Over Fen and Wold

by James John Hissey

This structure new contains twelve habitations
Which shall remain for future generations
For old and poore, for weake and men unhealthy.
This blessed house was founded not for wealthy.
Hee that endowed for aye and this house builded.
By this good act hath to sinne pardon yielded.
The honour of the country and this towne
Alas now dead his name was William Browne.
Be it an house of prayer and to diuine
Duties devoted else not called mine.

Ten old men and two old women are boarded and cared for here, we learnt; the women having to act as nurses if required. Outside the building away from the road is a very picturesque and quiet courtyard with cloisters; these seem verily to enclose an old-world atmosphere, a calm that is of another century. The wall-girt stillness, the profound peace of the place made so great an impression on us that for the moment the throbbing and excited nineteenth century seemed ages removed, as though the present were a fevered dream and only existed in our imagination. So do certain spots enthral one with the sentiment of the far-away both in time and space! From here there is a view to be had of a gable end of the founder’s house; the greater part of the building having been pulled down, and only this small portion remaining.

The broad street outside Browne’s “Callis” was, we were told, the opening scene of the bull-running. Most towns in past days, as is well known, indulged in the “gentle sport” of bull-baiting, but from time immemorial in Stamford bull-running took its place as an institution peculiar to the town. The bull-running, we were told, was carried on, more or less, in the following fashion. Early in the morning of the day devoted to the “gentle sport” a bell-man went round to warn all people to shut their shops, doors, gates, etc., then afterwards at a certain hour a wild bull, the wilder the better, was let loose into the streets and then the sport began. The populace, men, women, and boys, ran after the bull, armed with cudgels, with which they struck it and goaded it to fury; all the dogs of the town, needless to say, joining in the

AN ANCIENT SPORT

sport and adding to the medley. By evening if the bull were not killed, or driven into the river and perchance drowned, he was despatched by an axe. Men occasionally of course got tossed, or gored, during these disgusting and lively proceedings, and others were injured in various ways: indeed it seems to have been very much like a Spanish bull-fight vulgarised. This sport continued till about the year 1838. I presume that there was no “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” then; or is it that cruelty does not count when sport comes in? for as a supporter of the Society once laid down the law to me dogmatically thus: “It’s cruelty to thrash a horse, even if he be vicious, but it’s not cruelty to hunt a fox or a hare, as that is sport; so we never interfere with hunting: neither is bull-fighting cruel, for that is a sport.” Well, my favourite sport is fly-fishing, and I am glad to learn that it is not a cruel one, as “fish have no feelings.” But how about the boy who impales a worm on a hook: has the worm conveniently “no feelings” too? Shall we ever have a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Reptiles?

The origin of the Stamford bull-running appears to be lost in the mists of antiquity; of course where history fails legend must step in, and according to legend the sport began thus:—Some time in the thirteenth century (delightfully vague date! why not openly “once upon a time”?) a wild bull got out of the meadows where it was grazing near the town and rushed into the streets; it was chased by the populace, and chased by dogs, and eventually driven into the river and drowned, after affording much entertainment to the townsfolk; thereupon the bull-running was established as a sport. The legend does not sound so improbable as some legends do, but whether based on fact or not I cannot say. It is only for me to repeat stories as they come to my ear.

In the same street outside Browne’s “Callis,” we further learnt, the old market cross stood which was taken down about the year 1790. According to ancient engravings it appears to have been a structure with a tall stone shaft in the centre, surmounted by a cross which was duly knocked off by the Puritans; from this central shaft a roof extended to a number of columns around, thus forming a shelter for the market folk. This market cross is not to be confounded with a Queen Eleanor’s Cross that stood beyond the Scot-Gate about half a mile from Stamford on the old York and Edinburgh road. A glorious example, this latter must have been, of one of these picturesque crosses erected in pious memory of a loved consort, judging at least from a description of it we observed quoted in a local guide-book we found in our hotel, which runs thus:—“A vision of beauty, glorious with its aggregate of buttresses and niches and diaper, and above all with the statues of Eleanor and Edward; the most beautiful of that or any age. Shame to those savages in the Great Rebellion who swept away the very foundations of it! But the cry of superstition hunts down such things as these a great deal faster than age can despatch them.”

TRADITIONS

Next our guide took us to the site of Brasenose College—mostly pulled down in the seventeenth century by the corporation—but the outer wall and an arched stone gateway still remain. On the gate here was a quaint and ancient knocker, judged by antiquaries to be of the fourteenth century; this was formed of a lion’s head in beaten brass holding a ring in his mouth; we understood that it had left the town, a fact to be regretted. It is singular that there should have been a college here of the curious name of Brasenose, as well as the one at Oxford. There is indeed a tradition that the veritable nose that surmounts the gateway at Oxford came from the Stamford college, and was brought by the students when compelled to return to their former university town. Another tradition professes to give the origin of the peculiar name, stating it to be derived from brasen-hus, or hws, a brew-house, it being said that one was attached to the college—but the derivation, though just possible, is more ingenious than convincing.

Next we were taken to see the crumbling gateway of the ancient Carmelite Friary; this had three niches for statues above, but is more interesting to antiquaries than to the lovers of the picturesque; it now forms the approach to the Infirmary. Then we visited the three chief churches, noting in St. Martin’s the magnificent altar-tomb—gorgeous with colour and gilt, but rather dusty when we were there—of Queen Elizabeth’s Lord Treasurer, whereon he is represented in recumbent effigy clad in elaborately adorned armour. Men dressed their parts in those days! Space will not permit a detailed description of these historic fanes; indeed, to do Stamford justice would take at least several chapters, and I have not even one to spare!