Peeps at Many Lands: England

In this hall Sir William Compton received Henry VIII., whom Sir William had accompanied to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Sir William, too, had won much distinction at the Battle of Spurs, and was a great favourite with bluff King Hal, to whom the knight owed much of his great fortune.

Next to the hall is the great parlour, the private room of the family when they withdrew from the hall. It is finely panelled in oak, and has a plaster ceiling, bearing the arms of the owners of the place. Beyond the parlour is the chapel, decorated with very ancient carved wooden panels. These carvings are very much older than the house, and it is believed they were brought from an old castle which Sir William Compton pulled down in order to obtain materials for his house.

But it will be impossible for us to go from room to room of this wonderful old house, for there are more than eighty of them – drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, bedrooms, great kitchens with vast old fireplaces, and gained by seventeen separate staircases, which wind and twist their way through the building. It is said there are 275 windows in the house, though an old story goes that no one knows exactly how many there are, for he who tries to count is baffled by a mysterious secret window, which he sees and counts on the first occasion, and can never find again. Its chimneys, too, rise in a veritable forest of quaintly-shaped stacks, and form as puzzling a labyrinth as the windows.

There was a meaning in this tangle of windows and chimneys, for Compton Wynyates is full of secret hiding-places. Hundreds of years ago there was need of them. To-day no man needs to hide himself unless he has done wrong. Then, an innocent man might stand in great danger of a powerful enemy or of an unjust law. So the old houses were furnished with places where men could hide from their foes until an opportunity came for escape.

Again, Compton Wynyates was a Catholic house, and in those times Roman Catholics were punished if they were found attending a Roman Catholic service, and the priest who performed the service stood in danger of imprisonment or, possibly, of death. So places were carefully constructed to which the priest could fly to hide himself when officers of the law came to the house in search of him. Many such secret chambers are found in old mansions, and are known as "priests' holes."

It was a common thing to form a secret chamber in the thickness of a wall, and the first thing required was air, the second light. Air was often given to a secret chamber by a chimney. But such a chimney remained unblackened by smoke, and would soon be detected as not doing its proper work, so it was often built in the centre of a stack of real chimneys, and thus remained hidden. So, too, amid a great number of other windows, it was not easy to detect that which gave light to a hidden room. At Compton Wynyates such is the tangle of windows and chimneys that a person may have pointed out to him the chimney and the window belonging to a secret room, and yet fail to discover the place when he searches inside.

One of the secret rooms at Compton Wynyates was discovered by a child of the house, Lady Frances Compton, in 1770. She was playing in a turret room, and fell against some plaster-work, which rang hollow. Search was made, and a concealed door was found beneath the plaster. The hidden chamber was opened, and tradition says that the skeletons of a woman and two children were found within. No one knows how they came there, but it is believed that at some time of danger they had been concealed there and forgotten.

In the roof of this great building is the famous priests' room or chapel. Here the Roman Catholics of the neighbourhood used to meet to worship in secret. A safer and better hidden place could not be devised. To this day the proof that it was a Roman Catholic chapel remains to be seen. "On an elm shelf below the south-west window are, rudely carved, five consecration crosses, showing that it had been used for the purpose of an altar, and was consecrated according to the rites of the Romish Church. The slab of wood is unique, in that it forms the only known instance of a wooden altar in England."

There was another huge room in the roof, 130 feet long, which was known as the Barracks, a place where soldiers were quartered. Here may be seen blood-stains, caused by fighting during the Great Civil War. The house was held for the King, but the Roundhead soldiery broke in, and there was desperate fighting in the Barracks, and many were slain. Cromwell's men took the house, and held it for the rest of the war.

In one of the drawing-rooms may be seen, carved beautifully in the panelling, the arms of the Comptons and the arms of the Spencers, and this carving bears witness to a very romantic marriage. In the days of Queen Elizabeth there was a Lord Mayor of London whose name was Sir John Spencer. Sir John was a very rich man, and he had an only daughter named Elizabeth. Now, the Lord Compton of that day fell in love with Elizabeth Spencer, but the wealthy merchant did not look with any favour on Compton, and forbade him to come near the house. But the young lady herself did not share her father's feelings with regard to the young courtier, and soon a clever ruse was planned.

One day a young man, dressed as a baker, came to the house with a huge basket of loaves of bread. As he was going away again, with the great basket on his shoulders, he met Sir John himself. The wealthy merchant thought that here was a hard-working young fellow going heartily about his business. He praised him, gave him sixpence, and told him that he was on the high-road to make his fortune. So he was, but not quite as Sir John thought. The disguised baker was Lord Compton, and in the basket he was carrying off the young heiress, Elizabeth Spencer.

When Sir John learned of the trick that had been played on him he was furious, and vowed that he would never see his daughter again. But Queen Elizabeth took an interest in the affair, and finally brought about a reconciliation, and the arms of the two families were placed in the drawing-room to show that peace was restored between Sir John and the young people.

BY FEN AND BROAD

From hills and slopes, dales and uplands, we will take our departure and look at the flattest land of England, the wide, level stretches of country around the Wash, the Fens. A fen is a marsh, and once these immense stretches of flat land were marshes pure and simple. There is plenty of water about them now, but it is penned up by dikes and embankments, and run off by drains as big as rivers.

It is often said that those who care for Dutch landscape have no need to leave our own country to enjoy it, for the Fenland is Holland in miniature. There may be seen the same long flat stretches of country, cut by long, straight canals bordered by willow and alder; the same kind of dikes making the same fight against the encroaching sea, the windmills pumping water into drains and out of some pool which is being reclaimed; the green fields deep in grass, and the dark peat-cuttings whence the peasantry obtain their fuel.

It is nearly 300 years since a beginning was made of draining the Fens. Before that time the whole country was one great marsh, through which slow-moving streams crept to the sea. Very often vast tracts were completely under water. Perhaps there was heavy rain and a flood ran down the rivers; it might be met by a high tide sweeping far up the low, flat river-beds. The flood and the tide met, and the water rose high above the shallow banks, and converted the land into a huge morass.

It is significant that the earliest drainers of the Fens were Dutchmen, who directed Dutch labourers. These men knew what had been done in their native Holland in the way of reclaiming land, and they saw that good land could be made in the Fens if the water could only be kept in its proper place. So they began to raise embankments, to scour out the channels of rivers, to build sluices, and to pump the water out of standing pools.

The drainers had to make a great struggle with the forces of Nature; they had almost a severer and sterner fight still with the Fen-folk. The latter had been born and bred amid their wild watery wilderness, and loved it. Their cottages were raised here and there wherever a patch of dry earth showed itself above the bog, and they traversed the Fens far and wide in their boats or on foot. When afoot, each man carried his long leaping-pole over his shoulder. With its aid he would skim like a bird over a stream or pool, and so make his way where another man would have found his path hopelessly blocked.

The Fen-men made a living by catching the fish which swarmed in the countless waterways, and by snaring the birds which haunted the wide reed-beds in vast flocks. They felt great anger at the thought of their marshes being turned to dry land, and one of their ballads gives their opinion very clearly:

"Come, Brethren of the water, and let us all assemble
To treat upon this Matter which makes us quake and tremble;
For we shall Rue, if it be true that Fens be undertaken;
And where we feed in Fen and reed, they'll feed both Beef and Bacon.

"They'll sow both Bean and Oats, where never man yet thought it;
Where men did row in Boats ere Undertakers bought it;
But, Ceres, thou behold us now, let wild oats be their venture,
Oh, let the Frogs and miry Bogs destroy where they do enter."

The Fen-men fought hard against the improvements, and broke down dikes and burst open sluices, but in the end the drainers outlived these attacks, and the works were built.

Generation after generation has drained and diked and embanked until, at the present day, we may cross vast stretches of fruitful country bearing splendid crops of corn and potatoes, which were once wild marsh-land and impassable morass. And so it soon would be again if the utmost care was not taken. The sea – the hungry sea – is always ready to break in; the rivers are always ready to break their bounds; but the former is held at bay by dikes, and the latter are kept in bounds by strong embankments, and every defence is closely watched.

It is strange to find here and there places in the Fens called islands – as, for instance, the Isle of Ely – places far from the sea. But once they were real islands rising from the waters of the vast marsh. Perhaps the dry, firm land of which they consisted only rose a few feet above the level of the water, but it enabled the Fen-men to build their cottages, to pasture their sheep and cattle, to grow their corn, and to plant fruit-trees.

The most famous of these islands was the Isle of Ely, a patch of dry land seven miles long and four miles broad, well remembered as one of the last strongholds of the Saxons against William the Conqueror. But the vast morass which once surrounded Ely has long been drained and converted into fruitful soil, forming the immense flat amidst which rises in stately and majestic fashion the noble cathedral of Ely.

Yet the sea is not altogether the loser in the battle with man along this coast. Much land has been won from it, much land has been lost to it, and is being lost to this day. The low shores of Norfolk and Suffolk, south of the Wash, are being steadily worn away in places by the attacks of the sea, and year by year the low cliffs fall before the waves of some great storm, and the sea makes a fresh inroad upon the land.

At Cromer, the well-known watering-place, the old town is under water. The present town is quite new, and out to sea lie the houses of the Cromer of past days, covered with seaweed, and with the fish swimming up and down the streets where once the Cromer folk went about their business. At low tides the ancient dwellings and ways can still be clearly traced.

Still farther out to sea lie the remains of a yet older village, called Shipden. Five hundred years ago Shipden was a port on the seaward side of Cromer, but harbour, village, and church were swallowed up by the waves. The church tower was built of flint, as is the custom of the East Country, and so well had the old masons done their work that a piece of the tower is at times seen by the fishermen about 400 yards out to sea, and they call it "the Church Rock."

The same story is told of many other places. Towns, villages, churches, have been swallowed, either little by little or at one great gulp, by the never-resting sea. So serious are these inroads that plans are being formed by Government to check the rush of the sea and keep the waves in bounds.

A great feature of the county of Norfolk is the Broads – wide stretches of water connected by rivers and streams, large and small – a district beloved by yachtsmen and fishermen. All who love to sail a boat find the Broads a summer paradise. They can go by innumerable waterways from lake to lake, from pool to pool, from mere to mere, through a wide district.

A summer journey by boat through this land of streams and pools is a very pleasant excursion. The traveller must fit out his yacht with plenty of food, for the region is lonely, and houses and inns few and far between. Very particular people carry fresh water as well, for the drinking water drawn from the marshy soil is a very doubtful liquid; the watermen who live on the Broads just dip up what they want from the river, and there are those who say that the plan is as good as any.

Even better than a yacht for a trip through the Broads is the local barge, a Norfolk wherry. The Norfolk wherry is a true descendant of the Viking longship, once so well known along this coast. It is a long, low boat, broad and roomy, drawing very little water, and sailing very fast. It has one huge brown sail, which is hoisted forward, right in the bow; and to see a big wherry cracking at full speed across a great broad with a favouring wind is to see a very fine sight indeed. Stranger still is it to look across an open stretch of grassy country and see brown sails dotting, as it seems, the surface of the fields. They belong to wherries slipping along some hidden waterway.

The sides of the Broads and rivers are often marshy, and dotted with rushy and reedy islets in the most picturesque fashion. Among these islets lie innumerable little pools called "pulks." From the islets pheasants may be often flushed in summer and autumn, and coot in winter; from the "pulks" may be taken large baskets of fish.

The quantity of fish, especially in the remoter or preserved portion of the Broads, is almost incredible, and anglers often reckon their catch by the stone weight instead of the number of fish. A single "pulk" will often afford a good basket, and a well-known fishing writer says: "Once while yachting on the Norfolk Broads, we were lying at anchor close to the shore. About a yard from our bows was a clear pool amid the weeds, about 6 feet in diameter and 3 feet deep. This was literally as full as it could be of roach and rudd swimming to and fro; the brilliant sunshine lit up the red and silver and gold of the fishes as they hovered over the bright green weed, and the whole made as pretty a sight as I have ever seen of the kind."

When winter comes, yachts and wherries are laid up, and summer visitants fly away with the swallows; yet the Broads are not deserted. The sharp weather fills them with myriads of wild-fowl – ducks and geese, snipe and widgeon – and the wild-fowl hunter is out in his slate-coloured punt. The boat is painted of this colour in order to blend with its surroundings and escape notice, and in its bow is fixed a huge gun, often throwing half a pound of large shot at a single discharge. When this gun is fired into a flock of wild-duck, it will often fetch down ten or a dozen at once, and the skilful punt-shooter soon makes a big bag.

Then, perhaps, comes sharper weather still, and the punts can no longer move over the ice-bound waters. This is the time of the skater's festival, and a nobler skating-ground can nowhere be found. Over river and pool and broad he flies, with unnumbered miles of clear, open ice before him.

BY DALE AND FELL

The huge county of Yorkshire has many claims on our attention. It has vast manufacturing centres, and in some parts it is crowded thickly with towns and villages, packed with mills, and studded with lofty chimneys which belch out unceasing clouds of smoke. Then, again, it has a splendid coast-line, with noble cliffs and rocky headlands, dotted with quaint fishing villages and tiny ports, whence the "cobles" put out to sea with hardy fishermen aboard. And, striking right away inland, it can show some of the most beautiful scenery in its dales and fells that our country has to show.

Putting busy town and breezy fishing village aside for the moment, we will go up to the lofty moorland heights of this "county of the broad acres" and see some of their beauties, and hear some of the tales which linger around their quiet, grey stone villages.

On the western side of Yorkshire the land heaves up to the Pennine Chain – the "backbone of England," as it is often called. It is not a chain of sharply-defined peaks; it is rather a great mass of rolling moorland whose tablelands, the "fells," are divided from each other by deep valleys, long and narrow – the famous "dales." At the foot of each dale flows a swift river, which, twisting and turning round sharp angles of rock, leaping from ledge to ledge in sheets of foam, or gliding in deep quiet stretches below an overhanging wood, affords most striking and picturesque scenery.

There are many points at which the explorer may strike into the hills from the more level and cultivated part of the county. But perhaps the best of all is to enter the dales at Richmond, a beautiful old town beside the River Swale. It matters not from which point you approach Richmond, there is one feature of the view which catches the eye at once – the magnificent fashion in which the splendid Norman keep of its castle rises above the little town. The stately tower stands up four-square to every wind, just as its Norman builders left it 800 years ago, and around it cluster the red roofs of the town, just as they gathered there for shelter during the Middle Ages.

From Richmond the Valley of the Swale runs up into the Pennines, and the journey along it must be made by foot or carriage, for 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 loveliest and grandest of the Yorkshire dales retaining its isolation in this respect. About a mile from the town there is a lofty cliff called Whitcliffe Scar, whence the spectator may see far up the dale whither he proposes to journey. The country people call the Scar "Willance's Leap," and it has borne this name since 1606. In that year a certain Robert Willance was out hunting, and a great mist came down the dale and wrapped the hills. So thick was the fog that Willance could scarcely see a yard before him, and suddenly he found himself on the verge of the Scar. It was too late to check or turn his horse: both went headlong over the lofty cliff, and were hurled to its foot. The horse was killed on the spot, but in some miraculous fashion the rider found himself alive at the foot of the precipice, his worst injury a broken leg. Full of wonder and thankfulness, Willance erected inscribed stones to commemorate his marvellous escape, and the stones are still to be seen at that point of the cliff from which he fell. He also presented a silver cup in memory of this event to Richmond, and the cup remains in the possession of the town.

Pushing westwards through the bold and striking scenery of the dale, we pass glen after glen, each with its little beck, its moorland stream. At times the headlands spring up so abruptly as almost to shut in the dale, and in times of storm the thunder rumbles from wall to wall of the glen with tremendous echoes. Wonderful at such times of heavy rain is it to see how swiftly the little brooks become swollen, how the main stream becomes a raging, foaming torrent. Then we understand why the bridges are so high and strong. They had seemed far too large for the little river pushing over the stones: they seem none too strong now to withstand the terrific rush of flood-water sent down from the broad faces of the fells.

As we gain the higher parts of the dale, trees and corn and rich meadow-land are left behind. The farms are sheep-farms, and the moors stretch on every hand. The houses are strongly built of grey stone, and where there are fields, grey stone walls divide them, for hedges cannot grow on these windy, storm-swept heights.

It is striking to note how the houses and barns match the grey hill-sides. Not only are the walls of grey stone, but they are roofed with slabs of stone also, and these weather to beautiful shades of green and grey, and blend perfectly with the prevailing hue.

"In the upper portions of the dales – even in the narrow riverside pastures – the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of these enclosures can be seen traversing even the steepest ascents. The stiles that are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an interesting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury, and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the more enduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds a very narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space for the thickness of the average knee, and thus preventing the passage of the smallest lamb. Some stiles are constructed with a large flat stone projecting from each side, one slightly in front and overlapping the other, so that one can only pass through by making a very careful S-shaped movement. More common are the projecting stones, making a flight of steps up one side of the wall and down the other."

From the head of Swaledale a wild road crosses the fells to Wensleydale, the next great glen. The road bears the strange name of Buttertubs Pass, because it passes the edges of some vast chasms called, from their shape, the Buttertubs. There is no path leading to the depths of these immense holes, but men have been let down into them by ropes, and there found the bones of lost sheep which had fallen down the sides. It is a most unsafe road for a stranger to traverse, above all, if night is falling. The way runs along the lip of these frightful descents, and is very lonely. If a passer-by fell into one of these huge hollows, he would never be heard of again.