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Vanishing England by P. H. Ditchfield

P >> P. H. Ditchfield >> Vanishing England




Stocks have been used in quite recent times. So late as 1872, at
Newbury, one Mark Tuck, a devoted disciple of John Barleycorn,
suffered this penalty for his misdeeds.[51] He was a rag and bone
dealer, and knew well the inside of Reading jail. _Notes and
Queries_[52] contains an account of the proceedings, and states that
he was "fixed in the stocks for drunkenness and disorderly conduct in
the Parish Church on Monday evening." Twenty-six years had elapsed
since the stocks were last used, and their reappearance created no
little sensation and amusement, several hundreds of persons being
attracted to the spot where they were fixed. Tuck was seated on a
stool, and his legs were secured in the stocks at a few minutes past
one o'clock, and as the church clock, immediately facing him, chimed
each quarter, he uttered expressions of thankfulness, and seemed
anything but pleased at the laughter and derision of the crowd. Four
hours having passed, Tuck was released, and by a little stratagem on
the part of the police he escaped without being interfered with by the
crowd.

[51] _History of Hungerford_, by W. Money, p. 38.

[52] _Notes and Queries_, 4th series, X, p. 6.

Sunday drinking during divine service provided in many places victims
for the stocks. So late as half a century ago it was the custom for
the churchwardens to go out of church during the morning service on
Sundays and visit the public-houses to see if any persons were
tippling there, and those found _in flagrante delicto_ were
immediately placed in the stocks. So arduous did the churchwardens
find this duty that they felt obliged to regale themselves at the
alehouses while they made their tour of inspection, and thus rendered
themselves liable to the punishment which they inflicted on others.
Mr. Rigbye, postmaster at Croston, Lancashire, who was seventy-three
years of age in 1899, remembered these Sunday-morning searches, and
had seen drunkards sitting in the stocks, which were fixed near the
southern step of the village cross. Mr. Rigbye, when a boy, helped to
pull down the stocks, which were then much dilapidated. A certain
Richard Cottam, called "Cockle Dick," was the last man seen in
them.[53]

[53] _Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire_, by H. Taylor,
F.S.A., p. 37.

The same morning perambulating of ale-houses was carried on at
Skipton, the churchwardens being headed by the old beadle, an imposing
personage, who wore a cocked hat and an official coat trimmed with
gold, and carried in majestic style a trident staff, a terror to
evil-doers, at least to those of tender years.[54] At Beverley the
stocks still preserved in the minster were used as late as 1853; Jim
Brigham, guilty of Sunday tippling, and discovered by the
churchwardens in their rounds, was the last victim. Some sympathizer
placed in his mouth a lighted pipe of tobacco, but the constable in
charge hastily snatched it away. James Gambles, for gambling on
Sunday, was confined in the Stanningley stocks, Yorkshire, for six
hours in 1860. The stocks and village well remain still at Standish,
near the cross, and also the stone cheeks of those at Eccleston Green
bearing the date 1656. At Shore Cross, near Birkdale, the stocks
remain, also the iron ones at Thornton, Lancashire, described in Mrs.
Blundell's novel _In a North Country Village_; also at Formby they
exist, though somewhat dilapidated.

[54] _History of Skipton_, W.H. Dawson, quoted in _Bygone
Punishments_, p. 199.

Whether by accident or design, the stocks frequently stand close to
the principal inn in a village. As they were often used for the
correction of the intemperate their presence was doubtless intended as
a warning to the frequenters of the hostelry not to indulge too
freely. Indeed, the sight of the stocks, pillory, and whipping-post
must have been a useful deterrent to vice. An old writer states that
he knew of the case of a young man who was about to annex a silver
spoon, but on looking round and seeing the whipping-post he
relinquished his design. The writer asserts that though it lay
immediately in the high road to the gallows, it had stopped many an
adventurous young man in his progress thither.

The ancient Lancashire town of Poulton-in-the-Fylde has a fairly
complete set of primitive punishment implements. Close to the cross
stand the stocks with massive ironwork, the criminals, as usual,
having been accustomed to sit on the lowest step of the cross, and on
the other side of the cross is the rogue's whipping-post, a stone
pillar about eight feet high, on the sides of which are hooks to which
the culprit was fastened. Between this and the cross stands another
useful feature of a Lancashire market-place, the fish stones, an
oblong raised slab for the display and sale of fish.

In several places we find that movable stocks were in use, which could
be brought out whenever occasion required. A set of these exists at
Garstang, Lancashire. The quotation already given from _King Lear,_
"Fetch forth the stocks," seems to imply that in Shakespeare's time
they were movable. Beverley stocks were movable, and in _Notes and
Queries_ we find an account of a mob at Shrewsbury dragging around the
town in the stocks an incorrigible rogue one Samuel Tisdale in the
year 1851.

The Rochdale stocks remain, but they are now in the churchyard, having
been removed from the place where the markets were formerly held at
Church Stile. When these kind of objects have once disappeared it is
rarely that they are ever restored. However, at West Derby this
unusual event has occurred, and five years ago the restoration was
made. It appears that in the village there was an ancient pound or
pinfold which had degenerated into an unsightly dust-heap, and the old
stocks had passed into private hands. The inhabitants resolved to turn
the untidy corner into a garden, and the lady gave back the stocks to
the village. An inscription records: "To commemorate the long and
happy reign of Queen Victoria and the coronation of King Edward VII,
the site of the ancient pound of the Dukes of Lancaster and other
lords of the manor of West Derby was enclosed and planted, and the
village stocks set therein. Easter, 1904."

This inscription records another item of vanishing England. Before the
Inclosure Acts at the beginning of the last century there were in all
parts of the country large stretches of unfenced land, and cattle
often strayed far from their homes and presumed to graze on the open
common lands of other villages. Each village had its pound-keeper,
who, when he saw these estrays, as the lawyers term the valuable
animals that were found wandering in any manor or lordship,
immediately drove them into the pound. If the owner claimed them, he
had certain fees to pay to the pound-keeper and the cost of the keep.
If they were not claimed they became the property of the lord of the
manor, but it was required that they should be proclaimed in the
church and two market towns next adjoining the place where they were
found, and a year and a day must have elapsed before they became the
actual property of the lord. The possession of a pound was a sign of
dignity for the village. Now that commons have been enclosed and waste
lands reclaimed, stray cattle no longer cause excitement in the
village, the pound-keeper has gone, and too often the pound itself has
disappeared. We had one in our village twenty years ago, but suddenly,
before he could be remonstrated with, an estate agent, not caring for
the trouble and cost of keeping it in repair, cleared it away, and its
place knows it no more. In very many other villages similar happenings
have occurred. Sometimes the old pound has been utilized by road
surveyors as a convenient place for storing gravel for mending roads,
and its original purpose is forgotten.

It would be a pleasant task to go through the towns and villages of
England to discover and to describe traces of these primitive
implements of torture, but such a record would require a volume
instead of a single chapter. In Berkshire we have several left to us.
There is a very complete set at Wallingford, pillory, stocks, and
whipping-post, now stored in the museum belonging to Miss Hedges in
the castle, but in western Berkshire they have nearly all disappeared.
The last pair of stocks that I can remember stood at the entrance to
the town of Wantage. They have only disappeared within the last few
years. The whipping-post still exists at the old Town Hall at
Faringdon, the staples being affixed to the side of the ancient
"lock-up," known as the Black Hole.

At Lymm, Cheshire, there are some good stocks by the cross in that
village, and many others may be discovered by the wandering antiquary,
though their existence is little known and usually escapes the
attention of the writers on local antiquities. As relics of primitive
modes of administering justice, it is advisable that they should be
preserved.

Yet another implement of rude justice was the cucking or ducking
stool, which exists in a few places. It was used principally for the
purpose of correcting scolding women. Mr. Andrews, who knows all that
can be known about old-time punishments, draws a distinction between
the cucking and ducking stool, and states that the former originally
was a chair of infamy where immoral women and scolds were condemned to
sit with bare feet and head to endure the derision of the populace,
and had no relation to any ducking in water. But it appears that later
on the terms were synonymous, and several of these implements remain.
This machine for quieting intemperate scolds was quite simple. A plank
with a chair at one end was attached by an axle to a post which was
fixed on the bank of a river or pond, or on wheels, so that it could
be run thither; the culprit was tied to the chair, and the other end
of the plank was alternately raised or lowered so as to cause the
immersion of the scold in the chilly water. A very effectual
punishment! The form of the chair varies. The Leominster ducking-stool
is still preserved, and this implement was the latest in use, having
been employed in 1809 for the ducking of Jenny Pipes, _alias_ Jane
Corran, a common scold, by order of the magistrates, and also as late
as 1817; but in this case the victim, one Sarah Leeke, was only
wheeled round the town in the chair, and not ducked, as the water in
the Kenwater stream was too shallow for the purpose. The cost of
making the stool appears in many corporation accounts. That at
Hungerford must have been in pretty frequent use, as there are several
entries for repairs in the constable's accounts.[55] Thus we find the
item under the year 1669:--

"Pd for the Cucking stoole 01,10,00"

and in 1676:--

"Pd for nailes and workmanship about
the stocks and cucking stoole 00,07,00"

[55] The corporation of Hungerford is peculiar, the head official
being termed the constable, who corresponded with the mayor in
less original boroughs.

At Kingston-upon-Thames in 1572 the accounts show the expenditure:--

"The making of the cucking-stool . 8s. 0d.
Iron work for the same . . . 3s. 0d.
Timber for the same . . . 7s. 6d.
Three brasses for the same and three wheels 4s. 10d.
------------
L1 3s. 4d."

We need not record similar items shown in the accounts of other
boroughs. You will still find examples of this fearsome implement at
Leicester in the museum, Wootton Bassett, the wheels of one in the
church of St. Mary, Warwick; two at Plymouth, one of which was used in
1808; King's Lynn, Norfolk, in the museum; Ipswich, Scarborough,
Sandwich, Fordwich, and possibly some other places of which we have no
record.

We find in museums, but not in common use, another terrible implement
for the curbing of the rebellious tongues of scolding women. It was
called the brank or scold's bridle, and probably came to us from
Scotland with the Solomon of the North, whither the idea of it had
been conveyed through the intercourse of that region with France. It
is a sort of iron cage or framework helmet, which was fastened on the
head, having a flat tongue of iron that was placed on the tongue of
the victim and effectually restrained her from using it. Sometimes the
iron tongue was embellished with spikes so as to make the movement of
the human tongue impossible except with the greatest agony. Imagine
the poor wretch with her head so encaged, her mouth cut and bleeding
by this sharp iron tongue, none too gently fitted by her rough
torturers, and then being dragged about the town amid the jeers of the
populace, or chained to the pillory in the market-place, an object of
ridicule and contempt. Happily this scene has vanished from vanishing
England. Perhaps she was a loud-voiced termagant; perhaps merely the
ill-used wife of a drunken wretch, who well deserved her scolding; or
the daring teller of home truths to some jack-in-office, who thus
revenged himself. We have shrews and scolds still; happily they are
restrained in a less barbarous fashion. You may still see some
fearsome branks in museums. Reading, Leeds, York, Walton-on-Thames,
Congleton, Stockport, Macclesfield, Warrington, Morpeth, Hamstall
Ridware, in Staffordshire, Lichfield, Chesterfield (now in possession
of the Walsham family), Leicester, Doddington Park, Lincolnshire (a
very grotesque example), the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Ludlow,
Shrewsbury, Oswestry, Whitchurch, Market Drayton, are some of the
places which still possess scolds' bridles. Perhaps it is wrong to
infer from the fact that most of these are to be found in the counties
of Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, that the women of those
shires were especially addicted to strong and abusive language. It may
be only that antiquaries in those counties have been more industrious
in unearthing and preserving these curious relics of a barbarous age.
The latest recorded occasion of its use was at Congleton in 1824, when
a woman named Ann Runcorn was condemned to endure the bridle for
abusing and slandering the churchwardens when they made their tour of
inspection of the alehouses during the Sunday-morning service. There
are some excellent drawings of branks, and full descriptions of their
use, in Mr. Andrews's _Bygone Punishments_.

Another relic of old-time punishments most gruesome of all are the
gibbet-irons wherein the bones of some wretched breaker of the laws
hung and rattled as the irons creaked and groaned when stirred by the
breeze. _Pour l'encouragement des autres_, our wise forefathers
enacted that the bodies of executed criminals should be hanged in
chains. At least this was a common practice that dated from medieval
times, though it was not actually legalized until 1752.[56] This Act
remained in force until 1834, and during the interval thousands of
bodies were gibbeted and left creaking in the wind at Hangman's Corner
or Gibbet Common, near the scene of some murder or outrage. It must
have been ghostly and ghastly to walk along our country lanes and hear
the dreadful noise, especially if the tradition were true

That the wretch in his chains, each night took the pains,
To come down from the gibbet--and walk.

In order to act as a warning to others the bodies were kept up as long
as possible, and for this purpose were saturated with tar. On one
occasion the gibbet was fired and the tar helped the conflagration,
and a rapid and effectual cremation ensued. In many museums
gibbet-irons are preserved.

Punishments in olden times were usually cruel. Did they act as
deterrents to vice? Modern judges have found the use of the lash a
cure for robbery from the person with violence. The sight of
whipping-posts and stocks, we learn, has stayed young men from
becoming topers and drunkards. A brank certainly in one recorded case
cured a woman from coarse invective and abuse. But what effect had the
sight of the infliction of cruel punishments upon those who took part
in them or witnessed them? It could only have tended to make cruel
natures more brutal. Barbarous punishments, public hangings, cruel
sports such as bull-baiting, dog-fighting, bear-baiting,
prize-fighting and the like could not fail to exercise a bad influence
on the populace; and where one was deterred from vice, thousands were
brutalized and their hearts and natures hardened, wherein vicious
pleasures, crime, and lust found a congenial soil. But we can still
see our stocks on the village greens, our branks, ducking-stools, and
pillories in museums, and remind ourselves of the customs of former
days which have not so very long ago passed away.

[56] Act of Parliament 25 George II.




CHAPTER XIV

OLD BRIDGES


The passing away of the old bridges is a deplorable feature of
vanishing England. Since the introduction of those terrible
traction-engines, monstrous machines that drag behind them a whole
train of heavily laden trucks, few of these old structures that have
survived centuries of ordinary use are safe from destruction. The
immense weight of these road-trains are enough to break the back of
any of the old-fashioned bridges. Constantly notices have to be set up
stating: "This bridge is only sufficient to carry the ordinary traffic
of the district, and traction-engines are not allowed to proceed over
it." Then comes an outcry from the proprietors of locomotives
demanding bridges suitable for their convenience. County councils and
district councils are worried by their importunities, and soon the
venerable structures are doomed, and an iron-girder bridge hideous in
every particular replaces one of the most beautiful features of our
village.

When the Sonning bridges that span the Thames were threatened a few
years ago, English artists, such as Mr. Leslie and Mr. Holman-Hunt,
strove manfully for their defence. The latter wrote:--

"The nation, without doubt, is in serious danger of losing faith
in the testimony of our poets and painters to the exceptional
beauty of the land which has inspired them. The poets, from
Chaucer to the last of his true British successors, with one voice
enlarge on the overflowing sweetness of England, her hills and
dales, her pastures with sweet flowers, and the loveliness of her
silver streams. It is the cherishing of the wholesome enjoyments
of daily life that has implanted in the sons of England love of
home, goodness of nature, and sweet reasonableness, and has given
strength to the thews and sinews of her children, enabling them to
defend her land, her principles, and her prosperity. With regard
to the three Sonning bridges, parts of them have been already
rebuilt with iron fittings in recent years, and no disinterested
reasonable person can see why they could not be easily made
sufficient to carry all existing traffic. If the bridges were to
be widened in the service of some disproportionate vehicles it is
obvious that the traffic such enlarged bridges are intended to
carry would be put forward as an argument for demolishing the
exquisite old bridge over the main river which is the glory of
this exceptionally picturesque and well-ordered village; and this
is a matter of which even the most utilitarian would soon see the
evil in the diminished attraction of the river not only to
Englishmen, but to Colonials and Americans who have across the sea
read widely of its beauty. Remonstrances must look ahead, and can
only now be of avail in recognition of future further danger. We
are called upon to plead the cause for the whole of the
beauty-loving England, and of all river-loving people in
particular."

Gallantly does the great painter express the views of artists, and
such vandalism is as obnoxious to antiquaries as it is to artists and
lovers of the picturesque. Many of these old bridges date from
medieval times, and are relics of antiquity that can ill be spared.
Brick is a material as nearly imperishable as any that man can build
with. There is hardly any limit to the life of a brick or stone
bridge, whereas an iron or steel bridge requires constant supervision.
The oldest iron bridge in this country--at Coalbrookdale, in
Shropshire--has failed after 123 years of life. It was worn out by old
age, whereas the Roman bridge at Rimini, and the medieval ones at St.
Ives, Bradford-on-Avon, and countless other places in this country and
abroad, are in daily use and are likely to remain serviceable for many
years to come, unless these ponderous trains break them down.

The interesting bridge which crosses the River Conway at Llanrwst was
built in 1636 by Sir Richard Wynn, then the owner of Gwydir Castle,
from the designs of Inigo Jones. Like many others, it is being injured
by traction-trains carrying unlimited weights. Happily the Society for
the Protection of Ancient Buildings heard the plaint of the old bridge
that groaned under its heavy burdens and cried aloud for pity. The
society listened to its pleading, and carried its petition to the
Carmarthen County Council, with excellent results. This enlightened
Council decided to protect the bridge and save it from further harm.

The building of bridges was anciently regarded as a charitable and
religious act, and guilds and brotherhoods existed for their
maintenance and reparation. At Maidenhead there was a notable bridge,
for the sustenance of which the Guild of St. Andrew and St. Mary
Magdalene was established by Henry VI in 1452. An early bridge existed
here in the thirteenth century, a grant having been made in 1298 for
its repair. A bridge-master was one of the officials of the
corporation, according to the charter granted to the town by James II.
The old bridge was built of wood and supported by piles. No wonder
that people were terrified at the thought of passing over such
structures in dark nights and stormy weather. There was often a
bridge-chapel, as on the old Caversham bridge, wherein they said their
prayers, and perhaps made their wills, before they ventured to cross.

Some towns owe their existence to the making of bridges. It was so at
Maidenhead. It was quite a small place, a cluster of cottages, but
Camden tells us that after the erection of the bridge the town began
to have inns and to be so frequented as to outvie its "neighbouring
mother, Bray, a much more ancient place," where the famous "Vicar"
lived. The old bridge gave place in 1772 to a grand new one with very
graceful arches, which was designed by Sir Roland Taylor.

Abingdon, another of our Berkshire towns, has a famous bridge that
dates back to the fifteenth century, when it was erected by some good
merchants of the town, John Brett and John Huchyns and Geoffrey
Barbour, with the aid of Sir Peter Besils of Besselsleigh, who
supplied the stone from his quarries. It is an extremely graceful
structure, well worthy of the skill of the medieval builders. It is
some hundreds of yards in length, spanning the Thames and meadows that
are often flooded, the main stream being spanned by six arches. Henry
V is credited with its construction, but he only graciously bestowed
his royal licence. In fact these merchants built two bridges, one
called Burford Bridge and the other across the ford at Culham. The
name Burford has nothing to do with the beautiful old town which we
have already visited, but is a corruption of Borough-ford, the town
ford at Abingdon. Two poets have sung their praises, one in atrocious
Latin and the other in quaint, old-fashioned English. The first poet
made a bad shot at the name of the king, calling him Henry IV instead
of Henry V, though it is a matter of little importance, as neither
monarch had anything to do with founding the structure. The Latin poet
sings, if we may call it singing:--

Henricus Quartus quarto fundaverat anno
Rex pontem Burford super undas atque Culham-ford.

The English poet fixes the date of the bridge, 4 Henry V (1416) and
thus tells its story:--

King Henry the fyft, in his fourthe yere
He hath i-founde for his folke a brige in Berkshire
For cartis with cariage may goo and come clere,
That many wynters afore were marred in the myre.

Now is Culham hithe[57] i-come to an ende
And al the contre the better and no man the worse,
Few folke there were coude that way mende,
But they waged a cold or payed of ther purse;
An if it were a beggar had breed in his bagge,
He schulde be right soone i-bid to goo aboute;
And if the pore penyless the hireward would have,
A hood or a girdle and let him goo aboute.
Culham hithe hath caused many a curse
I' blyssed be our helpers we have a better waye,
Without any peny for cart and horse.

Another blyssed besiness is brigges to make
That there the pepul may not passe after great schowres,
Dole it is to draw a dead body out of a lake
That was fulled in a fount stoon and felow of owres.

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