Yorkshire Dales and Fells

by Gordon Home

It is sometimes said that Knaresborough is an overrated town from the point of view of its attractiveness to visitors, but this depends very much upon what we hope to find there. If we expect to find lasting pleasure in contemplating the Dropping Well, or the pathetic little exhibition of petrified objects in the Mother Shipton Inn, we may be prepared for disappointment. It seems strange that the real and lasting charms of the town should be overshadowed by such popular and much-advertised ‘sights.’ The first view of the town from the ‘high’ bridge is so full of romance that if there were nothing else to interest us in the place we would scarcely be disappointed. The Nidd, flowing smoothly at the foot of the precipitous heights upon which the church and the old roofs appear, is spanned by a great stone viaduct. This might have been so great a blot upon the scene that Knaresborough would have lost half its charm. Strangely enough, we find just the reverse is the case, for this railway bridge, with its battlemented parapets and massive piers, is now so weathered that it has melted into its surroundings as though it had come into existence as long ago as the oldest building visible. The old Knaresborough kept well to the heights adjoining the castle, and even to-day there are only a handful of later buildings down by the river margin. The view, therefore, is still unspoiled, and its appearance when the light is coming from the west can be seen in the illustration given here.

When we have crossed the bridge, and have passed along a narrow roadway perched well above the river, we come to one of the many interesting houses that help to keep alive the old-world flavour of the town. Only a few years ago the old manor-house had a most picturesque and rather remarkable exterior, for its plaster walls were covered with a large black and white chequer-work, and its overhanging eaves and trailing creepers gave it a charm that has since then been quite lost. The restoration which recently took place has entirely altered the character of the exterior, but inside everything

KNARESBOROUGH

Is one of the most fortunate of towns in having in its railway bridge a bold and decorative feature rather than an eyesore. The stranger scarcely realizes as he stands on the road bridge from which the picture is taken, that the big battlemented structure spanning the river is a railway viaduct.

has been preserved with just the care that should have been expended outside as well. There are oak-wainscoted parlours, oak dressers, and richly-carved fireplaces in the low-ceiled rooms, each one containing furniture much of the period of the house. Upstairs there is a beautiful old bedroom lined with oak, like those on the floor below, and its interest is greatly enhanced by the story of Oliver Cromwell’s residence in the house, for he is believed to have used this particular bedroom. Slight alterations have taken place, but the oak bedstead which he is said to have occupied, minus its tester and with its posts cut down to half their height, still remains to carry us swiftly back to the last siege of the castle. A very curious story is told in the Gentleman’s Magazine of March, 1791. It gives an anecdote of Oliver Cromwell which Sir John Goodricke used to relate. When he was quite a small boy, he was told by a very old woman who had formerly attended his mother, Lady Goodricke, how Oliver Cromwell came to lodge at this house when she was but a young girl. ‘Having heard so much talk about the man,’ she said, ‘I looked at him with wonder. Being ordered to take a pan of coals and air his bed, I could not, during the operation, forbear peeping over my shoulder several times to observe this extraordinary person, who was seated at the fireside of the room untying his garters. Having aired the bed, I went out, and, shutting the door after me, stopped and peeped through the keyhole, when I saw him rise from his feet, advance to the bed and fall on his knees, in which attitude I left him for some time. When I returned again I found him still at prayer, and this was his custom every night so long as he stayed at our house, from which I concluded he must be a good man, and this opinion I always maintained afterwards, though I heard him very much blamed and exceedingly abused.’

Higher up the hill stands the church with a square central tower surmounted by a small spike. It still bears the marks of the fire made by the Scots during their disastrous descent upon Yorkshire after Edward II.’s defeat at Bannockburn. Led by Sir James Douglas, the Scots poured into the prosperous plains and even the dales of Yorkshire. They burned Northallerton and Boroughbridge, and then came on to Knaresborough. When the town had been captured and burnt, the savage invaders endeavoured to burn out the inhabitants who had taken refuge in the church-tower, but the stoutness of the stone walls prevented their efforts to destroy the building. It is quite possible that the roofs at that time were thatched, for some years ago much partially-burnt straw was discovered in the roof. The chapel on the north side of the chancel contains the interesting monuments of the old Yorkshire family of Slingsby. The altar-tomb in the centre bears the recumbent effigies of Francis Slingsby, who died in 1600, and Mary his wife. Another monument shows Sir William Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring at Harrogate. The Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in the cause of Charles I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658, ‘being beheaded by order of the tyrant Cromwell, ... was translated to a better place.’ So says the inscription on a large slab of black marble in the floor of the chapel. The last of the male line of the family was Sir Charles Slingsby, who was most unfortunately drowned by the upsetting of a ferry-boat in the Ure in February, 1869.

We can wander through the quaint little streets above the church and find much to interest us, particularly in the market-place, although quite a number of the really ancient little houses that had come down to quite recent years have now passed away. On one side of the market-place stands a most curious little chemist’s shop, with two small-paned windows, very low and picturesque, that slightly overhang the footway. There seems to be small doubt that this is the oldest of all the long-established chemists’ shops that exist in England. It dates from the year 1720, when John Beckwith started the business, and the conservatism of the trade is borne out by the preservation of some interesting survivals of those early Georgian days. There are strangely-shaped old shop-bottles, mortars, and strips of leather that were used for quicksilver in the days when it was worn as a charm against some forms of disease.

Just above the manor-house there is still to be seen one of the last of the thatched houses, at one time common in the town. It is the old Vicarage, and it still contains oak beams and some good panelling. When we get beyond the market-place, we come out upon an elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle—poor and of small account if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar; where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the lowest story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only two sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The walls enclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatly destroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position. There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remain fragments of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthouse there are evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port opening into the moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading from the castle yard. The passage was opened out in 1890, and in it were discovered a considerable number of stone balls, probably used for the ‘balistas’ mentioned in one of the castle records. It is a dismal fact to remember that, despite the perfect repair of the castle in the reign of Elizabeth, and the comparatively small amount of destruction caused during the siege conducted by Lilburne and Fairfax, Knaresborough’s great fortress was reduced to piles of ruins as the result of an order of the Council of State not many years after its capture. Subsequently, as in the case of such splendid structures as Richard I.’s Château Gaillard, the broken remains were cheap building stone for the townsfolk, and seeing that in those days archæological societies had yet to be instituted, who can blame the townsfolk?