Barnard Castle was lost to the Baliol family by the defeat of John Baliol’s pretensions to the crown of Scotland. Later it was granted, with the adjoining estates, to the Earls of Warwick, and on the marriage of Anne Neville with royal Gloucester, the Duke chose it as his favourite residence. You may still see his cognizance of the boar here and there on the walls, and on some of the oldest houses in the town. The Earl of Westmoreland had it next, but lost it by taking part in The Rising of the North. The couplet:—
“Coward, a coward, of Barney Castel,
Dare not come out to fight a battel,”
is said to have its origin in the refusal of the knight who held the castle, to quit the shelter of its walls and try the effect of a combat with the rebels. And so the game went on, the Crown resuming possession at pleasure, until the whole property fell by purchase, in 1629, to an ancestor of the present owner—the Duke of Cleveland.
“Whoy! ’tis but a little town to ha’ such a muckle castle,” exclaimed one of three men who had just arrived with a numerous party by excursion train from Newcastle, and ventured to the top of the tower. “Eh! the castle wur bigger nor the town.”
Whatever may have been, the thick-voiced Northumbrian was wrong in his first conclusion, for the town has more than four thousand inhabitants. But, looking down, we can see that the castle with its outworks and inner buildings must have been a fortress of no ordinary dimensions. Nearly seven acres are comprehended within its area, now chiefly laid out in gardens, where, sheltered by the old gray stones, the trees bear generous fruit. If you can persuade the hermit to ascend, he will point out Brackenbury’s Tower, a dilapidated relic, with dungeons in its base, now used as stables; and near it a cow-stall, which occupies the site of the chapel. Examine the place when you descend, and you will discover, amid much disfigurement, traces of graceful architecture.
The hermit himself—a man of middle age—is a subject for curiosity. So far as I could make him out, he appeared to be half misanthropist, half misogynist. He quarrelled with the world about eighteen years ago, and, without asking leave, took possession of a vault and a wall-cavity at the foot of the great round tower, and has lived there ever since, supporting himself by the donations of visitors, and the sale of rustic furniture which he makes with his own hands. His room in the wall is fitted with specimens of his skill, and it serves as a trap, for you have to pass through it to ascend the tower. He showed me his workshop, and pointed out a spot under the trees at the hill-foot where flows the clear cold spring from which he draws water. The Duke, he said, sometimes came to look at the ruin, and gave him a hint to quit; but he did not mean to leave until absolutely compelled. I heard later in the day that he had been crossed in love; and that, notwithstanding his love of solitude, he would go out at times and find a friend, and make a night of it. But this may be scandal.
I went down and took a drink at the spring which, embowered by trees and bushes, sparkles forth from the rocky brink of the river; and rambled away to Rokeby. There are paths on both sides of the stream, along the edge of the meadows, and under the trees past the mill, past cottages and gardens, leading farther and farther into scenes of increasing beauty. Then we come to the Abbey Bridge, whence you get a pleasing view of a long straight reach of the river, terminated by a glimpse of Rokeby Hall, a charming avenue, so to speak, of tall woods, which, with ferns, shrubs, and mazy plants, crowd the rocky slopes to the very edge of the water. From ledge to ledge rushes the stream, making falls innumerable, decked with living fringes of foam, and as the noisy current hurries onward it engirdles the boulders with foamy rings, or hangs upon them a long white train that flutters and glistens as sunbeams drop down through the wind-shaken leaves. Strong contrasts of colour enrich the effect:
“Here Tees, full many a fathom low,
Wears with his rage no common foe;
For pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here,
Nor clay-mound, checks his fierce career,
Condemn’d to mine a channell’d way,
O’er solid sheets of marble gray.”
On the Yorkshire side, a few yards above the bridge, the remains of Egliston or Athelstan Abbey crown a pleasant knoll surrounded by wood. They are of small extent, and, on the whole, deficient in the picturesque; but as an artist said who sketched while his wife sat sewing by his side, “There are a few little bits worth carrying away.” The east window, in which the plain mullions still remain, is of unusual width, the chancel exhibits carvings of different styles; two or three slabs lying on the grass preserve the memory of an abbot, and of a Rokeby, who figures in the still legible inscription as Bastard; and the outbuildings are now occupied as a farm. Some years hence, when the ivy, which has begun to embrace the eastern window, shall have spread its evergreen mantle wider and higher, the ruins will be endowed with a charm wherein their present scanty nakedness may be concealed. Yet apart from this the place has natural attractions, a village green, noble trees, Thorsgill within sight; and just beyond the green a mill of cheerful clatter.
The artist and his wife were enjoying a happy holiday. They had come down into Yorkshire with a fortnight’s excursion ticket, and a scheme for visiting as many of the abbeys and as much picturesque scenery as possible within the allotted time. Sometimes they walked eight or ten miles, or travelled a stage in a country car, content to rough it, so that their wishes should be gratified. They had walked across from Stainmoor the day before, and told me that in passing through Bowes they had seen the original of Dotheboys Hall, now doorless, windowless, and dilapidated. Nicholas Nickleby’s exposure was too much for it, and it ceased to be a den of hopeless childhood—a place to which heartless fathers and mothers condemned their children because it was cheap.