orchards, the walls of which were full of pears, apples, plums,
peaches, cherries, and nectarines. From the garden door one went out
into a corner of the south garden, somewhat wider than the house, which
projected into it. This was laid out in gravel, with borders against
the walls, broad walks round and across the square, and designs of
flower beds disposed in Jacobean knots, edged with box, and relieved
by pyramids of yew. Out of this to the left you went into the bowling
green and several courts and gardens, with green and gravel walks,
walled in and full of flowers and fruit. Beyond them lay the little
orchard, at the further extremity of which was an ancient dovecot of
stone, perched on the very edge of the cliff, and overlooking the wild
and tangled slopes of Broxhill and the flowery banks and winding course
of the river below. Returning to the south garden, a door opposite
the house led into the great orchard, some four and a half acres in
extent, in which were a pair of butts for archery,[85] and side alleys
bordered with flowers. From these sheltered paths, the further wall of
the orchard being below the slope of the hill, pretty glimpses could
be obtained of moorland and river, and distant spires and seats; and
here also, at the south-west corner of the garden, was one of those
square stone-tiled buildings without which no garden in the seventeenth
century was supposed to be complete. This garden-house was set against
a grove of ancient oaks and ashes, which protected it from the rays of
the afternoon sun; to the north, both wind and view were cut off by
the house, with its broken roof-line of battlements and gables, and
tall central chimney thrown into shadow by the projecting wings; but
towards the other points of the compass, a wide panorama of country
was spread out to view. Mounting the steps which led to the little
oak-panelled room above, one could see, over the tops of the apple
trees and the Gothic coping of the green-clad garden walls, Killamarsh
Moor, and the little village of Wales, in Yorkshire, from which the
Hewitts took their rise; the wooded hillside just across the river;
and high above the common, the ancient woods and manor houses of Park
Hall and Barlborough; the Mansfield road, which skirted past the forest
towards Nottingham and Derby; Emmett Carr, Barlborough Common, and
Marsden Moor; the splendid cliff and keep of Bolsover, famous for the
Earl of Newcastle’s prodigal entertainment to King Charles; Scarcliffe
and Palterton, once with Eckington a part of the _Domesday_ Barony of
Ralph Fitz-Hubert; the old and new halls of Hardwick, where the Earls
of Devonshire had their seat, standing out like twin towers above the
trees which surrounded them; and beyond the horizon, the spire of
Tibshelf Church on the Nottinghamshire border. Nearer, between Renishaw
and Hardwick, stood the little hall of Netherthorpe, in which Robert
Sytwell had lived in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and
the grammar school hard by he had helped to found; Lord Deincourt’s
woods at Sutton Scarsdale; and Owlcotes, another of Bess of Hardwick’s
houses; and to the right, the Chesterfield road mounting up a green
spur two miles away towards Lord Frecheville’s ancient house and
park and the iron furnaces of Staveley. Beyond Staveley, which, like
Bolsover, Sutton, and Renishaw, had been garrisoned for the King in
the Civil War, the spire of Brimington could be seen; and above the
hollow in which Chesterfield lies, the distant hills which lead up to
Clay Cross, Ogston, Ashover, and the Derbyshire moors. To the west of
the garden house, a close walk between hedges led down the hill to
the low meadows and the river, and from this side also was a footpath
across the demesne to Foxton Wood, some two miles away, where the
bluebells were a sight to see in spring, and the bracken in autumn, and
good fishing and shooting were to be had. The hedgerows in the demesne
contained many oaks and ashes, but there was no ornamental planting
of any kind; in the woods, swine were still turned out in autumn, and
another relic of mediæval agriculture was the continued use of oxen for
ploughing.
[84] All these courts and gardens are shown in a map of 1756, which
gives also a small sketch of the house.
[85] The practice of archery was still considered a useful physical
exercise for boys. In July, 1665, Starkye paid a shilling for a bow and
arrows for Timothy Treeton, the orphan son of a substantial Eckington
yeoman and then fourteen years of age.
Houses and gardens such as those which I have just described can hardly
have been the work of coarse and illiterate men. Their beauty and
appropriateness, to which Lord Macaulay was blind, are recognised by
the better taste of to-day. One can see that they were planned with
infinite care and contrivance, every natural peculiarity of site,
climate, and outlook being turned to account, and that the country
squires who built them were thinking not merely of their own selfish
enjoyment, but of future ages. In the marriage indenture of Mr.
Sitwell’s eldest son in 1656, one of the considerations mentioned is
that the said messuage and lands “may be settled and established in the
name and blood of the said George Sitwell the ffather, soe long as it
shall please God to continue the same.” From such phrases one learns
not only the old builders’ pride in their houses, but the spirit which
animated them, and which alone can inspire good work in building and
laying out.
Renishaw was a quieter place than it had been ten years before, when
Mrs. Sitwell was alive, and the house full of young people; but
its owner, though he “hated ill-husbandry,” still kept a plentiful
house. He was constantly visited by various relations and friends,
and throughout the summer neighbouring gentlemen would occasionally
ride over to dinner and bowls, and Yorkshire acquaintances call and
drink at the gates, or rest their horses for an hour or two on the
way to London. Mr. Sitwell’s eldest son, and his daughters and
sons-in-law, were often with him, and Christmas especially, when
the hall was decorated with holly and ivy, and the Chesterfield and
Staveley fiddlers came over, and there was dancing in the great and
card playing in the little parlours, was a time of entertainment and
family reunion.[86] The preparations for Christmas and the New Year
began early in November with the brewing of a couple of hogsheads of
“Christmas beer” and the manufacture of “a brawne”—a mighty dish, for
it is valued in the household book at £2, the price of four muttons or
forty turkeys. When that season had arrived, the fat hogs were killed,
gifts were made to the servants, and money distributed among the poor
of the parish; turkeys, fowls, and rolls of brawn were sent as “tokens”
to absent friends; the tenants came with their rent capons,[87] were
regaled in the hall with beer, beef, mince pie, and plum porridge,
and spent the evening in boisterous games; and a doe was usually sent
over from Sheffield Park as a present from the Duke of Norfolk. It
appears by one of these letters that Francis Sitwell and his wife and
children were always expected from Gainsborough at Christmas, and no
doubt the Wigfalls came across in the evenings from their house a
few hundred yards away, the Burtons and Stones from Mosborough, and
Dr. Gardiner,[88] whom Mr. Sitwell had presented to the living of
Eckington eight years before, brought his children from the rectory.
Indeed, friends and tenants were entertained with so much conviviality
that the example proved dangerous to the younger members of the
family. In the last week of 1662, John, the London apprentice, was in
trouble with his master, and exactly a year later, Mr. Sitwell, while
protesting that he had “ever been wary to encourage” his son in such
courses, had to express a hope that in future he would “nether thinke
Christmas nor any other time lawless to play the foole in,” but when
he recreated himself among friends would “make choyce of sober, civell
company, and keepe good howers.”
[86] Letters from Mr. Sitwell’s sons at Aleppo and Seville always
reached him at Christmas. The business of keeping Christmas seems to
have ended with Twelfth Night. On December 22nd, 1662, Mr. Sitwell
arranges to meet a former steward, Robert Haigh, “on Munday next after
the Twelfth day.”
[87] The last mention I have found of rent capons is in a lease of
6th April, 1713, whereby Mr. Sitwell’s grandson and namesake lets to
Thomas Staniforth a small farm at the Ford. Staniforth, in addition to
the rent, was to pay “one good Rent Capon every Christmas.” Before the
middle of the eighteenth century the practice of entertaining tenants
at Renishaw had gone out, and on the 17th January, 1746–7, Francis
Sitwell pays to Isaiah Dixon, who kept an ale-house at Eckington, his
“Bill for entertaining my tenants last Christmas.”—See _Fam. Min.
Gent._, ii., 841.
[88] He had been Proctor of Cambridge University in 1649, and after
the Restoration was a chaplain to the King. Dr. Gardiner was a fine
preacher, as may be seen from his sermon in praise of Derbyshire,
quoted in the _History of Ashbourne_, 1839, page 204. A copy of his
Assize sermon, entitled “Moses and Aaron brethren,” and dedicated to
George Sitwell, Esquire, High Sheriff of the County of Darbie, may
be seen in Sir Henry Bemrose’s library. Francis Sitwell had been his
pupil at Corpus Christi. See also Master’s _History of Corpus Christi
College_ and the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for April, 1776.
The owner of the letter-book mentions on one occasion an engagement
to be at the Wigfalls’ house for a christening, and no doubt he
celebrated the baptism of his own grandchildren, born at Renishaw in
July, 1661, and October, 1662, by entertaining his neighbours with
music and card playing, according to the hospitable custom of the time.
On the 14th of February there was dancing and drawing of valentines,
and the Chesterfield Sessions in April, the fairs at Chesterfield,
Sheffield, and Rotherham, races and bull-baitings for those who cared
for such frivolities, bowling parties at Renishaw and other houses in
the neighbourhood, the village wake and the “hare-getting supper”[89]
to the harvesters on the demesne, helped to enliven the monotony of
rural existence. But during much of the year when Mr. Sitwell and
his youngest son were alone, life at Renishaw was quiet and orderly
enough, and one day passed very much the same as another. At about
seven o’clock they breakfasted upon beer, cold meat, Westphalia
ham or neat’s tongue, oatcakes, and white bread and butter. After
breakfast, William walked down to pursue his studies at the rectory,
and his father rode out with Starkye to inspect his farms and iron
furnaces, or to attend to the parochial and county business in which
he interested himself. At eleven o’clock,[90] the servants, headed
by the housekeeper, Mrs. Heays, filed in to family prayers in the
hall; and immediately prayers were over the butler laid the table,
with its cloth of homespun linen, pewter plates and dishes, beer and
wine glasses, silver salts and spoons, porringers and tankards, for
the noonday dinner,[91] and put out the silver bottles and stoneware
jugs, edged with silver, upon the oak cupboard by the kitchen door.
Mr. Sitwell sat at the head of the table, with his back to the map of
Europe and the great staircase; and his son, in a grey cloth suit, fine
worsted under-stockings, scarlet silk over-stockings, and riding shoes,
at his left hand; and together they conversed about William’s studies
and the big trout in the Rother, the flower garden and the home farm,
John’s last letters from plague-stricken London, Robert’s adventures
at Aleppo, and George’s prospects of making a fortune in Spain. The
meal, plain but substantial—it consisted usually of broth served in
porringers and eaten with oat cakes, a joint with vegetables, poultry
or game, a pudding or tart, cheese and fruit; but on Fridays of fresh
and salt fish alone—was washed down by a glass or two of tent or malago
and a tankard of ale, and followed by a pipe of tobacco in the little
parlour or the garden-house. After dinner, Mr. Sitwell wrote letters
in his study, and read the gazettes and newsletters which his cousin
forwarded by every post from London; a little later in the afternoon,
he played bowls on the green, walked through the folds, looked at the
horses, foals, and oxen, and strolled across the demesne to watch the
mowers or harvest folk at work. Supper, the second “state meal”[92]
of the day, must have been early too; and after a pipe of tobacco,
a tankard of ale, and a game of cards or shovel-board in the great
parlour, the evening finished with family prayer. On Sundays, the
old coach, with its two bay mares, took Mr. Sitwell and his son down
to church at Eckington; there, in the large square family pew by the
second pillar on the right of the nave, with the servants ranged behind
them, they listened to the village fiddlers and Dr. Gardiner’s learned
but lengthy sermon; and when service was over, they carried the doctor
and his wife back to dinner at the hall. Mr. Sitwell was a good judge
of horses (in 1666 he was buying horses for Lord Ogle’s troop), and
took some trouble in the breeding of them;[93] his peace-offering of
four pheasants to the Duke of Newcastle in January, 1664–5, shows
that he shot with a fowling-piece; the use of two coursing similes
in the letter-book suggests that he may have kept greyhounds; and it
is likely enough that he occasionally rode with Lord Frecheville’s
staghounds,[94] for the pale of Staveley Park bordered upon his
demesne. He was certainly an active man in spite of his years, and fond
of an outdoor life.
[89] So harvest suppers were called in Derbyshire. The labourers at
Renishaw were sometimes entertained earlier in the year:—
£ s. d.
“30 June, 1666. For 20 men’s Dinners att Stones att
8d. _per man_ 0 13 4
”For ale then 0 6 8.”
Ellen Stones (her husband was a blackmith) kept an alehouse in
Eckington. At these dinners or suppers John Hunt, who was the oldest
labourer in Mr. Sitwell’s employment, took the chair.
[90] Lyson’s _Derbyshire_, 257.
[91] It was the common practice at this time to dine in the parlour,
but at some houses meals were still served in the hall. Henry Hastings
in Charles the First’s time certainly used his parlour for this purpose
(see Lord Shaftesbury’s Autobiography), and the Sacheverells at Barton
did so in 1680. In an inventory of Furniture at Renishaw, taken in
1698, “the long table” appears in the hall and not in the Great
Parlour, and in the latter room was an old harpsichord. Mr. Sitwell
and his son may sometimes have dined in the Little Parlour in cold
weather when they were alone, but undoubtedly the hall was the proper
dining-room of the house.
[92] Lyson’s _Derbyshire_, v.
[93] A payment of £1 in February, 1666–7, “about a horse’s leaping,” is
recorded in Starkye’s account-book.
[94] In 1687, the old dog-kennels belonging to Staveley Hall were
converted into cottages. See a deed at Hardwick from Conyers Lord Darcy
to Thomas Frith, dated 24th September of that year. Country gentlemen
in Derbyshire took at this time much pleasure in field sports. In
Leonard Wheatcroft’s _Elegy upon the death of all the greatest Gentry
in Darley Dale who loved Huntinge and Hawkinge_, written in 1672, he
refers to the cry—
“Of great mouth’d doggs who did not feare to kill
Which was their master’s pleesure word and will,”
* * * * *
“ffarewell you Huntsmen that did hunt the Hare,
ffarewell you hounds that tired both horse and mare,
ffarewell you gallant Falkners every one.”
In these verses he especially mentions Mr. Sitwell’s son-in-law,
William Revell of Ogston; in other pieces, written a few years later,
he speaks of fox-hunting and horse-racing.
[Illustration: Stag Hunting.]
Amongst the relations and friends already mentioned as visiting
Renishaw in 1662–6, the names of several occur in the letter-book.
Mr. Sitwell’s cousins, William and Roger Allestry (Roger represented
Derby in Parliament as his brother had previously done, and the
features of both, set out in all the glory of Restoration periwigs,
are known from engraved portraits), came at intervals to stay with
him; and another kinsman, John Spateman, of Roadnook Hall, in Ashover,
formerly a Justice of the Peace under the Commonwealth, was there in
June, 1666, on his way to plague-stricken London. Captain Mazine, the
“great horseman,” so good natured in supplying Mr. Sitwell with the
latest news of the Dutch war, was expected from London in July, 1665.
“I suppose,” the latter writes, “I shall have the happiness to kis
yo^r hand in the Country shortly, w^{ch} I desire the more y^t you may
be out of the Danger of the sickness.” In June of the previous year,
the Captain had been staying at Welbeck, and had apparently ridden
over more than once to dinner and a game of bowls at Renishaw. Mr.
Sitwell meditated calling upon him in return, and in reply to a message
confessed that he was behindhand with him, but when occasion offered
would endeavour to come over. William Revell, of Ogston, one of the
“Lovers of Huntinge and Hawkinge” in Darley Dale, upon whose lives and
deaths (he died in 1669) the Ashover poet wrote his “Elegy”:
“Then I to Ogston, there to break my fast
They all in mourning stood at me aghast,
To think my friend and lover was departed;
And so I left them, all most heavie hearted:
What shall I doe (thought I) to hide my head,
Seeing so many Gallants now are dead?”
—was often with his father-in-law at Renishaw; and William Sacheverell,
who afterwards distinguished himself so highly in Parliament, and
served as a Lord of the Admiralty under King William, rode over
occasionally from Morley to see his sister, Mrs. Sitwell. William
Simpson, a city lawyer, came down in October, 1662, January, 1662–3,
and again, bringing with him a copy of the King’s Speech to the
Parliament, in June of the same year; and in the following September,
“Cozen Franceys,”[95] as appears by a gap in the correspondence,
followed by the expression of a hope that he was “well got home,”
enjoyed the country air for two or three weeks in Derbyshire. There
are casual references also in the letter-book to country neighbours
who called and dined at Renishaw, as, for instance, John Bradshaw, of
Brampton Hall, a cousin of the regicide, in September, 1662; Lionel
Copley, of Rotherham, in July, 1665; and John Magson, of Worksop, a
rich merchant, whose fortune is estimated in one of these letters
at twenty-five or twenty-six thousand pounds in January, 1662–3,
and November, 1664. The last was probably a Quaker, as Mr. Sitwell
addresses him without ceremony by his Christian name and surname.
[95] Ralph Franceys of Friday Street, London, a descendant of the
Foremark family. He, or his father, had served as Bailiff or Mayor
of Derby in 1624 and 1632, and his mother was nearly related to the
Sitwells.
The household to be provided for was not a large one, and in many
respects it was self-sufficing. The finer German table linen, damasked
with hunting scenes, which came in soon after the Restoration,
had hardly yet found its way into the midland counties, and rough
table-cloths were still made in the house. Flaxen and hempen sheets,
pillowbears and window curtains, and woollen blankets, were woven by
the maid-servants; and I notice that in 1678–80, two stone of flax,
two of hemp, and two of wool, were purchased every year for use at
Renishaw. By the maids also the mattresses of the heavy four-poster
beds were stuffed with feathers from the fold. Cloth sufficient to
provide two suits of livery apiece for five or six men was bought at
about four shillings a yard at Mr. Newton’s shop in Chesterfield, and
made up in the house by John Staynrod, the village tailor. Wheat for
bread, and oats for the oatcakes, so much favoured in Derbyshire,
were grown on the farm, and ground with querns in the house as flour
was needed; and ryebread was also eaten, probably by the servants.
Pickling, preserving, and salting,[96] and the concoction of currant
and gooseberry wines, were carried on under the supervision of the
housekeeper; and baking, churning, and cheese-making at the ovens and
dairy in the kitchen court. Ale in the cask or bottled, and November
ale, and beer of various denominations—strong beer, small beer, stale
beer, bottled beer, March beer, and Christmas beer—were brewed in
large quantities, and about sixty-eight hogsheads represent the annual
consumption.[97] The practice of laying in large quantities of salt
beef and mutton at the commencement of November had already been
abandoned by the richer classes, and fresh meat was eaten all the year
round. From the home farm, orchards, and river, meat, fish, eggs, milk,
cream, vegetables, and fruit were supplied; turkeys and fowls were
bred there, and game could be obtained in any quantity from the woods,
and pigeons from the dovecote. Salt fish from Scarborough or Hull was
bought in Chesterfield for the Friday dinners. Wax candles for the
hall and parlours were procured from George Hattersley, a chandler in
the village, at the cost of four or five shillings a dozen; and tallow
candles for the bedrooms were made in the house. Soap, in the form of
“washing balls,” was manufactured at the farm at the cost of a shilling
a dozen, and about fifty-two dozens represent the annual consumption.
Pit coals were obtained from Eckington Marsh at half-a-crown a load,
the carting being done upon “boon days” by Mr. Sitwell’s tenants.
Groceries were bought in Chesterfield, a groom or footman being sent
over on horseback, or a commission given either to the carrier or
to one of the little company of “market folks” who trudged over from
the village on each succeeding Saturday. At the last-named town
there was an apothecary (Wood), a furniture shop (Shentall), and a
bookseller (Crofts). Cases of knives for the table could be bought at
six shillings in Sheffield from James Stainforth, who in 1662 served
as Master Cutler. A chirurgeon (John Fleming) resided at Eckington,
but on one occasion a poor boy, in whom Mr. Sitwell had interested
himself, was sent over with the carrier to Nottingham for the great Dr.
Thoroton’s advice.
[96] In February, 1665–6, Mr. Sitwell ordered from London a
hundredweight of good white sugar, the Muscovados sugar consigned to
him from Barbadoes having proved unfit for his use. For preserving,
the whitest powdered sugar was necessary. (See _Verney Letters_, iii.,
278.) In a pocket almanac of 1699 which belonged to Mr. Sitwell’s
grandson and namesake, there is a note that the latter has lent to Mrs.
Stringer his “wife’s two Receipts Bookes.” These have unfortunately
been lost, but the receipt-book of a neighbour, Mrs. Colepeper, amongst
the Colepeper MSS. in the British Museum, enables one to form some idea
of their contents.
[97] In the last six months of 1665 (leaving out one doubtful entry of
£1 5s.), £10 0s. 9d. was spent upon malt for brewing at Renishaw. Malt
in that year cost £1 3s. to £1 3s. 6d. a quarter, and these payments
will therefore indicate a yearly use of something over 17 quarters,
which, according to Markham’s _English Husbandman_ of 1613, would give
51 hogsheads of ordinary beer and afterwards 17 hogsheads of small
beer. Seventy hogsheads would allow nearly three quarts a day _per_
head to Mr. Sitwell and his son and a household of four men servants,
two footboys, and six women servants. They could not, of course, have
drunk so much, but the calculation makes no allowance for visitors. At
Barton, the seat of the Sacheverells, £16 was paid during the year 1685
for twenty quarters of barley for malting.
But though a country house, at least in regard to the common
necessaries of life, was supplied from the demesne, and did not as
now depend upon shops in the village and neighbouring town, it is
surprising to find how many small luxuries were ordered in London or
even imported from the Continent. The packhorses of Hemingway, the
Sheffield carrier, were constantly burdened with Westphalia hams at
tenpence the pound, capers at the same price, and currants for the
daily pudding; with newspapers and books, writing paper, French hats
for Mr. Sitwell’s grandchildren, bottles of cinnamon water, orange
flower water, strong water, and Rosa solis, and runlets of various
wines. From London Mr. Sitwell procured also his own dress and that of
his son, tobacco at eighteen shillings and sixpence a box, and silver
plate. As might have been expected from one of the older generation,
he was fond of good sack, which he ordered in London or on occasion
from the “Angel” Inn at Chesterfield; but he supplied himself also with
barrels of tent wine and malago from Spain, where one of his sons was
a merchant. From that country also chests of oranges and lemons, and
barrels of olives and of raisins, were forwarded to him. Sugar, on one
occasion, he imported from Barbadoes, but it proved to be too coarse
for his use. Chests and barrels too heavy for one horse to carry were
sent by Nottingham wagon, or by way of the Humber and Trent to Bawtry,
and thence by road to Renishaw. Letters from London to Renishaw were
posted on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and arrived in time to be answered
on Fridays and Tuesdays. The charge was threepence for postage, and
fourpence to the “foot-post” from Chesterfield, and if carried to the
posthouse they seldom failed.
I must not pass away from the subject of housekeeping without saying
something about the extraordinary cheapness of meat, and especially of
game, at this period. In the Renishaw “house-book” for 1671, a price
is set against all the articles supplied from the farm or bought in
the village. A veal is valued at ten to twelve shillings, a mutton
at six to ten, a lamb at five to six, a beef at £3 15s. to £4 4s., a
porket at ten to eleven shillings, and pigs at from 1s. 3d. to 1s.
6d. each. Chickens could be had for threepence and fourpence, pullets
at sixpence, ducks at fourpence to eightpence, geese, capons, and
turkeys at a shilling, pigeons at elevenpence or one shilling a dozen,
and rabbits at sixpence to 1s. 2d. a couple. Partridges and teal were
eightpence a brace, woodcock eightpence to a shilling, wild ducks a
shilling, plovers fourpence to sixpence, and snipe fourpence. Cheeses
were eightpence to tenpence each, and butter was fourpence a pound.
Household loaves, not of white bread, were a shilling each, and flour
for manchet or for the kitchen 1s. 3d. a peck.
[Illustration: Acquaintances Meeting in London.]