The Evolution of an English Town Part 6

The country having received the full fury of William's wrath very slowly recovered its prosperity under Norman rulers. On the slope of the hills all the way from Scarborough to Helmsley, castles began to make their appearance, and st.u.r.dy Norman churches were built in nearly every village.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The South Side of the Nave of Pickering Church.]

The arches on the north side are of much simpler Norman work. The nearest painting shows the story of the legendary St Katherine of Alexandria.

[Copyright is reserved by Dr John L Kirk.]

The great Norman keep of Scarborough Castle with its shattered side still frowns above the holiday crowds of that famous seaside resort, but of the other strongholds of the district built in this castle-building age it is not easy to speak with certainty. But the evidences of Norman work are fairly plain at Pickering Castle, and there seems little doubt that a fortress of some strength was built at this important point to overawe the inhabitants. Mr G.T. Clark in his "Mediaeval Military Architecture"[1] says that he considers Pickering Castle to represent "one great type of Anglo-Norman fortress--that is, a castle of Norman masonry upon an English earthwork, for the present walls, if not Norman, are unquestionably laid on Norman lines." He thinks that the earthworks would be taken possession of and fortified either late in the eleventh or early in the twelfth century, and that the keep, the chief part of the curtain walls, and the Norman door near the northwest corner are remains of this building. The gateways may be Norman or they may belong to the time of Richard II. (1377-99) but Mr Clark inclines to the earlier date. It is possible that the Norman doorway just mentioned may have been an entrance to one of the towers mentioned by Leland but now completely lost sight of.

The architrave has a beaded angle ornamented with pointed arches repeated, and if it is of late Norman date it is the only part of the castle which Mr Clark considers to be "distinctly referable to that period."

[Footnote 1: George T. Clark: "Mediaeval Military Architecture in England,"

p.372.]

There is no doubt at all that the arcades of the present nave of Pickering church, were built at this time, and the lower part of the tower is also of Norman date. The north arcade is earlier than that on the south side, having perfectly plain semi-circular arches and ma.s.sive columns with fluted capitals. On the south the piers are much more ornate, the contrast being very plainly seen in the photograph reproduced here.

To have necessitated such a s.p.a.cious church at this time, Pickering must have been a populous town; possibly it grew on account of the safety afforded by the castle, and it seems to indicate the importance of the place in the time of the Norman kings.

One of the most complete little Norman churches in Yorkshire is to be seen at Salton, a village about six miles south-west of Pickering. It appears to have been built at the beginning of the twelfth century, and afterwards to have suffered from fire, parts of the walls by their redness showing traces of having been burnt. A very thorough restoration has given the building a rather new aspect, but this does not detract from the interest of the church. The chancel arch is richly ornamented with two patterns of zig-zag work, the south door of the nave has a peculiar decoration of double beak-heads, and though some of the early windows have been replaced by lancets, a few of the Norman slits remain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The South Doorway of the Norman Church of Salton. It is ornamented with very curious double beak-heads. In the upper corners are given two of the curious corbels on the south side of the nave.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Curious Ornament in the Norman Chancel Arch at Ellerburne.

The crude carving suggests Saxon work, and it was possibly the production of Saxon masons under Norman supervision.]

Middleton church has already been mentioned as containing what appears to be a Saxon doorway in the tower. This may have been saved from an earlier building together with the lower part of the tower, but if it did not come into existence before the conquest the tower and nave were built in early Norman times. The south arcade probably belongs to the latest phase of Transitional Norman architecture, if not the commencement of the early English period. Running along the west and north walls of the north aisle is a stone bench, an unusual feature even in Norman churches.

Ellerburne church has some very interesting Norman work in the chancel arch. The ornament is so crude that it would seem as though very primitive Saxon workmen had been working under Norman influence, for, while the masonry is plainly of the Norman period, the ornament appears to belong to an earlier time. There must have been a church at Normanby at this period, for the south door of the present building is Norman. Sinnington church also belongs to this time. The Norman chancel arch was taken down many years ago, but the stones having been preserved in the church it was found possible to replace them in their original position at the Restoration in 1904. There are remains of three doorways including the blocked one at the west end. The south doorway is Transitional Norman, and is supposed to have been added about 1180. The porch and present chancel belong to the thirteenth century, but during the Restoration some interesting relics of the earlier Norman chancel were discovered in the walls of the fabric that replaced it. A small stone coffin containing human remains with several wild boars' tusks and a silver wire ring was found in the nave.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Transitional Norman Crypt under the Chancel of Lastingham Church. It is a complete little underground church, having nave, apse, and aisles.]

Lastingham church as it now stands is only part of the original Transitional Norman church, for there are evidences that the nave extended to the west of the present tower which was added in the fifteenth century.

It appears that the western part of the nave was destroyed or injured not many years after its erection, and that the eastern part was repaired in early English times. The chancel with its vaulted roof and circular apse, and the crypt beneath, are of the same date as the original nave, and though the capitals of the low columns in the crypt might be thought to be of earlier work, expert opinion places them at the same Transitional Norman date. The crypt has a nave, apse and aisles, and is therefore a complete little underground church. Semi-circular arches between the pillars support the plain vaulting only a few feet above one's head, and the darkness is such that it requires a little time to be able to see the foliage and interlaced arches of the capitals surmounting the squat columns.

At Brompton the Perpendicular church contains evidences of the building of this period that once existed there, in the shape of four Norman capitals, two of them built into the east wall of the south aisle and two in the jambs of the chancel arch. In the ma.s.sive walls of the lower part of the tower there may also be remains of the Norman building.

At the adjoining village of Snainton the old church was taken down in 1835, but the Norman stones of the south doorway of the nave have been re-erected, and now form an arch in an adjoining wall. The font of the same period having been found in a garden, was replaced in the church on a new base in 1893. In Edstone church the Norman font, with a simple arcade pattern running round the circular base, is still to be seen, and at Levisham the very plain chancel arch mentioned in the preceding chapter is also of Norman work. Allerston church has some pieces of zig-zag ornament built into the north wall, and Ebberston church has a slit window on the north side of the chancel, and the south door built in Norman times. The nave arcade at Ebberston may belong to the Transitional Norman period and the font also.

Most of the churches in the neighbourhood of Pickering are, therefore, seen to have either been built in the Norman age or to possess fragments of the buildings that were put up in that period. The difficulty of preventing the churches from being too cold was met in some degree by having no windows on the north side as at Sinnington, and those windows that faced the other cardinal points were sufficiently small to keep out the extremes of temperature.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Norman font at Edstone.]

The written records belonging to the Norman period of the history of Pickering seem to have largely disappeared, so that with the exception of the Domesday Book, and a few stray references to people or places in this locality, we are largely dependent on the buildings that have survived those tempestuous years.

Pickering appears to have been a royal possession during the whole of this time, and it is quite probable that the Norman kings hunted in the forest and lodged with their Courts in the castle, for a writ issued by Henry I.

is dated at Pickering.

CHAPTER VIII

_The Forest and Vale in the Time of the Plantagenets_

A.D. 1154 to 1485

The story of these three centuries is told to a most remarkable extent in the numerous records of the Duchy of Lancaster relating to the maintenance of the royal Forest of Pickering. They throw a clear light on many aspects of life at Pickering, and by picking out some of the more picturesque incidents recorded we may see to what extent the severe forest laws kept in check the poaching element in the neighbourhood. We can also discover some incidents in connection with the visits of some of the English kings to the royal forest of Pickering, as well as matters relating to the repair of the castle.

In the Parliament of 1295, in Edward I.'s reign, Pickering, for the first and only occasion, sent representatives to the national a.s.sembly. The parliamentary return states[1] that the persons returned on that occasion were

Robertus Turc.o.c.k Robertus Turc.o.c.k,

but whether this is a mistake by the recorder or whether two men of the same name were returned is uncertain.

[Footnote 1: G.R. Park, "The Parliamentary Representation of Yorkshire, 1886," pp. 266 and 283.]

Among the High Sheriffs of Yorkshire in the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries were

1390 Richard II. Jacobus de Pykering.

1394 " " "

1398 " " "

1432 Henry VI. Sir Richard de Pykering.

1450 " Sir James de Pykering knt.

In 1311 Johannes de Cropton was one of the members for Scarborough in Edward II.'s Parliament of that year.

Pickering was held as royal property by William the Conqueror, and with a few short intervals it has remained crown property until the present day.

It is therefore no matter for surprise to find that several of the Plantagenet kings came to hunt in the forest. It appears to have been a royal possession in the time of Henry I., and also in February 1201, when King John visited the castle,[1] for a charter granted by him to the nuns of Wykeham is dated at Pickering. In 1248 William Lord d'Acre was made keeper of the castle, but towards the close of his reign Henry III.

(1216-1272) gave the castle, manor, and forest of Pickering to his son Edmund Crouchback, and from him the property has descended through the Lancastrian branch of the royal family, so that it now forms part of the possessions of the Duchy of Lancaster.

[Footnote 1: Young's "History of Whitby," vol. ii. p. 733.]

From other records we find that King John was also at Pickering for at least a day in August 1208 and in March 1210.

In 1261 Pickering Castle was held against Henry III. by Hugh le BiG.o.d, and some of the wardrobe accounts of the reign of Edward II. have reference to a visit to Pickering. The place must have had painful memories for the king in connection with the capture of his favourite Piers Gaveston at Scarborough Castle in 1312. This visit was, however, separated from that fateful event by eleven years.

"3 August 1323, at Pickering. Paid to William Hunt, the King's huntsman, by way of gift at the direction of Harsike--1; to Agnes, wife of Roger de Mar, porter of the chamber, gift--10s.: to Guillot de la Pittere, groom of the Queen's chamber, gift--1; to Dighton Wawayn, valet of Robert Wawayn, carrying letters from his master to the king, gift--2s. To John, son of Ibote of Pickering, who followed the king a whole day when he hunted the stag in Pickering chase, gift by order--10s.; to Walter de Seamer, Mariner, keeper of the ship called the Magdalen, of which Cook atte Wose was master, a gift, the money being given to John Harsike to give him-- 1.

"23 August, at Egginton, on Blakey Moor. Paid to Sir Roger de Felton, Knight of the King's Chamber, for his ransom at the time when he was taken by the Scots at Rievaulx in company with the Earl of Richmond, in October, 1322, a gift by the hands of John Harsike, who delivered the money to Sir Roger in the King's presence, 100.

"To Edmund Dorney, the King's palfrey man, who always followed the King when he hunted--1.

"31 August, at Glascowollehouse. Paid to Ernest, running footman of Sir Robert del Idle, who carried letters to the King, a gift 6s. 8d.; to Dan Thomas de Broghton, monk of Rievaulx, to buy him a coat, a gift--10s."

The entries show that the king journeyed to Whorlton Castle to stay with Nicholas de Meynell. He seems to have gone by way of Lockton and Spaunton Moor, and appears to have stayed a night at Danby. The accounts mention an amount paid on September 1st to certain foresters' servants who set the king's nets to take roe-deer in Whorlton Park, and we also discover that the day's sport was varied by the singing of Alice the red-haired and Alice de Whorlton, who gave "Simon de Montfort" and other songs before the king, and received a gift of 4s.

The poor of Pickering profited by the royal visits. Here are two items in the accounts.

"26 September [1323] at Skipton. Paid, by order of the King, to Lorchon Sewer alms distributed by the King at Pickering--3d."