OLD MANSIONS
One of the most deplorable features of vanishing England is the
gradual disappearance of its grand old manor-houses and mansions. A
vast number still remain, we are thankful to say. We have still left
to us Haddon and Wilton, Broughton, Penshurst, Hardwick, Welbeck,
Bramshill, Longleat, and a host of others; but every year sees a
diminution in their number. The great enemy they have to contend with
is fire, and modern conveniences and luxuries, electric lighting and
the heating apparatus, have added considerably to their danger. The
old floors and beams are unaccustomed to these insidious wires that
have a habit of fusing, hence we often read in the newspapers:
"DISASTROUS FIRE--HISTORIC MANSION ENTIRELY DESTROYED." Too often not
only is the house destroyed, but most of its valuable contents is
devoured by the flames. Priceless pictures by Lely and Vandyke,
miniatures of Cosway, old furniture of Chippendale and Sheraton, and
the countless treasures which generations of cultured folk with ample
wealth have accumulated, deeds, documents and old papers that throw
valuable light on the manners and customs of our forefathers and on
the history of the country, all disappear and can never be replaced. A
great writer has likened an old house to a human heart with a life of
its own, full of sad and sweet reminiscences. It is deplorably sad
when the old mansion disappears in a night, and to find in the morning
nothing but blackened walls--a grim ruin.
Our forefathers were a hardy race, and did not require hot-water
pipes and furnaces to keep them warm. Moreover, they built their
houses so surely and so well that they scarcely needed these modern
appliances. They constructed them with a great square courtyard, so
that the rooms on the inside of the quadrangle were protected from the
winds. They sang truly in those days, as in these:--
Sing heigh ho for the wind and the rain,
For the rain it raineth every day.
[Illustration: Oak Panelling. Wainscot of Fifteenth Century, with
addition _circa_ late Seventeenth Century, fitted on to it in angle of
room in the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent]
So they sheltered themselves from the wind and rain by having a
courtyard or by making an E or H shaped plan for their dwelling-place.
Moreover, they made their walls very thick in order that the winds
should not blow or the rain beat through them. Their rooms, too, were
panelled or hung with tapestry--famous things for making a room warm
and cosy. We have plaster walls covered with an elegant wall-paper
which has always a cold surface, hence the air in the room, heated by
the fire, is chilled when it comes into contact with the cold wall and
creates draughts. But oak panelling or woollen tapestry soon becomes
warm, and gives back its heat to the room, making it delightfully
comfortable and cosy.
One foolish thing our forefathers did, and that was to allow the great
beams that help to support the upper floor to go through the chimney.
How many houses have been burnt down owing to that fatal beam! But our
ancestors were content with a dog-grate and wood fires; they could not
foresee the advent of the modern range and the great coal fires, or
perhaps they would have been more careful about that beam.
[Illustration: Section of Mouldings of Cornice on Panelling, the
Church House, Goudhurst]
Fire is, perhaps, the chief cause of the vanishing of old houses, but
it is not the only cause. The craze for new fashions at the beginning
of the last century doomed to death many a noble mansion. There seems
to have been a positive mania for pulling down houses at that period.
As I go over in my mind the existing great houses in this country, I
find that by far the greater number of the old houses were wantonly
destroyed about the years 1800-20, and new ones in the Italian or some
other incongruous style erected in their place. Sometimes, as at
Little Wittenham, you find the lone lorn terraces of the gardens of
the house, but all else has disappeared. As Mr. Allan Fea says: "When
an old landmark disappears, who does not feel a pang of regret at
parting with something which linked us with the past? Seldom an old
house is threatened with demolition but there is some protest, more
perhaps from the old associations than from any particular
architectural merit the building may have." We have many pangs of
regret when we see such wanton destruction. The old house at Weston,
where the Throckmortons resided when the poet Cowper lived at the
lodge, and when leaving wrote on a window-shutter--
Farewell, dear scenes, for ever closed to me;
Oh! for what sorrows must I now exchange ye!
may be instanced as an example of a demolished mansion. Nothing is now
left of it but the entrance-gates and a part of the stables. It was
pulled down in 1827. It is described as a fine mansion, possessing
secret chambers which were occupied by Roman Catholic priests when it
was penal to say Mass. One of these chambers was found to contain,
when the house was pulled down, a rough bed, candlestick, remains of
food, and a breviary. A Roman Catholic school and presbytery now
occupy its site. It is a melancholy sight to see the "Wilderness"
behind the house, still adorned with busts and urns, and the graves of
favourite dogs, which still bear the epitaphs written by Cowper on Sir
John Throckmorton's pointer and Lady Throckmorton's pet spaniel.
"Capability Brown" laid his rude, rough hand upon the grounds, but you
can still see the "prosed alcove" mentioned by Cowper, a wooden
summer-house, much injured
By rural carvers, who with knives deface
The panels, leaving an obscure rude name.
Sometimes, alas! the old house has to vanish entirely through old age.
It cannot maintain its struggle any longer. The rain pours through the
roof and down the insides of the walls. And the family is as decayed
as their mansion, and has no money wherewith to defray the cost of
reparation.
[Illustration: The Wardrobe House. The Close. Salisbury. Evening.]
Our artist, Mr. Fred Roe, in his search for the picturesque, had one
sad and deplorable experience, which he shall describe in his own
words:--
"One of the most weird and, I may add, chilling experiences in
connection with the decline of county families which it was my lot
to experience, occurred a year or two ago in a remote corner of
the eastern counties. I had received, through a friend, an
invitation to visit an old mansion before the inmates (descendants
of the owners in Elizabethan times) left and the contents were
dispersed. On a comfortless January morning, while rain and sleet
descended in torrents to the accompaniment of a biting wind, I
detrained at a small out-of-the-way station in ----folk. A
weather-beaten old man in a patched great-coat, with the oldest
and shaggiest of ponies and the smallest of governess-traps,
awaited my arrival. I, having wedged myself with the Jehu into
this miniature vehicle, was driven through some miles of muddy
ruts, until turning through a belt of wooded land the broken
outlines of an extensive dilapidated building broke into view.
This was ---- Hall.
"I never in my life saw anything so weirdly picturesque and
suggestive of the phrase 'In Chancery' as this semi-ruinous
mansion. Of many dates and styles of architecture, from Henry VIII
to George III, the whole seemed to breathe an atmosphere of
neglect and decay. The waves of affluence and successive rise of
various members of the family could be distinctly traced in the
enlargements and excrescences which contributed to the casual plan
and irregular contour of the building. At one part an addition
seemed to denote that the owner had acquired wealth about the time
of the first James, and promptly directed it to the enlargement of
his residence. In another a huge hall with classic brick frontage,
dating from the commencement of the eighteenth century, spoke of
an increase of affluence--probably due to agricultural
prosperity--followed by the dignity of a peerage. The latest
alterations appear to have been made during the Strawberry Hill
epoch, when most of the mullioned windows had been transformed to
suit the prevailing taste. Some of the building--a little of
it--seemed habitable, but in the greater part the gables were
tottering, the stucco frontage peeling and falling, and the
windows broken and shuttered. In front of this wreck of a
building stretched the overgrown remains of what once had been a
terrace, bounded by large stone globes, now moss-grown and half
hidden under long grass. It was the very picture of desolation and
proud poverty.
"We drove up to what had once been the entrance to the servants'
hall, for the principal doorway had long been disused, and
descending from the trap I was conducted to a small panelled
apartment, where some freshly cut logs did their best to give out
a certain amount of heat. Of the hospitality meted out to me that
day I can only hint with mournful appreciation. I was made welcome
with all the resources which the family had available. But the
place was a veritable vault, and cold and damp as such. I think
that this state of things had been endured so long and with such
haughty silence by the inmates that it had passed into a sort of
normal condition with them, and remained unnoticed except by
new-comers. A few old domestics stuck by the family in its fallen
fortunes, and of these one who had entered into their service some
quarter of a century previous waited upon us at lunch with
dignified ceremony. After lunch a tour of the house commenced.
Into this I shall not enter into in detail; many of the rooms were
so bare that little could be said of them, but the Great Hall, an
apartment modelled somewhat on the lines of the more palatial
Rainham, needs the pen of the author of _Lammermoor_ to describe.
It was a very large and lofty room in the pseudo-classic style,
with a fine cornice, and hung round with family portraits so
bleached with damp and neglect that they presented but dim and
ghostly presentments of their originals. I do not think a fire
could have been lit in this ghostly gallery for many years, and
some of the portraits literally sagged in their frames with
accumulations of rubbish which had dropped behind the canvases.
Many of the pictures were of no value except for their
associations, but I saw at least one Lely, a family group, the
principal figure in which was a young lady displaying too little
modesty and too much bosom. Another may have been a Vandyk, while
one or two were early works representing gallants of Elizabeth's
time in ruffs and feathered caps. The rest were for the most part
but wooden ancestors displaying curled wigs, legs which lacked
drawing, and high-heeled shoes. A few old cabinets remained, and a
glorious suite of chairs of Queen Anne's time--these, however,
were perishing, like the rest--from want of proper care and
firing.
"The kitchens, a vast range of stone-flagged apartments, spoke of
mighty hospitality in bygone times, containing fire-places fit to
roast oxen at whole, huge spits and countless hooks, the last
exhibiting but one dependent--the skin of the rabbit shot for
lunch. The atmosphere was, if possible, a trifle more penetrating
than that of the Great Hall, and the walls were discoloured with
damp.
"Upstairs, besides the bedrooms, was a little chapel with some
remains of Gothic carving, and a few interesting pictures of the
fifteenth century; a cunningly contrived priest-hole, and a long
gallery lined with dusty books, whither my lord used to repair on
rainy days. Many of the windows were darkened by creepers, and
over one was a flap of half-detached plaster work which hung like
a shroud. But, oh, the stained glass! The eighteenth-century
renovators had at least respected these, and quarterings and coats
of arms from the fifteenth century downwards were to be seen by
scores. What an opportunity for the genealogist with a history in
view, but that opportunity I fear has passed for ever. The ----
Hall estate was evidently mortgaged up to the hilt, and nothing
intervened to prevent the dispersal of these treasures, which
occurred some few months after my visit. Large though the building
was, I learned that its size was once far greater, some two-thirds
of the old building having been pulled down when the hall was
constituted in its present form. Hard by on an adjoining estate a
millionaire manufacturer (who owned several motor-cars) had set up
an establishment, but I gathered that his tastes were the reverse
of antiquarian, and that no effort would be made to restore the
old hall to its former glories and preserve such treasures as yet
remained intact--a golden opportunity to many people of taste with
leanings towards a country life. But time fled, and the ragged
retainer was once more at the door, so I left ---- Hall in a
blinding storm of rain, and took my last look at its gaunt façade,
carrying with me the seeds of a cold which prevented me from
visiting the Eastern Counties for some time to come."
Some historic houses of rare beauty have only just escaped
destruction. Such an one is the ancestral house of the Comptons,
Compton Wynyates, a vision of colour and architectural beauty--
A Tudor-chimneyed bulk
Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.
Owing to his extravagance and the enormous expenses of a contested
election in 1768, Spencer, the eighth Earl of Northampton, was reduced
to cutting down the timber on the estate, selling his furniture at
Castle Ashby and Compton, and spending the rest of his life in
Switzerland. He actually ordered Compton Wynyates to be pulled down,
as he could not afford to repair it; happily the faithful steward of
the estate, John Berrill, did not obey the order. He did his best to
keep out the weather and to preserve the house, asserting that he was
sure the family would return there some day. Most of the windows were
bricked up in order to save the window-tax, and the glorious old
building within whose walls kings and queens had been entertained
remained bare and desolate for many years, excepting a small portion
used as a farm-house. All honour to the old man's memory, the faithful
servant, who thus saved his master's noble house from destruction, the
pride of the Midlands. Its latest historian, Miss Alice Dryden,[34]
thus describes its appearance:--
"On approaching the building by the high road, the entrance front
now bursts into view across a wide stretch of lawn, where formerly
it was shielded by buildings forming an outer court. It is indeed
a most glorious pile of exquisite colouring, built of small red
bricks widely separated by mortar, with occasional chequers of
blue bricks; the mouldings and facings of yellow local stone, the
woodwork of the two gables carved and black with age, the stone
slates covered with lichens and mellowed by the hand of time; the
whole building has an indescribable charm. The architecture, too,
is all irregular; towers here and there, gables of different
heights, any straight line embattled, few windows placed exactly
over others, and the whole fitly surmounted by the elaborate
brick chimneys of different designs, some fluted, others
zigzagged, others spiral, or combined spiral and fluted."
[34] _Memorials of Old Warwickshire_, edited by Miss Alice Dryden.
An illustration is given of one of these chimneys which form such an
attractive feature of the house.
[Illustration: Chimney at Compton Wynyates]
It is unnecessary to record the history of Compton Wynyates. The
present owner, the Marquis of Northampton, has written an admirable
monograph on the annals of the house of his ancestors. Its builder was
Sir William Compton,[35] who by his valour in arms and his courtly
ways gained the favour of Henry VIII, and was promoted to high honour
at the Court. Dugdale states that in 1520 he obtained licence to
impark two thousand acres at Overcompton and Nethercompton, _alias_
Compton Vyneyats, where he built a "fair mannour house," and where he
was visited by the King, "for over the gateway are the arms of France
and England, under a crown, supported by the greyhound and griffin,
and sided by the rose and the crown, probably in memory of Henry
VIII's visit here."[36] The Comptons ever basked in the smiles of
royalty. Henry Compton, created baron, was the favourite of Queen
Elizabeth, and his son William succeeded in marrying the daughter of
Sir John Spencer, richest of City merchants. All the world knows of
his ingenious craft in carrying off the lady in a baker's basket, of
his wife's disinheritance by the irate father, and of the subsequent
reconciliation through the intervention of Queen Elizabeth at the
baptism of the son of this marriage. The Comptons fought bravely for
the King in the Civil War. Their house was captured by the enemy, and
besieged by James Compton, Earl of Northampton, and the story of the
fighting about the house abounds in interest, but cannot be related
here. The building was much battered by the siege and by Cromwell's
soldiers, who plundered the house, killed the deer in the park,
defaced the monuments in the church, and wrought much mischief. Since
the eighteenth-century disaster to the family it has been restored,
and remains to this day one of the most charming homes in England.
[35] The present Marquis of Northampton in his book contends that
the house was mainly built in the reign of Henry VII by Edmund
Compton, Sir William's father, and that Sir William only enlarged
and added to the house. We have not space to record the arguments
in favour of or against this view.
[36] _The Progresses of James I_, by Nichols.
[Illustration: Window-catch, Brockhall, Northants]
"The greatest advantages men have by riches are to give, to build, to
plant, and make pleasant scenes." So wrote Sir William Temple,
diplomatist, philosopher, and true garden-lover. And many of the
gentlemen of England seem to have been of the same mind, if we may
judge from the number of delightful old country-houses set amid
pleasant scenes that time and war and fire have spared to us. Macaulay
draws a very unflattering picture of the old country squire, as of the
parson. His untruths concerning the latter I have endeavoured to
expose in another place.[37] The manor-houses themselves declare the
historian's strictures to be unfounded. Is it possible that men so
ignorant and crude could have built for themselves residences bearing
evidence of such good taste, so full of grace and charm, and
surrounded by such rare blendings of art and nature as are displayed
so often in park and garden? And it is not, as a rule, in the greatest
mansions, the vast piles erected by the great nobles of the Court,
that we find such artistic qualities, but most often in the smaller
manor-houses of knights and squires. Certainly many higher-cultured
people of Macaulay's time and our own could learn a great deal from
them of the art of making beautiful homes.
[37] _Old-time Parson_, by P.H. Ditchfield, 1908.
[Illustration: Gothic Chimney, Norton St. Philip, Somerset]
Holinshed, the Chronicler, writing during the third quarter of the
sixteenth century, makes some illuminating observations on the
increasing preference shown in his time for stone and brick buildings
in place of timber and plaster. He wrote:--
"The ancient maners and houses of our gentlemen are yet for the
most part of strong timber. How beit such as be lately buylded are
commonly either of bricke or harde stone, their rowmes large and
stately, and houses of office farder distant fro their lodgings.
Those of the nobilitie are likewise wrought with bricke and harde
stone, as provision may best be made; but so magnificent and
stately, as the basest house of a barren doth often match with
some honours of princes in olde tyme: so that if ever curious
buylding did flourishe in Englande it is in these our dayes,
wherein our worckemen excel and are in maner comparable in skill
with old Vitruvius and Serle."
He also adds the curious information that "there are olde men yet
dwelling in the village where I remayn, which have noted three things
to be marveylously altered in Englande within their sound
remembrance. One is, the multitude of chimnies lately erected,
whereas, in their young dayes there were not above two or three, if so
many, in most uplandish townes of the realme (the religious houses and
mannour places of their lordes alwayes excepted, and peradventure some
great personages [parsonages]), but each one made his fire against a
reredosse in the halle, where he dined and dressed his meate," This
want of chimneys is noticeable in many pictures of, and previous to,
the time of Henry VIII. A timber farm-house yet remains (or did until
recently) near Folkestone, which shows no vestige of either chimney or
hearth.
Most of our great houses and manor-houses sprang up in the great
Elizabethan building epoch, when the untold wealth of the monasteries
which fell into the hands of the courtiers and favourites of the King,
the plunder of gold-laden Spanish galleons, and the unprecedented
prosperity in trade gave such an impulse to the erection of fine
houses that the England of that period has been described as "one
great stonemason's yard." The great noblemen and gentlemen of the
Court were filled with the desire for extravagant display, and built
such clumsy piles as Wollaton and Burghley House, importing French and
German artisans to load them with bastard Italian Renaissance detail.
Some of these vast structures are not very admirable with their
distorted gables, their chaotic proportions, and their crazy
imitations of classic orders. But the typical Elizabethan mansion,
whose builder's means or good taste would not permit of such a
profusion of these architectural luxuries, is unequalled in its
combination of stateliness with homeliness, in its expression of the
manner of life of the class for which it was built. And in the humbler
manors and farm-houses the latter idea is even more perfectly
expressed, for houses were affected by the new fashions in
architecture generally in proportion to their size.
[Illustration: The Moat, Crowhurst Place, Surrey]
Holinshed tells of the increased use of stone or brick in his age in
the district wherein he lived. In other parts of England, where the
forests supplied good timber, the builders stuck to their
half-timbered houses and brought the "black and white" style to
perfection. Plaster was extensively used in this and subsequent ages,
and often the whole surface of the house was covered with rough-cast,
such as the quaint old house called Broughton Hall, near Market
Drayton. Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, is an attractive example of the
plastered house. The irregular roof-line, the gables, and the
white-barred windows, and the contrast of the white walls with the
rich green of the vines and surrounding trees combine to make a
picture of rare beauty. Part of the house is built of stone and part
half-timber, but a coat of thin plaster covers the stonework and makes
it conform with the rest. To plaster over stone-work is a somewhat
daring act, and is not architecturally correct, but the appearance of
the house is altogether pleasing.
The Elizabethan and Jacobean builder increased the height of his
house, sometimes causing it to have three storeys, besides rooms in
attics beneath the gabled roof. He also loved windows. "Light, more
light," was his continued cry. Hence there is often an excess of
windows, and Lord Bacon complained that there was no comfortable place
to be found in these houses, "in summer by reason of the heat, or in
winter by reason of the cold." It was a sore burden to many a
house-owner when Charles II imposed the iniquitous window-tax, and so
heavily did this fall upon the owners of some Elizabethan houses that
the poorer ones were driven to the necessity of walling up some of the
windows which their ancestors had provided with such prodigality. You
will often see to this day bricked-up windows in many an old
farm-house. Not every one was so cunning as the parish clerk of
Bradford-on-Avon, Orpin, who took out the window-frames from his
interesting little house near the church and inserted numerous small
single-paned windows which escaped the tax.
Surrey and Kent afford an unlimited field for the study of the better
sort of houses, mansions, and manor-houses. We have already alluded to
Hever Castle and its memories of Anne Boleyn. Then there is the
historic Penshurst, the home of the Sidneys, haunted by the shades of
Sir Philip, "Sacharissa," the ill-fated Algernon, and his handsome
brother. You see their portraits on the walls, the fine gallery, and
the hall, which reveals the exact condition of an ancient noble's hall
in former days.
[Illustration: Arms of the Gaynesfords in window, Crowhurst Place,
Surrey]
Not far away are the manors of Crittenden, Puttenden, and Crowhurst.
This last is one of the most picturesque in Surrey, with its moat,
across which there is a fine view of the house, its half-timber work,
the straight uprights placed close together signifying early work, and
the striking character of the interior. The Gaynesford family became
lords of the manor of Crowhurst in 1337, and continued to hold it
until 1700, a very long record. In 1903 the Place was purchased by the
Rev. ---- Gaynesford, of Hitchin, a descendant of the family of the
former owners. This is a rare instance of the repossession of a
medieval residence by an ancient family after the lapse of two hundred
years. It was built in the fifteenth century, and is a complete
specimen of its age and style, having been unspoilt by later
alterations and additions. The part nearer the moat is, however, a
little later than the gables further back. The dining-room is the
contracted remains of the great hall of Crowhurst Place, the upper
part of which was converted into a series of bedrooms in the
eighteenth century. We give an illustration of a very fine hinge to a
cupboard door in one of the bedrooms, a good example of the
blacksmith's skill. It is noticeable that the points of the linen-fold
in the panelling of the door are undercut and project sharply. We see
the open framed floor with moulded beams. Later on the fashion
changed, and the builders preferred to have square-shaped beams. We
notice the fine old panelling, the elaborate mouldings, and the fixed
bench running along one end of the chamber, of which we give an
illustration. The design and workmanship of this fixture show it to
belong to the period of Henry VIII. All the work is of stout timber,
save the fire-place. The smith's art is shown in the fine candelabrum
and in the knocker or ring-plate, perforated with Gothic design, still
backed with its original morocco leather. It is worthy of a sanctuary,
and doubtless many generations of Crowhurst squires have found a very
dear sanctuary in this grand old English home. This ring-plate is in
one of the original bedrooms. Immense labour was often bestowed upon
the mouldings of beams in these fifteenth-century houses. There was a
very fine moulded beam in a farm-house in my own parish, but a recent
restoration has, alas! covered it. We give some illustrations of the
cornice mouldings of the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent, and of a fine
Gothic door-head.
[Illustration: Cupboard Hinge, Crowhurst Place, Surrey]
It is impossible for us to traverse many shires in our search for old
houses. But a word must be said for the priceless contents of many of
our historic mansions and manors. These often vanish and are lost for
ever. I have alluded to the thirst of American millionaires for these
valuables, which causes so many of our treasures to cross the Atlantic
and find their home in the palaces of Boston and Washington and
elsewhere. Perhaps if our valuables must leave their old
resting-places and go out of the country, we should prefer them to go
to America than to any other land. Our American cousins are our
kindred; they know how to appreciate the treasures of the land that,
in spite of many changes, is to them their mother-country. No nation
in the world prizes a high lineage and a family tree more than the
Americans, and it is my privilege to receive many inquiries from
across the Atlantic for missing links in the family pedigree, and the
joy that a successful search yields compensates for all one's trouble.
So if our treasures must go we should rather send them to America than
to Germany. It is, however, distressing to see pictures taken from
the place where they have hung for centuries and sent to Christie's,
to see the dispersal of old libraries at Sotherby's, and the contents
of a house, amassed by generations of cultured and wealthy folk,
scattered to the four winds and bought up by the _nouveaux riches_.
[Illustration: Fixed Bench in the Hall, Crowhurst Place, Surrey]
There still remain in many old houses collections of armour that bears
the dints of many fights. Swords, helmets, shields, lances, and other
weapons of warfare often are seen hanging on the walls of an ancestral
hall. The buff coats of Cromwell's soldiers, tilting-helmets, guns and
pistols of many periods are all there, together with man-traps--the
cruel invention of a barbarous age.
[Illustration: Gothic Door-head, Goudhurst, Kent]
The historic hall of Littlecote bears on its walls many suits worn
during the Civil War by the Parliamentary troopers, and in countless
other halls you can see specimens of armour. In churches also much
armour has been stored. It was the custom to suspend over the tomb the
principal arms of the departed warrior, which had previously been
carried in the funeral procession. Shakespeare alludes to this custom
when, in _Hamlet_, he makes Laertes say:--
His means of death, his obscure burial--
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation.
You can see the armour of the Black Prince over his tomb at
Canterbury, and at Westminster the shield of Henry V that probably did
its duty at Agincourt. Several of our churches still retain the arms
of the heroes who lie buried beneath them, but occasionally it is not
the actual armour but sham, counterfeit helmets and breastplates made
for the funeral procession and hung over the monument. Much of this
armour has been removed from churches and stored in museums. Norwich
Museum has some good specimens, of which we give some illustrations.
There is a knight's basinet which belongs to the time of Henry V
(_circa_ 1415). We can compare this with the salads, which came into
use shortly after this period, an example of which may be seen at the
Porte d'Hal, Brussels. We also show a thirteenth-century sword, which
was dredged up at Thorpe, and believed to have been lost in 1277, when
King Edward I made a military progress through Suffolk and Norfolk,
and kept his Easter at Norwich. The blade is scimitar-shaped, is
one-edged, and has a groove at the back. We may compare this with the
sword of the time of Edward IV now in the possession of Mr. Seymour
Lucas. The development of riding-boots is an interesting study. We
show a drawing of one in the possession of Mr. Ernest Crofts, R.A.,
which was in use in the time of William III.
[Illustration: Knightly Basinet (_temp._ Henry V) in Norwich Castle]
[Illustration: Hilt of Thirteenth-century Sword in Norwich Museum]
An illustration is given of a chapel-de-fer which reposes in the
noble hall of Ockwells, Berkshire, much dented by use. It has
evidently seen service. In the same hall is collected by the friends
of the author, Sir Edward and Lady Barry, a vast store of armour and
most interesting examples of ancient furniture worthy of the beautiful
building in which they are placed. Ockwells Manor House is goodly to
look upon, a perfect example of fifteenth-century residence with its
noble hall and minstrels' gallery, its solar, kitchens, corridors, and
gardens. Moreover, it is now owned by those who love and respect
antiquity and its architectural beauties, and is in every respect an
old English mansion well preserved and tenderly cared for. Yet at one
time it was almost doomed to destruction. Not many years ago it was
the property of a man who knew nothing of its importance. He
threatened to pull it down or to turn the old house into a tannery.
Our Berks Archæological Society endeavoured to raise money for its
purchase in order to preserve it. This action helped the owner to
realise that the house was of some commercial value. Its destruction
was stayed, and then, happily, it was purchased by the present owners,
who have done so much to restore its original beauties.
[Illustration: "Hand-and-a-half" Sword. Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A.]
[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Boot, in the possession of Ernest
Crofts, Esq., R.A.]
[Illustration: Chapel de Fer at Ockwells, Berks]
Ockwells was built by Sir John Norreys about the year 1466. The chapel
was not completed at his death in 1467, and he left money in his will
"to the full bilding and making uppe of the Chapell with the Chambres
ajoyng with'n my manoir of Okholt in the p'rish of Bray aforsaid not
yet finisshed XL li." This chapel was burnt down in 1778. One of the
most important features of the hall is the heraldic glass,
commemorating eighteen worthies, which is of the same date as the
house. The credit of identifying these worthies is due to Mr. Everard
Green, Rouge Dragon, who in 1899 communicated the result of his
researches to Viscount Dillon, President of the Society of
Antiquaries. There are eighteen shields of arms. Two are royal and
ensigned with royal crowns. Two are ensigned with mitres and fourteen
with mantled helms, and of these fourteen, thirteen support a crest.
Each achievement is placed in a separate light on an ornamental
background composed of quarries and alternate diagonal stripes of
white glass bordered with gold, on which the motto
Feyth-fully-serve
is inscribed in black-letter. This motto is assigned by some to the
family of Norreys and by others as that of the Royal Wardrobe. The
quarries in each light have the same badge, namely, three golden
distaffs, one in pale and two in saltire, banded with a golden and
tasselled ribbon, which badge some again assign to the family of
Norreys and others to the Royal Wardrobe. If, however, the Norreys
arms are correctly set forth in a compartment of a door-head remaining
in the north wall, and also in one of the windows--namely, argent a
chevron between three ravens' heads erased sable, with a beaver for a
dexter supporter--the second conjecture is doubtless correct.
These shields represent the arms of Sir John Norreys, the builder of
Ockwells Manor House, and of his sovereign, patrons, and kinsfolk. It
is a _liber amicorum_ in glass, a not unpleasant way for light to come
to us, as Mr. Everard Green pleasantly remarks. By means of heraldry
Sir John Norreys recorded his friendships, thereby adding to the
pleasures of memory as well as to the splendour of his great hall. His
eye saw the shield, his memory supplied the story, and to him the
lines of George Eliot,
O memories,
O Past that IS,
were made possible by heraldry.
The names of his friends and patrons so recorded in glass by their
arms are: Sir Henry Beauchamp, sixth Earl of Warwick; Sir Edmund
Beaufort, K.G.; Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI, "the dauntless
queen of tears, who headed councils, led armies, and ruled both king
and people"; Sir John de la Pole, K.G.; Henry VI; Sir James Butler;
the Abbey of Abingdon; Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury from
1450 to 1481; Sir John Norreys himself; Sir John Wenlock, of Wenlock,
Shropshire; Sir William Lacon, of Stow, Kent, buried at Bray; the arms
and crest of a member of the Mortimer family; Sir Richard Nanfan, of
Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire; Sir John Norreys with his arms
quartered with those of Alice Merbury, of Yattendon, his first wife;
Sir John Langford, who married Sir John Norreys's granddaughter; a
member of the De la Beche family (?); John Purye, of Thatcham, Bray,
and Cookham; Richard Bulstrode, of Upton, Buckinghamshire, Keeper of
the Great Wardrobe to Queen Margaret of Anjou, and afterwards
Comptroller of the Household to Edward IV. These are the worthies
whose arms are recorded in the windows of Ockwells. Nash gave a
drawing of the house in his _Mansions of England in the Olden Time_,
showing the interior of the hall, the porch and corridor, and the east
front; and from the hospitable door is issuing a crowd of gaily
dressed people in Elizabethan costume, such as was doubtless often
witnessed in days of yore. It is a happy and fortunate event that this
noble house should in its old age have found such a loving master and
mistress, in whose family we hope it may remain for many long years.
Another grand old house has just been saved by the National Trust and
the bounty of an anonymous benefactor. This is Barrington Court, and
is one of the finest houses in Somerset. It is situated a few miles
east of Ilminster, in the hundred of South Petherton. Its exact age is
uncertain, but it seems probable that it was built by Henry, Lord
Daubeney, created Earl of Bridgewater in 1539, whose ancestors had
owned the place since early Plantagenet times. At any rate, it appears
to date from about the middle of the sixteenth century, and it is a
very perfect example of the domestic architecture of that period. From
the Daubeneys it passed successively to the Duke of Suffolk, the
Crown, the Cliftons, the Phelips's, the Strodes; and one of this last
family entertained the Duke of Monmouth there during his tour in the
west in 1680. The house, which is E-shaped, with central porch and
wings at each end, is built of the beautiful Ham Hill stone which
abounds in the district; the colour of this stone greatly enhances the
appearance of the house and adds to its venerable aspect. It has
little ornamental detail, but what there is is very good, while the
loftiness and general proportions of the building--its extent and
solidity of masonry, and the taste and care with which every part has
been designed and carried out, give it an air of dignity and
importance.
"The angle buttresses to the wings and the porch rising to twisted
terminals are a feature surviving from mediæval times, which
disappeared entirely in the buildings of Stuart times. These
twisted terminals with cupola-like tops are also upon the gables,
and with the chimneys, also twisted, give a most pleasing and
attractive character to the structure. We may go far, indeed,
before we find another house of stone so lightly and gracefully
adorned, and the detail of the mullioned windows with their arched
heads, in every light, and their water-tables above, is admirable.
The porch also has a fine Tudor arch, which might form the
entrance to some college quadrangle, and there are rooms above and
gables on either hand. The whole structure breathes the spirit of
the Tudor age, before the classic spirit had exercised any marked
influence upon our national architecture, while the details of the
carving are almost as rich as is the moulded and sculptured work
in the brick houses of East Anglia. The features in other parts of
the exterior are all equally good, and we may certainly say of
Barrington Court that it occupies a most notable place in the
domestic architecture of England. It is also worthy of remark that
such houses as this are far rarer than those of Jacobean
times."[38]
[38] _Country Life_, September 17th, 1904.
But Barrington Court has fallen on evil days; one half of the house
only is now habitable, the rest having been completely gutted about
eighty years ago. The great hall is used as a cider store, the
wainscoting has been ruthlessly removed, and there have even been
recent suggestions of moving the whole structure across England and
re-erecting it in a strange county. It has several times changed hands
in recent years, and under these circumstances it is not surprising
that but little has been done to ensure the preservation of what is
indeed an architectural gem. But the walls are in excellent condition
and the roofs fairly sound. The National Trust, like an angel of
mercy, has spread its protecting wings over the building; friends have
been found to succour the Court in its old age; and there is every
reason to hope that its evil days are past, and that it may remain
standing for many generations.
[Illustration: Tudor Dresser Table, in the possession of Sir Alfred
Dryden, Canon's Ashby, Northants]
The wealth of treasure to be found in many country houses is indeed
enormous. In Holinshed's _Chronicle of Englande, Scotlande and
Irelande_, published in 1577, there is a chapter on the "maner of
buylding and furniture of our Houses," wherein is recorded the
costliness of the stores of plate and tapestry that were found in the
dwellings of nobility and gentry and also in farm-houses, and even in
the homes of "inferior artificers." Verily the spoils of the
monasteries and churches must have been fairly evenly divided. These
are his words:--
"The furniture of our houses also exceedeth, and is growne in
maner even to passing delicacie; and herein I do not speake of the
nobilitie and gentrie onely, but even of the lowest sorte that
have anything to take to. Certes in noble men's houses it is not
rare to see abundance of array, riche hangings of tapestry, silver
vessell, and so much other plate as may furnish sundrie cupbordes
to the summe ofte times of a thousand or two thousand pounde at
the leaste; wherby the value of this and the reast of their stuffe
doth grow to be inestimable. Likewise in the houses of knightes,
gentlemen, marchauntmen, and other wealthie citizens, it is not
geson to beholde generallye their great provision of tapestrie
Turkye worke, _pewter_, _brasse_, fine linen, and thereto costly
cupbords of plate woorth five or six hundred pounde, to be demed
by estimation. But as herein all these sortes doe farre exceede
their elders and predecessours, so in tyme past the costly
furniture _stayed there_, whereas now it is descended yet lower,
even unto the inferior artificiers and most fermers[39] who have
learned to garnish also their cupbordes with plate, their beddes
with tapestrie and silk hanginges, and their table with fine
naperie whereby the wealth of our countrie doth infinitely
appeare...."
[39] Farmers.
Much of this wealth has, of course, been scattered. Time, poverty,
war, the rise and fall of families, have caused the dispersion of
these treasures. Sometimes you find valuable old prints or china in
obscure and unlikely places. A friend of the writer, overtaken by a
storm, sought shelter in a lone Welsh cottage. She admired and bought
a rather curious jug. It turned out to be a somewhat rare and valuable
ware, and a sketch of it has since been reproduced in the _Connoisseur_.
I have myself discovered three Bartolozzi engravings in cottages in
this parish. We give an illustration of a seventeenth-century
powder-horn which was found at Glastonbury by Charles Griffin in 1833
in the wall of an old house which formerly stood where the Wilts and
Dorset Bank is now erected. Mr. Griffin's account of its discovery is
as follows:--
"When I was a boy about fifteen years of age I took a ladder up
into the attic to see if there was anything hid in some holes that
were just under the roof.... Pushing my hand in the wall ... I
pulled out this carved horn, which then had a metal rim and
cover--of silver, I think. A man gave me a shilling for it, and he
sold it to Mr. Porch."
It is stated that a coronet was engraved or stamped on the silver rim
which has now disappeared.
[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Powder-horn, found in the wall of
an old house at Glastonbury. Now in Glastonbury Museum]
Monmouth's harassed army occupied Glastonbury on the night of June 22,
1685, and it is extremely probable that the powder-horn was deposited
in its hiding-place by some wavering follower who had decided to
abandon the Duke's cause. There is another relic of Monmouth's
rebellion, now in the Taunton Museum, a spy-glass, with the aid of
which Mr. Sparke, from the tower of Chedzoy, discovered the King's
troops marching down Sedgemoor on the day previous to the fight, and
gave information thereof to the Duke, who was quartered at Bridgwater.
It was preserved by the family for more than a century, and given by
Miss Mary Sparke, the great-granddaughter of the above William Sparke,
in 1822 to a Mr. Stradling, who placed it in the museum. The
spy-glass, which is of very primitive construction, is in four
sections or tubes of bone covered with parchment. Relics of war and
fighting are often stored in country houses. Thus at Swallowfield
Park, the residence of Lady Russell, was found, when an old tree was
grubbed up, some gold and silver coins of the reign of Charles I. It
is probable that a Cavalier, when hard pressed, threw his purse into a
hollow tree, intending, if he escaped, to return and rescue it. This,
for some reason, he was unable to do, and his money remained in the
tree until old age necessitated its removal. The late Sir George
Russell, Bart., caused a box to be made of the wood of the tree, and
in it he placed the coins, so that they should not be separated after
their connexion of two centuries and a half.
[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Spy-glass in Taunton Museum]
We give an illustration of a remarkable flagon of bell-metal for
holding spiced wine, found in an old manor-house in Norfolk. It is of
English make, and was manufactured about the year 1350. It is embossed
with the old Royal Arms of England crowned and repeated several times,
and has an inscription in Gothic letters:--
God is grace Be in this place.
Amen.
Stand uttir[40] from the fier
And let onjust[41] come nere.
[40] Stand away.
[41] One just.
[Illustration: Fourteenth-century Flagon. From an old Manor House in
Norfolk]
This interesting flagon was bought from the Robinson Collection in
1879 by the nation, and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Many old houses, happily, contain their stores of ancient furniture.
Elizabethan bedsteads wherein, of course, the Virgin Queen reposed
(she made so many royal progresses that it is no wonder she slept in
so many places), expanding tables, Jacobean chairs and sideboards, and
later on the beautiful productions of Chippendale, Sheraton, and
Hipplethwaite. Some of the family chests are elaborate works of art.
We give as an illustration a fine example of an Elizabethan chest. It
is made of oak, inlaid with holly, dating from the last quarter of the
sixteenth century. Its length is 5 ft. 2 in., its height 2 ft. 11 in.
It is in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B., of the
manor-house, Warborough, in Oxfordshire. The staircases are often
elaborately carved, which form a striking feature of many old houses.
The old Aldermaston Court was burnt down, but fortunately the huge
figures on the staircase were saved and appear again in the new Court,
the residence of a distinguished antiquary, Mr. Charles Keyser, F.S.A.
Hartwell House, in Buckinghamshire, once the residence of the exiled
French Court of Louis XVIII during the Revolution and the period of
the ascendancy of Napoleon I, has some curiously carved oaken figures
adorning the staircase, representing Hercules, the Furies, and various
knights in armour. We give an illustration of the staircase newel in
Cromwell House, Highgate, with its quaint little figure of a man
standing on a lofty pedestal.
[Illustration: Elizabethan Chest, in the possession of Sir Coleridge
Grove, K.C.B. Height, 2 ft. 11 in.; length, 5 ft. 2 in.]
Sometimes one comes across strange curiosities in old houses, the odds
and ends which Time has accumulated. On p. 201 is a representation of
a water-clock or clepsydra which was made at Norwich by an ingenious
person named Parson in 1610. It is constructed on the same principle
as the timepieces used by the Greeks and Romans. The brass tube was
filled with water, which was allowed to run out slowly at the
bottom. A cork floated at the top of the water in the tube, and as it
descended the hour was indicated by the pointer on the dial above.
This ingenious clock has now found its way into the museum in Norwich
Castle. The interesting contents of old houses would require a volume
for their complete enumeration.
In looking at these ancient buildings, which time has spared us, we
seem to catch a glimpse of the Lamp of Memory which shines forth in
the illuminated pages of Ruskin. The men, our forefathers, who built
these houses, built them to last, and not for their own generation. It
would have grieved them to think that their earthly abode, which had
seen and seemed almost to sympathize in all their honour, their
gladness or their suffering--that this, with all the record it bare of
them, and of all material things that they had loved and ruled over,
and set the stamp of themselves upon--was to be swept away as soon as
there was room made for them in the grave. They valued and prized the
house that they had reared, or added to, or improved. Hence they loved
to carve their names or their initials on the lintels of their doors
or on the walls of their houses with the date. On the stone houses of
the Cotswolds, in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, wherever good
building stone abounds, you can see these inscriptions, initials
usually those of husband and wife, which preserved the memorial of
their names as long as the house remained in the family. Alas! too
often the memorial conveys no meaning, and no one knows the names they
represent. But it was a worthy feeling that prompted this building for
futurity. There is a mystery about the inscription recorded in the
illustration "T.D. 1678." It was discovered, together with a sword
(_temp._ Charles II), between the ceiling and the floor when an old
farm-house called Gundry's, at Stoke-under-Ham, was pulled down. The
year was one of great political disturbance, being that in which the
so-called "Popish Plot" was exploited by Titus Oates. Possibly
"T.D." was fearful of being implicated, concealed this inscription,
and effected his escape.
[Illustration: Staircase Newel Cromwell House, Highgate]
Our forefathers must have been animated by the spirit which caused Mr.
Ruskin to write: "When we build, let us think that we build for ever.
Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it
be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think,
as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones
will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men
will say as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them,
'See! this our fathers did for us.'"
[Illustration: Piece of Wood Carved with Inscription Found with a
sword (_temp._ Charles II) in an old house at Stoke-under-Ham,
Somerset]
[Illustration: Seventeenth-century Water-clock, in Norwich Museum]
Contrast these old houses with the modern suburban abominations,
"those thin tottering foundationless shells of splintered wood and
imitated stone," "those gloomy rows of formalised minuteness, alike
without difference and without fellowship, as solitary as similar," as
Ruskin calls them. These modern erections have no more relation to
their surroundings than would a Pullman-car or a newly painted piece
of machinery. Age cannot improve the appearance of such things. But
age only mellows and improves our ancient houses. Solidly built of
good materials, the golden stain of time only adds to their beauties.
The vines have clothed their walls and the green lawns about them have
grown smoother and thicker, and the passing of the centuries has
served but to tone them down and bring them into closer harmony with
nature. With their garden walls and hedges they almost seem to have
grown in their places as did the great trees that stand near by. They
have nothing of the uneasy look of the parvenu about them. They have
an air of dignified repose; the spirit of ancient peace seems to rest
upon them and their beautiful surroundings.
[Illustration: Sun-dial. The Manor House, Sutton Courtenay]