NOCTON
As an instance of what the great Roman catch-water drain the “Carr-dyke” effected, we may take the little village of Nocton, six miles south-east of Lincoln. Here is a little string of villages—Potter Hanworth, Nocton, Dunston and Metheringham—running north and south on the edge of a moor which drops quickly on the east to an uninhabited stretch of fen once all water, but now rich cornland cut into long strips by the drains which, aided by pumps, send the superfluous water down the Nocton “Delph” into the Witham River. Along the extreme edge of the moorland runs the “Carr-dyke” and intercepts all the water which would otherwise discharge into the already water-logged lowlands, and so makes the task of dealing with the fen water a possible one.
At Potter Hanworth the Romans had a pottery. The church was rebuilt in 1857, one of the bells was re-cast in memory of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and on it were placed Tennyson’s lines from “Morte d’Arthur.”
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”
On the same occasion the ringing of the Curfew bell, which had been continued till 1890, was given up, and a clock with four faces put up instead, which strikes the hours, but is not at all the same thing. Thus one more interesting and historic custom has disappeared, which is much to be regretted in this utilitarian and unimaginative age.
THE D’ARCY FAMILY
Domesday Book tells us that Nocton was divided in unequal shares between two landlords, Ulf and Osulf; on the land of the former there was already a church with a priest in 1086. These owners had given place to one Norman de Ardreci, written later de Aresci, and finally D’Arcy, a companion of the Conqueror. Norman D’Arcy’s son granted the churches of Nocton and Dunston to the Benedictines of St. Mary’s Abbey, York, also some land to the Carthusians of Kirkstead Abbey, and himself founded a priory at Nocton for canons of the Orders of St. Augustine, who first settled in England in 1108. The buildings are quite gone, but the site is still called the Abbey Field, and the vicarage is called the Priory; the Priory well, whose water was said to be “remarkably good,” in 1727, was only filled up about fifty years ago. Why couldn’t they have let it alone, one wonders. To follow up the history of Nocton: in 1541 Henry VIII. and Katharine Howard slept there.
The D’Arcy family and their descendants in the female line, whose married names were Lymbury, Pedwardine, Wymbishe and Towneley, held the property for three and twenty generations till the middle of the seventeenth century—a good innings of 600 years. But the losses which the Civil War brought about made it necessary for Robert Towneley, at the Restoration in 1660, to sell the estate to Lord Stanhope, from whom it soon passed by sale to Sir William Ellys, about 1676, and in 1726—by the marriage of Sir Richard Ellys’ widow—to Sir Francis Dashwood; after whom, in 1767, it descended to a cousin, George Hobart, eventually third Earl of Buckinghamshire. He altered Nocton considerably, pulled down the church, which was too near the house, and set up a poor structure further off, where the present church stands. He also spent much in draining Nocton fen, and erected a windmill pump which raised the water and sent it into the Witham, and worked well for forty years till it was superseded in Frederick Robinson’s time (1834) by a forty-horse-power steam engine which was found to pump the water faster than the fens could supply it. The earl died in 1804; ten years later his daughter, Lady Sarah Albinia, carried the estate to Frederick John Robinson, second son of Lord Grantham, who became Prime Minister and was created Viscount Goodrich in 1827, and Earl of Ripon in 1833; and, as a member of Sir Robert Peel’s cabinet, moved in the House of Lords the second reading of the Bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. In 1834 the house at Nocton was burnt down, and the earl’s young son, afterwards Marquis of Ripon, laid the foundation stone of the present house in 1841. The earl died in 1859, and his widow, who survived him eight years, built in his memory the present fine church, which was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. In 1889 Lord Ripon sold the estate to Mr. G. Hodgson of Bradford.
It is interesting to hear of a school being set up in 1793 at Nocton; first as a private school by John Brackenbury of Gedney, grandson of Edward Brackenbury of Raithby, near Spilsby, which was continued for forty-six years after her father’s death in 1813, by his daughter Justinia, who became Mrs. Scholey. In her time it was an elementary school which Lady Sarah financed and managed, the children paying a penny a week.
DUNSTON PILLAR
Another thing that was set up was a land lighthouse on Dunston Heath. This was a lonely tract where inhabitants had not only been murdered by highwaymen, but had even been lost in the storms and snow-drifts on the desolate and roadless moor. Here then Sir Francis Dashwood set up the Dunston Pillar, ninety-two feet high with a lantern over fifteen feet high on the top. The date on it is 1751. The fourth Earl of Buckinghamshire, who as Lord Hobart was Governor of Madras, took down the lantern on July 18, 1810, and set up in its place a colossal statue of George III. to commemorate the king’s jubilee.
NOCTON HALL
The granddaughter of the third earl, whose father (The Very Rev. H. L. Hobart) lived at the Priory, being, inter alia, vicar of Nocton and Dean of Windsor, and also of Wolverhampton, tells me that the mail coaches used to pass the pillar and leave all the letters for the neighbourhood at one of the four little lodges close by. She has several interesting specimens of the work done by the Nocton School of Needlework under the guidance of Justinia, whose family were remarkable for their Scriptural as well as “heathen Christian names,” e.g., Ceres and Damaris. Justinia herself always, as they say in Westmorland, used to “get” Justina. These specimens include a very clever and faithful copy in black silk needlework of an engraving by Hoylett from a picture by Thos. Espin of old Nocton Hall, which was burnt down in 1834. The needlework artist has done one of the trees in the picture most beautifully, but has given the rein to her imagination by working in two fine palm trees in place of the oaks of the picture. There is a sampler done at the vicarage by the dean’s daughter, and inscribed:—
“Nocton Priory, 1839.
Louisa C. Hobart.”
And two large samplers with the usual pretty floral borders worked by Justinia’s daughters, signed “Alice Scholey, 1832, and Betsey Scholey, 1848.” The latter has some rather primitive representations of the old Hall and its two lodges; also the Vicarage and the School, and a libellous portrait of Lincoln Minster. Alice Scholey was of a more Scriptural turn of mind and apparently fond of birds, for she has owls in the centre of green bushes, and pheasants or peacocks among her flowers; but her central picture is the temptation, where Adam and Eve, worked in pink silk, au naturel, stand on either side of a goodly tree covered with fruit, a gorgeous serpent twining round the trunk, and one remarkably fine plum-coloured apple temptingly within reach of Eve’s hand.
Certainly Justinia’s school was in advance of the time, but the art needlework doubtless owed much to the interest taken in it by Sarah Albinia, Countess of Ripon.
Samplers of the eighteenth century are now much sought after. I saw one lately of 1791, on which a little mite of seven, in days when the “three R’s” were taught along with the use of the needle in the good old sensible way, had stitched in black silk letters:—
The days were long
The weather hot
Sometimes I worked
And sometimes not.
Seven years my age
Thoughtless and gay
And often much
Too fond of play.
The first stanza with its pathetic little picture is genuine enough, but the second was manifestly dictated by her elders.
SAXON ORNAMENT
Among the treasures long preserved at Nocton was an Anglo-Saxon ornament of great beauty ([see illustration, Chap. XXII]) in which three discs of silver with a raised pattern of dragons, &c., and with pins four inches long are connected by silver links so as to form a cloak-chain to fasten the garment across the breast. The pins have shoulders an inch from the sharp points to prevent their shaking loose. This for a time was in a museum at Lincoln, and on the dispersal of the collection was bought and presented to the British Museum, and is in the Anglo-Saxon room. In the same room are kept the very interesting finds from the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Sleaford, consisting mainly of bronze ornaments and coloured beads. The cloak-chain was found in the Witham at Fiskerton, four miles from Lincoln, when the river was deepened in 1826.
THE MASQUERADE
Sir Charles Anderson, in his excellent Lincoln pocket guide, gives some notion of the gaiety which distinguished Nocton in the eighteenth century by quoting an account of a masquerade held there on December 29, 1767, which begins:—
“Met at the door by a Turk, in a white Bearskin, who took our tickets.”
It is curious to note the use of the word Turk for any dark-skinned person in a turban, for later in the list of dresses we have: “Mr. Amcotts, a Turk, his turban ornamented with diamonds. Mr. Cust, a Turk; scarlet and ermine; turban and collar very rich with diamonds. He represented the Great Mogul,” who would have been little pleased to be called a Turk, I imagine. Amongst more than seventy other dresses which are described we find: “Lady Betty Chaplin: a Chinese Lady, in a long robe of yellow taffety; the petticoat painted taffety. Her neck and hair richly ornamented with diamonds.”
But rich jewellery was the order of the night whether it was proper to the costume or not, so we find “Lady Buck: a Grecian Lady, scarlet satin and silver gauze; her neck and head adorned with diamonds and pearls.”
The host and hostess are thus described:—
“Mr. Hobart: ‘Pan.’ His dress dark brown satin, made quite close to his shape, shag breeches, cloven feet, a round shock wig, and a mask that beggars all description, a leopard skin over his back fastened to his shoulder by a leopard’s claw. In his hand a shepherd’s pipe.”
“Mrs. Hobart; First “Imoinda,” a muslin petticoat, puffed very small, spotted with spangles. The arms muslin puffed like a dancer. Her second dress “Nysa” or “Daphne.” She came in footing it, and singing a song in “Midas.” Muslin and blue ornaments; a white chip hat and blue ribbons.”
Several dancers had two costumes. Thus “Lord George Sutton. First a Pilgrim; next a Peasant Dancer; pink and white.
Miss Molly Peart: a Peasant Dancer; same colours as Lord George.
Miss Peart: ‘Aurora’ Blue and White. The Moon setting on one side of her head; the Sun rising on the other.
Miss A. Peart: a Dancer; pink and silver.”
Mr. and Miss Hales went as a Dutchman and “a Dutchwoman, brown and pink,” and Mrs. Ellis as “a Polish Lady; pink and silver; a white cloak and a great many diamonds.”
Another classic lady to match ‘Aurora’ was “Miss Manners: ‘Diana’ her vest white satin and silver; her robe purple lute-string; a silver bow and quiver: her hair in loose curls, flowing behind, and a diamond crescent on her forehead.”
I should judge that the “Eyewitness” who wrote the account was a Mr. Glover because of the minute particularity with which his own costume is set forth, thus: “Mr. Glover: a Cherokee Chief; a shirt and breeches in one, puffed and tied at the knees; a scarlet mantle, trimmed with gold, one corner across his breast; scarlet cloth stockings; brown leather shoes, worked with porcupine quills and deer’s sinews; a gold belt; gold leather about his neck, and before like a stomacher, and over that a long necklace and gorget; head-dress of long black horsehair, tied in locks of coloured ribbons, a single lock hanging over his forehead; ear-rings red and blue; plumes of black and scarlet feathers on his head; a scalping knife tucked into his girdle; a tomahawk in his hand, and a pipe to smoke tea with.”
Mrs. Glover went in black and yellow as a Spanish lady.
Then we have Henry the Eighth, a shepherdess, “a Witch with blue gown, red petticoat and high crowned hat,” a friar in a mask, a Sardinian knight, a Puritan, a sailor, “Lord Vere Bertie a very good Falstaff,” and many Spaniards, among them “Dr. Willis: a Spaniard with a prodigious good mask.”