one owner to another. Twenty years after the order for its dismantling
was received, it was occupied by one Imanuel Halton, an auditor of the
Duke of Norfolk. As a man of culture and learning he was more or less
distinguished, being especially noted as an astronomer; while allowing
much of the fabric to fall into ruins, he amused himself by decorating
the crumbling walls with sun-dials, two of which remain. A piece of
gross vandalism was perpetrated by this worthy, for he converted the
magnificent banqueting hall into a two-floored dwelling-house, with
chimneys in the centre, and made ugly structural alterations to the
north windows to suit his convenience. The Halton family continued to
enjoy the air of Wingfield, and to pull the manor house about, for
the next hundred years, till, in 1744, the “powers that were” decided
to pull down the lovely building, which they utilized as a convenient
quarry from which to obtain stone for the erection of a truly ugly
house—described as “a small box at the foot of the hill”—which is the
present Hall. After this disgraceful exploit, the progress of decay was
practically unchecked, and at this day the buildings are deteriorating
more and more rapidly under the changes of our capricious climate.
In the _Topographer_, by Shaw, vol. i., of 1789 (only fifteen years
after the removal of the family residence to the new hall), it is
stated that the roof was gone from the banqueting hall, and that all
the arms and quarterings of the great family of Shrewsbury were open
to the destructive influences of the weather. This was in 1789, yet in
1785—only four years previously—a sketch by Colonel Machell shows the
banqueting hall as roofed and glazed. At the close of the eighteenth
century a great part of the banqueting hall—between the lovely oriel
window and the porch—fell down; about a quarter of a century later a
tower in the south-east angle of the inner courtyard (at the back of
the present farmhouse) collapsed utterly.
The statement often made that no less a person than the much maligned
Oliver Cromwell was present at the fall of the manor house in person
is, of course, a fiction used by some for the greater entertainment of
visitors to the house. Nevertheless, it is a curious coincidence that
by the power of a Lord Cromwell these magnificent buildings were raised
from the ground, and that by the power and will of another Cromwell
they were razed, in places, to the ground, but two hundred years
separating the two events, and including much history of more than
local interest.
The actual buildings form one of the most beautiful examples of
fifteenth century domestic architecture to be found in the kingdom;
hence Wingfield is far better known to the architectural student than
to the historian. Of the present state of the walls, the less said and
seen the better. To look at them recalls the lines from _Idylls of the
King_ (Geraint and Enid):—
“All was ruinous.
Here stood a shatter’d archway plumed with fern
And here had fall’n a great part of a tower,
Whole, like a crag that tumbles from a cliff,
And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers:
And high above a piece of turret stair,
Worn by the feet that now are silent, wound
Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy stems
Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms,
And sucked the joining of the stones, and look’d
A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove.”
It is a pitiable sight to see some of the most beautiful and
interesting parts of the grand old house in such a deplorable and
tottering state. Nothing so much enhances the value, sentimentally,
of an ancient building as a considerable fall of its walls; then, of
course, a great outcry is raised—when it is too late. It is not the
decay of past years which must be viewed with alarm, but the steady,
increasing hold which ruin is obtaining on this structure. “Gutta cavat
lapidem non vi, sed semper cadendo,” is a good maxim to remember, but
if remembered in this case, it has never been thought sufficiently true
to be worth acting upon. So year by year the stones fall and the mortar
crumbles, the ivy, trees, etc., force their way between the stones, the
frost shells off the fine, smooth surface of the ashlar, and the wind
carries destruction, and future destruction in the form of seedlings,
into every part of the beautiful buildings; and the people look on and
admire the craft of their forefathers, but they do not stretch forth a
hand to save what gives them pleasure. Their country has given them a
great treasure, and they enjoy it and value it; they value it so much
that they will see not one stone left upon another before they resort
to methods of salvation; it is a ruin, it was a ruin, let it remain a
ruin, they say. Some day it will be a ruin of such a nature that none
shall recognize its likeness to a building, for when it falls down the
steep hillsides, “great will be the fall thereof,” and the noise of
its fall will be equalled only by the noise of lamentation at such a
catastrophe.
The manor house consists of two courtyards, of which the southern
is the larger, whilst the northern one contains the more beautiful
specimens of architecture. The extreme length of the house is 416 feet,
with a total width of 256 feet. There are two entrances to the south
courtyard, one on the east in the southern corner and another on the
west. The north courtyard is entered from the southern one by a fine
gateway, flanked by two turrets, and the north wall is likewise pierced
by a now destroyed entrance of fine proportions. There is also a small
ogee-headed doorway opening into the kitchens on the west side. The
south courtyard was bounded on the east by the retainers’ quarters, now
a crumbling ruin; on the south by the fine old barn, still excellently
preserved, and also the stables, long since destroyed. The west side,
with its sally port, was formed by the quarters of the guards, and the
north of the courtyard still retains the mutilated range of buildings
which form the southern bounds of the north quadrangle. The farmhouse,
which is now occupied, is a mere shell, as all the interior is modern.
The north courtyard has the great tower at its south-west angle,
and from here, up the west side, runs the range of apartments once
occupied by Mary Queen of Scots. The north boundary is formed by the
kitchens on the west, the state apartments in the centre, and the grand
banqueting hall on the east. The eastern boundary of this courtyard
has disappeared, and here, it is conjectured, was the chapel, which no
doubt the Halton family utilized as a quarry, as being to them the
least useful part of the house. The southern boundary is formed by the
farmhouse and buildings already mentioned as being the northern limit
of the south court.
The glory of Wingfield Manor House is the banqueting hall, with its
undercroft beneath it. This noble chamber, now sadly mutilated, is 72
ft. 2½ in. long and 36 ft. 1 in. in width. The most notable feature
in this scene of by-gone revelry and lavish hospitality is the great
oriel window, a piece of architectural excellence hardly to be equalled
elsewhere in the kingdom. This beautiful projection is situated at the
east end of the south front of the hall, whilst at the opposite end of
the same side is a porch, which is well worthy of a place in the same
edifice as the above-mentioned window. This porch is of two floors;
the ground floor gives entrance to the banqueting hall, and is entered
by an archway of boldly conceived design, on which is cut a series
of handsome flower petals. On the right of the entrance is a little
traceried window, which can only be described as a glittering gem of
architecture. The battlements which still remain over porch and oriel
window are now denuded of their quartered shields, but the excellent
diapered pattern, consisting of quatrefoils, is still in almost its
pristine beauty.
The most striking feature of the manor house is part of the great
tower, which Wingfield’s old historian, Thomas Blore, has completely
omitted in his engraving. Though not of any great height, the aspect of
this towering sentinel is imposing.
The apartments which once sheltered Mary Queen of Scots are indeed in
a sad state of ruinous decay. Nothing remains but the outer walls,
with the fireplaces and chimneys, the former with nodding heads and
the latter with, apparently, a serious spinal complaint. The walls
themselves are scored by many a huge and gaping wound, not the wounds
of honour received in battle, but the wounds caused by the horrid
disease of decay unchecked and unheeded. It is sad to think that the
first part of the hitherto unbroken line of wall round this courtyard
to succumb to this fell disease will be the most interesting portion of
this historic house.
The kitchens, which lie between the Queen’s rooms and the banqueting
hall, are likewise in a sad state; the depressed form of arch
surmounting most of the doorways, despite the presence of “arches
of construction,” are fast bowing their heads beneath the weight of
masonry and the neglect of centuries. Adjoining the servants’ quarters
and the banqueting hall are the state apartments, lighted by a huge and
by no means beautiful window of Perpendicular times, if judged by the
standard of excellence obtaining elsewhere in the fabric. A curious
feature noticeable from the courtyard is the fact that this window,
like the little gem of a round one above and the traceried lights
below, is far from being central in the gable or in line with its
neighbours above and below.
[Illustration: The Undercroft: Wingfield.]
The undercroft, more often known as the crypt—an ecclesiastical term
possessing no right here—is of the same dimensions as the hall above.
The ceiling is composed of beautifully wrought stone groins, with
large circular bosses, cut with fine traceried designs; the springing
of the arches is from the walls on either side and the five stone
pillars in the centre respectively. This subterranean chamber has now
begun to show most unmistakable signs of the gross neglect which so
characterizes the remainder of the house, for the stone ribs of the
vaulting have fallen over the eastern entrance—and there they lie. The
entrances to this undercroft are four in number—one at the north-west
corner, one at the south-west, one at the south-east, and one in the
centre of the east end. Three of them communicate directly with the
banqueting hall above, whilst the fourth opens into the open air. This
cellar-like room has been described as the chapel, and also as the
retainers’ hall, but the general opinion of those whose opinion is
worthy of consideration is that it was a general store house for the
huge retinue of owner, guests, and prisoner; such was no doubt its use,
but what the intentions of its builders were is quite another question.
The inner courtyard with which I have just dealt is far better
preserved than its southern neighbour, which seems to have proved
a better mark for Gell’s big guns and Halton’s destructive genius
than the other. The entrance gate to the inner court is fairly well
preserved, but the greater part of the rest is in but a sorry plight.
The great entrance on the east is shorn of its upper storey, but the
adjoining barn is in a delightful state of repair, and is of a nature
to arouse the enthusiasm of students of our mediæval barns.
On the east side of the house were the old gardens, now presenting a
dismal appearance, for the sole surviving signs of the topiary work
of our forefathers are the broken ranks of a long line of stunted
yew trees; even these trees have not been spared of late years, and
the woodman’s axe has been responsible for considerable gaps. On
this side, too, remain traces of the old earthworks thrown up by the
Royalist garrison to repel the besiegers on this, the most weakly of
the naturally strong defences formed by the slope of the hill. In the
farmhouse reposes a collection of old cannon balls rescued from the
ruins, methods of destruction far preferable to the stealthy creeping
action of the prince of destroying agents—Unchecked Decay—now so busy
there.
Let us hope, however, that before it is too late a helping hand may
lay its healing touch on these walls which crown the slope, a spot
noiseless save for the thousand and one sounds of the neighbouring
farmyard, and that distant and discordant triumph of modernity, the
railway, which, thanks to the situation of the manor house on its hill,
finds no near approach.
BRADSHAW AND THE BRADSHAWES
By C. E. B. Bowles, M.A.
Chapel-en-le-frith, a little old-fashioned town in the heart of the
Peak, is fairly encompassed by a range of hills, one of the loftiest of
which, rising, indeed, to a height of 1,225 feet, is Eccles Pike. About
a mile and a half from the town, and on the southern slope of this
hill, which towers above it, safeguarding it from the cold blasts of
the north wind, stands the old homestead of the Derbyshire Bradshawes.
Built in the more peaceful times of the first Stuart King, Bradshaw
Hall is to-day a substantial witness to the fact that, unlike our
Georgian ancestors, they who lived in the time when James the First was
King were like ourselves—most appreciative of a home commanding a wide
expanse of land and sky, and yet beneath the friendly shelter of a hill.
[Illustration: Bradshawe Hall.]
The hall is girt on all sides by the lands which have formed part of
the domain for many centuries. Many of them, too, are known to-day by
the same names which have distinguished the various enclosures through
nearly all that time. The ground immediately below the hall on its
southern side was the old pleasance, and bears traces of having been
originally terraced. Here were the gardens and orchards, the latter
certainly in existence as early as 1542, being mentioned in a lease[40]
bearing date 20th April, 33 Henry VIII. Below them was the Home
Croft, a seven-acred field now called the Hall Meadow. The view from
these old pleasure grounds must have been very striking, extending as
it does right away to the Combs Moss and Valley, and looking towards
the Black Edge.
[40] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xxv., p. 59.
In the present day the view is certainly much enhanced by a large sheet
of water—the reservoir which supplies the Peak Forest Canal, for it has
all the appearance of a natural lake. About half an acre of this water
covers land which originally formed part of the Bradshaw domain.
On the east side of the hall lies a field known by the name of Hob
Hollin, at the back of which is the Hob Marsh. These are bounded on the
east by a field called “Little Park” and a pasture named “The Greavy
Croft.” This latter field was in ancient times a wood, probably planted
to protect the hall from the east winds. This is evident from an old
lease, dated “The assumption of our Lady in the 18 year of King Edward
IV. (15 Aug., 1478),” in which the description of the lands which
fell under it makes a special exception of “a wode calde ye Greyve
Crofte.”[41]
[41] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xxiv., p. 40.
Below the hall meadow lies the “Hollow Meadow,” the subject of a long
protracted dispute as to its ownership which ended in a law suit in
the year 1500. All these fields, with others lying above the hall, are
mentioned by name in a division of lands between William Bradshawe and
his nephew Richard for farming purposes, which is dated 20th April, 33
Henry VIII. (1542). The name Hollow Meadow, however, occurs in a deed
far earlier than this—being mentioned in a charter dated 6 Edward III.
(1332), where it is called “Holu-medue.” To the south of this field
lie some twenty-two acres of pasture, which are known by the name of
“The Turncrofts.” This land, probably originally “Town Crofts,” has
been so called as far back as 1398, when a grant of “seven acres of
land lying in Turncroft was made by John, son of John de Bradshawe,
senr., to William, son of John de Bradshawe, junr.” It is dated at
Chapel-en-le-Frith the Monday after the feast of St. James, 21 Rich. II.
In more than one deed there is evidence that at one time a
dwelling-house and farm buildings stood on this ground, and it then
formed a separate farm. For instance, William Redfern and Emmot, his
wife, were, on the 4th of October, 1458, granted a lease for ten years
of the Turncrofts, and later on, namely, from 1537 to 1543, Henry
Bradshawe and his wife Elizabeth were living there as tenants of their
nephew Richard, the then head of the family.
A long line of grass fields now extend along the side of the road as
far as the outskirts of Chapel-en-le-Frith. The larger portion of these
fields are to this day known by the name of “The Broad Marshes,” and
by this name they are referred to in deeds as early as 1429, at which
date a conveyance of land called Bradmersh was made by John Bradshawe,
of Bradshaw, to Wm. Bradshaw for trust purposes. In 1444, and again in
1457, leases of “The Bradmersh lands” are granted by Wm. Bradshawe, of
Bradshaw, to Roger Cooper, subject to an annuity already settled on his
mother Joyce.
That the Bradshawes have owned the lands now held by their lineal
descendant and representative from the times of the early Plantagenet
kings is proved by the deeds which have descended to him with the
lands. How long the homestead has occupied the identical site where the
present hall now stands cannot be ascertained. That this is not the
first residence of the Bradshawes erected there is certain, and it is
more than probable that they have never lived very far away from that
identical spot. The first Bradshaw residence of which there is any
documentary evidence must have been built about the years from 1215
to 1221. This is the period covered by an Assart Roll in the Record
Office, on which is recorded, among other interesting transactions
connected with the forest laws and customs, the various grants made
by King John and his son Henry III. of land in the forest of the High
Peak. It contains much information with respect to the ancestors of
many well-known North Derbyshire families. Among those to whom leave
was granted by the King for the erection of a dwelling-house are
several members of the Bradshawe family. From these it is not an easy
matter to select for certain the immediate ancestor of the man who
owned the land and built the house on Eccles Pike. A deed of grant has
descended from his Bradshawe ancestors to the writer of this article
dated at Chapel-en-le-Frith 6 Edward III. (1332), in which “Richard,
son of John de Bradschawe, granted to John de Bradschawe, my father,
and to Mary, his wife my mother, certain lands in Bowden.” Of these one
portion is described as being in Wytehaln feld, and another, called
Perts’ Acre, as situated near the Holumedue, which latter piece of
land there is not much doubt is identical with the Hollow Meadow. The
mention of the Wytehaln feld, or Whitehall field, in the deed would
suggest—as an ancestor to the above John—one Richard, son of William de
Bradshawe, who about the time of 19 Henry III. (1235), made an addition
to the land in Whitehall[42] which his father William had assarted at
some previous time. This is the more probable, because there has always
been a tendency to preserve Christian names in a family. But more than
one Bradshawe had grants at this date for the clearance of the forest
land in Whitehall. Ivo de Bradshawe and Walter de Bradshaw both held
land “in capite” of King John and his son Henry III.
[42] Whitehall and Whitehough adjoin, and are about a mile from
Bradshaw.
This Walter—son of another Walter de Bradshawe—and one Randolph de
Bradshawe, both built a house in Bowden, a part of Chapel-en-le-Frith,
in which a portion of the Bradshaw lands are situated to this day.
Thus it is quite possible that one of these houses is the original
Bradshaw Hall.
The Heralds’ Visitation begins the pedigree with a John de Bradshawe,
possibly son of Richard Bradshawe of the deed of 1332, who by his
marriage with Cicely, daughter of Thomas Foljambe, was father of
William, evidently identical with the William, son of John de
Bradshawe, junr., before mentioned, on whom the seven acres of
Turncroft were settled in 1398. The lease, however, of 1457, cited
before, proves that the Christian name of William’s mother was Joyce.
Either she was his stepmother or, as is quite possible, a generation
was omitted by the heralds, and the man who married Cicely was the John
de Bradshawe, senr., of the 1398 settlement. His son, then, either by
her or by a former marriage, would be John de Bradshawe, junr., the
husband of Joyce, and the father of William. Cicely must have outlived
her husband, for there is evidence that she was in enjoyment of an
annuity, from which the estates were released on her death in 1408, for
on the 6th of May, 9 Henry IV., John de Bradshawe settled on certain
trustees “all the lands in the Ville of Bauden which lately descended
to me in right of heirship after the death of Cicely Foljamb.” It will
be observed that her maiden name is used. This was not unusual in legal
documents of a certain date.
In 1429 John de Bradshawe executed two entail deeds, by which “Two
messuages and 40 acres of land, lying in Bradshaw and Turncroft, in
the Township of Bowden, were settled on his eldest son William and
his heirs male, and in default of male issue on his other sons, John,
Robert, and Henry, in tail male.” The other deed entails the Lightbirch
Estate on his second son, John, and his brothers, in tail male. The
eventual sale of the Lightbirch Estate to Reynold Legh, of Blackbroke,
near Chapel-en-le-Frith, was the cause of the dispute about the Hollow
Meadow previously alluded to. It originated in a statement made by
Reynold Legh that the “Holle Medow,” or Hollow Meadow, was attached
to the Lightbirch Estate when sold to him. The first step to disprove
this of which there is any evidence was taken on the 2nd of August,
1483, when Nicholas Dickson, parson of Claxbe, co. Leicester, obtained
the depositions of William Bradshawe of Bradshaw, on his death-bed.
He most solemnly declared that the “Hoole Medow had never formed
part of the Lightbirch Estate, and had not been given to his brother
John by his father with the Lightbirch lands.” But not until fifteen
years later was it apparently found necessary to take the evidence
of John Bradshawe, the owner and vendor of the Lightbirch Estate.
Possibly during that time Reynold Legh had remained quiet. Then,
however, we gather from an original MS. in the writer’s possession
that John Bradshawe made a statement before witnesses to the effect
that his father, John Bradshawe, had in his own house at Lichfield
denied that the land in dispute had ever been owned or sold by him,
but that Reynold Legh had endeavoured ineffectually on three separate
occasions to obtain an admission from him that it had been included in
the Lightbirch Estate, first, by sending a servant with a document for
him to sign, then by coming himself, on which occasion he became so
pressing that he had found it necessary to leave him and to refuse to
speak again with him on the matter, and finally by requesting Thomas
Auby, who happened to be at Blackbroke on other business, to go to
Lichfield and endeavour to obtain the admission he had himself failed
in obtaining.