from a short chancel with a round end to a much larger rectangu- lar chancel, f There can be no doubt that walls of the Norman time have frequently been retained when the windows and other decorative features have been com- pletely changed. Norman porches were usually extremely shallow, I and the porches of the Early English period are much larger. Many religious services, such as those of baptism and marriage, had considerable portions which were celebrated in the porch. § During the 13th century, the custom of elevating the Host after its consecration, for the adoration of the people, was introduced into England. To secure the attention of the congregation, as well as to inform persons outside of the moment at which the Host was elevated, it now became the custom to ring the Sanctits ' I merely throw this out as a conjecture ; the comparative paucity of E.E. work in this district is a striking fact. t Books on Architecture always say that Norman chancels were very short ; but I have seen so many instances of long Norman chancels, some of them early, that I hardly think this law is so universal as is generally supposed. + There are several exceptions to this rule in our district. § Bloxam, " Principles of Gothic Architecture," Vol. II. IGG PARISH C'HLUCIIKS. or Sacrim/ bell,- for which a special bell-cote was fixed on the roof, at the chancel end of the nave. There is one of these bell-cotes still in position on the roof of Staveley church. An ordniance of the year 1240, which continues the customary prohibition to the laity to stand in the chancel during Divine service, makes an exception in favour of patrons and personages of rank. Towers were not common in country churches before the 15th century. Those towers which were built in Norman times were very low, and we often find that an upper storey has been added in later times. Spires first appear in the Early English period, and are frequent then and in the Decorated time. But as a rule I believe it will be found that the majority of English church towers are of tlie Perpendicular period. It was not uncommon to enlarge the church when the tower was built, by building it at a distance from the church, and then connecting it by adding another bay or two to the nave.f Another addition very common in the 15th century was the raising of the nave walls, the flattening of the roof, and the addition of clerestory windows. These will generally be found to be of the Perpendicular style ni country churches, though of course there are exceptions. Stone vaulting was rarely used in Norman times except » So callc-d because it was first rung at the Sanctus (Holy, holy, holy) with which the priest begins the Canon of the Mass ; it was rung again at the elevation of the Host and at the elevation of the chalice. t Mickletlnvaitf on English Parisii Churches, in " Lectures on Art," p. 112. PARISH CHURCHES. 167 over the aisles, and wooden roofs are liable to decay ; it is very seldom therefore that an original Norman roof has been preserved,- and the roof is the most frequent object of restoration. The windows are another inconstant fea- ture. Glass was used in both Saxon and Norman times, but sparingly ; it was not till the close of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century that coloured glass patterns began to be used. Small windows were then abandoned, and during the next two centuries windows kept constantly increasing in size,f to admit of a grand pictorial display which though sometimes devoted to personal memorials in the shape of heraldic blazonry, was also a means of instruction in lessons from Scripture and the legends of the saints. We shall therefore often find that even in a Norman church the windows are insertions of a later period. Sometnnes we find a round-arched Norman win- dow filled up with Perpendicular tracery ; but in the Decorated period they preferred to remove the old windows altogether, and insert new ones, thus changing very materially the whole appearance of the church. Alas for the stained glass ! very little of it is left, and that little chiefly the memorials of family vanity rather than "the lovely image of Christ and His saints." For the Act of 1547, which ordered the destruction of images, whether in sculpture or painted glass, expressly reserved • The well-known Norman wooden roof at Peterborough Minster is the most remarkable instance. t The real reason for the increased size of windows was the discovery of the constructional value of the pointed arch. Large openings in the wall were impracticable in the Norman style. 1G8 PARISH CHURCHES. from defamation those images which were memorial and not objects of worship. What was spared at the Keformation in the way of religions painted glass (and Queen Elizabeth stayed the work of destruction) was conscientiously destroyed by the Puritans under the Com- monwealth. And what was spared by the Puritans in the way of glass, sculpture, or architecture, has always been exposed to the ravages of the clergy and churchwardens, who in the 18tli century especially, but in recent times as well, have done a good share of the work of destruction.-'- We now pass to the details of the interior of the church. The most important part of the church furniture of course was the altar, which from the time it replaced the worship of heathenism, and came to be regarded as itself an altar of sacrifice in a literal sense, was built of stone. Though the destruction of these ancient altars, and the substitution of communion-tables for them, was ordered in Edward YI's reign, a few of the altar- slabs have been preserved, marked with the five crosses which symbolize the five wounds of Christ. Stone seats in the south wall, on the right hand of the altar, for the priest, deacon, and sub-deacon, where they sat during the chant- • " It is not the fanatic and the rebel cnly upon whom we must charge the dilapidated state of our monumental brasses. Their combined injuries, wholesale and deplorable as they were, have probably since been almost equalled by those arising from the dishonesty, carelessness, and apathy of the proper guardians of them." Haines, " Monumental Brasses," I, CCLVII. Compare the remarks of Canon Cox in his " Notes on Derby- shire Churches," passim. It is of course needless to add that some of the clergy have always been among the best guardians of the antiquities committed to their charge. PARISH CHURCHES. 169 ing of the Gloria in Excelsis, were part of the structure of the church at least as early as Norman times. In the succeeding styles of architecture, the most beautiful decoration was lavished on these Sedilia. A stone basin, or piscina, in which the priest washed his hands before mass, and an aumnj or cupboard, in which the sacred vessels for the mass were kept, as well as the oil for anointing the sick, and the unconsecrated wafers, became further parts of the structure as early as the 12th century* Often there is a shelf enclosed in the same arch as the piscina; this is the credence-table, on which the wafer and wine stood before they were consecrated. The credence- table is sometimes a separate stone shelf or table. Piscinas level with the floor, called (jmund jnscina' are found in some of the Yorkshire Abbey churches. In the N. wall of some chancels is yet to be seen a low arch like that of a tomb, with a flat slab underneath. This was the Easter Sejnih-hrc, where a representation of the Resurrection was set up on Easter Sunday, after the Sepulchre had been watched through the night of Easter Even. In the S. wall of the chancel, near the ground, is sometimes found a small low window, known as the Low Side window, which is a standing puzzle to antiquaries. Some suppose it to have been the window through which the Friars were in the habit of hearing confessions ; others think that it was the window by which some anker or hermit who had built his hutch or ankerhoJd against the outer wall of the chancel, watched the celebration of mass. There are difficulties in the way of both suppositions. A third theory is that it was the window from which the 170 PARISH CHURCHES, Sanctus bell was rung, when there was no Sanctus bell- cote. There is sometimes a room over the church porch (called a Parvise), which in one case at least is known to have- been the abode of an anker or ankeress. In some cases it may have been the lodging of the priest, when he came from a distance to celebrate mass. As early as Norman times, a wooden screen appears to have replaced the curtain which separated the chancel from the nave in Anglo-Saxon churches.- The screen supported a solid gallery, called the Rood-loft, because the great Rood or crucifix was fixed there. A wooden screen of Norman date is preserved at the church of Compton, in Surrey. Many very beautiful screens of the Decorated and Perpendicular periods still exist in our churches. In the reign of Elizabeth, an order was issued that the Royal arms should be set up in churches, and they were frequently set up on the Rood-loft, in the place formerly occupied by the Rood. " Then you see," says Harpsfield, a Roman Catholic writer of the time, "instead of Christ's crucifix the arms of a mortal king set up on high, with a dog and a lion, which a man might well call the abomina- tion of desolation."! * It appears from a passage in Durandus that at the time when he wrote (towards the end oi' tlie 13th century), curtains or solid screens prevented the laity from seeing tiie clergy ; and that the sanctuary was also separated by curtains from the choir. See Neale's translation of Durandus, ".Symbolism of Churches," p. 63. + Quoted in Bloxam's " Companion to Gothic Architecture," p. 114. This substitution of the royal arms for the rood had been tried previously in Edward VI's reign. Froude, " History of En<.land," V, 33, PARISH CHURCHES. 171 Pulpits of tlie medifeval period are not found in country churches, for it was seldom indeed that there was need of them. Such rare occasional sermons as were delivered were preached from the Rood-loft, or from the cross in the churchyard. The revival of preaching through the agency of the Friars and their successors the Wycliffites, led to a more general introduction of pulpits in the 15th century. But they were by no means universal, and in the reign of Edward VI an injunction was issued ordering every parish church to provide itself with a pulpit. This injunction had to be repeated in the reign of EHzabeth and at the accession of James I in 1G03. A great many old carved pulpits in our churches date from between 1G03 and 1040, and are a sign of the religious revival wrought by Puritan- ism ; the round-arched panels, and flat arabesques in low relief, show the decorative fashion of the 17th century. If we ask how the money was found for the alteration and enlargement of churches in mediaeval times, we shall get a very interesting answer. The money by no means came exclusively out of the pocket of the great landowner of the neighbourhood. The principle of co-operation for a common end, which we find working at the very beginnings of English constitutional history, was made use of in religious matters also. Both in Anglo-Saxon times, and throughout the middle ages, religious guilds existed, consisting of men and women alike, associations of pious persons who provided out of their own means for various religious necessities which would otherwise have been neglected. Thus for example the Guild of Our Blessed Lady and the Holy Cross at Eckington was 172 PARISH CHI'RCHES. founded- " by well-disposed persons who gave lands and tenements for finding of eleven priests to celebrate mass, and to pray for the brethren and sisters, and also to help towards the ministering of the Sacraments and other divine services ; for the parish is large and divided into many hamlets, some two or three miles distant, so that when the Visitation of God- cometh amongst them, the parson and his parish priest is not sufficient in time of necessity to minister there." Guilds of this kind would very often undertake tlie repair or enlargement of some portion of the church ; and if their own funds did not suffice, they would raise money by a Church Ah', an institution which had many points of resemblance with the modern bazaar. The ale was brewed and given by the guild members, and paid for by the general public who :gathered together to drink it, no doubt other amusement being provided.! There was a religious guild of this kind in Rotherham, called the Guild of the Holy Cross. We also hear of voluntary assessments consented to by the parishioners for the repair of churches. It is probable that the main principle which lay at the foundation of guilds was that of mutual assurance for the next world. I have already spoken of the cc. In Perp. times the tower was added, the N. aisle thrown out, and the chancel arch built ; a botchy half arch, worthy of Perp. work, joins it to the chantry wall. The nave roof is a Perp. tie-beam roof. The S. wall of the nave has been rebuilt recently and the porch added ; the windows are all modern, while those in the N. wall are Perp. Under the tower is a stone with an in-cut cross fleury, and there are three altar tombs in the chantry to the Washington family ; the oldest, dated 1579, is to " Dominus Jacobus Washington, armiger, de Adwycke," and has rude intaglios of the knight, his wife, and 12 children. On his breast he bears a shield with the stars and stripes, which are also figured on the shield? round the tomb, and on the two other tombs.- The church registers are very curious, commencing in 1547. Anston ; St, James. A spacious and lofty church, chiefly of the Dec. period. There has been an older church however, for the massive pillars of the N. aisle are E. E., and early at that. There was evidently a great rebuilding of the church in the Dec. period, to which the buttresses on both sides belong, and there is also a founder's tomb on each side of the nave, with Dec. mouldings. The pillars of the S. aisle are grouped, of four shafts with very broad fillets; the abaci have the scroll-moulding. The pillars appear to have been recently scraped and restored. In the same aisle is an elegant • See Appendix, Note Z. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 211 Fig. 98. — Effigy at Axston. From Bloxam's Paper on "South York- shire Effigies." Dec. piscina and awmry. There has been a great deal of modern restor- ation in the church, and the chancel arch and chancel are modern, and so are all the windows in the body of the church, except one in the S. wall of the chancel, of Decorated pattern. The clerestory I should judge to be ancient, and Dec. ; its external corbels are of great interest, and in good preservation, ow- ing to the excellent stone of which the church is built. One of them is probably intended for a Jew. The sedilia are ancient, and probably Decorated. Under the arch of the founder's tomb in the N. aisle has been placed an effigy which does not belong to it, and. which for a long time was exposed to decay in '21*2 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. the churchyard. Though it is well that it is now protected from the weather, it is not well that it is in a position which renders it liable to injury. It is a most interesting effigy of a man in the civil costume of the 14th century, with the long curled hair of that period, the tunic with tight sleeves buttoned to the wrists, the super-tunic with long hanging sleeves, the full skirt, and the hood thrown back at the neck.- By the side is a smaller figure which Bloxam considered to be a child ; but I imagine that it is intended to represent the man's soul, which an angel is receiving from above, and another angel bearing up from below. This effigy is quite one of the curiosities of the district, and ought to be carefully preserved. The tower with its graceful spire belongs to the early Perp. period.! Aston ; All Saints. This church looks almost entirely Perp. from the outside ; the inside tells a different story. The arcades of the nave are late Norman in character, with Transitional features. The round arches of both aisles, and the Attic bases of the N. aisle belong to the Norman style ; the Transitional features are tlie filleted hood-moulding to the arches on both sides, the pointed chamfer of these arches, the alternate round and octagonal pillars, and the single pointed arch in the S. arcade, which rests on a corbel of E. E. character. The responds at the * See Bloxam, Paper read !)ct"ore the Yorkshire Architectural Society in 1849. Hunter mistook this effigy for a lady. t Father Haigh says: "I tliink tlie tower and spire of this church, though on a much smaller scale, are of the same date, and perhaps designed liy the same hand, as that of Laughton." " Archarological Journal," I, 403. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 213 W. end have both square abaci. The chancel arch may be pronovinced E.E. of very early character. The wmdows of the aisles (N. and S.) are all modern restorations, but on the same pattern as a very pretty original Perp. window in the porch. At the E. end of the S. aisle, where there has been a chantry, and where an interesting Dec. piscina remains, there is a very good Dec. window containing a good deal of ancient heraldic glass, part being the arms of Darcy.- This chantry has a blocked up squint into the chancel. The chancel, which is of limestone, whereas the rest of the church is of red sandstone, is apparently Transition Dec, but it has been much restored in modern times, so that its features are not trustworthy; the E. window is quite modern. It retains however a great deal of ancient carving on the window corbels, which suggests the same hand as that whose work is to be seen at South Kirkby, Laughton, and Anston ; this artist delighted in demons and monsters. The heads on the porch are doubtless intended for those of Edward III and his queen ; precisely similar heads may be seen at Laughton. Some carving of the same kind may be seen on the font. The chancel contains a monument in compartments, with effigies of Lord Darcy and his three wives, date 1628. The tower is early Perp., and so is its internal arch. The ancient altar stone is preserved in the vestry. Bakewell ; All Saints. Bakewell was an important place in Anglo-Saxon times, being one of the sites fortified by Ethelfleda, the Lady of Mercia, sister of Edward the Elder, in her great campaign against the Danes. It is • Bloom, " Heraldr)' of the "Vest Riding," part IIT. 214 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT, therefore not surprising that Domesday records a church and tiro priests (an unusual distinction) as located here at tlie time of the Survey. The present church is cruciform, and contains some Norman piers at the W. end of the nave, which may be as old as the time of William Peverel, who was the greatest landowner in Derbyshire after the Norman settlement.- These piers and their responds are square and absolutely plain, except for a chamfered impost which has a sort of rude decoration in the form of plain corbels. The Western doorway, and some fragments of arcading Avhicli still decorate the W. front, appear to belong to a later stage of Norman, perhaps Stephen's reign. Two small Norman windows, with shafts and capitals, may still be seen on this front. There was a rebuilding of the church in E.E. times, and the chancel probably belongs to this epoch ; the masonry is rude, the windows are of the late E.E. type, and the sedilia have unmistakable E.E. bases. The N. and S. doorways also are E.E. The tower and spire were completely rebuilt in 1841, but the old and very elegant design, an octagon fitted on to a square, is said to have been followed.! At a later period the whole of the Norman nave, except the fragments mentioned above, was destroyed, and the S. transept and Vernon chapel rebuilt. The present beautiful doorway of the S. transept is stated to be " almost an exact reproduction " of the old one, but the engraving of the ancient doorway given in the fourth volume of the Journal of the Archfeological Association suggests a very * See page 102. f Cox's " Notes on Derbyshire Clnirclies," Bakewell. ANCIENT CHUECHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 215 niucli simpler doorway than the present one. The S. transept windows are said to be copies of 13th century lancets, while in the restored Vernon chapel, which forms the E. aisle of this transept, the windows follow their Dec. predecessors. There is a very good ancient screen to the Vernon chapel. The monuments in this chapel are one of the sights of Derbyshire. They are not indeed of any artistic merit, but their staring realism, and the elaborateness of their details, command attention. The most interesting of them are (1) in the middle of the chapel the effigies of Sir George Vernon (who was known as " the king of the Peak ") and his two wives ; he died loGl ; (2) on the S. wall, the effigies of Sir John Manners, (died IGll) his wife Dorothy Vernon, f and four children; (3) on the N. wall, the effigies of their son. Sir George Manners, his wife, and family, including an infant in swaddling clothes. Besides some other less striking memorials of the Vernon and Manners families, there are two much older monuments in this chapel, which did not originally belong to it. One is that of Sir Thomas Wendesley, an effigy on a (new) table tomb, dressed in armour of the annail period. He was killed at the battle of Shrewsbury, in 1403. The other is an incised slab, of the 14th century, now placed upright against the S. wall. On one of the piers of the S. aisle of the nave is a beautiful little monument of the Transition- Decorated period, with half length figures of Sir Godfrey f This is the celebrated Dorothy Vernon. Some beautiful auburn hair, with the pins which fastened it, was found in her cofTin when the chapel was rebuilt in 1841. She died in 1584. 21G ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. Foljambe (+ 1377) and his second wife Avena. The inscription is modern. This Sir Godfrey founded the chantry of the Holy Cross, in 1344, at the E. end of the S. aisle. The porch of this church is a perfect museum of early tombstones and fragments of sculpture, many of them of Anglo-Saxon date. Bishop Browne believes that some of these fragments are parts of ornamental bands with which the church was decorated in Anglo-Saxon times.- Such bands of ornamentation are found in the Saxon church of Britford in Wiltshire, and it is highly probable that the Anglo-Saxons used their remarkable mastery of decorative art far more extensively in the ornamentation of their churches than the scanty remains which now exist would allow us to assert.! Barlborough ; St. James. This church, when I visited it, was a striking instance of a ruthless attempt to trans- form an ancient church into the admired hideousness of the 18th century ; but I was informed that a restoration was intended. The whole S. wall was rebuilt in the 18th century, and the windows modernized. The Norman pillars of the N, aisle (the only aisle) have been so covered with plaster and whitewash that their details are com- pletely disguised, but the responds against the wall show the original style of the capitals. The chancel arch is E.E. and rests on remarkably beautiful carved corbels. There is a lancet window in the tower, which appears to » '-Tlie Pre-Norman Sculptured Stones of Derbyshire," p. i8. t For the earthworks at Bakevvell, see p. 56. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 217 have been inserted in the middle of a much larger pointed window, now blocked up. From the arms on the W. front of the tower, Canon Cox conjectures that the original tower was built in the 13th century, but the other details are of Perpendicular character. The chancel, and the windows of the N. aisle, are also Perp. At the E. end of the N. aisle is a female eflfigy, said to be Joan, wife of Sir Thos. Nevill, and heiress of the Furnivals, brought here from Worksop Priory. (See Cox, "Notes on Derbyshire Churches," I, 57). There is also close to it the upper part of the ancient font ; it contains a holy water stoup. Barlow ; St. Lawrence. The most remarkable point about this little Norman church is that it anciently belonged to the most primitive type of church in England and Ireland, having no chancel. The present chancel is entirely modern, and when it was added, five small round- headed windows were found buried in the former E. wall of the church. A Norman piscina was also found, and is now preserved in the E. wall of the vestry; it is of unusual form, being simply a projecting basin. The church has a Norman S. door, and seems to have had Norman windows in the N, wall, but they have all been modernized. On the S. side of the nave there is an E.E. double lancet window, and in the chantry chapel which is built out of the same wall there are two very nice Dec. windows. In this chantry is an alabaster slab, with incised figures of Eobert and Margaret Barley, 1477 ; the man is in armour of the Yorkist fashion, but not so exaggerated in its details as usual ; the lady wears the surcote ovcrte and the mitre head-dress. This tomb was formerly in the N. E. corner ■218 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. ■of the churcli. Against the E. wall of the nave has been placed a 13th century slab with a foliated cross, and a Norman-French inscription in Langobardic letters to Julia Praunceis. There arc two similar slabs in the middle of the nave.- The bell- turret is probably of the last century. Barnborough ; St. Peter. This fine church is chiefly Decorated and Perpendicular in its details, but is not without traces of an older structure ; the two lower storeys of the tower are plainly Norman, and show a blocked up Norman window on the S. side. The tower arch, chancel arch, S. doorway and porch and the two upper storeys of the tower with its short spire,* are Dec, and as the buttresses are of the same style w^e may infer that the walls of both nave and chancel belong to that epoch ; but the church evidently underwent a complete over-hauling in the Perp. period, when the usual raising of the nave pillars and addition of a clerestox'y probably took place. In the N. aisle, the pillars rest on Transition Norman bases, which have been raised on high plinths, while the capitals are almost certainly Perp. To what epoch the octagonal shafts belong, who shall say ? There appear to be traces of some older piers under the chancel arch. The windows of the nave are all Perp. except one Dec. window in the S. aisle; the E. window of that aisle is good early Perp., and contains some ancient stained glass. The chancel windows are all modern. The font is probably a relic of the Transition Norman period. The • See Cox, " Notes on Derbyshire Churches." • The church was restored in 1859, and some portions of the belfry are modern. Tliere was a restoration of the nave in 1869. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 219 two chantries, one in the N. chancel,- the other at the end of the S. aisle, evidently retain their original Perp. parcloses, as well as their piscinas. In the floor of the N. chantry is the tomb slab of Alice Cresacre (+ 1450), incised with nine strings of beads (a Cresacre emblem) so arranged as to form a cross, and with the inscription, not uncommon on monuments of that time, " Our bonys in stony s lye fall still ; Our saulys in wandyr at Godys will." Close to this tomb of Alice Cresacre is the much more pretentious canopied altar tomb of her husband Percival Cresacre (circa 1455), with an elaborate inscription, given in full by Hunter, f About this Cresacre there is the sin- gular legend that he was killed in fighting with a wild cat, in the church porch. Hunter did not detect what Bloxam, who visited the church in 1849, saw at once, that the oaken effigy on this monument is at least a century older than Cresacre's time, and that part of the bassinet and half of the lion at the feet have been sawn off to fit it into its present position. Probably the frugal Cresacres bought it second-hand, or appropriated some one else's effigy, as others have done both before and since their time. The effigy is an excellent specimen of the cijcJas period of military costume, of the early part of the 14th century, when mixed armour, partly of plate and partly of * Founded in 1507. Chantry Certificates, 194. t "South Yorkshire,"' T, 372. This tomb was white-wa'hed at some time in the debased ages, and the scraping oir of this white-wash has produced its present very modern appearance. The epitaph is an interest- ing illustration of the religious sentiments of the middle ages, at their best. 220 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. Fio. 99. — Effigy at jJaunbokougii. From Bloxam's Paper on " South Yorkshire Effisrie":."' mail, Nvas worn. In Blox- am's time the details were made clear by paint, the nnii'dl being painted " in imitation of rings set edge- w'ise."- All traces of paint are gone now, and the figure has evidently under- gone some modern varnish- ing. The arms of Cresacre are to be seen on the S. side of the tower, and on the E. side were once the arms of Bella Acqua or Bellew, the two great families of tlie neighbour- hood in the time of Edward II. f The heiress of the Cresacres, in the IGth century, married a son of Sir Thomas More, and thus brought the Barn- borough estates into the More family. The house of the Mores (Barnborough Hall) is still in existence ; * Bloxam, Paper read before the Yorkshire Architectural So- ciety in 1849. •f Hunter, " Deanery of Don- caster," I, 379. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 221 it contains a secret chamber, probably built to conceal recusant priests in Elizabeth's reign. Hunter mentions three pictures of the More family which it contained, but I am informed that these have disappeared from Barn- borough. For the very interesting cross in the churchyard see page 201. Barnsley; St. Mary. The tower, which is of the early part of the 15th century, is the only ancient portion of this church, which was rebuilt in 1820. Baslow ; St. Anne. This church has been much restored, and its origins somewhat disgui-ed, but it is probably in the main E. E. The arcades of the two aisles are E. E. ; the bases have been restored. The tower with its broach spire is in a peculiar position, at the W. end of the N. aisle ; it also is E. E., but its masonry is much less rude than that of the nave and suggests a later period of E.E. Its base-tablets have probably been added at some still later restoration. There has been a restoration of the church in Decorated times, and the E. window, (which is geometrical) belongs to this period ; so do the windows of the N. aisle, and the E. and \V. windows of the S. aisle. The chancel has been much restored in modern times ; the chancel arch is entirely modern, so is the W. window of the nave. The porch, the battlements, the square- headed window m the S. aisle," the clerestory windows, and the roof of the nave are Perp. The bell-cote for the Sanctus bell remains. A 13th century coffin lid is built into the wall of the porch. The dog-whip, which was used * This window has had its mullions restored, but on the old pattern. 222 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. in ancient times to whip dogs out of cliurcli, is preservetl in the vestry. Beighton ; St. Mary. Perhaps the most ancient thing in this church is the shoulder-arched awmry in the N. wall of the chancel, -which suggests the E.E. period. The piscina is more like the Dec. style. This church has been very extenpively restored, and the present Norman chancel- arch copies the mouldings of an ancient one, which was found buried under a pointed arch.- The walls of the chancel and S. aisle were taken down to the foundations in the recent restorations. The new windows of the S. aisle are exact copies of the old ones ; in the chancel the old Dec. window.s were replaced. The capitals of the aisles look like Perp., but as the arches have the Dec. wave moulding, we may give them the benefit of tlie doubt, especially as the windows of the church are mostly Dec. The tower-arch is very manifestly Perp.,f and is bold and lofty, of 5 orders, with an odd kind of strung- bobbin decoration. There has been a chantry in the S. aisle. There is a large squint, and the rood-loft doorway is particularly plain. The old altar stone was found during the restoration, buried under the vestry ; it has been placed in a wooden frame, and is now used for the communion table. The tower is Perp. BoLsovEu ; St. Mary. This church has undergone many alterations ; the N. aisle is entirely modern, and copied from the pillars of the S. aisle, which are Dec. * Cox, " Notes on Derbyshire Churches." f Here I must VLntiire to differ from Canon Cox. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 22rJ- Tlie cliancel arch is a restoration, retaining the Norman capitals to the responds ; an interesting late Norman capital, with characteristic carving, has been built into the chancel wall. The tower arch is Transition Norman, and the tower itself is Early Enghsh, with a W. doorway of the same style. The tower has a broach spire. The- chancel is Dec, and has a fine E. window ; the external hood moulding of this window is a very bold curve-and- slant moulding. Over the chancel door, outside, is a sculpture of the crucifixion, the date of which has been much disputed ; Canon Cox concludes it is Norman. The S. wall has been entirely rebuilt with stone taken from the old N. wall. In the S. aisle is a founder's tomb of the 14th century, under the canopy of which is now placed the most interesting object in the church, a piece of 13th century sculpture in high relief, representing the Adoration by the Magi. It is probably of the l-lth century and may have been once an altar-piece. It was found forming a step, face downwards, to the N. door. At the E. end of the S. aisle there is a chapel belonging to the Cavendish family, who have owned Bolsover Castle from the begin- ning of the 17th century. It is full of hideous Renaissance monuments, of the most costly description. The roofs of the church and chancel are modern.- For the castle and earthworks at Bolsover see pp. 104-106. * Since this was written this church has been ravaged by fire, but 1 am informed by the courtesy of the vicar that the tower and spire and a great deal of the ancient work, including the medieval sculpture, have been saved. ■224 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. Bolton-un-Ukarne ; St. Andrew. The nave of this •church appears to preserve its ancient walls, and the similarity of the rude masonry on both sides would lead one to think that the aisle on the N. side is part of the original plan of the church. Its arcade is Transition Norman, with round columns. The chancel is Dec. and has a good reticulated E, window, which appears to be original, though restored. The other windows of the church are chiefly modern. The tower is Perp. Small as this church is, it had three chantries in the olden time, and the dates of their founding are preserved : on the N. side of the church {i.e. the chancel) 1328 ; on the S. side, 1400; in the nave, 1398. These chantries were all dedicated to Our Lady.- Bradfield ; St. Nicholas. This church was a depend- ency of Ecclesfield, and there was probably a chapel here in Norman times. To the N. of the present chancel arch, on the E. wall of the nave, is something which looks uncommonly like remains of an early Norman pier with a plain chamfered impost ; it may have formed the N. jamb of the Norman chancel arch. The present chancel arch is Transition Norman ; though the caps of the responds have been mutilated, it can be seen that the abaci were square. Before the recent restoration there were galleries in the church, to accommodate which the caps of all the pillars in the aisles have been barbarously mutilated. But I venture to conjecture that the two round pillars in the N. aisle, which have Norman bases (if these bases are original) belonged to the early Norman church. The * Cliantry CVrtificates. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 225 other pillars have bases of E.E. character, and the one respond which remains unniutilated at the E. end of the S. aisle has a capital of the same character. The arches also have the E.E. hexagonal hood-mould. At a later period, both aisles were raised on their present high plinths, and at the same time the clerestory and the tower were added, and probably the church lengthened, as the responds on the W. wall are Perp. in character. The Perp. date of the tower is almost proved by the' fact that there is no mark on its E. side of the steep roof of the earlier church. The tower v/indows have all the deep Perp. cavetto, and the masonry is of the same character all the way up. The chancel arcades are of later Perp., but the S. aisle, where there has doubtless been a chantry,- retains a good Dec. window at the E. end, with a corbel head of a lady in head-gear of the middle of the 14th century. The other windows are all Perp., those of the S. aisle fine and lofty, but those of the N, poor and small, and square-headed ; this is accounted for by the fact that before the last restoration the level of the soil was very high on this side the church. There is a singular crypt in the N. aisle of the chancel, which is supposed to have been the priest's lodging at the time when Bradtield was served by the monks of Ecclesfield. It is remarkable tbat there are 8 steps up to the chancel of this church. The ancient Norman font was discovered in 1870, when the church was admirably restored by the Eev, Reginald Gatty, then the Vicar, and cleared of the galleries which had encumbered it. The old glass found in the church has been collected and placed in a window in the N. aisle. 226 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. The roofs are of good Perp., and bear the Talbot device. The porch is remarkably lofty.- This interesting moorland church stands in a glorious situation, and there are other attractions at Bradfield which might give an antiquarian a very full day. For the very remarkable earthworks see p. 50, for the ancient cross preserved in the church, p. 198. Braithwell ; St. James ; anciently All Hallows. This has originally been a cruciform church, and the Transition- Norman arches and responds which sustained a tower over the crossing still remain. It is now an oblong church, with a S. aisle only ; the pillars of this aisle are Dec. There is a Norman S. doorway, with some rude carving in the tympanum. There are two very pretty square-headed Dec. windows to the S. aisle. The chancel was rebuilt in 1845, but contains a very beautiful founder's tomb of the Dec. period, with an incised cross fleury to Thomas Sheffield + 13G9. For the cross at Braithwell see p. 201. Brampton ; St. Peter and St. Paul. This is one of the most interesting churches in the whole district, as here we have an E.E. nave complete, with the exception of its windows, of which only one remains, at the W. end of the S. aisle, t Moreover the date of consecration of this • There is a paper on Bradfield churcli by the Rev. W. Stacye in Dr. Gatty's edition of Hunter's " Hallamshire," and the Rev. Reginald Gatty has added a chapter on Bradfield to Dr. Gatty's " Life at One Living." I Only the lower part of this window is original. Cox, "Notes ot Derbyshire Churches," I, i lo. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 227 cliurcli has been preserved, 1253. The chancel arch, tower arch, and the pillars of both aisles are all E. E. The pillars show the E.E. love of variety in the alternation of round and grouped columns. The S. doorway may possibly have belonged to an earlier church, as there was a church here in the days of William II, or it may be merely one of those survivals of style which are occasionally met with. The tower is also E.E., though the double-cusped windows of the broach spire probably shew the spire to be later. Base tablets of a later epoch have been added to the tower, which has distinctly E.E. buttresses. Two of these buttresses are within the nave. One of the most remarkable features of this church is the quantity of E. E. sculpture which adorns the outside. The figures of St. Peter and St. Paul are conspicuous on the S. wall of the nave, and on the E. wall is a Virgin and Child, and a seated figure of Our Saviour. The figure of St. Christopher over the S. doorway is modern. Inside the church is a remarkable monument of the semi-effirjial character described on p. 178, once in the churchyard, now fixed to the inner wall of the tower. The head is that of a lady in a simple veil head-dress, not without grace.- A well cut Langobardic inscription reads " Hie jacet Matilda le Cans, orate pru anima ef pat' nosV.'" There was a Matilda, heiress of the barony of Le Cauz, who died in the year 1224, and this may very probably be the lady. There is an E. E. piscina, trefoil-headed, in the former N. E. chantry of this nave.f There does not appear to have * I'he cushion on which the lady's head rests has often been mistaken for part of her head-dress. f Probably founded in 1264. Cox, lb. 117. 228 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. been any important addition to this church in the Dec. period except possibly the porch, which is stone- vaulted, with a crocketed hood-moulding. The pulpit however has every sign of having originally been of Dec. work. It was erected in 1815, but tradition says that it was formed out of portions of the ancient rood-screen, and there is every probability that this is the case. The design would certainly point to the 14th century rather than the 19th. ='= The chancel, which has been much restored, is evidently of the Perp. time. All the windows of the nave are of that style, except the lancet above mentioned, but Canon Cox states that the tracery was supplied recently to the clerestory and S. aisle windows. The Sanctus bell-cote still exists on the roof, and the bell has been replaced in it.f Brodsworth ; St. Michael, j: The S. aisle of this church is modern, but on the N. side of the chancel arch there are the remains of an early Norman pier with a plain chamfered impost, which is sufficient indication that a church existed there in Norman times, and the mass of masonry attached to one of the piers of the N. aisle may * I am iiuk-htecl for this information to Miss Helen Siiipton, the designer of the figure of St. Cliristoplier in tiie porch. t Tlirough the i^inciness of the Rector of Brampton 1 am informed that the tomljstone in the churchyard described by Canon Cox, which I unfor- tunately failed to see on my visit to the church, is really tlie f^haft of an ancient cross, and that a portion which seems to Iieiong to it is worked into the inside wall of the Ijelfry. From the description it appears to be decorated with a knot-work pattern. * A delight'ul drive through well timbered agricultural country, free from the taint of collieries, may be taken from Doncaster, to visit the churches of Brodsworth, Marr, and Siirotborough. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 229 have belonged to it ; so may the httle Norman window in the N. wall. The Transition-Norman pillars of the N. aisle are probably a hundred years later, and so is the tower arch, which is so rade and plain that only its point indicates its later date. The tower, in its two lower storeys, might be called E.E., if its buttresses are taken as evidence. The chancel is evidently E.E. and of a later period than the tower, as is shown by the moulding which encloses the three lancet windows under one arch outside. Inside the window shafts appear to be a restoration. There is one Norman window in the chancel, shewing that we still have the Norman walls on the N. side. The chancel arch is in E.E. style. The font is of Norman form, octagonal and rude. The masonry of this church is extremely rude, and there is a unique piece of decoration on the eaves of the N.W. portion of the roof of the nave. In the modern porch are preserved some portions of early grave-stones, one of which, an elaborate cross fleury, with a sword entwined by a serpent, is carved in high relief, in good 13tli century style. There was a church at Brodsworth at the time of the Domesday Survey. Castleton ; St. Edmund ; a particularly interesting ded- ication, as it seems to point to the existence of a church here in Saxon times ; for we can scarcely suppose the proud Peverel of the Castle would dedicate a church to an Anglo-Saxon saint. The church has been wrecked more than once by the clergy and churchwardens, yet the immense thickness of the walls, and the fact that there are the remains of a piscina in the nave seem to show that the walls are at least in part original. The chancel 230 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. also appears to be of old masonry. The chancel arch is Norman, of unusual width, and almost segmental ; it is decorated with a very heavy chevron moulding, and has square piers with a single round pilaster at the front angle.- The roof is adorned with the Tudor rose and portcullis, and an inscription on the leads, stating that "the old roof was laid on A.D. 1G33 " probably refers to the time when this more ancient ceiling was provided with the classical props which now uphold it. The tower is Perp. ; the font ancient and rude. There is some nice 17th century carving to some of the old pews. In the vestry is a library left to the parish by a former vicar, and containing a copy of the " Breeches Bible " and one of Cranmer's Bible of 1539. For the Peak Castle see p. 101. Chesterfield ; All Saints. This very fine cruciform church belongs in the main to the Decorated period, but there are some remnants of older work. There was a church here in the time of William Rufus, who gave it to the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln. There are no remains of this Norman church, which was followed by a large E.E. one. Of this E.E. church the fragments which remain are the arches, pillars, and responds which separate the N. and S. transepts from their eastern aisles (now chapels) ; they all have characteristic E.E. details ; the arches have an E.E. hexagonal hood mould. " These traces of E.E. work in the two transepts," says Canon Cox, " are sufficient to tell us that a large cruciform church was erected here in the 13th century, in the place * This arch was rubuilt in 1827. Glover's •' History of Derbyshire,' II, 129. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 231 of the Norman church of Wilham Rufus that previously existed."- He also calls attention to the corbel-table Avhich supports the exterior cornice of the wall on the S. side of the Foljambe chapel, as a further evidence of the great size of the E.E. church. This E.E. church must have been quickly superseded by a Dec. one, but the Dec. work in the chancel is obviously earlier than that in the nave, except where Perp. alterations come in. To these Perp. alterations I think the columns of the chancel aisles must belong, as they have the characteristic Perp. ogee in their capitals. The Dec. tracery of the large E. window is modern. The chancel has four chapels : (1) on the S. side, the Foljambe chapel ; it has two Dec. windows in its S. wall ; the E. window is Perp.; this chapel is the only part of the church where anything is left of the old roof ; (2) the Calton chapel, a small chapel to the S. of the Foljambe, extremely interesting because it retains its polygonal apse, the only one to be seen in our district;! it also is in the Dec. style, and has Dec. windows and piscina ; (3 and 4) two chapels on the N. side, the northernmost of which (Holy Cross chapel) contains a very beautiful flamboyant window, lately restored. An exquisite modern reredos has lately been placed here. The other chapel still contains the window of the former chancel wall, now unglazed. "When the lowness of this window is considered, it will be * " Notes on Derbyshire Churches," I, 1 14. I am at variance with Canon Cox in thinking that all these pillars are E.E. t The only other instance of an ancient apse in this district is the round one at Steetley. 232 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. seen that it is not improbable that the present chancel piers were added in the Perp. period, when the roof of the chancel was raised. The S. transept is called 8t. Catherine's chapel ; its S. doorway and large S. window are modern, but the doorway is copied from its E. E. predecessor. The N. transept has suffered a great deal of restoration in the Georgian era, as may be seen by the pediment outside. Fortunately the Georgians did not succeed in "beautifying" the entire church. The arches of the crossing under the tower are fine specimens of Dec. work. The rest of the church, that is the nave, tower, and spire, belong to the late Dec. period, and might even be called Transition Dec, as at this time the Dec. architecture was beginning to pass into the Perp. The broad fillets on the grouped pillars ; the headings added to the main shafts, and to the mouldings of the arches ; the delicate headings of the window mould- ings, without bases, and the small capitalled shafts with high bases, amidst them, are all signs of the Transition. The manner in which the aisles are joined to the transepts with a half arch is exceedingly clumsy, and unworthy the best period of Dec. The great W. window tracery is modern ; the W. windows of the aisles have Perp. tracery, but their mouldings are the same as those of the other nave windows, of which the tracery is decidedly Dec. The chancel arch is remarkably narrow for the size of the chui'ch, but it is lofty, and the vista into the chancel good, especially as the galleries are well to the back of the pillars of the nave. The three doorways to the nave are all of the late Dec. type ; the AV. one has been restored. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 233 The clerestory windows are Perp. and there are other Perp. windows in different parts of the church. From a, fine Dec. tower rises the famous twisted spire which is the curiosity of Chesterfield. It is of timber, covered with lead. Much has been written and disputed as to whether the strange bent of this spire was intentional or accidental. Canon Cox decides that it was accidental, caused by the pressure of the lead and the warping action of the sun on miseasoned timber. " A close examination of the beams proves that they are unmistakeably warped." The oak roof is modern. There are many interesting details to notice in this church, and the monuments are of great importance. There is a piscina-niche, with good open carving, in the chancel, and another in the N. chapel; another in the Calton chapel. The old Perp. screen in the N. transept was formerly part of the chancel screen ; it bears the symbols of the Passion. Another more elaborate screen of late Perp. work, with a coved projecting cornice, is in the S. transept. The reredos at the back of the altar was formerly the screen of the Foljambe chapel ; it is a very beautiful piece of carving, of the beginning of the IGth century. The tombs in the Foljambe chapel are (1) to Henry Foljambe, 1509, a fine altar tomb on the N. side, having a slab of dark marble, formerly inlaid with brasses ; the sides are carved with rows of knights and ladies, shewing the Early Tudor costume. (2) Next to it, on the floor, a slab with brasses of a knight and lady, Sir Godfrey Foljambe, son of the above, and his wife Katharine, 1541. (3) On the E. wall, a barbarous mural monument to Sir 234 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. James Foljambe, 1558, with Lis two wives and tliirteen ■children ; erected by his grandson. (4) The central mural monument, and altar tomb below it ; very good alabaster effigies of Sir James' son. Sir Godfrey, and his wife, Troth Terwhitt, 1585. (5) Altar tomb and mural monument against the S. wall to Godfrey Foljambe, only son of the above, in plate armour, and his wife, 1592, very good effigies. (0) On the floor, a large alabaster slab on w^hich is engraved a man in armour ; an inscription once shewed it to be to George Foljambe of Brimington, 1588. (7) The kneeling figure of a knight in armour, now placed on Henry Foljambe's altar tomb, wdth which it has no con- nection ; supposed to be Sir Thomas Foljambe, 1004.=^= The tapul or projecting ridge on the corslet and the lamboys on the thighs are conspicuous on this figure. A stone in the Calton chapel has once had a fine braids figure of an ecclesiastic. In the S. wall of the nave is a recess containing the effigy of a priest, with hair and costume of the 15th century ; it does not fit the recess, which is Dec, and has evidently been put in at a later period. The Jacobean pulpit is a very fine specimen of the carving of that time. There are records of three chantries in Chesterfield church, besides several side altars. f The chapel with the Foljambe tombs was the Lady chapel. Holy Cross chapel was built by the Guild of Our Blessed Lady and the • In the upper tracery of the S. window of the Foljambe chapel is some old glass with the arms of Plantagenet, and the arms of Wake inverted above them. Cox. t Cox, "Notes on Derbyshire Churches, I, 161-167. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 235 Holy Cross ; this guild dated from 1218, but the royal license to found the chantry was issued in 1393. There was also the chantry of St. Michael, founded in 1357, which contained an altar to St. Mary Magdalene as well as to the patron saint. There was also the chapel of St. George. One of these must have been the Calton chapel, and the other the chapel between Holy Cross chapel and the chancel. Clown (St. John the Baptist ; anciently All Saints) has a Norman S. doorway, and a remarkably rude Norman chancel arch. The S. wall is modern, but the N. wall is believed to be the old Norman wall, and is of very rude masonry. The chancel also is ancient, and has an E.E. lancet window, and a Low side window. There are the remains of a Norman piscina, and the rude font is also Norman. The wooden roof of the nave is an ancient one of the king-post type, probably of the Perp. period. The tower is Perp. There is a curious gravestone near the S.E. end of the church, in the churchyard, undoubtedly ancient ; it is kite-shaped at each end, and has a strip of rectilinear pattern down the middle. CoNisBORouGH ; St. Peter. This interesting church was originally Norman, and still retains a good deal of its Norman aspect. The columns and arches of the N. aisle are Norman, the capitals being interesting specimens of Norman carving ; the arches are round, and square-edged, with the merest suggestion of a soffit rib. The chancel arch is of the same period, and has the lozenge-like decoration on the abacus. The lower part of the tower 23G ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. may be Norman too, as it has plain Norman arches opening into chapels N. and S., but externally it is com- pletely disguised by Perp. and modern restorations and additions, and its arch into the nave is Perp. There is a piscina in the chancel which has been pronounced by some authorities to be Norman, but there are some dubious signs about it. Norman piscina) are rare. The round arch at the E. end of the N. aisle is modern, having been put up some years ago, when the wall of that aisle was taken down and rebuilt a few feet further out, the two original Norman windows being carefully re-inserted (the glass of course is modern). There is a piscina of unusual form at the E. end of this aisle, where there was a chantry founded in the IGth century by Nicholas Bosvile, whose tomb, under an arch in tlie N. wall, is dated, 1521. The S. aisle is Transition-Norman, and has pointed arches, square edged ; it is evident from outside that the masonry of this wall is original. There is a fine Norman doorway in this wall, decorated with the chevron and star mould- ings ; the porch which protects it is E.E. and has suffered much from weathering. At the end of this aisle has been a chantry, the plain square awmry and angular piscina of which remain, and a tomb slab on the floor with black letter inscription. The chancel by its mouldings appears to be Dec, though all its windows and the S. doorway are Perp. The large E. window, though much restored, appears ancient. The windows of the nave are all modern, except the two Norman ones. Some remarkable tomb- stones, which were formerly in the churchyard, are now preserved in the N. aisle. One is sculptured with birds in very high relief, and is probably of the IStli century. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 237 ^ ^^^ \ 100. — Norman Tomb-slab at Conisborough. From " Archxological Journal," Vol. I. The other is a very rare Norman monument ; it is a hog-backed stone, sculptured on the top and on one side only. It represents, on the side, an encounter between a hero and a monster, who apparently holds a lady between his paws ; a bishop stands by the side of the champion. The two slopes of the top are decorated with a battle 238 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. between two Knights, the Temptation of Adam and Eve, and a number of medalHons involved in scroll-work, which are evidently the signs of the zodiac. The kite-shaped shields, and conical caps of the figures on this remarkable piece of sculpture, prove it to be of Norman date ;■■'■ but it is worthy of remark that the legend of St. George, which it appears to represent on its side, has hitherto not been found in its full meditcval form before the Golden Legend of Jacob de Voragine, about 1280. f This stone has some- times been absurdly called the Tomb of Hengist, and a whole web of nonsense has been woven out of a mythical connection of Hengist with Conisborough Castle. There is also a tomb-slab preserved in the same aisle, with a fine cross fleury, probably of the 13th century. Hunter, who visited this church about 1820, saw there a mutilated effigy of a knight; it has now disappeared, without any help from tlie Puritans ! Hunter also states that the chancel had once a N. aisle, to which a small grated window, still to be seen, gave a view of the altar. There is a well-cut Perp. font. For Conisborough Castle see p. 96. Darfield ; All Saints. This fine church has traces of the Norman period in tlie two lower storeys of its tower, with their little Norman windows on the N. and S. sides, and the massive semicircular responds of the internal tower arch, which rest on Transitional bases. The arch itself however appears too wide for that period, and has probably been opened out at a later time. Probably the * See paper on the Norman tombstone at Conisborough, by Daniel H. Haigh, in " A rchsological Journal," 1845. t See " Dictionary of Christian Biography," art. Georgius. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 239' greater part of the present fabric is of the Dec. age, but there has been a good deal of modern restoration as well as Perp. additions. The S. aisle windows for example are all modern ; but those of the N. aisle seem to be ancient, and are of a late Dec. pattern. There are two mural tombs of Dec. style in the N. wall, one of which has a splendidly cut cross fleury on its slab, with a cup and a book, shewing that it is the tomb of an ecclesiastic. The external buttresses of both nave and chancel, where not restored, bespeak the Dec. period, and the S. porch, and blocked N. doorway, are evidently Dec. The W. doorway in the Norman tower is an insertion of the Dec. period. The chancel arch is also Dec. and has all the character- istic mouldings of that style. The chancel itself has undergone much restoration, and its windows are all modern. There are pillars of Perp. style separating the N. aisle and a former chantry from the chancel. On the S. side there are two piers so massive as to suggest the idea that the church had once a central tower, were it not that the actual tower evidently existed in Norman times. One of these piers contains the ancient stairway to the rood-loft, now used to give access to the (modern) pulpit ; the other contains a blocked staircase, said to lead to the roof. On the opposite side is a large squint. In the S. aisle of the chancel is a handsome Dec. arch which may have been either a founder's tomb or an Easter Sepulchre. This aisle evidently formed a chantry, and still has its piscina ; it contains a very fine marble tomb with effigies of a knight and lady, in good preservation. The knight is an excellent specimen of the costume of the Camail period (see p. 185) ; he wears the collar of S.S., which dates the ■240 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. monument to the reign of Henry IV. The lady wears the netted roll head-dress of that period, and a form of the Niircote nccrte (see p. 11)1) which is intermediate between that of the Hprotborough lady and the fully developed form ; it is tight fitting, but without the usual trimming which gives it the jacket appearance. As there are now no arms on this monument, Hunter was unable to allot it with certainty, but thought it probable that it was the tomb of John Bosvile and Isabel Dronfield, who lived in Richard II and Henry IV's reign. Perhaps John Bosvile was the author of the Perp. restoration of the church, when the usual process of raising the nave walls and adding the clerestory took place." The pillars of the nave have capitals with Perp. mouldings, but they stand on bases of the Transition-Norman period. The two upper storeys of the tower are Perp. ; the W. window is late Perp. The handsome font is Perp. The king-post roof seems to be of the same period. There are two chained black-letter books of homilies in the church, and a good deal of handsome 17th century carving on the old pews; some has been arranged as panelling round the S. W. angle of the church. A Dec. piscina in the S. wall seems to indicate a third chantry. In the churchyard is the tomb of Ebenezer Elliot ; and also an obelisk to 189 men who were killed in the explosion at Lundhill colliery in 1857. There is a tradition that the bells of Darfield church came from Beauchief Abbey, and Hunter thinks it may be true of two of tliem, which are ancient. What appears to be the Sanctus bell-cote is now re-erected at • 'I'lif iiiuscnt clerestory windows appear to be modern. ANCIENT CHUECHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 241 the W. end of the roof of the S. aisle. There was anciently a chapel on the bridge over the Dearne at Darfield.- DoRE ; ancient dedication unknown. The present church replaced the ancient one, "a very ancient and low mean building," in 1828. Dronfield ; St. John Baptist. One of the finest churches in the whole district, having a noble E.E. nave, and a splendid Dec. chancel, which must have been built by some one with large ideas. The E.E. nave has two aisles, with round pillars, which no doubt were raised on their present high plinths in the Perp. period. The bases appear to have suffered from re-dressing. The doorway to the rood-loft can be traced. The windows of the S. aisle are E.E. intersecting windows, showing a somewhat late date in that style. They have the curve-and-slant hood-mould, finished with the mask ornament ; the same moulding is found on the S. doorway and on the porch, which are probably of the same epoch. The windows of the N. aisle are different in design, and have a single circle in the head ; these windows look as though they were later insertions. At the E. end of the S. aisle was a chantry, founded (according to Pegge) in 1349. This is confirmed by its Dec. window. The tower arch is lofty and pointed, and has bases of Norman character, the E.E. hexagonal band, and Dec. capitals ; I give it up ! It should be noticed that though diagonal buttresses have been added, probably in Dec. times, to the nave, the S.W. angle retains the corner-to-corner buttresses of the E.E. • Hunter, " South Yorkshire," II, 119. 242 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. Style. The body of the aisles still has its E.E. buttresses. The chancel arch is of rather late Dec. style, and has evidently been put up when the chancel was added, as the responds of the aisles on the E, wall of the nave are Dec. The chancel to whicli it leads is much wider than the nave, and soars far higher. In spite of the great mis- fortune which its E. window luis suffered, in the insertion of barbarous tracery of the latest Tudor style,- this is one of the noblest chancels to be seen in any country church. The five side windows are of beautiful design, and the mouldings bold. The three sedilia and the piscina are in the richest style of Dec. To the N. of the chancel is a vestry with an upper chamber, also of the Dec. period, and the clerestory of the nave is of the same style. The tower with its tall and graceful spire (132 feet high) was added in the early Perp. period, and the W. window is a good specimen of early Perp. design. The W. door has interest- ing mouldings, and the fact that it has the Dec. form of wave-moulding along with the Perp. form of double ogee shows the early epoch of the work. The trefoil windows above the aisles are modern. There are some interesting monuments in the church. (1) On the floor in the middle of the chancel is a brass to the memory of two priests of the name of Gomfrey, one of them being a former rector of this church, who died in 1380. The horn which is figured on this brass is supposed to indicate that the deceased held lands by cornage tenure, i.e. for the service of blowing a horn on the approach of * The outline of the window is tlie same as the former one, and the original mouldings remain outside. ANCIENT CHUKCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 243 an enemy. (2) An alabaster effigy, which has been pushed into one of the squints (there are two squints) supposed, on rather shght evidence, to be that of one Sir Eichard Barley. It is a beautiful effigy in armour of the Yorldst period, but without the more extravagant features of that style, the coudes and [/enouiUieres being comparatively small. The long straight hair marks the late Yorkist period. The effigy lies on an altar tomb sculptured with angels. (3) A stone with eight brass plates, in the N. wall of the chancel, to the Fanshawe family. The Jacobean pulpit has very handsome arabesques. This church was given to the canons of Beauchief in the reign of Edward I. Ecclesfield; St. John Baptist. This line church, which was known in the time of Dodsworth, 200 years ago, as the "Minster of the Moors," has more the • appearance of a church all of one style (and that Perp.) than most of the churches which we have to describe. Yet even it retains traces of a former Norman church, which was given in Henry I's reign to the Benedictine monks of St. Wandrille in Normandy. To the E. and W. of the present internal responds of the tower are some plain square-edged piers, with remains in one case of square chamfered imposts, evidently of the Norman period." These piers must have supported a Norman tower, and render it probable that the early church was cruciform. The widening of the aisles, which probably took place at the Perpendicular * See the paper l)y the Rev. W. Stacye on the architecture of this church, in Dr. Gatty's edition of Hunter's " Hallamshire." See also Dr. Gatty's " Life at One Living." 244 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. restoration, and the building of side chapels to the chan- cel, have almost obliterated the cruciform plan. The Transition Norman responds at the W. end of the aisles shew that this former church was as long as the present one, and had two aisles. The pillars of the aisles are round on the N. side, octangular on the S. ; both have Perpendicular capitals and bases, though the capitals of the N. aisle are taller than those of the S. Both stand on very high plinths. The nave in fact appears to have been completely rebuilt in the Perp. period, but though the windows of both aisles are all of the same Perp. pattern, there is considerable difference between the two aisles externally. The S. aisle, which is probably the earlier, has that peculiar kind of flying buttress which pierces a, gargoyle figure. These figures, though much weathered, are highly curious, and some of them seem to be intended for Friars, always an object of satire to monks of the older orders, such as those to whom this church belonged. The N. aisle has plain buttresses which look like later Perpendicular. The tower is generally spoken of as Dec, but I do not know why, as its external features are all quite Perp. Internally, it is true, its lofty arches have mouldings which are seldom found except in Dec. (the sunk quarter-round) but the caps, with their chamfered-off abaci, are of Perp. type. But the strongest proof that the tower is Perp. is that it has no water-tabling showing the roof-mark of an older church. The chancel is of even later Perp. than the nave, "not earlier than the latter part of the reign of Henry YII," says Mr. Stacye. A window in the chancel formerly had ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 2-45 an inscription " Pray for Thomas Eicard, and his convent of the Carthusian house of St. Anne, who caused this chantry and window to be made." It will be noticed that the pillars of the chancel are on precisely the same pattern as those of the S. aisle of the nave, with their mouldings. There were five chantries in the church, and some of the altar-stones are still to be seen in the paving of both nave and chancel, marked with the five crosses ; some are used as tomb-stones. The communion-table stands on the • former high-altar stone. Kickman praises the woodwork of the stalls and screens. The beautiful screen to the N. chapel is of early Perp. type ; the S. or Mounteney chapel has a carved bench dated 1536, and a handsome screen which appears to be of the same date. The rood screen is also a fine piece of Perp. work. The roof of the nave is ancient, but has been much injured and patched ; the aisle roofs are ancient, and have good carved bosses. The chancel roof is of the last century, when a flat plaster ceiling was substituted for the ancient wood-work, in accordance with the perverted taste of that time. There is a large alabaster monument to Sir Richard Scott, 1640, with a very fine effigy in the costume of Charles I's time. Several sepulchral slabs of the 13tli century were found built into the walls of the church when the S. porch was recently restored, and are now fixed into the internal walls. The font is dated 1662. For the ancient cross now preserved in the church, see p. 198; for the remains of the Priory of St. Wandrille, and the connection of Eccles- field church with the Carthusians, see p. 134. EcKiNGTON ; St. Peter and St. Paul. One of the most interesting churches in the whole district, a fine specimen 24G ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. of the Norman period. The pillars of the aisles are arranged thus : the two eastennost round, the two wester- most octagonal ; the round pillars have round abaci, the octagonal ones have octagonal abaci. The arches are round and square-edged, with the flat soffit rib. The tower arch and chancel arch are Transition-Norman, and so is the tower, which has a Norman W. doorway ; but the spire is Dec. On the S. side of the chancel the doorway which led to the rood-loft is still to be seen. There is a remarkably elaborate squint. Three of the clerestory windows are Perp., the other windows in the church, with the exception of two Perp. windows in the N. aisle, are all modern. The church has been frightfully patched in post-reformation times. The very rude masonry of the chancel suggests great age, but the windows are probably insertions of the last century. A good deal of the outer masonry of the church is a modern casing. Edlinutox ; St. Peter. This little church has been pro- nounced " a gem of Norman ornamentation, little known and seldom visited."- Its fabric is still largely Norman; the masonry of the walls and that of the two lower stages of the tower are evidently of the same date, and along with the details of the other Norman work point to a late epoch in that style, verging to the Transition. The S. wall is of peculiar interest, as it retains its Norman corbel- table, of curious carving, marking the original height of the Norman walls. A beautiful Norman window, with diapered columns, and chevron decoration to the arch, is • Paper on Edlington cluiich, by R. Philipps, in Journal of ArchsEolog, Association, Vol. XXX. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 247 preserved in this wall. The S. door is richly adorned with the chevron, beak-head, and other mouldings, used continuously. The chancel arch is also an interesting specimen of Norman work ; it is decorated with several rows of chevrons, and has very short responds raised on extremely high plinths, with ornamental capitals. The details of the arcade forming the N. aisle and of the tower arch incline more to the Transition ; both have pointed arches, but both display the square abacus. The rood-loft doorway may be seen near the chancel arch. There are two Norman windows, in the N. and S. walls of the tower, with deep splays in the massive walls. The chancel windows are square-headed, of the Decorated style ; at that period the S. porch, and a N. doorway were added to the church, and perhaps the walls of the nave raised to their present height ; but they seem to show two different periods of raising. The upper storey of the tower, and the tower buttresses belong to the Perp. time. There is a Perp. chantry at the E. end of the aisle, preserving a portion of its original parclose ; there is no monument to be seen in it now but a mural tablet of the 17th century, nor could I find any of the inscribed slabs of which Hunter speaks. The E. window of this chantry, which is Dec, and ancient, must have been removed from the former E, end of the N. aisle. The queer little font is dated 1590. The two windows of the N. aisle, the E. window, and the ornamental piscina and credence table, are evidently modern works. For the earthworks in Edlington Woods see pp. 36 and 39. Eyam ; St. Helen. This church is mainly E.E., with a Perp. S. aisle and tower, but it has been much restored. 248 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. the N. aisle widened, and the chancel almost rebuilt. The arcade of the N. aisle is E.E. ; one pier is round, the other a group of four pointed bowtells. The responds have the square abacus. The tower arch is E.E. (showing that there was formerly an E.E. tower), but is enclosed in a later Perp. arch. Three lancet windows of the E.E, time remain in the church, one at the W. end of the N. aisle (the outer one is modern, inserted when the aisle was widened) and two in the S. wall of the chancel. This wall is ancient, and has a priest's door of the same epoch. The frequent use of the scroll moulding shows that the chancel was built late in the E.E. period. The rest of the chancel, and the chancel arch, are modern. The other windows in the chancel and nave are all modern, but those in the N. aisle are after the Dec. pattern of one of the ancient ones.- The roof of the nave is ancient; (Perp.) and evidently does not fit the present clerestory. At the E. end of the N. aisle has been a chantry still known as the Stafford chantry; it contains a good E.E. piscina of unusual form (a projecting basin) f and a fine 13th century gravestone with a foliated cross. The font is Norman in form and may be ancient, though if so it has had a modern scraping. The tower is early Perp., and has a stone with various initials, and the date 1G49, probably indicating some churchwarden's repairs. There are two ancient gravestones with crosses enclosed in circles, and swords, outside the priest's door. For the * Cox, "Notes on Derbysliiic Churches." t As Canon Cox says the piscina of tliis chantry was removed in the restorations of 1868, I am not sure tliat the present one is not a modern toy. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT, 249 Saxon cross, see p. 200. The touching story of the Mompessons, which will ever give a sacred attraction to Eyam, may be read in every guide-book. Greasborough ; Holy Trinity ; ancient church destroyed. Handsworth ; 8t. Mary, This church, though shewing but a fragment of its former beauty, is a very striking fragment, and especially interesting because of the com- parative rarity of E.E, remains in these churches. The nave has a N, aisle, the arcade of which is of unusual loftiness for a parish church. This arcade appears to be E. E., or late Transition-Norman, but the pillars were raised at the time of the Perp. restoration of the church. The tower arch is Transition-Norman, but the tower and spire have been rebuilt. The chancel is E.E., and has three lancet lights at the E, end and three on the S, side. There are two rude E.E. sedilia for the priest and his clerk. There is also an E.E, piscina, and a squint. A very low and wide segmental arch separates the chancel from a N. chapel, also E.E., containing an interesting piscina. This chapel has two Dec. side windows. There was a restoration of the church in 1472, when a visitation presentment records that the church was ruinous, and the roof of the chancel defective. The windows of the S. side of the nave were probably put in at this period ; but there was also a modern rebuildins; in 1833.* 'iD Harthill ; All Saints ; anciently St. John the Evange- list. The signs of the former Norman church are to be * See Gatty's edition of Hunter's " Hallamshire." 250 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. seen not only in the massive round pillars of the two aisles, but in the base-tablet of the S. wall of the chancel, and in the Transition-Norman lancet window, which still remains on the S. side of the presbytery, though blocked. The arches of the N. aisle are round, square-edged, with a plain soffit-rib ; the bases indicate that they are somewhat late in the Norman style. In the S. aisle the arches are pointed, and the character of the capitals approaches the E. E. The church has suffered a great deal from restorations, and the sedilia and piscina are gone ; the chancel arch and tower arch, the S. doorway and porch, and the E. and N. E. windows are modern; the N. wall was rebuilt in modern times, and its Norman windows are of this century. There is one Dec. window left, of reticulated design, at the E. end of the S. chapel. The windows of the S. aisle are Perp. and appear to bo restorations. The N. chapel is the burial place of the Dukes of Leeds. Over the tomb of Thomas Osborne, Duke of Leeds, who was Lord Treasurer to Charles II, hangs a fine display of armour, coronets, and banners, and a very beautiful shield of embossed metal. In the chancel is a remarkably good kneeling cfligy of Lady Osborne, 1G22. The pulpit, reading-desk and lectern are fine specimens of Renaissance carving, and there are some good IGth century stalls in the chancel. The font appears to be of the 17th century, and has a beautiful wooden cover of the same date. The roof is late Perp. There is a good early Perp. tower. Hathersage ; St. Michael. The attractions of this church are enhanced by the beauty of its situation, hill-set ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. 251 as it is in one of the loveliest spots in Derbyshire. The church at first sight appears chiefly Dec. and Perp., but the skeleton of an earlier church remains in the aisles ; the N. aisle is Norman or Transition (the responds have square abaci) while the S. aisle is E. E., except the westermost pillar. The base of the second pillar in the N. aisle has evidently been made for a grouped pillar of the Transition-Norman or E.E. period. All the nave windows are of the Dec. period. The chancel arch and chancel are Perp. ; the S. window and priest's doorway, each with a deep cavetto, the sedilia and piscina, the debased scroll-moulding which runs round the inner wall, and the mouldings of the chancel arch, are all of Perp. type. The E. window is of a type which is late in the Dec. style, and if it is not a modern restoration, it may have belonged to an earlier chancel. The Eyre chapel, which opens out of the chancel on the N., is much later Perp. The tower arch has been called Dec. ; but if its small boutells, mixed with angular mouldings, gathered under one capital, the flat foliage of that capital, fitted to a square, and the Perp. battlements which are part of its decoration, do not show the Perp. style, there is no trustworthiness in architectural indications. I do not see any sign that the fine Perp. W. window is an insertion, and I believe the tower to have been added in the Perp. period, for though the upper windows are in a style common in Dec. buildings, yet windows of this style are frequently found in the upper storeys of undoubtedly Perp. towers. The porch also is Perp. ; the S. doorway is quite modern. There is a good Perp. font. There is a corbel table of plain rounded dentels under the chancel roof, a 252 ANCIENT CHURCHES OF THIS DISTRICT. thing unusual in either the Dec. or Perp. period. Built into the N. wall of the chancel is the canopy of a Dec. tomb, a beautiful piece of work, but evidently not in its original position.- The altar tomb underneath it does not belong to it, and has been recently restored ; on the top are inserted the brass figures of Eobert Eyre of Hope, his wife Joan, the heiress of Padley,+ and their 14 children;