Nooks and Corners of Old England Part 11

Upon the road to Barnsley there is little to delay us until we come to a turning to the right a couple of miles or so to the south of the town.

After the continual chimney-shafts the little village of Worsborough is refres.h.i.+ng. The church has many points of interest. The entrance porch has a fine oak ceiling with carved bosses, and the original oak door is decorated with carved oak tracery. The most interesting thing within is the monument to Sir Roger Rockley, a sixteenth-century knight whose effigy in armour lies beneath a canopy supported by columns very much resembling a four-poster of the time of Henry VII. The similarity is heightened by the fact that the tomb is entirely of carved oak, painted and gilded. The bed, however, has two divisions, and beneath the rec.u.mbent wooden effigy of Sir Roger with staring white eyes, is the gruesome figure of a skeleton in a shroud, also made more startling by its colouring. How the juvenile Worsboroughites must dread this spectre, for its position in the church is conspicuous! There is a bra.s.s to Thomas Edmunds, secretary to William, Earl of Strafford, who lived in the manor-house close by, a plain stone gabled house with two wings and a small central projection. It is a gloomy looking place, and once possessed some gloomy relics of the martyr king, including the stool upon which he knelt on Whitehall scaffold. These relics belonged to Sir Thomas Herbert, the close attendant upon Charles during the later days of his imprisonment, and descended to the Edmunds family by the marriage of his widow with Henry Edmunds of Worsborough.[31] The park presumably has become public property, and the road running through it is much patronised by the black-faced gentlemen of the neighbouring collieries.

Nor are the ladies of the mining districts picturesque, although they seem to affect the costume of the dames of old Peru by showing scarcely more than an eye beneath their shawls.

Some three miles to the west of Worsborough is Wentworth Castle (a successor to the older castle, the remains of which stood on the high ground above), called by some Stainborough Hall to distinguish it from Wentworth Woodhouse. The historic house stands high, commanding fine views, but marred by mining chimney-shafts on the adjacent hills. The exterior of the mansion is cla.s.sic and formal, and exteriorly there is little older than the time of George I.; the interior, however, takes us back another century or more, and the panelled porters' hall and carved black oak staircase were old when powdered wigs were introduced. In Queen Anne's State rooms and in the cosy ante-chambers there are rich tapestries, wonderful old cabinets, and costly china, reminding one of the treasures of Holland House. But the finest room is the picture gallery, one hundred and eighty feet in length and twenty-four feet in breadth, and very lofty. The ceiling represents the sky with large gold stars, and has a curious effect of making it appear much higher than it really is. It belongs to the time of the second Earl of Strafford, who built all this part of the house. The unfortunate first earl looks down from the wall with dark melancholy eyes: a face full of character and determination, and different vastly from the dreamy weakness revealed in the profile of the sovereign who cut his head off. The despotic ruler of Ireland is said to walk the chambers of the castle with his head under his arm, which, strangely enough, seems to be the fas.h.i.+on with decapitated ghosts; and Strafford is a busy ghost, for he has to divide his haunting among two other mansions, Wentworth Woodhouse and Temple Newsam. Here is Oliver, too, who made as great a mistake as Charles did by resorting to the axe. The young Earl of Pembroke looks handsome in his long fair ringlets; and so does the youthful Henrietta, Baroness Wentworth (a pretty childish figure fondling a dog), whose end was every way as tragic as her kinsman's.

Many of the bedrooms are named after birds and flowers, a pretty idea that we have not met elsewhere. The colour blue predominates in those we call to mind, namely, the "Blue-t.i.t room," the "Kingfisher room," the "Peac.o.c.k room," the "Cornflower room," and the "Forget-me-not room."

Just outside the park, near a house that was formerly kept as a menagerie, is a comfortable old-fas.h.i.+oned inn, the "Strafford Arms,"

the landlord of which was butler to two generations of the Vernon-Wentworths, and in consequence he is quite an authority on genealogical matters; and where his memory does not serve, has Debrett handy at his elbow. Being a Somersets.h.i.+re man he has brought the hospitality of the western counties with him to the northern heights. He points with pride to the cricket-ground behind the inn, the finest "pitch" in Yorks.h.i.+re.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMB, DARFIELD CHURCH.]

Let us avoid the town of Barnsley and turn eastwards towards Darfield, whose interest is centred in its church. The ceilings of the aisles, presumably like the picture gallery at Wentworth Castle, are supposed to represent the heavens, but the colour is inclined to be sea-green, and the clouds and stars are feathery. A fine Perpendicular font is surmounted by an elaborate Jacobean cover; opposite, at the east end of the church, is a fine but rather dilapidated tomb of a fourteenth-century knight and his dame, and the effigy of the latter gives a good idea of the costume of Richard II.'s time. Upon a wooden stand close by there is a chained Bible, and the support looks so light that one would think the whole could be carried off bodily, until one tries its prodigious weight.

Another tomb, of the Willoughbys of Parham, bears upon it some strange devices, including an owl with a crown upon its head. The seventeenth-century oak pews and some earlier ones with carved bench-ends, add considerably to the interest of the interior. The ancient coffer in the vestry, as well as a carved oak chest and chairs, must not pa.s.s unnoticed.

Barnborough to the east, and Great Houghton to the north-east, are both famous in their way; the former for a traditional fight between a man and a wild cat, which for ferocity knocked points off the Kilkenny record. The Hall was once the property of Sir Thomas More (another of those beheaded martyrs who are doomed to walk the earth with their heads under their arms), and contains a "priest's hole," which, had it existed in the Chancellor's day, might have tempted him to try and save his life. Great Houghton Hall, the ancient seat of the Roders (a bra.s.s to whom may be seen in Darfield church), is now an inn, indeed has been an inn for over half a century. Once having been a stately mansion, it has an air of mystery and romance; and there are rumours that before it lost caste, in the transition stage between private and public life, one of its chambers remained draped in black, in mourning for the Earl of Strafford's beheading on Tower Hill in 1641. It is a huge building of many mullioned windows and pinnacled gables; but within the last two years the upper part of the big bays of the front have been destroyed, and a verandah introduced which spoils this side, and whoever planned this alteration can have had but little reverence for ancient buildings.

The rooms on the ground floor are mostly bare; but ascending a wide circular stone staircase, with carved oak arches overhead, there are pleasant surprises in store. You step into the s.p.a.cious "Picture gallery," devoid of ancestral portraits truly, but with panelled walls and Tudor doorways. The mansion was stripped of its furniture over a century and a half ago, but there are chairs of the Chippendale period to compensate, and a great wardrobe of the Stuart period too big presumably to get outside. Two bedrooms are panelled from floor to ceiling and have fine overmantels, one of which has painted panels depicting "Life" and "Death." But a great portion of the house is dilapidated, and to see its ornamental plaster ceilings one would have to risk disappearing through the floors below, like the demon in the pantomime. Mine host of the "Old Hall Inn" is genuinely sympathetic, and is quite of the opinion that the oak fittings that have been removed would look best in their original position; and this is only natural, for he has lived there all his life, and his mother was born in the house; and he proudly points at the Jacobean pew in the adjacent church where as a child he sat awestruck, holding his grandfather's hand while the good old gentleman took his forty winks. The little church in its cabbage-grown enclosure is quite an untouched gem, with formal array of seventeenth-century pews with k.n.o.bby ends, a fine carved oak pulpit and sounding-board. Its exterior is non-ecclesiastical in appearance, with rounded stone bal.u.s.trade ornamentation. While photographing the building an interested party observed that he had lived at Houghton all his life, but had never observed there was a door on that side,--a proof that residents in a place rarely see the most familiar objects. Nevertheless, he discovered the door of the "Old Hall," and entered.

Pontefract Castle, so rich in historical a.s.sociations, is disappointing, because there is so little of it left. It is difficult in these fragmentary but ponderous walls to imagine the fortress as it appeared in the days of Elizabeth. From an ancient print of that time it looks like a fortified city, with curious pinnacles and turrets upon its many towers. The great round towers of the keep had upon the summit quite a collection, like intermediate p.a.w.ns and castles from a chessboard. The curtain walls connected seven round towers, and there were a mult.i.tude of square towers within. There is something very suggestive of the Duncan-Macbeth stronghold in the narrow stairway between those giant rounded towers. It is like a tomb, and one shudders at the thought of the "narrow damp chambers" in the thickness of the wall of the Red Tower, where tradition says King Richard II. was done to death. By the irony of fate it was the lot of many proud barons during some part of their career to occupy the least desirable apartment of their castles; and thus it was with Edward II.'s cousin, Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, who from his own dungeon was brought forth to be beheaded. In a garden near the highwayman's resort, Ferrybridge, above Pontefract, may be seen a stone coffin which was dug up in a field on the outskirts of the castle, and supposed to be that of the unfortunate earl. At Pontefract, too, Lord Rivers, Sir Thomas Vaughan, Sir Richard Grey, and others were hurried into another world by the Protector Richard; so altogether the castle holds a good record for deeds of darkness, and the creepy feeling one has in that narrow stairway between those ma.s.sive walls is fully justified by past events. The old castle held out stoutly for the king in the Civil Wars. For many months, in 1645, it stood a desperate siege by Fairfax and General Poyntz before the garrison capitulated. Three years later it was captured again for the Royalists by Colonel Morrice, and held with great gallantry against General Lambert even after the execution of Charles I. In the March following, the stronghold surrendered, saving Morrice and five others who had not shown mercy to Colonel Rainsborough when he fell into their hands. These six had the option of escaping if they could within a week. "The garrison," says Lord Clarendon, "made several sallies to effect the desired escape, in one of which Morrice and another escaped; in another, two more got away; and when the six days were expired and the other two remained in the castle, their friends concealed them so effectually, with a stock of provisions for a month, that rendering the castle and a.s.suring Lambert that the six were all gone, and he was unable to find them after the most diligent search, and had dismantled the castle, they at length got off also." There are still some small chambers hewn out of the solid rock on which the castle is built, reached by a subterranean pa.s.sage on the north side; and perhaps here was the successful lurking-place. Colonel Morrice and his companion, Cornet Blackburn, were afterwards captured in disguise at Lancaster.

In the pleasure gardens of to-day, with various inscription boards specifying the position of the Clifford Tower, Gascoyne's Tower, the King's Tower, and so forth, we get but a hazy idea of this once practically impregnable fortress, covering an area of seven acres.

Concerning Richard II.'s death, it is doubtful whether the truth will ever be arrived at. The story that he escaped, and died nineteen years afterwards in Scotland, is less likely than the supposition that he died from the horrors of starvation; on the other hand, the story of the attack by Sir Piers Exton's a.s.sa.s.sins is almost strengthened by the evidence of a seventeenth-century tourist, who, prior to its destruction in the Civil War, records: "The highest of the seven towers is the Round Tower, in which that unfortunate prince was enforced to flee round a poste till his barbarous butchers inhumanly deprived him of life. _Upon that poste the cruell hackings and fierce blowes doe still remaine._"

Mr. Andrew Lang perhaps can solve this historic mystery; or perhaps he has already done so? New Hall, close at hand, must have been a grand old house; but it is now roofless, and crumbling to decay. It is a picturesque late-Tudor mansion, with a profusion of mullioned windows and a central bay. The little gla.s.s that remains only adds to its forlorn appearance.

Ferrybridge and Brotherton both have an old-world look. The latter place is famous for the battle fought there between Yorkists and Lancastrians; and as the birthplace of Thomas de Brotherton, the fifth son of King Edward I. The old inns of Ferrybridge recall the prosperous coaching days; but the revival of business on the road which has been brought about by cycle and motor, will have but little effect on this village with a past. The hostelry by the fine stone bridge that gives the place its name, has a past connected with notorious gentlemen of the road, and an entry in an old account-book runs as follows: "A traveller in a gold-laced coat ordered and drank two bottles of wine--doubtless mischief to-night, for the traveller, methinks, is that villain d.i.c.k Turpyn." How vividly this recalls that excellent picture by Seymour Lucas, R.A., where a landlord of the Joe Willet type is eyeing, between the whiffs from his long churchwarden, a suspicious guest, who having tasted mine host's vintage has dropped asleep, regardless of the fact that his brace of flintlocks are conspicuously visible.

Between here and Leeds are two fine mansions, Ledston Hall and Kippax Park. The former is a very uncommon type of Elizabethan architecture, almost un-English in character. It is a stone-built house of the time of James I., with Dutch-like gables and narrow square towers. In the reign of Charles I. it belonged to Thomas, Earl of Strafford; but his son, the second earl, sold the estate. Kippax in its way is original in construction, but savours somewhat of Strawberry Hill Gothic. The ancient family of Bland have been seated here since the time of Elizabeth, the direct male line, however, dying out in the middle of the eighteenth century. Sir Thomas Bland was one of the gallant Royalists who defended Pontefract Castle during the Civil War.

A few miles to the north-west is the grand old mansion, Temple Newsam.

Like Hatfield House, which in many respects it resembles, it is built of red-brick with stone coigns, and the time-toned warm colour is acceptable in this county of grey stone. It was built like many so-called Elizabethan houses in the reign of James I., and, like Castle Ashby, has around the three sides of the quadrangle a parapet of letters in open stone work which runs as follows: "All glory and praise be given to G.o.d the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost on high, peace on earth, goodwill towards men, honour and true allegiance to our gracious king, loving affections amongst his subjects, health and plenty within this house." The loyal sentiments are not those of Mary Queen of Scots'

husband, Lord Darnley, who was born in the earlier house, but of the builder, Sir Anthony Ingram, who bought the estate from the Duke of Lennox. Of all the s.p.a.cious rooms, the picture gallery is the finest.

It is over a hundred feet in length and contains a fine collection of old masters and some remarkable china. Albert Durer's hard and microscopic art is well represented, as well as the opposite extreme in Rembrandt's breadth of style. But the gem of all is a head by Reynolds (of, we think, a Lady Gordon), a picture that connoisseurs would rave about. A small picture of Thomas Ingram is almost identical with that of the Earl of Pembroke we have mentioned at Wentworth Castle. In one of the bedrooms (famous for their tapestry hangings and ancient beds) are full-length portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth, and James I., the first like the well-known portraits at Hardwick and Welbeck. On one of the staircases is an interesting picture of Henrietta, d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans, in a turban, with the favourite spaniel who appears in many of her portraits. She holds in her hand the picture of her lord and master, the duke who was so jealous of her. A new grand staircase with elaborately carved newels, after the style of that at Hatfield, has been added to the mansion recently, and harmonises admirably with its more ancient surroundings.

The park is fine and extensive, but beyond, the signs of the proximity of busy Leeds obtrude and spoil the scenery. We went from here to the undesirable locality of Hunslet in search of a place called Knowsthorpe Hall, but had some considerable difficulty in finding it, for n.o.body seemed to know it by that name. "You warnts the Island," observed a mining gentleman, a light dawning upon him. So we got nearer by inquiring for "the Island," but then the clue was lost. Thousands of factory hands were pouring out of a very unlikely looking locality, but n.o.body knew such a place. In desperation we plunged into a primitive coffee-stall, around which black bogies were sitting at their mid-day meal. One of them with more intelligence than the rest knew the place, but couldn't describe how to get to it. "Go up yon road," he said, "and ask for 'Whitakers.'" We followed the advice, and at the turning asked for 'Whitakers.' "Is it the dressmakers ye mean?" was the reply of a small boy to whom we put the question. "Yes," we said, in entire ignorance whether it was the dressmakers or the almanac people. But having got so far there were landmarks that did the rest, and presently a big entrance gate was seen with painted on its side-pillars, "Knowsthorpe Olde Hall."

[Ill.u.s.tration: GATEWAY, KNOWSTHORPE HALL.]

But there was no Island, not even a moat. The smoke of Leeds has given the stone walls a coat of black, but otherwise it is not unpicturesque, and would be more so if this original gateway remained. Within the last two years this has been removed as well as the steps leading down from the terrace. The gateway was called the "Stone Chairs," because of the niches or seats on either side of it. It is now, we understand, at h.o.a.re Cross, near Burton-on-Trent. There is much oak within the house, and one panelled room has a very fine carved mantelpiece. The oak staircase, too, is graceful as well as uncommon in design. Close against one side of the house is a stone archway with sculptured figures of the time of James I. on either side of it, and the old lady in charge related the history of this happy pair, how the gentleman had wooed the damsel (a Maynard), but as he had not been to the wars she would have nothing to say to him. Consequently he buckled on his sword and engaged in the nearest battle; and to prove his valour, brought back with him as a love-token the arm which he had lost,--a statement sounding somewhat contradictory. Naturally after that she fell into his--other arm, and accepted him on the spot. This daughter of Mars, of course, now "revisits the glimpses of the moon" with her lover's arm, not around her waist in the ordinary fas.h.i.+on, but in her hand; and those who doubt the story may see her effigy thus represented. But the dignity of this happy pair is somewhat marred, for the only use to which they are now put is to form a stately entrance to--a hen-coop!

There are some interesting old houses between Leeds and Otley, the "Low"

Halls of Rawdon and Yeadon, for instance. The former is a good Elizabethan house, and contains some interesting rooms. Low Hall, Yeadon, dates farther back, though its chief characteristics are of the same period. The interior is rich in ancient furniture, and there are some Knellers, which the artist is said to have painted on the spot. The saturnine features of the Merry Monarch are to be seen on one side of the huge Tudor fireplace, and near at hand Nell Gwyn, probably a more correct likeness than a flattering one. There are ancient cabinets, chests, and tables contemporary with the house; and what is more interesting still, the cabinets and chests contain relics of Mary Queen of Scots, and the ruffs and collars that were fas.h.i.+onable three centuries ago. A gallery, wainscoted with large panels of a later period, extends the length of the house; and at the western extremity of it a bedroom, also panelled, possesses a hiding-place or secret cupboard which it would baffle the most persevering to discover, but when the panel is pushed aside, the trick of it looks so very simple. Of the Stuart relics we shall speak presently in referring to Mary Queen of Scots' imprisonment at Bolton Castle.

Pa.s.sing through Guiseley, which is situated in the midst of worsted mills, with the stocks by a lamp-post in the middle of the street as if they were a present-day necessity, you climb a hill and then come suddenly upon a lovely view, with Otley, "the Switzerland of Yorks.h.i.+re,"

lying in the Wharfe valley below. The Chevin Hill is over nine hundred feet in height, and from it you are supposed to see York Cathedral on one side and the mountains of Westmoreland on the other. As the Chevin is the lion of the place, it is the duty of visitors to go to the top.

Alpine climbers may enjoy this sort of task, but there are some people who do not even wish to say that they have seen a city some six-and-twenty miles away; but such as these who go to Otley and do not inconvenience themselves would be looked upon by the Otleyites with pity. But there is another thing which the town is proud of too, and that is its lofty Maypole, which, standing in a firm socket of stone, is guarded round by iron rails. There are far more Maypoles in Yorks.h.i.+re than in any other county, and it is pleasing to find the people are thus conservative; though truly when they get blown down, they don't often trouble themselves enough to put them up again. There are some interesting monuments in the church, one on the right of the chancel to General Fairfax's grandparents, two stately rec.u.mbent effigies of James I.'s time. There are mural monuments to the Fawkeses of Farnley Hall (a much altered Elizabethan mansion, containing Cromwellian relics: the Lord Protector's hat, sword, and watch, and Fairfax's drum) and a Vavasour of Weston Hall, who was a philanthropist in his way, for he was buried in wool to promote the local trade. He is represented on his monument neatly packed, and looks so cosy that the bas-relief is suggestive of the undertaker's advertis.e.m.e.nt, "Why live and be wretched when you can be buried comfortably for five pound ten?" In the vestry there is a splendid set of old oak chairs of which the verger is not a little proud.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEATHLEY STOCKS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STOCKS AT WESTON.]

A pleasant meadow walk by the riverside leads to Leathley, which has a Norman church, but can scarcely be called a village, for there is no inn. A formidable pair of stocks stand ready by the churchyard; but as nothing stronger than milk can be procured, they have not been worn out with too much work. Again, at Weston on the other side of the Wharfe river we come across the roadside stocks (like the usual Yorks.h.i.+re type, with two uprights of stone) by the spreading roots of an ancient tree.

Weston Hall is a long low Tudor building, with at one end a broad bay of three storeys. An old banqueting-house in the grounds is ornamented with s.h.i.+elds of arms; and formerly the windows of it were full of heraldic stained gla.s.s, some of which is now in the windows of the Hall.

From here we went northwards in search of Swinsty Hall, over a lonely moorland district. The road goes up and up until you are not surprised when you come to a signpost pointing to "To Snowdon." To the left, you are told, leads to "Blubberhouses," wherever that may be. For preference we chose the latter road, and soon got completely lost in the wilds. The only sign of civilisation was a barn, where we had the fortune to find an old man who presumably spoke the pure dialect, for we couldn't make head or tail of it. "Swinsty--ai, you go on ter road until it is," was the direction he gave, and we went on and until it _wasn't_. At length, however, after plodding knee deep in marshy land and saturated heather, we found the object of our search perched in a lonely meadow above a wide stretch of water. It looked as if it had a gloomy history; and no wonder that some of the upper rooms are held in awe, for there the ghost of a person with the unromantic name of Robinson is said to count over his ill-gotten gains, which he brought down from London in waggons when the Plague of 1666 was raging. He had the good fortune to escape contamination, and once back with his plundered wealth he meant to have what nowadays we call "a good time"; but the story has a moral, for it got winded abroad how he got his gold, and n.o.body would have anything to do with him or his money, and by the irony of fate he had to spend the rest of his days in trying to wash away the germs of infection.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SWINSTY HALL.]

The hall is entered through a s.p.a.cious porch in the roof of which is hung an enormous bell. The room you enter is by no means gloomy. A carved oak staircase with bal.u.s.trade of peculiar form leads to other rooms panelled to the ceiling, with fine overmantels. The leads of the small window-panes are of fanciful design; one bears the date 1627 and the initials I. W. H., and these occur again with the date 1639 in some oak carving in one of the bedrooms. A "well" stone staircase between rough-hewn stone walls leads up to the attics, which have open timber roofs with semicircular span to the main beams. They look as if they were but recently put up, so fresh does the wood look, and the pegs that join the timbers still protrude as if they had just been hammered in, and awaited the workman's axe to cut them level. A word upon the subject of these old roofs may not be out of place. When old houses are restored, of course it is the proper thing to open out an original timber roof where the original hall or chamber has been divided and part.i.tioned, but in so many instances nowadays flat ceilings are removed to show the open timbers which were _never intended to be seen_. Bedrooms are thus made cold and bare, with not nearly enough protection from the draughts from the tiles. The attics at Swinsty are a proof of this, there being no great distance between the floor and the roof. Another thing, if the floors were done away with here, Mr.

Robinson would have to come down a storey, and that is not desirable.

On the way to Swinsty, by the bye, a ruinous house is pa.s.sed on the right about midway between there and Otley. It is of no great architectural interest, but is singular in construction, having a projecting turret containing a spiral staircase at the back, which presumably was the only entrance. It is lofty, and has square windows with a bay in the centre, but it is now only a sh.e.l.l. Mr. Ingram in his _Haunted Homes_ relates that Dob Park Lodge, as the place is called, is reputed to be haunted by a huge black dog who has the power of speech, and is said to watch over a hidden treasure in the vaults, like the dog with saucer eyes in Hans Andersen. The entrance to these is locally supposed to be somewhere at the foot of the winding stair, and so far only one person has ventured to explore the depths; but when he did, he actually saw a great chest of gold!--but then we must take into account that he was very drunk. Fewston village, not far from Swinsty, is picturesquely situated on a knoll above the lake or reservoir; but the church, mostly of William III.'s time, has nothing of interest save a few stalls and a pretty little font cover. The wooden spiked altar rails might almost be the palings of a suburban garden, whilst the crude square panes of red and blue of the chancel windows should be anywhere but in a church.

To the north-east is "Catch'em Corner"; but it is uncertain what is to be caught except a chill, for the position is very bleak. Striking northwards we get into the delightful Nidd valley. To the right lies Ripley, famous for the rood screen, the ancient gla.s.s, and Edwardian tomb of the Ingilbys of the castle, which Tudor structure surrendered to the Parliament a day or so before Marston Moor was fought. Here Cromwell is said to have sat up all night before the battle, hob-a-n.o.b with his unwilling hostess.

Going northwards from Fewston, the prettiest part of the road to Pateley is struck near the village of Dacre. The romantic rocks and glens hereabouts are famous, and much frequented by tourists, consequently sixpences and threepences have to be frequently disbursed. The price is cheap enough, but the romance is spoiled. Hack Fall, near Masham, to the north-east, is as lovely a spot as one could wish to see, but there are too many signs of civilisation about. It is like taming a lion. The guide-book tells you to go along until you get to a "refreshment house," which almost reads like an advertis.e.m.e.nt in disguise.

There is a sculptured Saxon cross in Masham churchyard, and the church contains a fine monument to the Wyvells of Burton Constable manor, an old house near Finghall, to the north-west, where members of the family are also buried. The famous Jervaulx Abbey ruins nestle in a hollow on the right of the road to Middleham. When close upon it we asked the way of a yokel, but he shook his head; and then it dawned upon him what we meant: "It's Jarvey ye warnt," he said, and pointed straight ahead.

Scott's worthy, Prior Aylmer, would surely beam with joy at the tender care bestowed upon the remains of the establishment over which he once presided; and the park might grace the finest modern dwelling, judging by the well-kept lawns and walks; but all this trimness looks less natural to a ruin than the more rustic surroundings of Easby, for example. The remains of the Cistercian monastery are rather fragmentary, consisting mainly of some graceful octagonal pillars and a row of lofty lancet windows in the wall of the refectory, and some round-headed arches of the chapter-house. It was destroyed in 1539, and the beautiful screen of the church carried off to Aysgarth, where it may now be seen.

Continuing along the road to Middleham, Danby Hall, the ancient seat of the Scropes, is seen in the distance on the right; but the river intervenes, and one has to go beyond East Witton before a crossing can be obtained. This village, built on either side of a wide green, has nothing out of the common except its Maypole and its very conspicuous Blue Lion rampant. A blue lion is a little change after the hackneyed red, and the beast looks proud of his originality. Witton probably was much prettier before the jubilee celebration of George III.'s reign, when the old church and most of the old houses were pulled down.

By the old grey bridge (with the pillar of a sundial in the centre, dated 1674) the Cover and Yore Rivers join hands with not a little fuss, like the enthusiasm of a new-made friends.h.i.+p. The road to Danby Hall runs level with the river then branches to the left. The mansion is Elizabethan; but the stone bal.u.s.trade was added in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the small cupola-crowned towers were added subsequently. The oldest part is a square tower to the north-east, where, in the time of religious persecution, there was a small oratory or chapel for secret services. In the heraldic gla.s.s of the windows the ancient family of Scrope may be traced from Lord Scrope who fought at Flodden up to the present day, and their history may be followed by the portraits of the various generations on the walls. A curious discovery was made here in the early part of the last century. One of the chimneys in a stack of four could not be accounted for, and a plummet of lead was dropped down each of them, three of which found an outlet but the fourth could not be found. To get at the bottom of the mystery, a not too bulky party was lowered down, and he found himself in a small chamber full of long cut-and-thrust swords, flintlock pistols, and the ancient saddlery of untanned leather for a troop of fifty horse. Not much value was set upon such things in those days, so the harness was put to good account and utilised for cart-horse gear upon the farm. But the dispersal of the ancient weapons has a history too, for at the time that England was trembling with the fear of an invasion from the dreaded "Boney," a cottage caught light one night on one of the surrounding hills; and this being taken as a signal of alarm, the beacon on top of Penhill was fired. The terror-stricken villagers rushed everywhere for weapons, but none could be provided, and the good squire of Danby speedily distributed the secret store which had been hidden in the house for the Jacobite insurrection of 1715. In time the yokels returned, and there was a week's rejoicing and merry-making that the blazing beacon after all had only proved a flash in the pan. The pistols and swords, however, were not returned save one, which may still be seen with the armourer's marks on the blade, "Shotley" on one side and "Bridge" on the other.[32] Another has found its way into the little museum at Bolton Castle. In demolis.h.i.+ng a cottage at Middleham it was discovered up in the thatch roof, where it was put, perhaps, pending another alarm. The hiding-place was converted into a butler's room by Major Scrope's grandfather.

Among the portraits are some good Lelys, including two of Sir Carr Scrope who was so enamoured of the Court physician's daughter.[33]

Another Lely of a handsome girl is said to represent one of the Royalist Stricklands of Sizergh. Above the black oak staircase of James I.'s time hangs a rare portrait of Mary of Modena; for one seldom sees her when the beauty of youth had departed, for naturally she did not like to be handed thus down to posterity. The queen looks sour here, which tallies with the accounts we have of her in later life; but truly she had cause enough to make her sour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MIDDLEHAM CASTLE.]

From the Yore River the ground ascends to Middleham, now only a sleepy looking village but called a "town." Above the roof-tops at the summit of the hill stands the mediaeval castle where resided in great pomp that turbulent n.o.ble, Warwick the "kingmaker." Here it was that he imprisoned Edward IV., the monarch he had helped to put upon the throne, for daring to marry the widowed daughter of Sir Richard Woodville in preference to a Nevill. When, the year after reinstating Henry VI. for a brief s.p.a.ce, the great feudal baron ended his career on Barnet battlefield, his castle at Middleham was handed over by Edward to his brother Richard, who had also a claim upon it by his marriage with the "kingmaker's" daughter. Here "Crookback," or rather "Crouchback," was living before he usurped the Crown in 1483; and here his son the young Prince Edward died upon the first anniversary, as a providential punishment for the death of his little cousins in the Tower. Richard, by the way, is said to have had another natural son who lived into the reign of Edward VI. and died in a small house on the Eastwell estate near Wye in Kent. Richard Plantagenet's death is duly recorded in the parish register, distinguished by the mark of a V, which distinguishes other entries of those of n.o.ble birth, and a plain tomb in the chancel is supposed to be his place of interment. Until an old man he preserved his incognito, when Sir Thomas Moyle discovered that a mason at work upon his house was none other than a king's son. His youth had been spent under charge of a schoolmaster, who had taken him to Bosworth field and introduced him into Richard's tent. The king received him in his arms and told him he was his father, and if he survived the battle he would acknowledge him to be his son; but if fortune should go against him, he should on no account reveal who he was. On the following day in entering Leicester a naked figure lying across a horse's back was pointed out to him as the same great person whose star and gaiter had inspired him with awe.

The walls of the Norman castle keep are of immense thickness, and protected without by others almost as formidable of a later date. The great hall was on the first floor, and the tower where little Edward Plantagenet was born (the Red Tower) at the south-west corner; but tradition hasn't kept alive much to carry the imagination back to the time when the powerful Nevill reigned here in his glory. The escape of Edward IV. has been made realistic in the immortal bard's _King Henry VI._, and Scene v. Part iii. might be read in less romantic spots than in Wensleydale, with this grand old ruin standing out in the distance like one of Dore's castles. In this case, distance "lends enchantment,"

as Middleham itself is by no means lovely. The ancient market-cross would look far less commonplace and tomb-like were the top of it again knocked off. The site of the swine market bears the cognosance of "Crouchback," which is scarcely a compliment to his memory; but this antique monument is put vastly in the shade by a jubilee fountain, the only up-to-date thing in the place, and quite out of harmony with the ring where bulls were baited within living memory.

In Spennithorne church, near Middleham, there is an ancient altar-tomb of John Fitz-Randolph, of the family of the early lords of the castle before the Nevills became possessed of it. Along the font are several coloured s.h.i.+elds of arms of the various families with whom they intermarried. The nave of the church has an odd appearance, as the north and south aisles are separated by a series of distinct arches, the latter Early English, the former pure Norman. A very interesting thirteenth-century screen was originally at Jervaulx Abbey. On the west wall there is a large fresco of Father Time, dating perhaps two hundred years later. The rector must be commended for hanging in his church a brief summary of the points of interest, and many might follow this laudable example.

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUEEN'S GAP, LEYBURN "SHAWL."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOLTON CASTLE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BELLERBY OLD HALL.]

Leyburn stands high among the hills, and must have been a picturesque old market-place before the ancient town-hall, market-cross, and two stately elms were removed. The great wide street has now a bare and by no means attractive appearance, and were it not for the lovely surroundings it would not form so popular a centre for exploring. The "Shawl," the huge natural terrace, on a rocky base high up above the tree-tops of the woods below, is, of course, its great feature, and a more delightful walk could not be found in England, with the softest turf to walk upon and the glorious panorama in front. Conspicuous among the heights is flat-topped Penhill, standing boldly out against the wide expanse of dale, upon whose crest are the ruins of a chapel of the old Knights Templars. A gap in the rock, with a path running westwards through the woods, is known as "Queen's Gap," for Mary Queen of Scots when she fled from Bolton Castle got thus far when she was overtaken in attempting to urge her horse through the narrow ravine. In consequence of this, the "Shawl" locally is said to derive its name from the shawl the prisoner dropped upon the way, giving her pursuers a clue; which on the face of it is ridiculous, as the name is derived either from the Saxon _Sholl_ or Scandinavian _Schall_. Bolton is some five miles away to the west, and the poor captive was to have gone northwards to Richmond and thence to her native land; and at Bellerby, between Richmond and Leyburn, a halt was to have been made at the Hall, the seat of the Royalist family of Scott, where a company of Scots guards was stationed ready to receive her. The old Hall still stands on the left-hand side of the village green as you enter, and looks as if it had a history.

At Bolton the window may be seen from which she was lowered to the ground, and one can trace the way she took in a north-easterly direction across the rocky bed of the rus.h.i.+ng stream into the woods below the "Shawl." The window from which she escaped is the upper one of the three running horizontally with the south-western tower. There is another window to the prison-room which looks into the inner courtyard. The apartment is grim and bare, with a small fireplace, and steps leading down into a larger bare apartment, once the "drawing-room." Though externally the castle is not so picturesque as Middleham, it is much more perfect and interesting. The hooded stone fireplaces remain in the walls, and various rooms can be located, from the hall and chapel to the vault-like stables in the bas.e.m.e.nt. The well, too, is perfect, with scooped-out wall to the upper chambers, not forgetting the awful dungeon in the solid rock. A large apartment with wide Tudor fireplace has been converted into a museum, and the curiosities are of a varied nature, from c.o.c.king spurs and boxing-gloves from the sporting centres of Leyburn and Middleham to the bull-fight banderillos of Spain. There is quite an a.s.sortment of weird-looking instruments of torture, which, after all, are only toasting-dogs, huge c.u.mbrous things like antediluvian insects or much magnified microbes. How is it these appurtenances of domestic comfort have entirely died out like the now extinct warming-pan? But this museum can no way be compared with Mr.

Home's wonderful collections at Leyburn. Here you can learn something about everything, for the kindly proprietor of the museum takes a pride in describing his curios. Those who have been to Middleham and seen the castle immortalised by Shakespere, may here study Edward IV.'s fair hair. As rare a curiosity is a valentine of the time of William III.

From the treasures of Egyptian tombs you skip to the first invented matches; from Babylonian inscriptions to early-Victorian samplers. And the learned antiquarian relates how he was educated in the old Yore mill at Aysgarth by old John Drummond, the grandson of the Jacobite Earl of Perth, who had to hide himself in a farm in Bishopdale (How Rig) for his hand in the '45, when the Scotch estates were confiscated for aiding the cause of the Bonnie Prince. Were it not for Mr. Home's interest in old-time customs, the bull-ring in the market-place would have disappeared, for the socket was nearly worn through when he had it repaired. He relates how at the last bull-baiting the infuriated beast got away and sent the whole sportsmen flying, and at length was shot in Wensley village.

Wensley nestles in the valley, surrounded by hills. The interior of the church is rich in carvings from the ruinous abbey of Easby, near Richmond. The stalls from Easby have at the ends exceptionally bold and elaborate carvings with heraldic s.h.i.+elds and arms, dating from the days of Edward IV. A nearly life-size bra.s.s, of the third Edward's time, is of its kind one of the finest in England,--an ecclesiastic in robes, with crossed hands pointing downwards. By the entrance door is a quaint old poor-box; but what first strikes the eye as you enter, is the parclose screen from Easby Abbey, which, ill fitting its confined s.p.a.ce, partially blocks the windows; but the effect of the elaborate carving against the tracery is very striking. It is early-Tudor in date, and belonged to the Scrope chantry, whose arms appear upon it, with those of Fitz-Hugh, Marmion, and other n.o.ble families. Within this screen, evidently a good many years later, a manorial pew was made, the side of which is within the parclose. To amalgamate the two, the latter has been somewhat mangled, doors having been added, with a pendant aloft to balance other large hollow pendants in the various arches. Unfortunately the whole has been painted with a dull grey and grained, a feeble attempt to represent marble, and parts of it are also gilt. A fixed settle has been added to the interior, so unless carefully examined it is difficult to detect how the parclose and pew were made into one. The two-decker pulpit and the wide old-fas.h.i.+oned pews lined with faded green baize and pink rep, bring us back to more modern times; but one would be loath to see them removed if restoration funds were lavish. Beneath the great manorial pew lie at rest the remains of the daughter of the thirteenth Lord Scrope, who by marriage with the first Duke of Bolton brought the castle into the Poulett family: until then the Scropes had held possession through marriage with an heiress of the Nevills. The third wife of Charles Poulett, second Duke of Bolton, was Henrietta Crofts, the daughter of the Duke of Monmouth and Eleanor Needham.[34]