Ancient Streets and Homesteads of England

by Alfred Rimmer

Winwall House is detached, and dates back to the same age as the Jews’ house. It is much less elaborately carved, but the two form the most complete picture that is left us of Norman domestic architecture. Winwall should have appeared in these pages, but Britton has engraved it well in his fifth volume of Architectural Antiquities, from a sketch by the late G. Cattermole, and as this volume is not found in every library I venture to quote some extracts as illustrating the accommodation of a Norman mansion.

“Winwall House,” says Britton, “may be considered the most ancient and most perfect specimen of Norman domestic architecture in the kingdom. I visited it with the Rev. Mr. Forby, a well-informed antiquary, about ten years ago. It must suffice to remark that the walls, the buttresses, with cylindrical shafts at the angles, the form and situation of fire-hearth and chimney-piece, the moulding and angular columns, are all indicative of Norman design. The ground-floor is entered by a small doorway on the south side, and lighted by three windows,” etc. etc. Britton then mentions that a thick partition wall cuts off a chamber which some have supposed to be a chapel, though Britton doubts it; but the most suggestive part of this house is its size and importance, and, if this is borne in mind, many things we come across in history will be more readily understood. The total length of Winwall House is 35 feet, about the frontage of a small semi-detached villa, and its breadth 27 feet; from this walls of 3 feet in thickness must be deducted, and then we shall have some idea of its small size. Yet William the Conqueror granted the manor of Wereham, of which this forms a part, to one of his followers, who sold it to the Earl of Clare, or from whom, at any rate, it passed to that family, and we find that the Earl of Clare in King John’s reign held a court here. There is little wonder that great baronial castles might take the place of such houses where there was so much insecurity, in the same way that a great landowner will sometimes absorb cottage holdings into a larger farm, to the mutual advantage of every one on his estate. Remembering the size of this manor-house, we can the more easily understand how it is that chroniclers state that, in order to clear the ground for Lincoln Castle, 166 mansions were destroyed, and furthermore, in order to give this castle the advantage of standing alone, 74 more were also demolished, yet this is on the authority of Domesday Book.

Lincoln Castle yet retains externally many of its ancient features, disfigured, probably, and dilapidated, but yet presenting the general appearance of a Norman fortress of the first class. “Its plan,” says Britton, “was accommodated to the area selected for its site, which comprehends the south-west quarter of the Roman city, consequently it approaches to a quadrangular figure, though not one of its sides is strictly regular. There are two principal entrances, one opening to the town towards the east, the other to the fields on the west; and it is worthy of notice that neither of these gates is placed opposite to the middle of the area, nor do they stand in a line facing each other, but one is set near the southeastern corner of the castle, the other to the northwestern one. The mode of placing the gates was probably contrived for strength; or it might be connected with some internal divisions that cannot now be traced. The eastern gate is the one now made use of. Its original architecture is covered by a pointed arch and turrets, probably erected in the reign of Edward III.” The other gate to the castle has often been supposed by old antiquaries to be one of the Roman gates utilised for the purposes of the castle, but this can hardly be substantiated, as the portcullis grooves and other mediæval traces can be detected.

Nothing more clearly shows the absorbing nature of the feudal system than these old castles; they were in fact often, as one might say, villages in themselves; but we are left much in the dark as to the way in which they were supported. Tribute was exacted in the form of produce and labour, but money must have been very scarce, and probably it is impossible to estimate the relative value of money now and in those days. The common estimates of ten to one or twenty to one break hopelessly down the moment they are tried by known criteria; indeed, there is not a little discrepancy between these two favourite estimates themselves, without going much further. Some of the commonest necessaries of life are even cheaper now than they were then, such as books, or cloth, or travelling, or elaborate iron work, where, at least, cast-iron may be said to stand in place of wrought; but, again, other things, especially labour, are probably so much dearer now, that all kinds of comparison are useless. The remuneration of a first class professional man would be often inadequately stated if pounds were put for pence, and labour differed astonishingly in every part of England. Even now, when we consider that in domestic servants’ wages we find a difference amounting to perhaps 100 per cent in various parts of England, what must that have been in those days?

If, as is stated, Gundulph, the bishop of Rochester, built the keep of Rochester Castle at a cost of sixty pounds—and if this is true, quite as remarkable things are on record—it is clearly hopeless to attempt to reconcile any known money value of things with prices we are familiar with. Even if the amounts paid to great dignitaries were to be assessed according to any scale that has been named, they would be ridiculous, and yet that would seem to be the most natural and neutral test. If the Lord Chief-Justice of England were now offered in the way of fee for his annual labours ten or even twenty times the value of the sum that was paid to Chief-Justice Gascoigne in Henry IV.’s time, he would probably look quite as severely as that judge ever did on the Prince of Wales; so that, when we say the forfeited estates of a monastery, or the rent-roll of a nobleman, were say £500 a year, it is entirely beside the question to attempt to arrive at the value by any rough-and-ready method of multiplication. Perhaps most of this was paid in kind, and very little gold passed, and great allowance must be made for isolation. Of course, leaving railways on one side, we must remember what the state of roads was before the present century. Certainly, when ecclesiastical architecture was in its glory in England, a journey from Liverpool to London would have entailed as much manual labour as from London to Calcutta for each traveller, and this is very much within the mark. In many counties in England £10 in those days would represent £500 now, and in some, of course, the difference would be much less striking. This is introduced here, because, unless such variations are kept in mind, we shall always be at fault in trying to arrive at any comparative estimate of the value of money, and be continually led astray in assessing the nominal rent-rolls of abbeys or manors.

Near the spot where the view of the Jews’ House is taken stands the conduit, a small pretty little building like a chapel, that in all probability was constructed out of the spoils of some ecclesiastical remain. Leland describes it as newly built when he saw it about the middle of the sixteenth century; and as the ornaments, such as the cuspings and other enrichments, belong to a period of some two centuries earlier, this is probably its history. Then as the convent of the Carmelites or White Friars stood on the opposite side of the street, the materials most probably came from there. Some of these conduits still remain in England, and are in use at the present day; and when we remember that only two centuries ago they formed the principal means of supplying water to the citizens, our march of improvement does indeed seem wonderful. The amount now considered necessary for the health and comfort of a city is at least twenty-five gallons per diem for each person, and, even with rain water, we may judge how far short the mediæval supply must have been.

As we ascend the hill the road becomes steeper, and we wind through the remains of the bishop’s palace, which are very grand, now broken into picturesque fragments and shrouded with ivy. The next scene is on the Witham as it runs through Lincoln, and wonderfully picturesque it is. The archway is of great antiquity. There is a strange resemblance to some of the Rotterdam scenes in this, the “vulgar Venice,” as Hood called it, hardly with strict justice, even though there may be a vein of truth in the simile.

In Camden’s work, edited by Gough, it is stated that the original magnificence of Lincoln may be gathered from the circumstance that so many Norman doorways and other splendid architectural remains (he says Norman and Saxon) are to be found in Lincoln. Every street, he states, contains some, and he says that few private dwellings have not some trace of Norman architecture inside or outside. Certainly this statement is from Camden, but it passes without challenge in Gough’s edition, and Gough died in the year 1809, though then advanced in years.