Part 17

Dr. Vaughan was a bitter opponent of horse-racing, and so was not popular with the sporting element; and as Doncaster is, above everything, given over to sport, this meant that his nine years’ vicariate was a sojourn in a hostile camp. His predecessors had been more complaisant. Always within living memory the church bells had been rung on the St. Leger day, and generally at the moment the winning horse had passed the post. Dr. Vaughan put an end to this and quietly inaugurated a new era, not by raising a dispute, but by obtaining the keys of the belfry on the first St. Leger day of his incumbency, and, locking the door, going for a walk which kept him out of the town until the evening!

XXXV

LEAVING Doncaster and its racing and coaching memories behind, we come out upon the open road again by Frenchgate, past the unprepossessing “Volunteer” inn, in whose yard Mendoza and Humphries brought off their prize-fight in 1790; past Marshgate and over the dirty Don to a parting of the ways. To the left goes the Ferrybridge, Wetherby, and Boroughbridge route to the North; to the right, that by way of Selby and York. Both fall into one again at Northallerton; both claim to be the true Great North Road; and both were largely travelled, so that we shall have to pay attention to either. In the first instance, we will go via York, the mail-route in later coaching days, and as flat and uninteresting a road, so far as the cathedral city, as it is possible to imagine. Beginning with the suburban village of Bentley, with its ugly new cottages and handsome new church, it continues, with ruts and loose stones as its chief features, to Askerne, passing through lonely woods and past pools and lakes, with a stray grouse or so, and astonished hares and rabbits, as the sole witnesses of the explorer’s progress in these deserted ways. Off to the right-hand, two miles or so away, goes the Great Northern Railway, one of the causes of this solitude, to meet the North Eastern at Shaftholme Junction, where, as the chairman said, many years ago, the Great Northern ends, ingloriously, “in a ploughed field.”

Askerne, in a situation of great natural beauty, amidst limestone rocks and lakes, and with the advantage of possessing medicinal springs, has been, like most Yorkshire villages, made hideous by its houses and cottages, inconceivably ugly to those who have not seen what abominable places Yorkshire folk are capable of building and living in. Askerne’s fame as what its inhabitants call a “spawing place” has not spread of late, but its old pump-room and its lake are the resorts of York and Doncaster’s trippers in summer-time, and those holiday-makers derive just as much health from rowing in pleasure-boats on the lake as did their forefathers, who, a hundred years ago, quaffed its evil-tasting sulphurous waters.

Thus Askerne. Between it and Selby, a distance of thirteen miles, the road and the country around are but parts of a flat, watery, treeless, featureless plain, its negative qualities tempered by the frankly mean and ugly villages on the way, and criss-crossed by railways, sluggish rivers, and unlovely canals. So utterly without interest is the road, that a crude girder-bridge or a gaunt and forbidding flour-mill remain vividly impressed upon the mental retina for lack of any other outstanding objects.

[Picture: Brayton Church]

Nearing Selby, the octagonal Perpendicular lantern and spire of Brayton church, curiously imposed upon a Norman tower, attracts attention as much by the relief they give from the deadly dulness just encountered as for their own sake; although they are beautiful and interesting, the lantern having been designed to hold a cresset beacon by which the travellers of the Middle Ages were guided at night across the perilous waste; the spire serving the same office by day. Here, too, the isolated hills of Brayton Burf and Hambleton Hough, three miles away, show prominently, less by reason of their height, which is inconsiderable, than on account of the surrounding levels, which give importance to the slightest rise.

Brayton, which, apart from its beautiful church, is about as miserable a hole as it is possible to find in all Yorkshire (and that is saying a good deal), is a kind of outpost between Selby and these wilds, standing a mile and a half in advance of the town. In that mile and a half the builders are busy erecting a flagrant suburb, so that the traveller presses on, curious to witness the prosperity of Selby itself, arguable from these signs. Even without them, Selby is approached with expectancy, for its abbey is famous, and abbeys imply picturesque towns.

From this point of view Selby is distinctly disappointing. The glorious Abbey, now the parish church, is all, and more than, one expects, and the superlatively cobble-stoned Market-place, painful to walk in, is picturesque to look at; but the rest is an effect of meanness. Mean old houses of no great age; mean new ones; mean and threadbare waterside industries; second-hand clothes-shops, coal-grit, muddy waters and foreshores of the slimy Ouse, shabby rope-walks, and dirty alleys: these are Selby.

You forget all this before that beautiful Abbey, whose imposing west front faces the Market-place, and whose great length is revealed only by degrees. Alike in size and beauty, it shows itself in a long crescendo to the admiring amateur of architecture, who proceeds from the combined loveliness of the Norman, Early English, and Perpendicular west front, to the entrance by the grand Transitional Norman-Early English north porch, thence to the solemn majesty of the purely Norman nave, ending with the light and graceful Decorated choir and Lady Chapel. The upper stage of the tower fell in 1690, and destroyed the south transept.

A very destructive fire occurred in October 1906, and opportunity was afterwards taken of doing a good deal of general restoration.

Before leaving the town of Selby, let us look at the commonplace little square called Church Hill. A spirit-level might reveal it to be an eminence of twelve inches or so above the common level of Selby, but to the evidence of eyes or feet it is in no way distinguished from its neighbouring streets. Yet it must have presented the appearance of a hillock when the original founder of the Abbey came here in 1068, voyaging up the Ouse and landing at this first likely place on its then lovely banks. This founder was a certain Benedict, a monk of Auxerre, who, having one of those convenient dreams which came to the pious ones of that time when they wanted to steal something, made off with the Holy Finger of St. Germanus; rather appropriate spoil, by the way, for the light-fingered Benedict. Arriving in England, he met an Englishman who gave him a golden reliquary. With this, he took ship from Lyme Regis and sailed to the Humber and the Ouse; landing, as we have seen, here, and planting a cross on the river bank, where he erected a hut for himself under an oak-tree. A few days later, Hugh, the Norman sheriff of Yorkshire, came up the Ouse, by chance, and not, as might be supposed, to arrest Benedict on a charge of petty larceny. He was impressed by the devoutness of the holy man, and sent workmen to build the original wooden place of worship at Selby, on the spot now known as Church Hill, not a stone’s throw from the existing Abbey.

[Picture: Market Place, Selby]

Centuries passed. The first building was swept away, and even the cemetery which afterwards occupied the site was forgotten and built over, becoming a square of houses, among which was the “Crown” inn. From 1798 until 1876, when it was rebuilt, the old “Crown” kept an odd secret. To understand this, we must go back to 1798, when the neighbourhood of Selby acquired an ill name for highway robberies. Among other outrages, a mailbag was stolen from the York postboy, on the evening of February 22 in that year. The Postmaster of York reported the affair to the Postmaster-General in the following terms:—

“SIR,

“I am sorry to acquaint you that the postboy coming from Selby to this city was robbed of his mail, between six and seven o’clock this evening. About three miles this side Selby he was accosted by a man on foot with a gun in his hand, who asked him if he was the postboy, and at the same time seizing hold of the bridle. Without waiting for any answer, he told the boy he must immediately unstrap the mail and give it to him, pointing the muzzle of the gun at him whilst he did it. When he had given up the mail, the boy begged he would not hurt him, to which the man replied, “He need not be afraid,” and at the same time pulled the bridle from the horse’s head. The horse immediately galloped off with the boy, who had never dismounted. He was a stout man, dressed in a dark jacket, and had the appearance of a heckler. The boy was too much frightened to make any other remark upon his person, and says he was totally unknown to him.

“The mail contained bags for Howden and London, Howden and York, and Selby and York. I have informed the surveyors of the robbery, and have forwarded handbills this night, to be distributed in the country, and will take care to insert it in the first paper published here. Waiting your further instructions,—I remain, with respect, Sir,

“Your Obliged and Obedient Humble Servant, “THOS. OLDFIELD.”

A reward of two hundred pounds was offered for the discovery of the highwayman, but without effect, and the matter was forgotten in the dusty archives of the G.P.O., until it was brought to notice again by the singular discovery of one of the stolen bags in the roof of the “Crown” when being demolished in 1876. Stuffed in between the rafters and the tiles, the workmen came upon a worn and rotten coat, a “sou’wester” hat, and a mail-bag marked “Selby.” Thus, nearly eighty years after the affair, and when every one concerned in it must long since have been no more, this incriminating evidence came to light. The Postmaster-General of that time claimed the bag, and it was, after some dispute about the ownership, handed over to him, and is now in the Post Office Museum.

A number of skeletons were discovered in digging foundations for the new inn, and it was darkly conjectured that the old house had had its gruesome secrets, dating from the times when inns were not infrequently the nests of murderers; until local antiquaries pointing out that the name of the place was Church Hill, and that this was an ancient grave-yard, the excitement ceased. This view was borne out by the fact that in many cases the bodies had been enclosed in rude coffins, made of hollowed tree-trunks; and it was rightly said that murderers would not have buried their victims with so much consideration.

XXXVI

TO leave Selby for York, one must needs cross the Ouse bridge, one of thee few places where tolls still survive. Foot-passengers and cyclists are on an equality, paying one penny each.

Level-crossings again have their wicked will of the road, and are indeed its principal features, through Barlby and Riccall. We need some modern Rebeccaites for the abolition of these unpaid-for easements granted to the Railway Companies by an indulgent legislature, composed largely of Railway Directors, for the mingled danger and waste of public time caused by level-crossings over public roads constitute a scandal urgently in need of being removed. Yorkshire people might be recommended to see to it, as their forefathers saw to the abolition of turnpikes, collecting in armed and disguised bands and wrecking and burning the obnoxious gates for great distances. In May 1753 they assembled at Selby at the summons of the public crier’s bell, and proceeded at midnight to demolish all the gates in that neighbourhood. The military were called out to quell these Hampdens. They did not succeed in saving the gates, but shot and captured a number of the “rioters,” who were sent for trial to York Castle.

Riccall, near the confluence of the Ouse and the Derwent, looks an unlikely seaport in these times, now that those rivers and the confluent Foss, a mile or so nearer York, flow soberly in their channels and cease from spreading over the land. Eight hundred years ago, however, things were very different—as indeed they well might be in that tremendous space of time. So different, in fact, that when the invasion of the North, under Tostig and Harald Hardrada, took place in 1066, before that greater invasion in the South by William “the Conqueror,” whose success has overshadowed these operations, the invaders’ fleet sailed up the Humber and the Ouse and blockaded the waterways by anchoring at Riccall. From this base they advanced, defeating Earl Morcar at the battle of Fulford, and seized York; retiring on the approach of English Harold to what the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle calls “Staenfordesbryege,” on Derwent, east of the city. In this we find the original spelling of Stamford Bridge, where the great battle which ended in the utter defeat of the invaders was fought and their leaders, Tostig and the gigantic Norwegian king, both slain. A fortnight later, and the Duke of Normandy had landed at Pevensey, the battle of Hastings had been lost and won, and the victor of Stamford Bridge himself lay dead.

Riccall, and the country between it and York, should therefore be interesting, as the scene of the earlier of these invasions. Aside from the village flows the Ouse, deep in its channel and navigable for barges, than which the Norwegian ships were not much larger; but it could not in these days harbour a fleet, even of these primitive transports. The village itself bears nothing on its face telling of great events, and is of a placid dulness, a character shared by Escrick and Deighton, on the way to York; the road itself gradually becoming an abomination of desolate fields until the village of Gate Fulford is reached. The Great North Road is a businesslike highway. It goes as direct as may be to its destination, and gets there quite regardless of scenery or interest to right or left. Thus, although Escrick Park is reputed to be a demesne of great beauty, and the village of Naburn, lying hidden off the road, is a typical old English village actually boasting a maypole, all the traveller along the road perceives is an unromantic vista of cabbage-fields and other necessary but uninspiring domestic vegetables, through a haze of a particularly beastly kind of black dust peculiar to the last few miles of the way into York. Fulford itself is no fit herald of a cathedral city. A wide street, the terminus of a tramway, a mile-long row of cottages, a would-be Gothic church; here you have it. Before you, by degrees, York unfolds itself, past the military barracks and nondescript, but always disappointing, streets, until, emerging from Fishergate, the ancient city, free from suburban excrescences, opens out, with the grim castle in front, and the Ouse and Skeldergate Bridge to the left. The so-called “London Road” lies away beyond the Ouse, its name referring to the Doncaster, Ferrybridge, Sherburn, and Tadcaster route taken by some of the old-time coaches. By that route York is most romantically entered, across Knavesmire, where York’s martyrs, felons, and traitors were done to death in the old days, and where the racecourse now runs; coming to the walled city through Micklegate, the finest of all the mediæval defensible gateways which are York’s especial glory. By the Selby route, through Gate Fulford and along Fishergate, we seem to slink in by the back door; through Micklegate we follow in the steps of those who have marched with armed hosts at their heels, and have entered with the unquestioned right of conquerors. Thus came the young Duke of York at the head of his victorious army, after the crowning victory of Towton; the first thing to meet his gaze his father’s head, fixed on the topmost turret, and crowned in mockery with a paper crown by the fierce Lancastrians under whose swords he had fallen at the battle of Wakefield, three months before. Filial piety could not in those times rest content with removing the head from its shameful eminence, and so the Duke caused the Earl of Devon and three others among his prisoners to be immediately beheaded and their heads to be placed there instead. Of such, and still more sanguinary, incidents is the ancient city of York composed.

[Picture: Micklegate Bar. (From an old Print)]

Micklegate, like the other “bars” of York, had its barbican, and equally with them, lost that martial outwork at the dawning of the nineteenth century. Its appearance then and now may with advantage be compared in the old print and the modern drawing, reproduced here, which also serve to show the difference between the road-surface of these times and of a century ago.

[Picture: Micklegate Bar: present day]

INDEX

Alconbury, 2

Alconbury Hill, 2, 121

Askerne, 236

Ayot Green, 87

Austerfield, 225

* * * * *

Balderton, 193

Baldock, 105

Barlby, 242

Barnby Moor, 209, 212–216

Barnet, 11, 75–79, 171

Barnet, Battle of, 80

Bawtry, 223–225

Bedford, Dukes of, 136

Beeston Green, 108

Bell Bar, 84

Bentley, 236

Biggleswade, 2, 107

Bloody Oaks, 157

Boulter, Edmund, 135

Bradford, William, 219, 225

Brampton, 105, 117

Brayton, 237

Brewster, William, 218–220

Brickwall, 87

Broadwater, 93

Brown’s Wells, 69

Buckden, 2, 114–117

Burghley House, 141–145, 149

* * * * *

Cantley, 226

Carlton-upon-Trent, 205

Chicken Hill, 113

Coaches—

“Amity,” Doncaster and Stamford, 212

“Courier,” Leeds, 41

“Edinburgh Mails” 15, 29–33, 184

“Edinburgh Express” 15, 114

“Edinburgh Stage” 34

“Express,” Leeds, 41

“Express,” York, 114

“Highflyer,” London and York, 76

“Highflyer,” London, York, and Edinburgh, 154

“Lord Nelson,” London and Edinburgh, 22, 233, 234

Mail Coaches, 30–33

“Nelson,” Wakefield and Lincoln, 232

“Post,” London and Carlisle, 22

“Royal Forester,” Doncaster and Nottingham, 232

“Royal Union,” London and Newcastle, 231

Stage Coaches, 33–49

“Stamford Regent” 18–21, 76, 107, 109, 138

“Stamford and Retford Auxiliary Mail” 212

“Union,” Leeds, 15, 41

“Wellington,” London and Newcastle, 15, 234

“York Four-Days Stage” 35

Coaching Accidents, 41

Coaching Notabilities—

Barclay of Ury, 169

Barker, of Welwyn, 88–90

Barker, John, 138

Cartwright, of Buckden, 114

Chaplin, William, 16–18, 73

Clark, George, 212, 214,

Dennetts, The, of Retford, 211

Hennesy, Tom, 88–90

Herring, J. F., 231–234

Horne, B. W., 17, 66

Mountain, Mrs., 18, 22–25

Nelson, Mrs., 18, 25

Percivals, The, of Wansford and Greetham, 138, 158, 211

Sherman, Edward, 14

Waterhouse, William, 16

Whincup, of Stamford, 149

Wood, Richard, 231, 232, 233

Colsterworth, 176

Cromwell, 205

Cromwell, Oliver, 188

Cross Hall, 113

Crow Park, 206

Cycling Notabilities—

Badlake, F. T., 112

Butterfield, W. J. H., 112

Edge, T. A., 111

Edge, S. F., 111

Fontaine, C. C., 112

Goodwin, F. R., 112

Hobson, T., 112

Holbein, M. A., 112

Hunt, G., 112

James, J. M., 111

Keith-Falconer, Hon. Ian, 111

Mills, G. P., 112, 113

Oxborrow, E., 113

Pope, H. R., 111

Sansom, H. H., 113

Shirley, R., 113

Shorland, F. W., 112

Thorpe, J. H. Stanley, 111

Wheaton, C, 111

Wilson, H. E., 112

Cycling Records, 110–113

* * * * *

_Dead Drummer_, _The_, 120

De Foe, Daniel, 135, 188

Deighton, 243

De Quincey, Thos., 25, 30, 101

Diddington, 113, 120

Digswell Hill, 87

Doncaster, 226–235

* * * * *

East End, Finchley, 65

East Markham, 208

Eaton, 210

Eaton Socon, 110, 113

Elkisley, 209

Empingham, 157

Escrick, 243

* * * * *

Finchley, 65

Finchley Common, 66–72, 171

Foston, 193

Fulford, 243

* * * * *

Gamston, 208

Ganwick Corner, 80

Gate Fulford, 243

General Post Office, 2, 25–33, 241

Girtford, 109

Gonerby Hill, 189–193

Grantham, 176, 180–188, 197

Graveley, 105

Great Casterton, 154

Great Gonerby, 189

Great Ponton, 178–180

Greenhill Cross, 73

Greetham, 158

* * * * *

Hadley Green, 2, 80

Hadley Highstone, 80

Hardwick, 117

Hatfield, 2, 84–87

_Heart of Midlothian_, 189–193

Herring, J. F., 231–234

Hicks’s Hall, 2, 49

Highgate, 2, 51–65

Highgate Archway, 63–65, 111

Highgate Hill, 57–62

Highway Acts, 9

Highwaymen, 62, 69–72, 124, 175

Bowland, John, 158

Everett and Williams, 69

Sheppard, Jack, 70

Spiggott, — 68

Turpin, Dick, 70, 193

Holloway, 2, 52

Horn Lane, 157

* * * * *

Inns (mentioned at length)

“Angel,” Grantham, 182

“Angel,” Islington, 49, 50

“Angel,” Stilton, 125

“Bald-faced Stag,” Finchley, 65

“Beehive,” Grantham, 188

“Bell,” Barnby Moor, 212–216

“Bell,” Stilton, 125–128

“Black Bull,” Witham Common, 158, 161

“Black Lion,” Scarthing Moor, 206

“Black Swan,” Holborn, 35

“Black Swan,” York, 35

“Blue Bell,” Barnby Moor, 212–216

“Blue Bull,” Witham Common, 161

“Blue Horse,” Great Ponton, 180

“Brampton Hut” 117

“Brown Cow,” Doncaster, 232–233

“Bull and Mouth,” St. Martin’-le-Grand, 13–15

“Clinton Arms,” Newark, 198, 200

“Crown,” Bawtry, 223

“Crown,” Selby, 241

“Crown and Woolpack,” nr Stilton, 124

“Dirt House,” Finchley, 66

“Duke of York,” Ganwick Corner, 80

“Gatehouse Tavern,” Highgate, 59

“George,” Buckden, 114

“George,” Grantham, 182–184

“George,” Stamford, 146

“George and Blue Boar,” Holborn, 18

“Green Man,” Barnet, 76–79

“Green Man,” Brown’s Wells, 69

“Green Man and Still,” Oxford Street, 13, 18

“Greetham Inn” 158, 211

“Griffin” Whetstone, 72

“Haycock,” Wansford, 136–140, 211

“Jockey House” 209

“Kate’s Cabin, 132

“Lord Kitchener,” Stevenage, 105

“Markham Moor” 208

“Newcastle Arms,” Tuxford, 207

“Norman Cross” 129

“Old Castle,” Stevenage, 101

“Old Red Lion,” Barnet, 79

“Old White Lion,” Finchley, 66

“Our Mutual Friend,” 104

“Peacock,” Islington, 49

“Ram,” Doncaster, 231

“Ram,” Newark, 203

“Ram Jam,” Stretton, 158–161

“Red Lion,” Barnet, 76–79

“Salutation,” Doncaster, 231

“Saracen’s Head,” Snow Hill, 21–25

“Saracen’s Head,” Newark, 191, 198

“Scrooby” 216

“Spread Eagle,” Gracechurch Street, 13, 18

“Swan,” Stevenage, 96

“Swan-with-two-Necks,” Gresham Street, 13–17

“Volunteer,” Doncaster, 235

“Waggon and Horses,” Stamford, 152

“Wellington,” Welwyn, 90

“Wheatsheaf,” Alconbury Hill, 121

“White Hart,” Retford, 211–213

“White Hart,” Welwyn, 88

“White Horse,” Eaton Socon, 110

“White Swan,” Biggleswade, 107

“Whittington Stone Tavern,” 56

Islington, 2, 49–51

* * * * *

Jeanie Deans, 190–192, 198, 204

Jockey House, 209

* * * * *

Kate’s Cabin, 132

Knavesmire, 244

Knebworth, 92

* * * * *

Lambert, Daniel, 152

Lannock Hill, 105

Lemsford Mills, 87

Letchworth, 103, 106

Little Heath, 82

Long Bennington, 193

Lord of Burleigh, Tennyson’s, 141–145

Lower Codicote, 108

Lytton family, Earls Lytton, 92

* * * * *

Macadam, J. L., 6, 10, 12, 31

Mace, Thos, 6–8

Markham Moor, 208

Marston, 193

Matcham’s Bridge, 120

Metcalf, John, 10

Morison, Fynes, 97

Morpeth, 32

* * * * *

Newark-upon-Trent, 193–204

Newton, Sir Isaac, 176

_Nicholas Nickleby_, 22, 110, 184

Norman Cross, 129–133

North Finchley, 66

North Muskham, 205

North Road Cycling Club, 110, 113, 114

* * * * *

Old-time Travellers—

Bacon, Francis Viscount Verulam, 61

Barclay of Ury, 169

Burke, Edmund, 69

Calderwood of Coltness, Mrs., 128, 171

Campbell, Lord Chancellor, 173

Cary, Sir Robert, 166

Charles I., 105, 149

Eldon, Earl of, 172

George III., 165

George IV., 165

Gladstone, W. E., 200

James I., 165, 194

Jeffrey, Lord, 184

Jonson, Ben, 166

Lepton, John, 166

Londonderry, Marquis of, 170

Mansfield, Earl of, 171

Minto, Earl of, 71

Misson, Henri, 51

Monboddo, Lord, 170

Pepys, Samuel, 73, 79, 105, 117

Perlin, Estienne, 146

Powell, Foster, 167

Skene, Dr., 171

Sterne, Rev. Laurence, 214

Thoresby, Ralph, 124, 175

Thornhill, Cooper, 126, 167

Tucker, Henry St. George, 185