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While the road communications
of the country remained thus imperfect, the people of one part of England
knew next to nothing of the other. When a shower of rain had the effect of
rendering the highways impassable, even horsemen were cautious in venturing
far from home. But only a very limited number of persons could then afford
to travel on horseback. The labouring people journeyed on foot, while the
middle class used the waggon or the coach. But the amount of intercourse
between the people of different districts --then exceedingly limited at all
times--was, in a country so wet as England, necessarily suspended for all
classes during the greater part of the year.
The imperfect communication
existing between districts had the effect of perpetuating numerous local
dialects, local prejudices, and local customs, which survive to a certain
extent to this day; though they are rapidly disappearing, to the regret of
many, under the influence of improved facilities for travelling. Every
village had its witches, sometimes of different sorts, and there was
scarcely an old house but had its white lady or moaning old man with a long
beard. There were ghosts in the fens which walked on stilts, while the
sprites of the hill country rode on flashes of fire. But the village witches
and local ghosts have long since disappeared, excepting perhaps in a few of
the less penetrable districts, where they may still survive. It is curious
to find that down even to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the
inhabitants of the southern districts of the island regarded those of the
north as a kind of ogres. Lancashire was supposed to be almost
impenetrable-- as indeed it was to a considerable extent,--and inhabited by
a half-savage race. Camden vaguely described it, previous to his visit in
1607, as that part of the country " lying beyond the mountains towards the
Western Ocean." He acknowledged that he approached the Lancashire people
"with a kind of dread," but determined at length "to run the hazard of the
attempt," trusting in the Divine assistance. Camden was exposed to still
greater risks in his survey of Cumberland. When he went into that county for
the purpose of exploring the remains of antiquity it contained for the
purposes of his great work, he travelled along the line of the Roman Wall as
far as Thirlwall castle, near Haltwhistle; but there the limits of
civilization and security ended; for such was the wildness of the country
and of its lawless inhabitants beyond, that he was obliged to desist from
his pilgrimage, and leave the most important and interesting objects of his
journey unexplored.
About a century later, in
1700, the Rev. Mr. Brome, rector of Cheriton in Kent, entered upon a series
of travels in England as if it had been a newly-discovered country. He set
out in spring so soon as the roads had become passable. His friends convoyed
him on the first stage of his journey, and left him, commending him to the
Divine protection. He was, however, careful to employ guides to conduct him
from one place to another, and in the course of his three years' travels he
saw many new and wonderful things. He was under the necessity of suspending
his travels when the winter or wet weather set in, and to lay up, like an
arctic voyager, for several months, until the spring came round again. Mr.
Brome passed through Northumberland into Scotland, then down the
western side of the island towards Devonshire, where he found the farmers
gathering in their corn on horse-back, the roads being so narrow that it was
impossible for them to use waggons. He desired to travel into Cornwall, the
boundaries of which he reached, but was prevented proceeding farther by the
rains, and accordingly he made the best of his way home.*[1] The vicar of
Cheriton was considered a wonderful man in his day,-- almost as as venturous
as we should now regard a traveller in Arabia. Twenty miles of slough, or an
unbridged river between two parishes, were greater impediments to
intercourse than the Atlantic Ocean now is between England and America.
Considerable towns situated in the same county, were then more widely
separated, for practical purposes, than London and Glasgow are at the
present day. There were many districts which travellers never visited, and
where the appearance of a stranger produced as great an excitement as the
arrival of a white man in an African village.*[2]
The author of 'Adam Bede' has
given us a poet's picture of the leisure of last century, which has "gone
where the spinning-wheels are gone, and the pack-horses, and the slow
waggons, and the pedlars who brought bargains to the door on sunny
afternoons. "Old Leisure" lived chiefly in the country, among pleasant seats
and homesteads, and was fond of sauntering by the fruit-tree walls, and
scenting the apricots when they were warmed by the morning sunshine, or
sheltering himself under the orchard boughs at noon, when the summer pears
were falling." But this picture has also its obverse side. Whole generations
then lived a monotonous, ignorant, prejudiced, and humdrum life. They had no
enterprize, no energy, little industry, and were content to die where they
were born. The seclusion in which they were compelled to live, produced a
picturesqueness of manners which is pleasant to look back upon, now that it
is a thing of the past; but it was also accompanied with a degree of
grossness and brutality much less pleasant to regard, and of which the
occasional popular amusements of bull-running, cock-fighting, cock-throwing,
the saturnalia of Plough-Monday, and such like, were the fitting exponents.
People then knew little
except of their own narrow district. The world beyond was as good as closed
against them. Almost the only intelligence of general affairs which reached
them was communicated by pedlars and packmen, who were accustomed to retail
to their customers the news of the day with their wares; or, at most, a
newsletter from London, after it had been read nearly to pieces at the great
house of the district, would find its way to the village, and its driblets
of information would thus become diffused among the little community.
Matters of public interest were long in becoming known in the remoter
districts of the country. Macaulay relates that the death of Queen Elizabeth
was not heard of in some parts of Devon until the courtiers of her successor
had ceased to wear mourning for her. The news of Cromwell's being made
Protector only reached Bridgewater nineteen days after the event, when the
bells were set a-ringing; and the churches in the Orkneys continued to put
up the usual prayers for James II. three months after he had taken up his
abode at St. Germains. There were then no shops in the smaller towns or
villages, and comparatively few in the larger; and these were badly
furnished with articles for general use. The country people were irregularly
supplied by hawkers, who sometimes bore their whole stook upon their back,
or occasionally on that of their pack-horses. Pots, pans, and household
utensils were sold from door to door. Until a comparatively recent period,
the whole of the pottery-ware manufactured in Staffordshire was hawked about
and disposed of in this way. The pedlars carried frames resembling
camp-stools, on which they were accustomed to display their wares when the
opportunity occurred for showing them to advantage. The articles which they
sold were chiefly of a fanciful kind--ribbons, laces, and female finery; the
housewives' great reliance for the supply of general clothing in those days
being on domestic industry.
Every autumn, the mistress of
the household was accustomed to lay in a store of articles sufficient to
serve for the entire winter. It was like laying in a stock of provisions and
clothing for a siege during the time that the roads were closed. The greater
part of the meat required for winter's use was killed and salted down at
Martinmas, while stockfish and baconed herrings were provided for Lent.
Scatcherd says that in his district the clothiers united in groups of three
or four, and at the Leeds winter fair they would purchase an ox, which,
having divided, they salted and hung the pieces for their winter's food.*[3]
There was also the winter's stock of firewood to be provided, and the rushes
with which to strew the floors--carpets being a comparatively modern
invention; besides, there was the store of wheat and barley for bread, the
malt for ale, the honey for sweetening (then used for sugar), the salt, the
spiceries, and the savoury herbs so much employed in the ancient cookery.
When the stores were laid in, the housewife was in a position to bid
defiance to bad roads for six months to come. This was the case of the
well-to-do; but the poorer classes, who could not lay in a store for winter,
were often very badly off both for food and firing, and in many hard seasons
they literally starved. But charity was active in those days, and many a
poor man's store was eked out by his wealthier neighbour.
When the household supply was
thus laid in, the mistress, with her daughters and servants, sat down to
their distaffs and spinning-wheels; for the manufacture of the family
clothing was usually the work of the winter months. The fabrics then worn
were almost entirely of wool, silk and cotton being scarcely known. The
wool, when not grown on the farm, was purchased in a raw state, and was
carded, spun, dyed, and in many cases woven at home: so also with the linen
clothing, which, until quite a recent date, was entirely the produce of
female fingers and household spinning-wheels. This kind of work occupied the
winter months, occasionally alternated with knitting, embroidery, and
tapestry work. Many of our country houses continue to bear witness to the
steady industry of the ladies of even the highest ranks in those times, in
the fine tapestry hangings with which the walls of many of the older rooms
in such mansions are covered.
Among the humbler classes,
the same winter's work went on. The women sat round log fires knitting,
plaiting, and spinning by fire-light, even in the daytime. Glass had not yet
come into general use, and the openings in the wall which in summer-time
served for windows, had necessarily to be shut close with boards to keep out
the cold, though at the same time they shut out the light. The chimney,
usually of lath and plaster, ending overhead in a cone and funnel for the
smoke, was so roomy in old cottages as to accommodate almost the whole
family sitting around the fire of logs piled in the reredosse in the middle,
and there they carried on their winter's work.
Such was the domestic
occupation of women in the rural districts in olden times; and it may
perhaps be questioned whether the revolution in our social system, which has
taken out of their hands so many branches of household manufacture and
useful domestic employment, be an altogether unmixed blessing.
Winter at an end, and the
roads once more available for travelling, the Fair of the locality was
looked forward to with interest. Fairs were among the most important
institutions of past times, and were rendered necessary by the imperfect
road communications. The right of holding them was regarded as a valuable
privilege, conceded by the sovereign to the lords of the manors, who adopted
all manner of devices to draw crowds to their markets. They were usually
held at the entrances to valleys closed against locomotion during winter, or
in the middle of rich grazing districts, or, more frequently, in the
neighbourhood of famous cathedrals or churches frequented by flocks of
pilgrims. The devotion of the people being turned to account, many of the
fairs were held on Sundays in the churchyards; and almost in every parish a
market was instituted on the day on which the parishioners were called
together to do honour to their patron saint.
The local fair, which was
usually held at the beginning or end of winter, often at both times, became
the great festival as well as market of the district; and the business as
well as the gaiety of the neighbourhood usually centred on such occasions.
High courts were held by the Bishop or Lord of the Manor, to accommodate
which special buildings were erected, used only at fair time. Among the
fairs of the first class in England were Winchester, St. Botolph's Town
(Boston), and St. Ives. We find the great London merchants travelling
thither in caravans, bearing with them all manner of goods, and bringing
back the wool purchased by them in exchange.
Winchester Great Fair
attracted merchants from all parts of Europe. It was held on the hill of St.
Giles, and was divided into streets of booths, named after the merchants of
the different countries who exposed their wares in them. "The passes through
the great woody districts, which English merchants coming from London and
the West would be compelled to traverse, were on this occasion carefully
guarded by mounted 'serjeants-at-arms,' since the wealth which was being
conveyed to St. Giles's-hill attracted bands of outlaws from all parts of
the country."*[4] Weyhill Fair, near Andover, was another of the great fairs
in the same district, which was to the West country agriculturists and
clothiers what Winchester St. Giles's Fair was to the general merchants.
The principal fair in the
northern districts was that of St. Botolph's Town (Boston), which was
resorted to by people from great distances to buy and sell commodities of
various kinds. Thus we find, from the 'Compotus' of Bolton Priory,*[5] that
the monks of that house sent their wool to St. Botolph's Fair to be sold,
though it was a good hundred miles distant; buying in return their winter
supply of groceries, spiceries, and other necessary articles. That fair,
too, was often beset by robbers, and on one occasion a strong party of them,
under the disguise of monks, attacked and robbed certain booths, setting
fire to the rest; and such was the amount of destroyed wealth, that it is
said the veins of molten gold and silver ran along the streets.
The concourse of persons
attending these fairs was immense. The nobility and gentry, the heads of the
religions houses, the yeomanry and the commons, resorted to them to buy and
sell all manner of agricultural produce. The farmers there sold their wool
and cattle, and hired their servants; while their wives disposed of the
surplus produce of their winter's industry, and bought their cutlery,
bijouterie, and more tasteful articles of apparel. There were caterers there
for all customers; and stuffs and wares were offered for sale from all
countries. And in the wake of this business part of the fair there
invariably followed a crowd of ministers to the popular tastes-- quack
doctors and merry andrews, jugglers and minstrels, singlestick players,
grinners through horse-collars, and sportmakers of every kind.
Smaller fairs were held in
most districts for similar purposes of exchange. At these the staples of the
locality were sold and servants usually hired. Many were for special
purposes--cattle fairs, leather fairs, cloth fairs, bonnet fairs, fruit
fairs. Scatcherd says that less than a century ago a large fair was held
between Huddersfield and Leeds, in a field still called Fairstead, near
Birstal, which used to be a great mart for fruit, onions, and such like; and
that the clothiers resorted thither from all the country round to purchase
the articles, which were stowed away in barns, and sold at booths by
lamplight in the morning.*[6] Even Dartmoor had its fair, on the site of an
ancient British village or temple near Merivale Bridge, testifying to its
great antiquity; for it is surprising how an ancient fair lingers about the
place on which it has been accustomed to be held, long after the necessity
for it has ceased. The site of this old fair at Merivale Bridge is the more
curious, as in its immediate neighbourhood, on the road between Two Bridges
and Tavistock, is found the singular-looking granite rock, bearing so
remarkable a resemblance to the Egyptian sphynx, in a mutilated state. It is
of similarly colossal proportions, and stands in a district almost as lonely
as that in which the Egyptian sphynx looks forth over the sands of the
Memphean Desert.*[7]
Site of an ancient British village and fair on Dartmoor.
The last occasion on which
the fair was held in this secluded spot was in the year 1625, when the
plague raged at Tavistock; and there is a part of the ground, situated
amidst a line of pillars marking a stone avenue--a characteristic feature of
the ancient aboriginal worship--which is to this day pointed out and called
by the name of the "Potatoe market."
But the glory of the great
fairs has long since departed. They declined with the extension of
turnpikes, and railroads gave them their death-blow. Shops now exist in
every little town and village, drawing their supplies regularly by road and
canal from the most distant parts. St. Bartholomew, the great fair of
London,*[8] and Donnybrook, the great fair of Dublin, have been suppressed
as nuisances; and nearly all that remains of the dead but long potent
institution of the Fair, is the occasional exhibition at periodic times in
country places, of pig-faced ladies, dwarfs, giants, double-bodied calves,
and such-like wonders, amidst a blatant clangour of drums, gongs, and
cymbals. Like the sign of the Pack-Horse over the village inn door, the
modern village fair, of which the principal article of merchandise is
gingerbread-nuts, is but the vestige of a state of things that has long
since passed away.
There were, however, remote
and almost impenetrable districts which long resisted modern inroads. Of
such was Dartmoor, which we have already more than once referred to. The
difficulties of road-engineering in that quarter, as well as the sterility
of a large proportion of the moor, had the effect of preventing its becoming
opened up to modern traffic; and it is accordingly curious to find how much
of its old manners, customs, traditions, and language has been preserved. It
looks like a piece of England of the Middle Ages, left behind on the march.
Witches still hold their sway on Dartmoor, where there exist no less than
three distinct kinds-- white, black, and grey,*[9]--and there are still
professors of witchcraft, male as well as female, in most of the villages.
As might be expected, the
pack-horses held their ground in Dartmoor the longest, and in some parts of
North Devon they are not yet extinct. When our artist was in the
neighbourhood, sketching the ancient bridge on the moor and the site of the
old fair, a farmer said to him, "I well remember the train of pack-horses
and the effect of their jingling bells on the silence of Dartmoor. My
grandfather, a respectable farmer in the north of Devon, was the first to
use a 'butt' (a square box without wheels, dragged by a horse) to carry
manure to field; he was also the first man in the district to use an
umbrella, which on Sundays he hung in the church-porch, an object of
curiosity to the villagers." We are also informed by a gentleman who resided
for some time at South Brent', on the borders of the Moor, that the
introduction of the first cart in that district is remembered by many now
living, the bridges having been shortly afterwards widened to accommodate
the wheeled vehicles.
The primitive features of
this secluded district are perhaps best represented by the interesting
little town of Chagford, situated in the valley of the North Teign, an
ancient stannary and market town backed by a wide stretch of moor. The
houses of the place are built of moor stone--grey, venerable-looking, and
substantial--some with projecting porch and parvise room over, and
granite-mullioned windows; the ancient church, built of granite, with a
stout old steeple of the same material, its embattled porch and
granite-groined vault springing from low columns with Norman-looking
capitals, forming the sturdy centre of this ancient town clump.
A post-chaise is still a
phenomenon in Chagford, the roads and lanes leading to it being so steep and
rugged as to be ill adapted for springed vehicles of any sort. The upland
road or track to Tavistock scales an almost precipitous hill, and though
well enough adapted for the pack-horse of the last century, it is quite
unfitted for the cart and waggon traffic of this. Hence the horse with
panniers maintains its ground in the Chagford district; and the
double-horse, furnished with a pillion for the lady riding behind, is still
to be met with in the country roads.
Among the patriarchs of the
hills, the straight-breasted blue coat may yet be seen, with the shoe
fastened with buckle and strap as in the days when George III. was king; and
old women are still found retaining the cloak and hood of their youth. Old
agricultural implements continue in use. The slide or sledge is seen in the
fields; the flail, with its monotonous strokes, resounds from the
barn-floors; the corn is sifted by the windstow--the wind merely blowing
away the chaff from the grain when shaken out of sieves by the motion of the
hand on some elevated spot; the old wooden plough is still at work, and the
goad is still used to urge the yoke of oxen in dragging it along.
The Devonshire Crooks
"In such a place as Chagford,"
says Mr. Rowe, "the cooper or rough carpenter will still find a demand for
the pack-saddle, with its accompanying furniture of crooks, crubs, or
dung-pots. Before the general introduction of carts, these rough and ready
contrivances were found of great utility in the various operations of
husbandry, and still prove exceedingly convenient in situations almost, or
altogether, inaccessible to wheel-carriages. The long crooks are used for
the carriage of corn in sheaf from the harvest-field to the mowstead or
barn, for the removal of furze, browse, faggot-wood, and other light
materials. The writer of one of the happiest effusions of the local
muse,*[10] with fidelity to nature equal to Cowper or Crabbe, has introduced
the figure of a Devonshire pack-horse bending under the 'swagging load' of
the high-piled crooks as an emblem of care toiling along the narrow and
rugged path of life. The force and point of the imagery must be lost to
those who have never seen (and, as in an instance which came under my own
knowledge, never heard of) this unique specimen of provincial agricultural
machinery. The crooks are formed of two poles,*[11] about ten feet long,
bent, when green, into the required curve, and when dried in that shape are
connected by horizontal bars. A pair of crooks, thus completed, is slung
over the pack-saddle--one 'swinging on each side to make the balance true.'
The short crooks, or crubs, are slung in a similar manner. These are of
stouter fabric, and angular shape, and are used for carrying logs of wood
and other heavy materials. The dung-pots, as the name implies, were also
much in use in past times, for the removal of dung and other manure from the
farmyard to the fallow or plough lands. The slide, or sledge, may also still
occasionally be seen in the hay or corn fields, sometimes without, and in
other cases mounted on low wheels, rudely but substantially formed of thick
plank, such as might have brought the ancient Roman's harvest load to the
barn some twenty centuries ago."
Mrs. Bray says the crooks are
called by the country people "Devil's tooth-picks." A correspondent informs
us that the queer old crook-packs represented in our illustration are still
in use in North Devon. He adds: "The pack-horses were so accustomed to their
position when travelling in line (going in double file) and so jealous of
their respective places, that if one got wrong and took another's place, the
animal interfered with would strike at the offender with his crooks."
Footnotes for Chapter III.
*[1] 'Three Years' Travels in
England, Scotland, and Wales.' By James Brome, M.A., Rector of Cheriton,
Kent. London, 1726.
*[2] The treatment the
stranger received was often very rude. When William Hutton, of Birmingham,
accompanied by another gentleman, went to view the field of Bosworth, in
1770, "the inhabitants," he says, "set their dogs at us in the street,
merely because we were strangers. Human figures not their own are seldom
seen in these inhospitable regions. Surrounded with impassable roads, no
intercourse with man to humanise the mind. nor commerce to smooth their
rugged manners, they continue the boors of Nature." In certain villages in
Lancashire and Yorkshire, not very remote from large towns, the appearance
of a stranger, down to a comparatively recent period, excited a similar
commotion amongst the villagers, and the word would pass from door to door,
"Dost knaw'im?" "Naya." "Is 'e straunger?" "Ey, for sewer." "Then paus' 'im--
'Eave a duck [stone] at 'im-- Fettle 'im!" And the "straunger" would
straightway find the "ducks" flying about his head, and be glad to make his
escape from the village with his life.
*[3] Scatcherd, 'History of
Morley.'
*[4] Murray's ' Handbook of
Surrey, Hants, and Isle of Wight,' 168.
*[5] Whitaker's 'History of
Craven.'
*[6] Scatcherd's 'History of
Morley,' 226.
*[7] Vixen Tor is the name of
this singular-looking rock. But it is proper to add, that its appearance is
probably accidental, the head of the Sphynx being produced by the three
angular blocks of rock seen in profile. Mr. Borlase, however, in his '
Antiquities of Cornwall,' expresses the opinion that the rock-basins on the
summit of the rock were used by the Druids for purposes connected with their
religious ceremonies.
*[8] The provisioning of
London, now grown so populous, would be almost impossible but for the
perfect system of roads now converging on it from all parts. In early times,
London, like country places, had to lay in its stock of salt-provisions
against winter, drawing its supplies of vegetables from the country within
easy reach of the capital. Hence the London market-gardeners petitioned
against the extension of tumpike-roads about a century ago, as they
afterwards petitioned against the extension of railways, fearing lest their
trade should be destroyed by the competition of country-grown cabbages. But
the extension of the roads had become a matter of absolute necessity, in
order to feed the huge and ever-increasing mouth of the Great Metropolis,
the population of which has grown in about two centuries from four hundred
thousand to three millions. This enormous population has, perhaps, never at
any time more than a fortnight's supply of food in stock, and most families
not more than a few days; yet no one ever entertains the slightest
apprehension of a failure in the supply, or even of a variation in the price
from day to day in consequence of any possible shortcoming. That this should
be so, would be one of the most surprising things in the history of modern
London, but that it is sufficiently accounted for by the magnificent system
of roads, canals, and railways, which connect it with the remotest corners
of the kingdom. Modern London is mainly fed by steam. The Express
Meat-Train, which runs nightly from Aberdeen to London, drawn by two engines
and makes the journey in twenty-four hours, is but a single illustration of
the rapid and certain method by which modem London is fed. The north
Highlands of Scotland have thus, by means of railways, become
grazing-grounds for the metropolis. Express fish trains from Dunbar and
Eyemouth (Smeaton's harbours), augmented by fish-trucks from Cullercoats and
Tynemouth on the Northumberland coast, and from Redcar, Whitby, and
Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast, also arrive in London every morning. And
what with steam-vessels bearing cattle, and meat and fish arriving by sea,
and canal-boats laden with potatoes from inland, and railway-vans laden with
butter and milk drawn from a wide circuit of country, and road-vans piled
high with vegetables within easy drive of Covent Garden, the Great Mouth is
thus from day to day regularly, satisfactorily, and expeditiously filled.
*[9] The white witches are
kindly disposed, the black cast the "evil eye," and the grey are consulted
for the discovery of theft, &c.
*[10] See 'The Devonshire
Lane', above quoted
*[11] Willow saplings,
crooked and dried in the required form. |
