“Assuming that this is a correct reading of the abbreviated words on
the bell, the following is a literal translation:—‘Given for luck by
Edward Brooke, of Stretton, gentleman. 1711.’”
The Rev. John Brooke, of Haughton, unwilling that one of the family
should have been supposed to have associated the word “luck” with things
so sacred, writes to say:—
“On referring to the copies of the Claverley registers, as I have, I
find that ‘Avis’ was the Christian name of one of his wives, 1636;
therefore, after all, Edward Brooke probably gave the bell in memory
of either his wife or a daughter of that name.”
One of the Brookes, residing or having property, or both, at
Coalbrookdale, went to Ireland, taking the name of the place with him,
and calling it “Colebrook.”
In a work published on distinguished Shropshire families is the
following, which is interesting from its bearing upon an important
historical fact:—
“Robert Brooke Miles married three wives; one, Anne, d. and heir of
Michael Warringe de Salop. He died 1558.
↓
John B. died 1598, aged 60. + Anne, d. of Francis Shirley, of
Staniton, co. Leicester.
↓
Sir Basil Brooke Miles, 1623, died 1646. + Etheldreda, d. and sole
heir of Edmund Boudendil.”
Sir Basil was one of the sporting friends whom Giffard of Chillington
drew around him at his housewarming on the border of Brewood Forest, a
house which subsequently gave shelter to the Earl of Derby and King
Charles the First. It was built nominally as a hunting-seat, but really
for purposes of concealment; and the site on the bolder of two counties,
deep in the recesses of woods, traversed by no public roads, was
exceedingly suitable. It is said that on the completion of the building
the owner invited a few friends to dinner, to celebrate the occasion, and
amongst them Sir Basil Brooke, of the Court House, Madeley, who had
recently returned from Italy, and who on being requested by his host to
supply a name for the place, suggested Boscobel, or Bos co Bello; and
this was considered so appropriate, from the prospect it commanded of the
beautiful woods around, that it is said to have been at once adopted.
It will be seen from what we have previously stated that the family of
Brooke continued to reside at Madeley till 1706, when, according to the
benefaction-table in the church, Basil Brooke by will bequeathed the sum
of £40, and for a further sum of £30, paid him by Audley Bowdler and
eight other parties, sold three several cottages or tenements, with
gardens and yards, at Madeley Wood, for the use of the poor. {40}
The next tenant of the Court appears to have been the first Abraham
Darby, for we find that he died there, after which time we find no
tenants of more importance than the Purtons and the Triggers, who were
farmers, and held the land around.
Thus early, even in Madeley, did the great owners of the soil—who merely
tilled the surface, and scarcely that—give place to miners and ironmakers
who knew how to win wealth from beneath.
With regard to this fine old mansion itself, having about it the symbols
of ancient and distinguished Shropshire families, and associated at still
earlier periods with the history of the wealthy monastery of St.
Milburgh, it is fast going to decay. The last of the long and
distinguished line of Wenlock priors lived and died here, as did the
first great Shropshire ironmaster, the first Abraham Darby, afterwards,
and one almost regrets that the wish of the late James Foster, who
purchased the property, to repair and restore it, was not carried out.
The temptation to get the mines underneath it, however, proved too
strong: the whole has been undermined, and from attacks below and above,
with all the usual elements of decay at work, must ere long disappear,
rich as it is in associations of the past.
It is one of that class of buildings the country can ill afford to spare,
for it speaks not to the antiquarian or the historian merely, but to all
who take an interest in the manners, customs, and domestic arrangements
of the past. It is difficult to say which are the original portions, but
the vaults and cellaring, and some other parts appear to have belonged to
a building which has undergone many changes. The windows, walls, and
doorways of that portion of the building occupied by Mr. Round, and the
substantial foundations that gentleman found beneath the surface in
cutting a drain in the same direction, with a well 15 yards deep,
indicate pretty clearly an extension of the buildings formerly on that
side.
On going inside, and descending a spiral stone staircase to the basement
story of the building, visitors will have opportunities of seeing how
substantially the walls are built. They are a yard and a half in
thickness, and have narrow openings, each growing narrower towards the
outside, every two converging towards a point similar to what the reader
has witnessed in many a fortress of byegone times, and designed no doubt
for the same purpose, for defence. This staircase did not then as now
terminate in what was the large hall, but in the adjoining apartment, now
used as a brewhouse. The partition, too, which shuts off the entrance to
another pair of stairs near the coat of arms on the north did not exist,
nor the stairs either. The room is now 38½ feet long; then it would be
40, by 22 feet wide, and 14 feet high. Beneath these arms, on a daias,
probably, the head of the house would sit dispensing hospitality. The
chief staircase was near the other end of the hall, and composed of
immense blocks of solid oak. The spiral stone staircase from the base of
the building to the chapel at the top of the house was for the use, it is
supposed, either of the dependents or the officiating priest. A further
examination of the arms on the ceiling and a comparison with those in
other parts of the building show them to be those of the Brooke family.
An oak screen divides the chapel, which is wainscoted to the ceiling with
oak. On the eastern side of this screen is a piscina, which has been cut
out of the solid brickwork, and which at a subsequent period must have
been concealed by the wainscoating. In the western division, behind the
wainscoating, is a secret chamber, a yard square; probably for
concealment in times of danger. It is communicated with by a panel in
the wainscoat just large enough to admit a man, who, once inside, had the
means of bolting and barring himself in behind the oak panel, which would
look in no respect different to the others. This is called king
Charles’s hole, but there is no evidence or well-founded tradition that
he occupied it. There are a number of other curious nooks and small
chambers which might have served purposes of concealment in troubled
times, and probably did so, when the votaries of the two dominant
religions, fired with a zeal inspired by their positions, alternately
persecuted each other, as in the times of James, Mary, and Elizabeth. It
is an error however, and one which Harrison Ainsworth among others
appears to have fallen into, to suppose that the unfortunate king Charles
either came to the Court House or was secreted in it. It is probable
enough that, from the well known loyalty of the owner, the house would be
searched by the Parliamentarians for the king, and the fact that they
were likely to do so would lead to more discretion in selecting a place
of concealment. The fine old wainscoating is falling from the rooms, and
the whole place presents a scene of utter desolation.
From the upper portion of the building a pit, said to be without a
bottom, and leading to a subterranean passage to Buildwas Abbey, may be
seen. There is of course no ground for either tradition: a house which
belonged to the priors of Wenlock would want no communication with a
rival monastery, which was looked upon with jealousy, and the more
abstemious habits of the inmates of which were in some measure a
reflection upon their own. The pit or well has no bottom, inasmuch as it
slants when it gets below the building in the direction of the pool in
which it terminates.
Outside the building are some of the grotesque, nondescript stone figures
which builders of the Gothic age indulged in. On this side, too, is a
handsome stone porch, which, like some other portions of the same
building is more modern than others. The gate-house, like the porch, is
both more modern, and more Elizabethan than the other. It is a
well-proportioned and beautiful building, exciting the admiration of all
who see it. It possesses several heraldic embellishments, relating to
the Brooke family.
It is a pity that the memorials of a family so ancient and distinguished,
and so connected with the early history of Madeley, have not been better
preserved. There must, one would think, have been mural monuments of a
costly kind in the old church, seeing that the family lived at the Court
for two centuries and a half at the least.
The stone of which the house was built was quarried near the spot, but
the shelly limestone covering for the roof must have been brought from
Acton Burnell, or somewhere near. It is from the pentamerous beds of the
Caradoc sandstone. The house is supplied with spring-water by pipes from
an ancient reservoir on the high ground near where the stone used was
probably quarried.