CHAPTER VI

VANISHING OR VANISHED CHURCHES

No buildings have suffered more than our parish churches in the course of ages. Many have vanished entirely. A few stones or ruins mark the site of others, and iconoclasm has left such enduring marks on the fabric of many that remain that it is difficult to read their story and history. A volume, several volumes, would be needed to record all the vandalism that has been done to our ecclesiastical structures in the ages that have passed. We can only be thankful that some churches have survived to proclaim the glories of English architecture and the skill of our masons and artificers who wrought so well and worthily in olden days.

In the chapter that relates to the erosion of our coasts we have mentioned many of the towns and villages which have been devoured by the sea with their churches. These now lie beneath the waves, and the bells in their towers are still said to ring when storms rage. We need not record again the submerged Ravenspur, Dunwich, Kilnsea, and other unfortunate towns with their churches where now only mermaids can form the congregation.

And as the fisherman strays When the clear cold eve's declining, He sees the round tower of other days In the wave beneath him shining.

In the depths of the country, far from the sea, we can find many deserted shrines, many churches that once echoed with the songs of praise of faithful worshippers, wherein were celebrated the divine mysteries, and organs pealed forth celestial music, but now forsaken, desecrated, ruined, forgotten.

The altar has vanished, the rood screen flown, Foundation and buttress are ivy-grown; The arches are shattered, the roof has gone, The mullions are mouldering one by one; Foxglove and cow-grass and waving weed Grow over the scrolls where you once could read Benedicite.

Many of them have been used as quarries, and only a few stones remain to mark the spot where once stood a holy house of God. Before the Reformation the land must have teemed with churches. I know not the exact number of monastic houses once existing in England. There must have been at least a thousand, and each had its church. Each parish had a church. Besides these were the cathedrals, chantry chapels, chapels attached to the mansions, castles, and manor-houses of the lords and squires, to almshouses and hospitals, pilgrim churches by the roadside, where bands of pilgrims would halt and pay their devotions ere they passed along to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury or to Our Lady at Walsingham. When chantries and guilds as well as monasteries were suppressed, their chapels were no longer used for divine service; some of the monastic churches became cathedrals or parish churches, but most of them were pillaged, desecrated, and destroyed. When pilgrimages were declared to be "fond things vainly invented," and the pilgrim bands ceased to travel along the pilgrim way, the wayside chapel fell into decay, or was turned into a barn or stable.

It is all very sad and deplorable. But the roll of abandoned shrines is not complete. At the present day many old churches are vanishing. Some have been abandoned or pulled down because they were deemed too near to the squire's house, and a new church erected at a more respectful distance. "Restoration" has doomed many to destruction. Not long ago the new scheme for supplying Liverpool with water necessitated the converting of a Welsh valley into a huge reservoir and the consequent destruction of churches and villages. A new scheme for supplying London with water has been mooted, and would entail the damming up of a river at the end of a valley and the overwhelming of several prosperous old villages and churches which have stood there for centuries. The destruction of churches in London on account of the value of their site and the migration of the population, westward and eastward, has been frequently deplored. With the exception of All Hallows, Barking; St. Andrew's Undershaft; St. Catherine Cree; St. Dunstan's, Stepney; St. Giles', Cripplegate; All Hallows, Staining; St. James's, Aldgate; St. Sepulchre's; St. Mary Woolnoth; all the old City churches were destroyed by the Great Fire, and some of the above were damaged and repaired. "Destroyed by the Great Fire, rebuilt by Wren," is the story of most of the City churches of London. To him fell the task of rebuilding the fallen edifices. Well did he accomplish his task. He had no one to guide him; no school of artists or craftsmen to help him in the detail of his buildings; no great principles of architecture to direct him. But he triumphed over all obstacles and devised a style of his own that was well suitable for the requirements of the time and climate and for the form of worship of the English National Church. And how have we treated the buildings which his genius devised for us? Eighteen of his beautiful buildings have already been destroyed, and fourteen of these since the passing of the Union of City Benefices Act in 1860 have succumbed. With the utmost difficulty vehement attacks on others have been warded off, and no one can tell how long they will remain. Here is a very sad and deplorable instance of the vanishing of English architectural treasures. While we deplore the destructive tendencies of our ancestors we have need to be ashamed of our own.

We will glance at some of these deserted shrines on the sites where formerly they stood. The Rev. Gilbert Twenlow Royds, Rector of Haughton and Rural Dean of Stafford, records three of these in his neighbourhood, and shall describe them in his own words:—

"On the main road to Stafford, in a field at the top of Billington Hill, a little to the left of the road, there once stood a chapel. The field is still known as Chapel Hill; but not a vestige of the building survives; no doubt the foundations were grubbed up for ploughing purposes. In a State paper, describing 'The State of the Church in Staffs, in 1586,' we find the following entry: 'Billington Chappell; reader, a husbandman; pension 16 groats; no preacher.' This is under the heading of Bradeley, in which parish it stood. I have made a wide search for information as to the dates of the building and destruction of this chapel. Only one solitary note has come to my knowledge. In Mazzinghi's History of Castle Church he writes: 'Mention is made of Thomas Salt the son of Richard Salt and C(lem)ance his wife as Christened at Billington Chapel in 1600.' Local tradition says that within the memory of the last generation stones were carted from this site to build the churchyard wall of Bradley Church. I have noticed several re-used stones; but perhaps if that wall were to be more closely examined or pulled down, some further history might disclose itself. Knowing that some of the stones were said to be in a garden on the opposite side of the road, I asked permission to investigate. This was most kindly granted, and I was told that there was a stone 'with some writing on it' in a wall. No doubt we had the fragment of a gravestone! and such it proved to be. With some difficulty we got the stone out of the wall; and, being an expert in palaeography, I was able to decipher the inscription. It ran as follows: 'FURy. Died Feb. 28, 1864.' A skilled antiquary would probably pronounce it to be the headstone of a favourite dog's grave; and I am inclined to think that we have here a not unformidable rival of the celebrated

+ BIL ST UM PS HI S.M. ARK

of the Pickwick Papers.

"Yet another vanished chapel, of which I have even less to tell you. On the right-hand side of the railway line running towards Stafford, a little beyond Stallbrook Crossing, there is a field known as Chapel Field. But there is nothing but the name left. From ancient documents I have learnt that a chapel once stood there, known as Derrington Chapel (I think in the thirteenth century), in Seighford parish, but served from Ranton Priory. In 1847 my father built a beautiful little church at Derrington, in the Geometrical Decorated style, but not on the Chapel Field. I cannot tell you what an immense source of satisfaction it would be to me if I could gather some further reliable information as to the history, style, and annihilation of these two vanished chapels. It is unspeakably sad to be forced to realize that in so many of our country parishes no records exist of things and events of surpassing interest in their histories.

"I take you now to where there is something a little more tangible. There stand in the park of Creswell Hall, near Stafford, the ruins of a little thirteenth-century chapel. I will describe what is left. I may say that some twenty years ago I made certain excavations, which showed the ground plan to be still complete. So far as I remember, we found a chamfered plinth all round the nave, with a west doorway. The chancel and nave are of the same width, the chancel measuring about 21 ft. long and the nave c. 33 ft. The ground now again covers much of what we found. The remains above ground are those of the chancel only. Large portions of the east and north walls remain, and a small part of the south wall. The north wall is still c. 12 ft. high, and contains two narrow lancets, quite perfect. The east wall reaches c. 15 ft., and has a good base-mould. It contains the opening, without the head, of a three-light window, with simply moulded jambs, and the glass-line remaining. A string-course under the window runs round the angle buttresses, or rather did so run, for I think the north buttress has been rebuilt, and without the string. The south buttress is complete up to two weatherings, and has two strings round it. It is a picturesque and valuable ruin, and well worth a visit. It is amusing to notice that Creswell now calls itself a rectory, and an open-air service is held annually within its walls. It was a pre-bend of S. Mary's, Stafford, and previously a Free Chapel, the advowson belonging to the Lord of the Manor; and it was sometimes supplied with preachers from Ranton Priory. Of the story of its destruction I can discover nothing. It is now carefully preserved and, I have heard it suggested that it might some day be rebuilt to meet the spiritual needs of its neighbourhood.

"We pass now to the most stately and beautiful object in this neighbourhood. I mean the tower of Ranton Priory Church. It is always known here as Ranton Abbey. But it has no right to the title. It was an off-shoot of Haughmond Abbey, near Shrewsbury, and was a Priory of Black Canons, founded temp. Henry II. The church has disappeared entirely, with the exception of a bit of the south-west walling of the nave and a Norman doorway in it. This may have connected the church with the domestic buildings. In Cough's Collection in the Bodleian, dated 1731, there is a sketch of the church. What is shown there is a simple parallelogram, with the usual high walls, in Transition-Norman style, with flat pilaster buttresses, two strings running round the walls, the upper one forming the dripstones of lancet windows, a corbel-table supporting the eaves-course, and a north-east priest's door. But whatever the church may have been (and the sketch represents it as being of severe simplicity), some one built on to it a west tower of great magnificence. It is of early Perpendicular date, practically uninjured, the pinnacles only being absent, though, happily, the stumps of these remain. Its proportion appears to me to be absolutely perfect, and its detail so good that I think you would have to travel far to find its rival. There is a very interesting point to notice in the beautiful west doorway. It will be seen that the masonry of the lower parts of its jambs is quite different from that of the upper parts, and there can, I think, be no doubt that these lower stones have been re-used from a thirteenth-century doorway of some other part of the buildings. There is a tradition that the bells of Gnosall Church were taken from this tower. I can find no confirmation of this, and I cannot believe it. For the church at Gnosall is of earlier date and greater magnificence than that of Ranton Priory, and was, I imagine, quite capable of having bells of its own."

It would be an advantage to archaeology if every one were such a careful and accurate observer of local antiquarian remains as the Rural Dean of Stafford. Wherever we go we find similar deserted and abandoned shrines. In Derbyshire alone there are over a hundred destroyed or disused churches, of which Dr. Cox, the leading authority on the subject, has published a list. Nottinghamshire abounds in instances of the same kind. As late as 1892 the church at Colston Bassett was deliberately turned into a ruin. There are only mounds and a few stones to show the site of the parish church of Thorpe-in-the-fields, which in the seventeenth century was actually used as a beer-shop. In the fields between Elston and East Stoke is a disused church with a south Norman doorway. The old parochial chapel of Aslacton was long desecrated, and used in comparatively recent days as a beer-shop. The remains of it have, happily, been reclaimed, and now serve as a mission-room. East Anglia, famous for its grand churches, has to mourn over many which have been lost, many that are left roofless and ivy-clad, and some ruined indeed, though some fragment has been made secure enough for the holding of divine service. Whitling has a roofless church with a round Norman tower. The early Norman church of St. Mary at Kirby Bedon has been allowed to fall into decay, and for nearly two hundred years has been ruinous. St. Saviour's Church, Surlingham, was pulled down at the beginning of the eighteenth century on the ground that one church in the village was sufficient for its spiritual wants, and its materials served to mend roads.

A strange reason has been given for the destruction of several of these East Anglian churches. In Norfolk there were many recusants, members of old Roman Catholic families, who refused in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to obey the law requiring them to attend their parish church. But if their church were in ruins no service could be held, and therefore they could not be compelled to attend. Hence in many cases the churches were deliberately reduced to a ruinous state. Bowthorpe was one of these unfortunate churches which met its fate in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It stands in a farm-yard, and the nave made an excellent barn and the steeple a dovecote. The lord of the manor was ordered to restore it at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This he did, and for a time it was used for divine service. Now it is deserted and roofless, and sleeps placidly girt by a surrounding wall, a lonely shrine. The church of St. Peter, Hungate, at Norwich, is of great historical interest and contains good architectural features, including a very fine roof. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century by John Paston and Margaret, his wife, whose letters form part of that extraordinary series of medieval correspondence which throws so much light upon the social life of the period. The church has a rudely carved record of their work outside the north door. This unhappy church has fallen into disuse, and it has been proposed to follow the example of the London citizens to unite the benefice with another and to destroy the building. Thanks to the energy and zeal of His Highness Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, delay in carrying out the work of destruction has been secured, and we trust that his efforts to save the building will be crowned with the success they deserve.

Not far from Norwich are the churches of Keswick and Intwood. Before 1600 A.D. the latter was deserted and desecrated, being used for a sheep-fold, and the people attended service at Keswick. Then Intwood was restored to its sacred uses, and poor Keswick church was compelled to furnish materials for its repair. Keswick remained ruinous until a few years ago, when part of it was restored and used as a cemetery chapel. Ringstead has two ruined churches, St. Andrew's and St. Peter's. Only the tower of the latter remains. Roudham church two hundred years ago was a grand building, as its remains plainly testify. It had a thatched roof, which was fired by a careless thatcher, and has remained roofless to this day. Few are acquainted with the ancient hamlet of Liscombe, situated in a beautiful Dorset valley. It now consists of only one or two houses, a little Norman church, and an old monastic barn. The little church is built of flint, stone, and large blocks of hard chalk, and consists of a chancel and nave divided by a Transition-Norman arch with massive rounded columns. There are Norman windows in the chancel, with some later work inserted. A fine niche, eight feet high, with a crocketed canopy, stood at the north-east corner of the chancel, but has disappeared. The windows of the nave and the west doorway have perished. It has been for a long time desecrated. The nave is used as a bakehouse. There is a large open grate, oven, and chimney in the centre, and the chancel is a storehouse for logs. The upper part of the building has been converted into an upper storey and divided into bedrooms, which have broken-down ceilings. The roof is of thatch. Modern windows and a door have been inserted. It is a deplorable instance of terrible desecration.

The growth of ivy unchecked has caused many a ruin. The roof of the nave and south aisle of the venerable church of Chingford, Essex, fell a few years ago entirely owing to the destructive ivy which was allowed to work its relentless will on the beams, tiles, and rafters of this ancient structure.

Besides those we have mentioned there are about sixty other ruined churches in Norfolk, and in Suffolk many others, including the magnificent ruins of Covehithe, Flixton, Hopton, which was destroyed only forty-four years ago through the burning of its thatched roof, and the Old Minster, South Elmham.

Attempts have been made by the National Trust and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to save Kirkstead Chapel, near Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire. It is one of the very few surviving examples of the capella extra portas, which was a feature of every Cistercian abbey, where women and other persons who were not allowed within the gates could hear Mass. The abbey was founded in 1139, and the chapel, which is private property, is one of the finest examples of Early English architecture remaining in the country. It is in a very decaying condition. The owner has been approached, and the officials of the above societies have tried to persuade him to repair it himself or to allow them to do so. But these negotiations have hitherto failed. It is very deplorable when the owners of historic buildings should act in this "dog-in-the-manger" fashion, and surely the time has come when the Government should have power to compulsorily acquire such historic monuments when their natural protectors prove themselves to be incapable or unwilling to preserve and save them from destruction.

We turn from this sorry page of wilful neglect to one that records the grand achievement of modern antiquaries, the rescue and restoration of the beautiful specimen of Saxon architecture, the little chapel of St. Lawrence at Bradford-on-Avon. Until 1856 its existence was entirely unknown, and the credit of its discovery was due to the Rev. Canon Jones, Vicar of Bradford. At the Reformation with the dissolution of the abbey at Shaftesbury it had passed into lay hands. The chancel was used as a cottage. Round its walls other cottages arose. Perhaps part of the building was at one time used as a charnel-house, as in an old deed it is called the Skull House. In 1715 the nave and porch were given to the vicar to be used as a school. But no one suspected the presence of this exquisite gem of Anglo-Saxon architecture, until Canon Jones when surveying the town from the height of a neighbouring hill recognized the peculiarity of the roof and thought that it might indicate the existence of a church. Thirty-seven years ago the Wiltshire antiquaries succeeded in purchasing the building. They cleared away the buildings, chimney-stacks, and outhouses that had grown up around it, and revealed the whole beauties of this lovely shrine. Archaeologists have fought many battles over it as to its date. Some contend that it is the identical church which William of Malmesbury tells us St. Aldhelm built at Bradford-on-Avon about 700 A.D., others assert that it cannot be earlier than the tenth century. It was a monastic cell attached to the Abbey of Malmesbury, but Ethelred II gave it to the Abbess of Shaftesbury in 1001 as a secure retreat for her nuns if Shaftesbury should be threatened by the ravaging Danes. We need not describe the building, as it is well known. Our artist has furnished us with an admirable illustration of it. Its great height, its characteristic narrow Saxon doorways, heavy plain imposts, the string-courses surrounding the building, the arcades of pilasters, the carved figures of angels are some of its most important features. It is cheering to find that amid so much that has vanished we have here at Bradford a complete Saxon church that differs very little from what it was when it was first erected.



Other Saxon remains are not wanting. Wilfrid's Crypt at Hexham, that at Ripon, Brixworth Church, the church within the precincts of Dover Castle, the towers of Barnack, Barton-upon-Humber, Stow, Earl's Barton, Sompting, Stanton Lacy show considerable evidences of Saxon work. Saxon windows with their peculiar baluster shafts can be seen at Bolam and Billingham, Durham; St. Andrew's, Bywell, Monkwearmouth, Ovington, Sompting, St. Mary Junior, York, Hornby, Wickham (Berks), Waithe, Holton-le-Clay, Glentworth and Clee (Lincoln), Northleigh, Oxon, and St. Alban's Abbey. Saxon arches exist at Worth, Corhampton, Escomb, Deerhurst, St. Benet's, Cambridge, Brigstock, and Barnack. Triangular arches remain at Brigstock, Barnack, Deerhurst, Aston Tirrold, Berks. We have still some Saxon fonts at Potterne, Wilts; Little Billing, Northants; Edgmond and Bucknell, Shropshire; Penmon, Anglesey; and South Hayling, Hants. Even Saxon sundials exist at Winchester, Corhampton, Bishopstone, Escomb, Aldborough, Edston, and Kirkdale. There is also one at Daglingworth, Gloucestershire. Some hours of the Saxon's day in that village must have fled more swiftly than others, as all the radii are placed at the same angle. Even some mural paintings by Saxon artists exist at St. Mary's, Guildford; St. Martin's, Canterbury; and faint traces at Britford, Headbourne, Worthing, and St. Nicholas, Ipswich, and some painted consecration crosses are believed to belong to this period.

Recent investigations have revealed much Saxon work in our churches, the existence of which had before been unsuspected. Many circumstances have combined to obliterate it. The Danish wars had a disastrous effect on many churches reared in Saxon times. The Norman Conquest caused many of them to be replaced by more highly finished structures. But frequently, as we study the history written in the stonework of our churches, we find beneath coatings of stucco the actual walls built by Saxon builders, and an arch here, a column there, which link our own times with the distant past, when England was divided into eight kingdoms and when Danegelt was levied to buy off the marauding strangers.

It is refreshing to find these specimens of early work in our churches. Since then what destruction has been wrought, what havoc done upon their fabric and furniture! At the Reformation iconoclasm raged with unpitying ferocity. Everybody from the King to the churchwardens, who sold church plate lest it should fall into the hands of the royal commissioners, seems to have been engaged in pillaging churches and monasteries. The plunder of chantries and guilds followed. Fuller quaintly describes this as "the last dish of the course, and after cheese nothing is to be expected." But the coping-stone was placed on the vast fabric of spoliation by sending commissioners to visit all the cathedrals and parish churches, and seize the superfluous plate and ornaments for the King's use. Even quite small churches possessed many treasures which the piety of many generations had bestowed upon them.

There is a little village in Berkshire called Boxford, quite a small place. Here is the list of church goods which the commissioners found there, and which had escaped previous ravages:—

"One challice, a cross of copper & gilt, another cross of timber covered with brass, one cope of blue velvet embroidered with images of angles, one vestment of the same suit with an albe of Lockeram,[22] two vestments of Dornexe,[23] and three other very old, two old & coarse albes of Lockeram, two old copes of Dornexe, iiij altar cloths of linen cloth, two corporals with two cases whereof one is embroidered, two surplices, & one rochet, one bible & the paraphrases of Erasmus in English, seven banners of lockeram & one streamer all painted, three front cloths for altars whereof one of them is with panes of white damask & black satin, & the other two of old vestments, two towels of linen, iiij candlesticks of latten[24] & two standertes[25] before the high altar of latten, a lent vail[26] before the high altar with panes blue and white, two candlesticks of latten and five branches, a peace,[27] three great bells with one saunce bell xx, one canopy of cloth, a covering of Dornixe for the Sepulchre, two cruets of pewter, a holy-water pot of latten, a linen cloth to draw before the rood. And all the said parcels safely to be kept & preserved, & all the same & every parcel thereof to be forthcoming at all times when it shall be of them [the churchwardens] required."

[22] A fine linen cloth made in Brittany (cf. Coriolanus, Act ii. sc. 1).

[23] A rich sort of stuff interwoven with gold and silver, made at Tournay, which was formerly called Dorneck, in Flanders.

[24] An alloy of copper and zinc.

[25] Large standard candlesticks.

[26] The Lent cloth, hung before the altar during Lent.

[27] A Pax.

This inventory of the goods of one small church enables us to judge of the wealth of our country churches before they were despoiled. Of private spoliators their name was legion. The arch-spoliator was Protector Somerset, the King's uncle, Edward Seymour, formerly Earl of Hertford and then created Duke of Somerset. He ruled England for three years after King Henry's death. He was a glaring and unblushing church-robber, setting an example which others were only too ready to follow. Canon Overton[28] tells how Somerset House remains as a standing memorial of his rapacity. In order to provide materials for building it he pulled down the church of St. Mary-le-Strand and three bishops' houses, and was proceeding also to pull down the historical church of St. Margaret, Westminster; but public opinion was too strong against him, the parishioners rose and beat off his workmen, and he was forced to desist, and content himself with violating and plundering the precincts of St. Paul's. Moreover, the steeple and most of the church of St. John of Jerusalem, Smithfield, were mined and blown up with gunpowder that the materials might be utilized for the ducal mansion in the Strand. He turned Glastonbury, with all its associations dating from the earliest introduction of Christianity into our island, into a worsted manufactory, managed by French Protestants. Under his auspices the splendid college of St. Martin-le-Grand in London was converted into a tavern, and St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, served the scarcely less incongruous purpose of a Parliament House. All this he did, and when his well-earned fall came the Church fared no better under his successor, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and afterwards Duke of Northumberland.

[28] History of the Church in England, p. 401.

Another wretch was Robert, Earl of Sussex, to whom the King gave the choir of Atleburgh, in Norfolk, because it belonged to a college. "Being of a covetous disposition, he not only pulled down and spoiled the chancel, but also pulled up many fair marble gravestones of his ancestors with monuments of brass upon them, and other fair good pavements, and carried them and laid them for his hall, kitchen, and larder-house." The church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, has many monumental stones, the brasses of which were in 1551 sent to London to be cast into weights and measures for the use of the town. The shops of the artists in brass in London were full of broken brass memorials torn from tombs. Hence arose the making of palimpsest brasses, the carvers using an old brass and on the reverse side cutting a memorial of a more recently deceased person.

After all this iconoclasm, spoliation, and robbery it is surprising that anything of value should have been left in our churches. But happily some treasures escaped, and the gifts of two or three generations added others. Thus I find from the will of a good gentleman, Mr. Edward Ball, that after the spoliation of Barkham Church he left the sum of five shillings for the providing of a processional cross to be borne before the choir in that church, and I expect that he gave us our beautiful Elizabethan chalice of the date 1561. The Church had scarcely recovered from its spoliation before another era of devastation and robbery ensued. During the Cromwellian period much destruction was wrought by mad zealots of the Puritan faction. One of these men and his doings are mentioned by Dr. Berwick in his Querela Cantabrigiensis:—

"One who calls himself John [it should be William] Dowsing and by Virtue of a pretended Commission, goes about y^{e} country like a Bedlam, breaking glasse windows, having battered and beaten downe all our painted glasses, not only in our Chappels, but (contrary to order) in our Publique Schools, Colledge Halls, Libraries, and Chambers, mistaking, perhaps, y^{e} liberall Artes for Saints (which they intend in time to pull down too) and having (against an order) defaced and digged up y^{e} floors of our Chappels, many of which had lien so for two or three hundred years together, not regarding y^{e} dust of our founders and predecessors who likely were buried there; compelled us by armed Souldiers to pay forty shillings a Colledge for not mending what he had spoyled and defaced, or forth with to goe to prison."

We meet with the sad doings of this wretch Dowsing in various places in East Anglia. He left his hideous mark on many a fair church. Thus the churchwardens of Walberswick, in Suffolk, record in their accounts:—

"1644, April 8th, paid to Martin Dowson, that came with the troopers to our church, about the taking down of Images and Brasses off Stones 6 0."

"1644 paid that day to others for taking up the brasses of grave stones before the officer Dowson came 1 0."



The record of the ecclesiastical exploits of William Dowsing has been preserved by the wretch himself in a diary which he kept. It was published in 1786, and the volume provides much curious reading. With reference to the church of Toffe he says:—

"Will: Disborugh Church Warden Richard Basly and John Newman Cunstable, 27 Superstitious pictures in glass and ten other in stone, three brass inscriptions, Pray for y^{e} Soules, and a Cross to be taken of the Steeple (6s. 8d.) and there was divers Orate pro Animabus in ye windows, and on a Bell, Ora pro Anima Sanctae Catharinae."

"Trinity Parish, Cambridge, M. Frog, Churchwarden, December 25, we brake down 80 Popish pictures, and one of Christ and God y^{e} Father above."

"At Clare we brake down 1000 pictures superstitious."

"Cochie, there were divers pictures in the Windows which we could not reach, neither would they help us to raise the ladders."

"1643, Jan^{y} 1, Edwards parish, we digged up the steps, and brake down 40 pictures, and took off ten superstitious inscriptions."

It is terrible to read these records, and to imagine all the beautiful works of art that this ignorant wretch ruthlessly destroyed. To all the inscriptions on tombs containing the pious petition Orate pro anima—his ignorance is palpably displayed by his Orate pro animabus—he paid special attention. Well did Mr. Cole observe concerning the last entry in Dowsing's diary:—

"From this last Entry we may clearly see to whom we are obliged for the dismantling of almost all the gravestones that had brasses on them, both in town and country: a sacrilegious sanctified rascal that was afraid, or too proud, to call it St. Edward's Church, but not ashamed to rob the dead of their honours and the Church of its ornaments. W.C."

He tells also of the dreadful deeds that were being done at Lowestoft in 1644:—

"In the same year, also, on the 12th of June, there came one Jessop, with a commission from the Earl of Manchester, to take away from gravestones all inscriptions on which he found Orate pro anima—a wretched Commissioner not able to read or find out that which his commission enjoyned him to remove—he took up in our Church so much brasse, as he sold to Mr. Josiah Wild for five shillings, which was afterwards (contrary to my knowledge) runn into the little bell that hangs in the Town-house. There were taken up in the Middle Ayl twelve pieces belonging to twelve generations of the Jettours."

The same scenes were being enacted in many parts of England. Everywhere ignorant commissioners were rampaging about the country imitating the ignorant ferocity of this Dowsing and Jessop. No wonder our churches were bare, pillaged, and ruinated. Moreover, the conception of art and the taste for architecture were dead or dying, and there was no one who could replace the beautiful objects which these wretches destroyed or repair the desolation they had caused.

Another era of spoliation set in in more recent times, when the restorers came with vitiated taste and the worst ideals to reconstruct and renovate our churches which time, spoliation, and carelessness had left somewhat the worse for wear. The Oxford Movement taught men to bestow more care upon the houses of God in the land, to promote His honour by more reverent worship, and to restore the beauty of His sanctuary. A rector found his church in a dilapidated state and talked over the matter with the squire. Although the building was in a sorry condition, with a cracked ceiling, hideous galleries, and high pews like cattle-pens, it had a Norman doorway, some Early English carved work in the chancel, a good Perpendicular tower, and fine Decorated windows. These two well-meaning but ignorant men decided that a brand-new church would be a great improvement on this old tumble-down building. An architect was called in, or a local builder; the plan of a new church was speedily drawn, and ere long the hammers and axes were let loose on the old church and every vestige of antiquity destroyed. The old Norman font was turned out of the church, and either used as a cattle-trough or to hold a flower-pot in the rectory garden. Some of the beautifully carved stones made an excellent rockery in the squire's garden, and old woodwork, perchance a fourteenth-century rood-screen, encaustic tiles bearing the arms of the abbey with which in former days the church was connected, monuments and stained glass, are all carted away and destroyed, and the triumph of vandalism is complete.

That is an oft-told tale which finds its counterpart in many towns and villages, the entire and absolute destruction of the old church by ignorant vandals who work endless mischief and know not what they do. There is the village of Little Wittenham, in our county of Berks, not far from Sinodun Hill, an ancient earthwork covered with trees, that forms so conspicuous an object to the travellers by the Great Western Railway from Didcot to Oxford. About forty years ago terrible things were done in the church of that village. The vicar was a Goth. There was a very beautiful chantry chapel on the south side of the choir, full of magnificent marble monuments to the memory of various members of the Dunce family. This family, once great and powerful, whose great house stood hard by on the north of the church—only the terraces of which remain—is now, it is believed, extinct. The vicar thought that he might be held responsible for the dilapidations of this old chantry; so he pulled it down, and broke all the marble tombs with axes and hammers. You can see the shattered remains that still show signs of beauty in one of the adjoining barns. Some few were set up in the tower, the old font became a pig-trough, the body of the church was entirely renewed, and vandalism reigned supreme. In our county of Berks there were at the beginning of the last century 170 ancient parish churches. Of these, thirty have been pulled down and entirely rebuilt, six of them on entirely new sites; one has been burnt down, one disused; before 1890 one hundred were restored, some of them most drastically, and several others have been restored since, but with greater respect to old work.

A favourite method of "restoration" was adopted in many instances. A church had a Norman doorway and pillars in the nave; sundry additions and alterations had been made in subsequent periods, and examples of Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles of architecture were observable, with, perhaps, a Renaissance porch or other later feature. What did the early restorers do? They said, "This is a Norman church; all its details should be Norman too." So they proceeded to take away these later additions and imitate Norman work as much as they could by breaking down the Perpendicular or Decorated tracery in the windows and putting in large round-headed windows—their conception of Norman work, but far different from what any Norman builder would have contrived. Thus these good people entirely destroyed the history of the building, and caused to vanish much that was interesting and important. Such is the deplorable story of the "restoration" of many a parish church.

An amusing book, entitled Hints to Some Churchwardens, with a few Illustrations Relative to the Repair and Improvement of Parish Churches, was published in 1825. The author, with much satire, depicts the "very many splendid, curious, and convenient ideas which have emanated from those churchwardens who have attained perfection as planners and architects." He apologises for not giving the names of these superior men and the dates of the improvements they have achieved, but is sure that such works as theirs must immortalize them, not only in their parishes, but in their counties, and, he trusts, in the kingdom at large. The following are some of the "hints":—

"How to affix a porch to an old church.

"If the church is of stone, let the porch be of brick, the roof slated, and the entrance to it of the improved Gothic called modern, being an arch formed by an acute angle. The porch should be placed so as to stop up what might be called a useless window; and as it sometimes happens that there is an ancient Saxon[29] entrance, let it be carefully bricked up, and perhaps plastered, so as to conceal as much as possible of the zigzag ornament used in buildings of this kind. Such improvements cannot fail to ensure celebrity to churchwardens of future ages.

"How to add a vestry to an old church.

"The building here proposed is to be of bright brick, with a slated roof and sash windows, with a small door on one side; and it is, moreover, to be adorned with a most tasty and ornamental brick chimney, which terminates at the chancel end. The position of the building should be against two old Gothic windows; which, having the advantage of hiding them nearly altogether, when contrasted with the dull and uniform surface of an old stone church, has a lively and most imposing effect.

"How to ornament the top or battlements of a tower belonging to an ancient church.

"Place on each battlement, vases, candlesticks, and pineapples alternately, and the effect will be striking. Vases have many votaries amongst those worthy members of society, the churchwardens. Candlesticks are of ancient origin, and represent, from the highest authority, the light of the churches: but as in most churches weathercocks are used, I would here recommend the admirers of novelty and improvement to adopt a pair of snuffers, which might also be considered as a useful emblem for reinvigorating the lights from the candlesticks. The pineapple ornament having in so many churches been judiciously substituted for Gothic, cannot fail to please. Some such ornament should also be placed at the top of the church, and at the chancel end. But as this publication does not restrict any churchwarden of real taste, and as the ornaments here recommended are in a common way made of stone, if any would wish to distinguish his year of office, perhaps he would do it brilliantly by painting them all bright red...."

[29] Doubtless our author means Norman.

Other valuable suggestions are made in this curious and amusing work, such as "how to repair Quartre-feuille windows" by cutting out all the partitions and making them quite round; "how to adapt a new church to an old tower with most taste and effect," the most attractive features being light iron partitions instead of stone mullions for the windows, with shutters painted yellow, bright brick walls and slate roof, and a door painted sky-blue. You can best ornament a chancel by placing colossal figures of Moses and Aaron supporting the altar, huge tables of the commandments, and clusters of grapes and pomegranates in festoons and clusters of monuments. Vases upon pillars, the commandments in sky-blue, clouds carved out of wood supporting angels, are some of the ideas recommended. Instead of a Norman font you can substitute one resembling a punch-bowl,[30] with the pedestal and legs of a round claw table; and it would be well to rear a massive pulpit in the centre of the chancel arch, hung with crimson and gold lace, with gilt chandeliers, large sounding-board with a vase at the top. A stove is always necessary. It can be placed in the centre of the chancel, and the stove-pipe can be carried through the upper part of the east window, and then by an elbow conveyed to the crest of the roof over the window, the cross being taken down to make room for the chimney. Such are some of the recommendations of this ingenious writer, which are ably illustrated by effective drawings. They are not all imaginative. Many old churches tell the tragic story of their mutilation at the hands of a rector who has discovered Parker's Glossary, knows nothing about art, but "does know what he likes," advised by his wife who has visited some of the cathedrals, and by an architect who has been elaborately educated in the principles of Roman Renaissance, but who knows no more of Lombard, Byzantine, or Gothic art than he does of the dynasties of ancient Egypt. When a church has fallen into the hands of such renovators and been heavily "restored," if the ghost of one of its medieval builders came to view his work he would scarcely recognize it. Well says Mr. Thomas Hardy: "To restore the great carcases of mediaevalism in the remote nooks of western England seems a not less incongruous act than to set about renovating the adjoining crags themselves," and well might he sigh over the destruction of the grand old tower of Endelstow Church and the erection of what the vicar called "a splendid tower, designed by a first-rate London man—in the newest style of Gothic art and full of Christian feeling."

[30] A china punch-bowl was actually presented by Sir T. Drake to be used as a font at Woodbury, Devon.

The novelist's remarks on "restoration" are most valuable:—

"Entire destruction under the saving name has been effected on so gigantic a scale that the protection of structures, their being kept wind and weather-proof, counts as nothing in the balance. Its enormous magnitude is realized by few who have not gone personally from parish to parish through a considerable district, and compared existing churches there with records, traditions, and memories of what they formerly were. The shifting of old windows and other details irregularly spaced, and spacing them at exact distances, has been one process. The deportation of the original chancel arch to an obscure nook and the insertion of a wider new one, to throw open the view of the choir, is a practice by no means extinct. Next in turn to the re-designing of old buildings and parts of them comes the devastation caused by letting restorations by contract, with a clause in the specification requesting the builder to give a price for 'old materials,' such as the lead of the roofs, to be replaced by tiles or slates, and the oak of the pews, pulpit, altar-rails, etc., to be replaced by deal. Apart from these irregularities it has been a principle that anything later than Henry VIII is anathema and to be cast out. At Wimborne Minster fine Jacobean canopies have been removed from Tudor stalls for the offence only of being Jacobean. At a hotel in Cornwall a tea-garden was, and probably is still, ornamented with seats constructed of the carved oak from a neighbouring church—no doubt the restorer's perquisite.

"Poor places which cannot afford to pay a clerk of the works suffer much in these ecclesiastical convulsions. In one case I visited, as a youth, the careful repair of an interesting Early English window had been specified, but it was gone. The contractor, who had met me on the spot, replied genially to my gaze of concern: 'Well, now, I said to myself when I looked at the old thing, I won't stand upon a pound or two. I'll give 'em a new winder now I am about it, and make a good job of it, howsomever.' A caricature in new stone of the old window had taken its place. In the same church was an old oak rood-screen in the Perpendicular style with some gilding and colouring still remaining. Some repairs had been specified, but I beheld in its place a new screen of varnished deal. 'Well,' replied the builder, more genial than ever, 'please God, now I am about it, I'll do the thing well, cost what it will.' The old screen had been used up to boil the work-men's kettles, though 'a were not much at that.'"

Such is the terrible report of this amazing iconoclasm.

Some wiseacres, the vicar and churchwardens, once determined to pull down their old church and build a new one. So they met in solemn conclave and passed the following sagacious resolutions:—

1. That a new church should be built.

2. That the materials of the old church should be used in the construction of the new.

3. That the old church should not be pulled down until the new one be built.

How they contrived to combine the second and third resolutions history recordeth not.

Even when the church was spared the "restorers" were guilty of strange enormities in the embellishment and decoration of the sacred building. Whitewash was vigorously applied to the walls and pews, carvings, pulpit, and font. If curious mural paintings adorned the walls, the hideous whitewash soon obliterated every trace and produced "those modest hues which the native appearance of the stone so pleasingly bestows." But whitewash has one redeeming virtue, it preserves and saves for future generations treasures which otherwise might have been destroyed. Happily all decoration of churches has not been carried out in the reckless fashion thus described by a friend of the writer. An old Cambridgeshire incumbent, who had done nothing to his church for many years, was bidden by the archdeacon to "brighten matters up a little." The whole of the woodwork wanted repainting and varnishing, a serious matter for a poor man. His wife, a very capable lady, took the matter in hand. She went to the local carpenter and wheelwright and bought up the whole of his stock of that particular paint with which farm carts and wagons are painted, coarse but serviceable, and of the brightest possible red, blue, green, and yellow hues. With her own hands she painted the whole of the interior—pulpit, pews, doors, etc., and probably the wooden altar, using the colours as her fancy dictated, or as the various colours held out. The effect was remarkable. A succeeding rector began at once the work of restoration, scraping off the paint and substituting oak varnish; but when my friend took a morning service for him the work had not been completed, and he preached from a bright green pulpit.



The contents of our parish churches, furniture and plate, are rapidly vanishing. England has ever been remarkable for the number and beauty of its rood-screens. At the Reformation the roods were destroyed and many screens with them, but many of the latter were retained, and although through neglect or wanton destruction they have ever since been disappearing, yet hundreds still exist.[31] Their number is, however, sadly decreased. In Cheshire "restoration" has removed nearly all examples, except Ashbury, Mobberley, Malpas, and a few others. The churches of Bunbury and Danbury have lost some good screen-work since 1860. In Derbyshire screens suffered severely in the nineteenth century, and the records of each county show the disappearance of many notable examples, though happily Devonshire, Somerset, and several other shires still possess some beautiful specimens of medieval woodwork. A large number of Jacobean pulpits with their curious carvings have vanished. A pious donor wishes to give a new pulpit to a church in memory of a relative, and the old pulpit is carted away to make room for its modern and often inferior substitute. Old stalls and misericordes, seats and benches with poppy-head terminations have often been made to vanish, and the pillaging of our churches at the Reformation and during the Commonwealth period and at the hands of the "restorers" has done much to deprive our churches of their ancient furniture.

[31] English Church Furniture, by Dr. Cox and A. Harvey.

Most churches had two or three chests or coffers for the storing of valuable ornaments and vestments. Each chantry had its chest or ark, as it was sometimes called, e.g. the collegiate church of St. Mary, Warwick, had in 1464, "ij old irebound coofres," "j gret olde arke to put in vestments," "j olde arke at the autere ende, j old coofre irebonde having a long lok of the olde facion, and j lasse new coofre having iij loks called the tresory cofre and certain almaries." "In the inner house j new hie almarie with ij dores to kepe in the evidence of the Churche and j great old arke and certain olde Almaries, and in the house afore the Chapter house j old irebounde cofre having hie feet and rings of iron in the endes thereof to heve it bye."

"It is almost exceptional to find any parish of five hundred inhabitants which does not possess a parish chest. The parish chest of the parish in which I am writing is now in the vestry of the church here. It has been used for generations as a coal box. It is exceptional to find anything so useful as wholesome fuel inside these parish chests; their contents have in the great majority of instances utterly perished, and the miserable destruction of those interesting parish records testifies to the almost universal neglect which they have suffered at the hands, not of the parsons, who as a rule have kept with remarkable care the register books for which they have always been responsible, but of the churchwardens and overseers, who have let them perish without a thought of their value.

"As a rule the old parish chests have fallen to pieces, or worse, and their contents have been used to light the church stove, except in those very few cases where the chests were furnished with two or more keys, each key being of different wards from the other, and each being handed over to a different functionary when the time of the parish meeting came round."[32]

[32] The Parish Councillor, an article by Dr. Jessop, September 20, 1895.

When the ornaments and vestments were carted away from the church in the time of Edward VI, many of the church chests lost their use, and were sold or destroyed, the poorest only being kept for registers and documents. Very magnificent were some of these chests which have survived, such as that at Icklington, Suffolk, Church Brampton, Northants, Rugby, Westminster Abbey, and Chichester. The old chest at Heckfield may have been one of those ordered in the reign of King John for the collection of the alms of the faithful for the fifth crusade. The artist, Mr. Fred Roe, has written a valuable work on chests, to which those who desire to know about these interesting objects can refer.

Another much diminishing store of treasure belonging to our churches is the church plate. Many churches possess some old plate—perhaps a pre-Reformation chalice. It is worn by age, and the clergyman, ignorant of its value, takes it to a jeweller to be repaired. He is told that it is old and thin and cannot easily be repaired, and is offered very kindly by the jeweller in return for this old chalice a brand-new one with a paten added. He is delighted, and the old chalice finds its way to Christie's, realizes a large sum, and goes into the collection of some millionaire. Not long ago the Council of the Society of Antiquaries issued a memorandum to the bishops and archdeacons of the Anglican Church calling attention to the increasing frequency of the sale of old or obsolete church plate. This is of two kinds: (1) pieces of plate or other articles of a domestic character not especially made, nor perhaps well fitted for the service of the Church; (2) chalices, patens, flagons, or plate generally, made especially for ecclesiastical use, but now, for reasons of change of fashion or from the articles themselves being worn out, no longer desired to be used. A church possibly is in need of funds for restoration, and an effort is naturally made to turn such articles into money. The officials decide to sell any objects the church may have of the first kind. Thus the property of the Church of England finds its way abroad, and is thus lost to the nation. With regard to the sacred vessels of the second class, it is undignified, if not a desecration, that vessels of such a sacred character should be subjected to a sale by auction and afterwards used as table ornaments by collectors to whom their religious significance makes no appeal. We are reminded of the profanity of Belshazzar's feast.[33] It would be far better to place such objects for safe custody and preservation in some local museum. Not long ago a church in Knightsbridge was removed and rebuilt on another site. It had a communion cup presented by Archbishop Laud. Some addition was required for the new church, and it was proposed to sell the chalice to help in defraying the cost of this addition. A London dealer offered five hundred guineas for it, and doubtless by this time it has passed into private hands and left the country. This is only one instance out of many of the depletion of the Church of its treasures. It must not be forgotten that although the vicar and churchwardens are for the time being trustees of the church plate and furniture, yet the property really is vested in the parishioners. It ought not to be sold without a faculty, and the chancellors of dioceses ought to be extremely careful ere they allow such sales to take place. The learned Chancellor of Exeter very wisely recently refused to allow the rector of Churchstanton to sell a chalice of the date 1660 A.D., stating that it was painfully repugnant to the feelings of many Churchmen that it should be possible that a vessel dedicated to the most sacred service of the Church should figure upon the dinner-table of a collector. He quoted a case of a chalice which had disappeared from a church and been found afterwards with an inscription showing that it had been awarded as a prize at athletic sports. Such desecration is too deplorable for words suitable to describe it. If other chancellors took the same firm stand as Mr. Chadwyck-Healey, of Exeter, we should hear less of such alienation of ecclesiastical treasure.

[33] Canon F.E. Warren recently reported to the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology that while he was dining at a friend's house he saw two chalices on the table.



Another cause of mutilation and the vanishing of objects of interest and beauty is the iconoclasm of visitors, especially of American visitors, who love our English shrines so much that they like to chip off bits of statuary or wood-carving to preserve as mementoes of their visit. The fine monuments in our churches and cathedrals are especially convenient to them for prey. Not long ago the best portions of some fine carving were ruthlessly cut and hacked away by a party of American visitors. The verger explained that six of the party held him in conversation at one end of the building while the rest did their deadly and nefarious work at the other. One of the most beautiful monuments in the country, that of the tomb of Lady Maud FitzAlan at Chichester, has recently been cut and chipped by these unscrupulous visitors. It may be difficult to prevent them from damaging such works of art, but it is hoped that feelings of greater reverence may grow which would render such vandalism impossible. All civilized persons would be ashamed to mutilate the statues of Greece and Rome in our museums. Let them realize that these monuments in our cathedrals and churches are just as valuable, as they are the best of English art, and then no sacrilegious hand would dare to injure them or deface them by scratching names upon them or by carrying away broken chips as souvenirs. Playful boys in churchyards sometimes do much mischief. In Shrivenham churchyard there is an ancient full-sized effigy, and two village urchins were recently seen amusing themselves by sliding the whole length of the figure. This must be a common practice of the boys of the village, as the effigy is worn almost to an inclined plane. A tradition exists that the figure represents a man who was building the tower and fell and was killed. Both tower and effigy are of the same period—Early English—and it is quite possible that the figure may be that of the founder of the tower, but its head-dress seems to show that it represents a lady. Whipping-posts and stocks are too light a punishment for such vandalism.

The story of our vanished and vanishing churches, and of their vanished and vanishing contents, is indeed a sorry one. Many efforts are made in these days to educate the public taste, to instil into the minds of their custodians a due appreciation of their beauties and of the principles of English art and architecture, and to save and protect the treasures that remain. That these may be crowned with success is the earnest hope and endeavour of every right-minded Englishman.



CHAPTER VII

OLD MANSIONS

One of the most deplorable features of vanishing England is the gradual disappearance of its grand old manor-houses and mansions. A vast number still remain, we are thankful to say. We have still left to us Haddon and Wilton, Broughton, Penshurst, Hardwick, Welbeck, Bramshill, Longleat, and a host of others; but every year sees a diminution in their number. The great enemy they have to contend with is fire, and modern conveniences and luxuries, electric lighting and the heating apparatus, have added considerably to their danger. The old floors and beams are unaccustomed to these insidious wires that have a habit of fusing, hence we often read in the newspapers: "DISASTROUS FIRE—HISTORIC MANSION ENTIRELY DESTROYED." Too often not only is the house destroyed, but most of its valuable contents is devoured by the flames. Priceless pictures by Lely and Vandyke, miniatures of Cosway, old furniture of Chippendale and Sheraton, and the countless treasures which generations of cultured folk with ample wealth have accumulated, deeds, documents and old papers that throw valuable light on the manners and customs of our forefathers and on the history of the country, all disappear and can never be replaced. A great writer has likened an old house to a human heart with a life of its own, full of sad and sweet reminiscences. It is deplorably sad when the old mansion disappears in a night, and to find in the morning nothing but blackened walls—a grim ruin.

Our forefathers were a hardy race, and did not require hot-water pipes and furnaces to keep them warm. Moreover, they built their houses so surely and so well that they scarcely needed these modern appliances. They constructed them with a great square courtyard, so that the rooms on the inside of the quadrangle were protected from the winds. They sang truly in those days, as in these:—

Sing heigh ho for the wind and the rain, For the rain it raineth every day.



So they sheltered themselves from the wind and rain by having a courtyard or by making an E or H shaped plan for their dwelling-place. Moreover, they made their walls very thick in order that the winds should not blow or the rain beat through them. Their rooms, too, were panelled or hung with tapestry—famous things for making a room warm and cosy. We have plaster walls covered with an elegant wall-paper which has always a cold surface, hence the air in the room, heated by the fire, is chilled when it comes into contact with the cold wall and creates draughts. But oak panelling or woollen tapestry soon becomes warm, and gives back its heat to the room, making it delightfully comfortable and cosy.

One foolish thing our forefathers did, and that was to allow the great beams that help to support the upper floor to go through the chimney. How many houses have been burnt down owing to that fatal beam! But our ancestors were content with a dog-grate and wood fires; they could not foresee the advent of the modern range and the great coal fires, or perhaps they would have been more careful about that beam.



Fire is, perhaps, the chief cause of the vanishing of old houses, but it is not the only cause. The craze for new fashions at the beginning of the last century doomed to death many a noble mansion. There seems to have been a positive mania for pulling down houses at that period. As I go over in my mind the existing great houses in this country, I find that by far the greater number of the old houses were wantonly destroyed about the years 1800-20, and new ones in the Italian or some other incongruous style erected in their place. Sometimes, as at Little Wittenham, you find the lone lorn terraces of the gardens of the house, but all else has disappeared. As Mr. Allan Fea says: "When an old landmark disappears, who does not feel a pang of regret at parting with something which linked us with the past? Seldom an old house is threatened with demolition but there is some protest, more perhaps from the old associations than from any particular architectural merit the building may have." We have many pangs of regret when we see such wanton destruction. The old house at Weston, where the Throckmortons resided when the poet Cowper lived at the lodge, and when leaving wrote on a window-shutter—

Farewell, dear scenes, for ever closed to me; Oh! for what sorrows must I now exchange ye!

may be instanced as an example of a demolished mansion. Nothing is now left of it but the entrance-gates and a part of the stables. It was pulled down in 1827. It is described as a fine mansion, possessing secret chambers which were occupied by Roman Catholic priests when it was penal to say Mass. One of these chambers was found to contain, when the house was pulled down, a rough bed, candlestick, remains of food, and a breviary. A Roman Catholic school and presbytery now occupy its site. It is a melancholy sight to see the "Wilderness" behind the house, still adorned with busts and urns, and the graves of favourite dogs, which still bear the epitaphs written by Cowper on Sir John Throckmorton's pointer and Lady Throckmorton's pet spaniel. "Capability Brown" laid his rude, rough hand upon the grounds, but you can still see the "prosed alcove" mentioned by Cowper, a wooden summer-house, much injured

By rural carvers, who with knives deface The panels, leaving an obscure rude name.

Sometimes, alas! the old house has to vanish entirely through old age. It cannot maintain its struggle any longer. The rain pours through the roof and down the insides of the walls. And the family is as decayed as their mansion, and has no money wherewith to defray the cost of reparation.



Our artist, Mr. Fred Roe, in his search for the picturesque, had one sad and deplorable experience, which he shall describe in his own words:—

"One of the most weird and, I may add, chilling experiences in connection with the decline of county families which it was my lot to experience, occurred a year or two ago in a remote corner of the eastern counties. I had received, through a friend, an invitation to visit an old mansion before the inmates (descendants of the owners in Elizabethan times) left and the contents were dispersed. On a comfortless January morning, while rain and sleet descended in torrents to the accompaniment of a biting wind, I detrained at a small out-of-the-way station in ——folk. A weather-beaten old man in a patched great-coat, with the oldest and shaggiest of ponies and the smallest of governess-traps, awaited my arrival. I, having wedged myself with the Jehu into this miniature vehicle, was driven through some miles of muddy ruts, until turning through a belt of wooded land the broken outlines of an extensive dilapidated building broke into view. This was —— Hall.

"I never in my life saw anything so weirdly picturesque and suggestive of the phrase 'In Chancery' as this semi-ruinous mansion. Of many dates and styles of architecture, from Henry VIII to George III, the whole seemed to breathe an atmosphere of neglect and decay. The waves of affluence and successive rise of various members of the family could be distinctly traced in the enlargements and excrescences which contributed to the casual plan and irregular contour of the building. At one part an addition seemed to denote that the owner had acquired wealth about the time of the first James, and promptly directed it to the enlargement of his residence. In another a huge hall with classic brick frontage, dating from the commencement of the eighteenth century, spoke of an increase of affluence—probably due to agricultural prosperity—followed by the dignity of a peerage. The latest alterations appear to have been made during the Strawberry Hill epoch, when most of the mullioned windows had been transformed to suit the prevailing taste. Some of the building—a little of it—seemed habitable, but in the greater part the gables were tottering, the stucco frontage peeling and falling, and the windows broken and shuttered. In front of this wreck of a building stretched the overgrown remains of what once had been a terrace, bounded by large stone globes, now moss-grown and half hidden under long grass. It was the very picture of desolation and proud poverty.

"We drove up to what had once been the entrance to the servants' hall, for the principal doorway had long been disused, and descending from the trap I was conducted to a small panelled apartment, where some freshly cut logs did their best to give out a certain amount of heat. Of the hospitality meted out to me that day I can only hint with mournful appreciation. I was made welcome with all the resources which the family had available. But the place was a veritable vault, and cold and damp as such. I think that this state of things had been endured so long and with such haughty silence by the inmates that it had passed into a sort of normal condition with them, and remained unnoticed except by new-comers. A few old domestics stuck by the family in its fallen fortunes, and of these one who had entered into their service some quarter of a century previous waited upon us at lunch with dignified ceremony. After lunch a tour of the house commenced. Into this I shall not enter into in detail; many of the rooms were so bare that little could be said of them, but the Great Hall, an apartment modelled somewhat on the lines of the more palatial Rainham, needs the pen of the author of Lammermoor to describe. It was a very large and lofty room in the pseudo-classic style, with a fine cornice, and hung round with family portraits so bleached with damp and neglect that they presented but dim and ghostly presentments of their originals. I do not think a fire could have been lit in this ghostly gallery for many years, and some of the portraits literally sagged in their frames with accumulations of rubbish which had dropped behind the canvases. Many of the pictures were of no value except for their associations, but I saw at least one Lely, a family group, the principal figure in which was a young lady displaying too little modesty and too much bosom. Another may have been a Vandyk, while one or two were early works representing gallants of Elizabeth's time in ruffs and feathered caps. The rest were for the most part but wooden ancestors displaying curled wigs, legs which lacked drawing, and high-heeled shoes. A few old cabinets remained, and a glorious suite of chairs of Queen Anne's time—these, however, were perishing, like the rest—from want of proper care and firing.

"The kitchens, a vast range of stone-flagged apartments, spoke of mighty hospitality in bygone times, containing fire-places fit to roast oxen at whole, huge spits and countless hooks, the last exhibiting but one dependent—the skin of the rabbit shot for lunch. The atmosphere was, if possible, a trifle more penetrating than that of the Great Hall, and the walls were discoloured with damp.

"Upstairs, besides the bedrooms, was a little chapel with some remains of Gothic carving, and a few interesting pictures of the fifteenth century; a cunningly contrived priest-hole, and a long gallery lined with dusty books, whither my lord used to repair on rainy days. Many of the windows were darkened by creepers, and over one was a flap of half-detached plaster work which hung like a shroud. But, oh, the stained glass! The eighteenth-century renovators had at least respected these, and quarterings and coats of arms from the fifteenth century downwards were to be seen by scores. What an opportunity for the genealogist with a history in view, but that opportunity I fear has passed for ever. The —— Hall estate was evidently mortgaged up to the hilt, and nothing intervened to prevent the dispersal of these treasures, which occurred some few months after my visit. Large though the building was, I learned that its size was once far greater, some two-thirds of the old building having been pulled down when the hall was constituted in its present form. Hard by on an adjoining estate a millionaire manufacturer (who owned several motor-cars) had set up an establishment, but I gathered that his tastes were the reverse of antiquarian, and that no effort would be made to restore the old hall to its former glories and preserve such treasures as yet remained intact—a golden opportunity to many people of taste with leanings towards a country life. But time fled, and the ragged retainer was once more at the door, so I left —— Hall in a blinding storm of rain, and took my last look at its gaunt facade, carrying with me the seeds of a cold which prevented me from visiting the Eastern Counties for some time to come."

Some historic houses of rare beauty have only just escaped destruction. Such an one is the ancestral house of the Comptons, Compton Wynyates, a vision of colour and architectural beauty—

A Tudor-chimneyed bulk Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.

Owing to his extravagance and the enormous expenses of a contested election in 1768, Spencer, the eighth Earl of Northampton, was reduced to cutting down the timber on the estate, selling his furniture at Castle Ashby and Compton, and spending the rest of his life in Switzerland. He actually ordered Compton Wynyates to be pulled down, as he could not afford to repair it; happily the faithful steward of the estate, John Berrill, did not obey the order. He did his best to keep out the weather and to preserve the house, asserting that he was sure the family would return there some day. Most of the windows were bricked up in order to save the window-tax, and the glorious old building within whose walls kings and queens had been entertained remained bare and desolate for many years, excepting a small portion used as a farm-house. All honour to the old man's memory, the faithful servant, who thus saved his master's noble house from destruction, the pride of the Midlands. Its latest historian, Miss Alice Dryden,[34] thus describes its appearance:—

"On approaching the building by the high road, the entrance front now bursts into view across a wide stretch of lawn, where formerly it was shielded by buildings forming an outer court. It is indeed a most glorious pile of exquisite colouring, built of small red bricks widely separated by mortar, with occasional chequers of blue bricks; the mouldings and facings of yellow local stone, the woodwork of the two gables carved and black with age, the stone slates covered with lichens and mellowed by the hand of time; the whole building has an indescribable charm. The architecture, too, is all irregular; towers here and there, gables of different heights, any straight line embattled, few windows placed exactly over others, and the whole fitly surmounted by the elaborate brick chimneys of different designs, some fluted, others zigzagged, others spiral, or combined spiral and fluted."

[34] Memorials of Old Warwickshire, edited by Miss Alice Dryden.

An illustration is given of one of these chimneys which form such an attractive feature of the house.



It is unnecessary to record the history of Compton Wynyates. The present owner, the Marquis of Northampton, has written an admirable monograph on the annals of the house of his ancestors. Its builder was Sir William Compton,[35] who by his valour in arms and his courtly ways gained the favour of Henry VIII, and was promoted to high honour at the Court. Dugdale states that in 1520 he obtained licence to impark two thousand acres at Overcompton and Nethercompton, alias Compton Vyneyats, where he built a "fair mannour house," and where he was visited by the King, "for over the gateway are the arms of France and England, under a crown, supported by the greyhound and griffin, and sided by the rose and the crown, probably in memory of Henry VIII's visit here."[36] The Comptons ever basked in the smiles of royalty. Henry Compton, created baron, was the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, and his son William succeeded in marrying the daughter of Sir John Spencer, richest of City merchants. All the world knows of his ingenious craft in carrying off the lady in a baker's basket, of his wife's disinheritance by the irate father, and of the subsequent reconciliation through the intervention of Queen Elizabeth at the baptism of the son of this marriage. The Comptons fought bravely for the King in the Civil War. Their house was captured by the enemy, and besieged by James Compton, Earl of Northampton, and the story of the fighting about the house abounds in interest, but cannot be related here. The building was much battered by the siege and by Cromwell's soldiers, who plundered the house, killed the deer in the park, defaced the monuments in the church, and wrought much mischief. Since the eighteenth-century disaster to the family it has been restored, and remains to this day one of the most charming homes in England.

[35] The present Marquis of Northampton in his book contends that the house was mainly built in the reign of Henry VII by Edmund Compton, Sir William's father, and that Sir William only enlarged and added to the house. We have not space to record the arguments in favour of or against this view.

[36] The Progresses of James I, by Nichols.



"The greatest advantages men have by riches are to give, to build, to plant, and make pleasant scenes." So wrote Sir William Temple, diplomatist, philosopher, and true garden-lover. And many of the gentlemen of England seem to have been of the same mind, if we may judge from the number of delightful old country-houses set amid pleasant scenes that time and war and fire have spared to us. Macaulay draws a very unflattering picture of the old country squire, as of the parson. His untruths concerning the latter I have endeavoured to expose in another place.[37] The manor-houses themselves declare the historian's strictures to be unfounded. Is it possible that men so ignorant and crude could have built for themselves residences bearing evidence of such good taste, so full of grace and charm, and surrounded by such rare blendings of art and nature as are displayed so often in park and garden? And it is not, as a rule, in the greatest mansions, the vast piles erected by the great nobles of the Court, that we find such artistic qualities, but most often in the smaller manor-houses of knights and squires. Certainly many higher-cultured people of Macaulay's time and our own could learn a great deal from them of the art of making beautiful homes.

[37] Old-time Parson, by P.H. Ditchfield, 1908.



Holinshed, the Chronicler, writing during the third quarter of the sixteenth century, makes some illuminating observations on the increasing preference shown in his time for stone and brick buildings in place of timber and plaster. He wrote:—

"The ancient maners and houses of our gentlemen are yet for the most part of strong timber. How beit such as be lately buylded are commonly either of bricke or harde stone, their rowmes large and stately, and houses of office farder distant fro their lodgings. Those of the nobilitie are likewise wrought with bricke and harde stone, as provision may best be made; but so magnificent and stately, as the basest house of a barren doth often match with some honours of princes in olde tyme: so that if ever curious buylding did flourishe in Englande it is in these our dayes, wherein our worckemen excel and are in maner comparable in skill with old Vitruvius and Serle."

He also adds the curious information that "there are olde men yet dwelling in the village where I remayn, which have noted three things to be marveylously altered in Englande within their sound remembrance. One is, the multitude of chimnies lately erected, whereas, in their young dayes there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish townes of the realme (the religious houses and mannour places of their lordes alwayes excepted, and peradventure some great personages [parsonages]), but each one made his fire against a reredosse in the halle, where he dined and dressed his meate," This want of chimneys is noticeable in many pictures of, and previous to, the time of Henry VIII. A timber farm-house yet remains (or did until recently) near Folkestone, which shows no vestige of either chimney or hearth.

Most of our great houses and manor-houses sprang up in the great Elizabethan building epoch, when the untold wealth of the monasteries which fell into the hands of the courtiers and favourites of the King, the plunder of gold-laden Spanish galleons, and the unprecedented prosperity in trade gave such an impulse to the erection of fine houses that the England of that period has been described as "one great stonemason's yard." The great noblemen and gentlemen of the Court were filled with the desire for extravagant display, and built such clumsy piles as Wollaton and Burghley House, importing French and German artisans to load them with bastard Italian Renaissance detail. Some of these vast structures are not very admirable with their distorted gables, their chaotic proportions, and their crazy imitations of classic orders. But the typical Elizabethan mansion, whose builder's means or good taste would not permit of such a profusion of these architectural luxuries, is unequalled in its combination of stateliness with homeliness, in its expression of the manner of life of the class for which it was built. And in the humbler manors and farm-houses the latter idea is even more perfectly expressed, for houses were affected by the new fashions in architecture generally in proportion to their size.



Holinshed tells of the increased use of stone or brick in his age in the district wherein he lived. In other parts of England, where the forests supplied good timber, the builders stuck to their half-timbered houses and brought the "black and white" style to perfection. Plaster was extensively used in this and subsequent ages, and often the whole surface of the house was covered with rough-cast, such as the quaint old house called Broughton Hall, near Market Drayton. Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, is an attractive example of the plastered house. The irregular roof-line, the gables, and the white-barred windows, and the contrast of the white walls with the rich green of the vines and surrounding trees combine to make a picture of rare beauty. Part of the house is built of stone and part half-timber, but a coat of thin plaster covers the stonework and makes it conform with the rest. To plaster over stone-work is a somewhat daring act, and is not architecturally correct, but the appearance of the house is altogether pleasing.

The Elizabethan and Jacobean builder increased the height of his house, sometimes causing it to have three storeys, besides rooms in attics beneath the gabled roof. He also loved windows. "Light, more light," was his continued cry. Hence there is often an excess of windows, and Lord Bacon complained that there was no comfortable place to be found in these houses, "in summer by reason of the heat, or in winter by reason of the cold." It was a sore burden to many a house-owner when Charles II imposed the iniquitous window-tax, and so heavily did this fall upon the owners of some Elizabethan houses that the poorer ones were driven to the necessity of walling up some of the windows which their ancestors had provided with such prodigality. You will often see to this day bricked-up windows in many an old farm-house. Not every one was so cunning as the parish clerk of Bradford-on-Avon, Orpin, who took out the window-frames from his interesting little house near the church and inserted numerous small single-paned windows which escaped the tax.

Surrey and Kent afford an unlimited field for the study of the better sort of houses, mansions, and manor-houses. We have already alluded to Hever Castle and its memories of Anne Boleyn. Then there is the historic Penshurst, the home of the Sidneys, haunted by the shades of Sir Philip, "Sacharissa," the ill-fated Algernon, and his handsome brother. You see their portraits on the walls, the fine gallery, and the hall, which reveals the exact condition of an ancient noble's hall in former days.



Not far away are the manors of Crittenden, Puttenden, and Crowhurst. This last is one of the most picturesque in Surrey, with its moat, across which there is a fine view of the house, its half-timber work, the straight uprights placed close together signifying early work, and the striking character of the interior. The Gaynesford family became lords of the manor of Crowhurst in 1337, and continued to hold it until 1700, a very long record. In 1903 the Place was purchased by the Rev. —— Gaynesford, of Hitchin, a descendant of the family of the former owners. This is a rare instance of the repossession of a medieval residence by an ancient family after the lapse of two hundred years. It was built in the fifteenth century, and is a complete specimen of its age and style, having been unspoilt by later alterations and additions. The part nearer the moat is, however, a little later than the gables further back. The dining-room is the contracted remains of the great hall of Crowhurst Place, the upper part of which was converted into a series of bedrooms in the eighteenth century. We give an illustration of a very fine hinge to a cupboard door in one of the bedrooms, a good example of the blacksmith's skill. It is noticeable that the points of the linen-fold in the panelling of the door are undercut and project sharply. We see the open framed floor with moulded beams. Later on the fashion changed, and the builders preferred to have square-shaped beams. We notice the fine old panelling, the elaborate mouldings, and the fixed bench running along one end of the chamber, of which we give an illustration. The design and workmanship of this fixture show it to belong to the period of Henry VIII. All the work is of stout timber, save the fire-place. The smith's art is shown in the fine candelabrum and in the knocker or ring-plate, perforated with Gothic design, still backed with its original morocco leather. It is worthy of a sanctuary, and doubtless many generations of Crowhurst squires have found a very dear sanctuary in this grand old English home. This ring-plate is in one of the original bedrooms. Immense labour was often bestowed upon the mouldings of beams in these fifteenth-century houses. There was a very fine moulded beam in a farm-house in my own parish, but a recent restoration has, alas! covered it. We give some illustrations of the cornice mouldings of the Church House, Goudhurst, Kent, and of a fine Gothic door-head.



It is impossible for us to traverse many shires in our search for old houses. But a word must be said for the priceless contents of many of our historic mansions and manors. These often vanish and are lost for ever. I have alluded to the thirst of American millionaires for these valuables, which causes so many of our treasures to cross the Atlantic and find their home in the palaces of Boston and Washington and elsewhere. Perhaps if our valuables must leave their old resting-places and go out of the country, we should prefer them to go to America than to any other land. Our American cousins are our kindred; they know how to appreciate the treasures of the land that, in spite of many changes, is to them their mother-country. No nation in the world prizes a high lineage and a family tree more than the Americans, and it is my privilege to receive many inquiries from across the Atlantic for missing links in the family pedigree, and the joy that a successful search yields compensates for all one's trouble. So if our treasures must go we should rather send them to America than to Germany. It is, however, distressing to see pictures taken from the place where they have hung for centuries and sent to Christie's, to see the dispersal of old libraries at Sotherby's, and the contents of a house, amassed by generations of cultured and wealthy folk, scattered to the four winds and bought up by the nouveaux riches.



There still remain in many old houses collections of armour that bears the dints of many fights. Swords, helmets, shields, lances, and other weapons of warfare often are seen hanging on the walls of an ancestral hall. The buff coats of Cromwell's soldiers, tilting-helmets, guns and pistols of many periods are all there, together with man-traps—the cruel invention of a barbarous age.



The historic hall of Littlecote bears on its walls many suits worn during the Civil War by the Parliamentary troopers, and in countless other halls you can see specimens of armour. In churches also much armour has been stored. It was the custom to suspend over the tomb the principal arms of the departed warrior, which had previously been carried in the funeral procession. Shakespeare alludes to this custom when, in Hamlet, he makes Laertes say:—

His means of death, his obscure burial— No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones, No noble rite, nor formal ostentation.

You can see the armour of the Black Prince over his tomb at Canterbury, and at Westminster the shield of Henry V that probably did its duty at Agincourt. Several of our churches still retain the arms of the heroes who lie buried beneath them, but occasionally it is not the actual armour but sham, counterfeit helmets and breastplates made for the funeral procession and hung over the monument. Much of this armour has been removed from churches and stored in museums. Norwich Museum has some good specimens, of which we give some illustrations. There is a knight's basinet which belongs to the time of Henry V (circa 1415). We can compare this with the salads, which came into use shortly after this period, an example of which may be seen at the Porte d'Hal, Brussels. We also show a thirteenth-century sword, which was dredged up at Thorpe, and believed to have been lost in 1277, when King Edward I made a military progress through Suffolk and Norfolk, and kept his Easter at Norwich. The blade is scimitar-shaped, is one-edged, and has a groove at the back. We may compare this with the sword of the time of Edward IV now in the possession of Mr. Seymour Lucas. The development of riding-boots is an interesting study. We show a drawing of one in the possession of Mr. Ernest Crofts, R.A., which was in use in the time of William III.



An illustration is given of a chapel-de-fer which reposes in the noble hall of Ockwells, Berkshire, much dented by use. It has evidently seen service. In the same hall is collected by the friends of the author, Sir Edward and Lady Barry, a vast store of armour and most interesting examples of ancient furniture worthy of the beautiful building in which they are placed. Ockwells Manor House is goodly to look upon, a perfect example of fifteenth-century residence with its noble hall and minstrels' gallery, its solar, kitchens, corridors, and gardens. Moreover, it is now owned by those who love and respect antiquity and its architectural beauties, and is in every respect an old English mansion well preserved and tenderly cared for. Yet at one time it was almost doomed to destruction. Not many years ago it was the property of a man who knew nothing of its importance. He threatened to pull it down or to turn the old house into a tannery. Our Berks Archaeological Society endeavoured to raise money for its purchase in order to preserve it. This action helped the owner to realise that the house was of some commercial value. Its destruction was stayed, and then, happily, it was purchased by the present owners, who have done so much to restore its original beauties.



Ockwells was built by Sir John Norreys about the year 1466. The chapel was not completed at his death in 1467, and he left money in his will "to the full bilding and making uppe of the Chapell with the Chambres ajoyng with'n my manoir of Okholt in the p'rish of Bray aforsaid not yet finisshed XL li." This chapel was burnt down in 1778. One of the most important features of the hall is the heraldic glass, commemorating eighteen worthies, which is of the same date as the house. The credit of identifying these worthies is due to Mr. Everard Green, Rouge Dragon, who in 1899 communicated the result of his researches to Viscount Dillon, President of the Society of Antiquaries. There are eighteen shields of arms. Two are royal and ensigned with royal crowns. Two are ensigned with mitres and fourteen with mantled helms, and of these fourteen, thirteen support a crest. Each achievement is placed in a separate light on an ornamental background composed of quarries and alternate diagonal stripes of white glass bordered with gold, on which the motto

Feyth-fully-serve

is inscribed in black-letter. This motto is assigned by some to the family of Norreys and by others as that of the Royal Wardrobe. The quarries in each light have the same badge, namely, three golden distaffs, one in pale and two in saltire, banded with a golden and tasselled ribbon, which badge some again assign to the family of Norreys and others to the Royal Wardrobe. If, however, the Norreys arms are correctly set forth in a compartment of a door-head remaining in the north wall, and also in one of the windows—namely, argent a chevron between three ravens' heads erased sable, with a beaver for a dexter supporter—the second conjecture is doubtless correct.