Rides on Railways Part 7

NORTHAMPTON, on a hill on the banks of the river Nene, is a remarkably pleasant town, with several fine old buildings, an ancient church, an open market square, neat clean streets, and suburbs of pretty villas, overlooking, from the hill top, fat green meadows, flooded in winter. Shoemaking on a wholesale scale, is the princ.i.p.al occupation of the inhabitants. For strong shoes Northampton can compete in any foreign market, and a good many light articles, cut after French patterns, have been successfully made since the trade was thrown open by Peel's tariff. There are several factories, in which large numbers of young persons are employed, but the majority work by the piece at home for the master manufacturers.

Northampton is also great in the fairs and markets of a rich agricultural district, and rejoices over races twice a year, in which the facilities of the railroad have rendered some compensation to the inn-keepers for the loss of the coaching trade. Northampton was originally intended to be a main station of the railway between London and Birmingham. The inhabitants were silly enough to resist the bestowal of this benefit upon them, and unfortunate enough to be successful in their resistance. In after years, when experience had rendered fools wise, they were glad to obtain the present branch through to Peterborough; but the injury of the ill-judged opposition can never be cured.

The church of All Saints, in the centre of the town, has an ancient embattled tower which escaped the great fire of 1675. St. Peter's, near the West Bridge, a remarkably curious specimen of enriched Norman; St. Sepulchre's, a round church of the twelfth century, all deserve enumeration. There are also two hospitals, the only remains of many religious houses which existed before the Reformation. St. John's consists of a chapel and a large hall, with apartments for inferior poor persons; St. Thomas's is for twenty poor alms- women. No vestiges, beyond the earthworks, remain of the castle built by Simon de St. Liz, who was created Earl of Northampton by William the Conqueror. Northampton was a royal residence during the reigns of Richard I., John, and Henry III.; a battlefield during the wars of the Barons and the wars of the Roses; but the ancient character of the town was almost entirely destroyed by the great fire of 1675,--not without benefit to the health, though at the expense of the picturesqueness of this ancient borough.

Northampton is important as the capital town of one of our finest grazing and hunting counties, where soil and climate are both favourable to the farmer.

Large numbers of the Scotch, Welch, and Herefords sold in Smithfield, are fed in the yards and finished in the pastures of Northamptonshire.

The present Earl of Spencer keeps up, on a limited scale, the herd of short- horns which were so celebrated during the lifetime of his brother, better known as Lord Althorpe,--at his seat of Althorpe, six miles from the town, and also carries on a little fancy farming. The late Earl of Spencer was much more successful as a breeder than as a farmer; indeed, it may be questioned whether the prejudices of that amiable and excellent man in favour of pasture land, did not exercise an injurious influence over the proceedings of the Royal Agricultural a.s.sociation.

Northampton returns two members to Parliament, and has a mayor and corporation.

The railway route from Northampton to Peterborough presents a series of pleasant views on either side,--so pleasant that he who has leisure should walk, or ride on horseback, along the line of Saxon villages, visit the series of curious churches at Wellingborough, Higham Ferrers, with its collegiate church and almshouse, Thrapston and Oundle, and other stations.

Within two miles of Thrapston is Drayton House, Lowick, the seat of the Sackville family, which retains many of the features of an ancient castle, and has a gallery of paintings by the old masters. The church of Lowick contains several monuments, bra.s.ses, and windows of stained gla.s.s. Near Oundle is to be found the earthwork of Fotheringay Castle, where Mary Queen of Scots was confined, tried, and executed. The castle itself was levelled to the ground by order of her son, James I. On leaving Oundle we pa.s.s a station appurtenant to Wansford in England, of which we shall say a word presently.

Here we may take coach across to Stamford in Lincolnshire (see Stamford), unless we prefer the rail from Peterborough. There is a point somewhere hereabouts where the three counties of Northampton, Lincoln, and Huntingdon all meet.

WANSFORD IN ENGLAND.--If about to investigate the antiquities of Stamford or Peterborough, the traveller will do well to stop at Wansford for the sake of one of the best inns in Europe, well known under the sign of "The Hayc.o.c.k at Wansford in England." This sign represents a man stretched floating on a hayc.o.c.k, apparently in conversation with parties on a bridge. It is intended to ill.u.s.trate the legend of Drunken Barnaby, who, travelling during the time of the plague from London northward, tasting and criticising the ale on the road, drank so much of the Northamptonshire brewst that he fell asleep on a hayc.o.c.k, in one of the flat meadows. In the night time, as is often the case in this part of the country, a sudden flood arose, and our toper awaked to find himself floating on a great tide of water, which at length brought him to a bridge, upon which, hailing the pa.s.sengers, he asked, "Where am I?" in full expectation of having floated to France or Spain; whereupon they answered, "at Wansford." "What!" he exclaimed in ecstacy, "Wansford in England!" and landing, drank the ale and gave a new name to the inn of this village between three counties. The inn (which belongs to the Duke of Bedford) affords a sort of accommodation which the rapid travelling and short halts of railways have almost abolished. But an easy rent, a large farm, and a trade in selling and hiring hunters, enables the landlord to provide as comfortably for his guests, as when, in old posting days, five dukes made the Hayc.o.c.k their night halt at one time. On entering the well carpeted coffee- room, with its ample screen, blazing fire, and plentiful allowance of easy chairs, while a well appointed tempting dinner is rapidly and silently laid on the spotless table-cloth,--the tired sportsman or traveller will be inclined to fancy that he is visitor to some wealthy squire rather than the guest of an innkeeper. When we add that the bed-rooms match the sitting- rooms, that the charges are moderate, that the Pytchley, Earl Fitzwilliam's, and the Duke of Rutland's hounds (the Beevor), meet within an easy distance; that the county abounds in antiquities, show-houses like Burleigh, that pleasant woodland rides are within a circle of ten miles, that good pike- fishing is to be had nearly all the year round, while in retirement Wansford is complete; we have said enough to show that it is well worth the notice of a large cla.s.s of travellers,--from young couples on their first day's journey, to old gentlemen travelling north and needing quiet and a bottle of old port.

The last station, Peterborough, presents an instance of a city without population, without manufactures, without trade, without a good inn, or even a copy of the Times, except at the railway station; a city which would have gone on slumbering to the present hour without a go-a-head principle of any kind, and which has nevertheless, by the accident of situation, had railway greatness thrust upon it in a most extraordinary manner.

PETERBOROUGH is one of the centres from which radiate three lines to London, viz., by the Northampton route, on which we have travelled; by the direct line, through Herts, of the Great Northern; and by the Eastern Counties, with all its Norfolk communications. From Peterborough also proceeds an arm of the Midland Counties, through Stamford, Oldham, and Melton Mowbray, and the best Leicestershire gra.s.s country, to Leicester or to Nottingham,--while the Great Northern, dividing, embraces the whole of Lincolnshire and makes way to Hull, by the Humber ferries, on the one hand, and to York on the other. There is, therefore, the best of consolation on being landed in this dull inhospitable city, that it is the easiest possible thing to leave it.

Peterborough dates from the revival of Christianity among the Saxons; destroyed by the Danes A.D. 870, rebuilt by Edgar in 970, it was attacked and plundered by Saxon insurgents from the fens under Hereward the Wake, in the time of William the Conqueror. At the dissolution of religious houses under Henry VIII., Peterborough was one of the most magnificent abbeys, and, having been selected as the seat of one of the new bishoprics, the buildings were preserved entire. In the civil wars, the Lady Chapel and several conventual buildings were pulled down and the materials sold. At present the cathedral is a regular cruciform structure of Norman character, remarkable for the solidity of its construction.

It was commenced 1117, by John de Saiz, a Norman. The chancel was finished, A.D. 1140, by Abbot Martin de Vecti. The great transept and a portion of the central tower were built by Abbot William de Vaudeville, A.D. 1160 to 1175, and the nave by Abbot Benedict 1177-1193. The fitting up of the choir is of woodwork richly carved. The greater number of the monuments, shrines, and chantry chapels, were destroyed by the Parliamentary troops. Two queens lie buried here, Catherine of Aragon and Mary of Scotland, without elegy or epitaph, monument or tombstone.

The Cathedral viewed, nothing remains to detain the traveller in this peculiarly stupid city. Within a pleasant ride of five miles lies Milton House, the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam.

STAMFORD.--Although Stamford is not upon this line of railway, travellers pa.s.sing near should not fail to visit so ancient and interesting a town. Few English boroughs can trace back more distinctly their antiquity. Six churches still remain of the fifteen which, beside many conventual buildings, formerly adorned it. For Stamford was one of the towns which, had not the Reformation intervened, would have been swallowed up by the ever hungry ecclesiastical maw. Stamford awakens many historic recollections. It has a place in Domesday Book, being there styled Stanford: King Stephen had an interview there with Ranulph, Earl of Chester. In 1190, the Jews of Stamford were plundered and slain by the recruits proceeding to the crusades; and, ten years afterwards, when Edward I. expelled the Jews from England, "their synagogue and n.o.ble library at Stamford were profaned and sold." Many of the books were purchased by Gregory of Huntingdon, a monk of Ramsey Abbey, a diligent student of ancient languages; and thus the result of much learning, collected in Spain and Italy, and handed down from the times when the Jews and Arabs almost alone cultivated literature as well as commerce, was sown in England, the last of European kingdoms to become distinguished in letters.

Stamford was the refuge of Oxford students on the occasion of disturbances in 1333. It was taken by the Lancastrian army of the North under Queen Margaret in 1461, and given up to plunder; and, in 1462, when thirty thousand Lincolnshire men marched, under the command of Sir Robert Wells, against Edward IV., under the walls of Stamford they were defeated, and, flying, left their coats behind. But the latest battles of Stamford have been between Whig and Tory, and even these have ceased.

The houses and public buildings are all built of a rich cream-coloured stone, which gives an air of cleanliness and even distinction, which is an immense advantage. There are two fine hotels. The borough returns two members, both nominated by the Marquis of Exeter, who owns a large proportion of the vote- giving houses. The bull-running has been abolished here, as also at Tutbury, in Staffordshire; but those who are curious to see the ceremony may have occasional opportunities in the neighbourhood of Smithfield market, where it is performed under the especial patronage of the aldermen of the city of London.

WEEDON.

The next station after Blisworth is Weedon, properly, Weedon Bec, so called because formerly there was established here a religious house, or cell, to the Abbey of Bec in Normandy. The Church, a very ancient building, contains portions of Norman, and various styles of English, architecture.

[BRIDGE IN THE BLISWORTH EMBANKMENT: ill9.jpg]

The importance of Weedon rests in its being the site of a strongly fortified central depot for artillery, small arms, and ammunition, with extensive barracks, well worth seeing, but not to be seen without an order from the Board of Ordnance. In pa.s.sing, a few mild soldiers may be seen fishing for roach in the ca.n.a.l, and a few active ones playing cricket in summer. The Weedon system of fortification eschews lofty towers and threatening battlemented walls, and all that const.i.tutes the picturesque; so that Weedon Barracks look scarcely more warlike than a royal rope manufactory.

After Weedon we pa.s.s through Kilsby Tunnel, 2,423 yards long, which was once one of the wonders of the world; but has been, by the progress of railway works, reduced to the level of any other long dark hole.

[VIEW FROM THE TOP OF KILSBY TUNNEL: ill10.jpg]

RUGBY AND ITS RAILWAYS.

Rugby, 83 miles from London, the centre of a vast network of railways, is our next halting place.

That is to say, First, an arm of the Midland to Leicester, to Burton, to Derby, to Nottingham, and through Melton Mowbray to Stamford and Peterborough; thus intersecting a great agricultural and a great manufacturing district.

Second, the Trent Valley Line, through Atherstone, Tamworth and Lichfield, to Stafford, and by cutting off the Birmingham curve, forming part of the direct line to Manchester.

Third, A line to Leamington, which may be reached from this point in three- quarters of an hour; and fourth, a direct line to Stamford, by way of Market Harborough; which, with the Leamington line, affords the most direct conveyance from Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, through Peterborough to Birmingham, Gloucester, and all that midland district.

The Oxford and Rugby Line, which was one of the subjects of the celebrated Battles of the Gauges, has not been constructed; and it may be doubted whether it ever will.

The town lies about a mile from the station on the banks of the Avon, and owes all its importance to Laurence Sheriff, a London shopkeeper in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who, in 1567, endowed a school in his native village with eight acres of land, situated where Lamb's Conduit-street, in London, now stands, whence at present upwards of 5000 pounds a year is derived.

Rugby was long considered the most sn.o.bbish of English public schools, a sad character in a country where style and name go so far. Some twenty years ago, when the Rugbaeans had the "presumption" to challenge the Wykehamists to play at football, the latter proudly answered, that the Rugbaeans might put on worsted stockings and clouted soles, and the Wykehamists in silk stockings and pumps would meet them in any lane in England. But, since that time, the Harrow gentlemen, the Eton fops, the Winchester scholars, and the Westminster blackguards, have had reason to admit that Arnold, a Wykehamist, long considered by the fellows of that venerable inst.i.tution an unworthy son, succeeded in making Rugby the great nursery of sound scholars and Christian gentlemen, and in revolutionizing and reforming the educational system of all our public schools.

The following, by one of Arnold's pupils, himself an eminent example of cultivated intellect and varied information, combined with great energy in the practical affairs of life and active untiring benevolence, is a sketch of

"ARNOLD AND HIS SCHOOL."

In the year 1827, the head mastership became vacant of the Grammar School at Rugby, and the trustees, a body of twelve country gentlemen and n.o.blemen, selected, to the dismay of all the orthodox, the Rev. Thomas Arnold, late fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and then taking private pupils at Laleham, Middles.e.x. Transplanted from Oriel, the hotbed of strange and unsound opinions, out of which the conflicting views of Whateley, Hampden, Keble, and Newman, were struggling into day; himself a disciple of the suspected school of German criticism; known to entertain views at variance with the majority of his church brethren on all the semipolitical questions of the day; an advocate for the admission of Roman Catholics to Parliament, for the reform of the Liturgy and enlargement of the Church, so as to embrace dissenters; the distrust with which he was regarded by all who did not know him may be imagined.

It was a critical time, the year 1827; the mind of the country was then undergoing that process of change which shortly afterwards showed itself in the emanc.i.p.ation of the Roman Catholics, the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill, the foundation of the London University, and the publications of the Useful Knowledge Society. Old opinions were on all sides the objects of attack. At such a period, public schools, with their exclusively cla.s.sical teaching and their "f.a.gging" systems, were naturally regarded as inst.i.tutions of the past not adapted to the present. It seemed probable that a remodelling, or, according to the phrase of the day, a "reform" of them, would be attempted by the new intellectual school of which Lord Brougham was regarded as the type.

It was the views of this party which, it was antic.i.p.ated, Dr. Arnold would hasten to introduce into Rugby.

We now know that he did not do this, although he did reform not only the school of Rugby, but gave a bias to the education of the sons of what is still the most influential cla.s.s in this country, which has lasted to the present day, and that in a direction and in a manner which surprised his opponents, and at one time provoked even his friends.

It may not be uninteresting to such of our readers as love to trace the origin of those changes of opinion, which are at times seen to diffuse themselves over portions of society from an unseen source, to learn how this original man commenced his task of training the minds committed to him in those peculiar tendencies, both as to feeling and thinking, which enter appreciably into the tone of the upper cla.s.ses of the present generation.

Dr. Arnold, from the day on which he first took charge of the school, adopted the course which he ever after adhered to, of treating the boys like gentlemen and reasonable beings. Thus, on receiving from an offender an answer to any question he would say, "If you say so, of course I believe you," and on this he would act. The effect of this was immediate and remarkable; the better feeling of the school was at once touched; boys declared, "It is a shame to tell Arnold a lie, because he always believes you;" and thus, at one bold step, the axe was put to the root of the inveterate practice of lying to the master, one of the curses of schools. In pursuance of the same views, when reprimanding a boy, he generally took him apart and spoke to him in such a manner as to make him feel that his master was grieved and troubled at his wrong-doing; a quakerlike simplicity of mien and language, a sternness of manner not unmixed with tenderness, and a total absence of all "don-ish" airs, combined to produce this effect. Nor were his personal habits without their effect. The boys saw in him no outward appearance of a solemn pedagogue or dignified ecclesiastic whom it was a temptation to dupe, or into whose ample wig javelins of paper might with impunity be darted; but a spare active determined man, six feet high, in duck trousers, a narrow-brimmed hat, a black sailor's handkerchief knotted round his neck, a heavy walking-stick in his hand,--a strong swimmer, a noted runner; the first of all the masters in the school-room on the winter mornings, teaching the lowest cla.s.s when it was his turn with the same energy which he would have thrown into a lecture to a critical audience, listening with interest to an intelligent answer from the smallest boy, and speaking to them more like an elder brother than the head master. {67} They soon perceived that they had to deal with a man thoroughly in earnest, acute, active, and not easily deceived; that he was not only a scholar but a gentleman, who expected them to behave as the sons of gentlemen themselves.

Their attention was awakened, and, although their fears were somewhat excited, their sympathies and interest were at the same time aroused. This was a good commencement; but Arnold was ready with other means no less effectual for engaging their thoughts. He opened out to them at once "fresh fields and pastures new," in the domain of knowledge; he established periodical examinations, at which (if a tolerable proficiency in the regular studies was displayed) a boy might offer to be examined in books on any subject he might prefer, and prizes were awarded accordingly. The offer was eagerly seized; modern history, biography, travels, fiction, poetry, were sought after; the habit of general reading was created, and a new intellectual activity pervaded the school. The writer well remembers the effect produced on him when he heard that Arnold had lent one of the boys Humphrey Clinker, to ill.u.s.trate a pa.s.sage in his theme. He felt from that time forth that the keys of knowledge were confided to him, and, in proof of this, his own little library, and those in the "studies" of many of his neighbours, shortly doubled their numbers. French, German, and mathematics, were encouraged by forming distinct cla.s.ses on these subjects, and by conferring for high standing in them some of the privileges as to exemption from f.a.gging, which previously had only attached to a similar standing in cla.s.sics. Modern history was also introduced as a recognised branch of school study. The advantage of this was, that many of the boys, who, from deficient early training or peculiar turn of mind, were unable to bring themselves to proficiency in the regular Latin and Greek course of the school, and consequently were idle and listless, found other and more congenial paths in which intelligence and application would still meet with their reward.

By these simple means, now generally adopted in cla.s.sical schools, but up to that time supposed to be incompatible with high accomplishments in cla.s.sical learning, the standard of intelligence and information was incalculably raised, and the school, as a place of education in its wider sense, became infinitely more efficient.