“The Tribuna announces that the House of the Knights at Rhodes has been acquired for France by the French Ambassador at Constantinople, M. Bompard. The house, which is one of the most beautiful in the island, is a Gothic edifice dating from the 15th century, and was originally the residence of the French Priors of the Order of Jerusalem.
“⁂ This appears to refer to the Auberge of the “Langue” of France, with its shield-adorned façade in the famous street of the Knights in Rhodes, which is still preserved in fair condition. Under the Ottoman regime no Christian was allowed to own a house or to sleep within the walled town of Rhodes, and before the revival of the Constitution foreigners were jealously excluded from the majority of the medieval buildings of the city. It is probably due to this suspicious and exclusive attitude that no such step as that just taken by France has been attempted before. It is to be hoped that the palace of the Grand Masters of the Order of the Hospital, which ruled the island from 1309 until 1522, is now no longer to be used as a common prison.”
SOMERTON CASTLE
From Temple Bruer we return to the “High Dyke,” and, crossing it, make westward for the Grantham road; but before we go along it, by Boothby Graffoe to Navenby, we must pause on the Ridge, or “Cliff,” as they call it there, and look down on a solitary round tower on a slight elevation about a mile across the flat plain which extends westward from the Wolds to the Trent. This tower and its grassy mounds are all that is left of a once fine stronghold, built, about 1281, by Antony Bec, Archdeacon of Durham, second son of Walter Bec, Baron d’Eresby. He was consecrated Bishop of Durham in the presence of Edward I., on January 9, 1284, and he was wise enough, a few years later, when his growing magnificence excited the jealousy of his sovereign, to present Somerton to Edward I., and it remained a royal castle for some three centuries, passing afterwards through several families, among whom were the Disneys of Norton and Carlton. Edward, son of Thomas Disney of Carlton-le-Moorland having purchased it from Sir George Bromley, and being succeeded in 1595 by his son Thomas, who having lost both his sons, sold it to Sir Ed. Hussey. Hence we find that his son Charles, afterwards Sir Charles Hussey of Caythorpe, is described in his marriage licence, April 10, 1649, as Charles Hussey, Esq., of Somerton.
After the battle of Poictiers, in 1356, John, son of Philip of Valois, King of France, was brought captive to London, together with his third son Philip. Hence, after a short residence at the Savoy Palace, they went to Windsor as guests of the King and Queen Philippa, and were subsequently sent to Hertford Castle. Edward III. soon thought it wiser to transfer them to Somerton, where they were placed under the custody of William, Baron d’Eyncourt of Blankney, during the years 1359 and 1360. The expensive furnishing of the castle (see Chap. [XXXVII.]) and the provision made for the maintenance of the large number of the king’s French suite, and of the officers and men who were appointed to guard the prisoners, and the style of life there, the tuns of French claret, and the enormous amount of sugar to make French bon-bons, together with the subsequent history of King John, who, on being set at liberty, returned in the most honourable way to England in 1363, because his son Louis, Duc d’Anjou, had broken his parole as a hostage and left England for France, is fully related by Bishop Trollope. King John died in 1364, at the palace of the Savoy.
Somerton Castle, which we must now visit, was a fortified dwelling-place with outer and inner moats, and with round towers at each corner of an irregular parallelogram, only one remains now at the south-west angle. This is forty-five feet high, and has three storeys—the lower one vaulted, the highest covered with a conical roof and having two chimneys, rising well above the plain parapet, which is still perfect, and springs from a bold and effective moulding. Each floor is lit by small lancet windows, the middle one much enlarged of late years, for it is still inhabited, together with some building adjoining it on the east, as a farm house. The large earthworks around the castle, which are especially noticeable on the south, are very remarkable, and must be much earlier than the castle, which seems to have been planted inside these rectangular embankments, of which the northern side has been levelled, probably at the time of the building. The earthworks are not Roman in character, and are probably of very great antiquity. Outside these are at least two round artificial hills, which have not been as yet explained with certainty.
NAVENBY
Leaving the castle, and driving over the rough field road which leads to it, we regain a highway which takes us up “the cliff” to the village of Navenby. This is situated on a spur jutting out from the edge of the cliff, with a deep little valley sweeping round on the south side and breaking down into the plain. Nestling in the curve of the hill are some picturesque farm buildings and stacks, and above is an old windmill; whilst over the horizon peeps through the trees the spire of Wellingore Church. The chancel of Navenby Church, as at Heckington, is as long as the nave, and almost as high; indeed, this Decorated chancel is as fine as any to be found, no other being built on at all so magnificent a scale, except Hawton in Notts, and Heckington and perhaps Merton at Oxford. The tower, which probably had a spire, fell in the eighteenth century, and the whole church was restored about forty years ago, by Kirk of Sleaford, who made the chancel roof of too high a pitch, and kept the nave roof too low. The pillars in the nave, of which there are two on each side, have shafts clustered round a central column, four shafts of coursed masonry alternating with four light detached monolithic shafts, all united under a circular capital. But the north-west pillar is thicker than the others, and belongs to the latter part of the twelfth century. The tower arch is a low one; the fine Decorated east window of six lights, restored in 1876, has superb tracery, and is nearly as fine as that at Heckington. There are four large chancel windows, and a good Early English window in the south aisle. There is also a rood-loft staircase, and a rood-loft with canopy, or ‘hang over,’ and a modern rood-beam above bearing a large crucifix and two almost life-size figures carved and painted. An octagon panelled font stands on a pedestal of slender columns. The roof of both nave and aisles is painted. The clerestory, added later, has five three-light windows. The east window is filled with white glass, slightly toned, and is half hidden by a tapestry screen used as a reredos, by no means beautiful, and twice as high as it need be. The Jacobean pulpit and the fine copy of an old brass eagle lectern, as at Brant Broughton, are to be noticed; but the main glories of the church are in the chancel, where, besides the splendid windows, there are, on the south side, three rich sedilia and a piscina; and on the north, just east of the canopied arch for the founder’s tomb, in which is now placed a trefoiled stone with Lombardic lettering of Richard Dewe, priest, is a priest’s door and a very beautiful Easter Sepulchre. This is only surpassed by those at Heckington, Lincoln, and Hawton, near Newark. It has only one compartment, with three Roman soldiers, with mutilated heads, below the opening, and above it, amongst the delicately carved foliage of the canopy, are two figures of women. Few churches can give more pleasure to the lover of church architecture than this; and its fine position on the edge of the cliff, with the wide view over the plain westward, makes a visit to Navenby very memorable.
COLEBY
Going on northwards along the cliff road we pass Boothby Graffoe, where the old church was actually blown down, or, as the Wellingore register has it, “extirpated in a hurricane,” in 1666—and come to Coleby. Here is an early unbuttressed tower with a rude original arch over the door of the tower staircase, and with two keyhole windows in the south side, as in the early Lincoln towers or those at Hough-on-the-Hill, and Clee. Part of the original tower arch is visible inside the tower, which is entered from the nave through a very tall narrow arch supported by two very small pilasters with plain rectangular caps.