And may the stipend be regularly paid to the poor “to the Worldes End,” according to the donor’s directions, and not be devoted to other and very different purposes, as sometimes has been the case elsewhere with similar gifts, under the specious pretext of changed times!
Judging from the date affixed to these alms-houses, they were standing just as they are now, looking doubtless a little newer, when Charles I. passed a prisoner through here in the charge of General Fairfax; on which occasion, according to long-cherished local tradition, the vicar offered him for his refreshment some wine in the Communion cup. That must have been an eventful day for Baldock.
Not only the alms-houses, but the other buildings round about, of red brick, with the pearly-gray bloom of age over them, were very pleasant to look upon. Perhaps their colour never was so crude and assertive as that of the modern red brick with which we construct our cheap misnamed Queen Anne villas—which have nothing of the Queen Anne about them,—a red that stares at you, and is of one uniform, inartistic hue—a hue quite on a par as regards unsightliness with the chilly, eye-displeasing blue of Welsh slates. Since the railways have come and cheapened communication, Welsh slates have spread over all the land like an ugly curse; you find them everywhere—they have displaced the cheerful ruddy tiles that so well suit the gentle gloom of the English climate and the soft green of its landscapes, they have ousted the pleasant gray stone slab and homely
THE MAGIC OF FAME
thatch. Welsh slates are bad enough, but, alas! there is even a lower depth of ugliness. Corrugated iron is still more hideous, and this I sadly note is coming into use as a roofing material; it is cheap and effectual, absolutely waterproof—and such an eyesore! How is it that things are so seldom cheap and beautiful—truly there are exceptions, but these only prove the rule—are these two qualities sworn enemies? If only the Welsh slates were of the delicious greeny-gray tint of the more expensive Cumberland ones, it would be a different matter. It is an astonishing thing how even good architects are neglectful of colour in their buildings, and what comparatively small thought they devote to the beauty of the roof.
Many people possibly would see nothing to admire or commend in Baldock; it would probably impress the average individual as being a sleepy, old-fashioned sort of place, deadly dull, and wholly devoid of interest; so doubtless the same individual would consider Stratford-on-Avon, had not Shakespeare been born there, and had not that magic accident of his birth caused the town to be visited and written about by famous authors, its beauties sought out and belauded by guide-book compilers, its quaint old-world bits of architecture to be sketched and painted and photographed endlessly, so that we all know how to admire it. Now, so far as I am aware, no very notable person has been born at Baldock, so the tourist comes not thither; and with nothing eventful to chronicle about the town, nothing to commend it but its quiet naturalness and picturesqueness, which it shares with many another ancient English market-town, Baldock will have to sleep on unfamed, for its quiet charms are not of the nature to assert themselves or appeal to everybody. There is a beauty that requires searching after, which, not being pronounced, the eye needs training to see. Still, I think that even the most unobservant traveller, on passing through the quiet little town, must note its pleasing look of mellowness and naturalness, the latter of which qualities is attractively refreshing in this age of artificiality.
Out of Baldock our road rose gradually on an embankment, possibly one of the later improvements made by the old Turnpike Trust, when there was actually a feeling amongst the coach proprietors that they might successfully compete with the coming iron horse—an idea that took some time to dispel, for even as late as October 1837 I find, from an old coaching poster so dated, that the “Red Rover” from London to Manchester was re-established as a commercial speculation. How long this “well-appointed coach” ran after its establishment I cannot say.
From the top of the rise we obtained a good view of Baldock, that, with the woods around, the silvery sheen of water below, and the soft sky above, made a very pretty picture; so pretty, indeed, that the temptation to sketch it was not to be resisted. But later on we had to harden our hearts and pass by many a picturesque spot without using our pencil, otherwise we should have made more sketches than
OLD CUSTOMS
miles per hour, and our journey would not have been finished by Christmas time. To the artist eye, accustomed to look out for beauty, rural England is one succession of pictures!