Yorkshire Part 4

From down below comes the sound of the river, ceaselessly chafing its rocky bottom and the big boulders that lie in the way. You can distinguish the hollow sound of the waters as they fall over ledges into deep pools, and you can watch the silvery gleams of broken water between the old stone bridge and the dark shade of the woods. The ma.s.ses of trees clothing the side of the gorge add a note of mystery to the picture by swallowing up the river in their heavy shade, for, owing to its sinuous course among the cliffs, one can see only a short piece of water beyond the bridge.

The old corner of the town at the foot of Bargate appears over the edge of the rocky slope, but on the opposite side of the Swale there is little to be seen beside the green meadows and shady coppices that cover the heights above the river.

There is a fascination in this view in its capacity for change. It responds to every mood of the weather, and every sunset that glows across the sombre woods has some freshness, some feature that is quite unlike any other. Autumn, too, is a memorable time for those who can watch the face of Nature from this spot, for when one of those opulent evenings of the fall of the year turns the sky into a golden sea of glory, studded with strange purple islands, there is unutterable beauty in the flaming woods and the pale river.

On the way back to the market-place we pa.s.s a decayed arch that was probably a postern in the walls of the town. There can be no doubt whatever of the existence of these walls, for Leland begins his description of the town with the words '_Richemont_ Towne is waullid,' and in another place he says: 'Waullid it was, but the waul is now decayid. The Names and Partes of 4 or 5 Gates yet remaine.' We cannot help wondering why Richmond could not have preserved her gates as York has done, or why she did not even make the effort sufficient to retain a single one, as Bridlington and Beverley did. The two posterns--one we have just mentioned, and the other in Friar's Wynd, on the north side of the market-place, with a piece of wall 6 feet thick adjoining--are interesting, but we would have preferred something much finer than these mere arches; and while we are grumbling over what Richmond has lost, we may also measure the disaster which befell the market-place in 1771, when the old cross was destroyed. Before that year there stood on the site of the present obelisk a very fine cross which Clarkson, who wrote about a century ago, mentions as being the greatest beauty of the town to an antiquary. A high flight of steps led up to a square platform, which was enclosed by a richly ornamented wall about 6 feet high, having b.u.t.tresses at the corners, each surmounted with a dog seated on its hind-legs. Within the wall rose the cross, with its shaft made from one piece of stone. There were 'many curious compartments' in the wall, says Clarkson, and 'a door that opened into the middle of the square,' but this may have been merely an arched opening. The enrichments, either of the cross itself or the wall, included four shields bearing the arms of the great families of Fitz-Hugh, Scrope (quartering Tibetot), Conyers, and Neville. From the description there is little doubt that this cross was a very beautiful example of Perpendicular or perhaps Decorated Gothic, in place of which we have a crude and bulging obelisk bearing the inscription: 'Rebuilt (!) A.D. 1771, Christopher Wayne, Esq., Mayor'; it should surely have read: 'Perpetrated during the Mayoralty of Christopher Wayne Goth.'

Although, as we have seen, Leland, who wrote in 1538, mentions Frenchgate and Finkel Street Gate as 'down,' yet they must have been only partially destroyed, or were rebuilt afterwards, for Whitaker, writing in 1823, mentions that they were pulled down 'not many years ago' to allow the pa.s.sage of broad and high-laden waggons. There can be little doubt, therefore, that, swollen with success after the demolition of the cross, the Mayor and Corporation proceeded to attack the remaining gateways, so that now not the smallest suggestion of either remains. But even here we have not completed the list of barbarisms that took place about this time. The Barley Cross, which stood near the larger one, must have been quite an interesting feature.

It consisted of a lofty pillar with a cross at the top, and rings were fastened either on the shaft or to the steps upon which it stood, so that the cross might answer the purpose of a whipping-post. The pillory stood not far away, and the May-pole is also mentioned.

But despite all this squandering of the treasures that it should have been the business of the town authorities to preserve, the tower of the Grey Friars has survived, and, next to the castle, it is one of the chief ornaments of the town. Some other portions of the monastery are incorporated in the buildings which now form the Grammar School. The Grey Friars is on the north side of the town, outside the narrow limits of the walls, and was probably only finished in time to witness the dispersal of the friars who had built it. It is even possible that it was part of a new church that was still incomplete when the Dissolution of the Monasteries made the work of no account except as building materials for the townsfolk. The actual day of the surrender was January 19, 1538, and we wonder if Robert Sanderson, the Prior, and the fourteen brethren under him, suffered much from the privations that must have attended them at that coldest period of the year. At one time the friars, being of a mendicant order, and inured to hard living and scanty fare, might have made light of such a disaster, but in these later times they had expanded somewhat from their austere ways of living, and the dispersal must have cost them much suffering.

Going back to the reign of Henry VII. or there-abouts, we come across the curious ballad of 'The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freres of Richmond' quoted from an old ma.n.u.script by Sir Walter Scott in 'Rokeby.' It may have been as a practical joke, or merely as a good way of getting rid of such a terrible beast, that

'Ralph of Rokeby, with goodwill, The fryers of Richmond gave her till.'

Friar Middleton, who with two l.u.s.ty men was sent to fetch the sow from Rokeby, could scarcely have known that she was

'The grisliest beast that ere might be, Her head was great and gray: She was bred in Rokeby Wood; There were few that thither goed, That came on live [= alive] away.

'She was so grisley for to meete, She rave the earth up with her feete, And bark came fro the tree; When fryer Middleton her saugh, Weet ye well he might not laugh, Full earnestly look'd hee.'

To calm the terrible beast when they found it almost impossible to hold her, the friar began to read 'in St. John his Gospell,' but

'The sow she would not Latin heare, But rudely rushed at the frear,'

who, turning very white, dodged to the shelter of a tree, whence he saw with horror that the sow had got clear of the other two men. At this their courage evaporated, and all three fled for their lives along the Watling Street. When they came to Richmond and told their tale of the 'feind of h.e.l.l' in the garb of a sow, the warden decided to hire on the next day two of the 'boldest men that ever were borne.' These two, Gilbert Griffin and a 'b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of Spaine,' went to Rokeby clad in armour and carrying their shields and swords of war, and even then they only just overcame the grisly sow.

If we go across the river by the modern bridge, we can see the humble remains of St. Martin's Priory standing in a meadow by the railway. The ruins consist of part of a Perpendicular tower and a Norman doorway.

Perhaps the tower was built in order that the Grey Friars might not eclipse the older foundation, for St. Martin's was a cell belonging to St. Mary's Abbey at York and was founded by Wyman, steward or dapifer to the Earl of Richmond, about the year 1100, whereas the Franciscans in the town owed their establishment to Radulph Fitz-Ranulph, a lord of Middleham in 1258. The doorway of St. Martin's, with its zigzag mouldings must be part of Wyman's building, but no other traces of it remain. Having come back so rapidly to the Norman age, we may well stay there for a time while we make our way over the bridge again and up the steep ascent of Frenchgate to the castle.

On entering the small outer barbican, which is reached by a lane from the market-place, we come to the base of the Norman keep. Its great height of nearly 100 feet is quite unbroken from foundations to summit, and the flat b.u.t.tresses are featureless. The recent pointing of the masonry has also taken away any p.r.o.nounced weathering, and has left the tower with almost the same gaunt appearance that it had when Duke Conan saw it completed. Pa.s.sing through the arch in the wall ab.u.t.ting the keep, we come into the gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce of over two acres, that is enclosed by the ramparts. It is not known by what stages the keep reached its present form, though there is every reason to believe that Conan, the fifth Earl of Richmond, left the tower externally as we see it to-day.

This puts the date of the completion of the keep between 1146 and 1171.

The floors are now a store for the uniforms and accoutrements of the soldiers quartered at Richmond, so that there is little to be seen as we climb a staircase in the walls 11 feet thick, and reach the battlemented turrets. Looking downwards, we gaze right into the chimneys of the nearest houses, and we see the old roofs of the town packed closely together in the shelter of the mighty tower. A few tiny people are moving about in the market-place, and there is a thin web of drifting smoke between us and them. Everything is peaceful and remote; even the sound of the river is lost in the wind that blows freely upon us from the great moorland wastes stretching away to the western horizon. It is a romantic country that lies around us, and though the cultivated area must be infinitely greater than in the fighting days when these battlements were finished, yet I suppose the Vale of Mowbray which we gaze upon to the east must have been green, and to some extent fertile, when that Conan who was Duke of Brittany and also Earl of Richmond looked out over the innumerable manors that were his Yorkshire possessions. I can imagine his eye glancing down on a far more thrilling scene than the green three-sided courtyard enclosed by a crumbling grey wall, though to him the buildings, the men, and every detail that filled the great s.p.a.ce, were no doubt quite prosaic. It did not thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning weapons, when the man and his clothes, and even the sword, were as modern and everyday as the soldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves, but how much would we not give for a half-an-hour of his vision, or even a part of a second, with a good camera in our hands?

In the lower part of what is called Robin Hood's Tower is the Chapel of St. Nicholas, with arcaded walls of early Norman date, and a long and narrow slit forming the east window. More interesting than this is the Norman hall at the south-east angle of the walls. It was possibly used as the banqueting-room of the castle, and is remarkable as being one of the best preserved of the Norman halls forming separate buildings that are to be found in this country. The hall is roofless, but the corbels remain in a perfect state, and the windows on each side are well preserved. The builder was probably Earl Conan, for the keep has details of much the same character. It is generally called Scolland's Hall, after the Lord of Bedale of that name, who was a sewer or dapifer to the first Earl Alan of Richmond. Scolland was one of the tenants of the Earl, and under the feudal system of tenure he took part in the regular guarding of the castle.

There is probably much Norman work in various parts of the crumbling curtain walls, and at the south-west corner a Norman turret is still to be seen.

Alan, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of Earl Edwin, was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received this splendid reward for his services soon after the suppression of the Saxon efforts for liberty under the northern Earls. William, having crushed out the rebellion in the remorseless fashion which finally gave him peace in his new possessions, distributed the devastated Saxon lands among his supporters; thus a great part of the earldom of Mercia fell to this Breton.

The site of Richmond was fixed as the new centre of power, and the name, with its apparently obvious meaning, may date from that time, unless the suggested Anglo-Saxon derivation which gives it as Rice-munt--the hill of rule--is correct. After this Gilling must soon have ceased to be of any account. There can be little doubt that the castle was at once planned to occupy the whole area enclosed by the walls as they exist to-day, although the full strength of the place was not realized until the time of the fifth Earl, who, as we have seen, was most probably the builder of the keep in its final form, as well as other parts of the castle. Richmond must then have been considered almost impregnable, and this may account for the fact that it appears to have never been besieged. In 1174, when William the Lion of Scotland was invading England, we are told in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle that Henry II., anxious for the safety of the honour of Richmond, and perhaps of its custodian as well, asked: 'Randulf de Glanvile est-il en Richemunt?' The King was in France, his possessions were threatened from several quarters, and it would doubtless be a relief to him to know that a stronghold of such importance was under the personal command of so able a man as Glanville. In July of that year the danger from the Scots was averted by a victory at Alnwick, in which fight Glanville was one of the chief commanders of the English, and he probably led the men of Richmondshire.

It is a strange thing that Richmond Castle, despite its great pre-eminence, should have been allowed to become a ruin in the reign of Edward III.--a time when castles had obviously lost none of the advantages to the barons which they had possessed in Norman times. The only explanation must have been the divided interests of the owners, for, as Dukes of Brittany, as well as Earls of Richmond, their English possessions were frequently endangered when France and England were at war. And so it came about that when a Duke of Brittany gave his support to the King of France in a quarrel with the English, his possessions north of the Channel became Crown property. How such a condition of affairs could have continued for so long is difficult to understand, but the final severing came at last, when the unhappy Richard II. was on the throne of England. The honour of Richmond then pa.s.sed to Ralph Neville, the first Earl of Westmoreland, but the t.i.tle was given to Edmund Tudor, whose mother was Queen Catherine, the widow of Henry V.

Edmund Tudor, as all know, married Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of John of Gaunt, and died about two months before his wife--then scarcely fourteen years old--gave birth to his only son, who succeeded to the throne of England as Henry VII. He was Earl of Richmond from his birth, and it was he who carried the name to the Thames by giving it to his splendid palace which he built at Shene. Even the ballad of 'The La.s.s of Richmond Hill' is said to come from Yorkshire, although it is commonly considered a possession of Surrey.

Protected by the great castle, there came into existence the town of Richmond, which grew and flourished. The houses must have been packed closely together to provide the numerous people with quarters inside the wall which was built to protect the place from the raiding Scots.

The area of the town was scarcely larger than the castle, and although in this way the inhabitants gained security from one danger, they ran a greater risk from a far more insidious foe, which took the form of pestilences of a most virulent character. After one of these visitations the town of Richmond would be left in a pitiable plight.

Many houses would be deserted, and fields became 'over-run with briars, nettles, and other noxious weeds.'

Easby Abbey is so much a possession of Richmond that we cannot go towards the mountains until we have seen something of its charms. The ruins slumber in such unutterable peace by the riverside that the place is well suited to our mood to go a-dreaming of the centuries which have been so long dead that our imaginations are not c.u.mbered with any of the dull times that may have often set the canons of St. Agatha's yawning. The walk along the steep shady bank above the river is beautiful all the way, and the surroundings of the broken walls and traceried windows are singularly rich. There is nothing, however, at Easby that makes a striking picture, although there are many architectural fragments that are full of beauty. Fountains, Rievaulx and Tintern, all leave Easby far behind, but there are charms enough here with which to be content, and it is, perhaps, a pleasant thought to know that, although on this sunny afternoon these meadows by the Swale seem to reach perfection, yet in the neighbourhood of Ripon there is something still finer waiting for us. Of the abbey church scarcely more than enough has survived for the preparation of a ground-plan, and many of the evidences are now concealed by the gra.s.s. The range of domestic buildings that surrounded the cloister garth are, therefore, the chief interest, although these also are broken and roofless. We can wander among the ivy-grown walls which, in the refectory, retain some semblance of their original form, and we can see the picturesque remains of the common-room, the guest-hall, the chapter-house, and the sacristy. Beyond the ruins of the north transept, a corridor leads into the infirmary, which, besides having an unusual position, is remarkable as being one of the most complete groups of buildings set apart for this object. A noticeable feature of the cloister garth is a Norman arch belonging to a doorway that appears to be of later date. This is probably the only survival of the first monastery founded, it is said, by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in 1152. Building of an extensive character was, therefore, in progress at the same time in these sloping meadows, as on the castle heights, and St. Martin's Priory, close to the town, had not long been completed. Whoever may have been the founder of the abbey, it is definitely known that the great family of Scrope obtained the privileges that had been possessed by the Constable, and they added so much to the property of the monastery that in the reign of Henry VIII. the Scropes were considered the original founders. Easby thus became the stately burying-place of the family and the splendid tombs that appeared in the choir of their church were a constant reminder to the canons of the greatness of the lords of Bolton. Sir Henry le Scrope was buried beneath a great stone effigy, bearing the arms--azure, a bend or--of his house. Near by lay Sir William le Scrope's armed figure, and round about were many others of the family buried beneath flat stones. We know this from the statement of an Abbot of Easby in the fourteenth century; and but for the record of his words there would be nothing to tell us anything of these ponderous memorials, which have disappeared as completely as though they had had no more permanence than the yellow leaves that are just beginning to flutter from the trees. The splendid church, the tombs, and even the very family of Scrope, have disappeared; but across the hills, in the valley of the Ure, their castle still stands, and in the little church of Wensley there can still be seen the parclose screen of Perpendicular date that one of the Scropes must have rescued when the monastery was being stripped and plundered.

The fine gate-house of Easby Abbey, which is in a good state of preservation, stands a little to the east of the parish church, and the granary is even now in use.

On the sides of the parvise over the porch of the parish church are the arms of Scrope, Conyers, and Aske; and in the chancel of this extremely interesting old building there can be seen a series of wall-paintings, some of which probably date from the reign of Henry III. This would make them earlier than those at Pickering.

CHAPTER XII

SWALEDALE

There is a certain elevated and wind-swept spot, scarcely more than a long mile from Richmond, that commands a view over a wide extent of romantic country. Vantage-points of this type, within easy reach of a fair-sized town, are inclined to be overrated, and, what is far worse, to be spoiled by the litter of picnic parties; but Whitcliffe Scar is free from both objections. In magnificent September weather one may spend many hours in the midst of this great panorama without being disturbed by a single human being, besides a possible farm labourer or shepherd; and if sc.r.a.ps of paper and orange-peel are ever dropped here, the keen winds that come from across the moors dispose of them as efficaciously as the keepers of any public parks.

The view is removed from a comparison with many others from the fact that one is situated at the dividing-line between the richest cultivation and the wildest moorlands. Whitcliffe Scar is the Mount Pisgah from whence the jaded dweller in towns can gaze into a promised land of solitude,

'Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been.'

The eastward view of green and smiling country is undeniably beautiful, but to those who can appreciate Byron's enthusiasm for the trackless mountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in the mysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of the moorland horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cut out in the softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmering transparency of the western sky, and the plantations that clothe the sides of the dale beneath one are filled with wonderful shadows, which are thrown out with golden outlines. The view along the steep valley extends for a few miles, and then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bend where the Swale, a silver ribbon along the bottom of the dale, disappears among the sombre woods and the shoulders of the hills.

In this aspect of Swaledale one sees its mildest and most civilized mood; for beyond the purple hill-side that may be seen in the ill.u.s.tration, cultivation becomes more palpably a struggle, and the gaunt moors, broken by lines of precipitous scars, a.s.sume control of the scenery.

From 200 feet below, where the river is flowing along its stony bed, comes the sound of the waters ceaselessly grinding the pebbles, and from the green pastures there floats upwards a distant ba-baaing. No railway has penetrated the solitudes of Swaledale, and, as far as one may look into the future in such matters, there seems every possibility of this loneliest and grandest of the Yorkshire dales retaining its isolation in this respect. None but the simplest of sounds, therefore, are borne on the keen winds that come from the moorland heights, and the purity of the air whispers in the ear the pleasing message of a land where chimneys have never been.

Besides the original name of Whitcliffe Scar, this remarkable view-point has, since 1606, been popularly known as 'Willance's Leap.'

In that year a certain Robert Willance, whose father appears to have been a successful draper in Richmond, was hunting in the neighbourhood, when he found himself enveloped in a fog. It must have been sufficiently dense to shut out even the nearest objects; for, without any warning, Willance found himself on the verge of the scar, and before he could check his horse both were precipitated over the cliff.

We have no detailed account of whether the fall was broken in any way; but, although his horse was killed instantly, Willance, by some almost miraculous good fortune, found himself alive at the bottom with nothing worse than a broken leg.

It is a difficult matter to decide which is the more attractive means of exploring Swaledale; for if one keeps to the road at the bottom of the valley many beautiful and remarkable aspects of the country are missed, and yet if one goes over the moors it is impossible really to explore the recesses of the dale. The old road from Richmond to Reeth avoids the dale altogether, except for the last mile, and its ups and its downs make the traveller pay handsomely for the scenery by the way.

But this ought not to deter anyone from using the road; for the view of the village of Marske, cosily situated among the wooded heights that rise above the beck, is missed by those who keep to the new road along the banks of the Swale. The romantic seclusion of this village is accentuated towards evening, when a shadowy stillness fills the hollows. The higher woods may be still glowing with the light of the golden west, while down below a softness of outline adds beauty to every object. The old bridge that takes the road to Reeth across Marske Beck needs no such fault-forgiving light, for it was standing in the reign of Elizabeth, and, from its appearance, it is probably centuries older.

The new road to Reeth from Richmond goes down at an easy gradient from the town to the banks of the river, which it crosses when abreast of Whitcliffe Scar, the view in front being at first much the same as the nearer portions of the dale seen from that height. Down on the left, however, there are some chimney-shafts, so recklessly black that they seem to be no part whatever of their sumptuous natural surroundings, and might almost suggest a nightmare in which one discovered that some of the vilest chimneys of the Black Country had taken to touring in the beauty spots of the country.

As one goes westward, the road penetrates right into the bold scenery that invites exploration when viewed from 'Willance's Leap.' There is a Scottish feeling--perhaps Alpine would be more correct--in the steeply-falling sides of the dale, all clothed in firs and other dense plantations; and just where the Swale takes a decided turn towards the south there is a view up Marske Beck that adds much to the romance of the scene. Behind one's back the side of the dale rises like a dark green wall entirely in shadow, and down below half buried in foliage, the river swirls and laps its gravelly beaches, also in shadow. Beyond a strip of pasture begin the tumbled ma.s.ses of trees which, as they climb out of the depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays of sunlight that turns the first leaves that have pa.s.sed their prime into the fierce yellows and burnt siennas which, when faithfully represented at Burlington House, are often considered overdone. Even the gaunt obelisk near Marske Hall responds to a fine sunset of this sort, and shows a gilded side that gives it almost a touch of grandeur.

Evening is by no means necessary to the attractions of Swaledale, for a blazing noon gives lights and shades and contrasts of colour that are a large portion of Swaledale's charms. If instead of taking either the old road by way of Marske, or the new one by the riverside, one had crossed the old bridge below the castle, and left Richmond by a very steep road that goes to Leyburn, one would have reached a moorland that is at its best in the full light of a clear morning.

The clouds are big, but they carry no threat of rain, for right down to the far horizon from whence this wind is coming there are patches of blue proportionate to the vast s.p.a.ces overhead. As each white ma.s.s pa.s.ses across the sun, we are immersed in a shadow many acres in extent: but the sunlight has scarcely fled when a rim of light comes over the edge of the plain, just above the hollow where Downholme village lies hidden from sight, and in a few minutes that belt of sunshine has reached some sheep not far off, and rimmed their coats with a brilliant edge of white. Shafts of whiteness, like searchlights, stream from behind a distant cloud, and everywhere there is brilliant contrast and a purity to the eye and lungs that only a Yorkshire moor possesses.

A short two miles up the road to Leyburn, just above Gill Beck, there is an ancient house known as Walburn Hall, and also the remains of the chapel belonging to it, which dates from the Perpendicular period. The buildings are now used as a farm, but there are still enough suggestions of a dignified past to revivify the times when this was a centre of feudal power.

Turning back to Swaledale by a lane on the south side of Gill Beck, Downholme village is pa.s.sed a mile away on the right, and the bold scenery of the dale once more becomes impressive.

Two great headlands, formed by the wall-like terminations of Cogden and Harkerside Moors, rising one above the other, stand out magnificently.

Their huge sides tower up nearly a thousand feet from the river, until they are within reach of the lowering clouds that every moment threaten to envelop them in their indigo embrace. There is a curious rift in the dark c.u.mulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequently changes its shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence in no way weakens the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears to become huger and steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have been merely woods and plantations in this heavy gloom become mysterious forests. The river, too, seems to change its character, and become a pale serpent, uncoiling itself from some mountain fastness where no living creatures besides great auks and carrion birds, dwell.