_June 8, 1827._
Vol. I.--25.
[Illustration: ~Beckenham Church, Kent.~]
The parish of Beckenham lends its name to the hundred, which is in the
lath of Sutton-at-Hone. It is ten miles from London, two miles north
from Bromley, and, according to the last census, contains 196 houses and
1180 inhabitants. The living is a rectory valued in the king’s books at
6_l._ 18_s._ 9_d_. The church is dedicated to St. George.
----Beyond “Chaffinch’s River” there is an enticing field-path to
Beckenham, but occasional sights of noble trees kept us along the high
road, till the ring of the blacksmith’s hammer signalled that we were
close upon the village. We wound through it at a slow pace, vainly
longing for something to realize the expectations raised by the prospect
of it on our way.
Beckenham consists of two or three old farm-like looking houses, rudely
encroached upon by a number of irregularly built dwellings, and a
couple of inns; one of them of so much apparent consequence, as to
dignify the place. We soon came to an edifice which, by its publicity,
startles the feelings of the passenger in this, as in almost every other
parish, and has perhaps greater tendency to harden than reform the
rustic offender--the “cage,” with its accessory, the “pound.” An angular
turn in the road, from these lodgings for men and cattle when they go
astray, afforded us a sudden and delightful view of
“The decent church that tops the neighb’ring hill.”
On the right, an old, broad, high wall, flanked with thick buttresses,
and belted with magnificent trees, climbs the steep, to enclose the
domain of I know not whom; on the opposite side, the branches, from a
plantation, arch beyond the footpath. At the summit of the ascent is the
village church with its whitened spire, crowning and pinnacl’ing this
pleasant grove, pointing from amidst the graves--like man’s last only
hope--towards heaven.
This village spire is degradingly noticed in “An accurate Description of
Bromley and Five Miles round, by Thomas Wilson, 1797.” He says, “An
extraordinary circumstance happened here near Christmas, 1791; the
steeple of this church was destroyed by lightning, but a new one was put
up in 1796, made of copper, in the form of an extinguisher.” The old
spire, built of shingles, was fired on the morning of the 23d of
December, in the year seventeen hundred and _ninety_, in a dreadful
storm. One of the effects of it in London I perfectly remember:--the
copper roofing of the new “Stone Buildings” in Lincoln’s Inn was
stripped off by the wind, and violently carried over the opposite range
of high buildings, the Six Clerks’ offices, into Chancery Lane, where I
saw the immense sheet of metal lying in the carriage way, exactly as it
fell, rolled up, with as much neatness as if it had been executed by
machinery. As regards the present spire of Beckenham church, its “form,”
in relation to its place, is the most appropriate that could have been
devised--a picturesque object, that marks the situation of the village
in the forest landscape many miles round, and indescribably graces the
nearer view.
We soon came up to the corpse-gate of the church-yard, and I left W.
sketching it,[222] whilst I retraced my steps into the village in
search of the church-keys at the parish clerk’s, from whence I was
directed back again, to “the woman who has the care of the church,” and
lives in the furthest of three neat almshouses, built at the church-yard
side, by the private benefaction of Anthony Rawlings, in 1694. She
gladly accompanied us, with the keys clinking, through the mournful
yew-tree grove, and threw open the great south doors of the church. It
is an old edifice--despoiled of its ancient font--deprived, by former
beautifyings, of carvings and tombs that in these times would have been
remarkable. It has remnants of brasses over the burial places of
deceased rectors and gentry, from whence dates have been wantonly
erased, and monuments of more modern personages, which a few years may
equally deprave.
There are numerous memorials of the late possessors of Langley, a
predominant estate in Beckenham. One in particular to sir Humphry Style,
records that he was of great fame, in his day and generation, in
Beckenham: he was “Owner of Langley in this parish, Knight and Baronet
of England and Ireland, a gentleman of the privy chamber in ordinary to
James I., one of the cupbearers in ordinary to King Charles, and by them
boath intrusted with the weighty affairs of this countye: Hee was
justice of peace and quorum, Deputy lieftenant, and alsoe (an hono’r not
formerly conferred upon any) made Coronell of all the trayned band horse
thereof.”
The possession of Langley may be traced, through the monuments, to its
last heritable occupant, commemorated by an inscription; “Sacred to the
Memory of Peter Burrell, Baron Gwydir, of Gwydir, Deputy Great
Chamberlain of England, Born July 16, 1754; Died at Brighton, June 29th,
1820, aged 66 years.” After the death of this nobleman Langley was sold.
The poor of Beckenham speak his praise, and lament that his charities
died with him. The alienation of the estate deprived them of a
benevolent protector, and no one has arisen to succeed him in the
character of a kind-hearted benefactor.
A tablet in this church, to “Harriet, wife of (the present) J. G.
Lambton, Esq. of Lambton Hall, Durham,” relates that she died “in her
twenty-fifth year.”
Within the church, fixed against the northern corner of the west end, is
a plate of copper, bearing an inscription to this import:--Mary Wragg,
of St. John’s, Westminster, bequeathed 15_l._ per annum for ever to the
curate of Beckenham, in trust for the following uses; viz. a guinea to
himself for his trouble in taking care that her family vault should be
kept in good repair; a guinea to be expended in a dinner for himself,
and the clerk, and parish officers; 12_l._ 10_s._ to defray the expenses
of such repairs; if in any year the vault should not require repair, the
money to be laid out in eighteen pennyworth of good beef, eighteen
pennyworth of good bread, five shillings worth of coals, and 4_s._ 6_d._
in money, to be given to each of twenty of the poorest inhabitants of
the parish; if repairs should be required, the money left to be laid out
in like manner and quantity, with 4_s._ 6_d._ to as many as it will
extend to; and the remaining 8_s._ to be given to the clerk. In
consequence of Mary Wragg’s bequest, her vault in the church-yard is
properly maintained, and distribution made of beef, bread, and money,
every 28th of January. On this occasion there is usually a large
attendance of spectators; as many as please go down into the vault, and
the parochial authorities of Beckenham have a holiday, and “keep
wassel.”
There is carefully kept in this church a small wooden hand-box, of
remarkable shape, made in king William’s time, for the receipt of
contributions from the congregation when there are collections. As an
ecclesiastical utensil with which I was unacquainted, W. took a drawing,
and has made an engraving of it.
[Illustration]
This collecting-box is still used. It is carried into the pews, and
handed to the occupants, who drop any thing or nothing, as they please,
into the upper part. When money is received, it passes through an open
slit left between the back and the top enclosure of the lower half;
which part, thus shut up, forms a box, that conceals from both eye and
hand the money deposited. The contrivance might be advantageously
adopted in making collections at the doors of churches generally. It is
a complete security against the possibility of money being withdrawn
instead of given; which, from the practice of holding open plates, and
the ingenuity of sharpers, has sometimes happened.
In the middle of two family pews of this church, which are as commodious
as sitting parlours, there are two ancient reading desks like large
music stands, with flaps and locks for holding and securing the service
books when they are not in use. These pieces of furniture are either
obsolete in churches, or peculiar to that of Beckenham; at least I never
saw desks of the like in any other church.
Not discovering any thing further to remark within the edifice, except
its peal of five bells, we strolled among the tombs in the church-yard,
which offers no inscriptions worth notice. From its solemn yew-tree
grove we passed through the “Lich-gate,” already described. On our
return to the road by which we had approached the church, and at a
convenient spot, W. sketched the view he so freely represents in the
engraving. The melodists of the groves were in full song. As the note of
the parish-clerk rises in the psalm above the common voice of the
congregation, so the loud, confident note of the blackbird exceeds the
united sound of the woodland choir: one of these birds, on a near tree,
whistled with all his might, as if conscious of our listening, and
desirous of particular distinction.
Wishing to reach home by a different route than that we had come, we
desired to be acquainted with the way we should go, and went again to
the almshouses which are occupied by three poor widows, of whom our
attendant to the church was one. She was alone in her humble habitation
making tea, with the tokens of her office-bearing, the church keys, on
the table before her. In addition to the required information, we
elicited that she was the widow of Benjamin Wood, the late parish-clerk.
His brother, a respectable tradesman in London, had raised an excellent
business, “Wood’s eating-house,” at the corner of Seething-lane,
Tower-street, and at his decease was enabled to provide comfortably for
his family. Wood, the parish-clerk, had served Beckenham in that
capacity many years till his death, which left his widow indigent, and
threw her on the cold charity of a careless world. She seems to have
outlived the recollection of her husband’s relatives. After his death
she struggled her way into this almshouse, and gained an allowance of
two shillings a week; and on this, with the trifle allowed for her
services in keeping clean the church, at past threescore years and ten,
she somehow or other contrives to exist.
We led dame Wood to talk of her “domestic management,” and finding she
brewed her own beer with the common utensils and fire-place of her
little room, we asked her to describe her method: a tin kettle is her
boiler, she mashes in a common butter-firkin, runs off the liquor in a
“crock,” and tuns it in a small-beer-barrel. She is of opinion that
“poor people might do a great deal for themselves if they knew _how_:
_but_,” says she, “where there’s a _will_, there’s a _way_.”
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[Illustration: ~The old Font of Beckenham Church.~]
A font often denotes the antiquity, and frequently determines the former
importance of the church, and is so essential a part of the edifice,
that it is incomplete without one. According to the rubrick, a church
may be without a pulpit, but not without a font; hence, almost the first
thing I look for in an old church is its old stone font. Instead
thereof, at Beckenham, is a thick wooden baluster, with an unseemly
circular flat lid, covering a sort of wash-hand-basin, and this the
“gentlemen of the parish” call a “font!” The odd-looking thing was “a
present” from a parishioner, in lieu of the ancient stone font which,
when the church was repaired after the lightning-storm, was carried away
by Mr. churchwarden Bassett, and placed in his yard. It was afterwards
sold to Mr. Henry Holland, the former landlord of the “Old Crooked
Billet,” on Penge Common, who used it for several years as a cistern,
and the present landlord has it now in his garden, where it appears as
represented in the engraving. Mr. Harding expresses an intention of
making a table of it, and placing it at the front of his house: in the
interim it is depicted here, as a hint, to induce some regard in
Beckenham people, and save the venerable font from an exposure, which,
however intended as a private respect to it by the host of the “Crooked
Billet,” would be a public shame to Beckenham parish.
[222] Mr. W.’s engraving of his sketch is on p. 715.
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_For the Table Book._