PLACES OF INTEREST ON THE ROUTE
Painswick.—Exceptionally picturesque little Cotswold town. Fine church and churchyard, with clipped yews; Painswick Court, a fine old Tudor house near the church.
Stroud.—A small town with cloth manufactures. Town Hall of fifteenth century; church modern, except tower.
Nailsworth.—A cloth manufacturing place scattered in the valley south of Stroud.
Bath.—The famous Georgian watering-place. A large stone town. Roman baths in splendid preservation; the Abbey Church, Perpendicular; Pulteney Bridge lined with shops; good eighteenth-century houses.
Bradford-on-Avon.—An old village with a famous Saxon church. (On a short loop from Bath. See Map.)
Box.—A small village near long tunnel on G.W.R. Church of various periods.
Corsham (just off the road to the right).—An old village with interesting Norman church. Corsham Court, partially Elizabethan house, the seat of Lord Methuen.
Chippenham.—Old town on Avon with manufactures. Church spoiled by restoration; Maud Heath's Causeway.
Malmesbury.—Picturesque old town on the Avon. Abbey Church Trans-Norman; tower of old parish church; Elizabethan houses; fine market cross; old almshouses.
Cricklade.—A pleasant little town on the uppermost windings of the Thames. St. Sampson's Church, with fine Perpendicular tower; St. Mary's, Norman; early crosses in both churchyards.
Lechlade.—Another little town on the Thames. Old bridge; Perpendicular church.
Shipton-under-Wychwood.—Village with a fine church, close to Wychwood Forest.
Chipping Norton.—Highest town in Oxfordshire; picturesque street.
Moreton-in-the-Marsh.—A pleasant little market town.
Bourton-on-the-Hill.—A very picturesque Cotswold village.
Broadway.—A beautifully-situated and strikingly attractive Cotswold village. Many old houses, including manor-house of Abbots of Pershore Abbey. Old church 1 mile from village, interesting.
Evesham.—A small town on Avon; picturesque. Booth Hall, Bell Tower, and various remains of the extensive abbey. Churches of (1) St. Lawrence, not very interesting; (2) All Saints, Early English and later. Battle fought in 1265.
Tewkesbury.—Very picturesque old town on Avon and Severn. Abbey Church, splendid Norman; many old timber-framed houses. Battle of Tewkesbury, 1471.
Deerhurst Priory (off road to west).—Pre-Norman buildings lately well restored.
Loop 7. GLOUCESTER TO BATH.
Loop 7. GLOUCESTER TO BATH AND EVESHAM.
The extensive loop described briefly in this chapter takes one to many interesting towns in Gloucestershire and the neighbouring counties, and as there is much to see, it is advisable to break the journey at Bath, and possibly again at Broadway or Evesham, in order not to be obliged to hurry through beautiful scenery and romantic towns.
Although the level road from Gloucester to Stroud by Hardwicke is to be recommended to those who would avoid a long, stiff climb, the way through the Cotswolds is so much more interesting and so vastly more picturesque that it should by all means be taken if the hill is of no consequence.
The easiest ascent of the face of the Cotswolds is by the road through the village of Brookthorpe, descending into the Painswick valley near the secluded and quite typical Cotswold hamlet of Pitchcombe.
A still more beautiful road goes through Sneedham's Green, near Upton St. Leonards, and winds up a long steady ascent among beeches. This road is well engineered, and the views from it, first over the Vale of Severn and then into the Painswick and Sheepscombe valleys, are full of exquisite charm at all times of the year.
PAINSWICK
is one of those little stone towns with that peculiarly foreign flavour so frequently experienced in the Cotswolds. Perched on a steep hill-side and dominated by the tall tower and spire of its stately church, the place is the centre of the life of a lovely valley. Every other house in the town is a picture by itself, and when grouped with others and backed by the emeralds and blues of the opposite side of the valley, the stranger can hardly be prevented from exclaiming aloud as each corner brings some new composition before him.
In the centre of the town stands the fine church, with a unique churchyard, wherein a wonderful array of richly carved altar-tombs of delicate classic design are scattered in picturesque irregularity under the sombre shade of rows of closely trimmed yews. The stems of these trees are kept clear of twigs and branches, and the masses of green are shaped into great round-topped cylindrical forms. Just below the church, beyond a group of magnificent elms, stands Painswick Court, a stone, many-gabled house of such reposeful dignity that one seems to find in it as nearly as possible the ideal English manor-house of modest proportions. The title 'Court' came to the house, not in connection with the manor, but through a visit paid to it by Charles I. in 1643. The King slept in the house, and issued a proclamation 'given at our Court at Paynewicke.'
Whether one decides to go through Painswick or Pitchcombe, or even if one keeps below the hills, all the roads meet at
STROUD
This is a hilly town abounding in very steep streets, and possessing, as all Cotswold towns do, a number of good old stone houses of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It is, nevertheless, a place without much appeal to the passing motorist, for the church has been rebuilt in recent times, with the exception of the tower, which is Early English. The Town Hall, formerly the market-house, was built in the fifteenth century by John Throckmorton of Lypiatt.
Stroud still maintains its woollen industry, and thousands of people are employed in the mills in the town and in the valley to the east.
Leaving Stroud for Bath, one ascends the valley towards Nailsworth, a busy locality, where the weaving of broadcloth is the chief industry. There are also flock factories and workshops where beech—'the weed of the oolite'—is used in making beds, gunstocks, and umbrella-sticks.
A little beyond Nailsworth the road comes out on the ridge of wind-swept hills, and continues a slightly undulating course southwards to Bath, a distance of over twenty miles, without a village and scarcely a hamlet on the whole journey. There are wide views in both directions, and some grand panoramas across the Severn.
After dropping down from the level of the downs, one turns to the right and enters the ancient city of
BATH
This wealthy, picturesque, and still popular watering-place, is described at some length in another volume of this series—the Southern Section of England—and it must therefore be dealt with in the briefest fashion here. The thermal springs attracted the Romans to the spot, and of their city Aquæ Solis there are probably very considerable remains beneath the present city. The Baths themselves have been excavated, and several feet below the street-level one can now see the Roman tanks filled, as they were some sixteen centuries ago, with the steaming waters which still bring many ailing folk to the town. Besides the baths there is the Abbey Church, a magnificent example of late Perpendicular work, crowded with memorials to distinguished visitors and residents of Bath, whose virtues and achievements are not overlooked on the marble tablets.
Town Plan No. 16—Bath.
Pulteney Bridge, like the Ponte Vecchio, is lined with shops, but the famous bridge at Florence quite eclipses this structure of a much later and less artistic age. In walking through the streets of Bath one cannot fail to be struck by several of the Georgian façades, whose dignity and classic perfection reflect the formal manners of the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Beau Nash drew admiring and envious eyes upon his elaborately-attired person as he passed along the stone-built streets of the great centre of smart society when George was King.
From Bath to Chippenham the road goes through Batheaston, and keeping to the north side of the railway for a couple of miles, passes under it to reach the village of Box, which has given its name to one of the longest tunnels on the Great Western Railway. It is one and three-quarter miles in length, and cost more than half a million pounds to build. Box village has a church belonging to the three great periods of Gothic, with a Perpendicular tower.
Going to the left in the village, the road to Chippenham rises from the valley of the By Brook, crosses the ridge of oolite and fuller's earth pierced by the famous tunnel, and drops down to
CORSHAM
The little town lies chiefly to the right, towards the railway and Corsham Court, Lord Methuen's stately Elizabethan house. It is quite desirable to run through the place, returning to the Chippenham road by the road that skirts the park, north of the church. There are some old houses in the street, and among them one dating back as far as the fifteenth century. Corsham Court contains a magnificent collection of paintings, mostly brought here by Sir Paul Methuen, who was at one time Ambassador to Madrid, and died in 1757.
The beautiful cruciform church was shorn of its central tower during the restoration by Street, who built a new tower and spire in a rather unusual position south of the south transept. The Norman nave and a north door of the same period are the earliest portions of the building, and the Methuen Chapel, built in 1879, is the most recent.
From Corsham the road falls continuously to
CHIPPENHAM,
an old manufacturing town on the Avon. As its name suggests, it has been a market town from a very remote age. It was a place of importance in Saxon times, and one or two events are recorded as happening there before the year 878, when the Danes took the place and made it their headquarters, while, with fire and sword, they spread ruin and desolation over the neighbourhood. After Alfred reappeared from his hiding-place in marsh-bordered Athelney to the south-west, and gained his famous victory over the marauding Danes at Ethandune, he regained possession of Chippenham, and gave it to his daughter Ælfrith for life. For objects to connect the Chippenham of to-day with these thrilling times of half-civilized Britain one looks in vain, for the church, the most hopeful link, reveals no Saxon work, and what is Norman has been so cruelly handled that its interest has vanished. The richly-carved Norman chancel arch, dating from about half a century after the Conquest, has been recut and removed to the north side of the chancel.
The modern church of St. Paul was built in 1853 by Sir Gilbert Scott. A new Town Hall belongs to this period, but the old one is still standing.
MAUD HEATH'S CAUSEWAY
A very remarkable feature of Chippenham is a paved track some four and a half miles in length, and still bearing curious inscriptions, leading northeastwards from the town to the ridge of Bremhill Wick. This path owes its existence to a bequest made by a certain Maud Heath, who lived as long ago as the fifteenth century, and the cost of the maintenance of the path at the present day is defrayed by the property she bequeathed for the purpose. Tradition says that Maud Heath was a market-woman of Langley Burrell, a village on the causeway; and if this is correct one imagines that the good dame left her money to save those that came after her the toil and discomfort of trudging with a heavy basket in the deep mire of the heavy clay of the valley. On the ridge where the path terminates stands a column bearing a statue of the woman, put up in 1838 by the Lord Lansdowne of that time—Bowood, the ancestral home of the Lansdownes, from which Rembrandt's 'Mill' has lately been sold and removed to America, being only two miles distant.
An undulating road goes almost due north to Malmesbury, passing through the hamlet of Corston, which has a small church with a curious Perpendicular bell-turret at the west end.
MALMESBURY
This interesting and historic town is comparatively unknown to the ordinary tourist. Its situation on a spur of raised ground, with two branches of the Avon almost surrounding it with a natural moat, made the place of importance in early days, when such things were eagerly sought after. One is not surprised, therefore, to find that the site was a stronghold of the British, known as Caer Bladon, and in Saxon times was a frontier town of Wessex. According to Murray, the present name is derived from Maidulph or Maldulph, an Irish missionary who, about the beginning of the seventh century, established a hermitage under the protecting proximity of the castle, and there began educational work among the semi-barbarous Saxons. One of his scholars was the learned Ealdhelm, who became the first abbot of the monastery of Malmesbury, founded in 680. Of the great religious house which eventually grew up at Malmesbury only the church remains, now, alas! sadly diminished and curtailed. Both the central and the western towers collapsed somewhere about the sixteenth century, crushing the adjoining parts of the nave and chancel in their fall. The existing church is therefore only a portion of the nave of the magnificent abbey church which dominated the little town in pre-Reformation times. The arcades are Transitional Norman with massive cylindrical pillars, but above the arches rises a Decorated clerestory, supporting a richly vaulted roof of the same period. If it had not been for Master Humpe, whom Leland describes as 'an exceeding riche Clothiar,' there would quite possibly have been nothing left at all of the abbey church after the suppression of the monasteries; but this worthy man bought the buildings from the Crown and presented the church to the parish. The old parish church was utilized as a town hall, but nothing remains of that structure except the tower, with a spire.
The beautiful Elizabethan house to the north-east of the abbey church is built on a portion of the monastic buildings in which Master Humpe had set up his looms. The famous historian, William of Malmesbury, who lived in the twelfth century, was librarian and precentor of the abbey. Before leaving the town the lovely Perpendicular market cross should be seen, and also the almshouses near St. John's Bridge.
Leaving Malmesbury by the Cirencester road, one soon goes to the right for Cricklade, skirting Charlton Park, with its dignified Jacobean house built by Sir Thomas Knyvet, with a west front designed, it is said, by Inigo Jones. It is the seat of the Earls of Suffolk and Berkshire. The present holder of the title was extra A.D.C. to Lord Curzon of Kedleston, and married, in 1904, a sister of the late Lady Curzon. The interior of the house has been modernized, but it contains a remarkably fine collection of old masters.
CRICKLADE
This prettily-situated little town is on the Thames, about ten miles from Thames Head, close to the Foss Way, St. Sampson's Church, with its pinnacled tower, rising picturesquely over the roofs half hidden among trees. It is a cruciform building, and the interior of the tower, which is enriched with armorial shields, contains a clock possessing no face on the exterior! In the churchyard there is a fine cross with niches in the head, and another is to be found in the churchyard of the little St. Mary's. Cricklade is one of those really ancient places whose beginnings are far off in British times, the origin of the name being the two British words cerrig (stone) and lád (ford).
From Cricklade one goes south-west as straight as an arrow for about four miles on the Roman Ermine Way leading from Cirencester (Corinium) to Speen (Spinæ), near Newbury. Then one goes to the left to Highworth, where the route turns due north and meets the Thames again at
LECHLADE
The Lech and the Coln meet the Thames at the town, and the united streams suddenly assume an air of dignity, having reached a width of some 20 yards and a depth sufficient for vessels of 80 tons. Across the 'stripling Thames' there stands the first stone bridge, whose core is the medieval structure built somewhere about the beginning of the thirteenth century, or possibly earlier, in the days when bridge-building was regarded as a pious enterprise. In its prosperous days Lechlade sent great quantities of cheese down the river to London. The church is mainly Perpendicular, dating, according to Bigland, from about 1470.
Continuing northwards, the road climbs among the eastern slopes of the Cotswolds, and reaches picturesque old Burford (see [p. 276]). The next place to the north is
SHIPTON-UNDER-WYCHWOOD,
an interesting and attractive old village on the east side of Wychwood Forest. The spacious church is chiefly an Early English building, with alterations in Perpendicular times, and no indications at all of Decorated work. The spire, like that of Witney, is Early English, while the font and stone pulpit are Perpendicular. Adding immensely to the picturesqueness of the church, there is on the east side a group of timeworn buildings of ecclesiastical origin dating back to the time when Shipton was a prebend of Salisbury Cathedral. One should also notice the sixteenth-century work of the Crown Inn, standing near the centre of the village.
Going on towards Chipping Norton, one comes after two miles to some tumuli, called Lyneham Barrows, and not far beyond these there is a standing stone about 6 feet high.
CHIPPING NORTON,
another of the towns with the distinctive term revealing an old-time importance as a market, is the highest town in Oxfordshire, being nearly 700 feet above the sea. The place consists chiefly of one long and picturesque street, and what there is to tell of its history is almost exclusively in relation to its cloth manufactures, its breweries, or its glove factories. The conspicuous church is mainly Decorated and Perpendicular, with the tower above the obviously Early English work, rebuilt in 1825.
There is a story of Bishop Juxon having been the cause of a complaint to Cromwell because once, when the prelate was hunting, the hare, closely followed by the hounds, ran through the churchyard. The Protector's reply, however, took the form of a question: 'Do you think the Bishop prevailed on the hare to run through the churchyard?'
Nothing whatever is left of the castle formerly standing to the east of the church, but the almshouses, built in 1640, still survive.
Chipping Norton is left by the road to Evesham, and a run of eight miles brings one into the long, wide street of Moreton-in-the-Marsh, a little market town without any exceptional features needing special reference here. The next place, however, is Bourton-on-the-Hill, a lovely village, with its old cottages perched either above or below the steeply ascending road. Of the gardens gaily decked with flowers one could write many pages; but not far off is Broadway, one of those delightful villages of the always lovely Cotswolds, full of pleasing stone architecture, in spite of the evil tendencies which have marred, if not destroyed, the beauty of so many pleasant old-world haunts. At the picturesque Lygon Arms, at the lower end of the village, Charles I. is said to have stayed on more than one occasion, and near it is a house called the 'Abbot's Grange,' where Mr. Millet, the artist, has his studio. This was the manor-house of the Abbots of Pershore, a Benedictine abbey possessing much property at Broadway. There is a large hall open to the roof, a solar, and a small chapel chiefly dating from Decorated times. The old church of Broadway, dedicated to St. Eadburgh, is three-quarters of a mile away, in the Snowshill Valley. It contains a plain Norman font, a painted wooden pulpit of the fourteenth century, and some good brasses. From the tower, built in 1797, above the village one can see a wide panoramic view over the beautiful rounded hills, broken up by belts of beech and larch.
If there is no need to economize time, it would certainly be unwise to pass so near the picturesque old town of Chipping Camden without having a peep at its fine market hall, its church, and beautiful array of stone-built houses. After this the hills are left behind, and Evesham, on the river which flows past Shakespeare's birthplace, is reached.
EVESHAM
This picturesque little town owed its importance to the great Benedictine abbey, which up to the Dissolution had, according to Grose, such a great assemblage of religious buildings that its equal was not to be found out of Oxford and Cambridge. Of these, however, there remain to-day only the beautiful Perpendicular bell-tower, the almonry, the mutilated Norman gatehouse, and the archway leading to the chapter-house, now the entrance to allotments. Many houses in the town are built of stones from the destroyed abbey. The Booth Hall, in the market-place, is a charming old building, and in the High Street and in Bridge Street there are many fine old houses.
The two churches of Evesham stand in one churchyard, and both were founded by the monks of the abbey as secular chapels for the town. The Church of St. Lawrence was practically rebuilt a century ago, but All Saints, which existed in 1223, has an Early English north aisle and chancel, and examples of the succeeding periods in the other parts of the building. The Battle of Evesham was fought on August 4, 1265, rather less than a mile from the town, on high ground to the north, marked by an obelisk. Simon de Montfort, who held Henry III. prisoner, was crushingly defeated by Prince Edward, and both he and his son Henry were killed, their bodies being buried in Evesham Abbey Church before the high-altar.
Town Plan No. 10—Tewkesbury.
TEWKESBURY
is the last place passed through on this extensive loop, and going in this direction one finds the best wine reserved to the last, for this exceptionally picturesque old town, with its solemn abbey church, surrounded by tall ancient trees, and the sweet green meadows, where Severn and Avon are only separated by a belt of level greensward, is one of those places that have a way of fixing themselves in the memory, even if one has never read Miss Mulock's 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' If one has done so, and remembers the descriptions of 'Norton Bury,' the old town will never be forgotten. One can hardly think of Tewkesbury without the dominating presence of its great Norman abbey church, but even without it the long street contains so many delightful sixteenth-century houses, each possessing individual charms, that the town would still make an irresistible appeal to all for whom the architecture of the vanished centuries has some message.
The founder of the present abbey was Robert FitzHamon, who was related to William the Conqueror, and received the Honour of Gloucester from Rufus. Having decided to rebuild the modest Saxon abbey, FitzHamon soon removed all traces of the early buildings when, in 1102, the work was begun. Five years later the founder died of a wound received during a siege of the impregnable castle of Falaise in Normandy, and was buried in the chapter-house. The consecration took place in 1123, and in 1178 a fire occurred, which was fortunately restricted to the conventual buildings.
Gilbert de Clare, one of the barons who had signed Magna Charta, was buried in the abbey, and after him, for two and a half centuries, every one of his successors was laid to rest in the same building.
When Tewkesbury Abbey was suppressed, the nave, which had always been secular, continued to be a possession of the town, and the other portions of the great fabric were bought from the Crown for the sum of £453.
It is often stated that the great Norman tower is the most perfect in this country, but the people of St. Albans would no doubt question this claim. The tall wooden spire, covered with lead, fell during service on Easter Sunday in 1559, and was never replaced. Inside the church one sees little that is not pure Norman, and for solemnity and vast, imposing dignity it would be difficult to find any building able to overshadow Tewkesbury. It may be compared with Durham, Selby, and Christchurch. The west end has a wonderfully fine recessed window of immense proportions. In 1661 the window was blown in during a gale, and was replaced in 1686. Surely those who were attached to the Commonwealth must have thought there was something significant in this parallel to the rending of the veil of the Temple, for the seventeenth century was a superstitious age.
The Battle of Tewkesbury, one of the decisive encounters of the Wars of the Roses, was fought, in 1471, on the south side of the town (its position is shown in the accompanying plan). Edward IV. crushingly defeated the Lancastrians under Edward, the youthful Prince of Wales, whose army fought with Tewkesbury in their rear. The defeated army took refuge in the town, and the slaughter continued in the abbey church in hideous fashion, until the abbot, bearing in his hands the consecrated elements, brought the fighting to a close. Prince Edward, who had been struck in the mouth by the gauntleted hand of the King, was killed in a house in Church Street.
With the rooks cawing high overhead in the tree-tops, and a sweet solemnity pervading the whole abbey precincts, it is almost impossible to picture the ghastly scene of civil war which, four and a half centuries ago, soaked the meadows in human blood and turned the noble church into a shambles. For a month no services were held in the building while every blood-stain was removed.
On the way back to Gloucester one could make a very profitable detour of a few miles to Deerhurst Priory, a highly interesting pre-Norman building, until recently used as part of a farm, but lately restored in a most efficient manner.