Rectors of Bucknall from a.d. 1219.
Tupholme Abbey ruins, about two miles from Bucknall, stand on the left side of the road leading westward from that place to Bardney. These require a short notice. This was a Præmonstratensian House, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and founded by Robert, or, as some say, Ranulph, Nova Villa, or Nevill, who held lands in capite of the King, from the Conquest, the foundation being further augmented by Alan de Nevill and Gilbert his brother, temp. Henry II. Tanner states that at the time of its dissolution by Henry VIII. there were “nine religious” in the House, and the contemporary Leland, in his “Collectanea,” names two works which he saw in the Tupholme Library, viz., Fulcherii Historia and Historiolæ de Britannia fragmentum. [165] The properties of the Abbey were very considerable, lying in the parishes of Tupholme, Gautby, Langton, Franthorpe (where there was a Grange farm), Stixwould,
Metheringham, Lincoln, Boston, Middle Rasen, Ranby, West Ashby, Brokelesby, Stourton, Great Coates, Louth, with the advowson of Stratton Church, and other places. These ample possessions seem to have bred in the Priors a spirit of independence, and even of lawlessness; for, at an Inquisition, held at Lincoln in the 13th century, it was stated that the Prior of the day had refused to pay his Crown quit rents, and indulged in other illegal proceedings, besides claiming “free warren” over these different manors, which of right belonged to the King. Another Prior was accused of forgery and counterfeiting the coin of the realm, [166a] with which he purchased corn and wine and disposed of them again at a profit. He was also charged with carrying on an extensive traffic in horn, [166b] and it is not a little curious, in connection with this last charge, that a Mr. Pell, whom the writer, as a boy, knew well, residing at Tupholme Hall, found, while his men were digging in the Abbey field, great quantities of the pith, or core, of bullocks’ horns, all of which had been divested of the outer coating. Henry II. granted to the Prior, by Charter, a canal to the Witham; the course of similar canals can be traced at Stixwould Priory and Kirkstead Abbey, and thus articles of illegal traffic could be smuggled down the Witham to foreign lands. At the dissolution the site of the Abbey was given to Sir Thomas Heneage.
The remains of the Abbey are now small, forming one end, running north and south, of some farm buildings, with a small modern house attached, which helps to keep them standing; for, otherwise, they are so worn away at the lower part, by the cattle rubbing against them, that they would be in danger of falling; and of late years such a contingency has been evidently thought not unlikely, as a railing is now put up outside to keep the cattle out of danger. There are southward five upper Early English windows in the remaining fragment, probably the wall of the Refectory; and two more ornamental
windows of a small chamber, northward, with a small narrow round-headed window, deeply let in, at the end; with eight round arched recesses below, one of these being perforated, and forming an entrance to the refectory from the outside. Fragments of carved stones are also inserted in a modern wall at the north end. A local tradition survives, that the place is haunted by a headless lady; and an instance is related by a labourer formerly living close by, who, when beating his wife, was so terrified by an apparition, which in his ignorance he took to be “the Old Lad,” i.e., the Devil, that he henceforth became a reformed character, and never belaboured his wife again.
There is a short cut over the fields from Stixwould to Tupholme Priory, available for the pedestrian, but transit for the carriage is doubtful, as the cart track is a private accommodation road, though possibly the proverbial “silver key” may open the locks. On the opposite side of the ruins is Tupholme Hall, a large substantial brick building, with some fine timber about it. The age of this house I do not know, but some spouting bears date 1789. Tupholme can be reached by train to Southrey station, with a walk of about a mile and a half, or from Bardney about two miles.
* * * * *
We now pass over two miles in thought, and reach Bardney. Here we have the largest church (St. Lawrence) in this neighbourhood; and though for a long time it was left in a wretched condition, it was restored in 1878 at a cost of £2,500, and is now in a very good condition. Its chief features of interest are as follows:—In the south wall of the chancel there is a piscina; in the pavement north of the Communion table is a flat slab of Purbeck marble, with a cross and the initials C.S., with date 1715. The present Communion table is formed of a massive slab of Lincoln limestone, 9 feet long, 4 feet in width, and 6 inches in thickness. Inscribed on this are seven crosses, three at each end and one in the front centre; they have evidently been scratched with a rude instrument and are doubtless of early date. The number of these crosses, seven, would imply that it was dedicated to some sacred purpose. The stone was found under the floor of the nave, while operations were going on for the restoration. It is supposed to have been brought from the Abbey (of which we shall speak presently), and to have been the tombstone of King Oswald of Northumbria, who, as the Venerable Bede
states (Book iii.. c. vi.), was buried in the Abbey under the High Altar; although it is known that with the exception of one hand (which is said to have acquired miraculous powers) his remains were afterwards removed to Gloucester. The chancel is built of bricks, which resemble those of Tattershall and Halstead Hall, and commonly called “Flemish;” but it is likely that, as in the case of the two other buildings just named, they were made in the neighbourhood, where there have been very extensive brick and tile kilns, of so old a date as to have given its name to a small stream, which is called “Tile-house Beck.” The chancel has angels between the main beams of the roof. In the chancel arch south wall, on the eastern side, are initials scratched, with dates 1443 and 1668. The nave has north and south aisles with five bays, and Early English arches and columns, the plinths of these columns being unusually high—over three feet, and those on the south being slightly higher than those on the north. The aisle windows are debased. The timber beams in the roof are of strong good oak; plain, except a central floriated device; the general boarding being of pine. The east window has five lights, with fourteen divisions above, within the low arch. The register dates from 1653. The Communion plate is good, its date 1569. The tower is massive, broad, and low, with here and there a relic of Norman zigzag work built into the walls. There are four bells, large, and of good tone, the weight of the largest being just short of one ton. Their inscriptions are as follows:—
(a) Soli Deo gloria (Churchwardens) T. T. & W. K. 1644.
(b) W. S. (with Fleur de lys) Deus . . . 1670.
(c) Sanctus Dominus . . . 1663.
(d) Jhesus be our spede. E. E. R.R. a Rose. 1615.
The Abbey of Bardney, of which now nothing remains in situ except a sepulchral barrow, dates from the Saxon Heptarchy, being one of the oldest in the kingdom. It was first built, says Dugdale [168a] by King Ethelred, who himself, in 705, quitted his throne of Mercia, and, retiring to Bardney, became its Abbot for the last 13 years of his life. The name of the actual founder, however, is lost in obscurity. Leland says [168b] that the monks themselves did not know it. The barrow referred to is called, to
this day, the “coney-garth” or “King’s enclosure,” and Ethelred is supposed to have been buried there. The Abbey was destroyed in 870, by the Danes, under their leaders Inguar and Hubba, and 300 monks slaughtered before the altar. It was re-built 200 years later, and re-endowed, by Gilbert de Gaunt, the powerful Norman baron whose bounteous acts we have referred to more than once; and his son, Walter de Gaunt, in 1115, confirmed “to the church and monastery of St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Oswald, all those lands and possessions which his father had given in pure and perpetual alms to the same.” And all this was afterwards confirmed by Henry I. [169a] It was a very wealthy establishment of the Benedictine order. The superior was one of the twenty-five mitred Abbots in England; he was called the “Lord of Lindsey,” had a seat in the House of Lords, and a palace in London. At the time when the body of Oswald, King of Northumbria, was buried here, there were 300 monks in the Abbey, says Dugdale. I have mentioned that when the body of King Oswald was afterwards transferred to Gloucester, a hand was retained, which acquired miraculous powers; the versions as regards this vary, but there is a legend that Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne was dining with Oswald, there being a silver dish on the royal table, well replenished, when the king’s almoner announced “that there was a crowd of mendicants begging at the gate. The king immediately ordered the whole of the meat, and the dish itself, to be divided among them. This generosity so struck the bishop that he grasped the king’s right hand, exclaiming that “it was impossible that a hand so munificent should ever perish,” and the monks assert that it never did. After his death it was deposited as a holy relic in St. Peter’s Church at Bebba, now called Bamborough. Thence it was purloined by a monk of Peterborough (says William of Malmsbury) and deposited in the Abbey there, where it is said, by Nicholas Harpsfield, to have remained in a perfect state till after the Reformation. [169b]
In the Record “Testa de Nevill” (p. 338) it is stated that, besides the lands given to the Abbey by Gilbert de Gaunt, in Bardenay, Surraye (Southrey), An-Goteby (Gautby), and elsewhere, Roger de Marmion (ancestor of the Dymokes of Scrivelsby) also endowed it with certain lands. The Abbots held the advowsons of, or pensions from, the churches of Bardney, Barton-on-Humber, Sotby, Falkingham, Wlacot, Skendleby, Partney, Frisby, Lusby, Baumber, Edlington, and half a dozen more.
Of Bardney I have only one more particular to mention, a modern miracle:—In the year 1898, in the hamlet of Southrey, an outlying part of the parish, a church was built, where there had been none before, to accommodate 90 people; the builders, as in the historic case of St. Hugh of Avalon, carrying his hod at the erection of his own cathedral, were the clergy, assisted by the parishioners generally, all carting being done by the farmers; and the greatest zeal and interest being shewn by all parties. It is a wooden structure, on a concrete foundation. The font was brought from the vicarage, probably being of the 15th century.
As I stand on this barrow, “coney-garth,” with the remains mouldering beneath me, blending with their kindred earth, of the saintly Ethelred, who in his singular devotion exchanged the crown of a king for the mitre of an abbot, I command a view, probably unrivalled in the world. In the near distance north-east are the buildings which occupy the site of the vaccary of Bardney Abbey, still called Bardney Dairies, and said to have been the original position of the abbey itself, before its destruction by the Danes. North-westward, beyond the woods, between two and three miles away, are the crumbling remains of Barlings Abbey, whose last abbot, Macharell (under the name of Captain Cobbler), headed the Lincolnshire Rebellion, in the reign of Henry VIII., and for his offence was executed, along with the contemporary Abbot of Kirkstead. In the next village but one to the west formerly stood the Priory of Minting, of which only mounds and ponds survive. To the north of this was the Priory of Benedictine Nuns at Stainfield; while a few short miles again beyond this to the east was Bullington Priory; and crowning the north-western horizon stands the majestic Cathedral of Lincoln, around which clustered in its immediate proximity fourteen monasteries; truly a region once rich beyond compare in monastic
institutions; the homes of devotion, if also, unhappily, of error and superstition; but the almost sole sources in their day “of light and leading”; but for whom we should now know but little or nothing of the distant past, since it was the monks who made and preserved for us our historic records, [171] they who multiplied our old MSS., they who were our great agriculturists, and they above all who handed down to us the Word of Life. Not far off to the east is a wood, commonly called “Horsetaker wood,” but the term is really “Auster-acre,” the eastern-acre or field (Latin, Australis ager); as at Bawtry there is land called by the similar name, “Auster-field,” and we have most of us heard of the battle of Austerlitz, when Napoleon conquered the forces of Austria and Russia, in 1805. To the north lies another wood, known as “Hardy-gang” wood, a name derived from the following local tradition:—Once upon a time a wild man lived in the fastnesses of this wood (the woods about here were, within the writer’s recollection, much more extensive than they now are); he wore no clothing; was covered with hair; and was the terror of the neighbourhood, raiding the sheep and cattle, and carrying off occasionally a child. At length his maraudings became so excessive that a number of men banded together, binding themselves not to rest until they had rid the country of this monster in human form. They had a hard task to perform, but at length they did it, and their name of “the hardy gang” was passed on to the wood itself.
Continuing our ramble, a walk of some five miles eastward, partly through fields, by a wide and evidently ancient footpath, trod, doubtless, by many a monk of old, and skirting the above-named Auster-acre wood, we arrive at the small and scattered village of Gautby, the property of the Vyners. We are here in a region of fine and stately timber, a suitable position for a large, and handsome residence; but the hall was demolished several years ago, and only the gardens remain, enclosed by a high wall. In such a place, and under such patronage, we should expect to find the church a handsome fabric, but, on the contrary, the visitor will be surprised to see a mean, brick, small structure, with no pretensions whatever to architectural beauty. The old square pews are still retained, with some open sittings, all of oak, but without ornament; pulpit and reading-desk, in keeping with these; the font is of wood with marble basin, small, and of no beauty. A small wooden gallery, for singers, over the west door, reminds one of the days when our country choirs were accompanied by hautboy, clarionet and fiddle, and almost the only hymns were “Tate and Brady.” The chancel is almost entirely paved with tombstones of the Vyners. One of these records the murder of F. G. Vyner, Esq., by brigands in Greece, in the year 1870. On the north and south sides of the Communion table are raised monuments, on which are semi-recumbent figures in stone. The inscription on the northern sepulchre runs as follows:—“At the instance of Thomas Vyner, Esqvire, Clerke of the Patents, piously desiring to preserve the memorie of his dear Father, Sr Thomas Vyner deceased, His Executor Sr Robert Vyner, Knight and Baronet, caused this monument to be set up Anno. Dom. 1672.” The south inscription is, “To the memorie of Thomas Vyner Esqr, second sonne of Sr Thomas Vyner, Knt. & Baronet, by Dame Honour, daughter of George Humble Esqr, of this Parish, His second wife, this monument was erected, at the charge of Sr Robert Vyner, Knt and Baronet, sole executor of his last will and Testament. Ano. Dni. 1673.”
The founder of the family of Vyner was Sir Robert, a wealthy London merchant, who, like his father before him, lent money to ruined Royalists, doubtless at a rate of interest which well repaid him. He was fond of his sovereign, in more senses than one, as is shewn by the following anecdote given in the “Spectator,” No. 462:—When Sir Robert Vyner was Lord Mayor, in 1675, he entertained Charles II. in
the Guild-hall; and this he did with so profuse hospitality, and withal repeatedly toasting the royal family, that he soon began to treat his sovereign with a familiarity unduly loving. The king understood very well how to extricate himself from such a difficulty, and with a hint to the company to avoid ceremony, he stole away and made for his coach, standing in the Guild-hall yard. But Sir Robert liked his Majesty’s company so well that he pursued him, and catching the king by the hand, he cried out, with a round oath, “Sire, you shall stay and take t’ other bottle.” Charles, recognising the inevitable, put a good face on the matter, and, looking at him kindly, with a graceful air repeated this line of the old song,
“He that’s drunk is as great as a king.”
He immediately returned and complied with the invitation. [173]
In the park at Gautby there stood for many years an equestrian statue, of which the history is somewhat ludicrous. It passed for a statue of Charles II. Sir Robert Vyner, the hero of the above anecdote, presented it to the City of London, in 1675; and it was placed in the Stocks Market, in honour of his Majesty. The royal horseman bestrides a warlike steed, which is trampling under foot the figure of a turbanned Turk. This seems hardly an appropriate mode of representing a sovereign, who, so far from thirsting for deeds of war, could drink wine and play cards when the Dutch were burning our shipping in the Thames close by. The Stocks Market was eventually demolished, when the statue was transferred to Gautby Park, the Lincolnshire seat of the donor, whence it has in late years been transferred to the Yorkshire seat of the Vyners—Newby Park, near Ripon. It had been originally intended to represent John Sobieski, King of Poland, who was regarded as the saviour of Europe from the Mussulman power; and for him, the Turk trampled under foot was a fitting emblem. When the statue was taken down in 1738, the following satiric lines were circulated and sung in the streets:—
“The last dying speech and confession of the Horse at Stock’s Market.
Ye whimsical people of London’s fair town
Who one day put up, what the next day pull down;
Full sixty-one years, have I stood in this place,
And never, till now, met with any disgrace!
What affront to crowned heads could you offer more bare,
Than to pull down a king to make room for a mayor?
The great Sobieski, on horse with long tail,
I first represented, when set up for sale;
A Turk, as you see, was placed under my feet,
To prove o’er the Sultan my conquest compleat.
Next, when against monarchy all were combined,
I, for your Protector, old Noll, was designed.
When the King was restored, you then, in a trice,
Called me Charly the Second; and, by way of device,
Said the old whiskered Turk had Oliver’s face,
Though you know to be conquered he ne’er had the disgrace.
Three such persons as these on one horse to ride,
A Hero, Usurper, and King, all astride:—
Such honours were mine; though now forced to retire,
Perhaps my next change may be still something higher,
From a fruitwoman’s market, I may leap to a spire.
As the market is moved, I am forced to retreat;
I could stay there no longer, with nothing to eat.
Now the herbs and the greens are all carried away,
I must go unto those who will find me in hay.”
So the old horse, after serving varied purposes, and more than one “flitting,” finds literally “a green old age” in his “retreat” in the great horse county; a standing memorial, in stone, of a Lord Mayor’s “zeal” not “tempered with knowledge.” But his memory is not allowed to perish, for in the neighbouring training stables a favourite name among the fleet racers is Sobieski.
A pleasant walk of less than a mile over meadows, or “Ings,” brings us to the village of Minting, the last syllable of its name, possibly, being derived from the said “Ings.” Here, as has been already mentioned, formerly existed a Priory of Benedictine monks, a “cell” or offshoot of the Gallic monastery of St. Benedict super Loira, and founded in 1129 by Ranulph de Meschines, Earl of Chester. No buildings remain above-ground, but they must have been very extensive, as mound and hollow and stew pond cover an area of four or five acres. The benefice is in the gift of St. John’s College, Cambridge. The church, previously a very poor structure, was restored by the Vicar, the Rev. F. Bashforth, in 1863, at a cost of over £800, the late Mr. Ewan Christian being the architect. The font is modern, but handsome, in form hexagonal. There is a north aisle with three bays and Norman arches. Three windows in the north wall and two in the south are debased. The east window is a good sample of the Perpendicular,
and on the outside has figureheads of king and queen, as terminals of the moulding. A curious slab, carved on both sides, formerly lay loose in the porch, having been part of a churchyard cross. At the restoration it was cut into two sections, and these were placed on the east wall of the nave, north and south of the chancel arch, thus shewing the two carved surfaces. The device on the northern one is a rude representation of the Crucifixion; the Saviour’s legs are crossed, and a figure stands on either side, probably St. John and the Virgin. Below is a rudely-cut foliated pattern. The design of the slab on the south, formerly the back, is also rude foliation. On the north wall of the chancel there is an oval brass tablet to the memory of Gulielmus Chapman, of which one is tempted to say that, unless the individual commemorated was an almost more than human embodiment of all the virtues, the author of the epitaph must have acted on the principle recommended by the poet Matthew Prior,—
Be to his virtues very kind,
And to his faults a little blind.
It runs as follows:—“Gulielmus Chapman, Probus, Doctus, Lepidus, Facundus, Hic jacet. Pietate, Fidelitate, Benignitate, Modestiâ, Nulli Secundus, Hanc Vicariam bis 20 et octo annos tenuit. Clarus in Umbra, Rarâ in senectute Emicuit, Die 14 Aprilis decessit, Anno Ætat. 82, Anno Dom. 1722.”
The villagers of this parish, 100 years ago, are said to have exercised the art of weaving on a considerable scale, and one of the writer’s parishioners states that his grandmother lived there and had a hand-loom.
* * * * *
A walk of less than two miles, chiefly across the fields, brings us to Wispington. We have already mentioned [175] the presence here of moats, mounds, and portions of a former old mansion of the Phillips family, utilized in existing farm buildings. We have only now to notice the church, which does not call for much remark. It was rebuilt on the site, and partly of the materials, of the previously-existing church, in 1863, at a cost of £1,500, by the Rev. C. P. Terrott, late vicar, and one of our greatest local antiquaries. He himself designed the font and stone pulpit, and also executed the devices which adorned them, representing groups of different animals named in the Bible. The
tower is supported on buttresses, on a principle adopted from the church of Old Woodhall, which is peculiar, but simple and effective. In the vestry there is a slab, in the floor, of a former rector, John Hetherset, holding a chalice with hands in many-buttoned gloves. Built into the vestry wall are the capitals of two small Norman pillars, which were dug up near the church, and doubtless formed part of the older Norman building. Propped up against the vestry wall is a Jacobean altar-stone, formerly on the Communion table, one of the very few in England. The two mediæval bells are dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The east window has modern coloured glass, the subject being the crucifixion, and scenes in the life of our Saviour. In the north wall of the nave is a window of coloured glass, commorative of the late vicar, C. P. Terrot; and in the south wall of the chancel is another, commemorating his son, Capt. Charles Terrott; in the south nave wall, near the font, is a brass tablet, with the Tyrwhitt arms, erected by the late Rev. Beauchamp St. John Tyrwhitt, vicar, in memory of his brother Robert. The west window is of coloured glass, the subject being St. Margaret and St. John the Baptist.
Edlington Church (St. Helen’s)—the village being a very scattered one, with scarcely two houses contiguous—stands to the east, some two miles from Wispington. It was rebuilt, except the lower part of the tower, in 1859–60. The pulpit, reading desk, lectern, and sittings are all of oak, modern and plain, but substantial. There are three bells. Edlington park is nicely wooded with some good timber, though much of it has been felled of late years. There was formerly a good residence on the northern rising ground, but it was pulled down “in the forties” by the then owner, J. Hassard Short, Esq., and only the kitchen gardens and fish ponds remain. In a field near at hand there were found, several years ago, a number of heaps of oxbones, each heap also containing an ancient urn, supposed to have been connected with Roman sacrifices; but, as Dr. Oliver [176] derives the name Edlington from Eiddileg, a mystic character in the Bardic mythology, these may be the remnants of some other heathen superstition.
A walk across the park and over a couple of fields southward brings us to the village of Thimbleby, which consists of a “street” of
small cottages and two or three larger dwelling-houses. There is here an old manor, called “Hall-garth,” with an interesting old house with gables, thatched roof, some panelled rooms, a large fish pond, an old-time garden with yew hedges fantastically trimmed, and a fine old tree or two. In a field called “the Park,” at the east end of the parish, are some fine trees, remnants of a former avenue. The ancient well, said to be Roman, in the rectory grounds, has already been mentioned. The church was re-fashioned in 1879, and an old, nondescript, flat-ceiled structure was converted into a substantial and well-designed edifice of Early Decorated style, with clock-tower and good clock, which gives out its notes of time to the neighbourhood.
We are now within a mile of Horncastle; somewhat weary after our long explorations, let us wend our way on to the old town, and seek rest and refreshment at the well-appointed and almost historic hostel which is ready to welcome us beneath “ye Signe of ye Bull.”
CHAPTER X.
Re-invigorated, after the prolonged explorations of the last chapter, by a much-needed rest at the hostel of “The Bull,” we now prepare for our final round of visitation among the still remaining objects of interest in the neighbourhood. And first we may seek enlightenment as to the meaning of “the sign” of our inn, for such signs are ofttimes significant. For this we have not far to go. Looking out of the window of the snug little parlour we are occupying, we see before us what an Irishman might call a triangular square—a sort of “Trivium,” where three ways meet, and where men not seldom congregate for trivial converse, although on market days it is the scene of busy barter, and at mart, or fair, transactions in horse, and other, flesh are negotiated with dealers of many kindreds, peoples, and tongues; but more of this anon. On the far side of this open space, “the Red Lion” bravely faces us, lashing its tail in rivalry. In the centre we notice a large lamppost (recently erected by the Urban Council; in 1897). At this spot, well within living memory, was to be seen a large iron ring, securely embedded in a stone in the pavement, of goodly dimensions. This was “the Bull King,” and the open space still perpetuates the name. Here the ancient sport of bull-baiting was practised annually for the brutal, but thoughtless, delectation of the people of town and country side. [178] I find a note that on April 21, 1887, I conversed with an old woman, and, as a link with what is passed, never to return, I may here give her name,—Judith Thornley, daughter of W. Elvin, farmer, of Baumber,—and then 84 years of age, who remembered the Bull ring, as I also do, and who, as a child, raised on her father’s shoulders to see over the crowd, witnessed more than one bull-baiting. On one such occasion she saw a woman gored by the bull, its horns piercing her bowels, although it was secured by the nose to the ring, the crowd being so great that she was thrust within the dangerous area by those pressing upon her from behind. This,
she reckoned, would be about the year 1809 or 1810. As Mr. Weir, in his “History of Horncastle,” dated 1820, makes no reference to this practice, we may assume that the old lady was about right in her calculation.
Nearly opposite our hostel may be noticed, at the corner, a saddler’s shop. This was established in the year 1760, and, situated as the shop is in the centre of the great fair, Messrs. H. and W. Sharp receive orders for various articles, in connection with horseflesh, from foreign as well as English customers. Conversing with the head of this firm at the time of this writing, I found that within the last few months they had received commissions not only from various parts of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, but from Belgium, Norway, France and Germany; some handsome harness, which I recently saw being made by them, was for Berlin. Opposite the entrance to the Bull is a smaller inn, the “King’s Head,” which is thatched; one hundred years ago nearly every house in the town was thatched, and by the terms of the Will by which this particular inn was devised to the present owner, it is required that it should always remain thatched. This, surely, is a proviso which might be legitimately ignored; and, doubtless, in a few years’ time, thatching will be a lost art. The street to the right, running north, and now named North Street, was formerly called “The Mill-stones,” from two old abandoned millstones which lay near the northern end of it. Half-way up this street, a back street branching off to the left is called “Conging Street,” and formerly near it was a well named “Conging Well.” This term is derived from the old Norman-French congé, a permission, or licence; from very early times the lord of the manor levied a toll on all who wished to traffic at the great fairs which were established by ancient charters of the Sovereign. There formerly stood, near the present Dispensary, an old house called the “Conging House,” where these tolls were paid for the licence to trade. [179]
A curious custom which formerly prevailed in
the town at the time of the great fairs, and which continued to later than the middle of the 19th century, was the opening of what were termed “Bough-houses,” for the entertainment of visitors. Horncastle has still an unusually large number of licensed public-houses, and not many years ago had nearly twice the number, many of them with extensive stabling, for the accommodation of man and beast, at the fairs for which it is famous; but, beyond these, it was a custom, from time immemorial, that any private house could sell beer without a licence, if a bough, or bush, was hung out at the door. [180] This, no doubt, gave rise to the old saying, “good wine needs no bush,” i.e., the quarters where it was sold would need no bough or bush hung out to advertise its merits, as they would be a matter of common bruit. This, as was to be expected, was a privilege liable to be abused, and, only to give one instance, a couple living in the town and owning a name not unknown at Woodhall Spa, are said to have ordered for themselves a goodly barrel of beer to be ready for the fair, but, the barrel having been delivered two or three days before the fair commenced, they had themselves tried its merits so frequently, that when the day arrived there was none left to sell, and the barrel was unpaid for, with no means received to pay for it, while they themselves were no better for the transaction.
On “the Millstones,” about half-way up the street, a friend of the writer witnessed, in the
forties, a man selling his wife by auction, [181] who stood on the top of a barrel, with a halter round her neck, and a crowd collected round, examining her merits, as might not long ago have been seen in a slave market in Egypt. She was sold for £30, in the street, opposite a small inn then called “The Horse and Jocky,” and kept by a man commonly called Banty Marshall. I am not aware that it is more than a coincidence, that, although the inn has now a different name, a device in the window represents a cat on a barrel. The parish stocks stood at the top of this street, where the Court House now stands; they were last used in 1859, and were only removed on its erection in 1865. The present writer can remember seeing persons confined in the stocks; as also in a neighbouring village, where the parish clerk, after his return from the Saturday market, not uncommonly was put in the stocks, to fit him for his Sunday duties.
In connection with the fairs, deeds of violence were not unknown. At a house on the north side of the Market-place, which was formerly the “Queen’s Head” inn, but is now occupied by a veterinary surgeon, while alterations were being made, two skeletons were found under the bricks of the kitchen floor. The men had doubtless been murdered for their money at fair-time, and the bodies placed there for concealment. Of the cheating practised at the fairs I can give a sample or two. It is recorded, I believe, that the late Dr. Dealtry, Archdeacon of Calcutta, preaching on the different ideas of honesty or fraud, gave point to his argument by a humorous illustration. “For instance,” he said, “my worthy friend, who occupies the reading desk beneath me, would see no dishonesty in misrepresenting the qualities of a horse he wished to sell, even to his dearest friend.” And honesty has by no means always been deemed the best policy in the streets of Horncastle. Edmund Yates, in his personal “Recollections,” relates that he was dining with the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Alexander Cockburn, when his host told the following story:—A man saw a handsome-looking horse at Horncastle Fair, and was astonished at the low price asked for it. After some chaffering, he bought it, taking it without
a warranty. Having paid his money, he gave an extra five shillings to the groom, and asked what was the matter with the horse that he was sold so cheap. After some hesitation, the man said that the horse was a perfect animal, but for two faults. “Two faults,” said the buyer, “then tell me one of them.” “One,” said the groom, “is, that when you turn him out, in a field, he is very hard to catch.” “That,” said the buyer, “does not matter to me, as I never turn my horses out. Now for the other fault.” “The other,” said the groom, scratching his head and looking sly, “the other is, that when you’ve caught him he’s not worth a rap.”
Another story is as follows:—Some yeans ago a Lincolnshire clergyman, advanced in years, had an old horse which had run in his antiquated carriage from being four years old, till he was fourteen or fifteen. He would still have satisfied his master, but that he acquired a very bad habit, to which, like other old animals not four-legged, he obstinately adhered. He would jump over the dyke (the locality being in the marshes) into a neighbour’s field. The said neighbour complained of this so often that the pastor decided to sell. The old coachman took the horse to Horncastle Fair and sold him for £26. The old gentleman and his coachman then looked about the fair for another that would suit them. They presently saw a horse of the same size and style as the old favourite just sold, but with shorter mane and tail, and lacking the star on the forehead which marked the old horse. They asked, the price, and were told it was £40. After much haggling the horse was bought for £35, and his reverence drove home with the new purchase. After tea his wife said, “Well, so you have not sold?” “Oh, yes,” he replied, “we have, and have got a younger and more spirited animal, very like the old sinner, but with shorter mane and tail, and no star on his forehead.” “Well,” said the wife, “I think you were taken in, for the new horse is already, like the old one, grazing in neighbour Brown’s field”; and there, sure enough, he was. The dealer had docked the tail, trimmed the mane, and dyed the white star brown; and had “gingered” the old horse till he played up like a colt. His reverence, in short, had been “sold,” and the old sinner had been returned on his hands with the loss of £10.
My third story relates to a former Vicar of Horncastle, Dr. Loddington, who died in 1724,
but whose name survives on one of the church bells, cast during his incumbency.
We are told, on authority, [183] that at one time all kinds of traffic went on within St. Paul’s Cathedral, and its precincts, in London. It was the common lounge of gallants and their female friends; and even a horse might be bought there; and such a transaction actually did take place in St. Mary’s Church, Horncastle. The Vicar had a chestnut mare which he wished to sell. Two dealers at the fair bid for her up to £35, which he refused to take. Sitting together at breakfast on the Sunday morning at their inn, Brown said to Robinson, “I bet you a bottle of wine I buy that mare of the Vicar’s.” “Done,” said Robinson. They both went to church, which was more than many dealers do nowadays. Brown took his seat just under the pulpit. Robinson, not knowing this, sat near the porch, intending to intercept the Vicar as he went out. The sermon ended, Brown waited till the Vicar descended from the pulpit; as he reached the bottom step of the stairs, Brown went to him and said, “That was a good sermon, but your reverence has not yet sold that mare; the fair is over, and I am leaving in the afternoon. Won’t you take the £35? You’ll never get a better bid.” The Vicar thought for a moment, and then whispered, “You may have her.” He went out, was met in the porch by Robinson, who found that he was too late, and owed Brown a bottle of wine; his only consolation was that he resolved himself to drink the better half of it.
At these fairs good bargains may be made by one who has an eye to the points of a horse, and can use his opportunities. The writer knew a curate in the south-west of Lincolnshire, whose stipend was £50 a year. He came regularly every year, for many years, to the August fair. His first purchase was a young horse, for which be gave the whole of his year’s stipend, £50. He kept it a year, and hunted it. I have ridden with him, when mounted on that horse, with the Belvoir hounds, and the next year he sold it for £300, a pretty good percentage on the original outlay. A cousin of the writer picked out a young horse from a number and gave £24 for it; he afterwards refused to take £300 for it, offered by “Lord Henry”; but he lent it to his lordship occasionally. Another, which he bought cheap, and for which he refused £400,
broke its leg in jumping the river Bain, in a Horncastle steeplechase and had to be shot on the spot. Both these horses I have ridden to hounds, the one a bay, the other black.
Connected with the fairs is the so-called “Statutes,” a day in May for hiring servants. It was formerly the one general holiday in the year, but now that the Bank Holidays have been established, the statute-day is dwindling in its proportions. Of old all the servant girls, and all the clodhoppers from the country, used to gather in the town dressed in galore fashion, crowding the Bull-ring. Anyone who wanted a servant, as an old farmer once told the writer was his invariable custom, used to walk into the crowd and hire the first lass against whom he stumbled. The “fasten-penny,” a silver coin, was then given, and the bargain was then struck. Wild beast shows, and enormities such as lambs with two heads or a dozen legs, and other attractions, were provided, and the day ended with music and dancing at the different inns in the town; some of the proceedings having after-effects not desirable. At the present time, when there is more regard for our domestic servants and their characters, and cheap postage prevails, this mode of haphazard engagement has nearly died out, and the Statute will soon be a thing of the past. It was first enacted by Ed. III. in 1351; again by 13th Richard II., and, in later times, was held under “a precept” from the Chief Constable of the Division. To those who wish to read a humorous and graphic description of the doings on this day, in comparatively recent times, I would recommend the poem “Neddy and Sally; or, The Statute Day,” by John Brown, “the Horncastle Laureate, [184] of which I can here give only the opening lines, which breathe of the spirit inspiring the occasion.
“Cum, Sall! It’s time we started now,
Yon’s Farmer Haycock’s lasses reddy,
An’ maister says he’ll milk the cow.”
“He didn’t say soa, did he, Neddy?”“Yees! that he did; soa make thee haste;
An’ get thee sen made smart an’ pritty;
Wi’ yaller ribbon round thee waist;
The same as owd Squire Lowden’s Kitty.And I’ll goa fetch my sister Bess;
I’m sartin sewer she’s up an’ ready;
Cum! gie’s a buss! Thou can’t do less.”
Says Sally, “Noa, thou musn’t, Neddy.”
There have not been wanting, in this old town, some eccentric characters, whose doings have been peculiar, and have been traditionally preserved for the entertainment of a rising generation. Of these two or three may be recorded here, but for obvious reasons I avoid mentioning names. One individual, exulting in his strength, undertook, for a wager, some time in the thirties, to drag a dung cart from Lincoln to Horncastle, a distance of 21 miles, and successfully accomplished the feat in eight hours, but he is said to have suffered from hæmorrhage for the rest of his days. Another man made a bet that he would start from Lincoln on horseback when the moon rose there, and would have his horse in his own stable at Horncastle before the moon had risen there. Lincoln being on a hill, the moon would be seen earlier there than at Horncastle, which lay in a hollow. As he galloped along he is said to have shouted, “Now me, now moon,” as the chances seemed at intervals for or against the one or the other. He just, however, missed the success which he might have achieved, as he had to pull up, late in the evening, at the toll-bar on the Lincoln road, about a mile from Horncastle, the toll-bar keeper being in bed; and this slight delay caused his failure, for, as he opened his stable door, he saw the moon shining in a bucket of water which was standing ready for his steed. The writer is informed that one, if not both, of these individuals was considered to be a little “short” of the full modicum of brains. Another person, still resident in the town, remembers the burning, in the street, of the effigies of Bayock and Demont, two of the witnesses in the trial of Queen Caroline, in 1820. They were Italians. There were great rejoicings and illuminations, in London and throughout the country, on Her Majesty’s acquittal; and this was the demonstration of Horncastrians. An old song was popular at the time, beginning thus:
False witnesses from Italy, they came to London town;
And all they had against her was to keep her from the crown.
Wharrie, a shoemaker in the town, was inspired to preach a sermon in the Bull-ring, from a cart, denouncing the trial. This sermon was printed, and a copy was long in the possession of my informant.
A character of a higher type than those yet named, was the late proprietor and manager of “The Bull” hostel, at which we are now supposed to be staying, Mr. Clement James
Caswell, a genial, generous, and cultivated gentleman. He came of an old and highly respectable stock located in the county of Herts., his father being for many years landlord of “The George,” at Barnet, a stage on the Great North road, through which, in the old coaching days, scores of coaches passed daily. He was a coach proprietor, and handled the ribbons himself. The son was educated at the Spalding Grammar School, and acquired antiquarian, tastes while yet a boy. After having held some important public offices in that town, and then managing some mills at Aswardby, he bought the Bull at Horncastle. Though the inn had previously held a high position, he still further raised its character; and his spare time was devoted to reading, and research of various kinds. He had a very valuable collection of coins, the result of many years of careful selection. His garden, just out of the town, had an observatory, furnished with telescope, books, and other appliances for amusement and relaxation. He supplied the illustrations for a book entitled “In Tennyson Land,” by J. Cuming Walters, published in 1890. He was a member of the Architectural Society of Lincolnshire, Notts. and Leicestershire; a member of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, one of the oldest antiquarian societies in the kingdom; and he was continually corresponding, in various directions, on subjects of antiquarian interest. He had a valuable library of books bearing on these and kindred studies, and indicating the wide extent of his reading. Especially, perhaps, as a Tennysonian expert, he was consulted by almost everyone who has written on that subject, as in the case already named, and in Napier’s “Homes and Haunts of Tennyson.” It was a treat to get a quiet, genial hour with him, when he would run on with a stream of informing converse, but on few themes did he warm up with so much inspiration as that of the late Laureate, witness these lines of his own composition:—