ENTRANCE GATE TO BEVERLEY, YORKSHIRE.
CHAPTER VIII.
BEVERLEY—STONE CROSSES—NORTHUMBERLAND—ALNWICK—HEXHAM—NEWCASTLE—DURHAM—KEPIER HOSPITAL—CARLISLE.
THE entrance gate to Beverley is a rather fine specimen of brick architecture, with mouldings and niches all in the same material. It fully carries out the principles of brickwork that have been the subject of a former chapter, and is a delightful entrance to a country town of first-class importance. The houses of Beverley are good, and it is resorted to by many retired merchants and tradesmen who wish to pass what remains of life in quiet.
In the market place, which the engraver has given an excellent idea of, is a quaint cross of the Carolean period. This market place occupies some four acres, and is a perfect gem of picturesque town beauty. The cross must have been among the last that were built as market crosses. The history of these beautiful remains, that have done so much to enliven old towns and cities, may be told in a few words. They were devoted to various uses. Sometimes they were preaching crosses, as the one at Iron Acton, where probably in very warm weather the vicar or incumbent would address the congregation in the open air, or, like the black friars in Hereford, where the pulpit cross seems to have stood in cloisters. Sometimes they were memorial crosses, like the three grand Eleanor crosses that are left us out of the original twelve; and it is satisfactory to be able to think that these beautiful memorials will again be copied very freely. The colonies even are beginning to erect some imitations of the Waltham cross,[9] and indeed its marvellous beauty speaks for itself. At one time there were certainly 5000 crosses in England, but they were so easily destroyed in Cromwell’s time, that very little trace of all this luxuriance of architecture is left. Some crosses may be buried only a foot under the soil, and noble examples lost to our sight; indeed it is by no means uncertain that we shall not be able to add at least one Eleanor cross to our list, if not two. The Chester Cross was buried for years, indeed centuries, before it was discovered in front of St. Peter’s Church, only a few inches below the footwalk, apparently placed reverently by some careful hand; and since these pages have been commenced, and in some very recent alterations to Neston church in this neighbourhood, the remains of three fine stone crosses were exhumed. A cross filled many uses, as has been said, but it was always contrived to make it an object of beauty to the neighbourhood. The Charing Cross that has been recently erected opposite the new hotel is one of the most successful that has been put up in modern days, and much resembles the roadside one at Waltham. From these old crosses proclamations used to be read, and tolls collected from the market people. The modern drinking-fountain also is an adaptation of the idea that suggested some of the crosses, and several of the old conduits might be copied with great advantage. The one at Sherborne, which has been illustrated in these pages, would be an excellent model for a drinking-fountain, and one that has not yet been copied. The covered market cross at Beverley is one of the last that was built, and answered the same purposes as those of Salisbury or Malmesbury. These were merely covered spaces for country people to rest in, in the heat and the rain, and generally connected with some religious house in the neighbourhood. They were usually octagonal and richly groined. That at Chichester is the most elaborate, though the more ancient one at Salisbury, engraved in page 119, is the most graceful and picturesque in the country. One thing strikes us in these crosses—the smallness of the accommodation for a public market; but then, as now, the market square was covered with awnings or tents. And one of the most picturesque sights in England is an old market square like the one at Hexham, or the one at Salisbury, with their booths, on a busy market-day. Sometimes a cross was built on an octagonal shaft surmounted with a crucifix, or a head with niches and small statues, and an octagonal covering was built up round it reaching to about half the height of the original shaft. This, as at Cheddar in Somerset, is sometimes of later date, and sometimes, as at Shepton-Mallet, in the same vicinity, built contemporaneously with the central column. In great numbers of villages we find flights of steps where a cross has once stood; but the eyesore being removed, the Puritans allowed the steps to remain. In Malpas these are of enormous dimensions, and when they were surmounted with a tall cross the effect in this picturesque little country town must have been most striking. As a rule, our modern representations of crosses have not been very successful; they are wanting in lightness and ingenuity. One mode of decoration, however, that is thoroughly unsuited to our climate, we are not likely to see renewed, and that is the gilding of crosses. The magnificent cross at Coventry was regilded in the reign of James II., and is said to have used up 15,403 books of gold.
Beverley was at one time surrounded by lakes that were formed by the overflowing of the Humber, and its name is said to be derived from Beaver lake, as at one time these animals were very abundant in this part of Yorkshire. There is a grammar school here of great antiquity.
The towns of Scarborough and Whitby contain nothing at all that could illustrate the subject in hand; indeed, on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, Whitby only contained thirty or forty houses.
In the adjoining county of Westmoreland there is not very much that comes within our range. The beauty of the county needs no telling here. The English lakes are hardly excelled in beauty anywhere in the world, but of course their requirements for modern travel have caused a modern growth of architecture. The ruins of the castle where Catherine Parr was born are near Kendal, but the town itself contains nothing of interest architecturally.
Appleby, the county town, was at one time a place of importance, but it was twice burned down during the wars, and the present appearance is quite modern. Ambleside is a charming town almost entirely composed of modern detached cottages, each in its own garden.
The county of Northumberland suffered, like Dorset, severely, from incursions of the Danes, though in the former county they were suffered to settle after their overthrow by King Alfred; and Mr. G. Tate, in an interesting history of Alnwick, has given a curious list of Danish words that are still preserved in the dialect spoken about that town.