These shields represent the arms of Sir John Norreys, the builder of Ockwells Manor House, and of his sovereign, patrons, and kinsfolk. It is a liber amicorum in glass, a not unpleasant way for light to come to us, as Mr. Everard Green pleasantly remarks. By means of heraldry Sir John Norreys recorded his friendships, thereby adding to the pleasures of memory as well as to the splendour of his great hall. His eye saw the shield, his memory supplied the story, and to him the lines of George Eliot,

O memories, O Past that IS,

were made possible by heraldry.

The names of his friends and patrons so recorded in glass by their arms are: Sir Henry Beauchamp, sixth Earl of Warwick; Sir Edmund Beaufort, K.G.; Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI, "the dauntless queen of tears, who headed councils, led armies, and ruled both king and people"; Sir John de la Pole, K.G.; Henry VI; Sir James Butler; the Abbey of Abingdon; Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury from 1450 to 1481; Sir John Norreys himself; Sir John Wenlock, of Wenlock, Shropshire; Sir William Lacon, of Stow, Kent, buried at Bray; the arms and crest of a member of the Mortimer family; Sir Richard Nanfan, of Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire; Sir John Norreys with his arms quartered with those of Alice Merbury, of Yattendon, his first wife; Sir John Langford, who married Sir John Norreys's granddaughter; a member of the De la Beche family (?); John Purye, of Thatcham, Bray, and Cookham; Richard Bulstrode, of Upton, Buckinghamshire, Keeper of the Great Wardrobe to Queen Margaret of Anjou, and afterwards Comptroller of the Household to Edward IV. These are the worthies whose arms are recorded in the windows of Ockwells. Nash gave a drawing of the house in his Mansions of England in the Olden Time, showing the interior of the hall, the porch and corridor, and the east front; and from the hospitable door is issuing a crowd of gaily dressed people in Elizabethan costume, such as was doubtless often witnessed in days of yore. It is a happy and fortunate event that this noble house should in its old age have found such a loving master and mistress, in whose family we hope it may remain for many long years.

Another grand old house has just been saved by the National Trust and the bounty of an anonymous benefactor. This is Barrington Court, and is one of the finest houses in Somerset. It is situated a few miles east of Ilminster, in the hundred of South Petherton. Its exact age is uncertain, but it seems probable that it was built by Henry, Lord Daubeney, created Earl of Bridgewater in 1539, whose ancestors had owned the place since early Plantagenet times. At any rate, it appears to date from about the middle of the sixteenth century, and it is a very perfect example of the domestic architecture of that period. From the Daubeneys it passed successively to the Duke of Suffolk, the Crown, the Cliftons, the Phelips's, the Strodes; and one of this last family entertained the Duke of Monmouth there during his tour in the west in 1680. The house, which is E-shaped, with central porch and wings at each end, is built of the beautiful Ham Hill stone which abounds in the district; the colour of this stone greatly enhances the appearance of the house and adds to its venerable aspect. It has little ornamental detail, but what there is is very good, while the loftiness and general proportions of the building—its extent and solidity of masonry, and the taste and care with which every part has been designed and carried out, give it an air of dignity and importance.

"The angle buttresses to the wings and the porch rising to twisted terminals are a feature surviving from mediaeval times, which disappeared entirely in the buildings of Stuart times. These twisted terminals with cupola-like tops are also upon the gables, and with the chimneys, also twisted, give a most pleasing and attractive character to the structure. We may go far, indeed, before we find another house of stone so lightly and gracefully adorned, and the detail of the mullioned windows with their arched heads, in every light, and their water-tables above, is admirable. The porch also has a fine Tudor arch, which might form the entrance to some college quadrangle, and there are rooms above and gables on either hand. The whole structure breathes the spirit of the Tudor age, before the classic spirit had exercised any marked influence upon our national architecture, while the details of the carving are almost as rich as is the moulded and sculptured work in the brick houses of East Anglia. The features in other parts of the exterior are all equally good, and we may certainly say of Barrington Court that it occupies a most notable place in the domestic architecture of England. It is also worthy of remark that such houses as this are far rarer than those of Jacobean times."[38]

[38] Country Life, September 17th, 1904.

But Barrington Court has fallen on evil days; one half of the house only is now habitable, the rest having been completely gutted about eighty years ago. The great hall is used as a cider store, the wainscoting has been ruthlessly removed, and there have even been recent suggestions of moving the whole structure across England and re-erecting it in a strange county. It has several times changed hands in recent years, and under these circumstances it is not surprising that but little has been done to ensure the preservation of what is indeed an architectural gem. But the walls are in excellent condition and the roofs fairly sound. The National Trust, like an angel of mercy, has spread its protecting wings over the building; friends have been found to succour the Court in its old age; and there is every reason to hope that its evil days are past, and that it may remain standing for many generations.



The wealth of treasure to be found in many country houses is indeed enormous. In Holinshed's Chronicle of Englande, Scotlande and Irelande, published in 1577, there is a chapter on the "maner of buylding and furniture of our Houses," wherein is recorded the costliness of the stores of plate and tapestry that were found in the dwellings of nobility and gentry and also in farm-houses, and even in the homes of "inferior artificers." Verily the spoils of the monasteries and churches must have been fairly evenly divided. These are his words:—

"The furniture of our houses also exceedeth, and is growne in maner even to passing delicacie; and herein I do not speake of the nobilitie and gentrie onely, but even of the lowest sorte that have anything to take to. Certes in noble men's houses it is not rare to see abundance of array, riche hangings of tapestry, silver vessell, and so much other plate as may furnish sundrie cupbordes to the summe ofte times of a thousand or two thousand pounde at the leaste; wherby the value of this and the reast of their stuffe doth grow to be inestimable. Likewise in the houses of knightes, gentlemen, marchauntmen, and other wealthie citizens, it is not geson to beholde generallye their great provision of tapestrie Turkye worke, pewter, brasse, fine linen, and thereto costly cupbords of plate woorth five or six hundred pounde, to be demed by estimation. But as herein all these sortes doe farre exceede their elders and predecessours, so in tyme past the costly furniture stayed there, whereas now it is descended yet lower, even unto the inferior artificiers and most fermers[39] who have learned to garnish also their cupbordes with plate, their beddes with tapestrie and silk hanginges, and their table with fine naperie whereby the wealth of our countrie doth infinitely appeare...."

[39] Farmers.

Much of this wealth has, of course, been scattered. Time, poverty, war, the rise and fall of families, have caused the dispersion of these treasures. Sometimes you find valuable old prints or china in obscure and unlikely places. A friend of the writer, overtaken by a storm, sought shelter in a lone Welsh cottage. She admired and bought a rather curious jug. It turned out to be a somewhat rare and valuable ware, and a sketch of it has since been reproduced in the Connoisseur. I have myself discovered three Bartolozzi engravings in cottages in this parish. We give an illustration of a seventeenth-century powder-horn which was found at Glastonbury by Charles Griffin in 1833 in the wall of an old house which formerly stood where the Wilts and Dorset Bank is now erected. Mr. Griffin's account of its discovery is as follows:—

"When I was a boy about fifteen years of age I took a ladder up into the attic to see if there was anything hid in some holes that were just under the roof.... Pushing my hand in the wall ... I pulled out this carved horn, which then had a metal rim and cover—of silver, I think. A man gave me a shilling for it, and he sold it to Mr. Porch."

It is stated that a coronet was engraved or stamped on the silver rim which has now disappeared.



Monmouth's harassed army occupied Glastonbury on the night of June 22, 1685, and it is extremely probable that the powder-horn was deposited in its hiding-place by some wavering follower who had decided to abandon the Duke's cause. There is another relic of Monmouth's rebellion, now in the Taunton Museum, a spy-glass, with the aid of which Mr. Sparke, from the tower of Chedzoy, discovered the King's troops marching down Sedgemoor on the day previous to the fight, and gave information thereof to the Duke, who was quartered at Bridgwater. It was preserved by the family for more than a century, and given by Miss Mary Sparke, the great-granddaughter of the above William Sparke, in 1822 to a Mr. Stradling, who placed it in the museum. The spy-glass, which is of very primitive construction, is in four sections or tubes of bone covered with parchment. Relics of war and fighting are often stored in country houses. Thus at Swallowfield Park, the residence of Lady Russell, was found, when an old tree was grubbed up, some gold and silver coins of the reign of Charles I. It is probable that a Cavalier, when hard pressed, threw his purse into a hollow tree, intending, if he escaped, to return and rescue it. This, for some reason, he was unable to do, and his money remained in the tree until old age necessitated its removal. The late Sir George Russell, Bart., caused a box to be made of the wood of the tree, and in it he placed the coins, so that they should not be separated after their connexion of two centuries and a half.



We give an illustration of a remarkable flagon of bell-metal for holding spiced wine, found in an old manor-house in Norfolk. It is of English make, and was manufactured about the year 1350. It is embossed with the old Royal Arms of England crowned and repeated several times, and has an inscription in Gothic letters:—

God is grace Be in this place. Amen. Stand uttir[40] from the fier And let onjust[41] come nere.

[40] Stand away.

[41] One just.



This interesting flagon was bought from the Robinson Collection in 1879 by the nation, and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Many old houses, happily, contain their stores of ancient furniture. Elizabethan bedsteads wherein, of course, the Virgin Queen reposed (she made so many royal progresses that it is no wonder she slept in so many places), expanding tables, Jacobean chairs and sideboards, and later on the beautiful productions of Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hipplethwaite. Some of the family chests are elaborate works of art. We give as an illustration a fine example of an Elizabethan chest. It is made of oak, inlaid with holly, dating from the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Its length is 5 ft. 2 in., its height 2 ft. 11 in. It is in the possession of Sir Coleridge Grove, K.C.B., of the manor-house, Warborough, in Oxfordshire. The staircases are often elaborately carved, which form a striking feature of many old houses. The old Aldermaston Court was burnt down, but fortunately the huge figures on the staircase were saved and appear again in the new Court, the residence of a distinguished antiquary, Mr. Charles Keyser, F.S.A. Hartwell House, in Buckinghamshire, once the residence of the exiled French Court of Louis XVIII during the Revolution and the period of the ascendancy of Napoleon I, has some curiously carved oaken figures adorning the staircase, representing Hercules, the Furies, and various knights in armour. We give an illustration of the staircase newel in Cromwell House, Highgate, with its quaint little figure of a man standing on a lofty pedestal.



Sometimes one comes across strange curiosities in old houses, the odds and ends which Time has accumulated. On p. 201 is a representation of a water-clock or clepsydra which was made at Norwich by an ingenious person named Parson in 1610. It is constructed on the same principle as the timepieces used by the Greeks and Romans. The brass tube was filled with water, which was allowed to run out slowly at the bottom. A cork floated at the top of the water in the tube, and as it descended the hour was indicated by the pointer on the dial above. This ingenious clock has now found its way into the museum in Norwich Castle. The interesting contents of old houses would require a volume for their complete enumeration.

In looking at these ancient buildings, which time has spared us, we seem to catch a glimpse of the Lamp of Memory which shines forth in the illuminated pages of Ruskin. The men, our forefathers, who built these houses, built them to last, and not for their own generation. It would have grieved them to think that their earthly abode, which had seen and seemed almost to sympathize in all their honour, their gladness or their suffering—that this, with all the record it bare of them, and of all material things that they had loved and ruled over, and set the stamp of themselves upon—was to be swept away as soon as there was room made for them in the grave. They valued and prized the house that they had reared, or added to, or improved. Hence they loved to carve their names or their initials on the lintels of their doors or on the walls of their houses with the date. On the stone houses of the Cotswolds, in Derbyshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, wherever good building stone abounds, you can see these inscriptions, initials usually those of husband and wife, which preserved the memorial of their names as long as the house remained in the family. Alas! too often the memorial conveys no meaning, and no one knows the names they represent. But it was a worthy feeling that prompted this building for futurity. There is a mystery about the inscription recorded in the illustration "T.D. 1678." It was discovered, together with a sword (temp. Charles II), between the ceiling and the floor when an old farm-house called Gundry's, at Stoke-under-Ham, was pulled down. The year was one of great political disturbance, being that in which the so-called "Popish Plot" was exploited by Titus Oates. Possibly "T.D." was fearful of being implicated, concealed this inscription, and effected his escape.



Our forefathers must have been animated by the spirit which caused Mr. Ruskin to write: "When we build, let us think that we build for ever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them, 'See! this our fathers did for us.'"



Contrast these old houses with the modern suburban abominations, "those thin tottering foundationless shells of splintered wood and imitated stone," "those gloomy rows of formalised minuteness, alike without difference and without fellowship, as solitary as similar," as Ruskin calls them. These modern erections have no more relation to their surroundings than would a Pullman-car or a newly painted piece of machinery. Age cannot improve the appearance of such things. But age only mellows and improves our ancient houses. Solidly built of good materials, the golden stain of time only adds to their beauties. The vines have clothed their walls and the green lawns about them have grown smoother and thicker, and the passing of the centuries has served but to tone them down and bring them into closer harmony with nature. With their garden walls and hedges they almost seem to have grown in their places as did the great trees that stand near by. They have nothing of the uneasy look of the parvenu about them. They have an air of dignified repose; the spirit of ancient peace seems to rest upon them and their beautiful surroundings.



CHAPTER VIII

THE DESTRUCTION OF PREHISTORIC REMAINS

We still find in various parts of the country traces of the prehistoric races who inhabited our island and left their footprints behind them, which startle us as much as ever the print of Friday's feet did the indomitable Robinson Crusoe. During the last fifty years we have been collecting the weapons and implements of early man, and have learnt that the history of Britain did not begin with the year B.C. 55, when Julius Caesar attempted his first conquest of our island. Our historical horizon has been pushed back very considerably, and every year adds new knowledge concerning the Palaeolithic and Neolithic races, and the first users of bronze and iron tools and weapons. We have learnt to prize what they have left, to recognize the immense archaeological value of these remains, and of their inestimable prehistoric interest. It is therefore very deplorable to discover that so much has been destroyed, obliterated, and forgotten.

We have still some left. Examples are still to be seen of megalithic structures, barrows, cromlechs, camps, earthen or walled castles, hut-circles, and other remains of the prehistoric inhabitants of these islands. We have many monoliths, called in Wales and Cornwall, as also in Brittany, menhirs, a name derived from the Celtic word maen or men, signifying a stone, and hir meaning tall. They are also called logan stones and "hoar" stones, hoar meaning a boundary, inasmuch as they were frequently used in later times to mark the boundary of an estate, parish, or manor. A vast number have been torn down and used as gateposts or for building purposes, and a recent observer in the West Country states that he has looked in vain for several where he knew that not long ago they existed. If in the Land's End district you climb the ascent of Bolleit, the Place of Blood, where Athelstan fought and slew the Britons, you can see "the Pipers," two great menhirs, twelve and sixteen feet high, and the Holed Stone, which is really an ancient cross, but you will be told that the cruel Druids used to tie their human victims for sacrifice to this stone, and you would shudder at the memory if you did not know that the Druids were very philosophical folk, and never did such dreadful deeds.

Another kind of megalithic monument are the stone circles, only they are circles no longer, many stones having been carted away to mend walls. If you look at the ordnance map of Penzance you will find large numbers of these circles, but if you visit the spots where they are supposed to be, you will find that many have vanished. The "Merry Maidens," not far from the "Pipers," still remain—nineteen great stones, which fairy-lore perhaps supposes to have been once fair maidens who danced to the tune the pipers played ere a Celtic Medusa gazed at them and turned them into stone. Every one knows the story of the Rollright stones, a similar stone circle in Oxfordshire, which were once upon a time a king and his army, and were converted into stone by a witch who cast a fatal spell upon them by the words—

Move no more; stand fast, stone; King of England thou shalt none.

The solitary stone is the ambitious monarch who was told by an oracle that if he could see Long Compton he would be king of England; the circle is his army, and the five "Whispering Knights" are five of his chieftains, who were hatching a plot against him when the magic spell was uttered. Local legends have sometimes helped to preserve these stones. The farmers around Rollright say that if these stones are removed from the spot they will never rest, but make mischief till they are restored. There is a well-known cromlech at Stanton Drew, in Somerset, and there are several in Scotland, the Channel Islands, and Brittany. Some sacrilegious persons transported a cromlech from the Channel Islands, and set it up at Park Place, Henley-on-Thames. Such an act of antiquarian barbarism happily has few imitators.

Stonehenge, with its well-wrought stones and gigantic trilitha, is one of the latest of the stone circles, and was doubtless made in the Iron Age, about two hundred years before the Christian era. Antiquarians have been very anxious about its safety. In 1900 one of the great upright stones fell, bringing down the cross-piece with it, and several learned societies have been invited by the owner, Sir Edmund Antrobus, to furnish recommendations as to the best means of preserving this unique memorial of an early race. We are glad to know that all that can be done will be done to keep Stonehenge safe for future generations.

We need not record the existence of dolmens, or table-stones, the remains of burial mounds, which have been washed away by denudation, nor of what the French folk call alignements, or lines of stones, which have suffered like other megalithic monuments. Barrows or tumuli are still plentiful, great mounds of earth raised to cover the prehistoric dead. But many have disappeared. Some have been worn down by ploughing, as on the Berkshire Downs. Others have been dug into for gravel. The making of golf-links has disturbed several, as at Sunningdale, where several barrows were destroyed in order to make a good golf-course. Happily their contents were carefully guarded, and are preserved in the British Museum and in that of Reading. Earthworks and camps still guard the British ancient roads and trackways, and you still admire their triple vallum and their cleverly protected entrance. Happily the Earthworks Committee of the Congress of Archaeological Societies watches over them, and strives to protect them from injury. Pit-dwellings and the so-called "ancient British villages" are in many instances sorely neglected, and are often buried beneath masses of destructive briers and ferns. We can still trace the course of several of the great tribal boundaries of prehistoric times, the Grim's dykes that are seen in various parts of the country, gigantic earthworks that so surprised the Saxon invaders that they attributed them to the agency of the Devil or Grim. Here and there much has vanished, but stretches remain with a high bank twelve or fourteen feet high and a ditch; the labour of making these earthen ramparts must have been immense in the days when the builders of them had only picks made out of stag's horns and such simple tools to work with.

Along some of our hillsides are curious turf-cut monuments, which always attract our gaze and make us wonder who first cut out these figures on the face of the chalk hill. There is the great White Horse on the Berkshire Downs above Uffington, which we like to think was cut out by Alfred's men after his victory over the Danes on the Ashdown Hills. We are told, however, that that cannot be, and that it must have been made at least a thousand years before King Alfred's glorious reign. Some of these monuments are in danger of disappearing. They need scouring pretty constantly, as the weeds and grass will grow over the face of the bare chalk and tend to obliterate the figures. The Berkshire White Horse wanted grooming badly a short time ago, and the present writer was urged to approach the noble owner, the Earl of Craven, and urge the necessity of a scouring. The Earl, however, needed no reminder, and the White Horse is now thoroughly groomed, and looks as fit and active as ever. Other steeds on our hillsides have in modern times been so cut and altered in shape that their nearest relations would not know them. Thus the White Horse at Westbury, in Wiltshire, is now a sturdy-looking little cob, quite up to date and altogether modern, very different from the old shape of the animal.

The vanishing of prehistoric monuments is due to various causes. Avebury had at one time within a great rampart and a fosse, which is still forty feet deep, a large circle of rough unhewn stones, and within this two circles each containing a smaller concentric circle. Two avenues of stones led to the two entrances to the space surrounded by the fosse. It must have been a vast and imposing edifice, much more important than Stonehenge, and the area within this great circle exceeds twenty-eight acres, with a diameter of twelve hundred feet. But the spoilers have been at work, and "Farmer George" and other depredators have carted away so many of the stones, and done so much damage, that much imagination is needed to construct in the eye of the mind this wonder of the world.

Every one who journeys from London to Oxford by the Great Western Railway knows the appearance of the famous Wittenham Clumps, a few miles from historic Wallingford. If you ascend the hill you will find it a paradise for antiquaries. The camp itself occupies a commanding position overlooking the valley of the Thames, and has doubtless witnessed many tribal fights, and the great contest between the Celts and the Roman invaders. In the plain beneath is another remarkable earthwork. It was defended on three sides by the Thames, and a strong double rampart had been made across the cord of the bow formed by the river. There was also a trench which in case of danger could have been filled with water. But the spoiler has been at work here. In 1870 a farmer employed his men during a hard winter in digging down the west side of the rampart and flinging the earth into the fosse. The farmer intended to perform a charitable act, and charity is said to cover a multitude of sins; but his action was disastrous to antiquaries and has almost destroyed a valuable prehistoric monument. There is a noted camp at Ashbury, erroneously called "Alfred's Castle," on an elevated part of Swinley Down, in Berkshire, not far from Ashdown Park, the seat of the Earl of Craven. Lysons tells us that formerly there were traces of buildings here, and Aubrey says that in his time the earthworks were "almost quite defaced by digging for sarsden stones to build my Lord Craven's house in the park." Borough Hill Camp, in Boxford parish, near Newbury, has little left, so much of the earth having been removed at various times. Rabbits, too, are great destroyers, as they disturb the original surface of the ground and make it difficult for investigators to make out anything with certainty.

Sometimes local tradition, which is wonderfully long-lived, helps the archaeologist in his discoveries. An old man told an antiquary that a certain barrow in his parish was haunted by the ghost of a soldier who wore golden armour. The antiquary determined to investigate and dug into the barrow, and there found the body of a man with a gold or bronze breastplate. I am not sure whether the armour was gold or bronze. Now here is an amazing instance of folk-memory. The chieftain was buried probably in Anglo-Saxon times, or possibly earlier. During thirteen hundred years, at least, the memory of that burial has been handed down from father to son until the present day. It almost seems incredible.

It seems something like sacrilege to disturb the resting-places of our prehistoric ancestors, and to dig into barrows and examine their contents. But much knowledge of the history and manners and customs of the early inhabitants of our island has been gained by these investigations. Year by year this knowledge grows owing to the patient labours of industrious antiquaries, and perhaps our predecessors would not mind very much the disturbing of their remains, if they reflected that we are getting to know them better by this means, and are almost on speaking terms with the makers of stone axes, celts and arrow-heads, and are great admirers of their skill and ingenuity. It is important that all these monuments of antiquity should be carefully preserved, that plans should be made of them, and systematic investigations undertaken by competent and skilled antiquaries. The old stone monuments and the later Celtic crosses should be rescued from serving such purposes as brook bridges, stone walls, stepping-stones, and gate-posts and reared again on their original sites. They are of national importance, and the nation should do this.



CHAPTER IX

CATHEDRAL CITIES AND ABBEY TOWNS

There is always an air of quietude and restfulness about an ordinary cathedral city. Some of our cathedrals are set in busy places, in great centres of population, wherein the high towering minster looks down with a kind of pitying compassion upon the toiling folk and invites them to seek shelter and peace and the consolations of religion in her quiet courts. For ages she has watched over the city and seen generation after generation pass away. Kings and queens have come to lay their offerings on her altars, and have been borne there amid all the pomp of stately mourning to lie in the gorgeous tombs that grace her choir. She has seen it all—times of pillage and alarm, of robbery and spoliation, of change and disturbance, but she lives on, ever calling men with her quiet voice to look up in love and faith and prayer.

But many of our cathedral cities are quite small places which owe their very life and existence to the stately church which pious hands have raised centuries ago. There age after age the prayer of faith, the anthems of praise, and the divine services have been offered.

In the glow of a summer's evening its heavenly architecture stands out, a mass of wondrous beauty, telling of the skill of the masons and craftsmen of olden days who put their hearts into their work and wrought so surely and so well. The greensward of the close, wherein the rooks caw and guard their nests, speaks of peace and joy that is not of earth. We walk through the fretted cloisters that once echoed with the tread of sandalled monks and saw them illuminating and copying wonderful missals, antiphonaries, and other manuscripts which we prize so highly now. The deanery is close at hand, a venerable house of peace and learning; and the canons' houses tell of centuries of devoted service to God's Church, wherein many a distinguished scholar, able preacher, and learned writer has lived and sent forth his burning message to the world, and now lies at peace in the quiet minster.

The fabric of the cathedrals is often in danger of becoming part and parcel of vanishing England. Every one has watched with anxiety the gallant efforts that have been made to save Winchester. The insecure foundations, based on timbers that had rotted, threatened to bring down that wondrous pile of masonry. And now Canterbury is in danger.

The Dean and Chapter of Canterbury having recently completed the reparation of the central tower of the cathedral, now find themselves confronted with responsibilities which require still heavier expenditure. It has recently been found that the upper parts of the two western towers are in a dangerous condition. All the pinnacles of these towers have had to be partially removed in order to avoid the risk of dangerous injury from falling stones, and a great part of the external work of the two towers is in a state of grievous decay.

The Chapter were warned by the architect that they would incur an anxious responsibility if they did not at once adopt measures to obviate this danger.

Further, the architect states that there are some fissures and shakes in the supporting piers of the central tower within the cathedral, and that some of the stonework shows signs of crushing. He further reports that there is urgent need of repair to the nave windows, the south transept roof, the Warriors' Chapel, and several other parts of the building. The nave pinnacles are reported by him to be in the last stage of decay, large portions falling frequently, or having to be removed.

In these modern days we run "tubes" and under-ground railways in close proximity to the foundations of historic buildings, and thereby endanger their safety. The grand cathedral of St. Paul, London, was threatened by a "tube," and only saved by vigorous protest from having its foundations jarred and shaken by rumbling trains in the bowels of the earth. Moreover, by sewers and drains the earth is made devoid of moisture, and therefore is liable to crack and crumble, and to disturb the foundations of ponderous buildings. St. Paul's still causes anxiety on this account, and requires all the care and vigilance of the skilful architect who guards it.

The old Norman builders loved a central tower, which they built low and squat. Happily they built surely and well, firmly and solidly, as their successors loved to pile course upon course upon their Norman towers, to raise a massive superstructure, and often crown them with a lofty, graceful, but heavy spire. No wonder the early masonry has, at times, protested against this additional weight, and many mighty central towers and spires have fallen and brought ruin on the surrounding stonework. So it happened at Chichester and in several other noble churches. St. Alban's tower very nearly fell. There the ingenuity of destroyers and vandals at the Dissolution had dug a hole and removed the earth from under one of the piers, hoping that it would collapse. The old tower held on for three hundred years, and then the mighty mass began to give way, and Sir Gilbert Scott tells the story of its reparation in 1870, of the triumphs of the skill of modern builders, and their bravery and resolution in saving the fall of that great tower. The greatest credit is due to all concerned in that hazardous and most difficult task. It had very nearly gone. The story of Peterborough, and of several others, shows that many of these vast fanes which have borne the storms and frosts of centuries are by no means too secure, and that the skill of wise architects and the wealth of the Englishmen of to-day are sorely needed to prevent them from vanishing. If they fell, new and modern work would scarcely compensate us for their loss.

We will take Wells as a model of a cathedral city which entirely owes its origin to the noble church and palace built there in early times. The city is one of the most picturesque in England, situated in the most delightful country, and possessing the most perfect ecclesiastical buildings which can be conceived. Jocelyn de Wells, who lived at the beginning of the thirteenth century (1206-39), has for many years had the credit of building the main part of this beautiful house of God. It is hard to have one's beliefs and early traditions upset, but modern authorities, with much reason, tell us that we are all wrong, and that another Jocelyn—one Reginald Fitz-Jocelyn (1171-91)—was the main builder of Wells Cathedral. Old documents recently discovered decide the question, and, moreover, the style of architecture is certainly earlier than the fully developed Early English of Jocelyn de Wells. The latter, and also Bishop Savaricus (1192-1205), carried out the work, but the whole design and a considerable part of the building are due to Bishop Reginald Fitz-Jocelyn. His successors, until the middle of the fifteenth century, went on perfecting the wondrous shrine, and in the time of Bishop Beckington Wells was in its full glory. The church, the outbuildings, the episcopal palace, the deanery, all combined to form a wonderful architectural triumph, a group of buildings which represented the highest achievement of English Gothic art.

Since then many things have happened. The cathedral, like all other ecclesiastical buildings, has passed through three great periods of iconoclastic violence. It was shorn of some of its glory at the Reformation, when it was plundered of the treasures which the piety of many generations had heaped together. Then the beautiful Lady Chapel in the cloisters was pulled down, and the infamous Duke of Somerset robbed it of its wealth and meditated further sacrilege. Amongst these desecrators and despoilers there was a mighty hunger for lead. "I would that they had found it scalding," exclaimed an old chaplain of Wells; and to get hold of the lead that covered the roofs—a valuable commodity—Somerset and his kind did much mischief to many of our cathedrals and churches. An infamous bishop of York, at this period, stripped his fine palace that stood on the north of York Minster, "for the sake of the lead that covered it," and shipped it off to London, where it was sold for L1000; but of this sum he was cheated by a noble duke, and therefore gained nothing by his infamy. During the Civil War it escaped fairly well, but some damage was done, the palace was despoiled; and at the Restoration of the Monarchy much repair was needed. Monmouth's rebels wrought havoc. They came to Wells in no amiable mood, defaced the statues on the west front, did much wanton mischief, and would have caroused about the altar had not Lord Grey stood before it with his sword drawn, and thus preserved it from the insults of the ruffians. Then came the evils of "restoration." A terrible renewing was begun in 1848, when the old stalls were destroyed and much damage done. Twenty years later better things were accomplished, save that the grandeur of the west front was belittled by a pipey restoration, when Irish limestone, with its harsh hue, was used to embellish it.

A curiosity at Wells are the quarter jacks over the clock on the exterior north wall of the cathedral. Local tradition has it that the clock with its accompanying figures was part of the spoil removed from Glastonbury Abbey. The ecclesiastical authorities at Wells assert in contradiction to this that the clock was the work of one Peter Lightfoot, and was placed in the cathedral in the latter part of the fourteenth century. A minute is said to exist in the archives of repairs to the clock and figures in 1418. It is Mr. Roe's opinion that the defensive armour on the quarter jacks dates from the first half of the fifteenth century, the plain oviform breastplates and basinets, as well as the continuation of the tassets round the hips, being very characteristic features of this period. The halberds in the hands of the figures are evidently restorations of a later time. It may be mentioned that in 1907, when the quarter jacks were painted, it was discovered that though the figures themselves were carved out of solid blocks of oak hard as iron, the arms were of elm bolted and braced thereon. Though such instances of combined materials are common enough among antiquities of medieval times, it may yet be surmised that the jar caused by incessant striking may in time have necessitated repairs to the upper limbs. The arms are immovable, as the figures turn on pivots to strike.



An illustration is given of the palace at Wells, which is one of the finest examples of thirteenth-century houses existing in England. It was begun by Jocelyn. The great hall, now in ruins, was built by Bishop Burnell at the end of the thirteenth century, and was destroyed by Bishop Barlow in 1552. The chapel is Decorated. The gatehouse, with its drawbridge, moat, and fortifications, was constructed by Bishop Ralph, of Shrewsbury, who ruled from 1329 to 1363. The deanery was built by Dean Gunthorpe in 1475, who was chaplain to Edward IV. On the north is the beautiful vicar's close, which has forty-two houses, constructed mainly by Bishop Beckington (1443-64), with a common hall erected by Bishop Ralph in 1340 and a chapel by Budwith (1407-64), but altered a century later. You can see the old fireplace, the pulpit from which one of the brethren read aloud during meals, and an ancient painting representing Bishop Ralph making his grant to the kneeling figures, and some additional figures painted in the time of Queen Elizabeth.



When we study the cathedrals of England and try to trace the causes which led to the destruction of so much that was beautiful, so much of English art that has vanished, we find that there were three great eras of iconoclasm. First there were the changes wrought at the time of the Reformation, when a rapacious king and his greedy ministers set themselves to wring from the treasures of the Church as much gain and spoil as they were able. These men were guilty of the most daring acts of shameless sacrilege, the grossest robbery. With them nothing was sacred. Buildings consecrated to God, holy vessels used in His service, all the works of sacred art, the offerings of countless pious benefactors were deemed as mere profane things to be seized and polluted by their sacrilegious hands. The land was full of the most beautiful gems of architectural art, the monastic churches. We can tell something of their glories from those which were happily spared and converted into cathderals or parish churches. Ely, Peterborough the pride of the Fenlands, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, Westminster, St. Albans, Beverley, and some others proclaim the grandeur of hundreds of other magnificent structures which have been shorn of their leaden roofs, used as quarries for building-stone, entirely removed and obliterated, or left as pitiable ruins which still look beautiful in their decay. Reading, Tintern, Glastonbury, Fountains, and a host of others all tell the same story of pitiless iconoclasm. And what became of the contents of these churches? The contents usually went with the fabric to the spoliators. The halls of country-houses were hung with altar-cloths; tables and beds were quilted with copes; knights and squires drank their claret out of chalices and watered their horses in marble coffins. From the accounts of the royal jewels it is evident that a great deal of Church plate was delivered to the king for his own use, besides which the sum of L30,360 derived from plate obtained by the spoilers was given to the proper hand of the king.

The iconoclasts vented their rage in the destruction of stained glass and beautiful illuminated manuscripts, priceless tomes and costly treasures of exceeding rarity. Parish churches were plundered everywhere. Robbery was in the air, and clergy and churchwardens sold sacred vessels and appropriated the money for parochial purposes rather than they should be seized by the king. Commissioners were sent to visit all the cathedral and parish churches and seize the superfluous ornaments for the king's use. Tithes, lands, farms, buildings belonging to the church all went the same way, until the hand of the iconoclast was stayed, as there was little left to steal or to be destroyed. The next era of iconoclastic zeal was that of the Civil War and the Cromwellian period. At Rochester the soldiers profaned the cathedral by using it as a stable and a tippling place, while saw-pits were made in the sacred building and carpenters plied their trade. At Chichester the pikes of the Puritans and their wild savagery reduced the interior to a ruinous desolation. The usual scenes of mad iconoclasm were enacted—stained glass windows broken, altars thrown down, lead stripped from the roof, brasses and effigies defaced and broken. A creature named "Blue Dick" was the wild leader of this savage crew of spoliators who left little but the bare walls and a mass of broken fragments strewing the pavement. We need not record similar scenes which took place almost everywhere.



The last and grievous rule of iconoclasm set in with the restorers, who worked their will upon the fabric of our cathedrals and churches and did so much to obliterate all the fragments of good architectural work which the Cromwellian soldiers and the spoliators at the time of the Reformation had left. The memory of Wyatt and his imitators is not revered when we see the results of their work on our ecclesiastical fabrics, and we need not wonder that so much of English art has vanished.

The cathedral of Bristol suffered from other causes. The darkest spot in the history of the city is the story of the Reform riots of 1831, sometimes called "the Bristol Revolution," when the dregs of the population pillaged and plundered, burnt the bishop's palace, and were guilty of the most atrocious vandalism.



The city of Bath, once the rival of Wells—the contention between the monks of St. Peter and the canons of St. Andrews at Wells being hot and fierce—has many attractions. Its minster, rebuilt by Bishop Oliver King of Wells (1495-1503), and restored in the seventeenth century, and also in modern times, is not a very interesting building, though it lacks not some striking features, and certainly contains some fine tombs and monuments of the fashionable folk who flocked to Bath in the days of its splendour. The city itself abounds in interest. It is a gem of Georgian art, with a complete homogeneous architectural character of its own which makes it singular and unique. It is full of memories of the great folks who thronged its streets, attended the Bath and Pump Room, and listened to sermons in the Octagon. It tells of the autocracy of Beau Nash, of Goldsmith, Sheridan, David Garrick, of the "First Gentleman of Europe," and many others who made Bath famous. And now it is likely that this unique little city with its memories and its charming architectural features is to be mutilated for purely commercial reasons. Every one knows Bath Street with its colonnaded loggias on each side terminated with a crescent at each end, and leading to the Cross Bath in the centre of the eastern crescent. That the original founders of Bath Street regarded it as an important architectural feature of the city is evident from the inscription in abbreviated Latin which was engraved on the first stone of the street when laid:—

PRO VRBIS DIG: ET AMP: HAEC PON: CVRAV: SC: DELEGATI A: D: MDCCXCI. I: HORTON, PRAET: T: BALDWIN, ARCHITECTO.

which may be read to the effect that "for the dignity and enlargement (of the city) the delegates I. Horton, Mayor, and T. Baldwin, architect, laid this (stone) A.D. 1791."

It is actually proposed by the new proprietors of the Grand Pump Hotel to entirely destroy the beauty of this street by removing the colonnaded loggia on one side of this street and constructing a new side to the hotel two or three storeys higher, and thus to change the whole character of the street and practically destroy it. It is a sad pity, and we should have hoped that the city Council would have resisted very strongly the proposal that the proprietors of the hotel have made to their body. But we hear that the Council is lukewarm in its opposition to the scheme, and has indeed officially approved it. It is astonishing what city and borough councils will do, and this Bath Council has "the discredit of having, for purely commercial reasons, made the first move towards the destruction architecturally of the peculiar charm of their unique and beautiful city."[42]

[42] The Builder, March 6, 1909.

Evesham is entirely a monastic town. It sprang up under the sheltering walls of the famous abbey—

A pretty burgh and such as Fancy loves For bygone grandeurs.

This abbey shared the fate of many others which we have mentioned. The Dean of Gloucester thus muses over the "Vanished Abbey":—

"The stranger who knows nothing of its story would surely smile if he were told that beneath the grass and daisies round him were hidden the vast foundation storeys of one of the mightiest of our proud mediaeval abbeys; that on the spot where he was standing were once grouped a forest of tall columns bearing up lofty fretted roofs; that all around once were altars all agleam with colour and with gold; that besides the many altars were once grouped in that sacred spot chauntries and tombs, many of them marvels of grace and beauty, placed there in the memory of men great in the service of Church and State—of men whose names were household words in the England of our fathers; that close to him were once stately cloisters, great monastic buildings, including refectories, dormitories, chapter-house, chapels, infirmary, granaries, kitchens—all the varied piles of buildings which used to make up the hive of a great monastery."

It was commenced by Bishop Egwin, of Worcester, in 702 A.D., but the era of its great prosperity set in after the battle of Evesham when Simon de Montford was slain, and his body buried in the monastic church. There was his shrine to which was great pilgrimage, crowds flocking to lay their offerings there; and riches poured into the treasury of the monks, who made great additions to their house, and reared noble buildings. Little is left of its former grandeur. You can discover part of the piers of the great central tower, the cloister arch of Decorated work of great beauty erected in 1317, and the abbey fishponds. The bell tower is one of the glories of Evesham. It was built by the last abbot, Abbot Lichfield, and was not quite completed before the destruction of the great abbey church adjacent to it. It is a grand specimen of Perpendicular architecture.



At the corner of the Market Place there is a picturesque old house with gable and carved barge-boards and timber-framed arch, and we see the old Norman gateway named Abbot Reginald's Gateway, after the name of its builder, who also erected part of the wall enclosing the monastic buildings. A timber-framed structure now stretches across the arcade, but a recent restoration has exposed the Norman columns which support the arch. The Church House, always an interesting building in old towns and villages, wherein church ales and semi-ecclesiastical functions took place, has been restored. Passing under the arch we see the two churches in one churchyard—All Saints and St. Laurence. The former has some Norman work at the inner door of the porch, but its main construction is Decorated and Perpendicular. Its most interesting feature is the Lichfield Chapel, erected by the last abbot, whose initials and the arms of the abbey appear on escutcheons on the roof. The fan-tracery roof is especially noticeable, and the good modern glass. The church of St. Laurence is entirely Perpendicular, and the chantry of Abbot Lichneld, with its fan-tracery vaulting, is a gem of English architecture.



Amongst the remains of the abbey buildings may be seen the Almonry, the residence of the almoner, formerly used as a gaol. An interesting stone lantern of fifteenth-century work is preserved here. Another abbey gateway is near at hand, but little evidence remains of its former Gothic work. Part of the old wall built by Abbot William de Chyryton early in the fourteenth century remains. In the town there is a much-modernized town hall, and near it the old-fashioned Booth Hall, a half-timbered building, now used as shops and cottages, where formerly courts were held, including the court of pie-powder, the usual accompaniment of every fair. Bridge Street is one of the most attractive streets in the borough, with its quaint old house, and the famous inn, "The Crown." The old house in Cowl Street was formerly the White Hart Inn, which tells a curious Elizabethan story about "the Fool and the Ice," an incident supposed to be referred to by Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida (Act iii. sc. 3): "The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break." The Queen Anne house in the High Street, with its wrought-iron railings and brackets, called Dresden House and Almswood, one of the oldest dwelling-houses in the town, are worthy of notice by the students of domestic architecture.



There is much in the neighbourhood of Evesham which is worthy of note, many old-fashioned villages and country towns, manor-houses, churches, and inns which are refreshing to the eyes of those who have seen so much destruction, so much of the England that is vanishing. The old abbey tithe-barn at Littleton of the fourteenth century, Wickhamford Manor, the home of Penelope Washington, whose tomb is in the adjoining church, the picturesque village of Cropthorne, Winchcombe and its houses, Sudeley Castle, the timbered houses at Norton and Harvington, Broadway and Campden, abounding with beautiful houses, and the old town of Alcester, of which some views are given—all these contain many objects of antiquarian and artistic interest, and can easily be reached from Evesham. In that old town we have seen much to interest, and the historian will delight to fight over again the battle of Evesham and study the records of the siege of the town in the Civil War.



CHAPTER X

OLD INNS

The trend of popular legislation is in the direction of the diminishing of the number of licensed premises and the destruction of inns. Very soon, we may suppose, the "Black Boy" and the "Red Lion" and hosts of other old signs will have vanished, and there will be a very large number of famous inns which have "retired from business." Already their number is considerable. In many towns through which in olden days the stage-coaches passed inns were almost as plentiful as blackberries; they were needed then for the numerous passengers who journeyed along the great roads in the coaches; they are not needed now when people rush past the places in express trains. Hence the order has gone forth that these superfluous houses shall cease to be licensed premises and must submit to the removal of their signs. Others have been so remodelled in order to provide modern comforts and conveniences that scarce a trace of their old-fashioned appearance can be found. Modern temperance legislators imagine that if they can only reduce the number of inns they will reduce drunkenness and make the English people a sober nation. This is not the place to discuss whether the destruction of inns tends to promote temperance. We may, perhaps, be permitted to doubt the truth of the legend, oft repeated on temperance platforms, of the working man, returning homewards from his toil, struggling past nineteen inns and succumbing to the syren charms of the twentieth. We may fear lest the gathering together of large numbers of men in a few public-houses may not increase rather than diminish their thirst and the love of good fellowship which in some mysterious way is stimulated by the imbibing of many pots of beer. We may, perhaps, feel some misgiving with regard to the temperate habits of the people, if instead of well-conducted hostels, duly inspected by the police, the landlords of which are liable to prosecution for improper conduct, we see arising a host of ungoverned clubs, wherein no control is exercised over the manners of the members and adequate supervision impossible. We cannot refuse to listen to the opinion of certain royal commissioners who, after much sifting of evidence, came to the conclusion that as far as the suppression of public-houses had gone, their diminution had not lessened the convictions for drunkenness.

But all this is beside our subject. We have only to record another feature of vanishing England, the gradual disappearance of many of its ancient and historic inns, and to describe some of the fortunate survivors. Many of them are very old, and cannot long contend against the fiery eloquence of the young temperance orator, the newly fledged justice of the peace, or the budding member of Parliament who tries to win votes by pulling things down.

We have, however, still some of these old hostelries left; medieval pilgrim inns redolent of the memories of the not very pious companies of men and women who wended their way to visit the shrines of St. Thomas of Canterbury or Our Lady at Walsingham; historic inns wherein some of the great events in the annals of England have occurred; inns associated with old romances or frequented by notorious highwaymen, or that recall the adventures of Mr. Pickwick and other heroes and villains of Dickensian tales. It is well that we should try to depict some of these before they altogether vanish.

There was nothing vulgar or disgraceful about an inn a century ago. From Elizabethan times to the early part of the nineteenth century they were frequented by most of the leading spirits of each generation. Archbishop Leighton, who died in 1684, often used to say to Bishop Burnet that "if he were to choose a place to die in it should be an inn; it looked like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion of it." His desire was fulfilled. He died at the old Bell Inn in Warwick Lane, London, an old galleried hostel which was not demolished until 1865. Dr. Johnson, when delighting in the comfort of the Shakespeare's Head Inn, between Worcester and Lichfield, exclaimed: "No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is provided as by a good tavern or inn." This oft-quoted saying the learned Doctor uttered at the Chapel House Inn, near King's Norton; its glory has departed; it is now a simple country-house by the roadside. Shakespeare, who doubtless had many opportunities of testing the comforts of the famous inns at Southwark, makes Falstaff say: "Shall I not take mine ease at mine inn?"; and Shenstone wrote the well-known rhymes on a window of the old Red Lion at Henley-on-Thames:—

Whoe'er has travelled life's dull road, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn.

Fynes Morrison tells of the comforts of English inns even as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1617 he wrote:—

"The world affords not such inns as England hath, for as soon as a passenger comes the servants run to him; one takes his horse and walks him till he be cold, then rubs him and gives him meat; but let the master look to this point. Another gives the traveller his private chamber and kindles his fire, the third pulls off his boots and makes them clean; then the host or hostess visits him—if he will eat with the host—or at a common table it will be 4d. and 6d. If a gentleman has his own chamber, his ways are consulted, and he has music, too, if he likes."



The literature of England abounds in references to these ancient inns. If Dr. Johnson, Addison, and Goldsmith were alive now, we should find them chatting together at the Authors' Club, or the Savage, or the Athenaeum. There were no literary clubs in their days, and the public parlours of the Cock Tavern or the "Cheshire Cheese" were their clubs, wherein they were quite as happy, if not quite so luxuriously housed, as if they had been members of a modern social institution. Who has not sung in praise of inns? Longfellow, in his Hyperion, makes Flemming say: "He who has not been at a tavern knows not what a paradise it is. O holy tavern! O miraculous tavern! Holy, because no carking cares are there, nor weariness, nor pain; and miraculous, because of the spits which of themselves turned round and round." They appealed strongly to Washington Irving, who, when recording his visit to the shrine of Shakespeare, says: "To a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world which he can truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling of something like independence and territorial consequence, when after a weary day's travel he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn fire. Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys.... 'Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?' thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in my elbow chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlour of the Red Horse at Stratford-on-Avon."



And again, on Christmas Eve Irving tells of his joyous long day's ride in a coach, and how he at length arrived at a village where he had determined to stay the night. As he drove into the great gateway of the inn (some of them were mighty narrow and required much skill on the part of the Jehu) he saw on one side the light of a rousing kitchen fire beaming through a window. He "entered and admired, for the hundredth time, that picture of convenience, neatness, and broad honest enjoyment—the kitchen of an English inn." It was of spacious dimensions, hung round with copper and tin vessels highly polished, and decorated here and there with Christmas green. Hams, tongues, and flitches of bacon were suspended from the ceiling; a smoke-jack made its ceaseless clanking beside the fire-place, and a clock ticked in one corner. A well-scoured deal table extended along one side of the kitchen, with a cold round of beef and other hearty viands upon it, over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting guard. Travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout repast, while others sat smoking and gossiping over their ale on two high-backed oaken settles beside the fire. Trim housemaids were hurrying backwards and forwards under the directions of a fresh bustling landlady; but still seizing an occasional moment to exchange a flippant word, and have a rallying laugh with the group round the fire.

Such is the cheering picture of an old-fashioned inn in days of yore. No wonder that the writers should have thus lauded these inns! Imagine yourself on the box-seat of an old coach travelling somewhat slowly through the night. It is cold and wet, and your fingers are frozen, and the rain drives pitilessly in your face; and then, when you are nearly dead with misery, the coach stops at a well-known inn. A smiling host and buxom hostess greets you; blazing fires thaw you back to life, and good cheer awaits your appetite. No wonder people loved an inn and wished to take their ease therein after the dangers and hardships of the day. Lord Beaconsfield, in his novel Tancred, vividly describes the busy scene at a country hostelry in the busy coaching days. The host, who is always "smiling," conveys the pleasing intelligence to the passengers: "'The coach stops here half an hour, gentlemen: dinner quite ready.' 'Tis a delightful sound. And what a dinner! What a profusion of substantial delicacies! What mighty and iris-tinted rounds of beef! What vast and marble-veined ribs! What gelatinous veal pies! What colossal hams! These are evidently prize cheeses! And how invigorating is the perfume of those various and variegated pickles. Then the bustle emulating the plenty; the ringing of bells, the clash of thoroughfare, the summoning of ubiquitous waiters, and the all-pervading feeling of omnipotence from the guests, who order what they please to the landlord, who can produce and execute everything they can desire. 'Tis a wondrous sight!"



And then how picturesque these old inns are, with their swinging signs, the pump and horse-trough before the door, a towering elm or poplar overshadowing the inn, and round it and on each side of the entrance are seats, with rustics sitting on them. The old house has picturesque gables and a tiled roof mellowed by age, with moss and lichen growing on it, and the windows are latticed. A porch protects the door, and over it and up the walls are growing old-fashioned climbing rose trees. Morland loved to paint the exteriors of inns quite as much as he did to frequent their interiors, and has left us many a wondrous drawing of their beauties. The interior is no less picturesque, with its open ingle-nook, its high-backed settles, its brick floor, its pots and pans, its pewter and brass utensils. Our artist has drawn for us many beautiful examples of old inns, which we shall visit presently and try to learn something of their old-world charm. He has only just been in time to sketch them, as they are fast disappearing. It is astonishing how many noted inns in London and the suburbs have vanished during the last twenty or thirty years.

Let us glance at a few of the great Southwark inns. The old "Tabard," from which Chaucer's pilgrims started on their memorable journey, was destroyed by a great fire in 1676, rebuilt in the old fashion, and continued until 1875, when it had to make way for a modern "old Tabard" and some hop merchant's offices. This and many other inns had galleries running round the yard, or at one end of it, and this yard was a busy place, frequented not only by travellers in coach or saddle, but by poor players and mountebanks, who set up their stage for the entertainment of spectators who hung over the galleries or from their rooms watched the performance. The model of an inn-yard was the first germ of theatrical architecture. The "White Hart" in Southwark retained its galleries on the north and east side of its yard until 1889, though a modern tavern replaced the south and main portion of the building in 1865-6. This was a noted inn, bearing as its sign a badge of Richard II, derived from his mother Joan of Kent. Jack Cade stayed there while he was trying to capture London, and another "immortal" flits across the stage, Master Sam Weller, of Pickwick fame. A galleried inn still remains at Southwark, a great coaching and carriers' hostel, the "George." It is but a fragment of its former greatness, and the present building was erected soon after the fire in 1676, and still retains its picturesqueness.

The glory has passed from most of these London inns. Formerly their yards resounded with the strains of the merry post-horn, and carriers' carts were as plentiful as omnibuses now are. In the fine yard of the "Saracen's Head," Aldgate, you can picture the busy scene, though the building has ceased to be an inn, and if you wished to travel to Norwich there you would have found your coach ready for you. The old "Bell Savage," which derives its name from one Savage who kept the "Bell on the Hoop," and not from any beautiful girl "La Belle Sauvage," was a great coaching centre, and so were the "Swan with two Necks," Lad Lane, the "Spread Eagle" and "Cross Keys" in Gracechurch Street, the "White Horse," Fetter Lane, and the "Angel," behind St. Clements. As we do not propose to linger long in London, and prefer the country towns and villages where relics of old English life survive, we will hie to one of these noted hostelries, book our seats on a Phantom coach, and haste away from the great city which has dealt so mercilessly with its ancient buildings. It is the last few years which have wrought the mischief. Many of these old inns lingered on till the 'eighties. Since then their destruction has been rapid, and the huge caravanserais, the "Cecil," the "Ritz," the "Savoy," and the "Metropole," have supplanted the old Saracen's Heads, the Bulls, the Bells, and the Boars that satisfied the needs of our forefathers in a less luxurious age.

Let us travel first along the old York road, or rather select our route, going by way of Ware, Tottenham, Edmonton, and Waltham Cross, Hatfield and Stevenage, or through Barnet, until we arrive at the Wheat Sheaf Inn on Alconbury Hill, past Little Stukeley, where the two roads conjoin and "the milestones are numbered agreeably to that admeasurement," viz. to that from Hicks' Hall through Barnet, as Patterson's Roads plainly informs us. Along this road you will find several of the best specimens of old coaching inns in England. The famous "George" at Huntingdon, the picturesque "Fox and Hounds" at Ware, the grand old inns at Stilton and Grantham are some of the best inns on English roads, and pleadingly invite a pleasant pilgrimage. We might follow in the wake of Dick Turpin, if his ride to York were not a myth. The real incident on which the story was founded occurred about the year 1676, long before Turpin was born. One Nicks robbed a gentleman on Gadshill at four o'clock in the morning, crossed the river with his bay mare as soon as he could get a ferry-boat at Gravesend, and then by Braintree, Huntingdon, and other places reached York that evening, went to the Bowling Green, pointedly asked the mayor the time, proved an alibi, and got off. This account was published as a broadside about the time of Turpin's execution, but it makes no allusion to him whatever. It required the romance of the nineteenth century to change Nicks to Turpin and the bay mare to Black Bess. But revenir a nos moutons, or rather our inns. The old "Fox and Hounds" at Ware is beautiful with its swinging sign suspended by graceful and elaborate ironwork and its dormer windows. The "George" at Huntingdon preserves its gallery in the inn-yard, its projecting upper storey, its outdoor settle, and much else that is attractive. Another "George" greets us at Stamford, an ancient hostelry, where Charles I stayed during the Civil War when he was journeying from Newark to Huntingdon.

And then we come to Grantham, famous for its old inns. Foremost among them is the "Angel," which dates back to medieval times. It has a fine stone front with two projecting bays, an archway with welcoming doors on either hand, and above the arch is a beautiful little oriel window, and carved heads and gargoyles jut out from the stonework. I think that this charming front was remodelled in Tudor times, and judging from the interior plaster-work I am of opinion that the bays were added in the time of Henry VII, the Tudor rose forming part of the decoration. The arch and gateway with the oriel are the oldest parts of the front, and on each side of the arch is a sculptured head, one representing Edward III and the other his queen, Philippa of Hainault. The house belonged in ancient times to the Knights Templars, where royal and other distinguished travellers were entertained. King John is said to have held his court here in 1213, and the old inn witnessed the passage of the body of Eleanor, the beloved queen of Edward I, as it was borne to its last resting-place at Westminster. One of the seven Eleanor crosses stood at Grantham on St. Peter's Hill, but it shared the fate of many other crosses and was destroyed by the troopers of Cromwell during the Civil War. The first floor of the "Angel" was occupied by one long room, wherein royal courts were held. It is now divided into three separate rooms. In this room Richard III condemned to execution the Duke of Buckingham, and probably here stayed Cromwell in the early days of his military career and wrote his letter concerning the first action that made him famous. We can imagine the silent troopers assembling in the market-place late in the evening, and then marching out twelve companies strong to wage an unequal contest against a large body of Royalists. The Grantham folk had much to say when the troopers rode back with forty-five prisoners besides divers horses and arms and colours. The "Angel" must have seen all this and sighed for peace. Grim troopers paced its corridors, and its stables were full of tired horses. One owner of the inn at the beginning of the eighteenth century, though he kept a hostel, liked not intemperance. His name was Michael Solomon, and he left an annual charge of 40s. to be paid to the vicar of the parish for preaching a sermon in the parish church against the sin of drunkenness. The interior of this ancient hostelry has been modernized and fitted with the comforts which we modern folk are accustomed to expect.

Across the way is the "Angel's" rival the "George," possibly identical with the hospitium called "Le George" presented with other property by Edward IV to his mother, the Duchess of York. It lacks the appearance of age which clothes the "Angel" with dignity, and was rebuilt with red brick in the Georgian era. The coaches often called there, and Charles Dickens stayed the night and describes it as one of the best inns in England. He tells of Squeers conducting his new pupils through Grantham to Dotheboys Hall, and how after leaving the inn the luckless travellers "wrapped themselves more closely in their coats and cloaks ... and prepared with many half-suppressed moans again to encounter the piercing blasts which swept across the open country." At the "Saracen's Head" in Westgate Isaac Newton used to stay, and there are many other inns, the majority of which rejoice in signs that are blue. We see a Blue Horse, a Blue Dog, a Blue Ram, Blue Lion, Blue Cow, Blue Sheep, and many other cerulean animals and objects, which proclaim the political colour of the great landowner. Grantham boasts of a unique inn-sign. Originally known as the "Bee-hive," a little public-house in Castlegate has earned the designation of the "Living Sign," on account of the hive of bees fixed in a tree that guards its portals. Upon the swinging sign the following lines are inscribed:—

Stop, traveller, this wondrous sign explore, And say when thou hast viewed it o'er and o'er, Grantham, now two rarities are thine— A lofty steeple and a "Living Sign."

The connexion of the "George" with Charles Dickens reminds one of the numerous inns immortalized by the great novelist both in and out of London. The "Golden Cross" at Charing Cross, the "Bull" at Rochester, the "Belle Sauvage" (now demolished) near Ludgate Hill, the "Angel" at Bury St. Edmunds, the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich, the "King's Head" at Chigwell (the original of the "Maypole" in Barnaby Rudge), the "Leather Bottle" at Cobham are only a few of those which he by his writings made famous.



Leaving Grantham and its inns, we push along the great North Road to Stilton, famous for its cheese, where a choice of inns awaits us—the "Bell" and the "Angel," that glare at each other across the broad thoroughfare. In the palmy days of coaching the "Angel" had stabling for three hundred horses, and it was kept by Mistress Worthington, at whose door the famous cheeses were sold and hence called Stilton, though they were made in distant farmsteads and villages. It is quite a modern-looking inn as compared with the "Bell." You can see a date inscribed on one of the gables, 1649, but this can only mean that the inn was restored then, as the style of architecture of "this dream in stone" shows that it must date back to early Tudor times. It has a noble swinging sign supported by beautifully designed ornamental ironwork, gables, bay-windows, a Tudor archway, tiled roof, and a picturesque courtyard, the silence and dilapidation of which are strangely contrasted with the continuous bustle, life, and animation which must have existed there before the era of railways.

Not far away is Southwell, where there is the historic inn the "Saracen's Head." Here Charles I stayed, and you can see the very room where he lodged on the left of the entrance-gate. Here it was on May 5th, 1646, that he gave himself up to the Scotch Commissioners, who wrote to the Parliament from Southwell "that it made them feel like men in a dream." The "Martyr-King" entered this inn as a sovereign; he left it a prisoner under the guard of his Lothian escort. Here he slept his last night of liberty, and as he passed under the archway of the "Saracen's Head" he started on that fatal journey that terminated on the scaffold at Whitehall. You can see on the front of the inn over the gateway a stone lozenge with the royal arms engraved on it with the date 1693, commemorating this royal melancholy visit. In later times Lord Byron was a frequent visitor.

On the high, wind-swept road between Ashbourne and Buxton there is an inn which can defy the attacks of the reformers. It is called the Newhaven Inn and was built by a Duke of Devonshire for the accommodation of visitors to Buxton. King George IV was so pleased with it that he gave the Duke a perpetual licence, with which no Brewster Sessions can interfere. Near Buxton is the second highest inn in England, the "Cat and Fiddle," and "The Traveller's Rest" at Flash Bar, on the Leek road, ranks as third, the highest being the Tan Hill Inn, near Brough, on the Yorkshire moors.



Norwich is a city remarkable for its old buildings and famous inns. A very ancient inn is the "Maid's Head" at Norwich, a famous hostelry which can vie in interest with any in the kingdom. Do we not see there the identical room in which good Queen Bess is said to have reposed on the occasion of her visit to the city in 1578? You cannot imagine a more delightful old chamber, with its massive beams, its wide fifteenth-century fire-place, and its quaint lattice, through which the moonbeams play upon antique furniture and strange, fantastic carvings. This oak-panelled room recalls memories of the Orfords, Walpoles, Howards, Wodehouses, and other distinguished guests whose names live in England's annals. The old inn was once known as the Murtel or Molde Fish, and some have tried to connect the change of name with the visit of Queen Elizabeth; unfortunately for the conjecture, the inn was known as the Maid's Head long before the days of Queen Bess. It was built on the site of an old bishop's palace, and in the cellars may be seen some traces of Norman masonry. One of the most fruitful sources of information about social life in the fifteenth century are the Paston Letters. In one written by John Paston in 1472 to "Mestresse Margret Paston," he tells her of the arrival of a visitor, and continues: "I praye yow make hym goode cheer ... it were best to sette hys horse at the Maydes Hedde, and I shall be content for ther expenses." During the Civil War this inn was the rendezvous of the Royalists, but alas! one day Cromwell's soldiers made an attack on the "Maid's Head," and took for their prize the horses of Dame Paston stabled here.

We must pass over the records of civic feasts and aldermanic junketings, which would fill a volume, and seek out the old "Briton's Arms," in the same city, a thatched building of venerable appearance with its projecting upper storeys and lofty gable. It looks as if it may not long survive the march of progress.

The parish of Heigham, now part of the city of Norwich, is noted as having been the residence of Bishop Hall, "the English Seneca," and author of the Meditations, on his ejection from the bishopric in 1647 till his death in 1656[43] The house in which he resided, now known as the Dolphin Inn, still stands, and is an interesting building with its picturesque bays and mullioned windows and ingeniously devised porch. It has actually been proposed to pull down, or improve out of existence, this magnificent old house. Its front is a perfect specimen of flint and stone sixteenth-century architecture. Over the main door appears an episcopal coat of arms with the date 1587, while higher on the front appears the date of a restoration (in two bays):—

[43] It is erroneously styled Bishop Hall's Palace. An episcopal palace is the official residence of the bishop in his cathedral city. Not even a country seat of a bishop is correctly called a palace, much less the residence of a bishop when ejected from his see.



Just inside the doorway is a fine Gothic stoup into which bucolic rustics now knock the fag-ends of their pipes. The staircase newel is a fine piece of Gothic carving with an embattled moulding, a poppy-head and heraldic lion. Pillared fire-places and other tokens of departed greatness testify to the former beauty of this old dwelling-place.



We will now start back to town by the coach which leaves the "Maid's Head" (or did leave in 1762) at half-past eleven in the forenoon, and hope to arrive in London on the following day, and thence hasten southward to Canterbury. Along this Dover road are some of the best inns in England: the "Bull" at Dartford, with its galleried courtyard, once a pilgrims' hostel; the "Bull" and "Victoria" at Rochester, reminiscent of Pickwick; the modern "Crown" that supplants a venerable inn where Henry VIII first beheld Anne of Cleves; the "White Hart"; and the "George," where pilgrims stayed; and so on to Canterbury, a city of memories, which happily retains many features of old English life that have not altogether vanished. Its grand cathedral, its churches, St. Augustine's College, its quaint streets, like Butchery Lane, with their houses bending forward in a friendly manner to almost meet each other, as well as its old inns, like the "Falstaff" in High Street, near West Gate, standing on the site of a pilgrims' inn, with its sign showing the valiant and portly knight, and supported by elaborate ironwork, its tiled roof and picturesque front, all combine to make Canterbury as charming a place of modern pilgrimage as it was attractive to the pilgrims of another sort who frequented its inns in days of yore.



And now we will discard the cumbersome old coaches and even the "Flying Machines," and travel by another flying machine, an airship, landing where we will, wherever a pleasing inn attracts us. At Glastonbury is the famous "George," which has hardly changed its exterior since it was built by Abbot Selwood in 1475 for the accommodation of middle-class pilgrims, those of high degree being entertained at the abbot's lodgings. At Gloucester we find ourselves in the midst of memories of Roman, Saxon, and monastic days. Here too are some famous inns, especially the quaint "New Inn," in Northgate Street, a somewhat peculiar sign for a hostelry built (so it is said) for the use of pilgrims frequenting the shrine of Edward II in the cathedral. It retains all its ancient medieval picturesqueness. Here the old gallery which surrounded most of our inn-yards remains. Carved beams and door-posts made of chestnut are seen everywhere, and at the corner of New Inn Lane is a very elaborate sculpture, the lower part of which represents the Virgin and Holy Child. Here, in Hare Lane, is also a similar inn, the Old Raven Tavern, which has suffered much in the course of ages. It was formerly built around a courtyard, but only one side of it is left.



There are many fine examples of old houses that are not inns in Gloucester, beautiful half-timbered black and white structures, such as Robert Raikes's house, the printer who has the credit of founding the first Sunday-school, the old Judges' House in Westgate Street, the old Deanery with its Norman room, once the Prior's Lodge of the Benedictine Abbey. Behind many a modern front there exist curious carvings and quaintly panelled rooms and elaborate ceilings. There is an interesting carved-panel room in the Tudor House, Westgate Street. The panels are of the linen-fold pattern, and at the head of each are various designs, such as the Tudor Rose and Pomegranate, the Lion of England, etc. The house originally known as the Old Blue Shop has some magnificent mantelpieces, and also St. Nicholas House can boast of a very elaborately carved example of Elizabethan sculpture.

We journey thence to Tewkesbury and visit the grand silver-grey abbey that adorns the Severn banks. Here are some good inns of great antiquity. The "Wheat-sheaf" is perhaps the most attractive, with its curious gable and ancient lights, and even the interior is not much altered. Here too is the "Bell," under the shadow of the abbey tower. It is the original of Phineas Fletcher's house in the novel John Halifax, Gentleman. The "Bear and the Ragged Staff" is another half-timbered house with a straggling array of buildings and curious swinging signboard, the favourite haunt of the disciples of Izaak Walton, under the overhanging eaves of which the Avon silently flows.

The old "Seven Stars" at Manchester is said to be the most ancient in England, claiming a licence 563 years old. But it has many rivals, such as the "Fighting Cocks" at St. Albans, the "Dick Whittington" in Cloth Fair, St. Bartholomews, the "Running Horse" at Leatherhead, wherein John Skelton, the poet laureate of Henry VIII, sang the praises of its landlady, Eleanor Rumming, and several others. The "Seven Stars" has many interesting features and historical associations. Here came Guy Fawkes and concealed himself in "Ye Guy Faux Chamber," as the legend over the door testifies. What strange stories could this old inn tell us! It could tell us of the Flemish weavers who, driven from their own country by religious persecutions and the atrocities of Duke Alva, settled in Manchester in 1564, and drank many a cup of sack at the "Seven Stars," rejoicing in their safety. It could tell us of the disputes between the clergy of the collegiate church and the citizens in 1574, when one of the preachers, a bachelor of divinity, on his way to the church was stabbed three times by the dagger of a Manchester man; and of the execution of three popish priests, whose heads were afterwards exposed from the tower of the church. Then there is the story of the famous siege in 1642, when the King's forces tried to take the town and were repulsed by the townsfolk, who were staunch Roundheads. "A great and furious skirmish did ensue," and the "Seven Stars" was in the centre of the fighting. Sir Thomas Fairfax made Manchester his head-quarters in 1643, and the walls of the "Seven Stars" echoed with the carousals of the Roundheads. When Fairfax marched from Manchester to relieve Nantwich, some dragoons had to leave hurriedly, and secreted their mess plate in the walls of the old inn, where it was discovered only a few years ago, and may now be seen in the parlour of this interesting hostel. In 1745 it furnished accommodation for the soldiers of Prince Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, and was the head-quarters of the Manchester regiment. One of the rooms is called "Ye Vestry," on account of its connexion with the collegiate church. It is said that there was a secret passage between the inn and the church, and, according to the Court Leet Records, some of the clergy used to go to the "Seven Stars" in sermon-time in their surplices to refresh themselves. O tempora! O mores! A horseshoe at the foot of the stairs has a story to tell. During the war with France in 1805 the press-gang was billeted at the "Seven Stars." A young farmer's lad was leading a horse to be shod which had cast a shoe. The press-gang rushed out, seized the young man, and led him off to serve the king. Before leaving he nailed the shoe to a post on the stairs, saying, "Let this stay till I come from the wars to claim it." So it remains to this day unclaimed, a mute reminder of its owner's fate and of the manners of our forefathers.