Rushden and Higham in Olden Times
Ancient Water Mills And Communal Ovens
Items of Historic Interest From The Court Rolls
Rushden Men’s Petition to a Money Loving King
Brewers Fined For Selling Unwholesome Beer
Baker fined for not Baking “Farthing Loaves”!
Short Shift with Profiteers
Tanners, Curriers, and Shoemakers in Trouble

The historic records, or Court Rolls of Higham Hundred have much to say that should still be of living interest to the inquiring mind.

Here and there are records of the Manorial mills, where Ditchford mill is coupled with Higham mills. In 1380-1, repairs were made to these mills. Now this is of special interest, for early in that century Irchester, Irthlingborough, and Rushden were commissioned to repair Ditchford bridge, the present bridge being the outcome. The peculiarity here is that Higham had no part in this important bridge construction. Then, again, about 1400, Ditchford mill was entirely re-built as a Higham mill, as the Higham Bailiff’s accounts show.

Mention is often made with regard to the mills of the manor, in connection with Higham, but Rushden mills, as a separate entity, seem to have given little cause for record. The inference is that the Ditchford mill (claimed for Higham) did duty for grinding much of the Rushden corn. Its location and the direct road from Rushden, made it of easy access.

In the middle of the 15th century John Clerk was employed to grind a hand-mill by Wm. Salt, Esq., at Rushden. This raised the ire of the lord of the manor, or rather the wrath of his bailiff, for the lord of the manor was the King. The Rushden Court left Mr. Wm. Salt, Esq., to prove his right, and there the matter still rests, in so far as can be gathered, for record is ever silent, afterwards, as to whether the “Squire” proved this right.

Again and again it is shown that private handmills or querns were set us surreptitiously, which caused suits to be entered against the owners, by the lord of the manor.

These middle-ages had communal ovens also, set up by the lord of the manor, for his golden reward. Rushden folk had to bake in these, but their condition was such that they had to plead for their repair in 1411, again in 1438, and again in 1446, when the tenants were ordered to repair the three public ovens, and the reeve (bailiff) was to remit the annual rent of 77s. 4d. This order came from Westminster, the King (Henry V1.) being lord of the manor. There was usually a villains’ (bond-servants’) oven, distant from those used by the freemen.

The direct mention of a pillory at Wollaston, as well as at Higham, indicates that this was a usual mode of punishment. The inference is that there was a pillory set up at Rushden also.

The records give evidence that a “poll tax” was usual during the 15th and 16th centuries, whilst another form of tax, known as “cert money”, seems to have originally been a fine for non-attendance at the “Court Leet”. Here the grievance seemed to lie in the fact that those who attended court were, later, charged equally with those who did not attend, and therein lay the trouble and sense of injustice, yet imposed by a Court of Justice. As it concerned Rushden, the men had to pay in total a matter of some 40s. annually. This was about the year 1392. Nearly three quarters of a century later, 1460, the year of the Battle of Northampton, the men of Rushden sent a petition to the Duchy of Lancaster, of which some extracts are here given :-

“To the worshypfull counsel of the Duchie of Lancaster, Besechen meekly, the Kynges pore tenents of the town of Russheden you tenderly to consider hough that afore this time” etc., and on to “ the lamentable desolation of people that in the said town full gretely hath fallen dayly is lyke because of the seid wrongfull charge Serleyante (cert money) borne of the prepre godes (goods) of the seid accomptants, to their grete destriccion. And this for the love of God and in way of charite.”

This petition may seem quaint to our readers understanding, but respite came as the result of it, at least that was so until 1565 when Empson (Sir Richard) Henry V11’s Minister, and a Northamptonshire man, re-imposed the fine, to still further enrich that money loving King. Three years later this King died, and one of the first acts of his successor was to have the unpopular Empson’s head struck off. No more money seams to have been paid by the men of Rushden after this event. The Receiver, however, had to record its non-payment, as a debt, in each year’s Court Accounts. This was actually recorded from 1508 to 1619, a 111 years of non-payment. After this the records are silent upon the subject.

In 11th century Rushden, the number of brewings, and quality of the ale brewed, again and again came under court review. In 1379 a woman unlawfully brewed 27 times, for which she was fined 2s. Then (one line missing from paper) fined 1s 6d apiece for so brewing 18 times. As early as 1318 the requirement of a licence to brew ale in Rushden is mentioned. In 1465 John Gobey was the ale taster for the farm-servants (villains) of Rushden. He brought Margery Hull to court, where she was fined 3d. It appears that Margery refused to send for this ale-taster, and treated his office with contempt.

Five years later William Pomfret was fined a couple of pence for selling beer which was unsound, whilst a year afterwards John Pomfret was similarly fined for selling beer which was neither wholesome nor fit for the human body. Still later, in 1484, Isota Johnson had to suffer in fine to the same amount of 2d., for “selling and uttering beer which was bad and not wholesome for the bodies of the King’s lieges.”

Illegal measure (short, without doubt) was another offence that retailers of early Rushden were not all free from, as, to wit, in the case of John Coves, who, in 1433, was fined for selling beer by “false measure.”

Then these ever interesting Court Rolls record the delinquencies of bakers, as in the case of Elinora Lycores, a common baker (public baker) who was fined 12d. in 1441, for not making farthing loaves “to the great prejudice and damage of the tenants.”

In 1555 Henry Somner, of Russheden, was ordered by John Gryffyn, Mayor of Higham, to “bring both hyde and tallow into the market, as well as flesshe, or ells (else) to carry home the flesshe again.” This meant that a Rushden butcher who attended Higham market to sell meat, was bound also to sell his hides and fat there also, instead of keeping it for the home tanneries.

Other classes of persons had to appear before the court, from time to time, such as Gannockers (retail beer sellers, who bought of the brewers), millers who refused to grind for all and sundry, without discrimination, and tallow chandlers (candle makers) who sold at too high a price.

It is noticeable again and again, that profiteers who sold at extortionate rate were in those old times severely dealt with. This also applied to those rogue profiteers who unduly gained by means of false or short weight.

Again tanners and curriers got into trouble, on the report of the leather searchers, for selling “illegitimate leather”, that is, leather not properly tanned. Then again, they were not allowed to buy hides in the market unless they took “clout leather” (dressed leather) to market to sell.

The shoemakers also received the court’s attention, as several common shoemakers were fined 6d. for making shoes with the insoles of “red dry English leather” contrary to statute; others were fined to the extent of 1s. 6d. for selling shoes on the Sunday. And both shoemakers and masons were fined 12d. for non-attendance at church, but this was at the comparatively late date of 1636, when assertive Puritanism began to make itself felt, and Archbishop Laud determined to enforce attendance at the Established Church.

Market hours were made very strict in those days, with great advantage given to resident salesmen. This is an order made in 1566: “That no polters (poulterers) not dwelling within this towne shall not by (buy) nether butter, eiges (eggs), cheese, nor other poltrie ware till 12 of the cloke (clock), upon pene (pain) of 6s. 8d. for every deffante.” True, the case in point referred to Daventry, but each local market had a similar ruling. This gave a decided advantage to the residents. In 1506 Sir Richard, Vicar of Denford, was fined 40d. at the Higham Court for being a “regration,” this term meaning one who forestalls the market by intercepting persons going with their wares to market to sell, and buying their goods up before they got to their destination.

A note is made in these records, too, of a dove-house that was in Rushden in 1313, for the keeping of which toll was levied by the bailiff, for the rearing of pigeons. It should be mentioned that the columbary of Higham Castle, of early 14th century date, still exists, as a ruin, in the Green Dragon garden, the many-holed walls, made so for pigeon rearing, being a conspicuous feature of this historic remnant. Doubtless the Rushden dove-house was built along the lines of a similar arrangement.

These gleanings were mainly culled from the translations and compilations of the Higham Hundred Court Rolls, so ably undertaken by the late Rev. R. M. Serjeantson, M.A., F.S.A., and the Rev. W. J B. Kerr, Vicar of Irchester. All have proved of extreme interest to readers in general, and in particular so, as it shows the mind of our ancestors in connection with many phases of their lives in general.

Agriculture, in Early January, held high festival, when Plough Monday was made a day of merriment by all connected with the plough, and in special by ploughboys; these were the lads who drove the plough horses. These went from house to house dressed in uncouth costume, and with “reddled” and blackened faces. The progress was made to the oft repeated jingle of:-

T’ink (think of) poor ploughboy,
Just one ha’penny. Come!

This was accompanied with the jingling of coins in a tinder-box, an exhortation that it was advisable to favourably respond to, as otherwise, the house door-scraper, or garden palings, might be wrenched up. At times, even a plough was taken round, and the path ploughed up, or other such mischief perpetrated.

This old-time festival and saturnalia probably derived its mummeries from the ancient Feast of Fools, and took place on the first Monday after Twelfth Night, and ended in a general fuddle at one or another of the public-houses. Until recent years, small boys dressed up and paraded from house to house, jingling a coin in a tin box, whilst repeating the begging couplet, a reminiscence of a past greater happening.

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Shrove Tuesday, often called Pancake Day, was the day preceding the Lenten Season of fast, a riotous festival, and that carnival which was a “farewell to the flesh” from more than one standpoint. Surely the mentality of a community is shown by its traits, and especially so is evidenced by its festival usages, as contrasted with its everyday more sombre existence. This old rhyme must express much in its reference to Rushden:-

Pancakes and fritters
For us and good critters;
When must we fry ‘em
Say the bells at old Higham,
Pancake bell tells us when,
The bell of Rushden.

This refers to the old usage at Rushden of ringing a bell, known as pancake stirring bell, at half-past eleven o’clock in the morning of Shrove Tuesday, in reality a reminiscence of the shriving bell. This holiday was rounded out in a variety of ways, but, in special was much made of “cock-shying,” where the poor unfortunate fowl was tied in a basket, which was hung upon a swinging hook, in a suitable place, and at a suitable height, on purpose to be “shied” at. This pastime of stone-throwing, to bring down basket and bird, was considered the sport of the day, and the one who brought down the prize claimed the booty. Sometimes a cock was buried up to its head to be shied at; hence the term “cock-shy,” happily now no longer in evidence.

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In the early Spring season an awakening bell was rung, a four o’clock morning call for the seedsmen to arise and sow for the coming harvest. When harvest came a bell was rung at that same time, known as the gleaners’ bell. This was again rung at seven in the evening, a welcome call to home and rest, after each lengthy day’s toil.

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Palm Sunday was a commemorative day of palm branch blessing, or, in northern countries, beyond palm tree growth, willow or yew branches were similarly blessed. Another usage in this Rushden locality is, to an extent, still in evidence. It is the custom to eat figs as a reminder of the cursing of the barren fig tree, and of the fact that a wealth of foliage, or of empty profession, cannot be accepted, apart from genuine fruit, either from tree, or from man.

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April the first ushered in “All Fools Day,” which must not be confounded with that saturnalia, the Feast of Fools. This day of hoax and humour was an important one for the local wit, as also for the witless. It was of antemeridian duration only, for after the noon-bell had been rung (that bell ringing usage brought down from long years ago, but discontinued under a false impression that the steeple would fall as the result of ringing this single bell, yet now happily revived with steeple still soaring so impressively upward) this couplet repeated by the witless silenced the wit:-

April’s going, May’s a-coming,
You’re the fool for being so cunning.
Thus ended the morning’s fools’ frolic.

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The custom of having hot cross buns for Good Friday breakfast still survives, to some extent, though there may be few who remember, or have heard these lines, yet so often heard in former days:-

One a penny, two a penny
Hot Cross buns;
Sugar ‘em and butter ‘em,
And stick ‘em in your muns.

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Perhaps the most truly pastoral of all revels were the May Day happenings in mediaeval England, with its crowning of the May Queen, the May-pole, and Morris dancing, and its general round of happy movement until eventide. The May-cutting at early dawn, in Catholic days, received Episcopal blessing. Here are some of the May-Day verses, often sung in old Rushden:-

O for a cup of your sweet cream,
Or a jug of your Brown beer,
And if we tarry on in town,
We’ll call another year.

Following these thirsty desires came verses which exhort to fear of sin and to repent, evidences surely, of their having been written in Puritanic times, and under Puritanic influence:-

Remember us poor Mayers all,
For now we do begin
To lead our lives in righteousness,
For fear we die in sin.

To die in sin is a serious thing,
To go where sinners mourn;
It would have been better for our poor souls
If we had ne’er been born.

In contrast to these unscanable lucubrations this first verse of the Mayers’ perambulating ditty is cheerful indeed:-

A bunch of May, my dear, I say,
Before your door I stand;
“Tis but a sprout, but ‘tis well laid out
By the work of our Lord’s hand.

A may branch, florally decked out, was carried by the May singers, from door to door. These singers were, usually, a bevy of young girls, dressed in simple white. A money offering was expected and usually obtained from each house they visited.

These May-day revels were a survival of a feast held in the month of May, in honour of the goddess Flora. These were known in Classic days some three hundred years before the coming of Christ.

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Show your oak, show your oak, show your oak,
Show your oak, then I’ll not pinch ye!

This refers to the most modern of these old-time events, for it was originated to commemorate the memory of Prince Charlie’s adventures in the historic Worcestershire oak. After the Restoration, when, as Charles II, the prince became king of England, upon the overthrow of the Commonwealth, it was customary to turn this day into one of rough horse play. During the day, all who did not wear a sprig of oak leaves, in token of loyalty to royalty, were pinched by the professed Loyalists. In the evening, a hurdle was purloined from a neighbouring field, dressed out with oak branches, and carried on the shoulders of four stalwart youths. The meeting-place was “up Bedford-road,” the, as the long length of old High-street was reached, the first small boy who came to hand was “chucked” onto the hurdle, as representative and unwilling mimic of the one-time hidden Prince.

The motly procession proceeded, but not in pence, for here and there, from amongst the throngs in doorways, a bucket of water was thrown on the hurdle, to act as a cooler upon a too-exuberant Loyalist ardour. Those who administered the douche represented the Commonwealth faction in this fun and frolic. It was a cooling medicine indeed for the small boy so unwillingly playing the part of the sometime hidden Prince, as unwillingly as did that sprig of royalty play it in earnest. The writer speaks feelingly of that vanished 29th of May event, for once he was himself that hurdle-ridden small boy!

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A passing mention should be made of the great white festival that took place on Whit Sunday, a very special day in the early Christian Church for baptisms, when the candidates were dressed in white, hence its name, Whit Sunday. Later it became a special season for general feasting. It was at this time that the early benefit clubs, which were usually held in public-houses, had their annual “club-feasts,” and notably was this so at Rushden. With the decline of the club-feast the secular side of the Whitsuntide festivity “fizzled” out, and it simply holds place again now as the Pentecostal Festival of the Church Calendar.

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Harvest home! Harvest home!
Two plum puddings are better than one.

For many a long year this couplet was heard in Rushden street, where the last laden cart, laden with corn, green leafy boughs as decoration, and the smaller children of the farm harvesters riding “a-top,” all borne to the rick-yard as evidence of the completion of the harvest labour. This annual “harvest home,” with its supper “for all hands,” was looked forward to as a great event in the simple round of farm life, and each farmer provided ample fare for the occasion, with a barn-dance afterwards. The “two plum puddings” phrase was a gentle hint that the fare should be of generous worth.

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Then after harvest time, came the hiring fair. This in bygone Rushden was called “The Mop,” when the various farm servants were hired for the succeeding year. And it was a mop! Indeed it was several mops, together with any other kindred belonging that could be gleaned from around the houses on Mop night. All this “flotsam and jetsam” was deposited on the Green. The main fun of the hiring fair seemed to consist in seeing the house-folk the next morning, when search was made in the hope of finding their lost belongings from amidst the various assortment, piled in the centre of the Green.

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The festival of the dedication of the Church was, for many years the chief season of generous social gatherings, when ample meat and drink were provided. This provisioning for kith and kin led to this particular annual assembling together to be called The Feast. This had little in common with the present day collection of stalls, shows, and roundabouts.

“Holy Wake,” instituted by St. Gregory, to counteract the influence of heathenish festival desire, felt by recently-converted Christians, consisted of booths and tents pitched around the Church. In a sense, therefore, the present aggregation of feast stalls, etc., is a decadent outcome of St. Gregory’s institution.

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Please to remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason, and plot.

Thus sang Clare, the neglected Northamptonshire poet, who is only now just “coming into his own.”

Much earlier bands of waits, or recorders, played upon ancient instruments, perambulating the village, on Christmas night, and stopped at certain places to play their music. A corbel winged figure, under the Nave roof of Rushden Church, probably a 15th century figure, is represented as playing upon such an instrument.

The tintinnabulation of the bells of Poe’s poem became much more than that, in their old-time joyous clamour on early Christmas morning. Then there were the carol singers, who went forth at that midnight hour to cheer, with their “Peace, goodwill towards men.”

These effeminate days do not have the joy of such meaning music, the sole survival being brass-band selections given during the day of Christmas.

It was an inspiration indeed when –

Come, let us be merry, cast sorrow away,
Our Saviour, Christ Jesus, was born on this day –

came stealing upon one’s ear, on the earliest hour of Christmas morning.

Even now, though, the brass bands still play Jarman’s “Nativity,” of “Whilst shepherds watched their flocks” fame. Its fugal “go” still grips the fancy, in the knowledge of its association with Christmastide. And old Jarman was a Northamptonshire worthy, whose unlearned music had a simple merit all its own. By calling he was a peddler, who sold his wares in many a Northamptonshire village.

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Boxing Day followed Christmas Day, and was a time when servants and others received presents from their superiors in social station. Afterwards it degenerated into a kind of begging day, when children of varying growth and station went from door to door to seek small gifts. This has now fallen into general disuse in this locality.

And thus ends the round of events of old Rushden town.

Other Happenings of Past Times

The ringing of the Church bells entered into many phases of past Rushden life. It goes without saying that they heralded in the regular church services. Bridal and funeral ceremonies were also announced by bell-ringing.

All the bells clanged joyously after the marriage ceremony, and this in particular to announce the time for drinking the Bride’s ale, from which comes the present name Bridal. This was one of the many church ale drinkings, to “raise the monetary wind.” These were the precursors of the present-day Church tea-drinkings. On the morning after the wedding the bells were again rung at five o’clock to wake the bride, for in those days of simple life the distantly-travelled honeymoon was unknown.

Then the bells were an integral part of funeral custom. When a funeral took place on Sunday, half the chiming was omitted and the time given over to tolling the funeral bell. In such cases the coffin was placed in the church porch, and reposed there throughout the church service. Until recent years it was usual to announce the sex and age of the deceased by means of bell-strokes. This took place immediately after death, and preceded the death-bell tolling. The fire tocsin was heard now and again, until towards the end of the last century, but now no bell rings as a fire-alarm.

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An ancient custom in this Rushden district was that of cutting crosses in the turf on the road-side to indicate where persons had met with a violent death. An old record, according to Northants “Notes and Queries” states that crosses were to be seen in this Rushden district in former times.

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The “Chequers” inns of this neighbourhood speak as to the popularity of this multiform old game. The writer recalls having played a species of this game, the Nine Men’s Morris, of Shakespeare, on cut out chequer lines on the old Peck tomb, when quite a small boy, attending Mr. Ebenezer Knight’s Vestry Room School. This was just before the days of the National and British Schools (the latter soon afterwards was turned into the Board School). Mr. Knight succeeded Mr. Cherry, another old regime pedagogue.

The following was often quoted by the scholars of those days:-

Mr. Knight’s a very good man,
He “larns” his scholars all he can,
To read and write and ‘rithmetic,
But never forgets to give ‘em the stick;
When he does he makes ‘em dance
Out of England, into France,
Out of France and into Spain,
Over the hills and back again.

It should be placed on record that such scholars as are of the regime of Mr. Ebenezer Knight, and are still living, have the greatest regard for his memory as “schoolmaster.”

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Horn fair was a pandemonium of noises let loose upon social offenders, in former times, a usage that died out nearly half a century ago.

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Draught oxen were used in Rushden within living memory, a Mr. Fisher in particular, a former resident of Bedford-road Lodge, used to draw his wagons with oxen. Such draught oxen are still extensively used in Nova Scotia, for slow moving traffic, where two are usually equally yoked together in Scripture fashion, not unequally as would be an ox and a ass.

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In the early days of “the craft,” when each worker took his or her work home from a central distribution house, Monday was very usually the weekly holiday, and was known as “Saint Monday.”

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The belief was very general, and not so long ago either, that a hare, running along the street, would presage a fire, especially so if the animal were shot at, but yet escaped. This actually happened as late as October 7th, 1884, according to a “Northampton Herald” report. The hare ran, was shot at, escaped, and the after-fire in the High-street did some £500 damage.

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Weather prognostications were also numerous in former days. The one relative to the new moon being a puzzle. One weather-wise person will tell you that it must lie like a boat on the water, to indicate “a wet moon,” whilst another will say that it is “a dripping moon” when it is on end, so that the wet can drip out. The best known weather saw of the district, possibly, is this one:-

A mackerel sky,
Never three days dry.

Or this variant:-

A mackerel sky,
Neither wet nor dry.

Another rhyming nature proverb, still well known in this locality, has it:-

An attempt was made to establish a market at Rushden, towards the end of the last century; it was of short duration, however, and died out on the day when a cage of white mice was the only asset the market had to offer.

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The old Factory Yard has had its name changed to “Factory Place,” a name of doubtful meaning. It was here that the Rev. J. Whittemore made a brave attempt to better both the literature and music of his Church, a fact that deserves chronicling.

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Formerly a hole in the north face of the Church spire was pointed out as having been caused by a lightning stroke, whilst the ringers were at their practice. On this occasion a boy in the midst of the ringers was killed, yet no harm was done to any other person. The hole was filled in when the spire was last pointed, the new filling being still plainly visible. Coles states that this fatal event happened in 1805.

Geologic

The surface, or subsoil stratification, in and around Rushden, is much broken, but consists in the main of Oxford clay and Oolitic limestones, of the mid-Jurassic period. The hard fossiliferous limestone, known as cornbrash, was at one time quarried, to the South of Rushden, where the Rev. A. W. Griesback, of Wollaston, collected 80 varieties of fossils, as given in Judd’s geology of Rutland. Other Oolitic limestones lie east and west of the brook, and were at one time utilised mainly for lime and for surfacing the roads, which soon became very dusty or extremely pastey. In bygone years Sunday could always be known by the unhallowed incense of the lime burning, for it was the usual routine to start the kiln fires on Saturday afternoons. The clay was, and still is, used for brick making, from which a fossil is found, known locally as a thunderbolt on account of its hard pointed shape (geologically a belemnite). This belief in certain stones being cast to earth in a flash of lightning is very ancient, in this locality it was fully accredited, formerly.

Here and there a sand, of useful commercial quality, lies towards the river, and from such fossil finds as mammoths’ teeth and other fossils of mammals, the inference may be drawn that this sand is a water-washed deposit of a comparatively recent geological period, in fact as late as Palaeolithic man. The evidence is not certain, but it is said that a stone axe was found some half-century ago in one of these sand-pits.

Much time and money were used up about the end of last century in an endeavour to secure a town supply of water by sinking wells down to gravel below the clay. Here scientific theorizing failed, however, and practical commonsense came to the rescue, when the finest of the country’s water-supplies was secured for both Higham Ferrers and Rushden in the artificially-formed Sywell water-shed lake constructed some ten miles south-west of Rushden, a boon that is coveted to-day by many, and even by the county town itself.

The Boulder Clay, a deposit of great depth laid down by glacial agency, was cut through when the Midland Railway excavated its cutting and tunnel at Wymington, some forty years ago. This lies a couple of miles to the south of Rushden, and the large number of derived fossils, that is fossils and stones gleaned from the rocks over which the glacier passed, in its long journey from Norway (for there was no North Sea then) tell a wonderful nature story.

The following account is taken from the “Journal of the Northamptonshire Natural History Society” for August, 1883:-

“Owing to watchful and persistent attention we have before us (this refers to fossils, etc., loaned to the Society) an extensive collection of fossils from a formation usually looked upon by geologists as being barren, unproductive, and very uninteresting. The fossils found are all “derived fossils,” that is, they all belong to other and older periods, and have been transplanted from their original formations to the position in which they were found. It (this boulder clay under review) owes its origin directly to glaciers, and is the equivalent of the ground moraine matter deposited by modern glaciers.”

This is taken from the review of a lecture given before the Northamptonshire Natural History by the late Mr. D. Crick, of Northampton.

Over sixty varieties of fossils were found by a local geologist, and named by Mr. T. J. George, F.G.S., and amongst which are a score of different species of Ammonites; besides these, numerous broken pieces of rocks were gleaned from the deposit. Some of the granite specimens obtained are not known to belong to any formation nearer than those in Norway, and all the geological evidence tends to show that this vast glacial deposit was gathered from the earth’s surface, between its present location and distant Norway.

In this immediate Rushden locality, though not actually in the parish, valuable deposits of ironstone have been quarried, on both sides of the Nene Valley. At the present time quarrying is being carried on, along the east-side, above the valley at Irchester, whilst across on the west-side mining has commenced on a very extensive scale, the entry to the mines being at Irthlingborough.

Both these are within about two miles of Rushden lordship, whilst in Rushden itself a limestone has recently been quarried, that is, used as an ironsmelting flux.

Some Northampton iron ore has its commercial value greatly impaired by being mixed too largely with certain phosphates; on the other hand, in the mined ores, the “Brown hermatite” of the “Northampton sand” is the most valuable of iron ores for the manufacture of fine steel.

A mineral spring rises to the surface, to add to the streamlet which becomes “the brook” at a point in the lower part of “Oak-pits” field, a little before the beck enters the close (a local name for a small grass-field). This water, upon coming into contact with the air, deposits a reddish substance, presumably red ochre, an oxide of iron. Within living memory this spring was well known, and in constant favour, as a healing medicinal influence for sore eyes.

The Witch of Endor
Before and After
Northamptonshire Witches
Raunds and Stanwick Victims

The one Biblical narrative of witch-craft was an evidence in favour of the witch, for here King Saul called upon the Witch of Endor to aid him in his dire distress, when she conjured up the prophet Samuel, and he told the King far more than he desired to hear – the fateful truth of the fall of his regal house. Yet Mosaic law, of the Wilderness pilgrimage, forbade witches, in these words; “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

Grecian and Roman belief included a general idea that the magic of witch-craft was a part of supernatural law, whilst the early Christians associated it with demonology.

For a thousand years on, from this time, the Church looked upon witch-craft with a tolerant eye. After this time it was denounced with cruel persecution.

It is claimed that in addition to other tortures, 30,000 died at the stake alone in England, whilst, as late as 1863, a poor Essex wretch was drowned in a pond, as a witch. By the middle of the 18th century legal prosecution ceased, as a witch punishment.

Strangely enough the Protestant England of Elizabeth, of the Stuarts, and of Cromwell, vied with Roman Catholic countries in witch-hunting and torture, whilst the immediate descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, especially in and around Salem, Mass., almost outvied these in their mania of persecution, a cruelty that had no atom of evidence to bring it within the pale of justice, only of the so-called law.

“Home-folk” action, in dealing with this witch-craft, comes to light here and there, as these following instances will show:-

A tract, published in 1612, upon Northamptonshire witches, speaks of them as being “all birds of a winge.” In this tract it is stated that Arthur Bill, of Raunds, and Mary Barber, of Stanwicke, were executed for witchcraft. These are spoken of as “birds of a feather,” not “winge” this time. The witch-hanging place was Abington, then a village a mile from Northampton, though now swallowed up in its encircling buildings. Many female witches are mentioned in this tract, but Bill is the only male witch named.

Another Northamptonshire pamphlet, or tract, to give it its old name, appeared nearly a hundred years later, in 1705. In this Oundle women were the victims, and one of them is clearly convicted because she sold herself to His Satanic Majesty, as did Faust. Here the results were tragic indeed, for conviction led to these poor so-called witches being hanged, and when nearly dead, they were cast into a fire, a similar fate to that of the Florentine 15th century reformer, Savanarola. It seems strange that Protestant punishment should so nearly follow the lines of the Catholic of some three centuries earlier.

It is generally stated, as an historic fact, that the last witch execution “took place in England in 1682.” This may be so, on the bald charge of witchcraft, but subsequent instances not infrequently occurred, of which the Oundle instance is an evidence, but by these after-cases the death of the victim was claimed, as the result of witch-craft, and the accused were therefore considered to be really murderers. This witch-bating horror (for there was never any real evidence brought against the accused, and these were usually quite inoffensive women, elderly or old) was at its height, in England, during the mid-seventeenth century, in the days of the Commonwealth. Here evidence shows that Northamptonshire was severe upon any who were brought under accusation.

It is recorded that as late as the early 19th century, a Wellingborough witch-woman was submitted to the ordeal of a trial by water, in the Ise Brook, near Mill Lane. The account to hand makes no mention either of the cause or the result. This ordeal – really a necromantic idea in itself – was often ordered in connection with witch-craft accusations, anyway. It was a simple process, that all too often acted against the victim, whether the test showed innocence or guilt, for the person was tied hands and feet together, and tossed into mid-stream. If guilty the accused floated, to be readily fished out for further punishment, whilst, if innocent the test resulted in the accused sinking, when often death occurred before a rescue could be effected. Even when brought to the bank alive, the punishment was all too great for proved innocence.

Music
From Ancient to Modern
Sculptures at Rushden, Higham and Raunds
A School of Song at Higham Ferrers
Raunds Male Soprano Singers
The Work of Dr. Starling and Mr. William Skinner

The saying “Sermons in stones” has become proverbial, for much in ancient history has been most truthfully portrayed in the sculpture of the past ages, and this in special is so as regards the music of ancient times.

Thousands of years prior to modern history – and the birth of Christianity is the dividing line in chronology there – musical instruments and singers were depicted in stone carvings. Egypt and Assyria have yielded rich finds in such sculptures. These add greatly to our knowledge as to what music must have then been like.

Onward through the ages, passing beyond the classic period of Grecian artistic perfection, and on to the greater simplicity of Early Christian art, the forward trend leads to that greatest of all architectural ages, the age of Gothic perfection. From earliest architecture, on to this perfect age of masonry, music can be traced through sculpture. The 13th Century ushers in this greatest of building eras, and music here comes into direct historic evidence, in this eastern corner of Northamptonshire, through the figurative sculpture that adorns its church architecture.

Sculpture at Raunds

Many churches tell, graphic carving, of the local life that impressed itself upon those “free masons” of that period.

The tower and spire of the nearby church of Raunds tells its story in this connection. The lower division of the tower, on its north and south sides, has an ornamental arcading of great merit. Filling in the spandrels, to the east and west of both these arcades, are sculptured figures, playing upon instruments. These are faithfully illustrations of instruments used at the time the figures were sculptured.

On the North Arcade, eastward, is a clearly-cut figure of a man playing upon the pipe (a kind of mouth-blown whistle), whilst at the same time he is beating upon a tabor (a small drum strung round the neck), all in the merry fashion of such a festive musician. He was a necessity of May-day Feast merriment, and of the patronal Feast, to select the two most noted occasions from amongst the many, when the community requisitioned the services of this merry man, to add jocund strains to the festivities.

Raunds Church spire was struck by lightning in 1826, and had to be partially re-built; fortunately, however, these figures were not injured, and especially is this fortunate as regards the figure in the west spandrel of the North Arcade, which is practically as distinct as when sculptured, soon after 1201 ushered in the 13th Century. Here a man is figured playing upon a stringed instrument, with a bow. The carving gives the outline of this primitive bowed instrument most perfectively, and this probably is as finely executed as any such carving of the period. Here then it is of highest historic value, for it shows just the stage of development the instrument had reached by the 13th century. It was from this rebec – to give it its ancient name – that the queen of emotional instruments, the violin, was evolved, and it is only through such sculptures that evidence can be obtained as to just what this instrument was like. These sculptures, further, conclusively prove that many varied instruments were in common use, at this time, in the district.

Carving at Higham

The tower of Higham Church is of about the same date as that of Raunds Church and a carving in the spandrel, above the arcade of Higham Church, on the north side of the tower, very strongly evidences having been the work of the same sculptor as those musical figures on Raunds Church. This figure is playing a pipe and tabor, as is one of the figures at Raunds. Let into the north wall, high up in the west porch, is found a most extraordinary conception, which yet is an illuminating evidence of a certain phase of contemporary local life. This is a figure of a man, with his feet fastened in the stocks, and playing upon a citole, whose 20th century survival is the guitar. The whole west porch of Higham Ferrers Church is a remarkable work of Early English art, but this figure is, undoubtedly, an interpolation, for the beautiful diaper figuration had to be broken into, before this unfortunate musician could be placed in its present position.

Early in the 17th century the steeple and part of the tower fell, and in the rebuilding some sculptures found strange resting places. It is quite possible that the sculpture under consideration was, originally, a figure used to ornament the south tower in similar position to the one with the pipe and tabor on the north wall face, but was built into its present position at the rebuilding of the tower and spire, in the 17th century. This re-building was a contract “job,” which probably accounts for the unfortunate curtailment of the length of the steeple when nearing its apex.

Carved Figures at Rushden

An examination of the interior of Rushden Church will lead to the discovery of carved figures in wood, as ornaments in the Nave, at the corbelling of the roof. This series of figures from an angel orchestra and choir, for some are holding musical instruments whilst others hold books. These carved musicians, in conjunction with the other woodwork of the roof, were erected some two hundred years after the sculpture of the figures on Raunds and Higham towers, probably about 1460.

One of these figures holds an organ such as was carried round in the religious processions so common in those days, and very similar to the one pictured in the Peterborough Abbey Psalter, of 14th century date. This small instrument was called a portative or processional organ, to distinguish it from the larger organ in position – the positive church organ. It is curiously like an organ found at Pompeii and now in the Naples Museum, one that paralleled the birth of the Christian era. Another of these Nave figures holds a recorder, or perchance it is a shawm. This ancient reed instrument has already been noticed in connection with Christmas festivities, where bands of these instruments were known as “waits.”

Throughout the middle ages ecclesiastical processions were of frequent occurrence, and so the probabilities are that these instruments took part in the processional festivities of those mediaeval times.

The well-known appellation “wooden head” shows how these instruments were part and parcel of old English everyday life, and the folks at large did play upon one or another of these instruments, to a far greater extent than does the average person play upon an instrument to-day. This is shown by the old-time practice of keeping instruments in the barber’s shops for customers to play upon, whilst awaiting “Whose turn next?” But to return to “wooden head,” a term that originated in likening the face of an unpopular individual to the grotesque carving in wood usually found to form the head of the rebec, a three-stringed instrument played with a bow, or of a gittern, where the strings were plucked. These were two of the most popular stringed instruments throughout the middle ages.

The Higham Ferrers Grammar School was very much in evidence as a School of song, when John Tucke, the author of a treatise on music, became the Master, in 1507.

The great mid-sixteenth Century religious reformation changed much of this old musical life, especially as connected with the service of praise, but there was a memorable renaissance in all connected with music during the great Elizabethan outpouring of genius, though Puritanic influence, later, gave it a more sober turn. The simple melodic and harmonic grandeur of some tunes, that were wrung from the very souls of the composers, by the sacred worth of those 17th and 18th Century hymns, was sublime indeed. The glory of the hymns was also reflected in the congregational singing, so sturdy and devout – then a musical communion of this district, and a glory that is still reflected on occasion, when the spirit is touched with the emotion of that higher aspiration.

These were the days of the singing meetings and schools, whose reason for existence can be expressed in this quatrain:-

All music’s beauty, charm, and life,
From fact and practice flow;
Learn first to know just what to do,
Then practice what you know.

Charles Reade, in his “Cloister and the Hearth,” one of the finest of historical romances, all too little read now, has this passage in it, concerning a certain type of singing:-

“There were none of those whining slurs which are now held so dearly by some songsters, though every jackal delivers them gratis to his customers all night, and sometimes get shot for them, and always deserves it.” But such criticism could not apply to the singers of those robust days.

They say that music has advanced since then? It certainly has become more multitudinous but it does not follow that its present ego enlarges emotional impress. There is a very wise saying that has it, “as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined,” and its proverbial philosophy is especially intended to apply to the youthful bend of mentality. To-day it has become a fashion to entertain children with what is considered suitable infantile music, but it does not bend the youthful twig to great inclinations. This is especially so the case in some Sunday schools. It is a very doubtful achievement, that of alienating the scholar from the highest in the service of praise, often the only audible opportunity to join in worship, when attending a Church service. The strangeness of the Church singing is a repelling influence upon youth, when they enter untrained to its music.

Many of the old-time choirs had their bands of instruments, and they were frequent in the churches of this district. Not only were the strings in evidence, together with such clarinets (known as clarnets), flutes, and brass as could be gathered together, but also instruments that are now no longer in evidence.

A noteworthy case is that of Dr. Starling, a beloved physician, well known in this Rushden district, during the Mid-Victorian period. He resided at Higham, but his practice covered the whole surrounding region. Dr. Starling was an enthusiastic musician, of the old sincere type, one who entered heartily into special church services, his favourite instrument being “The Serpent.” Both church and chapel at Higham were favoured with this black sinuous music-maker, on festival occasions, one of a band that gave a life and interest to the service of praise, such as is unknown at this present time. This “Serpent” last appeared in a Rushden jumble sale, and added half-a-crown to the sought for funds, since which time it has led an antiquarian existence of greatly enhanced value.

In that delightful West Country romance of Hardy’s “Under the Greenwood Tree,” the village shoemaker speaks thus of the “Serpent”: “Old things pass away, ‘tis true, but a Serpent was a good note, a deep rich note was the Serpent.”

It is stated that Handel, when he first heard the instrument in the orchestra, exclaimed “Vat is that?” Upon being told that it was a “Serpent”, he replied: “I thought it must be Satan himself!” The after evidence shows that Handel was not averse from Satan’s voice, for he introduced it into the scores of some of his operas and other music, whilst Mendelssohn, a hundred years later, wrote for it in his oratorio “St. Paul.”

Male Sopranos at Raunds

Who now remembers the cult of the male soprano, that super-abundance of enthusiasm, and also of voice? Yet in the ‘Sixties of the last century, a remarkable performance of the “Messiah” took place in Raunds Church, with the male soprano as lead, for no female voices were in the choir at all. This does not refer to the boy chorister, but to that artificially forced falsetto voice, which, at one time, was much affected. The writer recalls having heard such a performance in his boyhood days, when Beethoven’s “Hallelujah to the Father” was the chorus thus given. It was, indeed, A RENDERING!

As in the long ago, the Psalmist had it, “the singers went before, the players upon instruments followed after,” so in these later days it was not, and perchance is not, uncommonly still so, musically speaking.

It is well to keep on record some evidence of the mid last century oratorio singers, those musical enthusiasts who delighted to tramp on winter nights from Rushden to Wellingborough, or to Higham Ferrers, or, maybe, to Raunds, for all these places gave oratorio concerts upon occasion, and the returning time sometimes extended even to the midnight hour.

Then came William Skinner to Rushden, from the Raunds centre of oratorio influence, a musical magnetism who did so much to initiate and develop many phases of music’s activity; notably so as regards oratorio, brass band playing, and choir singing. The love of the art was an unalloyed joy to him, and his influence should be ever a Rushden memory. Beyond his time, music in Rushden is just a matter of current history. Coles speaks thus of Rushden’s musical activities in 1838: “A self-initiated band of no common order, has been formed by the young men of the village; which occasionally throws life and variety into the rural streets of the place, so often left vacant – a prey to dull monotony.”

This band must have been the successor of the more ancient waits, and so linked, sporadically, such out-door music up to the formation, in the ‘Seventies of last century, of those more fully organised brass bands. The Temperance Band, in particular, has been a prize-winner in national competitions, feats they are still proud of recording in their annals, and deservedly so, for a high standard of performance was called for.

The advent of the Coffee Tavern, with its great boon of a Public Hall, now unfortunately no more, gave a great impetus to the town’s musical activities. This hall at its opening, and for a considerable period afterwards, was known as the New Hall. Before the hall was actually finished in all its building details, a series of public musical services were inaugurated and given on each Sunday afternoon. They were quite undenominational in character, drawing both musician and speaker from each and every religious denomination and also some from outside their sphere of influence. From their inception these services proved to be a great success; they drew crowded audiences, and continued popular for a considerable time. The most interesting point about these services is that they preceded the P.S.A. movement, afterward so popular, and were based on the broader undenominational basis that attracted not only denominational attendants, but also many who were beyond the pale of sectional Christianity. It is a pleasant remembrance, and so the writer of these annals gladly recalls the fact that this venture was started along the lines of his youthful proposal, though he only remained for the few first Sundays to take active part in the movement, after which a professional call removed him to a distant round of duty.

Rushden Bells

The musical aspect of bell-ringing may be a moot point, when the clangour interrupts conversation, business, or rest. The evidence of over a thousand years past, however, is proof that single bells, large and small, bells also in musical groups, have found great favour in this England of ours, and especially so in this Nene Valley district. Perchance distance sometimes lends enchantment to the sound.

Saxon Croyland Abbey had a wonderful peal of bells by the year 960. Here the great bell was called Cuthlac, and there were six others, all of which had special names. Near unto this Rushden locality, the wonderful Saxon tower at Earls Barton was built, at about the time the Saxon bells of Croyland are made record of, and for the special purpose of housing a peal of bells. Many other towers around, all ancient, are a sure evidence that bells were greatly in favour throughout this country, and, here and there, Pre-Reformation bells are still in use. Probably the oldest is one at Caversfield, in the adjoining county of Oxford, which has been rung for over seven hundred years past.

How one statement leads to another, to be sure, and how interest become increased thereby. Bells have a charm that is greatly increased by added knowledge with regard to their legend, lore, history and varied uses. Take as example the bleak upland village of Cold Ashby, across the county, situated to the south-west of Rushden. Here, in this little Northamptonshire village, is to be found what is probably the earliest dated bell in England, 1317, and the maker’s name, Ville’s (William) de Flint, is also cast thereon. It also has this invocation to the Virgin cast upon it – “Maria Vocor.”

One of the bells of another Northamptonshire village church, that of Blakesley, has this:—

I ring a sermon with a lusty bome.
That all may come and none may stay at home.

Of all the many rhymes on or about bells, perhaps none is more denunciatorily emphatic than the one locally so well known around Arlesey, in the neighbouring county of Bedford:—

Arlesey, Arlesey ! Wicked people.
Sold their bells to raise their steeple.

This may, and probably had, some foundation in fact, for records states that it was quite a common occurrence, in times past, to sell bells, or even have them stolen. This Arlesey stigma does not apply to-day, for the church has a peal of five modern bells.

The present beautiful bell-tower of Rushden Church was, almost certainly, not erected until somewhat late in Gothic architectural chronology. There is no evidence as to either the number or the size of the bells which may have preceded the present peal of bells. The probabilities, though, are in favour of the former peal being a ring of either four or of five bells.

Campanology is the art of bell ringing, or change ringing, on a number of bells rung successively, and according to set rule. This custom became established by the middle of the seventeenth century, and was at its height towards the end of the eighteenth century. At about this time the present Rushden peal of bells was cast and hung, doubtless because of campanological interest. Many beautiful peals of bells were re-cast to meet the demands of change ringing, though they were, very often, in no wise bettered from the tonal standpoint. The older long-waisted and narrower bell gave the more musically sonorous tone, but the broader and shorter bell was the easier to “pull up” – hence the change in shape.

Prior to the Reformation, not only was the Sanctus or Sacring bell used, but different bells were also allotted to different church functions, and in such thickly-wooded districts as this was, at that time, the sound of a bell in darkness or fog not infrequently led a lost traveller to a haven of rest. This at times led to additional bells being donated to the church, as thank-offerings. It may never be known whether Rushden church counted any such gift amongst its ancient bells.

“Behold my uses are not small,
That God to praise Assemblys call;
That break the thunder, wayle the dead;
And cleanse the Ayre of Tempest’s bred;
With feare keep off the Fiends of Hell,
And all by verture of my knell.”

Thus sang the bell, according to an old stanza, and it very exactly sums up usages that have long since passed away. The use of the voices of the bells to drive away fiend and plague may have passed away centuries ago, but as regard storm and tempest, the usage was kept up in some localities, until the early 19th century.

The tragedy of 1835, when, during a thunderstorm, a youth was killed by lightning in the midst of the ringers assembled to ring in the upper ringing chamber of the belfry of Rushden church (done away with when the church was restored, and the west arch re-opened into the nave) would be illuminating indeed, if the ringers were endeavouring to ward off the evil fiend of the storm. The facts here are never likely to be known, but the impress of the event would be such as to make it most improbable that any subsequent ringing would be undertaken to ward off nature peril.

It would be of at least passing interest to learn whether the cursing “by bell, book, and candle,” that most solemn of excommunications, ever took place in Rushden Church.

Rushden peal of bells was cast at St. Neots, in the neighbouring shire of Huntingdon, by the celebrated bellfounders, who, in the early part of the 18th century were associated with the Kettering firm of Eayres, bellfounders and church clock makers. This firm is well-known to-day as the firm of Taylor, of Loughborough, Leicestershire. They are the belleteres (to use the old name for bell-founders) who cast the monster bell at St. Paul’s, known as Great Paul. The weight of this bell is sixteen tons and fourteen hundredweights, whilst Rushden’s biggest bell weighs just over a ton. This Rushden tenor was cast in 1818, whilst the other five bells were cast in 1794.

Accounts of bells having been christened at about this period is a common record. The ceremony consisted in turning a new bell, bowl upwards, and filling it with punch for general distribution. Were Rushden bells so christened?

The latest achievement of these Taylors of bell-founding fame is indeed a turning of the tables on the celebrated Netherlands bellfounders of the past three centuries, for they have just installed a carillon of 49 bells in the new City Hall at Rotterdam. These bells range in weight from 4½ tons to 21lbs. chromatic in scale, and so cast as to be in true harmonic accord. This is a great advance upon many of the celebrated carillons in the Netherlands, which were little better than a mere jangle, from a tonal standpoint, because of the lack of this harmonic attribute, though they are still very beautiful, when distance lends enchantment to the tone.

This 1921 set of bells cast by the Taylors for Rotterdam is, by all accounts, the finest set at present in the world. A finer set will be perfect indeed.

Rushden’s bells were re-hung upon what was considered to be a new and novel principle, when the church was restored in the ‘Seventies of the last century. The weight of the bells and thrust of their ringing bell motion, is taken down by great braced beams, to stone corbels let into the tower walls, at the base of the clock-room. The lower position of weight and thrust suggested greater safety for the tower, but experts in mechanical thrust claim that the greater leverage induced thereby, becomes an added danger to the tower. The possibilities of this danger to so beautiful, and to a great extent unique, work of mediaeval art, has kept the bells from being rung up for nearly a quarter of a century.

A large amount of controversy has been expended with regard to the best method of bell-hanging. Walters, in his “Church Bells of England,” a recent publication, fully discusses these several methods, and arrives at this conclusion: “It is now, however, established that iron (or steel) frames built firmly into the walls, both top and bottom, are the best.”

Many peals of bells have been extended from five, or six, to the octave scale. If good fortune should so smile upon campanology as to give Rushden Parish Church a satisfactorily rehung peal of bells possibly the two smallest bells, to complete the modern scale of eight, may be added.

From a mundane utilitarian standpoint, the use of the bells as time measurers doubtless stand first. The quarter-hour strokes are far more than that, however, in their aesthetic appeal, for they were originally arranged by the celebrated British musician Crotch, in 1793, for St. Mary’s Church, Cambridge, and have since been known as the “Cambridge Chimes.”

Westminster “Big Ben” clock has a similar arrangement. In this arrangement there is an appeal to the highest in Christian sentiment, even though esoteric to many. Crotch adapted his arrangement from the melody of Handel’s “I know that my Redeemer liveth,” and the first quarter’s phrase of four notes, at least, is a manifest adaptation from that wonderful aria.

The present Rushden church clock, with its Cambridge Chimes, was made by the firm of Gillett and Bland (now Gillett and Johnson) of Croydon, in 1879. This clock replaced one made by Thomas Eayres, of Kettering, 1735, now at Hargrave Church, some seven miles north-east. There was still an earlier clock, which tradition claims went to Wymington church nearby. If so, as is probable, it was an early clock indeed, for the evidence shows that it was a 15th century clock. At that time the pendulum was not invented, and this early clock must have originally had a verge crown wheel, or, perchance, simply the balanced arm, without the surrounding rim to complete the wheel form. This has since been altered to a pendulum.

At one time Charles Mason Fisher, a recent well-known figure in Rushden life, had these three clocks under his care. This was a somewhat unusual happening, surely, for it represented church clock mechanism from its earliest to its latest stages, and all had been time-keepers for this Rushden community for a period that must have aggregated to over 500 years.

Then again, who now remembers the old chimes and carillon of past Higham Ferrers? These former chimes must have played for many a long year the tune “We won’t go home till morning” amongst others. This modern improvement was swept away for the Cambridge or Westminster Chimes.

The memoranda taken in connection with many things, jotted down from time to time as material for “Rushden – Past and Present,” in the main mostly “past” Rushden, for the present town speaks for itself, have left, here and there, stranded gleanings that should at least be narrated.

Here are a couple of records which should not be lost to local history:-

Thomas Whitby, M.A., was Rector of Rushden from 1630 to 1637, and lived in the Old Rectory, in Little-street. His son Daniel was born there; near the New Year of 1637, and rose to considerable eminence, and even fame, especially as a controversial writer upon theological subjects. His scholarship was exceptional, for he gained his Bachelor’s Degree at Oxford, at the age of 20, and the Master’s Degree three years later. His “Exposition of the New Testament” takes first place amongst his numerous publications. He was also an Oxford Doctor of Divinity – to give the title its real significance, he was truly a teacher of Divine things.

Coles relates this fact concerning Dr. Whitby: “A book published by Whitby in 1682, which excited general censure, raised violent opposition and the strongest animadversions, was at length condemned, and in 1683, burnt by the Marshal of the University, in the school’s quadrangle. The Doctor signed a retraction of the work.

As Whitby had, beforetime, published controversial works, both against Romanism and also against Calvinism, it would be very interesting to learn just what heterodoxy was the trouble, in the eyes of the University. He died in 1726, aged 88 years.

In 1737 John Lettice was born at Rushden, a descendant of John Lettice, who was Rector of Rushden from 1702 to 1720. John junior was a Cambridge University Doctor, and quite a noted 18th and early 19th century poet, for he died in 1832, and his grave is in the “Middle Chancel” of Rushden Church. That is the statement made in Rose’s “Biological Dictionary,” anyway. This John Lettice gained the Seatonian Prize for his poem on the Conversion of St. Paul. He also wrote books upon travel and antiquarian lore, notably one upon the newly-discovered Herculaneum of Vesuvius fame. Amongst his miscellaneous works is to be found “Fables for the Fireside.” As a Divine, his preferments led him to that of a Prebendary of Chichester Cathedral.

Whitby, and his controversial times, recalls to mind that Robert Browne, the father of the Separatists, that first secession from “The Church of England, as by law established,” was intimately connected with this Northamptonshire. Though the pioneer of Free Church thought, and a strenuous opponent of Queen Elizabeth’s hierarchical ideas, in the latter part of the 16th century, he afterwards recanted, and became Rector of Thorpe and of Oundle, churches some few miles north, down the Nene Valley. This position he held for 40 years. Browne died, however, in Northampton jail, in 1630, whither he had been conveyed in a cart, on the technical charge of assaulting a constable, but really because he reverted to heretical teaching. First called the Apostle of Congregationalism, he afterwards was known as the apostate. Fuller speaks anything but flatteringly of Robert Browne; he pictured him as being violent of temper and course and obese in looks.

Presbyterianism was strong in Northamptonshire in the 17th century, but became a thing of the past ere the 18th century ended. In 1672 there were in Northamptonshire 43 regular licensed Presbyterian preaching houses, as against 25 Independent, and two Baptist. It may be of interest to know that John Wesley, in 1767, preached in the Presbyterian meeting-house at Weedon, Northamptonshire, some twenty miles south-west of Rushden. This meeting house is now a Congregational church.

This whole community was greatly swayed by influences that were anti-clerical in the 17th century. Even as early as the last quarter of the 16th century resistance was offered to set forms of Church worship by “the shire of Northampton,” and a tendency to “set up a discipline within a discipline, Presbytery within Episcopacy.” In this case there was no thought, though, of really breaking away from the pale of the Church of England. The Rev. J. H. Shakespeare, M.A., secretary of the Baptist Union, has dwelt very fully upon these phases of Church differences, in his writings.

In 1588 the second of the celebrated “Martin Marprelate” Tracts, “The Epitome,” was secretly printed at Fawsley, Northamptonshire, under the protection of Sir Richard Knightley.

In 1628 Dr. Sibthorpe, Burton Latimer, preached the Assize Sermon at All Saints’ Church, Northampton. Here he maintained that “resistance to the royal will (Charles the First’s will) was sinful.” The Lords imprisoned him for this, but King Charles at once pardoned him and exalted his position.

Events move on to 1634, when an examination into Church conditions reveals an amazing state of affairs, such as those of swine, hounds, and alehouses, being kept in the churchyards, also that the clergy were “much given to drunkenness.” But these peccadilloes pale before the enormity of “Mr. Peter Bulkeley, Rector of Odell (some seven miles south of Rushden), suspected of Puritanism.” This clergyman found it advisable to emigrate and join the Pilgrim Fathers, one of an aggregate of 20,000 persons who left old England for New England, though many of these were just emigrants who left England for economic reasons. This emigration took place between 1629 and 1640. Many were not Separatists, anyway, as were the original thirty odd “Mayflower” Fathers, of 1620; Archbishop Laud’s strictures drove them away.

In 1643 the military necessities of Parliament caused it to barter liberty for the thrall of a Scotch Presbyterianism that was quite as intolerant as had been the episcopacy of Archbishop Laud. Even Parliament was to be elected through its agency alone.

Naseby was fought on the 15th June, 1645, one of the most decisive of battles, judged by historic result. This field is only a little of 20 miles distant from Rushden. Here Cromwell and his Independents, of moderate theological temper, were the main cause of winning this epoch-marking success, the greatest of blows struck for Parliamentary freedom, yet concerning September of the same year, the Cambridge University Press records this in John Brown’s “The English Puritans”:-

“An ordinance went the length of proposing that any denial of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation should be punished by death, whilst denial of other less important doctrines, such as those relating to Presbyterian government and Infant Baptism, should be punished with imprisonment for life.” This must have been reminiscent of Calvin and that burning horror when he could have saved Cervatus. However, the English temperament, with Cromwell (who was so intimately connected with the near-by adjoining county of Huntingdon) and Milton (a resident of neighbouring Bucks) as the ultimate guiding forces, steered English civil and religious liberty from this deadly opposite peril.

Yet the restoration of the Stuart Monarchy was brought about by this chagrined Presbyterian element, within 14 years of this time, for it thought Charles, of Merry Monarch fame, would grant them their hearts desire, along the lines of arbitrary Presbyterian government. The sequel, however, gave them a sorry disillusionment.

If no outstanding event obtained at Rushden itself, in this great historic Cromwellian period of storm and stress, of military, civil, and spiritual battles lost and won, and of the passing of great ideals, still this eastern corner of Northamptonshire has much history to make it an ever memorable period for those who live within its area, if the feeling of great historic events can touch emotion.

With the advent of the Second Charles, the pendulum of religious sway swings across again to the extreme of dominating Episcopacy, and this district was a storm centre, for Bunyan was of this locality, in his association with a “prescribed cause.” This was only an aftermath, though, and England has settled down to a civil and religious tolerance as the happy outcome of that historic epoch of stress and striving.

What is horse-bread? The record of a congregation holden in the church of St. Giles (Northampton) on Sunday next after the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, in 1381, has this: “It was ordained that no innkeeper of the town of Northampton should make any horse bread to sell in his inn under a penalty of 26s.” the fine was a heavy one for these times, a tough fine for possibly tougher or heavier fare.

An early 17th Century manuscript referring to this district states “that every man keepeth a fire is to pay a smoak halfpenny.” This hearth or chimney money was an odious tax, but was used as a source or revenue until late in the 17th Century.

It may be worth noting that in the days of the “flat sixes,” when each workman of the gentle craft sat on his seat and bench, there were no “rights and lefts” in shoes or boots. In those times the careful wearer turned the left boot of one day into the right boot of the next. Thus was the wearing of one’s “understandings” evened up.

But what were the “flat sixes”? They were an old fashioned flat tallow candle, that ran at the rate of six to the pound, as against sixteen of the ordinary “dips,” dipped for household use. The “flat six” gave the acme of artificial light, prior to the days of gas.

From that time on, to 1894, it was customary for each craftsman to have his little workshop, either in his cottage, or as an outside “shop.” Those were the times when kindred spirits, from the number of two to four (seldom more) worked together and talked together; in those days much homely wisdom could be gleaned in those workrooms, and especially was this so on a winter’s evening (for long working days obtained then) as the writer has pleasant recollection of, for in those ever-past days it was not an uncommon thing for one to go in and read to those craftsmen, and even a classic was sometimes read, listened to, and discussed with intelligent interest. The year 1904, however, ended all this, when the trade union stepped in and demanded that no work be allowed to be done outside the factory. This was a revolution indeed, probably to the disciplinary benefit of the trade, but it went sadly against the grain of many an old-time riveter and finisher, when this marshalled discipline first took place. It lead directly to the team system, to the abolishment of “Saint Monday,” and, above all, to a complete cessation of that “flow and feast of reason” so often met with in those little leather-smelly work habitations, made doubly leather aromatic when winter came and the little leather-bit-fed stoves and candles scented the surrounding atmosphere.

In perusing the works of this writer of over a century ago, the first impression gained is that the diction reflects the style of his age, for here John Lettice keeps literary company with his fellows.

Composed in the general poetic form of the period “The Fables for the Fire-side,” written by John Lettice, in 1812, bears evidence of the influence of that particular style.

An introduction of some 33 pages gives the motive of the work in ponderous strides, whilst his method of introducing the Fables to notice is ingenious. In a blank space in the foreword, Lettice “requests the very respectable (here follows the name written in) as he has done the heads of other superior Seminaries, to accept his book,” etc.

There are 38 fables written in verse. Many of these are based on, or else are para-phrases of classic fables. Each fable is followed by a series of questions and answers, to fix the fable’s moral upon the youthful mind. The following extracts from one of the fables, a well-known one, may give an idea of their style and interest.

The question and answers are in the following strain:-

Examiner: “What is the vice condemned in this apologue?”

Respondent: “Ambition to advise, reluctance to act.”

This catechistic form of instilling the moral to “adorn the tale” covers more paper than does the fable poem itself. It is from the fable that the well-known saying “Who will bell the cat?” is taken.

In 1803 a tract was published, price “one shilling and sixpence,” which bears this title, “A plan for the safe removal of inhabitants not military from towns and villages on the Coast of Great Britain and Ireland, in the case of the Threatened Invasion. With reflections calculated to hasten preparations for that measure.” By J. Lettice, D.D.

This is an especially well-printed tract, both as regards type and spacing, of some five-and-forty pages. Amongst the many project put forth in that possible crisis of invasion by Napoleon is the one where all males who have adequate strength, over fourteen years of age, are to stay to defend the coasts; all others are to retreat inland.

The Seatonian award in 1764 for the best poem, on the “Conversion of St. Paul” was gained by John Lettice, M.A., Fellow of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge. An excerpt or two may at least evidence the tone of its poetic mood.

In the high-strung preamble this reference to the origin of the poem occurs:-

“Some Vision’s airy charms, some Vision’s airy charms,
Called to my view the venerable shade of Seaton,”

Of the converted Saul, now Paul, this passage gives the poet’s view of the great change:-

This poem, of some two hundred and forty lines, has as its final strain:-

“May one Mind, one Faith, one Hope, one God,
Unite the scattered progeny of Man.”

The foregoing touches on a small part of the published writings of this Rushden born and buried John Lettice. His publications further comprise books of travel, antiquity, sermons, letters, and also poems.

The Chapman,
The Chapbook,
And The Early Northamptonshire Newspapers.

The chapman, or cheap-man of the 18th century was a product of the necessities of those days. He was an institution, and his expected periodic arrivals in the villages of his circuit were looked forward to with a certainty and expectancy second to none in the simple round of country life. The pedler of to-day may be the chapman’s successor, but in no manner of way is the pedler his compeer. Both illustration and description show the chapman to have been a personage indeed, but what literature describes or illustrates the pedler of these times? This old peripatetic salesman was a veritable haberdasher, a travelling shop of small household necessities from a pin to a chapbook, and the circulating medium of the early newspapers. Thomas Jarman, of local musical fame, was amongst the last of these chapmen, offering his music as well as his miscellaneous wares, throughout this part of Northamptonshire.

This chapbook was a cheap book; nondescript at first, it soon afterwards became a coverless print of 16 pages, usually illustrated with a woodcut or woodcuts. This size was later extended to 24 pages – to all intents and purposes a tract. It was sold at different prices at first; then afterwards vended for a penny.

Whether its price or the man who sold it - the chapman - gave it its name may never be known, but probably both factors fixed the name “chapbook.” These books practically took the place of our later local newspapers throughout the 18th century, for the newspaper was for the squire, the clergyman, and the well-to-do farmer. The Dicey family, who fully established the “Northampton Mercury” in our county town, before the century was a quarter old, were the most extensive of all the chapbook publishers. In those early days there was little county news published in the newspaper save market prices, criminal news, and a little general country news besides. This news was supplemented by couriers’ news from town, where fast riders rode from London throughout the country’s length and breadth to disseminate Parliamentary and Court news, together with such other world happenings as were thought to be of interest. The courier was the telegraph of those days, in fact. The average villager trusted to his chapbook for such fact or fancy as might be offered by the chapman. This pabulum was often written in four-line verse, more or less doggerel in nature – often more rather than doggerel in nature, often more rather than less – a ballad, or verse narrative, in fact.

John Ashton, in the introduction of his compilation of chapbook literature, says this; “Nine-tenths of them (the chapbooks) emanated from Aldermany Churchyard, afterwards removed to Bow Churchyard (Cheapside), close by.” Then Ashton further states; “The names of the proprietors are William and Oliver Dicey, and they seem to have come from Northampton. Some of these chapbooks bear the impress: “W. Dicey. in Bow Churchyard; sold also at his warehouse in Northampton.”

The bi-centenary history of the “Northampton Mercury,” published in 1920, 200 years after the premier paper was issued, is a more exact record. A few excerpts from this book will tell how the chapbook was circulated by W. Dicey, the original owner of the “Northampton Mercury.” Hadley, the writer of the bi-centenary record, says: “The first (chapbook) was published at the price of 3d. in the summer of 1720, and it was followed by hundreds of others. For half-a-century most of the chapbooks circulated in this country were originally printed by the Diceys.” This chapbook publishing was carried on first at Northampton, but was afterwards transferred to London. In the bi-centenary history the chapmen are described as “the men that carry the news.” It further states that they not only carried the “Mercury” to “hall and grange and rectory” (for the 18th century “Mercury” was a non-political paper), but that quack medicines and pills were also added to their stock, a celebrated nostrum of the time being prepared by the Diceys, in fact.

The “Northampton Mercury’s” great rival was the “Stamford Mercury,” and these two papers, for about a century, were practically the only sources of news for this Rushden district. The Stamford paper claims an earlier entry into the world of news – as early as 1695 – and has been practically continuous in publication ever since. The “Northampton Mercury,” however, proudly boasts an absolute continuity from its first number, published in 1720, until this present time. It is interesting to note that the Raikes family was connected with this early paper, Robert, of Sunday School fame, being one of them.

The reform agitation of 1831-32 was a democratic movement of sufficient force to influence Thomas Edward Dicey, the then owner of the paper, to throw over the paper’s non-partisan position in favour of the Reform movement. This led to the publishing of the “Mercury’s” first successful rival “The Northampton Herald,” and to a definite party Press. It should be stated that the Dicey family were always Whig at heart, from the time of the very first publication of their paper.

Lawrence Washington, an ancestor of George Washington, had his home where the “Mercury” press was afterwards set up. Here, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, he carried on business as a wool merchant, and was twice Mayor of his borough.

As these chapbooks were extensively circulated in this district by the chapmen, some little description as to their varied contents may not prove amiss.

In turning over these several chapbooks, one is impressed by the quaintness of the wood-block illustrations; some are of the queerest nature imaginable. In many instances their seriousness of intention is a whole fund of humour in itself.

But to come to detail. A noted one of the Dicey series is that of “The Life and Death of St. George, the Noble Champion of England.” It is a marvellous story, one that has no tittle of historic foundation, but it exactly suited the intellectual status of the common folk of the time of its publication.

In this chapbook history of St. George, Coventry is given as his birthplace, and Lord Albert was his father, whilst his mother was a king’s daughter. She dreamed to the purport that she would bear a dragon as child, so that when she bore a son (the future St. George) she died of fright, as she believed him to be the dreamed-of dragon, whilst the father died of grief at the loss of St. George’s mother.

After many wonderful adventures in England, the youthful St. George – for, according to the story, he seems to have been always called St. George, not canonised after his death – migrated to Egypt, where he slew an awful maiden-devouring dragon and obtained the usual reward. Adventure followed adventure, until St. George again returned to Coventry. On Dunsmore Heath he slew another dragon, but this time the fearsome beast threw poison upon him, which “so infected his vital spitals that two days afterwards he died,” to use the phraseology of the chapbook story.

From the standpoint of historic fact, there is no sure evidence that St. George ever lived. He certainly did not live in England. If any St. George really existed, it was probably in Cappadocia, about the fourth century of our era, but all available evidence is very confused and of a contradictory nature. Legend asserts that his goodness of character was worthy of sainthood; on the other hand, doubtful history claims him for a profiteer as provider for the Roman army, and so reprehensible a character in general as to merit severe censure.

At the end of a chapbook containing the history of “Tom Thumb, of King Arthur’s Court,” written in ballad form, this verse occurs:

“In Bow Church Yard, where is sold
Diverting histories many,
A pleasant tale as e’er was told
For purchase of One Penny.”

This Tom Thumb story, as told in the chapbook, is indeed a miracle of imagination, if not of literature. Hangings and other criminal horrors are told with much gusto in these chapbooks, both by word and illustration.

Another story, “The History of the King and Cobbler,” was appropriately enough printed in Shoe-lane, whilst a rhyming conundrum chapbook is quaint, as this culling will show:

These excerpts could be added and added to from the greatly varied chapbook publications published throughout the 18th century. These publications died out in fatuitous banality in the early 19th.

Local interest lies not alone in a description of the old-time chapman and his circulating library, the chapbook; for, above and beyond such fact, is that of the knowledge that these peripatetic travellers added a touch of brightness to the drabness of life’s existence as found in the 18th century in this immediate neighbourhood.

Rushden's Connection with The Rev. Jonathan Whittemore’s
Publishing Ventures and Its Aftermath.

Early in life Jonathan Whittemore was associated with his uncle in the publishing business, in Paternoster-row, London, that Mecca of the last century book producing profession. Afterwards Whittemore published on his own account at Brighton, and he also acted as an occasional minister at Bethel Chapel, which he founded, and at other places of worship. From Brighton he migrated to Rushden to become the Pastor at “Old Top Meeting,” a long-established Baptist cause; This was in 1831. Whittemore was still a young man, for he was born in 1802, at Sandy, in near-by Bedfordshire. Whittemore was always keenly interested in publishing such works as would aid, inspire and mould the perceptions of those most nearly connected with his theological faith, as well as of Christian belief at large. The exact history of Whittemore’s Rushden printing and publishing ventures is not easy to follow, from detail to hand. Perhaps Marianne Farningham’s auto-biography, that delightful feminine work, with its delicate touches of gaiety and of sadness, gives the best sketch of his life in general. This book, so broad-minded, is indeed well worth reading. Miss Hearn was intimately associated with Whittemore, first as a young member of his church at the Farningham he migrated to after leaving Rushden, and then especially so as a writer for the “Christian World,” that first of non-denominational Christian newspapers founded in 1857. This notable venture was founded by Whittemore, and he was its first editor as well as proprietor.

This newspaper earned a well-deserved success from the first because it has so faithfully kept to its text and motto “In things essential, unity; in things doubtful, liberty; in all things, charity.” This paper first appeared at Easter-time in 1857, some six years after Whittemore left his Rushden pastorate. It was in connection with Miss Hearn’s poetic contribution to the first number of the “Christian World” that she received her pen name Marianne Farningham, from Whittemore, an appropriate pseudonym, for Farningham, in Kent, was her native village.

In her autobiography, Miss Hearn says, speaking of Whittemore’s printing schemes at Rushden, “He was very dissatisfied with certain defects in the methods of worship among Dissenters, and he originated several important publications, notably the “Standard Tune Book” which introduced Gregorian music into our churches.” Evidently the Anglican or Episcopal chant is meant here.

Then the statement is made, “It was, too, during Mr. Whittemore’s residence in Rushden that the ‘Baptist Messenger’ was started.” Here again, it is not clear as to whether any “messengers” were printed at Rushden, Presumably not!

Then what was the printing that Whittemore really did at Rushden?

The clearest account to hand is a statement from Mr. Joseph Knight, senior, who, as a boy of thirteen years of age, worked in Whittemore’s printing factory. He states that Mr. Kidgell gave over his boot factory to Mr. Whittemore, and became his foreman, or business manager, in connection with the printing works. Mr. Knight is 91 years of age, in this year 1923, so that the time of his connection with this printing establishment would be about the year 1845. Now Mr. Knight’s recollections are all connected with music is so far as they remember the “factory’s” turn out, and most vividly does he recall music connected with the great oratorios being printed there.

It has also been oft-times stated that Dr. Gauntlett frequently visited Whittemore at about this time, in connection with music printing, and Gauntlett was editor of “The Comprehensive Tune Book,” which was published in Paternoster-row in 1846 “for the proprietors,” the principal one of whom seems to have been Whittemore, though his name does not appear in the book. This book was comprehensive indeed, for it contained tunes, chants, interludes, anthems, and oratorio choruses. In addition to all these, however, Gauntlett arranged a number of the instrumental masterpieces in compositions as organ voluntaries, evidently a valuable pioneer work that has since become so augmented, for organ arrangements are greatly in favour with both the recital and Church organist of the present day.

The critical observations, as introduction to “The Comprehensive” are scholarly, from both musical and general standpoints, whilst the Musical Classics, published in the volume, would be a pleasure for the musician to perform, and for a cultured audience to listen to at this present time.

No tune in the Collection bears the name of Rushden, but Barton, Hargrave, Kimbolton, Oundle, Ringstead, Rothwell, and Sharnbrook, all surrounding places, give their names to tunes in the volume, and in each instance Gauntlett either composed or else revised the tune.

For years this most comprehensive of Sacred Service Books was used by “Top Meeting Singers.” In the writer’s Sunday-school days the “Singers” Pew, up gallery,” with the suave-toned little organ at the back, had its table graced with these oblong green baize over-covered books, as its principal asset of adornment. Then the spirit of change ruthlessly swept them all away, and the pew, and also the organ, in favour of modernism, if not altogether of betterment.

A further statement concerning the “Standard Tune Book” (the Comprehensive seems here to be meant) in “A Working Woman’s Life,” the name of Marianne Farningham’s autobiography, is of value as fixing the date of preparation for its publication. From a letter quoted in the autobiography, these passages occur, though the writer’s name is withheld; “About the end of 1848 I went to Rushden to set up the letterpress for a tune book which Mr. Whittemore was bringing out in conjunction with Mr. Alpheus Andrews. These two were amongst the pioneers of printing music from electrotype plates, and like many other pioneers they lost heavily.”

Incarceration in Northampton jail was the unfortunate doom meted out to Whittemore for this worthy venture. Here an anonymous letter is quoted, where the writer says that he (Whittemore) “wrote a pamphlet entitled ‘Judgment brought to the test of Law, Policy, and Fact.’ I used to take the proofs to the prison, and after Mr. Whittemore had read them I used to play at marbles with him.”

Miss Hearn speaks of Whittemore as being a man of high integrity, moral worth, and of a warm and generous spirit. The whole known facts concerning Whittemore’s life show him to be a leader of broad-minded religious thought, as proved by his “Christian World,” which has so notably been a leading influence in creating a spirit of inter-denominationalism. This has been for over 60 years a continued success, without a change from its first noble policy. The mental impress resultant upon this sowing the seed of such broad-minded principles has been incalculable.

The same ideas governed Whittemore’s new conception “The Sunday School Times,” which so closely followed the “Christian World” as a weekly paper. Marianne Farningham edited this for many years from her Northampton home, though the paper is published in London.

With “The Sunday School Times” Whittemore successfully introduced the first half-penny paper into the newspaper world, a notable achievement indeed, for even his best friends looked askance upon the project, at the time.

Miss Hearn’s long connection with our county town has been a notable one, first as head school-mistress at the pioneer Nonconformist School of the county town, “The British”; then in educational work that greatly broadened in influence. After she resigned as teacher in favour of literary work, she became a member of the old Northampton School Board. Here she initiated new ideas and reforms, that only a lady of such progressive ideas, literary knowledge, and, above all, womanly sense, knew where best to meet feminine need. This was especially shown in her successful advocacy (though not without opposition) of a domestic science, or cookery school. Its success was assured from the first, and has led to similar school departments throughout the county. Marianne Farningham’s long literary work dates from a short while before the founding of “The Christian World” to beyond the jubilee of that Christian influence, in 1907.

The following stanza is taken from Marianne Farningham’s commemorative poem, published in the Jubilee number:-

“I beckon you, the young, the strong;
‘Tis good to hear your cheery laughter;
Come onward still, with joy and song.

Nor dread whate’er shall follow after;
Face life with trust, and not with fears,
God rules the years.”

One finds, in summarising the foregoing facts, in their direct or indirect relationship to Whittemore’s Rushden venture, that music plates seem to have been in the main prepared “up factory yard” for publication in London. In this connection the “Comprehensive Tune Book” publication led him into a debtors’ prison and away from Rushden, to such duty as further led him to successfully launch the “Christian World” and the “Sunday School Times” as broadminded Christian influences that filled a great gap, at the psychological moment.

Whittemore’s Rushden misfortunes led him to find Miss Hearn, and to so guide her latent literary talent into such paths as aided much towards making his papers a success. Marianne Farningham’s personality, as well as name, is not unknown to Rushden, through her long time residence in Northampton, a happening that seems to have been far more providential than fortuitous. The trend of her ripened life passed into eternity some few years ago, a beautiful rounding off of a personality that had for so many a sweet calm influence that counted for so much.

It is not good for a chronicler of events to be too didactic, but the mind cannot but revert to the religious trend of to-day, as the outcome of the long historic period gleaned over for this narration.

In this twentieth century Rushden town there have been established churches of most of the great Western Christian types, from those claiming a continuance of the earliest Apostolic Christian faith, to that latest endeavour which glens in waifs and strays that are beyond the purviews of the more conservatively organised churches. Yet to-day considerably over 50 per cent. of the population never enter a church at all. Here I make no claim that the non-attendants are anti-Christian or even non-Christian. From the view-point of influences that mentally elevate, though, as regards the community at large, do not many problems here call for serious minded reflection? It is the antithesis, anyway, of 16th and 17th century idea, as it concerned religion in its relationship to the community at large.

The cinema has come to stay, music of varied kind is here; these and other attractive forces, more and more creep into the life that was at one time dominated by Church influence. Perchance wisdom may suggest a closer union of these forces, as aids to Church uplift and influence.

History has revealed strange phases of the human side of religious thought. At one period art dominated all its emotions, and led to a mysticism that was, afterwards, stigmatised as superstition. This period of Religious Faith was again superseded by one where it was split up into numerous variants, though all are very similar along the main lines of belief. Any possibility that will lead the average mentality into such a state of uplifting emotionalism as to raise it above mundane idea and feeling must raise a community’s idealism, whether it be speech, music, or picture. There is much “food for reflection” in all this. Does a community gain any inspirational uplift from any other source? Religion, literature, art: these can inspire to higher ideals, as to life’s import, and these alone, in sum total, are Education, in its true meaning. The idealisation of literature and art is religion in essence, and Christianity, as the outcome of these educative factors, is the highest moral force revealed to mankind, and so, therefore, is the greatest religious influence. Materialism is ever at war with idealism. Surely the ideal must prevail in the end.

Environmental forces are ever to the fore in their impress upon the youthful mind. All education should lead to a desire to attain to nobler thought, and here the institution of the Free Library, one of which Rushden justly boasts, can be made a great factor, when suitable books are supplied and suitable instruction given to the children of the community to lead them up to an appreciative use of the library at large. Some communities are making the most valuable use of the library in connection with scholastic training, as a very real asset, a broadening mental influence. Standard literature, together with a reference library after the order of the very finely appointed one possessed by out County Town, will give the community a means for intellectual advance, second to no other, if based upon sufficiently broad, uplifting lines.

As one never really gets something for nothing, the library habit will not be formed without adequate preparation, as educational and library authorities have had abundant proof of. All intelligent effort put forth there, though, will garner in a manifold result, one that will prove a joy to both giver and receiver. Anyway, it becomes more and more certain that training and environment fixes the future trend of a person’s life ere the twenty-fifth year is reached. Conscience may be inborn, not implanted by training, but education – good, bad, or indifferent – is most certainly a great factor in directing it, as a fixed quantity, in adult after-life.

It, therefore, behoves all educational forces, both religious and secular, to lead the youthful mind aright. If Church influence is to be secured, then the Church must gain the allegiance of this youthful mind, and once gained, must hold it by such continued uplifting vitality of service as will assure a safe anchorage for future years. Life is never stationary, therefore some progressive force must always lead.

Another old-time craft is perchance on the wane, but not yet quite to extinction, for pillow lace-making sporadically survives, though mainly amongst those of ripened years. It is a survival of the Bucks, Beds, and East Northants noted lace industry, and some of the designs are daintily beautiful. A design in soft colours, very charming, was being worked by a lady of over four score years of age, in this Rushden parish, when the writer recently called upon her, so that the art lives, and it is to be hoped that it will continue to be handed down, even yet, to generations yet unborn. But the water flasks that concentrated the candle light upon the lace, at the working spot, sometimes to the number of four set round one candle, in a frame, for the lighting of four workers’ lace pillows, are now a thing of the past. As a collector’s hobby, bobbins are sought after, especially those with mottos or names, or perchance bearing some cryptic device that needs ingenuity to decipher. The wooden bobbins are usually of later date than the much-sought-after bone varieties. The possible gem in a bobbin-hobbyist’s collection will be that bobbin which has a smaller bobbin carved inside the larger one. Such bobbins as those here spoken of are now becoming scarce on lace-making pillows as they have been so much sought after and secured by the persistent collector.

There need be no immediate fear, though, that pillow-lace making will soon become a lost art in Rushden, for a school exists to teach it, though the scholars are not numerous. Here young students delight in learning to excel in making the daintiest designs on their bobbin-hung pillows – a fabric of fine threads, which is lace.

Some Interesting Facts Of Ancient History.
Vanished Chapel and Hospital of St. James.

There is abundant historic proof that leper hospitals were usually dedicated to St. James. Here are a few from numerous instances. A notable case is that of St. James, Westminster. The Palace of St. James is on or near the site of the ancient Leper House. The whole of St. James’s Park was the garden belonging to the abbey of St. Peter, the church of which is now known as Westminster Abbey. It was in this Abbey garden that the monks benevolently established a St. James’s hospital for lepers. Covent Garden was also a Westminster Abbey garden, the present work “Covent” being a corruption of “Convent,” hence the convent garden. All these lands were taken from the Abbey by Henry VIII., part being given to favourites, the rest kept for personal use – and now £200,000 is called for, for the most necessary restoration purposes, to preserve the Abbey Church. Comment is, surely, superfluous.

There is a St. James’s End as part of Northampton. Our County Town had an important St. James’s Abbey, fully officered from Abbot down, but this does not seem to have been, in any sense, a leper hospital. Canterbury, our first of ecclesiastical cities, had its leper hospital of St. James.

The location of the Rushden hospital is more than a tradition, for record states that the Northern boundary of its land extended to Higham township, though the exact site of the building is unknown. It is a reasonable surmise, however, that it was located on the crest of the hill that is still known as Spital Hill. Even these facts were not given by the earlier local historians, a vague statement only being recorded that it was situated in Higham Town. The 20th Century Victorian Counties History, even, makes no record of its locality, whilst Coles’s surmises are outside recorded fact. It was not until “Beta Kappa” gave the public some facts concerning the Rushden St. James’s in a letter to the “Rushden Echo,” gleaned from the Court Rolls of Higham Ferrers, that this most interesting item of Rushden’s past history was made known.

The earliest historic statement made with regard to St. James’s, that has been gleaned, is that recorded in Clay’s “The Hermits and Anchorites of England,” and is as follows:-

“Rushden—Hermit—At Chapel of St. James, before 1190—Licenced by Peterborough Abbey—name uncertain,” here meaning the name of the hermit.

This is an exact statement of fact, and this first record places the chapel, or hospital, in Rushden parish. Very possibly the hermit obtained his licence for the special purpose of ministering to the inmates of the hospital. It may be stated that the term “chapel” was often used to describe any place where daily service was held, if other than the main portion of the Parish Church. Here it would mean the part of the hospital used for Divine service.

As ecclesiastical rule dominated St. James’s Hospital the Court Rolls probably did not fully record its happenings, but the assize roll for 1284-5 states that attempts were made to alienate certain lands from the lepers, but these were not upheld at Assize. Then, from 1314, the year when Bannockburn and Scotland were lost to the Second Edward, and on to the time of Henry VIII, quit rent is spoken of in the Court Rolls as having been remitted to the Master of the Lepers.

A vicar of Rushden, before 1230, was Master of St. James’s Hospital; unfaithfully he endeavoured to convey some of its lands to his relatives, but did not meet with the success he hoped for, only that which he merited.

The earliest known record speaks of a “hermit” having been licenced to St. James’s Chapel at Rushden. Towards the end of St. James’s ecclesiastical existence, the Rev. R. M. Sergeantson shows that the person in charge was called a “hermit,” for here Henry Pomfret, of Rushden, made a bequest to “the hermit of St. James’s Chapel,” in 1537. In this case the word hermit refers to the fact that a single priest officiated at St. James’s, and that its use as a leper hospital had probably ceased to exist. Leprosy was fast dying out at this time, thanks to healthier modes of communal life. About 1550, some three years after Henry VIII’s death, the hospital was suppressed, or ceased to exist, as its usefulness had become a thing of the past, though Sely, the last Master, drew a pension until within a year of the Armada. In 1588, the Armada year, Queen Elizabeth gave the Spital lands to Edmund Downing and to Miles Dodding. This is quite in accord with that Tudor habit of giving so much of England away that did not belong to them, in exchange for servile support of their high-handed methods.

This short account of St. James is by no means a full description. For this the interested reader must refer to the Higham Ferrers Court rolls, so ably brought to modern access by the late Rev. R. M. Sergeantson. yet, even so, one it tempted to take from that source the case of Gabriel Throkmorton, who was, in 1547, dismissed from his office of warden of St. James, because of indiscretions where feminity was concerned. This is evidence at least that clerical propriety was called for at that time in our Rushden district. Perhaps “Bluff King Hal’s” methods, in dealing with ecclesiastical affairs, may have had its awakening effect upon authority in connection with such offenders.

Improved sanitation is the usual explanation for the disappearance of leprosy from England. Leprosy is a cutaneous malady and such vegetables as turnips, carrots, parsnips, cabbages, and celery, used as food, are powerful agencies in the eradication of such disease. With the coming of these vegetables into general use, the leper-bell ceased to ring for lack of the face-covered leper to ring out such melancholy warning.

The following accounts from the Court Rolls are of special interest, if only because they help to fix the locality of St. James’s Hospital. Among the very varied forms of nuisance that received the attention of the Rushden Court Leet were a couple of convictions of considerable moment in their relationship to this hospital of St. James. Both were presented at the Rushden Michaelmas Court, in 1439. One was an order for John Parys, junior, “to amend the Spital hedge which was growing as a nuisance to the king’s highway,” whilst in the second case William Chicheley was fined 2d. for “allowing a certain bridge near the hospital of St. James to become a serious nuisance.” This offender was further ordered to repair the bridge within fifteen days under a penalty of 12d.” so evidently a bridge over the stream that forms the boundary between Higham and Rushden lordships is here meant.

These references to the land of St. James fairly clearly locate the hospital land as running alongside the road on its western side, from Spital hill to the little stream at the bottom of the hill northward.

Environs

Parishes, towns, villages, and hamlets surround this Rushden, that has been sketched from so many points of view. All are well worthy of an aimful, not an aimless, visit.

At the first of this series Rushden and its surroundings were visualised from a delightful vantage point, partly by physical and partly by mental vision. Let this Stone Cross, then, again be the starting-point from which to make the circuit—this time in reality.

Irthlingborough, with its interesting and practically unique 14th century tower and its village cross of near the same date, is reached first northward. Beyond lies Stanwick, with its noteworthy octagonal 13th century tower and spire, in the lowest stage of which is a peculiarly interesting long lancet window, above which is a foiled round window. This seen from the interior of the church, is so typical of the period’s architecture as to be used in architectural illustration. Again, a mile beyond, lies Raunds, with its beautiful 13th century arcaded tower, its fine church, in the interior of which is found the typical ball flower of the 14th century Decorated period. There are also medieval frescoes and a very rare 15th century clock face, with a 24-hour dial, surrounded by fresco paintings. Chelveston-cum-Caldicot is a dual parish with one church, really a chapel of ease of Higham borough church. Its tower, arcaded around the bell-chamber, is a perfect example of Early English village architecture, and dates from about 1220.

The present church of Higham Ferrers is a noble example of Early English architecture, with later Decorated and Perpendicular additions. Especially noteworthy is the west door and the Jesus Chapel, used contemporaneously as Higham’s celebrated Grammar School. This is probably a rather late 14th century structure, whilst the restored Bede House and the ruined Clergy College are Chichele foundations. The castle is no more, but its extent can be accurately gauged by the remains of the right-angled moat. The two crosses, the 13th-century stiff-leaf foliage market cross and the 14th century restored churchyard cross, are both of antiquarian worth and interest.

Newton Bromshold continues the circuit. Here the church evidences 13th century work in the stiff-leaf (or leaf-stalk) foliage around some of the pillar capitals. The main portion of the church, though, belongs to the next century’s Decorated period. An arcade of six arches along the south chancel side is exceptionally peculiar. The one to the east contains a piscine; the others are arranged after the manner of sedilia, or priests’ seats. An Easter Sepulchre is worthy of notice on the chancel’s north side. Yelden lies a short mile beyond, and here are found the extensive earth-works of a Norman castle, on the probable site of a pre-Roman British fort. The church has points of real interest. It is of 14th century architecture, though sundial markings on a stone built in the wall near the chancel door may be of much earlier date, possibly even Saxon. The rude markings are for the canonical hours, a rare form of ecclesiastical sundial. The corbel table under the sturdy, squat spire should be noticed, because of the variedly sculptured corbels.

In circuit, to the south lies Knotting, where the recently restored churchyard cross, as a war memorial, first claims attention. The original cross dates from about 1450, if not earlier, whilst the upper part of the shaft, tabernacle, and canopy have been added as tribute to rural Knotting’s gallant sacrifice. The church itself has features that suggest a Saxon date of a thousand years ago. It also has a finely recessed Late Norman chancel arch. A possible Late Norman font has on it incised markings, a design for the sculptor to carve, but it has never been carved. The Jacobean pulpit, with a canopy or sound-board, is a good specimen of the carving of that period.

The round beyond Rushden now continues to Souldrop, with its attractive rebuilt Victorian Gothic church attached to a mediaeval tower and spire. And then comes Wymington, favoured with a gem of homogeneous Decorated architecture, built all to one plan, that has not since been altered. John Curteus built this church about 1350. Next to the church itself, with its tower and spire all so finely proportioned, though in miniature, must be examined the brasses. The founder’s tomb is a finely wrought altar tomb, nearly perfect, whilst the plate armour that encases the warrior’s effigy alongside, on the floor, is considered to be the finest example extant of such brasses. A small vestmented priest’s brass in the nave should be examined, if only to note that the death date has never been inserted. The brass was evidently placed there, or at least wrought, during the cleric’s lifetime. All these brasses illustrate the best in mediaeval brass craftsmanship. Recently found frescos are on the nave walls, whilst some of the bells have bidden the village folk to service, to rejoicing and to sorrow, since the 15th century. The font, also, is strictly along the lines of the church’s 14th century design, and is finely wrought.

Onward, the circuit leads to Knuston, where one can ponder over the lost St. Leonard’s. this medieval church of the hamlet has entirely disappeared, and its whereabouts are unknown. Where was this church situated? Truly the English political reformation was a destructive influence; it swept away so much of architectural worth and so much of monetary value, even if it did give us poor laws, poor rates, and the poor house as recompense.

Knuston is now ecclesiastically coupled with the just-beyond Irchester. This, with the present Chester (that probable Benaventa of Roman times), will complete the round, a return to the Stone Cross starting point. Irchester Church has a finely proportioned 14th century broached spire, a specimen Early English priest’s door, and a font of early Norman, if not of Saxon, craftsmanship. Then, the Norman pillars nearest the tower and the reredos triptych should be noticed.

Yet one other excursion – to Wellingborough, a couple of long miles south-west from the cross site – should be taken, anyway. The parish church of St. Luke is mainly a Perpendicular structure of 15th century date. The reconstructed rood screen, rood loft, and the rood itself illustrate the whole conception as found in mediaeval churches. The Miserere seats that remain have most exceptional carvings on the under side of the turn-up seats. These are humorous, and also genre, for depicted under one seat is the art and craft of the shoemaker. All Saints’ Church is a spacious building of Victorian Gothic after the Early English style, whilst the fragment of the still-nearer St. Mary’s is an ambitious structure along the lines of Perpendicular architecture. The large egg-shaped Congregational Church is of exceptional design, worthy of a visit. The four manual organ ranks as the most important Nonconformist instrument in the county.

Envoi

A task casually taken up has now reached completion. Many phases came into view, all additional, as the task proceeded. Some of the historic record touches this Rushden indirectly only. All does, however, bear upon the past of this locality at large. Much in ancient record can be of interest to the specialist in history alone. This has not been delved into.

The facts narrated in this series have all been assembled with a view to stimulating intelligent interest in local lore. If this be accomplished, the writer can rest well content in the knowledge of having done something to keep in remembrance such a heritage and such a storied past, as is that of “Historic Rushden.”