CLEWER—WINDSOR—ETON AND ITS COLLEGIANS—DATCHET—LANGLEY AND THE
KEDERMINSTERS
Between Dorney and Eton stretches an out-of-the-way corner of land
devoted chiefly to potato-fields and allotments bordering the river. Here
stands Boveney church, or “Buvveney,” as it is locally styled, a small
building so altered at different periods as to be quite without interest.
The river glides past, between the alders, that dark, strong current the
subject of allusion by Praed in his “School and Schoolfellows”:
“Kind _Mater_ smiles again to me,
As bright as when we parted;
I seem again the frank, the free,
Stout-limbed and simple-hearted:
Pursuing every idle dream,
And shunning every warning;
With no hard work but Boveney stream,
No chill except Long Morning.”
A circle of tall elms closely surrounding the church casts a perpetual
shade upon the building; Windsor Castle looking down from the opposite
shore in feudal majesty upon it and the humble activities of these level
fields.
That majestic pile indeed overlooks some remarkably mean surroundings
which on close acquaintance derogate strangely from its dignity. Thus,
resuming the road on the Berkshire side, from Bray to Windsor, the long,
straight, uninteresting miles lead directly to Clewer, a village of
disreputable appearance, now, to all intents, a Windsor slum; and what
was a rustic churchyard has become something more in the likeness of
a cemetery. In the roads, strewn with rubbish and broken glass, dirty
children play.
Besides an inscription to “ye vertuous Mrs. Lucie Hobson, 1657,” who
was, we learn, “a treu lover of a Godly and a Powerful ministry”—_i.e._
probably of a preacher who could bang the pulpit and punish the
cushions—there is little of interest in Clewer church, with the one
exception of a curious little brass plate, inscribed,
“He that liethe vnder this stone
Shott with a hvndred men him selfe alone.
This is trew that I doe saye
The matche was shott in ovld felde at Bray.
I will tell yov before yov go hence
That his name was Martine Expence.”
Local history tells us nothing of this hero, who apparently did not
really shoot himself, as the inscription states, but seems at some period
to have won a particularly hard archery contest, which was ever after his
title to fame in this locality.
[Illustration: AN ENGLISH FARMYARD: BURNHAM ABBEY FARM.]
[Illustration: BOVENEY.]
From Clewer the pilgrim of the roads mounts into Windsor by way of grim
and grimy slums, and therefore those who would come to Windsor had by
far the better do so by water, from which the slums look picturesque.
The view of Windsor, indeed, from the windings of the Thames (Windsor is
the Saxon “Windlesora,” the winding shore) is one of the half-dozen most
supremely grand and beautiful views in England.
Of Windsor, in Berkshire, and Eton, in Bucks, joined by a bridge that
here spans the Thames, I here propose to say little or nothing. To treat
of them at all would, within the scope of this book, be inadequate, and
to deal with them according to their importance would demand a separate
volume. Moreover, to write of them with an airy assurance requires not a
little expert local knowledge of the kind to be expected only of those
who have made them places of long residence or study.
There was once a man who falsely claimed to have been educated at Eton,
and was stumped first ball. They asked him if he knew the Cobbler.
“Yes,” he said, “I know the old fellow very well.” Is it an unconscious
invention of my very own, or did he further proceed to say that he had
often helped the old fellow when he was in low water? At any rate, ’twill
serve; and will doubtless divert those who know the “old fellow” in
question, whom no one could aid under those circumstances, except perhaps
the Clerk of the Weather and the lock-keepers above and below, who,
between them, might serve him sufficiently well. Not to further mystify
readers overseas, who know not Eton, let it at once be said that the
“Cobbler” is an island; and that the famous person who claimed to have
known him must be placed in association with the pretended traveller who
knew the Dardanelles intimately, had dined with them often, and had found
them jolly good fellows.
Eton has for centuries been _the_ public school of all others, where the
sons of landed and of moneyed men have been educated into the belief
that they and theirs stand for England, whereas, if it were not for the
great optimistic, cheerfully hard-working middle-class folk, who found
businesses, and employ the lower orders on the one hand, while on the
other they pay rents to the landowning and governing classes, there would
not be any England for them to misgovern, you know.
Eton is now so crowded with the sons of wealthy foreigners and German and
other Jews, learning to be Englishmen (if that be in any way possible),
that it is now something of a distinction not to have been educated
there, nor to have learned the “Eton slouch,” nor the charming Eton
belief that the _alumni_ brought up under “her Henry’s holy shade” are
thus fitted by Heaven and opportunity, working in unison, to rule the
nation. It is a belief somewhat rudely treated in this, our day, when the
world is no longer necessarily the oyster of the eldest sons of peers and
landowners. And in these times, when it is said that Eton boys funk one
another and fights under the wall are more or less “low,” it is no longer
possible that Etonians shall have the leadership in future stricken
fields—leadership in finance, possibly, seeing how Semitic this once
purely English foundation is becoming; but in leadership when the giving
and receiving of hard knocks is toward; no!
[Illustration: THE KEDERMINSTER PEW: INTERIOR.]
I would, however, this were the worst that is said of Eton College in
these degenerate times. That it is not, _The Eton College Chronicle_
itself bears witness. Attention is there called to a custom of “ragging”
shops, now become prevalent among the young gentlemen. This, we learn,
is carried to such an extent that they will pocket articles found lying
about and walk off with them, “for fun.” One of the most “humorous” of
these incidents was the disappearance of cricket balls to the value of
nearly £1. The assistants at the shop where this mysterious disappearance
occurred had to make good the loss; so it will readily be perceived how
completely humorous the incident must have been from the point of view
of those who had to replace the goods. Were these practices prevalent in
such low-class educational establishments as Board Schools, a worse term
than “ragging,” it may be suspected, would be given them.
Two miles in the rear of Datchet is Langley, a small and very scattered
village which, although unimportant in itself, has a station on the Great
Western Railway. The full name of it, rarely used, is Langley Marish,
which is variously said to mean “Marshy Langley,” “Langley Mary’s,” from
the dedication of the church to the Virgin Mary, or to derive from the
Manor having been held for a short period in the reign of Edward the
First by one Christiana de Mariscis.
Few would give a second glance to the humble little church, with its
red-brick tower of typically seventeenth-century type, and with other
portions of the exterior quite horribly stuccoed; but to pass it by
would be to miss a great deal, for it contains a most curious family pew
and parish library. This library, originally containing between 500 and
600 volumes, was given by Sir John Kedermister, or Kederminster, under
his will of 1631, to “the town” of Langley Marish. The worthy knight was
also builder of one of the two groups of almshouses for four inmates, who
were appointed joint custodians of the books. An ancient deed, reciting
the gift, says: “The said Sir John Kedermister prepared a convenient
place for a library, adjoining to the west end of the said chapel, and
intended to furnish the same with books of divinity, as well for the
perpetual benefit of the vicar and curate of the parish of Langley as for
all other ministers and preachers of God’s Word that would resort thither
to make use of the books therein.”
The Kederminsters first settled at Langley in the middle of the sixteenth
century, when one John Kederminster, who appears to have been a kinsman
of Richard Kydermynster, Abbot of Winchcombe, became ranger of the then
royal park of Langley and “master of the games” to Henry the Eighth. He
died at the comparatively early age of thirty-eight, in 1558, leaving
two sons and three daughters. His son Edmund was father of the John
Kederminster who founded the library and initiated other works here. He
also was ranger of Langley Park, and was knighted by James the First in
1609, who also conferred upon him the Manor of Langley.
[Illustration: THE KEDERMINSTER PEW: EXTERIOR.]
This was a short-lived family, and Sir John died in 1634, a deeply
pious but much stricken man, who had lived to see his children, except
one daughter, predecease him, and his hopes thus disappointed of the
Kederminster name being continued.
As lord of the manor of Langley, and a knight, Sir John Kederminster
obviously felt it behoved him to establish himself in considerable state,
in the church as well as at his mansion. He therefore secured a faculty
granting him the right to construct an “Ile or Chappell”; otherwise, as
we may see to this day, a private family pew, in the south aisle, and a
parish library to the west of it.
This family pew is perhaps the most curious remaining in England,
alike for its construction and for the instructive light it throws
upon the lofty social heights from which a lord of a manor looked upon
lesser mortals. We have royal pews in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor
and elsewhere; but their exclusiveness is not greater than this of the
Kederminsters, which is singularly like that of the latticed casements
familiar to all who have visited Cairo and other Oriental towns. Yet it
is obvious that there was a vein of humility running through Sir John
Kederminster’s apparent arrogance; though a rather thin vein, perhaps.
Thus he wrote, for the stone closing the family vault under his pew: “A
true Man to God, his King, and Friends, prayeth all future Ages to suffer
these obscure Memorials of his Wife, Children and Kindred to remain in
this Place undisturbed.”
The pew remains in its original condition, looking into the church from
the south aisle through very closely-latticed wooden screen-work,
elaborately painted, and crested with an open-work finial bearing the
arms of the Kederminsters and their connections. The worshippers within
were quite invisible to the congregation, but could themselves see and
hear everything. Within the pew, the wall-decoration, in Renascence
designs, includes many panels painted with the all-seeing eye of God,
with the words “Deus videt” inscribed on the pupil. This scheme of
decoration is continued over the ceiling.
A passage leads out of this singular pew to the library, on the western
side. This is an entirely charming square room, constructed in what was
formerly the west porch. It is lined throughout with bookcases with
closed cupboard doors, all richly painted in characteristic Jacobean
Renascence cartouche and strapwork designs, with the exception of those
next the ceiling, which are landscapes of Windsor and its neighbourhood.
The inner side of one of the cupboard doors has a portrait of the pious
donor: the corresponding door once displayed a likeness of his wife, but
it has been obliterated. An elaborate fireplace has a fine overmantel
with large central cartouche, _semée_ with the Kederminster arms: two
chevronels between three bezants, marshalled with those of their allied
families. The original Jacobean table still stands in the centre of the
room, with the old tall-backed chairs, too decrepit now for use.
[Illustration: THE KEDERMINSTER LIBRARY.]
Kederminster strictly enjoined the most careful precautions for the due
care of the books, of which an old catalogue dated 1638, engrossed on
vellum, and framed, still hangs on the wall. One, at least, of his four
bedesmen (who are now women) was to be present when they were in use:
“The said four poor persons should have a key of the said library, which
they should for ever keep locked up in the iron chest under all their
four keys, unless when any minister or preacher of God’s Word, or other
known person, should desire to use the said library, or to study, or to
make use of any books in the same, and then the said four poor people,
or one of them at the least, should from time to time—unless the heirs
of Sir John Kedermister, being then and there present, should otherwise
direct—attend within the door of the said library, and not depart from
thence during all the time that any person should remain therein, and
should all that while keep the key of the said door fastened with a chain
unto one of their girdles, and should also take special care that no
books be lent or purloined out of the said library, but that every book
be duly placed in their room, and that the room should be kept clean; and
that if at any time any money or reward be given to the said poor people
for their attendance in the library as aforesaid, the same should be to
the only use of such of those poor people as should at that time then and
there attend.”
Clearly, this care has not been always exercised, for the books are
now reduced to some three hundred, and those that are left have
suffered greatly from damp and rough handling. The books are chiefly
cumbrous tomes, heavy in more than one sense, and mostly works on
seventeenth-century religious controversies.
Although this library has for long past been either forgotten or regarded
merely as a curiosity, there was once a time when the books in it were
well used, as would appear from the notes made on the end-papers of a
Hebrew and Latin Bible, printed at the office of Christopher Plantin, in
Antwerp, 1584. It was one J. C. Werndly, vicar of Wraysbury from 1690 to
1724, who made these notes, and he seems to have been indeed a diligent
reader. Thus he wrote:
1701/2 Jan. the 17. I began again the Reading of this Hebrew
Bible (wʰ is the sixth time of reading it) may the Spirit of
Holiness help me and graciously Enable me to peruse it again to
the Glory of God, and to the sanctification of my sinful and
im’ortal soul. Amen, Lord Jesus, Amen.
The last record of his reading appears thus:
1701. xxxiii. 8ᵇʳᵉ the 3rd. I finished the ψalms again by the
mercy of my Savʳ.
The numerals for “thirty-three” appear to indicate his thirty-third
reading.
The almshouses on the north side of the churchyard, their front facing
the sun, are pleasant with old-fashioned gardens. They were built by
Henry Seymour, who in 1669 purchased the Kederminster estates from the
son of Sir John Kederminster’s daughter and heiress, who had married Sir
John Parsons, sometime Lord Mayor of London. Thus, in less than forty
years the Kederminster hopes faded away and the property passed into the
hands of strangers.
[Illustration: THE ALMSHOUSES, LANGLEY.]