by Warrington Hogg.
[Illustration]
The picturesque quality and almost endless variety of vanes--from the
modest arrow to the richly-gilt and imposing heraldic monster--which
meet the eye as one wanders through quiet village, busy market town, or
sleepy cathedral city, and the traditions which are associated with
these distinctly useful, time-honoured, and much consulted adjuncts to
church or home, make me hope that the following brief notes and sketches
of a few of the many types one sees may not be without interest to some
of the numerous readers of THE STRAND MAGAZINE.
That eminent authority on things architectural--the late John Henry
Parker, F.S.A.--tells us that vanes were in use in the time of the
Saxons, and in after ages were very extensively employed, there being
notable development during the prevalence of the Perpendicular and
Elizabethan styles.
To anyone vane-hunting--or health-hunting, for the matter of that--I
would recommend them to tramp, sketch or note book in hand, over that
stretch of country which occupies the most southerly corner of Kent,
known as Romney Marsh; and beginning, say, at Hythe--one of the old
Cinque Ports, and still a place of considerable importance--they will
there find several vanes worthy of note, specially perhaps the one which
surmounts the Town Hall, in the High Street. It is in excellent
condition, and is contemporary with the building itself, which was
erected in 1794.
[Illustration: At Hythe.]
The country between Hythe and Dymchurch has quite a plethora of rustic
vanes--many crippled and others almost defunct--sketches of a few of
which I give my readers. Note the one, carved out of a piece of wood and
rudely shaped like a bottle, which is stuck on an untrimmed bough of a
tree and spliced to a clothes-prop: could anything be more naive? (in
justice I would add that this is _not_ at the inn); or the one that is
noted just below it--an axe poised on the roof of the local
wheelwright's workshop, which aforesaid roof still bears unmistakable
evidence of election turmoil. Nevertheless, this original type of vane
seemed well fitted to do good service, for one noted that it answered to
the slightest breath of wind. The old patched one, too, on the quaint
little Norman church at Dymchurch seemed to me to be of interest in many
ways, specially when I realized that it looked down on a row of graves,
kept in beautiful order, of the nameless dead which the angry sea had
given into the keeping of these sturdy village folk.
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