Part 7

Trentham, the home or settlement on the Trent, has been a village since the days of the Saxons, who adopted this fertile nook on the banks of a beautiful stream as a fit abode for man. Here, in this well-selected spot, they were led by their religious impulses to found an Abbey, over which presided no less a personage than Werburg, daughter of the ferocious Wulphere, king of Mercia, whose palace was hard by, at Berry-Bank, and whose wicked murder of his two sons, Wulfard and Rufin, on suspicion of their conversion to Christianity, was perpetrated at Bursson and at Stone, where subsequently religious houses were erected as memorials of their martyrdom. St. Werburg, for she was canonized, and was, moreover, sister to King Ethelred, died at Trentham or at Hanbury, in the year 683, was buried at the latter place, and her body was in the year 875 removed to Chester Cathedral, where the rich decorated stone case of her shrine now forms the bishop’s throne. Of the Saxon abbey of Trentham no records remain; of its “ancient glories” there exists not a trace.

In the time of King Stephen,

Ranulph, the second of the great Earls of Chester who bore that name, refounded the monastery of Trentham for canons of St. Augustine. In the present church, which closely adjoins to Trentham Hall, and which, by the munificence of the Duke of Sutherland, has been within these three or four years carefully and judiciously restored in every part, under the charge of Mr. Barry, we have still some slight but interesting remains, reaching back nearly to the time of its foundation. These consist of the tall, round, Norman piers of the nave, with their quaint capitals, and the bold and lofty pointed arches to which they give support.

The appended woodcut exhibits the interior of the church--the screen, of carved oak, being one of very considerable beauty.

At the Dissolution, the Monastery had only seven religious, and was granted by King Henry VIII. in 1539, to Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. It afterwards came into the possession of the Levesons, a Staffordshire family of great antiquity, seated at Willenhall. Nicholas Leveson, lord-mayor of London, died in the year that Trentham was granted to the Duke of Suffolk. His great-grandson, Sir John Leveson, left two daughters only, co-heiresses; one of whom, Frances, by marrying Sir Thomas Gower of Sittenham, carried Trentham and other extensive possessions into this ancient Yorkshire family, which dates from the Conquest. Sir John Leveson-Gower was elevated to the peerage in 1702-3, as Baron Gower of Sittenham. His son John, the second Baron, was constituted Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and was repeatedly one of the Lords of the Regency during the absences of George II. on the Continent. In 1746 he was created Viscount Trentham of Trentham, and Earl Gower. He died in 1755, and was buried at Trentham. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Granville, the second Earl, who was Member of Parliament for the city of Westminster. On the occasion of his appointment as one of the Lords of the Admiralty, his re-election was strongly opposed by Sir George Vanderput, who was defeated by a small majority. In consequence, a scrutiny ensued; and there occurred several riotous proceedings recorded in the journals of the time. He filled the high offices of Lord Privy Seal, Lord Chamberlain, and Lord President of the Council. He was installed Knight of the Garter, and created Marquis of Stafford in 1786. His eldest son, George Granville, also a Knight of the Garter, married the late estimable Countess of Sutherland in her own right, and was created Duke of Sutherland in 1833. This peerage, according to some of the Scottish writers, is the most ancient of any in North Britain. The Duke did not long survive to enjoy his new dignity, but died in the same year, carrying with him the sincere regret of his numerous tenantry. The latter, to testify their respect for His Grace’s memory, commissioned Sir Francis Chantrey to execute a colossal statue of their noble landlord, which occupies a neighbouring height of great elevation, immediately in front of Trentham Hall across the lake, and forms a very conspicuous object in the surrounding scenery. Of the present noble possessor of the title, George-Granville-Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, the second Duke of his family, it will not be necessary to add much. After sitting in the Commons for Staffordshire, he was summoned to the House of Peers in the lifetime of his father, as Earl Gower, and is distinguished for the gracious dignity with which, during the whole of his career, he has sustained the honours of so many ancient and noble families, concentrated, as it were, in his own person.

To the Levesons we may be allowed to recur. Sir Richard Leveson was distinguished as a naval commander. He is considered to be the subject of that fine old plaintive ballad, “The Spanish Lady’s Love,” which relates the woes of a captive maid, “by birth and parentage of high degree,” at being about to be separated for ever from her detainer--

“Full woe is me, O let me still sustain this kind captivity!

* * * * *

My heart in prison still remains with thee!”

for he accompanied the Earl of Nottingham, in 1596, in his expedition against Cadiz, when he was twenty-seven years of age. He was married to the daughter of this famous Earl, who was the Lord High Admiral and Commander in Chief of the English fleet which defeated the so called “invincible” Spanish Armada. Sir Richard Leveson, who was in this engagement as well as many others, in 1601 was made Vice-Admiral, and died early in life in 1605. In the Collegiate Church at Wolverhampton a noble bronze statue, richly gilt, supported by a stately monument in black marble, was erected to his memory; by which were two brass plates, the one inscribed with the chief events of his life, registered at length in Latin, terminating in these words--“E vita pie discessit

sine prole, sed non sine magno multorum luctu, auro dignus, ære contentus;” and the other in English. He was succeeded by Sir Richard Leveson of Trentham, Knight of the Bath, who erected this splendid memorial to the Admiral’s fame. It was executed by Le Sueur for 300_l._, and the original contract in French is still preserved at Trentham. During the contest between Royalty and the Parliament, this bronze effigy was ordered by the Committee of Sequestrations at Stafford to be taken away and cast into cannon; but by the timely interposition of Lady Leveson, the Admiral’s widow, it was redeemed for a sum of money, and deposited in Lilleshall Church till the strife was over. The marble monument being destroyed, it now occupies a niche in the church at Wolverhampton. A copy of the effigy is placed in a recess in the court-yard at Trentham Hall of which we give an illustration.

The above Sir Richard Leveson, Knight of the Bath, was member of parliament for the county of Salop, and afterwards for Newcastle-under-Lyme, and was devoted to the cause of Charles I. He made his residence at Trentham, “being accounted one of the best house-keepers and landlords in the county.” In consequence of his adherence to the royal cause, his property was sequestrated, for which he compounded by the payment of more than 6000_l._, the largest composition obtained. There remains a letter from him to the Governor of Shrewsbury, which strikingly indicates the distresses sustained, by persons of distinction even, during those troubled times:--

“Sʳ,

“Since the unhappy surprise of Stafford by the rebelles, the place where I am is not safe, either for myself or my goodes, and therefore I have sent 2 wagons loaded with some household stuffe, which I desire, with your dispensac’on, may bee received into your towne of Shrewsbury, into a roome which I have longe reserved in myne owne handes for this purpose against a tyme of neede; and that to this effecte you will please to give order unto your watch for free passage to and fro, whereby you will oblige mee more and more to remayne

“Yoʳ ever affectionate frende, “R. LEVESON.”

“Lilleshall Lodge, 16 May, 1643.

“_To my muche respected frende, Sʳ Francis Oteley, Kt. Governour of Shrewsburye. Haste these._”

Sir Richard Leveson built the old hall at Trentham in 1633, two views of which are given in Dr. Plot’s singular “Natural History of Staffordshire.” He died in 1661. His widow, Lady Catherine Leveson, was a great benefactress to the parish, and died at Trentham in 1678.

The present Hall, previous to the recent most happy and successful “transformation” under the direction of Mr. Barry, was built on the model of Buckingham House, in St. James’s Park. It has now become, by the addition of the semicircular colonnade, rich carriage porch surmounted by the ducal arms, and baronial tower, an imposing and stately mansion, enriched with much diversity of outline.

A massy structure near the Hall was erected by the late Marquis of Stafford as a family mausoleum, in the Egyptian style; the grounds around it being planted with various species of yew and other sombre plants, of a lofty, pointed, and pyramidal form. The ponderous architecture, the deeply-tinted foliage and heavenward aspect of the evergreens, form most appropriate emblems, both of human frailty and of the brighter hopes of the Christian.

The park is marked by the unrestrained native beauties of the neighbouring wood of oaks, “wild above rule or art,” and by the river Trent expanding into a goodly lake:--

“A gentle stream, Adown the vale its serpent courses winds, Seen here and there through breaks of trees to gleam, Gilding their dancing boughs with noon’s reflected beam.”

HELMINGHAM HALL,

SUFFOLK.

Helmingham Hall may be classed among the most remarkable and interesting edifices in the Kingdom; for, although it has undergone many changes, and been subjected to a variety of “improvements,” the leading characteristics of the ancient structure are retained; it still exhibits a connecting link between the strong castles of the old Barons, and the embattled mansions which succeeded them. The Hall is distant about eight miles from the venerable town of Ipswich. The Park contains about five hundred acres, and is largely stocked with deer. The Entrance-gate--which forms the initial letter to this Chapter--is placed between two Lodges--modern, but in admirable keeping with the old House. An Avenue, arched by magnificently grown trees, conducts to the South

Front of the Mansion; in which is the principal Entrance, approached by a Bridge thrown across the Moat. The Moat encompasses the building; which is surrounded also by a Terrace. Both are kept in excellent repair; and the former is well supplied with fish. The Drawbridges are maintained in all their primitive formality, and are, we understand, even to this day, raised every night. The appended print exhibits the picturesque interior of one of the two “Gate-houses,” in which these ancient appendages still remain,--showing also the rude machinery by which it was elevated or depressed. It is an object now very rarely encountered: one of the most impressive records of “the state” (using the term in its double sense) in which our ancestors lived--keeping perpetual watch and ward. All praise be to the existing Lord of this Mansion, who has taken especial care to prevent Time from destroying so peculiar a relic of a remote age. The present representative of the Tollemaches--John Tollemache, Esq.--has indeed manifested continual zeal to protect from injury the seat of his ancestors--restoring with judgment, skill, and taste, where injuries have resulted from years, but so as in no

degree to impair its original character; neither adding to, nor taking from, its early and “fair” proportions.

Notwithstanding these solemn tokens of gone-by days, so intimately associated with times of peril, the external appearance of the building is peculiarly light and graceful--a character which it derives, chiefly, from four large Bay Windows, with projecting cornices and embattled parapets; Gables profusely ornamented with richly wrought finials; and a multiplicity of Chimneys similarly enriched, with reticulated and indented mouldings. The structure is quadrangular. The Courtyard, with its several dependent buildings, has been restored with remarkably good taste and imposing effect. The Eastern Entrance to these buildings is here pictured. Crossing this Court, the Hall is reached[34]; the State Apartments are limited to the Western Front. They have been arranged with greater care to comfort than to Baronial grandeur; due attention has been paid, however, to the “furnishing,” and the taste of the Tudor age harmoniously prevails throughout the Mansion. Until very lately, the Hall had been completely deserted by the family, and was rapidly falling to decay. When it became the residence of the present proprietor, it was completely renovated; the Garden or West Front, which had become dilapidated, having been entirely rebuilt. The Hall and several of the Apartments are adorned with Portraits of the ancient and noble Family; among them are some fine paintings by Lely, Kneller, and Reynolds.

A relic of exceeding interest is contained in one of the rooms. It is the Lute which Queen Elizabeth presented to an infant scion

of the House, to whom her Majesty stood Godmother. It has the date,--1580,--and the inscription, “Cymbalum Deca chordon.” It is preserved in a glass-case, which also encloses a variety of rare and curious coins; and in the same chamber is a spinette--believed to have been once the property of the Virgin Queen.

The very ancient Family of Tollemache resided for many generations at Bentley in Suffolk. In their old Manor House there was “to be seen until lately,” (within the present century, perhaps), the following inscription:--

When William the Conqueror reigned with great fame, Bently was my seat, and Tollemache was my name.

They boast their descent from Tollemache, a Saxon Lord of Bentley and Stoke Tollemache in Oxfordshire, in the sixth century. In the Domesday Book, the name is written Toolmag, and subsequently Thalemache, Tolemache, Talmage, Tallmash, and Tollemache. For nearly thirteen hundred years, the Family has dwelt in Suffolk county, flourishing in uninterrupted male succession, until so recently as 1821, when, by the death of the late Earl of Dysart, the title became extinct, and with it the direct male line of the long famous race. They acquired the rich estate at Helmingham by the marriage of Lionel Tollemache, of Bentley, Esquire, with Edith, daughter and sole heiress of William Joyce, of Crekes Hall, in Helmingham, who in the first year of the eighth Henry was found, by requisition, to hold the Manor of Bentley by knight’s service. He served the office of High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in the fourth year of the same reign. By this Lionel Tollemache, Helmingham Hall was built. He died in the early part of the reign of Edward the Sixth, and was succeeded by his son, Lionel Tollemache, Esq., who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, who, during her progress through the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk in 1561, honoured him with her presence at Helmingham Hall, on August 14th and four following days, “where she was entertained with great splendour and hospitality.” During the visit, Her Majesty stood Godmother to her Host’s eldest son, Lionel: to commemorate this event, she presented to him, as we have stated, a Lute, still preserved as an heir-loom in the Family.

His son, the first Baronet, was advanced to the dignity by James the First, in 1611. He died at Helmingham on the 5th of September, 1612, and was buried there on the same day (in the Parish Register the interment is entered, “Et eodem die sepultus fuit).” Helmingham Hall continued in his male descendants until the death of Wilbraham Tollemache, Earl of Dysart, in 1821[35], when it devolved upon his sister Louisa, Countess of Dysart, and upon her death in 1840, to the present proprietor, John Tollemache, Esq., M.P. for North Cheshire, eldest son of the late Admiral Tollemache, grandson to Lady Jane Halliday, sister to Lionel, fifth Earl, and Wilbraham, sixth and last Earl of Dysart.

The Earldom of Dysart came to the family by the marriage of Sir Lionel Tollemache, Bart., with the Lady Elizabeth Murray, eldest daughter and heiress of William Murray, first Earl of Dysart; upon the death of her father she succeeded to the title. Sir Lionel died in 1669, and was buried with great pomp at Helmingham on the 25th of March, in the same year. The Countess married secondly at Petersham, in Surrey, February 17, 1671-2, to John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale, and Knight of the Garter.

The Tollemaches--although classing amongst the most ancient families of the realm, and for centuries preserving an unbroken link--appear never to have been very emulous of distinction. The name scarcely appears upon the Roll of Fame: neither in the Senate nor at the Bar have they achieved for it high repute; nor does it occupy a conspicuous place in the annals of war of any period--from the Conquest down to the existing age[36].

In the immediate vicinity of the Hall, are several primitive and highly picturesque Cottages, many of which are of a date coeval with that of the Mansion: and the very ancient and venerable town of Ipswich is inconceivably rich in architectural antiquities.

HELMINGHAM CHURCH stands by the south side of the Park. The Tower was built in 1487, as appears by the copy of an agreement now in the Church chest, between “John Talmage, Esquier, Maistress Elizabeth, his wyff, Edmund Joyce, Gent., John Wythe, and William Holme on the one part, and Thomas Aldrych, of North Lopham, Mason, on the other, for thirty pounds.” It is not known by whom the Church was built; but in 1258, Dame Margaret Creke, who founded the Nunnery of Flixton, near Bungay, presented to it; and the Prioress and Nuns of Flixton presented to it till 1312, when she exchanged the patronage for that of Flixton, with the Bishop of Norwich; from that time the Bishops presented to it till the Reformation, when the Crown claimed and has presented to it ever since. It is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. About a foot and a half from the ground, on the south side of the steeple, carved in stone letters of a foot high, is the following inscription, in old English letters:--

“Scandit ad ethera, Virgo, puerpera virgula Jesse.”

The Steeple is a square tower of Flints, embattled on the top: on the south side are the arms of Tollemache--three shields--of the date 1543, when it was built. It is supported by four buttresses, all standing diagonally. On the west side, near the ground, was an inscription, now gone.

The Nave of the Church is of the date of the fourteenth century, and contains a fine South Door of the then prevalent style of architecture. The Windows, as well as the Roof, are of a later age--probably about 1540. The Chancel is quite modern, but is now undergoing alterations and repairs; the result of which will be to assimilate it with other parts of the venerable building. In reference to this matter, also, high praise is due to the present proprietor of Helmingham, inasmuch as he is removing many of the blots left upon the sacred edifice by the bad taste or heedless indifference of his predecessors.

Both the Chancel and Nave are crowded with monuments commemorating the heroic deeds of members of the Family of Tollemache. The most remarkable and interesting fills nearly the whole of the southern side of the nave; and it is so lofty, that part of the roof has been displaced to make room for it. It contains, in niches, four figures of men kneeling with their hands clasped and erect before them, the three first in a row, the fourth above them; they are bareheaded, with swords by their sides, and in the dress of the 17th century. We learn from a rhymed inscription underneath each figure that these are the effigies of the four first of the Tollemaches who settled at Helmingham--the monument to their honour being erected by the fifth.[37]

HENGRAVE HALL,

SUFFOLK.

Hengrave Hall, “an embattled Manor-house, with Turrets of singular design and a Gate-House of acknowledged beauty”--is situate about two miles from the ancient and venerable town of Bury St. Edmunds.[38] The founder of the building was Sir Thomas Kytson, a wealthy cloth-merchant of London, by whom it was erected, between the years 1525 and 1538, probably upon the site of a mansion still older,--the ancient hall of the De Hemegraves. A brief history of the several families through whose hands the Manor has passed into those of its present possessor, Sir Thomas Gage, Bart., may interest the reader.[39]

In the reign of Edward the Confessor, it formed part of the territory of St. Edmund, by whose monks it was held at the Conquest. About the middle of the twelfth century it was granted by Anselm, the seventh Abbot, to “Leo and his heirs;” and by them was assumed the surname of Hemegrave. The De Hemegraves filled the highest offices in Suffolk for upwards of two centuries, when the race was extinct, and the estate became, by purchase, the property of the Hethes. In failure of male issue, it passed--in the nineteenth of Henry VI.--by purchase, to the Staffords. In 1522, consequent upon the attainder of Edward, Duke of Buckingham, it was sold to Sir Thomas Kytson, “citizen and mercer of London, otherwise called, KYTSON THE MERCHANT;” so he is styled in an Act of Parliament which confirmed him the purchaser of Hengrave.[40] He was succeeded by a posthumous son, who left no male issue; he had, however, three daughters, one of whom married Thomas Lord Darcy, created Viscount Colchester and Earl Rivers, and who, in right of his wife, became entitled to, and resided at, Hengrave. From her inherited a daughter, Penelope, who married Sir John Gage, Bart., of Firle, in Sussex.[41] In this family Hengrave has since continued; its present proprietor being Sir Thomas Gage, the eighth Baronet, born on the 20th of March, 1812.

The Mansion, which seems to have undergone very little change since its erection, and may be classed among the most unimpaired domestic structures of the kingdom, is of considerable size, “covering 18,500 square feet of ground,” although by the removal, in 1775, of a mass of building which projected at the east and north sides, together with a high Tower, it has been reduced one-third at least from its original extent. Several ancient family documents which still exist, and of which copies are given by Mr. Gage, inform us that the whole cost of the structure did not much exceed £3000.[42]