MISCELLANY
27
DIBDIN’S CULTURAL TOUR OF LINCOLNSHIRE (1838)
Part 1:
Peterborough to Carlton Scroop
Thomas
Frognall Dibdin 1776-1847, Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in
the Northern Counties of England and Scotland (1838).
FORWARD! is the motto attached to more than
one coat-of-armour; and it is a motto which should be always present in the
"mind's eye" of every traveller. "Up and be doing," says
the wisest of all mortal men; and although good fellowship and dainty fare be
sufficiently operative with all travellers, sentimental or uneducated, yet it
became absolutely necessary to break away from the Capua of my first station,
Peterborough. It became absolutely necessary to bid adieu to the cordial
comforts which awaited and attended me during my stay there of four days.
Painful as could not fail to be the effort, it was imperative to put it in
force; and sweet voices and friendly hands were heard and felt, as the
postchaise drew up to the door of my host, on our separation for my journey to
Lincoln; making a halt of three days to see the wonders of Belvoir Castle,
Belton, Syston, and Newark. That " halt" was at my old-young
friend's, the Rector of Carlton Scroop; situate to the right, and about midway
between Grantham and Newark.
When we
arrived at Peterborough, the weather was intensely hot; but scarcely within
twenty-four hours after, there was a thunder-storm, succeeded by a coolness of
atmosphere, which, for the five succeeding months, may be said to have brought
nothing but rain, and wind, and cold weather. During my whole journey, and till
my return, there was no such thing as one continuous week of sultry or even
serene weather: and this, from the sixteenth of July to the ninth of December.
Yet that day was a pleasant one, as far as sunshine and soft zephyrs went, when
we bade adieu to our amiable host and hostess within the cathedral's precincts.
On our route to Stamford, the first place where we changed horses, we
necessarily passed Milton and Castor. I saw only the park lodge of the former,
which is rather an elegant structure; but the gate attached to it is unworthy
of its adjunct. The trees looked healthy and luxuriant, and the ground was
gently undulating.
To the left,
on an eminence, is Thorpe House, built by Inigo Jones; but it is smothered on
one side with the stabling, a usual accompaniment and disfigurement of old
houses. The more ancient timber seems to have disappeared. "It is at
Castor (said my late host) that you must stop your horses, and look about you."
There was, indeed, every inducement so to do. Castor, or rather its church,
stands upon an eminence; and the tower is full of antiquarian attraction,—the
upper layer of the stone projecting over the sides, and mixing downwards with
it, (as at Wakefield) being in the fashion of what are called the machiolating
parts of a castle. It is scarcely a much younger structure than Peterborough
Cathedral, to which it belongs, and of which the bishop is the patron. The
surrender of this church, with all its domains and revenues, into the hands of
the Abbot of Peterborough, towards the middle of the twelfth century, is
minutely and prettily told in the Supplement to Gunton's History; see p. 277,
&c. by a royal letter of Charles I (in the fourteenth year of his reign),
to the Dean and Prebendaries of Peterborough Cathedral. It should seem that the
manors of Castor and Sutton were at that time considered to be worth a net
revenue of £560 per annum: " over and above the rents reserved upon
them." By which I suspect the mitre of Peterborough to be garnished with
no goodlier gem than that which is furnished by the rents and proceeds of the
church and manor of Castor. There is a
beautiful old wooden door in the south porch, with an inscription in
Roman capital letters; but as you enter the church, the "eye-balls are
seared" by the brutal adoption of the breeches-ball tint! Whatever now be
the prevalent custom of Palm-Sunday, observable in this church. One would think
that, in past times, there had been something very extraordinary connected with
Plough-Monday; for a more gigantic specimen of that prime agricultural
instrument does not exist, than in the north transept of this church :—there
being a plough which extends from one side of the transept to the other,
perhaps twenty feet in length. I gather the account of the following most
curious relic of former times, observable in this church, from Paterson's Book
of Roads. "A very curious ceremony respecting a peculiar tenure, takes
place at this church every Palm-Sunday. A person enters the church-yard with a
green silk purse, containing two shillings and a silver penny, tied at the end
of a cart-whip, which he cracks three times in the porch, and continues there
till the second lesson begins, when he goes into the church, and cracks the
whip again three times over the clergyman's head. After kneeling before the
desk during the reading of the lesson, he presents the minister with the purse,
and then, returning to the choir, he waits the remainder of the service."
This custom was lately noticed by the Bishop of Lincoln, in the House of Lords;
but a clause in an act of parliament to suppress it, was not suffered to pass;
on account of its being supposed to effect private rights. The Chancellor, Lord
Cottenham, thought however the custom should be discontinued.
An hour
devoted to the interior and exterior of this church, will not be thrown away.
The capitals of the pillars, supporting the tower, are very curious. Among them
is a representation of a combat between two men, with nasal head-pieces and
conical shields; at hand there is a man, apparently weeping, and bearing two
swords, as if to supply the want from a broken one. The whole may be of the
twelfth century. In the north transept is a stone coffin, having the lid
carried without, in the south side of the church-yard. In the church-yard,
also, there is an altar, or font,—perhaps of the year 1150,—which ought to be
deposited within: nor could I notice, without something like a shuddering
sensation, the shameful state of a part of the church-yard, after interment.
The resident clergyman, the curate, was described to me as being "a very
old gentleman, and now become indifferent to such matters:" My friend Mr.
Marsh, (the son of the bishop, who is the rector of this parish, thinks the
exterior of the body and the transept of Castor Church to be of about the early
part of the fourteenth century. The whole village swarms with Roman
antiquities—as, indeed, what village does not? Castor (derived from Castrum)
was undoubtedly a Roman station. Stamford is much improved since my first visit
to it in 1813. The stone is of a beautiful tint and quality.
Hence, to
Grantham, is a somewhat tedious and uninteresting stage of upwards of twenty
miles; but on my way thither, and within some four miles of it, it was my good
fortune to meet my old friend the Rev. Henry Taylor, the Rector of Stoke
Rochford, whom I had known as Curate of Kensington for nineteen years, and to
whom the late Rev. Thomas Rennell (Vicar of Kensington) had presented the living,
by virtue of his turn as one of the Prebendaries of Salisbury Cathedral. Our
meeting was as cordial as unexpected. "You must come and see my little
cathedral" said my friend; and within twenty minutes I was pacing its
nave:—disfigured, from sad and inevitable necessity, by deal pews and a deal
pulpit, in all the revolting severity of rectangular starchness. The church,
consisting of a nave and two aisles, may be considered both beautiful and
spacious, it having once palpably been of more capacious dimensions. An ancient
monument of stone, close to the north entrance door, much struck me. It
consists of the figures of a De Neville, Knight, and his lady, lying on the
pavement, within a square frame-work, with a piece of drapery, in the form of a
quilt, covering them. This coverlid extends from the shoulders of both to the
ancles, the feet peeping out at bottom. The bodies should seem to be naked, and
the man has a helmet on his head. This strange and rude piece of sculpture is
probably of the middle of the fourteenth century. It is within a sort of
ante-chapel, as is another monument of the Montagu family, repaired and re-gilt
in 1641. There is also an old tomb, with a recent inscription in brass; which
latter I could have wished away. The parsonage-house is roomy and comfortable;
and the contiguous lodge of the squire, a Mr. Turner, is in unimpeachable
taste. Altogether, this meeting, with its accessories, was most agreeable;
giving me fresh spirits to resume my journey; and within half an hour the
horses stopped at the head inn of Grantham, apparently exhausted with fatigue.
I should add, that, about four miles on this side of Grantham, to the right,
just as I turned out of the by-road leading to my friend's church, there is a
most beautiful tower, of moderate dimensions, close to the road's side; and it
were well if living architects, in their fondness for this species of
architecture, would copy the one in question with scrupulous fidelity. London
and its vicinity would then have less of wretched taste to offend the eye of
the critic. I was now in The Land Of Churches: and that of Grantham was
considered as the sovereign. It is situate in what may be called a valley, so
that it is not seen till you near it upon an adjacent hill. Whatever it loses
by its situation, it gains on a nearer approach. The crocketted spire seems
suspended in the air; and of such delicate shape and dimensions, that one
wonders how it has survived the storms of nearly four centuries. The tower is
perhaps too slender for its altitude. The united height of tower and spire,
about 260 feet, places it at the head of all parish churches in England, with
the exception of that of Louth, in the same county; which exceeds it by about
twenty feet. But the dominant charms of this structure must be confined to the
tower and spire. The interior is, undoubtedly, very spacious, but it wants
elevation, and, as the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Cust (Rector of Belton) afterwards
justly observed to me, "there ought to have been a Clerestory." This
interior is, however, a most commodious one for the purposes of divine worship.
The organ is large, and well placed, and the galleries (those awful invaders of
the simplicity and chaste effect of primitive architecture!) are admirably
arranged. Nothing impedes the view of the altar; but, alas! that altar is here
in most woful plight. The coverlid of the table, whether velvet or cloth it
were difficult to ascertain, is scarcely fit for the meanest purpose. The
prayerbooks presented "a sorry sight;" while the large window above is
half hid by the intrusion of the commonest wooden boards, upon which the
Commandments are inscribed: while the upper part of the stained glass is in the
most deplorable taste. There was, however, more than negative consolation in
examining, hard by, an old font, very rich and curious, in high relief
sculpture, illustrative of the office of Baptism: nor must I omit to notice a
very singular monument, close to it, to which a clerk's desk is attached. But
could I forget my old friend The Library, —of which particular mention had been
made, some twenty years ago, in certain Decameronic pages. It was impossible.
Again I mounted the narrow staircase, and again I visited the same desolate and
deserted spot. The windows were yet broken; the floor was no doubt reposing in
a more genial temperature. A fine large paper copy of a folio law book, (in all
probability printed by Rastell) imperfect at beginning and end, seemed to tell
the tale of other times, when margins were left inviolate, and bindings were
embossed with brass, and rivetted by clasps.
The town of Grantham is a rambling and
uninteresting one, and the houses are all flaunting in the attire of red brick.
From Grantham to the rectory of Carlton-Scroop, —our head quarters for three
days,—it is but a short seven miles; and we arrived in good time for dinner,
and to digest the plan of our future operations.
My friend
had the means to conduct me in safety, behind a stout gig-horse, to the
respective quarters I wished to visit. In our way to his house, our eyes were
soon fastened upon the elevated situation of Syston, that seems to look down in
a most lordly manner upon the village of Belton, of which the Earl of Brownlow
may be considered the guardian and the great man. It was impossible to pass
through a prettier village; almost every substantial house having been recently
moulded into the form of Elizabethan, or of very little later, architecture.
The material is, if I remember rightly, stone.
More
sight-seeing next week
