Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

Arrival of a Guest at a Country House.

From the busy world outside one entered a little haven of peace and rest within the gates. The main entrance to Renishaw, which was immediately off the road, led by wooden doors between stone piers into a close court, the walls being planted round with fruit trees and the borders with flowers, and so by a broad paved walk between two grass plats to the steps of the porch. The building itself was of the usual Jacobean type, with mullioned windows protected by string-courses, gables and cupola tiled with stone, and battlemented roof over the hall. In plan, it was a double E, the central member being given by the porch on the north and by the great hall chimney to the south; on the former side the projecting wings contained a buttery (to the east) and a kitchen, on the latter a great and little parlour. Entering the porch, a second door led into a hall of moderate size (twenty feet by twenty-four), handsomely paved with grey and yellow stone, and ceiled with heavy cross beams covered with plaster. Upon the oak panelling, stags’ heads, escutcheons of arms, and maps of Europe and of Jerusalem were hung, and the centre of the room was occupied by the long table at which the family dined. On the opposite wall, between two windows corresponding to those on either side of the porch, was a great fireplace of stone, framed in by a mantel of carved oak. There was an oak cupboard by the kitchen door, and here also hung a buffcoat and some pistol-holsters. In the window lay the family Bible.

A Ball at an Assembly Room.

On the left hand two doors opened out of the hall, the first into a paved and arched entry which led past the buttery hatch (on the left) to the garden entrance; and the second to the “Great Staircase,” finely wainscotted and carved, and lighted by windows to the east. At the foot of the stairs was the door into the great parlour, about thirty-four feet long by twenty broad, by far the finest room in the house. A large bow window at the further end, and three windows to the east, looked out upon the flower garden. The ceiling of graceful renaissance plaster work, light and in low relief, was designed with large quatrefoils and diamonds, the points of the latter running out into branches of quince, oak, or vine, or large fleur-de-lis of varying patterns. In the centres of the spaces between were moulded ornaments of mermaids, dolphins, squirrels, roses, octofoils, and winged and coronetted lions’ heads. On the walls, immediately below the ceiling, was a frieze, also in plaster, which exhibited a running pattern of vine leaves, grapes, and birds, stopped at intervals by strapwork escutcheons, with renaissance masks and heraldic lions’ faces upon them. Richly carved panels of oak, with floral designs of lilies, roses, etc., supported the frieze, and beneath them was plainer panelling broken up at intervals by flat pilasters decorated with foliage or fruit. On this panelling a few family portraits were hung; the furniture here, as elsewhere in the house, was of carved oak, already a generation old, and there was much needlework of the kind ladies then occupied themselves in making. The mantelpieces were also of oak, one which showed in high relief the sacrifice of Isaac, supported by figures of Samson and Hercules, being especially noticeable. The fire backs in all the principal rooms had been cast at Foxbrook furnace, some two miles away, from moulds of a flower-pot, a phœnix, or the royal arms and supporters.

On the right of the hall were two doorways corresponding to those on the left. The further led by double doors into the little parlour, a small room with two windows to the south opening upon the garden, and two to the west looking out across a little green court to the brewhouse and the trees which overhung it. In the centre of the ceiling a great double rose of plaster, more than two feet in diameter, covered the junction of the beams. On the walls, maps of the World, France, Paris, and Ireland were hung, and a few Dutch pictures. The nearer door on the same side of the hall communicated with the little staircase and the kitchen, the latter room remarkable for its great three-centred chimney arch of stone, and for the pewter plates and dishes and brass stewpans and pudding pans which were ranged upon the wall. A back entry led into the kitchen court, or “well court,” a large yard built round with offices, stabling, coach-house, brewhouse, dairy, laundry, ovens, and barns. This was closed by great gates at night and contained many bays of building.

To return to the house; the bedrooms were furnished with curtains and rugs of green, purple, or “sad colour,” the great oak bedsteads decorated with hangings of needlework, and the walls covered with tapestry or wainscot. On the first floor was the “great chamber,” over the great parlour, and another of smaller size (here, under a sliding board, a secret receptacle in the floor for money or papers was found a few years ago) above the buttery. The “hall chamber,” like the hall below, was panelled with oak and ceiled with cross beams covered with plaster. This was the owner’s bedroom, and the windows to north and south, sheltered from sun and wind by the projecting wings, must have made it the pleasantest in the house. It was entered from the landing of the great staircase, and a door in the further wall led to Mr. Sitwell’s study, above the little parlour, and to the little staircase. In the study Mr. Sitwell wrote up the letter-book, passed the accounts of his steward, Thomas Starkye (Starkye came up the back stairs), and interviewed his tenants; on the panelling over the mantelpiece a carbine and some pistols were hung, and recesses in the thickness of the wall harboured a small library of books on divinity, law, and the classics, of which the greater part had been collected by Mr. Sitwell, though a few had been brought from the older house at the head of the village. Above the kitchen was another large bedchamber, given over, I suppose, to Mr. Sitwell’s youngest son, the only one of his children who was still under his care. The plan of the third story was similar to that of the second, the chamber over the hall chamber being again the only means of communication between the two staircases. This was occupied by Mrs. Heays, the housekeeper, who probably had one or two of the younger maidservants to sleep with her; and here in the long winter afternoons they wove and spun by the light of tallow dips, and talked over the gossip of the village. The two rooms to the east had formerly been used as nurseries, but were now guest chambers; and on this side also was a store-closet over the stairs. On the west, the study chamber was occupied by the cook and kitchenmaid, and that over the kitchen by the maids. The men-servants and grooms probably slept over the stables. At the Sacheverells’ house at Barton, an inventory of 1691 shows a “maids’ chamber,” a “men’s chamber,” and a “grooms’ chamber,” and this no doubt was the usual arrangement at the time.

The house was surrounded by a number of gardens,[84] courts, and orchards, the walls of which were full of pears, apples, plums, peaches, cherries, and nectarines. From the garden door one went out into a corner of the south garden, somewhat wider than the house, which projected into it. This was laid out in gravel, with borders against the walls, broad walks round and across the square, and designs of flower beds disposed in Jacobean knots, edged with box, and relieved by pyramids of yew. Out of this to the left you went into the bowling green and several courts and gardens, with green and gravel walks, walled in and full of flowers and fruit. Beyond them lay the little orchard, at the further extremity of which was an ancient dovecot of stone, perched on the very edge of the cliff, and overlooking the wild and tangled slopes of Broxhill and the flowery banks and winding course of the river below. Returning to the south garden, a door opposite the house led into the great orchard, some four and a half acres in extent, in which were a pair of butts for archery,[85] and side alleys bordered with flowers. From these sheltered paths, the further wall of the orchard being below the slope of the hill, pretty glimpses could be obtained of moorland and river, and distant spires and seats; and here also, at the south-west corner of the garden, was one of those square stone-tiled buildings without which no garden in the seventeenth century was supposed to be complete. This garden-house was set against a grove of ancient oaks and ashes, which protected it from the rays of the afternoon sun; to the north, both wind and view were cut off by the house, with its broken roof-line of battlements and gables, and tall central chimney thrown into shadow by the projecting wings; but towards the other points of the compass, a wide panorama of country was spread out to view. Mounting the steps which led to the little oak-panelled room above, one could see, over the tops of the apple trees and the Gothic coping of the green-clad garden walls, Killamarsh Moor, and the little village of Wales, in Yorkshire, from which the Hewitts took their rise; the wooded hillside just across the river; and high above the common, the ancient woods and manor houses of Park Hall and Barlborough; the Mansfield road, which skirted past the forest towards Nottingham and Derby; Emmett Carr, Barlborough Common, and Marsden Moor; the splendid cliff and keep of Bolsover, famous for the Earl of Newcastle’s prodigal entertainment to King Charles; Scarcliffe and Palterton, once with Eckington a part of the Domesday Barony of Ralph Fitz-Hubert; the old and new halls of Hardwick, where the Earls of Devonshire had their seat, standing out like twin towers above the trees which surrounded them; and beyond the horizon, the spire of Tibshelf Church on the Nottinghamshire border. Nearer, between Renishaw and Hardwick, stood the little hall of Netherthorpe, in which Robert Sytwell had lived in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and the grammar school hard by he had helped to found; Lord Deincourt’s woods at Sutton Scarsdale; and Owlcotes, another of Bess of Hardwick’s houses; and to the right, the Chesterfield road mounting up a green spur two miles away towards Lord Frecheville’s ancient house and park and the iron furnaces of Staveley. Beyond Staveley, which, like Bolsover, Sutton, and Renishaw, had been garrisoned for the King in the Civil War, the spire of Brimington could be seen; and above the hollow in which Chesterfield lies, the distant hills which lead up to Clay Cross, Ogston, Ashover, and the Derbyshire moors. To the west of the garden house, a close walk between hedges led down the hill to the low meadows and the river, and from this side also was a footpath across the demesne to Foxton Wood, some two miles away, where the bluebells were a sight to see in spring, and the bracken in autumn, and good fishing and shooting were to be had. The hedgerows in the demesne contained many oaks and ashes, but there was no ornamental planting of any kind; in the woods, swine were still turned out in autumn, and another relic of mediæval agriculture was the continued use of oxen for ploughing.

Houses and gardens such as those which I have just described can hardly have been the work of coarse and illiterate men. Their beauty and appropriateness, to which Lord Macaulay was blind, are recognised by the better taste of to-day. One can see that they were planned with infinite care and contrivance, every natural peculiarity of site, climate, and outlook being turned to account, and that the country squires who built them were thinking not merely of their own selfish enjoyment, but of future ages. In the marriage indenture of Mr. Sitwell’s eldest son in 1656, one of the considerations mentioned is that the said messuage and lands “may be settled and established in the name and blood of the said George Sitwell the ffather, soe long as it shall please God to continue the same.” From such phrases one learns not only the old builders’ pride in their houses, but the spirit which animated them, and which alone can inspire good work in building and laying out.