Grantchester Church is chiefly noteworthy for its singularly beautiful chancel, an almost ideal example of fourteenth century work, perched most effectively above one of the bends in the road. The name, with its "chester" has led many antiquarians to hold that here was a Roman station.[165] But the application of the name to the village is only some three centuries old. In earlier days it is always "Grantset." We do find "Grantchester" in Bede (as mentioned in our account of Ely); but the spot indicated is almost certainly Cambridge, then still in ruins after its destruction during the English conquest of Britain.
On the top of the church-tower here we may notice a weird-looking piece of iron work. This was put up in 1823 to facilitate the astronomical work in the University Observatory, as it is exactly south of the telescope dome there, two miles and a half away. With the acquisition of collimating telescopes, in 1869, this relationship ceased to be of value, and now the growth of trees has rendered the tower wholly invisible from the Observatory.
Not far from Byron's Pool we find the watersmeet of the two main streams which make our Cambridge river; each so equal in size to its sister that neither can be called the tributary of the other. The name Granta is usually appropriated to the eastern stream, that of Cam to the western. On some maps the latter is called the "Rhee," but this (like the Isis at Oxford), is merely a map-maker's name.[166]
And as the river divides, so also does our London Road, one route following either valley. The Granta route goes viâ Bishop Stortford and Epping Forest, entering London by the Mile End Road, the other viâ Royston, Ware, and Tottenham, coming in by Bishopsgate Street. The division comes just as we leave Trumpington, at the lych-gate of the village cemetery, whence the left-hand branch brings us to the twin villages of Great and Little Shelford, with the Granta running between them. Both churches are good, the former with an octagonal steeple, and a churchyard kept like a garden, and the latter with a grand square-headed Decorated window in its transept, where are preserved some nice fragments of the ancient alabaster reredos. There are also various good fifteenth century monuments of the De Freville family, whose name still lives on as that of a suburban district in Cambridge. Great Shelford Church is richly decorated, as it seems to have been of old, for here Dowsing destroyed no fewer than 128 "superstitions." The bridge over the Granta between the two villages was in mediæval times under the charge of a hermit, like Newnham Bridge at Cambridge.[167]
Great Shelford Church.
Villages continue to be found on both banks as we ascend the Granta. The main road, on the east of the stream, leads through Stapleford, a small place, to the large and important Sawston. Its size and importance are due to the existence of that all too rare development, a really thriving rural industry. For here is not only a flourishing paper-mill, turning out its twenty tons a week of superfine copper-glazed paper, but the much more uncommon manufacture of parchment, and of the "shammy" leather used for cleaning plate, etc. And this is produced in a delightfully rural and old-time fashion. There are no machines here automatically grinding out facsimile products; every process is confided to the skill and judgment of the individual in charge of it. There are fifteen or sixteen such processes involved, and a very little carelessness in any one of them would spoil the whole series. Thus every workman is an expert, and takes a pride in his work impossible to the mere driver of a machine. The great aim of each is to "keep his skin in condition" while under his hands, so as to have a right to glory in the finished article.
The very terms used in this manufacture have an ancient smack about them. The sheepskins used are called "pelts," and are supplied by the "fell-monger." They are first immersed for a while in a solution of lime, and then hung over nothing less primitive than the half of a tree, sawn lengthwise, while a "flesher" scrapes and "couches" them (i.e., removes all wrinkles). They are then "split," the inner skin, called the "mutton" or "lining," being adroitly separated from the outer "grain." This "lining" is next "frized" (i.e., rubbed), to remove all fat, then again "limed," and thoroughly washed. It is then "squeezed" and "punched" till "the water is killed," then soaked with cod-liver oil. This causes fermentation to set in, during which the skins have to be carefully watched by men whose duty it is to "turn the heats" before "burning" takes place. Alkaline treatment follows, and, finally, the skins are "ground," i.e., pared with a round knife and smoothed with a wooden "scurfer," being sprinkled the while with water from a bunch of butchers' broom, called by its old English name "knee-holm." They are then packed in "kips" of thirty apiece, and put on the market. Before "grounding," the taste of the ordinary customer, who likes a pretty white "shammy," is consulted by bleaching most of the skins with sulphur. Appearance, however, is thus dearly purchased, for sulphur blackens silver, besides shortening the life of the skin. The useful colour is dark brown.
"For parchment the 'linings' are tied in a frame by strings fastened round grooved pegs, on the same principle as a Spanish windlass.... After being scraped with a 'half-round' knife, dried, 'shaved,' dabbed with whitewash, and heated in a stove to remove the grease, they are then scalded and rubbed with pumice until they are fine and smooth.... The parchment workers wear clogs, sheepskin leggings, and 'basil' aprons. A basil is an unsplit tanned sheepskin. In this well-managed factory all the refuse goes to make soap, glue, dubbin, or manure, and not one scrap of material is wasted."[168]