The Forest of Dean: An Historical and Descriptive Account Part 13

Ere long it acquired the dignity of a mitred abbey, though never of a peeral one, its abbot being summoned to Parliament 21st Edward III.

During the reign of Richard II. these additional grants were made to it:--"Certain tenements in Leye, Bosteley, and Rodley; the manor and impropriate church of Flaxley; the manors of Blaisdon, Newnham, and Ruerdean; distinct manors in the parishes of Dean Parva, Dymock, and Arlingham, with a house in Abbenhall." A doc.u.ment in the Chapter-house at Westminster, dated 10th Edward II., has the abbot's seal attached, representing an abbot standing erect with his crosier under a canopy slightly ornamented, with the legend S . ABBATIS . DE . FLAXLE. The counter seal is a hand with a crosier, and other ornaments, viz., a fleur-de-lis, &c., surrounded by the words CONTRA SIGILLUM ABBATIS DE FLAXLE. The names and dates of the following abbots have been preserved:--

Elected.

1288 Nicholas.

1314 William de Rya.

1372 Richard Peyta.

1509 John ---.

1528 William Beawdley.

1532 Thomas Ware.

The last of these, Thomas Ware, survived the suppression of the house and the dispersion of its brethren, of whom there were nine at that time, the abbey being delivered up to the King's Commissioners in 1541, valued at 112 pounds 13s. 1d., according to Dugdale. Tintern Abbey was suppressed four years previously. Ware retired to Aston Rowant, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, where he spent the rest of his life in seclusion, and was there buried in 1546.

The vicissitudes of 300 years have left little of the original structure remaining: only in 1788 the pavement of the Chapter-house was discovered at a small depth, on the east side of the refectory, extending about 45 feet, and 24 wide. At the upper end a circular stone bench was exposed, and in the centre the carved base of a pillar. Several coffin-lids of stone were likewise found, sculptured with ornamented crosses, and upon one a hand and arm holding a crosier, under which probably one of the abbots was interred. The view of the abbey as it appeared about the year 1712, according to Sir R. Atkyns's print, exhibits traces of the ancient residence of the abbot and monks, respecting which the Rev. T. Rudge remarks--"It was low, but long in front, being 60 feet in length, 25 feet wide, and only 14 high; the whole arched with stone, and the vault intersected with plain and ma.s.sy ribs, and seems to have formed the refectory. The first floor contained a long gallery, and at the south end one very s.p.a.cious apartment which was supposed to have been the abbot's chief room. The dormitories or cells were connected with the great gallery."

[Picture: Stone coffin lids at Flaxley Abbey]

[Picture: The Refectory of Flaxley Abbey]

[Picture: Open Timber Roof of the Abbot's Room at Flaxley Abbey]

A further trace of the same period is also to be found at the head of one of the brooks feeding the stream which descends the Flaxley valley, called "St. Anthony's Well," and which, from its supposed medicinal properties, was until late years widely famed for curing cutaneous disorders, although under circ.u.mstances somewhat connected with the marvellous, its peculiar efficacy being combined with the rising of the sun, the month of May, and the visits to it being repeated nine times in succession. However, after due allowance for some exaggeration, there remains ample proof of the utility of its waters in removing diseases of the skin. The square basin or reservoir of stone immediately adjoining the head of the spring was made at the commencement of this century for the convenience of bathers, and occupies a very secluded position, overshadowed by a large beech-tree, and closed round with mossy banks.

The water is abundant in quant.i.ty, and contains iron and lime, derived from the strata through which it percolates. The general temperature is 50 degrees.

[Picture: St. Anthony's Well]

On the suppression of the Abbey in 1541, Henry VIII. granted it to Sir William Kingston, the Constable of the Tower of London, memorable as being the person to whom the dying Wolsey confessed--"If I had served G.o.d as diligently as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my gray hayres." Sir William dying in 1545, letters patent regranted to Anthony his son (who in consideration of his father's services was knighted on the occasion) "the site of the late Abbey, and all the church, bellhouse, and churchyard of the same, and all the houses, granges, &c., as well within as without the said site, and also all other the manors and granges of Flaxley, Howle, G.o.derith, Climperwell, Wolmore, Blaisdon, Aclingham, Le Rouhen, Ruardene, Newland, Dene Parva, Newnham, Pulton, and Dymock, with their rights in the county of Gloucester, and the house and manor of Rochilburgh in the county of Somerset, belonging to the same; and all advocations, presentations, &c., of the said parishes at any time appurtenant to the said monastery," subject to the yearly payment of 1 pound 8s. 2d. In the third year of Edward VI. he accompanied Lord Russell as Provost Marshal of the army sent against the Western rebels, in which capacity his great severity obtained for him the epithet from Fuller of "the terrible Provost Marshal." His name occurs on the roll of High Sheriffs for the county in the year 1549. In 1555 Queen Mary appointed him one of the commissioners to see execution done upon that excellent prelate and martyr Bishop Hooper, by whom he had been formerly admonished for gross immorality, and forced to submit and do penance, as well as pay a fine of 500 pounds.

It is not surprising to find him a vigorous opponent in parliament of the Queen's effort for restoring to the religious establishments the property of which they had been deprived. So strongly was he opposed to this, that on one occasion he seized the keys of the House from the serjeant, for which he was committed to the Tower, although upon his humble submission he was afterwards discharged. The next year he was supposed, and not without reason, to be involved in a plot to rob the Exchequer of 50,000 pounds, and therewith to raise a rebellion; but it was discovered, and all the conspirators were executed except Sir A. Kingston, who perhaps only escaped by dying on his road to London, whither he was summoned to appear before the Council. By his will, dated 27th of April, 1 Edw. VI., he entailed his several manors and estates on his sons, Anthony and Edmund. Anthony died without issue, having in 1591 leased the Grange estate to one William Brain and others of Little Dean, for 370 years, of which an annual acknowledgment of 6 pounds continues to be paid by its present holders, and Edmund succeeded to all the Kingston property. He left two sons, Anthony and George, the former of whom died in 1594, leaving by his will his sons Edmund and George joint executors and heirs. George died in the year 1647, intestate, seized of the Collect (Gawlet?) woods, in the parish of Flaxley, and was father of Anthony.

It is said by Sir R. Atkyns that there was a monument to George Kingston in the chancel of the original church of the parish, inscribed as follows:--

"Mar. 4, 1644.

"Vixi dum vellem, moriebar tempore grato Et sic vita mihi mors quoque grata fuit."

"Kings have stones on them when they die, And here Kingstone under a stone doth lie; Nor Prince, nor Peer, nor any mortal wight, Can shun Death's dart--Death still will have his right.

O then bethink to what you all must trust, At last to die, and come to judgment just."

There are no traces of any such monument now, and it was therefore probably destroyed when the church was rebuilt about 1730.

The Kingstons took no part apparently in the contests which occurred in the neighbourhood between the Royalists and Parliamentarians, but confined their attention to their own affairs and the management of their iron-works. The only member of the family who suffered was a Sir Francis Crawley, who, about the year 1642-3, was deposed for a judgment in favour of the King on the question of ship-money, or something of a similar kind. The family possess one of King Charles's rings as a memento of such a decision. Edmund died in 1621, and was father of William, who, pursuant to his father Edmund's will, made a settlement between himself, William, and James Boevey on one part, and William Jones, of Na.s.s, on the other. He left an only son, Anthony, who, having no issue, disposed of the estate to Abraham Clarke, Esq., who died here in 1683, as also his wife Joana, from whose son Abraham, dying in 1682, it pa.s.sed, in virtue of certain complex devises, to a near relative, William Boevey, Esq. Mr.

Boevey married Catharina (in her sixteenth year), daughter of John Riches, Esq., an affluent London merchant. She was left at the age of twenty-two a widow, which she inexorably remained until her death, on the 3rd January, 1726, in her fifty-seventh year, leaving a name for benevolence and ability which the neighbourhood venerates to this day.

Dr. Geo. Hickes calls her, in the preface to his 'Thesaurus,' published in 1702-3, "praestantissima et honestissima matrona Catharine Bovey," and was most probably one of her personal friends, agreeably to a traditionary account in the family, that "she was very friendly to the nonjuring clergy, and that she had frequently received and protected them."

There are several pictures of clergymen at Flaxley, which have always been believed to be portraits of Mrs. Boevey's nonjuring friends.

Amongst these are two in episcopal habits, one of which is ascertained to be the portrait of the deprived Dr. Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester, since an exactly similar painting exists in the Palace at Gloucester. Flaxley is mentioned as her residence by Sir R. Atkyns in 1712, where, he tells us, "she hath an handsome house and pleasant gardens, and a great estate, a furnace for casting of iron, and three forges," as also appears by Kip's view of it. In 1714 Steele dedicated to her the second volume of 'The Ladies' Library,' the frontispiece to which Mr. Kerslake describes as "representing a young lady, dressed in widow's weeds, opening a book upon a table, on which also lies a skull; her admirers, in long wigs and swords, are thronging round the door." In one of his letters to Lady Steele, dated the 17th January, 1717, he writes--"I have yours in a leaf of the widow's." Such incidents seem to prove that this highly-gifted lady was the original of the character so graphically delineated by Steele in his description of "the perverse widow." The numbers of the 'Spectator' in which she is introduced generally bear his name, and she probably was more intimate with him than with Addison (although both are said to have visited the Abbey), since he would naturally pa.s.s near Flaxley whenever he travelled between London and his house at Llangunnor, near Caermarthen. Nothing less than such a familiar acquaintance could have enabled him to give so exact and real a description of her as occurs in No. 113.

In Ballard's 'Ladies,' first printed in 1752, and on her monument in Westminster Abbey and in Flaxley Church, her more public virtues are displayed; but the value of her home life, which many of the poor Foresters had experienced in her bounties, is best related in the words of her faithful attendant, Mrs. Rachel Vergo, "who always waited particularly on her mistress, and was the only servant who sat up, as she spent an hour or two every night in her closet. She did the same in the morning, and was a very early riser. Mrs. Vergo had the care of the family under Mrs. Mary Pope, a relation of Mrs. Bovey, who came for a visit of a month, and stayed nearly forty years. The regularity and economy in the family was great. The maids were kept to work till eight o'clock at night, and the rest was their own time. Mrs. Bovey frequently called for her charity account book to see if it kept pace with her expenses in dress, which was always very handsome. Mrs. Vergo was often sent to Ross and Mitcheldean to buy materials to make garments for the poor. The old table-linen and sheets were made into childbed linen, which, together with shirts and shifts of all sizes, were kept in a closet. It was Mrs. Vergo's business to give them out as her lady ordered. Two ladies came to visit Mrs. Pope at the time the epidemic fever raged in Gloucestershire in 1719. One of them, Mrs. Cowling, died of it at the Abbey. The other, Mrs. Grace Butler, agreed with Mrs. Bovey and Mrs. Pope all to lie in the same vault with the deceased. The vault was built accordingly in Flaxley churchyard. Mrs. Bovey died first at the Abbey, and was laid by her friend. Mrs. Pope was brought from Twickenham in Surrey, and Mrs. Grace Butler twenty years afterwards from Worminghurst in Suss.e.x. Every afternoon during her lady's life Mrs.

Vergo was ordered to wear a silk gown. Six of the poor children who were kept at school at Flaxley dined by turns regularly every Sunday at the Abbey, when Mrs. Bovey heard them say their Catechism. She was very often in the habit of lending money to poor clergymen, which was frequently repaid to her in small sums, but more often given to them.

She did the same, too, by other distressed people whom she believed to be honest and industrious. During the Christmas holidays before Mrs. Bovey died she had the thirty children who were taught at her expense, to dine at the Abbey upon beef and pudding. Mrs. Vergo sat at the head of the table, and two of the housemaids waited upon them. After dinner Mrs.

Bovey had them all into the parlour, where she was sitting dressed in white and silver. She showed them her clothes and her jewels, talked pleasantly and with great good nature to them, and having given to each of them sixpence she dismissed them. When they left her they had a harp and fiddle playing in the great hall, where they danced two hours and went away in good time. When Mrs. Bovey was dressing before dinner she said to Mrs. Vergo, 'Rachel, you will be surprised that I put such fine clothes on to-day; but I think that these poor children will remember me the longer for it.' She was then to all appearance very well, but she died that very day month of a bowel complaint."--"Upon Wednesday morning," wrote Mr. MacBarrow, "she was as well at breakfast as usual; between eleven and twelve she was seized with a most violent colic. We sent to Gloucester for Greville, as the nearest at hand; that night for Lane, but he was not to be met with. The extremity of pain continued, and, notwithstanding all means that could be used, nothing would pa.s.s.

She apprehended death approaching the first day, and said what her illness was: we sent to Oxford and Hereford, but no physician until it was too late. Upon Friday morning she had a little ease, which gave us great hopes; but very soon the exquisite pain returned, and never left her until death had performed its great office, betwixt eleven and twelve on Sat.u.r.day morning. She was sensible all along, and expressed great satisfaction in being here, where she said she always wished to die. She was buried in the same vault with Mrs. Cowling on 23rd January, 1726."--"Of her personal beauty," observes the Rev. C. Crawley, "although highly extolled, it really appears that very little can be said or seen, if we may form our opinions from the three portraits of her at Flaxley Abbey. They all represent a broad surface of a benevolent and good-natured countenance; and though they were evidently painted at different periods of her life, yet they bear so great a resemblance to each other that we may reasonably infer they were all good likenesses--in each of them the mole on the cheek has been defined with all due minuteness."

Mrs. Boevey bequeathed 1200 pounds to augment the living of Flaxley, the interest of 400 pounds to apprentice poor children, and a similar sum towards putting them out. Lastly she designed the rebuilding of the church, "which pious design was speedily executed by Mrs. Mary Pope."

This work was effected about the year 1730, but report says _not_ "speedily," as the parishioners found it necessary to inst.i.tute a suit in Chancery to secure its accomplishment. The site of the old chapel was retained, only the size was increased, if we may judge from the view that Sir R. Atkyns gives of the former building, which he says was "very small, and had a low wooden tower at the west end." Most of the old monuments were transferred to it, and the new church, although rather plain, was "peculiarly neat" and substantial. Upon Mrs. Boevey's death the estate pa.s.sed by will to Thomas Crawley, Esq., of London, merchant, in tail male, upon the condition of adding the name of Boevey to Crawley.

Thomas, a lineal descendant, succeeded to the baronetage on the death of Sir Charles Barrow in January, 1789, by limitation of the patent. {189} Part of the mansion having been destroyed by fire, it was rebuilt by him in 1777, with extensive additions. This house yet remains, and is a capacious structure.

[Picture: The original Chapel at Flaxley, as it appeared in 1712]

"The iron manufactory," writes Rev. T. Rudge, at the beginning of this century, "is still carried on, and the metal is esteemed peculiarly good; but its goodness does not arise from any extraordinary qualities in the ore, but from the practice of working the furnace and forges with charcoal wood, without any mixture of pit coal. The quant.i.ty of charcoal required is so considerable, that the furnace cannot be kept in blow or working more than nine months successively, the wheels which work the bellows and hammers being turned by a powerful stream of water. At this time (Oct. 28, 1802) a cessation has taken place for nearly a year.

Lancashire ore, which is brought to Newnham by sea, furnishes the princ.i.p.al supply; the mine found in the Forest being either too scanty to answer the expense of raising it, or when raised too difficult of fusion, and consequently too consumptive of fuel, to allow the common use of it."

Since then so great a change has been effected in the mode of reducing the ore, that several tons of the Lancashire mine yet remain unused near the spot where the Flaxley furnace stood, the Forest ore readily yielding to the treatment it now receives in the blast furnaces of the district.

"When the furnace is at work, about twenty tons a week are reduced to pig iron; in this state it is carried to the forges, where about eight tons a week are hammered out into bars, ploughshares, &c., ready for the smith."

The aged people of the neighbourhood well remember when the Flaxley furnaces were in blast, and tell of the ancient cinders and pickings of the old mine-holes being taken down to them. With their disuse the former mode of manufacturing iron ceased in the district. The furnace buildings have been long removed, and the pools drained in which the water acc.u.mulated for driving the machinery.

[Picture: Flaxley Church, and Abbey in the distance]

Thus the "Castiard Vale" is once more devoted wholly to the picturesque, with the most pleasing effect, its beauty being yet further enhanced by a well-placed and exquisitely designed church, erected a few yards to the west of the one built by Mrs. Pope, after the designs of G. G. Scott, Esq., in the Early Decorated style of pointed architecture. {191} It comprises a richly ornamented chancel, nave, and north aisle, and a tower surmounted with a broach spire. There is churchroom for about 300 of the poor Foresters dwelling on Pope's Hill, as well as for the inhabitants of the parish. It was consecrated on the 18th of September, 1856, by Dr.

Baring, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, who preached on the occasion from Eccl. v. 1, most of the surrounding gentry attending, and fifty of the clergy. The present school-room was built in 1840, and accommodates sixty scholars.

CHAPTER XII.

The Forest roads and railways--Vestiges of some very ancient roads, apparently Roman--The old "crooked, winding, and cross ways," when no wheeled vehicles were allowed in the Forest--The original road across the Forest from Gloucester to Monmouth--Roads, first improvement in 1761--Road Act of 1795 carried into effect--Mitcheldean a post town--Roads further improved in 1828 and 1841--their present state and extent--The tramroads and railways of the Forest.

Unusually perfect remains of very ancient roads still exist in various parts of the Forest, resembling those made by the Romans, being slightly raised above the general level of the ground, and carefully pitched with large block stones, not unfrequently a foot square. The most remarkable of these is found along the vale below Puttern Edge, and called "Dean's Road," where the pitching remains in many places, being about eight feet in width. Although no coins have been found near it, yet its direction, indicating a connexion between the old iron-works above Sowdley, and the neighbourhood of Lydney, suggests that it was used in ancient times when the minerals of the district were carried from place to place on packhorses. Another road, yet traceable, gives the name of "Kymin"

(Chemin) to a hill opposite Monmouth, the slopes of which it ascends in the direction of the Forest; and a third is partially preserved in a lane leading amongst the cottages at Little Dean's Woodside: it is called by the inhabitants "the Causeway," being yet partly paved, and uniting with another road, which is still in places formed of large stones.

The "crooked, winding, and cross-ways," which are said by Camden to have existed in the Forest, and to have rendered it a place of refuge for n.o.ble fugitives, were those paths which penetrated its depths, having their direction turned and rendered perplexing through the frequent interposition of streams, bogs, and thickets. Such were the means of communication which for many generations served the purposes of the Foresters, who permitted no wheeled vehicles to enter their domain, and possessed few if any themselves.

One high road, nearly identical with the present line between Monmouth and Mitcheldean, seems to have sufficed for the neighbourhood during at least 200 years. It was in use in the age of Elizabeth, a silver penny of that reign having been found on it, between Nailbridge and Harrow Hill. By this road Lord Herbert must have marched his army of 500 horse and 1500 foot towards Gloucester in 1643, as likewise Sir W. Waller a month later when pursued by Prince Maurice, and most probably Colonel Ma.s.sey took the same route more than once. It seems also to be alluded to in the following suggestion made to Sir R. Atkyns, as Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, by a committee appointed in 1692 to inquire into the state of the Forest, with the view of securing its better government and preservation. They proposed that "a Justice-seat should be held once a year, for six or seven years, during the long vacation, within the said Forest, or not very remote from it, which might be done by deputation from the Lord Chief Justice in Eyre to some of their Majesties' Justices of a.s.size going in their _ordinary circuits from Gloucester to Monmouth_." Their journey was of course made on horseback, the usage being still continued, which the father of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon permitted him to adopt, when he gave him "leave to ride the circuit in the summer with his uncle the Chief Justice." An old house at the foot of the Plump Hill, near Mitcheldean, called "the Judges' Lodgings,"

because they made it their resting-place as they pa.s.sed that way, seems confirmatory of the above suggestion.

The first mention of any sum being spent on the improvement of the Forest roads, occurs about the time that the trees planted in 1668 would be growing into timber fit for the Royal dockyards, and requiring therefore facilities for removal to the water-side. Hence, between 1761 and 1786, upwards of 11,305 pounds 1s. 10d. was laid out on them. Mr. Thomas Blunt, the Deputy Surveyor of the Forest, stated in 1788, in explanation of such an outlay, "That there are two great roads leading across the Forest, which have been made and kept in repair by the produce of timber felled and sold for that purpose, and on which by far the greater part of the expense for roads has been bestowed; the one enters the Forest at Mitcheldean, and proceeds quite across the Forest to Coleford, the other leads from Little Dean to Coleford. These two roads have been made chiefly with a view to the convenience of the public, being the princ.i.p.al roads from Gloucester to South Wales; neither of which roads, nor others which have been made and amended at a considerable expense to the Crown, are any way conducive to the preservation of the Forest, as they are but of little use in the conveyance of timber felled for the use of the Navy, the Navy timber in general being carried by a distinct road leading from the Forest towards Blakeney, which induces him to believe that the roads lately made are disadvantageous to the Forest, more carts and waggons having been used since the making of the roads in the fetching and carrying away of coal, greater quant.i.ties of timber being used in the coalworks, and much more timber secretly conveyed away under the coal than heretofore; which practice he believes might in a great measure be prevented by the erecting of turnpike gates on the roads, the tolls whereof would be fully sufficient to keep the roads in necessary repair."

But the Forest roads were still in so execrable a condition, being impa.s.sable in the winter, and at other times perilous to the heavily laden coal waggons and horses, always requiring large teams, according to the unanimous testimony of the oldest residents, that a further outlay on them, to the amount of 10,645 pounds, took place in carrying out the provisions of the Act pa.s.sed in 1795 "for amending, widening, improving, and keeping in repair several roads in and through His Majesty's Forest of Dean, and the waste lands thereto belonging, in the county of Gloucester, and for turning, altering, and changing the course of the said roads, and for making several new roads in the said Forest to lead to certain places in and near the same; and also for amending, widening, and keeping in repair certain roads leading from the said Forest to and through several parts of the parish of Newland adjoining the Forest, in the said county of Gloucester." Mr. Surveyor Brimner states, that at a meeting of the Verderers of the Forest, and the Roads Trustees, held at Newnham, 22nd April, 1796, the following roads were appointed to be put in repair:--

From Mitcheldean to Coleford Lane End.

,, St. White's ,, ,, ,, Coleford ,, Viney Hill.

,, Viney Hill ,, Purton Pa.s.sage.

,, Miry Stock ,, Lydbrook.

,, Perry Grove ,, Clearwell.

,, The Bea.r.s.e ,, Bream.