Part 1

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NOOKS AND CORNERS OF OLD ENGLAND

NOOKS AND CORNERS OF OLD ENGLAND

BY

ALLAN FEA

AUTHOR OF "SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING PLACES" "PICTURESQUE OLD HOUSES" "FLIGHT OF THE KING" ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1908

TO MY OLD FRIEND SEYMOUR LUCAS, R.A., F.S.A. THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

A recent glance over some old Ordnance Maps, the companions of many a ramble in the corners of Old England, has suggested the idea of jotting down a few fragmentary notes, which we trust may be of interest.

Upon a former occasion we wandered with pencil and camera haphazard off the beaten track mainly in the counties surrounding the great Metropolis; and though there are several tempting "Nooks" still near at hand, we have now extended our range of exploration.

We only trust the reader will derive a little of the pleasure we have found in compiling this little volume.

A. F.

CONTENTS

PAGE NOOKS IN HUNTINGDONSHIRE AND NORTH NORTHANTS 1 SOME SUFFOLK NOOKS 22 NOOKS IN NORFOLK 40 NOOKS IN WARWICKSHIRE AND BORDERLAND 59 SOME NOOKS IN WORCESTERSHIRE AND GLOUCESTERSHIRE 78 NOOKS IN NORTHERN WILTSHIRE 102 EASTERN AND SOUTHERN SOMERSET 123 IN WESTERN SOMERSET 147 IN DEVON AND DORSET 162 HERE AND THERE IN SALOP AND STAFFORDSHIRE 181 IN NORTHERN DERBYSHIRE 200 NOOKS IN YORKSHIRE 225 INDEX 269

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

QUEEN ELEANOR'S CROSS AT GEDDINGTON _Frontispiece_ THE BELL, STILTON _Facing page_ 8 KIRBY HALL 18 WOTHORPE MANOR-HOUSE 18 DOORWAY, KIRBY HALL 20 GATEWAY, KIRBY HALL 20 ERWARTON HALL 36 WALSINGHAM 42 WALSINGHAM 42 EAST BARSHAM MANOR 44 FONT CANOPY, TRUNCH 44 WYMONDHAM 52 HAUTBOYS HALL 52 CHASTLETON 64 PIRTON COURT 80 THE WHITE HOUSE, PIXHAM 80 SEVERN END 82 SEVERN END 82 RIPPLE 86 STANTON 86 STANWAY HOUSE 90 STANWAY HOUSE 90 POSTLIP HALL 98 STOCKS, PAINSWICK 98 NAILSWORTH 100 BEVERSTONE CASTLE 100 GATE-HOUSE, SPYE PARK 104 LACOCK 104 LACOCK 106 BEWLEY COURT 106 LACOCK 108 LACOCK ABBY 108 CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE 112 CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE 112 CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE 114 CASTLE COMBE 114 YATTON KEYNELL MANOR 116 BULLICH MANOR-HOUSE 116 SHELDON MANOR 118 SHELDON MANOR 118 SOUTH WRAXALL MANOR-HOUSE 120 SOUTH WRAXALL MANOR-HOUSE 120 THE GEORGE, NORTON ST. PHILIP 124 THE GEORGE, NORTON ST. PHILIP 124 CHARTERHOUSE HINTON 128 WELLOW MANOR-HOUSE 128 OLD HOUSE NEAR CROSCOMBE 130 BECKINGTON CASTLE 130 CROSCOMBE CHURCH 132 CROSCOMBE 132 LYTES CARY MANOR-HOUSE 134 LYTES CARY MANOR-HOUSE 134 ANCIENT SCREEN, CURRY RIVEL CHURCH 136 FIREPLACE, LYTES CARY 136 BARRINGTON COURT 138 HINTON ST. GEORGE 140 SANDFORD ORCAS MANOR-HOUSE 140 MONTACUTE HOUSE 144 MONTACUTE PRIORY 144 CROWCOMBE 148 OLD HOUSE, CROWCOMBE 148 COMBE SYDENHAM 152 COMBE SYDENHAM 152 CROWCOMBE CHURCH 156 DUNSTER 156 BINDON 168 BINDON 168 WYLDE COURT 170 THE GOLDEN LION, BARNSTAPLE 170 MAPPERTON MANOR-HOUSE 172 MELPLASH COURT 172 WATERSTONE 174 ATHELHAMPTON 174 ATHELHAMPTON 176 ATHELHAMPTON 176 MONMOUTH'S TREE 178 SERVANTS' HALL, CHIRK CASTLE 182 SERVANTS' HALL, CHIRK CASTLE 184 MARKET DRAYTON 190 MARKET DRAYTON 190 BLACKLADIES 198 GREAT HALL, HADDON 202 GREAT HALL, HADDON 202 COURTYARD, HADDON 204 DRAWING-ROOM, HADDON 204 WITHDRAWING-ROOM, HADDON 206 WITHDRAWING-ROOM, HADDON 206 DOORWAY, HADDON 208 INTERIOR COURTYARD, HADDON 208 GREAT HALL, HADDON 212 HARDWICK HALL 212 GARLANDS, ASHFORD CHURCH 220 GATEWAY, KNOWSTHORPE HALL 240 TOMB, DARFIELD CHURCH 240 LEATHLEY STOCKS 244 STOCKS AT WESTON 244 MIDDLEHAM CASTLE 252 SWINSTY HALL 252 QUEEN'S GAP, LEYBURN "SHAWL" 254 BELLERBY OLD HALL 256 BOLTON CASTLE 256 ASKRIGG 260 NAPPA HALL 260 RICHMOND 266 EASBY ABBEY 266

NOOKS IN HUNTINGDONSHIRE AND NORTH NORTHANTS

At Huntingdon we are on familiar ground with Samuel Pepys. When he journeyed northwards to visit his parental house or to pay his respects to Lord Sandwich's family at Hinchinbrooke, he usually found suitable accommodation at "Goody Gorums" and "Mother" somebody else who lived over against the "Crown." Neither the famous posting-house the "George" nor the "Falcon" are mentioned in the _Diary_, but he speaks of the "Chequers"; however, the change of names of ancient hostelries is common, so in picturing the susceptible Clerk of the Admiralty chucking a pretty chambermaid under the chin in the old galleried yard of the "George," we may not be far out of our reckoning.

But altogether the old George Inn is somewhat disappointing. Its balustraded galleries are there sure enough, with the queer old staircase leading up to them in one of the corners; but it has the same burnished-up appearance of the courtyard of the Leicester Hospital at Warwick. How much more pleasing both would strike the eye were there less paint and varnish. The Inn has been refronted, and from the street has quite a modern appearance.

Huntingdon recalls the sterner name of Cromwell. Strange that this county, so proud of the Lord Protector (for has it not recently set up a gorgeous statue at St. Ives to his memory?), should still harbour red-hot Jacobites! According to _The Legitimist Calendar_, mysterious but harmless meetings are still held hereabouts on Oak Apple Day: a day elsewhere all but forgotten. Huntingdon was the headquarters of the Royalist army certainly upon many occasions, and when evil days fell upon the "Martyr King," some of his staunchest friends were here secretly working for his welfare.[1] When Charles passed through the town in 1644, the mayor, loyal to the back-bone, had prepared a speech to outrival the flowery welcome of his fellow-magistrates: "Although Rome's Hens," he said, "should daily hatch of its preposterous eggs, chrocodilicall chickens, yet under the Shield of Faith, by you our most Royal Sovereigne defended and by the King of Heavens as I stand and your most medicable councell, would we not be fearful to withstand them."[2] Though the sentence is somewhat involved, the worthy magnate doubtless meant well.

It was the custom, by the way, so Evelyn tells us, when a monarch passed through Huntingdon, to meet him with a hundred ploughs as a symbol of the fruitful soil: the county indeed at one time was rich in vines and hops, and has been described by old writers as the garden of England. Still here as elsewhere the farmers' outlook is a poor one to-day, although there are, of course, exceptions.

At historic Hinchinbrooke (on June 4, 1647), King Charles slept the first night after he was removed from Holdenby House by Cornet Joyce: the first stage of his _progress_ to the scaffold. In the grounds of the old mansion, the monarch, when Prince of Wales, and little Oliver played together, for the owner in those days of the ancient seat of the Montagues and Cromwells was the future Protector's uncle and godfather. Upon one occasion the boys had a stand-up fight, and the commoner, the senior by only one year, made his royal adversary's nose bleed,--an augury for fatal events to follow. The story is told how little Oliver fell into the Ouse and was fished out by a Royalist piscatorial parson. Years afterwards, when the Protector revisited the scenes of his youth in the midst of his triumphant army, he encountered his rescuer, and asked him whether he remembered the occurrence.

"Truly do I," was the prompt reply; "and the Lord forgive me, but I wish I'd let thee drown."

The Montagues became possessed of the estate in 1627. Pepys speaks of "the brave rooms and good pictures," which pleased him better than those at Audley End. The Diarist's parental house remains at Brampton, a little to the west of Huntingdon. In characteristic style he records a visit there in October 1667: "So away for Huntingdon mightily pleased all along the road to remember old stories, and come to Brampton at about noon, and there found my father and sister and brother all well: and here laid up our things, and up and down to see the gardens with my father, and the house; and do altogether find it very pretty, especially the little parlour and the summer-houses in the garden, only the wall do want greens up it, and the house is too low roofed; but that is only because of my coming from a house with higher ceilings."

Before turning our steps northwards, let us glance at the mediæval bridge that spans the river Ouse, to Godmanchester, which is referred to by the thirteenth-century historian _Henry of Huntingdon_ as "a noble city." But its nobility has long since departed, and some modern monstrosities in architecture make the old Tudor buildings which remain, blush for such brazen-faced obtrusion. Its ancient water-mill externally looks so dilapidated, that one would think the next "well-formed depression" from America would blow it to atoms. Not a bit of it. Its huge timber beams within, smile at such fears. It is a veritable fortress of timber. But although this solid wooden structure defies the worst of gales, there are rumours of coming electric tramways, and then, alas! the old mill will bow a dignified departure, and the curfew, which yet survives, will then also perhaps think it is time to be gone.

At Little Stukeley, on the Great North Road some three miles above Huntingdon, is a queer old inn, the "Swan and Salmon," bearing upon its sign the date 1676. It is a good example of the brickwork of the latter half of the seventeenth century. Like many another ancient hostelry on the road to York, it is associated with Dick Turpin's exploits; and to give colour to the tradition, mine host can point at a little masked hiding-place situated somewhere at the back of the sign up in its gable end. It certainly looks the sort of place that could relate stories of highwaymen; a roomy old building, which no doubt in its day had trap-doors and exits innumerable for the convenience of the gentlemen of the road.

A little off the ancient "Ermine Street," to the north-west of Stukeley, is the insignificant village of Coppingford, historically interesting from the fact that when Charles I. fled from Oxford in disguise in 1646, he stopped the night there at a little obscure cottage or alehouse, on his way to seek protection of the Scots at Southwell. "This day one hundred years ago," writes Dr. Stukeley in his _Memoirs_ on May 3, 1746, "King Charles, Mr. John Ashburnham, and Dr. Hudson came from Coppingford in Huntingdonshire and lay at Mr. Alderman Wolph's house, now mine, on Barn Hill; all the day obscure." Hudson, from whom Sir Walter drew his character of Dr. Rochecliffe in _Woodstock_, records the fact in the following words: "We lay at Copingforde in Huntingdonshire one Sunday, 3 May; wente not to church, but I read prayers to the King; and at six at night he went to Stamforde. I writte from Copingforde to Mr. Skipwith for a horse, and he sente me one, which was brought to me at Stamforde. ---- at Copingforde the King and me, with my hoste and hostis and two children, were by the fire in the hall. There was noe other chimney in the house."[3] The village of Little Gidding, still farther to the north-west, had often before been visited by Charles in connection with a religious establishment that had been founded there by the Ferrar family. A curious old silk coffer, which was given by Charles to the nieces of the founder, Nicholas Ferrar, upon one of these occasions, some years ago came into the possession of our late queen, and is still preserved at Windsor.

A few miles to the north-east is Glatton, another remote village where old May-day customs yet linger. There are some quaint superstitions in the rural districts hereabouts. A favourite remedy for infectious disease is to open the window of the sickroom not so much to let in the fresh air as to admit the gnats, which are believed to fly away with the malady and die. The beneficial result is never attributed to oxygen!

The Roman road (if, indeed, it is the same, for some authorities incline to the opinion that it ran parallel at some little distance away) is unpicturesque and dreary. Towering double telegraph poles recur at set intervals with mathematical regularity, and the breeze playing upon the wires aloft brings forth that long-drawn melancholy wail only to make the monotony more depressing. Half a mile from the main road, almost due east of Glatton, stands Connington Hall, where linger sad memories of the fate of Mary Queen of Scots. When the castle of Fotheringay was demolished in 1625, Sir Robert Cotton had the great Hall in which she was beheaded removed here. The curious carved oak chair which was used by the poor Queen at Fotheringay until the day of her death may now be seen in Connington Church, where also is the Tomb of Sir Robert, the founder of the famous Cottonian Library.

A couple of miles or so to the north is Stilton, which bears an air of decayed importance. A time-mellowed red-brick Queen Anne house, whose huge wooden supports, like cripples' crutches, keep it from toppling over, comes first in sight. In striking contrast, with its formal style of architecture, is the picturesque outline of the ancient inn beyond. A complicated flourish of ornamental ironwork, that would exasperate the most expert freehand draughtsman, supports the weather-beaten sign of solid copper. Upon the right-hand gable stands the date 1642, bringing with it visions of the coming struggle between King and Parliament. But the date is misleading, as may be seen from the stone groining upon the adjoining masonry. The main building was certainly erected quite a century earlier. Here and there modern windows have been inserted in place of the Tudor mullioned ones, as also have later doorways, for part of the building is now occupied as tenements. The archway leading into the courtyard has also been somewhat modernised, as may be judged from the corresponding internal arch, with its original curved dripstone above.

We came upon this inn, tramping northwards in a bitter day in March. It looked homely and inviting, the waning sunlight tinting the stonework and lighting up the window casements. Enthusiastic with pleasing imaginings of panelled chambers and ghostly echoing corridors, we entered only to have our dreams speedily dispersed. In vain we sought for such a "best room" as greeted Mr. Chester at the "Maypole." There were no rich rustling hangings here, nor oaken screens enriched with grotesque carvings. Alas! not even a cheery fire of fagots. Nor, indeed, was there a bed to rest our weary bones upon. Spring cleaning was rampant, and the merciless east wind sweeping along the bare passages made one shudder more than usual at the thought of that terrible annual necessity (but the glory of energetic house-wives). But surely mine hostess of the good old days would have scrupled to thrust the traveller from her door: moreover to a house of refreshment, or rather eating-house, a stone's-throw off, uncomfortably near that rickety propped-up red-brick residence.

With visions of the smoking bowl and lavender-scented sheets dashed to the ground, we turned away. But, lo! and behold a good _angel_ had come to the rescue. So absorbed had we been with the possibilities of the "Bell" that the "Angel" opposite had quite been overlooked. This rival inn of Georgian date furnished us with cosy quarters. From our flower-bedecked window the whole front of the old "Bell" could be leisurely studied in all its varying stages of light and shade--an inn with a past; an object-lesson for the philosopher to ruminate upon. Yes, in its day one can picture scenes of lavish, shall we say Ainsworthian hospitality. There is a smack of huge venison pasties, fatted capons, and of roasted peacocks about this hoary hostel. And its stables; one has but to stroll up an adjacent lane to get some idea of the once vast extent of its outbuildings. The ground they covered must have occupied nearly half the village. Here was stabling for over eighty horses, and before the birth of trains, thirty-six coaches pulled up daily at the portal for hungry passengers to refresh or rest.

The famous cheese, by the way, was first sold at this inn; but why it was dubbed Stilton instead of Dalby in Leicestershire, where it was first manufactured, is a mystery. Like its _vis-à-vis_, the "Angel" is far different from what it was in its flourishing days. The main building is now occupied for other purposes, and its dignity has long since departed. To-day Stilton looks on its last legs. The goggled motor-fiend sweeps by to Huntingdon or Peterborough while Stilton rubs its sleepy eyes. But who can tell but that its fortunes may yet revive. Was not Broadway dying a natural death when Jonathan, who invariably tells us what treasures we possess, stepped in and made it popular? Some enterprising landlord might do worse than take the old "Bell" in hand and ring it to a profitable tune. But judging by appearances, visitors to-day, at least in March, are few and far between.

Half the charm of Stilton lies in the fact that there is no hurry. It is quite refreshing in these days of rush. For instance, you want to catch a train at Peterborough,--at least we did, for that was the handiest way of reaching Oundle, some seven miles to the west of Stilton as the crow flies. Sitting on thorns, we awaited the convenience of the horse as to whether his accustomed jog-trot would enable us to catch our train. We _did_ catch it truly, but the anxiety was a terrible experience.

Oundle is full of old inns. The "Turk's Head," facing the church, is a fine and compact specimen of Jacobean architecture. It was a brilliant morning when we stood in the churchyard looking up at the ball-surmounted gables standing out in bold relief against the clear blue sky, while the caw of a colony of rooks sailing overhead seemed quite in harmony with the old-world surroundings.