Tunbridge Wells.
I have read with much curiosity and surprise a paragraph engrafted into
"N. & Q." (Vol. vii., p. 33.) from _The Times_ newspaper, June 16, 1841,
announcing that a Mr. F. F. Spenser, of Halifax, had ascertained that
the ancient residence of his own family, at Hurstwood, near Burnley,
Lancashire, was the identical spot where the great Elizabethan poet,
Edmund Spenser, is said to have retired, when driven by academical
disappointments to his relations in the north of England.
I confess all this appears to me very like a hoax, there is such a
weight of negative testimony against it. Dr. Whitaker, the learned
historian of Whalley, describes Hurstwood Hall as a strong and
well-built old house, bearing on its front, in large characters, the
name of "Barnard Townley," its founder, and that it was for several
descents the property and residence of a family branched out from the
parent stock of Townley, in the person of John Townley, third son of Sir
Richard Townley, of Townley--died Sept. 1562. His son, Barnard Townley,
died 1602, and married Agnes, daughter and coheiress of George Ormeroyd,
of Ormeroyd, who died 1586.
It must be remembered that Hurstwood is in the immediate neighbourhood
of Dr. Whitaker's ancient patrimonial estate of Holme; and he must have
been familiar with all the traditionary history of that locality. Yet he
is silent on this subject, and does not allude either to the occasional
residence of the poet Spenser in those parts, or to the family of
Spensers, who are stated in this paragraph to have resided at Hurstwood
about four hundred years.