Transcribed from the 1853 Thomas Cautley Newby edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Norwich street scene]
Rambles in an Old City;
COMPRISING
ANTIQUARIAN, HISTORICAL,
BIOGRAPHICAL AND POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS
By S. S. Madders.
* * * * *
LONDON:
Thomas Cautley Newby,
30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE.
MDCCCLIII.
PREFACE.
It has been very aptly remarked by a recent writer, that "to send forth a
work without a preface, is like thrusting a friend into the society of a
room full of strangers, without the benefit of an introduction;" a custom
that no _fashion_ can redeem from the charge of incivility. A book,
however insignificant, grows beneath the author's pen, to occupy a place
in his regard, not unworthy the title of friendship; and as that sacred
bond of social union is not dependent upon individual perfection, so the
companion of many a solitary hour is not to be cast out upon the "wide,
wide world," without one word to secure it at least a gentle reception,
be its faults as manifold and manifest as they may, even to the most
partial eye.
The design of this little book of "Rambles," has been to concentrate into
the form of a light and amusing volume, some few of the many subjects of
interest suggested by the leading features of an "Old City." It makes no
pretensions to any profound learning or deep research. It is little more
than a _compilation_ of facts, interwoven with the history of one of the
oldest cathedral and manufacturing cities of our country; but inasmuch as
the general features are common to most other ancient cities, and many of
the subjects are national and universal in their character, the outlines
are by no means strictly local in their application or interest.
Whether the design has been carried out, in a way at all worthy of the
hale old city of Norwich, that has served as "the text of the discourse,"
remains to be proved; but the attempt to contribute to the light
literature of the day a few simple gleanings of fact, as gathered by a
stranger, during a ten years' residence in a "strange land," will, it is
to be hoped, secure a lenient judgment for the inexperience that has
attempted the task.
The sources of information from which the historical parts of the work
have been derived, are such as are open to every ordinary student; its
light character has precluded the introduction of notes of reference, but
it would amount to downright robbery to refrain from acknowledging the
copious extracts that have been made from the valuable papers of the
Norfolk Archaeological Society.
For the kind assistance of the few individuals from whom information has
been sought, many thanks are due; and it is but just to state, that all
deficiences of matter or details, that may probably be felt by many, more
familiar than the writer herself with the persons, places, and things,
that make the sum and substance of her work, are referable alone to the
difficulty she has experienced in selecting suitable materials to carry
out her design, from the abundance placed at her disposal; a tithe of
which might have converted her "rambles" into a heavy, weary "march,"
along which few might have had patience to accompany her.
To these few observations must be subjoined an expression of earnest and
heartfelt thanks to the many liberal-minded individuals who have extended
encouragement to this feeble effort of a perfect stranger. That some
portion or other of the contents of her little volume may be found worthy
their acceptance, is the fervent desire of
THE AUTHORESS.
NORWICH,
January 1, 1853.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. I.
INTRODUCTION PAGE
1
CHAP. II.
THE CATHEDRAL 14
CHAP. III.
THE CASTLE 62
CHAP. IV.
THE MARKET-PLACE 117
CHAP. V.
THE GUILDHALL 179
CHAP. VI.
PAGEANTRY 227
CHAP. VII.
SUPERSTITIONS 282
CHAP. VIII.
CONVENTUAL REMAINS AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 311
ERRATA. {0}
Page 7, line 15, _for_ "these," _read_ "those."
,, 8, line 10, _for_ "querus," _read_ "querns."
,, 37, line 16, for "veriest," _read_ "various."
,, 59, lines 24 and 26, _for_ "Hoptin," _read_ "Hopkin."
,, 64, line 8, _for_ "spirit--powers," _read_ "spirit-powers."
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
Who that has ever looked upon the strange conglomerations of architecture
that line the thoroughfares of an ancient city, bearing trace of a touch
from the hand of every age, from centuries far remote,--or watched the
busy scenes of modern every-day life, surrounded by solemnly majestic, or
quaintly grim old witnesses of our nation's' infancy,--but has felt the
Poetry of History that lies treasured up in the chronicles of an "Old
City?"
We may not all be archaeologists, we may many of us feel little sympathy
with the love of accumulating time-worn, moth-eaten relics of ages passed
away, still less may we desire to see the resuscitation of dead forms,
customs or laws, which we believe to have been advances upon prior
existing institutions, living their term of natural life in the season
appointed for them, and yielding in their turn to progressions more
suited to the growing wants of a growing people; but there are few minds
wholly indifferent to the associations of time and place, or that are not
conscious of some reverence for the links connecting the present with the
past, to be found in the many noble and stupendous works of ancient art,
yet lingering amongst us, massive evidences of lofty thoughts and grand
conceptions, which found expression in the works of men's hands, when few
other modes existed of embodying the imaginations of the mind.
It is not now my purpose to draw comparisons between the appeals thus
made through the outward senses to the spirituality of our nature, and
the varied other and more subtle means employed in later days, to awaken
our feelings of veneration and devotion, but it may be observed in
passing, that amid the floods of change that have swept across our
country's history, it is scarcely possible but that some good should have
been lost among the debris of decayed and shattered institutions. We
have now to take a sweeping glance at the general outline of the place
that has been chosen as the nucleus from which to spin our web, of light
and perhaps fanciful associations. A desultory ramble through the
streets and bye-ways of an old city, that owns six-and-thirty parish
churches, the ghosts of about twenty more defunct, the remains of four
large friaries and a nunnery, some twenty or thirty temples of worship
flourishing under the divers names and forms of "dissent," two Roman
branches of the Catholic Church, a Jewish synagogue, a hospital, museum,
libraries, and institutions of every possible name, and "refuges" for
blind, lame, halt, deaf, "incurable," and diseased in mind, body, or
estate; that is sprinkled with factories, bounded by crumbling ruins of
old rampart walls, and studded with broken and mutilated bastion
towers,--brings into view a series of objects so heterogeneous in order
and character, that to arrange the ideas suggested by them to the mind or
memory, is a task of no slight difficulty.
The great "lions" of interest to one, may rank the very lowest in the
scale of another's imagination or fancy. The philosopher, the poet, the
philanthropist, the antiquarian, the utilitarian, the man of the world,
and the man of the day, each may choose his separate path, and each find
for himself food for busy thought and active investigation.
The archaeologist may indulge his love of interpreting the chiselled
finger-writing of centuries gone by, upon many a richly decorated page of
sculpture, and, hand in hand with the historian and divine, may trace out
the pathway of art and religion, through the multiform records of genius,
devotional enthusiasm, taste, and beneficence, chronicled in writings of
stone, by its ecclesiastical remains; he may gratify himself to his
heart's content with "vis-a-vis" encounters with grim old faces, grinning
from ponderous old doorways, or watching as sentinels over dark and
obscure passages, leading to depths impenetrable to outward vision, and
find elaborately carved spandrils and canopies, gracing the entrances of
abodes where poverty and labour have long since found shelter in the
cast-off habitations of ancient wealth and aristocracy.
He may venture to explore cavernous cellars with groined roofings and
piers that register their age; may make his way through moth-corrupted
storehouses of dust and lumber; to revel in the grandeur of some old
"hall," boasting itself a relic of the domestic architecture of the days
of the last Henry, and there lose himself in admiration of old mullioned
windows, tie-beams, and antique staircases; may ferret out old cabinets
and quaint old buffets hard by, that once, perchance, found lodging in
the "Stranger's Hall," as it is wont, though erringly, to be designated;
he may wander thence through bye lanes and streets, stretching forth
their upper stories as if to meet their opposite neighbours half way with
the embrace of friendship; over the plain, memorable as the scene of
slaughter in famous Kett's rebellion, to the "World's End;" and see amid
the tottering ruins of half demolished pauper tenements, the richly
carved king-posts and beams of the banquet chamber of the famous knight,
Sir Thomas Erpingham, whose martial fame and religious "heresy" have
found a more lasting monument than the perishable frame-work of his
mansion-house, in the magnificent gateway known by his name, and raised
in commemoration of his sin of Lollardism. He may accompany the
philanthropist in his visit to the "Old Man's Hospital," and mourn over
the misappropriation of the nave and chancel of fine old St. Helen's,
where lies buried Kirkpatrick, a patriarch of the tribe of antiquaries;
he may visit the grammar school that has sent forth scholars, divines,
warriors, and lawyers; a Keye, a Clarke, an Earle, {5} a Nelson, and a
Rajah Brooke, to spread its fame in the wide world. He may see in it a
record of the days when grammar was forbidden to be taught elsewhere; he
may peep through the oriels that look in upon the charnel-house of the
ancient dead beneath; may feast his eyes upon the beauties of the
Erpingham, and strange composite details of the Ethelbert gateways;
explore the mysteries of the Donjon, or Cow Tower; and following the
windings of the river past the low archway of the picturesque little
ferry, find himself at length stumbling upon some fragment of the old
"_Wall_." Thence he may trace the ancient frontier line of the Old City,
and the sites of its venerable gateways, that _were_, but _are not_; the
flintwork of the old rampart, now clinging to the precipitous sides of
"Butter Hills," with an old tower at the summit, mounted, sentinel-like,
to keep watch over the ruins of the Carrow Abbey, and the alder cars,
that gave it its name in the valley below; now, following a broken
course, here and there left in solitude for wild creepers and the rare
indigenous carnation to take root upon; now bursting through
incrustations of modern bricks and mortar, and showing a bastion tower,
with its orifices ornamented by spread-eagle emblems of the stone-mason's
craft in the precincts below; here, forming the back of slaughter-houses,
or the foundations of some miserable workshop, fashioned from the rubble
of its sides; thence wandering on through purlieus of wretchedness and
filth that might shake the nerves of any more vulnerable bodies than
"paving commissioners" or "boards of health;" its arched recesses, once
so carefully defined, its elevated walks, so studiously preserved for
recreation as well as for defence, all now rendered an indefinite
disfigured mass, with accretions of modern growth, that bear the stamp
upon every feature of their parentage, poverty and decay. He may visit
barns and cottages with remnants of windows and doorways, that make it
easy to believe they once had been the shrine of a St. Mary Magdalen; may
trace out for himself, among hovels and cellars, and reeking court-yards,
grey patches of festering ruin, last lingering evidences of the age of
conventual grandeur; here, in the priory yard of a parish, that might be
said to shelter the offscum of poverty's heavings up, he shall find a
little ecclesiastical remnant of monastic architecture, converted into a
modern meeting-house; the nursery walls that cradled the genius of a
Bale, the carmelite monk, and great chronicler of his age, now echoing
the doctrines of the "Reformed Religion," as taught by the Anabaptist
preacher. In another district, but still skirting on the river-side,
where those old monks ever loved to pitch their dwelling-places, down in
a dreary little nook, shut out from noisy thoroughfares, and bearing
about it all the hushed stillness that beseems the place, he may seek the
ghostly companionship of the old "friar of orders grey" in the lanes and
walks that once bounded the flourishing territory of the rich "mendicant"
followers of holy St. Francis, or "friars minors," as they were wont to
call themselves. Not far distant, the whereabouts of the old Austin
Friars may invite attention; and the locale of the "Carrow Nunnery," or
ladies' seminary of the mediaeval times, claim a passing enquiry, and
note of admiration for the beauty of its site.
Sacred spots, consecrated by the holy waters of loving humanity and
gentle charity, in ages gone by, as the refuge of the diseased leper and
homeless poor, shall be pointed to as the mustard-seed from whence have
sprung those glorious monuments of our land, the hospitals for the sick
of these later generations.
Nor would he rest content without a glimpse of the Museum and its relics
of the dead, its hieroglyphical urns and querns, spurs, fibulae, and
celts, its pyxes and beads, its lamps and coins, that lead imagination
back to pay domiciliary visits to the wooden huts, earthen
fortifications, and sepulchral hearths of our Icenic, Roman, or Saxon
forefathers, while gaping Egyptian mummies stand by, peering from their
wizened-up eye-balls at the industrious student of the "gallery of
antiquities," looking wonder at the preference displayed for them, over
the more brilliant attractions offered to the lover of natural history,
and ornithology in particular, among the collections below.
Nor shall the antiquarian be alone in his enjoyment. The botanist shall
delight to enrich his herbarium from the same hedgerows, fir-woods,
cornfields and rivulets, that have yielded flowers, mosses, hepatica, and
algae to the researches of a Smith, a Hooker, and a Lindley, the children
of science nurtured on its soil. The lover of music shall find fresh
beauties in the harmonies of its organs, quires, and choruses, from the
halo of associations cast around them by the memories of a Crotch, the
remembrance of the Gresham professorship, filled from the musical ranks
of the city, and may be, in time to come from a new lustre added by
another name, that has begun to be sounded forth by the trumpet of fame
in the musical world.
The scholar and literary man shall acknowledge the interest claimed by
the nursery in which has been reared a Bale, a Clarke, a Parker, a
Taylor, a Gurney, an Opie, and a Borrow, and we may add, a Barwell and a
Geldart, whose fruit and flowers, scattered on the way-side of the roads
of learning, have made many a rough path smooth to young and tender feet.
The philanthropist shall dwell upon the early lessons of Christian love
and humanity breathed into the heart of a Fry from its prison-houses, and
the silent teachings of the quiet meeting-house, where the brethren and
sisters, in simple garb of sober gray, are wont to assemble, and where
yet may still be seen the adopted sister Opie, resting in the autumn of
her days in the calm seclusion of the body of Friends, after a life spent
in scattering abroad in the world, germs of simple truth, pure morality,
and heart-religion, the fruits of the genius which has been her gift from
God. He shall visit Earlham Hall, the birthplace of that great "sister
of charity," Elizabeth Fry, and her brother, the philanthropist, Joseph
John Gurney, and beneath its avenues of chestnut, by the quiet waters of
its little lake, and the banks of bright anemones, that lay spread like a
rich carpet, in the early spring time, along its garden borders, inhale
sweet odours, and drink in refreshing draughts of pure unsullied poetry,
fresh from the fount of _nature_, and fragrant with the love that
breathes through all her teachings, the first child of the Great Parent
of good.
Hence he may trace his way back through the village hamlet, that gave a
home in his last years to the weary-hearted Hall, yielding a refuge and a
grave to the head bowed beneath the weight of a sorrow-burthened mitre;
and with hearts yet vibrating to the mournful cadences of woe, that swept
from his harp strings, forth upon the world from its saddened solitudes,
they may pass on to the garden of the Bishop's Palace, and the monuments
yet lingering there; ivy-clad ruins, meet emblems of harsh realities,
over which the hand of time has thrown the sheltering mantle of
forgiveness. And among the many chords touched by the hand of memory
here, where the shades of harsh bigotry and persecuting zeal vanish in
the gentle and softened light of Christian charity, breathed forth by the
spirits of later days, whose heart does not respond to the refined poetry
of the Charlotte Elizabeth, who has given such sweet paintings of this
familiar scene of her girlhood's years? Who can forget the song of the
Swedish Nightingale, as it thrilled through the evening air upon the
listening ears of the ravished, though untutored multitude? happy
associations of the enjoyments of working world life, and lay minstrels
of God's creation, to be blended with the grander, but scarce more
solemn, memories of the great heads among the labourers in the harvest
field of souls. Nor shall the poet forget to take a glimpse of the quiet
home, not far distant hence, of Sayer, the poet, philanthropist,
philosopher, and antiquarian, whose memory is still green in the hearts
of many of the great and good still living, and the remembrance of whose
friendship is esteemed by them among their choicest treasures.
The historian has a yet wider field for labour, and a busier work to do,
to connect into one chain the links that lie scattered far and wide,
among deserted thoroughfares, decaying mansion houses, desecrated
churches, and monastic ruins; to gather up the broken fragments of
political records, enshrined in many a mouldering parchment, crumbling
stone, or withered tree; and to weave into a whole the threads of
tradition and legendary lore, unravelled from the mystic fables of
antiquity. It is his, to trace the identities of King Gurgunt and the
Danish Lothbroc; to establish the founder of the castle, and commemorate
the achievements of its feudal lords; upon him the duty of sifting
evidence, and searching out causes, of tracing the famous "Kett's
rebellion," to the deep-seated sense of wrong in the hearts of the
people, that found expression in the vague predictions and mystical
prophecies of the Merlin of the district.
It is for him to unfold the little germs of after-history, that he
treasured up in the kernels of such documents as he order addressed to
the county sheriff, to commit to prison those who refused to attend the
services of the established church; to trace the growth of the spirit
among the people, that opened the city gates to the army of the
"Parliament," fortified its castle against royalist soldiers, and turned
its market-place into a place of execution for fellow-citizens, who dared
to espouse the cause of their king; to rescue from oblivion the gems that
were buried beneath the blows of the zealous puritan's demolishing
hammer; to read in the nailed horseshoes, that surmount the doorways of
hundreds of its cottages, as a talisman against witchcraft, the legacy of
superstition bequeathed to their descendants by these earnest
"abolitionists;" to mark the _rise_ and _progress_ of the unfranchised
masses in this age of enlightened liberalism, and the deepening and
mellowed tone of the "voice of the people," as it rises from the
chastened and self-disciplined homes of the educated and thriving
artisans. Upon him too, it devolves, to mark the age and the man--to see
the monuments of the great-hearted and liberal-minded of the days gone
by, in the hospitals, charities, and endowments, their munificence has
showered down, from the heights of prosperity, upon the depths of
poverty--to trace the progress of the philanthropist of later times, in
his house to house visits, and read statistics of his labours in the
renovated homes and gladdened hearts of thousands, thus lifted out from
the swamps of misery and crime, by the single hand of Christian
benevolence, stretched forth in sympathy; to mark the efforts of
legislation to remove causes that evil results may cease, to note the
patriotism of honest hearts, that would seek to level, if at all, by
lifting up the poor to that standard of moral and physical comfort,
beneath which the manhood of human nature has neither liberty nor room to
grow; and finally, it is his to cast into the treasury of his nation's
history his gleanings among the bye-ways of a single city, no mean or
despicable bundle of facts, with which to enrich its stores.
But we must tarry no longer to generalize with archaeologist, poet or
historian; we have many storehouses to visit, where associations of
religion, poetry, and art, lie garnered up in rich abundance.