It was in the seventeenth century, during the times of the Stuart dynasty, that certain Swedish and German artisans, flying from continental tyranny, were induced to seek an asylum within the pale of the British constitution, and introduce into their adopted country the art of forging wire. They were received with open arms; locations were assigned them, denominated Seats; and a privilege of a vote in parliamentary elections, with an exemption from taxes, were constituted as part of the favours which our discerning government thought proper to confer. Of these seats Tinterne was one from the very first immigration; and here many of the descendants of the original settlers are still employed in the handicraft of their forefathers. Of the methods used in the manufacture of iron-wire before the introduction of improved machinery, tradition has preserved the following outline:—
“A large beam was erected across the factory, to which were affixed as many seats—in the form of large wooden scales—as there were men employed, who were fastened in them by means of a girdle round their bodies. The artificers were employed near each other, while between them stood a piece of iron pierced with holes of different dimensions, for reducing the wire to an appropriate size. The worked iron was heated; the beam was put in motion by a water-wheel; and as the workmen swung backwards and forwards, they passed and repassed the iron through the holes described with forceps, until it was reduced by force to the required diameter. The motion was regulated; and if any workman chanced to miss seizing the iron with his forceps, he suffered a considerable shock on the return of the beam.”
On the introduction of the improved system of wire factories, the nature of the contracts between the principals and their workmen underwent a necessary change. The struggle, however, was continued for some time, but ultimately subsided in the adoption of the present plan, and the alterations which it introduced. Under the management of the late Mr. Thompson—whose mausoleum forms a conspicuous object in the adjoining cemetery—the Tinterne Wire Works acquired a new impetus, which has been successfully kept up by his able and intelligent successor.
Natural History.—On this interesting subject, we take advantage of the following notes from the journal of the late Mr. Thomas of Tinterne:—April 2d, half-past seven A.M. Notwithstanding a cold north-easterly wind, with fugitive showers, I saw a nightingale, for the first time this year, on the road to Chapel Hill, perched upon the topmost branch of a budding thorn. He uttered one or two of those rich, cheerful, metallic notes, so characteristic of his song; and quickly returned to his busy search for food amongst the low bushes adjoining. One of my friends informed me that he had listened to its music the evening before; and another averred that he had heard the nightingale as early as the second week of March. If these accounts be true, which I have not the slightest reason to doubt, they seem to favour the idea that some of these lovely songsters hibernate amongst us. Naturalists, by common consent, name the last week of April as the period of their ordinary arrival in this island. It seems probable, however, that those which winter amongst us undergo some variation of plumage, which may lead a cursory observer—if he did not pass them by unnoticed—to confound them with the female redbreast, the hedge-sparrow, or some other unpretending bird.
In point of song from Nature’s choristers, says an enthusiastic admirer of the Wye, these woods might challenge all England. It is impossible to enjoy a higher treat of the kind than the harmony of these little warblers on a fine summer’s evening, when, on each side of the Wye, they seem to vie with each other in the richness and fullness of their notes. Mr. Heath had the following anecdote from Signor Rossignol, so celebrated for his imitations of the feathered tribes:—“While at Monmouth,” said he, “I often walked towards Hadnock at a late hour of the night, for the purpose of comparing my own notes with those which I attempted to imitate. First, I began with those of the blackbird, when every bird of that species within hearing would instantly awake as it were with the rapture of day. Then came the thrush, next the nightingale, and so on, until I had called forth the song of every bird in the woods; and thus I continued to amuse myself for an hour together. If, in the meantime, a traveller happened to be passing the road, he was immediately forced to conclude that he had quite mistaken the time of day!”[174]
Walnut-trees.—The Abbey appears to have been sheltered and enriched in its prosperous days by extensive orchards; but of the lofty walnut-trees, that formerly spread their luxuriant branches in its vicinity, one only remains. These trees were of great age: under their shadow many generations of monks and pilgrims had found shelter and repose; but having long survived their patrons, and attained that fatal majesty which insured their destruction, the axe was applied with ruthless force to their stems; they were hewn down, burnt, or sold; and the rich soil, from which they had derived their strength and fertility for centuries, was converted into patches of cabbage and potato ground, profusely bordered with weeds, and enlivened with pigsties that, to imaginative tourists, perhaps, may recall the memory of Friar Bacon.
The Abbot’s Meadow.—“I have often felt incommunicable delight,” writes Mr. Thomas, “in a walk southward along the meadows skirting the Wye. During the bright summer evenings, the glorious sun tinges the summits of the encircling hills with his oblique golden rays, while a gentle breeze makes the ripening grass wave in elegant undulations. How sweet at that pensive hour to sit upon the sedgy bank, and hear the artless music of the feathery tribes! The reedwren chants his vesper-song; full many a robin swells it by his perennial response; whilst the inimitable thrush and tender cushat revive the thrilling echo on the distant cliff.”
During this concert, “you turn round to behold the abbey embosomed amidst apple-trees, and so singularly foreshortened that the beautiful western window appears through the eastern. The entrance of the western valley is at the same time so happily disposed, that the effulgent light of the setting sun is seen through the roseate windows, gilding the interior of the abbey with an unearthly brightness; whilst, to complete the scene, multitudes of noisy daws are seen careering in fanciful circles, high in the balmy air, before they retire to roost within the mantling ivy of the ‘roofless house of God.’”
At such an hour how appropriate the lines:—
“When day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the opening clouds of even,
And we could almost think we gaze
Through golden vistas into heaven;
Those hues which mark the sun’s decline,
So soft, so radiant, Lord, are thine!”—Moore.