Wingfield Manor House in Peace and in War
By G. le Blanc-Smith
Derbyshire, if unable to boast of that share of stirring episode with which war and the hate of man have impregnated other counties, if unable to show the numerous stately castles and religious houses of its neighbouring shires, can at least proudly name a house which, while being a gem of architecture, yet was so cunningly situated by its owner as to prove a menace to the surrounding country, and a fortress which required no mean ability to compass its surrender, at the same time being of a nature so secure that it was used as the prison-house of the greatest political prisoner in our island’s history.
Such is Wingfield Manor House; beautiful, stately, isolated, and—in ruins; mansion, fortress, and prison. In no way does this manor house resemble its more ambitious neighbour, Haddon Hall. Haddon is just as weak, strategically, as Wingfield is strong, for the latter is perched on a hill top, whose sides may be well described as precipitous, at least on two sides. Another side of the hill, while less steep, is useless for purposes of cavalry attack, whilst the fourth is more level in character.
With the early history of the manor we have no concern, save in so far as it affects that of the manor house. In the year 1440, the manorial rights were vested in Ralph, Lord Cromwell, but his undoubted rights to its possession were not absolutely proved till this date owing to a prolonged law suit with Sir Henry Pierpoint over the finding of an inquisition taken at Derby as long before as 1429. It was then found that Ralph, Lord Cromwell—a man of immense wealth—was heir, inter alia, to the estates, owing to his relationship with Margaret de Swillington, heiress of John and Robert, her brothers. Briefly, Lord Cromwell traced his descent from the family of De Heriz, who, in the person of one Mathilda de Heriz, was connected by marriage ties to a certain Thomas Beler, or Bellers. This man’s sister married Sir Ralph Cromwell, and owing to these marriage ties Lord Cromwell laid claim to the property, as being a descendant of a de Heriz, whilst Sir Henry Pierpoint, on his side, claimed an equal right to possession as being a descendant of Sarah de Heriz and Robert Pierpoint; Sarah being aunt to the member of the same family from whom Lord Cromwell proved his descent, i.e., Mathilda, who married Thomas Beler. Why the family of de Swillington was introduced it is hard to understand; but perhaps it was in the nature of a red herring, used to draw the scent from a good point in the adversary’s case, or to cover a weak spot in the claim of the opposite side.
However, it is with the fortunes of Lord Cromwell that we are concerned, and we find that, three years after his possession was assured to him, he was taken under the wing of King Henry VI., and was enriched by appointment to the lucrative posts of Treasurer of the Exchequer,39 Constable of Nottingham Castle, and Steward and Keeper of Sherwood Forest. Within the next two or three years he was further advanced in royal favour and finances by being appointed Master of the Royal Hounds and Falcons. From these appointments it may be fairly deduced that he was a good financier and even better sportsman.
Shortly after his lawsuit was satisfactorily settled, he proceeded to erect the beautiful manor house. He did not, however, live to enjoy his new possession for very long, as he died January 4th, 1455, being buried in a church which his enormous wealth had enriched, i.e., Tatteshall, Lincolnshire. Ralph, Lord Cromwell, sold the reversion of this manor during his lifetime to John Talbot, second Earl of Shrewsbury, who was to occupy it after his (Cromwell’s) death. The new owner had much to do in the way of roofing and plastering his new possession, so we may safely conclude that it was far from finished by Lord Cromwell. Owing to the condition of the fabric, its new owner was unable to inhabit it for some time; but after spending large sums of money in roofing, etc., he finally occupied it in 1458, coming into residence with a numerous retinue. After his death at Northampton, in 1460, the manor and manor house descended in his family for many years, being apparently a much favoured country seat. The death of his grandson, the fourth earl, here was apparently quite unexpected, for, on July 6th—only twenty days before his death—he humbly prayed, through the Earl of Southampton, that King Henry VIII. would deign to visit his “pore house at Wynfeld and hunt in Duffelde Frithe” on his approaching visit to Nottingham.
The following account of his funeral is quoted from Holmes’ MSS. (Harl. Lib.):—
“The xxvi of July Anno Regis Hen. viii tricesimo, departed out of this world the right noble & puissant George, Earl of Shrewsbury & Lord Talbot, Furnival, Verdon & Strange of Blackmoor, & High Steward of the King’s most honble. household etc. on the 27th of March (?) this noble earl was removed from Wynefield to Sheffield with women and tall yeomen, & the same night his dirige done & his body honourably buried.
“The morrow after his masses solempnely sung—,first one of the Trenitie, another of Or. Lady, and the third of Requiem.”
The fifth earl, Francis, was born in 1500. At the age of forty-four he was made Lieut.-General of the North; a year later he was installed Knight of the Garter, and was later made Justice in Eyre of the forests north of the Trent. He was a commissioner in the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, a leading light in Wyatt’s insurrection, who was tried and found “not guilty” by the jury; but the judges, in their wrath at this finding, compelled the jury to enter into recognizances of £500 each for their appearance in the famous Star Chamber when called upon. On their appearance, as desired, the unfortunate men were thrown into prison for daring to give judgment according to their consciences.
The fifth earl died on September 21st, 1560, and was followed by his son George in the possession of Wingfield.
It is to this sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, and to his times, that we owe much of the glamour and interest of Wingfield’s history, owing to the fact that for well nigh sixteen years he was the custodian of that unhappy lady, Mary Queen of Scots. For various lengthy periods the poor harassed Queen was a close prisoner within the all-too-hospitable walls of this manor house. The Earl’s charge of Queen Mary was no sinecure it seems, as according to Blore:—
“In this service he preserved his fidelity to Elizabeth unshaken; but he was so perpetually teized (sic) by her suspicions and those of her ministers, that his office, which might otherwise have been desirable to so great a nobleman, as a distinguished mark of honour and confidence, appears to have inflicted upon him a severity of punishment little inferior to that of his unfortunate captive. The fear of Elizabeth’s displeasure induced him, at times, to a moroseness in his behaviour to Mary, which implanted in her bosom sentiments of distaste and resentment, that her high spirit could not be subdued, by her sufferings, to dissemble; whilst at other times by real or colourable marks of kindness and attention to Mary, he drew upon himself the malevolence of a wife, ever alive to jealousy and prepared to empoison his comforts, and the suspicions and rebukes of his Queen, who had no trifling satisfaction in mortifying and humiliating the greatest of her subjects.”
He was, in other words, “between the devil and the deep sea.” The custody of the prisoner Queen was first placed in Lord Shrewsbury’s hands during January, 1569, while he was in residence at Tutbury Castle; her removal to Wingfield took place on April 20th of the same year.
Three weeks later she was suddenly and mysteriously seized with a violent attack of some malady, which caused grave anxiety to her custodian. Two physicians were promptly dispatched by the Privy Council to undertake her cure, and these worthies gave but a bad account of the sanitary conditions of her prison quarters. Their report seems to have considerably nettled the Earl of Shrewsbury, who retorted that “the very unpleasant and fulsome savour, in the next chamber, hurtful to her health” was directly owing to the “continual festering and uncleanly order of her own folke.” Since the cause was known to him, it seems strange that he did not try to do something to better it. The unfortunate Queen was removed with all speed to Chatsworth—where her moated bower still remains—for this princely residence was brought to the Earl by his second matrimonial venture, Elizabeth, better known as “Bess of Hardwick.”
June 1st once more saw her installed in her old apartments at Wingfield, they having been cleaned and sweetened. In the following August she once more fell ill of the same malady, and requested the Earl to find her another prison-house. She was therefore removed to Tutbury, between which place and Sheffield she alternated for the next fifteen years. Once more her custodian had to complain that his mansion and her rooms, “in consequence of the long abode here and the number of people, waxes unsavoury.” This is hardly to be wondered at when it is remembered that at her second period of captivity at Wingfield, after fifteen years’ absence, the poor Queen’s personal attendants numbered 47 persons in all: 5 gentlemen, 14 servitors, 3 cooks, 4 boys, 3 gentlemen’s men, 6 gentlewomen, 2 wives, and 10 wenches and children.
The year 1584 again saw the captive Queen at Wingfield, and the Privy Council proposed that she should be incarcerated in the castle of Melbourne, also in Derbyshire; but, owing to the fact that there were structural alterations of an extensive nature required there, it was decided to saddle the poor Earl of Shrewsbury with his weighty responsibility once more. Orders to this effect were dispatched to him on March 20th, 1584, till such time as Melbourne Castle was prepared—which never came to pass. These orders to the Earl commanded the removal of the Queen from Sheffield to Wingfield, and “that for the more safety in conveying the said Queene, in case you shall find it necessary, for your assistance you may use the ayde of the sheriffs of our countys of Derby and Leicester.” Whilst the Earl’s duties to his sovereign kept him at Court, the Queen’s custody was in the hands of Sir Ralph Sadleir, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and a distinguished soldier. Sir Ralph wrote, on August 25th, 1584, to Sir Francis Walsyngham, and informed him that he had begged the Earl of Shrewsbury not to transport the Queen to Wingfield till further instructions from the Sovereign were received. He continues by saying that he would rather “keep her here (Sheffield Castle) with 60 men than at Wingfield with 300.” In a paper read before the members of the Royal Archæological Institute, then visiting the manor house, by the Rev. J. Charles Cox, the author stated that:
“having carefully gone through the whole of the documents in the Public Record Office pertaining to Mary Queen of Scots, as well as the little known Talbot papers at the College of Arms, and the Shrewsbury papers at the Lambeth Palace Library, I have come to the conclusion, for reasons that would be far too long to now explain, that the Earl of Shrewsbury, worn out by the jealousy, meanness, and cruelty of his wife, as well as by the suspicions and displeasure of Queen Elizabeth and her Council, and filled with a growing sympathy for his prisoner, did his best to bring about this second sojourn at Wingfield in the hopes of her escape.”
An excellent guard was placed over the Queen, for Sir Ralph Sadleir set a watch of eight soldiers at night time, taking turns in watches of four, to patrol the immediate vicinity of the Queen’s apartments in the inner courtyard. Two other soldiers kept a day and night watch in the house itself, at the entrance to her rooms.
The captive Queen arrived in September, 1584, for this second enforced visit, with a huge retinue, which must have seriously taxed the accommodation of the manor house. The Earl of Shrewsbury had 120 gentlemen, yeomen, and servants; Sir Ralph Sadleir followed suit with 50, whilst there were 40 trained men at arms. Including the prisoner’s personal retinue, there were 257 persons herded together within these walls, the Queen and her suite occupying fifteen rooms; yet, despite guards and precautions, one man alone was able to plot with the Queen herself for her release.
The daring plot was the child of the fertile brain of one Anthony Babington, whose family seat was at Dethick, about five miles to the west. Babington was in a way a fanatic, and the pity for, and desire to liberate, his beloved Queen was the mania which brought him to the scaffold. Stained with walnut juice, and disguised in gipsy garb, he is said to have constantly visited the captive, and a curious tale is told of his visits. Just outside the Queen’s rooms grows a huge walnut tree, and tradition hath it that this tree is sprung from a walnut dropped by Babington himself when on one of his surreptitious visits.
This plot was not the first having the same end in view, for in 1569 a certain Leonard Dacre was implicated. Now if this was a relation of the Earl of Shrewsbury’s, through his mother, Mary Dacre, the Earl may well have been the instigator of the plot, for we have seen how little he cared what became of his charge. What is more likely than that he should choose Dacre, a relative, to assist the enterprise—and bear the blame—as a blood tie would be less an object of suspicion, and at the same time more loyal to his employer? Dacre’s plot at once aroused the slumbering suspicions of Elizabeth, and she, giving as a reason that Lord Shrewsbury’s health was not of the best, directed the Earl of Huntingdon to watch the Queen. The immediate outcome was a reduction in her retinue to thirty persons, with the object of avoiding the influx or substitution of suspicious persons. Other futile attempts, devoid of interest, were made at various times and by various persons to effect the release of this interesting prisoner.
It is easy to understand how in a house like this, teeming with menials and servants, the substitution of a servant for a spy or messenger for Mary Stuart would be an easy matter. The kitchen staff must have been enormous, as, according to Sir Ralph Sadleir’s report, the daily meals of the Queen “on Fishe days and Flesh days” consisted of “about 16 dishes dressed after their owne manner, sometimes more or less, as the provision serveth.” The price of necessary foodstuffs at Wingfield at the time was not high according to present day reckoning, for “a good ox cost £4, sheep £7 a score, veal and other meats reasonable good charge, about 8s.” Wheat was priced at £1 a quarter; malt at 16s. a quarter; hay 13s. 4d. a load; oats 8s. a quarter; and peas 12s. for the same quantity. The drink bill—no small item in those days—run up by Queen Mary was for ten tuns of wine annually.
The captive’s linen was provided by the Earl of Shrewsbury, for that supplied by Queen Elizabeth was declared to be “nothing of it serviceable, but worn and spent.”
The before-mentioned report of Sir Ralph Sadleir states that the Queen’s stable held four good coach horses of her own; her gentlemen had six, and the total number kept was about forty.
It would thus seem easy for a stranger to obtain a post among such numbers without a fresh face being observed, and in the crowded kitchens the entrance of a disguised stranger through the little door opening towards Dethick and the west would possibly be unobserved. Then, among the number of servants some might be won over by a bribe, a note concealed in food might reach the Queen; or among the stable helps one might be found who could give news to the captive for some trifling reward. Chances seem to have existed on every hand. But to return to the ill-fated Babington. Babington had been brought up by his mother and two guardians in an atmosphere of stout but secret Roman Catholicism, and no doubt his situation at the age of sixteen as Queen Mary’s page was productive of a chivalrous love for the fair captive. At nineteen years of age he was the moving spirit in a plot to conceal two Jesuits; and three years later his thoughts reverted to the release of the Queen, whose plight had so strongly appealed to his youthful mind. The following year he formed a plot for Mary’s release and Queen Elizabeth’s assassination; but all the while the busy spies of Walsyngham were quietly collecting material from the correspondence relative to his cherished scheme, and were suiting their actions to his, with a view to successfully foiling his attempt. He was hunted down, but escaped till 1587, when he was caught and tried with a dozen other well-born youths, and met his death on September 20th at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In the report of the apprehension of the conspirators is the following:—
“The names of sooche as are touched as made partyes of the confideracye,” followed by the names of Ballard, Savage, Tycheborne, G. Gifford, St. Donne, Tylney, and Gage; “and there were,” the report continues, “13 who were at large, vizt., Babington, Barnewell, Salisbury,” etc.
The Queen, who was removed from Wingfield on January 13th, 1585, was incarcerated at Tutbury. A curious tradition of late years has been put forward; it is to the effect that her son was born at Wingfield! The authority for this has been traced to a statement in a guide book to the effect that “Mary Stuart was made a prisoner, and it was at Wingfield Manor that she spent part of her confinement.” This erroneous reading has obtained a footing, and should be promptly eradicated. Thus is “history” made.
On the death of the seventh Earl of Shrewsbury, his three daughters, co-heiresses, divided the estates, Wingfield falling to the eldest, Lady Pembroke. The new owners were now in troublous times, and during the Civil Wars the manor house was stoutly held for the Parliamentary forces. The little garrison of about one hundred men at arms was reduced to sixty at the request of the Parliamentary leader, Fairfax, who was forcing his way northwards into Yorkshire. Sir John Gell complied with the request in 1643, and left the house too weakly defended; the close of the same year saw a vigorous and successful attack by the Royalist troops under the Earl of Newcastle, and the manor house, after a twelve days’ struggle, was occupied on December 19th. On the day following Sir John Gell arrived, and proceeded to stir up the new owners, who were as yet far from fully acquainted with their new quarters. Preliminary skirmishes took place in the vicinity, in which two columns of horse lost their colours, these being sent to London by the triumphant Gell.
The Earl of Newcastle passed on the command to Sir John Fitzherbert, of Tissington, who held the house for six months. The Wingfield garrison proving troublesome to the Parliamentary forces, Sir John Gell was told off to retake the manor house, which he did with difficulty, as it required all the forces at his command, reinforced with 200 foot of Colonel Hutchinson’s. Gell sent to Nottingham for troops, asking for “assistance to beleaguer Wingfield Manor, because it was as great an annoyance to Nottinghamshire as to Derbyshire.” This diplomatic request was productive of the desired result. Strict siege was laid to the manor house for fifteen days, after which Gell’s troops were called off to repel a threatened Royalist attack; this they accomplished to their satisfaction, and they once more returned to the siege. The naturally strong situation of the house was nearly an insurmountable obstacle to Gell, and he found that unless his artillery was considerably reinforced by heavier pieces, he should be compelled to starve the gallant little band out as the only practicable means of reducing their fortress to submission. This plan was evidently not to his liking, as he was likely at any time to be set upon by small bodies of Royalist troops, whose harassing action would compel a temporary raising of the siege, and consequently a corresponding influx of provisions to the defenders during the absence of the beleaguering troops. He therefore requested heavier pieces of ordnance from Major-General Crawford, and on receipt of his new artillery he set to work to make a breach in the walls with all dispatch. So great was his success and so true his fire that after only three hours’ assault with his “foure great peeces for battering,” the whole defending force of 220 men surrendered themselves on condition that every man should be allowed to return home unharmed.
It is hard to determine whether it was fear of the ultimate result of the use of these heavy guns, or the sight of the actual damage done, which caused this sudden collapse of the defence on the day of the great assault, July 20th, 1644. The heavy guns were, it is said, situated on the flat ground on the east of the house, and on the other side of the valley—a distance of one and a quarter miles. Some assert that the range from here (Pentrich Moor) was too great, and that the guns were brought round to the west side and placed in a wood, a breach being opened from there. Should this have been the case, the breach would be in the south-west angle of the larger courtyard, and the approach to this is of such a nature that an entry would be a matter of difficulty. The necessity of an armed assault on the breach was nullified by the collapse of the defence.
The death of the Royalist governor, Colonel Dalby, who succeeded Colonel Roger Molineux, can have had no part in causing the surrender, for, according to Pilkington, he was traitorously shot by a deserter, who had recognized him despite his disguise of a common soldier, and who is said to have put his musket through a hole in the wall of the porter’s lodge and shot him in the face. Pilkington also asserts that one of the cannon-balls which he saw weighed 32 lbs.! This was in 1789.
The surrendered garrison was a resourceful one it appears, as the besiegers either having cut off the water supply (presumably in pipes) or else seized the source of this necessary fluid, they promptly dug a well in the south courtyard, and therefrom secured a sufficient supply. This well fell in about 1850, and the hole was filled up.
An old account of the capture of the manor house runs thus:—
“Colonell Gell finding that his ordinance would do noe good against the Mannor and understanding that Major General Craford had foure great peeces, sent two of his officers unto him to desier him to send them for three or foure days for battering; and in soe doinge he would doe the countrey good service, because it was a place that could not bee otherwise taken without they were pined (starved) out.”
The stirring times of war now left the house, and its further use as a fortress was nullified by an order for its dismantling on June 23rd, 1646.
The fabric of the house now went from bad to worse as it passed from one owner to another. Twenty years after the order for its dismantling was received, it was occupied by one Imanuel Halton, an auditor of the Duke of Norfolk. As a man of culture and learning he was more or less distinguished, being especially noted as an astronomer; while allowing much of the fabric to fall into ruins, he amused himself by decorating the crumbling walls with sun-dials, two of which remain. A piece of gross vandalism was perpetrated by this worthy, for he converted the magnificent banqueting hall into a two-floored dwelling-house, with chimneys in the centre, and made ugly structural alterations to the north windows to suit his convenience. The Halton family continued to enjoy the air of Wingfield, and to pull the manor house about, for the next hundred years, till, in 1744, the “powers that were” decided to pull down the lovely building, which they utilized as a convenient quarry from which to obtain stone for the erection of a truly ugly house—described as “a small box at the foot of the hill”—which is the present Hall. After this disgraceful exploit, the progress of decay was practically unchecked, and at this day the buildings are deteriorating more and more rapidly under the changes of our capricious climate. In the Topographer, by Shaw, vol. i., of 1789 (only fifteen years after the removal of the family residence to the new hall), it is stated that the roof was gone from the banqueting hall, and that all the arms and quarterings of the great family of Shrewsbury were open to the destructive influences of the weather. This was in 1789, yet in 1785—only four years previously—a sketch by Colonel Machell shows the banqueting hall as roofed and glazed. At the close of the eighteenth century a great part of the banqueting hall—between the lovely oriel window and the porch—fell down; about a quarter of a century later a tower in the south-east angle of the inner courtyard (at the back of the present farmhouse) collapsed utterly.
The statement often made that no less a person than the much maligned Oliver Cromwell was present at the fall of the manor house in person is, of course, a fiction used by some for the greater entertainment of visitors to the house. Nevertheless, it is a curious coincidence that by the power of a Lord Cromwell these magnificent buildings were raised from the ground, and that by the power and will of another Cromwell they were razed, in places, to the ground, but two hundred years separating the two events, and including much history of more than local interest.
The actual buildings form one of the most beautiful examples of fifteenth century domestic architecture to be found in the kingdom; hence Wingfield is far better known to the architectural student than to the historian. Of the present state of the walls, the less said and seen the better. To look at them recalls the lines from Idylls of the King (Geraint and Enid):—
“All was ruinous.
Here stood a shatter’d archway plumed with fern
And here had fall’n a great part of a tower,
Whole, like a crag that tumbles from a cliff,
And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers:
And high above a piece of turret stair,
Worn by the feet that now are silent, wound
Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy stems
Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms,
And sucked the joining of the stones, and look’d
A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove.”
It is a pitiable sight to see some of the most beautiful and interesting parts of the grand old house in such a deplorable and tottering state. Nothing so much enhances the value, sentimentally, of an ancient building as a considerable fall of its walls; then, of course, a great outcry is raised—when it is too late. It is not the decay of past years which must be viewed with alarm, but the steady, increasing hold which ruin is obtaining on this structure. “Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed semper cadendo,” is a good maxim to remember, but if remembered in this case, it has never been thought sufficiently true to be worth acting upon. So year by year the stones fall and the mortar crumbles, the ivy, trees, etc., force their way between the stones, the frost shells off the fine, smooth surface of the ashlar, and the wind carries destruction, and future destruction in the form of seedlings, into every part of the beautiful buildings; and the people look on and admire the craft of their forefathers, but they do not stretch forth a hand to save what gives them pleasure. Their country has given them a great treasure, and they enjoy it and value it; they value it so much that they will see not one stone left upon another before they resort to methods of salvation; it is a ruin, it was a ruin, let it remain a ruin, they say. Some day it will be a ruin of such a nature that none shall recognize its likeness to a building, for when it falls down the steep hillsides, “great will be the fall thereof,” and the noise of its fall will be equalled only by the noise of lamentation at such a catastrophe.
The manor house consists of two courtyards, of which the southern is the larger, whilst the northern one contains the more beautiful specimens of architecture. The extreme length of the house is 416 feet, with a total width of 256 feet. There are two entrances to the south courtyard, one on the east in the southern corner and another on the west. The north courtyard is entered from the southern one by a fine gateway, flanked by two turrets, and the north wall is likewise pierced by a now destroyed entrance of fine proportions. There is also a small ogee-headed doorway opening into the kitchens on the west side. The south courtyard was bounded on the east by the retainers’ quarters, now a crumbling ruin; on the south by the fine old barn, still excellently preserved, and also the stables, long since destroyed. The west side, with its sally port, was formed by the quarters of the guards, and the north of the courtyard still retains the mutilated range of buildings which form the southern bounds of the north quadrangle. The farmhouse, which is now occupied, is a mere shell, as all the interior is modern.
The north courtyard has the great tower at its south-west angle, and from here, up the west side, runs the range of apartments once occupied by Mary Queen of Scots. The north boundary is formed by the kitchens on the west, the state apartments in the centre, and the grand banqueting hall on the east. The eastern boundary of this courtyard has disappeared, and here, it is conjectured, was the chapel, which no doubt the Halton family utilized as a quarry, as being to them the least useful part of the house. The southern boundary is formed by the farmhouse and buildings already mentioned as being the northern limit of the south court.
The glory of Wingfield Manor House is the banqueting hall, with its undercroft beneath it. This noble chamber, now sadly mutilated, is 72 ft. 2½ in. long and 36 ft. 1 in. in width. The most notable feature in this scene of by-gone revelry and lavish hospitality is the great oriel window, a piece of architectural excellence hardly to be equalled elsewhere in the kingdom. This beautiful projection is situated at the east end of the south front of the hall, whilst at the opposite end of the same side is a porch, which is well worthy of a place in the same edifice as the above-mentioned window. This porch is of two floors; the ground floor gives entrance to the banqueting hall, and is entered by an archway of boldly conceived design, on which is cut a series of handsome flower petals. On the right of the entrance is a little traceried window, which can only be described as a glittering gem of architecture. The battlements which still remain over porch and oriel window are now denuded of their quartered shields, but the excellent diapered pattern, consisting of quatrefoils, is still in almost its pristine beauty.
The most striking feature of the manor house is part of the great tower, which Wingfield’s old historian, Thomas Blore, has completely omitted in his engraving. Though not of any great height, the aspect of this towering sentinel is imposing.
The apartments which once sheltered Mary Queen of Scots are indeed in a sad state of ruinous decay. Nothing remains but the outer walls, with the fireplaces and chimneys, the former with nodding heads and the latter with, apparently, a serious spinal complaint. The walls themselves are scored by many a huge and gaping wound, not the wounds of honour received in battle, but the wounds caused by the horrid disease of decay unchecked and unheeded. It is sad to think that the first part of the hitherto unbroken line of wall round this courtyard to succumb to this fell disease will be the most interesting portion of this historic house.
The kitchens, which lie between the Queen’s rooms and the banqueting hall, are likewise in a sad state; the depressed form of arch surmounting most of the doorways, despite the presence of “arches of construction,” are fast bowing their heads beneath the weight of masonry and the neglect of centuries. Adjoining the servants’ quarters and the banqueting hall are the state apartments, lighted by a huge and by no means beautiful window of Perpendicular times, if judged by the standard of excellence obtaining elsewhere in the fabric. A curious feature noticeable from the courtyard is the fact that this window, like the little gem of a round one above and the traceried lights below, is far from being central in the gable or in line with its neighbours above and below.
The undercroft, more often known as the crypt—an ecclesiastical term possessing no right here—is of the same dimensions as the hall above. The ceiling is composed of beautifully wrought stone groins, with large circular bosses, cut with fine traceried designs; the springing of the arches is from the walls on either side and the five stone pillars in the centre respectively. This subterranean chamber has now begun to show most unmistakable signs of the gross neglect which so characterizes the remainder of the house, for the stone ribs of the vaulting have fallen over the eastern entrance—and there they lie. The entrances to this undercroft are four in number—one at the north-west corner, one at the south-west, one at the south-east, and one in the centre of the east end. Three of them communicate directly with the banqueting hall above, whilst the fourth opens into the open air. This cellar-like room has been described as the chapel, and also as the retainers’ hall, but the general opinion of those whose opinion is worthy of consideration is that it was a general store house for the huge retinue of owner, guests, and prisoner; such was no doubt its use, but what the intentions of its builders were is quite another question.
The inner courtyard with which I have just dealt is far better preserved than its southern neighbour, which seems to have proved a better mark for Gell’s big guns and Halton’s destructive genius than the other. The entrance gate to the inner court is fairly well preserved, but the greater part of the rest is in but a sorry plight. The great entrance on the east is shorn of its upper storey, but the adjoining barn is in a delightful state of repair, and is of a nature to arouse the enthusiasm of students of our mediæval barns.
On the east side of the house were the old gardens, now presenting a dismal appearance, for the sole surviving signs of the topiary work of our forefathers are the broken ranks of a long line of stunted yew trees; even these trees have not been spared of late years, and the woodman’s axe has been responsible for considerable gaps. On this side, too, remain traces of the old earthworks thrown up by the Royalist garrison to repel the besiegers on this, the most weakly of the naturally strong defences formed by the slope of the hill. In the farmhouse reposes a collection of old cannon balls rescued from the ruins, methods of destruction far preferable to the stealthy creeping action of the prince of destroying agents—Unchecked Decay—now so busy there.
Let us hope, however, that before it is too late a helping hand may lay its healing touch on these walls which crown the slope, a spot noiseless save for the thousand and one sounds of the neighbouring farmyard, and that distant and discordant triumph of modernity, the railway, which, thanks to the situation of the manor house on its hill, finds no near approach.