THE TRENT, FROM NEWTON SOLNEY TO THE DERWENT.
Newton Solney--Repton: The School and the Church--Swarkestone:
Its Bridge and its Church--Chellaston--Donington Park and Castle
Donington--Cavendish Bridge.
Truly a pretty spot is the little village of Newton Solney, rising
up the slope from a low scarp which overlooks the Trent, with its
scattered houses, its small church spire, and the fine old trees
around the hall. This indeed is a modern structure, and certainly not
picturesque, but there has been a mansion on this site for many a year,
for the De Sulneys had the estate full six centuries ago, and there
is a fine monument to one of them in the interesting church. Trent
sweeps on through the broad and level meadows, now become a strong
full stream, which near Willington Station--where it is bridged--is
about eighty yards wide. Here, in the valley indeed, but nearly a mile
away from the actual margin of the river, is a little town of great
antiquity and unusual interest. Repton, distinguished from afar by
the slender and lofty spire of its church, is the Hreopandum of the
Anglo-Saxon chronicle. Some suppose it to be the Roman Repandunum;
certainly it was a place of importance more than twelve centuries
since, for it was selected by Diuma, the first Bishop of Mercia, as
the centre of his huge diocese, and here, about the year 658, he died
and was buried. Soon after this a nunnery was founded, and before St.
Chad removed the "bishop's-stool" to Lichfield, St. Guthlac had started
from Repton to float down the Trent, and to wander through the fenland
of East Anglia till he settled down on the swampy island of Crowland.
So many of the Princes of Mercia were buried here that the abbey is
described by a Norman chronicler as "that most holy mausoleum of all
the Kings of Mercia." Hither, for instance, in the year 775, the body
of Ethelbald was brought for burial from the fatal field of Secandun.
No trace of his tomb, or indeed of that of any other Mercian King, now
remains. Since those days changes have been so many that monuments have
had little chance of escaping; but probably these and the monastery
were alike destroyed when a horde of Danish plunderers swept through
the Midlands of England, and Bathred of Mercia, in the year 874, had
to fly before them. These unwelcome intruders spent the winter at
Repington. At their hands Mercian monuments and monastic buildings
would fare ill. Prior to this calamity the body of St. Wystan, a devout
Prince, heir to the throne of Mercia, was laid here by the side of his
mother Alfleda. On Whitsun-eve, 849, he was assassinated by a cousin,
and before long miracles in plenty were wrought at his tomb. His
relics, on the approach of the Danes, were transferred for safety to
Evesham, and when the church was rebuilt, in the tenth century, the new
structure was dedicated to his memory. Repton, at the time of Domesday
Book, was a part of the Royal demesne; then we find it included in the
estates of the Earls of Chester. The nunnery in some way or other had
come to an end, for a widowed countess of this line founded on the
site a priory of Black Canons in the year 1172, of which considerable
remnants may still be seen.
[Illustration: REPTON.]
[Illustration: THE "CROW TREES," BARROW-ON-TRENT.]
The little old-fashioned town occupies some gently rising ground.
This is separated from the broad and level water-meadows by a step
or craglet a few feet in height, the scarp of an old river terrace;
nearest to this are the church and priory buildings, which occupy a
considerable tract of land, and look down upon the remnants of the
monks' fishponds. The old trees that have here and there fixed their
roots in the broken bank-side, the graceful steeple of the church,
rising to an elevation of more than sixty yards, the great group of the
school buildings--which occupy the site of the old priory, and in which
new and old are mingled together in a picturesque confusion--offer,
as we approach Repton from the railway station, along the flat and
otherwise uninteresting valley, a series of pictures of no little
beauty. The school owes its foundation to Sir John Porte, who in the
year 1556 endowed it with lands, and assigned to it the buildings
of the old priory. These had originally been granted to one Thomas
Thacker, but, as is often the case with ill-gotten gains, had brought
him little good. Fuller, the Church historian, tells a tale which shows
him to have been a man not easily thwarted. At Repton St. Guthlac had
a shrine, where was a wonder-working bell, a grand specific for the
headache. Public gratitude had found expression in a fine church or
chapel, and this was included in Thacker's share of monastic plunder.
He had heard that Queen Mary had set up the abbeys again, so he lost
no time, but "upon a Sunday (belike the better day the better deed)
called together the carpenters and masons of that county and pulled
down in one day (church work is a cripple in going up but rides post in
coming down) a most beautiful church belonging thereto, saying he would
destroy the nest lest the birds should build again."
The gateway of the priory, a fine pointed arch, still serves as the
entrance to the school premises, and several parts of the buildings
evidently carry us back to the days of the Black Canons, while others
probably indicate the hands of Elizabethan workmen, when the ruined
monastic buildings were converted into a school. Mingled with these are
structures of later date, among which those of the present reign are
conspicuous, owing to the growth of the school and the development of
education in recent days. Thus the whole group, in which new and old
are mingled, almost entangled, is always interesting and not seldom
picturesque. The school chapel, which is modern, and has been further
enlarged of late years in commemoration of the tercentenary of the
foundation, stands at some little distance from the other buildings,
and on the opposite side of the churchyard. The estate bestowed
upon the foundation by Sir John Porte, by whom also a hospital was
established and maintained at Etwall, a village some four miles away,
has proved valuable, so that the endowment is considerable. The school
from a very early period enjoyed a considerable local reputation,
which has gradually extended, till at the present day it claims a
place in the second group of the great schools of England, for some
three hundred lads have replaced the Black Canons, a change which
means a good deal for the little town. Among its scholars in olden
time were Lightfoot the Hebraist and Stebbing Shaw the historian of
Staffordshire, whom we have more than once quoted. The constitution of
the school was materially altered by the results of the Endowed Schools
Act, for it was originally founded simply as a Free Grammar School for
Repton and Etwall.
The ample churchyard allows of a good view of the church and its
slender spire. At the first glance it would be put down as a rather
simple but pleasing structure, most of which would be assigned to some
part of the fourteenth century. On entering the interior a diversity of
dates would become more obvious; but the general impression made is of
a large and well-proportioned rather than of a richly adorned or of a
specially interesting church. Monuments also are fairly numerous, but
these are in no way remarkable, except for some connection with local
history. Repton Church, however, has one treasure, but this is almost
hidden underground. Underneath the chancel, approached by a narrow
staircase, is a crypt. It is small, for it is only some seventeen
feet broad and long, but one would have to travel not a few miles in
order to find another remnant of ancient days equally interesting.
The roof is rudely vaulted, supported by four columns, which have a
spiral ornament of peculiar character, and rather plain flat capitals;
the corresponding piers are relieved by a shallow grooving. The work
indicates the influence of Classic patterns, with much rudeness of
execution. To assign its date is difficult; its style is certainly
anterior to the Norman Conquest, and probably the actual date is the
same. A recent authority (Dr. Cox) considers this crypt to have been
part of the first church dedicated to St. Wystan, erected after the
destruction of the older edifice by the Danes, probably in the reign
of Edgar the Peaceable (958-975). This is most likely correct, for the
work appears a little too highly finished for a date anterior to the
tenth century. Dr. Cox, however, remarks that portions of the outer
walls of the crypt have been proved to be of earlier date than the
pillar-supported roof, and may thus be a remnant of the church in which
the Mercian Kings were entombed.
[Illustration:
_Walker & Boutall sc._
THE TRENT, FROM NEWTON SOLNEY TO THE DERWENT.]
There is in the crypt an alabaster tomb of a knight in armour, dating
from the fifteenth century; and in front of the old gateway is another
relic of ancient days. This is the base of a cross, which, to judge
from the number of steps, must have been of considerable size, and
probably indicated the original market-place; for its proximity to the
church and the priory would enable the country folk to attend to the
affairs of this world, while at the same time they did not entirely
neglect the concerns of the other. One trace both of ancient name and
ancient importance is still retained by Repton, for all Derbyshire
south of the Trent is called the "Hundred of Repington." This part of
the river-course is about twenty-four miles in length. Previous to
this it separates for a space Derbyshire from Staffordshire, and it
leaves the former county at the junction of the Erewash, a stream from
Sherwood Forest, which, for the greater part of its course, forms a
parting from Nottinghamshire. Below Repton for several miles there is
no place of special interest in the valley of the Trent, though some of
the villages in or near it are of considerable antiquity. The sketch of
the "Crow Trees," now fewer than formerly, at Barrow, gives a good idea
of the quiet but pleasant riverside scenery. At Swarkestone the river
is crossed by a curious old bridge, the raised approaches across the
water-meadows being about a mile in length. The bridge is assigned by
the guide-books to the twelfth century, and is traditionally reported
to have been the work of two maiden sisters, who spent upon it all
their living. It was the cause of a smart struggle in the civil war
of 1643, and was occupied by the advanced guard of the Jacobites in
1745. Chellaston, a short distance from the opposite bank, is a name
familiar to geologists. There are extensive workings here for gypsum,
and the occurrence of a number of minute fossils (_foraminifera_) in a
deposit usually destitute of the remains of organic life has attracted
especial attention to the locality. It is, however, now doubted
whether these organisms have not been obtained from a deposit of later
age. After Stanton-by-Dale and Weston-on-Trent comes Donington Park,
with its ample lawns and shady groves extending around the mansion,
which was the home of the Hastings family, of one of whom more than
enough was heard some few years since. Behind the park the village
of Castle Donington straggles down and along the high road leading
from Ashby-de-la-Zouch towards the Trent. Here some remnants of a
castle are to be seen, said to have been founded by John of Gaunt, and
from which the village obtains its distinctive name. Beyond this are
Ashton-on-Trent and Cavendish Bridge, which crosses the river a short
distance above the confluence of the Derwent. This bridge obtains its
name from the family of Cavendish, by members of which it was erected
about the middle of the last century.
T. G. BONNEY.
[Illustration: TRENT LOCKS.]
[Illustration: JUNCTION OF THE DERWENT AND THE TRENT.]
THE HUMBER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.