Yorkshire Dales and Fells

by Gordon Home

The stories of Mary’s attempts at escape have long been considered mere fabrications, for, despite many intimate details of the months spent at Bolton, no reference to such matters have been discovered. In the face of this denial on the part of recorded history, Leyburn Shawl still holds affectionately to the story that Mary Stuart did leave the castle unobserved, and that she was overtaken there in the place called the Queen’s Gap.

BOLTON CASTLE, WENSLEYDALE

In this feudal stronghold Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned for six months in 1568. She was brought from Carlisle by Lord Scrope, the owner of Bolton Castle. The building forms a gaunt square, lofty and almost featureless, except for the broken towers which rise at each of the four corners. Lord Chancellor Scrope built the castle in the reign of Richard II., and his descendants occupied it for three centuries.

As we leave the grim castle, so full of memories of a great family and of a lovely Queen, we turn back before it is hidden from our gaze, and see the towers silhouetted against a golden sky much as it is depicted in these pages. We think of all the Scropes who have come and gone since that Lord Richard received license in 1379 to crenellate the fortress he had built, and we regret again the disappearance of all those sumptuous tombs that once adorned the choir of Easby Abbey. However, there are memorials to members of the family in Wensley Church lying a little to the east beyond the wooded park of Bolton Hall, and we shall arrive there before long if we keep to the right at the turning beneath the height known as Scarth Nick. On the opposite side of the dale Penhill Beacon stands out prominently, with its flat summit reflecting just enough of the setting sun to recall a momentous occasion when from that commanding spot a real beacon-fire sent up a great mass of flame and sparks. It was during the time of Napoleon’s threatened invasion of England, and the lighting of this beacon was to be the signal to the volunteers of Wensleydale to muster and march to their rendezvous. The watchman on Penhill, as he sat by the piled-up brushwood, wondering, no doubt, what would happen to him if the dreaded invasion were really to come about, saw, far away across the Vale of Mowbray, a light which he at once took to be the beacon upon Roseberry Topping. A moment later tongues of flame and smoke were pouring from his own hilltop, and the news spread up the dale like wildfire. The volunteers armed themselves rapidly, and with drums beating they marched away, with only such delay as was caused by the hurried leave-takings with wives and mothers, and all the rest who crowded round. The contingent took the road to Thirsk, and on the way were joined by the Mashamshire men. Whether it was with relief or disappointment I do not know; but when the volunteers reached Thirsk they heard that they had been called out by a false alarm, for the light seen in the direction of Roseberry Topping had been caused by accident, and the beacon on that height had not been lit. After all, the scare did no harm, for it showed the mettle of the Dalesmen, and they were afterwards thanked by Parliament for their prompt response to the signal.

On the side of Penhill that looks full towards Bolton Castle there still remain the foundations of the chapel of the Knight Templars, who must have established their hospital there soon after 1146, when the Order was instituted in England.

Wensley stands just at the point where the dale, to which it has given its name, becomes so wide that it begins to lose its distinctive character. The village is most picturesque and secluded, and it is small enough to cause some wonder as to its distinction in naming the valley. It is suggested that the name is derived from Wodenslag, and that in the time of the Northmen’s occupation of these parts the place named after their chief god would be the most important. In its possession of a pleasant sloping green, dominated by a great elm, round whose base has been built a circular platform, Wensley is particularly happy. The Ure, flowing close at hand, is crossed by a fine old bridge, whose pointed arches must have survived many centuries; for Leland says that it was built by ‘Alwine, Parson of Wencelaw,’ ‘200 Yer ago and more,’ that statement being made about the year 1538.

In the little church standing on the south side of the green there is so much to interest us that we are almost unable to decide what to examine first, until, realizing that we are brought face to face with a beautiful relic of Easby Abbey, we turn our attention to the parclose screen. It surrounds the family pew of Bolton Hall, and on three sides we see the Perpendicular woodwork fitted into the east end of the north aisle. The side that fronts the nave has an entirely different appearance, being painted and of a classic order, very lacking in any ecclesiastical flavour, an impression not lost on those who, with every excuse, called it ‘the opera box.’ In the panels of the early part of the screen are carved inscriptions and arms of the Scropes covering a long period, and, though many words and letters are missing, it is possible to make them more complete with the help of the record made by the heralds in 1665.

On the floor of the chancel is the brass to Sir Simon de Wenselawe, a priest of the fourteenth century. There is no trace of any inscription, and the name was only discovered by a reference to the brass in the will of Oswald Dykes, a rector who died in Jacobean times, and desired that he might be buried under the stone which now bears his name above the figure of the priest. This brass is the best in the North Riding, and it closely resembles the one to Abbot de la Mare in St. Albans Abbey.