at any true solution as to what was their general object or design. The
solution that so far seems the most probable has already been elsewhere
succinctly stated without awakening adverse criticism.[79] All those
crosses that have been hitherto identified by myself and friends during
three rambles with the old plans in our hands in three successive
years, have been on important boundary lines. I believe almost the
whole of them are pre-Norman, and I am at present strongly inclined
to believe that they mark the setting out of ecclesiastical divisions
or parishes, or parochial chapelries, soon after the reconversion of
England had become an established fact, and when Christianity, under
the ordering of Theodore and Wilfrid, was becoming definitely organised
and ceasing to be mere scattered groups of missionary stations. There
are reasons which are too long for statement here why such a planning
out was probably accomplished in Derbyshire at an early date. It is
obvious that if ecclesiastical bounds were to be marked out in a
comparatively wild and treeless district, something artificial would be
needed in far greater abundance than in ordinary districts, where large
trees, river banks, ancient roads or lands pertaining to particular
holders, could readily be named and utilized for boundary purposes.
[79] See articles in the _Athenæum_ for July 9th, 1904; June 24th,
1905; and September 8th, 1906.
The supposition that these crosses are of a township or parish boundary
character is much strengthened by the frequency of their occurrence in
the exact places where there are proofs of fairly early cultivation,
and where there were rather intricate intersections of such divisions.
Perhaps the most interesting of these seventeenth century plans is
the one which includes a considerable area, and has at the head the
following descriptive title, written in a straggling hand and signed by
the two surveyors:—
“The Mappe of the Wastes and Commons in Bowdon le Cappell, Fairefield,
Ferneleigh, Shalcross and Mellor as they are eaqually devided into two
eaqual parts quantity and qualitie considered and meas’^{ed} by us
Thomas Hibbart and Samuel Barton two Survayors being Sworne upon our
Oathes to that purpose by the Commissioners and delivered up unto the
saide Commissioners the eight daye of October 1640
“By us Tho: Hibbart
“Sa: Barton.”
On another part of the map is written:
Measured and divided by a Scale of fortie in the Inch.
The part of this map descriptive of the wastes and commons of Mellor,
which contained 356 acres, and which it was proposed to divide equally
between the King and the tenants, is marked with several crosses. At
the extreme north of the tenants’ portion is a curiously designed
landmark, here termed “Arnfeelde Poule” (13). This outline drawing
has the appearance of a pole or slender shaft affixed to the top of
a somewhat elaborate cross base. In other maps the same boundary is
outlined after different fashions, two of which are here reproduced.
From one of these, having a cross on the summit, it may be concluded
that it originally had that form. The name Arnfield or Armfield is
not now in any way known in the district, but one of the six roads or
lanes which meet at this point is still called Pole Lane. There is
no doubt that it took its name from one Robert Armfield, whose house
and land are figured on another survey. The place is now known as
Jordanwall Nook, and Jordan was the name of another tenant in adjoining
lands. This pole or cross is described in a survey of 1695 as parting
the hamlets of Whittle, Thornsett, and Mellor. At this spot, at the
junction of two of the roads, there is a large piece of boulder stone,
that has been roughly hewn, measuring 37 in. by 25 in., and over the
stone wall is another considerable fragment. These are probably the
remains of the base of Armfield pole or cross when it was broken
up. Other crosses marked on the Mellor section of the 1640 map are
respectively designated “the Birgwerd Crosse,” “the Mislne Crosse,” and
“the Stafforde Crosse,” all of them on boundaries.
[Illustration: No. 13.]
[Illustration: No. 14.]
The extreme north-west angle of the Mellor division has an outline
drawing, here reproduced, lettered “The two standing stones,” which
are elsewhere called “the Maiden Stones” (14). This pair of stones,
still to be seen, stand at an important boundary point, about 1,200
feet high, where the townships of Ludworth, Chisworth, Mellor, and
Rowarth meet. At the angle of Ludworth Moor, where these remarkable
stones are to be found, there is no road near, but merely an almost
disused track. For more than a century at least these stones have been
known by the name of “Robin Hood Picking Rods”; but such a name was
obviously unknown in the seventeenth century, as it occurs in none of
these old surveys. The title “Maidenstones” is one of peculiar interest
to any antiquary who has given attention to early earthworks, but it
is too intricate a subject to be here discussed. On a 1695 survey, a
boundary mark called “The Whyte Maiden” is marked a short distance
from the Standing Stones. These two circular pillar stones stand in
round socket holes, 12 in. apart, in a great stone about 80 in. long
by 49 in. broad. The taller of the two stands 45 in. above the base,
and has a girth at the bottom of 59½ in.; the shorter one stands only
30 in. high, but has a girth of 67 in. They have been pulled out
of their sockets more than once in the past century, and are both
mutilated. Part of the top of the shorter one (27 in. long) is built
into an adjacent wall (15). Judging from the analogy of the two Bow
Stones, five miles off to the north just across the Cheshire border,
they originally had filleted heads of Saxon workmanship. They may be
compared with a small filleted Saxon pillar in the porch of Bakewell
Church, and another taller one at Clulow, and more especially with the
Saxon shaft in the grounds of a private house at Fernilee which now
supports a sundial.
[Illustration: No. 15.]
Various more or less wild theories have been enunciated with regard to
closely adjacent twin pillar stones of this character, of which several
examples survive; they have sometimes been pronounced to be of Roman
origin, whilst others have claimed them as pertaining to Phœnician art
and of Phallic design. It must here suffice to ask our readers, who may
not have given particular attention to the subject, to believe that
they are beyond doubt of Saxon construction and date. When the sites
of all such twin-stones have been carefully investigated, it will
probably be established that they have some particular connection with
intricate boundaries, and possibly with the junction of two separate
ecclesiastical jurisdictions.
There are two other sites in the Peak district marked on these early
plans where a pair of stones, each surmounted by a cross, is figured,
neither of which have yet been identified. One of these is also on the
northern edge of the Mellor Commons, the Birgwurd cross, the outline of
which is here given.
Following the track from these Standing Stones due east for exactly
a mile, at the precise spot where the old track crosses the boundary
between Rowarth and Charlesworth townships, is the large fragment
of the base of an old cross which has at a later date been used as
a direction stone. Pursuing the same boundary line for half a mile
further in a south-easterly direction, the stone long known as the
Abbot’s Chair, and thus marked on the ordnance maps, is reached.
Though a wrong and fanciful name, it has been thus described for more
than two and a half centuries. On the 1640 survey it is styled “Abots
Chere” (16). This stone measures 37 in. by 24 in., and stands 24 in.
high; it is hollowed out to a width of about 17 in., with three of the
sides raised 5 in., so as to form a kind of rough chair with a low
back and sides. Closer examination shows that the hollow is really an
old socket, presumably for a large cross, one side of which has been
split off by the action of frost or human violence. The road that
passes near it from the north to Hayfield is called Monks Road. It was
in this division (Longdendale) of the Peak Forest that the Abbot of
Basingwork had considerable rights and a large grange, and possibly
this stone may have been thus mutilated and obtained its present name
in pre-Reformation days. It is significant that the “chair” stands on
the exact spot where the boundary is suddenly deflected at a right
angle; and at a distance of 200 feet from the chair-stone, on the other
side of the Monks Road, on the spot where the boundary resumes a
south-easterly direction, is the perfect stump of another cross. This
is a well-cut base, and obviously mediæval or after the Norman Conquest
[Illustration: No. 16.]
On the high ground in Cheshire, very near the Derbyshire boundary, is
a stone that goes by the name of “Pym’s Chair.” This stone, like the
“Abbot’s Chair,” Derbyshire, proved on examination to be the base of
a large early cross; one of the sides of the squared socket having
been broken away, gives it the appearance of a low, rude chair. It
bears the initials P C in large capitals, which were probably cut in
the seventeenth century when some survey was made. An obvious idea,
locally accepted, makes the initials stand for Pym’s Chair. The name
Pym is fairly common both in Cheshire and Derbyshire. It is curious to
note that a few miles off in the latter county, a little beyond Edale
Head Cross, another “Pym’s Chair” is marked on the ordnance map in a
desolate piece of moorland not yet investigated.
The Edale Head Cross is the best known of those in the Peak district,
for it stands by the old British trackway or pass from Hayfield over
Kinder into the Edale Valley. It stands at the highest point (1,750
feet) of this once much used pack-horse route. This cross, which now
stands fifty-seven inches out of the ground, has now no base, and seems
to have been moved more than once. The head is a Latin cross, and
incised within it, on the side towards the track, are lines forming
another cross, and within this, “I G 1610.” This refers to a survey of
parts of the Peak Forest begun in 1610, but never completed; John Gell
was one of the commissioners. This particular cross, which is of far
older date than the time of James I., can claim to be a forest as well
as a parochial boundary, for near this spot the three forest wards of
Longdendale, of Ashop and Edale, and of the Campana or Champion, met.
This cross is still sometimes known as the Champion Cross, and those
who have not known that Champion was only an old variant for the
Champagne or open grazing district of the Peak, have been silly enough
to invent would-be knightly legends and ballads in comparatively modern
days to account for the title.
Lack of space altogether prohibits any complete following up of the
considerable number of crosses on these seventeenth century plans, the
sites of which have been already investigated. It is hoped that in the
course of a few years it may be possible to produce an archæological
map of the whole district, upon which the remains of crosses may be
exactly defined, and then will be the time for coming to more mature
conclusions as to their general object and date. Two others, however,
may be now named. At a point on the verge of Abney Moor, 1,200 feet
above the sea level, about a mile to the south-east of Bradwell, where
the townships of Abney, Hazelbadge, and Bradwell converge, the maps
mark a cross styled Robin’s or Robin Hood’s Cross. After some search
we found the early rough base stone, showing half of a squared socket,
protruding from the bottom of a well-built stone wall, close to a stile
leading into an old roadway.
“The Martine Syde Crosse” appears on more than one of the old plans,
not far from a large farmstead or hall still known as Martin Side,
at an elevation of 1,100 feet above the valley of Chapel-en-le-Frith
(17). About a quarter of a mile beyond the hall on the roadside towards
Dove Holes, we noted the stump of a cross. The height of this stump
or squared base was 20 in., and it measured at the top 28 in. by 26½
in. In the centre was an empty shaft socket 11 in. by 9 in., and 8 in.
deep. From the rough character of this base stone, and from the shape
of the socket, it may fairly be assumed that it is of pre-Norman date.
A small channel cut from the edge of the socket to an angle of the base
stone seemed to be original, and may possibly have served as a pointer
to the next boundary stone.
[Illustration: No. 17.]
One other point remains to be noted in these somewhat desultory remarks
on the old surveys. In several places occur lines marked “Forest Wall.”
This was the stone wall of a very considerable circuit that enclosed
most of the Campana or Champagne district of the Peak Forest, where
the feeding for the King’s game of deer was the best. It was not a
high park wall to keep the deer in, but a comparatively low one,
with a dyke. Its object was to prevent sheep or cattle that might be
agisted within the forest from trespassing on the parts particularly
serviceable as pasturing ground for the often hardly tried deer; but
it had to be low enough to allow hinds and fawns, as well as harts,
readily to leap it when desirous of roaming further afield. It is quite
possible to trace in certain places the building of this unmortared
forest wall, which is constructed in a decidedly superior fashion to
other and later wall fences. One of the best places in which to note it
is on the lofty ridge that separates Edale from Castleton dale. In the
midst of this there is a pass and gateway in the forest wall, called
Ludgate in the old plans.
In June, 1561, Queen Elizabeth issued a commission of enquiry as to the
condition of Peak Castle and Forest. The commissioners were instructed,
among other matters:
“To view the height of one wall erected and made in or about one
parcell of one pasture called the Champion within our saide foreste,
how brode and depe the Dike in and about the same wall is, whether the
same dike be drye or standinge with water for the most parte of the
yere, pasture notwithstandinge the said walle and dike, and whether
the said wall and dyke be noisome or hurtefull to or for our deare and
game there, and to thinderance of the grasse for our said deare, or be
better for the cherisshinge of our said game and deare there or not.”
OLD COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
By Sir George Reresby Sitwell, Bart., F.S.A.
The charm of country life, as we know it in England, lies almost as
much in old associations as in scenery and sport. An ancient hall
without its records is a body without a soul, and can never be fully
enjoyed until one has learnt something of the men and women whom it has
sheltered in the past—of their lives and manners, their love affairs,
their wisdom, and their follies; how the oak furniture gave way to
walnut, and the walnut to mahogany; how they laid out the gardens,
raised the terrace, clipped the hedges, and planted the avenue. Such
reflections have committed me to a task which has proved heavier than
I desired or anticipated. Indeed, I should never have persevered with
it had I not early come under the influence which an old house so often
exercises upon those who live under its roof; sometimes for evil, as
when a family inheritance of ill-health depends upon faulty drainage or
a waterlogged soil; sometimes as a spur to ambition, an incentive to
effort, or a liberal education in art.
My father died when I was two years old, and at the time I first went
to school we used to spend but a few months in the summer at our
old home at Renishaw, in Derbyshire. The building is of great size,
giving an impression of past wealth and power, the “olde richesse”
which Chaucer tells us is the foundation of “genterye,” and the
Jacobean plaster work and stone-tiled roof bear witness to its
antiquity. Most that was interesting within its walls had been swept
away in 1849, when the failure of the Sheffield Bank completed the
wreck of my grandfather’s affairs. The library, a gradual growth of
three hundred years, and the collection of Civil War pamphlets, had
been scattered abroad, and little of the original furniture remained
except the tapestries, pictures and china, and a few old cabinets
of tortoiseshell, rosewood, or ebony. Of family history, absolutely
nothing had come down to us but the tradition that our ancestors had
lived there since the reign of Elizabeth, and a story concerning a
portrait of the “Boy in red” (his name was forgotten), who had died by
drowning, and whose ghost was supposed to haunt the house. Yet there
was enough left to excite interest and to provoke enquiry. I remember
finding, on one of my holiday visits, amongst the old books in the
hall, a Greek grammar of the days when Shakespeare was at school, and
in it my own name, written by an earlier George Sitwell just three
hundred years before. The lumber room, with its Georgian panelling and
arched window looking out upon the staircase, had always excited my
curiosity, and being allowed to poke about in it on rainy days, I came
upon many strange and dusty relics of the past, the flotsam and jetsam
which had stranded there during several generations—old portraits and
brocaded dresses, portfolios of eighteenth century prints, the wreck
of a machine for perpetual motion upon which somebody was said to
have wasted twenty years of his life, a collection of minerals (two
compartments were labelled “Rubies” and “Emeralds,” but the specimens
were not so large as one could have wished), flint lock guns, rapiers
and swords, and a spring gun which must have been a real terror to
poachers, writing desks with letters and little treasures still stowed
away in them, and, most precious of all, a few old chests, heaped up
with manuscripts, parchments, and books. Within these, in the utmost
confusion, lay rentals, subsidy rolls, estate accounts, and household
books of the seventeenth century; bundles of old letters which had
turned yellow with age or were fast falling into dust, inventories
of furniture and linen, quaint little almanacs, bound in brown or
red leather, and fastened with silken strings or clasps of brass;
tradesmen’s bills of Queen Anne’s reign, with printed headlines or
little engravings of shop signs and articles of merchandise; wills of
all dates, from the fifteenth century onwards; and charters, many with
fine seals attached to them, of six or seven hundred years ago, and
preserved in little round or oblong boxes of thin oak, to which the
original covering of black leather still clung in shreds and tatters.
Curiosity, and the rather wild hope of hitting upon autographs of
Cromwell or Shakespeare, led me to examine these documents, and by the
end of my second year at Eton I had unconsciously learnt to read them.
After that time, my holidays were spent away from Renishaw, but before
I went to Oxford I had occasional opportunities of following up the
search amongst the numerous boxes of old manuscripts in the muniment
room and elsewhere in the house, and thought myself rewarded by finding
at one time impressions of the great seals of Elizabeth and James,
an original grant of arms, or a letter-book of Charles the Second’s
time; at another, King Richard’s charter to the Guild of Eckington, a
“protection” from General Lord Fairfax, a household book begun in the
year of the great plague, and a packet, sealed up two hundred years
ago and never opened since, which proved to contain papers relating
to fines, decimation, and sequestration under the Commonwealth. Still
more interesting were the old letters written by various members of
the family, and these I put carefully on one side, having already
formed the idea of publishing a selection from them. In 1880, the year
before I came of age, I commenced to write them out for the press in
my leisure hours, and nine years later the work of printing my first
volume was begun.
Amongst the many thousands of letters and papers at Renishaw, it was
not my good fortune to discover any of real historical importance.
This collection is not, of course, to be named in the same breath
with the Paston letters, nor can it be compared, either in bulk or in
interest, with the Rutland, the Talbot, or the Verney manuscripts. Yet
even the correspondence of an undistinguished family may illustrate
the history of earlier times. The letter of 1661 upon the causes of
the Civil War, the account of the Whitehall plot to assassinate Oliver
Cromwell, the printed summonses to appear before the Commonwealth
Commissioners at York and Westminster, the series of Civil War fines,
the Restoration letter-book, and the papers relating to Titus Oates
and Sacheverell, supply some new facts, and are not without value. The
order for the disbandment of the Derbyshire regiments in 1646, the
bargain for supplying the sheriff’s table in 1652, the letter to the
London Post Office authorities in 1664, the amusing description of a
journey to Nottingham in a stage coach, the agreements between the
gentlemen of Derbyshire in 1690 and 1736, the certified extract from
the Hatfield Court Roll of 1337, and the account of a riot at Sheffield
in 1756, have at least a local interest. One is glad to know what the
country gentlemen of the time thought of the hypocrisy of Cromwell
and the indolence of Charles the Second, of the Great Rebellion, the
“Sickness,” the Popish Plot, the Revolution, the South Sea Bubble, and
the invasions of 1715 and 1745; but, as would naturally be expected
from a family correspondence extending over three hundred years, these
letters are valuable rather as illustrating social life than as records
of public events. Concerning housekeeping, education, methods of
travelling, visits to London, and changes of fashion and manners, they
have much to tell us; of battles and sieges, the fall of ministries,
the prosaic virtues of the Georges, and the innate depravity of the
Pretender, not too much.
Macaulay, in his famous third chapter, writes of the “gross,
uneducated, untravelled country gentleman” of Charles the Second’s
reign; a “man with the deportment, the vocabulary, and the accent of
a carter”; a man whose “ignorance and uncouthness, whose low tastes
and gross phrases would, in our time, be considered as indicating a
nature and a breeding thoroughly plebeian.” It is not easy to reconcile
this description with the accounts given by contemporary observers.
The portrait certainly does not err on the side of flattery, and those
who are familiar with the printed literature and unpublished records
of that age will ask themselves with amazement whether it can be a
likeness. Macaulay asserts that the country squire of that period
never visited London and never opened a book. Contemporary writers
tell us that the latter was always riding post to London, and spending
his substance there when he ought to have been occupied with the care
of his estate, and that there were more private libraries in England
than in any other country in Europe. Now it is possible, of course,
that Macaulay knew more about the manners of that age than did the
people who lived in it; but it is also possible that he wilfully and
maliciously caricatured a class of men which he had political reasons
for disliking. The “gross, uneducated, untravelled country gentleman”
was usually a Tory.
[Illustration: Country Gentlemen on the London Road.]