VII

It is a long, long rise from South End to Bromley, which stands among the breezy heights near Keston and Hayes. Half way up it there are still traces of the deep dingle that gave the spot the name “Holloway,” by which it was known to the road-books of the coaching age.

ENTRANCE TO THE WIDOWS’ COLLEGE.

It was an ominous place, suitable for the footpad’s leap in the dark upon the traveller’s back, and those wayfarers who were obliged to pad the hoof alone through Holloway when night was come wished they had eyes in the back of the head, in addition to the usual pair. Near by stood, and still stands, Bromley Hill House, once the seat of Charles Long, afterwards Lord Farnborough. In the dairy at that place one John Clarke, gardener, murdered Elizabeth Mann, a dairy-maid, and over against Holloway there was erected a gallows, and on it John Clarke, brought in a cart from Maidstone gaol, in due time swung.

At the threshold of Bromley stands the College, not an educational establishment, but a superior kind of almshouse, whose purpose is explained by the inscription set up over the doorway:

Deo et Ecclesiæ
This College for Twenty poore
widowes (of orthodox and Loyall
Clergymen) & A Chaplin was
given by Iohn Warner late L^d.
Bishop of Rochester
1666

John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, was a staunch supporter of Church and King, in times when both the Establishment and the Monarchy were in a bad way. Charles the First was not wholly responsible for the troubles and tragedies of his reign. An acrid Puritanism was in the air, and had already manifested itself, very unpleasantly, in his father’s time. It was the inevitable reaction from the Renaissance gaieties under Elizabeth. The times were such that, even in the first year of Charles the First’s rule, Warner found it necessary to deliver a bitter sermon directed against the politico-religious activities of the Puritans, based upon the text, Matt. xxi. 38: “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.” No one had in those early days of strife thought of beheading Charles, and we must therefore count Warner among the prophets.

The bishop came very near being impeached before Parliament for this exploit, and only escaped by the King stepping in and “pardoning” him in advance of Parliamentary action.

It is not surprising to find that, when the troubles culminated in war, the House was swift to sequestrate the bishop from his see, and even to seize his property. They proved the innuendo of his discourse at his own expense, he was forced to leave his palace at Bromley in disguise, fearing for his personal safety at the hands of the saints, and for years he wandered in poverty in the West Country. Like other survivors of the dispossessed clergy, high-placed and low, he came to his own again at the Restoration in 1661, but he was then an old man of eighty. Five years later he was dead.

IN THE FIRST QUADRANGLE, WIDOWS’ COLLEGE, BROMLEY.

A many-sided benefactor, he was not without his critics, who declared him mean. He seems to have somewhat keenly felt the charge, for he repelled it by remarking that he “did eat the scragg ends of the neck of mutton, that he might leave the poor the shoulder.” We do not learn whether those critics had the grace to be ashamed.

His College was a noble thought. He bequeathed £8,500 to establish it, and left a perpetual rent-charge of £450 per annum, secured upon his manor of Swayton, Lincolnshire, to provide pensions of £20 per annum for each of its twenty destined inmates, who were to be poor widows of clergymen, preferably, but not exclusively, of the see of Rochester. The odd £50 was for the chaplain’s stipend.

The College stands within six acres of beautifully wooded grounds, with lovely lawns and gardens, and is very thoroughly fenced off from the clatter of the outside world by an ancient brick wall, tall and thick. Through the wrought-iron gateway, dated 1666, flanked by piers surmounted with sculptured mitres, glimpses of the front are caught behind the blossoming horse-chestnuts.

The little houses surround the quadrangle, which has its lawn, its covered walk, like an up-to-date and domesticated cloister, and its climbing-plants twisting round the pillars of the Jacobean colonnade. They are very desirable little houses, with basement kitchens, a quaint little hall, a fine sitting-room, and, on the first and attic floors, from two to four bedrooms. Those fortunate enough to secure such a haven for life are fortunate indeed, and in this sheltered backwater of existence often live to be centenarians. But probably no one would resent being styled “poor” more than these collegians themselves. Poverty is a matter of comparison, and many would be content to “endure” it on terms of a dainty house, free of rent, repairs, and taxes, with from £38 to £44 a year thrown in—for many later bequests have rendered it possible to raise the pension to those sums. Moreover, to qualify for admission, a “poor” widow has now to be already rich enough to possess an income of at least £40, and probably most of them have much more.

Bromley College is therefore a kind of a minor Hampton Court, and great is the competition to win to it when a vacancy occurs. Well-dressed and well cared for in every way, the collegians are not to be pitied.

The occasional artist who comes to sketch the buildings finds the place delightful. There are pretty girls reading novels or presiding over dainty tea-tables: there are poverty-stricken widows in lace-caps, silk gowns, and gold chains—all well known stigmata of a plentiful lack of pence—and there is sometimes good music from soft-toned pianos.

The chapel provided for by the good bishop was rebuilt, at a cost of £6,000, in 1860, by the aid of subscriptions. The Jacobean building it replaces is said to have been extremely ugly, but that is easily said of anything already marked for destruction; and the ’60’s were scarce sufficiently well-disposed towards architecture of that period to be able to determine fairly what was ugly and that which was merely not at that time fashionable in bricks and mortar.

There are now forty widows in the College, and a second quadrangle was added and endowed about 1790, from funds provided jointly by William Pearce, brother of Bishop Zachary Pearce, and Mrs. Bettinson.

There has been in the past a good deal of nepotism in the government of the College, and father has succeeded son in the chaplaincy, often held by greedy pluralists, and often thrown in as a kind of extra sop for the vicar of Bromley. Things like these must surely vex the spirit of that truly pious benefactor, who, when raised to be bishop, could not endure to hold his many preferments, and accordingly resigned them, much against the spirit of his age.

An even later addition to this institution was made in 1840, when the “Sheppard College” was built in the grounds. It consists of five houses, endowed with £44 each per annum, for the benefit of daughters who have lived with and attended upon their mothers in the original College.