OVER FEN AND WOLD
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY MANOR-HOUSE.]
Over Fen and Wold
BY
JAMES JOHN HISSEY
AUTHOR OF ‘A DRIVE THROUGH ENGLAND,’ ‘ON THE BOX SEAT,’
‘THROUGH TEN ENGLISH COUNTIES,’ ‘ON SOUTHERN ENGLISH ROADS,’ ETC.
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown road before me leading wherever I choose.
WHITMAN.
WITH FOURTEEN FULL PAGE (AND SOME SMALLER) ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE AUTHOR
AND A MAP OF THE ROUTE
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1898
_All rights reserved_
DEDICATED
TO THE MOST CHERISHED MEMORY OF
MY ONE-YEAR-OLD SON
WILLIAM AVERELL HISSEY
Darling, if Jesus rose,
Then thou in God’s sweet strength hast risen as well;
When o’er thy brow the solemn darkness fell,
It was but one moment of repose.
Thy love is mine--my deathless love to thee!
May God’s love guard us till all death is o’er,--
Till thine eyes meet my sorrowing eyes once more,--
Then guard us still, through all eternity!
[Illustration: A HOME OF TO-DAY.]
PREFACE
The following pages contain the chronicle of a leisurely and most
enjoyable driving tour through a portion of Eastern England little
esteemed and almost wholly, if not quite, neglected by the average
tourist, for Lincolnshire is generally deemed to be a flat land, mostly
consisting of Fens, and with but small, or no scenic attractions. We,
however, found Lincolnshire to be a country of hills as well as of Fens,
and we were charmed with the scenery thereof, which is none the less
beautiful because neither famed nor fashionable. Some day it may become
both. Lincolnshire scenery awaits discovery! Hitherto the
pleasure-traveller has not found it out, but that is his loss!
We set forth on our tour, like the renowned Dr. Syntax, “in search of
the picturesque,” combined with holiday relaxation, and in neither
respect did we suffer disappointment. Our tour was an unqualified
success. A more delightfully independent, a more restful, or a more
remunerative way of seeing the country than by driving through it,
without haste or any precisely arranged plan, it is difficult to
conceive, ensuring, as such an expedition does, perfect freedom, and a
happy escape from the many minor worries of ordinary travel--the only
thing absolutely needful for the driving tourist to do being to find an
inn for the night.
Writing of the joys of road-travel in the pre-railway days George Eliot
says, “You have not the best of it in all things, O youngsters! The
elderly man has his enviable memories, and not the least of them is the
memory of a long journey on the outside of a stage-coach.” The railway
is most excellent for speed, “but the slow old-fashioned way of getting
from one end of the country to the other is the better thing to have in
the memory. The happy outside coach-passenger, seated on the box from
the dawn to the gloaming, gathered enough stories of English life,
enough aspects of earth and sky, to make episodes for a modern Odyssey.”
And so did we seated in our own dog-cart, more to be envied even than
the summer-time coach-passenger, for we had full command over our
conveyance, so that we could stop on the way, loiter, or make haste, as
the mood inclined.
Sir Edwin Arnold says, “This world we live in is becoming sadly
monotonous, as it shrinks year by year to smaller and smaller apparent
dimensions under the rapid movement provided by limited passenger trains
and swift ocean steamships.” Well, by driving one enlarges the apparent
size of the world, for, as John Burrough puts it, “When you get into a
railway carriage you want a continent, but the man in his carriage
requires only a county.” Very true, moreover the man who steams round
the world may see less than the man who merely drives round about an
English county: the former is simply conveyed, the latter travels--a
distinction with a vast difference!
In conclusion, I have only to express the hope that the illustrations
herewith, engraved on wood from my sketches by Mr. George Pearson (to
whom I tender my thanks for the pains he has taken in their
reproduction), may lend an added interest to this unvarnished record of
a most delightful and health-giving holiday.
J. J. HISSEY.
1898.
[Illustration: SOMERSBY CHURCH AND CROSS.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
The planning of our tour--Ready for the road--The start--One of
Dick Turpin’s haunts--Barnet--A curious inn sign--In the coaching
days--Travellers, new and old--A forgotten Spa--An ancient map 1
CHAPTER II
Memorial of a great battle--An ancient fire-cresset--Free
feasting!--Country quiet--Travellers’ Tales--Hatfield--An
Elizabethan architect--An author’s tomb--Day-dreaming--Mysterious
roadside monuments--Great North Road _versus_ Great Northern
Railway--Stevenage--Chats by the way--Field life--Nature as a
painter--Changed times 21
CHAPTER III
A gipsy encampment--A puzzling matter--Farming and farmers, past
and present--An ancient market-town--A picturesque bit of old-world
architecture--Gleaners--Time’s changes--A house in two counties--A
wayside inn--The commercial value of the picturesque 41
CHAPTER IV
Biggleswade--“Instituted” or “intruded”!--A poetical will--The river
Ivel--A day to be remembered--The art of seeing--Misquotations--The
striving after beauty--Stories in stone--An ancient muniment chest--An
angler’s haunt--The town bridge--The pronunciation of names--St.
Neots 58
CHAPTER V
The charm of small towns--The Ouse--A pleasant land--Buckden
Palace--A joke in stone--The birthplace of Samuel Pepys--Buried
treasure--Huntingdon--An old-time interior--A famous coaching inn--St.
Ives--A church steeple blown down!--A quaint and ancient bridge--A
riverside ramble--Cowper’s country--Two narrow escapes 73
CHAPTER VI
Cromwell’s birthplace--Records of the past--Early photographs--A
breezy day--Home-brewed ale--Americans on English scenery--Alconbury
Hill--The plains of Cambridgeshire--The silence of Nature--Stilton--A
decayed coaching town--A medieval hostelry--A big sign-board--Old-world
traditions--Miles from anywhere 97
CHAPTER VII
Norman Cross--A Norman-French inscription--A re-headed statue--The
friendliness of the road--The art of being delightful--The turnpike
roads in their glory--Bits for the curious--A story of the
stocks--“Wansford in England”--Romance and reality--The glamour
of art--“The finest street between London and Edinburgh”--Ancient
“Callises”--A historic inn--Windows that have tales to tell 118
CHAPTER VIII
A picturesque ruin--Round about Stamford--Browne’s “Callis”--A chat
with an antiquary--A quaint interior--“Bull-running”--A relic of a
destroyed college--An old Carmelite gateway--A freak of Nature--Where
Charles I. last slept as a free man--A storied ceiling--A gleaner’s
bell--St. Leonard’s Priory--Tennyson’s county--In time of vexation--A
flood--Hiding-holes--Lost!--Memorials of the past 139
CHAPTER IX
A land of dykes--Fenland rivers--Crowland Abbey--A unique triangular
bridge--Antiquaries differ--A mysterious statue--A medieval rhyme--A
wayside inscription--The scenery of the Fens--Light-hearted
travellers--Cowbit--A desolate spot--An adventure on the road--A
Dutch-like town 161
CHAPTER X
Spalding--“Ye Olde White Horse Inne”--An ancient hall and quaint
garden--Epitaph-hunting--A signboard joke--Across the Fens--A strange
world--Storm and sunshine--An awkward predicament--Bourn--Birthplace
of Hereward the Wake--A medieval railway station!--Tombstone
verses 186
CHAPTER XI
A pleasant road--Memories--Shortening of names--Health-drinking--A
Miller and his mill--A rail-less town--Changed times and changed
ways--An Elizabethan church clock--A curious coincidence--Old
superstitions--Satire in carving--“The Monks of Old” 204
CHAPTER XII
A civil tramp--Country hospitality--Sleaford--A Lincolnshire
saying--A sixteenth-century vicarage--Struck by lightning--“The
Queen of Villages”--A sculptured anachronism--Swineshead--A strange
legend--Local proverbs--Chat with a “commercial”--A mission of
destruction--The curfew--Lost our way--Out of the beaten track--A
grotesque figure and mysterious legend--Puzzling inscriptions--The end
of a long day 226
CHAPTER XIII
The Fenland capital--Mother and daughter towns--“Boston stump”--One
church built over another--The company at our inn--A desultory
ramble--An ancient prison--The Pilgrim Fathers--The banks of the
Witham--Hussey Tower--An English Arcadia--Kyme Castle--Benington--A
country of many churches--Wrangle--In search of a ghost--A remote
village--Gargoyles--The grotesque in art 248
CHAPTER XIV
Wind-blown trees--Marshlands--September weather--Wainfleet--An
ancient school--The scent of the sea--The rehabilitation of the
old-fashioned ghost--A Lincolnshire mystery--A vain search--Too much
alike--Delightfully indefinite--Halton Holgate--In quest of a haunted
house 268
CHAPTER XV
In a haunted house--A strange story--A ghost described!--An offer
declined--Market-day in a market-town--A picturesque crowd--Tombs of
ancient warriors--An old tradition--Popular errors--A chat by the
way--The modern Puritan--A forgotten battle-ground--At the sign of the
“Bull” 288
CHAPTER XVI
Six hilly miles--A vision for a pilgrim--The scenery of the
Wolds--Poets’ dreams _versus_ realities--Tennyson’s brook--Somersby--An
out-of-the-world spot--Tennyson-land--A historic home--A unique relic
of the past--An ancient moated grange--Traditions 309
CHAPTER XVII
A decayed fane--Birds in church--An old manorial hall--Curious
creations of the carver’s brain--The grotesque _in excelsis_--The old
formal garden--Sketching from memory--The beauty of the Wolds--Lovely
Lincolnshire!--Advice heeded!--A great character--A headless
horseman--Extremes meet--“All’s well that ends well” 329
CHAPTER XVIII
A friend in a strange land--Horse sold in a church--A sport of the
past--Racing the moon!--Facts for the curious--The Champions of
England--Scrivelsby Court--Brush magic--Coronation cups--A unique
privilege--A blundering inscription--A headless body--Nine miles
of beauty--Wragby--At Lincoln--Guides and guide-books--An awkward
predicament 352
CHAPTER XIX
“A precious piece of architecture”--Guest at an inn--A pleasant
city--Unexpected kindness--A medieval lavatory--An honest lawyer!--The
cost of obliging a stranger--Branston--A lost cyclist--In search of
a husband!--Dunston Pillar--An architectural puzzle--A Lincolnshire
spa--Exploring--An ancient chrismatory 372
CHAPTER XX
A long discourse--The origin of a coat-of-arms--An English
serf--A witch-stone--Lincolnshire folk-lore--A collar for
lunatics--St. Mary’s thistle--A notable robbery--An architectural
gem--Coningsby--Tattershall church and castle--Lowland and
upland--“Beckingham-behind-the-Times”--Old Lincolnshire folk 395
CHAPTER XXI
A cross-country road--A famous hill--Another medieval inn--“The
Drunken Sermon”--Bottesford--Staunton Hall--Old family deeds--A
chained library--Woolsthorpe manor-house--A great inventor!--Melton
Mowbray--Oakham--A quaint old manorial custom--Rockingham
Castle--Kirby 415
CHAPTER XXII
A well-preserved relic--An old English home--Authorities differ--Rooms
on the top of a Church tower--A medieval-looking town--A Saxon
tower--Bedford--Bunyan’s birthplace--Luton--The end of the
journey 436
APPENDIX 443
INDEX 445
ILLUSTRATIONS
A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY MANOR-HOUSE _Frontispiece_
A HOME OF TO-DAY _Page_ vii
SOMERSBY CHURCH AND CROSS " xi
OLD BRASS CROMWELL CLOCK _To face page_ 1
ST. IVES BRIDGE _Page_ 1
A WAYSIDE INN _To face page_ 66
AN OLD COACHING INN: COURTYARD OF THE
GEORGE, HUNTINGDON " " 84
A MEDIEVAL HOSTELRY: THE BELL, STILTON " " 110
A QUIET COUNTRY ROAD " " 154
CROWLAND ABBEY " " 174
A FENLAND HOME " " 194
A BIT OF BOSTON " " 255
AN OLD-TIME FARMSTEAD " " 284
SOMERSBY RECTORY " " 318
SCRIVELSBY COURT " " 358
STIXWOLD FERRY " " 389
TATTERSHALL TOWER " " 406
WOOLSTHORPE MANOR-HOUSE " " 428
MAP OF ROUTE _End of book_
[Illustration: OLD BRASS CROMWELL CLOCK.
_See page 8._
]
[Illustration: ST. IVES BRIDGE.
_See page 91._
]
OVER FEN AND WOLD
CHAPTER I
The planning of our tour--Ready for the road--The start--One of
Dick Turpin’s haunts--Barnet--A curious inn sign--In the coaching
days--Travellers, new and old--A forgotten Spa--An ancient map.
Our tour was planned one chilly winter’s evening: just a chance letter
originated the idea of exploring a portion of Lincolnshire during the
coming summer. Our project in embryo was to drive from London to that
more or less untravelled land of fen and wold by the old North Road, and
to return to our starting-point by another route, to be decided upon
when we had finished our Lincolnshire wanderings. It was in this wise.
The day had been wild and blustery, as drear a day indeed as an English
December well could make. A bullying “Nor’-Easter” had been blowing
savagely ever since the morning, by the evening it had increased to a
veritable storm, the hail and sleet were hurled against the windows of
our room, and the wind, as it came in fierce gusts, shook the casements
as though it would blow them in if it could. My wife and self were
chatting about former wanderings on wheels, trying fairly successfully
to forget all about the inclement weather without, each comfortably
ensconced in a real easychair within the ample ingle-nook of that cosy
chamber known to the household as “the snuggery”--a happy combination of
studio and library--the thick curtains were closely drawn across the
mullioned windows to exclude any possible draughts, the great wood fire
on the hearth (not one of your black coal fires in an iron grate
arrangement) blazed forth right merrily, the oak logs crackled in a
companionable way, throwing at the same time a ruddy glow into the room,
and the bright flames roared up the wide chimney ever and again with an
additional potency in response to extra vehement blasts without.
“What a capital time,” I exclaimed, “to look over some of the sketches
we made during our last summer holiday; they will help us to recall the
long sunny days, those jolly days we spent in the country, and bring
back to mind many a pleasant spot and picturesque old home!” No sooner
was the idea expressed than I sought out sundry well-filled sketch-books
from the old oak corner cupboard devoted to our artistic belongings.
True magicians were those sketch-books, with a power superior even to
that
[Sidenote: _REMINISCENCES_]
of Prince Houssain’s carpet of _Arabian Nights_ renown, for by their aid
not only were we quickly transported to the distant shires, but we also
turned back the hand of Time to the genial summer days, and, in spirit,
were soon far away repeating our past rambles, afoot and awheel, along
the bracken-clad hillsides, over the smooth-turfed Downs, and across the
rugged, boulder-strewn moors, here purple with heather and there aglow
with golden gorse; anon we were strolling alongside the grassy banks of
a certain quiet gliding river beloved of anglers, and spanned, just at a
point where an artist would have placed it, by a hoary bridge built by
craftsmen dead and gone to dust long centuries ago. Then, bringing
forcibly to mind the old beloved coaching days, came a weather-stained
hostelry with its great sign-board still swinging as of yore on the top
of a high post, and bearing the representation--rude but effective--of a
ferocious-looking red lion that one well-remembered summer evening bade
us two tired and dust-stained travellers a hearty heraldic welcome. Next
we found ourselves wandering down a narrow valley made musical by a
little stream tumbling and gambolling over its rocky bed (for the
sketches revealed to the mind infinitely more than what the eye merely
saw, recalling Nature’s sweet melodies, her songs without words, as well
as her visible beauties; besides raising within one countless
half-forgotten memories)--a stream that turned the great green droning
wheel of an ancient water-mill, down to which on either hand gently
sloped the wooded hills, and amidst the foliage, half drowned in
greenery, we could discern at irregular intervals the red-tiled
rooftrees of lowly cottage homes peeping picturesquely forth. Then we
were transported to an old, time-grayed manor-house of many gables and
great stacks of clustering chimneys, its ivy-grown walls and
lichen-laden roof being backed by rook-haunted ancestral elms; the
ancient home, with its quaint, old-fashioned garden and reed-grown moat
encircling it, seemed, when we first came unexpectedly thereon, more
like the fond creation of a painter or a poet than a happy reality.
“Don’t you remember,” said my wife, as we were looking at this last
drawing, “what a delightful day we spent there, and how the owner, when
he discovered us sketching, at once made friends with us and showed us
all over the dear old place, and how he delighted in the old armour in
the hall, and how he told us that his ancestors fought both at Crecy and
Agincourt--how nice it must be to have valiant ancestors like that!--and
don’t you remember that low-ceilinged, oak-panelled bed-chamber with the
leaden-lattice window, _the haunted room_, and how it looked its part;
and afterwards how the landlady of the village inn where we baited our
horses would have it that the ghost of a former squire who was murdered
by some one--or the ghost of somebody who was murdered by that squire,
she was not quite sure which--stalks about that very chamber every
night. And then there were the curiously-clipped yews on the terrace,
and the old carved sun-dial at the end of the long walk, and----” But
the last sentence was destined never to be finished, for at that moment
a knock came at the door, followed by a servant bringing in a letter all
moist and dripping, a trifling incident, that, however, sufficed to
transport us back again from our dreamy wanderings amongst sunny summer
scenes to that drear December night--our fireside travels came to an
abrupt end!
[Sidenote: “_TRY LINCOLNSHIRE_”]
“What a night for any one to be out,” I muttered, as I took the
proffered letter, glancing first at the handwriting, which was
unfamiliar, then at the postmark, which bore the name of a remote
Lincolnshire town, yet we knew no one in that whole wide county. Who
could the sender be? we queried. He proved to be an unknown friend, who
in a good-natured mood had written to suggest, in case we should be at a
loss for a fresh country to explore during the coming summer, that we
should try Lincolnshire; he further went on to remark, lest we should
labour under the popular and mistaken impression (which we did) that it
was a land more or less given over to “flats, fens and fogs,” that he
had visitors from London staying with him with their bicycles, who
complained loudly of the hills in his neighbourhood; furthermore, “just
to whet our appetites,” as he put it, there followed a tempting list,
“by way of sample,” of some of the good things scenic, antiquarian, and
archæological, that awaited us, should we only come. Amongst the
number--to enumerate only a few in chance order, and leaving out Lincoln
and its cathedral--there were Crowland’s ruined abbey, set away in the
heart of the Fens; numerous old churches, that by virtue of their
remoteness had the rare good fortune to have escaped the restorer’s
hands, and not a few of these, we were given to understand, contained
curious brasses and interesting tombs of knightly warriors and
unremembered worthies; Tattershall Castle, a glorious old pile, one of
the finest structures of the kind in the kingdom; the historic town of
Boston, with its famous fane and “stump” and Dutch-like waterways;
Stamford, erst the rival of Oxford and Cambridge, with its Jacobean
buildings, crumbling colleges, and quaint “Callises” or hospitals;
Grantham, with its wonderful church spire and genuine medieval hostelry,
dating back to the fifteenth century, that still offers entertainment to
the latter-day pilgrim, and, moreover, makes him “comfortable
exceedingly”; besides many an old coaching inn wherein to take our ease;
not to mention the picturesque villages and sleepy market-towns, all
innocent of the hand of the modern builder, nor the rambling
manor-houses with their unwritten histories, the many moated granges
with their unrecorded traditions, and perhaps not least, two really
haunted houses, possessing well-established ghosts.
Then there was Tennyson’s birthplace at pretty Somersby, and the haunts
of his early life round about, the wild wolds he loved so and sang
of--the Highlands of Lincolnshire!--a dreamy land full of the
unconscious poetry of civilisation, primitive and picturesque, yet not
wholly unprogressive; a land where the fussy railway does not intrude,
and where the rush and stress of this bustling century has made no
visible impression; a land also where odd characters abound, and where
the wise sayings of their forefathers, old folk-lore, legends, and
strange superstitions linger yet; and last on the long list, and perhaps
not least in interest, there was the wide Fenland, full of its own
weird, but little understood beauties. Verily here was a tempting
programme!
[Sidenote: _A TEMPTING PROGRAMME!_]
Pondering over all these good things, we found ourselves wondering how
it was that we had never thought of Lincolnshire as fresh ground to
explore before. Did we not then call to mind what a most enjoyable tour
we had made through the little-esteemed Eastern Counties? though before
starting on that expedition we had been warned by friends--who had never
been there, by the way--that we should repent our resolve, as that
portion of England was flat, tame, and intensely uninteresting, having
nothing to show worth seeing, fit for farming and little else. Yet we
remembered that we discovered the Langton Hills on our very first day
out, and still retained a vivid impression of the glorious views
therefrom, and all the rest of the journey was replete with pleasant
surprises and scenic revelations. Truly we found the Land of the Broads
to be flat, but so full of character and special beauty as to attract
artists to paint it. “Therefore,” we exclaimed, “why should not
Lincolnshire prove equally interesting and beautiful?” Perhaps even,
like the once tourist-neglected Broads, the charms and picturesqueness
of Lincolnshire may some day be discovered, be guidebook-lauded as a
delightful holiday ground. Who knows? Besides, there was the drive
thither and back along the old coachroads to be remembered; that of
itself was sure to be rewarding.
The letter set us a-thinking, and the special shelf in our little
library where sundry road-books and county maps are kept was searched
for a chart of Lincolnshire. We were soon deeply engrossed with books
and maps, and with their aid planned a very promising tour. By the time
the old brass Cromwell clock on the bracket in a corner of the
ingle-nook struck twelve we had finally decided, for good or ill, to try
Lincolnshire; already we found ourselves longing for the summer time to
come that we might be off!
But for all our longings and schemings it was the first of September
before we actually set out on our journey; however, if this were
unkindly delayed by the Fates, to make amends for such delay it must be
confessed that they granted us perfect travellers’ weather, for during
almost the whole time we were away from home there was not a day either
too hot or too cold for open-air enjoyment, we had very little rain, and
plenty of sunshine.
According to my experience, the month of September and the first week in
October are generally the finest times in the year in England. During
our journey we picked up, to us, many fresh bits of weather-lore and
old-folk sayings; these are always welcome, and one of them runs thus:
“It’s a foul year when there are not twenty fine days in September.” In
that month truly the days are growing gradually shorter, but,
[Sidenote: _IN TRAVELLING ORDER_]
on the other hand, the dust--that one fly in the ointment of the driving
tourist--is not so troublesome, indeed on this occasion it did not
trouble us at all, nor is the heat so oppressive, nor the light so
glaring as in July or August; and if the evenings draw in then, well, it
only means an early start to have still a good long day before one, and
the dusk coming on as you reach your night’s destination is a plausible
excuse for indulging in a homelike fire in your apartment; and what a
look of friendly familiarity a fire imparts to even a strange room, to
say nothing of the mellow glow of candles on the table where your meal
is spread! There is something indescribably cheery and suggestive of
comfort, cosiness, and taking your ease about a fire-warmed and
candle-lighted room! Truly there are certain compensating advantages in
the early evenings! Did not Charles Lamb, writing to a brother poet,
Bernard Barton, exclaim of July, “Deadly long are the days, these summer
all-day days, with but a half-hour’s candle-light and no fire-light at
all”?
Now, kind reader, please picture in your mind’s eye our comfortable and
roomy dog-cart, carefully packed with all our necessary baggage, rugs,
and waterproofs, the latter in case of cold or wet; our sketching and
photographic paraphernalia; and even every luxury that long experience,
gleaned from many former expeditions of a like nature, could suggest;
not forgetting a plentiful supply of good tobacco of our favourite
mixture, nor yet books to beguile a possible dull hour, which, however,
never occurred. Amongst the books was a copy of Kingsley’s _Hereward
the Wake_, as this treats of the Fenland heroes, as well as describes
much of the lowland scenery of Lincolnshire. When I add that we included
in our “kit” a supply of candles in case the light at some of the
country inns should be too poor to read or write by comfortably, I think
it may be taken for granted that nothing was forgotten that would in any
way add to our ease or pleasure. It is astonishing how materially the
thought of such apparent trifles adds to the enjoyment of an outing like
ours. Even a good field-glass enhances the interest of a wide prospect,
such as is continually met with during a lengthened driving tour, by
enabling one the better to make out any special feature in the distant
panorama.
Being thus prepared for the road, one cloudy September morning found us
driving slowly out of the vast conglomeration of smoke-stained bricks
and mortar that go to make the city--or county is it?--of London.
Passing the Marble Arch, we reached the Edgware Road, up which we turned
our horses’ heads, bound first for Barnet, taking Finchley on the way,
and striking the Great North Road just beyond the latter place, which
famous old coaching and posting highway we proposed to follow right on
to “Stamford town” in Lincolnshire.
The morning was warm, cloudy, and rainless, though there had been a
prolonged downpour during the night, but the barometer was happily on
the rise, the “Forecast” in the paper prophesied only occasional
showers, and we gladly noted that
[Sidenote: _THE FREEDOM OF THE ROAD_]
there were frequent patches of blue showing through the cloud-rifts
above; all of which points taken together gave promise of improved
meteorological conditions, so that, in spite of the dulness of the
moment, we drove along in the most optimist of moods, firm in the belief
that the day would turn out fine; but fine or wet, we set forth on
pleasure bent with a fixed determination, come what might in the shape
of weather, to enjoy ourselves, and it would have taken a good deal more
than a few showers just then to damp our jubilant holiday spirits.
No children fresh from school could have felt “jollier” than we did on
that memorable morning, at perfect liberty to wander whither we would,
masters of our conveyance, with no anxiety as to luggage, bound by no
tiresome time-tables, but departing and arriving at pleasure, stopping
here and there when anything of interest attracted our attention,
loitering by the way or hastening along at our own sweet pleasure: the
freedom of the road was ours, more desirable to us than the freedom of
any city, however great that city might be; and the former is to be had
by all, and the latter is only for the favoured few!
Now, kind reader, if you will permit me to call you so once more, as at
last we really have started on our tour, I take the opportunity to crave
your welcome company, and cordially invite you in spirit to mount on to
the box-seat and join us in our pleasant pilgrimage along the highways
and byways of this little-travelled corner of Old England, and allow me
to do the honours of the country as we pass through it, and for the
nonce to act the part of “guide, philosopher, and friend.”
For the first few miles it was a getting-out-of-town all the way; houses
and villas lined the road more or less, with tantalising peeps
between--peeps ever growing wider and more frequent--of the greenful
country stretching away to the blue horizon beyond, a beyond that looked
very alluring to our town-tired eyes. We drove on apace, for we found
nothing to specially interest or detain us till we reached Barnet; we
felt only anxious to escape as speedily as possible from the
ever-spreading domain of bricks and mortar, and to reach the real open
country, where pleasant footpaths take the place of the hard pavements,
and fragrant hedgerows, verdurous meadows, and tilled fields with their
green and golden crops that of houses raised by the speculative
builder--to sell. How much better was the old system of men building
their own homes to live in! The speculative builder is the unhappy
product of a progressive (?) century; he perhaps is responsible for the
uglification of London more than aught else, and, alas! is still adding
to it.
Passing through the once rural hamlet of Whetstone, it was difficult to
realise that this now frequented spot was erst the favourite
hunting-ground of that famous (or infamous, if you will)
arch-highwayman, Dick Turpin. Great indeed was the terror inspired by
his name, for it is recorded that many a Scotch nobleman, squire, and
merchant of the period, having occasion to go from Edinburgh to London
or _vice versa_,
[Sidenote: _A POPULAR SIGN_]
actually preferred to risk the dangers and suffer the certain
discomforts of the then tedious sea voyage between those places, rather
than face the possibility of meeting with Master Turpin--lord of the
road from London to York! A driving tour would have afforded plenty of
excitement in those days, though I shall ever maintain that
adventures--and this from personal experiences of such with Indians,
bears, and rattlesnakes, whilst exploring the wild forests and mountains
of far-off California--are vastly better to read about than to
experience. Adventures are excellent things to relate to your friends in
after-dinner talk, if you can only get them to take you seriously!
Arriving at Barnet, we pulled up at the “Red Lion,” and rested there to
bait our horses. The sign of the inn--perhaps the most popular of all
English signs--was not painted on a board and upheld by a post, as so
frequently obtains in old-fashioned hostelries such as this; but the
lion was carved in wood, and skilfully carved too, whilst to add to his
dignity we found him rejoicing in a fresh coat of vermilion, and still
further to attract the wayfarer’s attention he was supported upon a
wrought-iron bracket that projected right over the pavement. This sign,
standing thus boldly aloft on its great bracket, was a point of interest
in the everyday street for the eye to dwell upon--an interest emphasised
by past-time associations, for thus, before the coming of the iron
horse, had it greeted our inn-loving forefathers when journeying this
way, and in a pleasantly defiant manner bade them stop and take their
ease; not that they needed much pressing to do so, for did not the
worthy Dr. Johnson, when posting across country, frequently exclaim,
“Here is an inn; let us rest awhile”? But that was in the leisurely days
gone by when mortals had more time to call their own. I have often
wondered, could he be conjured back to life again, what the worthy
doctor would think of present-time ways, what he would say of the
railways, but above all, what his opinion would be of the huge company
hotel, where he would find his individuality merged in a mere number. I
trow he would prefer his comfortable tavern, where he could have his
quiet talk--and listeners.
I find, by referring to some ancient and valued road-books in my
possession, that the two chief inns of the coaching age at Barnet were
the “Red Lion” and the “Green Man,” each patronised by rival coaches.
The latter sign I imagine, judging from the frequent mention of it in
the same authorities, to have been at the period a very common and
popular one, though now apparently gone entirely out of favour. What was
the origin of this strange sign I cannot say, but it may be remembered
that green men--that is, men with their faces, arms, and hands stained
that hue, and their bodies covered with skins--were frequently to be
found amongst the processions and pageants of the sight-loving Middle
Ages, such a “get-up” being intended to represent a savage, and constant
mention of them was made in the old writings and plays. In the play of
_The Cobblers Prophecy_ (1594) one of the characters is
[Sidenote: _“THE GREEN MAN”_]
made to say, “Comes there a pageant by? Then I’ll stand out of the green
man’s way.” I find also, in Dr. Brewer’s _Handbook of Allusions_, an
extract given from a play of a year later, entitled, _The Seven
Champions of Christendom_, which runs as follows:--“Have you any squibs,
or green man in your shows?” During the next century, and for some time
afterwards, gamekeepers were usually clad in green, a fact noted by
Crabbe:
But the green man shall I pass by unsung?...
A squire’s attendant clad in keeper’s green.
At one or other of these two once famous hostels the old coaches took
their first change out, or their last change in, and not much time was
allowed for or lost in the changing either; for if our ancestors,
according to modern notions, made haste slowly, at least they made all
the haste they knew. The now quiet (except at the time of the noted
horse fair) Barnet High Street was then astir all the day long and half
the night with the coming and going of coaches, to say nothing of
“posters,” and the roadway rang with the rattle and clatter of fast
travelling teams, the air was resonant with the musical echoes of the
frequent horn, whilst the hurried shout of “next change” kept the
inn-yards alive and ready, the ostlers alert. Steam has changed all
this; now we travel more speedily but less picturesquely, more
luxuriously but less romantically. Why, the very meaning of the word
travel--derived, my dictionary informs me, from “travail; excessive
toil”--has surely wholly lost its signification in this easy-going age
of Pullman cars, and mail steamers that are in reality floating palaces?
Yet somehow I sometimes find myself sighing for a little less luxury and
speed, and for more of the picturesqueness and goodfellowship engendered
by the conditions of old-time travel, that stands out in such sharp
antithesis to the ugliness and unmannerly taciturnity that has come with
the railway; the ugliness is universal, but the taciturnity, for some
cause I cannot fathom, is confined mostly to England.
Said a prominent citizen of Chicago to me one day, upon his arrival at
St. Pancras Station, where I went to meet him as my visitor, in response
to my greetings: “Well, sir, as you kindly ask me, I guess I had a
mighty pleasant voyage in the steamer, and found your countrymen aboard
most agreeable and entertaining; but when I got on the cars at Liverpool
with four other Britishers, we had a regular Quakers’ meeting-time all
the way to London, and when I chanced to make a remark they really
appeared utterly astonished that a stranger should venture to address
them. Now that just strikes me as peculiar, and if that’s your
land-travelling manners I guess I don’t much admire them; surely there’s
no sin in one stranger politely speaking to another; indeed, it seems
sort of rude to me to get into a car and never as much as utter ‘Good
morning,’ or ‘I beg your pardon,’ as you pass a party by to take your
seat. Perhaps you can tell me just how it is that your countrymen are so
stand-offish on the cars?” But we could not answer the question
satisfactorily to the querist or to ourselves.
[Sidenote: _A “PHYSIC WELL”_]
It may be news to many--it was to me till the other day, when quite
accidentally I came across the fact in an ancient road-book--that in the
days of Charles II. Barnet was a watering-place of considerable repute,
even disputing supremacy with its rising rival of Tunbridge Wells. In a
field near the town on the Elstree Road is the formerly famous but now
almost forgotten chalybeate spring known two centuries ago as the
“Physic Well,” and much resorted to by the fashionable folk of the
Restoration days. On glancing over the ever fresh and entertaining
_Diary_ of Samuel Pepys, that chatty old-time road-traveller, who was
always getting up “betimes” and starting off somewhere or another, I
noted the following entry:--“11 August 1667 (Lord’s Day).--Up by four
o’clock, and ready with Mrs. Turner” (why so often without your wife,
good Mr. Pepys?) “to take coach before five; and set out on our journey,
and got to the Wells at Barnett by seven o’clock” (not a great rate of
speed), “and there found many people a-drinking; but the morning is a
very cold morning, so as we were very cold all the way in the coach....
So after drinking three glasses, and the women nothing” (wise women),
“we back by coach to Barnett, where to the Red Lyon, where we ’light,
and went up into the great room, and drank and eat ... and so to
Hatfield,” where he “took coach again, and got home with great content.”
Amongst my prized possessions is a quaint and ancient map of London and
the country for about twenty miles round. This interesting map I find,
by an inscription enclosed in a roll at the foot, was printed, and
presumably engraved, in Amsterdam, when I cannot say, for unfortunately
no date is given; an antiquarian friend of mine, however (an authority
on old prints), declares it to be of about the time of Charles II.,
though he says it might possibly be copied from an earlier production of
the same kind and made up to that approximate date. It is just probable,
therefore, that Mr. Pepys may have seen, and used, a similar map; and on
mine I find “Barnett Wells” duly marked at a point about a mile
south-west of the town.
These ancient maps, besides being very interesting, oftentimes reveal
the origin of puzzling place-names otherwise untraceable; for instance,
I never could account for the peculiar title of the little Sussex town
of Uckfield until one day I found it spelt “Oakefield” on an old map,
and as oaks still abound in the locality, I have no doubt that Uckfield
was evolved therefrom; and I could enumerate many other instances of a
like nature. So, on further consulting my Amsterdam chart, I find
Hatfield, which we shall reach in due course, given as
“Heathfield,”--now from this to Hatfield is an easy transition; next I
observe that the country immediately north of Barnet is represented as
wild and unenclosed, and is marked “Gladmore Heath.” A corner of this
bears the gruesome but suggestive title “Dead-man’s Bottom”: it is
highly probable that the famous battle of Barnet was fought on this open
waste, it being a suitable site for such a conflict, and the “Dead-man’s
Bottom” may mark
[Sidenote: _AN INTERESTING MAP_]
the spot where a number of the slain were buried. Hertfordshire is also
rendered, as now generally pronounced, “Hartfordshire,” so perhaps it is
the spelling, not the pronunciation, that has changed. A wonderful
production is this old map, for in the apparently sparsely populated
country around the then moderate-sized city of London each church tower
is pictured in miniature; even solitary houses, including numerous
farmsteads, are so shown; tiny drawings of windmills abound; and on the
rivers, wheels are marked here and there, evidently intended to point
out the position of sundry water-mills; bridges over the rivers are
infrequent, but fords across and ferries over them are plentiful; now
and again one is reminded of other days and other ways by a dot,
inscribed above or below, simply but sufficiently “The Gallows”--a
familiar but gruesome spectacle, the reality of which must often have
been forced on the unwelcome sight of past-time travellers, and possibly
haunted the memories and dreams of the more nervous amongst them for
long afterwards. Even at one lonely place the map condescends to place a
solitary tree with the title “Half-way Tree.” On the little river Wandle
several water-mills are shown, most of which bear merely names, but
sometimes is added the kind of mill. I note on this same short stream
the following kinds: “Iron mill,” “copper mill,” “pouder mill,” and one
“brasile mill,” whatever that may be. On the river Lea I find a “paper
mill,” but that is the only one of the sort I can discover, though
“pouder” mills abound. The latter perhaps were called into requisition
by the recent Civil wars. One lonely house is marked “hanted.” Could
this possibly mean haunted? But I must stop my disquisition, for I could
easily discourse for a whole chapter upon this curious map, were I to
let my pen run away with me as it is inclined to do.