Ancient Streets and Homesteads of England

by Alfred Rimmer

The old prints of London bridge show these shocking accompaniments to ancient street scenes; and indeed to translate them into modern language, the photographs of the Greek brigands that were clustered in a group after murdering some estimable English gentlemen are only a reflex. These photographs, after whatever feeble justice could be done, are yet exposed in London.

Stonegate Street overlooks the Cathedral from the south side, and at every step there is some view that would gladden the eye of Prout or Cattermole. The south transept opens up at every turn, and forms some new combination with the surrounding quaint old houses. The colouring is extremely rich and beautiful, the various tints of ochre being freely used on the fronts of the buildings, and many quaint old windows and gables thrust themselves in front of their neighbours, as if in amicable rivalry which could be the most picturesque.

In speaking of the Ouse bridge, Britton says, “The superior construction of bridges may justly be the boast of modern architecture. Those of the middle ages were generally built in a clumsy and unscientific manner, with huge piers and straight arches; the passage over them was usually narrow, and in towns they were generally covered by shops and houses built on their sides. Notwithstanding these inconveniences, the picturesque features of some of those old buildings make their destruction a matter of regret to the admirers of antiquity. The Ouse bridge at York was chiefly remarkable for the size of its central arch, which certainly was an extraordinary effort of art, its span exceeding that of any arch in England, until the erection of Blackfriars Bridge in London.[8] This arch was pointed, but approached nearly to a circular curve. It had been built in the reign of Elizabeth after a great flood had swept away part of the bridge with twelve of the houses standing on it,” and it had been recently taken down when Britton wrote. It must have been intensely picturesque. There was a chapel at one end with a lancet front; and under it were two pointed cavernous arches spanning the water; while at the other side were tall houses like those in Rotterdam, with buttresses and mullioned windows.

The illustration here given of Richmond is from the Market Square, and it affords a characteristic idea of the singular scenes that sometimes meet us in outlying country towns. It has been asserted that a cannon fired down the streets of Richmond or Pontefract, at any time of the day, would not be likely to entail a coroner’s inquest. Camden gives a curious charter, by which the town of Richmond was conveyed away in the time of William the Conqueror: “I, William, King of England, do give, and grant to thee, my nephew, Alan, Earl of Bretagne, and to thy heirs for ever, all the villages and lands which of late belonged to Earl Edwin in Yorkshire, with the knights’ fees, and other liberties and customs as freely and honourably (?) as the same Edwin held them. Dated from our siege before York.” Many streets yet retain their Norman names, and the vast castle, of which the keep remains in a state of high preservation, was now built. The keep is 99 feet in height, and the walls are 11 feet in thickness. The tower and chapel, here shown, and so strangely mixed up with houses and shops, formerly stood in the castle walls, and are the remains of the garrison church, which was built in the twelfth century and rebuilt in 1360. This church has had a singular history. The patronage of it was vested in the corporation at the time of the Reformation, and they seem to have used the building for purposes certainly different from those which its founders intended. Until the Town Hall was built in 1756, the north aisle was used for the town sessions; then it was a consistory court; and now it is added again to the church, excepting some small shops, which are, as it were, inserted into it. It is to be hoped that no dispute will ever arise about party walls or rights of any kind, for there would be rather some nice points of law and evidence. Thus, in a curious way, some dwelling-houses are inserted between the nave and the tower; these belong partly to the church and partly to the corporation. The tower, however, belongs entirely to the corporation. The patronage formerly was possessed by Mr. Cooke, but Lord Zetland purchased it and presented it to the trustees of the Grammar School, so that now the whole block is fairly confused. The way in which Richmond was entailed on a follower of the Conqueror is a curious instance of the manner in which such grants were commonly made, and in the Registrum honoris de Richmond there is a most singular illumination of the investment. The lucky nephew is kneeling down, while the king is presenting him with a charter to which the great seal is attached; and thus villages and manors were given away in every direction by the stranger king. Domesday Book is the most extraordinary book perhaps that now exists; it gives an absolutely accurate description of England, excepting some few of the northern counties, and it is quoted at the present day as indisputable authority in the courts of justice. No other country possesses anything at all like it, and it strikingly exhibits the damage done by pillage and conquest.

The date of the survey is 1086, and it may be seen by special permission. It is said that by the Conquest the rental of England diminished in twenty years to one-fourth of what it was under Edward the Confessor. Thierry has shown in his history how complete the spoliation of the kingdom was by the Norman conquerors. “The king’s name was placed at the head of the county, with a list of his domains and revenues; then followed the names of the chief and inferior proprietors, in the order of their military rank and their territorial wealth. The Saxons, who by special favour had been spared the spoliation, were found only in the lowest schedule; for the number of that race who still continued to be free proprietors, or tenants in chief to the king, as the conquerors called it, were such only for small domains. They were inscribed at the end of each chapter under the name of thanes of the king, or by some other designation of domestic service in the royal household. The rest of the names of an Anglo-Saxon form, that are scattered here and there through the roll, belong to farmers holding by a precarious title a few fractions, larger or smaller, of the domains of the Norman earls, barons, knights, sergeants, and bowmen.”

There is little of interest in Ripon besides the Cathedral. The houses have generally been

modernised, and they do not seem to be more than about a century or a century and a half old. The dedication of Ripon Church was attended by Egfrid, king of Northumbria, who feasted the people for three days; and here it may be in place to allude to these dedications as bearing on some village customs that have died out happily in nearly every part of England—the rush-bearings, the wakes, and church ales. Gregory the Great bade St. Augustine not to destroy the pagan temples, but only the idols that were in them, purifying the site and sprinkling it with holy water, etc.; and because the people were in the habit of assembling on certain days, and having their orgies and feasts to their gods, the crafty pontiff knew it would weaken his hold on them to bring such things to a sudden conclusion, and ordered that these bacchanalia were still to be continued, but kept on the saint’s day the church was dedicated to; and in the then condition of the people that would tend rather to attach them to the new religion. The Unicorn Inn in Ripon has some slight traces of antiquity, but it is more as a foreground to the west front of the Cathedral, than to any particular merits of its own, it owes its architectural value.

The fine old three-gabled house at Wakefield, here shown, was probably built about the same time as the battle of Wakefield; it is now divided into small shops, and the carved work has been much defaced and removed. There is nothing in it essentially different from any other black-and-white house that may be seen in Chester or elsewhere.