[Illustration: THE CHAPEL OF THE NINE ALTARS, FOUNTAINS ABBEY.
[_Frontispiece._]
MOTOR TOURS
IN YORKSHIRE
BY
MRS. RODOLPH STAWELL
AUTHOR OF "MOTOR TOURS IN WALES," ETC.
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY R. DE S. STAWELL
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
NEW YORK AND LONDON
CONTENTS
I
PAGE
THE DALES 1
II
THE COAST 87
III
CHIEFLY OLD CHURCHES 117
IV
YORK AND THE SOUTH 167
INDEX 223
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE CHAPEL OF THE NINE ALTARS, FOUNTAINS ABBEY
_Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
THE CONDUIT COURT, SKIPTON CASTLE 8
FROM THE ROAD NEAR BARDEN TOWER 20
BOLTON PRIORY 22
THE CHOIR, BOLTON PRIORY 24
THE NAVE, FOUNTAINS ABBEY 38
THE TOWER, FOUNTAINS ABBEY 40
FOUNTAINS HALL 42
CHAPTER HOUSE, JERVAULX ABBEY 48
BOLTON CASTLE 60
ASKRIGG 66
THE BUTTERTUBS PASS 68
THE SWALE 70
RICHMOND 74
GRETA BRIDGE 80
THE DAIRY BRIDGE 82
HIGH FORCE 86
THE CLIFF, STAITHES 88
THE QUAY, STAITHES 94
THE HARBOUR, STAITHES 96
RUNSWICK BAY 98
WHITBY ABBEY 100
WHITBY HARBOUR 102
WHITBY ABBEY, INTERIOR 104
WHITBY CHURCH, FROM THE ABBEY 106
WHITBY HARBOUR 108
ROBIN HOOD'S BAY 110
MOORS BETWEEN WHITBY AND SCARBOROUGH 112
THE VILLAGE OF LASTINGHAM 128
LASTINGHAM CROSS 132
HODGE BECK 136
KIRKDALE 140
DOUBLE ENTRANCE TO HELMSLEY CASTLE 144
RIEVAULX ABBEY FROM THE TERRACE 148
RIEVAULX ABBEY 150
CHANCEL ARCH, RIEVAULX ABBEY 152
SHERIFF HUTTON CASTLE 160
GATEWAY OF KIRKHAM PRIORY 164
WALMGATE BAR, YORK 170
MICKLEGATE BAR, YORK 172
YORK MINSTER 176
ST. MARY'S ABBEY, YORK 182
BOOTHAM BAR, YORK 184
STREET IN YORK 186
NORMAN DOORWAY IN PONTEFRACT CASTLE 192
WEST DOORWAY OF SELBY ABBEY 202
CHAPTER HOUSE, HOWDEN 210
BEVERLEY 214
THE DALES
SUMMARY OF TOUR THROUGH THE DALES
DISTANCES.
Skipton
(Ingleton and back, _viâ_ Malham 62 miles)
Hubberholme 20 "
Bolton Bridge 22 "
Ripon 33 "
(Fountains and back 9 " )
Askrigg 33 "
Richmond, _viâ_ Buttertubs Pass 31 "
High Force 30 "
---
Total 240 miles
ROADS.
No bad hills except on Buttertubs Pass--which is precipitous in
parts--and in Richmond.
Surface: usually good.
I
THE DALES
In the motorist's life there are hours that can never be forgotten.
It may be some hour of sunshine that haunts us, when the warm wind,
we remember, was heavy with the scent of gorse or pungent with the
stinging breath of the sea; or some hour when the road lay white and
straight before us across a moor, and the waves of heather rolled away
from us to the horizon in long curves of colour, and as we sped over
the miles we seemed no nearer to the shore of the purple sea nor to the
end of the white straight road; or it may be, perhaps, the hour of our
gradual approach to some ancient city transfigured in the sunset, "soft
as old sorrow, bright as old renown." But, whatever the scene may be,
whether moor or fen, forest or shore, there are two elements which are
always present in the motorist's memory of a happy run--a good surface,
and a good engine.
No one could travel in Yorkshire, I think, without adding to his store
of unforgotten hours. So great is the variety of scenery and interest
that all must somewhere find the landscape that appeals to them. Some
will remember those moors of Cleveland that have no visible limit, and
some the many-coloured dales of the West Riding, and some the straight
roads of the plain where the engine hums so gaily. Some will ever after
dream of the day when they followed the course of the wooded Tees;
others will dream of the distant towers of York or Beverley, or of the
heights and depths of the Buttertubs Pass. And, to be quite frank,
there are some to whom this last exciting dream will be rather of the
nature of a nightmare.
In more ways than one Yorkshire is a good field for motoring.
Throughout the greater part of the county there are few hedges, and
the stone walls that take the place of these are low. The roads are
wide and their surface good, except in unfrequented places. Now in
Yorkshire the places that are unfrequented are very few indeed, and
it is in connection with this fact that the motorist has the greatest
advantage over every other kind of tourist. He can choose his own time
for visiting Bolton or Fountains or the incomparable Rievaulx; he can
see them when the dew is on the grass and the glamour of solitude is
in the woods. To be alone with our emotions is what we all desire in
the presence of wide spaces or stately aisles; and in this county,
where there is so much beauty to be seen and so many to see it, those
only who possess "speed as a chattel" can ever hope to be alone. It
is almost impossible to lay too much stress on our advantages, as
motorists, in this matter of securing peace.
Looking back upon a tour among the Yorkshire dales, I see that the
keynote was struck at the very outset by the little town of Skipton,
with its grey granite houses and slated roofs, its wide street and the
castle above it, the ancient church and the tombs of the great. Such
are a hundred Yorkshire villages and little towns. Each of them, it
seems, is connected with some historic name. In the case of Skipton
the name is Clifford. If the first builders of the castle and the
church were not Cliffords, but de Romilles, it was the Cliffords who
made both castle and church what they now are. It was a Clifford who
built the long gallery and the octagon tower that we see beyond the
grass of the great outer court; it was a Clifford who repaired all the
other towers; a Clifford who devised the curious shell-pictures that
line the guardroom; Cliffords who lived for centuries in the castle,
and the few Cliffords that died in their beds who enriched the church
with their tombs. Their motto, "_Désormais_," stands up against the
sky in letters of stone above the round towers of their gateway, and
their arms are carved above the inner door. The court on which this
door opens, the "Conduit Court," as it is called, is the very core of
Skipton, and one of the most romantic places I have ever seen. It would
seize the dullest imagination--this little paved enclosure shut in on
every side, the long flight of steps, the doorways with the crumbling
carvings, the mullioned windows, the yew-tree that has seen so many
centuries, the low stone seat with its shields, the Norman archway
through which all the Cliffords have passed. Most of the feet that came
this way awoke ringing echoes under the old arch, for the Cliffords
were wont to be dressed in coats of mail. They were all mighty in war.
The first armour-clad baron of the name, he who began the building of
this court and died at Bannockburn, has clattered through this doorway;
and after him the hero of Créçy; and later on that other who fought
for Henry V. and died at Meaux; and he who fell at St. Albans in the
cause of Lancaster; and his son and avenger, called "the Butcher,"
who slew that "fair gentleman and maiden-like person," the young Earl
of Rutland, and was himself slain at Towton; and the great sailor,
Cumberland, who made nine voyages and fought the Spaniards for Queen
Elizabeth. Here, too, when he came to his own at last, has stood that
strange, romantic figure, the Shepherd Lord, who spent his youth in
hiding among the northern hills, yet who, despite his love of solitude
and learning, could not forget his long ancestry of fighting men, and
himself fought on Flodden Field.
Among all these heroes the kings who have come through this doorway
cut rather a sorry figure: Edward II., a sorry figure in any company;
Richard III., a usurper here as in larger courts, playing the master
while the true lord of Skipton was keeping sheep; and Henry VIII.,
who came here to take part in a wedding--a spectator for once. The
bride on this occasion was his niece, Eleanor Brandon, the daughter
of that love-match that was so great a failure, between the Duke of
Suffolk and Mary, Princess of England and Queen Dowager of France. The
wedding ceremony took place in the long gallery, which was built for
the occasion by the bridegroom's father. Lady Eleanor's granddaughter,
Lady Pembroke, was more closely connected with this spot where we are
standing than any Clifford who came before her.
[Illustration: THE CONDUIT COURT, SKIPTON CASTLE.]
Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, who rustled through this archway
many a time, no doubt, while the castle of her ancestors was being
repaired at her charges, was a very busy woman. "Her house was a
home for the young, and a retreat for the aged; an asylum for the
persecuted, a college for the learned, and a pattern for all." She
restored six castles, we are told, and built seven churches and two
hospitals; she erected a monument to Spenser; she wrote some memoirs,
too, with a record of all these things, and wherever she made her mark
she stamped her initials. You can see them, very large and clear, if
you look overhead upon the leaden spouting of this court, and you
may see them again in the windows of the church. Anne Clifford's
disposition was in no respect a retiring one, as we may gather from
her famous answer to the Secretary of State who wished a nominee of
his own to stand for her borough of Appleby. "I have been bullied by
a usurper," she said, "and neglected by a Court, but I will not be
dictated to by a subject. Your man shall not stand."
Her work in restoring her castle of Skipton was no light undertaking,
for it had lately endured a three years' siege by the army of the
Parliament, and its seven towers must have been sadly battered before
the day of its proud surrender. So defiant was that surrender that
the garrison marched out through the great entrance gate beneath the
motto of the Cliffords, "accordingley to the Honour of a Souldier,
with colours flying, Trumpets sounding, Drums beating, Matches lighted
at both ends, and Bullets in their Mouthes," while the commissioned
officers took with them "their wearing apparell that was properley
their owne in their Portmantles."
One other pious work did Anne perform. She made a magnificent tomb
for her father the Admiral, third Earl of Cumberland--who fought the
Armada with the Queen's glove in his hat--and she set upon it seventeen
armorial shields, all gilt and painted, and a mighty black marble slab,
and a list of honours. We may see it in the chancel of the church she
repaired; this grey church that stands so picturesquely at the end
of the long street, with the hollyhocks and daisies brightening its
dark walls. Opposite to the grave of Lady Pembroke's father is that
of her little brother, "an infant of most rare towardness in all the
appearances that might promise wisdome"; and near to this is the
splendid tomb, with restored brasses, of the first Earl of Cumberland.
Such of the earlier Cliffords as found burial at all, including the
Shepherd Lord, were laid in Bolton Abbey, whose monks were connected
with this church and gave it the delicately carved screen that adds so
much to its beauty.
It is sometimes said or hinted that Jane Clifford, the Rose of the
World, was in some way connected with Skipton. This can hardly be the
case, however, for the Fair Rosamund was born and spent her childhood
on the banks of the Wye, and was laid in her temporary grave at
Godstowe long before Edward II. gave this castle to the Cliffords who
came after her.
From Skipton, where homely comfort may be found at the sign of the
"Black Horse," an expedition should be made to Malham and its famous
Cove, about twelve miles away; and if time allows, the run may be
lengthened very enjoyably by rejoining the main road at Hellifield and
skirting the moors as far as Clapham or Ingleton. In this way we shall
see something of the craggy country of Craven, of which Camden wrote
long ago: "What with huge stones, steep rocks, and rough ways, this
place is very wild and unsightly." The huge stones and steep rocks are
still there, but the way by which we go is very far from being rough;
it is, on the contrary, such an exceptionally fine road that it seems
almost a pity to leave it. Those who wish to see Malham, however, must
turn off at Gargrave or Coniston.
Much has been written concerning Malham Cove, and many long adjectives
used. Some writers have even declared themselves terrified by it;
but these, I think, must have been of a timid temperament. It is the
position of the place, no doubt, that has this overwhelming effect upon
some minds: the sudden and unexpected presence of a great semi-circular
cliff amid quiet undulating fields. If one could be carried blindfold
to the foot of it I can imagine that it would be truly imposing; but
it is visible from a distance as a grey scar on the face of the green
hillside, and thus a good deal of its effect is lost in the course of a
gradual approach. The best way to reach it is to walk across the fields
from Malham village, following the course of the Aire, the stream that
tunnels its way so strangely into the Cove. There is, it is true, a
narrow and steep road which commands a fine view of it as a whole, but
there is no room here for any but a small car to turn, and there is no
doubt that the cliff can best be seen on foot.
This is true also of its more imposing neighbour, Gordale Scar. Says
Wordsworth--
"Let thy feet repair
To Gordale chasm, terrific as the lair
Where young lions couch,"
and indeed, as the hill that approaches Gordale Chasm is nearly as
terrific as the chasm itself, it is certainly best, if not imperative,
to repair to it on thy feet. I believe that the tarn which lies upon
the moor above Malham Cove, and long ago belonged to the monks of
Fountains, may be reached by road, but I have not been there myself.
From Malham the way is narrow and surprisingly tortuous as far as
Hellifield, but here we rejoin the splendid high road we left at
Coniston, and speed along it through Ribblesdale to Settle. This small
town has progressive ambitions. It "treats" the surface of its main
road, it lights its streets by electricity, it has a fine new garage
and a hotel that has the air of being nice. It is attractive, too, and
pretty as well as praiseworthy, with hills behind it and a tiny weir
above the bridge. Beyond it we pass the ebbing and flowing spring of
Giggleswick in its stone basin by the wayside; climb the long hill
under the grey crags of Giggleswick Scar, with a splendid backward
view, and run down by wood and beck to Clapham, where the village cross
stands close to the stream in the shadow of the trees. Not very far
away is the famous cave, bristling with stalactites. After leaving
Clapham we cross a wide heath, with the throttle open.
First and last this is a good run. On the left is the open country; on
the right that wild land of huge stones and steep rocks that seemed
to Camden so unsightly, in an age when the whole duty of a landscape
was to smile. Clambering on the hillside in a cleft of the crags are
the narrow, winding streets of Ingleton, and a viaduct spanning the
valley. This valley, which is hardly wider than a gorge, is said to be
well worth exploring; but neither its waterfall, Thornton Force, nor
its caves of Yordas and Weathercote, can be seen by road. They hardly
concern us here. It concerns us rather to return to Skipton, and thence
to strike up into the heart of the hills.
Climbing the road above the castle we see how Skipton lies in a hollow
among the moors. Behind us to the south is the Brontë country; Haworth
and its graves far off beyond Airedale, and Stonegappe only three miles
away. It was at Stonegappe that Charlotte reluctantly taught the little
Sidgwicks, and no doubt made them suffer nearly as much as she suffered
herself from her over-sensitive feelings. Embsay Moor appears on our
right as we rise, and beyond it the savage outline of Rylstone Fell,
with the ruined watch-tower of the Nortons, the foes of the Cliffords,
showing desolately against the sky upon the topmost crag. Of the
Nortons and their tower, and the daughter of their house, and of the
White Doe of Rylstone and her weekly journey across the moors to the
grave of the youth with whom the Nortons ended, Wordsworth has told us.
We are running down now into "the valley small," where the house of the
Nortons once stood, and here is the Church where
"the bells of Rylstone played
Their Sabbath music--_God us ayde_!"
At Threshfield we turn to the left and are in Wharfedale.
The names of all these Yorkshire Dales are very familiar in our ears.
Wharfedale, Wensleydale, Swaledale, Teesdale--they are all words with
a charm in them. And here, as we glide out of a wood, is Wharfedale
spread before us; and we know at last that it is not only in the name
that the charm lies.
The river flows below through the wide valley and winds away in shining
curves into the far distance, past the bluff outline of Kilnsey Crag,
past the dark belt of firs, till it vanishes among the folds of the
jewelled hills. For in their liquid brilliancy the colouring of all
these dales is that of gems, of amethyst and emerald, of sapphire and
turquoise and opal; and the sunlight that floods them on the days
when we are fortunate has the luminous gold of the topaz. As we drive
under the overhanging crag of Kilnsey--"the highest and steepest that
ever I saw," says Camden--and pass the tiny village where the sheep
belonging to the Abbey of Fountains used to be shorn, the hills begin
to close in, till, as we draw near Kettlewell, they rise round us so
protectively that we seem to have entered a new and calmer world.
Kettlewell itself is so calm as to appear asleep. Its grey houses,
shadowed by trees and sheltered by the mighty shoulder of Great
Whernside, are defended from every wind, and from every sound but the
rippling of the Wharfe. Beyond this peaceful spot, where we cross the
river, the road is rather rough, and after passing through pretty
Buckden it is also extremely narrow. However, it leads to Hubberholme,
and no more than that need be asked of any road.
At Hubberholme the river is still wide, and thickly strewn with stones;
the slopes of the hills are very near and steep, and are clothed with
bracken and fir-trees, and deeply cleft by tiny becks; masses of wild
flowers fringe the banks with clouds of mystic blue; and beyond an old
stone bridge stands the church, low and grey, with a paved pathway and
a porch bright with crimson ramblers. The rough walls have stood in
this lonely spot for many centuries. The door is open, and we may see
for ourselves the strange state of the masonry within, whose builders,
when they left it thus rugged and unplastered, little thought that its
unfinished appearance would be tenderly cherished by the antiquarians
of a future age. A rare rood-loft of oak divides the tiny chancel from
the nave. This loft dates from the year 1558, the last year that the
Old Faith reigned in England; and in this remote hiding-place among
the hills it escaped the vigilant eye of Elizabeth and the destructive
hands of the Puritans.
On returning to Kettlewell we shall find it worth our while to continue
the journey down the dale on the road that passes through Conistone,
for though it is not so good, as regards surface, as that on the right
bank of the river, it commands a different--and a very lovely--series
of views. From Grassington we cross to Linton, on the right bank, where
there are some little falls whose prettiness is hardly striking enough
to allure us from our way; and at Burnsall we should keep to the same
side of the stream rather than follow the public conveyances to the
left bank. Horse-drawn travellers may well be excused for shirking the
hill above Burnsall; but few gradients have any terrors for us, and the
backward view of Wharfedale from the high hillside is more beautiful
than anything we have yet seen in Yorkshire. The two roads meet near
Barden Tower, the beloved retreat of the Shepherd Lord.
Henry, the tenth Lord Clifford, was a very small boy when his father,
"the Butcher," lost his estates, his cause, and his life, on the
blood-red grass of Towton. It was not without reason that John Clifford
was surnamed "the Butcher." It was in vain that young Rutland knelt
to him for mercy on Wakefield Bridge, "holding up both his hands and
making dolorous countenance, for his speech was gone for fear." "By
God's blood," snarled Clifford, "thy father slew mine, and so will
I do thee and all thy kin!" And he plunged his dagger into the boy's
heart. "In this act," says the historian, "the Lord Clifford was
accounted a tyrant and no gentleman. With his hands still dyed with the
son's blood he savagely cut off the head of the dead father, the busy,
plotting head of Richard, Duke of York, and carried it, crowned with
paper, 'in great despite and much derision,'" to the Lancastrian Queen.
"Madam, your war is done," he cried, "here is your King's ransom!"
Margaret of Anjou, for all her manly ways, became rather hysterical at
the hideous sight, laughing violently with pale lips; and Clifford's
triumph was short. While he lay with an arrow through his throat upon
the field of Towton--which we shall see later on--his little son was
hurried away to a shepherd's hut in the north, where in the course of
twenty-five years or so on the hillside he learnt more than the tending
of sheep. He became the gentlest of his line, a lover of learning, a
watcher of the skies; and though at last Skipton came back to him, and
Brougham, and Pendragon, and many another castle, he lived here quietly
in this simple tower above the wooded Wharfe, befriending the poor,
reading his books, and now and then reading the stars as well, with his
friends the monks of Bolton.
[Illustration: FROM THE ROAD NEAR BARDEN TOWER.]
"And ages after he was laid in earth,
The good Lord Clifford was the name he bore."
His descendant, the notable Lady Pembroke, whose initials are so
conspicuous at Skipton, expended some of her energy here at Barden.
This was one of the six castles she restored, and over the door we may
read the inscription she placed there according to her habit, with
all her names and titles recorded at length, and a reference to a
complimentary text about "the repairer of the breach."
Those who wish to see the famous Strid--and none should miss the
sight--may leave their cars by the wayside at a point not very far from
Barden Tower; but this is not the course I recommend. The Bolton woods
are beautiful beyond description, and it is only by walking or driving
through them from the Abbey to the Strid, or even to Barden Tower,
that one can fully enjoy their ferny slopes and serried stems, and the
little shining streams that slip through them to the Wharfe. George
Eliot and George Lewes once spent a whole day wandering together along
these paths, and we might follow in their footsteps very happily, I
think. Those who prefer to drive must hire carriages, for motors are
not admitted to the woods; but the existence of a very nice little
hotel at Bolton Bridge makes everything easy.
By one means or another the Strid must be seen. Here the Wharfe is
contracted into a narrow cleft, an abrupt chasm between low masses
of rock; and the angry river, suddenly straitened in its course, has
in its convulsions bitten into the stone till it is riddled with a
thousand holes and hollows. When the river is low it is possible
to leap across from rock to rock. This is the leap that Alice de
Meschines' boy attempted but failed to achieve so many years ago, when
the hounds he held in leash hesitated to follow him, and so dragged
him back into the torrent. "I will make many a poor man's son my
heir," said his mother; and the priory that her parents had founded at
Embsay was moved by her to Bolton, and greatly enriched in memory of
the drowned Boy of Egremond. Here is the stone from which he leapt,
they say, and here the stone he never reached, and both are polished
by the feet of those who have been more successful. This legend--and I
fear the unkinder "myth" would be the more accurate word--has prompted
several poets to make verses, but has signally failed to inspire them.
[Illustration: BOLTON PRIORY.]
All that is left of Bolton Priory is before us when we reach the
Cavendish Memorial. Close to this spot, though hidden from the road,
is the log hut known as Hartington Seat, the point of view whence the
ruin looks its loveliest. We are at the edge of a wooded cliff. The
Priory lies far below us in its level graveyard, framed in trees; the
river sweeps away from our feet, and after curving thrice, disappears
into the blue haze of the hills. Between the churchyard and the foot
of the red cliffs beyond the Wharfe lies the regular line of the
monks' stepping-stones, by which for many centuries, probably, the
congregation of the faithful came from the hills to their devotions;
and came, too, on other occasions, laden with fruit or game for the
hospitable table of the prior. Do not go to Bolton on a bank holiday,
nor, if you can help it, in August, lest you should find as many
people as were there in the days of its splendour, when the canons and
the lay-brethren and the men-at-arms and the thirty servants and the
unnumbered serfs and the frequent guests made it a stirring place. Yet
it is always possible to find an early hour when there is peace in
the ruined choir, where somewhere in the shadow of the arcaded walls
the dust of the Shepherd Lord lies under the grass. Bolton was sold
to the Shepherd's son, the first Earl of Cumberland, at the time of
the Dissolution, when the building of the west tower was brought to
a sudden standstill, and the nave, the parish church, was separated
by a wall from the choir, the monks' church, which would be needed no
more. There stands the tower, still unfinished; and here is the nave,
now, as then, a parish church, where for seven hundred years without
interruption, it is said, services have been held Sunday by Sunday.
The beauty of the interior, unfortunately, is not great. The Early
Victorian Age has left its fatal stamp upon it. It was not till forty
years ago that the walls were cleansed of whitewash; and in 1851 a
large sum of money was mis-spent at the Great Exhibition in acquiring
some dreadful glass.
[Illustration: THE CHOIR, BOLTON PRIORY]
The motorist's route from Bolton Bridge to Harrogate is undoubtedly the
moorland road by Blubberhouses. The contour-book describes it as rough
and steep; but the steepness is nowhere very severe, and the surface
is now excellent, while the moors have their usual charms--charms not
only for the artist, though these are appealing enough, but special
charms for the motorist too, the delight of an unfenced road and a wide
country. Not that this road lies altogether on the moors. There are
woods here and there, and soft, green beds of bracken, and slopes of
massive rock; and presently we pass the great reservoir of the Leeds
waterworks. Then the country opens out again, and we have a series
of fine wide views till Harrogate appears below us, occupying a
considerable proportion of the landscape.
Harrogate is exactly what one would expect it to be: a place of large
hotels and fine shops, a place whose ideals are comfort and prosperity.
Those who like to motor round a centre--a plan which has many
advantages--could hardly find a better base for their operations.
"The great merit of Harrogate," wrote George Eliot, "is that one is
everywhere close to lovely open walks." Our field has widened since
her day, but Harrogate's great merit is still its merit as a centre.
In this respect it is superior even to York, though in itself not
worthy to be named with that incomparable city. To the west, within
easy distance, are Nidderdale and Wharfedale; to the north are Ripon,
Fountains, and Jervaulx, with Middleham and even Wensleydale for the
enterprising; to the south is Kirkstall Abbey on the outskirts of
Leeds. Byland and Rievaulx may be seen in a single day's drive, and
only twenty-one miles away is York itself.
Harrogate is so entirely, so aggressively modern, so resolute to let
bygones be bygones, that one learns with something of a shock how it
came by its name. Harrogate, it appears, means the Soldiers' Hill on
the Road. The soldiers who lived on the hill were Roman: the road
was the Roman road through the forest of Knaresborough. Except for
this faint hint of an earlier and more strenuous life, the history
of Harrogate is the history of its "Spaw." These crowded acres were
a bare, uninhabited common at the end of the sixteenth century, when
Captain Slingsby, wandering one day across the Stray, was led by the
tewits to a spring that cured him of his ills, which had hitherto
yielded only to the waters of Germany. He set a roof over the precious
spot, and so this spring became the _fons et origo_ of modern
Harrogate. And the Stray, though now in the heart of a large town, is
still uninhabited, still common-land; for a century after the discovery
of the Tewit Well, when hotels were already thick upon the surrounding
ground, an Act of Parliament was passed by which two hundred acres of
land were presented for ever to the people of Harrogate, to serve for
the daily walks of those who drank the waters.
At Knaresborough, only three miles further on, we are in a very
different world, the world of old houses and older tales, of monarchs
and saints, of William the Conqueror and the proud de Stutteville, of
Richard, king in name but not in deed, and of Oliver, king in deed but
not in name--an inspiring world, one would think. The first view of the
town, too--the river, and the high, unusual bridge, and the red houses
on the hillside, and above them the castle that had once so proud a
crown of towers--seems to promise much. Looking at that fragment of a
fortress we remember those who have owned it; the de Burgh who built
it; the de Stutteville who fought in the Battle of the Standard; Piers
Gaveston, who is better forgotten; de Morville, murderer of Beckett,
hiding here from justice; Queen Philippa, whom we are glad to remember
for any reason; John of Gaunt; Charles I. And we remember Richard
II., a prisoner in the one tower that still stands, alone with his
humiliating memories.
This one glimpse of the castle and its past, however, is all that
Knaresborough can give us of romance. It is almost best to ask no more,
for a nearer view of the crumbling keep will leave us very sad. The
path that leads to it, the path that took de Morville to safety and
Richard to prison, is neatly asphalted, and lighted with gas-lamps on
stone bases, which the local guide-book describes as "ornamental."
Hard by the door through which the sad king passed from his shame at
Westminster, and went forth again to the mystery of Pontefract, stands
a penny-in-the-slot machine. A custodian will show us the guardroom
and its relics, and even the dungeon; but we must be careful to look
at them in the right order, or we shall be rebuked. The wolf-trap must
be seen before the Conqueror's chest, and Philippa's chest before the
armour from Marston Moor. By this time the glamour has faded. Even the
fine view from the castle rock must be inspected--_inspected_ is the
right word--from nicely painted seats, placed at regular intervals in
the shelter of clipped evergreens.
The most satisfactory place in Knaresborough is the Old Manor beside
the river, where the original "roof-tree" round which the house was
built still grows up through the rooms, and would be taller if a
too zealous workman had not aspired to "make it tidy." A great deal
of beautiful furniture has been gathered in the panelled rooms,
including the sturdy and simple oak bedstead in which Oliver Cromwell
slept when he was staying in the house that faces the Crown Hotel,
in the upper part of the town. Perhaps the bed was brought here when
Oliver's lodging was pulled down and rebuilt, as happened some time
ago. The floor of his room was carefully preserved; that floor on
which the landlady's little girl, peeping through the keyhole at "this
extraordinary person," saw him kneeling at his prayers. It was in
this town that he gathered his troops to meet the Scottish invasion,
and from hence that he marched out, by way of Otley, Skipton, and
Clitheroe, to defeat the Duke of Hamilton at Preston. The siege of the
castle was not his work: Fairfax had taken it by assault some years
earlier. Cromwell had sad memories in connection with Knaresborough,
for it was somewhere in its neighbourhood that his second boy, Oliver,
was killed. "I thought he looked sad and wearied," said a contemporary
who met him just before the battle of Marston Moor, "for he had had
a sad loss--young Oliver had got killed to death not long before, I
heard; it was near Knaresborough."
To see the Dropping Well we must cross the river by bridge or ferry,
and walk along a pretty path under the beeches. Here, as everywhere in
Knaresborough, disillusion dogs our steps. This beautiful curiosity
of nature, this great overhanging rock, worn smooth by the perpetual
dripping of the water, framed in moss and ferns, has been made into a
"side-show," with a railing, an entrance fee, and a row of bowler hats,
stuffed parrots, and other ornaments in process of petrifaction. On the
other side of the river is St. Robert's Chapel. Here, too, the world
is too much with us.
Leland, that stout traveller, who "was totally enflammid with a love to
see thoroughly al those partes of this opulente and ample reaulme ...
and notid yn so doing a hole worlde of thinges very memorable," tells
us how Robert Flower, the son of a man "that had beene 2 tymes mair of
York," came to these rocks by the river Nidd "desiring a solitarie life
as an hermite." He made himself this chapel, "hewen owte of the mayne
stone"; and he seems to have had some persuasive power of goodness or
wisdom that turned his enemies into friends. "King John was ons of an
il-wille to this Robert Flour," yet ended by benefiting him and his,
an unusual developement in the case of King John; and de Stutteville,
who lived up at the castle, had actually set out to raid the hermitage,
suspecting it to harbour thieves, when he too, persuaded by a vision or
otherwise, suddenly became the hermit's friend. This tiny sanctuary,
eight or nine feet long, with its altar and groined roof and recesses
for relics, all wrought in the solid rock, would be a place to
stimulate the imagination if it were not that the surroundings and the
guide are such as would cause the strongest imagination to wilt.
Some say that the black slab of marble which is now a memorial to Sir
Henry Slingsby in the parish church once formed the altar-top in St.
Robert's Chapel; others say it came from the Priory, and was raised
there in honour of the saint who "forsook his fair lands" and caused
the Priory's foundation. The slab lies in the Slingsby chapel, and
records that Sir Henry was executed "by order of the tyrant Cromwell."
Carlyle tells us that this Slingsby, "a very constant Royalist all
along," was condemned for plotting the betrayal of Hull to the
Royalists.
The road from Knaresborough to Ripon follows the valley of the Nidd as
far as Ripley. This village has the air of being a feudal survival. Its
cottages with their neatness and their flowers, its _Hôtel de Ville_,
and even the "treated" surface of its excellent road, all bear the
stamp of a close connection with the castle whose park gates are at
the corner. In the sixteenth century the village of Ripley was under
the eye of a very masterful lady. It was to this castle that Oliver
Cromwell, tired from fighting on Marston Moor, came in search of rest.
Rest, however, was denied him. His hostess, whose husband was away, had
no sympathy with fatigue that came from resisting the King's Majesty,
and so poor Oliver--"sad and wearied," as we know, even before the
battle--spent the night on a chair in the hall, while Lady Ingilby,
seated opposite to him with a couple of pistols in her hands, kept her
relentless eye upon him till the morning. When he rode away she told
him it was fortunate for him that he had been so tractable. I think
this fierce lady must have been agreeable to Oliver's grim humour.
The approach to Ripon is pretty, by a road shaded with trees. Above
the town rises the cathedral, massive and stately if not superlatively
beautiful. Though it is not one of our largest cathedrals, its history
is immense.
Even St. Wilfrid's seventh-century church was not the first that
stood here, for before his remote day Eata had founded a monastery
that was hardly built before the Danes burnt it. Indeed, the monastery
was destroyed so often--by Danes, Anglo-Saxons, Normans, and Scots in
turn--that every style of architecture, from Saxon to Perpendicular,
is represented in the various restorations. There are even, I believe,
in the crypt and chapter-house, fragments of Wilfrid's own church,
among them being the curious slit called Wilfrid's Needle, which has
been "mighty famous," as Camden said, for a great many centuries. The
saint himself was mighty famous in his day, as he well deserved to be.
Even still we know a good deal about him, through Bede and others: how,
when he was a poor and ignorant boy of fourteen, "not enduring the
frowardness of his stepmother, he went to seek his fortune," and was
brought to the notice of Queen Eanfled, "whom for his wit and beauty he
was not unfit to serve"; and how she sent him to Lindisfarne, where,
"being of an acute understanding, he in a very short time learnt the
psalms and some books"; and how he refused a wife in France; and was
presented by King Alfred of Deira with a monastery at Rhypum, here on
this very hill; and was consecrated at Compiègne in a golden chair
carried by singing bishops; and how he converted the people of Bosham
by teaching them to fish with eel-nets, so that "they began more
readily at his preaching to hope for heavenly goods"; and how he won
the day in the great controversy at Whitby, and finally died as an
archbishop and was buried at the south end of the altar here at Ripon.
He was a very human saint, and much beloved. His church was destroyed
by Edred, but his monastery grew in power. The most beautiful part of
the present building is the Early English west front, which dates from
the reign of Henry III.
Ripon is altogether charming, and still does homage very prettily to
its patron, King Alfred, who made it a royal borough. He it was who
ordained that every night a horn should be blown by the wakeman, and
that any one who was robbed between the blowing of the horn and the
hour of sunrise should be repaid by the townsfolk. From his day to ours
each night at nine o'clock the men of Ripon have heard the horn--three
long, penetrating blasts before the town hall and three before the
wakeman's house. Several centuries ago the wakeman became the mayor,
and now he blows the horn by deputy. "Except ye Lord keep ye Cittie,"
are the words on the town hall, "ye wakeman waketh in vain"; and not
far away, at one corner of the market-square, is a pretty old gabled
house bearing this legend: "1604. In thys house lived a long time Hugh
Ripley, ye last Wakeman and first Mayore of Rippon."
Yet it is not these links with the beginnings of our history, with
Wilfrid the Saxon saint and Alfred the Saxon king, that draw so many
people to Ripon. Ripon has a greater attraction than these. Only a few
miles away is Fountains Abbey.
When approaching Fountains the motorist may feel very thankful that a
few additional miles on the road are of little importance to him. By
choosing the longer way, through the village of Studley Royal, he will
certainly save himself a considerable walk and may possibly secure the
unspeakable blessing of solitude. The walk through the park from the
main entrance is, I know, regarded as one of the chief beauties of the
place, with its Temple of Fame, and its Surprise View, and its little
cascades; but except for the view of the Abbey, which is lovely, these
artificial prettinesses are more appreciated by those who come forth
on "an expedition" than by those who really wish to seize and keep
something of the spirit of the place. The distant abbey seen from the
east is part of a beautiful landscape, a satisfaction to the eye, a
picturesque incident in the long glade; but those who approach it from
the west come upon it suddenly in all its vastness, close at hand, and
realise, probably for the first time, something of the splendour of the
old monasteries.
[Illustration: THE NAVE, FOUNTAINS ABBEY.]
Here--in this long line of doorways, in this enormous church which
the choir of birds still fills with sacred music, this cloister-garth
and chapter-house with the rich archways, these stairs and domestic
buildings, wall beyond wall and room beyond room--here truly was a
power to make a monarch jealous! It is no wonder that Yorkshire,
crowded as it was with monasteries, thought a strength like theirs
might pit itself against the strength of the king, and rose in protest
against the Dissolution; it is no wonder that the king's agents could
not find enough chains in the country to hang the prisoners in. If this
vast skeleton is so magnificent, of what sort was the actual life!
Close your eyes for a moment to it all, and think of the beginnings of
it.
Think of those thirteen monks, Prior Richard and his brethren from St.
Mary's at York, hungering for a more perfect fulfilment of their vows,
who came here long ago, when this green sward was "overgrown with wood
and brambles, more proper for a retreat of wild beasts than for the
human species." Like wild beasts they lived, with no shelter but the
trees and no food but herbs and leaves. They worked with their hands by
day, and kept their vigils by night, "but of sadness or of murmuring
there was not one sound," says the monk who wrote their story, "but
every man blessed God with gladness." They lived under the thatched
yews till they had raised a roof for themselves, but even when that
was accomplished they were often on the point of starvation. One day
when all the food they had was two loaves and a half, a beggar asked
for bread. "One loaf for the beggar," was Abbot Richard's decree, "and
one and a half for the builders. For ourselves God will provide." The
cartload of bread which arrived immediately afterwards as a gift from a
pious knight was the cause of much thankfulness among the monks, but of
little surprise.
[Illustration: THE TOWER, FOUNTAINS ABBEY.]
As the years passed, lands and legacies made the monastery rich. And
so at last this splendid fabric rose--a triumph of the spirit over
circumstances, a monument to those long-buried monks whose toils and
sufferings are built into the mighty nave, though surely they never
dreamed of such power and wealth as we are forced to dream of as we
stand amid this mass of broken walls, now green with moss and weeds,
but once the heart of a huge organism. It is a monument, too, to many
who came after the brave thirteen: to Abbot Huby, who built the tower
and is said to be buried near it; to John of Kent, who gave us the
bewildering beauty of the Chapel of the Nine Altars, one of the most
exquisite things ever wrought in stone: so spiritual, so aspiring, that
it seems to be a prayer made visible, or even--with its slender arrowy
columns rising into the air till, like fountains, they break into
curves--to be the embodiment of the abbey motto: _Benedicite Fontes
Domino_.
And while we are remembering those who laboured for Fountains, do not
let us forget the man who died for it at Tyburn--William Thirsk. This
abbot was rash enough to resist the messengers of Privy Seal, and was
accused by them of many things. He had, they wrote, "gretly dilapidate
his howse" by theft and sacrilege, had sold the plate and jewels of
the abbey, and had not even secured a proper price for them. To those
who were themselves bent upon theft and sacrilege on a large scale
this last offence seemed worst of all. He had actually, they declared
contemptuously, been persuaded by a jeweller that a valuable ruby was
a mere garnet; "for the trewith ys he is a varra fole and a miserable
ideote." He joined in that desperate protest the Pilgrimage of Grace,
and so was hanged.
Fortunately for posterity as well as for himself, Thirsk's successor,
Brodelay, who was a creature of Thomas Cromwell and chosen with a view
to future events, was not a "varra fole," and yielded meekly when his
abbey was demanded of him, saving it from the fate of Jervaulx. As it
is, too much of it is gone--much that might have been preserved. The
cloisters have vanished though the garth is there, with the long flight
of steps and the great stone basin in the grass and the yew-tree beside
it; and gone, too, is the magnificent infirmary, deliberately destroyed
in the days of James I. by the vandal who owned it and was in want of
some building material.
[Illustration: FOUNTAINS HALL.]
One thing, however, still stands, which is, perhaps, the last relic of
the monks of Fountains that we should expect to find, and is certainly
the most touching relic possible--actually linking us with those
far-off days when the patient thirteen were left here in the wilderness
by Archbishop Thurstan to keep their vow of poverty with such terrible
literalness. Over there, beside the wall, is one of the yew-trees whose
boughs, covered with thatch, formed the first monastery of Fountains.
Close to the western entrance is Fountains Hall. Surely we must forgive
that wicked man who pulled down the infirmary, since the place he built
with the stones is this lovely Jacobean house, a thing as beautiful
in its own domestic way as time-worn stone and bays and mullions can
make it. A balustrade, a sundial, an old-fashioned garden and ancient
yew-hedge make the picture and our pleasure complete.
There is a comfortable hotel at Ripon, and as we have a great deal
to see before reaching any other desirable shelter, we shall find it
best, I think, to spend a night there either before or after visiting
Fountains. From the windows of the _Unicorn_, on market-day, the paved
square is a gay and pleasant sight, with its crowded stalls and bright
awnings, and stores of fruit and flowers and basket-work; and here on
a summer's night the horn-blower may be dimly seen at nine o'clock in
his three-cornered hat and laced coat, doing the bidding of Alfred the
Great.
From Ripon there are three ways of reaching Richmond, without taking
into account the direct route, which would show us nothing of the dales
we came out to see. In either case we must go by Jervaulx and Middleham
and Wensley.
Only a few miles from Ripon is a village less famous, but not less
attractive, than any of these: a spot well-known to antiquarians, and
doubtless to artists too, but unfamiliar to ordinary folk. The charm
of West Tanfield catches the eye at once from the bridge that spans
the Ure, and comes as a pleasant surprise in the midst of rather tame
scenery. The red-roofed cottages are grouped upon the river-bank, with
gay little gardens sloping to the water's edge; behind them rises the
church tower, and the square grey gatehouse of the Marmions, with
its delicate oriel. This gateway was built by Henry V.'s friend and
executor FitzHugh, who married one of the Marmions and lived here,
and added to the church that held the splendid tombs of his wife's
ancestors. He was not buried here himself, but by his own wish with
curious haste at Jervaulx. It is seldom that a little village church
possesses such monuments as these of the Marmions, so rich in ornament
and so marvellously preserved: the arched and canopied recess that
holds the effigy of Sir John; the cloaked and coronetted figure of
Maud his wife, who built this aisle and founded chantries here; the
emblazoned tomb of the unknown lady with the lion; the knight in
mail; and the magnificent monument of that other knight and his wife
which is probably a cenotaph in memory of John and Elizabeth Marmion
of the fourteenth century. Their effigies lie, perfectly preserved,
under a light and graceful "hearse" of ironwork, with seven sconces
for candles--the only iron hearse, they say, in England. Every detail
of the dress, every line of the features, is distinct. The knight's
aquiline nose and full lips, rather sweet in expression, are encircled
by a gorget of mail, over whose delicate links droop the ends of his
long moustache. A collar of SS clasps his throat.
On the north side of the chancel there is a curious recess, with a
squint into the nave and two little windows into the choir. It is
unique, I believe, and as regards its origin and uses very baffling.
Beyond West Tanfield the scenery grows in beauty, for we are nearing
the hills. Masham lies prettily in a valley, with a setting of moors
and dales, gold and emerald when the sun is shining, soft grey and
green when the day is dull. Skirting the little town we go on our way
to Jervaulx.