NEWTON PARK AND FAIRFIELD HOUSE
From the date of its discovery in 1693 down to the present time, the
name of ‘Newton Park’ has been associated with the Alfred Jewel as
designating the property on which it was found. In our day, however,
this name is no longer recognized in the neighbourhood, and indeed it
is apt to be misleading. For this title is now current in Somerset in
another sense, namely, as denoting the seat of Earl Temple at Newton
St. Loe, near Bath. Still the honorific appellation of ‘Newton Park,’
for the estate on which the Jewel was discovered, will be found to
rest upon historic antecedents, which are full of interest, and not
devoid of suggestiveness for the purpose of our present investigation.
The extant mention of this Newton carries us back a good space behind
the Norman Conquest. The Will of Ælfric, archbishop of Canterbury, who
died in 1006, affords evidence that he was a landowner in Newton. It
is not generally possible to identify a place by a name which became
so common, but the coupling of it in Abp. Ælfric’s Will with the name
of Fiddington, removes all uncertainty. The passage in the Will (which
is cast in the third person) runs thus: ‘And the land in the West
Country at Fiddington and at Newton he bequeathed to his sisters and
their children[46].’
In the forest laws, which grew up after the Conquest, we find that the
custody of the royal forest of North Petherton was a serjeanty, which
was attached to the Manor of Newton and caused it to be distinguished
by the name of Newton Forester. When this Manor was granted by King
John to William de Wrotham, it was declared that he held it by the
service of being the king’s forester in the counties of Somerset,
Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall. As he does not appear to have exercised
his office beyond the county of Somerset, this territorial definition
suggests that some vague prerogative had attached to Newton Manor at
an earlier time.
In the third generation from the above grant this Manor passed with
an heiress into the hands of William de Placetis. A generation later
it was divided between three co-heiresses, Sabina, Evelina, and
Emma. Then arose a question about the office of Forester, and it
was found that it appertained to a particular messuage and meadow,
and that these were included within the portion of Sabina, so she
was declared Forester in fee of the forests of Exmoor, Neroche,
Selwood, and Mendip, likewise custodian of the warren of Somerton;
and these offices she discharged by deputy. In her time (26 Edw. I)
occurred the Perambulation of the forests of the county, in pursuance
of the Charter of the Forests which had been granted by Henry III.
The forests were to be reduced to their ancient and lawful bounds,
according to their limits at the accession of Henry I. The annual
value of the lands then disafforested was more than a hundred times
as great as that of the legal forest of North Petherton.
In the time of Edward III the Manor of Newton with its rights
and appurtenances belonged to Roger, earl of Mortimer, in whose
descendants and in the dukes of York it continued to the time of
Edward IV, when it came to the Crown, and then the Manor was quoted
as Newton Regis. During this period the powers of Forester were
delegated, and some interesting names occur in the list of deputies:
14 Ric. II. Richard Brettle and Gefferey Chaucer, esqrs., by the
appointment of the earl of March.
21 Ric. II. Gefferey Chaucer, by Alienor, countess of March.
4 Hen. V. Thomas Chaucer, by Edward, earl of March.
8 Hen. VI. William Wrothe and Thomas Attemore.
12 Hen. VI. William Wrothe.
29 Hen. VI. Sir William Bonville and Richard Luttrell, by the duke of
York.
14 Edw. IV. Sir Giles D’Aubeny, for life.
23 Hen. VII. Robert Wrothe, for thirty years.
Soon after the expiration of which term Sir Thomas Wrothe, son and
heir of the last-named Robert, purchased of Edward VI the fee of
Petherton Park and the Manor of Newton Regis. The office of Forester
had now fallen into decay and the ancient glory had departed, and
the transfer of this property appears to have been governed by
the ordinary considerations. In the time of Queen Elizabeth the
descendants of Sir Thomas pulled down the park house, and carried the
materials to a lodge called the Broad Lodge, which (said Collinson in
1791) ‘the late Sir Thomas Wrothe improved to a handsome dwelling.
The whole park[47] is now converted into farms.’ The improvements of
Sir Thomas Wrothe, here mentioned, have a probable connexion with our
subject.
Such is the remarkable history of the Manor which has been at
different times known as Newton Forester, Newton Placey, Newton Regis,
and Newton Wrothe; and this history ministers occasion for a surmise
that the distinction which attended this Manor may have had its roots
considerably further back, inasmuch as the extant records do not offer
an adequate account of that peculiar prerogative which made it so
famous and so dignified.
I venture to suggest that the beginnings of this place, which has
been so eminent, and which is now known by the comparatively obscure
name of North Newton, may have been connected with the retreat of
the king to Athelney, that this may have been a spot of his own
selection. It is reached from Athelney by simply following the rise of
the ground, it is well placed for keeping an eye on the Parret, the
side from which a surprize was most to be apprehended, and it was the
approach to the fine hunting-fields of Quantock and Exmoor. What more
natural than that he should take a liking to the place and judge it
convenient for a hunting-lodge? And I venture to throw out a surmise
for consideration. May it not be that the prefix ‘New’ was set by the
king himself, who gave the name of New Minster to his foundation at
Winchester[48]?
The name of Newton properly belonged only to the Manor, but as the
lordship of this Manor was long coupled with the custody of Petherton
Park, and as the two were habitually associated in men’s minds, the
latter came to be spoken of as ‘Newton Park,’ and this title is simply
a colloquial variation and equivalent for Petherton Park. The correct
name of Petherton Park is constantly used by Leland in the extract
from his _Itinerary_ which is given in the previous chapter. So that
when the Alfred Jewel is said to have been found in Newton Park, this
is only a popular way of saying that it was found in Petherton Park.
The discovery occurred in the time of Sir Thomas Wrothe, who was also
the enlarger of the mansion, and it is a probable inference that it
was found in the excavations which were required for this work[49].
* * * * *
The scene now shifts from Newton to the neighbouring parish of
Stogursey or, as modern research has taught us to write it, Stoke
Courcy. In this parish is Fairfield House, a handsome Elizabethan
mansion in which the Alfred Jewel was preserved for a quarter of a
century, from the time of its discovery in 1693, until it was given to
the University of Oxford in 1718[50].
About the time of Henry II the lands of ‘Ferfelle’ were severed from
those of Honibere, and erected into a separate estate.
By-and-by the name slid into a new form, conveying a new idea. The
new name into which it merged is one that has been freely propagated
both at home and in the colonies, with pleasing associations of soft
and gently undulating landscape suggestive of homely scenery and a
sheltered situation. Very different is the connotation of the name
in its documentary form. In ‘Ferfelle’ we can see only some outlying
‘remoter fell,’ such as would be little visited save for uses of
summer pasture. In Collinson’s picture of the mansion, which is here
reproduced, while the foreground seems to justify the modern name,
the hills and hanging woods at the back of the house seem to bear out
the more primitive signification of an outlying mountain fell. And
probably this was also the idea which originally gave name to the
well-known mountain in Westmoreland over Grasmere.
[Illustration: FAIRFIELD HOUSE.]
After a succession of owners of various names this new estate came
(14 Edw. I) into the possession of William de Vernai, who had married
the sole daughter and heiress of the previous proprietor. For nearly
three hundred years there was always a Vernai at Fairfield. In 12 Edw.
IV the Vernai of that day (the fourth of the name of William) had a
licence to build a wall and seven round towers about his mansion-house
at Fairfield, and to enclose two hundred acres of ground for a park.
‘The tomb in the Vernais isle in the fine old Priory church of Stoke
Courcy, with an image of an armed man lying thereon, belongs to this
William Vernai’ (Collinson).
Fairfield had come into the family of Vernai by an heiress, and at
length it passed in the same manner to the family of Palmer. Hugh de
Vernai left one only daughter, and she was called Elizabeth, after
the great queen, who was her godmother. On the death of her father
her wardship was granted to Sir Thomas Palmer, of Parham, in the
county of Sussex, Knt.; to whose only son, William, she was afterwards
married. Soon after this marriage, Sir Thomas Palmer pulled down the
old house, and began the present mansion, which was completed by his
grandson (also Sir Thomas Palmer, Knt.), who inherited Fairfield in
1587. This proprietor was not a keeper at home. In 1595 he was with
Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins in the expedition to Porto
Rico, and afterwards commanded a ship at the taking of Cadiz, where he
was knighted. He was one of the most considerable persons in the Court
of Queen Elizabeth; but on the accession of King James he resolved to
spend the remainder of his days beyond the seas, and accordingly, in
the year 1605, he went with the earl of Nottingham into Spain, where,
as he was providing a settlement for his family at Valladolid, he died
of the small-pox, and was there buried.
William Palmer, his son and heir, was a man of learning, and chose
to live in London, and he was, in the time of Charles I, fined a
thousand pounds by the Star Chamber for disobedience to the king’s
proclamation, which required all persons of estate to reside and keep
hospitality at their country houses.
His brother Peregrine, who succeeded him, went as a volunteer to the
Palatinate wars, and was afterwards an officer in the Swedish army.
As soon as the royal standard was set up he repaired to Nottingham,
and faithfully served King Charles in the commissions of major,
lieutenant-colonel, and colonel of horse, being present at the battles
of Edgehill, Marston Moor, Cropredy Bridge, and Naseby. He died in
1684, having married Anne, the daughter of Nathaniel Stevens, in
the county of Gloucester, Esq., and he was succeeded in the estate
by his eldest surviving son, Nathaniel, who is reported in the
_Philosophical Transactions_ as the possessor of the Alfred Jewel in
the year 1698[51]. He served in several parliaments for the boroughs
of Minehead and Bridgwater, and for the county of Somerset. The first
recorded possessor of the Alfred Jewel died in 1717. He was succeeded
by his son Thomas, who resided at Fairfield, where he lived a studious
life, investigating the antiquities of his country. His manuscript is
preserved at Fairfield, and it was a valuable source of information to
Collinson, the historian of Somerset. It is from this source we learn
that the Jewel was ‘dug up,’ an expression which seems to justify the
inference that it was not accidentally lost, but purposely buried[52].
It was he who, in 1718, gave the Alfred Jewel to the University of
Oxford.
He married a daughter of Sir Thomas Wrothe of Petherton Park, who
died in 1721, leaving two daughters co-heiresses. The elder of these
was married to Sir Hugh Acland, of Columb-John in the county of
Devon, Bart., and the younger to Mr. Thomas Palmer, who died without
issue. He was succeeded by his brother Peregrine, who represented the
University of Oxford in several parliaments, and died in 1762, the
last survivor of his name and family. He left his estate to Arthur
Acland, Esq., his next of kin, from whom it has descended to Sir
Alexander Acland Hood, Baronet, the present owner of the Fairfield
estate.
[46] And ðe land be westan at Fittingtúne and at Niwantúne
he becwæð his sweostrum and heora bearnum. Kemble, _Codex
Diplomaticus_, p. 719; Thorpe, _Diplomatarium_, p. 549; Earle,
_Land Charters_, p. 223.
[47] ‘In this park was found the curious amulet of king Alfred,
mentioned in vol. i, p. 87.’ Collinson, _History of Somerset_, vol.
iii, p. 62.
[48] In Kemble’s _Codex Diplomaticus_, No. 320, there is a late
and meagre abstract of a grant of land by king Alfred ‘in loco qui
dicitur Norðniwtune.’ Kemble puts this place in Wiltshire, but why
may it not be the North Newton by Athelney? The orthography of the
name would be not that of the original grant, but of the abridger’s
time. Appendix F.
[49] I am indebted for this suggestion to Sir Alexander Acland Hood.
[50] To be quite exact, its lodging for the first five years is
matter of inference from the fact that in 1698 it is described
as being at Fairfield, without any indication of a change of
ownership. One transfer however there must have been. The place
of discovery made it the property of Sir Thomas Wrothe; and as
Nathaniel Palmer was his mother’s brother, it is easy to understand
the gift of the nephew to his uncle, who may have been a man of
antiquarian tastes. We can also understand the desire of Nathaniel
Palmer that this precious relic should go to Oxford, as he, with
many others of his family, had been educated at the University, of
which Alfred was the reputed founder. Appendix G.
[51] Appendix A.
[52] Appendix G.