Memorials of Old Derbyshire

Memorials of the Counties of England
General Editor: Rev. P. H. Ditchfield, M.A., F.S.A.

Memorials
of
Old Derbyshire

Haddon Hall: “Dorothy Vernon’s Bridge.”
From a water-colour sketch by Mr. Frank E. Beresford.

MEMORIALS
OF
OLD DERBYSHIRE

EDITED BY
Rev. J. CHARLES COX, LL.D., F.S.A.

Author of
“Churches of Derbyshire” (4 vols.),
“Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals” (2 vols.),
“How to write the History of a Parish,”
“Royal Forests of England,”
“English Church Furniture,” etc., etc.
Editor of “The Reliquary”

With many Illustrations

LONDON
Bemrose and Sons Limited, 4 Snow Hill, E.C.
AND DERBY
1907

[All Rights Reserved]

TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
SPENCER COMPTON CAVENDISH,
K.G., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.,
EIGHTH DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE,
CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE,
AND LORD-LIEUTENANT OF DERBYSHIRE,
THESE MEMORIALS ARE,
BY KIND PERMISSION,
INSCRIBED

[vii]

PREFACE

It has been a great pleasure to accept the request of the General Editor of this Memorial Series to edit a volume on my native county of Derby. In proportion to its size and population, more has been written and printed on Derbyshire than on any other English county. But in these days, when, year by year, the national stores of information in Chancery Lane are becoming better arranged and more fully calendared, when there is more generous access to muniments in private possession, and when the spirit of critical archæology is becoming more and more systematised, there is no sign whatever that the history of the county is in any way near exhaustion. Nor will that be the case even when the four great volumes of the Victoria County History are completed. So abundant are the historical records of Derbyshire, and so rich are the archæological remains, that there would be no difficulty, I think, in the speedy production of a companion volume to this of equal interest and of as much originality, should the General Editor and the publishers desire such a sequel. I say this as an apology for omissions of which I am fully conscious; and, as it is, the publishers have kindly allowed the present[viii] pages to exceed in number those of any other volume of the series.

There is one sad subject in connection with the production of this work—I allude to the death of that distinguished antiquary, the late Earl of Liverpool. Many years ago, in the “seventies” of last century, it was owing to his suggestion and friendly encouragement that I first undertook and persevered in the attempt to write on all the old churches of Derbyshire; and when he was known as Mr. Cecil Foljambe, we often visited together such churches as Tideswell, Bakewell, and Chesterfield. Immediately the idea of this volume had been formed, I wrote to Lord Liverpool, and at once received his cordial assent to prepare an article on the Foljambe monuments of the county. In the course of his letter he wrote:—“I accept your proposal all the more willingly as I have recently unearthed certain strong confirmatory evidence as to the two Tideswell effigies, claimed of late years to belong to the De Bower family, and rashly lettered, being in reality Foljambes” (see p. 103). We exchanged several letters on the subject, then his health began to fail, and he begged me to undertake the work, promising to revise it carefully and to give additional matter; but, alas! death intervened before even this could be accomplished.

All the articles between these covers have been specially written, and for the most part specially illustrated for the book, with one exception, namely, the delightfully vivid chapter by Sir George R. Sitwell, on the country life of a Derbyshire squire of the seventeenth[ix] century. To almost all the readers of the book, this essay will also be entirely novel. It is reproduced, in a somewhat abbreviated form, by the writer’s kind and ready permission, from the introductory chapter to Sir George Sitwell’s privately issued Letters of the Sitwells and Sacheverells, of which only twenty-five copies were printed.

My most grateful thanks are due to each of the contributors for their valuable papers, as well as to those who have supplied photographs, or who have loaned prints or drawings. It would be invidious for me to particularize where there has been so much ready kindness in contributing the elements of this Olla Podrida.

In arranging this book, it may be well to state that no effort whatever has been made to produce a kind of history of the shire inpetto, which would, in my opinion, be a great mistake in a work of this character and intention. Each essay stands by itself; all that I have done, in addition to my own contributions, is to arrange them in a kind of rough chronological order.

J. Charles Cox.

Longton Avenue,
Sydenham,
November, 1907.

[xi]

CONTENTS

[xiii]

PLATE ILLUSTRATIONS

[xvi]

ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT

[1]

HISTORIC DERBYSHIRE

By Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A.

After making due allowance for a natural prejudice in favour of the county of one’s birth and early associations, it may, I think, be reasonably maintained that the comparatively small shire of Derby not only contains within its limits most exceptionally wild, beautiful and varied scenery, but that its social and political history is exceedingly diversified and full of interest. In all, too, that pertains to almost every branch of archæology, Derbyshire is well able to hold its own with any other county that could be named.

The proofs of the residence of early man in the district are afforded by the considerable variety of remains that have been discovered in the bone caves of the High Peak near Buxton, in those of the high lands above Wirksworth, and more especially in the Creswell caves on the verge of Nottinghamshire. In Grant Allen’s remarkable and generally accurate book on the beginnings of county history throughout England, a singular blunder is made with regard to Derbyshire; it is there stated that this county “was almost uninhabited until long after the English settlement of Britain, with the solitary exception of a few isolated Roman stations.” Archæology, however, puts such a statement as this to complete rout. Difficult as it is to understand how such large bands of savage men were able to maintain themselves in so wild[2] a district, it is the fact that the Peak of Derbyshire was, so to speak, thickly populated by prehistoric tribes. A glance at the map of prehistoric remains, given in the first volume of the Victoria History of the County of Derby, to illustrate Mr. Ward’s article, will at once show that the whole of that part of North Derbyshire which extends from Ashbourne to Chapel-en-le-Frith on the west, from thence to Derwent Chapel on the north, and then southward through Hathersage and Winster back again to Ashbourne, is peppered all over with the red symbols that betoken the barrows or lows which were the burial places of our forefathers during the neolithic and subsequent ages. Round Stanton-in-the-Peak and Hathersage the barrows, circles and other early remains occur with such frequency that it is difficult to mark even small dots on the map without them running into each other.

When the Romans held Derbyshire they had five chief stations in the county, namely, at Little Chester, near Derby; at Brough, near Hope; at Buxton; at Melandra Castle, on the verge of Cheshire; and near Wirksworth. The chief Roman road, termed Ryknield Street, entered the county at Monksbridge, between Repton and Egginton; crossing the Derwent by Derby to Little Chester, the road proceeded to Chesterfield, and thence into Yorkshire. Another road crossed the south of the county, entering Derbyshire on the east near Sawley, and passing through Little Chester to Rocester, in Staffordshire. A whole group of other roads radiated throughout the Peak from Buxton as a centre.

Doubtless one of the chief reasons why the Romans were so determined to occupy, after a military fashion, the north of the county was because of the lead mining which they so actively pursued. The chief district of this lead mining extended between Wirksworth on the south and Castleton on the north. Between these two places groups of disused mines appear with frequency.[3] Most of those that have been closely examined yield obvious traces of having been worked by our conquerors. Six pigs of inscribed Roman lead have been found in the county. One of them bears the name of Hadrian (A.D. 117–138). The probabilities, however, are strong that the Roman miners were at work in this county half a century earlier, for there is evidence of lead working in western Yorkshire in A.D. 81, and it is most unlikely that mining began in that part of Yorkshire before Derbyshire had been touched.

It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the interest and importance pertaining to Dr. Haverfield’s article on Romano-British Derbyshire, as set forth in the first volume of the Victoria History of the county.

When the Romans left this county at the dawn of the fifth century, the first English or Saxon settlement speedily followed. The north of Derbyshire formed the southern extremity of that long range of broken primary hills—termed the Pennine Chain—which extended from the Cheviots down to the district long known as Peakland or the Peak. As the Romans withdrew, Peakland seems to have been overrun by hordes of the Picts; but when the pagan English settled in Northumbria a new element of strife was introduced which affected the line of Pennine Hills from end to end. This range became a boundary between two hostile races dissimilar in habits, tongue and creed. The older British race, Christianized to a considerable extent, took up their position on the western side, and also held their own in certain parts of the actual dividing ridge.

It seems likely that the Peakland, for about 150 years after the first coming of the English—and possibly other parts to the east and south afterwards known under the common name of Derbyshire—was retained by the Celts, or Welsh, after the same fashion as they undoubtedly held the districts round the modern town of Leeds.

[4]

With the opening of the seventh century substantial historic data begin. Ethelfrith, the last pagan king of Northumbria, crossed the southern end of the Pennine Chain in 603, and by a notable victory at Chester extended, as Bede tells us, the dominions of the English to the Mersey and the Dee. The actual conquest of Peakland probably soon followed. Mr. Grant Allen’s supposition that it was never actually overrun by a military force, but that the scanty numbers of the Welsh were by degrees absorbed into the surrounding English population, may, however, be the true explanation. The general story of English place-names shows that the majority of our hill and river names are earlier than the English occupation; but in North Derbyshire there is not a single river or hill that does not bear a Welsh name, whilst not a few of the homestead names have a like origin, and even words of Cymric etymology still linger in the fast disappearing dialect.

It is of interest to remember that those Mercians who settled from time to time in small groups throughout the wilder parts of Derbyshire bore the local name of Pecsaete, that is to say, settlers in the Peak; so that the future county, as Mr. Allen remarks, narrowly escaped being styled Pecsetshire, after the fashion of Dorsetshire or Somersetshire.

In the development and Christianising of the widespread Mercian kingdom, South Derbyshire played a very considerable part. Repton, on the banks of the Trent, is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the year 755 in the account of the slaying of Ethelbald, the Mercian king. The same Chronicle also records the visit of the devastating Danes to Repton in 874, when they made that town their winter quarters. The founding of an abbey at Repton early in the seventh century, and the same place becoming the first seat of the Mercian bishopric from 654 to 667, is dealt with in another part of this volume and need not be named further in this sketch.

[5]

The Peak seems to have known of no widespread Saxon or English settlement until after the eruption of the Danes. It is also to the Danes that the town of Derby owes its present name, and the importance which gave its title to the surrounding shire. When the marauding Scandinavian bands overran the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia, the value of the Derbyshire lead soon attracted their attention. Hence they established themselves strongly and built a fort at Northworthy (the earlier name for Derby), whence the valley of the Derwent branched off in different directions to the lead-mining districts. It was the common practice of the Danes to change the names of the places where they settled; Northworthy was to them an unmeaning term now that settlements of importance had been pushed on much further northward. Deoraby, or the settlement near the deer, was clearly suggested by the close propinquity of the great forests. There is no part of the county where the place and field names are of greater interest than in the Ecclesbourne valley, which leads up from Duffield to Wirksworth. The intermingling of Norse names shows that at least two distinct streams of colonists pushed their way to this valuable mining centre.

In the north-eastern portion of Mercia, five of these Scandinavian hosts, each under its own earl, made a definite settlement; they became known as the Five Burghs, and formed a kind of rude confederacy. In this way Derby became linked in government with Nottingham, Stamford, Lincoln and Leicester. This combination, however, had not long been made before Ethelfleda, the Lady of the Mercians, the sister of Alfred the Great, began to win back her dominions from these pagan Norsemen, building border forts at Tamworth and Stafford. Derby was stormed by Ethelfleda in 918, after fierce fighting, and this victory secured for her for a time the shire as well as the town itself. Six years later Edward the Elder, Ethelfleda’s brother, advanced against[6] the Danes through Nottingham, penetrating into Peakland as far as Bakewell, where he built a fort. In 941–2 King Edmund finally freed the Five Burghs and all Mercia from Danish rule.

The establishment of a mint at Derby during the reign of Athelstan (924–940) is a clear evidence of the advance of civilisation. Coins minted at Derby are also extant of the reigns of Edgar, Edward II., Ethelred II., Canute, Harold I., Edward the Confessor, and Harold II.

The division of Derbyshire among the conquering Normans, together with the social conditions of the times, so far as they can be gathered from the entries in the Domesday Survey, have been admirably treated of at length in the recently issued opening volume of the Victoria History, to which reference has already been made. The number of manors held by the Conqueror in this county was very considerable. He derived his Derbyshire possessions from three sources. In the first instance he succeeded his predecessor, the Confessor, in a great group of manors that stretched without a break across the county in a north-easterly direction from Ashbourne to the Yorkshire borders near Sheffield. The second division of the Kings’ land consisted of the forfeited estates of Edwin, the late earl of the shire, and grandson of Earl Leofric of Mercia. These lay in a widespread group along the Trent south of Derby, and included Repton, so famous in earlier Mercian history. In the north of the county the King also secured a very considerable number of manors which had belonged to various holders, such as Eyam and Stony Middleton, Chatsworth and Walton, and a considerable group round Glossop.

There were two ecclesiastical tenants-in-chief in the county, namely, the Bishop of the diocese, who held Sawley with Long Eaton, and the manor of Bupton in Longford parish, and the Abbot of Burton-on-Trent, who held the great manor of Mickleover and several others which nearly adjoined the Abbey on the Derbyshire side.

[7]

By far the largest Derbyshire landholder was Henry de Ferrers, lord of Longueville in Normandy, whose son in 1136 became the first Earl of Derby. He held over ninety manors in this county, but the head of his barony, where his chief castle was, lay just outside the border of Derbyshire, at Tutbury. Just a few of the smaller landholders seem to have been Englishmen, confirmed in their rights by the Conqueror. In one case it can be definitely said that an Englishman not only held land at the time of the survey, under Henry de Ferrers, but became the ancestor of a family which continued for centuries to hold of Ferrers’ successors. This was “Elfin,” who held Brailsford, Osmaston, Lower Thurvaston, and part of Bupton. During the reigns of William the Conqueror and his two sons, Rufus and Henry, genuine historical particulars relative to the county are almost entirely absent. When persistent civil war raged for so long a time over the greater part of England during Stephen’s reign, Derbyshire was but little disturbed, for the leading men of the county adhered loyally to the King and held its several fortresses on his behalf. In the great Battle of the Standard, fought against the Scots at Northallerton in 1138, Derbyshire played the leading part in winning the victory; its chief credit being due to the valour of the Peakites under Robert Ferrers. Ralph Alselin and William Peveril, two other Derbyshire chieftains, were also among the successful leaders of the battle.

Peak Castle, built by William Peveril in the days of the Conqueror, passed to the Crown in 1115 on the forfeiture of his son’s estates. The Pipe Roll of 1157 shows an entry, repeated annually for a long term of years, of a payment of four pound, ten shillings, and two watchmen, and the porter of the Peak Castle. In that year Henry II. received the submission of Malcolm, King of Scotland, within the walls of this castle. There are records of other visits made to this castle by Henry II. in 1158 and 1164.

[8]

In this reign a variety of interesting particulars relative to the castles of Bolsover and the Peak can be gleaned from the Pipe Rolls, particularly with regard to their provisioning, garrisoning and repairing between 1172 and 1176, during the time of the rising of the Barons. Richard I., at the beginning of his reign, gave the castles of the Peak and Bolsover to his brother John, who succeeded to the throne in 1199. In 1200, King John was at Derby and Bolsover in March, and at Melbourne in November. This restless King’s visits to the county were frequent throughout his reign, and included a sojourn at Horsley Castle in 1209. During this turbulent reign Derbyshire was again fortunate in escaping any material share of civil warfare. The party of the Barons gained but little support, for the three notable fortresses of Castleton, Bolsover and Horsley were held for the King with but slight intermission.

In any historic survey of Derbyshire, however brief, it must not be forgotten that the Normans, for the convenience of civil administration, linked together this county and Nottinghamshire, giving precedence in some respects to the latter. The Assizes, for instance, up to the reign of Henry III., were held only at Nottingham, and the one county gaol for the two shires was in the same town. From the beginning of the reign of Henry III. up to the time of Elizabeth, the Assizes were held alternately at the two county towns. During the whole of this period there was but one sheriff for the two shires; it was not until 1566 that they each possessed a sheriff of their own.

Derbyshire possessed a fourth great fortress, which has generally been overlooked; it does not appear on the Pipe Rolls, as it was never held by the Crown. Duffield was a convenient centre for the great Derbyshire possessions of Henry de Ferrers. The castle at this place stood on an eminence commanding an important ford of the Derwent, at the entrance of the valley that led to[9] Wirksworth with its lead mines, and hence forwards to the High Peak. Here was erected in early Norman days (as we know from the long-buried remains) a prodigiously strong and massive keep. William, Earl Ferrers, was a stalwart supporter of Henry III. until his death, but his grandson, Robert de Ferrers, soon after he came of age, in 1260, threw himself with ardour into the baronial war against the King. Eventually he was overcome when fighting with his allies at Chesterfield in 1266. Ferrers was taken prisoner, and his life spared; but all his lands, castles, and tenements were confiscated to the crown, and conveyed by Henry to his son Edmund, who was afterwards created Earl of Lancaster. It would be at this period that Duffield Castle was demolished.

The foundations of this castle were accidentally discovered in 1886. The lower part of the walls of a great rectangular keep, 95 feet by 93 feet, were brought to light, the walls averaging 16 feet in thickness. These measurements show that Duffield Castle far exceeded in magnitude any other Norman keep, with the single exception of the Tower of London.

Before taking the next step in this sketch of the political history of the county, it will be well to go back a little in the account of the great Derbyshire family of Ferrers, with special reference to their connection with the Peak Forest. William de Ferrers, the fourth Earl of Derby, was bailiff of the Honour of the Peak from 1216 to 1222. It was charged against him that during that time he had in conjunction with others taken upwards of 2,000 head of deer without warrant. At the Forest Pleas held in 1251, five years after the Earl’s death, formal presentments as to these offences were made, when Richard Curzon was fined the then great sum of £40 as one of the late Earl’s accomplices, and other county gentlemen in smaller amounts. But much more serious matters occurred in the wild region of the Peak later on in the reign of Henry III., when the transgressor was Robert de Ferrers,[10] the grandson of the Earl just mentioned. The Pleas of the Forest were generally held at long and somewhat fitful intervals. It was not until September, 1285, that these pleas were again held at Derby, when all the offences committed during the thirty-four years that had passed since the last eyre were presented by the forest officials. By far the gravest charge at this eyre was that made against the last Earl of Derby (of the first creation), who died in 1278. It was charged against Robert de Ferrers that on three separate occasions, in July, August and September, 1264, he had hunted in the forest, with a great company of knights and others, and had on these occasions taken 130 head of red deer, and had driven a still greater number far away. These illicit hunting affrays were evidently made on a great scale, for thirty-eight persons are named in the presentment, and there were many others, besides the Earl himself, who were dead before the eyre was held. Others, too, were not summoned because they were mere servants of the Earl. Eight out of the thirty-eight were knights, and it is not a little remarkable that hardly any of those who joined in the forest affrays were of Derbyshire families; they came from such counties as Warwick, Leicestershire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, etc. Reading between the lines, though it is not mentioned in the presentments—the originals of which can be studied at the Public Record Office—it becomes clear that these incursions into a royal forest must have been animated by something deeper than a love for wholesale poaching. In May, 1264, the battle of Lewes was fought, when the King’s forces were defeated by those of the barons. For two or three years from that date, as an old chronicler has it, “there was grievous perturbation in the centre of the realm,” in which Derbyshire must have pre-eminently shared, for the youthful Earl Robert was one of the hottest partisans of the barons. There can be no reasonable doubt that these three raids on the Peak Forest in the months immediately[11] following the battle of Lewes, were undertaken by Robert de Ferrers and his allies, issuing probably from his great manor house at Hartington, much more to show contempt for the King’s forest and preserves, and to get booty and food for his men-at-arms, than for any purposes of sport.

It is interesting to note that in April, 1264, Henry III. came into Derbyshire, and lodged for a time at the castle of the Peak after the subjection of Nottingham.

Definite Parliamentary rule began in England under Edward I. No Derbyshire writs are extant for the Parliaments of 1283, 1290 or 1294. The first Parliamentary return extant for Derbyshire names Henry de Kniveton and Giles de Meynell as summoned to attend the Parliament at Westminster in November, 1295. The county representatives in 1297 were Robert Dethick and Thomas Foljambe; in 1298, Henry de Brailsford and Henry Fitzherbert, and in 1299 Jeffrey de Gresley and Robert de Frecheville. John de la Cornere and Ralph de Makeney represented the borough of Derby in 1295. The maintenance of the knights of the shire when attending Parliament, as well as their travelling expenses, were paid by the county. The scale of payment per day in the fourteenth century varied from 3s. 4d. to 5s., whilst the payment of the borough members varied from 20d. to 2s. a day.

Soon after the accession of Edward I., inquiries were made into the various abuses that had arisen during the latter part of the turbulent reign of his predecessor. A considerable number of official irregularities and illegalities were brought to light in this county, including both the imprisoning and undue releasing from prison at the Castle of the Peak.

Edward I. visited Derbyshire in 1275, tarrying both at Ashbourne and Tideswell, when on his way to North Wales. In the subjugation of Wales, various of the great landholders of Derbyshire, with their tenants, took a[12] prominent part; among them were William de Ferrers, William de Bardolf, Henry de Grey, Edward Deincourt, John de Musard, and Nicholas de Segrave.

Between 1290 and 1293 the King was frequently in the county, coming on more than one occasion for sport amongst the fallow deer of Duffield Frith, at the forest lodge of Ravensdale. Derbyshire was closely concerned in the long dispute as to the succession to the Crown of Scotland, of which Edward I. was made arbitrator in 1291. His decision was in favour of John Balliol, who was most intimately connected with this county. Balliol held for a time the custody of the Peak, with the Honour of Peveril; he was lord of the manors of Hollington and Creswell; and he had served as joint sheriff of the counties of Derby and Nottingham from 1261 to 1264. All the leading men of Derbyshire were engaged from time to time in the prolonged wars with Scotland which resulted in the deposition of Balliol in 1296. This county had its share in the discreditable honours that Edward II. showered on his favourite, Piers Gaveston, for early in the reign he held the custody of the High Peak. In 1322 the Scotch forces entered into alliance with those of the rebel Earls of Lancaster and Hereford. After fierce fighting at the bridge of Burton-on-Trent, the royalists crossed the river by a ford and drove Lancaster’s forces before them into Yorkshire. During the retreat Derbyshire suffered severely. The King, with several of his ministers, tarried for a few days at Derby; from thence he visited Codnor Castle, which was held by one of his ardent supporters, Richard, Lord Grey. Edward II. also, on several different occasions, sojourned at the lodge of Ravensdale, amid the beautiful parks of Duffield Forest.

In the various wars of the reign of Edward III. Derbyshire was often called upon to supply forces for the hastily raised armies of the King. The number of men levied on several occasions in this county were[13] considerably in excess of its due proportion when compared with neighbouring shires, either in acreage or population. This may, we suppose, be taken as a compliment to the valour of the county, and it is by no means improbable that the hardy lead miners of the north of the county would furnish better men, and perhaps more capable archers, than were to be found in purely agricultural districts. Early in 1333, when the Scots were making great preparations for invasion, John de Twyford and Nicholas de Longford were appointed Commissioners of Array for Derbyshire, to call out and have in readiness for the field all men between sixteen and sixty years of age. Soon afterwards they received a definite warrant to send to the front five hundred archers and two hundred light horsemen from within the county. Derbyshire archers to the number of six hundred set forth for Scotland in 1344, and there were frequent levies of them during this reign to proceed to France. Derbyshire, however, considering the fame of its archers and the fighting-men of the Peak, took but a small part in the French campaign of 1346–7, which resulted in the crowning triumph of Crecy and the fall of Calais. The reason for this was that only those counties that were citra Trent received summonses to take part in the French expedition; the forces of Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and other northern counties were kept at home for fear of aggression from Scotland. There were, however, a sprinkling of Derbyshire men in the ranks of the English at Crecy, including Sir John Curzon, Nicholas de Longford, and Anker de Frecheville.

The wide-spread revolt of the peasantry was the great feature of the reign of Richard II.; but Derbyshire, together with most of the west midlands, remained unaffected by these serious disturbances, in which the miners, at all events, had no inclination to take part.

Henry IV. was not unfrequently in Derbyshire in connection with the rebellious movements of that much-troubled[14] reign. In the summer of 1402 the King tarried for some little time at the small town of Tideswell in a secluded district of the Peak, issuing from thence a variety of orders to sheriffs and other officials as to the military preparations against the Welsh. When sojourning about the same time at the royal hunting lodge at Ravensdale, he dispatched thence orders for hastening resistance against serious Scotch invasion.

In the following year, when the Percys and their followers suddenly raised the standard of revolt, the King hastened to Derby with all the forces he could gather. After waiting there a few days to rally the musters, he proceeded through Burton-on-Trent to Shrewsbury, where a terrible battle was fought on July 20th. Early that morning, before the fray began, Henry knighted several of the gallant esquires of Derbyshire. Of these Sir Walter Blount, who bore the King’s standard, Sir John Cokayne, and Sir Nicholas Longford were slain in the fight, whilst Sir Thomas Wendesley died soon afterwards of the wounds he had received. It is not a little interesting to note that the last three of these Derbyshire knights, who held their honour for so brief a period, have their effigies still extant in fair preservation in the respective churches of Ashbourne, Longford, and Bakewell; the fourth, Sir Walter Blount, was buried, in acordance with his will, at Newark. Of the 4,500 men slain or grievously wounded on the King’s side in the Battle of Shrewsbury, a large proportion must have been Derbyshire men. It was, perhaps, out of compliment to this county that Henry, when the fray was over, proceeded yet again to Derby before going north to York to receive the Earl of Northumberland’s submission.

It was under Henry V. that the memorable Battle of Agincourt was fought on October 25th, 1415. In this battle the county played a prominent part. Richard, Lord Grey of Codnor, was at the head of a large contingent of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire retainers and[15] tenants. The list of horsemen under him begins with two Derbyshire knights—Sir John Grey and Sir Edward Foljambe, and it also includes such well-known county names as Cokayne, Strelley, FitzHerbert, and Curzon. Another contingent of Derbyshire men was in the retinue of Philip Leach, of Chatsworth, whilst an important command was held by Thomas Beresford, of Fenny Bentley, as recorded on his monument in that church.

MELBORN CASTLE in the County of DERBY.
Formerly a Royal Mansion, now in Ruins; where John Duke of Bourbon taken Prisoner by K: Henry V^th. in the Battle of Agincourt (An^o. 1414.) was kept Nineteen Years in Custody of Nicholas Montgomery the Younger; he was released by K: Henry VI^th.
This Draught is made from a Survey now in the Dutchy office of Lancaster, taken in the Reign of Q: Elizabeth. Sumptibus, Soc: Ant: Lond: 1733.

The notable triumph of Agincourt must have been long held in remembrance in Derbyshire, for the midland fortress of Melbourne Castle was selected as the place of imprisonment for the most notable prisoner taken on that field of French disaster. John, Duke of Bourbon, was confined at Melbourne for nineteen years; at first under the custody of Sir Ralph Shirley, one of the leaders in the fight, and afterwards in the charge of Nicholas Montgomery the younger.

In the deplorable Wars of the Roses, between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists, which extended over thirty years from 1455 to 1485, Derbyshire men took no small part, now on one side, now on the other, whilst occasionally they were found in the ranks of both parties. A commission issued in December, 1461, to Sir William Chaworth, Richard Willoughby, and the Sheriff of Derbyshire, illustrates the disturbed condition of the county in the beginning of the reign of Edward IV. These commissioners were ordered to arrest John Cokayne, of Ashbourne, who is represented as wandering about in various parts of the county with others, killing and spoiling the King’s subjects, and to bring him before the King in council.

A manuscript list of the “names of the captayns and pety captayns wyth the bagges, in the standerds of the army and vantgard of the king’s lefftenant enterying into Fraunce the xvj day of June,” 1513, begins with George, Earl of Shrewsbury, the King’s lieutenant of the vanguard, who bore on his standard “goulles and sabull[16] a talbot sylver passant and shaffrons gold”; the Derbyshire banneret, Sir Henry Sacheverell, with John Bradburne for his petty captain, bearing “goulles a gett buk sylver.” Other Derbyshire gentlemen who were captains in this array, each having his petty captain and his “bagges” (badges) or arms as borne on his standard, were:—Robert Barley with John Parker, Nicholas Fitzherbert with John Ireton, Sir John Leek with Thomas Leek his brother, Sir Thomas Cokayne with Robert Cokayne, Sir William Gresley with John Gresley, Sir Gylbert Talbot the younger with Humphrey Butler, Robert Lynaker with George Palmer, Thomas Twyford with Roger Rolleston, Sir John Zouch (of Codnor) with Dave Zouch (his brother), Arthur Eyre with Thomas Eyre (his brother), Ralph Leach and John Curzon (of Croxall) with Edward Cumberford.

In addition to all these Derbyshire gentlemen, William Vernon bore the banner of St. George, John Leach the banner of the lieutenant’s arms, and Thomas Rolleston the standard of the talbot and chevrons. Derbyshire considerably preponderated in this army of the vanguard, there being twelve companies from that county. Shropshire had nine companies, Staffordshire eight, Nottinghamshire six, and Leicestershire and Cheshire two each; five other counties only furnished a single company.

Into the grievous question of the cruel way in which the monasteries were suppressed by Henry VIII. it is not proposed here to enter, even after the briefest fashion. It may, however, be remarked that although the county had no religious houses of first importance within its limits—the most noteworthy being the Premonstratensian Abbeys of white canons at Dale and Beauchief, and the houses of black or Austin canons at Darley Abbey and Repton Priory—the amount of landed estates, both large and small, held throughout Derbyshire under abbeys or priories situated in other shires, was very[17] considerable. If there is one social or economic fact that is thoroughly established in connection with this great upheaval, whose main object was to secure pelf for the Crown, it is that the condition of the monastic tenantry was far better than that of those under often changing secular rule.

The sternest possible measures were taken to suppress the least disaffection shown against the policy of dissolution. Lives were lost, even of those in high position up and down the country, on the merest hearsay evidence of having indulged in private talk against the King’s policy. At the time when Henry and his Court were seriously alarmed by the Lincolnshire rising on behalf of the smaller monasteries, lists were drawn up on October 7th, 1536, of the names of noblemen and gentlemen to whom it was proposed to write, under privy seal, requiring their aid with men and horses fit for war. The Derbyshire names on this list were: the Lord Steward, Lord Talbot, Sir Henry Sacheverell, Matthew Kniveton, Sir Godfrey Foljambe (Sheriff), Roland Babington, and Francis Cokayne. The rising was, however, so summarily suppressed that there was no necessity for the calling out of any general array.

There are full particulars extant of the Derbyshire musters for April, 1539, giving the exact number under each parish of archers with horses and harness, of billmen with horses and harness, and also of unharnessed archers and billmen. The total for the various hundreds of the county, including the town of Derby, reached the total of 4,510.

As to the various religious changes in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, which affected Derbyshire as much as any other part of the kingdom, it is not proposed here to enter. Suffice it to say that their distinguishing feature under Elizabeth, which was also continued throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century, was the fierce persecution and ruinous[18] fining directed against the recusants of the Roman obedience. The reason for the pre-eminence of Derbyshire in this respect arose from two facts: firstly, that some of the most influential of the old Derbyshire families, such as the Fitzherberts and the Eyres, remained steadfast to the unreformed faith; and, secondly, that the wild districts of the Peak afforded so many places of shelter to those recusants of this and the neighbouring counties who desired to escape the rigorous search of Elizabeth’s pursuivants.

Throughout the long reign of Elizabeth, the county musters were under frequent survey. A few months before the reign began, the old local militia, with its scale of arms (including bows and arrows) as revised in 1285, which had continued for more than four centuries in accordance with the scheme laid down by Henry II., came to an end. The old Assize of Arms had long been found unsuitable to the advance in the art of war. Eventually an Act of Parliament of Philip and Mary “for the having of horse armour and weapon,” which provided that after May 1st, 1558, everyone who had an estate of inheritance of the value of £1,000 or above was to keep at his own cost six horses meet for demi-lances (heavy cavalry), and ten horses meet for light horsemen, with the requisite harness and weapons; also 40 corselets for pikemen, 40 Almayne rivettes (flexible German armour), 40 pikes, 30 longbows, 30 sheaves of arrows, 30 steel caps, 20 black bills or halberds, 20 hand-guns, and 20 morions or light open helms. A sliding scale followed, making due provision for what was required from those having lands of various values down to £10, and these last had to find a longbow, a sheaf of arrows, a steel cap, and a black bill. Another section of the Act provided that the inhabitants of every town, parish, or hamlet, other than those who were already charged in proportion to their landed property, were to find and maintain at their own charges such harness and weapons as might be appointed by the commissioners of the musters.

[19]

Within a few months of Elizabeth’s accession, this new legislation was tested by calling out the general muster throughout the kingdom, and by obtaining returns of the number in equipment from each county. The long, interesting return for Derbyshire, dated March 9th, 1558–9, is extant; it is signed by seven justices—George Vernon, Humphrey Bradbourne, Henry Vernon, Francis Curzon, John Frances, Gilbert Thacker, and Richard Pole. Every hundred and township is set forth in detail, both as to the arms and the men. There was only one landowner of sufficient wealth in the county to be called upon to provide all that was requisite for a heavy horseman; but there were ten light horsemen. The total of “the able Footemen harnissed and unharnissed” amounted to 1,211, namely, 56 harnessed archers, 135 harnessed billmen, 236 unharnessed archers, and 784 unharnessed billmen.

A second full certificate of the able men, arms, and weapons throughout the county was forwarded ten years later to the council. With this return a letter was forwarded signed by the Earl of Shrewsbury as lord-lieutenant, as well as by his deputies. A noteworthy paragraph in this letter shows that Derbyshire was not taking kindly to the general substitution of explosive weapons in the place of archery which was then in progress.

The Earl of Shrewsbury received orders in November, 1569, to raise the whole force of Derbyshire and[20] Nottinghamshire, and to proceed against the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, “now in rebellion.” It would be wearisome in a sketch of this character to note the various incidents, which can be gleaned from both the public records and the county muniments, as to the several occasions on which the Derbyshire musters were called out when there was no immediate necessity for their use.

The considerable part that this county played in the safeguarding of Elizabeth’s unhappy prisoner, Mary, Queen of Scots, during her repeated sojourns at Wingfield Manor House, together with her visits to Chatsworth and Buxton, are fully dealt with in another paper in this volume. It may, however, be here remarked that the deplorable execution of Mary, in 1587, and the way in which the youthful Babington had so rashly conspired in her favour, made a great impression upon this county, and caused the Council as well as the local authorities to redouble their precautions. Not only was a certain local undercurrent stirred up in Derbyshire through the Fotheringay execution, but it also had the result of hastening the hostilities of Philip of Spain and other of Elizabeth’s external enemies. There was in consequence at this period frequent exercise of the county forces. The Earl of Shrewsbury’s gout prevented his taking any active part, and the work was chiefly supervised by his brother-in-law, John Manners, the senior of the deputy-lieutenants. A certificate of the musters, as viewed by Manners in November, 1587, shows that there were 400 “selected bands armed and prest for present service”; these bands were divided into 160 “shot,” 80 pikemen, 80 billmen, and 80 archers. It is interesting here to note the remarkable way in which the musket had gained ascendancy over the bow in fourteen years. In addition to the selected 400, Manners returned 1,300 men who were available in times of need, namely, 300 for shot, 300 for pikes, 360 for bills, 200 for bows, 80 as carpenters[21] and wheelwrights, and 60 as smiths. The mounted forces consisted of 9 demi-lances and 178 light-horse.

Wingfield Manor.
(From an Indian Ink Drawing by Colonel Machell, 7th August, 1785.)

This return, large as it was, was not, however, a complete one for the whole county, for none of the musters from the hundred of Scarsdale were allowed to be present for fear of infection. A grievous attack of the plague was then raging at Chesterfield and several of the adjacent parishes. The severity of what is termed in the parish register “the great plague of Chesterfield” may be gathered from the fact that the deaths of that town in June, 1587, were fifty-four, in July fifty-two, and yet the average deaths in Chesterfield for several years about that period were only three a month.

Although Derbyshire was perhaps further removed from the sea-coast than any other county, the threatened approach of the great Spanish Armada appears to have made almost as much stir as in the sea-board counties. The gentlemen of the county consented to greatly increase the number of lances and light-horse, provided that such action should not be taken as a precedent; and they further promised to provide an addition of 400 to the number of unmounted troops. The old earl wrote a brave letter to his sovereign, assuring her that the gentlemen of Derbyshire were both ready and well affected, and that, as for himself, the threatened invasion was making him young again, “though lame in body, yet was he lusty in heart to lead her greatest enemy one blow, and to live and die in her service.”

The signal defeat of Spain brought for some years general peace and quiet throughout the kingdom. The musters in Derbyshire and elsewhere were but rarely called out, save in the winter of 1598–9, when renewed threats from Spain caused Sir Humphrey Ferrers, the most active of the Derbyshire deputy-lieutenants, to view the musters of the various hundreds.

Quite irrespective of the part played by the general musters during this reign in preparation for possible[22] emergencies, there was much stir and excitement in the county, accompanied, no doubt, by a great deal of misery, consequent upon the repeated call for troops to take part in the subjection of Ireland. The levies of troops for Ireland were almost ceaseless during the last quarter of the sixteenth century. It has usually been understood by historians that these raw troops came mainly from Lancashire and Cheshire; but the Belvoir manuscripts, supported by the Acts of the Privy Council and local muniments, show that Derbyshire—possibly as a compliment to her bravery—was being constantly called upon to supply men for these expeditions entirely out of proportion to the limited area and population of the county. It is not surprising to find that these forcibly impressed levies, utterly untrained in military matters, and suffering severely from poor clothing, insufficient food, the dampness of the climate, and frequent infectious disease, perished in large numbers before they could attain to any proficiency. When the Earl of Essex was granted special powers in 1573 to suppress the Irish rebellion, Derbyshire had to submit to the impressment of a hundred men, and a complaint was lodged at the sessions that some of the best lead-miners had been taken for that purpose. The whole story of these forced levies, of the difficulty of conveying them to the ports of Lancashire and Cheshire, of their frequent desertions both en route and even when they had crossed the seas, of the poorness of the weapons and equipments with which they were supplied by the swindling contractors of the day, is a most sorry and sordid tale. Nor could these Derbyshire troops have presented, even when first called out, a particularly attractive or uniform appearance, for the Belvoir manuscripts tell us that they were to be provided, in addition to convenient hose and doublet, “with a cassock of motley and other sea-green colour or russet.”

There was much nervousness with regard to Derbyshire when Elizabeth was on her deathbed, in March, 1682–3.[23] The council were alarmed lest attempts should be made to remove Lady Arabella Stuart (who had a certain kind of claim to the throne) by violence from the custody of her grandmother, the old Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as Bess of Hardwick. They dispatched Sir Henry Brounker in haste with a warrant to all the Derbyshire lieutenants, justices, and constables, to give him all assistance in guarding Arabella, and in the suppression of every form of disorder and riot. On March 25th, Sir Henry met a large body of the deputy-lieutenants and justices at North Wingfield, a short distance from Hardwick Hall, when it was arranged that there should at present be no general view of the musters, but that the constables were to see that the armour was in readiness, and to take other precautions. But whilst they were thus debating, death removed Elizabeth, and on the following day James I. was quietly proclaimed King at Derby without any trace of remonstrance.

Early in the reign of James I. the nature of the general musters or local militia was considerably changed, but their special services were never really needed during the time he was on the throne. In 1624, when James was unhappily persuaded to give authority to the Duke of Buckingham to raise 10,000 men in England to proceed to the Palatinate, this county had some share in the general misfortune. Out of the great disorderly rabble collected by impressment at Dover, half of whom died in the overcrowded vessels from the plague ere they could even be landed, Derbyshire contributed 150 men. These troops from the centre of England were allowed 8d. a day whilst marching to Dover, and they were expected to make at least twelve miles daily. It is probable that James was at Derby in August, 1609, when making a progress from Nottingham to Tutbury Castle. He was certainly in the county towards the close of his life, during the summer progress of 1624. On August 10th the King was at Welbeck, when he knighted two Derbyshire gentlemen,[24] Sir John Fitzherbert of Norbury, and Sir John Fitzherbert of Tissington. In the following week he stopped two nights at Derby with Prince Charles, proceeding thence in the following week to Tutbury. In the latter place he knighted Sir Edward Vernon, of Sudbury.

In no other county in the whole of England is the evidence more clear or detailed than in Derbyshire as to the ill-advised proceedings in the opening part of the reign of Charles I., which eventually brought about the misfortunes of the great Civil War. The methods of raising funds for the Crown after an irregular fashion by way of benevolences and loans, was no new invention of this ill-fated Stuart King. Such exactions, though contrary to statute, were resorted to by Henry VII. in 1491, when he took a “benevolence” from the more wealthy folk for his popular incursion into France. Henry VIII. made like cause for an “aimable graunte” in 1528 and in 1548. Elizabeth appears to have always expected and received valuable “gifts” of money or plate during her progresses, and numerous “loans” demanded and obtained from Derbyshire gentlemen by that Queen were considerable, and a frequent cause of friction when it was found that they were scarcely ever repaid. Charles I., however, was so foolishly advised as to begin his reign by pressing for definite sums, which were ridiculously termed “free gifts.” Derbyshire was practically unanimous in its refusal to the demand. The courts of four of the hundreds duly met in 1626, and declined to pay a single farthing “otherwise than by way of Parliament.” The Derbyshire justices met in session on July 18th, and forwarded to the council the answers from all the hundreds. The first signature to this reply was that of the Earl of Devonshire, and in the whole county only £20 4s. was subscribed.

Two years later the King’s consent was obtained to the Petition of Rights, and thus benevolences or forced loans were put an end to in most explicit terms. The[25] next expedient, however, for raising money without Parliament was still more foolish. A well recognised method for getting together a navy in actual time of war, namely, by issuing ship-writs, had become established in Plantagenet days, and proved of great service to Elizabeth in resisting the Armada. There were also later precedents of 1618 and 1626, but in every one of these cases ship-writs were only served on seaports, and were never issued save for immediate warlike enterprise. The ship-writs, however, of 1634 were served when there was no war or fear of attack; and in the following year the grievance was intensified by serving writs on inland as well as maritime counties and towns. Under the writs of 1635, the small county of Derbyshire was called upon to pay the great sum of £3,500—£90 of which was to be contributed by the clergy. Many in the county actively resisted. Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston, flatly declined to pay a farthing, was put under arrest, taken before the council in London, and his goods distrained. A third ship-writ reached Derbyshire in 1636, but the sheriff could only raise £700, and that with much difficulty. A fourth writ in October of the same year, again demanding £3,500, was served on the new sheriff, Sir John Harper. Resistance was general. The King was compelled in 1640 to summon the “Long Parliament,” which speedily declared all the late proceedings touching ship money to be illegal and void. To this the King consented; but it was too late, the mischief was done.

Charles I., in the earlier part of his reign, was on three occasions the guest of the Earl of Newcastle at Bolsover Castle. The record visit of the three was in 1633, when he was accompanied by his Queen. The entertainment, as Lord Clarendon has it, was “very prodigious and most stupendous.” The expenses for hospitality on this occasion reached the huge total of £15,000; it was during the visit that Ben Jonson’s masque of Love’s Welcome was performed.

[26]

In 1635 Charles I. visited Derby, and slept at the Great House in the market-place. The corporation and townsmen had very good reason to remember this visit, for they gave the Duke of Newcastle for the King a fat ox, a calf, six fat sheep, and a purse of gold to enable him to keep hospitality, with a further present to the Elector Palatine of twenty broad pieces. The King further improved the occasion by “borrowing” £300 off the corporation in addition to his gifts, as well as all the small arms in possession of the town. At the end of the Scottish War in August, 1641, Charles I. passed through Derbyshire, and was again at the county town on the eleventh of August, when he made Sir John Curzon, of Kedleston, and Sir Francis Rodes, of Barlborough, baronets.

The great Civil War began in the summer of 1642 with the raising of the Royal Standard at Nottingham. The registers of All Saints, the great church of the county town, have the following brief chronicle of this dramatic incident: “the 22 of this August errectum fuit Notinghamiæ Vexillum Regale.—Matt. xii. 25.” The vicar, Dr. Edward Wilmot, who made the entry, was a staunch Royalist, and probably employed the Latin tongue knowing full well the general tendency of the opinions of the townsmen. When the news reached Derby, the response was meagre. Hutton, the historian, tells us that about twenty Derby men marched to Nottingham and entered the King’s service. On September 13th the King marched with his army from Nottingham to Derby, but only made one day’s stay in the town, pushing on from thence to Shrewsbury. Within a few months practically the whole of the counties of Derby, Leicester, Stafford, Northampton, and Warwick were united in an association against the King.

Sir John Gell, of Hopton, at once came to the fore as the local energetic supporter of Parliamentary Government, obtaining a commission as colonel from[27] the Earl of Essex. After rousing the county both at Chesterfield and Wirksworth, he marched with a small force to Derby, which he entered on the thirty-first of October, 1642, where he was joined by one of the leading gentlemen of the south of the shire—Sir George Gresley. It would take far more space than can here be afforded to give even the barest outline of the ups and downs of the sad civil strife that raged throughout Derbyshire, for the most part in favour of the Commonwealth, for the next few years. It must suffice to state that the county, apparently owing to its central position, suffered more in various ways, both in loss of men and property of all descriptions, than any other part of the whole of England. Wingfield Manor House, Bolsover Castle, and such great houses as Chatsworth, Tissington, Sutton, and Staveley, were held first by one side and then by the other; whilst important garrisons at places so near to the county boundaries as Welbeck, Tutbury, and Nottingham, contributed to constant raids over the parts of Derbyshire within easy reach.

In 1645 the plight of Derbyshire was most deplorable, through the frequent marches and counter-marches of the hostile forces through its limits; for, although the Parliament held its own throughout the county during the prolonged struggle, the Royalists now and again gained the victory in a skirmish, and succeeded in maintaining their hold in well-garrisoned places for a few months at a time. Both sides, also, found it essential in their campaigns to cross the county in various directions. In August of this year Sir George Gresley and others wrote to the Speaker as to the miserable condition of the county, which had been successively afflicted by the armies of Newcastle, the Queen, Prince Rupert, Goring, and others, who had freely raided from even the poorest of the people during their transits. The enemy, he stated, had lost all their Derbyshire garrisons, but they had been taken by force and at a great charge to the county.[28] Several garrisons on the confines of the county, such as Newark, Tutbury, and Welbeck, still had power and means to levy contributions on the adjacent parts of Derbyshire, and to ruin those who denied them. Moreover, the Scotch army had been for a time very chargeable to the county, for they not only claimed free quarters, but supplied themselves with what horses they required. And now, to crown all, the King’s army had passed through, and made spoil of a great part of the county. Some of the Parliament forces had come to their help, and more were daily expected; but all of them would at least have free quarters, and the owners of the very few horses left in Derbyshire had now small hope of retaining them. The House of Commons was asked to grant them the excise of the town and county for the present maintenance of their own soldiers.

It must also be remembered in estimating the share that Derbyshire had in this momentous conflict, that it has not only to be gauged from what went on within her borders, but from the prominent share which Derbyshire forces took in the battles and skirmishes that took place in other parts of the kingdom. At the very outset of the struggle, Derbyshire troops played an important part round Lichfield and in other parts of Staffordshire. During the winter of 1644–5, Gell’s forces from this county were busy about Newark, and also in Cheshire. In the spring of the latter year they were engaged before Tutbury Castle; and in July, 1648, Derbyshire horse played an important part in the Parliamentary victory at Willoughby, Nottinghamshire.

In this same month the Derbyshire committee were ordered to send sixty of their horse to Pontefract to help in the siege, and to join in the resistance to the invasion from Scotland. On August 18th came the rout of the great army of the Scots, under the Duke of Hamilton, at Preston. The defeated cavaliers disbanded themselves in Derbyshire, dispersing in all directions.[29] Considerable numbers of the Scotch infantry were gradually arrested, having vainly endeavoured to conceal themselves amid the hills and dales of the wild Peak district. One of the most terrible episodes of the strife in the Midlands occurred in the then large church of Chapel-en-le-Frith. A vast number of the Scotch prisoners were crowded into the church, with the shocking result thus curtly entered in the registers:—

Space must be found for a far less tragic incident that occurred in connection with another Derbyshire church in the south of the county earlier in this strife. When the Royalists were making a special effort to regain their hold on Wingfield Manor, Colonel Eyre, with his regiment of 200 men, marching from Staffordshire, passed the night in the church of Boyleston. Major Saunders, a local Derbyshire leader on the Parliament side, heard of this night encampment, and with a small troop of horse surrounded the church, and raising a simultaneous shout at all the windows and doors demanded the instant surrender of all the Royalists under pain of immediate fire. Colonel Eyre’s men, startled from their sleep, were compelled to surrender; they were ordered to come out one by one through the small priest’s door on the south side of the chancel, and as each stepped forth he was seized and stripped of his arms—“and soe,” wrote Major Saunders, “we took men, collours, and all without loss of one man on either side.”

As to the general sympathy of this shire with the Commonwealth proceedings, even after the execution of[30] the King, the Commission of the Peace in 1650 shows how large a proportion of the old county gentlemen were content to accept commissions at the hands of the new rulers. It includes such names as Sir Francis Burdett, Sir Edward Coke, Sir Edward Leach, Sir Samuel Sleigh, Sir John Gell, Nicholas Leeke, John Mundy, Robert Wilmot, Christopher Horton, James Abney, Anthony Morewood, and Robert Eyre. Among the High Sheriffs under the Commonwealth after this date were John Stanhope, of Elvaston, George Sitwell, of Renishaw, and John Ferrers, of Walton.

On the other hand there were many staunch loyalists in the county, who compounded heavily for their estates. Such were Sir Aston Cokayne, Lord Chesterfield, Lord Francis Deincourt, Sir Henry Every, Sir John Harpur, of Swarkeston, Sir John Harpur, of Calke, Sir Henry Hunloke, Sir Francis Rodes, Thomas Leeke, Roland and George Eyre, William Fitzherbert, Henry Gilbert, and Jervase Pole, of Wakebridge.

Among the great store of county muniments at Derby, there are few papers that bring before the mind the incidents of the great civil strife more vividly than the petitions from maimed soldiers addressed to the Quarter Sessions for relief. Thus, in 1649, John Matthew, of Loscoe, stated:—

The petitioner obtained a pension of 12d. a week, which seems to have been the usual rate. After the Restoration the old Parliamentary pensioners were discarded, and their place taken by those who had fought on the other side.

[31]

Notwithstanding the Parliamentary convictions of the majority of the inhabitants of Derbyshire, it is scarcely to be wondered that the county returned with some eagerness to the monarchical faith at the time of the Restoration, for its experiences of the evils of civil warfare had been so peculiarly bitter. The Bill of Indemnity dealt fairly generously with the large majority of those who had been in arms against the late King, or active in the administration of the Commonwealth. No one can be surprised that the extreme penalty of the law was exacted on all those who had sat in judgment on Charles I., and who had not fled the country. It is, however, specially revolting to remember that the bodies of the three leading men among the “regicides”—Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton—were dragged from their graves, hung at the three corners of the gallows erected to grace the anniversary of Charles’ death, cut down and beheaded in the evening, and the heads spiked in front of Westminster Hall. The last two of these distinguished men were of good Derbyshire families.

It is difficult to know at what point to bring this historic sketch to a close when dealing with the memorials of old Derbyshire; nor can more than a few more pages be spared for such a purpose. It may, perhaps, be of some interest and permissible to chronicle with brevity three more incidents of importance in connection with the history of the shire, namely, (1) the Revolution of 1688, (2) the invasion of Derbyshire by Prince Charles in 1745, and (3) the “Pentrich insurrection,” as it has been absurdly termed, of 1817.

Derbyshire, in the person of William Cavendish, fourth Earl and first Duke of Devonshire, may be said to have probably taken the most prominent part in the driving of James II. from his throne, and in the bringing to this country as his successor William of Orange. There can be no doubt that Cavendish eventually became thoroughly and conscientiously convinced as to the true patriotism[32] of the course that he took; but it would be idle to pretend that this distinguished nobleman indulged in his first dislike of James for other than personal motives. William Cavendish was one of the four young noblemen who carried the train of Charles II. at his coronation in 1661. In that year he was returned to Parliament for Derby, and remained a member of the Commons until his father’s death in 1684. He was a man of hasty and most vehement temper; becoming embroiled in a threatened duel in 1675, he was committed to the Tower by the majority of the House for a short period for having broken privilege. From that moment Cavendish took an active part against the court party, and advocated the exclusion from the succession of the Duke of York. After James II.’s accession, the Earl had the bad grace to give way to his fiery temper just outside the King’s Presence Chamber, when he felled to the ground one Colonel Colepepper, who was said to have previously insulted him. For this offence Cavendish was brought before the King’s Bench, when he was fined in the gigantic sum of £30,000, being committed to prison until payment was made. It is said that his mother, the Countess, brought to James II. bonds of Charles I. for double that amount, lent to him by the Derbyshire Cavendishes during the Civil War. The King, however, refused to interfere, but the Earl managed to escape, and fled to his house at Chatsworth. So powerful was Cavendish’s influence over his tenantry, that when the High Sheriff and his posse arrived to arrest him, the Earl coolly turned the tables upon them, imprisoned the whole force at Chatsworth, and held them there until he had arranged for his liberty by giving a bond for the gradual payment of this fine.

The earl used his retirement in Derbyshire in furthering the plots for placing William of Orange on the throne, dispatching an agent in May, 1687, to make a direct offer to William on behalf of himself and other malcontent noblemen. The conspiracy came to a head in this county,[33] the leaders choosing for their place of meeting a room in a small hostelry on the edge of Whittington Moor, near Chesterfield, still known as the Plotting Parlour. The name of this humble inn was changed, after William and Mary came to the throne, from the “Cock and Pynot” to “Revolution” Inn; its restored remnants are now named Revolution House. The original scheme was that William was to land in the north, when Cavendish was at once to seize Nottingham. But these plans were changed, and when the news reached the Midlands that William had landed at Torbay on 5th November, 1688, the Earl of Devonshire put himself at the head of 800 armed friends and retainers, and entered Derby on the 21st of November, when he declared for the Prince of Orange. He obtained some support, but the mayor (John Cheshire) refused to sanction the billeting of the earl’s troops. Thereupon Cavendish proceeded to Nottingham, where he met with more general support, and issued a proclamation justifying the raising and drilling of troops. The new sovereign naturally lavished his favours on his chief supporter. The earl was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Derbyshire in May, 1689, in place of the deposed Earl of Huntingdon, and in 1694 he was created Duke of Devonshire and Marquis of Hartington.

Revolution House at Whittington.

(From “Gentleman’s Magazine,” vol. lxxx, part 2, page 609.)

There was a considerable remnant of Jacobite feeling in the county, particularly amongst the clergy, in the earlier part of the eighteenth century. The Stuart rising of 1715, which came to an end at Preston, caused much stir in Derbyshire, and there were several small tumults in the county town. The town of Derby became much distinguished in 1745 as the furthest place in England to which the brave Prince Charles Edward with his little army penetrated, in what has been rightly termed a gallant effort to achieve the impossible. There is no doubt that a very considerable majority of the upper and middle classes of Derbyshire were on the side of the constituted powers as then established; but the local[34] authorities were fully aware that there was a certain amount of faith in a direct monarchical descent still current, and they were in some doubts as to the views of others in a district such as North Derbyshire, where there was still a considerable minority of adherents to Roman Catholicism. They did not dare, therefore, to call out the militia or any general forces of the county; but at a meeting summoned by the Duke of Devonshire on the 28th of September, at the “George Inn,” Derby, it was resolved to raise 600 volunteers in two companies to resist the pretensions of a “Popish Pretender,” of which the Marquis of Hartington and Sir Nathaniel Curzon, the two knights of the shire, were to be colonels. A subscription list for the necessary funds soon reached a sum of upwards of £6,000, and in the course of the next month the number of troops raised was increased to a thousand. On December 12th these troops were reviewed in the forenoon at Derby by the Duke as Lord-Lieutenant. An hour later an express reached Derby that the vanguard of the Scots had entered Ashbourne, whereupon in the afternoon, to the astonishment of many, the local troops were again drawn up in the market-place, and at ten in the evening “marched off by torchlight to Nottingham, headed by His Grace the Duke of Devonshire.” On the following morning the Scots entered Derby, and though they tarried there for two days, the Derbyshire volunteers had no share in their subsequent retreat and dispersion, for they were well out of the way in the adjoining shire of Nottingham. An amusing and bitter skit was written on the behaviour of this Derbyshire regiment, known as the “Blues” from the colour of their uniform, wherein they were upbraided for vanishing at the very moment when they were urgently needed. The following is one of the concluding paragraphs:—

“And when they came to Retford, they abode until word was brought that the young man was returned from[35] Derby by the way which he came. And they returned back, and when they came nigh Derby they gave great shouts, saying, ‘Hail, Derby! happy are we to behold thee, for we greatly feared never to have seen thee.’”

The Prince was proclaimed in the market-place, and a sum of £3,000 was seized from the excise offices. On the following morning a French priest celebrated Mass in All Saints’ Church after the Roman use, which is said to have annoyed the English Catholics, who used the Marian missal in their private chapels. The Stuart forces quartered in Derby on the first night numbered 7,098, and on the second night 7,148. A small vanguard pushed on as far as Swarkeston bridge, but on the third day, the 6th December, the prince, disappointed of the expected additions to his forces and war chest, ordered a retreat, and the little army again passed through Ashbourne to the north.

To this county belongs the discredit of being the last place in the provinces where that horrible medley of butchery and torture—“hung, drawn, and quartered”—which our forefathers invented as a penalty for high treason, was carried out, although happily in a somewhat modified form. The actually last instance occurred in 1820, when the five Cato Street conspirators were beheaded after being hung. This shocking form of death fell to the lot of a Derbyshire framework knitter and two stonemasons in 1817. This was the time when the distress amongst the working classes in the Midlands had come to a climax, when every project of constitutional reform was stifled, and when a few half-starved men, deliberately incited by the spies and informers of those in authority, planned an abjectly foolish but riotous and murderous scheme to obtain relief, which was hatched at the “White Horse” Inn, Pentrich. The two or three score of labourers who took part in this rising were almost instantly scattered by the yeomanry; but the policy of the Government seems to have been to use this instrument[36] to terrify the populace at large, and thereby to crush all attempts at reform. Hence everything was done that could be to exaggerate the so-called rebellion, and although the misguided ringleaders richly deserved punishment at the hands of the ordinary authority, it seems monstrous to have charged the offenders with high treason, and with the crime of levying war against the King. However, a special commission of four judges was appointed, and the trials at Derby, which extended over ten days, began on 15th of October. Most of the forty-six prisoners were condemned to transportation, but three of the ringleaders, James Brandreth, William Turner, and Isaac Ludlam, received the capital sentence for high treason. The Prince Regent signed the warrant for the execution of these three “traitors,” drawn from the humblest station in life, remitting that part of the sentence which related to “quartering,” with other absolutely unspeakable details, but ordering the hanging, drawing, and beheading. Two axes were ordered of Bamford, a smith of Derby, the pattern being taken from one in the Tower, which was supposed to have served in like cases.

On the morning of Friday, the seventh of November, the three miserable men, heavily ironed, were jolted round the prison yard on a horse-drawn hurdle or sledge, prepared, like the block, by Finney, the town joiner. On mounting the scaffold in front of the county jail, Brandreth and his fellows briefly testified that they had been brought to this plight by the tempting of Oliver, the degraded Government spy. They hung from the gallows for half an hour. Brandreth’s body was the first taken down and placed on the block. The greatest difficulty had been experienced in finding an executioner, but at last the high fee of twenty-five guineas secured several applicants. The chosen headsman was a Derbyshire collier; he was masked, and his identity was never disclosed. The mutilation was bungled; but when accomplished, the executioner seized the head by the hair, and holding it[37] at arm’s length in three different directions over the crowd, thrice proclaimed, “Behold the head of the traitor Jeremiah Brandreth.” The other two were served in like manner. The scaffold was surrounded by a strong force of cavalry with drawn swords, and several companies of infantry were also present. The dense crowd was quite over-awed, and could utter no other protest than “terrifying shrieks.”

In that crowd was the poet Shelley. The day before the execution, the Princess Charlotte died in childbirth, and Shelley seized the opportunity to write a vigorous and now most rare pamphlet drawing a contrast between the two deaths.

The block on which these three men were beheaded is still preserved in the new county gaol at Derby. It consists of two 2½ in. planks fastened together, and measures 6 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. Six inches from one end a piece of wood 3 in. high is nailed across. The whole is tarred over, but the wood, strangely enough, remains damp in places. A tradition used to be current that the block sweated every seventh of November, on the anniversary of the execution; the writer visited it on that day in 1888, and found no difference in the sweating to what he had noticed in the previous week.

With Derbyshire during the century that has elapsed since the time of this absurdly misnamed Pentrich “insurrection,” we have now no concern. Its history during that period has been on the whole peaceful, and, in the best sense of the word, progressive. When in times to come the story of Derbyshire in the nineteenth century comes to be written, there can be no doubt that one name will stand out in letters of gold above its fellows. Florence Nightingale, now in her eighty-eighth year, was the younger daughter of Mr. William E. Nightingale, of Lea Hurst, near Matlock. It would be impossible to exaggerate the talent, energy, and devotion which that lady displayed in her almost impossible task of mitigating[38] the horrors that overtook our sick and wounded soldiers in the great Russian war. It is not too much to say that this one gentle-born lady has entirely changed the conditions of military and general hospital nursing, not only in England, but throughout the civilised world. The Geneva Convention and the wearing of the Red Cross are but some of the fruits of this Derbyshire lady’s noble example.

May it also be permitted in a single brief sentence to record the fact that Derbyshire of the twentieth century has had the honour of giving Chancellors to each of our two great universities—for the Duke of Devonshire has for some time held the office of Chancellor of Cambridge, whilst Lord Curzon of Kedleston, the late Viceroy of India, was elected Chancellor of Oxford in March, 1907.

[39]

PREHISTORIC BURIALS IN DERBYSHIRE

By John Ward, F.S.A.

In prehistoric remains, Derbyshire is singularly favoured, and for two reasons. In the first place, nearly every class of these remains is represented, notably the following: cave-remains, burial-mounds, circles, camps, villages and other habitation sites, and the doubtful rocking-stones and other curious blocks and masses of rock which have been regarded as rock-idols or as otherwise associated with prehistoric man. In the second place, three of these classes—the first three of the above enumeration—are both numerous and important, scarcely surpassed by the corresponding remains of any other county in Great Britain. Moreover, these various remains have received the careful attention of a succession of antiquaries during the last century-and-a-half, and a large number of them have been more or less systematically explored, with the result that their literature is extensive and important. Derbyshire, indeed, has played a prominent part in the elucidation of the prehistoric archæology of our country.

Before entering upon the subject of this article, the distribution of these remains in the county demands a few words. They are most numerous in the mountainous region which lies north of Ashbourne and Wirksworth, and west of Tansley, Darley, and East Moors. They are rarely met with in the more gently undulating country to[40] the east and south. Why this should be is not altogether clear. It is probable that the valleys and the low-lying lands generally, which are now the most populated, were in prehistoric times too swampy for habitation; but this does not explain the general absence of prehistoric remains from the higher tracts of the lowlands of Derbyshire. It has been suggested that the primitive inhabitants clung to the more mountainous regions because of the ease with which they could be defended against the marauding incursions of other tribes. It is more likely, however, that agriculture is mainly responsible for the uneven distribution. The fertile higher tracts of the lowlands have long been under cultivation, whereas many of the Peak uplands still remain in the primal state of nature, and many more of them have only been wrested from that state within the last two centuries. One of the earlier effects of the enclosing of the wastes in the eighteenth century and earlier decades of the following century, was the removal of the large stones of ancient monuments for gate-posts, and the despoiling of stone tumuli for the construction of field-walls and roads. Even on the moors it is rare that these remains have escaped partial demolition for the sake of their materials. If the havoc wrought during two centuries in the sparsely inhabited Peak country has been so great, it is not surprising that few prehistoric remains are to be seen where the land has been for a much longer time under cultivation. Probably the relative abundance or scarcity of stone is also to some extent accountable for the distribution. In the Peak, where stone is plentiful and rock-fragments strew the ground, cairns or stone tumuli abound; but in the south, where clays, marls, and glacial deposits abound, and stone is only obtained by quarrying, the few remaining tumuli are of earth. Earthwork, if left alone, is wonderfully enduring, but is highly susceptible of being levelled, and so obliterated, by the plough. The plough cuts through it as easily as through the natural[41] soil; whereas in the Peak may often be seen the stony bases of cairns, covered with brambles, and avoided by the ploughman.

It is scarcely necessary to say that cairns, barrows, or tumuli, are, archæologically, the names applied to ancient burial-mounds. How the earliest races of men disposed of their dead we do not know; but we know that the earliest stages of civilization were everywhere characterized by a marked consideration for the dead, and this represents the strongest and perhaps ultimate difference between man and beast. When Neolithic man first appeared in our island, he already had an elaborate system of sepulture, and the megalithic chambers he raised are the greatest monuments of his age, and are among the most notable remains of prehistoric times. The Pyramids of Egypt are but barrows on a colossal scale, and constructed with all the engineering skill and refinement of a higher stage of culture than obtained in the west of Europe, and they will probably outlast all the other works of the ancient Egyptians.

It is not difficult to understand why burial under mounds should have preceded burial in the ground. In primitive times, before man possessed metal tools, it was easier to collect stones from the waste or to scrape sand or soil from the surface, wherewith to make a heap, than to dig a hole. Hence it is that in the tumuli of the Neolithic Age, and many of those of the following Bronze Age, interments are found upon or above the old ground level; while in others of the latter age, and many subsequent tumuli, they are found in shallow or deep excavations, over which the mounds were raised. To the early Christians the tumuli savoured of paganism, and soon ceased to be raised, but we have a reminiscence of the ancient mode of burial in our word “tomb.” In our country, as in the west of Europe generally, they range from Neolithic times to the establishment of Christianity, and the study of their contents better enables us to bridge[42] the long interval with the successive advances made by man than does that of any other class of contemporary remains. In Derbyshire this is eminently the case, and perhaps no other English county can furnish so continuous a series of ancient interments.

In this county, as also in the contiguous parts of Staffordshire, a barrow is popularly known as a “low,” from the Anglo-Saxon hlaew, a small hill, heap, or mound, a word which is a frequent component in the place-names, as in Wardlow, Blakelow, etc. The conspicuous barrows at these and many other places so named, leave little room for doubt that they are accountable for the names, and that when absent the names may be regarded as evidence for their former existence. Whether the evidence in the case of hills, so many of the names of which in the Peak end in low, is of the same value is not so clear, as the hill itself may have been regarded as a “low” on a large scale. But it is well known that Neolithic and Bronze man had a decided penchant for burying his dead on the tops and brows of hills, as the pimple-like profile of many a barrow in such situations in the Peak amply proves. It may well have been, then, that the name by which a “low” on a hill was known has become transferred to the hill itself. It is impossible to estimate the number of these ancient burial-mounds in Derbyshire. The experienced eye will often detect on the moors the slight rise on the surface which may represent one, unmarked on the Ordnance Survey, and unrecognised as of possible archæological interest. The large number of low names, where no traces of these mounds are now to be seen, indicates that many have disappeared, as also does the occasional chance discovery of a cist or a cinerary urn where nothing on the surface indicated an interment. The number of prehistoric burial places (the Roman and post-Roman do not come within the scope of this article) which have been discovered in the county and described is little short of 300.

Fig. 1.—Plan and Section of Chambered Tumulus, Five Wells, Derbyshire.

[43]

The first impression that the literature of these remains gives rise to is their great diversity, a diversity which the reader will not unnaturally associate with differences of age or of race, or of both combined; but he will soon find their classification a difficult task. Very few of those which have been explored were in a reasonably perfect condition to begin with, and then the explorations have often been insufficient, and the descriptions vague and inexact. In spite of these drawbacks, however, the Derbyshire barrows are susceptible of satisfactory classification into three main divisions: (1) a small number containing megalithic chambers, and with general consent assigned to the Neolithic Age; (2) a large and varied number which belong to the Bronze Age; and (3) a few which are of later age, some of which certainly synchronize with the Roman occupation. These groups, it should be mentioned, merge into one another by transitional characters, and there is a residue which, from insufficient data, cannot be assigned to any particular class.

Neolithic Barrows

Including several more or less doubtful examples, there are or have been within the last century, remains of about a dozen barrows containing “chambers” in the county. Three of these—at Five Wells, near Taddington, and at Mininglow and Harborough Rocks, near Brassington—have yielded good results to exploration. All three were unfortunately in an extremely ruined condition, but by piecing together their evidence a fair idea can be obtained of their original state.

The Five Wells example (figs. 1 and 2) was excavated by Mr. Salt, of Buxton, and the writer, in 1899.[1] The remaining lower portion of the mound was found to be circular, about 56 feet in diameter, and constructed of quarried stones roughly laid in courses, and so disposed[44] at the margin as to form a wall-like podium, which remained in places to the height of three feet. Near the middle are still to be seen the remains of two chambers, each about six feet long, and constructed of great slabs of stone resting on the old natural surface. Each had a paved floor, and was reached by a tunnel-like passage or gallery, of similar construction to the chambers, from a porthole-like entrance in the podium. Each chamber is somewhat wedge-shaped, the wider end being that into which the gallery opened, and immediately within this end are two pillar-like stones, one on each side, which structurally formed the last pair of side stones of the gallery; but they differed in their greater height. The use of these “pillars” is uncertain, but the writer has suggested that between each pair was a dropstone, which when raised, portcullis-fashion, to allow of access to the chamber, was received into an upper space.

The Mininglow example is larger, is also circular, and appears to have had five chambers, of which two (figs. 4 and 5) closely resemble the above, except that they seem to have lacked the “pillars.” Mr. Thomas Bateman, who examined this tumulus in 1843, found that it had a wall-like podium as at Five Wells, and he traced one of the galleries to its orifice in this podium. Had he pushed his investigations further, it is probable he would have found the mound to be of similar built construction.[2] The Harborough Rocks barrow was excavated by the writer in 1889, but it was too ruined to allow of its shape and the number of its chambers to be determined. One chamber (fig. 3), however, remained, and this also resembled those at Five Wells, but it is doubtful whether it ever possessed “pillars.” A portion of the gallery was traced, as also what was almost certainly a fragment of a podium.[3]

Fig. 2. East Chamber at Five Wells. View From the North-East.

Of the other barrows of the type, little can be said of[45] their structure. Several have been opened or destroyed by labourers, and the rest have only been slightly examined. Mr. Bateman examined examples at Ringham-low, near Monyash; Bolehill, near Bakewell; Stoneylow and Greenlow, near Brassington; Smerrill, near Youlgreave; and a second one at Mininglow. They all appear to have been constructed with stone, and their chambers to have been on a megalithic scale. He makes no mention of galleries, but as his efforts were confined to clearing out the ruined chambers, he might easily have overlooked their remains. With the exception of the first-mentioned, they were all circular, but his plan and description of that barrow leave it uncertain whether its curious outline was original or due to additions. The remaining three barrows—the great one near Chelmerton,[4] one near Wardlow,[5] and one on Derwent Moor,[6] have only a doubtful claim to be included in the chambered class. They were broken into a century or more ago, and the accounts of them are very meagre.

Unfortunately, all the chambers in this county which have been searched from scientific motives had already been rifled, but that at Harborough Rocks had suffered least. Here the mound had been almost entirely removed for the sake of its materials, the capstone of the chamber had been thrown over, and many of the skeletons it contained scattered; but, fortunately, six of these remained untouched. These were laid on their sides across the space, in the usual contracted or doubled-up attitude. Mr. Bateman, in 1843, found in the more perfect of the two Five Wells chambers the remains of about twelve skeletons, all in a state of confusion. He also found a similar number in one of the Ringham-low[7] chambers, and in that at Smerrill, and a still greater[46] number at Stoney-low.[8] The chambers at Mininglow and Greenlow had been too much rifled to yield more than a few scattered bones to his spade. In the Wardlow barrow seventeen skeletons were found, “inclosed by two side walls”; and from that on Derwent Moor a “cartload of human bones occupied a large trench above a yard wide.” The skulls in every case, when sufficiently perfect for their form to be made out, have been of the long or dolichocephalic shape; and all the shin bones that have come under the writer’s notice have exhibited the peculiar flattening known as platycnemism. These Neolithic people had a remarkable immunity from dental caries, although the teeth are frequently so worn down by mastication that they must have been almost level with the gums in life. Out of 148 teeth at Harborough Rocks, many of which were excessively ground down, there were only five or six which showed any signs of caries.

In no case has a bronze or other metallic object been found associated with these interments. The few stone implements which have been found are all of flint, and it is significant that these have consisted mostly of thin and delicately-worked arrow-heads of leaf-shaped form. The clayey floor of the gallery at Harborough Rocks yielded several of these, all excessively thin and beautifully wrought, all either broken or calcined, and associated with fragments of charcoal. Several fine examples were found in two of the Ringham-low chambers, and the point of one at Five Wells; and, in addition, a knife of delicate workmanship was also found with the last, as also fragments of coarse pottery, but these may have been derived from destroyed later burials at a higher level.

Figs. 3, 4, and 5.—Plans of “Chambers.” Fig. 3, at Harborough Rocks; Figs. 4 and 5, at Mininglow, Derbyshire.

This association of numerous skeletons, dolichocephalic skulls, and leaf-shaped arrow-heads in Neolithic chambers[47] has been observed elsewhere in Britain. We need only cross the Derbyshire border a few miles for an excellent example of this. In 1849 a large and little disturbed chamber was opened at Wetton, in Staffordshire, which yielded about thirteen dolichocephalic skeletons and several of these arrow-heads. Further afield, at Rodmarton, in Gloucestershire, the arrow-heads were all broken, apparently intentionally, as seems to have been the case at Harborough Rocks. The placing of things which are useful in life with the dead is both ancient and widespread, and has its roots in the belief in man’s continued existence after death, and that somehow they will still be of use to him. The breaking or burning of them may have been partly to render them useless to the living, and partly by thus “killing” them to set their spirits free to join the departed in the world of spirits. Perhaps, too, there was a sacrificial intention of propitiating the ancestral spirits. The presence of the arrow-heads in the gallery at Harborough Rocks is more suggestive of offerings to the dead than the depositing of objects with them at the burial. Some prehistoric man would, perhaps, for reasons best known to himself, crawl into the entrance to the vault of the family or the clan and there make his offering, and with some appropriate formula dedicate it to the dead by breaking or burning the objects, the enduring arrow-heads and charcoal alone remaining to us as witnesses of the act. The thinness and delicacy of these arrow-heads suggest that they were made, not for use, but for this special purpose, like the amber and jet models of implements which have been found in Continental chambers. A further stage, in which the act has become degraded into a purely representative one, is seen in the imitation cardboard money which the Chinaman burns to enrich the soul of his ancestor.

Assuming that the less known examples correspond with the better known, which seems probable, these Derbyshire Neolithic burial-places constitute, in their[48] circular outlines and their abrupt entrances, a strongly marked local type, contrasting in these respects with the more usual elongated forms and incurved entrances elsewhere. The wedge-shaped plans and inward leaning sides of the chambers at Mininglow, Five Wells, and Harborough Rocks, present another peculiarity. The apparent absence of galleries in some of these remains may not be due to oversight or want of investigation, as this means of access has been proved to be absent from some of the barrows of this period; but it seems to be an essential that the chamber should have some means of access, even if it involved digging, for the whole trend of enquiry goes to show that it was designed for successive burials, and herein it differs from the cists of the barrows we next consider.

Bronze Age Barrows

The barrows of this era in Derbyshire, as elsewhere, differ so much among themselves in form, size, construction, and contents, that it is impossible to establish a Bronze Age “type.” They have little in common, except in the relics associated with their interments, which have the impress of a common age. Compared with the chambered class, they are, as a rule, smaller and of less elaborate construction; but more marked is the difference in their internal arrangements. The former barrows suggest the idea that they were erected to receive the dead; these, that they were piled up over the dead. The chamber, being designed to receive successive interments, was provided with a tunnel-like gallery, or other means of more or less easy access; whereas the Bronze Age cist or grave, having received its charge, was permanently closed, and if the mound which was raised over it was used for future burials, new receptacles were made for the dead, which rarely interfered with the primary or original one. Sometimes, however, in digging a new[49] grave the primary was reached, and more often than not the bones were thrown on one side to make way for the new interment, thus indicating how completely the Neolithic procedure had disappeared.

The results of the examination of about 250 of the Derbyshire Bronze Age barrows have been placed upon record, and these represent about three times as many interments which have been described—by “interment” must be understood, not the remains of each separate body buried, but each burial, whether it consisted of one body or more.

So far as can be judged from the usually worn down and mutilated condition of these Derbyshire barrows, the prevailing original form was that of a shallow dome or inverted bowl, but various transitions ending with the disc-shaped types of Dr. Thurnam occur. Their outlines are circular, unless rendered irregular by the addition of secondary mounds or the depredations of a still later age. Their usual diameters range between 30 and 60 feet, and the heights rarely exceed 6 feet; but these dimensions are occasionally less or greater. With few exceptions, the mounds are of stone, or of stone with an admixture of earth; but whether the latter is an original ingredient is often uncertain—it may be merely blown earth and vegetable mould. Broadly speaking, therefore, these Bronze Age barrows are cairns. In most instances they consist of such stones as may be gathered from the surface, simply thrown together. A slight advance upon this is the introduction of a kerb of larger stones to define the margin of the mound (fig. 6). In a further advance, the kerb is formed of one or more rings of large, flat stones set on edge in the ground and inclining inwards. In a still further advance, the whole mound may be built up of concentric rings of such inclined stones. The barrow on Grinlow[9] (on which the tower known as “Solomon’s[50] Temple” stands), near Buxton, showed this construction (fig. 7). In the kerbed barrows, the partial removal of the looser materials of the central portion may result in a table-like mound, the kerb forming a well-marked shoulder; and if the destructive process has gone further, this may stand out verge-like—results which have been mistaken for original designs. Examples of all these are to be met with in Derbyshire.

These barrows, again, are sometimes surrounded with a bank or a ring of stones, or a combination of the two. That known as Hob Hurst’s House, on Baslow Moor,[10] is closely invested with an annular bank, and the writer has seen a similar example on Eyam Moor. In others, the bank is further away, and is usually capped or lined with a row of standing stones, a few feet or yards apart. There was formerly a good example of this variety on Abney Moor, and others on Eyam Moor with rings apparently of stones only. As the ring expanded, the enclosed mound seems to have been smaller, and consequently more easily removed by the accidents of time; and this probably explains the origin of the smaller so-called “Druidical” circles.[11]

Fig. 6.—Section of Barrow at Flaxdale, near Youlgreave.
(From wood-cut by Llewellynn Jewitt.)

Fig. 7.—Section of Barrow at Grinlow, near Buxton.

Fig. 8.—Plan of Burial at Thirkelow, near Buxton.

During the period we are considering, both inhumation and cremation were practised, sometimes together. The placing of the interments was as diverse as the forms and construction of the barrows. For the moment we will confine ourselves to the inhumated class. In the simplest mode of burial, the body was laid on the ground and the mound heaped over it. But often, perhaps usually, something was done to fence it in, or to protect it from the material of the mound. The simplest fence consisted of a row of stones placed round the body (as in the plan of the interment of a barrow at Thirkelow, near Buxton, fig. 8[12]), and between this and the[51] symmetrical enclosure, formed of flag-stones set on edge, has been found every transition. When it was desired to protect the body from the weight of the mound above, a simple device was to place it at the foot of a large stone or a ledge of rock, against which flat stones were reared pent-wise over it; or large stones were made to incline against one another from opposite sides, like a gable roof. From these simple devices we pass through another series of transitions to the box-like cist, formed of slabs on end and roofed with others. Then there was burial in a grave, shallow or deep, large or small, simply filled up with earth or stones, or roofed with one or more flag-stones to form a vault; and the vault, when lined with other flag-stones, became an underground cist. Examples of all these modes of burial have been found in Derbyshire, where, from the abundance of stone, cists are numerous. We know that timber was used for like purposes where stone is scarce, and there is indirect evidence for its occasional use in this county.

What has been said above, will apply in some measure to the cremated interments. Occasionally these are found in cists, graves, and other receptacles, as large as those containing unburnt skeletons; but more frequently they are smaller and better proportioned to the small compass of the remains. Probably the larger receptacles relate to the early days of cremation, when it was a new fashion; to-day, by force of habit, we occasionally transfer the few handfuls of ashes from the crematorium to an ordinary coffin instead of an urn for burial. Generally speaking, however, the disposal of the cremated remains differed considerably from that of unburnt bodies. When the funeral pile was raised on the spot where the burial was to take place, it was the common custom to collect the calcined bones into a little heap on the surface, or to place them in a shallow depression made before or after the burning. In either case, they were sometimes deposited on a flat stone, and there is reason to think[52] that they were often first tied up in a cloth or placed in a basket. This would be especially convenient when they had to be transferred to a different site for burial from that where the body was burned, as seems to have been more often the case in Derbyshire. A more notable receptacle for the burnt remains was the cinerary urn, which may be regarded as the equivalent of both the cloth or basket and of the cist. The urn was usually deposited in a simple hole, and most often, in this county, upright, the mouth being nearly always covered with a thin stone. When reversed, the mouth usually rested upon such a stone.

The regard of the Derbyshire Bronze people for their dead sometimes—and perhaps more often than we suspect—went beyond the mere provision of a protection from the surrounding soil or stones. Occasionally the receptacle was paved, or it contained gravel, clay, or fine earth or sand, on which the body was laid, or in which it was embedded. On Stanton and Hartle moors several cists containing cremated remains were filled with sand, which in one rested on a bed of heather.[13] In a grave at Shuttlestone,[14] near Parwich, the body had been wrapped in a skin, and laid upon a couch of fern leaves. In another, near King’s Sterndale,[15] there was tenacious clay mixed with grass and leaves, which still retained their greenness. The presence of these perishable substances, which under ordinary conditions must have soon disappeared, may represent a general custom.

The dead were evidently buried or cremated, as the case may have been, in their wearing apparel, for the pins, buttons, studs, weapons, and the like, which are frequently found with the unburnt remains, are often in the relative positions they would occupy on the attire;[53] and in case of the burnt, they have almost invariably passed through the fiery ordeal.

Fig. 9.—Dolichocephalic Skull from “Chamber” at Harborough Rocks. Side and Top Views. (Scale = ⅓.)

Barrow burial in Derbyshire, as elsewhere, was not confined to one sex or to any particular age. The remains of women and children are found in graves and cists as carefully constructed and associated with implements and ornaments as varied and elaborate as those which appertain to the men, indicating, surely, that the family tie was strong, and that the lot of the women was not servile. The frequency with which an infant is associated with an adult, usually a woman, and presumably the mother, probably points to infanticide upon the demise of the parent. Similarly, the occasional presence of a woman’s remains with those of a man points to suttee. More frequently a deposit of cremated bones is associated with a skeleton, and this may possibly represent the sacrifice of a slave. These in themselves, however, do not necessarily indicate a state of savagery, as the recent prevalence of suttee in India and of infanticide in China sufficiently prove.

In the unburnt interments, the body was laid in a more or less contracted posture, varying from a slight flexure of the knees to such a doubling up as to bring them close to the chest, and nearly always on the side, very rarely sitting. The contracted posture may be said to be the invariable Bronze Age rule in Derbyshire, for the only exception—a skeleton laid at full length at Crosslow[16]—may possibly have belonged to a later period. The side on which the body was laid, and its orientation, have in themselves no apparent signification, and are irrespective of sex or age. To judge from the recorded instances, about as many were laid on the left side as the right. Their orientation shows a slight predilection for the south, and a more marked aversion to the north-west. The Rev. Dr. Greenwell pointed out many years[54] ago[17] that in the majority of instances in the north of England which came under his notice, the bodies had been so placed as to face the sun during some part of the day, nearly 60 per cent. having their gaze confined to southerly directions between the south-west and the south-east. If we analyse the forty-four Derbyshire cases in which both the orientation and the side are given, we obtain a similar result—the faces of over 60 per cent. looking in directions ranging from west to south-east. It seems clear that no importance was attached to the direction of the body or the side upon which it was laid, except so far as these enabled it to face the source of light and life; but it was not a rule invariably insisted upon.

These skeletal remains throw an interesting light upon the contemporary inhabitants of Derbyshire. Unfortunately, when Bateman was so actively engaged in opening barrows, anthropology was in its infancy. He and his colleagues rarely gave more than the cephalic index and femoral length, and even these not always. The terms used in describing the skulls, as “boat-shaped,” “oval and elevated,” “medium,” “rather short,” “platycephalic,” “evenly rounded,” etc., do not admit of precise interpretation, and probably no exact value was attached to them. From all sources sufficient particulars of about 85 Bronze Age skulls found in Derbyshire are available to allow of the following classification:

This intermixture of skull-forms has long been observed in the barrows of this age elsewhere in the[55] country, and is generally recognized as indicating the intrusion of a round-head people upon the Neolithic long-heads, the intermediate form being the result of intermarriage between the two stocks. The proportion of these different forms in Derbyshire is of peculiar interest, because, as the Rev. Dr. Greenwell pointed out in his British Barrows, the dolichocephalic and brachycephalic skulls are found in about equal numbers in the barrows of the wolds, whereas in those of the south-west of the island the latter very greatly preponderate. Hence, in Derbyshire, the ratio, like its geographical position, is roughly intermediate, and thus naturally confirms his conclusion, “that the earlier long-headed people were more completely eradicated by the intrusive round-heads in Wiltshire than they were in East Yorkshire.” The general experience has been that the brachycephalic skeletons indicate a race of more powerful physique than the people with whom they intermingled. Assuming that the length of the femur or thigh-bone is 27.5 per cent. of the stature in life, the average stature of twenty-one men was 5 ft. 7⅓ ins., and of seven women 5 ft. 0½ ins. The difference between these statures, nearly 7 ins., considerably exceeds that which obtains in England to-day, and must probably be set down to the effects of early child-bearing and hard work on a poor and irregular diet upon the Bronze women.

Fig. 10.—Brachycephalic Skull from Grinlow. Side and Top Views. (Scale = ⅓.)

The various objects associated with the interments have, as already stated, the impress of a common age. The most remarkable are the earthen vessels. Besides the cinerary urns referred to above, there were vessels of other forms, which have received the names of “drinking-cups,” “food-vases,” and “incense-cups.” The first two are with little doubt rightly named, as both in Derbyshire and elsewhere traces indicating the former presence of liquids and of solid foods have been detected in them respectively. The use of the diminutive “incense-cups” is unknown, and the name is a fanciful one. All[56] these vessels are of clay, with an admixture of sand or crushed stone to prevent them cracking in the process of firing, and are shaped by hand and imperfectly burnt. The ornamentation is essentially of the same character in all, but it varies greatly in elaboration, consisting of various combinations of straight lines, produced for the most part by the impression of twisted thongs or rushes or of notched stamps, or, less frequently, of grooves made with a pointed tool. These combinations are extremely varied, consisting of simple bands of parallel lines, parallel lines in alternate series, horizontal and vertical, saltires, zig-zags, “herring-bone” and latticed diapers, etc. Punched dots and impressions of the finger-nail or tip also occur, but sparingly. The forms of the drinking-cups, food-vases, and cinerary urns are tolerably constant in Derbyshire, but the little incense-cups vary very much; these, too, are usually the most carefully made, while the urns are, as a rule, the coarsest and the least decorated. In figs. 11 and 12 are shown Derbyshire examples of each kind, which will convey a better idea of them than any description.

Fig. 11.—Typical Examples of Bronze Age Burial Vessels, Derbyshire.
A—Drinking-Cups. B—Food-Vases. (Scale = 1/5 size of originals.)

Flint implements, flakes, and fragments are the most frequent accompaniments. The implements include all the ordinary forms of the period: arrow, javelin and spear-heads, daggers, knives, scrapers, fabricators, and chisels, of every grade of workmanship down to nondescript-worked fragments of uncertain use. The majority of the flint objects are, however, mere shapeless fragments and chippings, and the frequent presence of these seems to indicate that the placing with the dead of things useful in life had already begun to degenerate into a merely symbolic ceremony.

Bronze objects follow next, but a long way behind. Of these the most numerous by far are knife-daggers, the rest consisting of awls, pins, axes, or celts, etc., and mere fragments. The first are of the early form, in which the blade was attached to the handle by two or three rivets, and the axes are of the early flat or slightly flanged form. Next come objects of bone and deer-horn; the former consisting mostly of pins and borers, and the latter of hammers. Then follow jet and Kimmeridge—coal beads, studs, and necklaces, several of these being of elaborate character. Besides the above, drilled and polished basalt and granite axe-hammers, whet-stones, rubbers, quartz pebbles, red ochre, and iron ore are occasionally met with. The animal remains associated with the interments are those of species still existing in Europe, and they include the present domesticated animals—the ox, sheep, goat, pig, horse, and dog. So frequently has a tooth, described as that of an ox or a horse, been reported that there is little doubt its introduction had some ceremonial import; perhaps, here again, it was a food offering reduced to a representative symbol.

Besides the various objects actually found with the interments, others often occur amongst the materials of the mounds. Some of these may have been unwittingly gathered up with the materials, and thus be of much greater age than the barrows in which they are found; others may have been casually dropped in after times, and have gravitated into the interior. But a more fertile source of the scattered objects is the disturbance of the earlier interments by the introduction of the later ones.

The objects described above fall into two, but not easily separated, classes—those which were introduced with the wearing apparel of the deceased, and those with ceremonial import. The vessels are a good example of the latter, as they differed in a marked degree from those used for domestic purposes. So also the animals’ bones, especially the teeth just referred to, as they evidently (as also the drinking-cups and food-vessels) imply offerings of food to the dead. The absence of Roman influence is noteworthy, as also is the absence of articles characteristic of the later Bronze Age, as swords, palstaves, and socketed axes. The objects[58] indicate in the aggregate a time when stone implements were going out of use, and bronze was confined to a few light implements. But it must not be assumed in consequence that the barrows we are considering were confined to the earlier Bronze Age.

The remarkable differences in the mode of interment, which have been only sketchily described on the foregoing pages, present a highly interesting problem to be solved. The prevailing view is that these different modes were practised simultaneously by different tribes, and even by the same people. The double interments, in which an unburnt skeleton is associated with a deposit of cremated remains, may seem to countenance the latter view, while the distribution of the interments favours the former. For instance, in certain districts certain modes prevailed. On and around Stanton Moor, and throughout the country between Eyam, Castleton, and Sheffield, cremated interments predominate, while in many parts of the west of the county the interments are exclusively unburnt. Then, again, in barrows containing many burials there is a decided partiality for like rather than unlike interments. But if the phenomena are subjected to a careful and systematic study, it will be found that these differences are neither local nor tribal, but in the main consecutive.

The problem is solved by the superposition and other evidences of sequence of the different interments in those barrows which contain several, with the comparison of the associated objects, and then by a general correlation of the results derived from the individual barrows. It is by a similar process that the geologist establishes the sequence of his formations; the fossils playing the part of the associated objects. The pottery is a peculiarly valuable factor in the enquiry, as in spite of the conservatism of half-civilised people, the ease with which the plastic clay can be modelled into any desired shape resulted in comparatively rapid changes in form and decoration. In this respect the pottery contrasted with[59] the flint and stone implements, the intractability of the materials of which limited the workman to a narrow range of forms; hence these forms continued unchanged through long periods. We will now give a few illustrations.

Fig. 12.—Typical Examples of Bronze Age Burial Vessels, Derbyshire.
A—Incense-Cups. B—Cinerary Urns. (Scale = 1/5 size of originals.)

In a barrow at Parcelly Hay[18] Mr. Bateman found a skeleton in a vault, and immediately above its cover-stones was another, accompanied with a bronze knife-dagger and a polished granite axe-hammer. Here is a case of simple superposition, in which the older interment was not disturbed by the later one. But frequently the later introduction disturbed or quite displaced the earlier. At Gray Cop,[19] near Monsal Dale, for instance, the original interment consisted of the skeletons of a woman and a child; but at a later date the cremated remains of another body had been buried so deeply that the woman’s pelvic bones had been dispersed in the process. The havoc wrought by the introduction of secondary interments is sometimes very confusing, and has given rise to erroneous conclusions on the part of the barrow-digger. In the two examples just cited, the earlier interment was the primary one—the one over which the mound was raised in the first instance—and it occupied the normal position, the centre of the site. The secondary interments may or may not be in the centre. In a small barrow at Lidlow,[20] near Youlgreave, for instance, the primary interment was a skeleton in a cist, while near the margin of the mound was a later deposit of burnt bones under a cinerary urn. In another at Blakelow[21] a central grave contained the skeletons of a woman and infant with a drinking-cup, while in a cist at a higher level near the edge were six more skeletons with a food-vase. In another on Hartle Moor[22] was a deposit of burnt bones with a food-vessel in the central cist, and near the margin a cinerary urn with its contents.

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It has occasionally happened, however, that no central interment has been recorded. In some cases we may suspect that the explorers had forgotten that the primary interment is sometimes in a deep grave below the natural level. On the other hand, carelessness on the part of those who originally raised the mound may account for the interment being out of the centre. The same result has been brought about by additions to the original mound upon the occasions of new interments, for the Bronze folk were not always content with merely inserting these into an old mound. Sometimes the additional matter formed a capping. A barrow on Ballidon Moor[23] furnishes a good example of this; it had an inner cairn containing several interments, and was surmounted with a thick layer of earth, at the foot of which was an ashy stratum representing the site of a funeral pile, while in the earth above were the cremated remains derived from it. It was evident, therefore, that this capping was added on this occasion. More often the later mound was thrown up against the side of the old one. The smaller chambered cairn at Mininglow[24] was found to have had a mound of earth cast up against its side, and this had been raised over the spot where a man had been cremated, with whose remains were a bronze dagger, part of a bone implement, and some “good flints,” all of which had passed through the fire with their owner; and at Five Wells, Mr. Salt found a secondary interment of Bronze Age type, consisting of a contracted skeleton in a small cist, which had been constructed against the podium of the chambered cairn, and covered with stones and earth—two interesting proofs of the greater age of the chambered tumuli. These additions are not easily detected if their materials are similar to those of the parent mounds, but their effect may be apparent in the superficial irregularities they give rise to. Not a few Derbyshire examples could be given which probably owe their irregularities to this cause.

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These illustrations will have given the reader an idea how the sequence of interments is determined. Many years ago the writer tabulated the sequences in all the Derbyshire (including the Staffordshire) barrows containing more than one interment each, of which reliable information was obtainable. When those associated with vessels, other than cinerary urns, were classified, some significant results were obtained. The distribution of the vessels was as follows:

It is a question whether the smaller food-vases associated with the burnt interments should not be classed as incense-cups, as the two forms often approximate; but this does not vitiate the general results.

That this table represents a sequence is proved by the fact that in no barrow containing a number of interments has one associated with a drinking-cup been found under conditions to suggest that it may have been of later introduction than a neighbouring food-vase or cinerary urn, nor is there an example of a food-vase interment succeeding an inurned one; whereas the contrary has frequently been noted.

If we apply the test of horizontal position, we find that, compared with the other interments, a much larger proportion of those with drinking-cups were central, while those in urns were as markedly lateral, indicating that the first were predominantly primary interments, and the last secondary. But the vertical position gives even more[62] definite results. The normal position of a primary interment is on or below the old natural surface; that of a secondary, on or above that level.

The following table gives the percentages of these positions when ascertainable:—

It will be observed that in descending order the proportion of those below the natural level decreases, and of those above increases, the inference being that the ratio of primary to secondary interments decreases.

These groups are further differentiated by the implements and other objects associated with them. These are, as a rule, more numerous in the drinking-cup interments and least so in the inurned. The flint implements of the former are usually the more carefully wrought. Two other peculiarities of the drinking-cup interments may be noted. With five of them was an instrument described as a mesh-rule or a modelling tool, made from the rib of some animal; but these instruments have not been found with other Bronze Age interments in the county. The other peculiarity is that in all these interments, the body, when it has been recorded, lay on its left side. Both these peculiarities are also characteristic of the drinking-cup interments of Staffordshire.

From these various data it is evident that very early in the Bronze Age inhumation was the normal mode of sepulture. The body, probably clad in the clothing of life, was laid on its side in a contracted attitude on the natural surface or in a grave, with or without a fencing or protection of some sort, which in its highest development took the form of a cist. Food was certainly often, if not invariably, placed with it; but all we know of this, as also any other articles which were present, are[63] the less perishable portions that have survived the withering hand of Time—the bronze blade of a dagger-knife, the head of an axe, or the flint point of an arrow. Now and again a vessel of clay was also placed with the deceased—the vessel familiar to us as the “drinking-cup.” Later, but still early in the age, and while as yet the mode of burial was unchanged, this gave place to the food-vase. Whether this vessel was derived from the former is uncertain. Derbyshire provides no intermediate forms, and this seems to be general throughout the country. But the period of transition may have been short, and transitional forms may yet be forthcoming.

We have guardedly spoken of inhumation as the normal mode of sepulture at this early period, for cremation was both known and practised, perhaps from the very first. The occasional presence of a deposit of burnt human bones with these contracted interments has already been noticed. Whether, as was then suggested, it represents the immolation of a slave on the occasion of the burial or not, there is little doubt that it should be regarded as a subordinate feature, and the skeleton, as the interment proper. Fire certainly played an important part in these early funerals, as the frequent presence of a little charcoal indicates. Why? We can only guess. It must have had a religious import—the ceremonial purification of the grave, perhaps; and this might well have now and again included a human sacrifice.

There is little doubt that the drinking-cup was introduced from the Continent,[25] and one is tempted to connect its introduction with the brachycephalic newcomers, as also the introduction of bronze. The immigration seems to have been of a peaceful nature, and however much the powerfully-built “round-heads” may have influenced and even dominated the native population, they were numerically only a small element in it, and were[64] ultimately—perhaps before the close of the Bronze Age—absorbed by it.

Before the food-vase ran its course, cremation, in the proper sense of the term, made its appearance, and soon became the general fashion. Perhaps it would be going too far to say that it supplanted inhumation. For anything we know to the contrary, the latter still continued in vogue in some parts of the country to the Roman period. At first, it would seem, the cremated remains were deposited in cists, or otherwise entombed after the manner of unburnt bodies; but soon the more appropriate cinerary urn made its appearance, as also the changeful and enigmatical little incense-cup. That the cinerary urn was derived from the food-vase is almost beyond doubt, for although Derbyshire has not supplied examples bridging the two, vessels of intermediate form and associated with burnt remains, but not containing them, have been found in the north.

Meanwhile, the objects placed with the dead became fewer and more meagre in character, until at length they were reduced to little more than fragments of flint, representing a rite, perhaps, with a lost meaning. Less care was expended on the sepulchral vessels as time went on, but the delicacy of some of the incense-cups proves that this was a rule with exceptions. The general trend of evidence goes to show that the later mounds raised over the dead were smaller and less stereotyped in form than those of old. Ringed barrows and the smaller “circles” are associated with cremated interments, especially those of the cinerary-urn stage, in Derbyshire.

“Late” Prehistoric Barrows.

The interval between the last barrows and the Roman period presents many difficulties to the student of the ancient sepulchral remains of Derbyshire. A few—barely two dozen—barrows have been opened in the county which had certain features in common that markedly[65] differentiated them from those of the Bronze Age on the one hand and from the post-Roman or Anglo-Saxon on the other. Some of these, perhaps most, can certainly be assigned to this interval; and of the rest, several seem to as conclusively belong to the Roman period. As these differ much from the typical Romano-British barrows, they may be held to prove that the Romanization of the natives of the district was a slow and retarded process. From the extremely ruined condition of these barrows and their usually meagre contents it is only by comparing them together, and especially with the larger number of the same type in the adjacent parts of Staffordshire, that anything conclusive can be learned of their original characteristics.

The mounds are sometimes of considerable size, and are wholly or largely built up of fine materials, as earth, clay, sand, and gravel; and if large stones enter into their composition, they are not intermixed with the finer constituents, but form a platform or pavement, a layer, or a capping. Occasionally they disclose the curious constructional feature of two or more different materials arranged in alternate layers. Such a barrow was opened at Gorsey Close,[26] near Tissington, in 1845; its soil was found to be interspersed with alternate layers of moss and grass. Another at Roylow,[27] near Sheen, gave very similar results. It is also noticeable that these barrows are often found in comparatively low-lying places.

In every known instance, the interment over which the mound was raised had undergone cremation, and this applies to the few secondary interments which have been noticed. The bodies had invariably been burned on the spot, and the hard-baked floors, strewn with charcoal and ashes, are a notable feature of these “late” barrows. The excessive heat of the funeral pile has so completely reduced the bones that they have often[66] escaped detection altogether. There is reason to think that these calcined remains were sometimes left as they were deposited by the fire; but in a few instances they were found occupying a shallow circular hole in the natural surface into which they had been swept after the fire was extinguished. This may have been a common practice, for the presence of a small depression of the kind might easily be overlooked by the explorer. On the other hand, there was evidence that in some of these barrows the human ashes had been collected and placed near the summit of the mound; and the large stones which have occasionally been observed in this position may have been the relics of the receptacle which contained them. We thus seem to have a “low-level” and a “high-level” type, but whether this indicates a difference of period is by no means certain. The general trend of evidence shows that some effort was made to seal down, so to speak, the site of the pyre and its contents by a layer of puddled clay or earth, which was hardened by a fire upon it, or by a layer of large stones instead.

The articles associated with the interments, or, rather, the sites of the piles, consist mostly of potsherds and rude implements and chippings of flint, which are usually described as burnt. The potsherds appear in every case to have been introduced as potsherds, and they also appear to have belonged to the ordinary domestic vessels of the time. That the introduction of these and the flints, together with the pebbles which have occasionally been observed, had a religious significance can hardly be questioned; and doubtless it is to this custom, which was widespread and not confined to our shores, that the passage in Hamlet refers, anent the burial of Ophelia, that “sherds, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.” Ophelia was supposed to have perished by her own hands, and this pagan rite, reversed under the Christian regime into a symbol of execration, was deemed more fitting in such a case than “charitable prayers.”

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Other objects than these rarely occur in these barrows, and they mostly relate to the personal attire of the deceased. Two bronze daggers and a pin, and a bone pin or two, have been found—all burnt; but the most remarkable “find” consisted of twenty-eight convex bone objects, marked with dots and described as draughtsmen, and two ornamented bone combs, which also had passed through the fire. Fragments of iron, a coin of the lower Empire, and the upper stone of a quern, have also been found. The coin is a valuable link in the chain of evidence as to the age of these barrows. It was found associated with wheel-made potsherds and calcined bones on the site of the funeral pile, under a small mound, near Mininglow, under conditions which left no room for doubt that it had passed through the fire with the body and the potsherds. The terms in which the potsherds found in these barrows are invariably described, as “wheel-made,” “hard,” “firmly-baked,” “compact,” and “Romano-British,” all suggest the period of the Roman occupation or its near approach. Querns and the use of iron are admittedly of late introduction. The bone combs referred to above have a distinct Iron Age facies. The two bronze dagger-blades, one of which was found in the earth extension of the smaller Mininglow chambered cairn, are both of later type than those associated with the Bronze Age burials.

On the other hand, a notable “find” near Throwley,[28] in Staffordshire, provided a link between these “late” barrows and the inurned interments of the Bronze Age. The barrow there, “wholly composed of earth of a burnt appearance throughout,” was of the “low-level” type previously referred to, and its cremated deposit was in a circular depression in the natural soil. Among the burnt bones were two pieces of flint and a quartz pebble; below them, the shoulder blade of some large animal; while resting[68] upon them were a small bronze pin and “a very beautiful miniature vase of the incense-cup type, ornamented with chevrons and lozenges, and perforated in two places at one side.” This is the only complete vessel hitherto recorded as from these “late” barrows of the two counties, and in its shape, decoration, and other particulars it is a thoroughly typical Bronze Age incense-cup. The circular depression was “of well-defined shape, resulting from contact with a wooden or wicker-work vessel, in which the bones were placed when buried, the vestiges of which in the form of impalpable black powder intervened between the bones and the earth.” Clearly, we have here a wooden or a basket-work equivalent of the cinerary urn. It is probable that these circular holes were generally similarly provided with such receptacles, for in another example, under a barrow of the type we are considering, at Cold Eaton,[29] there were indications that its contents had been “deposited in a shallow basket or similar perishable vessel.” It was from this interment that the bone draughtsmen and combs already alluded to were obtained, as also some fragments of iron. It is interesting that in two barrows which resemble one another too closely to be dissociated by more than a short lapse of time, there should be objects which, per se, would be relegated to two different archæological ages, for apart from the iron, the combs were of a type found with Late-Celtic, Romano-British, and even Anglo-Saxon remains. The inference, therefore, is that these two barrows belonged to the overlap of the Bronze and Pre-Roman Iron Ages.

If the various conclusions which have been arrived at in the preceding pages are correct, Derbyshire is fortunate in her sepulchral remains illustrating the succession of burial customs from Neolithic to Roman times without a serious break. But there is still a difficulty to be faced. The barrows which we have classed as of[69] the Bronze Age are usually ascribed to the Earlier Bronze Age, upon the evidence of the bronze implements associated with their interments. While the socketed axe, which is characteristic of the Later Bronze Age, is perhaps found in greater abundance than all its forerunners put together, it has rarely, if ever, been found in association with these interments.[30] But this proves nothing, when it is considered that it has never been found with any other interments. The earlier forms of the axe have occurred, but only sparingly, with the drinking-cup and food-vase interments; but of the hundred or more recorded inurned interments of Derbyshire and the adjacent parts of Staffordshire, not one has yielded a bronze axe of any kind, and this appears to be generally the case throughout the country. These inurned interments certainly succeeded them, so there is no reason to doubt that they represent the Later Bronze Age among our sepulchral remains.

Having brought the burial customs and remains of our ancient predecessors in Derbyshire well within the bounds of authentic history, we here conclude. The few remains of Roman sepulture, and the many and varied burials of the early Anglo-Saxon period, are outside the scope of this article, and would involve many pages to adequately describe them.

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THE PREHISTORIC STONE CIRCLES OF DERBYSHIRE

By W. J. Andrew, F.S.A.

Scattered over the world, from India to Peru, from Southern Africa to Northern Europe, wherever it may be, the megalithic circle marks a grade in the advance of civilization, for it is man’s earliest attempt at geometrical architecture. As such, although so uniform in design, its age must vary by thousands of years, according to the intelligent progression of the early inhabitants of the country in which it is present. Old as our stone circles seem to us, those on the shores of the Mediterranean were probably grey with antiquity when ours were yet unbuilt; indeed, so far as the old world is concerned, it may be assumed that the megalithic monuments of the British Isles are amongst the latest in date.

The circle is but an elaboration of a monolith surrounded by stones. There is, however, every indication that it was introduced into this country after it had passed through all its stages of evolution and assumed its final form. Its builders made their way hither from the south, spreading more especially over Spain, Brittany and Denmark on the mainland, and on arriving upon our southern coasts, branching northward through England and Scotland, even to the Orkneys, on the one side, and by sea to Ireland and the Western Hebrides on the other. Thus the date of its advent must have been subsequent to the mastery of navigation. It has been assumed that because Stonehenge represents the[71] finished design, it must be the latest of our English examples, and, therefore, the evolution of those rude, and often unhewn, monuments of which so many examples have weathered more than two thousand winters on the high-lands of the Peak. But the very opposite proposition probably represents the truth. In the whole of our isles there is no other example of a trilithic design, so the theory of local evolution must fail. On the other hand, we trace it without a fault from India, through Arabia, along the north coast of Africa, in Malta and Minorca, and finally on the coast of Brittany, on its way to this island. Again, the curious architectural joint of mortice and tenon, which is so interesting a feature of Stonehenge, is unknown here, but present in the trilithons of the Mediterranean shores.

Arbor Low: General View of the Southern Half.

We may, therefore, infer that the builders of Stonehenge were of a race which originally came from the south, and that the monument was erected under the direction of men who had seen or had, at least, been thoroughly instructed in the architecture of the earlier trilithons. This was their work, but after them came the copyist and the invariable deterioration. A parallel case is that of the introduction of the art of coinage into this country about B.C. 200. It found its way to us over nearly the same route, and in its earliest stages was, therefore, an imitation of the Greek and Phœnician money then current; but before many years had passed many of the designs had degenerated into conventional figures, often of a distinctive character, yet evolved by the exaggeration of some minor detail upon the prototype. Another comparison may be made with the customs of burial about the period we are considering. At first the useful and valuable flint implements of the deceased were, with a praiseworthy unselfishness, interred or cremated with his remains; but later, this sometimes became a mere matter of ceremony, and it was thought sufficient to substitute flint chippings for these offerings.

[72]

Assuming Stonehenge to be the prototype of our rude stone circles, it may be well to remember its general features, and particularly the dimensions of its plan. Its architecture consisted of an outer circle of ditch and earthen bank of an approximate diameter of three hundred feet, broken at the entrance from the north-east, where the banks are continued in that direction, and form an avenue of approach fifty feet in breadth. Within was a concentric circle one hundred feet in diameter, of upright stones supporting a continuous lintel. These stones are roughly squared, and the pillars now measure about fourteen feet above ground, whilst the lintels are about eleven and a half feet long. Ten feet within was a minor concentric circle of pillar stones, a few feet in height, arranged in pairs. Again, within were five huge trilithons arranged in the plan of a horse-shoe with a diameter of about fifty feet, and composed of stones similar in form to those of the outer peristyle, but varying in height to nearly twenty-five feet above the turf; one stone, for example, measuring, when exposed by excavation, twenty-nine feet eight inches in length. Finally, within the whole is the “altar-stone,” some sixteen feet by four, lying prone and within a broken, or horse-shoe shaped ellipse of a diameter of forty feet, composed of pillar stones about five or six feet high. Without the whole, and at a distance of two hundred and fifty feet from the centre, is a monolith, or “pointer,” sixteen feet high, known as the Friar’s Heel. It stands to the north-east and a fraction to the south of a line drawn from the altar-stone along the centre of the avenue. Another stone, now fallen, lies on the line just within the enclosure.

From this very superficial description it will be noticed that there is a certain geometrical proportion to scale. The diameter of the outer bank is three times that of the peristyle, which, in turn, is twice that of the trilithons. The space betwen the peristyle and the[73] outer bank equals the diameter of the former. The diameter of the outer circle of small pillar stones is twice that of the inner ellipse of pillar stones, and the distance of the Friar’s Heel from the peristyle is twice the diameter of the latter. Even admitting a wide margin for inaccuracy, the impression must remain that there is ground for the suspicion that some attempt at a decimal system prevailed in the general plan of this mysterious monument.

These proportions are so obvious that it seems unlikely that they have escaped the attention of those who have studied the plan of Stonehenge. It was not, however, in relation to the great monument of the south that a possible system of geometrical mensuration suggested itself; but in the survey of our own hill-circles of Derbyshire, when it appealed so forcibly to observation that it prompted a reference to the prototype for possible confirmation.

No other county in England is so prolific in prehistoric circles as that of Derby. Many, probably, are still undiscovered, for the writer has been able to add several to the list. Yet at least twenty can be visited with the assistance of an Ordnance map, another dozen have disappeared in modern times, but are recorded by old authorities, and, no doubt, as many more lie hidden by the heather on our little-frequented moors. All are in the north-west quarter of the county, within a space of less than twenty miles square, and at an altitude of not less than a thousand feet.

Although differing much in dimensions and details, there was a common purpose, and consequently there is a uniform character in all. Commencing with the smallest, and measuring the diameters from stone to stone, we find: (1) a plain circle of standing stones, ten feet across, and with either a single stone or heap of stones at a short distance outside the circle, which, for convenience of reference, may be called the “pointer”;[74] (2) similar, but with a diameter of twenty feet, and an encircling mound, or vallum, of earth, in the inner edge of which the stones are usually set; (3) the same, but with diameters of thirty, forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred, and one hundred and fifty feet. It is probable that, originally, all had a cromlech of some description in the centre, or, as at Ford, a small circle in the north-eastern quarter. At Park Gate this remains as a central cone of stones; at Arbor Low as three great stones, which, with the rest, have fallen; on Offerton Moor it was four stones, and at the Wet Withens a single stone. Outside the circle at Arbor Low is a raised causeway of earth extending in a curved line from the circle towards its artificial mound, Gib Hill, a thousand feet away, which once it probably joined. At Stadon a similar causeway leaves the circle, but returns to it again in the form of the lower half of a triangle, and at the Wet-Withens Mr. Trustram called attention to the remains of what was, very possibly, an avenue of stones arranged in parallel lines at equal distances towards the south-west. These alignments must be considered with reference to the avenue at Stonehenge.

The circles are never present on the actual summit of a hill, but are almost invariably on the hillside near the highest point. Hence on one side they have a sharp and near horizon and on the other a distant view. All have, or presumably have had, a “pointer” outside the circle; that is, an artificial mound of earth or stones or a smaller circle to the larger examples, and a single upright stone to the smaller.

It will have been noticed that the diameters of the circles have evidently been planned according to a geometrical scale, of which the unit seems to have been equivalent to ten feet of our measure. A reference, for example, to the plan of Arbor Low will again demonstrate this point. The average diameter of the circle of the stones is one hundred and fifty feet, the width of the fosse is twenty feet, and that of the vallum on the ground level[75] is thirty feet, and its height above the excavated fosse is ten feet; the total diameter of the monument is two hundred and fifty feet, and Gib Hill, its pointer, stands one thousand feet away south-west by west. But the stones at Arbor Low, and, indeed, those of all the other examples, do not form a true circle; there is always an elliptical variation. At Arbor Low this variation is about ten feet; at the Wet-Withens it is only three or four feet. At the former there are in the centre three fallen stones, which in all probability formed a dolmen, of which the capstone measures fourteen feet in length; it may be assumed, therefore, that its supporters occupied a space of about ten feet. At the Wet-Withens we read that there was originally a single large stone in the centre, which we may assume was not more than three or four feet in diameter. If, therefore, the central cromlech was first erected, and the radius of the circle of stones measured from its outside walls instead of from the true centre, we have the probable explanation of the elliptical variation in every case. The variation, in turn, should give us some idea of the central cromlech when, as in so many instances, it has been destroyed.

This suggestion is supported by another distinctive feature in the plan of stone circles, of which, also, no explanation has been offered. Nearly every circle has two entrances, or an entrance and exit, cut through the mound, and when a fosse is present it is broken at the causeways; but these entrances, although on opposite sides of the circle, and usually towards the north and south, are never directly opposite each other. If, therefore, the central cromlech was the dominant purpose, the roadway would pass alongside it, and not have to deviate around it, as it certainly would if it truly bisected the circle.

The three principal examples in the county are Arbor Low, the Bull Ring, and the Wet-Withens. Arbor Low is situate on the hillside, 1,200 feet above the sea, a mile to the east of Parsley Hay Station, eight miles south-east[76] from Buxton. It has been termed the Stonehenge of the Midlands, and as a megalithic monument, the very grandeur of its loneliness appeals to memories of the days of old and the race that is gone. Its dimensions have already been given, but its general features are a circular plateau, averaging about one hundred and sixty feet in diameter, and surrounded by a broad fosse, enclosed, save at the two entrances, within a high vallum of earth. In the centre of the plateau are three limestone blocks, of which one is fourteen feet in length, and another, now broken, about twelve feet by eight feet six inches; these, before destruction, probably formed a dolmen, or trilithon, similar to those of Stonehenge. Arranged around the edge of the plateau, and seemingly in pairs, which also allows the possibility of a trilithic formation, are forty-six similar stones, all, with one exception, lying prone, and measuring from thirteen feet by six to comparatively small dimensions—the exception referred to, however, lies at a very low angle. They seem to have been selected from the surface limestone of the district, which explains the many weathered and holed stones amongst them; and it must be remembered that a holed stone has always claimed a superstitious veneration. It is present in the circle at Stennis, in our chambered barrows, and in the dolmens of France, Russia, and India. The trilithons of Stonehenge may be its elaboration, and in later times King Alfred caused the Danes to swear their treaty according to their most solemn custom upon the holy ring. Even in mediæval days the superstition connected with St. Wilfred’s Needle at Ripon may probably have been but a survival of this archaic tradition.

Although not shaped in the usual sense of the word, some of the stones at Arbor Low show indications of rough dressing, particularly at the base, which was, no doubt, for the purpose of stability when they were originally set upright. That once they were erect there can be no doubt, for it is essential to a stone circle that[77] they should be so placed. As they lie, it will be noticed that, with very few exceptions, the top of every stone points to the centre of the plateau, whereas the natural fall of the stones would be towards the ditch, on the edge of which they were placed, for their foundations on that side would be the weaker. The obvious explanation must be that they were pulled down by ropes, and as the vallum would impede the process on the outside, it followed that the crowd of haulers necessarily required the full width of the plateau, and so caused the stones to fall inwards, like the radii of a circle. Similarly the central stones were hauled down in a straight line with the entrance to the circle, which thus gave the necessary leverage of length. When and by whom was this done? It is unlikely that the Romans would interfere with customs which in no way clashed with their own. When, however, the first waves of Christianity passed over the land, and Christian stone crosses were erected throughout our county, it is unlikely that the stone monuments of a pagan race would be tolerated amongst them; and in the seventh century an edict of the Church was passed in France exhorting the clergy to stamp out the idolatry of stone-worship. In Northumbria, which country then included the county of Derby, King Edwin, upon his conversion to Christianity in A.D. 627, authorised Paulinus to destroy “the altars and temples, with the enclosures that were about them,” at which he had previously worshipped.[31]

We may, therefore, assume that the great circle of Arbor Low was too prominent a monument to be allowed to remain, but the lesser circles, no longer frequented by the people, would pass unnoticed by the Reformers; yet the circle on Harthill Moor, only four miles away, was left standing, although some of its stones were nine or ten feet high, and nine stones still stood a century[78] ago, but now only four remain, varying in height from about four feet to eight or nine feet. Perhaps the late interment, discovered by Mr. St. George Gray during the excavations at Arbor Low in 1902, may have dated from the time of its destruction, for its selection as a place of sepulture would naturally offend the tenets of a Christian people, and call attention to the superstitions still associated with this mysterious monument. It was not the first interment there, for built upon the vallum adjoining the southern entrance are the remains of a large tumulus, which yielded to Mr. Bateman, its excavator, urns of coarse clay and other evidence of cremation, with relics of flint and bone. Again, the summit of the great mound of its satellite, Gib Hill, had been selected for a similar interment in the days before the shadow of mystery was cast over Arbor Low.

The Bull Ring almost adjoins the modern church at Dove Holes, three and a half miles north-north-west from Buxton. So far as the ground plan of the circle is concerned, it is identical with that of Arbor Low, save that the vallum is now, perhaps, not quite so high. No doubt it is the work of the same architects, and originally contained a similar arrangement of great stones. Unfortunately these were entirely removed nearly two centuries ago for building purposes, and its very existence is to-day threatened by approaching lime works. With the circle itself its similarity to Arbor Low ends, for instead of lying on a northern slope it faces south-east, hence as the natural conditions are varied, so are its adjuncts. Instead of a high mound a thousand feet away, its pointer is brought close to it, and, therefore, lower in height, although a mound of about the same circumference; but its direction is nearly the same, namely, to the south-west.

The Wet-Withens is on the northern slope of Eyam Moor, 1,002 feet above sea-level, and is the best example of the type in which the fosse is absent. To-day it is[79] represented by a circular mound of earth, one hundred and twenty feet in diameter, and about ten feet broad by two feet six inches high, broken for the entrances in the usual positions, namely, due south and nearly north. Set in the inner margin of the mound remain ten stones of millstone grit, most of which are upright, and probably fifteen or sixteen originally completed the arrangement, and some may be hidden by the heather. They stand at nearly equal distances, but the largest only measures, as exposed above the turf, four feet three inches long, one foot nine inches broad, and nine inches deep. It has already been mentioned that a monolith once stood in the centre, and there is still a considerable depression in the ground whence it was excavated—for the hand of the quarryman has been ruthless amongst the prehistoric monuments of our county. Forty feet due north of the circle are the remains of a great cairn, or tumulus, with a base seventy feet by forty feet, composed entirely of stones averaging over a foot in length. This may have served the purpose of the pointer, or, like the tumulus on the vallum at Arbor Low, may merely have been a sepulchral mound, for it also yielded a half-baked urn containing cremated remains and a flint arrow-head. If Mr. Trustram’s theory be correct, the stone-marked avenue leads to the south-west, and thus conforms with the pointers of Arbor Low and the Bull Ring; also with the general direction of the avenue or causeway of the former.

The relative position of these three circles is certainly curious. They form an inverted isosceles triangle, of which the base line from the Wet-Withens to the Bull Ring is nearly due east and west; to be accurate, it is almost the true magnetic orientation, and the apex at Arbor Low is due south. The Ordnance map discloses the length of the base line to be nine miles, and that of each of the sides ten miles; in fact, the compasses pivoted in the centre of Arbor Low bisect both the circles of the Bull[80] Ring and Wet-Withens. It is needless to remark that the megalithic builders had not the knowledge nor the appliances to measure distances otherwise than on the ground level; but as the valleys run north and south, and the line east to west is therefore much more broken and undulating, it is not impossible that there was a measured intention to construct these three circles as nearly as possible in the form of an equilateral triangle, of which the circle of Arbor Low was to be due south, according to the sun’s then apparent meridian. Indeed, it is an interesting question of fact whether, if measured on the ground level, these three circles would not prove to be equidistant one from another.

Reduce the compasses to the equivalent to eight miles, and a series of coincidences follows. They exactly span Arbor Low and Stadon; Arbor Low and an unmarked circle near Park Gate on East Moor; the latter and the double circle on Abney Moor, and, again, the same circle and two others on Brassington Moor; the Nine Ladies on Stanton Moor and the circle on Froggatt Edge; that on the Bar Brook and the most northern of the two on Bamford Moor; the southern circle on Bamford Moor and the double circle on the Ford estate near Chapel-en-le-Frith; the latter and the circle on Abney Moor, and so on, until it would seem to be worth one’s while to follow the eight miles radius from any given circle in search of its colleague. If there is any variation in the distances quoted above, it is so slight as to be scarcely perceptible on the one-inch scale Ordnance map. This is, at the least, tentative evidence of that careful system of mensuration which seems to pervade the mystery of these interesting memorials.

Arbor Low: General View of the Southern and Western Part.

The triangular arrangement of the three chief circles calls attention to that of Stadon, situate a mile and a quarter south-east from Buxton. Its stones, like those of its neighbour, the Bull Ring, have been confiscated, and for centuries, perhaps, it yielded to the plough;[81] nevertheless, its mounds, though almost levelled, are quite distinct, and disclose a plan probably unique in its design. It comprises an annular vallum, forming three-quarters of a circle, the fourth quarter being straight-sided for one hundred feet, and from the corners of this side expand two straight causeways or mounds for a distance of about one hundred and, presumably, one hundred and twenty feet respectively, when they then turn at an acute angle and unite in a straight line, of probably one hundred and twenty feet, almost parallel to the side of the circle. Thus they form the base of an isosceles triangle, bisected horizontally by the straight side of the circle. Unfortunately, the south-west corner of the base line is now cut off by the London and North Western Railway line from Buxton to Ashbourne, and therefore its measurements can only be estimated. If continued, the apex of this triangle would correspond with the nearest quarter of the horizon, namely, on the ridge of Stadon Hill at a point nearly due east. On the inside of the mounds, both of the circle and of the triangular adjunct, are indications of a ditch, and the usual entrances are north by west and south-east respectively. The average width of the circle from the outside of the mounds is now two hundred feet, but owing to the straight side it is subjected to more than the usual elliptical variation; the width of the mounds and ditch are twelve and ten feet respectively. These latter dimensions probably indicate that originally it must have had a fosse and vallum of no mean importance. One hundred and twenty feet north-by-east from the circle seems to be the base of what was probably a large mound or “pointer,” about forty feet by twenty feet, but this also has been levelled.

Although lacking the grandeur of Arbor Low, the small circles have an interest only secondary to it in any attempt to determine cause from effect. Many of them, fortunately, have suffered from the hand of time alone, and are to-day as the race that is gone left them. No[82] better examples could be desired than some in the Baslow district, particularly that near Park Gate; but those by the Bar Brook and on Froggatt Edge are nearly as well preserved, and the double circle at Ford is perfect.

Selecting the Nine Ladies on Stanton Moor as a typical example, its description will suffice for its class. A circular vallum ten feet wide and two feet high at the crest, with diameter varying from forty-five to fifty feet, measured from its outer edge, and broken for the usual entrances, which, however, in this instance are east-by-north and south-west. Within the inner margin of the mound are arranged nine stones, all, with one exception, still upright, and the largest measuring, above the heather, three feet high, two feet three inches broad, and nine inches deep. In 1848 there was a cone of stones in the centre, but this has been destroyed; the Park Gate circle, however, shows this in a complete form. Exactly at a distance of one hundred feet west by south of the circle stands a single stone as the pointer, measuring above the turf thirty inches high, twenty-two wide, and eleven deep. It is known as “The King Stone,” and the nine stones of the circle have given the name of “The Nine Ladies” to the monument as a whole. This is, of course, a complimentary variant of the general term “maidens” so often applied to the stones of circles in all parts of the country, and for which so many derivations have been offered.

A circle of this class which has hitherto escaped observation has an interesting deviation from the usual lines. It stands 1,050 feet above sea level on the hillside at Cadster, near Whaley Bridge, but in Chapel-en-le-Frith parish. Its vallum has an elliptical diameter, varying from thirty-five to forty feet, with entrances north-north-east and south-west. The stones are of the same arrangement and size as those of The Nine Ladies, and the diameter of their circle varies from thirty feet to thirty-three feet six inches. The centre is nearly level, but some[83] large stones below the turf may have supported a monolith, which, perhaps, was a large pointed stone, measuring four feet long, two feet six inches wide, and one foot deep, now lying at the foot of the vallum. Ninety feet nearly south by west of the circle, almost prostrate, is the “pointer,” a block of millstone grit measuring three feet six inches high, two feet six inches broad, and two feet deep. In these particulars the monument closely resembles the last described, but it lies on a hillside with a declination to the west of one in ten, and to obtain the required plane for the western vallum and stones, the builders have lowered the height of the vallum on the east to about one foot high, and raised that on the west to four feet. Hence it is nearly, but not quite, level. Although there is a very extensive view to the north-west, the horizon is within two or three hundred yards on the north and east. A line of sight taken over the stones west and east within the circle exactly touches the eastern horizon, where there is a small artificial mound of stones, and this system of levelling the vallum and stones of a circle to the plane of the horizon seems to be general, and is especially in evidence at Ford.

For the purpose of these notes, and to ascertain that the vallum had not been raised by an interment, a partial excavation has been made. A narrow trench cut from east to west disclosed that the entire monument is composed of loose stones, seemingly hand-laid, upon the natural soil. On the west side the raising of the vallum was an example of careful and permanent work. Commencing from the outside there was a foundation of large stones sloping inwards, and acting as a retaining wall for the stones above, and a similar foundation marked the inside margin. In the centre of the vallum was a core of stones about two feet high leaning towards each other, and filled in with horizontal stones, thus forming the base of a solid triangle. Above this the loose stones were built up to the required height and form. An examination[84] of some of the principal stones of the circle disclosed that they were supported by or resting upon others of large size. As it was not desirable to disturb more than was necessary to disclose the general construction, and to remove turf which had overgrown some of the pillars, a very small proportion of the whole was searched, and this did not yield a single relic of the work of man.

So far, we have dealt with the effect of circles as we see them; let us look to the cause. Imagine an agricultural people without any knowledge of the seasons or months of the year, save from the gradual changes from cold to warm weather, and from long to short days; without the means of estimating the length of the latter, and without even the power of numbering the years or knowing whether they themselves were young or old, for except, perhaps, in the calm pools of water, their very appearance would be strange to them. A few treacherously warm days in December, and they would sow their corn to the winds. Preparation for winter needs or summer work would be impossible, and all would end in famine and waste—all would be confusion. No wonder that, like nature, they turned to the sun—the almanac of all time. No wonder their chief astronomer became the chief priest of the tribe. So is it to-day with uncivilized races of mankind. So, also, is the superstition of astrology in civilized races but a survival of the days when the seer alone cast his horoscope and foretold to the people the coming of the seasons, the time for preparation and all that was necessary for their continued existence. Sun worship followed, and religion and astronomy were blended for ages to come.

Sir Norman Lockyer and the late Mr. Penrose have scientifically demonstrated the relation of Stonehenge with the rising of the sun over the Friar’s Heel at the summer solstice, where tradition still gathers people together on the morn of Midsummer day; but it is with the more primitive and varied circles of our hilly county that we[85] are concerned, and these may be treated, as indeed they probably were by their designers, in a more primitive method.

We read a sundial from the outside, and therefore the gnomon is in the centre and the numerals are on the outside. If, however, we stood in the centre of a vast dial, a series of gnomons would be required to replace the numerals. This is the stone circle. As a primitive example, the Cadster circle will suffice for its class. When the circle was constructed, the “pointer,” instead of being a point to the west of south as it is now, a variation owing to the obliquity of the earth’s axis, stood exactly due south; therefore the seer, sighting from the point of the central monolith, knew that when the sun was directly over it the time was mid-day—the greater distance assisting the accuracy. Similarly the east stone is now a point to the southward, so when the sun rose over the horizon in line with it and the central monolith, it was the May festival, and so on for every phase of the sun. Obviously, the northern stones would be useless for this purpose; but the object of the vallum was to enable the line of sight to be also taken across the circle from the outside, and over any stone and the central dial, or over any two stones, thus subdividing the then equivalent to the hours and the months. The slope of the vallum lent itself to any level required by the observer whilst taking his observations, and the entrances enabled the people to pass through the circle to make their obeisance, whilst the arch-astrologer stood by the central monolith giving his instructions and advice. To them his simple predictions would seem to be the greatest of miracles. As the “pointer” is not always in a southerly or northerly position, for the latter would serve the same purpose if the point of observation were transposed, it follows that various monuments were dedicated to or were specially required for various seasons or times; the winter or summer solstice and the spring or autumn equinox[86] being the most popular. The points of the stones would be accurately notched or, perhaps, surmounted with a wooden stile or pierced disc.

In the larger circles the same system would be carried out with greater accuracy. The ditch and vallum enabled the sights to be taken from either the foot or the top of the stones, and the mound would, if required, itself form the horizon. The ditch was certainly not for any processional ceremony, for that at Arbor Low was found to be broken across by faces of natural rock three or four feet in height; but the curved causeway leading towards the great pointer, Gib Hill, may have served that purpose when the seer left the circle to take his observations, and probably to invoke the rising sun from the mound. The central dolmen would be the inner temple of the priest, and the greater distance of the circle of stones would increase the accuracy of his observations.

Let those who question this simple origin for these circles study any one of them with as many or as few scientific instruments as they wish; then, after allowing for the variation of the obliquity, nature’s almanac is there to be read within the oldest astronomical observatory known to man.

A word as to the age of the circles. Sir Norman Lockyer deduced from the variation of the obliquity in relation to the avenue and the Friar’s Heel at Stonehenge, that the temple must have been erected about the year 1680 B.C., or within a margin of 200 years of that date. Professor Gowland, as the result of the excavations conducted by him in 1901, arrived at practically the same period, when he inferred that it was constructed by “the men of the Neolithic or, it may be, of the early Bronze Age.”

The assumption in these pages is that Stonehenge was the first and not the last of its series. If that be correct, it follows that the design must have been[87] introduced by the new race, that of the Bronze Age, when they invaded this country from the south. The Neolithic tribes had been here for thousands of years before B.C. 1500, and it is unlikely that they, to whom metal was unknown, attained the architectural skill to erect a colossal and uniform temple. It is true that with one possible exception no trace of metal was found during the recent excavations at either Stonehenge or Arbor Low; but on the other hand, all the interments (with again one exception, and that of late date) found in circles are of the Bronze Age. These interments, of which one instance was in a small circle on Stanton Moor, do not necessarily indicate any sepulchral purpose for these monuments, but rather suggest that sometimes the priest himself would be laid to rest in the shrine of his order. Again, the general character of the numerous tumuli usually surrounding the momuments is of the Bronze period, and there seems to be some affinity between the “cup and ring” designs of the rock carvings and the plan of these circles. One fact is certain—that as a class they are not of any later times, for upon the vallum of Arbor Low stands the great “low” which yielded clear evidence of a burial of one who worked with bronze, and similar proof was furnished by the discovery of a like interment in the summit of Gib Hill.

It does not, however, follow that our Derbyshire circles date from the commencement of the Bronze Age; it is more probable that some of them are hundreds of years later than Stonehenge, and there is every likelihood that their use was continued through the Roman even to early Christian times, only to be stamped out when their original purpose had been forgotten in their mystic pagan rites. There is evidence that the great circles of the country were centres of native population at the time of the coming of the Romans, for the roads of the invaders were driven straight for them, as the maps of Avebury and Stonehenge in the south, and of Arbor Low and the[88] Bull Ring in our county, clearly indicate. In the Anglo-Saxon language the phrase for astrology was circol-crœft, and to-day the horoscope of the fortune-teller is but a survival of our subject.

We who look upon these temples of a bye-gone people are still the slaves of Time, and though we measure it with the science of to-day, it is but a question of degree, for the cause and effect is still the same. True, we no longer worship in the Temple of Time, but we can ill afford to sneer at those who knew no better religion than the praise of the heavenly bodies and the admiration of nature’s handiwork as viewed over the distant scene. Nor can we pride ourselves in our science, which for centuries has failed to read the story of these mystic signs, which the rude workers in bronze could yet devise and set up, to—

“Observe days, and months, and times, and years.”

[89]

SWARKESTON BRIDGE

By William Smithard

The deservedly famous old bridge of Swarkeston situated a few miles south of Derby, where in a beautiful verdant and fertile vale the noble Trent sweeps towards the sea in a series of majestic curves.

The river, than which there are but two longer in the country, was of old a convenient rough-and-ready dividing-line across the middle of England; and the frequency with which the phrases “north of Trent” and “south of Trent” were used, shows that the stream was a recognised and familiar boundary to the monarchs and nobles who parcelled out shires and counties for themselves or friends in the Middle Ages.

Its general direction is from west to east, but its course is made up of large bends composed of small ones. In the first part of King Henry IV., Act III., Scene I., Shakespeare makes Hotspur complain of the windings of the Trent, thus:—

[90]

It is not known where or how, if at all, the Romans permanently bridged the Trent hereabouts; probably they were content with fords and ferries. In the Middle Ages, however, several fine stone bridges were erected over the river; there was a very long one of thirty-six arches at Burton in the twelfth century, and most likely there would then be no other between that town and Nottingham, some twenty miles distant. At any rate, the first record we have of Swarkeston Bridge is in the year 1276, and the oldest parts of it remaining—which appear to be the original work—appertain to the thirteenth century.

Swarkeston is about eight miles below Burton, and the bridge, which is nearly a mile in length, lies north and south. It takes its name from the village of Swarkeston at its northern end, though most of the bridge, being south of the Trent, is in the parish of Stanton, which latter place is indebted to the bridge for the title that distinguishes it from the multitude of Stantons elsewhere.

The portion of the structure which actually spans the Trent is a shapely, well-designed and very substantial modern bridge on five round arches, put up at the close of the eighteenth century; but the special feature about Swarkeston Bridge is that, after crossing the river proper, it is continued as a raised causeway right across the low-lying meadows of the Trent valley. It is in this long causeway that all interest centres, for there—although the bridge has been widened, and at different times repaired and renewed incongruously—we have the true route-line of the causeway, and much original work still remaining.

The necessity for this extension is very obvious to anyone who has seen, as I have several times, the river in flood, when Hotspur’s “smug and silver Trent” becomes a turbid, surging sea, many miles in extent, completely covering all the meadows within range of vision. The causeway is provided with culverts and archways to let the roaring waters pass through at such periods.

Swarkeston Bridge.

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It has been conjectured, with some degree of probability, that the Trent was first spanned by a bridge at Swarkeston to accommodate the advance of King John’s army to the north towards the end of the year 1215. If this was the case, it must have been one of wooden piles, provided it was erected in a hurry. A temporary erection of this kind, in the place of a treacherous ford, would prove so useful that it would soon be followed by one of stone. At all events, records show that a bridge had been established here a long time before the accession of Edward I. In 1276, when inquiries were made throughout the kingdom as to exactions and irregularities during the much-troubled latter years of Henry III., it is entered on the Hundred Rolls that the merchants of the soke of Melbourne had not for some three years paid toll for passage over Swarkeston Bridge, which toll had been assigned by the King to the borough of Derby.

Now and again, during the next century, apparently whenever the bridge needed serious repair, the Crown diverted the toll from the town of Derby and assigned it to local commissioners, as entered from time to time on the Patent Rolls. On 12th January, 1325, when Edward II. was at Melbourne, he granted, under privy seal to the bailiffs and good men of the town of Swarkeston pontage (bridge toll) for three years for the repair of the bridge across the Trent; the toll was to be taken by the hands of William Grave, of Swarkeston, Richard de Swarkeston, Thomas Davy, of Stanton, or their deputy, and the whole proceedings were to be under the supervision of the Prior of Repton.

Before this time of three years had expired, namely, in December, 1327, Edward III., at the request of Robert de Stanton, granted to the bailiffs and men of Stanton and Swarkeston pontage towards the repair of the bridge between the two towns—it must have been considerably damaged, possibly of set purpose during the baronial disturbances towards the end of Edward II.’s reign—local[92] commissioners being nominated to receive the toll, and the Prior of Repton being again appointed as supervisor.

In 1338 pontage for four years was again assigned for repair purposes to the good men of Swarkeston. Eight years later the pontage was granted for three years to the bailiffs and good men of the town of Derby, to be taken by the hands of John, son of Adam de Melbourne the elder, and John, son of Adam de Melbourne the younger, on things for sale passing over Swarkeston Bridge, for the repair of the said bridge.

There is little more written history of the bridge than that here cited, but it would not be right to omit the romantic legend as to its origin, which is so widely current and so generally believed that it is perhaps worthy of a qualified acceptance until some historical fact is found to take its place. The legend bears the stamp of probability, and it seems too good to be entirely an invention—at any rate, of modern times.

Once upon a time, then, according to this dateless tradition, a large and gay party was celebrating at Swarkeston Hall the betrothal of the two daughters of the lord of the manor. Tilting, hunting, hawking, and other mediæval sports had been enjoyed freely for several days, when the festivities were abruptly disturbed by an urgent summons for the lord of the manor and the two knightly lovers forthwith to join an assembly of the barons who were engaged in a hot dispute with a tyrannical King. Never, perhaps, did public spirit clash more disagreeably with personal preference; but the call of national duty was promptly answered.

At that time there was no Swarkeston Bridge, but in fair weather the Trent could be forded quite easily, as it can now. I have, in a recent summer, seen a foal walk across without wetting its knees; but the route is devious, and the river at Swarkeston notoriously treacherous; bright weedy shallows give way precipitately to great dark pools difficult to fathom, and eddying[93] whirlpools alternate with powerful headlong currents of surprising swiftness.

Their task accomplished, runs the tale, the two knights set off for Swarkeston at full speed, leaving the earl to return more leisurely with his esquires and pages. In the meantime heavy rains had fallen, and on reaching the Trent valley after sunset, the knights found the green sward covered by surging muddy waters, through which, with true lover-like ardour, they spurred their tired horses in the growing darkness, unwilling, now so near, to let even such alarming floods prevent their reunion with the fair ladies of their choice.

The level meadows were crossed safely, but in the gloom the gallant knights either missed the ford across the river itself or were swept off it by the raging torrent; by the cruellest of mischances they were washed away and drowned within sight of the lighted windows of the hall, where all their hopes lay, and which they had striven so heroically to reach.

This tragic event was indeed a crushing blow for the earl and his family, but out of private grief came public joy. The bereaved ladies, so says the legend, looked on themselves as widows, and, in keeping with the spirit of the times, devoted the rest of their lives to the memory of their deceased lovers. Neither was their devotion mere sentiment, but it took a thoroughly practical form; determined that no one in future should suffer owing to the circumstances in which their own keen sorrow had arisen, they devoted all their substance to the building of the now historic bridge, and died in a cottage as poor as the humblest peasant.

On the bridge there was formerly a chantry chapel. From an inquisition held at Newark, October 26th, 1503, we learn that a parcel of meadow land, valued at six marks a year, lying between the bridge and Ingleby, had been given in early days to the priory of Repton, on the tenure of supplying a priest to sing mass in the chapel on[94] Swarkeston Bridge; but that there was then no such priest nor had one been appointed for the space of twenty years. (Add. MSS. 6,705, f. 65.)

The Church Goods Commissioners of 1552 say under Stanton:—

The report of the Commissioners shows that the chapel was evidently an integral portion of one of the bridge piers, as was often the case, and was probably coeval with its first building.

The chapel was demolished altogether when the spans over the river were rebuilt in the eighteenth century, and there is now no trace of it remaining, nor does there appear to be any drawing of the sacred place; though, of course, anyone familiar with other such Gothic buildings can easily picture for himself what this chapel would be like.

For six centuries has the bridge been a popular highway for all classes of the community, and it is linked closely with at least two important epochs in English history.

In the great Civil War of 1642–1646, the bridges at Nottingham, Swarkeston, and Burton were regarded as the keys to the North. In the winter of 1642–3, Col. Sir John Gell, the able commander of the Derbyshire regiment, heard that the Royalists were fortifying Swarkeston Bridge, so he marched thither, stormed the works and dismantled the same, after driving away the enemy with a loss of seven or eight killed and many wounded. The date of the “Battle of Swarsen bridge” is given in the register of All Saints’, Derby, as 5th January, 1642–3. The towns of Nottingham and Burton, along with their bridges, were taken and retaken several times during the war; but[95] Derby was never in the hands of the Royalists, and this immunity Sir John Gell attributed to his having in his holding Swarkeston Bridge during the whole of the troublous period.

At this bridge occurred also the climax of the latest invasion of England, i.e., that by the “Young Pretender” in 1745. By the time Charles Edward Stuart had reached Derby, he realised that his project was hopeless. His army had increased scarcely at all since he left Scotland, and his mountain warriors, who had marched all the way from their native Grampians, found, when they got to the end of the Pennine Chain, their way barred by the great plain of England. They never crossed the Trent, and although their advance guard reached Swarkeston Bridge, that was only a movement to kill time while the courageous Highlanders braced themselves to endure the humiliation of a retreat.

The Prince had traversed half the length of England, only to find the people were too prosperous and contented to wish to disturb the ruling dynasty; and the King’s two armies, more powerful than his own, were rapidly approaching the invader’s troops. So the 7,000 clansmen, with their tartans and pipes, did not march over the bridge, and the people of Swarkeston were thus deprived of a fine spectacle, doubtless much to their relief. Since then the repose of the bridge has never been disturbed by wars or rumours of wars.

The viaduct over the meadows is delightfully irregular, and its course varies sympathetically with the neighbouring river. The general direction is north and south, but the whole length may be said to form a gentle arc. The surface rises and falls, and the parapet walls are full of unexpected nooks—first a corner and next a curve, now an angle and then a bend; here a concavity and there an inward bulge. In and out and up and down the bridge winds gently, and at intervals, near the arches, are dark, glistening pools, fringed with the sword-like leaves and[96] heavy-scented yellow blooms of the iris, while on the glossy surface of the water are spread the delicate palette-like leaves and golden ball flowers of the water-lily.

There are still remaining in the bridge fifteen old arches; two very beautiful ones are near the northern end, and at the other extremity is a fine group of six. In places, too, are stretches of very old and weathered masonry, pathetically irregular, with parts of a bold string course showing at intervals. The soffits of the old arches are lined with ribs, which increase both their beauty and strength, and there are some very interesting buttresses. It is a matter for regret that the Derbyshire County Council found it necessary in 1899 to make this romantic old bridge strong enough to carry steam-rollers. By the lavish use of blue bricks to underpin a number of the old arches, the utilitarian purpose was achieved, but much of the bridge’s peculiar beauty has been sacrificed thereby; yet in spite of this mischance, there is still enough charm left to make a visit to Swarkeston always a pleasure.

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DERBYSHIRE MONUMENTS TO THE FAMILY OF FOLJAMBE[32]

By Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A.

All that can be attempted in this article is to give an outline account of the succession of the family of Foljambe during the six centuries that they were numbered among the chief landowners of Derbyshire, with more particular reference to their burial and tombs in the three churches of Tideswell, Bakewell and Chesterfield.

The Foljambe family were connected with Tideswell and Wormhill from very early times. One of them was enfeoffed as a forester of fee (that is an hereditary forester) by William Peverel in the days of the Conqueror. William Foljambe, who was probably his grandson, died in 1172. Thomas Foljambe, of Tideswell, is mentioned in 1208, and again in 1214, when he was a knight. He had three sons, whose names appear as witnesses to various charters between 1224 and 1244; John and Roger are described as being of Tideswell, and Thomas of Little Hucklow. John died in 1249.

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Sir Thomas Foljambe, son of the above-mentioned John, was of Tideswell and Wormhill; he was living throughout the reign of Henry III., and for the first ten years of Edward I. He was also of some position in Yorkshire, for in 1253–4 he was seized of a knight’s fee in the Wapentake of Osgoldown; in 1282 he had the manor of Tideswell from Richard Daniel. He died on the Saturday next after the feast of St. Hilary in 1283. One of his brothers, Henry Foljambe, was bailiff of Tideswell in 1288.

It matters but little what class of old records connected with North Derbyshire is studied, the name of Foljambe is certain to occur in important matters, and usually with some frequency. Some serious attention has lately, for the first time, been given to the history of the Peak Forest (Victoria County History of Derby, i., 397–425), though the mass of documents relative to its administration yet awaits thorough study. In these records members of the family are continuously mentioned. Thus, at the Forest Pleas of 1251, the heaviest vert or “greenhue” fine (damage to or illicit appropriation of timber) was that of twenty marks imposed on Roger Foljambe for a variety of transgressions; and his two pledges for future observance of the forest assize were John Foljambe and Walter Coterell. At these Pleas, too, Thomas Foljambe was returned by the jury as one of the foresters of fee for the Campana division of the Peak Forest. The next Forest Pleas were not held until 1285. The rolls of the successive bailiffs or stewards of the forest since the last session were produced, from which it appeared that Thomas Foljambe had been bailiff for the year 1277, and again in 1281. In the latter year he was also constable of Peak Castle; his total official receipts for that twelvemonth amounted to the then great sum of £260.

Sir Thomas Foljambe was succeeded by his eldest son, another Sir Thomas Foljambe, of Tideswell, who[99] was a knight of the shire for the county of Derby in 1297, and died in the following year. He was succeeded by his son, yet another Sir Thomas Foljambe, of Tideswell; he represented his county in Parliament in 1302, 1304–5, 1309, and from 1311 to 1314. He was one of those Derbyshire knights who in 1301 were summoned to the muster at Berwick-on-Tweed to do military service against the Scots. He died in 1323, and was succeeded by a fourth Sir Thomas Foljambe, who married the heiress of the family of Darley in the Dale, and so acquired considerable estates in that neighbourhood, which passed to his younger son, Sir Godfrey.

There is interesting information with regard to the Foljambes in the rolls of the Forest Pleas of 1285, from which it appears that the family at that date held two of the hereditary foresterships of the Peak.

The Campana foresters of fee of that period were John Daniel; Thomas le Archer; Thomas, son of Thomas Foljambe, a minor in the custody of Thomas de Gretton; Nicholas Foljambe, who had been a minor in the custody of Henry de Medue, but was then of full age; and Adam Gomfrey. Of these foresters, Adam Gomfrey and Thomas Foljambe held jointly the same bovate, which had formerly been divided between two brothers. Also Thomas Foljambe and John le Wolfhunte held another bovate in the same way, John holding his half by hereditary descent, whilst Thomas Foljambe, senr., had acquired his half by marriage with Katherine, daughter of Hugh de Mirhand. This sub-division of serjeanties became burdensome to the district, as each forester of fee endeavoured to have a servant maintained at the expense of the tenants; but the jurors confirmed a decision of the Hundred Court of 1275 to the effect that there could be only four such servants or officers, according to ancient custom, for the Campana bailiwick.

The bovate of land held by Wolfhunte and Foljambe was a serjeanty assigned for taking of wolves in the[100] forest. On the jurors being asked what were the duties pertaining to that service, the following was the highly interesting reply:—

Wolves abounded in Derbyshire to the end of the thirteenth century. They were troublesome in Duffield Forest as well as in the Peak. There are two highly significant entries on the Pipe Rolls of Henry II. as to the devastation then caused by wolves in this county. In 1160–1 25s. was paid to the forest wolf-hunters as an extra fee. So great was the value set on the skill and experience of the Peak wolf-trappers, that Henry II. in 1167–8 paid 10s. for the travelling expenses of two of them to cross the seas to take wolves in Normandy. The accounts of Gervase de Bernake, bailiff of the Peak for 1255–6, make mention of a colt strangled by a wolf in Edale, and of two sheep killed by wolves in another part of the district.

Reverting to the descent of the eldest line of the Foljambes of Tideswell, John Foljambe succeeded his father, the last named Sir Thomas Foljambe, in 1323. This John Foljambe had a younger brother, Thomas, who had two sons, John and Thomas, of Elton, both of whom appear to have died childless. John Foljambe entailed the family estates in 1350, and a second entail was made in 1372, whereby on the extinction of the male descendants of the elder line, the estates of Tideswell and Wormhill passed to the younger branch of the family.

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The oldest known burial-place of the Derbyshire Foljambes was in the chancel of the church of Tideswell. To be buried in such a place is a sure proof of the importance of the family in that district, for such a privilege would not have been granted by the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield, as rectors, except to those of considerable distinction. This privilege must have been granted at an early date, long before the present beautiful fourteenth century chancel was erected. The family settled in this parish soon after the Conquest, and John Foljambe, who died in 1249, aged seventy-one, desired to be buried in the chancel of the church at Tideswell with his forefathers. This burial-place was used by the senior branch of the Foljambes until the time of its extinction in the male line by the death of Roger Foljambe in 1448. In the early part of the fourteenth century there were three Foljambe brasses with effigies extant in this chancel, but they have long since disappeared. They respectively commemorated (1) Sir Thomas Foljambe, who died in 1283, aged seventy-six, and Margaret, his wife, daughter of William de Gernon; (2) Sir Thomas Foljambe, who died in 1298, aged sixty-eight, and Catherine, his wife, daughter of William Eyre; and (3) Sir Thomas Foljambe, who died in 1323, aged sixty-seven, and Alice, his wife, daughter and heiress of Gerard de Furnival.

Thomas Foljambe, son of Sir Thomas Foljambe III., married twice. By Aveline, his first wife, he had a son, John, from whom the elder branch at Tideswell were descended. By Alice, daughter and heiress of Darley, of Darley, he had a son Godfrey, the founder of the Bakewell chantry. This John Foljambe, who married Joan, daughter of Anker Frechville, died on August 4th, 1358, and was buried at Tideswell. John, like his half-brother Godfrey, was a chantry founder on a munificent scale. He assigned two hundred acres in Tideswell, Wormhill and Litton for the support of two chaplains,[102] who were to say divine service at the altar of Our Lady in the church of Tideswell. In conjunction with this chantry a flourishing gild of brothers and sisters was established. The chantry was refounded on an extensive scale in the reign of Richard II.[33]

On the north side of the chancel, a floor-slab, bearing the matrix of the despoiled brass of the effigy of a man in armour with an inscription above his head, and another round the edge of the slab, long remained. One of the younger branch of the Foljambes, about 1675, desirous that the memory of this benefactor should not be forgotten, placed a small brass tablet across the breast of the former figure, which bore, in addition to a shield of the arms of Foljambe, the following inscription:—

In 1875, the late Earl of Liverpool caused this brass effigy of his ancestor to be restored. The inscription round the margin is simply a more classical rendering of that given above, with the addition of the date of its restoration. The old inscription has been transferred to another stone at the head of the brass. The fine east window of this chancel is due to the Earl’s munificence.

Tideswell Church: The Chancel.

This is the only remaining assured instance of the once numerous memorials to the great Foljambe family with which this church must have at one time abounded. It was, however, Lord Liverpool’s opinion that the two stone effigies, both of ladies, in the north transept of the church—the one dating from the end of the thirteenth, and the other from the latter half of the[103] fourteenth century—represented members of his family. In this he is supported by local tradition, but the question can probably never be settled. In the south transept are two effigies of later date to a knight and his lady on a table tomb. These have been claimed to represent Sir Thurston de Bower and his wife Margaret, who died about the close of the fourteenth century. This monument was considerably restored and renovated in 1873, and a marginal inscription added naming the effigies. It is, however, quite possible that Lord Liverpool’s conjecture as to these effigies also representing members of the Foljambe family is correct.[34]

Thomas, the elder of the two sons of John Foljambe, the benefactor to the church, died without issue in his father’s lifetime; John was succeeded by his younger son, Roger, who is mentioned in various charters of the reign of Richard II. His son and heir, James, died in Roger’s lifetime, but left a son, Edward Foljambe, who was at Tideswell, Wormhill, and Elton in 1416. He took part in the Battle of Agincourt, and was knighted, and dying about 1446–7, left two sons. These sons were: Roger, who succeeded him and died in 1448, leaving three daughters; and Thomas, who died shortly before his brother, without issue. Thereupon, the entailed estates of Tideswell, Wormhill, etc., came to Thomas, son and heir of Thomas, younger son of Sir Godfrey Foljambe, of Darley.

The Darley estates passed, as has been already mentioned, in the time of Edward III. to Sir Godfrey Foljambe, the younger son of Sir Thomas, of Tideswell. Sir Godfrey was a man of considerable repute; he acted as seneschal to John of Gaunt, and was for some years Constable of the Peak; he also represented Derbyshire in the Parliaments of 1339–40, 1363–4, and 1369–71. Sir Godfrey Foljambe, who held the old Gernon manor[104] in Bakewell parish and much other property, died in 1376, at the age of 59. A remarkable monument of beautiful finish is to be seen in Bakewell Church, against one of the nave piers, to his memory, and that of his second wife, the co-founders of a chantry in this church.

Sir Godfrey and his wife are represented in half-length figures of alabaster, carved in high relief, beneath a double-crocketed canopy. The knight is represented in plate armour, and having on his head a conical helmet or bascinet, with a camail of mail attached to its lower edge. The lady wears the reticulated head-dress or cowl. Over the knight are the arms of Foljambe—sa., a bend between six escallops, or—the same being represented on his surcoat; over the lady are represented the arms of Ireland—gu., six fleurs-de-lis, arg., 3, 2, 1. The monument is complete as it stands without any inscription, but in 1803, Mr. Blore, the antiquary, placed here a slab of black marble with the following inscription in gilt letters: —

This may be translated: —

At the bottom of this slab is the word “Watson,” which is in itself sufficient to stamp this inscription as[105] of modern date; for the old monumental sculptors were never guilty of the offence of advertising themselves on the inscribed slabs that they erected. It has been stated that Mr. Blore obtained this inscription from a document in the British Museum where the original epitaph was quoted. This, however, is an impossibility, for a contemporary inscription could not possibly have contained the blunders of this supposed transcript. The date of the foundation of the chantry is wrong, and it was, moreover, founded by Sir Godfrey Foljambe in conjunction with his first wife Anne, and not with his second wife Avena. The family from which Anne, the first wife, came is not known, but his second wife, Avena, was the daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Ireland, of Hartshorne, by Avena, daughter and heiress of Sir Payn de Vilers, of Kinoulton and Newbold, Notts.

There has been much confusion as to the date of the founding of the chantry of the Holy Cross in Bakewell church—Lysons gives the date as 1365, whilst Glover assigns it to 1371; but the one has been deceived by an inquisition taken on the death of one of the chaplains or trustees of the chantry property, and the other by a confirmation deed of the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield. The true date is 1344, as is proved by a variety of original documents now extant at the Public Record Office.[35] There was a gild of some importance in connection with this well-endowed chantry. The ordinances to secure the regular attendance of the chaplain of this foundation were rigorous. He was to reside constantly in the chantry house which adjoined the churchyard. This house was only pulled down in the year 1820. He was never to be away from Bakewell for as much as three days without licence from the Lord of Hassop for the time being, and if the lord was not in residence, he was to obtain leave from the vicar of Bakewell. If the chaplain[106] was ever away without licence for so long a time as fifteen days he was to be at once removed, and another chaplain was to be presented by the Lord of Hassop for institution by the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield.

The site of the chantry of the Holy Cross was at the east end of the south aisle. This interesting mural monument is placed against one of the piers between the south aisle and the nave. It is not quite certain whether this is the original position, but it has certainly been there for two and a half centuries; Ashmole, who visited the church in 1662, gives a rough draft of the memorial, which he describes as “set upon a pillar betweene the upper end of the south Isle and the body of the Church.” There was daily mass at the altar of the Holy Cross, and the chaplain was instructed, after the confiteor in each mass, to turn to the people and say in the mother tongue, “Pray for the soul of Sir Godfrey Foljambe and Anne his wife, and his children, and for the brethren of the Guild of the Holy Cross, and for all the faithful departed.”

This is the only Foljambe monument at Bakewell, but the following members of the family were probably buried in the parish church:—Alice (Darley), widow of Sir Thomas Foljambe; Sir Godfrey Foljambe, of the monument, and his two wives, Anne and Avena; three of the sons of Sir Godfrey by his second wife, Avena, viz., Sir Godfrey Foljambe II., Alvared, the fourth son, and Robert, the fifth son; Sir Godfrey Foljambe III., grandson of Sir Godfrey of the monument, who died in 1389; and Margaret, daughter of Sir Simon Leche, and wife of the last named Sir Godfrey.

Bakewell Church: Foljambe Monument.

Meanwhile, a younger branch of the family, founded by Thomas Foljambe, second son of the first Sir Godfrey, by Avena, his wife, settled at Walton, near Chesterfield, through the marriage of this Thomas with Margaret, the eldest daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Loudham, of Walton. Sir John Loudham gained the Walton estate,[107] in the parish of Chesterfield, by marriage with Isabel, daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Bretton.

Thomas, son and heir of Thomas Foljambe, of Walton, and Margaret (Loudham), his wife, became heir male of the family in 1448, on the death, as has been already stated, of Roger Foljambe, of Tideswell. Though still landowners in that parish, the family ceased from that time to be residents at Tideswell; for in 1451, this Thomas, then aged forty, inherited further estates on the death of his uncle, and thenceforth the Derbyshire home of the family was at Walton. The Tideswell property was eventually sold by Sir Francis Foljambe, Bart., who died in 1640.

We now leave both Tideswell and Bakewell in the search for Foljambe monuments, and go to one of the south chapels of the great church of Chesterfield, which was the burial place of the family for more than two centuries. In this chapel of the south aisle of the quire, long known as the Foljambe chapel, there used to be a brass to Thomas Foljambe, who was the first of the family to acquire Walton. There were also brasses to his son, Thomas Foljambe, of Walton, who married Jane, daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Ashton; and also to his son, a third Thomas Foljambe, who died childless in 1468. But these three brasses disappeared in the seventeenth century.

Among the Osberton muniments are letters testimonial from the commissary of the Bishop of Lichfield, dated 27th May, 1469, granting to Henry Foljambe, of Walton, and John Foljambe, administration of the goods of Thomas Foljambe, of Walton, deceased, in the estate, the same having been appraised by James Hyton, dean of Scarsdale, and others, and proclamations made at mass in Chesterfield church.

The oldest of the memorials now left is a finely wrought table or chest tomb (of the kind usually misnamed “altar-tomb”), which commemorates Henry Foljambe, brother[108] and heir of the third Thomas Foljambe, of Walton, who married Benedicta, daughter of Sir Henry Vernon, of Haddon. On the sides of this tomb are many sculptured figures of squires and ladies under rich canopies, representing the seven sons and seven daughters of Henry and Benedicta. The names of these children were Godfrey, Thomas, Henry, Richard, John, Gilbert, Roger, Helen, Margaret, Joan, Mary, Benedicta, Elizabeth, and Anne. An agreement was entered into between the executors of Henry Foljambe, in conjunction with his widow and children, and Henry Harpur and William Moorecock, of Burton-on-Trent, “to make a tomb for Henry Foljambe, husband of Bennett, in St. Mary’s quire, in the church of All Hallows, in Chesterfield, and to make it as good as is the tomb of Sir Nicholas Montgomery at Colley, with eighteen images under the table, and the arms upon them, and the said Henry in copper and gilt upon the table of marble, with two arms at the head and two arms at the feet of the same, and the table of marble to be of a whole stone and all fair marble.” This agreement is dated 26th of October, 1510; £5 was paid in hand, and another £5 was to be paid when all was performed; it seems probable that this contract referred only to the stonework of the tomb. The brasses on the top of this table-tomb, consisting of the effigies of Henry and his lady, together with a marginal inscription brass, were for a long time missing, but were re-supplied by the late Lord Liverpool; the shields bear the arms of Foljambe, Vernon, Loudham, and Bretton.

Near to this table-tomb is a floor-slab bearing the brasses of a knight and his lady. This is the tomb of Sir Godfrey Foljambe IV., eldest son of the last-mentioned Henry, and his wife Catherine, daughter of Sir John Leeke, of Sutton-in-the-Dale.[36] He was born at Walton[109] on Easter Day, 1472. By his will, made in 1531, he desires:

Tomb of Henry Foljambe, 1510; and Kneeling Figure of Sir Thomas Foljambe, 1604.

Tomb of Godfrey Foljambe, 1594.
[From Ford’s “History of Chesterfield,” 1839.]

The knight is depicted in plate armour, his head resting on his helmet and his feet on a stag; his surcoat bears the quartered arms of Foljambe, Loudham, and Bretton. The lady wears the low-pointed head-dress, with falling lappets, of the sixteenth century, and is clad in a long mantle, which bears the arms of Leeke; the gown is confined at the waist by a girdle, fastened with a clasp of three roses, and round the neck is a chain with a pendant cross. Sir Godfrey died in 1541, and his wife in 1529. This Sir Godfrey was thrice high sheriff of the county, namely, in 1519, 1524, and 1536.

Against the east wall of the Foljambe chapel is an elaborate mural monument to Sir James Foljambe, the eldest son of the fourth Sir Godfrey, who died in 1558. This monument was erected by his grandson, and is a costly and elaborate example of the fashion of mural monuments that then prevailed. Bateman, the Derbyshire antiquary of last century, wrote of it as a specimen of “cumbrous style and horrible taste.” But although it clashes with its Gothic surroundings, it is quite possible to admire the beauty and workmanship of some of the component parts. The kneeling figures of Sir James, his two wives and thirteen children, are all represented. This Sir James Foljambe enjoyed a plentiful fortune from his[110] father, but had it much augmented through marriage. His first wife was Alice, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Fitzwilliam, of Aldwark,[37] who was slain at Flodden Field, 1515; she brought him considerable landed property at Aldwark, and in other parts of Yorkshire. By her he had issue, Godfrey, George and James, twins, and three daughters, Frances, Cecily, and Mary. Sir James’ second wife was Constance, daughter of Sir Edward Littleton; by her he had issue, a son Francis, two other sons, and four daughters. The Latin epitaph, composed by Sir James’ grandson, is expressed in grandiloquent terms. Sir James is therein described, according to a translation by Lord Liverpool, as “a man highly adorned by piety, by the integrity of his manners, by the heraldic bearing of his ancestors, and by his own virtues.” By inquisition taken at Chesterfield after his death, it was found that he died seized of 40 messuages, 7 watermills, 200 acres of meadow, and £5 rents in Brampton, half the manor in Bremington, the manors of Elton and Tideswell, as well as a great variety of lands, messuages, and rents in more than a score of other townships in Derbyshire.

His eldest son, Godfrey, was twenty-four at the time of his father’s death. He was subsequently knighted, and died in 1585. He married Troth, daughter of William Tyrwhitt, of Kettleby. The table-tomb to the fifth Sir Godfrey and his wife bears their recumbent effigies in alabaster. Sir Godfrey wears a double collar ruff, and ruffles round the wrists; he is clad in the plate armour of the period, and is bare-headed; the head rests on the helmet, whilst a lion supports the feet. The lady is in ruff and mantle, her head on a cushion and a dog at her feet. Round the margin of the tomb are twenty shields, bearing the various Foljambe alliances, whilst at the foot is a shield of all these Foljambe quarterings impaling Tyrwhitt, whose arms are three tirwhits or lapwings. An elaborate Latin[111] epitaph appears on a mural slab above the altar-tomb. Sir Godfrey is there described as “highly adorned by his innocence, his integrity, his faith, his religion, and his hospitality.”

Chesterfield Church: Foljambe Chapel.

Against the south wall of this chapel is the table-tomb and monument of Godfrey Foljambe, the only son of Sir Godfrey Foljambe V., who erected the elaborate monuments to his parents and grandparents. He also erected the monument to himself during his lifetime. He died in 1594; but the sculptor placed on the margin the true date of the execution of the work, which was 1592. The sculptured work round this tomb is a beautifully modelled example of renaissance carving, and has been considered worthy of special illustration in Mr. Gotch’s recent important work, Early Renaissance Architecture in England.

On the floor near by there is a large alabaster slab bearing the incised effigy of a man in armour, with a much mutilated marginal inscription. It appears, from church notes of the eighteenth century, that this is the monument of George Foljambe, of Brimington, who died in 1588; he was the second son of Sir James Foljambe. In this chapel there is also to be seen the exceptional kneeling figure of a knight in plate armour, which is described and engraved in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1794. It has undergone various mutilations and restorations. There is some difficulty in deciding whom this monument is intended to represent; but it seems probable that it was erected to the memory of Sir Thomas Foljambe, who was buried at Chesterfield in 1604. He was the son of Francis Foljambe, the eldest son of Sir James, by his second wife; he was succeeded by his brother Francis, who was created baronet in 1622.

One of the most painful features of the troubles of the Elizabethan recusants, or adherents to the unreformed faith, who were numerous in this county, was the deliberate way in which family feuds were promoted, and the bribe[112] of inheriting forfeited estates held out to conforming relations who would give information as to recusancy.[38]

Among the Talbot papers at the College of Arms is a letter from Francis Leeke to the Earl of Shrewsbury, dated February 2nd, 1587, wherein he states:—

The Earl answers that her commitment is necessary, and on February 16th of the same year, receives a letter from Godfrey Foljambe stating that he had apprehended “the Lady Constance Foljambe, my grandmother, and now have her in my custodie, whom, by God’s help, I shall safely keep.” The zeal of the conforming grandson was not altogether disinterested, for when he set her at liberty, twenty months later, by order of the Council, he retained for his own benefit “her living, goods, and chattels.” On September 22nd, 1589, the Lady Constance wrote to the Earl thanking him for her release. From another source comes an interesting evidence of the endeavours of the aged lady, within a few days of her release, to conform sufficiently so as to escape renewed custody at the hands of her grasping grandson. In the common place book of Roger Columbell, of Darley Hall, occurs this note:

Sir Francis Foljambe, Bart., sold Walton Manor House and the Derbyshire estate to Sir Arthur Ingram in 1633. From that time Aldwark became the chief residence of the family. Sir Francis died, leaving no male issue, in 1640, and the representation of his family devolved on his third cousin, Peter Foljambe, who was able to prove his descent and claim to the family estates. He lived at Steveton, one of the inherited estates in the parish of Sherborn, Yorkshire, and died in 1668. It is from the Foljambes of Aldwark and Steveton that Cecil George Savile Foljambe, Baron Hawkesbury 1893, Viscount Hawkesbury and Earl of Liverpool 1905, who died in 1907, was descended.

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REPTON: ITS ABBEY, CHURCH, PRIORY, AND SCHOOL

By Rev. F. C. Hipkins, M.A., F.S.A.

Very early in the annals of England the name of Repton appears. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it is mentioned three times:—(1) A.D. 755, “In the same year Æthelbald, King of the Mercians, was slain at Seccandune (Seckington, Warwickshire), and his body lies at Hreopandune (Repton)”; (2) A.D. 874, “In this year the army of the Danes went from Lindsey to Hreopedune, and there took up their winter quarters”; (3) A.D. 875, “In this year the army departed from Hreopedune.”

Professor Skeat thinks that “the name signifies Hreopa’s down, i.e., Hreopa’s hill-fort. Hreopa being the name of some Anglo-Saxon warrior, not otherwise known.”

In Domesday Book the name is spelt Rapendun, and many variations as to the spelling of the name appear in mediæval and modern documents.

Repton: Parish Church and Priory Gateway.

Stebbing Shaw, in the Topographer (ii., 250), writes: “Here was, before A.D. 600, a noble monastery of religious men and women, under the government of an Abbess, after the Saxon Way, wherein several of the royal line were buried.”

Tradition says that this monastery was founded by St. David about the year 600, but as no records of the monastery have been discovered, we cannot tell with any[115] precision when it was founded, or by whom. Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, was slain by Oswin, King of Northumbria, at the battle of Winwadfield in the year 656, and was succeeded by his brother Peada, who had been converted to Christianity by Alfred, brother of Oswin, and was baptized, with all his attendants, by Finan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, at Walton, in the year 632 (Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj.). King Peada is said to have brought into the midlands four priests, Adda, Betti, Cedda (brother of St. Chad), and Diuma, who was consecrated first bishop of the Middle Angles and Mercians. In the year 657 Peada was slain “in a very nefarious manner during the festival of Easter,” and was succeeded by his brother Wulphere.

Tanner, Notitia, f. 78; Leland, Collect, vol. ii., p. 157; Dugdale, Monasticon, vol. ii., pp. 280–2, agree that the monastery was founded before the year 660, so that either Peada or his brother Wulphere may have been the founder.

One of the earliest references to Repton Abbey and Abbess is found in a life of St. Guthlac, written by Felix, a monk of Croyland, at the command of Æthelbald, King of the Mercians. Guthlac, after a nine years’ life of plunder, obtained by fire and sword, repented of his life,

This happened in the year 694, when Ælfritha was abbess. She admitted him, and under her rule he received the mystical tonsure of St. Peter, the prince of the Apostles.

For two years he submitted himself to the discipline of the monastery, but, attracted by the virtues of a hermit’s life, he left the abbey in the autumn of 696, “when berries hung ripe over the stream,” and drifted down the Trent[116] till he reached the Lincoln Fens, where he built himself a hut, and lived in it till he died in 714. It is related that Eadburgh, Abbess of Repton, daughter of Aldulph, King of the East Angles, sent a shroud and a coffin of Derbyshire lead for his burial.

The Memorials of St. Guthlac, edited by Dr. Walter de Gray Birch, contain the full text of Felix’s life of the Saint, interleaved with eighteen cartoons, reproduced by autotype photography from the well-known roll in the British Museum.

The next event is connected with Wystan, patron saint of Repton. In an appendix to the Chronicon Abbatiæ de Evesham, written by Thomas de Marleberge, Abbot of Evesham (published among The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle-Ages), there is a life of St. Wystan. Wystan was the son of Wimund (son of Wiglaf, King of Mercia); his mother’s name was “Elfleda”; his father died of dysentery when he (Wystan) was young. On the death of Wiglaf, Bertulph, “inflamed with a desire of ruling, and with a secret love for the Queen-Regent,” conspired against his nephew Wystan. A council was summoned to meet at a place known from that day to this as Wistanstowe, in Shropshire. Hither came Bertulph and his son Berfurt. Beneath his cloak Berfurt had concealed a sword, and whilst giving a kiss of peace to Wystan he drew it and smote him with a mortal wound in the head, and so, on the Eve of Pentecost, A.D. 850, “that holy martyr, leaving his precious body on the earth, bore his glorious soul to heaven.” The body was conveyed to the Abbey at Repton, “tunc temporis famosissimum,” and buried in the mausoleum of his grandfather.

Here the body rested till the days of Canute (1016–1035), who transferred the relics to Evesham Abbey. In the year 1207 its central tower fell, smashing the presbytery and all that it contained, including the shrine of St. Wystan. The monks recovered the relics, and at[117] the earnest request of the prior and canons of Repton granted to them “a portion of the broken skull and a piece of an arm bone.” The bearers of the precious relics were met by a procession of prior canons, and others from Repton; “with tears of joy they placed the relics, not as before in the mausoleum of St. Wystan’s grandfather, but in a shrine more worthy, more suitable, and as honourable as it was possible to make it in their own Priory Chapel.”

About twenty years after the murder of St. Wystan, the Danes again invaded the land. During the reign of Alfred, in A.D. 874, they penetrated up the river Trent into the heart of Mercia, and took up their winter quarters at Repton, as we read in the Saxon Chronicle. Here they made a camp, a parallelogram of raised earth, still in situ, by the side of the river Trent. Its dimensions are: north side, 75 yards 1 foot; south side, 68 yards 1 foot; east side, 52 yards 1 foot; west side, 54 yards 2 feet. Within the four embankments are two rounded mounds, and parallel with the south side are two inner ramparts, and one parallel with the north. The local name for it is “The Buries.” The next year, 875, they departed, having, as Ingulph relates, “utterly destroyed that most celebrated monastery, the most sacred mausoleum of all the Kings of Mercia.”

For about a century the site of the monastery remained desolate, until the reign of Edgar the Peaceable (959–975), when, as the Rev. Dr. Cox writes, “Probably about that period the religious ardour of the persecuted Saxons revived ... their thoughts would naturally revert to the glories of monastic Repton in the days gone by.” On the site of or close to the ruined abbey a church was built, and dedicated to St. Wystan. In Domesday Book Repton is entered as having a church with two priests, which proves the size and importance of the church and parish in those early days.

According to several writers it was built of stout oak[118] beams, and planks, on a foundation of stone, and its sides were made of wattle, composed of withy twigs, interlaced between the oak beams, daubed within and without with mud or clay. The floor of the chancel, supported on beams of wood, was higher than the present one, so it had an upper and lower “choir,” the lower one being lit by narrow lights, two of which, blocked up, can be seen in the south wall of the chancel.

When the church was reconstructed of stone the chancel floor was removed, and the lower “choir” was converted into the present crypt by the introduction of a vaulted stone roof, which is supported by four spirally-wreathed pillars, five feet apart, five feet six inches high, eight square responds, slightly fluted, of the same height and distance apart, all with capitals, with square abaci, which are chamfered off below.

As the responds are not bonded into the walls of the crypt, the question has been asked if the walls might have pertained to the abbey, and formed the mausoleum referred to on previous page.

Round the four walls is a double string-course; below which the walls are ashlar, remarkably smooth. The vaulted roof springs from the upper string-course; the ribs are square in section, one foot wide, no diagonal groins. The whole roof is covered with plaster; traces of red colour wash can be seen on the capitals and roof.

There were square recesses on the east, north, and south sides, projecting two feet two inches from the face of the walls, six feet two inches wide, with openings in them two feet wide, used as windows. These recesses were capped with triangular shaped roofs, which served the double purpose of protecting them, and also formed buttresses for the walls. Similar triangular roofs are to be seen at Barnack and Brigstock.

Repton Church: Saxon Crypt.

In the west wall there is also a recess, formed by an arch; in this recess there is a smaller triangular-shaped opening, about 18 inches high. Many suggestions have[119] been made as to its use: (1) it was a “holy hole” for the reception of relics; (2) an opening in which a lamp, let down from the chancel above, could be kept lit; (3) “a hagioscope,” through which the crypt and its contents could be seen from the nave of the church. Two passages led from the western angles of the crypt to the church above.

In the December, 1896, number of the Archæological Journal there is an article by Mr. Micklethwaite in which he refers to the fact that the crypts at Brixworth, Repton, and Wing are alike in one respect—they each have recesses, which he calls “arcosolia,” or arched chambers, intended to receive tombs. At Repton and Wing there are three; at Brixworth, two. Repton and Wing extend two feet two inches from the face of the walls; those at Brixworth are in the thickness of the walls. In the year 1898 I excavated the earth on the south side, and found the foundations as before given; under a slab in the recess, a skeleton was found. The recess on the east side was destroyed when a flight of stone steps was made leading down into the crypt. Six of these steps are still in situ. The recess on the north side was destroyed, and replaced by an outer stone staircase, with holy water stoup in the wall, and a thirteenth century door.

All the various styles of architecture are to be seen included in the walls of Repton church. Saxon or Norman in the chancel, crypt, walls, and foundations of the present nave as far as the second pillars. During the year 1854 the Saxon pillars and arches of the church were removed for the sake of uniformity! The pillars are preserved in the south porch.

During the last restoration of 1885–6, the foundations of this part of the church, and those of the Early English period, were laid bare.

The Decorated style is represented by the pillars and arches of the nave, the north and south aisles, and the[120] tower with its steeple. Bassano, in his Church Notes, records this fact:—

The Perpendicular style is represented by the clerestory windows, of two lights each, the roof of the church, and the south porch.

In the year 1779, the crypt was “discovered” in a curious way. Dr. Prior, headmaster of Repton School, died on June 16th of that year; a grave was being prepared in the chancel, when the grave-digger suddenly disappeared from sight; he had dug through the vaulted roof, and so fell into the crypt below! In the south-west division of the groined ceiling, a rough lot of rubble, used to mend the hole, indicates the spot.

During the year 1792 “a restoration” of the church took place; the church was re-pewed in the horse-box style! All the beautifully carved oak work on pews and elsewhere, described by Stebbing Shaw in the Topographer (May, 1790), and many monuments, were cleared out or destroyed. The crypt seems to have been the receptacle for “all and various” kinds of this “rubbish.” In the year 1802, Dr. Sleath, headmaster of Repton, “discovered” the steps and door on the north side of the chancel, and having cleared out the one and opened the other, found the crypt filled up to the capitals of the pillars with “rubbish,” which he removed, and restored the crypt as it is now.

There are three ancient register books of births, baptisms, marriages, and burials, and one register book of the churchwardens’ and constables’ accounts of the parish of Repton. They extend from 1580 to 1670.

The register book of the churchwardens’ and constables’ accounts extends from 1582 to 1635, and includes Repton, and the chapelries of Foremark, Ingleby,[121] and Bretby. It is a narrow folio volume of coarse paper (16 in. by 6 in., by 2 in. thick), and is bound with a parchment which formed part of a Latin Breviary or Office Book, with music and words. The initial letters are illuminated; the colours inside are still bright and distinct.

In vol. i. of the Journal of the Derbyshire Archæological Society (1879) there is an article by Rev. Dr. Cox on these accounts, and he writes: “It is the earliest record of parish accounts, with the exception of All Saints’, Derby, in the county.” Space alone prevents me from making extracts from them and the other registers; they are full of local interest.

About the year 1059, a Priory of Canons Regular, of the order of St. Augustine, dedicated to St. Giles, was founded at Calke by Algar, Earl of Mercia. Here they dwelt till c. 1153, according to the old Chronicle written by one Thomas de Musca, Canon of Dale Abbey, when Serio de Grendon, lord of Bradley, near Ashbourne, “called together the Canons of Kale, and gave them the place of Deepdale; here they built for themselves a church, a costly labour, and other offices.” These buildings became known as Dale Abbey, and here they lived for a time “apart from the social intercourse of men, but they began too remissly to hold themselves in the service of God; they began to frequent the forest more than the church, more to hunting than to prayer or meditation, so the King ordered them to return to the place whence they came,” viz., Calke. During the reign of Henry II. (1154–1189), Matilda, widow of Randulf, fourth Earl of Chester, who died A.D. 1153—with the consent of her son Hugh—granted to God, St. Mary, the Holy Trinity, and to the Canons of Calke, the working of a quarry at Repton, together with the advowson of the church of St. Wystan, at Repton, on condition that as soon as a suitable opportunity should occur, the Canons should remove to[122] Repton, which was to be their chief house; Calke Priory was to become subject to it.

“A suitable opportunity” occurred during the episcopate of Walter Durdent, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield (1149–1159).

Copies of the original charters are given in Bigsby’s History of Repton, Dugdale’s Monasticon, and Stebbing Shaw’s article in vol. ii. of the Topographer. The charters containing grants extend from Stephen’s reign (1135–1154) to the reign of Henry V. (1413–1422), and include the church of St. Wystan, Repton, with its eight chapelries of Newton Solney, Bretby, Milton, Foremark, Ingleby, Tickenhall, Smisby, and Measham; the church at Badow, in Essex; estates at Willington, including its church; and property at Croxall.

Very few events have been handed down to us in connection with the story of the priory. In November, 1364, Robert de Stretton, Bishop of Lichfield, was holding a visitation in the chapter house of the priory of Repton. For some reason unknown, the villagers, armed with bows and arrows, swords and cudgels, with much tumult, assaulted the Priory Gatehouse. The bishop sent for Sir Alured de Solney and Sir Robt. Francis, lords of the manors of Newton Solney and Foremark, who came and quickly quelled this early “town and gown” row without any actual breach of the peace. The bishop soon after proceeded on his journey, and on reaching Alfreton issued a sentence of interdict on the town and parish church of Repton, with a command to the clergy in the neighbouring churches to publish the same under pain of greater excommunication, and publication was to be continued until they merited the grace of reconciliation.

By the advice of Thomas Cromwell—malleus monachorum—Henry VIII. issued a commission of inquiry into the condition, etc., of the monasteries of England. An Act was passed in 1536 suppressing those which had revenues less than £200 a year. Those[123] notorious men, Doctors Thomas Leigh and Richard Layton, had visited Repton the year before, and gave the amount of revenue as £180 per annum; they reported that the canons were not living up to their vows, and added a note to their report; but all competent historians agree that these reports are quite untrustworthy.

Under the heading of superstitio the visitors made the interesting entry that pilgrims came to the Priory of Repton to visit (a shrine of) St. Guthlac and his bell, which they were wont to place on their heads for the cure of the headache. This relic formed an interesting link between the early pre-Conquest Abbey and the Norman Priory.

On June 12th, 1537, John Yonge, or Young, was re-appointed prior by the Crown; letters patent were granted exempting the priory from suppression on the payment of a fine of £266 13s. 4d. But this only delayed the surrender, which happened on October 26th, 1538. Prior Yonge died three days before that event. Ralph Clerke, sub-prior, signed the deed handing the priory and contents to Dr. Leigh, who, writing to Thomas Cromwell from Grace Dieu, said, “On coming to Repton they found the house greatly spoiled, and many things purloined, part of which they recovered.”

In the Public Record Office there is a very full inventory of the goods and possessions of the Priory. A transcript of this inventory is given by Mr. W. H. St. John Hope in vol. vi. of the Derbyshire Archæological Journal, 1884. This inventory affords a very good and detailed account of the Priory and its contents. It is termed a list of—

A memorandum added to the list recounts that—

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Thomas Thacker died in 1548, leaving his property to his son Gilbert; the latter, according to Fuller,

The Priory differed in no marked way from the usual plan of conventual building—a square cloister, surrounded on all its sides by buildings. Owing to the river being on the north, the cloister was on the north of its church, instead of the south; the Refectory, or Fratry, on the north side, the church on the south; the chapter house and calefactorium, with dormitory over them, on the east side; the kitchens, buttery, and cellars, with guest hall over them, on the west side. Admission to the Priory precincts, which were bounded by the existing walls, was obtained through a gate-house, the outer arch of which forms the present entrance. The Trent formed a boundary on the north. The stream which flows down the village entered the precincts at the south-eastern corner of the boundary wall through an arch, still in situ, and supplied the fish-ponds, mill, and Priory with water for domestic, sanitary, and other purposes.

The Priory church consisted of nave, with north and south aisles, central tower, north and south transepts, choir, with aisles, a south chapel, and a presbytery to the east of the choir. In the inventory the following chapels are named: St. John, Our Lady of Pity, St. Thomas, St. Syth (St. Osyth), Our Lady, and St. Nicholas. Many beautiful fragments of painted canopies, tabernacle work, etc., were found among the débris when digging foundations for the Pears School in 1885; no doubt many of the shrines, such as those of SS. Guthlac and Wystan, had been robbed of their relics and ornaments long before the Priory was destroyed in the year 1553.

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Repton: The Priory Gateway and School.

Leaving the church, we enter, through a door at the east end of the north aisle, the cloister. Passing along the eastern side we come to the Chapter House, with slype, or passage, through which the bodies of the canons were conveyed for interment in the cemetery outside. The slype is still intact, with plain barrel vault, without ribs, springing from a chamfered string course; adjoining the slype was the calefactorium, or warming house.

Over the Chapter House, slype, and calefactorium was the dormitory, with its cells or cubicles.

The Fratry or Refectory occupied the north side, with rooms underneath used for various purposes, and a passage leading to the infirmary, an isolated building, now known as the Hall.

On the west side were the Prior’s Chamber and five others, devoted to guests who visited the Priory. Underneath was the cellarium, which included “the Kychenn,” “larder,” and “bruehouse.” The cellar was a long room 89 feet by 26 feet, divided by a row of six massive Norman columns, four of which are still in situ. Besides these, there were three other houses mentioned: “the yelyng house,” i.e., brewing house; the “boultyng house,” where the meal was sifted; and the “kyll house,” by which term is possibly meant the slaughter house, but more probably the kiln house.

The following is a more perfect and fuller list of the priors of Repton than has hitherto appeared:—

Robert, c. 1155; Nicholas, c. 1175; Albred, c. 1200; Richard, c. 1208; Nicholas, c. 1215; John, c. 1220; Reginald, c. 1230; Peter, c. 1252; Robert, c. 1289; Ralph, 1316–36; John de Lichfield, 1336–46; Simon de Sutton, 1346–56; Ralph de Derby, 1356–99; William of Tutbury, 1399; William Maynesin, c. 1411; Wystan Porter, died 1436; John Overton, 1436; John Wylne, 1438–71; Thomas Sutton, 1471–86; Henry Prest, 1486–1503; William Derby, 1503–8; John Young, 1508.

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The fourth section of these outline memorials of Repton belongs to the school, which has this year (1907) celebrated its seventh jubilee. The founder of Repton School was descended from Henry Porte, a merchant of Westchester (i.e., Chester, west of Manchester). He had a son, also Henry, a mercer, of the same city. His son John was a Justice of the King’s Bench in the reign of Henry VIII., who conferred upon him, after the dissolution of the monasteries, the manor, together with the rectory and advowson of the vicarage of Etwall; these passed to his son, Sir John Porte (created a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Edward VI.), the founder of Repton School. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, in which his father is said to have provided “stipends for two sufficient and able persons to read and teach openly in the hall—the one philosophy, the other humanity,” one of which “stipends” or lectureships was conferred on his son. Like his father, he was married twice. His first wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Giffard, by whom he had two sons, who predeceased him, and three daughters, Elizabeth, who married Sir Thomas Gerrard, knight of Bryn, co. Manchester; Dorothy, who married George Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon; and Margaret, who married Sir Thomas Stanhope, knight, of Shelford, co. Nottingham. From these three daughters the present hereditary governors of Repton School, Lord Gerard, Earl Loudoun, and Earl Carnarvon, trace their descent. By his second wife, Dorothy, daughter of Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, of Norbury, he had no children.

In the year 1553 Sir John was one of the “knights of the shire” for the County of Derby, and served the office of High Sheriff for the same county in 1554. In 1556 he sat with Ralph Baine, Bishop of Lichfield, and the rest of the Commissioners, at Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, “to search out heresies and punish them.”—Strype, Memorials, vol. iii., part 2, p. 15.

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On the 6th of June, 1557, he died, and was buried in Etwall church. Built against the south wall in the chancel is “a comely and handsome tomb of pure marble,” under which lie the bodies of Sir John and his two wives. “Set and fixed, graven in brass,” are portrait figures of Sir John, his wives, and children.

By will, dated the 9th of March, 1556, Sir John gave and devised to his executors, Sir Thomas Giffard, knight; Richard Harpur, Esquire; Thomas Brewster, Vicar of Etwall, and others, certain estates in the counties of Derby and Lancaster for the foundation and maintenance of an almshouse at Etwall, and a grammar school at Etwall or Repton.

As we read in the report made to the Charity Commissioners in 1867—

The erection of “schoolmaster’s lodgings, with rooms above and below,” on the ruins of the Priory, referred to above, makes it very difficult to identify the present Priory with the original building. As Mr. St. John Hope writes in the 1884 volume of the Journal of the Derbyshire Archæological Society:

The ground floor consisted of a large room, divided by a row of six massive Norman circular columns, with scalloped or plain capitals; four of these remain. At the southern end of the west side is a slype or entrance to the cloister; at the northern end are three rooms, probably the kitchen larder; and from the appearance of the third—with its groined roof, the ribs of which were intended to be ornamented with the dog-tooth moulding, which was begun and never finished—it was used by the cellarer as a “plate house,” etc.

The “causey” at the south end was erected to form an entrance to the school.

By Royal Letters Patent, dated June 20th, 19 Jac. I. (1622), a Charter of Incorporation was granted, by the style and title of “The Master of Etwall Hospital, the School Master of Repton, Ushers, Poor Men, and Poor Scholars.” The charter is quoted at length in the Report, and consists of twenty-four ordinances, which refer to the appointment, duties, salaries, and stipends of the said masters, ushers, poor men, and poor scholars.

The Thackers and the school seem to have lived amicably together for many years; but as the school increased in numbers, that state of affairs was not likely to last. When Gilbert Thacker sold the remains of the Priory to the executors of Sir John Porte, he little thought what a rookery he was making for his descendants! The boys in their “recreation” extended the bounds, and ventured too near the inner courtyard in front of Thacker’s house, much to the annoyance and inconvenience of the dwellers there, as we can easily imagine. At last, in the year 1652, a case known as “The Master, &c., v.[129] Gilbert Thacker and others,” was commenced. It was settled out of court by the appointment of two arbitrators, Sir Francis Burdett, Bart., and Sir Samuel Sleigh, Knight, with Gervase Bennett as referee. They pronounced “theire award by word of mouth about the year 1653.” Thacker was to build a wall across the courtyard, beyond which the boys were not allowed to pass. This he refused to do, so the alleged trespass and annoyances went on for another twelve years, when, owing to the conduct of Thacker, the school brought an action against him. The High Court of Chancery appointed four gentlemen as commissioners to try the case: William Bullock, Daniel Watson, Esquires; Thomas Charnells, and Robert Bennett, gentlemen. They met “at the house of Alderman Hugh Newton, at Derby, there being at the signe of the George.”

In the year 1896 I found an account of this case in the school muniment chest. It consists of two rolled-up folios, lawyers’ briefs, with interrogations, depositions, etc., which were taken on April 15th, 1663, and fill sixty pages of folio. The interrogations for the school administered to the witnesses—of whom there were fifty, twenty-five on each side—referred to their knowledge of the school buildings, schoolmasters and boys, Thacker’s ancestors, rights of way, the award of Sir Francis Burdett and Sir Samuel Sleigh, the Thackers’ conduct, the value of the land, former suits at law, and the use of the yard for recreation by the boys, etc. For Thacker the questions referred to the knowledge of prohibitions by his ancestors and himself, and complaints made to the schoolmasters, etc. The depositions are most interesting, as the knowledge of some of the witnesses extended back to within forty years of the founding of the school. I wish I could quote them at length. Again “the differences between the parties” were settled out of court; “they were referred to the Right Honorable Philipp, Earl of Chesterfield, to be finally determined if he could,”[130] which proved a difficult task, for Thacker would not come to terms; so another writ was issued on January 11th, in the eighteenth year of the reign of Charles the Second, calling upon Thacker, “his Counsel, Attorneys, &c., &c., to fulfil each and every thing contained and specified in the aforesaid order, and in no wise neglect this at your imminent peril.” Thacker pleaded ignorance of the order, “as it was written in short Lattin, some of the words written very short, he did not well understand it, nor could say if it was a true coppy.” His plea was allowed, and a settlement was arrived at; a wall was built, part of it still in situ, “by both parties, from the Chancel N.E. corner to the north side of the door of the Nether School House,” below which the boys were not allowed to pass. A receipt for £14 19s. for half the cost of the building of the wall, signed by Wm. Jordan, proves that it was built before or during the year 1670.

For over two hundred years the school consisted of the Priory, and a room called the “writing school,” now destroyed, which stood on the east side of the “causey,” a paved passage between the walls, with steps leading into the old “big school,” now the school library. The “schoolmaster’s lodgings” were at the north end; the usher’s at its south. The other “ushers” had their “lodgings” in a building, also destroyed, in what is now known as the “Trent gardens.”

During the headmastership of Dr. Prior (1767–79) the number of boys attending the school had greatly increased; those who came from a distance used “to table,” that is, lodge, in the village. “For the better acomodation of boarders,” the governors of the school rented the Hall from Sir Robert Burdett, Bart., of Foremark, who had succeeded to it on the death of Mary Thacker, who died on January 8th, 1728. An order was issued by the governors, the Earls of Huntingdon and Chesterfield and W. Cotton, on the 31st day of August, 1768, that the Hall “should be considered in all points as the master’s[131] house, the rent and all other expenses attending it being defrayed by the Corporation”; from that date the Hall has been the residence of the headmasters of Repton School. Originally it consisted of an isolated brick tower, two storeys high, with hexagonal turrets in the upper storey, and was built by Prior Overton in the reign of Henry VI. (1422–61). When the Thackers obtained possession of it, they added to it at various dates. The lower storey of the tower, now used as the kitchen, has a fine oak ceiling, divided into nine square compartments by oak beams; at the intersections there are four carved bosses, bearing (1) a name device or rebus of Prior Overton, a tun or cask encircled by the letter O, formed by a vine branch with leaves and grapes; (2) a capital T ornamented with leaves; (3) an S similarly ornamented; (4) a sheep encircled like No. 1. The oaken staircase is lit by a stained-glass window, with the armorial bearings of the founder and three hereditary governors, the Earls of Huntingdon and Chesterfield, and Sir John Gerard.

With varied fortune the school continued till Dr. Pears was appointed headmaster in the year 1854, when there were only forty-eight boys in the school! The numbers rose rapidly, and other houses had to be built. The tercentenary of the school, held in 1857, proved to be a fresh starting point in its history. On August 11th of that year, the late Honourable George Denman presided over a meeting of Old Reptonians and others. Speeches were delivered, and a sermon was preached by the late Dr. Vaughan, headmaster of Harrow School. As a lasting memorial of the day, it was proposed that a school chapel should be erected; hitherto the school had worshipped in the parish church. A liberal response was made to the appeal, and in the year 1858 Earl Howe laid the foundation stone. Since that time it has been enlarged no less than four times to accommodate the number of boys, which now exceeds three hundred. From 1860 to 1885 seven school houses have been built,[132] additional form rooms and playing fields have been added, and crowning them all is the Pears Hall, which bears the following inscription:—

IN HONOREM PRÆCEPTORIS OPTIMI

STEUART ADOLPHI PEARS S.T.P.

SCHOLÆ REPANDUNENSI PROPE VIGINTI ANNOS PRÆPOSITI

UT INSIGNIA EJUS ERGA SCHOLAM ILLAM ANTIQUAM BENEFICIA

MONUMENTO PERPETUO IN MEMORIAM REVOCARENTUR HOC ÆDIFICIUM

AMICI ET DISCIPULI EJUS EXSTRUENDUM CURAVERUNT A.S. MDCCCLXXXVI.

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THE OLD HOMES OF THE COUNTY

By J. A. Gotch, F.S.A.

The old houses of Derbyshire are remarkable both for their number and for the variety of architectural periods which they illustrate. In them may be traced the development of domestic architecture, century by century, from the time of William Rufus down to the Georges. Not only are they interesting as a guide to the evolution of style, but also in their variety of size and importance. There is the small and ancient Peak Castle; the comparatively modern palace of Chatsworth; the great house of Haddon, with work of every century from the thirteenth to the seventeenth; the extensive ruins of Wingfield; the splendid remains of Bolsover; while among the dales and on the hill sides of the northern parts of the county are many diminutive manor houses, like Offerton and Highlow, or Snitterton and North Lees. Not only are there houses innumerable, but also many remains of the charming settings in which they were placed; ancient gardens like those at Melbourne; simple lay-outs, with terrace, steps, and paved walks like that at Eyam; quaint archways, like those at Tissington and Bradshaw. In the south of the county, near Sudbury, are several highly interesting half-timbered houses, of which the hall of Somersal Herbert, of three distinct dates, is the most striking instance. There is, indeed, hardly any point of interest connected with the amenities of by-gone house architecture which is not illustrated in this charming county.

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The Peak Castle is an interesting example of the early manner of house building. It is a kind of midland pele-tower, resembling those small fortified dwellings, or watch-towers, or outlying forts, which abound in Northumberland along the Scottish border. Indeed, it is a specimen on a small scale of what all its contemporaries were like. It consisted of a keep and a courtyard, defended from attack by a strong wall on one side and natural precipices on the others. Most of the castles of that time consisted of little more. The keep was the dwelling-house, the courtyard was the fortified enclosure, giving breathing space and serving as a place of refuge in troublous times for the cattle and dependants of the lord. Great keeps like those at Rochester, in Kent, or Hedingham, in Essex, or Kenilworth, in Warwickshire, or (to judge from its foundations) Duffield, the Derbyshire house of the Ferrers, were tolerably well found, and provided what might then be considered luxurious abodes. This Castle of the Peak, in its original state, contained the minimum of what was tolerable. It consisted of only three storeys, one of which was partly underground, and it had no fireplace; but in those days, more often than not, the fire was placed in the middle of the floor, and the smoke found its way out through the windows, supplemented, where possible, by a kind of ventilating turret in the roof. It could not have been the residence of a large family, and may have been little more than a watch-tower. But the probability is that it was the home of its owner, and the amount of comfort which the stay-at-home women of the family must have experienced may be conceived by anyone who will seat himself in one of the window recesses on a chilly day in summer, and gaze through the rain across the valley on to the blurred mass of Lose hill.

The Castle of the Peak.

Very different in size and in variety of interest is Haddon Hall; yet Haddon Hall, like the Peak Castle, is no longer, according to modern notions of comfort,[135] a tolerable dwelling, although we cannot agree with Horace Walpole that it never could have been considered such. For a long period it was the home of a powerful family, and was altered again and again to meet the need which successive centuries demanded. Parts of the chapel take us back to a date but little subsequent to that of the Peak Castle; and although few, if any, remains of the rest of the contemporary house are to be seen, yet the existence of the chapel indicates that it pertained to a large house. It is easy to understand that the discomforts of a primitive house would call for remedy long before the chapel grew out of date, and we need not wonder that the chapel should be the only surviving portion of the original dwelling. The kind of accommodation to be found in a keep, however large, grew to be insufficient and inconvenient, and it became the fashion no longer to pile one room over another, but to spread them out horizontally, and thereby, among other advantages, to assign to the various rooms different sizes suitable to their different purposes. The hall, always the chief apartment, was made the central feature; the kitchens were attached to one end, the family rooms to the other; the courtyard was enclosed by ranges of buildings looking into it, and presenting little but blank walls to the outside world; through one of these ranges was pierced the entrance gateway, defended by strong doors, and sometimes a portcullis, such as rased Marmion’s plume as he dashed in hot haste from under its falling mass. Haddon is a good illustration of this kind of house, only it has two courts, with the hall placed between them, as well for greater security as to obtain large windows on each of its main sides. There are very few windows of the older rooms looking out into the country, and the kitchen in particular suffers in this respect, for a darker apartment can scarcely ever have been devoted to such important uses. The windows of the long gallery, now called the ballroom, are large and airy;[136] but they date from Elizabeth’s time, when defensive precautions were no longer necessary. Haddon appeals to all sorts and conditions of men. Its romantic situation and venerable appearance delight the ordinary sightseer; its veritable and unrestored antiquity appeals to the more earnest student of by-gone ways; while to those interested in the minute details of the past, it is a storehouse of all kinds of work wrought in all kinds of styles. Surely, it has enough of true and genuine interest to be able to dispense with the fictitious, sixpenny-magazine romance of Dorothy Vernon. Let those who cling to her invented story, and picture her as a fascinating, winsome heroine, go and look at her portraiture on her monument in Bakewell Church—a more staid, prosaic person could hardly be imagined.

Another romantically placed house is Bolsover Castle, which is mentioned in ancient records as a sister stronghold of the Peak Castle. Of the early building nothing is now left; but the sites of the keep and of the enclosing wall are curiously preserved, and occupied by highly interesting buildings of the early seventeenth century. The keep is replaced by a square house, planned with considerable ingenuity so as to obtain within a limited and strictly defined space the customary arrangements of a Jacobean residence. It rises abruptly from the brow of a steep hill, and looks far and wide over the valley now studded with colliery chimneys. Within the thickness of the wall which marks the enceinte of ancient times are contrived quaint chambers, carefully vaulted and furnished in some cases with curious chimney-pieces. Indeed, this early seventeenth century work, particularly in the successor of the keep, is quite remarkable in respect of its vaulting and its fireplaces. Vaulting was very seldom used in Jacobean work, yet here we have examples of that method of construction which need not fear comparison with those of earlier days, when masons were much more accustomed to its use. The chimney-pieces[137] at Bolsover are a noteworthy series, exhibiting a great variety of treatment, yet preserving a family likeness, and adorned, most of them, with unusual delicacy. This part of the castle was executed for Sir Charles Cavendish, a son of the renowned Bess of Hardwick, about the year 1613. The actual owner of Bolsover was Gilbert, seventh Earl of Shrewsbury; but he had granted a lease of 1,000 years to Sir Charles, who was at once his step-brother and his brother-in-law.

Bolsover Castle: “La Gallerie.”

Outside the ancient precincts of this part of the castle stand the ruins of a later building, lying parallel with the brow of the hill, and leaving a broad terrace between the building and the sloping ground. It is designed on a much larger and coarser scale than its neighbour, and was built by Sir William Cavendish, son of Sir Charles, about the year 1629.

It was this Sir William, subsequently created, after a distinguished career, Duke of Newcastle, who wrote a celebrated treatise on horsemanship, some plates of which he adorned with a view of his Bolsover building. This he calls “La Gallerie,” and it was probably intended as a supplement to the somewhat restricted accommodation of the earlier house. The Duke was also responsible for another charming portion of this interesting group of buildings at Bolsover, in the shape of the Riding School, a structure which has a considerable Dutch flavour about it.

Bolsover has been mentioned out of its strict chronological order because of its early foundation and the peculiar manner in which it preserves the outline of the original castle. It has a notable predecessor in date at South Wingfield, where, about the middle of the fifteenth century, Ralph, Lord Cromwell, treasurer to King Henry VI., built a lordly house, which vied with Haddon in importance. Much of it has gone to hopeless ruin, but there still remain long stretches of wall and decayed buildings forming two large courts. The outer gatehouse[138] is left, flanked by an ancient barn. Through the middle of the range which divides the courtyard is pierced a second gateway, over which are carved the purses of the Lord Treasurer. On the opposite side of the second court is the porch of the house itself, leading on one side to the great hall, with its vaulted undercroft, and on the other to the kitchen department. Midway along one of the far-stretching fronts rises a lofty tower, from the summit of which may be studied the domestic economy of a colony of rooks as they sway below in their nests among the topmost branches of the trees.

On the death of its builder, Wingfield passed by purchase to the Earls of Shrewsbury, and in the fulness of time it passed to Gilbert, seventh earl. On his death it went to his eldest daughter, who had married the Earl of Pembroke. Then came the troublous times of Charles I., and Wingfield, being held by the then Earl for the Parliament, who should be sent to attack it but his kinsman, William Cavendish, of Bolsover, Duke of Newcastle, and author of the treatise on horsemanship. The attack was successful, but fickle fortune soon restored it to the Parliament, and by order of that assembly the place was “slighted.” From that drastic operation it has never recovered, although part of it was for a time patched up and made into a residence.

Of work dating from the time of Henry VIII. the county can show hardly any examples. Some panelling at Haddon is the most noteworthy, but this lacks that peculiar mixture of Gothic and French renaissance which makes the work of that time particularly interesting. Yet, even in this panelling, put up by Sir George Vernon, the “King of the Peak,” as he was called, although it is free from the actual renaissance touch, there seem to be indications which point that way, and it forms one of the links which connect the old style with the new, and goes to show that in the development of architectural style no change came quite abruptly.

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[J. Buckler, 1812.

Haddon Hall (North View).
(From a Water-colour Drawing in possession of Hon. F. Strutt, showing 16th Century Brewhouse, now removed.)

During the next of the periods into which styles group themselves, namely, that of Elizabeth and James I., there were notable additions made to Derbyshire houses. There is all the beautiful work of the Earl of Rutland at Haddon—of him who came into possession in right of his wife, Dorothy Vernon. Chief among it is the long gallery, which he formed among the ancient walls, pulling down here and adding there, adorning it with handsome panelling and a fretted ceiling, all ornamented with his own arms and those of his wife. There are Hardwick Hall, and Barlborough; the remains of Swarkeston in the extreme south, and Sudbury in the south-west, not to mention numerous manor houses scattered all over the county.

Hardwick Hall is, in some respects, one of the most interesting of Derbyshire houses. It is an excellent example of the stately and symmetrical planning which was much in vogue in the days of Elizabeth, and it has survived without any serious alterations, except such as were necessary for the comfort of modern life. Haddon has not been obliged to submit to this test, and therefore retains even more of its original flavour; but Hardwick illustrates vividly the large ideas and the desire for magnificence which dominate much of the design of that period. Moreover, it retains what very few of its contemporaries can boast of—its entrance gatehouse and garden walls. The builder was the renowned Bess of Hardwick, one of the great Elizabethan builders, a worthy rival of the Cecils and Hattons. She claims on her monument in All Hallows’ Church, Derby, to have built Hardwick, Chatsworth, and Oldcotes; but the last-named has disappeared, and Chatsworth has been rebuilt, leaving this house as her sole monument. The legend runs that so long as she kept building she would not die, but that a long frost occurring while she was engaged upon Bolsover, the men were obliged to desist from their work, and thereby struck the knell of their mistress. But we[140] have already seen that Bolsover was the work of her son, and that it was not begun until six or seven years after her death.

The work at Hardwick presents the most complete contrast to that at Bolsover. There everything had to be restricted to the narrow limits of the old site; all the work is carefully designed, and much of it delicately executed. Here the arrangements are far from compact, and the detail is coarse. No particular ingenuity has been exercised. The staircases are merely flights of steps, without any of the charming balustrades and newel-posts which adorn most Elizabethan staircases. The windows are so overdone in order to produce a striking external effect, that many of them are mere shams, and never were anything else, while others have a floor going across them, and light one storey with their lower lights and another with their upper. But it is just these points which lend interest to the place, and show how everything had to give way to the prevailing passion for symmetry.

There are some fine rooms on the top storey: the presence chamber, with a deep frieze of modelled plaster exhibiting a variety of hunting scenes; the library, with a charming relief over the fireplace of Apollo and the Muses; the long gallery, a characteristic apartment of the age; and a room called after “Mary Queen of Scots,” but bearing the date 1599, which was twelve years subsequent to her death. It is true, however, that Mary was placed for some years under the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was husband of Bess of Hardwick (her fourth venture), and it is also not improbable that the wife was inclined to be jealous of the influence which the royal captive obtained over her husband.

Haddon Hall (North View), circa 1825.
(From a Water-colour Drawing in possession of Hon. F. Strutt, showing 16th Century Brewhouse, now removed.)

The documentary evidences of Mary’s long period of custody are copious; they afford no suggestion of her visiting Hardwick, but she was on several occasions at Bess’s other great house at Chatsworth. Moreover, the[141] true dates of the second hall at Hardwick make the Queen’s sojourn here an impossibility. The date usually assigned to Hardwick Hall is 1576, but the dates actually appearing in the house are 1588, 1597, and 1599, all subsequent to Mary’s death. The parapet is ornamented with Bess’s initials, E.S., and a coronet.

In front of the house which Bess built lie the ruins of that in which she was born. This, also, must have been a good house, but one of the older manor-house type, and not conforming to the new and fashionable order of things. Nevertheless, it was adorned from time to time to suit the prevailing fancy, and both it and its more splendid offspring flourished side by side for many years. It offers another example of the fact that so strong was the desire among those who could afford it to build afresh in the new style, that in many instances houses built in Henry VIII.’s time were either rebuilt in Elizabeth’s or, as here at Hardwick, were suffered to remain and to add point by their modest dimensions to the extent and splendour of the newer dwelling.

At Hardwick, the old custom of building round a court, which we have met with at Haddon and Wingfield, was abandoned; the idea of adopting defensive precautions had no part in its arrangement—it was frankly intended for display and cheerfulness. But the courtyard still survived up and down the country, although rather for convenience than for defence. In some cases it became so contracted as to be little more than a well, admitting a modicum of light and air. Such contracted courts are both cheerless and insanitary, especially when they were made the meeting place of the household drains; and in many instances they have been roofed over in modern times and incorporated into the house itself.

Barlborough, in the north-east corner of the county, is a case in point. It is a house with an interesting plan, being almost square in shape, yet contriving to obtain the kind of rooms and the general disposition which[142] were usual at the time. The effect is quaint, especially as the octagonal bays are carried up above the roof to form turrets. The small central court has been converted into a staircase. The builder was Francis Rodes, a judge, like many of the builders of Elizabethan houses. It is almost contemporary with Hardwick, as it was built in 1583–84. It bears its date on the pedestal of the pillars flanking the front door, and students of by-gone architecture cannot be too thankful to the old masons for having dated their work so frequently as they did. Nor is our gratitude less for the fashion which made heraldry one of the chief sources of ornamentation. No doubt the display of arms and badges was a weakness of the worthy people of that age. It is even conceivable that men who achieved their own fortunes, as many did under Elizabeth, unduly emphasized their ancient descent, and occasionally recorded as facts what really were surmises. But anyone who has spent time in ferreting out the history of an old house is very willing to condone this foible in return for the clues with which it furnishes him.

Far be it from us, however, to throw any doubt on Francis Rodes’s heraldry; it serves to fix beyond a doubt who was the builder of Barlborough. In the drawing-room is a handsome, lofty chimney-piece, which is quite characteristic of the times. It displays the arms and the effigies of Francis Rodes and his two wives, and is dated 1584. There seems to have been no hesitation in those days about second marriages. Whatever poets may have said about the marriage of true minds, and the lasting passion of one man for one woman, neither man nor woman forbore from marrying again and again, nor did they conceal from the later spouses the charms and the arms of the earlier. Here, for instance, on this chimney-piece are the arms, the name, and the office of Francis Rodes set forth at large, and below are two other shields with his arms impaling severally those of his[143] two wives, each shield being supported by a representation of himself and the wife whose arms are impaled. To remedy any defect in the sculptor’s portraiture, or for the benefit of future generations who knew not the ladies in the flesh, their names are legibly printed at their sides—“Elizabeth Sandford,” “Maria Charleton.”

Snitterton Hall.

So far, all the houses mentioned have been of considerable size or well-established fame; but scattered about the county, in small villages or among the dales or on the hill-sides, are numerous manor houses, the homes of the small gentry or of the well-to-do yeomen. There are some of these near Hathersage, several of which belonged to various branches of the family of Eyre. North Lees is one, in a retired situation and falling to decay, at least so far as its decoration is concerned; one deserted room still retains some of its panelling and a fretted ceiling. Its stone walls, mullioned windows, and bold chimneys lend an air of romance to the house half-hidden among the trees. Highlow Hall is another of the group, chiefly notable for the quaint gateway which leads to the entrance court. Not far away is Offerton Hall, now a farmhouse, but an excellent example of the planning and simple architectural treatment of a small house of the early seventeenth century. Near Matlock is Snitterton Hall, the remains of a rather more considerable house, with remnants of a lay-out, and with many of its contemporary farm buildings. These are but a few of those which might be named, and the wanderer in out-of-the-way places will often be rewarded by the discovery of these links with the past.

There is no notable example within the county of the work of the later seventeenth century, of the time rendered famous by Inigo Jones and Sir Christopher Wren. But of the period which succeeded them, when the rules of classic architecture were firmly established, and spontaneity in design had given way to propriety, there are one or two specimens. Of these the most characteristic is[144] Kedleston. This great house was designed in the grandest manner of the time. It was to have had a large central block, with four outlying pavilions attached to it by curved colonnades, but two of the pavilions were never built. This place well illustrates the prevalent method of designing mansions. The principal floor was devoted to functions of state, and is occupied by large and lofty apartments, far too huge for comfort. They resemble apartments in some large public building. The family rooms are tucked away in a basement beneath the state apartments. It was the fashion of the age. Architecture was chiefly a means for display; the noble conceptions of the architect left his clients with scarce a comfortable corner for themselves. The surroundings of the house are also characteristic. It is itself placed in a somewhat haphazard position, backed by a range of trees; the stables are concealed by trees, and approached by a covered way; in the park is a bridge, so placed as to group in a casual way with the house: the whole idea being to obtain a pictorial effect, without any consideration for convenience of approach or convenient arrangement when the house is reached.

Such were the tours de force of the times, when wealth helped, and there were no restraining conditions; when the architect had a free hand to design, and the client another to pay. But in cases where the opportunities were more limited, the results were more reasonable, and such houses as Foremark are quite satisfactory. They have not the sparkle of their predecessors, it is true, but they combine dignity with comfort. Calke Abbey, lying hidden amid its ancient woodlands, is another fine example of the time.

There are not a few good specimens of formal gardens in the county. Haddon has terraced gardens which hardly receive the attention they deserve, so much is the interest of the visitor absorbed by the house. Eyam Hall, in the village rendered famous by the heroism and energy of[145] its rector during a visitation of the plague, has a simple lay-out of walls and steps and formal paths. Locko rejoices in terraced gardens judiciously laid out, and resulting in admirable though simple effects. But the finest gardens are at Melbourne, in the south of the county, where stately vistas cross each other and give distant glimpses of urns or statues, which themselves are worth careful inspection when at length they are reached. The effect is increased by placing some notable feature, such as a fine vase, at the meeting of several avenues; seen thus again and again from unexpected points, it adds to the apparent extent and intricacy of the lay-out. There is a long walk completely tunnelled over with dense yew hedges, and down in the bottom is a placid pool where sportive cupids play.

North Lees Hall.

Foremark Hall (Garden Front).

Such is a brief glance at some of the more noteworthy houses of the county; others there are waiting for the explorer to discover, as he will do in almost any expedition he can make, whether it be among the pasture land of the south, or the more bleak and invigorating hills which culminate in the wild plateau of Kinder Scout.

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WINGFIELD MANOR HOUSE
IN PEACE AND IN WAR

By G. le Blanc-Smith

Derbyshire, if unable to boast of that share of stirring episode with which war and the hate of man have impregnated other counties, if unable to show the numerous stately castles and religious houses of its neighbouring shires, can at least proudly name a house which, while being a gem of architecture, yet was so cunningly situated by its owner as to prove a menace to the surrounding country, and a fortress which required no mean ability to compass its surrender, at the same time being of a nature so secure that it was used as the prison-house of the greatest political prisoner in our island’s history.

Such is Wingfield Manor House; beautiful, stately, isolated, and—in ruins; mansion, fortress, and prison. In no way does this manor house resemble its more ambitious neighbour, Haddon Hall. Haddon is just as weak, strategically, as Wingfield is strong, for the latter is perched on a hill top, whose sides may be well described as precipitous, at least on two sides. Another side of the hill, while less steep, is useless for purposes of cavalry attack, whilst the fourth is more level in character.

The Tower, and Rooms occupied by Mary Stuart: Wingfield.

With the early history of the manor we have no concern, save in so far as it affects that of the manor house. In the year 1440, the manorial rights were vested in Ralph, Lord Cromwell, but his undoubted rights to its possession[147] were not absolutely proved till this date owing to a prolonged law suit with Sir Henry Pierpoint over the finding of an inquisition taken at Derby as long before as 1429. It was then found that Ralph, Lord Cromwell—a man of immense wealth—was heir, inter alia, to the estates, owing to his relationship with Margaret de Swillington, heiress of John and Robert, her brothers. Briefly, Lord Cromwell traced his descent from the family of De Heriz, who, in the person of one Mathilda de Heriz, was connected by marriage ties to a certain Thomas Beler, or Bellers. This man’s sister married Sir Ralph Cromwell, and owing to these marriage ties Lord Cromwell laid claim to the property, as being a descendant of a de Heriz, whilst Sir Henry Pierpoint, on his side, claimed an equal right to possession as being a descendant of Sarah de Heriz and Robert Pierpoint; Sarah being aunt to the member of the same family from whom Lord Cromwell proved his descent, i.e., Mathilda, who married Thomas Beler. Why the family of de Swillington was introduced it is hard to understand; but perhaps it was in the nature of a red herring, used to draw the scent from a good point in the adversary’s case, or to cover a weak spot in the claim of the opposite side.

However, it is with the fortunes of Lord Cromwell that we are concerned, and we find that, three years after his possession was assured to him, he was taken under the wing of King Henry VI., and was enriched by appointment to the lucrative posts of Treasurer of the Exchequer,[39] Constable of Nottingham Castle, and Steward and Keeper of Sherwood Forest. Within the next two or three years he was further advanced in royal favour and finances by being appointed Master of the Royal Hounds and Falcons. From these appointments it may be fairly deduced that he was a good financier and even better sportsman.

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Shortly after his lawsuit was satisfactorily settled, he proceeded to erect the beautiful manor house. He did not, however, live to enjoy his new possession for very long, as he died January 4th, 1455, being buried in a church which his enormous wealth had enriched, i.e., Tatteshall, Lincolnshire. Ralph, Lord Cromwell, sold the reversion of this manor during his lifetime to John Talbot, second Earl of Shrewsbury, who was to occupy it after his (Cromwell’s) death. The new owner had much to do in the way of roofing and plastering his new possession, so we may safely conclude that it was far from finished by Lord Cromwell. Owing to the condition of the fabric, its new owner was unable to inhabit it for some time; but after spending large sums of money in roofing, etc., he finally occupied it in 1458, coming into residence with a numerous retinue. After his death at Northampton, in 1460, the manor and manor house descended in his family for many years, being apparently a much favoured country seat. The death of his grandson, the fourth earl, here was apparently quite unexpected, for, on July 6th—only twenty days before his death—he humbly prayed, through the Earl of Southampton, that King Henry VIII. would deign to visit his “pore house at Wynfeld and hunt in Duffelde Frithe” on his approaching visit to Nottingham.

The following account of his funeral is quoted from Holmes’ MSS. (Harl. Lib.):—

The fifth earl, Francis, was born in 1500. At the age of forty-four he was made Lieut.-General of the North;[149] a year later he was installed Knight of the Garter, and was later made Justice in Eyre of the forests north of the Trent. He was a commissioner in the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, a leading light in Wyatt’s insurrection, who was tried and found “not guilty” by the jury; but the judges, in their wrath at this finding, compelled the jury to enter into recognizances of £500 each for their appearance in the famous Star Chamber when called upon. On their appearance, as desired, the unfortunate men were thrown into prison for daring to give judgment according to their consciences.

The fifth earl died on September 21st, 1560, and was followed by his son George in the possession of Wingfield.

It is to this sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, and to his times, that we owe much of the glamour and interest of Wingfield’s history, owing to the fact that for well nigh sixteen years he was the custodian of that unhappy lady, Mary Queen of Scots. For various lengthy periods the poor harassed Queen was a close prisoner within the all-too-hospitable walls of this manor house. The Earl’s charge of Queen Mary was no sinecure it seems, as according to Blore:—

He was, in other words, “between the devil and the deep sea.” The custody of the prisoner Queen was first placed in Lord Shrewsbury’s hands during January, 1569,[150] while he was in residence at Tutbury Castle; her removal to Wingfield took place on April 20th of the same year.

Three weeks later she was suddenly and mysteriously seized with a violent attack of some malady, which caused grave anxiety to her custodian. Two physicians were promptly dispatched by the Privy Council to undertake her cure, and these worthies gave but a bad account of the sanitary conditions of her prison quarters. Their report seems to have considerably nettled the Earl of Shrewsbury, who retorted that “the very unpleasant and fulsome savour, in the next chamber, hurtful to her health” was directly owing to the “continual festering and uncleanly order of her own folke.” Since the cause was known to him, it seems strange that he did not try to do something to better it. The unfortunate Queen was removed with all speed to Chatsworth—where her moated bower still remains—for this princely residence was brought to the Earl by his second matrimonial venture, Elizabeth, better known as “Bess of Hardwick.”

June 1st once more saw her installed in her old apartments at Wingfield, they having been cleaned and sweetened. In the following August she once more fell ill of the same malady, and requested the Earl to find her another prison-house. She was therefore removed to Tutbury, between which place and Sheffield she alternated for the next fifteen years. Once more her custodian had to complain that his mansion and her rooms, “in consequence of the long abode here and the number of people, waxes unsavoury.” This is hardly to be wondered at when it is remembered that at her second period of captivity at Wingfield, after fifteen years’ absence, the poor Queen’s personal attendants numbered 47 persons in all: 5 gentlemen, 14 servitors, 3 cooks, 4 boys, 3 gentlemen’s men, 6 gentlewomen, 2 wives, and 10 wenches and children.

The year 1584 again saw the captive Queen at Wingfield, and the Privy Council proposed that she should[151] be incarcerated in the castle of Melbourne, also in Derbyshire; but, owing to the fact that there were structural alterations of an extensive nature required there, it was decided to saddle the poor Earl of Shrewsbury with his weighty responsibility once more. Orders to this effect were dispatched to him on March 20th, 1584, till such time as Melbourne Castle was prepared—which never came to pass. These orders to the Earl commanded the removal of the Queen from Sheffield to Wingfield, and “that for the more safety in conveying the said Queene, in case you shall find it necessary, for your assistance you may use the ayde of the sheriffs of our countys of Derby and Leicester.” Whilst the Earl’s duties to his sovereign kept him at Court, the Queen’s custody was in the hands of Sir Ralph Sadleir, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and a distinguished soldier. Sir Ralph wrote, on August 25th, 1584, to Sir Francis Walsyngham, and informed him that he had begged the Earl of Shrewsbury not to transport the Queen to Wingfield till further instructions from the Sovereign were received. He continues by saying that he would rather “keep her here (Sheffield Castle) with 60 men than at Wingfield with 300.” In a paper read before the members of the Royal Archæological Institute, then visiting the manor house, by the Rev. J. Charles Cox, the author stated that:

An excellent guard was placed over the Queen, for Sir Ralph Sadleir set a watch of eight soldiers at night time, taking turns in watches of four, to patrol the immediate vicinity of the Queen’s apartments in the[152] inner courtyard. Two other soldiers kept a day and night watch in the house itself, at the entrance to her rooms.

The captive Queen arrived in September, 1584, for this second enforced visit, with a huge retinue, which must have seriously taxed the accommodation of the manor house. The Earl of Shrewsbury had 120 gentlemen, yeomen, and servants; Sir Ralph Sadleir followed suit with 50, whilst there were 40 trained men at arms. Including the prisoner’s personal retinue, there were 257 persons herded together within these walls, the Queen and her suite occupying fifteen rooms; yet, despite guards and precautions, one man alone was able to plot with the Queen herself for her release.

The daring plot was the child of the fertile brain of one Anthony Babington, whose family seat was at Dethick, about five miles to the west. Babington was in a way a fanatic, and the pity for, and desire to liberate, his beloved Queen was the mania which brought him to the scaffold. Stained with walnut juice, and disguised in gipsy garb, he is said to have constantly visited the captive, and a curious tale is told of his visits. Just outside the Queen’s rooms grows a huge walnut tree, and tradition hath it that this tree is sprung from a walnut dropped by Babington himself when on one of his surreptitious visits.

The Porch of Banqueting Hall: Wingfield.

This plot was not the first having the same end in view, for in 1569 a certain Leonard Dacre was implicated. Now if this was a relation of the Earl of Shrewsbury’s, through his mother, Mary Dacre, the Earl may well have been the instigator of the plot, for we have seen how little he cared what became of his charge. What is more likely than that he should choose Dacre, a relative, to assist the enterprise—and bear the blame—as a blood tie would be less an object of suspicion, and at the same time more loyal to his employer? Dacre’s plot at once aroused the slumbering suspicions of Elizabeth, and she, giving as a[153] reason that Lord Shrewsbury’s health was not of the best, directed the Earl of Huntingdon to watch the Queen. The immediate outcome was a reduction in her retinue to thirty persons, with the object of avoiding the influx or substitution of suspicious persons. Other futile attempts, devoid of interest, were made at various times and by various persons to effect the release of this interesting prisoner.

It is easy to understand how in a house like this, teeming with menials and servants, the substitution of a servant for a spy or messenger for Mary Stuart would be an easy matter. The kitchen staff must have been enormous, as, according to Sir Ralph Sadleir’s report, the daily meals of the Queen “on Fishe days and Flesh days” consisted of “about 16 dishes dressed after their owne manner, sometimes more or less, as the provision serveth.” The price of necessary foodstuffs at Wingfield at the time was not high according to present day reckoning, for “a good ox cost £4, sheep £7 a score, veal and other meats reasonable good charge, about 8s.” Wheat was priced at £1 a quarter; malt at 16s. a quarter; hay 13s. 4d. a load; oats 8s. a quarter; and peas 12s. for the same quantity. The drink bill—no small item in those days—run up by Queen Mary was for ten tuns of wine annually.

The captive’s linen was provided by the Earl of Shrewsbury, for that supplied by Queen Elizabeth was declared to be “nothing of it serviceable, but worn and spent.”

The before-mentioned report of Sir Ralph Sadleir states that the Queen’s stable held four good coach horses of her own; her gentlemen had six, and the total number kept was about forty.

It would thus seem easy for a stranger to obtain a post among such numbers without a fresh face being observed, and in the crowded kitchens the entrance of a disguised stranger through the little door opening towards[154] Dethick and the west would possibly be unobserved. Then, among the number of servants some might be won over by a bribe, a note concealed in food might reach the Queen; or among the stable helps one might be found who could give news to the captive for some trifling reward. Chances seem to have existed on every hand. But to return to the ill-fated Babington. Babington had been brought up by his mother and two guardians in an atmosphere of stout but secret Roman Catholicism, and no doubt his situation at the age of sixteen as Queen Mary’s page was productive of a chivalrous love for the fair captive. At nineteen years of age he was the moving spirit in a plot to conceal two Jesuits; and three years later his thoughts reverted to the release of the Queen, whose plight had so strongly appealed to his youthful mind. The following year he formed a plot for Mary’s release and Queen Elizabeth’s assassination; but all the while the busy spies of Walsyngham were quietly collecting material from the correspondence relative to his cherished scheme, and were suiting their actions to his, with a view to successfully foiling his attempt. He was hunted down, but escaped till 1587, when he was caught and tried with a dozen other well-born youths, and met his death on September 20th at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In the report of the apprehension of the conspirators is the following:—

“The names of sooche as are touched as made partyes of the confideracye,” followed by the names of Ballard, Savage, Tycheborne, G. Gifford, St. Donne, Tylney, and Gage; “and there were,” the report continues, “13 who were at large, vizt., Babington, Barnewell, Salisbury,” etc.

The Queen, who was removed from Wingfield on January 13th, 1585, was incarcerated at Tutbury. A curious tradition of late years has been put forward; it is to the effect that her son was born at Wingfield! The authority for this has been traced to a statement in a guide book to the effect that “Mary Stuart was made a[155] prisoner, and it was at Wingfield Manor that she spent part of her confinement.” This erroneous reading has obtained a footing, and should be promptly eradicated. Thus is “history” made.

On the death of the seventh Earl of Shrewsbury, his three daughters, co-heiresses, divided the estates, Wingfield falling to the eldest, Lady Pembroke. The new owners were now in troublous times, and during the Civil Wars the manor house was stoutly held for the Parliamentary forces. The little garrison of about one hundred men at arms was reduced to sixty at the request of the Parliamentary leader, Fairfax, who was forcing his way northwards into Yorkshire. Sir John Gell complied with the request in 1643, and left the house too weakly defended; the close of the same year saw a vigorous and successful attack by the Royalist troops under the Earl of Newcastle, and the manor house, after a twelve days’ struggle, was occupied on December 19th. On the day following Sir John Gell arrived, and proceeded to stir up the new owners, who were as yet far from fully acquainted with their new quarters. Preliminary skirmishes took place in the vicinity, in which two columns of horse lost their colours, these being sent to London by the triumphant Gell.

The Earl of Newcastle passed on the command to Sir John Fitzherbert, of Tissington, who held the house for six months. The Wingfield garrison proving troublesome to the Parliamentary forces, Sir John Gell was told off to retake the manor house, which he did with difficulty, as it required all the forces at his command, reinforced with 200 foot of Colonel Hutchinson’s. Gell sent to Nottingham for troops, asking for “assistance to beleaguer Wingfield Manor, because it was as great an annoyance to Nottinghamshire as to Derbyshire.” This diplomatic request was productive of the desired result. Strict siege was laid to the manor house for fifteen days, after which Gell’s troops were called off to repel a threatened[156] Royalist attack; this they accomplished to their satisfaction, and they once more returned to the siege. The naturally strong situation of the house was nearly an insurmountable obstacle to Gell, and he found that unless his artillery was considerably reinforced by heavier pieces, he should be compelled to starve the gallant little band out as the only practicable means of reducing their fortress to submission. This plan was evidently not to his liking, as he was likely at any time to be set upon by small bodies of Royalist troops, whose harassing action would compel a temporary raising of the siege, and consequently a corresponding influx of provisions to the defenders during the absence of the beleaguering troops. He therefore requested heavier pieces of ordnance from Major-General Crawford, and on receipt of his new artillery he set to work to make a breach in the walls with all dispatch. So great was his success and so true his fire that after only three hours’ assault with his “foure great peeces for battering,” the whole defending force of 220 men surrendered themselves on condition that every man should be allowed to return home unharmed.

It is hard to determine whether it was fear of the ultimate result of the use of these heavy guns, or the sight of the actual damage done, which caused this sudden collapse of the defence on the day of the great assault, July 20th, 1644. The heavy guns were, it is said, situated on the flat ground on the east of the house, and on the other side of the valley—a distance of one and a quarter miles. Some assert that the range from here (Pentrich Moor) was too great, and that the guns were brought round to the west side and placed in a wood, a breach being opened from there. Should this have been the case, the breach would be in the south-west angle of the larger courtyard, and the approach to this is of such a nature that an entry would be a matter of difficulty. The necessity of an armed assault on the breach was nullified by the collapse of the defence.

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The Window in the Banqueting Hall: Wingfield.

The death of the Royalist governor, Colonel Dalby, who succeeded Colonel Roger Molineux, can have had no part in causing the surrender, for, according to Pilkington, he was traitorously shot by a deserter, who had recognized him despite his disguise of a common soldier, and who is said to have put his musket through a hole in the wall of the porter’s lodge and shot him in the face. Pilkington also asserts that one of the cannon-balls which he saw weighed 32 lbs.! This was in 1789.

The surrendered garrison was a resourceful one it appears, as the besiegers either having cut off the water supply (presumably in pipes) or else seized the source of this necessary fluid, they promptly dug a well in the south courtyard, and therefrom secured a sufficient supply. This well fell in about 1850, and the hole was filled up.

An old account of the capture of the manor house runs thus:—

The stirring times of war now left the house, and its further use as a fortress was nullified by an order for its dismantling on June 23rd, 1646.

The fabric of the house now went from bad to worse as it passed from one owner to another. Twenty years after the order for its dismantling was received, it was occupied by one Imanuel Halton, an auditor of the Duke of Norfolk. As a man of culture and learning he was more or less distinguished, being especially noted as an astronomer; while allowing much of the fabric to fall into ruins, he amused himself by decorating the crumbling walls with sun-dials, two of which remain. A piece of gross vandalism was perpetrated by this worthy, for he converted the magnificent banqueting hall into a two-floored dwelling-house, with chimneys in the centre, and[158] made ugly structural alterations to the north windows to suit his convenience. The Halton family continued to enjoy the air of Wingfield, and to pull the manor house about, for the next hundred years, till, in 1744, the “powers that were” decided to pull down the lovely building, which they utilized as a convenient quarry from which to obtain stone for the erection of a truly ugly house—described as “a small box at the foot of the hill”—which is the present Hall. After this disgraceful exploit, the progress of decay was practically unchecked, and at this day the buildings are deteriorating more and more rapidly under the changes of our capricious climate. In the Topographer, by Shaw, vol. i., of 1789 (only fifteen years after the removal of the family residence to the new hall), it is stated that the roof was gone from the banqueting hall, and that all the arms and quarterings of the great family of Shrewsbury were open to the destructive influences of the weather. This was in 1789, yet in 1785—only four years previously—a sketch by Colonel Machell shows the banqueting hall as roofed and glazed. At the close of the eighteenth century a great part of the banqueting hall—between the lovely oriel window and the porch—fell down; about a quarter of a century later a tower in the south-east angle of the inner courtyard (at the back of the present farmhouse) collapsed utterly.

The statement often made that no less a person than the much maligned Oliver Cromwell was present at the fall of the manor house in person is, of course, a fiction used by some for the greater entertainment of visitors to the house. Nevertheless, it is a curious coincidence that by the power of a Lord Cromwell these magnificent buildings were raised from the ground, and that by the power and will of another Cromwell they were razed, in places, to the ground, but two hundred years separating the two events, and including much history of more than local interest.

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The actual buildings form one of the most beautiful examples of fifteenth century domestic architecture to be found in the kingdom; hence Wingfield is far better known to the architectural student than to the historian. Of the present state of the walls, the less said and seen the better. To look at them recalls the lines from Idylls of the King (Geraint and Enid):—

It is a pitiable sight to see some of the most beautiful and interesting parts of the grand old house in such a deplorable and tottering state. Nothing so much enhances the value, sentimentally, of an ancient building as a considerable fall of its walls; then, of course, a great outcry is raised—when it is too late. It is not the decay of past years which must be viewed with alarm, but the steady, increasing hold which ruin is obtaining on this structure. “Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed semper cadendo,” is a good maxim to remember, but if remembered in this case, it has never been thought sufficiently true to be worth acting upon. So year by year the stones fall and the mortar crumbles, the ivy, trees, etc., force their way between the stones, the frost shells off the fine, smooth surface of the ashlar, and the wind carries destruction, and future destruction in the form of seedlings, into every part of the beautiful buildings; and the people look on and admire the craft of their forefathers, but they do not stretch forth a hand to save what gives them pleasure. Their country has[160] given them a great treasure, and they enjoy it and value it; they value it so much that they will see not one stone left upon another before they resort to methods of salvation; it is a ruin, it was a ruin, let it remain a ruin, they say. Some day it will be a ruin of such a nature that none shall recognize its likeness to a building, for when it falls down the steep hillsides, “great will be the fall thereof,” and the noise of its fall will be equalled only by the noise of lamentation at such a catastrophe.

The manor house consists of two courtyards, of which the southern is the larger, whilst the northern one contains the more beautiful specimens of architecture. The extreme length of the house is 416 feet, with a total width of 256 feet. There are two entrances to the south courtyard, one on the east in the southern corner and another on the west. The north courtyard is entered from the southern one by a fine gateway, flanked by two turrets, and the north wall is likewise pierced by a now destroyed entrance of fine proportions. There is also a small ogee-headed doorway opening into the kitchens on the west side. The south courtyard was bounded on the east by the retainers’ quarters, now a crumbling ruin; on the south by the fine old barn, still excellently preserved, and also the stables, long since destroyed. The west side, with its sally port, was formed by the quarters of the guards, and the north of the courtyard still retains the mutilated range of buildings which form the southern bounds of the north quadrangle. The farmhouse, which is now occupied, is a mere shell, as all the interior is modern.

The north courtyard has the great tower at its south-west angle, and from here, up the west side, runs the range of apartments once occupied by Mary Queen of Scots. The north boundary is formed by the kitchens on the west, the state apartments in the centre, and the grand banqueting hall on the east. The eastern boundary of this courtyard has disappeared, and here, it is conjectured, was the chapel, which no doubt the Halton[161] family utilized as a quarry, as being to them the least useful part of the house. The southern boundary is formed by the farmhouse and buildings already mentioned as being the northern limit of the south court.

The glory of Wingfield Manor House is the banqueting hall, with its undercroft beneath it. This noble chamber, now sadly mutilated, is 72 ft. 2½ in. long and 36 ft. 1 in. in width. The most notable feature in this scene of by-gone revelry and lavish hospitality is the great oriel window, a piece of architectural excellence hardly to be equalled elsewhere in the kingdom. This beautiful projection is situated at the east end of the south front of the hall, whilst at the opposite end of the same side is a porch, which is well worthy of a place in the same edifice as the above-mentioned window. This porch is of two floors; the ground floor gives entrance to the banqueting hall, and is entered by an archway of boldly conceived design, on which is cut a series of handsome flower petals. On the right of the entrance is a little traceried window, which can only be described as a glittering gem of architecture. The battlements which still remain over porch and oriel window are now denuded of their quartered shields, but the excellent diapered pattern, consisting of quatrefoils, is still in almost its pristine beauty.

The most striking feature of the manor house is part of the great tower, which Wingfield’s old historian, Thomas Blore, has completely omitted in his engraving. Though not of any great height, the aspect of this towering sentinel is imposing.

The apartments which once sheltered Mary Queen of Scots are indeed in a sad state of ruinous decay. Nothing remains but the outer walls, with the fireplaces and chimneys, the former with nodding heads and the latter with, apparently, a serious spinal complaint. The walls themselves are scored by many a huge and gaping wound, not the wounds of honour received in battle, but the[162] wounds caused by the horrid disease of decay unchecked and unheeded. It is sad to think that the first part of the hitherto unbroken line of wall round this courtyard to succumb to this fell disease will be the most interesting portion of this historic house.

The kitchens, which lie between the Queen’s rooms and the banqueting hall, are likewise in a sad state; the depressed form of arch surmounting most of the doorways, despite the presence of “arches of construction,” are fast bowing their heads beneath the weight of masonry and the neglect of centuries. Adjoining the servants’ quarters and the banqueting hall are the state apartments, lighted by a huge and by no means beautiful window of Perpendicular times, if judged by the standard of excellence obtaining elsewhere in the fabric. A curious feature noticeable from the courtyard is the fact that this window, like the little gem of a round one above and the traceried lights below, is far from being central in the gable or in line with its neighbours above and below.

The Undercroft: Wingfield.

The undercroft, more often known as the crypt—an ecclesiastical term possessing no right here—is of the same dimensions as the hall above. The ceiling is composed of beautifully wrought stone groins, with large circular bosses, cut with fine traceried designs; the springing of the arches is from the walls on either side and the five stone pillars in the centre respectively. This subterranean chamber has now begun to show most unmistakable signs of the gross neglect which so characterizes the remainder of the house, for the stone ribs of the vaulting have fallen over the eastern entrance—and there they lie. The entrances to this undercroft are four in number—one at the north-west corner, one at the south-west, one at the south-east, and one in the centre of the east end. Three of them communicate directly with the banqueting hall above, whilst the fourth opens into the open air. This cellar-like room has been [163]described as the chapel, and also as the retainers’ hall, but the general opinion of those whose opinion is worthy of consideration is that it was a general store house for the huge retinue of owner, guests, and prisoner; such was no doubt its use, but what the intentions of its builders were is quite another question.

The inner courtyard with which I have just dealt is far better preserved than its southern neighbour, which seems to have proved a better mark for Gell’s big guns and Halton’s destructive genius than the other. The entrance gate to the inner court is fairly well preserved, but the greater part of the rest is in but a sorry plight. The great entrance on the east is shorn of its upper storey, but the adjoining barn is in a delightful state of repair, and is of a nature to arouse the enthusiasm of students of our mediæval barns.

On the east side of the house were the old gardens, now presenting a dismal appearance, for the sole surviving signs of the topiary work of our forefathers are the broken ranks of a long line of stunted yew trees; even these trees have not been spared of late years, and the woodman’s axe has been responsible for considerable gaps. On this side, too, remain traces of the old earthworks thrown up by the Royalist garrison to repel the besiegers on this, the most weakly of the naturally strong defences formed by the slope of the hill. In the farmhouse reposes a collection of old cannon balls rescued from the ruins, methods of destruction far preferable to the stealthy creeping action of the prince of destroying agents—Unchecked Decay—now so busy there.

Let us hope, however, that before it is too late a helping hand may lay its healing touch on these walls which crown the slope, a spot noiseless save for the thousand and one sounds of the neighbouring farmyard, and that distant and discordant triumph of modernity, the railway, which, thanks to the situation of the manor house on its hill, finds no near approach.

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BRADSHAW AND THE BRADSHAWES

By C. E. B. Bowles, M.A.

Chapel-en-le-frith, a little old-fashioned town in the heart of the Peak, is fairly encompassed by a range of hills, one of the loftiest of which, rising, indeed, to a height of 1,225 feet, is Eccles Pike. About a mile and a half from the town, and on the southern slope of this hill, which towers above it, safeguarding it from the cold blasts of the north wind, stands the old homestead of the Derbyshire Bradshawes. Built in the more peaceful times of the first Stuart King, Bradshaw Hall is to-day a substantial witness to the fact that, unlike our Georgian ancestors, they who lived in the time when James the First was King were like ourselves—most appreciative of a home commanding a wide expanse of land and sky, and yet beneath the friendly shelter of a hill.

Bradshawe Hall.

The hall is girt on all sides by the lands which have formed part of the domain for many centuries. Many of them, too, are known to-day by the same names which have distinguished the various enclosures through nearly all that time. The ground immediately below the hall on its southern side was the old pleasance, and bears traces of having been originally terraced. Here were the gardens and orchards, the latter certainly in existence as early as 1542, being mentioned in a lease[40] bearing date 20th April, 33 Henry VIII. Below them was the Home[165] Croft, a seven-acred field now called the Hall Meadow. The view from these old pleasure grounds must have been very striking, extending as it does right away to the Combs Moss and Valley, and looking towards the Black Edge.

In the present day the view is certainly much enhanced by a large sheet of water—the reservoir which supplies the Peak Forest Canal, for it has all the appearance of a natural lake. About half an acre of this water covers land which originally formed part of the Bradshaw domain.

On the east side of the hall lies a field known by the name of Hob Hollin, at the back of which is the Hob Marsh. These are bounded on the east by a field called “Little Park” and a pasture named “The Greavy Croft.” This latter field was in ancient times a wood, probably planted to protect the hall from the east winds. This is evident from an old lease, dated “The assumption of our Lady in the 18 year of King Edward IV. (15 Aug., 1478),” in which the description of the lands which fell under it makes a special exception of “a wode calde ye Greyve Crofte.”[41]

Below the hall meadow lies the “Hollow Meadow,” the subject of a long protracted dispute as to its ownership which ended in a law suit in the year 1500. All these fields, with others lying above the hall, are mentioned by name in a division of lands between William Bradshawe and his nephew Richard for farming purposes, which is dated 20th April, 33 Henry VIII. (1542). The name Hollow Meadow, however, occurs in a deed far earlier than this—being mentioned in a charter dated 6 Edward III. (1332), where it is called “Holu-medue.” To the south of this field lie some twenty-two acres of pasture, which are known by the name of “The Turncrofts.” This land, probably originally “Town Crofts,” has been so called as far back as 1398, when a grant of “seven[166] acres of land lying in Turncroft was made by John, son of John de Bradshawe, senr., to William, son of John de Bradshawe, junr.” It is dated at Chapel-en-le-Frith the Monday after the feast of St. James, 21 Rich. II.

In more than one deed there is evidence that at one time a dwelling-house and farm buildings stood on this ground, and it then formed a separate farm. For instance, William Redfern and Emmot, his wife, were, on the 4th of October, 1458, granted a lease for ten years of the Turncrofts, and later on, namely, from 1537 to 1543, Henry Bradshawe and his wife Elizabeth were living there as tenants of their nephew Richard, the then head of the family.

A long line of grass fields now extend along the side of the road as far as the outskirts of Chapel-en-le-Frith. The larger portion of these fields are to this day known by the name of “The Broad Marshes,” and by this name they are referred to in deeds as early as 1429, at which date a conveyance of land called Bradmersh was made by John Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, to Wm. Bradshaw for trust purposes. In 1444, and again in 1457, leases of “The Bradmersh lands” are granted by Wm. Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, to Roger Cooper, subject to an annuity already settled on his mother Joyce.

That the Bradshawes have owned the lands now held by their lineal descendant and representative from the times of the early Plantagenet kings is proved by the deeds which have descended to him with the lands. How long the homestead has occupied the identical site where the present hall now stands cannot be ascertained. That this is not the first residence of the Bradshawes erected there is certain, and it is more than probable that they have never lived very far away from that identical spot. The first Bradshaw residence of which there is any documentary evidence must have been built about the years from 1215 to 1221. This is the period covered by an Assart Roll in the Record Office, on which is recorded,[167] among other interesting transactions connected with the forest laws and customs, the various grants made by King John and his son Henry III. of land in the forest of the High Peak. It contains much information with respect to the ancestors of many well-known North Derbyshire families. Among those to whom leave was granted by the King for the erection of a dwelling-house are several members of the Bradshawe family. From these it is not an easy matter to select for certain the immediate ancestor of the man who owned the land and built the house on Eccles Pike. A deed of grant has descended from his Bradshawe ancestors to the writer of this article dated at Chapel-en-le-Frith 6 Edward III. (1332), in which “Richard, son of John de Bradschawe, granted to John de Bradschawe, my father, and to Mary, his wife my mother, certain lands in Bowden.” Of these one portion is described as being in Wytehaln feld, and another, called Perts’ Acre, as situated near the Holumedue, which latter piece of land there is not much doubt is identical with the Hollow Meadow. The mention of the Wytehaln feld, or Whitehall field, in the deed would suggest—as an ancestor to the above John—one Richard, son of William de Bradshawe, who about the time of 19 Henry III. (1235), made an addition to the land in Whitehall[42] which his father William had assarted at some previous time. This is the more probable, because there has always been a tendency to preserve Christian names in a family. But more than one Bradshawe had grants at this date for the clearance of the forest land in Whitehall. Ivo de Bradshawe and Walter de Bradshaw both held land “in capite” of King John and his son Henry III.

This Walter—son of another Walter de Bradshawe—and one Randolph de Bradshawe, both built a house in Bowden, a part of Chapel-en-le-Frith, in which a portion of the Bradshaw lands are situated to this day. Thus[168] it is quite possible that one of these houses is the original Bradshaw Hall.

The Heralds’ Visitation begins the pedigree with a John de Bradshawe, possibly son of Richard Bradshawe of the deed of 1332, who by his marriage with Cicely, daughter of Thomas Foljambe, was father of William, evidently identical with the William, son of John de Bradshawe, junr., before mentioned, on whom the seven acres of Turncroft were settled in 1398. The lease, however, of 1457, cited before, proves that the Christian name of William’s mother was Joyce. Either she was his stepmother or, as is quite possible, a generation was omitted by the heralds, and the man who married Cicely was the John de Bradshawe, senr., of the 1398 settlement. His son, then, either by her or by a former marriage, would be John de Bradshawe, junr., the husband of Joyce, and the father of William. Cicely must have outlived her husband, for there is evidence that she was in enjoyment of an annuity, from which the estates were released on her death in 1408, for on the 6th of May, 9 Henry IV., John de Bradshawe settled on certain trustees “all the lands in the Ville of Bauden which lately descended to me in right of heirship after the death of Cicely Foljamb.” It will be observed that her maiden name is used. This was not unusual in legal documents of a certain date.

In 1429 John de Bradshawe executed two entail deeds, by which “Two messuages and 40 acres of land, lying in Bradshaw and Turncroft, in the Township of Bowden, were settled on his eldest son William and his heirs male, and in default of male issue on his other sons, John, Robert, and Henry, in tail male.” The other deed entails the Lightbirch Estate on his second son, John, and his brothers, in tail male. The eventual sale of the Lightbirch Estate to Reynold Legh, of Blackbroke, near Chapel-en-le-Frith, was the cause of the dispute about the Hollow Meadow previously alluded to. It originated in a statement made by Reynold Legh that the “Holle[169] Medow,” or Hollow Meadow, was attached to the Lightbirch Estate when sold to him. The first step to disprove this of which there is any evidence was taken on the 2nd of August, 1483, when Nicholas Dickson, parson of Claxbe, co. Leicester, obtained the depositions of William Bradshawe of Bradshaw, on his death-bed. He most solemnly declared that the “Hoole Medow had never formed part of the Lightbirch Estate, and had not been given to his brother John by his father with the Lightbirch lands.” But not until fifteen years later was it apparently found necessary to take the evidence of John Bradshawe, the owner and vendor of the Lightbirch Estate. Possibly during that time Reynold Legh had remained quiet. Then, however, we gather from an original MS. in the writer’s possession that John Bradshawe made a statement before witnesses to the effect that his father, John Bradshawe, had in his own house at Lichfield denied that the land in dispute had ever been owned or sold by him, but that Reynold Legh had endeavoured ineffectually on three separate occasions to obtain an admission from him that it had been included in the Lightbirch Estate, first, by sending a servant with a document for him to sign, then by coming himself, on which occasion he became so pressing that he had found it necessary to leave him and to refuse to speak again with him on the matter, and finally by requesting Thomas Auby, who happened to be at Blackbroke on other business, to go to Lichfield and endeavour to obtain the admission he had himself failed in obtaining.

The next step was taken on the 28th of August following, when Henry Bradshawe, who as his father’s son and heir had been in possession of the estates, including the land in dispute, since the year 1483, obtained a warrant against Reynold Legh to answer for a trespass “upon a meadow in Bowden called Holmedowe,” which was followed by an order made to the Sheriff, May 1st, 1499, at the instance of Reynold Legh himself, to summon[170] a jury to try the case. The jury, which was composed of men well known in the county, such as Peter Pole and John Gell, of Hopton, decided in favour of Henry Bradshawe of Bradshaw, who was thenceforward left as undisputed owner of the field, which is in the possession of his descendant to-day. Five years before William Bradshawe’s death, his son Henry had been practically master at Bradshaw, probably because his father had become conscious of the infirmities of age, for he must have been exceedingly old when he was troubled on his death-bed, in 1483, with the dispute about the Hollow Meadow. A lease had been executed by Wm. Bradshaw,[43] which seems to have been in lieu of a will, letting for twenty-one years to his son “Hare,” “his place calde ye Bradsha, and all ye lade and meydo [land and meadow] with ye apurtenances logyg yereto [belonging thereto], except a wode calde ye Greyve Crofte,” but in making arrangements for the maintenance of his widow, he stipulates that “unless it plesse her bettur to be in any odr plase, ye seyde Hare shall fynde and suffyshundeley kepe his Modr at things to hyr necessare to hyr degre.” He also arranges for his son to relieve him of the worry of paying the King’s taxes in the words, “and ye seyde Hare to pey ye Kyge his dute for ye whole lynelode” [income]. He also gives to “ye seyde Hare all his stuffe of Howsholde, wit all things of his yt longus to husbodry” [that belongs to husbandry]. This curious lease is dated at Chapel-in-ye-Frythe, 18 Edward IV. (1478). William’s wife was Elizabeth, a member of the family of Kyrke, of Whitehough, near Chapel-en-le-Frith[44].

Henry appears to have been their only son, and probably lived with his parents at Bradshaw Hall. He died in 1523, and his will, made two years before, is a curiously worded one, with quaint spelling. Having[171] satisfied his conscience with regard to the Church, and dealt with the two farms in his occupation, the testator proceeds:—

At the close of the will, the testator mentions John as his eldest son at that time deceased. Richard therefore was legally the heir to the estates, and, as a minor, was left under the guardianship of his two uncles. Henry then expresses the desire that:

His two sons, William and Henry, and his daughter, Margaret, have their fair share of his estate, and he beseeches

Henry Bradshawe’s wife Elizabeth was one of the daughters of Robert Eyre, the second son of William Eyre, of North Lees, near Hathersage. His deceased eldest son, John Bradshawe, had married, according to Lincolnshire Pedigrees,[45] Isabella, daughter of Peter Ashton, of Halmear Grange, in Spalding, co. Lincoln. Both he and his wife had apparently died leaving only one child, Richard, who could have been little more than ten years of age when, in 1523, his grandfather’s death placed him as heir to the estates, under the guardianship of his two uncles.

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Possibly Richard was not easy of control, and did not remain at school sufficiently long to learn wisdom, for before he could have arrived at the age of thirty he had come to grief, and his possessions had all passed into the hands of his uncle William, who was thus the progenitor of the future Bradshawes of Bradshaw.

Various circumstances, however, lead to the supposition that for some time after he had attained his majority, which must have been about the year 1534, Richard had his home at Bradshaw Hall with his uncle Henry, who was, without doubt, living there with Elizabeth, his wife, as tenant up to the year 1541. Before this event, however, the foolish lad had entered upon the extravagant and downward career which ultimately led to his ruin and to his banishment from the old home and lands. His frequent appeals to his uncle William for money resulted in, first a mortgage, and finally, in December, 1542, the absolute sale of his interests in the whole of the Bradshaw domain to his uncle William, of Marple, co. Chester. One of the sums of money sent to him by his uncle was the result of a most piteous appeal, which ends thus: “For I have no money bott off you, nor I cannot boro non but of you, nor I wyll not, and therefore I prey you to be good to me of thys.” In an exceedingly neat and educated handwriting are the few words written in the spare space below Richard’s letter complying with the request, and signed “Wylliam Bradsha.” After the 20th October, 1547, the date of a sale of an annuity by him to a man at Stockport, nothing is known of Richard Bradshawe except that by his wife, Katherine, daughter of Elys Staveley, of Redseats, near Castleton, he left a son, Thomas, described in 1582 as of Swindels, co. Chester.

William Bradshawe thus became possessed of the Bradshawe estates. He is described as of Marple, co. Cheshire, as early as February, 1534, and as late as November, 1549. The first deed in which he is described as of Bradshaw is dated 15th July, 1547.

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It is doubtful, however, whether he ever altogether abandoned Marple, as his second son, Henry, appears to have succeeded him there. He must have died about the year 1561, for the first mention of his wife, Margaret, as a widow is in a deed concerning her dower, which is dated 2nd February, 1562. She was a daughter of Christopher Clayton, of Strindes Hall, near Marple, co. Chester.

As the three eldest of their children were born before the times of parish registers, it has been most helpful to discover among the family deeds a long slip of parchment endorsed: “The sevrall ages of Wm. Bradshawe’s children.” The information, which is in Latin, and in a legal handwriting, is as follows:—

Of these children Godfrey, as the eldest son, inherited the Bradshawe estates, as will be presently seen. Henry, the second son, eventually purchased the Marple Hall estate, where he had been bred, and most probably born. He founded the family of Bradshawe, of Marple Hall, co. Chester, now represented by Mr. Bradshawe Isherwood; but he is especially noted for being the grandfather of John Bradshawe, President[174] of the High Court of Justice which tried and sentenced King Charles I. to the scaffold. President Bradshawe, the second son of Henry, the elder of the two sons of Henry Bradshawe, of Marple, was born at Wybersley in December, 1602. Against the entry of his baptism in the Stockport registers for the 10th of that month, some loyalist has written the word “traitor.” He was called to the bar in 1627, and was a member of Gray’s Inn. In 1640 he was appointed Judge of the Sheriff’s Court in Guildhall, London, and Serjeant-at-Law in 1648. When the House of Commons had decided on the trial of the King, they appointed a Court of Commissioners, the presidency of which was offered to John Bradshawe. It is only fair to say that he earnestly pleaded to be excused, though it is possible that this hesitancy may have been due to the undoubted danger attached to the position, which he was apparently aware of if we are to judge by the broad brimmed hat[46] which he wore during the trial, still preserved at Oxford, for it is lined with plated steel as a protection against personal violence.

The High Court began their work on the 20th January. The first few days were entirely occupied by a lengthy dispute between the King and John Bradshawe concerning the authority of the Court, which, as King, Charles naturally refused to acknowledge. On the 29th of January, however, the death warrant was signed, to which the signature of John Bradshawe stands first as president. He did not live to witness the Restoration, for he died 31st October, 1659, and was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey. His body was, however, exhumed with those of Cromwell and Ireton, and all three were hung and buried at Tyburn.

John Bradshawe, Serjeant-at-Law.
President at the Trial of King Charles I., 1649.

John Bradshawe seems to have kept up friendly relations with his Derbyshire kinsmen. His signature appears in more than one of the deeds connected with[175] family arrangements, and he acted as one of the overseers to the will of George Bradshawe, of Eyam, the High Sheriff’s brother, made 17th June, 1646.

Anthony Bradshawe the youngest son of William Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, is perhaps better known than his brothers by reason of his quaint monument in Duffield church, a photograph of which illustrates this article. He was born on February 3rd, 1545; was educated at Oxford, where he took his B.A. degree 3rd April, 1566;[47] and entered as a student of the Inner Temple 25th May, 1573. He made his home, however, in Duffield, where he lived in a house called Farley’s Hall. He owned the Duffield mill, and lands in Duffield and Holbrook, and other places in the neighbourhood. He was the author of various interesting articles, which prove that not only was he an adept in his vocation as a barrister, but also was an industrious and intelligent student of the history of his own county. He wrote a most remarkable poem of fifty-four stanzas, giving an interesting account of Duffield and Duffield Frith. It is published at length in the Reliquary.[48] All his MSS. were specially left to his son Jacynth, but with the exception of that on his own family, of which a literal transcript is given, they have all mysteriously disappeared. Some of them found their way, many years ago, into the possession of Mr. Barber, of Smalley. Extracts from these are quoted by Rev. C. Kerry, late rector of Upper Stondon, in the article on the “History of Peak Forest” which he contributed to the Journal of the Derbyshire Archæological Society in 1893.[49]

One of these MSS., a great portion of which has been there transcribed, supplies most curious and interesting information concerning the customs and duties of the officers of the forest of the High Peak. Other MSS. had been published ten years before by Mr. Kerry for the[176] Reliquary.[50] One of these contains “the Account of a Conference” held between himself and a distinguished visitor, “W. N., a Sowthern gent att the howse of the said A. B., called ffarley’s House, in Duffield, in the County of Derby,” on 1st May, 1603.

It begins thus:—

With regard to the office he held, and his work as a barrister-at-law, his remarks—greatly abbreviated and modernised in spelling—are as follows:—

Among other benefactions to the place in which he had chosen to reside, he founded an almshouse. He alludes to it in these words:—

In the indenture, which he says he intends to leave within his will, he alludes to it thus:—

The document ends with the rules to be observed by the occupants of the almshouse regarding their language and their attendance at church, where they were to sit “att the backe of my pewe,” which pew, as well as his[178] monument, they were to dust and keep clean. The “monument” referred to here is in the church, and in good preservation. The “almshouses,” which stood in the Town Street between “Duffield Hall and the road, were pulled down in 1804,” says Dr. Cox in his work on Derbyshire Churches, and he remarks: “They were most improperly bought of the parish in 1804 by Mrs. Bonnell, of the Hall, for £120, and pulled down, in order to enlarge the grounds.” Quoting a letter written to Mr. Lysons in 1816 he adds: “The annexed lines are inscribed on a stone now making part of the fence in Bonell’s pleasure grounds at Duffield, but formerly placed in front of Bradshaw’s almshouses, which I have heard stood near the same spot, but is now entirely erased.”

Duffield Church: Monument of Anthony Bradshawe.

Anthony Bradshaw’s monument to himself, his two wives, and twenty children, was erected in 1600; he did not die until 1614, having had in the meantime three additional children. It stands against the east wall of the north transept of Duffield church, and is in a fair state of preservation. At the top of the monument is the Bradshaw coat—arg., two bendlets between as many martlets, sab., surmounted by the crest of a hart standing under a vine bough. Across the centre of the monument, between the inscription proper and the acrostic, are the small incised effigies (half length) of himself, his wives, and children distinguished by their respective initials. The following are the inscriptions:—

[179]

[180]

It is of some interest to print for the first time a quaint Bradshaw pedigree, which is an exact copy of one in my own possession, in the handwriting of Anthony Bradshaw; it was too much worn to permit of reproduction in facsimile.

Several of his twenty-three children settled in the neighbourhood, not only at Duffield, but at Makeney, Idridgehay, and Belper, and the Duffield registers[51] record their existence during the whole of the seventeenth century.

Vicesimus, the last of the children recorded on the monument, was baptized 10th March, 1600, and married Ellen, daughter and heiress of Richard Fletcher, of Makeney. Their descendants intermarried with various local families, and one of them married Thos. Ward, curate of Duffield, early in 1800. Peregrine, born in 1602, after the monument had been erected, was perhaps one of the best known to the world at large of this big family. He settled in London, and later on was of Wymondham, and acted as page to Anne of Denmark, wife of James I., and afterwards as “Esquire to the body of King Charles I.”[52]

Anthony Bradshawe died 1614. His will was proved on the 3rd May in that year. He leaves legacies to “Francis Bradshawghe, of Bradshawghe, Peter and Henry Bradshawghe,” and a ring is left to John Curzon, of Kedleston, who was father of the first baronet, and ancestor to the present Lord Scarsdale. Jacynth is the fortunate inheritor of his signet ring, furniture, books, and MSS.

  Com. Derby    { Will̄m Bradshawghe of Bradshawghe in the County aforesaid
  ffebr. 1610. { gent (who and his Ancestors have beene lawfull and right
               { Inheritors and owners thereof by antient desent ever
               { synce afore the Conquest whiche auntient evidences thereof
               { doe shew) maryd Margret the daughter of M^r Cleyton of
               { Stryndes hall in Cheshire, by whome hee had yssue
               { liueinge—

       1          2         3         4           5          6
    ---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+-----------
    Godfrey  | Henerie | Francis | Anthony  | Elizabeth | Margret
       G1    |   H2    |   F3    |   A4     |    E5     | maried to
             |         |         |          |           | Littlewood
    ---------+----+----+---------+          +-----------+
        francis   |  Henerey     |
          f1      |    H3        |
                  +--------------+----------------------------------
                  |  Anthony
                  |    A3
    --------------+-------------------------------------------------
        | The same ffrancis the sonne had  |
        | yssue by the said Anne his       |
        | wife diu^rs sonnes and daughters |
        | here under menconed viz          |

G1. Godfrey his eldest sonne maryed to Em daughter to Anthony Shalcrosse of Shalcrosse in the said County Esq^r by whome hee had yssue ffrancis Leuon^rd Godfrey Peeter & Henerie and divers daughters whose names and matches are here und^r mencioned

H2. Henerie maried to Dorotha daughter of Xpofer Baghau of the townhed in y^e Chapell of ffryth gent by whome hee had ishew one sonne Henerie and oy^r daughters by dyu^r venters Elizabeth maryed to

F3. Francis maried to Mary the sister of Juxe Esq^r servante to the late Queene Elizabeth by whome he had issue ffrancis and other Children now dwelling att Wakesay by Charleton in the County of Willtesh^r purchased by the said ffrancis the father

A4. Anthony who had two wyves the first Grisild daughter and heire of Richard Blackwall of Blackwall of Derbysh^r gent^l Inheritor of the third pt of Barford in (now sold to M^r Lane there) w^{ch} Richard had to wife Anne the sister of Tho. Sutton of Ou^rhaddon in the said County of Derby Esq^r (whose widow John Bently aft^r maried) by whiche Grisild the said Anthony had 4 sonnes viz Willm ffrancis John (w^{ch} three dyed all younge w^{th}out issue). And Exuperie who maried Ann one of the daughters of Lysle of Maxhill in the County of Warr Esq^r by the daughter of Repington of Annyngton in the same Countie Esq^r (whose former husband was one M^r Willughby) whiche Exupie hath not yette any yssue The same Anthony second wife ys Elizabeth the daughter of Richard Haughton of Holbroke in the said County of Derby (decended from Haughton of Haughton tower in the County ofcLanc. Esq^r). By which Elizabeth the same Anthony had Ninteene Children viz Nyne Sonnes viz Jacquth, Erasimus, Joseph, Vicesimus & Peregrine yet liveing, Antony, Quintin, Micaell & Candidus deceased, tenn daughters viz Elizabeth, ffelix, Petronilla (modo nuta Marco Jackson in Com. Leic. gent) also Atanasca, Mildred, Brandona, Milicent, Casandria, Penultima yet liueing, and Isodora deceased

E5. Elizabeth mared to John Bagshaw of Bradshawgh Esq^r gent, who had ysue one sonne Nicolas & daughters Marie, maried to M^r Rawlison of gate by

f1. The said francis the eldest sonne of the same Godfrey the father Maried Anne one of the four daughters and co-heiress of Humph of Eyam in the said County Esq^r (by whome he had Eyam hall and those Lands in that partition). And Roland Eyre of Hassoppe in the same County Esq^r maried another of the same daughters. And Mr. Savage of Castleton in the same County maried the third of the same daughters and Mr. M----wood of Stadon in the same County maried the fourth of the same daughters and coheirs of the same M^r Stafford

H3 Henerey the sonne hee maried one of the daughters and heires of Wynyngton gent. (with whome hee had certaine Lands in Alfreton) in the pish of Stokport in Cheshire by whome hee had yssue Ralfe This Henery purchased dyu^rs Land in Marple and ellswhere

A3. Besides some other Lands to him decended This Anthony purchased ffayrles and ffayrles hall and certaine other lands in Dufeild and in Derbysh^r from the said Dorothee, Anne Derby and erected a little Almshouse in the towne of Dufeild, and his little Monument his other Sister and being married to owne in Dufeild Chirch Thornell there

Godfrey, the eldest son of William Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, was born 29th September, 1531, and began his experiences of the troubles of life very early. At what date he married Margaret, daughter of Roger Howe, of[181] Ashop, is not recorded; but as early as 1550, when only 19, he and his wife are quarrelling like the children they undoubtedly were, and after ineffectual attempts “to cause them to continue lovingly together as man and wife,” their respective parents took the necessary legal proceedings to separate them so that each might be enabled to marry again. The old MSS. connected with this part of Godfrey’s life are very curious reading, as they arrange for the partition of the household goods, and even to the return to Margaret’s parents of the clothes provided for a possible nursery. After the divorce, Godfrey did not go far afield for a second wife. He married Emma, the daughter of Anthony Shawcross, of Shawcross, quite a near neighbour. In 1568 serious troubles arose[53] in consequence of his having enclosed a portion of his land at Chinley, not two miles distant from Bradshaw. His action was highly resented by the inhabitants, who pulled his fences down, burnt a house, and

On another occasion certain people

The disturbances were eventually quelled, and the rioters tried in the Court of the Star Chamber.

[182]

On the 10th April, 1570, Godfrey executed a deed of entail of Bradshawe on himself for life, with remainder to Francis, his eldest son, and then to Leonard, Godfrey, Peter, and Henry, his other four sons, in tail male, in default to his three brothers, Henry, of Marple, Francis, and Anthony. In a list of the principal landowners in the High Peak for 1570 appear the names of Godfrey Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, and of his wife’s brother, Leonard Shallcrosse, of Shalcross.[54]

Godfrey died early in the year 1607, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Francis, who was married when quite a child to Anne, one of the four daughters and co-heiresses of Humphry Stafford, of Eyam. Indeed, he was not much more than nine years old according to the register of his birth, for the 4th May, 1565, appears to have been the day on which he was married. The Staffords had been settled at Eyam certainly as far back as the reign of King John, at which time their lands were held “by hereditary right for the free service of finding one lamp burning before the altar of St. Helen in the church at Eyam throughout the year during divine service.”[55]

The possessions to be divided among the four daughters appear to have been very considerable. In 1568 a deed was executed to enable Francis Bradshawe and Anne, his wife, peaceably to enjoy a fourth part of the lands lately the inheritance of Humphry Stafford. This consisted of much of the ancient domain of the Staffords actually in Eyam, with the Old Hall, and included lands in the vicinity at Monyash, Chelmorton, and other places, as well as the whole of the townships of Bretton and Foolow. No evidence exists as to the destiny of the two children for some years after their marriage. Ten years later, however, they were apparently living in the Old Hall at Eyam, and on the 8th of January, 1576, a settlement of the hall and lands at Eyam was executed on the young couple,[183] and upon their eldest son. The deed must have been drawn up either before or immediately after his birth, for a space has been left blank throughout the original deed for the Christian name of “their son and heir.” The Manor of Abney, which marched with his wife’s estates, was bought in October, 1593. It adjoins Bretton and Foolow, which are townships in the ecclesiastical parish of Eyam.

There is no evidence that Francis Bradshawe ever lived in Bradshaw Hall, which devolved on him on the death of his father, Godfrey, in 1607. Only three years elapsed between this event and his eldest son’s marriage, and in all probability the Hall had no permanent tenant until after it had been rebuilt. At any rate there is little doubt that Francis Bradshawe, the elder, as he is generally styled, lived on at Eyam Hall, where his chief interests lay, until his death, of which date there is no record. After the year 1615,[56] when he qualified as a magistrate for the county, nothing is known about him. His wife died before the 18th December, 1606, the date of a settlement of “money which rightly belonged to the said Francis in right of Anne, his late wife.” Francis, the eldest son of their very large family, succeeded him. The first date of which there is any evidence of his being in possession of the estates is 10th June, 1619, when he executed a deed entailing them on his heirs male. This same year, too, evidently marked the completion of the rebuilding of the Hall, for a stone is still in existence inscribed F.B., B.B., 1619, which most probably formed the centre-piece over the doorway in the entrance porch, now demolished. His wife was Barbara, daughter of Sir John Davenport, of Davenport, co. Chester. In his marriage settlements, bearing the date of 1610, he is described as barrister-at-law of the Inner Temple. Possibly he made London and Eyam Hall his headquarters[184] till the completion of the hall, which work may well have begun soon after his grandfather’s death in 1607, when it was probably assigned to him as a future residence. It is fairly certain that the present hall was the first stone-built residence of the Bradshawes, for the following reason. After the civil wars of Stephen’s reign, it was found necessary to forbid such substantial residences to be built without permission from the King. Timber, therefore, was the principal material used for ordinary buildings, and only in the time of the Tudor Sovereigns did the long established custom of ignoring the stone of the district begin to die out. The half-timbered houses still so prevalent in Cheshire are scarce in our own county, but 300 years ago they were probably common enough, and as a contrast to the stone walls must have added considerably to the beauty of the Peak country. Such a house, therefore, we may well imagine the original Bradshaw Hall to have been, standing in a conspicuous place on the slope of Eccles Pike.

In the time of Henry VIII., however, the ancient custom of allowing the smoke to find its own way out through a hole in the tiling, which was called the “louvre,” began to be discontinued, and stone-built chimneys were then added outside the timber house for the sake of safety. Mr. Gunson, in his article on Bradshaw Hall,[57] says:—

No doubt it was the presence of this huge and apparently useless block of masonry, running the whole height of the house, which gave rise to the generally accepted notion that Bradshaw Hall possessed a secret chamber or “priest hole.” This legend is adopted by Mr. Allan Fea, who remarks in his interesting book on Secret Chambers and Hiding Places: “Bradshaw Hall has or had a concealed chamber high up in the wall of a room on the ground floor, which was capable of holding three persons.” Of course, tradition says “the wicked judge was hidden here.” The actual place here described is a modern cupboard, which has not been in existence a century as yet!

One other remnant of the old house remains in the present structure. To use Mr. Gunson’s words:

The interior of the house some sixty or seventy years ago was somewhat altered to meet the requirements of two families of farm tenants; but as originally built, it contained the dining-hall—which was also the usual living room of the family—out of this opened the withdrawing room. These two rooms occupied the whole of one wing, and were accessible from the main entrance through a vestibule or small hall, lighted by a quaint little window on the right, and entirely shut off from the big staircase. The dining-hall was a spacious room, lighted by a pair of four-light windows, now converted into modern sash lights.

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Another archway leads to the kitchen, and at the top of the hall was the original great fireplace and a door, which led into the withdrawing room. The same kind of beams cross the ceiling of this room, though in a different direction to those of the hall, and it is lighted by similar windows. All the rooms at Bradshaw are exceptionally lofty, and the windows, which have not been tampered with,

The kitchen and offices formed the other wing.

An inventory[58] of the contents of the hall, taken after the death of Francis Bradshawe gives us not only an idea of the contents of the mansion house of a gentleman of[187] that period, but it also furnishes us with the names of the various rooms. Among them is mentioned “The Gallerie, the Gallerie Chamber, and the Clocke Chamber.” The contents of his own bedroom are as follows:

Over the kitchen a fine example of an oak panelled room still remains in good condition. The contents of the cellars are described in the inventory as “one greate tuninge vessel and 3 lesser vessells and twentie barrells.” These big cellars have apparently been filled in and flagged over, for in spite of the legend that they still exist, it has been found impossible to discover their position. Of the outbuildings, the big cow house still remains, of the same date as the hall, with windows of a similar design.

The principal entrance to the hall, with its porch, now removed, originally faced Eccles Pike, over which ran an ancient highway, and connected with this was an old bridle road leading to the stone-built arch which was the main gateway. This is still in admirable condition, and beyond the fact that there are indications that originally the archway was enclosed with double gates, which are not now in existence, it is much as it left the builders’ hands. Over it, on the side facing the hill, is a shield bearing a coat of arms, as follows: “Argent two bendlets between two martlets sable” for Bradshawe. Impaling “or a chevron gules between three martlets sable” for Stafford. Above the shield is the Bradshawe crest, “A stag at gaze proper under a Vine Tree fruited proper.”

This coat bears the impress of the work of an amateur, as Francis Bradshawe could only have impaled the Davenport arms as borne by his wife’s family, while he[188] had the right to bear the Stafford arms quarterly with his own, because his mother was an heiress. Had his father built the archway, as some writers have suggested, the Stafford coat would have been borne over the Bradshawe shield on a “Scutcheon of pretence.”

On the reverse side of the archway is the inscription, “Francis Bradshawe, 1620,” below which is a shield bearing the curious device, apparently heraldic, of a thorn between six nails. It has puzzled several students of heraldry. The suggestion was made a few years ago, which is almost certainly the correct one, that it is no heraldic achievement, but “a rebus” on the name Bradshawe:

Bradshawe Hall: Detail of Gateway.

A feature of the walling round Bradshaw is its heavy double coping. The building of the archway and stone fence would not have been built till after “the bulky traffic necessary during the building operations no longer prohibited a restricted approach.” This would account for the date of the gateway being a year later than that of the hall. Here, then, Francis Bradshawe and his wife took up their abode, in the old home rebuilt and modernized according to the fashion of the times. In the year 1630–1 he served the office of High Sheriff for the county, succeeding Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston. The accounts connected with his shrievalty were kept with scrupulous care. They were published in the Archæological Journal for 1904, and are very quaint reading. The board and lodging of the two judges on circuit, for all the officials connected with the Court of Assize, and for the prisoners awaiting their trial, as well as the expense entailed by the execution and burial of[189] those condemned to be hanged, are all included. Contrary to the custom of the present day, the grand jury were fed at the High Sheriff’s expense, and a band was provided to entertain them. Among his personal expenses we read that £11 6s. was paid for lace, £1 3s. 10d. for twenty-six long buttons, 19s. for two dozen “silke and gould buttons and a neeke button,” £30 for twenty-six hatbands, 10s. for his boots, £2 3s. 4d. for his saddle, 11s. 8d. for the fringe, and £1 3s. 10d. for the “silver boole,” which may have been his buckle, but might possibly have been a bowl to be used as a loving cup. At Kirk Ireton he is charged for the hire of a horse, as well as for the keep of the one he left behind, which item suggests the probability that in riding his own horse, as would have been most likely, all the way from Bradshaw to Derby, he had been obliged to change horses on the road, and Kirk Ireton, being on his line of route in travelling by the old but now disused road from Bakewell, he had elected to make the exchange there. During this year he had the misfortune to lose his wife. The entry of her death in the parish registers of Chapel-en-le-Frith for the year 1631 is as follows: “Barbara, the wife of Francis Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, High Sheriff for this Countie this yeare, was buried in the chancell the xviiijth day.” On the 31st of July, 1632, he married as his second wife Lettice Clarke, widow, described in the Chapel-en-le-Frith register as “step-daughter to Sir Harvey Bagott, Knt.” She was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Dilke, of Maxstoke Castle, co. Warwick. After his death she married, as her third husband, Sir John Pate, Bart. Francis Bradshawe died 25th March, 1635, and was buried with his wife on the 27th. His will, made about a month after his second marriage, left two-thirds of his residue to his brother George, his successor in the family estates, and one-third to his widow. She appears to have made Bradshaw her residence till about the year 1637, at which date Bradshaw Hall was apparently occupied by a[190] Mr. Thomas Wigstone; at any rate, he is described as of Bradshaw in the register of the baptism of his daughter Lettice in the October of that year. He may have been a friend or relation, but Nicholas Lomas, who, according to the register, died at Bradshaw in 1640, would certainly have been a tenant. Francis Bradshawe was the last member of the family to reside at Bradshaw; notwithstanding the large amount of money that had been expended on the hall only fifteen years before.

George Bradshawe, his brother and successor, lived throughout his married life at Eyam; the old Hall, the home of the Staffords, his mother’s ancestors, having been entirely rebuilt for him. He was buried in Eyam Church, 25th June, 1646. His widow lived on at Eyam until she and her only unmarried daughter were driven away by the plague, which was raging in that village during the years 1665 and 1666. Francis, the eldest son, who inherited all the Bradshaw estates, had married in 1652 Elizabeth Vesey, a Yorkshire heiress, and he elected to live in his wife’s ancestral home at Brampton, co. York, and there did all the future Bradshawes, of Bradshaw, live, forsaking the old home and county. Francis Bradshawe died at Brampton, 21st December, 1659, leaving two sons. Francis, the elder, who succeeded to the estates but died unmarried in 1677, left all his estates to his brother, John Bradshawe. Living as his father had done in the old hall at Brampton, John Bradshawe allowed strangers to continue to rent Bradshaw Hall. In 1660, during the minority of his brother, the hall had been let to Edward Ash and Thomas Wright, and he himself let it to John Lowe in 1693. In 1717 John Bradshawe was High Sheriff for the County of Derby, but he died where he had lived, at Brampton, co. York, in November, 1726, leaving by his wife Dorothy, daughter of Anthony Eyre, of Rampton, co. Notts, a son, George, and a daughter, Elizabeth. George Bradshawe succeeded to the Bradshawe estates, but dying childless[191] in 1735, the estates devolved on his sister’s son as heir-at-law and from him the present representative of the family is descended.

It is a curious coincidence that the last official act of George, the last Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, of which there is any evidence, was, only three months before his death, to execute a lease, dated 13th September, 1735, for eleven years to Robert Lowe and John Jackson of the old hall of his ancestors, in which document it is described as “all that capital messuage with the appurtenances lying and being in the parish of Chapel-en-le-Frith, commonly called or known by the name of Bradshaw Hall.”

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OFFERTON HALL.

By S. O. Addy, M.A.

The hamlet of Offerton is near Hathersage, and now consists of three houses, called Offerton Hall, Offerton House, and Offerton Cottage. It stands high, but the moors on the south rise higher still, and partly hide the rays of the midday sun from these buildings. So, as you walk up the hill on a summer’s morning, the gateway of the hall, already darkened by time, is further darkened by shadows. But there is plenty of light when you get into the courtyard.

You ascend a little-used, narrow lane, with walls on either side, and leaving Offerton House, itself a quaint old building, on your right, you presently enter the courtyard of Offerton Hall through a tall gateway, which stands between farm buildings on one side and a barn on the other. Within the archway on either side are mullioned windows, and just beyond the archway is a door, as if a porter once kept the gate.

Offerton Hall (Front View).

Offerton Hall (Back View).

Open the barn doors and peep inside. At one end, raised high above the floor, you will see a large wooden platform, which can be raised up and down at will, and is used for clipping sheep. You will also notice that the great oak beams or rafters which support the roof of the barn extend down to the ground. These beams are thick and rude, and have hardly been touched by the carpenter’s tools. They are locally known as “crucks,” which is an older form of “crutches.” A book which has just been published contains an extract from a lease[193] dated 1432, in which “crukkes” are mentioned, and it is remarkable that the word is used as a translation of laquearia.[59] The barn at Offerton Hall consists of four bays, measuring 15 feet by 16 feet each, so that the floor of each contains 240 square feet. Some of the crutches are bigger and heavier than the others, and they all rest on stone pedestals, varying, according to the size of the crutches, from two to four feet from the ground, the crutches which stand on the two lowest pedestals being the thickest. All the crutches have mortise holes for rafters on their outer faces about a foot above the lowest of the two tie-beams by which they are joined together. This shows that the roof of the barn, or the roof of an earlier building which the crutches once supported, sloped from the ridge to the ground. The tie-beams are held in their places by tree-nails or wooden pegs.

As I have shown elsewhere, the bay was a unit of measurement, containing 240 square feet. The evidence supporting this conclusion may be seen in various ancient documents. For instance, in the twelfth century, the villans of Aucklandshire had to “make the bishop’s hall in the forest, of the length of 60 feet, and of the breadth within the posts (infra postes) of sixteen feet.”[60] In other words, the hall was to consist of four bays of 240 square feet each, like those in the barn at Offerton. In 1694 there was a fire at Long Eaton, near Derby, which “consumed fourteen dwelling houses, togeather with the barnes, stables, outhouses, and other buildings, containeinge ninety bayes of buildings.”[61] Here the houses of a village are estimated by the bay, which must have been a recognised measure of quantity. It appears in the Eckington Court Rolls that in 1758 a man borrowed £40 on the security of “all that one bay of a barn, situate[194] and being in the High Lane, called the Farr Bay, and all that close there called the Farr Over Close adjoining to the High Lane aforesaid southwards, containing by estimation three acres.” In 1764 an Eckington man and his wife surrendered “all that middle bay of a barn situate and being at High Lane aforesaid, together with twelve yards and two feet of land in length on the north side of the said barn, and one yard in breadth, with all the priveledges and appurtenances to the same belonging,” to the use of John Gill, of Cuckhold’s Haven, in the parish of Eckington, sicklesmith. The meaning is that bays, being measures of quantity, were sold like acres, or, rather, like links of sausages. We must not, of course, suppose that all bays were exactly of the same size, or that each of them contained an area of exactly 240 square feet. We might as well expect every acre in the fields to contain exactly 4,840 square yards.

In examining the outside of Offerton Hall, the first thing to be noticed is a small projection from the back or western side. It is a quadrangular tower, and contains the stairs which supply the two upper floors of the building. As will be imagined from the outer appearance, the stairs are not spiral, but go in short, straight flights, with proper landings. The steps are of stone; first, six steps and then a landing; in nine more steps you get to the first floor; after this, six steps and a landing, then, the uppermost floor or garret. The staircase is really a detached room, and you can only get into it by opening a door. Taking the word in its etymological meaning, a staircase is a “case” which holds a “stair” or ladder. In some old Lincolnshire houses the “stair” is in fact a ladder inside a little closet, like a voting compartment, in a corner of one of the rooms. At Garner House, about a mile from Offerton, the winding stair, now of wood, but formerly of stone, is in a round turret at the back of the house; half of the turret is visible outside, the other half is concealed in the wall.

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Offerton Hall is one of those buildings which have escaped the practical joke of “restoration.” It consists of a “house-place” or large central room, with a projecting wing on either side—a form which was very common in the seventeenth century. In the angle formed by the “house-place” and the southern wing is a yellow-washed stone porch, about two feet deep. Just above the entrance to the porch is a tiny window, with diamond panes and angular top. Below, in an incised panel, the letters M.G. are carved, and, just beneath those letters, R.G. 1658. Although the plan of the house is consistent throughout, it was not all built at the same time, and the two pairs of initials may represent two different owners or builders. Ralph Glossop, of Offerton, appears in the Hope Easter Roll for this very year 1658, and also Edward Glossop, of the same place.[62] A list of the freeholders of Derbyshire made in 1633[63] shows that Ralph Glossop was the only freeholder at Offerton in that year. According to Hunter’s large Pedigree Book, printed by the Harleian Society, Ralph Glossop, of Offerton, married Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Jeremy Ward, of Ashop, in Derbyshire.[64] This Ralph Glossop is not, like his neighbour Thomas Eyre, of Highlow, described in the list of freeholders as an esquire, and accordingly Offerton Hall would seem to have been the residence of a substantial yeoman.

Opening out of the little porch is a strong oak door, studded with iron nails. The height of the door is five feet eight inches, and it is below the level of the sill or threshold, so that when you enter the house you go down one step. As you enter you must take care both of your head and your feet, or you may come to grief at both ends. Dr. Troels Lund says that in Danish houses of the sixteenth century “the door was extremely low,[196] so that a person entering had to bend down, and at the same time the sill was so high that the foot had to be well lifted up. And if a man had reason to fear a hostile attack, it was a considerable help that the entrance, which was always a weak point, should be as narrow and low as possible; if the door were burst open, the enemy might get his death-blow as he stepped over the sill with his back bent and his foot lifted up.”[65]

At Offerton Hall, instead of lifting your leg up you have to drop it down, and at the same time if you are a tall man you have to bend your neck. In the English, as in the Danish case, the intention was to make entrance difficult, and to prevent surprises. The thick oak door opens inwardly. As you go in you do not see the house-place; you face the great chimney wall, and to get into the house-place you pass through another door on your right. Thus the house contains both an inner and an outer porch, the inner porch answering to the “speer” of Lancashire cottages which have no outer porch. The door of entrance is fastened by an oak bolt one foot nine inches in length, and three inches by four in thickness. The bolt fits into a hole in the wall, and is drawn out by an iron ring.

The house-place, or “house-body” as they call it at Halifax, is still the centre of domestic intercourse, as it has always been. As you enter, your back is turned to the great fireplace which once warmed all the house, and which was kept burning day and night. When you get inside the house-place the great vault of the chimney, more than eleven feet wide, is before you, spanned by a depressed arch. People in the neighbourhood speak of the chimney of Offerton Hall as “a lantern chimney.” If you ask them why it was so called, somebody may tell you, without blushing, that it was because a man went up to sweep it with a lantern. The term “lantern[197] chimney” is not to be found in dictionaries, and may therefore be presumed to be unknown. There must once have been a louver or lantern at the top of the chimney at Offerton, like the one, for instance, at Tisbury, in Wiltshire, figured in Parker’s Glossary. The chimney at Tisbury is octangular, with a conical roof, like the top of a stable lantern, and with lateral holes for the emission of smoke. The summit of the chimney at Offerton may originally have been of this form.

The base of the chimney has a breadth of twelve feet six inches on one side, and ten feet six inches on the other. It is built of stone, and in the chamber above the house-place it begins to taper off, so that its sides might be compared to the “steps” on the Great Pyramid. Big central chimneys like this are the first rude attempts to get rid of the open hearth, from which the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof, or by a louver. It is said that “chimneys were not used in the farmhouses of Cheshire till within forty years of the publication of King’s Vale Royal (1636); the fire was in the midst of the house, against a hob of clay, and the oxen lived under the same roof.”[66]

The rooms of the house are about eight feet high on the ground floor, and seven feet on the upper floor, and the principals supporting the roof in the garret are a good deal like the crutches which have just been described. There is no panelling in the house, and no cellar. In front of the building is an old-fashioned garden.

In 1545 Robert Glossop, of Offerton, was fined for trespassing on Abney Common.[67] In 1465 John Glossop, of Wodsetys, in Norton (Norton Woodseats, near Sheffield), leased to Henry Foliaumbe a messuage in Offerton called Le Storthe for twelve years.[68] It would not be difficult to make out a considerable history of the Glossop family[198] and their relations from the Lichfield wills and the other usual sources of information.

We must not be in too great a hurry to conclude that Offerton means upper farm, as Over Haddon means Upper Haddon. Overton, in Ashover, means upper farm, but Mr. Jeayes has shown that in the thirteenth century Offerton, in Hathersage, occurs once as Hofnertoun, and that a man called Eustace de Hofnerton lived there.[69] Other early forms of the name are Offirtun and Offreton; in Domesday it appears as Offertune, a berewick of Hope. Mr. Searle has told us that Offerd is found in Old English charters and in Domesday as a form of the man’s name Osfrith,[70] and, if we could put aside Hofnertoun as a scribe’s error, this is probably the first element of the word. In the thirteenth century we have Over Offerton and Nether Offerton, otherwise Kauereshegge.[71] Was Nether Offerton ever so called? Possibly the scribe should have written Hauereshegge, a form of Hathersage, as old documents show.

The Offerton Hall estate is the property of H. Cunliffe Shawe, Esq., of Weddington Hall, Nuneaton, to whom it has descended from Robert Newton, Esq., of Norton House, who was born in 1713 and died in 1789. Mr. Newton was a wealthy man and a great purchaser of land, this being one of his many estates. In a survey belonging to Mr. Shawe, made about eighty years ago, the Offerton Hall property is described as containing eighty-five acres, and as including the following fields: The Acre with Kentny Barn, Great Kentny, Kentny Meadow, Kentny Wood, Breedy Acre with the Precipice, Wild Hey, Siss Acres, Cornhill Cap Meadow, and Great White Ley. As the map shows, Kentny Meadow is close to the hall. A place called Kenteney, in Upper Offerton, is mentioned[199] in deeds of the thirteenth century.[72] This name represents an older Centan-īg, meaning Centa’s “island,” and we have the same termination ey (īg or īeg) in Abney, which adjoins Offerton, and in a manuscript survey of 1451 is written Albeney.[73] We can rely upon this form of the name, not only because it was taken from an older survey, but because the surname De Albeney occurs in North Derbyshire in 1250.[74] Now the surname Albeyn is found at Chesterfield in 1339,[75] and is the English form of the Latin Albāgnus. Abney, therefore, means Alban’s “island.” Eyam, which adjoins, is written Eium or Eyum in the thirteenth century, and the termination -um is so very frequent that we cannot doubt that it is a dative plural, and that the word means “islands.” These “islands,” it need hardly be said, were not pieces of land surrounded by water. They remind us of the intermixed townships which are so frequent in some parts of England, as if strangers or conquerors had settled amongst a conquered people. At Eyam, the “islands” seem to have been the lands which were held by military tenure, or “hastler lands,” as they were known in the neighbourhood.

Siss Acres may be six acres, for Chaucer has sis for six. If so, the word is interesting as pointing to French influence in the neighbourhood.

In 1611 it is said that Offerton is a manor of itself, then in the tenure of Henry Cavendish, Esq.[76]

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ROODS, SCREENS, AND LOFTS IN DERBYSHIRE CHURCHES

By Aymer Vallance, F.S.A.

Although still comprising a considerable amount of excellent screenwork, the county of Derby has suffered grievous losses in this regard, losses for which, if fanaticism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was primarily responsible, ignorance and indifference in the eighteenth century, and wilful perversity of so-called “restorers” during the “Gothic revival” of the nineteenth, have produced consequences not less disastrous.

At the beginning of the religious revolution in England, inaugurated in the reign of Henry VIII., every church and chapel in the land had its rood-screen, surmounted by a rood-loft. Above them both was the great rood, or cross, with a figure of Our Lord outstretched upon it, flanked almost invariably by statues of St. Mary and St. John. Of these ornaments the rood-loft was the latest to be developed, not becoming general previously to the fifteenth century. It had, however, been preceded in cathedral and monastic churches by the pulpitum, a thick wall with a gallery on the top of it at the west end of the quire. In churches of this class, the rood-screen would be situated parallel to the pulpitum, but further westwards, in the nave.

Fenny Bentley Church: Rood-Screen.

The pulpitum and the parish church rood-screen, although the former is usually a solid stone structure, while the latter consists of openwork, and is of wood[201] rather than of stone, so far resemble one another that both have a central doorway, whereas the cathedral and monastic rood-screen appears to have had, as a rule, two doorways in it, one at the north and the other at the south end, with an altar (which ranked as the principal one among the altars of the nave) placed between them. It was in front of this altar, and at the foot of the great rood, that the procession, which perambulated the church before High Mass on Sundays and great feasts, having traversed the appointed route, finally drew up to make a solemn station. This done, those taking part in the procession would file off to right and left in two divisions, either of them passing through one of the doors in the rood-screen, and thence under the pulpitum into the quire for the celebration of the chief service of the day.

In illustration of the foregoing, it is of interest to recall that excavations, carried on at the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century, on the site of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Dale, revealed, at the eastern crossing, the bases of the two parallel walls of the pulpitum, about five feet apart, and pierced by a central doorway, 4 ft. 6 in. wide. A year later much of the tile pavement of the nave was unearthed, disclosing the tiles spaced and arranged in bands to mark the exact position for the procession, as before described. Further may be cited the accounts of the sale of the effects of the abbey, drawn up by order of the Royal Commissioners on its dissolution in 1538. This document is dated 24th October, in the thirtieth year of King Henry VIII.’s reign. It enumerates, beside “the seats in the Quier; a crucifyx, Mary and John; a payre of organs; ... the rode alter in the Churche,” i.e., in the nave, “and a rode there,” i.e., presumably the great rood. Another item disposed of, viz., “The partition of tymber in the body of the Churche,” most probably refers to the rood-screen in the nave; while the before-named “rode alter” would be, by analogy, the altar in the midst of the rood-screen; for such was the usual dedication.[202] The greater number of the fittings of Dale Abbey were acquired at the sale by Francis Pole, of Radburne. It is, therefore, not without good reason that certain linen-fold panels in Radburne Church—eighteen in all—have been identified as belonging formerly to the rood-screen of the abbey church. And yet another item sold, “a grate of yren” (iron) “abowte the Founder and the tymber worke there” would include parclose screenwork such as is described hereafter.

The church of another Premonstratensian abbey also, that of Beauchief (founded between 1172 and 1176), had its altar of the Holy Cross. Evidence of the fact is extant in the shape of a deed, circa 1300, by which Sir Thomas de Chaworth, lord of Norton, made over the entire village of Greenhill, moor included, by way of endowment, to maintain a canon to celebrate mass at the altar of that name in perpetuity. I have found no other particulars of Beauchief bearing on the present subject except in the inventory, dated 2nd August, 1536, wherein occurs:—“It’m a p’ of organnes,” which same may be assumed to have stood upon the top of the pulpitum.

Neither, again, has very much that is relevant come to light concerning the vanished church of the Augustinian canons at Darley. Their abbey, in its time the largest and most important of the religious houses of Derbyshire, was suppressed in the autumn of 1538, as the result of three months’ unremitting pressure on the part of Cromwell’s agent, Thomas Thacker. This man actually wrote, at the close of the first three months, to inform his master how little effect his cajoleries and threats had had upon the abbot; and to solicit the all-powerful minister’s favour and help in securing possession of the house and goods for himself, when he should have succeeded in the design of coercing the unhappy man. It is at least some slight satisfaction to know that Thacker’s petition was disregarded as far as Darley Abbey was concerned. The abbot’s consent to the suppression at length wrung from[203] him, no time was lost before cataloguing and selling the effects of the abbey. The inventory of the sale is dated 24th October (only two days later than the signing of the act of “surrender”), and comprises the “Great Crucyfyx” of the abbey church and “tymber about ... Seint Sythes Chapell,” meaning, obviously, the parclose screens that surrounded it.

With the foregoing may be compared the priory church of another Augustinian house, founded in 1172 at Repton. The inventory of the sale, dated likewise in October in the year 1538, specifies, besides the rood, at least six partitions of timber, or parcloses, fencing round the chapels respectively of Our Lady, St. John, St. Nicholas, and St. Thomas. The church, dismantled, as has been stated, under Henry VIII., still continued standing “most beautiful,” according to the testimony of the historian Fuller, until the reign of Queen Mary, when, in a single day, it was utterly demolished by the intruder in occupation, Gilbert Thacker. This miscreant belonged to a family deeply tainted with the guilt of sacrilege. He was, in fact, son and heir of the before-named Thomas Thacker, and becoming alarmed at the news of the rehabilitation of the religious orders, and determined to prevent such an eventuality in the case of Repton Priory, promptly acted on that resolve by destroying, as he himself expressed it, “the nest, for fear the birds should build therein again.” Excavations conducted in 1882 and two successive years on the site of the former church, discovered practically all that is ever likely, under the circumstances, to be learned from investigations on the spot. The results, embodied in two reports by Mr. W. H. St. John Hope, were published in volumes vi. and vii. of the Journal of the Derbyshire Archæological Society, from which, as comprising the whole of the available information relevant to the present subject, the following particulars have, for the most part, been extracted.

The stone pulpitum, like that at Dale, occupied the[204] space between the two piers of the eastern crossing; but, unlike the Dale pulpitum, the Repton one was a solid structure. It measures 5 ft. 4½ in. deep from east to west, and is pierced by a central doorway 4 ft. 4½ in. wide. Its eastward front, against which backed the return stalls, measures 26 ft. 2 in., the total width of the quire. The westward façade (except for the door-jambs, which are moulded and flanked on either side by an ornamental buttress, and when uncovered in 1883 showed traces of brilliant scarlet and black colouring) was austerely plain. Its flatness was relieved, however, by the loft above being made to overhang. That this was so is deduced from the fact that had the loft-floor not projected beyond the area of the base of the pulpitum, there would have been insufficient room for anyone ascending to the top to turn round on emerging from the staircase. The latter, 3 ft. 2½ in. wide, was hollowed out of the solid in the northern half of the pulpitum, and raked upwards in a straight flight from south to north. The “pair of organs” named in the inventory, stood, it may be assumed, on the platform at the top. That the pulpitum itself must have been coeval (circa 1275–1300) with the piers and integral in structure with them, is manifest from the plinth that forms the base of pulpitum and piers alike being finished with the same hollow chamfer continuously all round it. A curious feature is that, notwithstanding there is a step leading up from the nave to the pulpitum door, on the east side there is a descent of one step again on to the floor of the quire. South of the pulpitum a screen of wood shut off the quire’s south aisle (which is ten feet wide) from the transept. Another screen, in line with the last-named one, extending 21 ft. 9 in., i.e., as far as the south wall of the transept, enclosed the spacious chapel of Our Lady, which was situated parallel to the quire, on the south side of the quire’s south aisle. The former existence of these screens is proved by holes sunk in the masonry to receive the timber work. The north transept[205] was too ruinous to furnish any indication of its ancient screen arrangements; but there were found some signs of a screen having stood between the first pair of piers in the nave (which, exclusive of the aisles, is 22 ft. 2 in. wide). This would, of course, be the position of the rood-screen proper.

To resume, as to collegiate churches, some were provided, like cathedrals, with a solid pulpitum, others with a rood-loft only, which in their case had to do duty for pulpitum; that is to say, the ceremonial singing of the Gospel was wont, as in cathedrals and monastic churches, to take place on the top of it at High Mass on Sundays and great feasts. The knowledge of this circumstance has given rise, apparently, to the mistaken notion that the rood-loft in ordinary parochial churches was used for the same purpose, which was decidedly not the case. Nay, in some parish churches sculptured stone desks, projecting from the north wall of the chancel, near the high altar, were provided expressly, as authorities on the subject agree, for the reading of the Gospel at that spot, in contradistinction to the cathedral, monastic, and collegiate usage. The Derbyshire parish churches of Chaddesden, Crich, Etwall, Mickleover, Spondon, and Taddington are especially remarkable as being fitted with lecterns of this description.

Against the east side of a pulpitum return stalls for clergy or monks were invariably fixed; but that this arrangement was not confined exclusively to cathedral, monastic, and collegiate churches is proved by the fact that certain Derbyshire churches, which have never belonged to any of those categories, and could scarcely even be described as connected except indirectly with cells of religious houses in their neighbourhood, e.g., those at Chaddesden, Elvaston, Norbury, and Sawley, were provided with return stalls in the chancel. And again, not least extraordinary, in the out-of-the-way parish of Chelmorton, the ancient rood-screen, itself of stone, to[206] this day still has a stone bench attached to it, and running the length of its eastern side, for clergy to occupy, backs to the screen and faces towards the altar, just as though in a cathedral quire or in that of some religious order.

Norbury Church: Stall End attached to Jamb of Rood-Screen.

Three of the before-named churches, viz., Chaddesden, Elvaston, and Norbury, present (or, rather, if the handiwork of the mediæval joiners had not been subsequently tampered with in any of them, would present) a feature highly characteristic of Derbyshire churches in the treatment of the outer ends of the return stalls that flank the passage through the rood-screen into the chancel. The Norbury specimen (see illustration), handsomely sculptured, with a panel of vine ornament, and with a projecting elbow formed of the half-length figure of an angel, is, however, in point of size the least accentuated of the three. But the pair at Chaddesden, with a series of enormous crockets climbing high up the eastward face of the muntins which form the entrance jambs, if scarcely[207] noticeable when the screen is viewed from the nave, are very conspicuous from within the chancel; so much so, indeed, as to dominate and outscale all the rest of the screenwork to which they belong. How so strange an anomaly ever came to be introduced into an ordinary parish church is merely conjecture. The quire of the church of All Hallows, Derby—the sole collegiate foundation in the county surviving as such until the sixteenth century—must, of course, have been furnished with return stalls; but whether they exhibited the huge proportions of those at Chaddesden, or whether, if that were so, the Chaddesden stall ends were or were not deliberately imitated from those of All Hallows’, one may wonder and argue as one will, without the possibility of arriving any the nearer to positive assurance on the subject.

Chaddesden Church: Detail of Rood-Screen from the Chancel.

In default of a cathedral church within the borders of Derbyshire, the tendency would be to emphasize the dignity and importance of its greater churches. Among these the grand collegiate church of All Hallows was foremost, and as such it came to be regarded as, in some sort, the minster and mother church of all the southern part of the county. Thus it would, perhaps, be but natural that All Saints’, Derby, should supply the model for numbers of churches round about, and that its individual features should reproduce themselves even in some of the furthest corners of the shire. The love of generations of Derbyshire men for the fabric of this glorious church, and the jealous pride with which they defended its ancient privileges, are matters of history; and if it is not possible now to trace to a common original the distinguishing features of the churches of the county in general, which would, in all probability, have had their prototype in All Saints’, the ever-to-be-regretted reason is that the whole of the venerable building, with the exception of the tower at the west end, has disappeared—wantonly and wilfully destroyed in February, 1722–3.[208] This irreparable loss was brought about solely through the guile and strategy of one unscrupulous tyrant, the then minister in charge, Rev. Michael Hutchinson, D.D., the memory of whose deed and name deserves to be handed down in undying opprobrium.

Neither plan nor any satisfactorily complete description of the mediæval church of All Hallows is extant; but this much is known, that it comprised nave and aisles and quire, with a chapel on the south, and that it contained, besides other altars, a chantry of Our Lady and one, also, of St. Nicholas. Both of these—the fact is established by a process of elimination, the south chapel having been appropriated to St. Katherine—were situated in the body of the church, and would almost certainly have been enclosed within screens such as survive in a number of Derbyshire churches to this day.

And here, before proceeding further, it is necessary to point out how largely the ground plan favoured in the churches of mediæval Derbyshire has affected and determined the conditions of their screening system. At the same time, I would add that what I am about to say does not pretend to universal application in every individual church throughout the county; for, in the nature of things, there are bound to be plenty of exceptions. Nevertheless, that the main trend of development proceeded along the lines indicated will not, I think, admit of dispute.

Now, in other districts, a church of the scale and grandeur of that, say, of Ashbourne, Bakewell, Melbourne, Norbury, or Spondon, could scarcely have failed to be enlarged, when extra chapels came to be called for, by the addition of chancel aisles. And yet in every one of these Derbyshire instances the chancel is aisleless—an anomaly, surely, remarkable enough! Nay (albeit the important churches of Chesterfield, Morley, and Norton, for example, testify to the contrary), it is noticeable in how many cases almost any other device was more welcome[209] than that which would have involved interfering with and arcading the side walls of the chancel. An east aisle to the transept would occur more readily than the erection of a new aisle to the chancel in cruciform churches (as, for instance, at Ashbourne and Bakewell), or, in churches where there was no transept to widen nor to appropriate, the area of the nave itself (as at Fenny Bentley), or of the nave aisles (as at Elvaston and Sawley), would be encroached upon for the purpose; the wealthy corporate body or individual having as little hesitation about annexing and enclosing the amount of the parish church’s space which they wanted for their own uses, as they would about enclosing (provided it could be accomplished with impunity) the people’s common land. A typical Derbyshire parclose, then, is no mere grate within an arch, to connect the one side of it with the other, but rather a formidable barrier fencing in, on two sides, a specific portion of the body of the church, and even, may be, comprehending (as in the before-mentioned instances of Elvaston and Sawley) a column or more of the arcade itself.

Whatever may be thought of the propriety of this local caprice (for what else was it which, in a county abounding with excellent building stone, could have caused the bodies of parish churches to be thus cut up with internal partitions, instead of extending them from without by additional chapels and chancel aisles for the reception of fresh chantries?), the net result has been to enrich Derbyshire with even greater distinction in respect of its parcloses than of its rood-screens; notwithstanding the parcloses which still remain represent only a proportion of all those ascertained to have been formerly in existence, but such that have now gone, many of them, and left nothing beyond the bare record behind; or of that, no doubt, larger quantity whereof even the very memorial has perished.

Some of them have been shifted from their original[210] positions and made up afresh, others have been cut short or otherwise maltreated and defaced; but, for all that, it is not too much to say that there is not a county in the kingdom can boast as magnificent a series of parclose screens as this one still possesses, in more or less perfect condition, in the respective churches of Ashbourne, Bakewell, Chesterfield, Elvaston, and Kirk Langley. The exquisite parclose which runs the whole length of the south transept at Chesterfield, with its vaulted cornice, rather resembles a rood-screen. The truly characteristic variety of parcloses, however, should be sought, not at Chesterfield, but at Ashbourne, Bakewell, Elvaston, and Sawley. A peculiarity common to all four is the pierced tracery panelling of the lower half of the screen. In each case, except in the Bakewell parclose, it takes the form of a horizontal band of ornament immediately beneath the rail or cill of the fenestration. Such is the feature which, as I submit, constitutes the speciality of parcloses as distinguished from rood-screens. And it is just because of its being present also in the screenwork now made up into a chancel-screen at St. Peter’s, Derby, that I am disinclined to believe that this particular screen was designed in the first place for a purpose other than that of a parclose.

Elvaston Church: Parclose Screen in the South Aisle.

The history of this screen has not been uneventful. It is well known to have belonged formerly to the church at Crich, and to have been ejected from thence at the devastating “restoration” which befel in 1861. Conveyed to a timber-merchant’s yard, for awhile it lay there awaiting a ruin that seemed imminent, until the late Rev. W. Hope, at that time vicar of St. Peter’s, fortunately saw it, acquired it, and set it up, repaired and remodelled, in its present position. To return, now, for a moment to the matter of Crich church. It is on record that there were two chantries founded here by William de Wakebridge in the fourteenth century. The one, receiving episcopal licence in 1357, was situated in the north aisle;[211] the other, in 1368, at Our Lady’s altar, which may be presumed to have occupied a corresponding position in the south aisle. Both of these chantries would eventually, according to the prevailing Derbyshire custom, have been surrounded with parclose screenwork. Of the remains of that which stood in the north aisle, the heraldic painter, Bassano, and also J. Reynolds, took note when they visited Crich church, the first in 1710, the second in 1758. I do not gather, however, that either of them recorded the existence of a rood-screen there. This negative evidence on their part is too significant to be set aside, and so, commonly though it is stated that the screen at St. Peter’s, Derby, is identical with the ancient rood-screen of Crich church, I am not convinced. I can more readily suppose that the Rev. W. Hope was too thankful at having secured so authentic a relic of antiquity to spend time in prosecuting any very searching inquiry as to the precise nature of the office it might have fulfilled in days gone by; but that, seeing his own church was bare of a rood-screen, he very naturally adapted the screen which he had become possessed of to supply the deficiency, although comparative study of the design and formation of Derbyshire screens in general might have led him, as it has led me, to conclude that this one from Crich could not originally have been a rood-screen.

Neither, again, may the apparent exception, which the chancel-screen in Haddon Hall chapel affords, be adduced. For, though it is true that to-day visitors to Haddon find, beneath the fenestration cill on either half of the screen there, a band of Gothic tracery—authentic, if of a somewhat flamboyant type—which fits its position plausibly enough, the view of the chapel by George Cattermole, lithographed by S. Rayner, and published in 1839, while agreeing in every other particular with the present unchanged aspect of the place, shows no ornament here at all. The panels were still without tracery when, between 1880 and 1885, a photograph of the interior was[212] taken, which is reproduced in the third volume of The Abbey Square Sketch Book; and the Rev. Dr. Cox possesses a coloured sketch, dated 1898, which does not differ in this regard from the earlier representations. But in either event the screen at Haddon, whether traceried or plain, is no case in point, for the simple reason that the panelling itself is blind. In order to be analogous to the parcloses at Ashbourne, Elvaston, and Sawley, it would need to be perforated.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, the following are the churches which contain the most notable parclose screens:—Ashbourne, Bakewell, Chesterfield, Darley Dale (stone), Elvaston, Fenny Bentley (moved from its place), Kirk Langley (portions made up), and Sawley (the lower parts only of two parcloses); while, if not now, there existed anciently, or there are believed to have existed, parcloses at Alkmonton hospital chapel, Ashover, Chelmorton (stone), Church Broughton, Crich, old St. Alkmund’s, and old All Hallows’ and St. Peter’s in Derby, Horsley, Longford, Longstone, Mugginton, Norbury, Radburne, Tideswell, Weston-on-Trent, and Youlgreave. But all this on the subject of parcloses is to anticipate.

Ilkeston Church: Stone Rood-Screen, from the Chancel.

The earliest surviving screenwork in Derbyshire does not date back any earlier than the beginning of the fourteenth century, and is, as might be expected, of stone. Of this material, the most imposing specimen is the rood-screen at Ilkeston, and that notwithstanding the excessive “restorations” it has had to undergo at various times, particularly in 1855—ordeals out of which it has emerged in a very different condition from that which it must originally have presented. The upper part has been scraped and renovated; the columns smoothed and repolished. And as for the lower part, one can only say that to afford any effective protection to the chancel it must have been something far more substantial than the gaunt skeleton framework it is at the present day. The screen occupies the opening from the nave into the[213] chancel. It consists of an arcade of five arches, which, cinquefoil-cusped and having pierced quatrefoils in the spandrils, spring from cylindrical columns of grey marble, with circular moulded caps and bases. These again rise from a horizontal moulded rail, supported on similar columns; the whole standing upon a stone plinth. The mouldings and capitals of the columns (some of which only are original) have an Early English appearance, but the main part of the screen is of later style. The markedly ogival form of the doorhead betokens a fairly developed phase of Decorated. Along the top of the screen runs a simple coping ridge, which, if not the original, represents well enough the type of finish a screen of the period would have had in the days before the introduction of rood-lofts into parish churches. The doorway centres 4 ft. 2½ in., with a clear opening of 3 ft. 10 in.; the side bays having an average centring of 3 ft. 2½ in. The total height of the screen, as at present made up, is 14 ft. 6 in., a dimension greatly disproportionate to its comparatively short length of 17 ft. 4½ in. It may be explained that the photograph was taken from the chancel in order to avoid the halation of the east window, both sides of the screen being alike.

The stone rood-screen at Chelmorton, if less ancient than the foregoing by some thirty or forty years, is the more interesting, because it has been allowed to retain its original form almost untouched. The screen stands in the chancel arch (12 ft. 6 in. wide), and consists of two parts, having a clear opening of four feet between them. The northern half measures 4 ft. 3½ in. long, the southern half one inch less. The motif is that of an embattled wall, 6 ft. 6 in. high, with a pierced band of quatrefoils to the depth of twenty inches from the level of the top, and, beneath, blind panelling of trefoil-headed ogival arches. The screen wall being flat on its upper surface, might well have afforded a foundation for timber screenwork above it; for owing to the rise of the ground towards[214] the east, the chancel floor is three steps higher than that of the nave, and consequently the screen has but a moderate elevation on its eastward side. There is, however, no sign of any mortice holes visible in it. Built into the wall of the porch is a slab of stone, sculptured with quatrefoils, which was dug up under the floor, and is conjectured to have formed part of a parclose, matching the rood-screen and screening of the south transept for a chantry chapel.

At Monks’ Dale, in Tideswell parish, was formerly a grange, with a chapel attached, supposed to have belonged to Lenton Priory. The walls of the chapel are overthrown down to the foundations. “All that remains of it above ground are the beautifully carved stones of the low ... stone screen that divided the chancel from the nave. They are of fourteenth century work”—of the date 1360, circa, according to the late Rev. Prebendary Andrew—“and exactly correspond to those ... in the chancel of Chelmorton.” This account appeared in 1877. By 1882 the aforesaid stonework had been removed to the vicarage garden at Tideswell.

Embedded in a wall in Allestree parish, near the site of the old manor house, on the road to Mackworth, is, or recently was, to be seen another fragment of worked stone, with sculptured quatrefoils, and altogether so closely resembling the before-named examples as to lead to the conclusion that it must have formed part of an ancient screen in Allestree or some neighbouring church.

Chelmorton Church:
Southern Half of Stone Rood-Screen.

Darley Dale Church:
Detail of Stone Parclose.

A rood-screen of similar design is believed to have occupied the chancel opening (13 ft. 6 in. wide) at Darley Dale church, to judge from a fragment of stone carving lying (as recorded in 1877) in the parish clerk’s garden there. In the south aisle of this church, close to the south door, stands a family pew, built out of the remains of a stone parclose and the stone frames of a couple of two-light Perpendicular windows—one having had its mullion knocked out to make the doorway, and[215] both betraying their extraneous origin by being grooved in the usual manner for leaded glazing. That part of the enclosure which is genuine screenwork comprises two distinct, though not very incongruous, designs of the first half of the fifteenth century. Exclusive of the alien window-work, that portion of the screen running east and west measures 11 ft. 6 in. long; that portion running north and south, 3 ft. 7 in. The shorter length consists of a plain wall below a tier of cinquefoil-headed lights; the longer, of ogival panelling in eleven cusped compartments, corresponding to the same number of cinquefoil-headed lights in the upper part. A detail of it is here illustrated. The blind panelling measures 4 ft. high to the cill of the fenestration, the inclusive height of the screen being 7 ft. 6 in. It has not been ascertained whether the space enclosed by this screen represents the original position of the chantry, but more probably it was situated in some less westerly part of the building. “It was unfortunately set back,” writes the Rev. Dr. Cox, “a foot or two to give more room to the aisle in 1854, but otherwise remains as it was before the ‘restoration.’ Stone parcloses, though of fairly frequent occurrence round chantry tombs in cathedrals, are very rarely met with in parish churches.”

The stone screens, then, existing, or accountable for as known to have existed, in Derbyshire comprise those at Allestree, Chelmorton, Darley Dale, Ilkeston, and Monks’ Dale. Another one also must be included in the list, viz., the former rood-screen at Bakewell. From a description of it in 1823, while it might still be seen in situ separating the chancel from the rest of the church, it appears to have been of Decorated workmanship. Either half of it measured six feet long, exclusive of the space for the central entrance. The recorded height, 4 ft. 9 in., implies that it was the base or plinth merely, not the complete screen. At some subsequent time during the “repairs” which went on from 1841 to 1851—a sad decade of disaster for Bakewell church!—its stone screen[216] was carried off by that notorious archæological raider, Mr. Thomas Bateman, to swell his predatory collection at Lomberdale House. The virtuoso himself being long since dead, and the contents of his museum dispersed, there is now practically no likelihood of the missing screenwork ever being traced and recovered. If it be still in existence anywhere, it should probably be sought for in the Weston Museum at Sheffield, whither most of the Derbyshire spoils from Lomberdale House are said to have found their way. If that be so, the screen ought certainly to be restored to its rightful place again at Bakewell. The loss of so venerable a monument cannot be too deeply deplored, and reflects the utmost discredit on all persons concerned in the removal of this ancient screenwork from the church to which it belonged.

The oldest actual example of timber screenwork in Derbyshire partakes of so little in common with the generality of woodwork, either in design or mode of treatment, that it is perhaps appropriate to deal with it here, in association with stone screenwork, as occupying an intermediate stage between the two several classes. I refer to the remains of the rood-screens at Kirk Langley, which, unworthily made up as they are into a box-door, placed at the west entrance, in the ill-lighted lowest storey of the tower, seem to me scarcely to have received the attention they might have claimed. Indeed, the deceptive environment of modern accretions combines with the twilight to make it extremely difficult for anyone to form a just estimate of the work or of its proper dimensions. As far as the existing remains, in their mutilated and altered condition, admit of a reconstruction of the original plan of the screen, it would appear to have consisted of two lengths of 4 ft. 6 in. each, and two doors of the same height and pattern as the other part; so that, when the whole stood intact, the fenestration must have formed a continuous arcade of trefoiled lights, their average centring 8¾ inches, each of them with an ogival crown,[217] indenting a complete trefoil, balanced upon its apex. As the illustration shows, the treatment of this tracery work is peculiar. The component members of it—in plan square, with sides slightly concave—are set angle-wise to the front, and present a series of prominent edges without the usual fillet. Thus they have an effect of crisp and almost metallic acuteness, unfamiliar in woodwork as also it is in stone. The face of the cill below the fenestration is carved with a band of quatrefoils, having each a four-petalled flower—not a rose—in the centre. The design is of the fourteenth century, and it might possibly have been executed towards the close of Edward III.’s reign, or not later than the deposition of Richard II.

Kirk Langley Church: Detail of Former Rood-Screen in Oak, XIV. Century Work.

The remarks which follow should be understood to apply to screens which are true timberwork, alike in motif as in material. In structure and proportions, Derbyshire screens for the most part assimilate to the midland type, as exemplified at Newark and Strelley, in Nottinghamshire, or Wormleighton, in Warwickshire, and as[218] distinguished from that of the south and west of England and Wales. That is to say, not a few of them rise to a stately height, with remarkably lofty fenestration; the latter being, in some instances, narrow even to attenuation. Thus the rood-screen at Breadsall, as far as can be judged by what remains of it, notably illustrates this peculiarity; in which regard it affords a striking parallel to the screenwork at Newark church before-mentioned.

But it is rather in parclose screens that this feature of excessive elongation is more especially in evidence. To counteract its ungainly appearance, without at the same time diminishing the extent of the aperture, resort is had in the principal screens at Chesterfield to the device of a transom to divide the fenestration about midway. This horizontal member, being feathered underneath, not only enhances the decorative character of the screenwork by the added effect of a lower tier of tracery-headed lights, but also makes for structural strength by providing a latitudinal junction from muntin to muntin.

Another point of similarity between Derbyshire rood-screens and the typical midland screens at (e.g., at Somerton, in Oxfordshire; Blore, in Staffordshire; Wormleighton, in Warwickshire; and Strelley, in Nottinghamshire), and of divergence between the former and southern examples, is that, where the design comprises vaulting, the springing of the ribs is not necessarily in line with the cord or base of the pierced tracery of the bay-heads (as is practically the rule for it to be in Kent, Devonshire, and Somerset), but at a higher level, sometimes with a discrepancy of nearly two feet between the two levels. The result of this arrangement is not altogether happy. For traceried ornament that extends below the limits of a tympanum, failing to define the springing-point, tends to make the vaulting itself look dwarfed and curtailed. For the latter to show to best advantage, the ribs should have an obvious correspondence with the sweep of the fenestration arch from spring to crown. Wherever it is otherwise, a sense[219] of lack of homogeneity between the parts cannot but be felt.

Another feature which Derbyshire screens share in common with other midland screenwork, is the very usual inequality which the traceried fenestration-heads present on the obverse and reverse. In the south and east of England both surfaces are almost invariably carved and moulded with identical design and equal completeness; so that if I met with a detached portion of church screen tracery anywhere in Kent, for instance, I should at once know by its treatment to what part of a screen it belonged. For the back would only be smooth and unmoulded if it had been intended to fit flat against blind panelling in the lower half of a screen, and vice versâ. But Derbyshire tracery, as a rule, does not furnish such indications; and so, unless the design bore the outline of an arch, and were therefore unmistakably intended, like the Breadsall example illustrated, for the upper part of a vaulted screen, it would be next to impossible to determine its place in the composition. For even à jour tracery, meant to be looked at from either side, is usually plain and flat on one surface, as in the case of the parclose at Elvaston (see left-hand distance in the illustration), and that also at Fenny Bentley. The rood-screens at the latter church and at Ashover are both of them instances in which the upper traceries are enriched with the addition of crocketed ornament on the westward side, while they are plain and smooth on the chancel side.

In some screens, again, though the upper tracery is not indeed quite flat at the back, there is yet a marked difference between the degree of elaboration on the two surfaces. Thus in the tracery of the rood-screen at Elvaston, the western face, besides being moulded, is further embellished with crockets and finials, carved in bold relief, in some compartments handsomely fretted and deeply undercut, and altogether remarkably rich and varied in character (see illustration of detail); while the side[220] towards the east is uniformly treated with simple moulding only. At Chaddesden the contrast between the east and west faces respectively of the upper part of the rood-screen is still greater. In this particular case a difference of treatment is necessarily entailed by the somewhat unusual plan on which the screen itself is constructed; the overhanging rood-loft (now, of course, no longer in existence) having been carried upon the naveward side by groined vaulting, and by a cove, instead of vaulting to correspond, towards the chancel. The spandrils, therefore, covered by the vaulting on the west side are exposed on the other, and present a series of solid triangles, which would have been bare and unsightly without applied ornament. All of these, then, together with the reverse of the transom in the two central bays and of the muntin between them, cut short by the entrance arch, are decorated with low relief carving entirely unlike the front. Moreover, although the muntins on either side are buttressed, the buttresses on the west terminate, as is usual in the case of vaulted screens, with boutels and caps for the springing of the groins; upon the east side, on the contrary, the buttresses continue nearly to the top, tapering off as they approach the lintel into graceful crocketed pinnacles.

The only recorded instances known to me of the occurrence of painting or gilding on Derbyshire screenwork (with the exception of the Parwich beam referred to hereafter), are those of the rood-screens at Ashover and Norbury, and of a parclose which divided the chancel from the north chapel at Mugginton, and which had fifteen coats of arms blazoned in colours upon it. The screen itself has long since vanished, but the account of it is preserved among the Harleian manuscripts in the report of Richard St. George’s Heraldic Visitation taken in the year 1611. As a rule, the sort of ornament to be found upon screenwork (except in the case of panels decorated with figures, of which Derbyshire, unless I have[221] been mistaken, furnishes no examples) is of so essentially abstract, and, so to speak, non-committal a character, that the enemies of screens are seldom able, with any pretence of reason, to avail themselves of the pleas put forward by iconoclasts as a matter of principle.

Elvaston Church: Detail of Rood-Screen.

A small and feathered angel is introduced in the carved work above the doorway of the rood-screen at Elvaston; and there are some exceptionally fine half-length figures of angels along the top of one of the screens at Chesterfield. The particular screen that this carving rests upon (now turned, though it is, into a parclose between the north transept and its eastern chapel) is known to have been the ancient rood-screen in Chesterfield church, and to have stood in its place until about 1843, not long subsequently to which time it was re-erected in the position it now occupies.

That this screen dates from the first half of the fifteenth century, maybe, perhaps, as early as about 1430, I infer from the character of its fenestration. The latter, consisting of a single panel of pierced tracery in each bay, is an exact counterpart of the stone window-tracery of the period. It differs from the method of timber screen construction evolved subsequently, in which the muntins run from top to bottom of the openings, and in which the effect of tracery in each several bay-head is obtained by a combined series of separate units of pierced work let into grooves sunk in the upper part of the muntins. In the Chesterfield rood-screen, on the contrary (as also in the fourteenth century rood-screen at Kirk Langley, already described), the upright shafts in each bay merely support from below the tracery above in the head, instead of holding it in position as between two sides of a frame. Neither, again, in the Chesterfield example does the spacing of the batement lights correspond with that of the three lights at the bottom. The uneven number of the latter is abnormal. It became far more usual, as timber screen-work developed, for the fenestration to be[222] divided by a central muntin into two lights (as at Breadsall and Fenny Bentley), or (as in other parts of England) for the central muntin, remaining a constant factor, to be supplemented by one pair or more pairs of muntins, as the case might be, so that the number of lights comprised in a single bay would, in all events, work out to an even number.

And now to describe the sculptured figure work at Chesterfield in detail, beginning at the north end of it, and proceeding from left to right. First, then, is an eagle; and next, a composite beast, having the head and horns of an antelope, the snout of a boar, and a chain round the neck, clawed feet, and the body and tail of an ox. Although, therefore, the one represents St. John, it is out of the question that the other can ever have been intended for an evangelistic symbol, notwithstanding they are both accompanied by scrolls. Then succeed six demi-angels, clothed in albs, and issuant from conventional cloud-wreaths; their wings pointing downwards in an oblique direction, with the ends of the feathers crossed in saltire, every one’s over his neighbour’s. Each angel bears one or more emblems or instruments of the Passion: the first, the crown of thorns; the second, the cross; the third, the seamless coat, together with the dice; the fourth, a shield displaying the five sacred wounds; the fifth, the lance and three nails; the sixth, the scourge and hammer. That this series was originally longer is evident from the abruptly mutilated feather-tips of another angel’s wing upon the southern or right hand extremity. He would, doubtless, have held the ladder and pincers; but even thus, the usual tale of emblems would scarcely be complete without the reed and sponge, the thirty pieces of silver, or the cock that crew thrice. How many, then, altogether of the angel figures are missing it is impossible to tell. Moreover, it seems probable enough that there would also have been animals with scrolls to balance those at the opposite end. A detail of the rood-screen and[223] of the sculpture above it, is shown in the accompanying illustration.

Chesterfield Church: Detail of Screen in the North Transept, formerly the Rood-Screen.

The date of the angel ornament appears to be somewhere between 1465 and 1480. What remains of it now measures in length 14 ft. 6 in. by one foot in height; the figures being carved out of the solid, and occupying, in ordered row, the concave space of a band sunk between two beads. That this is no rood-beam, but a superficial ornament for the breast-summer, I can vouch, for two reasons; firstly, because the timber itself is a mere board, not exceeding four inches in thickness at the top, the thickest part of it; and secondly, because at the back are unmistakable traces of mortice holes for the joists that were fixed at right angles to it to carry the rood-loft floor. I know nothing that so much resembles this admirably appropriate ornament as that in a corresponding position in the stone pulpitum at Canterbury Cathedral; and in a wooden parclose at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire. And yet I have no hesitation in pronouncing that the Chesterfield example surpasses the others in beauty and variety of design. It is, in a word, a very model of its kind.

Now that screens in churches cannot have been, by quite unanimous consent, regarded as contravening “the principles of the Protestant Reformation,” whatever is to be understood by that portentous phrase, is clear from the practice of erecting such fixtures having from time to time continued long after the demise of Derby’s benefactress, Queen Mary Tudor. Thus the chapel at Risley, erected in 1593, was furnished with a chancel-screen of curious design, comprising cherub-heads and other Renaissance details. Later on, the south aisle at the old parish church of Wilne having been prolonged eastward to form a memorial chapel to Sir John Willoughby, who died in 1602, there was set up across the archway a heavy timber screen, with gates, which bear the arms of Willoughby and Hawe. The composition[224] as a whole affords a striking sample of the depraved taste and secular spirit of the age. Among the elaborate carved ornaments may be identified representations of Hercules with his club; a Roman lictor with fasces and axe; satyrs and centaurs; all intermingled with pompous, warlike trophies of cannons, muskets, and drums! On the back of the screen is the date of its production, 1624. Later on, a church was built at Foremark in a spurious Gothic style, and Bishop Hacket consecrated it in 1662. It contains a characteristic oak chancel-screen of massive build and lofty elevation, with four glazed openings. To the above, all of them noteworthy instances of post-Reformation screenwork in Derbyshire, must be added the screen which separates the chancel from the nave or ante-chapel in the chapel at Haddon Hall. For, though parts of its woodwork, particularly the buttressed muntins, must be assigned to an earlier date, the main portion of it unquestionably was remodelled at the close of the sixteenth or during the first half of the seventeenth century. The turned balusters, which in this case supply the place of fenestration in a Gothic screen, are, like the wainscoting which lines the chancel walls, obvious products of a later epoch.

In fact, so persistent altogether was the tradition, and so hard to kill, that even in Dr. Hutchinson’s debased structure, which took the place of the demolished All Hallows’, the new chancel was not left unwarded, but was screened by iron grates. These, though exhibiting in their design the style of the period, yet reproduced, strange to say, quite a mediæval scheme of arrangement. A grate divided the chancel from the nave, and was continued northward and southward right across the building from wall to wall. And other grates again separated the chancel from the chancel aisles. These grates, though not altogether undisturbed, for the most part remained in position until 1873, when the interior of the building, then barely a century and a half old,[225] was “restored,” and in the process the chancel grille itself, together with other fittings hitherto spared, was taken down. Numerous details of it are figured in the Chronicles of All Saints’, issued under the joint authorship of the Rev. Dr. Cox and Mr. W. H. St. John Hope in 1881, to which volume all who may be interested in a genuinely historic specimen of eighteenth century wrought ironwork are hereby referred.

There is one peculiar variety of mediæval screen arrangement which may be said to belong to a class by itself. It is sufficiently uncommon, being confined almost exclusively to domestic chapels, of which the former infirmary chapel of Dale Abbey, and such that now serves the purpose of parish church of Dale, furnishes an interesting example. A sketch of the interior, in 1870 or thereabouts, is given on plate xvii. of the late Rev. Samuel Fox’s History of St. Matthew’s, Morley (1872).

The chapel consists of chancel, nave, and south aisle, the latter separated from the nave by a wooden partition, formerly solid; long since, however, by its panels being sawn out, converted into open screenwork. But the main point of interest is the screen which divides the nave from the chancel. Screen and partition alike are of oak, and rest on a stone plinth. The chancel screen is very quaint in its severe simplicity. It has no tracery, but the mouldings are of the fifteenth century, the approximate date assigned to it being 1480. It consists of seven rectagonal compartments, i.e., a central doorway with three openings on either side; the muntins supporting a flat ceiling of timber, which, extending back as far as the wall, divides all that portion of the chapel westward of the screen itself into two floors. The upper one of these opens, gallery wise, into the chancel. Traces of a somewhat similar arrangement exist in a ruined oratory at Godstow Nunnery, on the banks of the upper river, near Oxford; and another instance has been noted in one of the chapels at Tewkesbury Abbey church. It is[226] paralleled also in a sort at the private chapel of Brede Place, Sussex, but the plan of an upper storey, supported by a partition screen, does not express itself there in nearly so striking and complete a manner as at Dale. Other instances known are the chapels at Berkeley Castle and Compton Wynyates respectively. It may be mentioned that at Dale, since there is no internal communication between the gallery and the ground floor, the former has to be approached by an external staircase through a door on the upper level.

And, next, to consider the subject of the rood-loft. It would, of course, be situated at a greater height than the screen; as a rule, immediately above the latter, and connected organically with it, the structural braces being boxed within a casing of coved panel-work or of vaulting, with groins and bosses in imitation of stone masonry. As originally erected, the ancient rood-screens at Ashover, Breadsall, Chaddesden, and Norbury furnished instances of groined vaulting, now perished. The only screens, to the best of my knowledge, in Derbyshire which have not lost their vaulting are the rood-screens at Fenny Bentley and the parclose of the south transept in Chesterfield church. The first-named has been a good deal restored, and the latter has not altogether escaped. Both are examples of screens in which the irregularly shaped panels between the ribs are enriched with tracery ornament, a device that enhances the overhanging vaults with a delightful suggestion of mystery lurking within their shadowy recesses. I do not think that the Chesterfield parclose was ever surmounted, in rood-loft fashion, with a parapet, although the upper part of it expands eastwards and westwards quite far enough to have provided the accommodation of an average rood-loft had it been required.

The nearest approach (except the Fenny Bentley example before quoted) to a rood-loft survives at Wingerworth, a structure in some respects unique, in Derbyshire at any rate. Of its peculiar character the[227] photograph conveys a better idea than any verbal description. I do not think it can have been erected earlier than 1480, nor later than 1520. Perhaps midway between the two, i.e., 1500, circa, is the most correct date to assign to it.

On the left-hand side may be observed the doorway, twenty inches wide, through which, pierced in the easternmost spandril of the north arcade, a rood-stair, now consisting of seven steps, emerges on to the platform itself. The head of this aperture consists of a stone lintel, which, being cut on its under side into the form of an obtuse angle, produces, roughly, the appearance of a four-centred arch. In the south or left-hand jamb are still fastened two iron hangers for the door, now no more, which opened navewards upon the loft.

In the early sixties of the nineteenth century, there remained on the plaster of the east wall of the nave, above the ancient loft, considerable traces of colour. In vivid contrast to this painted background showed up the bare silhouettes of a large cross, and of an upright figure on either side of it; thus marking clearly the place where the great rood, with the Mary and John, had stood in former days. At the present time nothing of these interesting relics is to be seen; the interior of Wingerworth church having been freshly distempered over with a smart coat of colour wash, while two immense hatchments, with pompous black cloth surrounds, occupy the place sacred from of yore to the memorial of mankind’s Redemption. What could be more unseemly than selecting this one, of all sites in a church, for the parading of the worldly distinctions of one’s family? Whether it is too late to save the remains of the rood-painting by scraping off the distemper which hides it, I cannot say; but there can be no question whatever but that the profane hatchments ought to be taken down as quickly as possible, and placed somewhere—anywhere—else than where I saw them in March, 1907.

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The painting at Wingerworth is not the only instance of its kind known to have survived in Derbyshire down to the nineteenth century. Thus at Hayfield, according to a memorandum made on the spot by one of the brothers Lysons, who visited the old church shortly before its demolition in 1815, there was to be seen “at the back of the gallery, facing the nave ... a painting of the Crucifixion, with St. John and St. Peter ... said to have been painted (in) 1775, but probably from an ancient one which had remained undisturbed at the time of the Reformation.” That this work, for the figure of St. Peter to have been substituted for that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, must have been retouched by some post-Reformation hand, may readily be believed; but, in the same connection, the question presents itself as to whether the gallery noted by the famous topographer could by any manner of means have been the ancient rood-loft at Hayfield church.

Wingerworth Church: Base of the Rood-Loft.

But to return from speculation to facts and figures. The timber extant of the rood-loft at Wingerworth reaches from side to side of the nave, a length of 15 ft. 1 in. The distance from the floor of the nave to the base of this structure (itself barely an inch above the crown of the chancel arch) is 8 ft. 8½ in.; from the nave-floor to the platform at the top of it, 11 ft. 8½ in.; giving it an elevation of exactly three feet. The width of the platform from back to front is 38 inches. In the upper surface of the breast-summer, or main beam of the westward projection, are the remains of fourteen mortice holes (averaging 4 inches in length each, with a centring of 13½ inches), sunk to receive the tenons of the upright stiles that framed the front of the loft parapet, the height of which there is no present means of gauging. The uppermost front edge is embattled. Below, in a cavetto, at intervals, are nine square pateras of Gothic leaf ornament. The receding cove beneath the breast-summer is divided by moulded ribs into eight panels, the[229] longitudinal ribs centred at 44 inches, and being crossed by a single latitudinal rib, with carved square bosses and Gothic leaves in the angles of intersection. This panelling occupies a superficial breadth of 32 inches between the breast-summer above and the moulded timber at the base.

The back of this structure fits close against the wall, and there is not the slightest trace of any supporting screenwork ever having touched, still less been attached to, its lower edge. I am disposed to think that the arrangements at Wingerworth must have been analogous to those of Sawley church, and that the solution of the problems they both present is to be arrived at by a comparison of the existing remains of rood-loft and screenwork in these several churches, the one supplementing the details which lack in the other, for the reconstruction of the original scheme. In both cases is a round-headed arch—that at Wingerworth is not later than the beginning of the twelfth century, while that at Sawley has been pronounced, on expert authority, to have been erected still earlier, bearing as it does the evidences of pre-Norman workmanship—an arch which, were it not for the impost at the spring on either side, resembles more than anything else (with its broad, flat soffit, no splays, no orders, no mouldings) a simple aperture cut in the solid wall. The arch at Wingerworth has an opening of 6 ft. 7 in. wide, or 7 ft. at the spring, by 8 ft. 8 in. (short measure) from floor to crown; that at Sawley, 14 ft. 1 in. wide, its height in proportion.

Now although at Wingerworth there is nothing of the sort remaining, at Sawley, on the contrary, the original fittings of the chancel have, fortunately, been preserved. These, comprising return stalls, with the rood-screen behind them, stand complete within the chancel. Nor could the screen, so placed (because of the thickness of the wall, interposing a bulk of 3 ft. 2 in. between chancel and nave), possibly have formed one organic structure,[230] with the rood-loft on the other side, in the nave. I take it that in both cases the chancel was fully and finally furnished with its stalls and screen at a time when rood-lofts had not yet become a necessity—the fittings actually are of a heavy and somewhat primitive type of Perpendicular—and that when, later on, a rood-loft did require to be provided, circumstances left no choice open but to treat it as something entirely independent of the already erected screen. For to have set it up on the top of the latter, on the chancel side of the arch, would have defeated the primary object for which the rood-loft, as an adjunct to the performance of public worship, existed. Without doubt the only place where it could adequately fulfil the requirements of a rood-loft was against the east wall of the nave, above the chancel arch. The length, then, of the rood-loft at Sawley would be the same as the width of the nave, viz., 26 ft. 3 in.

All this is no idle theory. It is confirmed by the existence, in Sawley church, of a pair of stone corbels projecting from the masonry at the east end of the nave above the chancel arch. The level of the corbel in the north-east corner is 17 ft. 1 in. above the floor; that of the opposite one in the south-east corner, 17 ft. 3 in. These would have supported the ancient rood-beam, there being ample wall-surface at the east end of the nave for the rood, as well as for the rood-loft (containing, possibly, the “payre of orgyns” named in the inventory of the sixth year of Edward VI.), to have been situated beneath, either crossing the opening of, or (as at Wingerworth) crowning the summit of, the chancel arch.

Neither are the above-named cases themselves without parallel. It is recorded that there was in the nave (19 ft. 10 in. wide) of the old church at Parwich (pulled down in 1872) a sort of rood-loft projection similar in construction to that at Wingerworth, and that in the course of demolition the ends of four stout, squared timbers were taken out of the masonry about two feet[231] above the crown of the Norman chancel-arch, a low-pitched one like (although, being more richly ornamented, of later date than) the Wingerworth example itself.

Owing to the scarcity of wills, churchwardens’ accounts, and such other documents as might have thrown light on the subject, the exact date of the introduction of the rood-loft cannot, in the case of the great majority of churches in Derbyshire, be ascertained. At Elvaston church, in 1474, the first Lord Mountjoy left instructions for the carrying out of certain works, which would most likely have included the erection of a rood-loft there, though the latter is not named in the bequest. In fact, the earliest and only instance I know of in which the rood-loft was explicitly provided for, is the will of Sir Henry Vernon, of Haddon. The date of this document is 18th January, 1514, and the item in point runs: “I bequethe to the churche of Bakewell and to makying of the Rode lofte £6.” The will was proved on 5th May of the next year, 1515, not later than which date the testator’s wishes, so I assume, would be carried into execution.

I have already indicated how the general absence of aisles from the chancels of its churches drove chantry-founders in Derbyshire to occupy the space of the nave or nave aisles. But, more than that, it effectually checked the expansion of the rood-loft and screen, and confined them within the nave’s width. For wherever the eastern wall of an aisle, conterminous with the nave, is pierced by a window (instead of by an arch leading into a chapel beyond), it does not admit of either screen or loft being carried across it in continuation of the screen and loft in the nave. The only sure sign of the alternative plan having been adopted, i.e., of rood-loft having extended to the outer wall of the aisle, would be a rood-entrance in that outer wall. But such a sign I have not met with anywhere in Derbyshire. I searched for it in Chesterfield church, the plan of which, so it seemed to me, might have admitted the rood-loft being carried right across[232] the building, including the aisles; but in vain. I cannot point to a single instance in a Derbyshire church of which it could be positively asserted that the rood-loft extended beyond the limit of the width of the nave.

The usual place for the rood-loft door and staircase in this county would appear to be either in the nave or in the inner corner of an aisle immediately adjacent to the nave. Such approaches, or traces of them, exist or are known to have existed at, among other churches, those of Ashbourne, Ashover, Aston, Bakewell, Barrow-upon-Trent, Breadsall, Chaddesden, Derby (old St. Michael’s), Kirk Langley, Monyash, Repton, Spondon, Tideswell, Wilne, North Wingfield, and Wingerworth. Nevertheless, as compared with other districts of England, Derbyshire cannot be reckoned among those counties in which rood-entrances and rood-stairs are of very common occurrence. However, where either they do survive or traces of them occur, they afford no exception to the normal dimensions of such structures. Indeed, in Derbyshire there are to be found rood-entrances as narrow as, if not even narrower than, anywhere else in the kingdom. Thus those at Chaddesden and Wingerworth measure each only eighteen inches wide.

In some cases the ascent starts abruptly at a very awkward height from the ground. For instance, at Ashover the lowest step of the rood-stair is 6 feet above the floor level; 6 ft. 3 in. at Wingerworth. Nor in either case is there any perceptible trace of the steps having descended lower towards the ground. For them to be reached, then, where they are, is a feat that could not be accomplished without the help of a ladder. In the case of Wingerworth, however, it is true that, as to whether the rood-stair originally terminated at its present distance from the floor, there is, for the following reasons, much uncertainty. The mother of one Arthur Mower, of Barlow, dying in 1574, and being buried in Wingerworth church, her son wrote down minute particulars of the site[233] of her interment; and the old memorandum book, still extant, records how she “lyeth in the church in the north alley at the head of the alley on the north side, and her feet lieth as nigh of the north side of the grysse” (i.e., stair, from the Latin gressus) “that goeth up into the Rood-loft as may be.” Now nobody at the present day who wanted to be accurate—and the sole raison d’être of a memorandum like this is to preserve and hand down as trustworthy a record as possible—would dream of describing the feet of a body lying in the north-east corner of the north aisle as being close to the ascent of the rood-stair! To obviate the discrepancy, then, is one not forced to the conclusion that the rood-stair must have been somehow or other prolonged downwards in a northerly direction until it reached the ground at the spot indicated?

Rood-stairs, being no longer required once the lofts had been overthrown, have met with shameful neglect, often with violent maltreatment. In some cases they have been allowed to survive only through having been turned into cupboards for brooms and ladders, gas meters, or water cisterns; but, nevertheless, after full allowance is made for rood-stairs that formerly were and now have perished, there is still left a large percentage of Derbyshire churches in which no permanent stone stairs can be supposed to have existed. In such cases, unless there was a fixed wooden staircase, access must have been obtained by no better means than a ladder the whole way from floor to loft. The practical inconvenience of this proceeding, together with the narrow dimensions of rood-doors and stairs—while their builders were constructing them, it would in most cases have been just as easy to make them half a dozen or so inches wider had there been any occasion—affords corroborative evidence of the impossibility of parochial rood-lofts having been used, or designed to be used, for ceremonial purposes by the officiants at divine service.

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In Derbyshire, as elsewhere, ornamental treatment, either of rood-stair entrance or of rood-door itself, is so abnormal as to call, wherever such does occur, for notice. Ashbourne church may be said to furnish an instance in point. There, in the southern transept, the south-east pier of the central tower contains a staircase, which, though constructed doubtless contemporaneously with the building of the tower itself, and, therefore, anterior to the general introduction of rood-lofts, would certainly have served to give access to the rood-loft as soon as ever that adjunct was provided at Ashbourne church. The door, then (see illustration), may not unjustly be ranked among rare examples of ornamented rood-doors. Under a moulded label, terminating on the left in a sculptured head that cannot strictly claim to be an authentic product of the period, stands this handsome oak door of late thirteenth century workmanship. It is divided vertically into two ogival-headed panels, and is enriched with wrought-iron bands and hinges, in a very fair state of preservation, although it is to be regretted that their elegant contour is partly hidden by a clumsy modern timber lining inserted into the masonry opening.

It cannot have escaped the notice of attentive observers how often the steps of rood-stairs in parish churches have been trodden into hollows, as though they had been subjected to much wear and tear. Such must, indeed, have been very constant to have left its mark thus pronouncedly upon rood-stairs, and that, too, in the comparatively short period of their use—in many cases, of not above, perhaps, a hundred years’ duration—between the date of their erection and of the Reformation changes, which sent them back again into disuse. Some other explanation, then, more convincing and more in accord with the evidence of fact than the suggestion of a mere ceremonial function in the rood-loft on special occasions, must be adduced to account for the regular employment of the rood-stair. That the lay folk, being many, rather[235] than the officiant minister and his clerks, being few, were they who trod the stairs leading into the parochial rood-loft, is evident. The main function of the rood-loft in parish churches was to accommodate singers, musicians, and their instruments. Again, it should be borne in mind that very often (as churches, for example, like Ashover, Old Brampton, Edensor, Staveley, Tideswell, and Wingerworth attest) a sacring-bell hung in the eastern gable of the nave, or (as in cruciform churches like that of Ashbourne) in the central tower, in either event immediately above the rood-loft. Than the latter, then, there was no better position that the sacrist could be placed in; the rood-loft affording him an excellent vantage-ground from which to keep an eye upon the movements of a priest saying mass at any altar in the building, and to summon the people at the bidding of the bell when the right moment came for them to raise their eyes and worship the uplifted Host.

Ashbourne Church: Door leading to the Rood-Stair.

Incidentally, again, the rood-loft would have been resorted to as a convenient place from which to reach the rood for its veiling and unveiling. And it must have been hither, also, that those whose office it was to tend and light the beam-lights would have had frequent occasion of coming.

But these are points which open up the subject of the rood itself, and of the various devotions and customs that grew up around it in pre-Reformation days.

The great crucifix, with the flanking statues which usually accompanied it, would either rise from the rood-loft direct, being attached to the top of the parapet, or, in the case of churches which were lofty enough to admit of it and not to cramp the heads of the figures by the roof descending too closely upon them, would be carried above the level of the rood-loft upon a separate beam crossing the eastern extremity of the nave—always provided that the essential condition was to impart the utmost dignity to the rood itself, and to insure its becoming[236] the most conspicuous object in the whole building. Specific mention of a rood having existed in mediæval days is forthcoming in the case of the three monastic churches of Dale, Darley, and Repton, already named; in the collegiate church of All Hallows, Derby; as also in the parochial churches of Ashbourne, Bakewell, Breadsall, Chesterfield, Morley, and Repton.

The figures, to wit, the Christ upon the Cross and the Mary and John beside it, were usually sculptured and coloured, or, less commonly, gilded; and sometimes even clothed also. The existence of the last-named practice is attested in respect of images in general by a long list of jewels and garments belonging to the statue of the Madonna and Child in the Bridge Chapel at Derby, and by an item of “2 cootes of ymagys of lynen cloth and 1 of sylke” at Kirk Ireton; and in respect of roods in particular, by another item which occurs in the inventory of the church goods at Ashbourne, drawn up by order in the first year of Edward VI. The entry in point runs thus: “1 holde cote,” i.e., one old coat, “for the roode.” This garment, being described as “old,” would imply, not so much that the custom of employing such things had declined, as that the particular coat in question had become worn through long using. It is more than likely, indeed, that the rood’s wardrobe had been replenished through the generosity of some devout donor with fresh and costlier clothing when required, to take the place of that which had become worn out—for it was very far from being in accord with the spirit of our mediæval ancestors to offer to the Lord and His service that which cost them nothing—but that it had been forfeit already ere this time. It must be borne in mind that the best of everything worth looting had been seized by Edward’s predecessor, and that the catalogues of ecclesiastical ornaments and utensils, drawn up officially in the boy-King’s reign, represent but the pitiful remnants, of little value, left over because they had failed to tempt the[237] rapacity of Henry VIII. And yet, poor and insignificant as they might be, they were not to be allowed to escape further diminution at the hands of Edward VI.’s counsellors and ministers, men whose conduct exhibits a peculiarly revolting blend of avarice and puritanism. That these foregoing remarks are well-founded is illustrated by the language of the inventories themselves, wherein frequently occur such qualifying descriptions as “old,” “outworn,” “torn,” or “broken,” whereas those items are rare to which the adjective “whole” is appended for differentiating the good and complete state of such few articles as happen to be above the average mediocrity of the greater number.

The great rood, as well as all images and pictures in churches, was veiled throughout Passiontide until the latter end of Holy Week, as is exemplified by the mention, in 1466, in a list of the ornaments then belonging to All Hallows’, Derby, of a “grete clothe that coverethe the Rode.” But an item in the inventory taken of the goods of Morley church at the beginning of Edward VI.’s reign, viz., “a shete y^t hanged afor y^e Rode,” would appear to have been rather a hanging for the front of the rood-loft, in the presence of or at the foot of the rood itself. Rood-lofts, as is known from other sources, were often covered with “stayned” or painted hangings to enhance their ornamental qualities; or, on the other hand, veiled in white shrouds, like the rood, in Lent, in churches where the imagery and decoration upon the woodwork of the loft itself was too gay and garnished in appearance to be consistent with the solemnity of the penitential season. The past tense in the case of the hanging at Morley church is evidence that the ancient use, whichsoever alternative is referred to, had, by the date of the taking of the inventory, been already discontinued.

In the parish church at Bakewell was an altar of the Holy Cross, “built by the said cross,” situated, that is, near to the great rood, at the eastern end of the south aisle of the building. And in connection with this altar,[238] in the reign of Edward III., a chantry was founded and endowed by Sir Godfrey Foljambe, ratification of the same being granted by royal letters patent in 1345. Further, the deed of confirmation by the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield is extant, wherein are set forth in detail the duties of the office of chaplain of the Holy Cross. From this document it appears that the chantry priest, though celebrating at the same altar, was to say a different votive mass on every day of the week in specified rotation, the mass on Friday being always that of the Holy Cross. Moreover, at every mass, after the Confiteor, he was to turn to the people and say, in his mother tongue: “Pray ye for the soul of Sir Godfrey Foljambe, and Anne, his wife, and his children, and brothers of the guild of the Holy Cross, and all the faithful deceased.” Again, a grant of the date 1405 exists, by which one Dom John Chepe, chaplain of the chantry of the Holy Cross in Bakewell, makes over in reversion certain landed property to the service of the said chantry for ever. Another document, of the year 1535, incidentally makes mention of “the burgage of the Holy Cross,” by which is to be understood a piece of land, probably with house property upon it, lying within the bounds of the town, and forming part of the endowments either of the chantry or the guild of that title. The last incumbent of this chantry was William Oldeffeld. On its dissolution, as the pension roll of 30th October, 1552, shows, he was allowed an annuity of £6 in lieu of his former stipend; while William Hole, chantry priest of the holy rood at Wirksworth, is known, from Cardinal Pole’s pension roll, to have been granted £5 per annum. The “rode chauntrye” at Wirksworth was founded, in his lifetime, by Sir Henry Vernon, the same whose will, as already recorded, contained a bequest for the rood-loft at Bakewell.

In Ashbourne church, until the middle of the sixteenth century (as scheduled in the chantry roll drawn up for[239] the purposes of confiscation shortly after the accession of Edward VI.), there stood near the nave, at the foot of the rood-screen, or as near unto as might be, in the south aisle, an altar dedicated to the Holy Cross; to which was attached a chantry, founded in 1392 by the feofees of Nicholas Kniveton, for the daily celebration of the Holy Sacrifice in perpetuity. The deed of confirmation of the same by the Bishop, Dean and Chapter of Lincoln, dated 1404, is extant; as well as an indenture, dated 15th January in the seventh year of Henry VIII. on the occasion of the appointment of a new chaplain. By this document the incoming “rood-priest” covenants to take due care of, and not to waste nor alienate, the chantry goods committed to his custody; the list of which, set forth at length, comprises all the requisite ornaments for the performance of divine service (including “two chests in ye Roodequere” for the safekeeping of the aforesaid ornaments), and the domestic furniture and utensils of the chaplain’s residence as well. At the Reformation, the property and endowments were forfeited to the Crown; but it is of interest to recall how long and in what wise the memory of the institution has been kept alive by the people, for in the ancient garden of the chaplain’s house is a well, which, down to within the eighteenth century, used, by time-honoured custom, to be “dressed” or garlanded with flowers every Ascension Day after a special service in the church, and which, as lately as the last decade of the nineteenth century, was known among the oldest inhabitants of the place by the traditional name of “the rood-well.” For similar reasons a certain parcel of meadow-land in Ashbourne, being another piece of chantry property secularised, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth was named “Lampholme”; while certain tenements, as appears from the negotiations which preceded the endowing of the grammar school in 1585, were termed “candle-rents.” Again, a curious illustration of analogous tradition in another part of Derbyshire is[240] furnished by a manuscript commonplace-book which belonged to one Roger Columbell, of Darley Hall. As he died in 1565, it cannot have been written later than in the early years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. The entry is to the effect that in former days the custom prevailed of paying, at Easter, on every house in a parish a duty of “1 fartheynge called a wax farthinge ... for lyght of the alter.”

I have met with no earlier recorded example of a rood-light endowment in Derbyshire than of that at Breadsall. Its charter is dated 1330, on the Sunday after the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By this instrument one Geoffrey, “the Reve” (or steward), son of Ranulph de Breydishale, gives and concedes half an acre of land in Breadsall to the light of the Holy Cross in the church there, “in pure and perpetual alms for ever, freely, quietly, well and in peace.” The charter concludes with, “Warranty to the said light against all people,” above the signatures of the witnesses.

Again, in a list of “serges” (wax candles; in French, cierges) “holden up” (maintained) by the bounty of individuals or by the several craft guilds connected with the church and parish of All Hallows, Derby, it is recorded that, in 1484, five such lights had been provided to burn before the rood. For it was not unusual for lay folk to band themselves into a confraternity under the style of the Holy Cross, among the chief duties undertaken by them being that of keeping up the requisite light or lights to burn before the rood in their parish church. Among their privileges, as in the above case of the chantry in Bakewell church, would be that of being specially remembered whenever the chaplain offered the Holy Sacrifice. Chesterfield had its guild of the Holy Cross, for whose sodality meetings and offices was set apart, with the same dedication, the east chapel of the north transept—the very chapel now enclosed by the ancient rood-screen. There was a guild of the rood at Repton[241] also, towards whose funds, in the year 1520, one William Bothe, of Barrow, bequeathed 10s. in his will.

The mediæval custom of burning lights before the rood, and other images, too, was—if one may so express it—a definite and perfectly natural reflex of the life and conditions of the time. Previously to the closing decade of the fifteenth century, the vast continent of America still remained the dreamland Atlantis it had been to Brendan and Meldune; the Queens Consort of Spain decked themselves in the gorgeous bravery of their jewels, and the questing dove fretted unavailingly against restraining bars, until at length one devoted woman, King Ferdinand’s wife, Isabella (the same were parents of our Catherine of Aragon, and grandparents of our own Mary Tudor), offering up her jewels in pawn, found the wherewithal to equip and send forth the great navigator on his momentous voyage. Nor even then could it be otherwise than that several generations must pass away before any practical result of Columbus’s discovery could affect the great mass of the European population, and before cane-sugar could supersede the old-fashioned use of honey for sweetening purposes. Meanwhile, in Derbyshire, as elsewhere, the ancient traditions lingered long; and year by year, when the warm weather came on, the bee-keeper of the Peak would carry his skeps, or wheel them in a hand-barrow (choosing, if he were a prudent man, the night hours for the transit), out on to the moors. And there, amid the wild thyme and heather, he would set the bees down, and leave them all the summer through to gather in their store as long as the flowers were in bloom, bringing them back again into shelter at the first approach of winter. The honey, then an indispensable commodity in every household, would be carefully strained and separated from the comb; helping to pay landlord’s rent in kind, while the wax would go in tithes and free-will offerings to the service of the church. Such, then, since the devotional practices of our[242] pre-Reformation forefathers were not aloof from their social and domestic life, but intimately interwoven and bound up with it, not out of joint nor harmony, but dovetailing and accordant the one with the other; such is the economic connection between votive candle-burning and the industry of bee-culture.

The large share of importance attached to bees, and the widespread extent of the habit of bee-keeping in former times, has left its mark upon the face of the country in many a popular place-name and field-name, whose significance is not perhaps generally appreciated by others than students of folklore and archæology. Mr. Sydney Oldall Addy, in his learned work on Hallamshire, entitled The Hall of Waltheof (1893), enumerates the following instances in Derbyshire:—Honey Spots, a field of two acres between Hope and Pindale; Bean Yard, at Ashover; Pointon Cross, at Hucklow; Poynton Wood, just outside Dore; and several fields bearing the name of Pitcher Croft in the immediate neighbourhood; and he shows how every one of the words, or roots of words, italicised, in some way or another preserves a directly etymological allusion to the bees or beehives having been kept from of old in the locality so named. If Beeley, Beelow, and Beeholme are doubtful instances in point, as being capable of another interpretation, it is perhaps not wholly unfeasible that the received derivation of Bentley from Benets’ lag, or meadow, may have to be amended to bee-field.

But be that as it may, the olden system, in the tangible form of payments reckoned in honey and wax (itself a computation dating from at least as far back as the Domesday Book, in which two Derbyshire manors, those of Darley and Parwich, to wit, are valued at so much current coin of the realm and so many sextaries of honey apiece), endured without a break all through the catastrophe of the Reformation, and afterwards almost down to our own times. Thus, in the parish of Hope,[243] part of the small tithes pertaining to the vicar were paid in honey and wax. As far back as 1254, tithes of honey formed part of the emolument of the Vicar of Tideswell. In fact, in the Peak district generally, it was customary for every tenth swarm of bees to be claimed by the parson of the parish, a right which continued to be acknowledged until nearly as late as the middle of the eighteenth century. Thus in 1743, the then Vicar of Castleton records in his journal the receipt of a swarm of bees by way of tithe. Elsewhere, though actual payment in kind had become obsolete, a small fixed duty, payable to the parson in money, long survived. In some parishes, in addition to the ordinary tithes, Easter dues upon various kinds of stock and produce were chargeable, under which head the assessment of bee-keepers was fixed at 2d. per head. In the parish of Twyford, as the Terrier shows, the like sum was claimed “for every hive of bees in lieu of tithe-honey and wax”—a claim which did not cease to be recognised until the nineteenth century, when, in a general re-adjustment and commutation, it was abolished. So the last lingering tradition of the old order was changed, and finally perished.

And here is the place to speak of the fate of the rood and of its accessory loft. Now, although the destruction of rood-lofts, screens and roods, in so far as they were involved in the destruction of the monasteries themselves, may be said to have begun under Henry VIII. in 1536, being followed, two years after, i.e., in 1538, by the order for the demolition of all roods and images alleged to be abused by superstitious devotions and offerings—the diversion of the latter into the hands of the King and his myrmidons being, of course, the real motive of the attack—the general and systematic destruction of roods did not take place until Edward VI. came to the throne, nor that of rood-lofts until nearly the end of the third year of Queen Elizabeth. The precise date of the order is 10th October, 1561. It[244] decreed that rood-lofts should be taken down in every church and chapel in the land. It is essential, however, to note that at the same time that rood-lofts were abolished, the partition of the chancel—such was the term then used for the rood-screen—was expressly and emphatically ordered to be maintained. It is a noteworthy fact, also, that in the set of articles put forth for Archbishop Parker’s first metropolitical visitation (that of 1560–1), which included the county of Derbyshire as part of the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, no reference whatever is made either to roods or rood-lofts. Meanwhile, however, the order of 1561 was promulgated, and Parker then entered upon the campaign in earnest. His visitation articles of 1563 contain the inquiry: “Whether your rood-lofts be pulled down according to order prescribed, and if the partition between the chancel and church [i.e., nave] be kept?” The same question would naturally go the round of the southern province, within which, as is well known, Derbyshire lies. In 1565, then, when Bentham made a visitation of the county, among the instructions issued for the occasion is found the following:—“That you do take down your rood-lofts unto the lower beams, and do set a comely crest or vault upon it, according to the Queen’s Majesty’s Injunctions set forth for the same.” This shows that Derbyshire enjoyed no exemption from the general order already mentioned. Two years later, i.e., in 1567, Parker, in his metropolitical visitation, reiterated his previous order of 1563; evidence as to the standard that was required throughout the country. Nor did his successor, Edmund Grindall, fail to follow his example. In the new archbishop’s articles to be inquired of within the province of Canterbury in the metropolitical visitation of 1576, the question is asked: “Whether your rood-lofts be taken down and altered, so that the upper parts thereof with the soller or loft be quite taken down unto the cross beam” (this, of course, means not the rood-beam but the transverse beam or breast-summer),[245] “and that the said beam have some convenient crest put upon the same?” Later on, when, in 1584, Overton visited the Lichfield diocese, he inquired, among other points: “Whether your rood-lofts be clean defaced and taken away?” It is unnecessary to pursue this phase of the subject any further; but it is scarcely to be wondered at if, from such persistent and accumulated hostility on the part of the authorities, as I have retailed, no Derbyshire rood-loft has survived to this day in its complete and original state.

According to an inventory of the year 1527, there were in All Hallows church, Derby, a “pair” of great organs, and another small “pair” beside. Further entries, occurring both under the dates 1569–70 and 1582–3, mention the existence of the leaden weights “which lay upon the organs” to compress the bellows. Whence it has been inferred that because the almost invariable place for the organ in pre-Reformation times was the rood-loft, therefore the latter structure was still standing in the church down to 1583. But surely the evidence on the point is negative, and far too slight to warrant any such conclusion! For the documents which speak of the organs are altogether silent as to their whereabouts in the building; and even though they may have been situated originally on the top of the rood-loft in All Saints, in the face of the notorious fact that rood-lofts throughout the country had been condemned twelve years previously, the bare mention of an organ outliving the general wrecking of the rood-loft (which, indeed, it was fully entitled to do, from the legal point of view) cannot be taken for proof of the law in force against rood-lofts having been disregarded in this or in any individual instance, unless there be produced some more direct and explicit testimony to the contrary.

If Dr. Pegge is to be credited, the rood-loft was still standing in Chesterfield church in 1783. At Staveley, it is recorded to have stood until 1790. At Hayfield,[246] until about 1815, it remained entire, according to the Lysons; and according to the same authority’s manuscript notes at the British Museum, though the fact is not recorded in their published history of the county, the rood-loft still survived at Taddington in or about the year 1812. Possibly, also, at Tideswell the rood-loft, although transferred to the west end of the church, remained until as lately as about 1820. Beside these, there are no authenticated instances of the survival of the ancient rood-loft in Derbyshire after the date of the general destruction.

This measure was as arbitrary as also it proved, within no great space of time after, to have been shortsighted. It was arbitrary because, considering the circumstances at the date of the decree being issued, it was uncalled for and unwarrantable, once roods themselves had ceased to be. For the ruin of roods accomplished under King Edward had been so immense, that their restoration in the short space of Mary’s reign could not but be partial; and already Elizabeth’s puritan friends, acting upon her injunctions of 1559 against “monuments of superstition,” had hastened to destroy as many images as were found standing at the date of her accession—and that, one may be sure, with the greater energy and thoroughness, since the Queen herself was really suspected at first of being unsound in this very matter of the crucifix. The order of 1561 was unreasonable, therefore, because every one of those customs, such as the burning of lights before the rood, or hanging up festal branches and garlands about it, clothing it with holiday robes or Lenten wrappings, the ceremonial stations at its feet, accompanied by sprinkling with holy water or by censings—these and, in fine, whatsoever other observances in olden days had had the rood for centre and object, were necessarily quashed and rendered no longer practicable thenceforward, the rood itself having been abolished. That the order was shortsighted, too, is patent from the fact that in consequence[247] of it there sprang up a fresh crop of difficulties, which have never been satisfactorily settled nor disposed of to this day. I refer, of course, to the question of organs and choristers, and of the most convenient and suitable positions for them relatively to occupy in a church. The rood itself had indeed vanished, but with it not all the functions and uses of the rood-loft. That the latter had, from a practical point of view, enormous advantages, is a fact which, lost sight of at the time amid the frenzy of bigotry, which insisted on its being condemned to destruction, very quickly began to be appreciated after that the ancient rood-loft was no more.

It is a highly instructive object-lesson, and one not unprofitable eke for our own times, to note what ensued; nor can I, with the facts of the case before me, impugn the logic of the extreme reformers, who were so ill-content with the disappearance of the rood-loft that they never ceased to agitate for the prohibition of church organs as well. This, then, happened. The opponents of instrumental music in divine service were not allowed to have their will; and yet the retention of an organ after the organ-platform, the rood-loft, to wit, had been done away with, was very quickly found to be unworkable, unless some other provision were made for it and for the singers, whose voices the organ was meant to accompany. The removal of the rood-loft at the east end of the nave, therefore, was inevitably followed, sooner or later, by the erection of a gallery at the opposite end of the nave. In some instances, indeed, portions of the old rood-loft were actually re-erected, being incorporated in a new organ-gallery at the west end of the church. Thus, at Parwich, when, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the old west gallery came to be taken down, the main beam of it was found to have a carefully chamfered edge and to have been enriched with painting and gilding, thus proving beyond all question that it must have formed one of the timbers[248] of the ancient rood-loft, if not the original rood-beam itself.

Scarcely more than fifty years had elapsed since the demolition of rood-lofts had been ordained before a gallery was erected at the west end of All Hallows, Derby, and, what is more remarkable, in 1636 another, upon which the term, not void of significance, “loft” actually occurred in the inscription to commemorate the donor’s name and benefaction. Nor was this the only example on record. Another inscribed “loft” was erected at the west end of Heanor church in 1633, and another at Osmaston in 1747, while several more, though not explicitly so inscribed, were, as contemporary evidence proves, referred to at the time as “lofts.” Of these, the gallery at Ashover (1722), at Bakewell (1751), and at Stanley (1765) are examples. At Marston-on-Dove, in 1712, the parish agreed to erect a “loft,” as the recorded proposal for the scheme shows, “for ye schoolmaster of Hilton and his scholars and ye singers to sitt in.” At Hayfield, as shown in a plan of the seating accommodation and scale of charges for the same, under the date 1741, “every singer upon ye organ loft” paid the modest sum of 4d. a year by way of pew-rent. Again, at Hayfield a new “loft” was set up at the west end of the building in 1746.

If the Osmaston example carries the tradition of the “loft” forward as far as 1747, on the other hand the Heanor example affords a most valuable link with the remoter past by carrying back the tradition to the period of the pre-Reformation rood-loft. Standing until within living memory, it bore the inscription: “This loft was built at ye sole cost of John Clarke, of Codnor, gent., in the year 1633, who dyed An^o. Dnⁱ. 1641, et Anno Ætatis 88”; on the face of it a dry and prosaic statement of fact, but yet to all who can read between the lines, how eloquent a tale of the times does it unfold, for this man, who at eighty set up a singers’ gallery[249] or loft in his parish church, would be a child of about eight years of age at the date when the royal decree went forth for the general destruction of rood-lofts.

If the coincidence is the more striking in the case of galleries erected at the east end of the nave, exactly on the site of the ancient rood-loft, as at Chesterfield and the neighbouring village of Old Brampton, at Eyam, Mellor, and Tideswell, it must be admitted that the west end of the nave was the more usually selected position. Western galleries are known to have been in use in the nineteenth century in the following churches, amongst others: Allestree, Ashbourne, Beighton, Brailsford, All Saints’ new church in Derby, Duffield, Eckington, Etwall, Killamarsh, Kirk Ireton, Long Eaton, Mackworth, Marston Montgomery, Matlock, Morley, Mugginton, North Wingfield, Parwich (old church), Smalley, Spondon, Stanley, Taddington, Tickenhall (old church), Wilne, and Wingerworth. Although at the last-named the base of the rood-loft remains, the destruction of the parapet had made it unsafe for use, and necessitated the erection of the newer gallery. The above list might be very much extended, but there is no need to multiply instances.

The renewal of the west gallery at Tideswell church in 1824, and the erection of that at Sawley in 1838, or that at Beeston as late as 1840 (only, however, to be restored away again in 1871), brings the tradition of building organ-galleries down almost to the middle of the nineteenth century. Some, indeed, among those named in the above list continued in position as late as the seventies of the nineteenth century, that at Ashbourne even until 1882.

Between the earliest recorded instance of a gallery being built, in 1614, to the latest, in 1840, represents a lively stream of tradition, uninterrupted for just 220 years, until the influence of the Tractarian movement set the tide flowing in the contrary direction, and eventually succeeded in compassing the doom of the old-fashioned organ-gallery altogether. The responsibility rests not with[250] Puritans, but with the opposite party in the Church of England; and it is a sad, if edifying, commentary on the fallibility of human judgment that, at the very time when Holman Hunt was painting his mystical pre-Raphaelite picture of “Christ wounded in the House of His Friends,” the Tractarians—they, of all people!—were busy, from one end of England to the other, obliterating the last historic vestiges of the ancient rood-loft in our churches. If only these well-meaning men (and many others like them, down to the present time) had been content to restore literally rather than ostensibly; if, instead of introducing surpliced choirs into parochial churches where such a thing had never been known before in the whole course of their history; if, instead of dragging down the organ from its antique gallery where they found it into the main body of the building, and thereby displacing table-tombs and other memorials of the faithful departed; shutting out the glorious light of windows (as at Ashover), hiding their exquisite tracery, or, worse, positively thrusting out windows and overthrowing walls, and erecting externally (as at Ashover, Bolsover, Langwith, Littleover, Mackworth, South Normanton, and Spondon) counterfeit Gothic organ-chambers to accommodate this huge and vehement obstruction; if, instead of perpetrating all these innovations and disfigurements, they had simply been content to follow loyally the precedent of their forefathers, and had relegated organs and singers together to a gallery situated in the ancient place for them, viz., over the entrance to the chancel, how much heart-burning and division might have been avoided; how many a venerable church fabric, now irretrievably ruined in contour and proportions, might have been saved from injury, and have retained both in the original form in which they had come down to modern days, intact!

That which follows consists of additional particulars concerning the present subject, arranged, in alphabetical order, under the names of the various localities.

[251]

Alkmonton.—At this place, a township of Longford, was a hospital dedicated under the invocation of St. Leonard. Lord Mountjoy endowed it by will in 1474, at the same time directing that a quire and parclose screen should be erected in the chapel attached to the hospital. The institution was suppressed at the Reformation, and no remains whatever of the chapel and its screenwork survive.

Allestree.—The church was entirely rebuilt in 1866–7. The length of the ancient rood-loft, assuming that it did not exceed the width of the nave, would have been 19 ft. 3 in., the dimensions of the old church. For stone screenwork, supposed to have belonged to Allestree church, see supra.

Ashbourne.—The eastern aisle of the north transept is screened off from the rest of the transept and from the chancel, to form the Cockayne chapel. The screen, which runs from north to south, is divided by a column into two sections. The northern section is 14 ft. 3 in. long, and comprises eight compartments, including the entrance; the southern section is 14 ft. 8½ in. long, and comprises nine compartments. The section of the parclose which runs from west to east is 19 ft. long, and comprises eleven and a half compartments, including the gates, which open into the chancel. The total height of the screen is 8 ft. 10 in., the compartments varying in centring from 1 ft. 6 in. to 1 ft. 10½ in. The tracery in the heads (rectagonal in formation) measures 13½ in. deep at the deepest. The openings in the north to south section are 65 in. high, the lower part 3 ft. high; the openings in the west to east section 68 in. high, the lower part 33 in. high. Immediately below the rail, which is embattled, runs a horizontal panel of pierced quatrefoil tracery to the depth of 8½ inches. The screen is surmounted by a moulded cornice, with a cavetto, occupied at intervals by square pateras. The muntins are buttressed. The whole is of Perpendicular design of about the middle of the fifteenth century. Each compartment of the openings[252] is protected by an iron stanchion and saddlebar; the stanchions being obviously modern, with cast-iron fleur-de-lys finials. The door which opens into the stair in the south-east pier of the central tower is 1 ft. 7 in. wide by 5 ft 9 in. high to the crown of its two centred arch. There is no sign of the door which opened into the rood-loft, but the stair leads to a passage which runs round all four sides of the tower at the crossing.

Ashover Church: Rood-Screen.

Ashover.—The rood-screen stands in the hollow order of the chancel arch, so that its westward face does not project beyond the level of the east wall of the nave. The screen stands 10 ft. 3 in. high by 13 ft. 7 in. long. It consists of six bays, of which the two midmost comprise the doorway, with an opening of 3 ft. 8 in. and a height of 6 ft. 11 in. to the crown of the depressed arch. The bays have an average centring of 27½ inches, the fenestration being 5 ft. 5 in. high from the cill to the crown of the arch, with tracery in the head to the depth of 20½ inches, that is, 11 inches lower than the level of the spring of the former vaulting. The cill is ornamented with flamboyant geometrical tracery. The solid part from the top of the cill to the ground is 3 ft. 6 in. high, with blind tracery to the depth of 8¾ inches in the head. The screen is without gates, and is surmounted by an embattled cresting, beneath which is a band of pierced quatrefoil ornament. Neither of these can be in its original position, the screen having formerly been vaulted, although the whole of the groining ribs, as well as the springing-caps and the bases, are now wanting. The carved lintel over the doorway is crested along the top, the spandrils being filled with Tudor roses. These, together with the four-centred arches of the bays, point to a late phase of Perpendicular. The coat of arms of Babington, impaling Fitzherbert, in the middle, being only fastened on where the vaulting ought to be, affords in itself no criterion as to the date; although the general style of the screen is entirely consistent with the tradition[253] that it was the gift of Thomas Babington, who died in 1518. This screen originally was enriched with painting and gilding, the last traces of which were egregiously removed in 1843. This was the date, also, of the destruction of the remains of the handsomely carved parclose-screenwork which surrounded the Babington chantry in the easternmost bay of the south aisle. The parclose had a door opening into the nave and another into the aisle; and the coats of arms now attached to the rood-screen used to be respectively over these two doorways. The Babington chantry was founded in 1511, in which year the rood-screen and rood-loft are believed to have been erected. The rood-stair was blocked up at the “restoration” of 1843, but has since been reopened. What remains of it consists of six stone steps, starting in the south-east corner of the north aisle, and emerging through the easternmost spandril of the north arcade into the nave at a height of 10 ft. 10 in. from the floor. The rood-door opened naveward, two iron hangers still remaining in the south jamb of the doorway, which is 18½ in. wide by 5 ft. 8½ in. high. The door-head consists of a horizontal lintel. The rood-loft itself cannot have extended beyond the width of the nave, a length of 20 feet. The rope of the sacring-bell in the gable immediately above the loft is shown in the photograph.

Bakewell.—A spiral staircase in the wall adjoining the north-east pier of the central tower stood practically undisturbed until the rebuilding of the piers in 1841. It was entered from the south-east corner of the north transept, and would in all probability have served for the rood-stair when the rood-loft came to be introduced. The oak parclose which shuts off the east aisle of the south transept to form the Vernon chapel, is divided by the columns of the arcade into three sections. Each of these is 11 ft. 7 in. long by 8 ft. 5½ in. high (exclusive of the modern cornice), and consists of eight rectagonal compartments centring from 1 ft. 4¾ in. to 1 ft. 5½ in.[254] The openings are 4 ft. 3½ in. high, with Early Perpendicular tracery in the heads to the depth of 1 ft. 0½ in. The cill of each compartment shows traces of having been guarded by two stanchions, no longer existing. The lower part of the screen is 4 feet high. The rail is carved with a wave pattern, with a trefoiled circle in each trough and swell, and a band of quatrefoils runs along the base. The upper half of the panels below the rail is perforated with a pattern like a square-headed traceried window of the period. The greater muntins have shafts, with polygonal bases. The screen is left, in midland fashion, unfinished at the back. The two midmost compartments of the southernmost section form the doors.

Belper.—In 1821 the chancel of St. John Baptist chapel was separated from the nave “by a plain screen composed of small arches and round columns of wood.” The screen itself eventually disappeared, but long afterwards the marks remained in the walls showing where it had been fixed.

Bolsover.—A new organ-chamber, built in 1878, was eloquently described as having “dwarfed the old chancel and spoilt the north aspect of the church.” The ruin which the “restoration” of the above year began, an accidental fire in 1897 completed.

Brackenfield.—The rood-screen from the old, ruined chapel, built in 1520–30, now stands in the modern church. It has suffered much, not only from exposure to the weather in the interval between the dismantling of the chapel and the transfer of the screen itself to its present position at the west end of the new building, but also from excessive repair (see illustration). The screen measures 16 ft. 9 in. long by 7 ft. 7 in. high. It is rectagonal in construction, and consists of a central bay divided into two lights above the lintel of the doorway; on either hand of the latter being two bays of three lights each. The head of all the lights is occupied to the depth of 10½ in. by tracery of Decorated design,[255] coarsely executed, with heavy cusps and crockets. The openings of the bays are 4 ft. 5½ in. high; the bays centring from 3 ft. to 3 ft. 2½ in. The lesser muntins are arrested by the cill, the panels beneath which are wanting. The cornice and principal muntins are rudely moulded. The door has a clear opening of 3 ft. 1 in., and is 5 ft. 8 in. high to the crown of the four-centred arch of the lintel. One of the spandrils of the latter is carved with the arms of Willoughby and Beck impaled. From a drawing which is hung up, ad captandum vulgus, inside the building, it appears that a project is on foot to adapt this ancient screen to the chancel entrance of the modern church. And, as though the unfortunate screen had not suffered cruelly enough already, the scheme involves its further dismemberment by cutting out the doorway in the centre, and mounting it on the top of a fresh doorway as a scaffold for a novel and Christless cross. It is earnestly to be hoped that those in power will not have the money nor the unwisdom to inflict this last unwarrantable indignity on the venerable screen of Brackenfield chapel.

Brackenfield: Detail of Oak Rood-Screen from Dismantled Chapel.

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Breadsall.—In 1826 the rood-screen is known to have been standing in its original place, defining the boundary of nave and chancel. It was then much dilapidated, “the centre portions of the ornamental work thereof being entirely gone.” It is not quite clear whether by the parts referred to as missing, the entrance gates or the traceried fenestration-heads are meant. At any rate, a drawing made thirty years later, and published in the Anastatic Drawing Society’s volume for 1856, howsoever inaccurate in detail, shows what had then become of the remains of the rood-screen. Though much of the delicate feathering is omitted from the pierced tracery ornament, the main outline unmistakably identifies it as having been made up into communion rails. And it is doubtless to this circumstance that the beautiful details of the rood-screen, when once taken down from its proper position, owe their preservation. Such as they were represented in 1856, they remained at least as late as 1877, when the church itself was “restored.” The removal, about the year 1360, of the chancel arch, the structural demarcation between nave and chancel, had rendered a rood-screen æsthetically indispensable. And so, when this prominent ornament was broken up—some time between 1830 and 1840, more probably at the former date—it left a blank so unsightly that at the “restoration” of 1877 a misdirected attempt to remedy the defect was made by the insertion of a paltry, sham-Gothic arch. At the same time the ancient levels of the building were falsified by the improper raising of the chancel floor. In 1877, “many parts of the base” of the ancient screen could “be detected in the pews of the body of the church.” Subsequently, all these fragments were collected, and, together with those portions of the screen that had been turned into communion rails, carefully stored up with a view to ultimate reconstruction. Meanwhile, however, a few strips of screen-tracery were ill-advisedly worked up into a cornice round the brim of the present pulpit, a situation for which,[257] as anybody can see, they are in no wise suited. The restoration of the screen itself was contemplated as far back as 1877, but thirty years were destined to elapse before it could be realised. The project had long been dear to the heart of Mr. F. Walker Cox, though he did not live to see it fulfilled; and so, when he died in 1905, it was decided to restore the rood-screen as a suitable memorial to him. The work was completed by the end of July, 1907. In this case there were certain well-determined data to serve as guides for the proposed reconstruction. The width of the nave, 23 feet, had only to be divided by the unit of the bays (the remaining tracery of which demonstrated that the average centring was rather less than 2 ft. 6 in.) to show that there should be ten bays in all; while the tread of the topmost step of the rood-stair, which pierces the arcade wall and opens southwards into the nave at a height of 13 ft. 0½ in. above the floor level, indicates the proper height of the ancient rood-loft floor. Each bay is divided into two lights by a central muntin. The tracery resembles Decorated design more than Perpendicular, but certain very late details in the spandril of the ancient gates, the design of which otherwise corresponds, preclude the work from being dated earlier than the first quarter of the sixteenth century. Of the twenty pieces of tracery in the fenestration-heads, ten are original and untouched, five are old ones repaired, while five had to be supplied altogether new; the necessary carved work being ably done by Mr. H. W. Whitaker, son of the rector. There are two variations in the tracery pattern which runs along the west side of the rail. The heads of the rectagonal panels are filled with tracery to the depth of 6¾ inches.

Breadsall Church: Detail of Rood-Screen in Process of Restoration.

Breadsall Church: Showing the Remains of the Rood-Screen in 1856.

Chaddesden.—The church was “restored” in 1859, when, I presume, it was that the rood-screen came to be surmounted by an embattled cornice. At the recent “restoration,” by Mr. Bodley, the battlements were removed, and the upper part of the screen finished more[258] in accordance with the original design, with vaulting, on the western front The authentic portion of the screen is 9 ft. 11 in. high by 15 ft. 9 in. long. It consists of eight bays, of which the two central ones go to form the entrance, having an opening of 3 ft. 3½ in., the bays centring at 1 ft. 11½ in. The openings are 5 ft. 7½ in. high, with tracery in the heads to a depth of 3 feet, i.e., 21 inches lower than the level of the springing. The entrance has a semi-circular arch, cusped on the under side. The bottom part of the screen is 4 ft. 3½ in. high, with blind tracery in the panel heads to the depth of 12½ inches. On the west side the principal muntins are buttressed, the buttresses square in plan, with moulded bases; out of the top of the buttresses rise boutel shafts, with polygonal and embattled caps, from which the groined vaulting springs. The rood-screen stands at the entrance of the chancel, and the rood-loft must have extended only from side to side of the nave. The rood-stair entrance, now stopped and bricked up, is in the north-east corner of the south aisle. The doorway is 18 in. wide by 6 ft. 7 in. high from the floor to the crown of the arch, or obtuse angle, which is cut in the underside of the lintel. The exit from the stair on to the loft, though blocked, is traceable in the wall in the easternmost spandril of the south arcade of the nave.

Chesterfield.—The rood-loft is recorded to have been extant as late as the year 1783. There is not the slightest trace of a rood-stair entrance visible. In 1841, Sir Stephen Glynne found the nave galleried completely round, including the eastern part of it. “The gallery,” he says, “at the eastern extremity contains the organ.... In the gallery beneath the organ is incorporated a portion of wood screenwork of rather elegant character,” all which goes to show that the rood-screen stood at the western crossing, the arch there having a clear opening of 14 ft. 2½ in. In 1843, the “restoration” of the church was begun; and the building having first been thoroughly[259] swept of its fittings, Mr. Gilbert Scott (afterwards knighted) was then called in to do the garnishing. “I found,” he writes in his Recollections, “the rood-screen to have been pulled down and sold; but we protested, and it was recovered.” In a footnote he adds, “There is no such screen now in Chesterfield church.” In this, as happily the event proved, the architect was mistaken, but his remark would seem to imply that Sir Gilbert Scott himself is not to be held responsible for the rood-screen being improperly re-erected in its present position between the north transept and its eastern chapel. The screen is 14 ft. 6 in. long, and consists of five bays, centring 2 ft. 10½ in., of which the middle bay, having a clear opening of 2 ft. 5¼ in., comprises the doorway. It is fitted with doors, but they are not original. Indeed, the screen as a whole has been much renovated. The total height of it as it stands is 13 ft. 3½ in. down to the floor. The fenestration openings are 7 ft. 3 in. high, and the pierced tracery in the head extends to a depth of 21½ inches, and contains an embattled transom, which makes a horizontal line right across the screen from side to side. At a distance of 1 ft. 11 in. below the base of the tracery a second transom intersects the screen, not, however, continuously, on account of the doorway in the middle. The bays, though fashioned in rectagonal compartments, exhibit a pronouncedly arched formation, which suggests that they should be vaulted. At the same time the spandrils are traceried and cusped, a feature inconsistent with vaulting, and such, therefore, that I am inclined to attribute to the meddling hand of the “restorer.” It only remains to add that the principal muntins are buttressed on the westward front, and that the tracery has the usual midland characteristic of a flat surface at the back.

Chesterfield Church: Part of Parclose Screen in South Transept.

More complete than the above-named is the imposing parclose which stands in the south transept, and, extending throughout the entire length of the transept, divides it[260] for the two chantry chapels to eastwards. These chapels were dedicated to Our Lady and St George respectively, while against the westward face of the screen stood the altar of St Michael on the left, and that of St Mary Magdalene on the right. The screen consists of ten bays, four-centred; the third bay from either end forming a doorway to lead into the corresponding chapel beyond it. The bays vary in centring from 3 ft 4½ in. to 4 ft. 1 in. The upper part of the screen expands eastwards and westwards with groined vaults (partly renovated, the interspaces traceried on the west side but plain on the east) into a wide platform of from 5 to 6 feet from front to back, and such that was apparently never finished with a loft. The elevation of the whole (exclusive of a stone plinth of 4½ inches) is 15 feet in height. The fenestration is strikingly lofty, the distance from the cill to the summit of the opening being 8 ft. 6 in., with tracery in the head to the depth of 26 inches. The base of this tracery descends 10 inches below the level of the caps and the springing of the vaults. The tracery itself is of handsome Perpendicular design, and is enriched with tall, crocketed pinnacles running up through the midst of the batement lights. The opening is sub-divided horizontally, at a distance of 49 inches from the crown of the arch, by a transom cusped and feathered on its under side. The solid part of the screen is 4 ft. 7 in. high. The rail is carved with a waving tracery pattern; the blind panelling is traceried in the head, and has a band of quatrefoil ornament along the bottom. The principal muntins are faced with clustered shafts. The more northern of the two doorways, with Tudor roses in the spandrils and cinquefoil cusping on the under side, is original, but the other doorway is an unsatisfactory piece of patch work.

With regard to the third screen, Sir Gilbert Scott, in the above-quoted Recollections, wrote: “There existed in the church, as I found it, a curious and beautiful[261] family pew and chapel, enclosed by screenwork, to the west of one of the piers of the central tower. This was called the Foljambe chapel, and was a beautiful work of Henry VIII.’s time. What to do with it I did not know. It was right in the way of the arrangements, and could not but have been removed. I at last determined to use its screenwork to form a reredos.” Such is the “restorer’s” frank and ingenuous confession of his wanton abuse of a grand, historical monument. The remains of this chantry parclose (its openwork still disfigured by metal panels painted with the Ten Commandments, according to the fashion of the day, circa 1843–5) were forced to migrate once more in 1898, and now (March, 1907) stand against the west wall of the south transept. The screenwork is rectagonal in plan. As at present made up it is just under 22 feet long, and consists of six compartments, centring from 3 ft. 6½ in. to 3 ft. 8 in., of three lights each. The openings are 3 ft. 7 in. high, with stem-like tracery in the head to the depth of 9½ inches. The upper part is coved, projecting 35 inches from back to front. The total height from the top of the cresting to the ground just exceeds eight feet. The solid part below the openings has apparently been cut down, since it is only 2 ft. 11 in. high. The rail is carved with a band of quatrefoils and trefoils in the alternate swell and trough of a wave line, and the blind panelling is traceried in the head to the depth of 5 inches. The cornice is elaborately carved with a grape and vine pattern on a wave basis, with shields introduced; the band itself, however, absurdly turned upside down. It displays the following seven distinct coats of arms, which appear by themselves and in various combinations of impalement:—

That the screens now standing do not represent the full complement of screenwork with which Chesterfield Church was enriched when the shock of the Reformation fell upon it, is attested by additional fragments of tracery, one of them let into the underpart of a communion table in the south-east chapel, and more in a low rail about the site of the former high altar.

Church Broughton.—In 1820, portions of the parcloses that used to shut off the chantries or side altars at the end of the aisles still existed; but in 1845–6 the church was “repaired,” with the usual result that the screens were dismembered. Considerable remains, however, of the oak tracery are embodied in a modern reredos behind the altar.

Crich.—The screen which is now in St. Peter’s, Derby, and which was originally in Crich church, is constructed on a rectagonal principle, that is to say, it was never vaulted. It consists of six compartments, each having an average opening of 13 inches and an average centring of 1 ft. 5 in. The height of the fenestration from the cill to the top of the opening is 58 inches, the head being occupied to the depth of 12½ inches by pierced tracery of Perpendicular design, with an embattled transom intersecting it in a straight line from side to side. The screen itself is divided into two halves, each 4 ft. 4 in. long, and each having, immediately below the cill, a pierced panel of cusped tracery of trellis-like design, 3 ft. 10 in. long by 6¾ in. high. For the rest, seeing that the screen has been made up for its present position, to give the dimensions of its total height and length would only be to mislead.

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Denby.—“A rudely carved screen between nave and chancel”—such was the description given of it in 1825—was swept away in the atrocious “restoration” of 1838.

Derby.—It is piteous to recall with what reckless devastation the mediæval churches of the borough of Derby have been visited. The fate of All Hallows’ has been already told. Another of the ancient churches of the place, St. Alkmund’s, was destroyed in 1844. Its former rood-loft, to judge from the ground plan of the building, must have extended across the width of the nave only. It has been related by those who knew the old church, that the tower, together with the westernmost bay of either aisle of the nave, were divided by screening from the remainder of the building. What these screens were like records do not state, but it is probable enough that they may have been made out of the remains of the rood-screen or parclose screenwork. St. Michael’s Church, totally demolished in 1856–7, contained a carved screen of Perpendicular workmanship. The rood-entrance and staircase led up to the loft from the south aisle. At St. Peter’s tradition tells that a parclose formerly separated the eastern portion of the north aisle from the body of the church; and remnants of wooden screen work were discovered under the flooring of the pews at the re-pewing in 1859. The screen which now occupies the place of the original rood-screen, belonging, as it did, to Crich church, has been already described under that head.

Doveridge.—In 1877 it was observed that three pieces of carving known to have come from hence, and suspected to have belonged to the former screen here, were affixed to the chest in Sudbury church. These pieces comprised the centrepiece on the front of the chest, and the ornaments on the two sides of it.

Elvaston.—The drastic “restoration” of 1904, for all the unstinting munificence of the vicar, Rev. C. Prodgers, who entrusted the work to no less eminent an architect than Mr. Bodley, has swept away a number of[264] landmarks, the removal of which the antiquary must record only with pain and sorrow. Beside the lengthening of the chancel by eleven feet eastwards, and the abolition of the east window, a proceeding alien to the traditions of an English parish church, the rood-screen itself has been shifted and tampered with in a manner far from conservative. Previously to the “restoration” the screen consisted of eight bays (the two midmost bays comprising the doorway), and stood in the recess of the chancel arch, into which space it exactly fitted. In the course of the “restoration” the screen (found to have been patched with common deal in many places, and the whole of it thickly coated with brown paint) was taken to Cambridge to be pickled, and to have the decayed and the deal portions replaced in oak. Thus far, good. But returning renovated and lengthened by a fresh, narrow bay of blind panelling at each end, so as to ruin its proportions, the rood-screen, now too long for its former site, was erected anew in a more westerly position against the east wall of the nave. It was, moreover, provided with elaborate metal gates, which are too high to give a satisfactory effect, inasmuch as they break the horizontal line of the wooden rail to right and left. Another flagrant offence is that the carved ornaments, integrally joined (as at Chaddesden) to the east side of the entrance jambs of the screen to form the ends of the return stalls, have been detached from their proper place and egregiously misappropriated for the ends of new sedilia. Their sides are richly panelled with Perpendicular tracery, in the top of which is a human face, with the hair and beard treated like Gothic leafage. The upper extremities of these stall-ends represent cherubim, below which are large carved crockets, models for boldness of outline and vigorous crispness of execution. The occurrence on the elbows respectively of a lion and an antelope, chained and collared, both of them seated on their haunches, confines the production of the work within determinate historical[265] limits. The lion has been described as “chained,” but after examining it in search of the chain, I came to the conclusion that the latter is merely a wavy lock of the lion’s mane. As to whether there is a chain or not will probably always remain a moot question, like the heads of the famous lions over the gate of Mycenæ. Assuming, then, that this particular lion is chainless, it would stand either for the lion of England or the white lion of the house of March; while the antelope, gorged and chained, is the familiar cognisance of the de Bohuns. These two together would be the heraldic supporters of Edward IV. (1466–1483), and therefore bear out the presumption that the rood-loft and screen were erected in his time by bequest of Lord Mountjoy. This nobleman’s will, dated 1474, directs that the parish church and chancel of Our Lady at Elvaston should be “made up and finished completely” at the cost of his estate. The “chancel” referred to can hardly be other than the enclosed chapel, now occupied by the Earl of Harrington’s family pew, in the south aisle. As long as the stall ends remained in their original situation attached to the rood-screen, the heraldry they display afforded a valuable clue to the date of its execution. But their dislocation and perversion amounts to the falsification of a historical document. For who that in years to come shall see them as at present made up into sham sedilia, will ever be able to identify them for what they truly are? The harm, done, however, is happily not irremediable, for the stall ends can yet be restored to their rightful place. To do so without delay is no more than an act of justice due to the past and the present, as also to future generations. The dimensions of the Elvaston rood-screen (exclusive of the modern accretions) are: height, 10 ft. 7 in., and length, 16 ft. 4 in. The bays centre at two feet, the doorway having a clear opening of 3 ft. 8 in., with a height of 8 ft. 3 in. from the floor level to the crown of the door-head arch. The latter is segmental, and on the under[266] side feathered with rose-tipped cusps. The shield in the middle is modern, and so also (though doubtless a reproduction of the old) is much of the encrusted ornament which surmounts the door-head. The pattern of it is one of inter-twisted stems, branching into crockets on the upper side. The fenestration on either side of the doorway has a clear opening of 5 ft. 8½ in. high, with tracery (forming the outline of an ogival arch) and encrusted ornament in the heads to the depth of 35½ inches. An embattled transom runs through the head of the side bays, but is arrested in the two bays of the doorway. Beneath the fenestration the solid part of the screen is 4 ft. 3 in. high; each bay with tracery in the head to the depth of 11½ inches. The whole screen is a magnificent specimen of Perpendicular design. The parclose in the south aisle encloses the easternmost bay of the nave arcade. It measures 17 feet long from east to west, and then, turning at a right angle, with a length of 14 feet from north to south, joins the south wall of the aisle. Its height, exclusive of the stone platform on which it is mounted, is 8 ft. 10½ in. It has a doorway of 2 ft. 1½ in. wide on the north, and one of 1 ft. 11½ in. on the west. The bays or compartments vary from 18½ inches to 21 inches wide. The height of the fenestration is 54½ inches, with tracery in the heads to the depth of 25½ inches. The lower part of the screen is 46 inches high, and it is pierced, parclose fashion, by a band of pierced tracery, forming long panels 9½ inches high. For the rest, this parclose is similar in design to the rood-screen, only that the main shafts of the parclose are more handsomely treated with buttresses and tall, graceful gables, terminating in crocketed pinnacles. The cavetto of the lintel contains square Gothic pateras. Neither screen shows any trace of colour. No rood-entrance nor stair remains, but from the plan of the building it is evident that the former rood-loft could not have exceeded in length the width of the nave.

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Elvaston Church: Rood-Screen (restored).

Fenny Bentley.—There is no structural division between nave and chancel, and the rood-screen has been repeatedly shifted backwards and forwards, but it is now standing approximately in its original position. Injured, but surviving the many dangers and vicissitudes through which it had to pass, it remained without repair until about 1848–50, when it underwent complete “restoration” (the vaulting being practically all renewed), and that very creditably done for the time. The screen is 18 ft 2 in. long by 9 ft. 4½ in. high. It consists of eight bays (centring 2 ft. 3¼ in.), whereof the two midmost go to make the doorway, which is 6 ft. 0¼ in. high to the crown of its four-centred arch, with a clear opening of 4 ft. 1½ in., protected by gates. The fenestration openings are four-centred, and measure 5 feet high from crown to cill, with tracery in the heads to the depth of 1 ft. 8¾ in., nine inches below the level of the vault-springing. The door-lintel has the left-hand spandril carved with a fox and a goose in his mouth; the right-hand spandril with a Gothic flower, not a rose. The lower part of the screen is 3 ft. high, the rail being ornamented with geometrical tracery. The ridiculous travesty of metal stanchions and saddle-bars, carried out in wood, ought to be got rid of as soon as possible. They may not deceive at the present day, but the danger is that the longer they are allowed to remain, the more they will tone down until they have acquired that specious air of antiquity which may enable them to pass for genuine, until some expert will detect the fraud, and perhaps be provoked on their account to call in question the authenticity of the whole screen into which they have become thus unwarrantably intruders. There is no vaulting at the top of the screen on the eastern side. The loft floor measures 57 inches from front to back, exclusive of the modern cresting on the front. There is no sign of any entrance to the rood-loft, but the stair was probably on the north side, in the wall which has now been rebuilt and converted into an arcade. The[268] rood-screen exhibits a fully-matured phase of Perpendicular. It has been variously dated from 1460 to 1500. One local tradition declared it to have been erected by Thomas Beresford (of Agincourt fame) as a thank-offering after the Wars of the Roses. At any rate, it must have been already in situ before 1512, when a chantry was founded by James Beresford, LL.D., and there being no aisle nor chapel to contain the altar, a parclose screen was erected round it in the south-east corner of the nave. The enclosure had its own flooring of encaustic tiles. Locally called “the cage,” it stood in its original place untouched until 1877, when, in the same year of his appointment to the rectory of Fenny Bentley, Rev. E. J. Hayton, with the proverbial officiousness of a new broom, nimbly cleared it aside. The only possible justification for this disturbance of a historic landmark is that it enables the beautiful rood-screen to be seen to greater advantage than it could have been while the other screen stood in front of it. The exact place where the parclose abutted on to the rood-screen is defined by a missing moulding and a light mark in the wood of the lower part of the bay immediately to the south of the entrance gates (see illustration). Subsequently the displaced parclose, incorporated with much new work, was set up, in one continuous length, between the modern north aisle of the nave and the modern north chapel. It now measures 14 ft. 8 in. long by 6 ft. 8 in. high, and consists of thirteen rectagonal compartments, with two different patterns of tracery in the head; eight of one pattern and five of the other.

Hathersage.—A small piece of carved oak tracery of Perpendicular style, being part of a screen originally in this church, was to be seen subsequently among the objects in the Lomberdale House Museum.

Hault Hucknall.—In 1875 there were kept in the vestry two fragments of oak tracery of Perpendicular design; placed, one upside down, with their two lower[269] edges contiguous, so that the arched forms were made to appear like circles. They are thus depicted in the first volume of Cox’s Derbyshire Churches. Beside these, in the eighties of the nineteenth century, there were in the church tower several more pieces of tracery and at least one long beam; all of them portions, presumably, of former screenwork.

Hope.—The rood-screen, including its gates, complete, is surmised to have remained standing through all the disasters of the civil wars—at least until the closing days of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate—because of an incidental reference under the date 1658. In a list of the parochial Easter dues discharged in that year, occurs the item of a sum received from young people “at the chancell gate.” This might, however, have meant no more than the spot in the alley where chancel and nave converge, since the common spelling of the word “gate” of the present day was “yate” until the eighteenth century, the original sense of “gate” being rather the equivalent of gangway, path, or thoroughfare. At any rate, all that was left of the screen by 1881 was the oak beam of the plinth or base, showing that there had been at that point one step ascending from the nave into the chancel. This historical relic, however, was not respected, for in 1881–2, the vicar, Rev. Henry Buckston, following the example of Dr. Hutchinson, the bane of All Hallows’, in obstinate defiance of remonstrances, subjected the old chancel to the most drastic and unnecessary treatment.

Horsley.—In or about the year 1825 it was noted by Rev. R. R. Rawlins that “a screen of rudely ornamented open-work surrounded a portion of the north aisle.”

Kirk Langley.—There were originally three screens in this church, namely, the rood-screen and two parcloses. All three of them have been so repeatedly altered and mixed up that it is difficult to follow their history with certain accuracy. The year of darkest tragedy in the annals of the fabric was 1839, when a devastating[270] “restoration” ravaged the ancient wood-fittings. Hitherto the parclose-screen of the Meynell chantry, standing at the eastern extremity of the north aisle, and extending as far as the centre of the first arch, had remained; but it was then removed, and certain portions of it made into a reredos. These fragments, and whatever else could be found belonging to the same parclose, were diligently gathered together by Rev. Frank Meynell, and are now incorporated in a new parclose encompassing the first bay of the north aisle. The cornice, much repaired, contains a handsome border, 4¾ inches deep, of vine and grape ornament upon a wave basis; and there are, in all, fourteen of the old panels, carefully patched together and mounted on canvas backing to strengthen them. They comprise seven (or, to count one slight variant as additional, eight) distinct patterns of late Perpendicular in point of date, but such that so far from being jaded or commonplace, give the lie to the “correct” view of the decadence of later mediæval art, and testify to the inexhaustible vitality and resourcefulness of Gothic fancy to the end. The other parclose stood between the south aisle and the south chapel, screening the Twyford chantry. In 1710 Bassano noted the screen, with the arms of Twyford over its entrance doorway. By 1879 this parclose had been demolished, and parts of it made up with the rood-screen, which yet stood in situ, presenting an incongruous blend of Perpendicular and earlier woodwork. Even this, however, has since given place to a brand-new screen, and whatever still remains of the ancient screenwork is now embodied in the box-door in the west tower, as above described. The abolished rood-loft must have been approached from the south, for, although there are no longer any traces to be seen of it, in 1879 it was noted that “the squint from the Twyford quire is within the doorway of the old stairs leading to the rood-loft.”

Kirk Langley Church: Details from Parcloses of North and South Aisles.

Long Eaton.—“Within the chancel (now used as a vestry),” writes Rev. Dr. Cox in 1879, “is a piece of old[271] oak carving, which was found, in 1868, used as a joist under the floor. It looks as if it had been part of the cornice of the rood-screen, and is carved with three four-leaved flowers and two heads. Its date is circa 1460.” This carving was probably displaced and abused in the manner described, in 1731, when the church is known to have undergone re-pewing and other “repairs.” The ancient rood-loft extended from side to side of the nave, which is 20 ft. 6 in. wide—or rather it should be, if the whole building had not been tampered with and falsified in 1868.

Longford.—The eastern extremity of both the aisles was formerly partitioned off by carved oak parcloses to form chantry chapels, but in 1826 both these screens were demolished. “From the east wall of the nave, close to the north side of the chancel archway, projects” a stone corbel, which must have had some connection with the ancient rood arrangements, as a support either for the loft or the rood-beam.

Longstone.—“The east end of the south aisle is” [1877] “shut off by an old oak screen, so as to form a family pew. It has a finely carved cornice, and on the north side has the arms of Eyre impaling Stafford ... and over the door which forms the west entrance to the screen is the well-known crest of the Eyre family—an armed leg.”

Mackworth.—Some old oak carving, portions, apparently, of ancient screenwork, were made up into the wainscot at the back of a seat within the porch. The ancient rood-loft may be assumed not to have exceeded the width of the nave, i.e., 21 ft. 3 in.

Melbourne.—At the general restoration of the church in 1859–60, the rood-screen was so unsparingly treated as to make it difficult to tell what its original design could have been. It is 13 ft. 9 in. long, and stands at the entrance of the chancel in the eastern crossing. A drawing, published in the Anastatic Drawing Society’s[272] volume for 1862, represents the church in the process of “restoration.” The screen, as there depicted, though it cannot have been even then in its original condition (having lost its vaulting, gates, and solid part at the bottom), differs considerably from the screen in its present state. It dated from the Perpendicular period, and consisted (as in fact it does still) of three bays, the middle one, for the entrance, being the largest. But the three main arches, which once constituted its most prominent feature, have since been replaced by obtuse chevrons, the ungainly massiveness of which is barely relieved by the ill-designed tracery underneath, or by a recent attempt to amend the bungling “restoration” of thirty years previously. It was in 1890, or thereabouts, that this unavailing re-restoration took place. The fact is that nothing can be done with Sir Gilbert Scott’s clumsy framework. To overlay it with applied ornament is only to emphasise its defects. There is but one satisfactory remedy, and that is to remove it altogether, and to replace it by something else fashioned on the beautiful flowing lines of the old Gothic design. The upper part contains eight pierced ornaments, 21½ inches in height from the crown of the two-centred arch to the base of the tracery, and 15 inches in width. Beyond these there is practically nothing of the original work left in the whole screen, which not only gives a very poor idea of what the majestic structure of the fifteenth century must have been, but also is in every way unworthy of the grandeur of its surroundings.

Mickleover.—Rev. R. R. Rawlins, in 1825, described the entrance from the nave as being “through a wooden arch,” near to which were the remains of a piscina. Whether this wooden arch represents the ancient rood-screen or not, it is impossible to tell. At any rate, the piscina shows that an altar must anciently have stood against the front of the screen.

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Monyash.—Previously to the “restoration” of 1886–8, in the east wall of the north transept, at a height of about twelve feet from the ground, there projected a wide stone, which had served as the step of the doorway that led on to the top of the rood-loft. The outline of the doorway itself could be traced until the unhappy changes at the above date caused it to disappear.

Morley.—This is one of the few Derbyshire instances of which the plan might have admitted the ancient rood-loft being carried beyond the width of the nave across the aisles to the outer walls of the church. At any rate a piscina at the south-east corner of each aisle shows that there must have been an altar at the end of both aisles, and would also seem to imply that the aisles themselves were partitioned from the eastern chapels beyond by screens in a line with the chancel screen. As to the latter, the tradition in the parish in the time of Rev. S. Fox, who died in 1870, was that the screen, “rather handsome but decayed,” had stood in its place until within rather less than 50 or 60 years of the above date, i.e., until as late, perhaps, as 1820, when, not being thought well of by those in power at the time, it was taken down and “sold to a farmer in the village for a guinea or so to serve for a hen-roost or some such agricultural purpose.” However, according to another account, the rood-screen disappeared when the church was “repaired and beautified” in or about the year 1800.

Mugginton.—In addition to the parclose before-mentioned, “a good oak screen of Perpendicular tracery,” it is written in Cox’s Churches of Derbyshire, in 1877, “in fair preservation, with a door in the centre, divides the” south “aisle from the chapel. Originally this screen has been continued across the nave, so as to divide it from the chancel. Part of the base of this screen can still be seen in the supports of the pews; and a band of well-carved foliage round the pulpit has probably[274] formed part of the cornice.” It is believed that this screen was broken up at the time of the ruthless “renovation,” circa 1845.

Norbury.—The rood-screen had been fine, but was much mutilated in 1840, according to Sir Stephen Glynne. This screen has since been cheaply and very badly “restored.” It was originally vaulted, but is now made up in a new framework of rectagonal form. The original portions consist of the misused fenestration tracery. These number eight complete, and, over the doorway, two incomplete pierced ornaments, 29 inches deep, and averaging 19 inches wide. Upon some of them are traces of scarlet colour. They are of Perpendicular workmanship, and are all plain and smooth at the back. On the east side of the bottom part of the screen are eight of the original panel-heads of blind tracery, 14¼ inches wide by 10½ inches deep. There is no sign of the rood-stair. There being no chancel arch, there must have been ample space for the display of the rood on a beam across the chancel opening above the rood-loft, which would have extended across the width of the nave, 19 ft. 6 in. The eastern part of the chancel is panelled with oak, which might have come from the former rood-loft. Along the top of this wainscot runs what looks like a breast-summer, consisting of mouldings and a pierced band of vine ornament, to the length altogether of somewhat over 25 feet. The eastern end of the north aisle was formerly screened by a carved oak parclose, which, however, disappeared in 1841.

Ockbrook.—The screen having been brought hither from Wigston Hospital, Leicester, is not to be reckoned among the screens of Derbyshire.

Osmaston, a chapelry of Brailsford.—In 1834 it was noted that a small, plain screen of wood stood between nave and chancel. The entire fabric, however, was swept away in 1844–5, and rebuilt from the ground.

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Radbourne.—A parclose, dating from the fifteenth century, if not earlier, formerly screened in the eastern portion of the north aisle.

Repton.—In the parish church, “traces of the stairway to the rood-loft across the chancel arch can still” (it was written in 1876) “be seen in the north-east angle of the south aisle, and it is probable that it was ... removed” in 1792, when the whole church underwent the ordeal of “beautifying” in accordance with the degraded taste of the period. It is, however, only just to the “restorers” of that date to mention that they did abolish the cumbrous blank walls which they found obstructing the openings between the aisles and the corresponding eastern chapels—walls that had, at some previous era of barbarism, been erected, there can be little doubt, in place of the original carved wood parcloses. It is on record that remains of ecclesiastical screenwork, with armorial devices, had become dispersed about the place, and, falling into private hands, were worked up into panelling for a dining-room, the wainscot of a summer-house, and other such-like profane uses.

Sandiacre.—“Up to 1855” (the quotation is from Cox’s Churches of Derbyshire), “there were some parts of the old rood-screen still remaining across the chancel arch of Decorated date. Some of this tracery has been used up in the reading-desk, and the pulpit has been made to correspond.” The length of the vanished rood-loft cannot have exceeded the width of the nave, namely, 22 ft. 9 in.

Sawley.—The oak rood-screen extends from side to side of the chancel, 18 ft. 5 in. Its height is 9 ft. 7 in. The heavy lintel is embattled and moulded. The doorway is a plain, rectagonal opening of 3 ft. 5½ in. wide, and without gates. On either side of it are five rectagonal compartments or lights, separated by muntins, and opening 51½ inches high, centred from 1 ft. 3 in. to 1 ft. 5½ in., with early Perpendicular tracery in the heads to the[276] depth of 11 inches, smooth on the eastward surface. The solid part at the bottom consists of a deep, moulded rail and, below, rectagonal panelling without tracery. The westward face of each of the doorway jambs is buttressed, the buttress having a square base. The joinery as a whole is so very coarse and rude as to suggest the product of a rural workshop. The eastern portion of each aisle was formerly screened from the rest of the church by parcloses, which stood intact until 1838. The base of that section of the southern parclose which ran from east to west between the aisle and the nave, was removed on the plea of expediency not long ago by the present rector, who broke it up and caused the soundest parts of it to be turned into music desks for the choir boys in the chancel. The only portions, therefore, that now remain are the lower halves of the western section of either parclose running from north to south. That in the north aisle (which enclosed the chantry of Our Lady) extends over a length of 16 ft. 1½ in., with an interval of 2 ft. 8½ in. for the entrance. It consists of five compartments, and stands 4 ft. 3½ in. high, the buttressed muntins sawn off to the level of the fenestration cill. Below the rail is a horizontal panel of pierced tracery, 7 inches deep; and, below, panels with blind tracery in the heads to the depth of 7½ inches. What is left of the parclose in the south aisle extends over a length of 12 ft. 11 in., with an interval of 2 ft. 7¼ in. for the entrance. It consists of eight rectagonal compartments, and stands 4 ft. 3 in. high, the buttressed muntins being likewise cut off to the level of the cill. Both these parcloses are Perpendicular, and exhibit a much more refined standard of execution than does the rood-screen.

Smalley.—The mediæval church was destroyed in 1722, but in 1855, on the removal of the gallery in the modern building, there was discovered an ancient beam “enriched with deep, hollow chamfers,” in which pateras[277] of Gothic leafage and other ornaments “were carved at intervals of about eighteen inches.” It was apparently of about the date 1460. This may have been only an unusually elaborate roof-principal; but, on the other hand, it might have been the old rood-beam or one of the timbers from the rood-loft or screen.

Spondon.—The rood-loft must have been of the same extent as the nave’s width, 23 ft. 2 in. A disastrous “beautifying” process in 1826–7, besides other irreparable damage, bodily removed the fifteenth century oak rood-screen which stood across the chancel arch opening of 15 ft. 2½ in. At the same time the steps of the rood-stair were cut away to make room for the flue-pipe of a stove. The entrance remains in the south-east corner of the north aisle. The doorway is 2 feet wide, and measures 6 ft. 10 in. in height to the apex of the depressed ogee of the door-head.

Staveley.—In 1710, Francis Bassano noted at the east end of the nave, above a family pew, “a large molding, being (the) upper beam of ye rood-loft, and on (the) wood is cut ye paternal coat armour of Frecheville (azure, a bend between six escallops, argent) held by an angel on his breast.” Further details are contained in a letter, dated October, 1816, which states that “the rood-loft at Staveley, which remained pretty entire since the Reformation, was taken down about twenty-five years ago”—which would have been circa 1790—“to let more light into the church.”

Sudbury.—Two fragments of carving, from the former rood-screen, were described in 1877 as having then been recently affixed to the church chest.

Tideswell.—In 1845, Sir Stephen Glynne noted that “between the nave and chancel is a good wood screen of Perpendicular character.” It was “repaired” in 1882–3, the chisellings in the responds of the chancel arch furnishing the outline of the original form of the vanished upper portion. The lower part has been declared to be[278] almost as ancient as the church itself; but for the rest, it has been so much altered and renovated that it is doubtful whether the gates or any considerable portion of the upper half of the screen as now existing is really authentic. The slender build of the screen has led to the supposition that it cannot have been designed at the outset to carry a rood-loft. That such, however, was added subsequently is clear from the existence of the rood-stair, which, though since removed, was standing in 1824. Its site was the western side of the north corner of the chancel arch. It must have been a structure unusually conspicuous compared with others built for the same purpose. It was of stone, and occupied a space six feet square. The entrance was from the south, and gave access to a small newel staircase, the doorway measuring about 4 ft. 2 in. in height by 22 inches in width. Some remains of it, lying in the vicarage garden, were identified by the late Rev. Prebendary Andrew, and described by him in the fifth volume of the Journal of the Derbyshire Archæological Society (published in 1883). What the ancient rood-loft was like is not recorded. In the year 1724 a faculty was obtained by one Samuel Eccles to take down an old loft (whether the mediæval rood-loft or not it is impossible to tell) then existing over the chancel, and to transfer it to the tower for the use and advantage of the singers; and at the same time to erect a loft for his own use over the entry into the chancel. The transported loft is believed to have occupied its western position until about 1820, when it was removed altogether, a new gallery being erected in its room. Beside the rood-screen itself, wooden parcloses must have divided the chantry chapels in the transepts from the nave and from the rest of the church. At any rate a quantity of pieces of ancient wood-carving were to be seen loose about the church in 1824, and “cart loads” of them are said to have been removed in 1825 on the occasion of the re-pewing of the building. A subsequent[279] vicar, Rev. Prebendary Andrew (1864–1900), set to work to restore as much as he could. Some pieces of woodwork he rescued from various misuses within the church, others from private possession in the parish. A length of carving that had been cut in two and turned into bookstands, as well as two fragments of screenwork, open tracery of great delicacy and beauty, he set up in the Lady Chapel; while a third piece of tracery-work he placed in the middle compartment of the communion table. “The parclose of the De Bower chapel has recently”—it was written in 1877—“been restored in exactly the same position that it previously occupied.”

Weston-on-Trent.—Rev. Dr. Cox in 1879 remarked on “the north aisle being screened off by a parclose from the rest of the church.” The length of the ancient rood-loft must have been the same as the width of the nave, 18 ft. 5 in.

Wilne.—The rood-screen which occupies the chancel arch is of simple Perpendicular workmanship. It is 18 ft. 4 in. long by 7 ft. 9 in. high. There are ten bays, five on either side, arched. The lintel is plain, without any kind of ornamentation applied, and there are no gates. A small stone staircase, now walled up, to southwards of the chancel arch, commemorates the entrance into the ancient rood-loft.

Youlgreave.—The churchwardens’ accounts, though not dating back earlier than the beginning of the sixteenth century, contain some interesting particulars about the rood-screen. In 1604, “the chancel gates were boarded over,” and later in the same year occurs an item “for making the partition betwixt the church and the chancell.” In 1661, a small sum was paid “for 3 hinges for ye chancell gates,” which is evidence that the rood-screen, howsoever sadly disfigured, with its doors, was yet in existence at the above date. “There is now”—it was written in 1877—“no screen across the chancel arch, though it is in contemplation to replace one, modelled[280] on the mutilated remains of the lower part of the old one, of Perpendicular design, which were removed at the time of the ‘restoration’ (of 1869–73, by Mr. R. Norman Shaw), but have been carefully preserved.” At about the end of the eighteenth century, the fine old parclose erected round the eastern part of the south aisle was removed.

Finally, I desire, as in duty bound, to acknowledge my obligations to the Rev. Dr. Cox, whose monumental work on The Churches of Derbyshire has been of inestimable service to me; to various writers, from whom I have borrowed, in The Reliquary and in the Journal of the Derbyshire Archæological Society; to Rev. W. W. M. Kennedy for important particulars concerning diocesan visitations; to Arthur Cox, Esq., of Spondon Hall, for valuable introductions; and, lastly, to all those clergy who have kindly allowed me to take photographs and measurements in the churches committed to their charge.

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PLANS OF THE PEAK FOREST

By Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A.

Derbyshire is fortunate in possessing a considerable number of plans of the great tract of the Forest of the Peak, one of which is of late Elizabethan date, and most of the remainder of the days of Charles I. They are in safe custody in that great national storehouse in Chancery Lane termed the Public Record Office. So far as we are aware, they have never hitherto attracted the attention of any students of Derbyshire history, or of any topographical writers. At all events, nothing has hitherto been printed about them, although in many ways they are of superlative interest.

George, Earl of Shrewsbury, the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, so celebrated in history as the custodian of Mary Queen of Scots, was taken again into the favour of Queen Elizabeth in his old age in 1587; he died in 1590. Some time between these two dates the Earl was permitted to purchase a portion of the Longdendale district of the Peak Forest, which was formally disafforested for the purpose. In connection with this purchase, a large quaint map of the whole of the three great divisions of the forest was prepared, on which are marked large parallelograms, painted vermilion, where there were pasturage rights. On the Ashop and Edale section of the forest four contiguous large patches of vermilion[282] are shown; these are lettered “quenes farmes in Ashop and Edall.” Immediately to the west of these is another large parallelogram, divided into five by parallel lines, and by the side of this is “Edall the Quenes ma^tes Farmes are devided into Fyve vacaries.” To the north of these pasturage grounds there are large uncoloured spaces marked “Greate Waste,” and the same term is repeated on a smaller patch to the south-east.

The section on the north-west of this plan, termed Longdendale, has “Greate Waste” marked in various places over by far the greater portion of the area. There is, however, a small vermilion parallelogram between the towns of Glossop and Hayfield, the herbage of which pertained to the Earl of Shrewsbury. A larger space in this section of the forest is marked “The Herbage of Chynley, otherwise called Maidstonfeld. Godfrey Bradshawe and others farm’s thereof.”

The third or southern section of the forest, called the Champion or Champayne, has fully half of its area coloured red in somewhat irregular patches. The largest space in the centre is lettered “The Severalles of the Champyon,” and within this is a smaller area termed “The Inner Severalles.” Attached to the larger space at different angles are other areas marked “Halsted Harbage,” “Grene,” “Ferfeld Harbage,” “Tyddeswall Harbage,” and “The Herbage of Boughtedge, Tenauntes and Fermers thereof, viz.: Thomas Lee, Henry Bagshawe, and George Thornehill.” There are also two nearly adjacent small patches of which the names are not clear.

It thus becomes evident that it was only the townships or hamlets of the Champayne division of the forest which had any claim to general pasturage rights.

The highly interesting feature of this late Elizabethan plan is the series of little outline pictures illustrative of the buildings of the chief places within the forest district. Each of these is here given in exact outline after the original, except that there is a dash of colour on the roofs[283] of all the buildings, which throws them into better relief. Interesting as these are from an art point of view, they have to be accepted with some caution as accurate in a topographical sense. It is not, for instance, possible to imagine but that the sketch of the Peak Castle was somewhat imaginary; nor can the sketches of some of the churches be made to fit with the extant fabrics. It should also be remarked that this plan is a good deal blemished in places by having been roughly divided into three parts, with the result that several fragments are now missing, and the sketches of Castleton and Hayfield are somewhat mutilated.[77]

No. 1.

The view of Glossop may certainly be taken to prove that the old town had its houses arranged in irregular blocks round the large church as a centre (1). The parish church of Glossop was completely rebuilt between 1831 and 1853; it is not, therefore, possible to say how far the outline in the map is accurate. It is, however, fair to[284] assume, with regard to the churches as well as the houses, that the artist made some effort to represent the reality, or otherwise the series of little pictures would hardly have had so great a variety.

With regard to Hayfield church, the like difficulty arises, for the old building was demolished in 1836; and here again it is difficult to believe that the delineator drew this form of a church out of his own imagination (2). In this case a portion of the hamlet on the left-hand side has been torn off.

No. 2.

The third pictured town in this division is Mellor, and in this instance, too, the church was entirely rebuilt at the beginning of last century, save for the western tower (3). A proof is here afforded of some measure of accuracy, for in this case the western tower is represented in its right place, and not as rising from the centre of the building, as shown in the cases of Glossop and[285] Hayfield. There are, also, traces at the top of Mellor tower of its having formerly supported a small spire, as is here shown.

No. 3.

In the second division of the forest, viz., that of Ashop and Edale, there are two of these township pictures, viz., Castleton and Hope. Castleton is, unfortunately, mutilated; the parts to the left hand of the castle are missing. As to Peak Castle, it is fairly obvious that some effort, however poor, has been made to reproduce the actual buildings (4). The old Norman keep of the time of Henry II. is evidently intended to be shown in the centre of the background. The fore-part shows the later substantial enclosing of the inner bailey, probably of Edwardian date, most of which has long ago disappeared. Perhaps the most interesting detail of this, the oldest picture of the celebrated fortress, is the building within the bailey which is surmounted by a cross, and is, therefore, clearly a detached chapel. There are two or three entries in the record history of the Peak Castle which have not yet been made public, which refer to this chapel as in use in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As to the church in the town below, it is difficult to offer any conjecture[286] as to how the drawing can coincide with the present remains of the ancient church. The draftsman seems to have had very exaggerated ideas as to the size of the south porch.

With regard to the picture of Hope, little more can be said than that here again it is very difficult to fit in this outline drawing with the fabric of the church as it now exists, except that the western tower still bears a low broached spire (5).

No. 4.

The third, or Champayne, division of the forest has pictures of four towns, viz., those of Chapel-en-le-Frith, Fairfield, Wormhill, and Tideswell.

The various buildings that are grouped round the large church of Chapel-en-le-Frith are sufficient to show that this old market town was a place of some importance (6). In this case the church was rebuilt throughout in the early part of last century, and there is very little of historical record or other remains to tell us anything as to its original proportions. There is, however, one gruesome record which apparently shows that its size was considerably greater than that of its successor; for in 1648 fifteen[287] hundred prisoners of the Scottish army defeated at Preston were confined within its walls when being marched to London. They were kept in the church for over a fortnight, and it is not surprising to learn that upwards of fifty died within its walls. The outline drawing seems to suggest that the church was of cruciform shape, with a tower and spire in the centre. The only indication of a window is the large circular one of the south transept over the porch; it is exceedingly unlikely that the draftsman produced such a window as this from his own imagination.

No. 5.

The destruction of the old churches in the Peak district was sadly extensive about a hundred years ago. Another of the victims of the then prevalent idea of running up a snug, cheap building, when the old fabric[288] had got into a state of dilapidation, was the church of Fairfield, near Buxton (7). It was rebuilt in the years 1838–9, and very little is known as to its original condition.

Wormhill, again, suffered after a like fashion, though at a later date (8). The present church was rebuilt in 1863–4.

Tideswell is, perhaps, the most puzzling of all these pictures. Those who know the singularly fine church of fourteenth century date, with large chancel, transepts, double-aisled nave, and western tower, will find it impossible to reconcile the outlined drawing with the church as it really exists (9).

No. 6.

We now come to the consideration of a considerably later series of maps, which are done roughly to scale, of various townships within the Peak forest. Derbyshire is exceptionally fortunate in having such a series of carefully-preserved early plans. A list of the records of the Duchy of Lancaster preserved at the Public Record Office was printed in 1901. One section of this list is headed, “Maps and Plans”; they consist principally of those made in the elucidation of the claims of parties in disputes pending in the Court of the Duchy Chamber. The three to which we have just referred are of the end of[289] Elizabeth’s reign, but otherwise they are almost entirely of various seventeenth century dates. There are 116 items calendared as maps and plans at the Public Record Office, of which Derbyshire has a large share, viz., 32, or more than a quarter of the whole number. The reason for the making of all these Derbyshire plans, save the three already mentioned, was the enclosing or disafforesting of the Peak.

No. 7.

During the reign of Charles I. many unhappy efforts were made to raise funds for the Crown by re-establishing the almost extinct forest courts. This was chiefly the work of Noy, the King’s Attorney-General, styled by Carlyle “that invincible heap of learned rubbish.” The revival of these courts, with all their costly and obsolete formalities, accompanied by the imposition of absurdly heavy fines, created bitter resentment wherever it was carried out, as in Surrey, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire, and was, beyond doubt, one of the causes that led to the Commonwealth trouble. In other parts of England where there were royal forests, after the reimposition of forest[290] law had been so strenuously resisted, another line of action was adopted. Attempts were made, occasionally with success, to secure money for the Crown by the enclosure of forests, the Crown claiming a half, or thereabouts, of the land, and selling them as soon as a title was gained. This action led to continuous disturbance in Duffield, in the south of Derbyshire, where the resistance made to enclosure by the commoners and tenants was eventually successful.

No. 8.

In the Peak, however, the destruction done to the crops by the small remnant of the once vast herds of red deer was so persistent that the commoners and others were only too ready to assent to any just scheme of disafforesting. In 1635, various of the landowners and commoners of the Peak petitioned the King, complaining of the severity, trouble, and rigour of the forest laws, and praying that the deer, which were still in sufficient[291] numbers to do no small damage to the crops within the forest and its purlieus, might be destroyed, and asking to be allowed to compound by enclosing and improving the same. Thereupon a commission of enquiry was issued, and two juries were empanelled, with surveyors to assist them. The first jury viewed the whole forest and its purlieus, and presented that the King might improve and enclose one moiety in consideration of his rights, and that the other moiety should be enclosed by the tenants, commoners and freeholders. The second jury was empanelled to specially consider the case of the towns within the purlieus, and they presented that the King, in view of the largeness of the commons belonging to the towns of Chelmorton, Flagg, Taddington, and Priestcliffe, might reasonably have for improvement and enclosure one-third, and the remaining two-thirds for the commoners and freeholders. A like division was to be adopted in several[292] parts within the forest. After some delay the commons were measured, and surveys made of the different townships, dividing the land into three sorts—best, middle, and worst, and the King’s share in each was staked, and maps showing the results were drafted. The surveys were not completed until 1640, and when all the preliminaries had been adjusted, the King caused all the deer to be destroyed or removed, and from that date onwards red deer were unknown within the High Peak. The extirpation of the deer was, however, almost immediately followed by the beginning of those “troublous times” which preceded the outbreak of the Civil War. The whole of the proceedings towards enclosure fell into abeyance. Soon after the restoration of the monarchy, much discussion arose as to the revival of these projects, but it was not until 1674 that the proposals for disafforesting the open or waste portions of the Peak Forest, and enclosing the portions that were capable of cultivation or good for pasture, were completed. The Commissioners appointed for this purpose were Sir John Gell, Sir John Cassy, and fifteen others, including such well-known Peak names as Bagshawe, Eyre, and Shallcross. The third portion assigned absolutely to the Crown was almost immediately granted by letters patent to Thomas Eyre, of Gray’s Inn, who speedily entered upon and enclosed the same, notwithstanding certain futile opposition in the duchy court.

No. 9.

It must have been a great assistance to the labours of these commissioners to find that the maps of the time of Charles I., showing the exact measurements and the three sorts of land, were still extant. These maps, though of rough execution, are of the highest interest.[78]

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No. 10.

There are small, rudely-drawn and occasionally coloured outlines of churches and houses on most of these maps. They are of a decidedly inferior character to those on the large Elizabethan survey, but they are still of some value. We give here two facsimiles of drawings of Mellor church, and one of Fairfield (10). Those of Mellor are sufficient to show that there was an aisled nave and a lower chancel in addition to the surviving western tower. The tower appears to have lost its low spire between the days of Elizabeth and Charles I. The drawing of Fairfield seems to give a certain rough idea of what the old church was like.

Occasionally the drawings on these plans, to denote the situation of the more important halls or manor houses, are sufficient to give a crude notion of the actual building. This is rather specially the case with the Ridge Hall;[294] it was a chief seat of the prolific Bagshawe family, on the higher slopes of the hills to the west of Chapel-en-le-Frith, which we know they occupied as early as the reign of Edward II. (11). This hall was rebuilt on a large gabled scale in the later Tudor or Elizabethan days. The two drawings here reproduced are from maps of the respective reigns of Charles I. and Charles II.; in the latter case the artist has made some endeavour to represent the trees by which the hall was surrounded.

No. 11.

The drawing of Bradshawe Hall, from a plan of 1640, is almost ludicrous from its lack of resemblance to the real building, but seems to be worth giving from its quaintness.

On one of the later maps the houses are drawn with more precision; but, unfortunately, the names are not[295] attached to some of the best examples (in Mellor township), of which we here give two reproductions (12). The very old set of lime-kilns at Dove Holes are most quaintly delineated on three of the surveys.

No. 12.

By far the most interesting feature of these maps, in the eyes at least of an antiquary, are the numerous instances in which crosses are marked. The remains of crosses and cross stumps on these Derbyshire moors have been casually noticed from time to time by cursory writers. In a paper contributed to the Reliquary many years ago, when under the editorship of Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, it was asserted with some confidence that these crosses marked out the three great divisions or wards of the Forest of Peak. This was a natural kind of guess to make, but investigation immediately proved that such a supposition was quite baseless. With the possible solitary exception of the cross on the old pack-horse track from the head of Edale into Hayfield, not one of these crosses has any possible connection with forest bounds. Nor are they, as has been conjectured by another writer, terminal stones of monastic lands, for we know with a fair amount of accuracy the directions in which such lands lay, and in no one case do these crosses correspond with such limits. It is also quite obvious that[296] for the most part these Peak crosses cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be described as mere wayside crosses, either to mark some special incident or tragedy, or to excite the Christian devotion of the wayfarer; and this for the simple reason that the majority of the crosses do not appear to have been on any frequented track of either the remote or nearer past. Nor is it possible to conceive, by those who have visited any number of them, that they could have been utilized for the purposes of guiding or general direction.

It is, of course, far easier to say what they were not, than to arrive at any true solution as to what was their general object or design. The solution that so far seems the most probable has already been elsewhere succinctly stated without awakening adverse criticism.[79] All those crosses that have been hitherto identified by myself and friends during three rambles with the old plans in our hands in three successive years, have been on important boundary lines. I believe almost the whole of them are pre-Norman, and I am at present strongly inclined to believe that they mark the setting out of ecclesiastical divisions or parishes, or parochial chapelries, soon after the reconversion of England had become an established fact, and when Christianity, under the ordering of Theodore and Wilfrid, was becoming definitely organised and ceasing to be mere scattered groups of missionary stations. There are reasons which are too long for statement here why such a planning out was probably accomplished in Derbyshire at an early date. It is obvious that if ecclesiastical bounds were to be marked out in a comparatively wild and treeless district, something artificial would be needed in far greater abundance than in ordinary districts, where large trees, river banks, ancient roads or lands pertaining to particular holders, could readily be named and utilized for boundary purposes.

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The supposition that these crosses are of a township or parish boundary character is much strengthened by the frequency of their occurrence in the exact places where there are proofs of fairly early cultivation, and where there were rather intricate intersections of such divisions.

Perhaps the most interesting of these seventeenth century plans is the one which includes a considerable area, and has at the head the following descriptive title, written in a straggling hand and signed by the two surveyors:—

On another part of the map is written:

The part of this map descriptive of the wastes and commons of Mellor, which contained 356 acres, and which it was proposed to divide equally between the King and the tenants, is marked with several crosses. At the extreme north of the tenants’ portion is a curiously designed landmark, here termed “Arnfeelde Poule” (13). This outline drawing has the appearance of a pole or slender shaft affixed to the top of a somewhat elaborate cross base. In other maps the same boundary is outlined after different fashions, two of which are here reproduced. From one of these, having a cross on the summit, it may be concluded that it originally had that form. The name Arnfield or Armfield is not now in any way known in the district, but one of the six roads or lanes which meet at this point is still called Pole Lane. There is no doubt that it took its name from one Robert Armfield, whose house and land are figured on another survey. The[298] place is now known as Jordanwall Nook, and Jordan was the name of another tenant in adjoining lands. This pole or cross is described in a survey of 1695 as parting the hamlets of Whittle, Thornsett, and Mellor. At this spot, at the junction of two of the roads, there is a large piece of boulder stone, that has been roughly hewn, measuring 37 in. by 25 in., and over the stone wall is another considerable fragment. These are probably the remains of the base of Armfield pole or cross when it was broken up. Other crosses marked on the Mellor section of the 1640 map are respectively designated “the Birgwerd Crosse,” “the Mislne Crosse,” and “the Stafforde Crosse,” all of them on boundaries.

No. 13.

No. 14.

The extreme north-west angle of the Mellor division has an outline drawing, here reproduced, lettered “The two standing stones,” which are elsewhere called “the Maiden Stones” (14). This pair of stones, still to be seen, stand at an important boundary point, about 1,200 feet high, where the townships of Ludworth, Chisworth, Mellor, and Rowarth meet. At the angle of Ludworth Moor,[299] where these remarkable stones are to be found, there is no road near, but merely an almost disused track. For more than a century at least these stones have been known by the name of “Robin Hood Picking Rods”; but such a name was obviously unknown in the seventeenth century, as it occurs in none of these old surveys. The title “Maidenstones” is one of peculiar interest to any antiquary who has given attention to early earthworks, but it is too intricate a subject to be here discussed. On a 1695 survey, a boundary mark called “The Whyte Maiden” is marked a short distance from the Standing Stones. These two circular pillar stones stand in round socket holes, 12 in. apart, in a great stone about 80 in. long by 49 in. broad. The taller of the two stands 45 in. above the base, and has a girth at the bottom of 59½ in.; the shorter one stands only 30 in. high, but has a girth of 67 in. They have been pulled out of their sockets more than once in the past century, and are both mutilated. Part of the top of the shorter one (27 in. long) is built into an adjacent wall (15). Judging from the analogy of the two Bow Stones, five miles off to the north just across the Cheshire border, they originally had filleted heads of Saxon workmanship. They may be compared with a small filleted Saxon pillar in the porch of Bakewell Church, and another taller one at Clulow, and more especially with the Saxon shaft in the grounds of a private house at Fernilee which now supports a sundial.

No. 15.

Various more or less wild theories have been enunciated with regard to closely adjacent twin pillar stones of this character, of which several examples survive; they have sometimes been pronounced to be of Roman origin, whilst others have claimed them as pertaining to Phœnician art and of Phallic design. It must here suffice to ask our readers, who may not have given particular attention to the subject, to believe that they are beyond doubt of Saxon construction and date. When the sites of all such twin-stones have been carefully investigated, it will[301] probably be established that they have some particular connection with intricate boundaries, and possibly with the junction of two separate ecclesiastical jurisdictions.

There are two other sites in the Peak district marked on these early plans where a pair of stones, each surmounted by a cross, is figured, neither of which have yet been identified. One of these is also on the northern edge of the Mellor Commons, the Birgwurd cross, the outline of which is here given.

Following the track from these Standing Stones due east for exactly a mile, at the precise spot where the old track crosses the boundary between Rowarth and Charlesworth townships, is the large fragment of the base of an old cross which has at a later date been used as a direction stone. Pursuing the same boundary line for half a mile further in a south-easterly direction, the stone long known as the Abbot’s Chair, and thus marked on the ordnance maps, is reached. Though a wrong and fanciful name, it has been thus described for more than two and a half centuries. On the 1640 survey it is styled “Abots Chere” (16). This stone measures 37 in. by 24 in., and stands 24 in. high; it is hollowed out to a width of about 17 in., with three of the sides raised 5 in., so as to form a kind of rough chair with a low back and sides. Closer examination shows that the hollow is really an old socket, presumably for a large cross, one side of which has been split off by the action of frost or human violence. The road that passes near it from the north to Hayfield is called Monks Road. It was in this division (Longdendale) of the Peak Forest that the Abbot of Basingwork had considerable rights and a large grange, and possibly this stone may have been thus mutilated and obtained its present name in pre-Reformation days. It is significant that the “chair” stands on the exact spot where the boundary is suddenly deflected at a right angle; and at a distance of 200 feet from the chair-stone, on the other side of the Monks[303] Road, on the spot where the boundary resumes a south-easterly direction, is the perfect stump of another cross. This is a well-cut base, and obviously mediæval or after the Norman Conquest

No. 16.

On the high ground in Cheshire, very near the Derbyshire boundary, is a stone that goes by the name of “Pym’s Chair.” This stone, like the “Abbot’s Chair,” Derbyshire, proved on examination to be the base of a large early cross; one of the sides of the squared socket having been broken away, gives it the appearance of a low, rude chair. It bears the initials P C in large capitals, which were probably cut in the seventeenth century when some survey was made. An obvious idea, locally accepted, makes the initials stand for Pym’s Chair. The name Pym is fairly common both in Cheshire and Derbyshire. It is curious to note that a few miles off in the latter county, a little beyond Edale Head Cross, another “Pym’s Chair” is marked on the ordnance map in a desolate piece of moorland not yet investigated.

The Edale Head Cross is the best known of those in the Peak district, for it stands by the old British trackway or pass from Hayfield over Kinder into the Edale Valley. It stands at the highest point (1,750 feet) of this once much used pack-horse route. This cross, which now stands fifty-seven inches out of the ground, has now no base, and seems to have been moved more than once. The head is a Latin cross, and incised within it, on the side towards the track, are lines forming another cross, and within this, “I G 1610.” This refers to a survey of parts of the Peak Forest begun in 1610, but never completed; John Gell was one of the commissioners. This particular cross, which is of far older date than the time of James I., can claim to be a forest as well as a parochial boundary, for near this spot the three forest wards of Longdendale, of Ashop and Edale, and of the Campana or Champion, met. This cross is still sometimes known as the Champion Cross, and those who have[304] not known that Champion was only an old variant for the Champagne or open grazing district of the Peak, have been silly enough to invent would-be knightly legends and ballads in comparatively modern days to account for the title.

Lack of space altogether prohibits any complete following up of the considerable number of crosses on these seventeenth century plans, the sites of which have been already investigated. It is hoped that in the course of a few years it may be possible to produce an archæological map of the whole district, upon which the remains of crosses may be exactly defined, and then will be the time for coming to more mature conclusions as to their general object and date. Two others, however, may be now named. At a point on the verge of Abney Moor, 1,200 feet above the sea level, about a mile to the south-east of Bradwell, where the townships of Abney, Hazelbadge, and Bradwell converge, the maps mark a cross styled Robin’s or Robin Hood’s Cross. After some search we found the early rough base stone, showing half of a squared socket, protruding from the bottom of a well-built stone wall, close to a stile leading into an old roadway.

“The Martine Syde Crosse” appears on more than one of the old plans, not far from a large farmstead or hall still known as Martin Side, at an elevation of 1,100 feet above the valley of Chapel-en-le-Frith (17). About a quarter of a mile beyond the hall on the roadside towards Dove Holes, we noted the stump of a cross. The height of this stump or squared base was 20 in., and it measured at the top 28 in. by 26½ in. In the centre was an empty shaft socket 11 in. by 9 in., and 8 in. deep. From the rough character of this base stone, and from the shape of the socket, it may fairly be assumed that it is of pre-Norman date. A small channel cut from the edge of the socket to an angle of the base stone seemed to be original, and may possibly have served as a pointer to the next boundary stone.

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No. 17.

One other point remains to be noted in these somewhat desultory remarks on the old surveys. In several places occur lines marked “Forest Wall.” This was the stone wall of a very considerable circuit that enclosed most of the Campana or Champagne district of the Peak Forest, where the feeding for the King’s game of deer was the best. It was not a high park wall to keep the deer in, but a comparatively low one, with a dyke. Its object was to prevent sheep or cattle that might be agisted within the forest from trespassing on the parts particularly serviceable as pasturing ground for the often hardly tried deer; but it had to be low enough to allow hinds and fawns, as well as harts, readily to leap it when desirous of roaming further afield. It is quite possible to trace in certain places the building of this unmortared forest wall, which is constructed in a decidedly superior fashion to other and later wall fences. One of the best places in which to note it is on the lofty ridge that[306] separates Edale from Castleton dale. In the midst of this there is a pass and gateway in the forest wall, called Ludgate in the old plans.

In June, 1561, Queen Elizabeth issued a commission of enquiry as to the condition of Peak Castle and Forest. The commissioners were instructed, among other matters:

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OLD COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

By Sir George Reresby Sitwell, Bart., F.S.A.

The charm of country life, as we know it in England, lies almost as much in old associations as in scenery and sport. An ancient hall without its records is a body without a soul, and can never be fully enjoyed until one has learnt something of the men and women whom it has sheltered in the past—of their lives and manners, their love affairs, their wisdom, and their follies; how the oak furniture gave way to walnut, and the walnut to mahogany; how they laid out the gardens, raised the terrace, clipped the hedges, and planted the avenue. Such reflections have committed me to a task which has proved heavier than I desired or anticipated. Indeed, I should never have persevered with it had I not early come under the influence which an old house so often exercises upon those who live under its roof; sometimes for evil, as when a family inheritance of ill-health depends upon faulty drainage or a waterlogged soil; sometimes as a spur to ambition, an incentive to effort, or a liberal education in art.

My father died when I was two years old, and at the time I first went to school we used to spend but a few months in the summer at our old home at Renishaw, in Derbyshire. The building is of great size, giving an impression of past wealth and power, the “olde richesse” which Chaucer tells us is the foundation of “genterye,” and the Jacobean[308] plaster work and stone-tiled roof bear witness to its antiquity. Most that was interesting within its walls had been swept away in 1849, when the failure of the Sheffield Bank completed the wreck of my grandfather’s affairs. The library, a gradual growth of three hundred years, and the collection of Civil War pamphlets, had been scattered abroad, and little of the original furniture remained except the tapestries, pictures and china, and a few old cabinets of tortoiseshell, rosewood, or ebony. Of family history, absolutely nothing had come down to us but the tradition that our ancestors had lived there since the reign of Elizabeth, and a story concerning a portrait of the “Boy in red” (his name was forgotten), who had died by drowning, and whose ghost was supposed to haunt the house. Yet there was enough left to excite interest and to provoke enquiry. I remember finding, on one of my holiday visits, amongst the old books in the hall, a Greek grammar of the days when Shakespeare was at school, and in it my own name, written by an earlier George Sitwell just three hundred years before. The lumber room, with its Georgian panelling and arched window looking out upon the staircase, had always excited my curiosity, and being allowed to poke about in it on rainy days, I came upon many strange and dusty relics of the past, the flotsam and jetsam which had stranded there during several generations—old portraits and brocaded dresses, portfolios of eighteenth century prints, the wreck of a machine for perpetual motion upon which somebody was said to have wasted twenty years of his life, a collection of minerals (two compartments were labelled “Rubies” and “Emeralds,” but the specimens were not so large as one could have wished), flint lock guns, rapiers and swords, and a spring gun which must have been a real terror to poachers, writing desks with letters and little treasures still stowed away in them, and, most precious of all, a few old chests, heaped up with manuscripts, parchments, and books. Within these, in the[309] utmost confusion, lay rentals, subsidy rolls, estate accounts, and household books of the seventeenth century; bundles of old letters which had turned yellow with age or were fast falling into dust, inventories of furniture and linen, quaint little almanacs, bound in brown or red leather, and fastened with silken strings or clasps of brass; tradesmen’s bills of Queen Anne’s reign, with printed headlines or little engravings of shop signs and articles of merchandise; wills of all dates, from the fifteenth century onwards; and charters, many with fine seals attached to them, of six or seven hundred years ago, and preserved in little round or oblong boxes of thin oak, to which the original covering of black leather still clung in shreds and tatters.

Curiosity, and the rather wild hope of hitting upon autographs of Cromwell or Shakespeare, led me to examine these documents, and by the end of my second year at Eton I had unconsciously learnt to read them. After that time, my holidays were spent away from Renishaw, but before I went to Oxford I had occasional opportunities of following up the search amongst the numerous boxes of old manuscripts in the muniment room and elsewhere in the house, and thought myself rewarded by finding at one time impressions of the great seals of Elizabeth and James, an original grant of arms, or a letter-book of Charles the Second’s time; at another, King Richard’s charter to the Guild of Eckington, a “protection” from General Lord Fairfax, a household book begun in the year of the great plague, and a packet, sealed up two hundred years ago and never opened since, which proved to contain papers relating to fines, decimation, and sequestration under the Commonwealth. Still more interesting were the old letters written by various members of the family, and these I put carefully on one side, having already formed the idea of publishing a selection from them. In 1880, the year before I came of age, I commenced to write them out for the press in my leisure[310] hours, and nine years later the work of printing my first volume was begun.

Amongst the many thousands of letters and papers at Renishaw, it was not my good fortune to discover any of real historical importance. This collection is not, of course, to be named in the same breath with the Paston letters, nor can it be compared, either in bulk or in interest, with the Rutland, the Talbot, or the Verney manuscripts. Yet even the correspondence of an undistinguished family may illustrate the history of earlier times. The letter of 1661 upon the causes of the Civil War, the account of the Whitehall plot to assassinate Oliver Cromwell, the printed summonses to appear before the Commonwealth Commissioners at York and Westminster, the series of Civil War fines, the Restoration letter-book, and the papers relating to Titus Oates and Sacheverell, supply some new facts, and are not without value. The order for the disbandment of the Derbyshire regiments in 1646, the bargain for supplying the sheriff’s table in 1652, the letter to the London Post Office authorities in 1664, the amusing description of a journey to Nottingham in a stage coach, the agreements between the gentlemen of Derbyshire in 1690 and 1736, the certified extract from the Hatfield Court Roll of 1337, and the account of a riot at Sheffield in 1756, have at least a local interest. One is glad to know what the country gentlemen of the time thought of the hypocrisy of Cromwell and the indolence of Charles the Second, of the Great Rebellion, the “Sickness,” the Popish Plot, the Revolution, the South Sea Bubble, and the invasions of 1715 and 1745; but, as would naturally be expected from a family correspondence extending over three hundred years, these letters are valuable rather as illustrating social life than as records of public events. Concerning housekeeping, education, methods of travelling, visits to London, and changes of fashion and manners, they have much to tell us; of battles and sieges, the fall of ministries, the prosaic virtues of[311] the Georges, and the innate depravity of the Pretender, not too much.

Macaulay, in his famous third chapter, writes of the “gross, uneducated, untravelled country gentleman” of Charles the Second’s reign; a “man with the deportment, the vocabulary, and the accent of a carter”; a man whose “ignorance and uncouthness, whose low tastes and gross phrases would, in our time, be considered as indicating a nature and a breeding thoroughly plebeian.” It is not easy to reconcile this description with the accounts given by contemporary observers. The portrait certainly does not err on the side of flattery, and those who are familiar with the printed literature and unpublished records of that age will ask themselves with amazement whether it can be a likeness. Macaulay asserts that the country squire of that period never visited London and never opened a book. Contemporary writers tell us that the latter was always riding post to London, and spending his substance there when he ought to have been occupied with the care of his estate, and that there were more private libraries in England than in any other country in Europe. Now it is possible, of course, that Macaulay knew more about the manners of that age than did the people who lived in it; but it is also possible that he wilfully and maliciously caricatured a class of men which he had political reasons for disliking. The “gross, uneducated, untravelled country gentleman” was usually a Tory.

Country Gentlemen on the London Road.

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It may readily be admitted that in the seventeenth century country gentlemen could understand the local dialect, for intercourse with their tenants and the servants and labourers in their employ would otherwise have been difficult or impossible, and that the accent of some Yorkshire squires might betray their origin as surely as that of some Irish gentlemen to-day. But life in the country is no proof of rusticity, and everyone who speaks with a brogue is not necessarily a carter. At the time of which Macaulay writes, civilization was not confined to London. York and Derby, to the inhabitants of those counties, were “town” in the same sense that London is to their descendants. London had not yet gathered to itself all the business, the fashion, and the culture of the nation, and country gentlemen still flocked in winter to cities which had once, perhaps, been the capitals of independent kingdoms, and were even now centres of society, of learning, and of government.

Neither in his virtues nor in his failings was the country gentleman of Charles the Second’s time such as Macaulay has portrayed him. His chief pleasure did not consist in drinking himself under the table with strong beer, for excess was the exception and not the rule with the class to which he belonged, and claret and sack, malago and rhenish, were the beverages he was accustomed to, both at his own house and at the taverns. His principal employment was not “handling pigs, and on market days making bargains over a tankard with drovers and hop merchants”; on the contrary, though a good judge of horses and oxen, bullocks and swine, he left the stocking of the home farm and the sale of produce to the steward who collected his rents. He was better educated in Greek, Latin, logic, philosophy, divinity, and law, than the country gentlemen of to-day, and more competent to manage his own affairs; his taste (at least in building, furniture, gardening, and dress) was more refined; he was keenly interested in public events, and willing to make sacrifices[313] for public objects; he took a kindly and helpful interest in his poorer neighbours; though proud of his position, was sensible enough to send his younger sons into trade; and though he could not “shoot flying,” had a proper feeling for sport. He was not free from the narrowness and want of charity, the aversion to change and to new ideas so often found in those who have made divinity and the classics the study of their lives, and religious bigotry was his besetting sin.

The letter-book of 1662–6 throws much light on the George Sitwell, of Renishaw, of that period. In appearance he was somewhat over the middle height, and, as became one already well advanced in middle age, rather neat and precise than fashionable in his dress. He wore a long periwig, scented with orange flower water, a slight moustache and tuft of hair upon his chin, a grey broad-brimmed beaver hat, large bands of white linen or cambric, a dark grey cloth coat of simple cut, unbuttoned at the waist, and with the wristbands turned back to show the soft linen cuffs underneath, a sword belt and sword, cavalier breeches open at the knee, riding tops of wrinkled buckskin, and square-toed shoes, with high heels, and tongues to protect the instep from the stirrup. On his arm he usually carried a horseman’s cloak.[80] His face, with its good forehead and eyes, strong and clear-cut nose, and well developed chin, gave an impression of force of character, tenacity of purpose, and good reasoning powers; and this impression was strengthened by his conversation, for even the most casual acquaintance could not fail to observe that he was a man who had been accustomed to think and act for himself, a man not only well educated, but gifted with a sound judgment and a marked talent for business.

He was an old cavalier who had garrisoned his house for the King, and had suffered fines and “decimation”[314] under the Commonwealth. In 1653 he had served as Sheriff, and had brought with him to Derby a chaplain after his own mind, who preached a dangerously clever Assize sermon on “Magistracie and Ministery, the State and the Church.” In a remarkable letter to Lord Frecheville, written in April, 1661, he expresses his opinion that the “late unhappy warr began about disputes in religion,” and was the work of “crafty, wicked men,” “proud, insolent, factious, seditious spirits,” who, finding it “best to fish in troubled waters,” had made “Godliness their gaine” and “religion the cloake to cover their intentions.” Such opinions were common enough at the Restoration, but it is startling to find at such a moment the expression of a belief that there had been faults on both sides, and that “flatterers of Soveraignty” were as much to blame as “flatterers of popularity.” “We have,” he adds, “a good, a gracious, and a prudent King, who, though he hath not had long, yet hath had grand experience of men, which makes him delight in and love those who are honest. He knows very well that those who were the greatest flatterers of his ffather of happy memory, divisers and promoters of monopolies and revivers of ould obsolete laws, therby to lay uncoth and strange burdens upon the people, proved his bitterest and worst enemies.” Justice between man and man the writer considered to be the “sinews of all Commonwealths,” and the laws of England the people’s “birthright” and their defence against “arbitrary power.” At the first outbreak of the Civil War he had signed two petitions inviting Charles to return from the North to meet his Parliament; and after the Restoration his chief desire in politics was to see “an Unity at home which will be a stronge Bullworke against our advarsaries.” But he was sorely troubled at the King’s neglect of business and the corruption of the public service.

Some account of his fortune and surroundings is a necessary prelude to a study of his manner of life. The[315] Renishaw estates[81] produced at this time about £800 a year, and from other sources—chiefly from the iron furnaces and forges[82] upon his property, for like many of the greater and lesser landowners of that district he was interested in the iron trade—Mr. Sitwell received an amount at least equal to his agricultural rents. In order that the meaning of these figures may be understood, it is necessary to explain that in the seventeenth century the nation was poorer, manners were simpler and more primitive, and the value of money was not the same. The purchasing power of money, as most intelligent schoolboys are aware, was then, according to the usual estimate, four times what it is at present.

The loyal Duke of Newcastle, who is said to have been the wealthiest subject in Great Britain at the outbreak of the Civil War, had a rental of only £22,000 a year. After the Restoration, the greatest estates in the kingdom hardly exceeded £20,000 a year, and in 1669 the average income of peers, taken one with another, was estimated at £3,000, of knights at £800, and of esquires at £400 a year. Mr. Sitwell, with a revenue of £1,600, was therefore possessed of a fortune above the common; he pleads guilty, in one of these letters, to having a “good estate,” and it is clear that in his own country he had the reputation of being a very wealthy man.

His house, “the capital messuage called Renishawe”—situated some six miles from Chesterfield, then[316] a walled town and the “fayrest in all the Peake Cuntrie”[83]—had been rebuilt out of the savings of his minority shortly before his marriage in 1627. It stood (and yet stands, for the old hall is the centre of the new) on the summit of a rocky hill projecting into the vale of Rother, which here narrows to two or three hundred yards, and commanding fine views towards the north and south. On the latter side, a richly cultivated country, cut up into innumerable inclosures by hedgerows, and scattered with forest trees, formed a pleasing contrast to the wild and rugged moorland by which Eckington was approached; and beyond it, to the south and south-east, rose that beautiful ridge upon which Barlborough, Bolsover Castle, and Hardwick stand. The turrets and battlements of these three famous houses, towering up on the hillside above the groves and woodland which surrounded them, were all visible from Renishaw; and to the south-west the country rolled on in successive ridges of meadow land and common towards the faint blue line which marked the edge of the Chesterfield moors in the far distance. From the north front of the house, Mosborough Hall could be seen across the green valley through which the Mosbecke flows to its union with the Rother; on the left, beyond the church and village, lay the ancient woods and picturesque manor park of Eckington in a deep cleft between the hills, and to the right the view down the vale extended for many miles into Yorkshire. East of the house, the promontory upon which Renishaw stands was bare of planting, being sheltered by the higher ground beyond the river, and by the woods of Park Hall and Barlborough, and on the west a plantation of oaks and ashes protected it from the prevailing winds which sweep down from the distant moors.

The river below the house was crossed by a highway, described in a letter of 1665 as a “great road from the[317] West parts of Yorkshire towards London.” Approaching from the London side a traveller would catch his first glimpse of Renishaw from the point where the manors of Barlborough and Eckington meet. The building was three-storied and of stone, with a four-gabled front facing the east, and, towards the south, a battlemented hall between two projecting wings, of which the nearer was furnished with a great bow window. It was surrounded with orchards and walled gardens, and behind it a plantation of ancient trees formed an impressive background. Below lay the cliffs and rocky slope known as Broxhill, then unplanted, but deep in fern and gorse; in the left foreground a line of willows marked the winding course of the river as it approached the bridge, and to the right the ancient mill and water meadows beyond were framed in by the wooded steep of Birley Hill. Proceeding along the causeway (built as a protection against floods) and across the bridge, the road turned sharply to the right and to the left again, and so mounting the hill passed within fifty yards of the house.

This road, with its wayside oaks and strips of green, was not, as might be imagined, a quiet country lane, but a highway full of life and colour and movement. Here, past the court gates, and in full view from the first-floor windows of the house, flowed by throughout the summer months a ceaseless stream of traffic. The smocked carriers cracked their whips as they passed with their covered waggons and long train of patient packhorses, or shouted to the women passengers crouching behind them in the straw. Postboys with budgets of letters cantered by, sounding their horns as they turned down to the village. Beggars in rags, with their little bundles carried upon staves across the shoulder, and wandering pipers and fiddlers, turned to look at the house; Scotch pedlars, with cheap linen cloth in their packs; and hawkers or chapmen with wallets full of little trifles—gloves of cordevant and sheep leather, tobacco boxes, ribbons and shoe-strings,[318] almanacs, horn-books, jocktalegs, and ballads on the Dutch war and the hearth tax. Gentlemen in long boots, riding suits and cloaks, and velvet caps, trotted past, followed by mounted servants; or honest yeomen in coarse cloth and worsted stockings, with their wives in homespun and steeple hats riding pillion behind them. The little processions of marketing and fairing folk came and went; brown barefooted mower-women at hay and corn harvest; labourers in their loose frocks tied in at the waist, patched breeches and hose, and tall hats with vast projecting brims; country women riding to market between baskets of farm produce, with chickens or ducks swinging from the saddlebow; labourers’ wives trudging it on foot with wicker trays of vegetables or fruit upon their heads; farmers’ wains drawn by huge oxen, older and bulkier than any which can be seen to-day; and, in autumn, droves of swine on their way to the woods. Often Lord Frecheville’s or Lord Deincourt’s chariot and four passed the gates, the coach of some neighbouring gentleman bright with heraldry and gilding, a train of charcoal waggons bringing fuel to the Staveley ironworks, or of others laden with long saws and brewers’ squares, cannon shot, fire-backs, or sugar-stoves; and more rarely a ponderous furnace-hearth drawn by twenty oxen, a company of militia in their buffcoats faced with crimson plush, a gentleman riding to the poll at Derby at the[319] head of his tenantry, or the cavalcade of some great nobleman journeying towards London with three coaches and an armed escort of thirty or forty attendants on horseback. It was an ever changing panorama of human life, an endless procession labouring towards an unknown goal, for in the seventeenth century the nation was to be studied rather on the roads than in the cities, and for commerce, for travel, and for news, the roads were all that the railways and telegraphs are to us, and more.

Arrival of a Guest at a Country House.

From the busy world outside one entered a little haven of peace and rest within the gates. The main entrance to Renishaw, which was immediately off the road, led by wooden doors between stone piers into a close court, the walls being planted round with fruit trees and the borders with flowers, and so by a broad paved walk between two grass plats to the steps of the porch. The building itself was of the usual Jacobean type, with mullioned windows protected by string-courses, gables and cupola tiled with stone, and battlemented roof over the hall. In plan, it was a double E, the central member being given by the porch on the north and by the great hall chimney to the south; on the former side the projecting wings contained a buttery (to the east) and a kitchen, on the latter a great and little parlour. Entering the porch, a second door led into a hall of moderate size (twenty feet by twenty-four), handsomely paved with grey and yellow stone, and ceiled with heavy cross beams covered with plaster. Upon the oak panelling, stags’ heads, escutcheons of arms, and maps of Europe and of Jerusalem were hung, and the centre of the room was occupied by the long table at which the family dined. On the opposite wall, between two windows corresponding to those on either side of the porch, was a great fireplace of stone, framed in by a mantel of carved oak. There was an oak cupboard by the kitchen door, and here also hung a buffcoat and some pistol-holsters. In the window lay the family Bible.

[320]

A Ball at an Assembly Room.

On the left hand two doors opened out of the hall, the first into a paved and arched entry which led past the buttery hatch (on the left) to the garden entrance; and the second to the “Great Staircase,” finely wainscotted and carved, and lighted by windows to the east. At the foot of the stairs was the door into the great parlour, about thirty-four feet long by twenty broad, by far the finest room in the house. A large bow window at the further end, and three windows to the east, looked out upon the flower garden. The ceiling of graceful renaissance plaster work, light and in low relief, was designed with large quatrefoils and diamonds, the points of the latter running out into branches of quince, oak, or vine, or large fleur-de-lis of varying patterns. In the centres of the spaces between were moulded ornaments of mermaids, dolphins, squirrels, roses, octofoils, and winged and coronetted lions’ heads. On the walls, immediately below the ceiling, was a frieze, also in plaster, which exhibited a running pattern of vine leaves, grapes, and birds, stopped at intervals by strapwork escutcheons, with renaissance masks and heraldic lions’ faces upon them. Richly carved panels of oak, with floral designs of lilies, roses, etc., supported the frieze, and beneath them was plainer panelling broken up at intervals by flat pilasters decorated with foliage or fruit. On this[321] panelling a few family portraits were hung; the furniture here, as elsewhere in the house, was of carved oak, already a generation old, and there was much needlework of the kind ladies then occupied themselves in making. The mantelpieces were also of oak, one which showed in high relief the sacrifice of Isaac, supported by figures of Samson and Hercules, being especially noticeable. The fire backs in all the principal rooms had been cast at Foxbrook furnace, some two miles away, from moulds of a flower-pot, a phœnix, or the royal arms and supporters.

On the right of the hall were two doorways corresponding to those on the left. The further led by double doors into the little parlour, a small room with two windows to the south opening upon the garden, and two to the west looking out across a little green court to the brewhouse and the trees which overhung it. In the centre of the ceiling a great double rose of plaster, more than two feet in diameter, covered the junction of the beams. On the walls, maps of the World, France, Paris, and Ireland were hung, and a few Dutch pictures. The nearer door on the same side of the hall communicated with the little staircase and the kitchen, the latter room remarkable for its great three-centred chimney arch of stone, and for the pewter plates and dishes and brass stewpans and pudding pans which were ranged upon the wall. A back entry led into the kitchen court, or “well court,” a large yard built round with offices, stabling, coach-house, brewhouse, dairy, laundry, ovens, and barns. This was closed by great gates at night and contained many bays of building.

To return to the house; the bedrooms were furnished with curtains and rugs of green, purple, or “sad colour,” the great oak bedsteads decorated with hangings of needlework, and the walls covered with tapestry or wainscot. On the first floor was the “great chamber,” over the great parlour, and another of smaller size (here, under[322] a sliding board, a secret receptacle in the floor for money or papers was found a few years ago) above the buttery. The “hall chamber,” like the hall below, was panelled with oak and ceiled with cross beams covered with plaster. This was the owner’s bedroom, and the windows to north and south, sheltered from sun and wind by the projecting wings, must have made it the pleasantest in the house. It was entered from the landing of the great staircase, and a door in the further wall led to Mr. Sitwell’s study, above the little parlour, and to the little staircase. In the study Mr. Sitwell wrote up the letter-book, passed the accounts of his steward, Thomas Starkye (Starkye came up the back stairs), and interviewed his tenants; on the panelling over the mantelpiece a carbine and some pistols were hung, and recesses in the thickness of the wall harboured a small library of books on divinity, law, and the classics, of which the greater part had been collected by Mr. Sitwell, though a few had been brought from the older house at the head of the village. Above the kitchen was another large bedchamber, given over, I suppose, to Mr. Sitwell’s youngest son, the only one of his children who was still under his care. The plan of the third story was similar to that of the second, the chamber over the hall chamber being again the only means of communication between the two staircases. This was occupied by Mrs. Heays, the housekeeper, who probably had one or two of the younger maidservants to sleep with her; and here in the long winter afternoons they wove and spun by the light of tallow dips, and talked over the gossip of the village. The two rooms to the east had formerly been used as nurseries, but were now guest chambers; and on this side also was a store-closet over the stairs. On the west, the study chamber was occupied by the cook and kitchenmaid, and that over the kitchen by the maids. The men-servants and grooms probably slept over the stables. At the Sacheverells’ house at Barton, an inventory of 1691 shows a “maids’[323] chamber,” a “men’s chamber,” and a “grooms’ chamber,” and this no doubt was the usual arrangement at the time.

The house was surrounded by a number of gardens,[84] courts, and orchards, the walls of which were full of pears, apples, plums, peaches, cherries, and nectarines. From the garden door one went out into a corner of the south garden, somewhat wider than the house, which projected into it. This was laid out in gravel, with borders against the walls, broad walks round and across the square, and designs of flower beds disposed in Jacobean knots, edged with box, and relieved by pyramids of yew. Out of this to the left you went into the bowling green and several courts and gardens, with green and gravel walks, walled in and full of flowers and fruit. Beyond them lay the little orchard, at the further extremity of which was an ancient dovecot of stone, perched on the very edge of the cliff, and overlooking the wild and tangled slopes of Broxhill and the flowery banks and winding course of the river below. Returning to the south garden, a door opposite the house led into the great orchard, some four and a half acres in extent, in which were a pair of butts for archery,[85] and side alleys bordered with flowers. From these sheltered paths, the further wall of the orchard being below the slope of the hill, pretty glimpses could be obtained of moorland and river, and distant spires and seats; and here also, at the south-west corner of the garden, was one of those square stone-tiled buildings without which no garden in the seventeenth century was supposed to be complete. This garden-house was set against a grove of ancient oaks and ashes, which protected it from the rays of the afternoon sun; to the north, both wind and view were cut off by the house, with its[324] broken roof-line of battlements and gables, and tall central chimney thrown into shadow by the projecting wings; but towards the other points of the compass, a wide panorama of country was spread out to view. Mounting the steps which led to the little oak-panelled room above, one could see, over the tops of the apple trees and the Gothic coping of the green-clad garden walls, Killamarsh Moor, and the little village of Wales, in Yorkshire, from which the Hewitts took their rise; the wooded hillside just across the river; and high above the common, the ancient woods and manor houses of Park Hall and Barlborough; the Mansfield road, which skirted past the forest towards Nottingham and Derby; Emmett Carr, Barlborough Common, and Marsden Moor; the splendid cliff and keep of Bolsover, famous for the Earl of Newcastle’s prodigal entertainment to King Charles; Scarcliffe and Palterton, once with Eckington a part of the Domesday Barony of Ralph Fitz-Hubert; the old and new halls of Hardwick, where the Earls of Devonshire had their seat, standing out like twin towers above the trees which surrounded them; and beyond the horizon, the spire of Tibshelf Church on the Nottinghamshire border. Nearer, between Renishaw and Hardwick, stood the little hall of Netherthorpe, in which Robert Sytwell had lived in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and the grammar school hard by he had helped to found; Lord Deincourt’s woods at Sutton Scarsdale; and Owlcotes, another of Bess of Hardwick’s houses; and to the right, the Chesterfield road mounting up a green spur two miles away towards Lord Frecheville’s ancient house and park and the iron furnaces of Staveley. Beyond Staveley, which, like Bolsover, Sutton, and Renishaw, had been garrisoned for the King in the Civil War, the spire of Brimington could be seen; and above the hollow in which Chesterfield lies, the distant hills which lead up to Clay Cross, Ogston, Ashover, and the Derbyshire moors. To the west of the garden house, a close walk between[325] hedges led down the hill to the low meadows and the river, and from this side also was a footpath across the demesne to Foxton Wood, some two miles away, where the bluebells were a sight to see in spring, and the bracken in autumn, and good fishing and shooting were to be had. The hedgerows in the demesne contained many oaks and ashes, but there was no ornamental planting of any kind; in the woods, swine were still turned out in autumn, and another relic of mediæval agriculture was the continued use of oxen for ploughing.

Houses and gardens such as those which I have just described can hardly have been the work of coarse and illiterate men. Their beauty and appropriateness, to which Lord Macaulay was blind, are recognised by the better taste of to-day. One can see that they were planned with infinite care and contrivance, every natural peculiarity of site, climate, and outlook being turned to account, and that the country squires who built them were thinking not merely of their own selfish enjoyment, but of future ages. In the marriage indenture of Mr. Sitwell’s eldest son in 1656, one of the considerations mentioned is that the said messuage and lands “may be settled and established in the name and blood of the said George Sitwell the ffather, soe long as it shall please God to continue the same.” From such phrases one learns not only the old builders’ pride in their houses, but the spirit which animated them, and which alone can inspire good work in building and laying out.

Renishaw was a quieter place than it had been ten years before, when Mrs. Sitwell was alive, and the house full of young people; but its owner, though he “hated ill-husbandry,” still kept a plentiful house. He was constantly visited by various relations and friends, and throughout the summer neighbouring gentlemen would occasionally ride over to dinner and bowls, and Yorkshire acquaintances call and drink at the gates, or rest their horses for an hour or two on the way to London.[326] Mr. Sitwell’s eldest son, and his daughters and sons-in-law, were often with him, and Christmas especially, when the hall was decorated with holly and ivy, and the Chesterfield and Staveley fiddlers came over, and there was dancing in the great and card playing in the little parlours, was a time of entertainment and family reunion.[86] The preparations for Christmas and the New Year began early in November with the brewing of a couple of hogsheads of “Christmas beer” and the manufacture of “a brawne”—a mighty dish, for it is valued in the household book at £2, the price of four muttons or forty turkeys. When that season had arrived, the fat hogs were killed, gifts were made to the servants, and money distributed among the poor of the parish; turkeys, fowls, and rolls of brawn were sent as “tokens” to absent friends; the tenants came with their rent capons,[87] were regaled in the hall with beer, beef, mince pie, and plum porridge, and spent the evening in boisterous games; and a doe was usually sent over from Sheffield Park as a present from the Duke of Norfolk. It appears by one of these letters that Francis Sitwell and his wife and children were always expected from Gainsborough at Christmas, and no doubt the Wigfalls came across in the evenings from their house a few hundred yards away, the Burtons and Stones from Mosborough, and Dr. Gardiner,[88] whom Mr. Sitwell had[327] presented to the living of Eckington eight years before, brought his children from the rectory. Indeed, friends and tenants were entertained with so much conviviality that the example proved dangerous to the younger members of the family. In the last week of 1662, John, the London apprentice, was in trouble with his master, and exactly a year later, Mr. Sitwell, while protesting that he had “ever been wary to encourage” his son in such courses, had to express a hope that in future he would “nether thinke Christmas nor any other time lawless to play the foole in,” but when he recreated himself among friends would “make choyce of sober, civell company, and keepe good howers.”

The owner of the letter-book mentions on one occasion an engagement to be at the Wigfalls’ house for a christening, and no doubt he celebrated the baptism of his own grandchildren, born at Renishaw in July, 1661, and October, 1662, by entertaining his neighbours with music and card playing, according to the hospitable custom of the time. On the 14th of February there was dancing and drawing of valentines, and the Chesterfield Sessions in April, the fairs at Chesterfield, Sheffield, and Rotherham, races and bull-baitings for those who cared for such frivolities, bowling parties at Renishaw and other houses in the neighbourhood, the village wake and the “hare-getting supper”[89] to the harvesters on the demesne, helped to enliven the monotony of rural existence. But during much of the year when Mr. Sitwell and his youngest son[328] were alone, life at Renishaw was quiet and orderly enough, and one day passed very much the same as another. At about seven o’clock they breakfasted upon beer, cold meat, Westphalia ham or neat’s tongue, oatcakes, and white bread and butter. After breakfast, William walked down to pursue his studies at the rectory, and his father rode out with Starkye to inspect his farms and iron furnaces, or to attend to the parochial and county business in which he interested himself. At eleven o’clock,[90] the servants, headed by the housekeeper, Mrs. Heays, filed in to family prayers in the hall; and immediately prayers were over the butler laid the table, with its cloth of homespun linen, pewter plates and dishes, beer and wine glasses, silver salts and spoons, porringers and tankards, for the noonday dinner,[91] and put out the silver bottles and stoneware jugs, edged with silver, upon the oak cupboard by the kitchen door. Mr. Sitwell sat at the head of the table, with his back to the map of Europe and the great staircase; and his son, in a grey cloth suit, fine worsted under-stockings, scarlet silk over-stockings, and riding shoes, at his left hand; and together they conversed about William’s studies and the big trout in the Rother, the flower garden and the home farm, John’s last letters from plague-stricken London, Robert’s adventures at Aleppo, and George’s prospects of making a fortune in Spain. The meal, plain but substantial—it consisted usually of broth served in porringers and eaten with oat cakes, a joint with vegetables, poultry or game,[329] a pudding or tart, cheese and fruit; but on Fridays of fresh and salt fish alone—was washed down by a glass or two of tent or malago and a tankard of ale, and followed by a pipe of tobacco in the little parlour or the garden-house. After dinner, Mr. Sitwell wrote letters in his study, and read the gazettes and newsletters which his cousin forwarded by every post from London; a little later in the afternoon, he played bowls on the green, walked through the folds, looked at the horses, foals, and oxen, and strolled across the demesne to watch the mowers or harvest folk at work. Supper, the second “state meal”[92] of the day, must have been early too; and after a pipe of tobacco, a tankard of ale, and a game of cards or shovel-board in the great parlour, the evening finished with family prayer. On Sundays, the old coach, with its two bay mares, took Mr. Sitwell and his son down to church at Eckington; there, in the large square family pew by the second pillar on the right of the nave, with the servants ranged behind them, they listened to the village fiddlers and Dr. Gardiner’s learned but lengthy sermon; and when service was over, they carried the[330] doctor and his wife back to dinner at the hall. Mr. Sitwell was a good judge of horses (in 1666 he was buying horses for Lord Ogle’s troop), and took some trouble in the breeding of them;[93] his peace-offering of four pheasants to the Duke of Newcastle in January, 1664–5, shows that he shot with a fowling-piece; the use of two coursing similes in the letter-book suggests that he may have kept greyhounds; and it is likely enough that he occasionally rode with Lord Frecheville’s staghounds,[94] for the pale of Staveley Park bordered upon his demesne. He was certainly an active man in spite of his years, and fond of an outdoor life.

Stag Hunting.

Amongst the relations and friends already mentioned as visiting Renishaw in 1662–6, the names of several occur in the letter-book. Mr. Sitwell’s cousins, William and Roger Allestry (Roger represented Derby in Parliament as his brother had previously done, and the features of both, set out in all the glory of Restoration periwigs, are known from engraved portraits), came at intervals to stay with him; and another kinsman, John Spateman, of Roadnook Hall, in Ashover, formerly a Justice of the Peace under the Commonwealth, was there in June, 1666, on his way to plague-stricken London. Captain Mazine, the “great horseman,” so good natured in supplying[331] Mr. Sitwell with the latest news of the Dutch war, was expected from London in July, 1665. “I suppose,” the latter writes, “I shall have the happiness to kis yo^r hand in the Country shortly, w^ch I desire the more y^t you may be out of the Danger of the sickness.” In June of the previous year, the Captain had been staying at Welbeck, and had apparently ridden over more than once to dinner and a game of bowls at Renishaw. Mr. Sitwell meditated calling upon him in return, and in reply to a message confessed that he was behindhand with him, but when occasion offered would endeavour to come over. William Revell, of Ogston, one of the “Lovers of Huntinge and Hawkinge” in Darley Dale, upon whose lives and deaths (he died in 1669) the Ashover poet wrote his “Elegy”:

—was often with his father-in-law at Renishaw; and William Sacheverell, who afterwards distinguished himself so highly in Parliament, and served as a Lord of the Admiralty under King William, rode over occasionally from Morley to see his sister, Mrs. Sitwell. William Simpson, a city lawyer, came down in October, 1662, January, 1662–3, and again, bringing with him a copy of the King’s Speech to the Parliament, in June of the same year; and in the following September, “Cozen Franceys,”[95] as appears by a gap in the correspondence, followed by the expression of a hope that he was “well got home,” enjoyed the country air for two or three weeks in Derbyshire. There are casual references also in the letter-book to country neighbours who called and dined[332] at Renishaw, as, for instance, John Bradshaw, of Brampton Hall, a cousin of the regicide, in September, 1662; Lionel Copley, of Rotherham, in July, 1665; and John Magson, of Worksop, a rich merchant, whose fortune is estimated in one of these letters at twenty-five or twenty-six thousand pounds in January, 1662–3, and November, 1664. The last was probably a Quaker, as Mr. Sitwell addresses him without ceremony by his Christian name and surname.

The household to be provided for was not a large one, and in many respects it was self-sufficing. The finer German table linen, damasked with hunting scenes, which came in soon after the Restoration, had hardly yet found its way into the midland counties, and rough table-cloths were still made in the house. Flaxen and hempen sheets, pillowbears and window curtains, and woollen blankets, were woven by the maid-servants; and I notice that in 1678–80, two stone of flax, two of hemp, and two of wool, were purchased every year for use at Renishaw. By the maids also the mattresses of the heavy four-poster beds were stuffed with feathers from the fold. Cloth sufficient to provide two suits of livery apiece for five or six men was bought at about four shillings a yard at Mr. Newton’s shop in Chesterfield, and made up in the house by John Staynrod, the village tailor. Wheat for bread, and oats for the oatcakes, so much favoured in Derbyshire, were grown on the farm, and ground with querns in the house as flour was needed; and ryebread was also eaten, probably by the servants. Pickling, preserving, and salting,[96] and the concoction of currant and gooseberry wines, were[333] carried on under the supervision of the housekeeper; and baking, churning, and cheese-making at the ovens and dairy in the kitchen court. Ale in the cask or bottled, and November ale, and beer of various denominations—strong beer, small beer, stale beer, bottled beer, March beer, and Christmas beer—were brewed in large quantities, and about sixty-eight hogsheads represent the annual consumption.[97] The practice of laying in large quantities of salt beef and mutton at the commencement of November had already been abandoned by the richer classes, and fresh meat was eaten all the year round. From the home farm, orchards, and river, meat, fish, eggs, milk, cream, vegetables, and fruit were supplied; turkeys and fowls were bred there, and game could be obtained in any quantity from the woods, and pigeons from the dovecote. Salt fish from Scarborough or Hull was bought in Chesterfield for the Friday dinners. Wax candles for the hall and parlours were procured from George Hattersley, a chandler in the village, at the cost of four or five shillings a dozen; and tallow candles for the bedrooms were made in the house. Soap, in the form of “washing balls,” was manufactured at the farm at the cost of a shilling a dozen, and about fifty-two dozens represent the annual consumption. Pit coals were obtained from Eckington Marsh at half-a-crown a load, the carting being done upon “boon days” by Mr. Sitwell’s tenants. Groceries were bought in Chesterfield, a groom or footman being sent over on horseback, or a commission given[334] either to the carrier or to one of the little company of “market folks” who trudged over from the village on each succeeding Saturday. At the last-named town there was an apothecary (Wood), a furniture shop (Shentall), and a bookseller (Crofts). Cases of knives for the table could be bought at six shillings in Sheffield from James Stainforth, who in 1662 served as Master Cutler. A chirurgeon (John Fleming) resided at Eckington, but on one occasion a poor boy, in whom Mr. Sitwell had interested himself, was sent over with the carrier to Nottingham for the great Dr. Thoroton’s advice.

But though a country house, at least in regard to the common necessaries of life, was supplied from the demesne, and did not as now depend upon shops in the village and neighbouring town, it is surprising to find how many small luxuries were ordered in London or even imported from the Continent. The packhorses of Hemingway, the Sheffield carrier, were constantly burdened with Westphalia hams at tenpence the pound, capers at the same price, and currants for the daily pudding; with newspapers and books, writing paper, French hats for Mr. Sitwell’s grandchildren, bottles of cinnamon water, orange flower water, strong water, and Rosa solis, and runlets of various wines. From London Mr. Sitwell procured also his own dress and that of his son, tobacco at eighteen shillings and sixpence a box, and silver plate. As might have been expected from one of the older generation, he was fond of good sack, which he ordered in London or on occasion from the “Angel” Inn at Chesterfield; but he supplied himself also with barrels of tent wine and malago from Spain, where one of his sons was a merchant. From that country also chests of oranges and lemons, and barrels of olives and of raisins, were forwarded to him. Sugar, on one occasion, he imported from Barbadoes, but it proved to be too coarse for his use. Chests and barrels too heavy for one horse to carry were sent by Nottingham wagon, or by way of[335] the Humber and Trent to Bawtry, and thence by road to Renishaw. Letters from London to Renishaw were posted on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and arrived in time to be answered on Fridays and Tuesdays. The charge was threepence for postage, and fourpence to the “foot-post” from Chesterfield, and if carried to the posthouse they seldom failed.

I must not pass away from the subject of housekeeping without saying something about the extraordinary cheapness of meat, and especially of game, at this period. In the Renishaw “house-book” for 1671, a price is set against all the articles supplied from the farm or bought in the village. A veal is valued at ten to twelve shillings, a mutton at six to ten, a lamb at five to six, a beef at £3 15s. to £4 4s., a porket at ten to eleven shillings, and pigs at from 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d. each. Chickens could be had for threepence and fourpence, pullets at sixpence, ducks at fourpence to eightpence, geese, capons, and turkeys at a shilling, pigeons at elevenpence or one shilling a dozen, and rabbits at sixpence to 1s. 2d. a couple. Partridges and teal were eightpence a brace, woodcock eightpence to a shilling, wild ducks a shilling, plovers fourpence to sixpence, and snipe fourpence. Cheeses were eightpence to tenpence each, and butter was fourpence a pound. Household loaves, not of white bread, were a shilling each, and flour for manchet or for the kitchen 1s. 3d. a peck.

Acquaintances Meeting in London.

According to Macaulay, not one gentleman in a hundred travelled once in seven years beyond the nearest market town; but the truth is that the country squires were often upon the road, and few who lived within five days’ journey of London failed to visit it occasionally. In Derbyshire, from the end of November until the beginning of April, the highways were impassable for wheels and very unpleasant for horsemen, and even April is said in one of these letters to be “too soon, for the ways will be bad.” Mr. Sitwell rode up to London every spring,[336] usually in the last-named month or in May, and he sometimes visited it a second time in August. His plans were laid a month or six weeks in advance, and a week or ten days before starting a box or trunk of clothes was sent on by carrier. He left Renishaw at seven o’clock in the morning, attired in a riding suit, top boots, a horseman’s cloak, and a “mounteroe,” or Spanish travelling cap, of velvet. Pistols were borne in the holsters, for Sherwood was a noted haunt of highwaymen, and behind him rode a footman in livery, carrying his portmantle (it contained clean linen, a nightdress, nightcap, and change of clothes) and hatcase upon the saddle. The first night was spent at Nottingham, after a ride of thirty miles through the forest; the second at Harborough (twenty-eight miles); the third at Dunstable (thirty-five miles); the fourth in London (thirty miles). The charges incurred by himself, his man and horses, in riding up, amounted on one occasion to £1 13s. 6d., and in returning to £1 1s. 6d., and one horse was killed in the journey. In London, Mr. Sitwell frequented the “Greyhound” Inn in Holborn, next door to “Furnival’s” Inn, and there he paid about eight shillings and fourpence a week for chamber rent and washing, and eighteen shillings and eightpence for hay and corn for his horses. Food and minor expenses came to about £1 6s. 8d. a week. While in town, he met his friends at the Royal Exchange, and dined with them at one of the many taverns near it;[337] strolled about in Gray’s Inn Walks; went by water to Westminster—his cousin, Roger Allestry, was a Member of Parliament; supplied himself with clothes, books, silver plate and tobacco from the various shops; visited his son, the scapegrace John, who was in the silk trade, being apprenticed to Nicholas Delves, Esquire;[98] and on Sundays attended divine service at St. Andrew’s, Holborn, or St. Paul’s. He had business also to attend to, for on one occasion I find him paying a sum of £200 “att the Southe Porche of St. Paule’s, London.” Sometimes, I suppose, he walked in Hyde Park, or visited Whitehall, where the King and Queen dined in public; but there is no evidence that he had any taste for the theatre, the cockpit, or the coffee-houses. His stay in the “Metropolitan City” usually lasted for a fortnight or three weeks, and the total cost of the visit was about twelve pounds, though as much more was often laid out upon various purchases.

Upon the ignorance and illiterateness of the country squires, Lord Macaulay is never tired of dwelling. He tells us that their language and pronunciation were “such as we should now expect to hear only from the most ignorant clowns,” and that a gentleman “passed among his neighbours for a great scholar if Hudibras and Baker’s Chronicle, Tarlton’s Jests, and the Seven Champions of Christendom lay in his hall window among the fishing rods and fowling pieces.”

Equally ill-founded, as far as I can judge, is the historian’s attack upon the “gross uneducated country gentleman,” and his assertion that in Charles the Second’s time a knight of the shire had seldom a library as good as may now be found in a servants’ hall or a tradesman’s back parlour. For the class of which he writes was at least well schooled, and few country houses were without a little collection of books upon the classics, divinity, law,[338] and current politics. Mr. Sitwell had received an excellent education, as is evidenced by a Latin manuscript in his handwriting upon the art of logic, and several Greek and Latin schoolbooks still preserved at Renishaw. In his will, he thought his “printed books” equally worthy of mention with the pictures and maps, the wainscot, ceiling, and glass in his house at Renishaw. From the books still remaining there, and from an old catalogue taken in 1753, it is possible to reconstruct his library, and to form an opinion upon his tastes and the extent and limits of his reading. Upon the shelves in the study cupboards, Homer and Aristotle, and most, if not all, of the greater Latin writers, were represented. For divinity, there were Fox’s Acts and Monuments; Usher’s Chronology, Annals, and Body of Divinity; the Works of Tertullian, Polycarp, Eusebius, Ignatius, Chrysostom, Justin Martyr, and St. Augustine; Leigh’s Critica Sacra; Corneille’s Livre de l’imitation de Jesus Christ; Meditationes de vita Christi, by Vincentius Brunus; the Methoda Theologiæ of Andreas Hyperius; Justus’ Lipsius De Cruce; Crellius’ Of one God; Culverwell On the Light of Nature; Hakewell’s Apology; Jewel’s Apologia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ; Durell’s View of the Reformed Church; A Defence of the Catholic Faith, by Grotius; Dr. Fenton’s Six Sermons against the Church of Rome; Spencer On Prodigies; Hammond’s Fundamentals, and his volume on God’s Grace and Decrees; a History of the Inquisition; Whittaker’s Controversial Tracts of 1588; Bilson’s Anti-Christian Rebellion of 1585; Wigand’s Jack of both Sides, published in 1591; and Fuller’s History of the Holy War. Law was represented by Coke’s Institutes; Pulton’s Statutes, and his works on the King’s Peace and on Offences and Misdemeanours; Scobell’s Acts of Parliament; Rastell’s Statutes; the Institutes of Justinian; an Explicatio Juris inter Gentes, and the Civiles Doctrinæ of Lipsius; History by Daniel’s Wars of York and Lancaster; Rushworth’s Historical Collections; Sleidan’s[339] History of the Four Empires of Antiquity; and a Historia Universale, published at Venice in 1605. Literature by Bacon’s Essays and his Latin Works; the Colloquies and Praise of Folly of Erasmus; the Princeps of Machiavelli; Milton’s Defensio Populi Anglicani; and King Charles’ Works. Other books worth mentioning were Boquet’s Discours execrable des Sorciers, and his Histoire de Faust; a Life of Tycho Brahe; Galen’s Medicine; Descartes’ Philosophy; Galileo’s Systema Cosmicum; Harvey’s De Generatione Animalium and De Cordis et Sanguinis Motu; Burgersdijck’s Philosophia Moralis; Gassend’s Astronomy; Alsted’s Physica Harmonia; Baker’s Arithmetic of 1607; Tacquet’s Mathematics; Oughtred’s Trigonometry; Butler’s Rethorick; Keckerman’s Logic, and the Logic of Molinæus; Wright’s Theory of Navigation; Bosse’s L’Art de Perspective; Mendez Pinto’s Voyages, translated by Cogan; Hornus de Originibus Americanis; Corderio’s Colloquies; an Introduction to Geography; a book on the Art of Speaking, and another, published in 1639, on the Actions of Gunnery. Tied up in parcels were a number of pamphlets relating to the Civil War and Restoration, and including the Bishop of Worcester’s Sermon on the Coronation of Charles II., Cotton’s Panegyrick on the King, A Noble Salutation to Charles Stewart, and A Plea for a Limited Monarchy, published in the same year. Dr. Gardiner’s Assize Sermon of 1653 must not be forgotten, in which he speaks of his “honoured friend and patron,” Mr. Sitwell, as a “cordial friend to Religion and Learning, Piety and Sobriety”; nor Evelyn’s Sylva, in which the owner of Renishaw is once mentioned, for he had supplied the author with information concerning the giant oaks of the Rivelin and Sherwood. The library as a whole is that of a practical man who wished to make the best of both worlds, and to whom the classics, divinity, law, politics and science were the only subjects worthy of serious attention. Milton had not yet published his Paradise Lost, and to the country[340] squire of that day literature meant the classics, and English poetry and prose were a world unknown.

Though “noe politition nor statesman,” Mr. Sitwell took a keen interest in home and foreign affairs. News books, papers of news, letters diurnal, gazettes, royal declarations and speeches, and Acts of Parliament, were constantly forwarded to him by his cousin, Ralph Franceys, who resided in London. Franceys frequented the Exchange, and the taverns and coffee-houses about it, and kept him informed of “what is said in the City”; and, in addition to the items of news thus supplied, Captain Mazine (well known by sight to all who have studied the engravings in the Duke of Newcastle’s book on horsemanship), Peter Pett, the naval commissioner, and other correspondents in London told him what they heard, and he had occasionally a “particular relation” of some important occurrence, a confirmation “by one who lives neare the Court,” or a copy of “a letter to the Mayor of Hull which a friend of myne saw.” He was thus better acquainted than most of his neighbours with what was going on in the world, and it is curious to find that in February, 1660–1, the loyal Marquess of Newcastle owed to him the first intimation of the date of the elections. “His Excellency,” writes Sir Francis Topp, the secretary, “hath commanded me to let you know that he will not expect you until your own occasions may give you the opportunity, and then you shall be very welcome. We presume you writt about the choosinge of Knights and bourgesses, which we conceave is by some directions of the Councell, for we have noe newes got here of y^e writts.”

Guest Arriving on Horseback.

The owner of the letter-book describes himself as “one of those fooles of the world who love to be busie,” and, in spite of his age, led an active and in many respects a useful life. His duty as a commissioner for the royal subsidies took him frequently to Chesterfield and Derby, and at the latter town, as became one who had served[341] as Sheriff, he attended the Assizes, and sometimes served upon the Grand Jury. He often “waited,” either upon public or private business, or merely to “tender his service,” upon the famous Duke of Newcastle at Welbeck, the Earl of Devonshire at Hardwick, and Lord Scarsdale at Sutton, and more rarely upon Lords Deincourt, Frecheville, and Byron. On Tuesdays, when Sheffield market drew in the neighbouring gentry, he sometimes met his acquaintances at the “Angel” Inn, near the Irish Cross; and on Saturdays, as already explained, he dined at the eightpenny ordinary at Chesterfield on fish, mutton, chicken, and ale, and when dinner was over, joined his friends, Cornelius Clarke, of Norton Hall, Samuel Clarke, of Ashgate, and Mr. Watkinson, of Brampton, in the enjoyment of a game of shovel-board and a bottle of sack. He visited the fairs at Sheffield, Rotherham, and Chesterfield; rode up to London at least once a year; and at intervals paid visits of a few days to his “son Revell,” at Ogston Hall; to Doncaster, where he stayed with his daughter at Nether Hall, or with his wife’s brother, Mr. Childers, of Carr House; and to Nottingham, whence I have no doubt he ran over to see his “brother Sacheverell” at Barton. All these excursions were on horseback, and a start was made from Renishaw as early[342] as seven o’clock in summer and eight in winter, as is shown by appointments to be at Chesterfield “before eight oth’ clock” in June, and at Whitwell “between eight and nine oth’ clock” in February. This hour, however, was not too early for letters to be written before mounting, as may be seen by one which concludes—“So breifly, for I am just putting foot into stirrop, I remaine your freind to serve you.”

There was also much local business to be attended to in Eckington and the neighbourhood. In April, 1661, just after the elections were over, Mr. Sitwell was intrusted with the proceeds of the subsidy which had been imposed upon the township for the buying of trophies, in order that he might convey it to the Sessions. A little later, being commanded upon the news of Lambert’s rising to march to Derby with whatever force could be raised, he advanced money to honest poor men his neighbours, who walked as far as Chesterfield before they learnt that their services would not be required. At another time we find him endeavouring to procure men and horses for Lord Ogle’s troop. In 1665, the bridge at Renishaw being so decayed with age that any little flood made it impassable, Mr. Sitwell applied to the Court at the Sessions for money, as it was required for the work of repair. The bridge was of stone, and approached at either end by a causeway supported upon small arches; and he supervised the rebuilding of it from the very foundations, and, partly at his own expense, made it “soe that for many generations the country will not need to be att further charge.” There is a letter to the jury in a local lawsuit, and two others, requesting the Justices to discharge or bail prisoners before trial. In January, 1663–4, when a doubt has arisen as to the proper manner of collecting hearth money in the parish, he writes to Sir Simon Degg, asking the latter to direct the constable what he is to do therein; and in December, 1665, a pauper who had been sent by warrant of two Justices from[343] Eckington to Treeton having been returned by Sir Francis Fane, a letter is carried to Treeton by several persons who are ready to swear that the unfortunate man had no settlement in Eckington.

The owner of the letter-book had a warm and somewhat arbitrary temper, and when roused could “speak plaine English” (not, indeed, as Macaulay would have led one to expect, in oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms of abuse, uttered in the broadest accent of his province, but pure, nervous, incisive English) with force and directness. In other respects, he was a good Christian, who believed that it was the “duty of every man to be careful in the service of God,” but abhorred the cloak and the mask of pretentious piety; supported the institution of Bishops and the “decent, harmless ceremonies” of the Church of England, but “meddled not with controverted points of faith.”

In disposition, the writer was a kind-hearted man, and in spite of a great deal of public and private business, he found time to help other people in their troubles. He twice redeems a debtor out of the House of Correction at Chesterfield, and endeavours to assist him when imprisoned there for the third time. He writes on behalf of “Whittles’ boy”—“a poore ffatherless and Motherless boy, an object of pitty to move one, if not to releeve him, yet to helpe him to right from those who would doe him wrong”—to the Rector of Aston and Sir Francis Fane, begging them to hear and determine the differences between the lad and his “knavish uncles”; provides him with clothes and other necessaries, and finds money to release him from a cruel master and to keep him from starving. He sets himself to help Mr. Leigh, of Coldwell Hall, who had lately fallen into a sad condition of poverty; pays £4 in order to have a son, Joseph Leigh, apprenticed to a tailor in Sheffield, and urges another son in London to “write by the next post after this comes to you, to hould up the hartt of the ould man.”[344] Later on, he drafts a petition on behalf of the father applying for a place in the Duke of Norfolk’s Hospital or Almshouse, at Sheffield. He urges a spendthrift husband to make a settlement of his property upon his wife, who had brought him a little fortune in marriage, and was willing upon such terms to free him from his debts and to maintain his children. He endeavours to incline to mercy the creditors of a former maidservant at Renishaw, who had married a man already deeply in debt, seeing that she was willing, in her own phrase, “to part with all they had, quick and dead, to pay theire debts, soe that they might have the freedome to beginn the world new and to live by theire labor.” It was a common practice at this time for litigants to avoid the cost and delay of a lawsuit by referring their quarrel to some neighbouring gentleman for his “doom and award,” and Mr. Sitwell, believing arbitration in such cases to be a “very charitable good worke,” both rendered such services himself, and made arrangements also on behalf of others. He was “shy of his reputation” in Derbyshire, where he was “well known in his country”; anxious to do his duty by his children, and not, as he puts it, “to bringe trouble on those I leave behinde me”; and considered the possession of a good estate carried with it “an ingagement thereby to be regardfull of the welfare of one’s Country.” It may be inferred from the use of certain phrases in the letter-book that then, as now, public spirit, truthfulness, and courtesy were considered to be the distinguishing marks of the class to which he belonged.

Such, in real life, were the Tory squires upon whose memory Lord Macaulay has heaped the coarsest epithets of a not very refined vocabulary, the falsest coin of a not very sterling rhetoric; for I have no reason to believe that the owner of the letter-book was otherwise than an average specimen of the class to which he belonged, neither better nor worse than his neighbours who sat next him at the market ordinary, discussed the Dutch[345] War with him over a quart of sack and a pipe of tobacco at the “Redd Lyon,” or rode over to a mid-day dinner and a game of bowls at Renishaw. The impression left upon the mind by such documents as the letter-book is not one of rudeness, but rather of comfort, education, and refinement. Of the ignorance and uncouthness, the drunkenness, the pig-handling, the low habits and gross phrases, the oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms of abuse, the vulgar taste which aimed at ornament, but could produce nothing but deformity, there is not a trace; and instead of meeting with “the deportment, the vocabulary, and the accent of a carter,” and the manners of “rustic millers or alehouse keepers,” we find a class of men useful in their generation, public-spirited and intellectual, courteous in their dealings with each other and compassionate towards the poor, and better judges of taste in architecture and gardening than at least one of their critics.

A Gentleman and his Servant on the Road.

[346]

DERBYSHIRE FOLK-LORE

By S. O. Addy, M.A.

Every English county, one might almost say every English village, has preserved some fragments of a vast body of traditional lore which, before the age of printing, was common to the whole people. Such fragments may still, like coins on the sites of Roman towns, be picked up, some in better condition than others. Unfortunately, those who have written on this subject have preferred for the most part to limit their researches to old books. For instance, Brand, in his Observations on Popular Antiquities, first published in 1777, has given us a collection of scraps drawn from a thousand authors. It was very entertaining, no doubt, but the work would have been more valuable had its author collected from the lips of the people the ballads, legends, tales, and other portions of belief and custom which in the eighteenth century were far more abundant than they are to-day. It was a great opportunity neglected. But in the eighteenth century there was excuse for such neglect, because the value of such things was not then understood. Nor was their importance seen until the publication of such works as Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border in 1802, and an English translation of Grimm’s Popular Stories in 1823. Even then English students did not begin to collect traditional remains systematically.

Although in these days the word folk-lore has become[347] part of the common speech, and the subject is in some degree familiar to everybody, little original research is done. Even the Folk-lore Society, instead of collecting fresh material—and there is plenty to be had—has been printing, under the name of County Folk-lore, a farrago of material from local histories and guide-books, of which not one item in twenty was worth reproducing. Far different is the work of such men as Kristensen, whose labours in Denmark should have been taken as a model of what should be done in England. Not every day could a man be found to dine on potatoes or sleep on the table of a workman’s cottage, as Kristensen has done, in order to secure a ballad or a tradition. But at least it should be possible to make some effort to collect the lore which is passing away from us for ever. The old books are not likely to perish; the men and women who know the old tales are dying every year. But where you have one man ready and willing to collect folk-lore or dialect, you find a hundred who want to advance theories or to write little grammars. The armchair of the study is so much more comfortable than a rush-bottomed chair in a cottage.

In Derbyshire we have folk-lore which is common to other parts of Great Britain, just as Great Britain has folk-lore which is common to other parts of Europe. But every country has preserved items which are to be found in no other, or which, if found elsewhere, appear in such a modified shape that they contain much that is new. For folk-lore has been compared to a mosaic which has been broken and scattered, some fragments lying here and others there. In Derbyshire we have the garland or ceremony of the May King, which is performed at Castleton on the 29th of May—an ancient rite which seems to have survived in no other part of Great Britain.[99] And then we have the Derby Ram or Old[348] Tup, which may occur in other counties, but which, at all events, is so much associated with Derby as to have taken its name from that town. It is remarkable that these ceremonies are connected with ancient boroughs, for there were burgage tenements both in Castleton and Hope in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.[100] In Castleton there was Peak Castle, older than the Norman Conquest; in Hope there was the Roman town of Burgh or Brough.

In giving the title “Hugh of Lincoln” to the Derbyshire version of the ballad which follows, regard has been had to the precedent set by others, for the ballad is usually so entitled. The Derbyshire version, here first printed, is valuable not only for the literary beauty which two or three of its lines display, but for the association of the story of the Golden Ball with that of the Maid saved from the Gallows. I have added the words “Or the Rain Charm” to the title, because I believe that such is the subject of the ballad. But the reader will be able to distinguish tradition from inference, and to form his own opinion. I would add that a better version of the ballad may yet exist at Wirksworth or in some other part of the county. We may regret that in its present form it is corrupt; indeed, no two versions are alike. But it is the duty of the collector to write down such things as he finds them, without altering a syllable. He may conjecture, if he likes, that such a phrase as “playing at ice and ball” requires emendation, but he is not at liberty to alter the spoken words.

Hugh of Lincoln; or the Rain Charm

In the summer of 1901 the following fragment of a ballad was dictated to me by Mrs. Johnston, then aged 55, the wife of the landlord of the “Peak” Hotel at Castleton, in Derbyshire. Mrs. Johnston says that she learnt it from her mother, Mrs. Fletcher, who resided at[349] Wirksworth, in the same county, when she was young, and died in 1904. Mrs. Johnston does not remember that the ballad had any title, or was sung to any tune:—

[The father and the mother then appear upon the “sty,” when the same request is made to the hangman in respect of each of them, and when they both declare that they have not brought the ball, etc. At last comes the sweetheart, who says:—]

[350]

During the same summer, I heard in Castleton this fragment of a story:—

No fewer than eighteen other versions of the ballad here printed have been published.[103] With one exception, these other versions omit the lines about the hangman and the child’s escape from the gallows. But in other respects they substantially agree in the story which they tell. A number of children are playing at ball, when one of them accidentally throws it into a Jew’s garden. The Jew’s daughter entices the boy to come in and fetch the ball. He is then laid on a dressing-board, and stabbed to the heart with a penknife, “like a swine,” or, as four of the versions have it, “like a sheep.” His body is then encased in lead, or in “a quire of tin,” and thrown into a draw-well. His mother goes forth to seek him, when he answers from the well, and bids her make his winding-sheet. The scene is variously laid in “merry Scotland,” in the city of Lincoln, in “Mirryland town,” in “Maitland[351] town,” and in “Merrycock land.”[104] In version F of Prof. Child’s collection the time is “a summer’s morning,” and in version N we are told that the deed was done “on a May, on a Midsummer’s day.”

In a story called “The Three Golden Balls,” reported from Romsey, in Hampshire,[105] three girls called Pepper, Salt, and Mustard have each of them a golden ball. They play with the balls, and Pepper loses hers. Her mother is angry, and Pepper is hung on the gallows-tree. Next day her father goes to her, and she says:—

This Hampshire version is much degraded, but it mentions three girls, and is also important as showing that the one who was chosen for sacrifice might be ransomed, as in the Derbyshire version, and so escape death, if her father or her sisters would pay the proper fee. They refuse, however, and the girl is redeemed by her sweetheart. In this respect the Hampshire story resembles the Derbyshire metrical version, in which the child is at last “bought free.” I shall refer to the subject of redemption further on.

The concluding part of the Derbyshire version appears at first sight to be inconsistent with the first part, inasmuch as the child’s death seems to have been caused both by stabbing with a knife and by suspension on a gallows. The version, however, is quite consistent with itself, for the child was first stabbed and then suspended with the head downwards.

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At the present day an English butcher who is about to kill a sheep lays it on a trestle. He then sticks a knife into the jugular vein, and leaves the sheep for a short time on the trestle until it is quite dead. Afterwards he skins and dresses it, and then he passes a piece of wood through the sinews of the hind legs. From this piece of wood it is hung, by means of a hook, head downwards from a transverse bar. In former times a transverse wooden bar appears to have been used instead of an iron bar, and to have been called the “gallows-tree” (the gallows being the two upright posts), just as the transverse bar from which the cauldron was hung in the kitchens of old houses was called the “galley-balk.” On turning to the word “gallows” in the New English Dictionary, I find three quotations from modern books, in which slaughtered sheep or cattle are described as being hung on the gallows. The first is from Lady Barker’s Station Life in New Zealand, 1866 (x. 64), in which the gallows is described as “a high wooden frame from which the carcasses of the butchered sheep dangle.” The third is from Boldrewood’s Colonial Reformer, 1891, p. 350, where the “gallows” of the colonists is described as “a rough, rude contrivance consisting of two uprights and a cross-piece for elevating slaughtered cattle.” One can hardly doubt that these colonists were adopting a practice once followed in the mother country, and, accordingly, the apparent inconsistency between the concluding part of the Derbyshire version and the first part of that version disappears. The child was first stabbed “like a sheep,” and then hung, as a sheep was, on a gallows-tree or transverse piece of wood. This suspension was identical with crucifixion on a Tau-cross, or crux commissa.

Amongst the versions of the ballad given by Prof. Child is a fragment, numbered L, which was supplied to him by the late Canon Venables, Precentor of Lincoln, and which came from Buckinghamshire. It was told to Canon Venables about the year 1825. On this, Prof. Child[353] remarks, in a note, that “the singer tagged on to this fragment version C of the Maid freed from the Gallows given at II., 352.” The portion of the story which Prof. Child calls “the Maid freed from the Gallows” can hardly have been “tagged on.” It is found in Derbyshire and Buckinghamshire, and the metre of both portions is the same. And the lost ball occurs in both.

It remains to show for what reason the child was sacrificed. Ten of the versions published by Prof. Child begin by mentioning the falling rain—a thing which at first sight appears to have nothing to do with the matter. Thus in the Shropshire version we have:—

And in the copy taken by Prof. Child from Brydges’s Restituta, we have:—

The Derbyshire version, as we have seen, begins by saying that the rain is falling “both thick and small.”

Now it is remarkable that seven of the versions given by Prof. Child refer to the victim’s blood, as it flowed from the wound, as being both thick and thin. Thus in the version taken from Percy’s Reliques, we have:—

Obviously the falling rain, which seems at first sight to enter so needlessly into numerous versions of the story, would have a great deal to do with the matter if the shedding of the child’s blood were intended to be an act of imitative magic simulating, and hence producing, rain. In Central Australia men are bled with a sharp flint, and “the blood is thought to represent rain.” And “in Java, when rain is wanted, two men will sometimes thrash each other with supple rods till the blood flows down their[354] backs; the streaming blood represents the rain, and no doubt is supposed to make it fall on the ground.”[107]

We know from other traditions that children were sacrificed, if not in Great Britain, at least elsewhere, with the intention of once more filling the dry beds of rivers. The Rev. Joseph Hunter (1783–1861) has recorded these lines about the English river Dun, or Don:—

The Rev. W. Gregor has told us that the Scottish river Spey “is spoken of as ‘she,’ and bears the character of being ‘bloodthirsty.’ The common belief is that ‘she’ must have at least one victim yearly.

“The rhyme about the [Scottish] rivers Dee and Don and their victims is:—

There were German rivers which required their victim on Midsummer Day,[110] and this, as we have seen, is the very day mentioned in one of the versions of our ballad. In nine of the versions given by Prof. Child, the body of the little victim is thrown into a draw-well, after having been rolled, as some of the versions say, in a “case,” or “cake,” of lead. The throwing of the body into a well was doubtless intended as a further rain-charm, just as, to give a single example, the man who gave the last stroke at threshing in the Tyrol was flung into the river.[111] It appears from the Annals of Waverley,[112] that the body of[355] Hugh of Lincoln was first thrown into a running stream, and ejected by the stream. It was afterwards thrown into a drinking well.

A few words must be said about the Jew, or Jew’s daughter, mentioned in the different versions of the ballad and in the chronicles. We ought not to overlook the fact that the Jews at an early period of their history sacrificed, and at a later period redeemed, their first-born children, as many passages in Exodus and Numbers plainly indicate. But to say, as Matthew Paris does, that the Jews of Lincoln stole a boy named Hugh, and scourged, crowned, and crucified him, as a parody of the crucifixion of Jesus, is to make a very large demand on our credulity. The Jews of Lincoln were not at all likely to have risked their lives and property by such an act of wanton and hideous cruelty. Nor is the evidence afforded by the different versions of the ballad sufficient to establish the fact that the Jews sacrificed children in Great Britain for any purpose or in any way. These different versions seem to have all sprung from the same original, and the thing to be tested is the credibility of that original. Its value as evidence against the Jews in Britain is impaired by the different places in which the deed is alleged to have been done, and, moreover, we have seen that the prose version from Castleton speaks of a “magician,” not a Jew. Still more is the evidence vitiated by the existence of that well-known popular hatred of the Jews, which gave rise to all sorts of libels and slanders. A good example of this hatred appeared in London as late as 1758, when a man—

[356]

What the evidence does suggest is the former existence of a custom of sacrificing children to make rain. It is not even alleged that the Jews sacrificed children to the Spey, the Dee, or the Don.

There is, however, a document of much greater evidential value than ballads and chronicles, which declares that a boy was crucified by Jews at Lincoln. In the Hundred Rolls for 3 Edward I. (1274), a sworn jury found that “certain land in the parish of St. Martin [in Lincoln], which belonged to Leo the Jew, who was condemned for the death of a crucified boy, and which land was then in the tenure of William Badde, was forfeited to the King as from the year 1256.”[114]

That Leo the Jew was condemned for the crucifixion of a boy will hardly be doubted. That the sentence was just and founded on sufficient evidence is quite another matter. There may have been as little evidence against the Jews of Lincoln in 1256 as there was against the Portuguese Jews in London in 1758.

Although the evidence against the Jews with reference to the subject which we are considering cannot be admitted as valid, we must not conceal the fact that this people at an early period of their history sacrificed their firstborn children. The story of Abraham’s intended sacrifice of his son Isaac should lead us to suspect the early existence of this custom. Dr. Frazer says that “the god of the Hebrews plainly regarded the firstborn of men and the firstlings of animals as his own,” the firstborn of men being generally redeemed.[115] And he asks the question: “If the firstborn of men and cattle were ransomed by a[357] money payment, has not this last provision the appearance of being a later mitigation of an older and harsher custom which doomed firstborn children to the altar or the fire?” He then discusses the Passover, and suggests that “the slaughter of firstborn children was formerly what the slaughter of firstborn cattle always continued to be, not an isolated butchery, but a regular custom, which, with the growth of more humane sentiments, was afterwards softened into the vicarious sacrifice of a lamb and the payment of a ransom for each child.”

The evidence which we have been examining does not mention the firstborn. But it tells us that the child devoted to sacrifice could be redeemed on payment of a “fee.” It is probable that those versions of our ballad which end by the throwing of the body into a well, represent the actual custom of early times when no redemption was possible. The father and mother may have regarded it as a duty that their child should become a victim, on the ground that it was better that he should die than that a whole tribe should perish of drought and famine.

No tale has been more popular among English children than that which is usually called “The Golden Ball.” In some form or other every collector has heard it.[116] However much this tale may have been worn down in the course of ages, it is still repeated with emphasis. If ever there was a time when the blood of little children was shed, or when their dripping bodies hung from a gallows-tree, to make the rain fall, how could the memory of such a horror, and of deliverance from such a death, fail to be preserved in ballad or in story?

[358]

The Glass House[117]

There was a little girl selling oranges, and she went to a lady’s house, which was made of glass. It had glass doors, and everything was glass. The girl asked her if she would purchase of her oranges, and the lady said she would have them all if her mother would let her come and be her little servant. So her mother let her go. One day she was cleaning the glass window, when it broke. Then she broke the floor, and when her mistress went to change her dress the little girl ran outside to the gooseberry tree, and she said:—

And the gooseberry tree said, “Go to the butcher’s.” And when she got to the butcher’s, she said:—

But the butcher said, “Go to the baker.” And when she got there, she said:—

And the baker said, “Get into this bread box.” And she got in, and he nailed it up. While she was at the baker’s, her mistress had been to the gooseberry tree, and it told her it had sent the little girl to the butcher. When her mistress got to the butcher’s, he said he had sent her to the baker’s. So she went to the baker’s, and he told her to go away; but she said she would let his house be searched, and she commenced. But when she came to the box that was nailed she shivered, and she made him undo the nails, and out came the girl. So her mistress took her with her, and as they were crossing a river the girl’s mistress was leaning over a bridge, when[359] the girl gave her a push, and she fell over and was drowned. And the little girl went singing merrily till she got to the glass house, and kept it as her own.

Peggy with the Wooden Leggy[118]

Once upon a time there lived together a very rich gentleman and his wife, and they had a young and beautiful child—one of the fairest earth had seen. She had bright golden hair. Her eyes were blue, and her teeth like pearls from the ocean. Her parents loved her very dearly, and if in their power would grant her every wish that she asked. But Peggy fell down and broke her leg, and her father bought her a wooden one. And with Peggy having a wooden leg, the children called her Peggy Wooden Leg, and her father didn’t like that name. And at last, thinking that something was wrong with her, he bought her a cork one, and then they called her Peggy Cork Leg. And going into a shop one day, she asked the shopman if he could change her leg for a golden one. At last she was taken ill, and died, and the butler of her father’s house, thinking it was a sin to let her be buried in her golden leg, stole it, and hid it in his box. He was asleep one night, and he thought he heard a knock, knock, knocking at the door. He said, “Now, bother me, what’s that? No ghosts here.” On turning the bedclothes down he lay aghast, for there at the foot of the bed stood the ghost of beautiful Peggy, not as he had seen her the day before, beautiful as marble, but with features without flesh, sockets without eyes, head without hair, and mouth without teeth. He was terrified, but he thought he would speak to her, and he says, “Peggy, is that you?” And she replied, “Yes; ’tis I.” Then he says, “Peggy, where are those beautiful blue eyes of yours?”

[360]

She said, “They are worm-eaten and gone.”

And he said, “Where are those beautiful pearl teeth of yours?”

She said, “Worm-eaten and gone.”

And he said, “Where are those beautiful golden locks?”

And she said, “Worm-eaten and gone.”

Then he said, “Where is that beautiful golden leg of yours?”

And she said, “You—have—got it!!!” and vanished through the floor.[119]

MISCELLANEOUS FOLK-LORE

A Skull as the Protector of a House

At Tunstead, between Chapel-en-le-Frith and Whaley Bridge, a skull in three pieces has long been kept inside the window of a house. It is known as Dicky Tunstead. If the skull is taken away, things will go wrong in the house and on the land. When the house was being rebuilt and new windows put in, they set Dicky on a couple beam in the barn, and thought they had done with him, and would hear no more of him; but at the rearing supper he made such a disturbance that they had to bring him back into the house. Dicky appears in all kinds of shapes—sometimes as a dog, and sometimes as a young lady in a silk dress. In whatever form he appears, he will point to something amiss if you will follow him. One of the “quarrels” of glass in the window where Dicky is is always out, and if it is put in it is always found taken out again next morning.[120]

[361]

I was told that at Dunscar, a farmhouse in the parish of Castleton, there is a human skull on the outside of a window sill. If it is removed, the crops fare badly. I went to the farmhouse myself, and found no skull there, and the tenant who had lived there many years had never heard of such a thing.

Christmas Eve

In Bradwell Christmas Eve is known as Mischief Night. On that evening gates are pulled off and hung in trees, and farmers’ carts are taken away. They sometimes find them in the morning in a brook at the bottom of the hill. On a certain Mischief Night a farmer was pushing a cart down a steep hill into the brook with great eagerness, not knowing that it was his own cart. He said to his companions, “layt it choiz,”[121] i.e., let it down gently.

New Year

If you see the first new moon in the New Year through a glass there will be a death in the family.

At Great Hucklow they say that if you put clothes out on New Year’s Day there will be a death in the family before the end of the year.

Easter Observances

At Castleton and Bradwell, and in other villages of the High Peak, Easter Monday is known as Unlousing Day, i.e., releasing day. When a young woman came out of a house on the morning of that day the young men used to say “kiss or cuck.” If the girls refused the kiss the young men came in the evening and “cucked” them, i.e., tossed them up. The young women at Castleton used[362] to “cuck” the young men on Easter Tuesday, and a tale is told there about a young man who was “cucked” so often on Easter Tuesday that he fell on his knees and implored an old woman who was driving a cow home not to “cuck” him. If the girl accepted the proffered kiss she was released, i.e., she escaped being tossed.

At Castleton the boys also kissed the girls on Valentine’s Day, and the schoolmaster had to let the girls go home before the boys to prevent the boys from kissing them.

“Cucking” was a very rough practice, and it sometimes led to charges of assault being made before the magistrates. At Castleton it was sometimes done by putting a “fork stale” or fork handle under the girl’s legs and lifting her up. It required two young men to do this. More frequently two men seized a girl by the arms and shoulders, tossed her up, and caught her as she fell. It is said at Bradwell that more girls were seen out on Unlousing Day than on any other day. The day is sometimes known as Cucking Day.

At Bradwell and Castleton parents tell their children to put pins into wells on Palm Sunday, or if they fail to do so they will break their bottles on the following Easter Monday. The pins must be new and straight, not crooked. I have talked to children who have done this, and one of them, a girl about fourteen years old, said the children go in great numbers on the afternoon of Palm Sunday to a well in Bradwell, “behind Micklow.” She took me to the well herself in October, 1901. It is divided into two parts by the boundary wall of a field, and is so small that I should never have found it alone. The Bradwell children used also to drop pins on this day into a well in Charlotte Lane, and also into a pond between Bradwell and Brough. Mr. Robert Bradwell, of Bradwell, aged 88, told me that on Palm Sunday “the children used to put new pins into lady wells, and the [363] lady of the well would not let them have clean water unless they did that.” There is a lady well at the back of the castle at Castleton, from which the children used to fill their bottles at Easter, and there is another at Great Hucklow, or Big Hucklow, as some call it, from which they filled their bottles. Mr. Bradwell said the object of the children was “to get clean water by the lady’s influence. They had to do what the lady required. It was a fairy, or else an insect. On Easter Monday, a father or mother would say to a child, ‘If tha’s put no new pin in, there’ll be no clean water for thee.’” Mrs. Harriet Middleton, aged 83, once lost her slippers in the snow when she was going to put a pin in the well near Micklow. She and other young girls would have gone through snow or any weather to put them in.

The Keep: Peverel Castle.

Little Hucklow: Folk-Collector’s Summer House.

At Castleton, Bradwell, and other places in the neighbourhood, Easter Monday is known as Shakking Monday. At Bradwell the children get glass bottles, such as medicine bottles, and fill them with water. They then put in pieces of peppermint cakes of various colours, but generally pink. These peppermint cakes are quite different from ordinary peppermint lozenges. They are big things, two or three inches wide, and are square or oblong in shape. The children break them up, put the broken pieces into the bottles, shake the mixture, and drink it. Some of the children tie the bottles round their necks. The sweetened water lasts for many days, and they take a drink of it from time to time. At Castleton and Aston the children put Spanish juice or “pink musks” into the water.

They say at Bradwell that unless you wear something new on Easter Sunday the birds will drop their excrement on you.

On Good Friday the lead-miners of Bradwell would on no account go into the mines. They would do any other kind of work on that day.

[364]

Shrove Tuesday Custom

About Whaley, near Chapel-en-le-Frith, they used to bake pancakes (which are eaten as soon as they are ready) on Pancake Day, i.e., Shrove Tuesday. If a girl could not eat a pancake between the time when the last pancake was done and a fresh pancake was ready, she was thrown into a gooseberry bush or upon the ash midden. At Abney on this day they called the one who was last in bed the “bed-churl” or “bed-churn,” and they threw him or her on the ash-midden. It was a common thing in the village to ask who had been the “bed-churl” that day.

Yule Loaf, Posset, and Candle

On Christmas Eve at Bradwell they have a large candle on the table and a large bowl of posset, which is made of ale and milk. They all sit round the table whilst the candle is burning, put their spoons into the bowl, and sup from them. The grocers still give candles to their regular customers for this purpose.

Mrs. George Middleton, of Smalldale, told me that the posset bowl used on Christmas Eve in that hamlet is a pancheon or milk bowl. They sit round the table, and put their spoons into the bowl. Any stranger who happens to come in can also put his spoon in. Posset is made of milk, which is warmed and spiced with nutmeg, ale being poured in until it “breaks” or curds. The Yule loaf was baked all in one piece. It was “like a round loaf put on the top of a four pound loaf.”

Robert Bradwell, of Bradwell, aged 88, said that the posset pot went round the table from one to another. There was a bit of a figure on the top of the Yule loaf to please the eye. The Yule candle was much longer than an ordinary candle.

The last of the Cave-dwellers

Two old women, called Betty Blewit and Sall Waugh, lived in a hut within the opening of the great cave at[365] Castleton. It was one storey high; it had a mud roof, and “a bit of a lead window in front.” The bed was in one corner. These old women used to say that they “lived in a house on which the sun never shone, or the rain ever fell.” They begged of gentle people in the summer.[122] Writing of the cavern in 1720–31, the Rev. Thomas Cox says: “Within the arch are several small buildings, where the poorer sort of people inhabit, who are ready at all times with lanterns and candles to attend such travellers as are curious to enquire into these territories of Satan. These people resemble the Troglydites, or cunicular men, who, as Dr. Brown describes them, lived under the ground like rabbits.”[123]

First Foot

At Castleton a dark-haired man “takes the New Year in” immediately after twelve o’clock on New Year’s Eve. He must be a dark man, i.e., “a man with a black head or black hair.” The parish clerk who had very black hair took the New Year in to some houses in Castleton. When the dark-haired man comes in “a glass of something good is given to him.” I was told that young dark-haired lads “get a ruck o’ money” in Castleton for taking the New Year in. Black or dark hair is obligatory in the High Peak. Miss Barber, of Castleton, aged 76, said that the black-haired man ought to be a stranger, and not a member of the family visited. In Bradwell, as in Castleton, the New Year is brought in by a dark-haired man.[124] The term “first foot” seems to be unknown in the High Peak.

[366]

Curfew

At Castleton the curfew bell is known as the “curfer” bell, the accent falling on the first syllable. It is said to have been rung as a warning to people coming over the moors. It begins to ring on the 29th of September, and ends on Shrove Tuesday. On the 29th of September it rings at seven in the evening, and on the following nights at eight o’clock. It does not ring on Sundays, or between Shrove Tuesday and September 29th. Mr. Samuel Marrison, of Castleton, aged 88, said to me that “people found their way across the hills by the sound of the bells. There were no walls, and the sound of the bells was a guide.” An old man in Castleton told me that “they ring curfer because a man was lost on the hills. The parish clerk rings it on one bell.” I was surprised to find how many people in Castleton knew the exact times at which this bell is rung.

Good Times

In Bradwell they speak of “a good time as a wakes time.” One of the lead-miner’s customary rules declared “that the bar-master, by the consent of the jury, shall make a lawful dish between the buyers and the sellers of lead ore; and against a good time (or festival) as Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, etc., shall give to the poor two dishes, if need require.”[125]

Vows under the Shadow of a Hill

If lovers make vows to each other under the shadow of the castle hill at Castleton, those vows must never be broken. If broken, their love affairs will never prosper.

Thar-Cake Joinings

At Bradwell, on the fifth of November, they make a quantity of thar-cake (in South Yorkshire called tharf-cake),[367] and divide it among the different members of the family, as the father, mother, brothers, and sisters. This is called a thar-cake joining. One Bradwell man will say to another, “Have you joined yet?” meaning “Have you made your thar-cake?”

Another informant told me that a “thar-cake join” was a kind of feast among children, and it used to be very common in Bradwell on the fifth of November. The children asked somebody to make the cake, and each of them paid his or her proportion towards the cost of the ingredients—meal, treacle, etc. They had coffee, etc., with the cake. The Primitive Methodists in Bradwell have now what they call a “thar-cake supper.” It is held on the Saturday which is nearest to the fifth of November.

Burial Customs

At Castleton burying cakes and warm ale were handed round at funerals. Burying cakes, said one of my informants, were three-cornered, and big enough to be carried under the arm. But another informant said they were round, and seven or eight inches across. They cut them into slices, and handed them round with warm ale.

At Castleton the funerals of poor people were known as “pay-buryings.” The guests used to give something towards the expenses, and an old woman with a white cap on used to sit in a chair in the corner, or in an armchair by the fire, and receive the money.

At Bradwell an old farmer called Jacob Eyre was expected to attend all funerals. A basket like a butter basket hung on one of his arms, and with the other arm he used to “deal out” pieces of bread to children standing round the door. Plenty of children gathered together at the funerals for the sake of the bread. The pieces of bread were three or four inches square, and they were either got from a bakehouse, or the relatives made it themselves. The old man was “very complimentary” to[368] the children. He pleased them, joked, and made them laugh. What he said was very pleasant and nice. It was a regular custom in Bradwell, but it was not continued after Jacob Eyre’s death. He died many years ago.[126]

Mrs. George Middleton, of Smalldale, widow, aged 45, said that her mother used to dress coffins with flowers at Abney, where she lived. But she did not put thyme on them, for she said “they had nothing to do with time.” But she said that whenever one of the Twelve Oddfellows at Bradwell dies, the survivors march before his coffin and sing, each surviving oddfellow carrying a sprig of thyme in his hand, which he drops on the coffin. Mrs. Middleton thought that one of their printed rules provided for this being done, but I did not find it in them. Mrs. Middleton said that her mother was present at all births and laying out of corpses at Abney, not as part of her duty, but because she liked to be there. “Funeral bread,” she said, “was made in a peculiar way.” Mrs. Middleton said it was the custom at Abney to put thyme in a house after a death and before the funeral, and also southern wood, old man, or lad’s love, these being names for the same plant.

In Eyam there was a “custom of anointing deceased children with May-dew.”[127]

Wakes

At Thornhill near Hope they have two barrels of ale at the wakes, and they feast in a barn. They dance and sing.

[369]

Mr. Robert Bradwell, of Bradwell, aged 88, told me in 1901 that “every day weakened the wake time. A few old women used to stand across the road at Castleton at the end of the wake week with a rope to keep the wakes in. There is only one road in Castleton—that leading from Hope.” Mr. Bradwell said he had never seen a rope tied across the road to keep the wakes in, and that it was a superstition by which they intended to prolong the wakes. I put questions to many people in Castleton about this, but found nobody who had heard of it.

At Bradwell wakes, which begin on the second Sunday in July, children got their new clothes, and all sorts of cleaning and whitewashing were done against that time. At Castleton also the children had new clothes, and the houses were whitewashed. They “fettled and cleaned for the wakes.”[128]

At Castleton on wakes even, i.e., on the Saturday night before the feast begins, they pulled trees up in gardens, hung gates in trees, hid the farmers’ carts, and took them anywhere.

Offerings to the Fairies

A Derbyshire man, aged about 55, said that his grandmother used to tell him that if you made the hearth very tidy before you went to bed, and put a little food on it, you would find the room swept and tidy next morning. He remembers trying this experiment when a boy, and the disappointment he felt when the desired result was not produced.

[370]

“Sweeping the Girl” on St. Valentine’s Day

Mr. Pendleton tells me in a letter that the custom was observed on the morning of St. Valentine’s Day in the middle of the last century.

[371]

JEDEDIAH STRUTT

By the Hon. Frederick Strutt

Jedediah Strutt, the second of three sons of William Strutt, a farmer at South Normanton, Derbyshire, was born on July 26th, 1726. His mother was Martha Statham, of Shottie, a hamlet in the parish of Duffield, at which church she and William Strutt were married on February 11th, 1724.

Of his elder brother Joseph little is known, except that he went to London, where he started in some commercial business, and that he married a Miss Scott.[130]

Jedediah’s education can have been only that of a country school of those days, though it is but fair to surmise that his father must have been a man superior to the farmers and yeomen of his day, otherwise his sons, Jedediah in particular, could not have been so successful in the respective occupations of their after life.

Mr. Felkin[131] tells us that in very early years Jedediah’s thoughts took an eminently practical turn, and that as a boy he occupied himself in making toy water-mills on a small brook, in endeavouring even to improve his father’s plough, and in other ingenious pastimes. The writer of[372] this memoir is unaware from what source Mr. Felkin obtained his information as to the early tastes and occupations of Jedediah, but as he (Mr. Felkin) was a friend of the first Lord Belper, the grandson of Jedediah, the writer feels confident that nothing was inserted in Mr. Felkin’s account that had not Lord Belper’s full knowledge and approval.

It is at all events clear that at fourteen years of age Jedediah had shown a greater taste for mechanics than for husbandry, for he was then apprenticed by his father to a Mr. Ralph Massey, a wheelwright of Findern, a village about five miles from Derby, and twenty miles from his paternal home. It was to this apprenticeship, and to this life at Findern, that Jedediah Strutt owed a great part of his success in after life, and it is interesting to know that the document of the original indenture, of which a facsimile is given, is in the hands of and prized by his great-grandson, the second Lord Belper.

At Findern, Jedediah was put to lodge with a family of the name of Woollatt, who were what were called hosiers (i.e., hosiery manufacturers in a small way); it was, as we shall see, from his intimacy with this family that a great deal of his success in after life emanated.

It may be presumed that William Strutt’s family were not members of the Church of England, but belonged to the Presbyterian, or, as it was called in later years, Unitarian persuasion. Whether that was so or not, the Woollatts at all events belonged to that sect, and sat under a Dr. Ebenezer Latham, who was a scholar of some repute, and had chapels both at Findern and at Caldwell.

Jedediah Strutt, we know, served the full time of his apprenticeship at Findern, and after that was in service or employment at Leicester, or at Belgrave, near that town, for a period of about seven years.

Apprenticeship Indenture of Jedediah Strutt, 1740.

It must have been about the year 1754, when he was[373] twenty-eight years of age, that an uncle, who was a farmer at Blackwell, the parish next to South Normanton, died; he left his stock on the farm to Jedediah, with the idea, we suppose, that he would succeed him as tenant. This legacy seems to have been sufficient to induce Jedediah to give up his employment, whatever it was, near Leicester, and return to the land or to husbandry. It served also as a reason for thinking he was in a position to marry. We find him, therefore, almost at once, after settling at Blackwell, writing to Elizabeth Woollatt, with whom he had been ever since his residence at Findern, now more than eight years before, on terms of intimacy if not of affection. Miss Woollatt had during that time been very little at home, but had been out in service, and at the time of Jedediah’s proposal was acting as servant or housekeeper to a Dr. Benson, an eminent Presbyterian divine in the east of London, who had written several works on divinity, and who has in more recent days been deemed worthy of a place in the Dictionary of National Biography.

The characteristic letter containing Jedediah’s proposal to Elizabeth Woollatt, which we are about to give, is a long one, but it is rather typical of the writer, and is also worth inserting as a proof of how well he, who was little above a working man in position, had managed to educate himself.

“J. Strutt to Elizabeth Woollatt.
“Blackwell
“Feby 3^rd 1755

“Dear Betty,

“Since our first acquaintance, which is now many years ago, I have often wrote to you but never in a strain like this; nor did I think I ever should for though we were then more intimately acquainted than since and though then I thought you had some degree of kindness for me, yet as my conduct and behaviour to you has been such as could neither raise nor continnue your regard, together with the years that have passed since then, (for time often puts a period to love as well as all other events) I did not think you could remember me with the least pleasure or satisfaction but rather the contrary; but when I was at London and had the[374] opportunity of seeing you something or other told me (though perhaps nothing more than the last glance of your eye when I bade you farewell) that you looked on me with an eye of tenderness nay, one is so apt to speak as they wish I had liked to have said love; and if so that one generous instance of truth and constancey has made a greater and more lasting impression on my mind than all the united claims of beauty wit and fortune of your sex so far as I have had opportunity of conversing, were ever able to make; therefore it is upon this foundation I promise to tell you that from a wandering inconstant and roving swain I am become entirely yours!

“I am ready to become all that you could wish me to be if you loved me and which is all I wish your husband. But suppose I should have gone too far in this declaration, and my fond observation prove a mistake, how will you wish, nay rather how impossible would it then be for you to wish even to call me by that tender name. But let me still suppose it is not so.... Yet what argument can I use to induce you to leave London with all the delights it affords, or how persuade you to leave so good a master who I know values you and whom you both esteem and love. Here I am at a loss and if you should be indifferent with regard to me it will be impossible to say anything that will be sufficient. And indeed I am not inclined to flatter nor to fill your imagination with fine words only; and this is one of all the realities I can think of, that it is not impossible but that you may be happy here even tho’ it is true you cannot behold the splendour and the gaiety of a great city nor the noise and hurry of its inhabitants; yet the London air is not half so sweet, nor the pleasures half so lasting and sincere. Here inocense and health more frequently reside; here the beauties of nature are ever presenting themselves both to our senses and imaganations; here you may view the rising and the setting sun which many in London are strangers to; here it is that you may have the morning and the evening song of many warbling larks and linnets and as Milton expresses it ‘The shrill matin song of birds on everry bough.’ As to myself fortune has not placed me among the number of the rich and great and so not subjected me to the many temptations and follies that attend great men some of which perhaps I should not have been able to withstand, and others that I should have been loth to bear; yet by the blessing of heaven I have more then enough for happiness, and by that means at this season of the year I enjoy many leisure hours (and all the blessings of leisure and retirement) some of which I spend in reading and meditation, the rest I dedicate to love and you.

“But I shall forget myself and learn to do a thing I never loved that is to write long letters, and yet methinks I have a thousand things to say; but as I had rather you wished I had said more than less nay if I could have told you all my heart in one word, I should not now have troubled you with so many; but I have no apology to make, only my[375] sincerity, and if you read with candour and with the same simplicity with which I write you will certainly find it sincere. I hope that will recomment it to your kind reception and obtain if possible an answer of kindness.

“I saw your brother as I passed through Derby but I did not take him the books you desired me. I heard from my brother last week and rejoyce to hear he has been abroad (i e out of the house).

“My father often talks of the Doctor and you and withall knows that I love you, nay he himself loves you and will be glad to see you here; and now if ever you had any kindness for me, if ever I did or said anything to give you either delight or pleasure, let it not be in vain that I now ask, nor torture me with silence and suspense; by so doing you will lay the highest obligations on one who is in every sense of the word

“Your sincere lover
“J Strutt.”

This proposal elicited the following equally characteristic reply:—

“Elizabeth Woollatt to Jedediah Strutt.
“addressed to
“M^r Jedediah Strutt at Blackwell
“to be left at the Bull Inn, Mansfield

“London Feby 15^th
“1755

“Yours of the third came safe, which I would have answered before but had not presence of mind enough for some time to lay it before my master; at length a favourable opportunity offering itself, my resolution got the better of my fear, and, after a short introduction gave him your letter which he said showed you to be a man of sense and he thought of honour and honesty; but as to himself he was so surprised, disconcerted and uneasy as I never saw him, and for some time would say nothing more to me. At length he became able to talk freely on that head, bid me consult my own happiness and not think what he suffered. He then offered to make me independent, that so after his death, I might live where I pleased, not at all intending that as a dissuasive from accepting your generous offer, but as a means to prevent my being influenced by any other motive than that alone which is essential to the most lasting, most perfect happiness.

“Such, such is the behaviour of this god-like man; may he meet all the reward that such beneficence deserves in both worlds.

“As to myself was I possessed of any desirable qualification, and had I enjoyed the greatest affluence, I should not then hesitate a moment, but comply with whatever you will desire; but my consciousness of my own inferiority in points of fortune as well as anything else, makes me[376] extremely fearful that you should find cause to repent, when it is too late; if this should be the case, what I must suffer from what in me is the least occasion of pain to you, is not for me to say; but be this as it will, you are and ever will be entitled to the best wishes of your most humble servant

“E. Woollat.
“My service to your father I wish I better deserved his good opinion.”

Many letters afterwards pass between the happy pair; but their course of true love runs very smoothly until all is made ready. At the beginning of September, we find Miss Woollatt coming down from London to Blackwell to be married. It would certainly have seemed more natural that she should be married from her father’s house, but that did not seem to be either possible or advisable under changed circumstances, as her father had married again, and the step-mother, as is often the case, seemed to stand rather in the way of the children being at home.

We now, therefore, see Jedediah Strutt happily settled at Blackwell, apparently ready to remain steadfast to farming, and married to the excellent and most industrious woman of his affections. It must have been, however, about the time his first child, William, was born, that a change came over the scene, and that Jedediah’s strong taste for mechanics obliged him to think of other things besides his farm.

His brother-in-law, William Woollatt, who had been assisting his father in the hosiery trade, and till the second marriage had been living at Findern, knowing Strutt’s bent for mechanics, desired his assistance in connection with an object which he had at heart, viz., the invention of a machine for making ribbed hose.

It will be best and most fitting here to give Mr. Felkin’s account of this invention.[132]

“Mr. William Woollatt was at that time, 1750, a hosier in Derby. His attention was directed to the question of how these ribbed hose could be made, and he brought under the special attention of his brother-in-law,[377] Mr. Jedediah Strutt, who, though an agriculturist, had he knew been from his youth engaged in mechanical pursuits as an occupation of his mind and hands during his leisure time. The reference thus made proved to be a most successful one. The important results could not have been at first anticipated, nor even during the lifetime of Mr. Strutt were they fully understood. But they have been such as to have given him a just prominence amongst the inventors of that age, and to require the more extended personal account about to be given. The very simplicity of the plan he devised and of the mode of its application to the machine of Lee 170 years after its invention added to the fact that no historian of the trade wrote during the next fifty years preclude any very minute details of the obstacles he encountered. Such an account now would be very interesting, if it had been forthcoming. Great difficulties there must have been, for the constructive powers of mechanics in the stocking trade had not a hundred years ago been employed as they have been since; mainly as the effect of this effort of Strutt’s genius.... It was now that he, by Mr. Woollatt’s representations of the difficulty and importance of the matter then occupying the frame-work knitting world, was induced to make himself practically acquainted with the principles and the movements of a stocking frame; probably the most if not the only very complex machine he had ever seen; and this with the idea no doubt at first but a remote one of so dealing with it as to cause it to produce what had hitherto been thought to be beyond its powers. A clergyman had invented it, why should not a farmer increase its capacity for usefulness? After much labour, time, and expense, he succeeded admirably in this by making an addition to it, or rather placing in front of it so as to work in unison and harmony with it a distinct apparatus or machine; thus between them to produce the ribbed web of looped fabric; and not as popularly stated by finding out the defects of Lee’s frame and devoting himself to its improvement.

... The principle of Strutt’s Derby rib machine remains unaltered; its operation has been simplified, however, by its subordination to automatic movement, as will be at once seen on examination of power hosiery frames lately constructed.”

From this time, though he did not leave his farm at Blackwell at once, Strutt’s mind was evidently entirely occupied with his invention, and with the consideration of the best way of making use of it. Strutt’s means were, we can imagine, very small, and therefore his only plan was to try and get some other manufacturer of hosiery to take him as a partner, and share the advantage of his mechanical skill and invention. We believe there are no letters of Strutt’s to be found relating to his invention[378] of the Derby rib machine, but in 1757 he was evidently making great efforts to start in a hosiery business.

Early in that year, Mrs. Strutt went up to London to see her kind old master, and to inquire whether he could be persuaded to advance them or lend them some of the necessary capital for starting in business. She was, we believe, successful in this object, and we know that the next child was christened George Benson. The account of her journey up to town gives a rather good idea of the difficulty of travelling in those days, especially for the humbler classes, who could not afford the coach, but had to go by the waggon.

Jedediah Strutt took his wife to Derby, evidently on a pillion behind him on horseback, and from there she proceeded in the stage waggon. In this their progress must have been very slow, as she writes about the journey that at Glyn, six miles from Leicester, “I was so sick I was not able to travel further, but staid behind the waggon more than an hour, and then walked five miles before I came up with it.”

In this and the following year the necessary patents were taken out, and a great many of the leading hosiery manufacturers in the neighbourhood of Nottingham were approached, and several visits to London had to be paid. The first business Jedediah Strutt started was with hosiers of the name of Bloodworth and Herford. This arrangement, though terminated happily by all parties, did not last long, and the two brothers-in-law ultimately persuaded Mr. Need, a most respectable hosier, to join them, the firm being styled Need, Strutt and Woollatt. They had works both at Derby and Nottingham. It can be readily understood that immersed as he was in this business, Strutt had found it impossible to continue to reside on the farm at Blackwell, which place he must have left about 1759, when he took his family to reside in Derby.

Before we leave the village of Blackwell, it ought to be mentioned that the farmhouse where Strutt resided[379] is still known, and that when one of his great-grandsons visited the place only a few years ago, he was at once taken up to a long, low garret in the roof, where it is the current tradition of the place his great-grandfather had 150 years ago worked his hosiery frame and invented the Derby rib machine.

It may also be of a little interest to some of our readers to be told that one of the Strutt family was able to acquire quite recently a cradle made by Jedediah for his first child, William. This cradle, it appears, had been acquired or bought when Strutt left Blackwell by his friend Haslam, the blacksmith at Tibshelf (a neighbouring village), who had probably assisted Strutt in making his machine. It has since that time rocked four generations of the Haslam family. The cradle is of oak, and it is needless to say, like many other works of Strutt’s, of very strong and solid construction.

The hosiery manufacture of Need, Strutt and Woollatt must have been very successful, or they would not in such a few years have been able to gain the position they did. Strutt must have been the manager or moving spirit of the establishments both in Derby and Nottingham. It is interesting to learn that in the latter town, in which we believe he never resided, he received in the year 1762 the compliment of being made a freeman.

It was, we believe, in or about the year 1770 that Richard Arkwright, knowing, of course, what the demand for cotton yarn was for hosiery making in Derby and Nottingham, came to Nottingham in the hope of finding someone to help him in starting cotton mills, by which he could reap the fruits of his recent invention, the Spinning Jenny. Messrs. Wright, the bankers, not being prepared to find all the necessary capital, advised Arkwright to apply to the successful hosiery manufacturers, Messrs. Need, Strutt and Woollatt. This advice was at once acted on, and in a very short time the firm of Messrs. Arkwright, Strutt and Need was formed.

[380]

Cotton mills, driven by horse power, were at once started at Nottingham, and a few years later mills were built at Cromford, where advantage was taken of the fine water power of the river Derwent.

Strutt was now a very busy man, as he was not only part proprietor of large hosiery works and of large cotton spinning works, but he was also starting in Derby calico or weaving works. It was he, we are told, who was the first person to start the manufacture of calico all of cotton, that is to say, not of linen warp and cotton weft. This change, though it may seem to us a small one, created a revolution in the calico trade, and all the Lancashire manufacturers were up in arms against it. In the end an Act of Parliament, after much trouble had been taken, was passed, by which certain prohibitions and discriminating duties were repealed, and the new process declared to be both lawful and laudable.

The following letter from Lord Howe,[133] the celebrated admiral, who had no doubt been helping to steer this measure through the House of Commons, is perhaps of sufficient interest to insert:—

“Grafton Street
“August 16th 1785

“Lord Howe presents his compliments with many thanks for the piece of the new manufacture he has received from Messrs. Need & Strutt. He is very much flattered by that instance of their gallantry to Lady Howe who accepts it with equal acknowledgment, as he deems it an evidence of their obliging prejudice in his favour, tho’ conscious at the same time that the success of their application to Parliament was solely ascribable to the reasonableness and justice of their pretensions. Lady Howe will have a particular satisfaction in making the circumstances known, hoping that the elegance of the pattern and the perfection of the work will incite all her acquaintance to encourage so great an improvement in the British manufactures.”

In the year 1780, Strutt and Arkwright severed their business connection, Arkwright retaining the works at Cromford, and Strutt building works at Belper and at[381] Milford on land that had been recently acquired. These works, as well as those at Cromford, continue to be carried on as cotton mills in spite of the enormous development of the cotton trade in Lancashire.

It is interesting, too, to know that Samuel Sclater, known in America as the “father” of the cotton spinning industry in that country, came from Belper, and was actually apprenticed for seven years to Jedediah Strutt while he was living at Milford. Samuel Sclater’s life was written in America nearly eighty years ago, and contains a view of the Belper mills, and the portrait and one or two interesting little anecdotes of his old master, Jedediah Strutt.

We must now say a few words about Strutt’s domestic and family life in the latter part of his career. In 1773 he had the misfortune to lose his wife, a loss that was irreparable to him, as she had been not only a devoted helpmate and companion to him, but a most excellent mother to their children. She died while with him on one of his many journeys to London which he made about this time. She is buried in Bunhill Fields.

We give here an extract from one of Jedediah’s letters to his children after their mother’s death:—

“At present I feel so bewildered and so lost so wanting, some how or other so but half myself that I can scarce believe things to be in the manner they are indeed it is impossible for me to describe or you to imagine how I feel. I doubt not every repetition of this kind will affect you but it will wear off especially in minds young as yours are. Other objects will make their impressions but you I trust will never forget your dear mother who loved you so well I hope you will always retain much of her goodness of temper disposition and affection; that you will imitate the example she has set you of virtue of goodness of benevolence and kindness for they are most amiable virtues and that you will study the same sentiments of sobriety temperance diligence frugality industry and economy that you observed in her. Your own recollection will bring to your minds so many things that were to be found in her worth your attention that I need not here enumerate them.”

The bereaved husband, owing to his business in London, and perhaps also to his own feelings, did not[382] return to his family till November. The children, of whom William, the eldest, was only seventeen years of age, by their letters at any rate show how well they had been brought up. Having only one servant, a great deal of the work in the house had to be done by them, and we have proof also that both William and his sisters were making themselves of use in some of the office work of their father’s business. It is interesting, too, to find how careful their parents were in impressing upon them the importance of learning French, and to note even in their letters what trouble they took to obtain proficiency in that language.

In the letter to his son, from which we are about to make a few extracts, we can see how Jedediah felt the disadvantage of the rather humble and imperfect education and of the illiterate society he had had in early life, and was determined if possible to do his utmost to prevent his children suffering in the way he had suffered.

“London August 4th 1774

“My dear Billy

“Some time ago I happened to see some of the letters wrote by the Earl of Chesterfield to his son which pleased me so much that I determined to buy the book and on perusing it find it so full of good sense, good language and just observations that I am charmed with it. The late Lord Chesterfield was a nobleman of the first rank, had all the advantages of a learned and polite education joined to a ready wit and good understanding. He had seen and conversed and been employed in most of the countries in Europe; indeed he had spent a life of many years in the most polished and refined company that were anywhere to be met with; to all of which great advantages he added the most diligent the most careful and most just observation.”

Jedediah Strutt.
(From Original Painting by Joseph Wright, c. 1785.)

After explaining Lord Chesterfield’s and his son’s position in the world, Jedediah Strutt continues:—

“I need not tell you that you are not to be a nobleman, nor prime minister, but you may possibly be a tradesman of some eminence and as such you will necessarily have connection with mankind and with the world and that will make it absolutely necessary to know them both and you may be assured if you add to the little learning and improvement you have hitherto had, the manners, the air, the genteel address and polite behaviour of a gentleman you will abundantly find your account[383] in it in all and every transaction of your future life when you come to do business in the world.... You may believe me in this for I now feel the want of them (accomplishments) by dear experience. If I would I could describe the awkward figure one makes, the confusion and the embarrassment one is thrown into on certain occasions from the want of not knowing how to behave and the want of assurance to put what one does know into practice. I look on it now as a real misfortune that in the beginning of my life I had not sense nor judgment enough of my own nor any friend that was able or kind enough to point out to me the necessity of an easy agreeable or polite behaviour. Indeed so foolish was I that I looked on dancing and dress the knowing how to sit or attend or move gracefully and properly as trifles not worthy the least expense of time or money and much below the notice of a wise man. I observe in you a good deal of the same temper and disposition with regard to these things that I myself had when I was your age but if you will believe me as the best friend you have in the world they are wrong notions and must be eradicated and changed for those of a different nature if ever you mean to shine in any character in life whatever.”

After reading this letter of advice of the father to his son, it is interesting to know that the son, if he did not occupy any public position, did shine as an eminent scientific man, who numbered amongst his friends all the greatest scientists and philanthropists of his day, and was himself a member of the Royal Society.

Very little more remains to be told of Jedediah Strutt’s life. He married a second time about the year 1780 or 1781, Anne, the widow of George Daniels, of Belper, and daughter of George Cantrell, of Kniveton. This marriage, we learn from one or two letters, did not give satisfaction to his daughters and other members of his family, nearly all of whom were, however, married about that time or a little later.

Jedediah Strutt passed the end of his life at Milford House, which he had himself built. He did not die there, but at Exeter House, Derby, in the year 1797. He lies buried in the Unitarian Chapel at Belper.

We may perhaps be excused here for quoting what Mr. Felkin says about Mr. Strutt:—

“An intellect singularly clear and cool was combined in him with the faculty of devising inventions and improvements which he carried into[384] effect with unwearied energy of mind and purpose, impressing themselves on the entire conduct of his establishments as they increased in magnitude. His tenacity of principle and moral fortitude resulted from his confidence that his determinations were founded upon truth. His convictions in regard to general views of society were equally strong. His political and religious opinions were adopted because he thought them sound and conclusive to the happiness of mankind.”

Mr. Strutt seems to have been singularly void of ambition for worldly distinction; he was only ambitious of the blessing that follows duty done.

Although the practice of writing your own epitaph cannot be exactly commended, the writer of this brief memoir may perhaps be excused for inserting in it the words found a few years ago amongst Jedediah Strutt’s papers, and in his own handwriting:—

“Here rests in peace J. S—— who without fortune family or friends raised to himself a fortune family and name in the world; without having wit, had a good share of plain common sense; without much genius, enjoyed the more substantial blessing of a sound understanding; with but little personal pride, despised a mean or base action; with no ostentation for religious tenets and ceremonies, he led a life of honesty and virtue, not knowing what would befall him after death, he died resigned in full confidence that if there be a future state of retribution it will be to reward the virtuous and the good.

“This I think my true character.

“J. Strutt.”