The countess, besides Hardwick Hall, built the former house at Chatsworth, which has since been torn down. Bolsover was completed by her son; it is now unoccupied but maintained in good repair. It is worth a visit rather for the fine view from its towers—for it occupies a most magnificent site on a high promontory overlooking the wide vale of the river—than for any interest the castle itself possesses.
The sun had sunk low when we came down from the castle walls and started for York, sixty miles away. At Worksop we were clear of the byways and the open road, invitingly smooth and level and almost free from traffic, stretched out before us. This chronicle is no record of miles per hour, and the motor enters into it only as a means to an end; yet there is no harm in saying that we had few swifter, evener flights through a more charming country than that which fleeted past us between Worksop and York. We soon caught sight of Doncaster’s dominating church tower, a fit mate for many of the cathedrals, but in our haste out of the town we missed the North Road and were soon noting the milestones to Tadcaster, famous for little else than its ales. The North Road is a trifle better in surface and a little more direct, but we had traversed it before and did not regret the opportunity of seeing a different country. The minster towers soon loomed dim in the purple light and we felt a sense of almost homelike restfulness when we were established at the Station Hotel—to our notion one of the two or three most comfortable in England.
[X]
FROM YORKSHIRE COAST TO BARNARD CASTLE
The Minster of St. John of Beverley is easily the finest single example of Perpendicular architecture in England; in beauty and majesty of design, in proportion and in general effect—from almost any viewpoint—there is no more pleasing church in the Kingdom. We come in sight of its graceful twin towers while yet afar from the town, after a thirty-mile run from York through some of the most prosperous farming country in the shire. As we come nearer, the mass of red tiles, from which rises the noble bulk of the minster, resolves itself into the houses of the old town, whose ancient heart has lost none of its charm in the little city which has more recently grown up around it.
As we emerge from a narrow street bordered with mean little houses, the great church suddenly bursts on our view and we pause to admire its vast yet perfect proportions, its rich carvings, and the multitude of graceful pinnacles. We enter, but the caretaker receives us with little enthusiasm, though at our request he shows us about in a rather reserved manner. A card on the wall explains matters: “Positively no fees to attendants.” Our experience has been that such a notice means cash in advance if you are to have the attention you want and which you really need if you are to see and appreciate such a church. We proceed, therefore, to get on a proper footing with our guide, and begin forthwith to learn the history, the architecture, the curiosities and the gossip of Beverley Minster. And the last is not the least interesting, for here, as at Wymondham, was a rector who with the modest salary of four hundred pounds a year had spent many thousands of his own money in restoration and repair of the minster. He had restored the intricate screen and replaced some of the images which had been broken up, yet so cleverly was the toning and coloring done that the newer work could not be distinguished from the old.
The St. John from whom the minster took its name was Archbishop of York and founded a church on the present site in the sixth century. He died in 731 and, tradition says, is buried in the minster. But Beverley’s most distinguishing historic fact is that it was one of the three “sanctuaries of refuge” in England. Here, by the strange edict of the early church, any criminal who could evade his pursuers might take refuge in the precincts of Beverley Minster and for thirty days be entitled to the protection and hospitality of the monks, after which he was given a passport to sail from the nearest port to some foreign land. We saw the rude stone chair of “refuge” to which no doubt many a gasping scoundrel clung, safe, for the time, from justice by virtue of his ability to outrun his pursuers. One incident is recorded of a “Tailour of York” who had cruelly murdered his wife but who escaped punishment by taking refuge in Beverley. The only penalty inflicted was to brand the criminal on the thumb with a hot iron and to watch him closely until he sailed for France. However, all this was better than being hanged, the penalty freely administered by the civil authorities in those days, and as a consequence Beverley always had a large number of “undesirable citizens” within her borders.
There is much else of interest in the minster, though we may not linger over its attractions save to mention the Percy tomb, reputed the finest in Europe—and indeed, its rare marbles and delicate sculptures must represent a princely fortune. Nor could we have more than a passing glimpse of St. Mary’s Church, second only to the minster in importance, for Beverley is the only town in England of anywhere near its size that has the distinction of possessing two churches of really the first magnitude.
Following the road from Beverley to the coast by Great Driffield and Bridlington, we had a glimpse near the latter place of the high cliff of Flamborough Head, from which the startled Yorkshiremen of a century or more ago saw the “pirate,” John Paul Jones, win his ever memorable victory over the Serapis. It is not a subject even to this day which the natives can discuss with entire equanimity.