YORKSHIRE
VALES AND WOLDS

By the Same Author

YORKSHIRE

COAST AND MOORLAND SCENES

SECOND EDITION

CONTAINING 31 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR. SQUARE DEMY 8vo., CLOTH, GILT TOP. PRICE 7s. 6d. NET

The Yorkshire Post says: ‘All lovers of Yorkshire scenery, and especially coast scenery, will welcome Mr. Gordon Home’s “Yorkshire Coast and Moorland Scenes.”... The illustrations, as we have said, are wonderful examples of colour printing, and many of the moorland scenes have been reproduced beautifully, especially the “Sunset from Danby Beacon,” which seems to have retained the Cleveland atmosphere in a remarkable manner.’

YORKSHIRE

DALES AND FELLS

CONTAINING 20 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR. SQUARE DEMY 8vo., CLOTH, GILT TOP. PRICE 7s. 6d. NET

The Literary World says: ‘We must say at once that Mr. Gordon Home’s “Dales and Fells” is just the book that was wanted. In it are reproductions in colour of twenty of his pictures. These are delightful, and, what is more, they combine with his letterpress in constituting a genuinely illustrative and artistically suggestive book.’

A. AND C. BLACK. SOHO SQUARE. LONDON, W.

YORK FROM THE MINSTER

The view is taken from the great central tower, whose parapet shows in the foreground with the roof of the nave and western towers beyond. Bootham Bar and part of the city wall are on the right, and between the towers can be seen the roofs of the Tudor building known as the King’s Manor.

Y O R K S H I R E
VALES AND WOLDS

PAINTED &
DESCRIBED
BY
GORDON HOME

PUBLISHED BY A. & C.
BLACK · LONDON · MCMVIII
TO
J. L. K.

Preface

In two previous books, entitled ‘Yorkshire Coast and Moorland Scenes’ and ‘Yorkshire Dales and Fells,’ I have described the northern half of the great county, and in this third volume I have in a similar manner dealt with the southern parts. The three books, therefore, complete a description of what has appealed to me as most notable in Yorkshire, on account of picturesqueness or association with historic events and great personages. Owing to the enormous area of the county and the treasures it contains, the task of selection has not been easy, and the work of exploring, note-taking, painting, and writing, has spread over some four years. I have endeavoured to quote only from the most reliable and authentic sources, and in doing so have avoided some errors which have reappeared several times in writings of the last twenty years. Should any inaccuracies be discovered, however, I shall be grateful to anyone who will point them out. To those who are not familiar with Yorkshire, I may mention that the places I have described are easily reached from the South, the journey to York from King’s Cross only taking three or four hours.

GORDON HOME

Reston House,
Epsom,
April, 1908.

Contents

List of Illustrations

[Sketch Map at End of Volume.]

CONCERNING THE WOLDS

CHAPTER I
CONCERNING THE WOLDS

On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity and a sparkle, not to be found in low lands. There may be no streams, perhaps not even a pond; you may find few large trees, and scarcely any parks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and yet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is exactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics are not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of windswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have resisted sun and storm for ages.

When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the Wolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with scarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air owing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to the whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes that for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots.

Unpleasant weather does prevail on this high ground; wet sea-mists sometimes hang there and obliterate every feature; the wind has a power of penetrating the heaviest coats, and the rain is often merciless; but all these things may be said of the Riviera, where one expects uninterrupted days of warm sunshine. Taken as a whole, there is a decided character about Wold weather conditions which appeals to all who belong to the eastern counties of England.

Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep and sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes its appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides break up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high country, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted with roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland of Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and lacerates the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flinty chalk have shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of the sea that the seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuries been becoming more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast of England, and if the present rate of encroachment along the low shores of Holderness is continued, this accentuation will become still more conspicuous.

The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedges that lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wide views to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of waving corn, of distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different in character to the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean. Here and there up against the sky-line appear long dark coppices, and half-hidden in a hollow, a purely agricultural hamlet nestles, its presence being only made apparent by the slender spire or grey tower peeping over the hedges. On a morning when the wind is marshalling the clouds in echelon across the sky, and belts of shadow go a-hunting across the swelling hill-sides, the scenery wears the aspect illustrated here; the sunny, smiling landscape I always expect on chalk uplands.

At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of the glacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thickness of the chalk is estimated to be from 1,000 to 1,500 feet, the greatest height above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills rise sharply from the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23 feet lower. On this western side of the plateau the views are extremely good, extending for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwent and the Ouse, having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaiety characterizing their youth in the dales, take their wandering and converging courses towards the Humber. In the distance you can distinguish a group of towers, a stately blue-grey outline cutting into the soft horizon. It is York Minster. To the north-west lie the beautifully wooded hills that rise above the Derwent, and hold in their embrace Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, and many a stately park.

Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama of the Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough to Helmsley far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies the circumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolated hillocks. The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearance everywhere, showing plainly the waterlogged condition of the land even at the present day, reminding us of the fact, discovered through the patient work of such geologists as Professor Kendall, that this level vale, surrounded on all sides by enclosing hills, was in prehistoric times a great lake overflowing into the Vale of York through the narrow valley where the ruins of Kirkham Abbey now stand. Towards Holderness, the inner curve of the crescent of chalk hills slopes gently downwards, a fact easily explained by the continuation of the cretaceous stratum beneath the boulder clay of the surface over the whole of the south-eastern corner of the county.

There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the Yorkshire Wolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As long ago as the middle of last century, when archæology was more of a pastime than a science, this corner of the country had become famous for the rich discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts. That the finds were made then, and not later, is a matter of some regret to the archæologists of to-day, for with the vastly improved knowledge of the methods and habits of Neolithic man existing to-day, more facts could, no doubt, have been discovered from the priceless material then brought to light. However that may be, sufficient careful exploration and classification has been done to show that a very large population must have dwelt on the Wolds in Neolithic times. Although it is almost impossible to assign any reason for the limitation, these early people appear to have chiefly occupied the area between Filey, Flamborough, Huggate, and Middleton-in-the-Wolds. Flint implements of this same New Stone Age have also been found in great abundance in the neighbourhoods of Malton, Pickering, and Scarborough.

It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Wolds made this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture of implements and weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, and no doubt the possession of this ample supply of offensive material would give the tribe in possession a power, wealth, and permanence sufficient to account for the wonderful evidences of a great and continuous population. In these districts it is only necessary to go slowly over a ploughed field after a period of heavy rain to be fairly certain to pick up a flint knife, a beautifully chipped arrow-head, or an implement of less obvious purpose, generally described as a scraper. In this way, apart from any finds in barrows, large collections have been formed, and the best of them have gradually left private hands and reached permanent resting-places in the museums at York, Great Driffield,[A] Leeds, Malton, and Scarborough. When bronze-using man reached these parts, the population appears to have continued to be large, for their remains have been discovered all over the Wolds; and when the Prehistoric Iron Age in turn succeeded that period, we find from the burial mounds that there were men still living here.

To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Man in this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quite the reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and the prehistoric sites generally—omitting lake dwellings—are almost invariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or only recently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely been disturbed since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mourned the loss of a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from their double or triple lines of defence.

In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible to forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the road will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the regular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough has never levelled—heaps of earth that have resisted the disintegrating action of weather and man for thousands of years. If such relics of the primitive inhabitants of this island fail to stir the imagination, then the mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mind rather than in the subject under discussion.

In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is the old-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in five directions, including the line to Great Driffield, which takes advantage of the valley leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnels its way through the high ground.

Choosing a day when the weather is in a congenial mood for rambling, lingering, or picnicking, or, in other words, when the sun is not too hot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start towards the hills. We go on wheels—it is unimportant how many, or to what they are attached—in order that the long stretches of white road may not become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed, and, glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along the steep

AMONG THE WOLDS

The white chalk roads, the flying cloud shadows, the huge fields, and the isolated coppices on the horizon, are typical of Wold scenery. The view is on the road from Sledmere to Helperthorpe.

ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spire high above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton, which is scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated from it only by the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-red brick, until their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretches the Vale of Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of the night’s mist. Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up, showing a wall chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with long lines of plantations appearing like dark green caterpillars crawling along the horizon.

The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stone spire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copied from Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of the arcades of the nave belongs to the same period.

Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the pretty village of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find the church standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire looking much like the one just left behind. The interior is interesting. The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with acorn knobs at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed red tiles. The late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the same period, and the massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden screens on the north side, are the most notable features. Under the tower—a position in churches where many interesting objects are often hidden up by curtains and woodwork—you find a quaint list of rules and fines for the bell-ringers, dating from nearly two centuries ago. Coming again into the sunny churchyard, we pass through the shadows cast by the gently moving foliage, and are soon climbing steadily into the smooth undulations of the uplands. At the turning to West Heslerton, a long entrenchment of prehistoric date stretches away on either side for two or three miles. In the seaward direction it goes up to Sherburn Wold, where you find an early camp, and where bronze daggers and celts have been discovered. At a meeting of four roads a little further on, we come to the head of the valley, appearing in the background of the illustration given here; and going to the east we reach Helperthorpe, one of the Wold villages adorned with a new church in the Decorated style. The village gained this ornament through the generosity of the present Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whose enthusiasm for church building is not confined to one place. In his own park at Sledmere, four miles to the south, at West Lutton, East Heslerton, and Wansford you may see other examples of modern church building, in which the architect has not been hampered by having to produce a certain accommodation at a minimum cost. And thus in these villages the fact of possessing a modern church does not detract from their charm; instead of doing so, the pilgrim in search of ecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to them.

As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe has a church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribed Saxon stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near Kirby Moorside. The inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in both churches; but while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect, this one has words missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggests that the half-destroyed words should read: ‘LIT OSCETVLI ARCHIEPISCOPI.’ Then, without any doubt, comes: ‘✠ IN: HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI: HEREBERTUS WINTONIE · HOC MONASTERIVM FECIT: IN TEMPORE REGN.’ Here the inscription suddenly stops and leaves us in ignorance as to in whose time the monastery was built. There seems little doubt at all that Father Haigh’s suggested completion of the sentence is correct, making it read: ‘IN TEMPORE REGN[ALDI REGIS SECUNDI],’ which would have just filled a complete line.

The coins of Regnald II. of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and it is known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of that name appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the first words of the inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placed earlier than the year 952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeeded Wulstan to the See of York. However, even in a neighbourhood so replete with antiquities this is sufficiently far back in the age of the Vikings to be of thrilling interest, for you must travel far to find another village church with an inscription carved nearly a thousand years ago, at a time when the English nation was still receiving its infusion of Scandinavian strength.

The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have the narrowness and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more than this it is unwise to say.

Not far from the village there are double entrenchments and tumuli, and many prehistoric remains have been brought to light. Among the Neolithic and bronze implements, a stag’s-horn pick was found, and in a barrow, where a skeleton of a young person buried in a contracted position was unearthed, a jet necklace consisting of 122 beads and a pendant was discovered.

And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadows sweep across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that the ground is more white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, and taking note of the different characteristics of each village. Not long ago the houses, even in the small towns, were thatched, and even now there are hamlets still cosy and picturesque under their mouse-coloured roofs; but in most instances you see a transition state of tiles gradually ousting the inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles all through the Wolds are of the curved pattern, and though cheerful in the brilliance of their colour, and unspeakably preferable to thin blue slates, they do not seem to weather or gather moss and rich colouring in the same manner as the usual flat tile of the southern counties.

We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over the church door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the rising ground to the south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims to be the only other Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage is pointed out as the birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the See of York from 1688 to 1691. He was of humble parentage, and it is said that he would often pause in conversation to slap his legs and say, ‘Just fancy me being Archbishop of York!’ The name of the village is derived from the Norse word Thing, meaning an assembly.

Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passing Argam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateau with scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms are dotted here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can see a windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds that assail the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that was raised more than a few feet above the furrows. The hedges, tired of being buffetted, have given up the struggle and become flattened out to the south-west, and the few trees that have kept themselves alive are thin and half-starved.

The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself in its bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the huge perpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottages have a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weathered tiles and white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises the low square tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnacles in the past, it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blew them into the sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough never to put such obstructions in the way of the winter blasts. Even the ricks are put close to the cottages for shelter, and although the day seemed warm, with a cool wind, when we left Malton, the temperature seems to have gone down many degrees on this exposed corner of the chalk tableland.

Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore of Holderness, curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, with Bridlington down below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at the west end of its priory—one short and plain, and the other tall and richly ornamented with pinnacles. Going through the streets of sober red houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow green valley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along the fertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscape with a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of the park surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The family has been connected with the village for several centuries, and some of their richly-painted and gilded monuments can be seen in the church. One of these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart., and another to Lady Strickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh Cholmley, the gallant but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle during the Civil War. In his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid him by ‘my sister Strickland.’

After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot, commanding wide views, where the little church of Rudstone stands conspicuously by the side of an enormous monolith. Although the church tower is Norman, it would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene in comparison with the stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreement that huge standing stones of this type belong to some very remote period, and also that they are ‘associated with sepulchral purposes’; and the fact that they are usually found in churchyards would suggest that they were regarded with a traditional veneration. The stone is 25 feet 4 inches high, and from a statement made in 1769 by a Mr. Willan, we are led to believe that its depth underground is equal to its height above, ‘as appeared from an experiment made by the late Sir William Strickland.’ It is not known whether this ‘experiment’ consisted in digging down to the lowest extremity of the stone; the language seems to suggest otherwise, and the total length of the stone must remain hypothetical until such operations take place. The rustics of the locality incline towards a sensational depth, for, evidently based on the stories of the half-forgotten squire’s digging, they say that they have heard tell how that when an attempt was made to find how far down the stone went, those who were digging found that it was impossible to get to the bottom, and gave it up as a hopeless task. And thus you may find a group of peasants in the churchyard on fine Sunday evenings staring hard at the furrowed surface of the monolith, and thinking, Heaven knows what, of the profound regions from which their stone springs. The interior of the church is remarkable for its fine modern organ, placed there by the owner of Thorpe Hall, who is also the organist. To find the requisite space the instrument had to be placed at the west end of the nave, but it is controlled from the chancel, the necessary motive power being generated in a small building in the churchyard. The present generation of Rudstonians should not find themselves dull when they are given such excellent music and have a subject for so much profound meditation as the stone.

The road past the church drops steeply down into the pretty village, and, turning northwards, takes us to the bend of the valley, where North Burton lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to the left, and find ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge of the chalk hills. Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood, Kilham is situated in a district of extraordinary interest to the archæologist, the prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous. Chariot burials of the Early Iron Age have been discovered here, as well as large numbers of Neolithic implements. There is a beautiful Norman doorway in the nave of the church, ornamented with chevron mouldings in a lavish fashion. Far more interesting than this, however, are the fonts in the two villages of Cottam and Cowlam, lying close together, although separated by a thinly-wooded hollow, about five miles to the west. Cottam Church and the farm adjoining it are all that now exists of what must once have been an extensive village. It is, indeed, no easy matter to find the place, the church being small and inconspicuous, and the roads pass it by in total indifference.

We come to a gate by a cottage, isolated in a great space of corn and root crops, and find it leads down to the big farm of Cottam. A little beyond it appears a small red brick building of recent date, showing all the signs of having been locked up and deserted years ago. This is not the case, however, for it is still in use, although for what other purpose than as a private chapel for the farmer and his family I can scarcely imagine. In this depressing little building we find a Late Norman font of cylindrical form, covered with the wonderfully crude carvings of that period. There are six subjects, the most remarkable being the huge dragon with a long curly tail in the act of swallowing St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown inside the capacious jaws, while the head is beginning to appear somewhere behind the dragon’s neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Tree of Life (a twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, and what seems to be another dragon.

On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the least difficulty the ground-plan of many houses under the short turf. The early writers do not mention Cottam, and so far I have come upon no explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction was due to the Black Death in 1349. Mr. Cole of Wetwang thinks it significant that there were three vicars of his church (five miles to the south-west) between 1349 and 1352.

It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to the church from the road is through an enormous stack-yard, speaking eloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other instance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing much perambulation of the farm.

At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the other, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the subject represented is Jacob wrestling with the man at Penuel. Although the Bible account plainly indicates that Jacob struggled with some God-like power, yet the actual words used are: ‘And Jacob was left alone. And there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day,’ and the additional piece of information describing how the patriarch’s thigh was put out of joint would be sufficient to prompt the Norman craftsman to give the figure the ordinary form of a man. The carving to the right shows the Temptation of Adam and Eve, the ‘general father of us all’ being placed on the opposite side of the tree to the position given to him at Cottam. Then follow the Massacre of the Innocents—an ambitious subject; the Visit of the Magi, Mary being shown with the child on her knee; and a Bishop holding a crozier in his left hand. The period of this elaborate work would appear to be Late Norman.

At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a green canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the Wolds. The park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes’ house is well wooded, owing to much planting on what were bare slopes not very many years ago, and in the autumn the orange and red colours of the beeches and the brown carpets beneath them are so beautiful that the scenery has no touch of sadness even in November.

The village well is dignified with a domed roof raised on tall columns, put up about seventy years ago by the previous Sir Tatton to the memory of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much the Wolds were transformed through his energy ‘in building, planting, and enclosing,’ from a bleak and barren tract of country into what is now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial, conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire that years after the advent of railways he continued to make his journey to Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.

A stone’s-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the slightest alteration in the smooth turf; and now that all the gravestones have been laid flush with the grass, the church stands among the trees for all the world as though it had merely strayed into the park, and was not fixed to the ground at all. Local opinion made numerous comments on this wiping out of the churchyard, but the villagers have received so many good things from the same hands as those that thus disturbed the memorials of their ancestors, that they have no grounds for complaint.

The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style of the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable, but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere you look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the workmanship is perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found in the carvings of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the timber roof, and the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite of the richness of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the screen does the ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with the rest of the work.

Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful ‘Eleanor’ cross, erected about ten years ago, and has reached a certain fame from Sir Tatton’s cattle and horses.

As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of the Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges into the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all day, changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile themselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain, driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying just below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture. The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley of the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque gloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an element of unreality.

Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower, where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry that suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon church, but although ‘long and short work’ does not appear, there is every reason to associate this lonely little building with the middle of the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses and barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between the tower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having a Moorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsy capitals. As for the churchyard, I have seldom seen anything less cared for, the ground having practically nothing to differentiate it from the surrounding meadowland, for it is simply a piece of rough grass, without any paths or approach suggesting an ordinary village church; and yet there are a fair number of houses—in fact, more of a nucleus than several of the smaller hamlets.

The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in remote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately, there is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional fact of there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the south. Evidences of a Roman road going from Malton through Wharram-le-Street towards Beverley have been discovered, but this and three or four others are based on slender materials, and are too much built up of conjecture, to be of great interest. Even the Roman thoroughfare from York towards Flamborough is not easily discoverable, and the only fact that appears to be clearly ascertained, besides the unearthing of hoards of Roman coins, such as the one consisting of 12,000 pieces near Cowlam, on the line of its supposed route, is the location of the Derventio of the first Antonine Itinerary at Stamford Bridge. Traces of the important road southwards from that point have been found at different places on the way to Brough, where the Humber was crossed by boat.

With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where North Grimstone nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the road, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with ivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel arch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just enough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape to those at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is taken up with a wonderful ‘Last Supper,’ and on the remaining space the carvings show the ‘Descent from the Cross,’ and a figure, possibly representing St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church.

When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration is at an end, and much of the Wold country has been seen; but many other villages, prehistoric sites, early churches, and beautiful landscapes lie more to the south. We have seen enough, however, to make it plain that even an apparently bare plateau of chalk can be full of absorbing interest as well as considerable charm.

FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD

CHAPTER II
FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD

‘As the shore winds itself back from hence,’ says Camden, after describing Flamborough Head, ‘a thin slip of land (like a small tongue thrust out) shoots into the sea.’ This is the long natural breakwater known as Filey Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasant watering-place. In its wide, open, and gently curving bay, Filey is singularly lucky; for it avoids the monotony of a featureless shore, and yet is not sufficiently embraced between headlands to lose the broad horizon and sense of airiness and space so essential for a healthy seaside haunt.

The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, the headland of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed of sandstone (of the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to the particular and ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joys of Filey to go along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, and then walk along the uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry waves heaving and foaming within a few yards on either hand. No wonder that there has been sufficient sense among those who spend their lives in promoting schemes for ugly piers and senseless promenades, to realize that Nature has supplied Filey with a more permanent and infinitely more attractive pier than their fatuous ingenuity could produce. There is a spice of danger associated with the Brig, adding much to its interest; for no one should venture along the spit of rocks unless the tide is in a proper state to allow him a safe return. A melancholy warning of the dangers of the Brig is fixed to the rocky wall of the headland, describing how an unfortunate visitor was swept into the sea by the sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but this need not frighten away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who use ordinary care in watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over the seaweedy rocks at the foot of the headland, making it necessary to climb to the grassy top in order to get back to Filey.

I can remember being caught in this manner, and attempting to climb up the rather awkwardly

FILEY BRIG

The long projection of rock is left bare at low tide, and in rough weather, when huge waves are breaking on it, the scene is remarkably grand.

steep slope of sticky boulder-clay. No doubt, had I been empty-handed I should have had no difficulty at all, but being impeded with a portfolio and painting apparatus, I reached a point half-way up, where I could make no further progress without the gravest risk of letting myself or my drawings go. I was alone; there was no one to shout to, and the slight grip I had seemed going, and if I could not hold on it meant a slide over the smooth clay, followed by a perpendicular drop into the sea. It was only by gently and patiently kicking a place for my boot to get a grip in the greasy clay that I succeeded in saving myself and my drawings, one of which is reproduced here.

This incident may be taken as another warning in connexion with the chances of the Brig. Its real fascination comes, however, at times when it can only be viewed from the top of the Naze above, when a gale is blowing from the north or north-east, and driving enormous waves upon the line of projecting rocks. You watch far out until the dark green line of a higher wave than any of the others that are creating a continuous thunder down below comes steadily onward, and reaching the foam-streaked area, becomes still more sinister. As it approaches within striking distance, a spent wave, sweeping backwards, seems as though it may weaken the onrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up and dissipated in the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow of creamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to its fullest height, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and blown off in long white beards.

The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the rocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head down with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of water shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch shells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the imprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible in a vast cloud of spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen running with creamy water, and the scene of the impact is a cauldron of seething foam, backed by a smooth surface of pale green marble, veined with white. Then the waters gather themselves together again, and the pounding of lesser waves keeps up a thrilling spectacle until the moment for another great coup arrives.

It is under these conditions that the Brig has gained its reputation rather than as a place for finding that purple-tipped species of echinoidea, called by the fishermen, for some obscure reason, ‘buzzes’ or ‘buzzers.’ At low tide the opportunity for marine zoologists is excellent, and the tight grip of the molluscs to the surfaces they have chosen seems only just sufficient when we remember the cannonading they periodically suffer.

Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being ‘quiet,’ and the sense conveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness and primness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from the vulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon the coast in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsy and meretricious buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitating Blackpool and Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet and semi-rural front to the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred its appearance with a jetty.

From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown over with trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Without claiming any architectural charm, the town is small and quietly unobtrusive, and has not the untidy, half-built character of so many watering-places.

Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, and densely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdy tower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outline and slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The high-pitched roofs of Early English times have been flattened without cutting away the projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain a conspicuous feature. The interior is quite impressive. Round columns alternated with octagonal ones support pointed arches, and a clerestory above pierced with roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively that the nave was built in the Transitional Norman period. It appears that a western tower was projected, but never carried out, and an unusual feature is the descent by two steps into the chancel.

A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of the bay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about eight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from Speeton to Flamborough Head.

The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over two miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a few fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.

We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the cliffs and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight downwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the surrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. The crumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seen with such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. On the ledges, too, can be seen rows of little white-breasted puffins; razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs, and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away by those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third. The innumerable varieties in the eggs make the gathering of them for collectors very profitable. Unwelcome as this annual robbing of the eggs may be, yet to watch a man being lowered over the cliff by what appears to be a mere thread, and to see him suspended over the restless waves, is a thrilling sight.

The great promontory of Flamborough, though in many ways claiming a high position in the list of England’s places of natural beauty, suffers much from being popular. In the season, I am told—for I have always visited Flamborough in spring or autumn—the road from the station to the lighthouse is often crowded, and I have not the smallest doubt that this is true from the appearance of the roads, the village, and even the North Landing, for on the occasion of my first visit, in the early spring, I was painfully impressed with the feeling that everything bore the tired, unsatisfactory appearance of a place infested with excursionists. The edges of the paths had a look of being overworn and overtrodden; fences, gates, and the like were too much carved with foolish initials, and everywhere I glanced I found the distressing scraps of old newspaper, the grocer’s paper-bag long rifled of its contents, and the coloured cardboard box that once enclosed tablets of chocolate. It is quite as much a desecration to litter with scraps of dirty paper a noble cape, whose whole aspect is otherwise just as the hand of Time has left it, as to drop sandwich-papers on the floor of some venerable minster, and hope that the result will not be painful to the next who enters the building.

The desecrated area of Flamborough Head lies between the village and the North Landing, and if we are deliberately unobservant between those points, we may be able to give the headland the appreciation it deserves, provided always that we do not go there in the popular time. Coming from the station, the first noticeable feature is at the point where the road, until a few months ago, made a sharp turn into a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the remarkable entrenchment known as the Danes’ Dyke. At this point it appears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the promontory—that is, for two-thirds of its length—the huge trench is purely artificial. No doubt the vallum on the seaward side has been worn down very considerably, and the fosse would have been deeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the dwellers on the headland a very complete security.

Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would have been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road from Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order that the excavations might be close to the small stream which runs inside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons being dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders being considered important. The results of the excavations proved conclusively that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampart were users of flint. The one piece of pottery discovered was pierced with a hole, and seemed to be the ear of a jar, and the worked flint implements included a perfectly formed leaf-shaped arrow-head, a flint formed into a small hatchet, and others chiefly coming under the head of scrapers. The most remarkable discovery was that the ground on the inner slope of the rampart, at a short distance below the surface, contained innumerable artificial flint flakes, all tying in a horizontal position, but none were found on the outer slope. From this fact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the stockade running along the top of the vallum the defenders were in the habit of chipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The great entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using people, and ‘is not later than the Bronze Period.’ And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for strangers having kept the fisher-folk of the peninsula aloof from outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long, that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have been reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks, for an exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars of ninety Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that they were above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were, with only one or two exceptions, dark haired. They showed little or no trace of the fair-haired element usually found in the people of this part of Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory, when the headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivated wolds, the village could not be approached by a stranger without some danger. Those are years to look back upon with regret, because they are past, for in the place of a jealous isolation has come the vulgarizing of the mob. How much more interesting would have been an exploration of the headland, if it were necessary to approach the great Dyke with caution, looking anxiously round for one of the natives with whom to parley for permission to go on, and then how sweet would have been the enjoyment of the special privilege obtained to wander in a patch of a really primitive England!

We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking, unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of what is called ‘The Danish Tower’ is too insignificant to add to the attractiveness of the place. In painfully conspicuous isolation stands a tall and unsightly chapel, built of red brick in a style suitable for the temple of an eccentric brotherhood. The inns are quaint in appearance, but they have evidently never cultivated the patronage of anyone outside the village; and a few rows of new cottages are so woefully similar to those packed together in the slums of a great city, that it is hard to realize the depths of depravity that could have tolerated their construction.

All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for their livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a total indifference to their incursions in the way of catering for their entertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and the cliffs nearly two miles away.

Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stone tower being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there is a delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopied niches richly carved above and below, and still showing in places the red, blue, and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of the chancel is patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of Sir Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel, is remarkable for its long inscription, detailing the chief events in the life of this great man, who was considered one of the most eminent and potent persons in the county in the reign of Henry VIII. The greatness of the man is borne out first in a recital of his doughty deeds: of his passing over to France ‘with Kyng Edwarde the fouriht, yᵗ noble knyght.’

‘And also with noble king Herre, the sevinth of that name
He was also at Barwick at the winnyng of the same [1482]
And by ky[n]g Edward chosy[n] Captey[n] there first of anyone
And rewllid and governid ther his tyme without blame
But for all that, as ye se, he lieth under this stone.’

The inscription goes on in this way to tell how he fought at Flodden Field when he was seventy, ‘nothyng hedyng his age.’ Then follow reflections on the passing of the valorous old knight:

‘ffor all worldly joyes they wull not long endure
They are sonne passed and away dothe glyde
And who that puttith his trust i[n] the[m] I call hy[m] most u[n]sure
ffor when deth strikith he sparith no creature
Nor gevith no warny[n]g but takith the[m] by one and one.
And now he abydyth Godis mercy and hath no other socure.’

Sir Marmaduke’s daughter Catherine was married to Sir Roger Cholmley, called ‘the Great Black Knight of the North,’ who was the first of his family to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receiving his knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots.

The castle, or fortified house of the Constables, is reduced to the insignificant ‘Danish Tower’ we have seen. It stands in a meadow, and sheep crop the grass which covers but does not hide the outline of the foundations. Yorkshire being a county rich in superstitions, it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back from going to his boat, if he happens on his way to meet a parson, a woman, or a hare, as any one of these brings bad luck. It is also extremely unwise to mention to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg. This sounds foolish, but a fisherman will abandon his work till the next day if these animals are mentioned in his presence.[B]

On the north and south sides of the headland there are precarious beaches for the fishermen to bring in their boats. They have no protection at all from the weather, no attempt at forming even such miniature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having ever been made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that side is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances the South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northern one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is less picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed between the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten away by the sea. Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the cliffs a blackish green, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy brown clay slopes back to the grass above.

When the boats have just come in and added their gaudy vermilions, blues, and emerald greens to the picture, the North Landing is worth seeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots, coming almost to their hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets pannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge up the steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, where carts take the fish to the station four miles away.

In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of the peninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. The chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honeycombed with caves. Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesque groups in some of the

FLAMBOROUGH HEAD

A typical cove at the outermost part of the promontory. The sea will probably isolate the projecting mass in the centre of the picture and wear it down until it becomes a slender stack.

small bays, and everywhere there is the interest of watching the heaving waters far below, with white gulls floating unconcernedly on the surface, or flapping their great stretch of wing as they circle just above the waves.

The greatest of the caves is associated with the name of Robin Lythe, a legendary smuggler, who assumes vitality in the pages of the late Mr. Blackmore’s ‘Mary Anerley’—a story associated with Flamborough in the same manner as ‘Lorna Doone’ is connected with Exmoor.

Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built of chalk in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs of age it bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin and purpose would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubt that the tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, being extremely soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harder stone of the windows and doors now projects several inches.

In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armada was sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons in the East Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted, and what action should be taken when the warning was seen. It says briefly:

‘Flambrough, three beacons uppon the sea cost, takinge lighte from Bridlington, and geving lighte to Rudstone.’

There is no reference to any tower, and the beacons everywhere seem merely to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day by two, and every night by three ‘honest house-holders ... above the age of thirty years.’ The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been put up as a lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, the dangers of the headland to shipping must have been recognized as exceedingly great several centuries ago. A light could not have failed to have been a boon to mariners, and its maintenance would have been a matter of importance to all who owned ships; and yet, if this old tower ever held a lantern, the hiatus between the last night when it glowed on the headland, and the erection of the present lighthouse is so great that no one seems to be able to state definitely for what purpose the early structure came into existence.

Year after year when night fell the cliffs were shrouded in blackness, with the direful result that between 1770 and 1806 one hundred and seventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. It remained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington—a Mr. Milne—to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder Brethren of Trinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a powerful light has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate result was that in the first seven years of its beneficent work no vessel was ‘lost on that station when the lights could be seen.’ The strangest fact concerning the affair is that no one appears to have taken advantage of the old tower—at least, as a temporary expedient—although it stood there manifestly for that purpose, stoutly resisting all the gales, as it continues to do, although more than a century has elapsed.

One night, a good many years ago, when the glass of the lantern was thinner than now, the light was extinguished for a few minutes during a gale. A teal duck, which has a very rapid flight, came right through a pane of glass, being nearly cut in two, and leaving a hole for the wind to bluster through at the same moment.

The derivation of the name Flamborough has been conclusively shown to have nothing at all to do with the English word ‘flame,’ being possibly a corruption of Fleinn, a Norse surname, and borg or burgh, meaning a castle. In Domesday it is spelt ‘Flaneburg,’ and flane is the Norse for an arrow or sword.

At the point where the chalk cliffs disappear and the low coast of Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and even now there are two towns—the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish, place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holiday resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and the railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the ‘Three Towns’ of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide parades, all those ‘attractions’ which exercise their potential energies on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. There are seats, concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks, refreshment-bars, boats, bathing-machines, a switch-back railway, and even a spa, by which means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused, and given every excuse for loitering within a few yards of the long curving line of waves that advances and retreats over the much-trodden sand.

The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature in the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington Quay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque. In northerly gales the harbour is the only place of refuge between Harwich and Leith for ships going northwards, owing to the shelter of Flamborough Head and the good anchorage of the sandy bay. It is due to its favoured position under these circumstances that Bridlington has enjoyed a well-protected harbour for sixty years.

In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and ammunition for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch ships to Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended to land, and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl of Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in proper security. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however, conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at Tynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened is told in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25, 1642. It describes how, after two days’ riding at anchor, the cavalry arrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning the rest of the loyal army came to wait on her.

‘God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continue his favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the Parliament Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were but newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply us so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our beds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the Souldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their forces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon the house where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and before She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud about her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing to Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the house, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the neighbouring houses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottome of the house where She was; so that (clothed as She could) She went on foot some little distance out of the Towne, under the shelter of a Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither before She could get, the Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a Sergeant was killed within twenty paces of Her. We in the end gained the Ditch, and staid there two houres, whilest their Cannon plaid all the time upon us; the bullets flew for the most part over our heads, Some few onely grazing on the Ditch where the Queene was, covered us with earth.’

This bombardment only ceased when the Dutch Admiral sent to the Parliamentary ships to tell them that if they did not cease firing, he would consider them as enemies, and give order for his own vessels to open fire upon them. The tardiness of this action was explained by the Admiral as being due to the mist.

‘Upon that they staid their shooting, and likewise being ebbing water, they could not stay longer neare the shore. As soone as they were retired, the Queene returned to the house where She lay, being unwilling to allow them the vanity of saying, They made Her forsake the Towne. We went at noone to Burlington, whither we were resolved to goe before this accident; and all that day in face of the enemie we disimbarqued our Ammunition. It is said that one of the Captaines of the Parliament Ships had been at the Towne before us, to observe where the Queene’s lodging was; and I assure you he observed it well, for he ever shot at it.’

A Parliamentary tract of the same time says that when Charles I., who was at Oxford, heard of his consort’s escape, he is said to have remarked that ‘the shipmen did not shoote at her, but onely tryed how neere they could goe and misse, as good marksmen use to do.’ This would have been poor comfort, even if such knowledge had reached the Queen, as she crouched in the ditch showered with earth from the flying cannon-balls.

In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian Priory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure known as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery. They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to form a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any real charm in the domestic architecture of the streets. Everywhere you look the houses are commonplace and without individuality. This example of early work is therefore isolated in its medievalism, in contrast to the bars of York, which are surrounded by early types of houses in keeping with their antiquity. The Bayle Gate has a large pointed arch and a postern, and the date of its erection appears to be the end of the fourteenth century, when permission was given to the prior to fortify the monastery. Unhappily for Bridlington, an order to destroy the buildings was given soon after the Dissolution, and the nave of the church seems to have been spared only because it was used as the parish church. Quite probably, too, the gatehouse was saved from destruction on account of the room it contains having been utilized for holding courts. The upper portions of the church towers are modern restorations, and their different heights and styles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful, outline. At the west end, between the towers, is a large Perpendicular window occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side the vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.

The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns built in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on the north side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been destroyed with the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is merely a portion of the nave separated with screens. One of the most interesting of the monuments is the grave slab of Prior Robert Burstwick, who died in 1493, and whose coffin was found in 1821 in the ground where the south transept formerly stood. The prior’s beard and the cloth his body had been wrapped in were found to be undecayed.

Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the low coast of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is nothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its featureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea. The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power to the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were of gingerbread. The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries, and stories of lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met with all the way to Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington we come to a point on the shore where, looking out among the lines of breaking waves, we are including the sides of the two demolished villages of Auburn and Hartburn. There is no good road close to the sea, for it would scarcely be a wise policy to spend money on a highway that would year by year be brought nearer to the edge of the low cliffs, and another significant fact is the shyness the railways show to this vanishing coast. Two lines from Hull venture down to the sea, but neither has been continued to the north or south along the coast, although the joining of Hornsea with Bridlington would be eminently convenient.

From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance to it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the lordship of Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer that it was the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having practically no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary, and these we find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded by a ditch, and a segment of the great outer circle of defences exists on the south-west side. No masonry of any description can be seen on the grass-covered embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once crowned, it is surmised, by a Norman keep, there is one small piece of stonework. These earthworks have been considered Saxon, but later opinion labels them post-Conquest.[C] In the time of the Domesday Survey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, a Flemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of England and received this extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was given the King’s niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having for some reason seen fit to poison her, he fled from England, it is said, during the last few months of William’s reign. The Barony of Holderness was forfeited, but Drogo was never captured.

Poulson, the historian of Holderness, states that Henry III. gave orders for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of Albemarle, its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When Edward II. ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companion Piers Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl of Cornwall, he presented this ill-chosen favourite with the great Seigniory of Holderness. Owing to the distractions in England caused by Edward’s stubborn refusal to give up his favourite, Robert Bruce successfully drove the English out of Scotland. The need of men to resist the victorious Scots is shown by the levies raised in Holderness at this time, on all men between the ages of twenty and sixty, who were, according to their means, to act either as men-at-arms, on heavy horses, fully armed cap-à-pie, or as light cavalry for skirmishing and for harassing the enemy’s flanks.

Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross on a large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further on come to Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the sea and the Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surprise to the stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lake in a perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to be found. Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet that day is likely to be put further off year by year on account of the growth of a new town on the shore, and the increased rateable value of the place when large sums of money are required for sea-defence. A verse, according to Poulson, inscribed on the old steeple of the church, which collapsed in 1733, gives a sensational impression of the encroachments of the ocean in the past:

‘Hornsea steeple, when I builded thee,
Thou was ten miles off Burlington,
Ten miles off Beverley, and ten miles off sea.’

But when we find that Hornsea Church is thirteen miles from Bridlington and twelve from Beverley as the crow flies, inductive reasoning would suggest that a similar freedom may have been taken with the third measurement, this time expanding the result liberally to round off the last line impressively. It may be remarked that ten miles out to sea from Hornsea Church is more than a mile outside the ten-fathoms line, and far beyond the outermost point of Flamborough Head. It has been calculated from the present rate of erosion that, since the Norman Conquest, a strip of land a mile in width has been washed away.

The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road to Beverley skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surface seen through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many of them having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being supported in a horizontal position by their branches. The picture given here was drawn on a wintry day when the sun was struggling through mist and making a golden path across the rippling waters. The islands and the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.

It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to a hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St. Mary’s Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of Meaux, laid claim to fishing rights in the southern half of the lake, only to find his brother Abbot of York determined to resist the claim. The cloisters of the two abbeys must have buzzed with excitement over the impasse, and relations became so strained that the only method of determining the issue was by each side agreeing to submit to the result of a judicial combat between champions selected by the two monasteries. Where the fight took place I do not know, and the number of champions is not mentioned in the record. It is stated that a horse was first swum across the lake,

HORNSEA MERE

Is the largest of the natural lakes of Yorkshire. It is well stocked with fish, and wild-fowl are numerous on its islets and marshy shores.

and stakes fixed to mark the limits of the claim. On the day appointed the combatants chosen by each abbot appeared properly accoutred, and they fought from morning until evening, when, at last, the men representing Meaux were beaten to the ground, and the York abbot retained the whole fishing rights of the Mere.

Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between the western ends of the aisles. It chiefly dates from Decorated times, with Perpendicular windows inserted. A fine alabaster altar-tomb under one of the arches of the south arcade has been terribly maltreated, and only a few words of the inscription running round the top slab are legible. We have no difficulty in reading the words ‘Hic jacet Magister Antonius de,’ and, with the help of Poulson, discover that this is the tomb of Anthony St. Quintin, who died in 1430, and was the last rector. It is the only tomb I have seen defaced with the outlines of shoes cut upon its surface. A wooden trap-door in the chancel opens into a small crypt consisting of two barrel vaults of brick with stone below. A recess on the north side appears to be a fireplace. An eighteenth-century parish clerk utilized this crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at work there on a stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore the roof off the church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralytic seizure of which he died.

By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in this new position and supplied with a modern head.

As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain from feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and the waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before satisfying a fresh appetite.

The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour and pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely disappeared since the time of James I., and so also has the place called Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven acres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acres remained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from Withernsea, is pathetic. For a number of years the church remained on the verge of the cliff, in the same way as the ruins of the last church of Dunwich, in Suffolk, stand to-day. The graveyard was steadily destroyed, until 1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and a cloud of dust. When the sea went down, the shore was found littered with debris, and among the coffins there was one believed to be that of the founder. The body had been embalmed with fragrant spices and aromatics, which, even after exposure to the air, had not lost their original odour.

Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the churchyard left, and in 1844 the Vicarage and the remaining houses were absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.

The old village of Withernsea, no doubt, disappeared in a similar fashion. For the modern town we feel pity more than indignation. It consists of a haphazard collection of ugly lodging-houses, a modern church and a conspicuous lighthouse, whose revolving light glares into the windows of half the houses in the town, making sleep impossible. The place seems consciously at war with the ocean, and gazes ruefully at the remains of its iron pier, a limb that was savagely handled by the sea some years ago. No doubt the frail sea-wall will crumble away before long, and the depressing houses will then follow rapidly.

The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and more attenuated, and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearer to the sea winter by winter. This fact makes the restoration of the church no easy matter, for who would subscribe to a fund for spending money on a building that may follow the fate of Owthorne and a dozen other places? Close to the church, Easington has been fortunate in preserving its fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered with a thatched roof. The interior has that wonderfully imposing effect given by huge posts and beams suggesting a wooden cathedral.

At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to the waves has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded with salt water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often not more than fifteen feet high. Unfortunately, too, they slope downwards inland, so that each yard destroyed by the sea makes the front lower and less effective. The road comes to an end a short distance beyond Kilnsea, and the rest of the way to Spurn Head, marked by its conspicuous lighthouse, visible a long way to the north, is over the rough grass of the spit of hummocky sand which forms the extremity of this corner of Yorkshire.

BEVERLEY

CHAPTER III
BEVERLEY

When the great bell in the southern tower of the Minster booms forth its deep and solemn notes over the city of Beverley, you experience an uplifting of the mind—a sense of exaltation greater, perhaps, than even that produced by an organ’s vibrating notes in the high vaulted spaces of a cathedral. The exceptional mellowness and richness of the whole peal of bells removes them from any comparison with the harsh, hammering sounds that fall upon the ear from so many church towers. Peter, the great tenor bell, was probably cast in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and has therefore given forth his sonorous notes ever since the two towers were built.

The charm and glamour of Beverley is perhaps most accentuated towards sunset on a clear evening, when you can stand by the north transept of the Minster and see the western towers thrown out against a soft yellow sky. From the picture given here something of the scene may be imagined, but to the beauty of the architecture and the glowing tones of the sky should be added the sound of the pealing bells, each carillon being concluded with a reverberating tangg-g boomm-m, whose deep notes seem to send a message to the very gates of Eternity, lying somewhere beyond the golden light in the west.

Beverley has no natural features to give it any attractiveness, for it stands on the borders of the level plain of Holderness, and towards the Wolds there is only a very gentle rise. It depends, therefore, solely upon its architecture. The first view of the city from the west as we come over the broad grassy common of Westwood is delightful. We are just sufficiently elevated to see the opalescent form of the Minster, with its graceful towers rising above the more distant roofs, and close at hand the pinnacled tower of St. Mary’s showing behind a mass of dark trees. The entry to the city from this direction is in every way prepossessing, for the sunny common is succeeded by a broad, tree-lined road, with old-fashioned houses standing sedately behind the foliage, and the end of the avenue is closed by the North Bar—the last of Beverley’s

BEVERLEY MARKET PLACE

The ‘Saturday’ market, as it is called, is one of the most picturesque parts of Beverley. The tower is that of St. Mary’s Church.

gates. It dates from 1410, and is built of very dark red brick, with one arch only, the footways being taken through the modern houses, shouldering it on each side. Leland’s account and the town records long before his day tell us that there were three gates, but nothing remains of ‘Keldgate barr’ and the ‘barr de Newbygyng.’

We go through the archway and find ourselves in a wide street with the beautiful west end of St. Mary’s Church on the left, quaint Georgian houses, and a dignified hotel of the same period on the opposite side, while straight ahead is the broad Saturday Market with its very picturesque ‘cross.’ On the further side of this square we look back and see the bright and cheerful scene depicted here. The cross was put up in 1714 by Sir Charles Hotham, Bart., and Sir Michael Warton, Members of Parliament for the Corporation at that time.

Beyond the Market-place the streets become narrow, except at the triangular space, half-way to the Minster, called the Wednesday Market, and I cannot honestly say that there is any charm or attractiveness to be found in this portion of the city. There is a rather poverty-stricken appearance in the houses and the shops that seems unnecessary, and hardly what we should expect on approaching the Minster precincts. When, in time, the splendid pile appears in front of us, it is with a sense of intense disappointment that we find the surroundings utterly unworthy. All who know Winchester or Salisbury or Canterbury realize the intense charm of their beautiful closes, where stately cedars pronounce a benediction over the gables and ancient leaded windows of houses whose every detail is exquisite. At Beverley, instead of any small suggestion of such charm, we find modern cottages, which, if not aggressively ugly, are so woefully out of place that they should be swept away at any cost. On the south side there is a space of uneven ground partially enclosed by dilapidated fragments of fence, littered with rubbish, and surrounded by squalid little houses. The unfinished aspect of this miserable scene is less depressing than it might otherwise be, in the hope it inspires that some scheme of improvement may make use of the present opportunity. It is on account of its dismal environment on the south side that I prefer the north, and in painting the western towers under an evening light I have chosen a time when the commonplace cottages facing them lose their offensiveness. Without the towers I should not regard the exterior of the Minster with any real pleasure, for the Early English chancel and greater and lesser transepts, although imposing and massive, are lacking in proper proportion, and in that deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. The eulogies so many architects and writers have poured out upon the Early English work of this great church, and the strangely adverse comments the same critics have levelled at the Perpendicular additions, do not blind me to what I regard as a most strange misconception on the part of these people. The homogeneity of the central and eastern portions of the Minster is undeniable, but because what appears to be the design of one master-builder of the thirteenth century was apparently carried out in the short period of twenty years, I do not feel obliged to consider the result beautiful. The five pairs of turrets at the outer angles of the transepts and chancel are so ponderous and so tall that they dwarf the great gables and spoil the general outline by their wrong proportions. And as for the windows, they are unrestful and unpleasing to the eye in a way that is typical of the period. I explain my dislike for this style of English church architecture from the lack of those continuous lines that made their appearance in the Decorated period, and not only softened the crude angularities of the earlier style, but gave an impression of reposeful strength, instead of the detached effect of decoration in stories, each independent of what was below or above.

In the Perpendicular work of the western towers everything is in graceful proportion, and nothing, from the ground to the top of the turrets, jars with the wonderful dignity of their perfect lines. No towers I have seen in this country compare with those of Beverley in the masterly way in which they combine continuous lines and rectangular ornament with the most exquisite grace and dignity.

A few years before the Norman Conquest a central tower and a presbytery were added to the existing building by Archbishop Cynesige. The ‘Frenchman’s’ influence was probably sufficiently felt at that time to give this work the stamp of Norman ideas, and would have shown a marked advance on the Romanesque style of the Saxon age, in which the other portions of the buildings were put up. After that time we are in the dark as to what happened until the year 1188, when a disaster took place of which there is a record:

‘In the year from the incarnation of Our Lord 1188, this church was burnt, in the month of September, the night

BEVERLEY MINSTER

Showing the Perpendicular western towers and the north porch of the same period.

after the Feast of St. Mathew the Apostle, and in the year 1197, the sixth of the ides of March, there was an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed John in this place, and these bones were found in the east part of his sepulchre, and reposited; and dust mixed with mortar was found likewise, and re-interred.’

This is a translation of the Latin inscription on a leaden plate discovered in 1664, when a square stone vault in the church was opened and found to be the grave of the canonized John of Beverley. The picture history gives us of this remarkable man, although to a great extent hazy with superstitious legend, yet shows him to have been one of the greatest and noblest of the ecclesiastics who controlled the Early Church in England. He founded the monastery at Beverley about the year 700, on what appears to have been an isolated spot surrounded by forest and swamp, and after holding the See of York for some twelve years, he retired here for the rest of his life. When he died, in 721, his memory became more and more sacred, and his powers of intercession were constantly invoked. The splendid shrine provided for his relics in 1037 was encrusted with jewels, and shone with the precious metals employed. Like the tomb of William the Conqueror at Caen, it disappeared long ago. After the collapse of the central tower to its very foundations came the vast Early English reconstruction of everything except the nave, which was possibly of pre-Conquest date, and survived until the present Decorated successor took its place. Much discussion has centred round certain semicircular arches at the back of the triforium, whose ornament is unmistakably Norman, suggesting that the early nave was merely remodelled in the later period. The last great addition to the structure was the beautiful Perpendicular north porch and the west end—the glory of Beverley. The interior of the transepts and chancel is extremely interesting, but entirely lacking in that perfection of form characterizing York. On entering the great transept of Beverley the intelligent visitor is inclined to look about him and comment on the fine Early English work; at York, in the same part of the Minster, he will probably be silenced by the overwhelming sense of perfection conveyed by the ideal proportions of every part. Beverley is merely on the road to York.

A magnificent range of stalls crowned with elaborate tabernacle work of the sixteenth century adorns the choir, and under each of the sixty-eight seats are carved misereres, making a larger collection than any other in the country. The subjects range from a horrible representation of the devil with a second face in the middle of his body to humorous pictures of a cat playing a fiddle, and a scold on her way to the ducking-stool in a wheel-barrow, gripping with one hand the ear of the man who is wheeling her. Bears, foxes, lions, deer, and birds are the most favourite subjects, while the most unique is perhaps the elephant at one end of the front row of stalls on the south side. It is shown with a howdah on its back, a most curious trunk, an ear resembling a bat’s wing, and a monkey behind, in the act of dealing a tremendous blow with a stick. This cannot compare with the remarkably fine elephant, with a tall howdah filled with armed men, carved as a finial in front of the Bishop’s throne in Ripon Cathedral.

In the north-east corner of the choir, built across the opening to the lesser transept on that side, is the tomb of Lady Eleanor FitzAllen, wife of Henry, first Lord Percy of Alnwick. It is considered to be, without a rival, the most beautiful tomb in this country. The canopy is composed of sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literally encrusted with ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion that the general effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, is always magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steep gable with an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at its apex for an elaborate piece of statuary. This is repeated on both sides of the monument. On the side towards the altar, the large bearded figure represents the Deity, with angels standing on each side of the throne, holding across His knees a sheet. From this rises a small undraped figure representing Lady Eleanor, whose uplifted hands are held in one of those of her Maker, who is shown in the act of benediction with two fingers on her head. On the north side, the corresponding position is occupied by a figure of our Lord, with the right hand in the act of blessing, and the left pointed to the wound in His side. By climbing the winding stone staircase to the top of the screen a close scrutiny can be made of the astonishingly fine details of the carving on that side.

In the north aisle of the chancel there is a very unusual double staircase. It is recessed in the wall, and the arcading that runs along the aisle beneath the windows is inclined upwards and down again at a slight angle, similar to the rise of the steps which are behind the marble columns. This was the old way to the chapter-house, destroyed at the Dissolution, and is an extremely fine example of an Early English stairway. There are two medieval tombs surmounted by richly carved effigies to unknown people—one an ecclesiastic, and another, possibly, a merchant of note—both in an aisle of the great north transept; and in the Percy Chapel—a Perpendicular addition at the north-east corner of the chancel—stands the altar-tomb of the fourth Earl of Northumberland. This Earl was succeeded by Henry Percy, the fifth to hold the title, and the compiler of the ‘Household Book,’ mentioned in the next chapter in connexion with his great castle at Wressle, some twenty miles to the west. Near this chapel stands the ancient stone chair of sanctuary, or frith-stool. It has been broken and repaired with iron clamps, and the inscription upon it, recorded by Spelman, has gone. The privileges of sanctuary were limited by Henry VIII., and abolished in the reign of James I.; but before the Dissolution malefactors of all sorts and conditions, from esquires and gentlewomen down to chapmen and minstrels, frequently came in undignified haste to claim the security of St. John of Beverley. Here is a case quoted from the register by Mr. Charles Hiatt in his admirable account of the Minster:

‘John Spret, Gentilman, memorandum, that John Spret, of Barton upon Umber, in the counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the first day of October the vii yer of the reen of Keing Herry vii and asked the lybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton, husbondman, of the same town, and knawleg [acknowledged] hymselff to be at the kyllyng of the saym John with a dagarth, the xv day of August.’

On entering the city we passed St. Mary’s, a beautiful Perpendicular church which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of the Minster. At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular window flanked by octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which are run up to a considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upper portions being made light and graceful, with an opening on each face, and a pierced parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and is crowned by sixteen pinnacles. Its circular windows in the lower portion of the tower are filled with tracery, and are unusual in the period of its construction. The southern end of the transept receives additional support from the great flying buttresses, added by Pugin in 1856.

In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like the greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is Norman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave is ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels carved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is painted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be seen that the centre figure, who is dressed as an alderman, had a harp, and the others a pipe, a lute, a drum, and a violin. From Saxon times there had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous fraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his monumental work on Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen’s feasts, at weddings, on market-days, and on all occasions when there was excuse for music. This ‘toune of Beverle,’ which Leland describes as being ‘large and welle buildid of wood,’ must have been a pleasant and exceptionally picturesque place to dwell in when we remember the old gateways, and replace the many dull buildings of to-day with such beautiful timber houses as those in the old streets of York. Above the curious gables rose the two stately churches, and if the minstrels were idle, no doubt the bells were filling the air with their music, telling of sorrow or gladness.

CHAPTER IV
ALONG THE HUMBER

Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;
But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
Stay and be secret, and myself will go.’
Richard II., Act II., Scene 1.

The atrophied corner of Yorkshire that embraces the lowest reaches of the Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider patch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This mere ridge of sand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and populous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle of the fourteenth century.

Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for shipping, where merchant vessels were constantly coming and going, bearing away the wool of Holderness and bringing in foreign goods, which the Humber towns were eager to buy. This traffic soon demonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where the estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI. granted a toll on all vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up about that time by a benevolent hermit.

His petition is quaintly worded, and full of interest. It commences:

‘To the wyse Comones of this present Parlement. Besekith your povre bedeman, Richard Reedbarowe, Heremyte of the Chapell of our Lady and Seint Anne atte Ravensersporne. That forasmuche that many diverses straites and daungers been in the entryng into the river of Humbre out of the See, where ofte tymes by mysaventure many divers Vesselx, and Men, Godes and Marchaundises, be lost and perished, as well by Day as be Night, for defaute of a Bekyn, that shuld teche the poeple to hold in the right chanell; so that the seid Richard, havyng compassion and pitee of the Cristen poeple that ofte tymes are there perished ... to make a Toure to be uppon day light a redy Bekyn, wheryn shall be light gevyng by nyght, to alle the Vesselx that comyn into the seid Ryver of Humbre....’

No doubt the site of this early structure has long ago been submerged. The same fate came upon the two lights erected on Kilnsea Common by Justinian Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from Charles II. to ‘continue, renew, and maintain’ two lights at Spurn Point.

In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up two lighthouses, one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurry in completing the work, for the foundations of the high light were not completed until six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the low light, owing to the waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentions the loss of three structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth was taken down after a brief life of fourteen years, the sea having laid the foundations bare.

As late as the beginning of last century the illumination was produced by ‘a naked coal fire, unprotected from the wind,’ and its power was consequently most uncertain. In a great gale in 1803, the keeper was convinced that the tower would be blown down, for the wind was so furious that it increased the heat of the fire until the bars of the hearth melted like lead, and finally extinguished the light. New bars had to be put in before the fire could be rekindled. Smeaton describes how ‘upon the 5th September 1776, the fires were kindled with stone coal, which exhibited an amazing light.’

Smeaton’s high tower is now only represented by its foundations and the circular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter from wind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there for the lifeboat and other purposes.

The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton’s, and is fitted with the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of 519,000 candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coast of England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by placing the low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twenty seconds the upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seen in clear weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles.

That such a narrow spit of shifting sand should exist so tenaciously on a part of the coast suffering so much from the inroads of the sea appears most remarkable until we realize that its existence is probably the result of the erosion of the shore to the north, combined with the opposed action of river and ocean. There seems little doubt that the material composing the spit of land is the waste of the Holderness shore, and possibly contains some of the material of the land on which the romantic town of Ravenserodd stood. Although we must regret the loss of this historic town, all its attractiveness might have been dissipated by this time, even if it had survived, by the processes that turned the picturesque town of Hull into an ugly, if exceedingly prosperous, seaport.

In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the Humber without the accompaniment of dirt and unsightly surroundings. Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise, and the most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It was probably owing to his great wealth that his son was made a knight-banneret, and his grandson became Earl of Suffolk. Another of the De la Poles was the first Mayor of Hull, and seems to have been no less opulent than his brother, who lent large sums of money to Edward III., and was in consequence appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer and also presented with the Lordship of Holderness.

The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in a number of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happened in this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the many different spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous port of Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this might have continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into the matter, bringing together all the references to the Ravensers which have been discovered.

There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was a Danish settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being a compound of the raven of the Danish standard, and eyr or ore, meaning a narrow strip of land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga the sailing of the defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada’s army from Ravenser, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, is mentioned in the lines:

‘The King the swift ships with the flood
Set out, with the autumn approaching,
And sailed from the port, called
Hrafnseyrr (the raven tongue of land).’

From this event of 1066 Ravenser must have remained a hamlet of small consequence, for it is not heard of again for nearly two centuries, and then only in connexion with the new Ravenser which had grown on a spit of land gradually thrown up by the tide within the spoon-shaped ridge of Spurn Head. On this new ground a vessel was wrecked some time in the early part of the thirteenth century, and a certain man—the earliest recorded Peggotty—converted it into a house, and even made it a tavern, where he sold food and drink to mariners. Then three or four houses were built near the adapted hull, and following this a small port was created, its development being fostered by William de Fortibus, Earl of Albemarl, the lord of the manor, with such success that, by the year 1274, the place had grown to be of some importance, and a serious trade rival to Grimsby on the Lincolnshire coast. To distinguish the two Ravensers the new place, which was almost on an island, being only connected with the mainland by a bank composed of large yellow boulders and sand, was called Ravenser Odd, and in the Chronicles of Meaux Abbey and other records the name is generally written Ravenserodd. The original place was about a mile away, and no longer on the shore, and it is distinguished from the prosperous port as Ald Ravenser. Owing, however, to its insignificance in comparison to Ravenserodd, the busy port, it is often merely referred to as Ravenser, spelt with many variations.

The extraordinarily rapid rise of Ravenserodd seems to have been due to a remarkable keenness for business on the part of its citizens, amounting, in the opinion of the Grimsby traders, to sharp practice. For, being just within Spurn Head, the men of Ravenserodd would go out to incoming vessels bound for Grimsby, and induce them to sell their cargoes in Ravenserodd by all sorts of specious arguments, misquoting the prices paid in the rival town. If their arguments failed, they would force the ships to enter their harbour and trade with them, whether they liked it or not. All this came out in the hearing of an action brought by the town of Grimsby against Ravenserodd. Although the plaintiffs seem to have made a very good case, the decision of the Court was given in favour of the defendants, as it had not been shown that any of their proceedings had broken the King’s peace.

Between 1310 and 1340 there are many references to the ships and armed men Ravenserodd was required to furnish for the wars in Scotland, Flanders, and elsewhere. The period of the town’s greatest prosperity was no doubt from a few years before 1298, the year when a royal charter was granted making it a free borough, and about 1340.

It is extremely interesting that one of the earliest names connected with the new port is Peter-atte-see. In the Middle Ages, just such a distinction is what we would expect to be added to the baptismal name of a man who had taken up his abode on a lonely patch of land produced by the action of the sea. It is therefore more than probable that this Peter was either the founder or the son of the founder of Ravenserodd. Later generations altered the name to De la Mare, and it was Martin de la Mare who at first opposed, but afterwards assisted, Edward IV. when he landed at Ravenser Spurn, 1471.

But long before that historic event, earlier even than Henry IV.’s landing on the same spot in 1399, the sea had reclaimed its own. In a short time not only Ravenserodd, but also Ald Ravenser and Sunthorp had been washed away.

The story of this disaster, which appears to have happened between 1340 and 1350, is told by the monkish compiler of the Chronicles of Meaux. Translated from the original Latin the account is headed:

‘Concerning the consumption of the town of Ravensere Odd and concerning the effort towards the diminution of the tax of the church of Esyngton.

‘But in those days, the whole town of Ravensere Odd, ... was totally annihilated by the floods of the Humber and the inundations of the great sea; ... and when that town of Ravensere Odd, in which we had half an acre of land built upon, and also the chapel of that town, pertaining to the said church of Esyngton, were exposed to demolition during the few preceding years, those floods and inundations of the sea, within a year before the destruction of that town, increasing in their accustomed way without limit fifteen fold, announcing the swallowing up of the said town, and sometimes exceeding beyond measure the height of the town, and surrounding it like a wall on every side, threatened the final destruction of that town. And so, with this terrible vision of waters seen on every side, the enclosed persons, with the reliques, crosses, and other ecclesiastical ornaments, which remained secretly in their possession and accompanied by the viaticum of the body of Christ in the hands of the priest, flocking together, mournfully imploring grace, warded off at that time their destruction. And afterwards, daily removing thence with their possession, they left that town totally without defence, to be shortly swallowed up, which, with a short intervening period of time by those merciless tempestuous floods, was irreparably destroyed.’

The traders and inhabitants generally moved to Kingston-upon-Hull and other towns, as the sea forced them to seek safer quarters.

When Henry of Lancaster landed with his retinue in 1399 within Spurn Head, the whole scene was one of complete desolation, and the only incident recorded is his meeting with a hermit named Matthew Danthorp, who was at the time building a chapel. Perhaps it was thought to have been a happy augury that the first person met should have been a holy man, for on the day following his coronation, Henry IV. granted a royal licence for the hermit to complete the chapel, improperly begun without any official sanction, and also right over all ‘the wreck of the sea and waifs’ for two leagues round the chapel.

Whether the chapel-of-ease at Ravenserodd, built some time between 1235 and 1272, and, therefore, in the Early English period, bore any comparison to those of the neighbouring villages of Patrington and Hedon we do not know, but if the prosperity of the port had led to the building of such a church, its loss is melancholy indeed. The beautiful spire of Patrington church guides us easily along a winding lane from Easington until the whole building shows over the surrounding meadows as it appears in the illustration given here. A farm with a well-filled stack-yard lies on the left, and closely trimmed hedges border the roads, while the village, being on the other side of the church and some big trees, is out of sight. We seem to have stumbled upon a cathedral standing all alone in this diminishing land, scarcely more than two miles from the Humber and less than four from the sea. No one quarrels with the title ‘The Queen of Holderness,’ nor with the far greater claim that Patrington is the most beautiful village church in England. With the exception of the east window, which is Perpendicular, nearly the whole structure was built in the Decorated period; and in its perfect proportion, its wealth of detail and marvellous dignity, it is a joy to the eye within and without. The plan is cruciform, and there are aisles to the transepts as well as the nave, giving a wealth of pillars to the interior. Above the tower rises a tall stone spire, enriched, at a third of its height, with what might be compared to an earl’s coronet, the spikes being represented by crocketed pinnacles—the terminals of the supporting pillars. The four corner pinnacles of the tower, carrying flying buttresses to the spire, are very unusual in form, being widened at their bases to allow the making of an archway through each. This gives them the appearance of grotesque little men, with bent legs, resting one arm on the spire, and might have caused a serious loss of beauty if the whole work had been less perfect in its conception. A curious outside staircase, reached from within, goes over the south window of the transept, giving it a deeply recessed appearance; and the bold buttresses, terminated with crocketed pinnacles, throw broad shadows during the afternoon, which add immensely to the charm of the building. The gargoyles are a wonderful study in eccentricity, each one endeavouring to be more unconventional than his neighbour, and to Poulson they appeared to be in ‘ill accord with the fastidious delicacy of the present age.’ The interior of the church is seen at its loveliest on those afternoons when that rich yellow light Mr. Dean Howells so aptly compares with the colour of the daffodil is flooding the nave and aisles, and glowing on the clustered columns. A good point of view is from the north porch, where you look into the south transept through four arcades of pillars, or from the south transept, looking towards the mellow light at the west end.

In the eastern aisles of each arm of the transept there were three chantry chapels, whose piscinæ remain. The central chapel in the south transept is a most interesting and beautiful object, having a recess for the altar, with three richly ornamented niches above. In the groined roof above, the central boss is formed into a hollow pendant of considerable interest. On the three sides are carvings representing the Annunciation, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. John the Baptist, and on the under side is a Tudor rose. Sir Henry Dryden, in the Archæological Journal, states that this pendant was used for a lamp to light the altar below, but he points out, at the same time, that the sacrist would have required a ladder to reach it. An alternative suggestion made by others is that this niche contained a relic where it would have been safe even if visible. I cannot help wondering if the staircase outside the south transept, already mentioned, which makes the roof of this chapel very accessible, has any connexion with this pendant niche. Also in this transept there is a very curious staircase, zigzagging over the tower arch and giving access to the belfry and the space above the vaulting of the aisles, and, therefore, to the top of the chantry; in the centre there is a grotesque dragon-headed corbel, and others at each end of the steps. In the north transept a hoary ladder is bracketed out above the tower arch on enormous corbels.

The fact that the east window belongs to a slightly later period than the rest of the church does not in any way minimize its beauty—it appears to me rather to be a crowning glory; and its glass has a medieval richness produced only with soft colours restful and satisfying to the eye. The screen is considered to be coeval with the church, and has been restored with all the care it deserves. Yet another interest is the remarkable Easter Sepulchre to the north of the sanctuary, which has only suffered the loss of the sculpture in the upper panel. The middle portion shows our Lord coming

PATRINGTON CHURCH

Known as the ‘Queen of Holderness,’ is one of the most beautiful village churches in England. It was almost entirely built in the Decorated period, and has aisles to its transepts and much beautiful carving.

from the tomb, with an angel on either side swinging a censer, and below the recess are slumbering soldiers.

Patrington village is of fair size, with a wide street; and although lacking any individual houses calling for comment, it is a pleasant place, with the prevailing warm reds of roofs and walls to be found in all the Holderness towns.

On our way to Hedon, where the ‘King of Holderness’ awaits us, we pass Winestead Church, where Andrew Marvell was baptized in 1621, and where we may see the memorials of a fine old family—the Hildyards of Winestead, who came there in the reign of Henry VI. The well-wooded acres surrounding the old Hall of the Hildyards, although the male line died out nearly a century ago, seem still to be haunted with the memory of that redoubtable soldier, Sir Robert Hildyard, also known to history as ‘Robin of Redesdale,’ who, with Sir John Conyers, led the successful Lancastrian rising which resulted in the defeat and capture of the Earl of Pembroke at Edgcote.

Further on we come to Ottringham, where there is a restored stone reading-desk in the church, as at Pocklington. The tower has a spire, and so also has the church at Keyingham adjoining, making, with Patrington, three conspicuous landmarks along the Humber.

The stately tower of Hedon’s church is conspicuous from far away; and when we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty, and by the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place that was decayed even in Leland’s days, when Henry VIII. still reigned.

The father of English topography found the town insulated by creeks where ships lay—

‘but now men cum to it by 3 Bridges, where it is evident to se that sum Places wher the Shippes lay be over growen with Flagges and Reades; and the Haven is very sorely decayid. There were 3 Paroche Chirchis in Tyme of Mynde: but now there is but one of S. Augustine: but that is very fair.’

Also we are told that not far from the church garth there were remains of a castle for the defence of the place, and that

‘The Town hath yet greate Privileges with a Mair and Bailives: but wher it had yn Edwarde the 3 Dayes many good Shippes and riche Marchaunts, now there be but a few Botes and no Marchauntes of any Estimation.... Treuth is that when Hulle began to flourish, Heddon decaied.’

No doubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from her high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was scarcely less disastrous to the town’s prosperity than its advance had been at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted with their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the disintegrated town in the waterway of the other.

The exterior of the church is much discoloured and weathered, suggesting that in places an excess of moisture reaches the walls. Inside, too, there is an atmosphere of neglect, perhaps caused by the need of funds for the proper maintenance of the beautiful building. No great cost would be entailed, however, in keeping the churchyard tidy; and the old shoes, the empty pots, and other litter near the east end, might be removed at a trifling expense. Great Driffield keeps its churchyard as a well-ordered garden, Hedon with less care than is devoted to its green. Surely the ‘Mair and Bailives,’ armed with the mace they believe to be the most ancient in the country, would do well to go in procession to the churchyard, and, having made a careful examination of the litter and counted the tin cans and old shoes, make an urgent report to the incumbent.

The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with a fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle colours we saw at Patrington.

In Preston Church, a mile to the north, are the richly carved fragments of an alabaster Easter sepulchre, or possibly a reredos, found during the restoration in 1880.

In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone of its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting for works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of the city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes copper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness loses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of blackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct behind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion of buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand points. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses of cellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears its offspring, is the nucleus of the Royal borough of Kingston-upon-Hull, founded by Edward I. at the close of the thirteenth century.

It would scarcely have been possible that any survivals of the Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century; and Hull, despite its interesting history, lays no claim to even the smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets, where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; and there are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringing dignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, is practically all.

When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defended with towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filled the winding streets—the windmills, the churches and monasteries—we understand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely as Ravenserodd. It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de la Pole of Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteen Carthusian monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house in Lowgate opposite St. Mary’s Church. Nothing remains of this great brick mansion, which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII. during his visit in 1540. Even St. Mary’s Church has been so largely rebuilt and restored that its interest is much diminished.

The great Perpendicular Church of Holy Trinity in the market-place is, therefore, the one real link between the modern city and the little town founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building and has a fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts and chancel built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period. The De la Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed with brick—no doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by the founder of the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcades of both the nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, and the interior as a whole, although spacious, does not convey any pleasing sensations. The slenderness of the columns was necessary, it appears, owing to the soft and insecure ground, which necessitated a pile foundation and as light a weight above as could be devised.

William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in a large house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric column surmounted by a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner of the city. The old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and is a pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of the city. Of the walls, besieged in a half-hearted fashion during the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ trouble, and in a most determined fashion during the Civil War, nothing remains, and, our interest slackening, we suddenly realize that we have been long enough in this shipping city. It is not altogether easy to leave Hull behind, for Hessle, four miles further on, is in the suburban area. Sutton-in-Holderness, to the north, is a pretty hamlet threatened by the skirmishers of the city. In the church is a fine tomb of one of the Lords of Sutton, who owned the place almost from Domesday times until the days when Kingston-upon-Hull began to appear. A most instructive volume devoted to this one village has been written by the late Mr. Thomas Blashill.

In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to the southern horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden they show as a level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of the church stands out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. At first Howden seems a dull and somewhat disappointing town, compared with what we would have expected to have seen surrounding a collegiate church on such imposing lines. There are too many modern houses of that unsatisfactory whity-red brick so extensively used in these parts of Yorkshire. If the houses were colour-washed, this would be unimportant, but only in rare instances is this done, and these are almost invariably the oldest buildings. The cobbled streets at the east end of the church possess a few antique houses coloured with warm ochre, and it is over and between these that we have the first close view of the ruined chancel. The east window has lost most of its tracery, and has the appearance of a great archway; its date, together with the whole of the chancel, is late Decorated, but the exquisite little chapter-house is later still, and may be better described as early Perpendicular. It is octagonal in plan, and has in each side a window with an ogee arch above. The stones employed are remarkably large. The richly moulded arcading inside, consisting of ogee arches, has been exposed to the weather for so long, owing to the loss of the vaulting above, that the lovely detail is fast disappearing. To make a temporary roof of light rafters and boarding, covered with old or smoked tiles, and to fill the windows with plain glass, would be inexpensive, and would not be unsightly. With this first aid carried out, there would be time to collect a sufficient sum for properly restoring this architectural gem.

The west end of the nave is a fine example of Decorated work, and shows in its turrets how much more beautiful the transepts of Beverley might have been if it had been built at a slightly later period. The tower is in two stages, and although it is all Perpendicular, the upper portion is much later than the lower. There are survivals of Early English work in the south transept, where the tombs of several members of the ancient families of Saltmarsh and Metham are of absorbing interest.

About four miles from Howden, near the banks of the Derwent, stand the ruins of Wressle Castle. In every direction the country is spread out green and flat, and, except for the towers and spires of the churches, it is practically featureless. To the north the horizon is brought closer by the rounded outlines of the wolds; everywhere else you seem to be looking into infinity, as in the Fen Country.

The castle that stands in the midst of this belt of level country is the only one in the East Riding, and although now a mere fragment of the former building, it still retains a melancholy dignity. Since a fire in 1796 the place has been left an empty shell, the two great towers and the walls that join them being left without floors or roofs.

Wressle was one of the two castles in Yorkshire belonging to the Percys, and at the time of the Civil War still retained its feudal grandeur unimpaired. Its strength was, however, considered by the Parliament to be a danger to the peace, despite the fact that the Earl of Northumberland, its owner, was not on the Royalist side, and an order was issued in 1648 commanding that it should be destroyed. Pontefract Castle had been suddenly seized for the King in June during that year, and had held out so persistently that any fortified building, even if owned by a supporter, was looked upon as a possible source of danger to the Parliamentary Government. An order was therefore sent to Lord Northumberland’s officers at Wressle commanding them to pull down all but the south side of the castle. That this was done with great thoroughness, despite the most strenuous efforts made by the Earl to save his ancient seat, may be seen to-day in the fact that, of the four sides of the square, three have totally disappeared, except for slight indications in the uneven grass.

WRESSLE CASTLE

Was one of the two great castles of the Percies in Yorkshire; the other was at Leconfield, but only its site remains. Wressle probably dates from about 1380-90. Three sides of the quadrangular space enclosed by the buildings were destroyed by order of Parliament in 1650, and what remains is the fourth or southern side. Howden Church and the Wolds appear on the horizon.

A letter dated October 30, 1648, addressed to Hugh Potter, Esquire, at Northumberland House, gives a most clear account of the miserable work of destruction:

‘Sir,

‘Yours I received; and since I writ my last, on the same daye, the Commissioners sett on workmen to pull downe and deface that stately structure. They fell upon the Constables Tower, and hath with much violence pursued the work on thursday and ffriday. Their Agents wold showe noe care in preserveinge any of the materialls, but pitched of the Stones from the Battlements to the ground; and the Chymneys that stood upon the Lead downe to the Leades, which made breaches through the roof where they fell. All the Battelements to the roofe, on the ffront of the Castle (excepting the High Tower over the Gate) are bett downe. What materialls could be sav’d Mr. Plaxton did sett on some Tenants to take awaye, and laye in the barne. Belieeve it, Sir, his Lordship hath sustained very deepe losses in his house; I conceive 2000l. will not repaire the ruynes there: But I hope their work is at an end; for this day the Major and Mr. Plaxton are sett forward to attend Major Generall Lambert with the Lord Generall’s order to him: And in the meane tyme the soldiers are to hold them of, from doinge further violence to the Castle which I wish had bin done by order 2 dayes sooner.’

The saddest part of the story concerns the portion of the buildings spared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century ago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the fifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book. The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and other apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the sides of the rooms were ornamented with a ‘great profusion of ancient sculpture, finely executed in wood, exhibiting the bearings, crests, badges, and devises, of the Percy family, in a great variety of forms, set off with all the advantages of painting, gilding, and imagery.’

The chapel was in the tower shown in the picture reproduced here, and was fitted up ‘in a ruder style’ and at a more early period than the other apartments. Bishop Percy describes the sculptured badges as being still in a fair state of preservation, and mentions the motto on the ceiling: Esperance en Dieu ma Comforte. At that time—namely, just before the fire which has been mentioned—this chapel was used as the parish church, that building being then a mere ruin with only the west end standing at the distance of a bow-shot from the castle. Since then it has been rebuilt with red brick, and is uninteresting, save for an early tomb slab by the south door. The full measure of the destruction caused first by the Parliamentary agents, and a century and a half later by the fire, can be gauged by reading Leland’s account of the castle written in the reign of Henry VIII. He describes it as being constructed with very fair and great squared stones inside and out, and the tradition at the time was that much of it was brought from France. No subsequent writer has ventured to state whether the stone comes from Caen or any other French quarries, although its power of resisting the action of weather is so remarkable that, despite the fire and the century of total neglect which has since passed, it has a freshness—almost a newness—of aspect hardly to be expected in a castle erected probably between 1380 and 1390.

There was a moat on three sides, a square tower at each corner, and a fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, ‘pastery,’ larder, and kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the conduct and duties of every one, from my lord’s eldest son down to his lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512 and later; it is more than possible, for the pictures are ancillary to reading. The prices to be paid for food and many other necessities are given, also the sums given out by the treasurer to each department, and what was to be done with what remained unspent during the year.

From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments were hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and bedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the altar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel—in fact, every one’s bed, tools, and clothing—were removed in seventeen carts each time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is one of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:

‘Item.—Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean Prestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and Grome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every Remevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after ii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a Bedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde for the Yoman and Grom o’ th Vestry In all xi Beddes for the furst Cariage. And the iiᵈᵉ Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher ther Stuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said ii Cariages allowid theime.’

The daily life of the great nobles was carried on at this time in a scarcely less elaborate and sumptuous manner than that of the king’s court, and an instance of the magnificence of the Earl of Northumberland’s establishment can be taken from the eleven resident priests. Of these, the chief was a doctor or bachelor of divinity, who was dean of the chapel. One of the priests was my lord’s secretary, another his surveyor of lands, another a master of grammar, another rode with my lord, and one was chaplain to the eldest son.

The servants were so numerous that no one had more than one duty, and when one considers the liberal food allowed to every one in the establishment, to obtain a post in my lord’s household must have been an ideal for the hungry agricultural peasant, and accounts to some extent for the ease with which a feudal lord could rely upon the devoted services in peace or war of a hundred or more stout men.

There was ‘an arris-mender’ who was hourly in the wardrobe for working upon ‘my Lordis Arres and Tapstry’; a groom of the chamber looked after the two sons, ‘brushing and dressing of their stuf’; my lord’s armourer was ‘hourely in th’ Armory for dressing of his harness’; a ‘Groim Sumpterman’ attended daily at the stable to dress the sumpter-horses and ‘my Laidis Palfraies,’ and these are, of course, merely instances taken from the different types of office. The clerk of my lord’s ‘foren Expensis,’ who attended to the ‘grossing up’ of the books relating to foreign expenses, was concerned with disbursements outside the household, and not with purchases or expenses abroad, ‘alien’ being the word then used for what is now termed ‘foreign.’

We have seen the astonishingly tall spire of Hemingbrough Church from the battlements of Wressle Castle, and when we have given a last look at the grey walls and the windows, filled with their enormously heavy tracery, we betake ourselves along a pleasant lane that brings us at length to the river. Here we find a curious wooden swing-bridge, guarded by a very high white gate, with a large motor-car in difficulties with a herd of cows at the very narrow opening. From this point the spire gives a picturesque finish to the perspective of road straight ahead, and grows more imposing as we approach the village. The cottages are scattered, and the atmosphere of the place is that of the deepest slumber. A bend of the Ouse is within half a mile, and the low-lying fields intervening were marshes before they were drained. The low wall surrounding the raised ground of the churchyard has, no doubt, been reached by the floods on many occasions. The spire is 120 feet in height, or twice that of the tower, and this hugeness is perhaps out of proportion with the rest of the building; yet I do not think for a moment that this great spire could have been different without robbing the church of its striking and pleasing individuality. There are Transitional Norman arches at the east end of the nave, but most of the work is Decorated or Perpendicular. The windows of the latter period in the south transept are singularly happy in the wonderful amount of light they allow to flood through their pale yellow glass.

The oak bench-ends in the nave, which are carved with many devices, and the carefully repaired stalls in the choir, are Perpendicular, and no doubt belong to the period when the church was a collegiate foundation of Durham.

THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS

CHAPTER V
THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS

Malton is the only town on the Derwent, and it is made up of three separate places—Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, a pleasant and old-fashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensive suburb. The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there its attractions begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on a slope well above the lush grass by the river, and in this way arranges the backs of its houses with unconscious charm. The two churches, although both containing Norman pillars and arches, have been so extensively rebuilt that their antiquarian interest is slight. Nothing remains of the castle mentioned by Leland, and even Lord Eure’s great house which succeeded it was taken down before the end of the seventeenth century, before the building had had time to lose its newness. On the way to Old Malton, some huge gateways on the right are survivals of the imposing house.

On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form of two rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of some three or four Roman roads, New Malton has been made one of the competitors for the honour of having been the Derventio of the Antonine Itinerary. It is, however, far more probable that Stamford Bridge, further down the Derwent, bore that name.

Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottages here and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture as you come along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees on the left and the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately above the humble roofs. A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about the middle of the twelfth century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert of Sempringham in Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long life sent a letter to the Canons of Malton, addressing them affectionately as ‘My dear sons.’ His death took place at Sempringham when he was over a hundred years old, and his burial in the priory church there was witnessed by a great multitude, as well as the grief-stricken priors and abbots of his own and other orders. Very little remains of Malton Priory with the exception of the church, built at the very beginning of the Early English period. Of the two western towers, the southern one only survives, and both aisles, two bays of the nave, and everything else to the east has gone. The abbreviated nave now serves as a parish church.

Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hilly country we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known as the Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst. The many interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood contains can be realized by making such a peregrination as we made through the Wolds.

There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has a park-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on each side, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the left are most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grass-lands into the great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between the distant masses of trees of Lord Carlisle’s stately home. The old castle of the Howards having been burnt down, Vanburgh, the greatest architect of early Georgian times, designed the enormous buildings now standing. In 1772 Horace Walpole compressed the glories of the place into a few sentences. ’... I can say with exact truth,’ he writes to George Selwyn, ‘that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as with the first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and how Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another; nay, I had heard of glorious woods, and Lord Strafford alone had told me that I should see one of the finest places in Yorkshire; but nobody ... had informed me that I should at one view see a palace, a town, a fortified city, temples on high places, woods worthy of being each a metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, the noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleum that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen gigantic places before, but never a sublime one.’

The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole’s description applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The pictures include some of the masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens, Tintoretto, Canaletto, Giovanni Bellini, Domenichino and Annibale Caracci.

KIRKHAM ABBEY

The gateway is the chief relic of this once beautiful Cistercian abbey. On the right and through the archway the Derwent can be seen flowing beneath hanging woods.