FOOTNOTES:

[16] There is an engraving of this room in Nash's _Mansions_.

[17] The description was written more than twenty years ago.

SOME NOOKS IN WORCESTERSHIRE

AND GLOUCESTERSHIRE

[Illustration: THE WHITE HOUSE, PIXHAM.]

Not far from Powick Bridge, where after two hours' hard fighting the

Royalists were defeated by General Fleetwood, stands a quaint old house

of timber and plaster, with nine gables facing three sides of the

compass, and a high three-gabled oaken porch in front. It is called

Priors Court, or the White House of Pixham, and since "the battle of

Powick Bridge" it has been occupied by the same family, though the name

by inter-marriage has changed from time to time. A branch of the Lanes

of Bentley were the representatives in the seventeenth century, and

according to tradition the famous Jane Lane lived here for a time.

Though the house belongs to the Tudor period, many alterations were made

early in the eighteenth century, but the little interior quadrangle

remains much in its original condition. One expects to find within, the

usual comfortable chimney corners and cosy panelled rooms, and perhaps

some ancient furniture; but it comes as a surprise to find a museum of

relics and heirlooms taking us back to the days of the Tudors and

Stuarts.

From the hall, we pass up the great oak staircase to bedrooms and

corridors containing chests and cabinets full of ancient deeds and

manuscripts, not the least remarkable of which is a parchment roll upon

which is painted a series of mysterious astrological and other pictures,

supposed once upon a time to have been the property of the necromancer

Dr. John Dee, who lived for some time in the neighbouring town of

Upton-on-Severn. If this is really a document of Dr. Dee's, one would

like to see it preserved with the famous crystal in the British Museum.

The old presses and cupboards are full of the richly embroidered

bed-hangings and homespun sheets wrought by the ladies of the house in

the days when their energies were devoted to domestic purposes, and the

idea of hockey or ladies' clubs would have made their hair to stand

erect. There are piles of arras carefully packed away when wall-paper

came in fashion. There are chairs and tables dating back three centuries

or more, and mirrors which have reflected fair faces patched, with

head-gear piled up mountain high.

In a corner stands a spinning-wheel, distaff, and reel complete, as if

some dainty damsel at work had fled at the approach of footsteps; and

there beyond is a dusty pillion which conjures up a picture of Mistress

Lane seated behind "Will Jackson" upon their way to Bristol. The ancient

glass and china, too, would whet the appetite of the most exacting

connoisseur. But we must not linger longer, or we shall envy these

choice possessions.

[Illustration: PIRTON COURT.]

[Illustration: SEVERN END.]

[Illustration: SEVERN END.]

Pirton Court, not far away, has not been plastered over like many houses

with elaborate wooden "magpie" work beneath, and the ornamental timber

in circular design is unimpaired. But the quaintest timber gables were

those at Severn End, the ancient seat of the Lechmeres, some five miles

to the south-west. Alas! that this ancient mansion should have been

destroyed by fire,--a loss as great as that of Clevedon or Ingestre,

greater, perhaps, as its architecture was so quaint: a delightful

mixture of the Tudor and Stuart periods to which it was no easy matter

to fix a date, for the timber portions looked much older than the

seventeenth century, when they were built by Sir Nicholas Lechmere, a

nephew of Sir Thomas Overbury, a worthy and learned judge whose

manuscripts give a very realistic peep into the domestic life of the

times and the orderly way in which his establishment was conducted. Both

front and back of the house were strikingly picturesque, but the front

was the most curious, half black and white angular gables and half

curved and rounded red-brick Jacobean gables. On either side of the

entrance porch were two great chimney-stacks, and in the corners where

the wings abutted, small square towers, one of which was sharpened to a

point like a lead pencil. At the back, facing smooth lawns (where the

judge used to sit and study), attached to the main building was what

looked like a distinct structure, the sort of overhanging half-timbered

house with carved barge-boards, pendants, and hip-knobs that are

familiar objects at Shrewsbury or Tewkesbury. The lower part of this was

of red-brick, and beside it on the right was a smaller abutting

half-timber gable. The great oak staircases had fantastic newels and

balusters, and around the panelled hall was a fixed oak settle, and

armour on the walls: carved oak cabinets and chairs, and tables. The

room in which Charles I. slept was pointed out, and that of

Major-General Massey, for Severn End was that great soldier's

headquarters before the battle of Worcester.

A few miles to the south-west, within the boundary of the once wild

district, Malvern Chase, is another remarkable old house, Birtsmorton

Court, a moated and fortified manor-house in a singularly good state of

preservation. Though quiet and peaceful enough, its embattled gateway

has a formidable look, showing the teeth of its portcullis, like a

bull-dog on the alert for intruders. The drawbridge is also there, and

walls of immense thickness, both speaking of the insecurity of the days

when it was built. The "parlour," with windows looking out upon the

moat, is richly panelled with the various quarterings of the ancient

lords, the Nanfans, executed in colours around the cornice. The arms and

crest also occur upon the elaborately carved oak fireplace. On the

left-hand side of this fireplace there was formerly the entrance to a

hiding-place concealed in the wainscoting, but there is nothing now but

a very visible cupboard which leads nowhere. Tradition asserts that

Henry V.'s old associate, Sir John Oldcastle, sought refuge here before

he was captured and burned as a Lollard. But as that happened in 1417,

the date does not tally with the period to which the room belongs,

namely, a century later. But the original apartments have been divided

(some are dilapidated chambers, now used as a storeroom for Gloucester

cheeses), so that it is difficult to trace how they were placed. There

is also a story of a passage running beneath the moat into the adjacent

woods; but whether Sir John got so far, or whether after his escape from

the Tower he even got farther than his own castle of Cowling in Kent,

when he was hunted down by orders of his former boon companions, we

cannot say. By local report Edward IV. and Margaret of Anjou as well as

the little Lancastrian Prince of Wales sought shelter at Birtsmorton.

But for Margaret another house nearer Tewkesbury claims the honour of

offering a refuge from the battlefield. This is an old timber-framed

building with carved barge-boards, near the village of Bushley, called

Payne's Place, or Yew Tree Farm, which once belonged to Thomas Payne and

Ursula his wife, whose brasses may be seen in the church. In the eastern

wing of this old house Queen Margaret's bedroom is pointed out. The hall

with open timber roof is still intact but divided, and upon the oak

beams a century after the battle of Tewkesbury the following lines were

painted on a frieze:

"To lyve as wee shoulde alwayes dye it were a goodly trade,

To change lowe Death for Lyfe so hye, no better change is made;

For all our worldly thynges are vayne, in them is there no truste,

Wee see all states awhyle remayne, and then they turn to duste."

Had the lines existed then, would the poor queen have derived comfort

when the news reached her of her son's death on the battlefield?

Birtsmorton is associated with the early career of Cardinal Wolsey, for

here he acted as chaplain during the retirement of Sir Richard Nanfan

from service to the State. Through Sir Richard's Court influence Wolsey

was promoted to the service of Henry VIII.

The "Bloody Meadow" near Birtsmorton must not be confused with that near

Tewkesbury, the scene of the last battle between the Houses of York and

Lancaster. This one was the scene of a single combat between a Nanfan

and his sister's lover, in which the latter was slain. The heart-broken

lady left a sum of money that a sermon should be annually preached at

Berrow church (the burial-place of the Nanfans) against duelling; and

this we believe is done to this day. The cruciform church has been

painfully restored, but contains a fine altar-tomb to Sir John, Sir

Richard Nanfan's grandfather, Squire of the Body to King Henry VI.; but

beyond a leper's window and a queer old alms-box there is nothing else

remarkable.

[Illustration: RIPPLE.]

Two of the prettiest villages hereabouts are Ripple and Strensham, the

former on the Severn, the latter on the Avon. At Ripple, in a cosy

corner backed by creeper-grown timber cottages, is the lofty stone shaft

of the cross, and by the steps at the base the stocks and whipping-post.

Strensham is famous as the birthplace of the witty author of _Hudibras_.

It is a peaceful little place, with a few thatched cottages, a fine old

church near the winding river, embosomed in trees. The church is

remarkable for its fine rood-loft with painted panels of saints, which

at some time has been made into a gallery at the west end, and we hope

may be replaced one of these days.

Following the river Avon to Evesham and Stratford-on-Avon, there are

many charming old-world villages rich in timber and thatched cottages.

Such a village is Offenham above Evesham. The village street leads

nowhere, and at the end of it stands a tapering Maypole, as much as to

say, "Go on with your modern improvement elsewhere if you like, but here

I intend to stay"; and we believe it is duly decorated and danced around

in the proper fashion, though the inhabitants by the "new style" of the

calendar can scarcely dispense with overcoats. We will not follow the

course of the river so far as "drunken Bidford" (where the immortal bard

and some convivial friends are said to have been overcome by the effects

of the strong ale at the "Falcon"), but turn our steps southwards to

Broadway, which of recent years has had an invasion from America. But

the great broad street of substantial Tudor and Jacobean houses deserves

all the praise that has been lavished upon it. We were there before it

had particularly attracted Jonathan's eye, and after a fortnight's fare

of bread and cheese and eggs and bacon (the usual fare of a walking

tour), we alighted upon a princely pigeon pie at the "Lygon Arms." Under

such circumstances one naturally grows enthusiastic; but even if the

fine old hostelry had offered as cold a reception as that at Stilton, we

could not but help feeling kindly disposed towards so stately a roadside

inn. Like the "Bell" at Stilton, it is stone-built, with mullioned

windows and pointed gables; but here there is a fine carved doorway,

which gives it an air of grandeur. There are roomy corridors within,

leading by stout oak doors to roomier apartments, some oak panelled, and

others with moulded ceilings and carved stone fireplaces. One of these

is known as "Cromwell's room," and one ought to be called "Charles'

room" also, for during the Civil Wars the martyr king slept there on

more than one occasion. The wide oak staircase with its deep set window

on the first landing, reminds one of the staircase leading out of the

great hall of Haddon. There is a little wicket gate to keep the dogs

below. Farther up the village street stands Tudor House, which with its

ball-surmounted gable ends and bay-window with heraldic shields above,

bears a cloak-and-rapier look about it; but it was built, according to

the date upon it, when the old Cavalier was poor and soured, and had

sheathed his sword, but nevertheless was counting the months when the

king should come to his own again. The house was empty, and presumably

had been shut up for years. Referring to some notes, we find the

following memoranda by the friend who was with us upon the occasion of

our visit. "We could obtain no information as to the ownership, or still

more important, the holder of the keys. One old man, who might have

remembered it being built but was slightly hazy on the subject, said no

one ever went inside. Other inquiries in the village led only to intense

astonishment at our desire. And the whole concluded in a large

contingent of the inhabitants standing speechless, marvelling before the

house itself; in which position we left them and it."

The old church of Edward IV.'s time is now, or was, deserted in favour

of an early-Victorian one much out of keeping with the village, or

rather town that it once was.

Another decayed town, once of more importance still, is Chipping

Campden, four miles to the north-east of Broadway, in a corner of

Gloucestershire. Here again we have the great wide street with a

profusion of grey stone gables on either side, and projecting inn signs,

and sundials in profusion. At one extremity a noble elm tree and at the

other a huge chestnut, stand like sentinels over the ancient buildings

that they may not share the fate of the neighbouring manor-house, which

was burned down by its loyal owner, the third Viscount Campden, during

the Civil War, to save it from the ignoble fate of being seized and

garrisoned for the Parliamentarians. From the imposing entrance gate and

two remaining curious pavilions at either end of a long terrace, one may

judge it must have been a fine early-Jacobean mansion. Strange that

Campden House, their ancient town residence, should have perished in the

flames also, but over two centuries afterwards. Near the entrance gate

are the almshouses, a very picturesque line of pointed gables and lofty

chimneys. Above them rises the graceful early-Perpendicular church

tower, which in design and proportions is worthy of a cathedral. But the

quaint Jacobean pillared market-house, the Court-house with its handsome

panelled buttresses, and a house of the time of Richard III. with

two-storied bay-window, and an ancient hall, are among the most

interesting buildings in the town. One of the many sign-boards displays

a poetic effusion by a Campden chimney-sweep, a modernised version of

the original which ran as follows:

"John Hunter Campden doe live here,

Sweeps chimbleys clean and not too deare.

And if your chimbley be a-fire,

He'll put it out if you desire."

The "Red Lion" is a typical hostelry of the Stuart days, and a

contemporary house opposite, bearing the date 1656, is well worth

notice: the "Green Dragon" also, dated 1690.

The interior of the church is disappointing; its new benches, windows,

roof, and chancel giving it a modern look; but there are some fine old

monuments to the ancient lords of the manor, especially that of the

first Viscount Campden and his countess, and there are some fine

fifteenth-century brasses in the chancel.

[Illustration: STANTON.]

Norton House, to the north of the town, near Dover Hill (famous for the

Cotswold games in "the good old days"), is a picturesque, many-gabled

house; and at Mickleton, to the north-east, there are some curious old

buildings. Farther north are the remains of Long Marston manor-house,

still containing the roasting-jack which Charles II. as pseudo

scullery-man omitted to wind up, and brought the wrath of the cook upon

his head, much as King Arthur did when he burnt the cakes. But our way

lies southwards through Broadway to Buckland, Stanton, and a place that

should be sylvan according to its name--Stanway-in-the-Woods. Buckland

church and rectory are both of interest. The former has a fine

Perpendicular tower with some grotesque gargoyle demons at the corners.

The benches are good, and a window dated 1585 retains some ancient

painted glass, as the roof does its old colouring, in which the Yorkist

rose is conspicuous. The hall of the rectory has a fine open-timber roof

with central arch richly carved, and upon a window is depicted a rebus

representing one William Grafton, rector of Buckland from 1450 to 1506.

The manor-house also once possessed a hall with lofty timber-framed roof

and huge fireplace of the fourteenth century; but, sad to relate, it was

destroyed when the house was modernised some years ago, but there still

remains a pretty old staircase of a later date.

Farther south the country becomes more wooded and hilly. The high ground

rises on the left above Stanton, and at the foot of the hill near the

village nestle the pretty old church and gabled manor-house, with its

complement of old farm buildings adjacent. The village street, like

Broadway, consists of rows of grey stone gables, at the end of which

stands the sundial-surmounted cross. The interior of the church has not

been spoiled; the carved oak canopied pulpit towering above the ancient

pews is quite in keeping with the old-world village. The Stanways are

about two miles to the south, but there are so few houses that one

wonders where the children come from to attend the village school. Wood

Stanway is not disappointing like many places possessing picturesque

names that we could quote, for it is enveloped in trees, and so is

Church Stanway for that matter.

[Illustration: STANWAY HOUSE.]

[Illustration: STANWAY HOUSE.]

Turning a corner of the road one comes suddenly upon a wonderful old

gateway with fantastic gables and a noble Jacobean doorway. On one side

of it is a high garden wall with great circular holes in it, and over

the wall peep the gables and ornamental perforated parapet of a fine

mansion of Charles I.'s time. This is always a most fascinating picture;

but to see it at its best is when the roses are in bloom, for above the

old wall and through the rounded apertures, the queen of flowers

flourishes in gay festoons as if rejoicing at its surroundings. But if

one is so fortunate as to obtain admission to the gardens then may he or

she rejoice also, for upon the other side of that grey old wall are the

prettiest of gardens and the grandest trees, one of which, an ancient

yew, is no less than twenty-two feet in girth. There are terraces, stone

summer-houses, and nooks and corners such as one only sees in the

grounds of our ancestral homes. Within, the mansion has been much

restored and somewhat modernised, but the great hall and other rooms

take one back to the time of Inigo Jones, who designed the entrance

gateway. In the churchyard close by is buried the most popular local man

of his time, Robert Dover. If he lived in our day he surely would be the

president of the "Anti-Puritanical League," for he it was who made a

successful crusade against the spirit of religious austerity, the

tendency of which was to put down holidays of sport and merry-making. As

a result of his efforts, the hills above Chipping Camden were annually

at Whitsuntide the scene of a revival of the mediaeval days of festivity

and manly exercise. Upon these occasions the originator acted as master

of the ceremonies, and was duly respected, for he always wore a suit of

King James' own clothes. Dover died at the beginning of the Civil War,

so, fortunately for him, he did not live through the rigid rule of

Cromwell. The Cotswold games, however, were revived at the Restoration.

To this public benefactor (the shadow of whose cloak has surely fallen

on the shoulders of Lord Avebury) Drayton wrote in eulogy:

"We'll have thy statue in some rock cut out

With brave inscriptions garnished about,

And under written, 'Lo! this is the man

Dover, that first these noble sports began.'

Lads of the hills and lasses of the vale

In many a song and many a merry tale

Shall mention thee; and having leave to play,

Unto thy name shall make a holiday."

Yet nobody did set up his statue, as should have been done on "Dover

Hill" by Chipping Camden.

Some odd cures for certain ailments are prescribed in remote parts of

the Cotswolds. Garden snails, for instance, which in Wiltshire are sold

for ordinary consumption, namely, food, as "wall fruit," are used here

externally as a remedy for ague: and roasted mouse is a specific for the

whooping-cough. But for the latter complaint as efficacious a result may

be obtained by the pleasanter mode of riding on a donkey's back nine

times round a finger-post. This remedy, however, properly belongs to

Worcestershire.

If we continue in a south-westerly direction we shall pass historic

Sudeley, near Winchcombe, Postlip Hall, and Southam House. Sudeley

Castle must have been magnificent before it was dismantled in the Civil

War. Bravely it stood two sieges, but at length capitulated; and being

left a ruin by Cromwell's soldiers, the magnificent fifteenth-century

mansion was left for close upon two centuries to act as a quarry for the

neighbourhood. Under such disadvantages was its restoration commenced,

and it is wonderful what has been done; yet there has been a certain

admixture of Edwardian and Elizabethan portions which is somewhat

confusing. The banqueting room, with its noble oriel windows (originally

glazed with beryl), the keep with its dungeons, and the kitchen with its

huge fireplace four yards across, speak of days of lordly greatness, and

the names of many weighty nobles as well as kings and queens are closely

associated with the castle. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was once

possessed of it; the youngest son of Owen Tudor and Henry V.'s widow

lived there; so did Sir Thomas Seymour, Edward VI.'s uncle, who married

and buried there Henry VIII.'s last queen, at which ceremony Lady Jane

Grey was chief mourner. Elizabeth was here upon one of her progresses,

and Charles I. was the last sovereign who slept there. The restored

rooms are full of historical furniture, pictures, and relics. Here may

be seen Amy Robsart's bed, or one of them, from Cumnor Hall: and the bed

upon which the martyr king slept, not here but at Kineton, before

Edgehill. There are numerous relics of the queen, who had the tact to

outlive her august spouse, and the foolishness to marry a fourth

husband. Catherine Parr's various books and literary compositions may

here be studied, including the letter in which she accepted Seymour's

offer of marriage. He was by no means the best of husbands, but a vast

improvement on the royal tyrant who had coldly planned the queen's

destruction; but owing to her ready wit his wrath was turned upon

Wriothesley, who was to have arrested her; for when he came to perform

that office, Henry called him an "an errant knave and a beast." There

are lockets containing locks of her auburn hair, and portions of the

dress she wore. But the main interest is centred in the chapel where the

queen was buried. This building was dismantled with the rest in 1649,

and the fine Chandos monuments destroyed. Catherine's tomb, which was

within the altar rails, probably shared the fate of the rest, and its

position was soon forgotten. However, after the lapse of nearly a

century and a half, a plain slab of alabaster in the north wall,

doubtless part of the original monument, led to the discovery of a

leaden case in the shape of a human form lying immediately below, only a

foot or so beneath the surface of the ground. Upon the breast was the

following inscription:

K. P.

Here lyethe QUENE

KATERYN wife to KYNG

HENRY THE VIII., and

Last the wife of Thomas

Lord of Sudeley, highe

Admiyrall of England

And vncle to Kyng

Edward the VI.

dyed

5 September

MCCCCC

XLVIII.

The cerecloth, hard with wax and gums, was removed from a portion of the

arm, which was discovered after close upon three centuries to be still

white and soft. According to another account, when the covering of the

face was removed, not only the features, but the eyes were in perfect

preservation. The body was reinterred, but treated with no decent

respect, for the spot was occupied as an enclosure for rabbits; and upon

one occasion it was dug up by some drunken men, who by local tradition,

as a reward for their desecration, all came to an untimely end. The

alabaster block may still be seen in the north wall of the chapel, but

the body now lies beneath a recumbent figure in white marble which has

been placed to the queen's memory.

[Illustration: POSTLIP HALL.]

Postlip Hall stands high in a picturesque spot not far from the main

road to Cheltenham. It is a many-gabled Elizabethan house, preserving

its original character, but spoiled by the insertion of plate-glass

windows. Within there is one particularly fine room of elaborate oak

carvings (and the arms of the Broadways who built the house) of

sufficient importance to form the subject of one of the plates in Nash's

_Mansions_. The house has or had the reputation of being haunted; but

that was long ago in the days when it stood neglected and uninhabited.

Southam House, or Southam-de-la-Bere, to the south-west (also depicted

in Nash), is a curious early-Tudor building of timber and stone, and has

the advantage over Sudeley, as it was not of sufficient military

importance to be roughly handled by the Parliamentarian soldiers. The

ancient painted glass in the windows and an elaborate chimney-piece

bearing shields of arms came from Hayles Abbey. The ceilings are oak

panelled, and the arms of Henry VII. occur in numerous places. The

situation of the house is fine, and the view over the vast stretch of

country towards Worcestershire and Herefordshire magnificent. The

builder of the mansion was Sir John Huddleston, whose wife was the queen

Jane Seymour's aunt. The de-la-Beres, to whom the estate passed by

marriage, were closely allied with the Plantagenet kings, two sisters

marrying Thomas Plantagenet, Edward III.'s son, and Henry Plantagenet,

Duke of Lancaster.

Avoiding Cheltenham, we will pick up the road to Stroud at Birdlip, a

favourite meeting-place of the hounds on account of the surrounding

woods. Coming from the south there is a gradual climb through those

delightful woods until you burst upon a gorgeous view, with the ancient

"Ermine Street" running, like a white wand lying upon the level pattern

work of meadowland, to Gloucester, and the hills of Malvern away in the

distance. Whether it was the great dark mass of hill in the foreground

contrasted against the level stretch of country, or whether it was the

stormy sky when we visited Birdlip on a late autumnal day, that gave the

scene such a wild, romantic look, it would be difficult to say, but we

remember no view with such breadth of contrast of light and shade, or

one so fitted to lead the imagination into the mystic realms of

fairyland.

Up in these heights, and in so secluded a spot, it came as a surprise to

find a museum. This we believe long since has been dispersed by the

hammer, but we remember some really interesting things. The lady

curator, the proprietress of the "Black Horse," had been given many of

the exhibits by the neighbouring gentry, and was not a little proud of

her collection. Valuable coins, flint weapons, fossils, pictures, and

the usual medley. There was one little oil painting on a panel, the head

of a beautiful girl with high powdered hair of the Georgian period,

which had all the vigour of a Romney, and undoubtedly was by a master

craftsman. Two curiosities we remember in particular: a pair of leggings

said to have been worn by the great Duke of Marlborough, and the wooden

finger-stocks from a village dame-school. It would be interesting to

know where these curiosities are now. The only other finger-stocks we

know of are in Ashby-de-la-Zouch church, Leicestershire.

[Illustration: STOCKS, PAINSWICK.]

Painswick, to the south-west, is a sleepy old town with a fine

Perpendicular church much restored internally, but containing some

handsome monuments. The churchyard is noted for its formal array of

clipped yew trees, probably unique. They have the same peculiarity as

Stonehenge, for it is said nobody can count them twice the same. As,

however, we did not visit the adjacent inn, we managed to accomplish the

task. Close to the church wall are the stocks--iron ones.

[Illustration: NAILSWORTH.]

Upon the way to Stroud many weird old buildings are passed which once

were, and some are still, cloth mills; but some are deserted and

dilapidated, and have a sad look, as if remembering more prosperous

days; and when the leaves are fast falling in the famous golden valley

they look indeed forlorn. One would think there can be little poetry

about an old cloth mill, but ere one gives an opinion one must visit the

golden valley in the autumn. Around Nailsworth, Rodborough, and

Woodchester there are many ancient houses which have degenerated into

poor tenements. Such a one at Nailsworth has the brief address "No. 5

Egypt," which by all appearance was an important house in its day. A

gentleman who resided in a more squalid part related how he had

discovered a cavalier's rapier up in the roof of a mansion, but in a

weak moment had parted with it for half a crown. "Southfield" at

Woodchester is perhaps the most picturesque of these stately houses, a

house which near London would fetch a formidable rent, but here a

ridiculously low one. Some six miles out of Stroud a really decent

house, garden, and orchard may be had for next to a song. A light

railway may have now sent prices up, by striking northwards, but not

many years back we saw one very excellent little place "to let," the

rent of which was only sixpence a week, and the tenant had given notice

because the landlord had been so grasping as to raise it to sixpence

halfpenny!

[Illustration: BEVERSTONE CASTLE.]

Between Nailsworth and Tetbury are Beverstone Castle and the secluded

manor-house Chavenage within a mile of it. The castle stands near the

road, an ivy-covered ruin of the time of Edward III., but with portions

dating from the Conquest. Incorporated are some Tudor remains and some

old farm buildings, forming together a pleasing picture.

To Major-General Massey, Beverstone, like Sudeley, is indebted for its

battered appearance. It held out for the king, but Massey with three

hundred and eighty men came and took it by storm. The general having

done as much damage as possible in Gloucestershire during the Civil War,

at length made some repairs by fighting on the other side at Worcester;

and perhaps it was as well, for had he been on the victorious side he

might have treated "the faithful city" with as little respect as

Beverstone. In the peaceful days of the Restoration, which Massey

lived to see, as there were no more castles to blow up he dabbled

in the pyrotechnic art, suggestive of the pathetic passage in

_Patience_--Yearning for whirlwinds, and having to do the best you can

with the bellows.

The regicide squire of Chavenage must also have been skilled in the

noble art, for by common report at his death a few months after that of

the martyr king, he vanished in flames of fire! But there was a

ceremonious preliminary before this simple and effective mode of

cremation. A sable coach driven by a headless coachman with a star upon

his breast arrived at the dead man's door, and the shrouded form of the

regicide was seen to glide into it. But bad as Nathaniel Stephens may

have been, it is scarcely just that all future lords of Chavenage must

make their exit in this manner.

The old house is unpretentious in appearance. Built in the form of the

letter E, it has tall latticed windows lighting a great hall (famous

once for its collection of armour), and a plain wing on either side,

with narrow Elizabethan Gothic-headed windows. There is a ghostly look

about it. It stands back from the road, but sufficiently near that one

may see the entrance porch (bearing the date 1579) and the ruts of the

carriage wheels upon the trim carriage drive. Arguments as strong as any

in _Ingoldsby_ to prove the mystic story must be true.

NOOKS IN NORTHERN

WILTSHIRE

After a sojourn in north-west Wilts it is refreshing to dip into the

wooded lanes of the Home Counties and see again the red-brick cottages

and homesteads which have such a snug and homely look after the cold

grey stone and glaring chalk roads. For old-world villages and

manor-houses, however, one could not choose a better exploring ground,

but not, please note, for the craze of picking up bits of old oak,

judging by what we overheard the very first day we stopped in one of the

most out-of-the-way places of all.

"Anything old inside?" asked somebody at the doorway, having led gently

and gracefully up to it so as not to arouse suspicion. "Nothing," was

the reply. "May I look round inside?" was asked. "No." Then after a

pause. "Any other of the cottagers got any old chairs, or china?" "One

or two of them _had_ some, but they sold what they had to Mrs. ---- of

----." "_Of_ course," was the disgusted reply; "she's _always_ first, and

gets everything!"

The conversation gives but an idea of the systematic way that a crusade

for the antique is carried on. If the hunter makes a "find," and the

owner will not part, that unfortunate cottager is persecuted until he or

she does part, sooner or later to regret the folly. And, alas! churches

are not even sacred from these sharks. How often have we not seen some

curious piece of furniture mentioned as being in the church, and, lo! it

has vanished--where? And do not the empty brackets over many an ancient

tomb tell a tale? What have become of the helmets of the ancient lords

of the manors? We can quote an instance offhand. In the fine old church

of Bromham, three of the helmets of the manorial lords, the Bayntons,

are still there, two of them perhaps only funereal helmets, and not the

actual casques of warfare; but there are three if not four vacant

brackets which perchance once supported the envied headpieces with

pointed visor of the fifteenth century. Aloft also are some rusty

gauntlets, and one of the helmets still bears the crest of the eagle's

head. The manor descended from the Beauchamps to the Bayntons, the last

of whom was the nineteenth in descent from Sir Henry Baynton, Knight

Marshal of the household to Henry the Second. His mother was the eldest

daughter and co-heiress of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, and Miss

Malet the runaway heiress. A recumbent effigy of Sir Roger Touchet in

alabaster (resembling in a remarkable degree the late Sir Henry Irving

as Richard III.) is covered with the carved initials of vandal visitors,

not, we may add, only of our own and fathers' and grandfathers' time,

but dating back from the reign of Elizabeth; so it is comforting to see

that our ancestors were as prone to disfigure monuments in this way as

is the modern 'Arry. One of the initials, I. W., perhaps may be that of

the witty and wicked Earl of Rochester, who by repute made Spye an

occasional residence, although the Bayntons certainly held the estate

some years after the Lady Anne, his daughter's death in 1703. The

ceiling of the Baynton chapel is richly carved, and the bosses and

brackets show their original faded colouring of blue and gold. There are

also coloured niches for saints; and on a canopied tomb of Elizabeth

Touchet, a brass of a kneeling figure, and a tablet of the coat of arms

is enamelled in colours. There also is a fine brass of John Baynton in

Gothic armour.

[Illustration: GATE-HOUSE, SPYE PARK.]

All that remains of the old Jacobean house of Spye is a subterranean

passage beneath the terrace; but the Tudor entrance gate to the

picturesque park stands on the left-hand side of the road to Lacock just

before the road begins its winding precipitous descent. Evelyn saw the

house soon after it was built, and likened it to a long barn. The view

is superb, but, strangely enough, not a single window looked out upon

the prospect! After dining and a game of bowls with Sir Edward Baynton,

the Diarist took coach; but, says Evelyn, "in the meantime our coachmen

were made so exceeding drunk, that in returning home we escaped great

dangers. This, it seems, was by order of the knight, that all

gentlemen's servants be so treated; but the custom is barbarous and much

unbecoming a knight, still less a Christian."

A mile or so to the east of the entrance gate of Spye is Sandy Lane, a

tiny hamlet with trim thatched cottages and a sturdy seventeenth-century

hostelry, the "George," looking down the street; and farther along in

the direction of Devizes stands the "Bell," another ancient roadside

inn, which, judging from its mullioned windows, knobbed gables, and

rustic porch, must date back to the days of the first Charles.

In Bromham village also there are some pretty half-timber buildings, not

forgetting the "lock-up" by the churchyard. The exterior of the church

is richly sculptured; a fine example of the purest Gothic.

[Illustration: LACOCK.]

[Illustration: LACOCK.]

Sleepy old Lacock, with its numerous overhanging gables, is a typical

unspoiled village. It was once upon a time a town, but by all

appearances it never can have been a flourishing one; and let us hope it

will remain in its dormant state now that there is nothing out of

harmony, for the Lacock of to-day must look very much as it did two

hundred years or more ago. It consists mainly of two wide streets, with

a fine old church at the end of one and a lofty seventeenth-century inn

at the other. Opposite the latter is a monastic barn with blocked-up

arched doorway, and facing it a fine row of timbered houses. Wherever

you go the pervading tone is grey, and one misses the little front

gardens with bright flowers and creepers. By the school stands the

village cross. Farther along a great wide porch projects into the

street, and over it a charming traceried wooden window. Nearer the

church the road narrows, and a group of timber cottages make a pleasing

picture, one of them with a wide entrance of carved oak spandrels above

an earlier stone doorway. The church, a noble edifice, has a very

graceful spire and some good tombs, including two wooden mural monuments

to Edward Baynard who lived in Elizabeth's reign, and to Lady Ursula

Baynard in the reign of Charles I.

The monument of Sir John Talbot of Lacock describes him as born of the

most noble family of the Duke of Shrewsbury, which is somewhat

confusing. Sir John was descended from John, second Earl of Shrewsbury,

who died in 1460, and his monument was erected when the twelfth earl and

first duke was living. Sir John died in 1713, and his son and heir

predeceased him, as mentioned on the monument.

[Illustration: LACOCK.]

[Illustration: LACOCK ABBEY.]

But the principal object of interest at Lacock, of course, is its famous

abbey, the early fifteenth-century cloisters being, it is said, the most

perfect example in England. It has been a residence since the

Dissolution, when the estate was granted by Henry VIII. to Sir William

Sherrington, the daughter of whose brother Sir Henry married a Talbot of

Salwarpe, the ancestor of the present owner, C. H. Talbot, Esq., a

learned antiquary, by whose care and skill so many points of interest

have been brought to light. The cloisters, refectory, chapter-house,

sacristy, etc., are in an excellent state of preservation, and there

are some fine hooded fireplaces, and among the curiosities, a great

stone tank in which fish were kept; and the nuns' cauldron, something

after the style of Guy of Warwick's porridge-pot. The groined roof of

the cloister is remarkable, the bosses showing their original colouring,

nearly two hundred or more all being of different design. The sides

facing the road are flanked by an octagonal tower of singular beauty,

ornamented with balustrades, and a staircase turret crowned with a

cupola. This contains the muniment-room, in which is preserved Henry

III.'s Magna Charta, which belonged to the foundress, Ela, Countess of

Shrewsbury, the widow of William Longespee, the son of Henry II. and

Fair Rosamond. Dugdale tells us that the site "Snaile's Mede" was

pointed out to this good lady in a vision. An epitaph to the abbess Ela

may still be seen within the cloisters.

Sir John Talbot of Lacock was a staunch Royalist, and the first person

who received the Merry Monarch in his arms at Dover upon his landing in

1660. Both Sir John and his son Sharington Talbot figure as duellists in

the diaries of Pepys and Evelyn. The former was one of the six

combatants in that famous encounter at Barn Elms, where Buckingham

mortally wounded Francis Talbot, the eleventh Earl of Shrewsbury. Sir

John proved a better swordsman than his antagonist Captain William

Jenkins, for the latter was left dead upon the field. The Royal pardon

from Charles II. is still preserved in Lacock Abbey. The duel between

the younger Talbot and Captain Love at Glastonbury, in July 1685, is

mentioned by Evelyn. Both commanded a company of militia against

Monmouth at Sedgemoor, and after the battle an argument arose as to

which fought the best. The discussion grew heated, swords were drawn,

and Talbot was killed. He was the eldest and only surviving son of the

knight, and had he left issue, upon the death of the eleventh Earl of

Shrewsbury's son, the first and only duke, the Lacock Talbots would by

priority have become Earls of Shrewsbury.

[Illustration: BEWLEY COURT.]

Beyond the village, just before the road winds upwards towards Spye

Park, is Bewley Court, an interesting old farm, with trefoil windows and

Gothic entrance door of fine proportions. Its hall is intact, having its

wide open fireplace and open timber roof with carved beams. A reed-grown

canal, with one of those queer hand drawbridges, serves as the moat of

yore. Bewley by some is corrupted into "Brewery," for close by there is

such an establishment, and the ancient name has become submerged. There

are said to have been four Courts originally belonging to Lacock Abbey,

but this is the only remaining one.

Each approach to Lacock is picturesque, but the most pleasing is from

the lane which runs up to Gastard and Corsham. This joins the Melksham

road by a charming old gabled and timbered cottage, not architecturally

remarkable, but pleasing in outline and colour. From the lane above,

this roadside cottage stands out against a background of wooded hill,

and when the sun is low it presents a picture which must have tempted

many an artist. On the way to Gastard and thence to Neston there are

many tumble-down old places which seem to be entirely out of touch with

the twentieth century. But at the highest point there is a startling

notice which might alarm a motorist should he lose his way up in these

narrow lanes. "Beware of the trams" is posted up in big letters! You

look around in astonishment, for silence reigns supreme; but by and bye

you come upon a stone quarry near the dilapidated entrance to what was

once probably a manor house, and a light falls upon the meaning of the

"trams." An artistic projecting signboard not far off bears the

inscription:

"Arise, get up the Season now

Drive up Brave Boys

God speed the Plough."

Up a narrow lane is a tiny chapel with a stone mullioned window cut down

into a semicircle at the top. A little stone sundial over the entrance

door, and the smallest burial-ground we have ever seen, are worth

notice for their quaintness. Farther to the west is Wormwood Farm, whose

ivy-clad gables give the house a more homely look than most hereabouts.

Higher up in a very bleak position is Chapel Plaster Hermitage, an older

building, whose little belfry surely cannot summon many worshippers. It

was a halting-place of pilgrims to Glastonbury, and in Georgian days of

lonely travellers, who were eased of their purses by a gentleman of the

road named Baxter, who afterwards was hung up as a warning on Claverton

Down. Near the wood, the resort of this highwayman, is Hazelbury House,

a sixteenth-century mansion, much reduced in size, whose formidable

battlemented garden walls are worthy of a fortress. It was once a seat

of the Strodes, whose arms are displayed on the lofty piers of the

entrance gate. On the other side of the Great Bath road is Cheney Court,

another gabled mansion which has been of importance in its day, and

within half a mile, Coles Farm, a smaller building, alas! fast falling

to decay. Its windows are broken and its panelled rooms are open to the

weather. We ploughed our way through garden, or what was once a garden,

waist-high with weeds, to a Tudor doorway whose door presumably was more

accustomed to be opened than closed. At the foot of the staircase was a

little wicket gate leading to the capacious cellars. Somebody had

scrawled above an ancient fireplace close by, a plea against wanton

mischief; but that was the only sign that anybody was interested in the

place. But we learned something from an intelligent farmer who was

picking apples in one of the surrounding orchards. It was very sad, he

said, but so it had remained for years. The owner was abroad, and though

various people had tried to buy it, there were legal difficulties which

prevented it. "But why not find a tenant?" we asked. "That would surely

be better than allowing it to fall to pieces!" He shook his head. "'Tis

too far gone," he said, "and there's no money to put it in repair." So

Coles Farm, situated in the midst of lovely hills and orchards, gives

the cold shoulder to many a willing tenant.

It is a precipitous climb from here to Colerne, which across the valley

looks old and inviting from the Bath road. But the place is sadly

disappointing, and Hunters' Hall, which once upon a time was used as an

inn and possessed some remarkably fine oak carvings, is now a shell, and

scarcely worth notice.

[Illustration: CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE.]

[Illustration: CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE.]

[Illustration: CORSHAM ALMSHOUSE.]

The village of Corsham, approached either from the north or south, is

equally picturesque. By the former there is a long row of sturdy Tudor

cottages with mullioned windows and deep-set doorways; by the latter,

the grey gables of the ancient Hungerford Hospital, and beyond the huge

piers of the entrance to Corsham Court. An inscription over the

almshouse porch and beneath the elaborate sculptured arms of the

Hungerfords, says that it was founded by Lady Margaret Hungerford,

daughter of William Halliday, alderman of London, and Susan, daughter of

Sir Henry Row, Knight, Lord Mayor of London. The chapel is on the

right-hand side, and contains the original Jacobean pulpit, seats, and

gallery. The pulpit is a two-decker, and the seat beneath a comfortable

armchair of large proportions with an ingenious folding footstool. The

screen is a fine piece of Jacobean carving, with pilasters and

semicircular arches of graceful design, with the Hungerford arms upon

two shields. There is a good oak staircase and a quaint exterior

corridor leading to the several dwellings, with trim little square

gardens allotted to each. Corsham Court has a stately and dignified

appearance. The second entrance gate has colossal piers, which quite

dwarf the others previously mentioned. Beyond are the stables, a

picturesque row of Elizabethan gables and pinnacles. The south front of

the house preserves its original character in the form of the letter E

with the arms and the crest of the builder, William Halliday, on

pinnacles over the gables, and seven bay-windows. The interior of the

mansion has been much modernised, but the picture collection contains

some of the choicest old masters. Some of Lord Methuen's ancestors by

Reynolds and Gainsborough are wonderfully vigorous. Here is Vandyck's

Charles I. on horseback, with which one is so familiar. How many

replicas must there be of this famous picture! Charles II. hangs

opposite his favourite son in one of the corridors--a fine portrait of

the handsome Monmouth. One of the most curious pictures is a group by

Sir Peter Lely, representing himself in mediaeval costume playing the

violoncello to his own family in light and airy dress. One would have

thought that he would have clad his wife and daughters more fully than

some of his famous beauties: on the contrary. The church, whose tower is

detached, has been restored from time to time, and looks by no means

lacking in funds. The carved parclose of stone and two altar-tombs to

the Hanhams are the chief points of interest. There is a simple

recumbent effigy of one of the Methuens, a little girl, which in its

natural sleeping pose is strangely pathetic, even to those who know

nothing of the story of her early death.

[Illustration: CASTLE COMBE.]

Biddestone, above Corsham, has many good old houses round its village

green. The little bell turret to the church is singular, but the eye is

detracted by an ugly stove-pipe which sticks out of the roof close by.

There is some Roman work within, but the high box pews look out of

keeping. About three miles to the north-west is Castle Combe, one of

the sweetest villages in Wiltshire or in any other county. It is

surrounded by hills and hanging woods, and lies deep down and hidden

from view. As you descend, the banks on either side show glimpses, here

and there; a grey gable peeping out of the dense foliage or grey

cottages perched up high. Still downward, the road winds in the shade of

lofty trees, then suddenly you find yourself looking down upon the

quaint old market-cross, with the grey church tower peering over some

ancient roofs. This presumably is the market-place,--not a busy one by

any means, for beyond an aged inhabitant resting on the solid stone

base, or perhaps a child or two climbing up and down the steps (for it

is a splendid playground)--all is still. The village pump alongside the

cross, truly, supplies occasional buckets of water for the various

gabled stone cottages around, indeed (as is invariably the case when

one's camera is in position) people seemed to spring up from nowhere,

and the pump handle was exceptionally busy. The cross is richly

sculptured with shields and roses at the base, and the shaft rises high

above the picturesque old roof, which is supported by four moulded stone

supports. Undoubtedly it is one of the most perfect fifteenth-century

crosses in England. The road still winds downwards to a rushing stream

crossed by a little bridge, and here there is a group of pretty cottages

with prettier gardens abutting on the road. We have seen these under

very different aspects, in March with snow upon the creepers, and in

October when the creepers were brilliant scarlet, and scarcely know

which made the prettier picture. The sound of rushing water adds romance

to this sweet village.

The ancient family of Scrope has been seated here for over five

centuries and a half. The "Castle Inn" by the market-cross remains

primitive in its arrangements, although the "tripping" season makes

great demands upon its supplies. Though ordinarily quiet enough,

occasionally there is a swarm, and a sudden demand of a hundred or so

"teas" is enough to try the resources of any hostess. But it was too

much for the poor lady here; her health was bad, and she would have to

flee before another season came round. Strange to say, it is the

slackness of business that usually sends folks away. The graceful

fifteenth-century pinnacled and embattled tower of the church gives the

ancient building a grand appearance. The church is rich in stained

glass, containing the arms of the various lords of the manor.

[Illustration: YATTON KEYNELL MANOR.]

Yatton Keynell, a couple of miles eastwards, possesses a fine Jacobean

manor-house, with a curious porch and very uncommon mullioned window.

The wing to the right was demolished not many years ago, so that now a

front of three gables is all that remains; and though it looks fairly

capacious, there are but few rooms, the space being taken up with

staircase (a fine one) and attics. The exterior of the church is good,

but the interior is "as new as ninepence," saving a fine

fifteenth-century stone rood-screen. The spiral staircase up to the

summit has been cut through, which is a pity, as otherwise the organ

would have been less conspicuous. The steps of the village cross now

serve as a basement for the village inn.

[Illustration: BULLICH MANOR-HOUSE.]

The churches of Stanton St. Quinton and Kingston St. Michael have

suffered internally as much as that of Yatton Keynell, and, alas! the

fourteenth-century manor-house of the St. Quintons is now no more. An

aged person working in the churchyard, though very proud that he had

helped to pull it down, insisted on pointing out the "ould dov-cart"

This may be pure "Wilshire," but until we saw the dovecot we did not

grasp the meaning. Nearer Chippenham is Bullich House, which fortunately

has been left in peace. Beside the entrance gate two queer little

"gazebos" were covered with Virginia creeper in its bright autumn tints.

The remains of the clear moat washed the garden wall, over which peeped

the gables of the house with the waning red sunlight reflected in the

casements--this was a picture to linger in one's memory; and there is

no telling how far one's fancy might not have been led by speculating

upon the meaning of two grim heads which form pinnacles above the porch,

had the stillness not been broken by the harsh sounds of the gramophone

issuing from a neighbouring cottage! If Bullich possesses a ghost, as it

ought to, judging by appearances, surely an up-to-date music-hall ditty

should "lay" him in the moat in desperation.

[Illustration: SHELDON MANOR.]

[Illustration: SHELDON MANOR.]

About a mile away on the western side of the main road from Chippenham

to Yatton Keynell is Sheldon Manor, a charming old residence with a

great Gothic porch like a church, and a Gothic window over it belonging

to what is called the "Priest's chamber." Upon the gable end, over it,

is one of those queer little box sundials one occasionally sees in

Wiltshire. As you enter the porch the massive staircase faces you, with

its picturesque newels and pendants, and the little carved oak gate,

which was there to keep the dogs downstairs. In the wall to the right,

just beyond the entrance door, is a curious stone trough of fair

capacity. It is screened by a door, and exteriorly looks like a

cupboard; but what was the use of this trough we are at a loss to

conjecture, unless in old days the horses were admitted.

[Illustration: SOUTH WRAXALL MANOR-HOUSE.]

[Illustration: SOUTH WRAXALL.]

But two of the finest old houses in the county are certainly South

Wraxall and Great Chaldfield, situated within a couple of miles from one

another to the west of Melksham. The former has recently been converted

from a farmhouse again into a mansion, and the latter is now undergoing

careful restoration. Though the exterior of Great Chaldfield is

unimpaired, and as perfect a specimen of an early fifteenth-century

house as one could wish to see, sad havoc has been played inside. The

great hall many years ago was so divided up that it was difficult to

guess at its original proportions. The finest Gothic windows with

groined roofs, ornamental bosses, and fireplaces, and carved oak beams,

have long since been blocked up and their places filled with mean ones

of the Georgian period or later. To fully comprehend the wholesale

obliteration of the original work, one has only to see the thousand bits

of sculptured masonry laid out upon the lawn of the back garden. To

place the pieces of the puzzle correctly together must be a task to try

the knowledge and patience of the most expert in such matters, but piece

by piece each is going into its proper place. The huge stone heads with

scooped-out eyes, through which the ancient lord of the manor could

watch what was going on below in the hall without being observed, once

again will be reinstated. There are three of them, and the hollowed eyes

have sharp edges, as if they were cut out only yesterday. Then there is

an ungainly grinning figure of the fifteenth century, locally known as

"Blue Beard," who within living memory has sat on the lawn in front of

the mansion; but his proper place is up aloft on top of one of the gable

ends, and there, of course, he will go, and, like Sister Ann, be able to

survey the road to Broughton Gifford to see whether anybody is coming.

Among the rooms now under course of repair is "Blue Beard's chamber,"

and naturally enough the neighbouring children of the past generation

(we do not speak of the present, for doubtless up-to-date education has

made them far too knowing to treat such things seriously--the more's the

pity) used to hold the house in holy dread. But there certainly is a

creepy look about it, especially towards dusk, when the light of the

western sky shines through the shell of a beautiful oriel window, and

makes the monsters on the gable ends stand out while the front courtyard

is wrapt in shade. The reed-grown moat gives the house a neglected and

sombre look. The group of buildings, with curious little church with its

crocketed bell turret on one side and a great barn on the other, is

altogether remarkable. How it got the name of "Blue Beard's Castle" we

could not learn. Recently a "priest's hole" has been discovered up

against the ceiling in a corner of his chamber; but whether he concealed

himself here or some of his wives we cannot say.

At the back of the manor there used to be a tumble-down old mill, which

unfortunately is now no more. The little church contains a good stone

screen (which has been removed from its original position), and some

stained glass in the windows. The pulpit, a canopied two-decker, and the

capacious high-backed pews (half a dozen at the most) have the

appearance of a pocket place of worship. But Great Chaldfield is a

parish by itself without a village; the congregation also is a pocket

one.

As before stated, South Wraxall manor-house is restored to all its

ancient dignity; but somehow or other, though much care and money have

been bestowed upon it, it seems to have lost half of its poetry, for the

walls and gardens are now so trim and orderly, that it is almost

difficult to recognise it as the same when the gardens were weed-grown

and the walls toned with lichen and moss. Moreover, the road has been

diverted, so that now the fine old gatehouse stands not against the

highway, but well within the boundary walls. Inside are some remarkably

fine old rooms with linen panelling. The drawing-room has a superb stone

sculptured mantelpiece, upon which are represented Prudentia,

Arithmetica, Geometrica, and Justicia, and Pan occupies the middle

pedestal supporting the frieze, while four larger figures support the

mantel. The ceiling is coved, and ornamented with enormous pendants, and

the cornice above the great bay mullioned-window is enriched with a

curious design. A remarkable feature of the room is a three-sided

projection of the wall, the upper part of which is panelled, having

scooped-out niches for five seats, one in the middle and two on either

side. The banqueting-room also is a typical room of Queen Elizabeth's

time, and the "Guest chamber" is one of the many rooms in England which

claim the honour of inhaling the first fumes from a tobacco-pipe in

England. But Raleigh's pipe here is said to have been of solid silver;

moreover, tradition does not state that it was so rudely extinguished as

elsewhere, with a bucket of water: so, at any rate, here the story is

more dignified. To settle definitely where Sir Walter smoked his first

pipe would be as difficult a problem as to decide which was the mansion

where the bride hid herself in the oak chest, or which was King John's

favourite hunting lodge.

EASTERN AND SOUTHERN

SOMERSET

[Illustration: THE GEORGE, NORTON ST. PHILIP.]

[Illustration: THE GEORGE, NORTON ST. PHILIP.]

Somersetshire abounds in old-world villages, more particularly the

eastern division, or rather the eastern side--to the east, say, of a

line drawn from Bristol to Crewkerne. This line would intersect such

famous historic places as Wells and Glastonbury, but in our limited

space we must confine our attention more particularly to more remote

spots. One of these, for example, is the village of Norton St. Philip,

midway between Bath and Frome, which possesses one of the oldest and

most picturesque inns in England. This wonderful timber building of

projecting storeys dates mainly from the fifteenth century, although it

has been a licensed house since 1397, and upon its solid basement of

stone the "George" looks good for many centuries to come. It was

formerly known as the "Old House," not that the other buildings at

Norton St. Philip are by any means new. It is merely, comparatively

speaking, a matter of a couple of hundred years or so.

Many are the local stories and traditions of "Philips Norton Fight," for

here it was that the Duke of Monmouth's followers had the first real

experience of warfare; and the encounter with the Royalist soldiers was

a sharp one while it lasted. Monmouth's intention of attacking Bristol

had been abandoned, and during a halt at Norton on June 27, 1685, his

little army was overtaken by the king's forces under the young Duke of

Grafton, Monmouth's half-brother. The lane where fighting was briskest

used to be remembered as "Monmouth Street," possibly the same steep and

narrow lane now called Bloody Lane, which winds round to the back of the

Manor Farm (some remains of which go back quite a century before

Monmouth's time), through the courtyard of which the duke marched his

regiment to attack the enemy in flank. The other end of the lane was

barricaded, so Grafton was caught in a trap, and had difficulty in

fighting his way through.

Both armies sought protection of the high hedges, which, take it all

round, got the worst of it; but Grafton lost considerably more men than

Monmouth, although a cannonade of six hours on both sides only had one

victim. An old resident living fifty years ago, whose great-grandfather

fought for "King Monmouth," used to relate how the duke's field pieces

were planted by the "Old House," his grace's headquarters; and the

tradition yet lingers in the inn that Colonel Holmes, on Monmouth's

side, finished the amputation of his own arm, which was shattered with a

shot, with a carving knife. Some of the ancient farmhouses between Bath

and Frome preserve some story or another in connection with "Norton

Fight," and George Roberts relates in his excellent Life of Monmouth

that early in the nineteenth century the song was still sung:

"The Duke of Monmouth is at Norton Town

All a fighting for the Crown

Ho-boys-ho."

There are some curious old rooms in the "George"; and it is astonishing

the amount of space that is occupied by the attics, the timbers of which

are enormous. Up in these dimly lighted wastes, report says that a cloth

fair was held three times a year; and one may see the shaft or well up

which the cloth was hauled from a side entrance in the street. The fair

survives in a very modified form on one of the dates, May 1st. Upon

the first floor, approached by a spiral stone staircase, is "Monmouth's

room," the windows of which look up the road to Trowbridge. The open

Tudor fireplace, the oaken beams and uneven floor, carries the mind back

to the illustrious visitor who already was well aware that he was

playing a losing game, and knew what he might expect from the

unforgiving James. At the back of the old inn is the galleried yard, a

very primitive one, now almost ruinous, with rooms, leading from the

open corridors, tumbling to pieces, and floors unsafe to walk upon.

Through the gaps may be seen the cellars below, containing three huge

beer barrels, each of a thousand gallons' capacity. A fine stone

fireplace in one will make a plunge below ere very long.

But Somersetshire owns another remarkable fifteenth-century hostelry,

the "George" at Glastonbury, in character entirely different from that

at Norton St. Philip. The panelled and traceried Gothic stonework of the

front, with its graceful bay-window rising to the roof, is perhaps more

beautiful but not so quaint, nor has it that rugged vastness of the

other which somehow impresses us with the rough-and-tumble hospitality

of the Middle Ages. "Ye old Pilgrimme Inn," as the "George" at

Glastonbury once was called, was built in Edward IV.'s reign, whose arms

are displayed over the entrance gateway. Here is, or was, preserved the

bedstead said to have been used by Henry VIII. when he paid a visit to

the famous abbey.

A mile or so before one gets to Norton, travelling up the main road from

Frome, there is one of those exasperating signposts which are

occasionally planted about the country. The road divides, and the sign

points directly in the middle at a house between. It says "To Bath," and

that is all; and people have to ask the way to that fashionable place at

the aforesaid house. The inmate wearily came to the door. How many times

had he been asked the same question! He was driven to desperation, and

was going to invest in some black paint and a brush for his own as well

as travellers' comfort. But how much worse when there is no habitation

where to make inquiries! You are often led carefully up to a desolate

spot, and then abandoned in the most heartless fashion. The road forks,

and either there is no signpost, or the place you are nearing is not

mentioned at all. Unless your intuitive perception is beyond the

ordinary, you must either toss up for it, or sit down and wait

peacefully until some one may chance to pass by.

[Illustration: CHARTERHOUSE HINTON.]

[Illustration: WELLOW MANOR-HOUSE.]

The church and manor-house of the pretty village of Wellow, above Norton

to the north-west, are rich in oak carvings. The latter was one of the

seats of the Hungerfords, and was built in the reign of Charles I. In

the rubbish of the stable-yard, for it is now a farm, a friend of ours

picked up a spur of seventeenth-century date, which probably had lain

there since the Royalist soldiers were quartered upon their way to meet

the Monmouth rebels. Another seat of the Hungerfords was Charterhouse

Hinton Manor, to the east of Wellow, a delightful old ivy-clad dwelling,

incorporated with the remains of a thirteenth-century priory. Corsham

and Heytesbury also belonged to this important family; but their

residence for over three centuries was the now ruinous castle of

Farleigh, midway between Hinton and Norton to the east. These formidable

walls and round towers, embowered in trees and surrounded by orchards,

are romantically placed above a ravine whose beauty is somewhat marred

by a factory down by the river. The entrance gatehouse is fairly

perfect, but the clinging ivy obliterates its architectural details and

the carved escutcheon over the doorway. But were it not for this natural

protection the gatehouse would probably share the fate of one of the

round towers of the northern court, whose ivy being removed some sixty

years ago brought it down with a run. The castle chapel is full of

interest, with frescoed walls and flooring of black and white marble.

The magnificent monuments of the Hungerfords duly impress one with their

importance. The recumbent effigies of the knights and dames, with the

numerous shields of arms and their various quarterings, are quite

suggestive of a corner in Westminster Abbey, though not so dark and

dismal. Here lie the bodies of Sir Thomas, Sir Walter, and Sir Edward

Hungerford, the first of whom fought at Crecy and the last on the

Parliamentary side, when his fortress was held for the king, and

surrendered in September 1645. His successor and namesake did his best

to squander away his fortune of thirty thousand pounds a year. His

numerous mansions were sold, including the castle, and his town house

pulled down and converted into the market at Charing Cross, where his

bewigged bust was set up in 1682. His son Edward, who predeceased him

before he came to man's estate (or what was left of his father's),

married the Lady Althea Compton, who was well endowed. In the letters

preserved at Belvoir we learn that the union was without her sire's

consent. "She went out with Mis Grey," writes Lady Chaworth in one of

her letters to Lord Roos, "as to a play, but went to Sir Edward

Hungerford's, where a minister, a ring, and the confidents were wayting

for them, and so young Hungerford maried her; after she writ to the

Bishop of London to acquaint and excuse her to her father, upon which he

sent a thundering command for her to come home that night which she did

obey." A week later she made her escape. But the runaway couple were

soon to be parted. Eight months passed, and she was dead; and the

youthful widower survived only three years. Old Sir Edward lived

sufficiently long to repent his extravagant habits, for he is said to

have died in poverty at five score and fifteen!

[Illustration: OLD HOUSE NEAR CROSCOMBE.]

[Illustration: BECKINGTON CASTLE.]

Beckington, about four miles to the south of Farleigh, has another

castle, but more a castle in name than anything else. It is a fine

many-gabled house, by all appearances not older than the reign of James

I. or perhaps Elizabeth. It is close against the road, and practically

in the village, where are other lofty houses similar in character. There

is an erroneous tradition that James II. slept here the night before the

battle of Sedgemoor, regardless of the fact that his sacred Majesty was

snug in London. The house was long neglected and deserted, and owing to

stories of ghostly visitors and subterranean passages could not find a

purchaser at L100! But this was many years ago, as will be seen from an

advertisement quoted in an old number of _Notes and Queries_. Things are

different now, for ghosts and subterranean passages have a marketable

value.

Somersetshire abounds in superstitions as well as in old-world villages.

From the southern part of the county come tales of people being

bewitched, and it is a good thing for many an aged crone that their

supposed offences are thought lightly of nowadays.

Some five years ago a notorious "wise man" of Somerset, known as Dr.

Stacey, fell down stairs and broke his neck. The doctor's clients

doubtless had expected a more dignified ending to his career, for,

judging from his powers of keeping evil or misfortune at arm's-length,

it was a regular thing for people who had been "overlooked" to seek a

consultation so as to get the upper hand of the evil influence. His

patients were usually received at midnight, when incantations were held

and mysterious powders burned. In most instances this was done where

there had been continual losses in stock, or on farms where the cattle

had fallen sick.

A remarkable instance of credulity only the other day came from the East

End of London, which, happening in the twentieth century, is too

astonishing not to be recorded here. A young Jewess sought the aid of a

Russian "wise woman" to bring the husband back who had deserted her. The

process was a little complicated. Eighteen pennyworth of candles stuck

all round with pins were burned. Pins also had to be sewn into the

lady's garments, and some "clippings" from a black cat had to be burned

in the fire. The cost of these mysterious charms altogether amounted to

nearly six pounds, which was expensive considering the truant husband

did not return. During some recent alterations to an old house near

Kilrush, Ireland, beneath the flooring was discovered a doll dressed

to personify a woman against whom a former occupant owed a deadly

grudge. It was stabbed through the breast with a dagger-shaped hairpin,

which presumably it was hoped would bring about a more speedy death than

the slower process of melting a diminutive waxen effigy.

Cases of ague in Somerset are said to succumb if a spider is captured

and starved to death! Consumptives also are said to be cured by carrying

them through a flock of sheep in the morning when the animals are first

let out of the fold. It is said to bode good luck if, when drinking, a

fly should drop into one's cup or glass. When this happens, we have

somewhere heard, that a person's nationality may be discovered; but beer

must be the liquid. A Spaniard leaves his drink and is mute. A Frenchman

leaves it also untouched, but uses strong language. An Englishman pours

the beer away and orders another glass. A German extracts the fly with

his finger and finishes his beer. A Russian drinks the beer, fly and

all. And a Chinaman fishes out the fly, swallows it, and throws away the

beer.

But enough of these peculiarities.

[Illustration: CROSCOMBE CHURCH.]

[Illustration: CROSCOMBE.]

In the wooded vale between Shepton Mallet and Wells is a pretty

straggling village of whitewashed houses with Tudor mullioned windows

and, some of them, Tudor fireplaces within. This is Croscombe, which,

like Crowcombe in western Somerset, has its village cross, but a

mutilated one, and a church rich in Jacobean woodwork. The canopied

pulpit, dated 1616, and the chancel screen, reaching almost to the roof,

bearing the Royal arms, are perhaps the finest examples of the period to

be found anywhere. An inn, once a priory, near the cross has panelled

ceilings and other features of the fifteenth century. Some old cloth

mills, with their emerald green mill-ponds, are one of the peculiarities

of Croscombe. Shepton Mallet is depressing, perhaps because crape is

manufactured there. A lonely old hostelry to the south of the town known

as "Cannard's Grave," not a cheery sign under the most favourable

circumstances, but with padlocked doors and windows boarded up as we saw

it, had a forbidding look, and seemed to warrant the mysterious stories

that are told about it. The cross in the market-place was erected in

1500, but it has been too scraped and restored to classify it with those

at Cheddar or Malmesbury. The church contains a fine oak roof and some

ancient tombs, mainly to the Strodes, an important Somersetshire family

with Republican tendencies, one of whom harboured the Duke of Monmouth

in his house the night after his defeat at Sedgemoor. The remains of

this house, "Downside," stand about a mile from Shepton Mallet, but it

has been altered and restored from time to time, so that now it has

lost much of its ancient appearance. The pistols which the duke left

here remained in the possession of descendants until about eight years

ago, when they were lost. Monmouth's host, Edward Strode, also owned

what is now called "Monmouth House," from the fact that the duke slept

there on June 23rd and 30th, 1685, upon his march from Bridgwater

towards Bristol and back again. Monmouth's room may yet be seen, and not

many years ago possessed its original furniture.[18]

[Illustration: LYTES CARY MANOR-HOUSE.]

[Illustration: LYTES CARY MANOR-HOUSE.]

[Illustration: FIREPLACE, LYTES CARY.]

At Cannard's Grave we strike into the old Foss way, and if we follow it

through West Lydford towards Ilchester we shall find on the left-hand

side, a quarter of a mile or so from the road, Lytes Cary, one of the

most compact little manor-houses in western England. But the fine old

rooms are bare and almost ruinous. The arms of the Lytes occur in some

shields of arms in the "decorated" chapel (which is now a cider cellar),

and upon a projecting bay-window near a fine embattled and pierced

parapet. The hall is entered from the entrance porch (over which is a

graceful oriel), and has its timber roof and rich cornice intact. On the

first floor is a spacious panelled room with Tudor bay-window (dated

1533) and open fireplace, which if carefully restored would make a

delightful dwelling room; and it seems a thousand pities that this and

other apartments dating from the fourteenth century should be in their

present neglected state. The front of the manor-house reminds one of

Great Chaldfield in Wiltshire, but on a smaller scale and exteriorly

less elaborate in architectural detail.

The eastern corner of the western division of Somerset is especially

rich in picturesque old villages and mansions--that is to say, the

country enclosed within or just beyond the four towns Langport,

Somerton, Chard, and Yeovil. Within this area, or a mile or so beyond,

we have the grand seats of Montacute, Brympton D'Eversy, Hinton St

George, and Barrington Court; the smaller but equally interesting

manor-houses of Sandford Orcas, South Petherton, and Tintinhull, and the

quaint old villages and churches of Trent, Martock, Curry Rivel, etc.

[Illustration: ANCIENT SCREEN. CURRY RIVEL CHURCH.]

The ancient county town of Somerton having been left severely alone by

the railway, remains in a very dormant state, and, of course, is

picturesque in proportion, as will be seen by its octagonal canopied

market-cross and the group of buildings adjacent Langport lies low, and

is uninviting, with marshy pools around, with to the north-west

Bridgwater way the villages of Chedzoy, Middlezoy, and Weston Zoyland,

full of memories of the fight at Sedgemoor. The church of Curry Rivel,

to the west of Langport, has many ancient carvings, and retains its

beautiful oak screen and bench-ends of the fifteenth century. Within its

ancient ornamented ironwork railing is a curious Jacobean tomb,

representing the recumbent effigies of two troopers, Marmaduke and

Robert Jennings. It seems selfish that they should thus lie in state

while their wives are kneeling below by two little cribs containing

their children tucked up in orderly rows like mummified bambinoes. On

the summit of a circular arch above, five painted cherubs are reclining

at their ease, and chained to one of the iron railings is a little

coffer which gives a touch of mystery to the whole. What does this

little sealed coffer contain?--for it must have been in its present

position since the monument was erected. Are the warriors' hearts

therein, or the bones of the five bambinoes? There is another Jacobean

tomb, just like a cumbrous cabinet of the period. It is hideous enough

for anything, and obscures one of three interesting fourteenth-century

mural monuments.

In the old farmhouse of Burrow, near Curry Rivel, some swords and

jack-boots of the time of Charles II. were preserved. They are now in

the museum at Taunton, where we regret to say the buckle worn by the

Duke of Monmouth, and Lord Feversham's dish are now no longer[19] with

the other interesting relics of the fight at Sedgemoor.

[Illustration: BARRINGTON COURT.]

At Barrington Court and White Lackington manor-house, both near

Ilminster, Monmouth was entertained in princely state during his

progress through the western counties to win popularity. The latter is a

plain gabled house (a portion only of the original) which has suffered

by the insertion of sash windows. It seems to bear out its name, for it

is very white and staring. But Barrington is one of the most perfect

Elizabethan houses in Somersetshire, that is to say exteriorly, for the

inside has long since been stripped and modernised. The myriad of

pinnacles upon its gable ends, and its general appearance, recall the

stately Sussex mansion Wakehurst: the situation, however, is vastly

different, for it stands bare of trees on a wide extensive flat. The

Spekes of White Lackington and the Strodes of Barrington, it goes

without saying, were notorious Whigs; and though the duke's hosts

favoured his cause, they both managed to save their necks when the

terrible Jeffreys came down upon his memorable Progress. But the name of

Speke was enough for the judge, and the youngest son of White

Lackington, whose sins did not extend beyond shaking hands with his

father's illustrious guest, was swung up on a tree at Ilminster. In

the lovely fields around the manor-house it is difficult to imagine a

throng of twenty thousand who accompanied the popular duke. The giant

Spanish chestnut tree beneath which Monmouth dined in public, and which

had braved the tempests of many centuries, fell, alas! a victim to the

storm of March, 2, 1897, and with the destruction of "Monmouth's tree" a

link with 1680 has departed never to return. Barrington, we understand,

has recently been taken under the protecting wing of the Society for the

Preservation of Ancient Buildings, for which all those interested in

domestic architecture as well as buildings of historic association must

feel grateful.

[Illustration: HINTON ST. GEORGE.]

The little town of South Petherton, midway between Ilminster and

Ilchester, is full of old nooks and corners, from its ancient cruciform

church to the old hostelry in the High Street. From a very early date it

was a place of great importance; but since the days of the Saxon monarch

who resided there, the Daubeneys have stamped their identity upon King

Ina's palace, of which there are picturesque Tudor remains incorporated

in a modern dwelling, which to our mind has robbed it of the poetry it

possessed when in a ruinous condition. The villages of Martock above and

Hinton St George below are also full of interest; and both possess

their ancient market-crosses, but now curtailed and converted into

sundials with stone-step massive bases. But the glory of Martock is its

grand old church (where Fairfax and Cromwell offered up a prayer for the

capture of Bridgwater in 1645), whose carved black oak roof is one of

the finest in the west of England.[20] The ancient seat of the Pouletts

is an extensive but by no means beautiful house. It has a squat

appearance, being only two storeys high, with battlemented towers at the

angles and Georgian and Victorian Gothic sash-windows; but on the

southern side, a pierced parapet and classic windows give it a less

barrack-like appearance. Sir Amias Poulett (or Paulet, as it was

formerly spelled), the grandson of the builder of the house, who won his

spurs at the battle of Newark-on-Trent, is principally famous from the

fact that he put Wolsey in the stocks when that great person held the

living of Lymington, and upon one occasion took more than was good for

him. But the cardinal afterwards had his revenge, and put fine upon Sir

Amias to build the gate of the Middle Temple, which formerly bore the

prelate's arms elaborately carved, as a peace-offering from Sir Amias.

Lymington in Hampshire is often associated with the stocks' episode, but

Lymington near Ilchester, and some ten miles from Hinton, was the place.

Sir Amias had the custody of Mary Queen of Scots during the latter part

of her long imprisonment, and to him the "Good Queen" (?) more than

hinted that it would be a kindness to hasten her victim's end by private

assassination. Paulet, however, had a conscience, so Elizabeth had to

take upon herself the responsibility of Mary's execution.

The historic stocks of Lymington are now no more, but beneath a big elm

tree on the village green at Tintinhull, close by, they still are

flourishing. Tintinhull, like Trent and other neighbouring villages, is

full of picturesque old houses, sturdy stone Jacobean and Tudor

cottages, with garden borderings of slabs of stone set up edgeways, and

slabs of stone running along the footway in a delightfully primitive

fashion. Tintinhull Court is a stately old pile dating from the reign of

Henry VIII. Its oldest side faces the garden, but the main front is a

good type of the seventeenth century. We will not repeat here the

particulars of Charles II.'s concealment at the old seat of the Wyndhams

after the battle of Worcester;[21] but on the spot, and though the

greater part of the house has been rebuilt, one may realise the

incidents in that romantic episode, for the village of Trent to-day is

much the same as the village of 1651.

[Illustration: SANDFORD ORCAS MANOR-HOUSE.]

The manor-house of Sandford Orcas, to the north-east of Trent (which by

the way now belongs to Dorset), is quite a gem of early-Elizabethan

architecture, with crests upon the gable ends, and the Tudor and Knoyle

arms and graceful panels upon the warm-coloured walls of Ham Hill stone.

Though a small house, it has its great hall with carved oak screen; and

most of the rooms are panelled, and have their original fireplaces. The

wide arched Tudor gateway spanning the road bears the arms of the

Knoyles, a monument to whom may be seen in the south aisle of the church

close by, the tower of which rises picturesquely above the gabled roof

of the manor-house. The village, the little there is of it, is buried in

orchards, between which the mill-stream winds, the haunt of a colony of

quacking ducks whose noisy gossip makes up for the paucity of

inhabitants.

Some eight miles away, on the other side of Yeovil, there is a

manor-house, which for picturesqueness must take the palm of even

Sandford Orcas. This is Brympton D'Eversy, a remarkable mixture of the

domestic architecture of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth

centuries. One would think that the various styles would not harmonise,

but they do in a remarkable degree. Add to these the styles of the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which are conspicuous in portions

of the adjacent church, and there is indeed a field from which to study.

The northern front of the mansion, with its embattled Gothic bays and

rows of latticed windows, is flanked by the quaint little turreted

church, and together they form a most striking group not only in

outline, but attractive in colour, for grey-green lichens and the

peculiar rusty tint of stone blend in perfect sympathy. Picture this

house and church in crude white stone, unmellowed and toned by time, and

half its charm would be gone. Does not this open up a question worth

consideration? A modern house is built with conscientious exactitude in

imitation of some beautiful existing example of Gothic or Renaissance

architecture. Every detail is perfect, but the result is harsh and new.

One must wait almost a lifetime before it makes a picture really

pleasing to the eye. Therefore why not take some measures to tone down

the staring stone or obtrusive red-brick before the masonry is

constructed? True, there are a few exceptions where additions have been

made to ancient houses, which cannot be detected; but in the case of an

entirely new house, does it often occur to the builder how much more

pleasing would be the result if the exterior of his house were more in

harmony with the old oak fittings and ancient furniture with which it is

his ambition to fill it? Would that all such houses were built of Ham

Hill stone, for it has the peculiarity of imparting age much more

rapidly than any other.

[Illustration: MONTACUTE HOUSE.]

It is this that gives so venerable an appearance to Montacute House;

for, compared with many mansions coeval with it, the ancestral seat of

the Phelips family looks quite double the age. The imposing height of

Montacute as compared, for instance, with Hinton St. George, gives it

stateliness and grandeur, while the other has none. Like Hardwick, the

front of the house is one mass of windows; but it has not that formal

spare appearance, for here there are rounded gables to break the

outline. In niches between the windows and over the central gable stand

the stone representations of such varied celebrities as Charlemagne,

King Arthur, Pompey, Caesar, Alexander the Great, Moses, Joshua, Godfrey

de Bouillon, and Judas Maccabeus. They look down upon a trim old garden

walled in by a balustraded and pinnacled enclosure, with Moorish-like

pavilions or music-rooms at the corners. As a specimen of elaborate

Elizabethan architecture within and without, Montacute is unique. In

Nash's _Mansions_ there is a drawing of the western front, which is

still more elaborate in detail, and is earlier in date than the rest of

the house; and this may be accounted for as it was added when Clifton

Maybank (another house of the Phelips') was dismantled many years ago.

But of this old house there are yet some interesting remains.[22] Inside

there is a similarity also to Hardwick with its wide stone staircase and

its ornamental Elizabethan doorways and fireplaces. The hospitality in

the good old days was in keeping with the lordly appearance of the

mansion. Over the entrance may still be read the cheery greeting:

"Through this wide opening gate,

None come too early, none return too late."

But in these degenerate days the odds are that advantage would be taken

of such hospitality; and one marvels at the open-handed generosity such

as existed at old Bramall Hall in Cheshire, where the common road led

right through the squire's great hall,[23] where there was always kept a

plentiful supply of strong ale to cheer the traveller on his way. There

can have been but few tramps in those days, or they must have been far

more modest than they are to-day.

[Illustration: MONTACUTE PRIORY.]

Montacute Priory, near the village, has a fine Perpendicular tower and

other picturesque remains. To see it at its best, one should visit the

village late in autumn, when the Virginia creeper, which covers the

ancient walls, has turned to brilliant red. Other buildings under

similar conditions may look as lovely, but we can recollect nothing to

equal this old farmstead in its clinging robes of gold and scarlet.

There are many interesting old inns in this part of Somersetshire,

notably in the town of Yeovil, where the "George" and "Angel" are

_vis-a-vis_, and can compare notes as to whose recollections go back the

farthest. The wide open fireplaces and mullioned windows of the former

are of the time of Elizabeth or earlier, but the stone Gothic arched

doorway and traceried windows of the latter can go a century better. But

important as they both have been in their day, neither has had the luck

or energy to keep pace with the times sufficiently to hold younger

generations of inns subservient. The old "Green Dragon" at Combe St.

Nicholas, near Ilminster, possessed a remarkable carved oak settle in

its bar-parlour. It was elaborately carved, the back being lined with

the graceful linen-fold panels. At the arm or corner were two figures,

one suspended over the other, the upper one representing a bishop in the

act of preaching. They were known as "the parson and clerk"; but when we

saw the settle the "parson" was missing, having mysteriously disappeared

some time before. The "clerk" was so worn out, having occupied his post

so for centuries, that his features were scarcely recognisable; but who

can wonder when he had been preached to for close upon four hundred

years! To be "overlooked" in remote parts of Somersetshire means certain

misfortune. Many a poor unoffending old woman, suspected of

"overlooking" people, has been knocked on the head that her blood might

be "drawn" to counteract the spell. Probably the parson's attitude

aroused suspicion, and he was quietly put away; but as his head had not

been broken neither had the spell, and the last we heard of the "Green

Dragon" was that it had been burnt down.

The old landlady we remember had a firm belief that the death of one of

her sons was foretold by a death's-head moth flying in at the window and

settling on his forehead when he was asleep in his cradle. The child, a

beautiful boy, then in perfect health, was doomed, and her eldest son

immediately set forth with his gun to shoot the first bird he chanced to

see, to break the spell. However, that night the child died; and upon

the wall in a glass case was the stuffed bird as well as the moth, a

melancholy memento of the tragedy of thirty years ago.