Grain and Chaff from an English Manor

by Arthur Herbert Savory

During lunch in a meadow by the roadside, on a cycling ride, we found a snake with a toad almost down its throat; the snake disgorged the toad and escaped, but before we had finished lunch it returned and repeated the process. This time I carried the toad, none the worse for the adventure, some distance away, where I hope it was safe. Hedgehogs are said to eat toads, frogs, beetles, and snakes, as well as the eggs of game, to which I have already referred (p. 264); it is curious that the old name "urchin" has been superseded in some places by "hedgehog," but still survives in the "sea-urchin," and is also used for a troublesome boy.

It is very interesting, when cycling, to notice the changes in passing from one geological formation to another, and in railway travelling, with a geological map, one can quickly observe the transition; the cuttings give an immediate clue, and the contours of the surface and the agriculture are further guides. The alteration in the flora is particularly marked in passing from the Bagshot Sands, for instance, to the Chalk, or from the Lias Clay to the Lias Limestone or the Oolite; the lime-loving plants appear on the Chalk and Limestone, and disappear on the Sands and Clays.

The sunken appearance of the old roads is one of the best proofs of their antiquity, and one is inclined to wonder at their windings, but in following the tracks across the Forest moors one gets an insight into the way roads originated. The ancients simply adopted the line of least resistance by avoiding hills, boggy places, and the deep parts of streams, choosing the shallow fordable spots for crossing. The winding road is, of course, much more interesting and beautiful than the later straight roads of the Romans, though no doubt many of the former were improved by the invaders for their more important traffic. It is to be regretted that the formal lines of telegraph and telephone poles and wires have vulgarized so many of our beautiful roads, and destroyed their retired and venerable expression; more especially as in many places these were erected against the will of the inhabitants, and under the mistaken idea that the farmer's business is retail, and that he is prepared to deal in and deliver small quantities of goods daily, receiving urgent orders and enquiries by telephone.

The villages in the Vale of Evesham and the Cotswolds afford an excellent illustration of building in harmony with surroundings, and the suitability of making use of local materials. Thus, in the Vale we find mellow old brick, has limestone, half timber and thatch; while on the Cotswolds, oolite freestone and "stone slates" of the same freestone seem the only suitable material. Where the ugly pink bricks and blue slates have of late years been introduced, they appear out of place and contemptible. There is an immense charm about these old villages of hill and vale, and it is curious to think that Aldington was an established community with, probably, as many inhabitants as at the present day, when London and Westminster were divided by green fields.

A story is told of the time before the line to Oxford from Wolverhampton and Worcester was built, when persons visiting Oxford from the Vale of Evesham had to travel by road. An old yeoman family, having decided upon the Church as the vocation for one of the sons, sent him, in the year 1818, on an old pony, under the protection of an ancient retainer for his matriculation examination. On their return, in reply to the question, "Well, did you get the young master through?" "Oh, yes," he said, "and we could have got the old pony passed too, if we'd only had enough money!"

Partly as an excuse for a bicycle ride I used often to visit distant villages where auction sales at farm-houses were proceeding, and sometimes I came home with old china and other treasures. Wherever there are old villages with manor houses and long occupied rich land, wealth formerly accumulated and evidenced itself in well-designed and well-made furniture, upon which time has had comparatively little destructive effect. As old fashions were superseded, as oak gave way to walnut, and walnut to Spanish mahogany, the out-of-date furniture found its way to the smaller farm-houses and cottages, in which it descended from generation to generation. Now that the cottages have been ransacked by dealers and collectors, the treasures have not only been absorbed by wealthy townspeople, but are finding their way with those of impoverished landowners and occupiers to the millionaire mansions on the other side of the Atlantic.

There is no limit to the temptation to collect when once the fascination of such old things has made itself felt—furniture, china, earthenware, glass, paintings, brass and pewter become an obsession. If I had only filled my barns with Jacobean and Stuart oak and walnut, William and Mary, and Queen Ann marquetry, and Chippendale, Sheraton and Hepplewhite mahogany, instead of wheat for an unsympathetic British public, and at the end of my time at Aldington offered a few of the least interesting specimens for sale by auction, I might still have carried away a houseful of treasures which would have cost me less than nothing.

An old friend of mine, who had been collecting for many years, and in comparison with whom I was a novice, though my enthusiasm long preceded the fashion of the last twenty-five years, told me that he once discovered a warehouse in a Cotswold village crammed with Chippendale, and that the owner, having no sale for it, was glad to exchange a waggon-load for the same quantity of hay and straw chaff.

Among the more interesting articles which my cycling excursions and previous pilgrimages on foot produced, I have a charming blue and white carnation pattern, Worcester china cider mug with the crescent mark. These mugs are said to have been specially made for the Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769 at Stratford-on-Avon when Garrick was present. The date corresponds with the time when the mark was in use, and establishes the age of the mug as 150 years. The china in my old neighbourhood was naturally Worcester, Bristol and Salopian, of which I have many specimens—of the Worcester more especially—ranging from the earliest days of unmarked pieces through the Dr. Wall period, Barr, Flight and Barr, down to the later Chamberlain.

An old pair of bellows is a favourite of mine; it is made of pear-tree wood, decorated with an incised pattern of thistles and foliage, referring possibly to the Union of England and Scotland in 1707, or as a Jacobite emblem of a few years later. The carving is surrounded by the motto: