Over Fen and Wold

by James John Hissey

One old chamber, called “the oak room,” interested us greatly on account of its exceedingly curious carvings. This chamber was panelled from floor to ceiling. For about three-quarters of the height upwards the panelling was adorned with “linen-pattern” work; above this, round the top of the room, forming a sort of frieze, ran a series of most grotesque carvings, the continuity of the frieze being only broken just above the fireplace, which space was given over to the heraldic pride of various coats-of-arms. Each panel that went to form the frieze had some separate, quaint, or grotesque subject carved thereon; some of the designs, indeed, were so outrageous as to suggest the work of a craftsman fresh from Bedlam! There is a quaintness that overruns its bounds and becomes mere eccentricity.

The grotesque creations of the old monks, though highly improbable and undesirable beings, still looked as though they might have actually lived, and struggled, and breathed. The grotesque creations of the carver of the panels in this room failed in this respect. One could hardly, in the most romantically poetic mood, have given the latter credit for ever existing in this or any other planet where things might be ordered differently; they are all, or nearly all, distinctly impossible. On one of these panels is shown a creature with the head and neck of a swan, the body of a fish (from which body proceed scaled wings of the prehistoric reptile kind),

ECCENTRICITIES IN CARVING

and a spreading feathered tail, somewhat like a peacock’s; the creature had one human foot and one claw!—a very nightmare in carving, and a bad nightmare to boot! Another nondescript animal, leaning to a dragon, was provided with two heads, one in the usual place, and one in the tail with a big eye, each head regarding the other wonderingly. Another creature looked for all the world like a gigantic mouse with a long curling tail, but his head was that of a man. Space will not allow me to enumerate all these strange carvings in detail. It was the very room, after a late and heavy supper such as they had in the olden times, to make a fêted guest dream bad dreams.

The gardens at Harrington Hall, though modest in extent, make delightful wandering, with their ample walks and old-fashioned flower-beds, formal and colourful, the colours being enhanced by a background of ivy-covered wall and deep-green yew hedge. But what charmed us most here was a raised terrace with a very wide walk on the top. From this we could look down on the gardens on one hand and over the park-like meadows on the other, the terrace doing duty as a boundary wall as well as a raised promenade—an excellent idea. Why, I wonder, do we not plan such terraces nowadays? they form such delightful promenades and are so picturesque besides, with a picturesqueness that recalls many an old-world love story and historical episode. What would the gardens of Haddon Hall be without the famous terrace, so beloved by artists, and so often painted and photographed? With the coming of the landscape gardener, alas! the restful past-time garden of our ancestors went out of fashion, and with it the old garden architecture also. Formerly the artificialness of the garden was acknowledged. The garden is still an artificial production—Nature more or less tamed—but instead of glorying in the fact we try to disguise it. The architect’s work now stops at the house, so we find no longer in our gardens the quaint sun-dial, the stone terrace, the built summer-house—a real house, though tiny, and structurally decorative—the recessed and roomy seat-ways that Marcus Stone so delights to paint, the fountains, and the like; yet what pleasant and picturesque features they all are! Now we have the uncomfortable rustic seat and ugly rustic summer-house of wood, generally deal, and varnished, because they look more rural! Still there are some people who think the old way best!

The small church at Harrington is apparently a modern building, containing, however, in strange contrast to its new-looking walls, a series of ancient and very interesting tombs. I say the church is apparently modern, for I have seen ancient churches so thoroughly restored as to seem only just finished. But the restorer, or rebuilder, here deserves a word of praise for the careful manner in which the monuments of armoured warriors and others, ages ago dust and ashes, have been cared for. These monuments are to the Harrington and Coppledike families, and range from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, supplying a good example of almost every style of sepulchral memorial to the dead, beginning with the stone effigy, in full armour, of Sir Iohn de Harrington, who is represented with his legs crossed; then passing through incised slabs and brasses to the more elaborate altar-tomb; and from this to the mural monument, where the figures are shown as kneeling, not recumbent; and lastly, to the period when the sculptured figures disappear altogether, and the portraits of the underlying dead give place to mere lettering setting forth the many virtues of the departed worthies.

A VAIN SEARCH

Harrington Hall is another of the places that people, in a vain search after the original of Locksley Hall, have imagined might have stood for the poet’s picture, presumably because of its proximity to Somersby, for, as far as the building goes, it affords no clue that “one can catch hold of.” It is an old hall, and there the likeness appears to begin and end! In spite of Tennyson’s disclaimer, I cannot but feel that, though no particular spot suggested Locksley Hall to him, it is quite possible, if not probable, that he may, consciously or unconsciously, have taken a bit from one place, and a bit from another, and have pieced them together so as to form a whole—a vague whole truly, but still a tangible whole.

To show how unknowingly such a thing may be done, I may mention that I once remember painting a mountain-and-river-scape that I fondly imagined I had evolved from my own brain. As I was at work on this an artist friend (with whom I had often painted in North Wales, our favourite sketching ground) chanced to look in for a smoke and a chat. “Hullo!” exclaimed he, “what have you got there? Why, it’s Moel Siabod and the Llugwy, though I don’t know the exact point of view.” For the moment I deemed he was joking, as was his wont; but on looking again at the canvas with fresh eyes I saw that, quite unwittingly, I had repeated the general outline of that mountain, with even some details of the landscape of the valley below—not by any means an accurate representation of the scene, but sufficiently like to show how much I was unconsciously indebted to the original for my composition. I have still the painting by me, and on showing it to a friend well acquainted with the district, and after so far enlightening him as to say it was a Welsh view, he declared he knew the very spot I had painted it from! So powerful oftentimes are impressions; for it was solely a forgotten impression I had painted!

Now, it happened that later on our journey we mentioned to a stranger (with whom we gossiped, as we always do with interesting strangers we come across, if they will) the fact that so struck us about Harrington Church, its looking so new, whilst the tombs inside were so old. He exclaimed in reply, “Well, you see the old church was pulled down and entirely rebuilt. It was a pity, but it had to be. Its foundations had given way so that the building was slowly sinking into the ground.” This remark brought to our mind one of the few possible clues of subject detail, as showing some distinct local colouring, for in “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After,” we read:—