We saw much of rural England in threading our way from Stilton through a maze of narrow byroads to Oundle, which caught our eye as one of the quaintest of the old-world inland villages. Many are the pleasant vistas down its streets, each with its array of buildings in soft-gray and red tones, the sagging roofs surmounted by odd gables and huge chimneys. But most interesting are the old inns, the Turk’s Head and the Talbot. The first is an imposing Jacobean structure with many gables and deep-set stone-mullioned windows. The Talbot is quite as fine in exterior, and though we could not remain as guests, the landlord apparently took pleasure in showing us about, manifesting a genuine pride in his establishment, which was further evidenced by its well-kept appearance. Even the court was flower-bordered and there was a flourishing greenhouse. Inside there are rooms with much antique paneling and solid oaken beams which support the ceilings. But most notable are the relics of Fotheringhay Castle incorporated into the Talbot. The winding black-oak staircase is the one which Mary descended on the mournful morning of her execution, and among the mullioned casement windows are doubtless some through which the fair captive often gazed during the long, weary days of her imprisonment.
CROSS ROADS NEAR OUNDLE.
There are few places in the average village where the tourist can gain local information so easily as at a picture postcard shop. The keeper is sure to call your attention to everything of interest and is equally sure to be well posted on the history and traditions of the locality. Such a shop we found at Oundle, and the pictures of Deane House and Church and Kirby Hall soon engaged our attention. “Do not miss them,” said the genial shopkeeper, and he gave us accurate directions as to the roads—not easy to follow from the confusing streets of Oundle into another tangle of byways.
Deane House, the fine Tudor residence of the Earls of Cardigan, is a few miles to the northwest. It is not shown to visitors, but its battlemented towers, odd turrets and heavily buttressed walls are plainly visible from the road. Near it stands Deane Church, whose fine open-timbered roof is supported by slender oaken columns—quite unusual, indeed. There is a beautiful sixteenth century tomb, its details almost perfect, with the effigies of the first earl and his two wives placed impartially on either side. But nowhere else did we see an altar-tomb so chaste and artistic as that erected to the late earl, who died in 1868. It is wrought in purest alabaster, and beside the figure of the earl, represented as a tall, handsome man in full military dress, is the effigy of his widow, not interred with her husband as yet, but living at the age of eighty-four. Evidently the lady desires that future ages shall remember her at her best, for the effigy represents a transcendently beautiful young woman of about twenty, lying calmly in sleep, her head resting on a gracefully rounded arm and her face turned toward her mate. Every detail is delicately and correctly done and the whole work is redolent of beauty and sentiment. Will it ever see such cataclysms as swept over its companion tomb? May no iconoclastic vandal ever shatter those slenderly wrought hands or carve his churlish name on the stately figure of the earl—and yet how often such desecrations have occurred in England in the not very distant past!
“There are absolutely no restrictions on visitors at Kirby Hall,” we were informed at Oundle, and it might have been added that no effort is made to direct one thither. We passed unwittingly and were compelled to turn about to find the common-looking farm gate that opened through the hedgerow into the rough, stone-strewn bit of road leading to the dismantled palace. So uninviting was the neglected lane that two or three English motorists who arrived about the same time left their cars and walked the mile or so to the Hall. It was not our wont to be so cautious, and we drove directly to the stately though crumbling gateway. As we rounded a group of trees and caught a full view of the splendid facade of Kirby Hall, we could not repress an exclamation of surprise. Beautiful and imposing, indeed, despite long years of neglect and decay, is this magnificent Tudor mansion! It is built of white stone, its long walls pierced by a multitude of graceful windows and surmounted by great grouped chimneys and richly carved and pinnacled gables. Passing the imposing entrance, we found ourselves in a wide, grass-grown court, which the mansion surrounds in quadrangular form. The architecture of the court is graceful in the extreme—fluted and carved marble pilasters running the full height between the windows, which have a distinctly classic touch on the entrance side. On the three remaining sides there are great clustered windows, no less than twenty in one of the groups, separated by slender stone mullions. Most of the glass has disappeared or clings to the casements in shattered fragments, though in a small, still-inhabited corner the windows are entire. We wander at will through the once splendid apartments, now in pitiable decay and ruin. In the banqueting hall—a vast apartment with high open-beamed roof and minstrel gallery—a washerwoman is heating her water-pots, and piles of wool are stored in the Hall of State. But from the far greater number of the rooms the roof has wholly or partially disappeared and the rooks scold each other in the chimneys or caw hungrily among the sagging rafters. The room once used for the library is less ruinous and its two immense circular bay windows overlook a beautiful stretch of country. But, altogether, the house is more of a ruin than we anticipated at first glance. Restoration would be expensive and difficult. The walls in many places lean far from the vertical and are intersected by cracks and rents. Columns and pilasters are broken and sprung and in many windows the mullions are gone or twisted awry. The staircases are gone and the halls and passageways piled deep with debris. Yet such is the charm of the place that only recently an American negotiated with its owner, the Earl of Winchelsea, with a view to purchase and restoration, but through inability to clear the title, the deal was never consummated. Kirby Hall has been in the possession of the Winchelsea family ever since it was built by Elizabeth’s favorite, Sir Christopher Hatton, after plans by the master architects, John Thorpe and Inigo Jones. Reverses compelled its gradual abandonment, though it was inhabited by the owner as late as 1830. But we did not inquire closely into the history of Kirby Hall, nor do we care to do so. We prefer to think of it as more or less a mystery—an enchanted palace whose weird beauty is not destroyed but only rendered pathetic by the decay and desolation that has fallen upon it as it stands alone in the wide stretches of forest-dotted meadowland.
It was near the end of a strenuous day when we cast a regretful glance at the great chimneys and graceful pinnacles silhouetted against the evening sky—but there are no accommodations for travelers at Kirby Hall. No place near at hand appealed to us. Coventry and its comfortable King’s Head Hotel was not out of reach and attracted us as it did more than once in our journeyings. The fifty miles we covered easily before lamplighting time.
