Dovenby – a rural village past and present
BRIDEKIRK. Standing together in the churchyard here are the ruined. chancel of a Norman church and a dignified new church in Norman style. Open to the sky in. the ivy-covered ruins is the pathetic grave of a little one who lived and died on the same day a few weeks before Trafalgar.
The new church has the two good Norman doorways (one with a Carved tympanum) from the old one. and a collection of medieval coffin stones ranged round the apse outside. Its treasures include a fragment of a Roman altar, a piece of a stone cross about 900 years old, and a rare and beautiful font finely carved on four sides with strange animals and little scenes.
One side shows the baptism of Jesus, and another the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden.
On a third side we see the sculptor with his chisel and mallet, an artist’s portrait of himself we do not remember in any other font, and a band of runic writing which has been deciphered in these words:
Richard he me wrought,
And to this beauty eagerly me brought.
It is generally believed the carving was done about 800 years ago by a famous architect and sculptor, Richard of Durham, and this piece of his work is notable for showing how the Scandinavian influence lingered on for several generations after the Normans came. The inscription has puzzled many experts and without doubt the font is one of tb e most interesting in the country. The famous font would almost certainly have been used at the. baptism of two men on Bridekirk’s roll of fame, both sons of vicars, and both born at the vicarage in the 17th century.
One was Sir Joseph Williamson, who became Secretary of State in 1674 and four years later. in the scare of a popish plot. was shut up in the Tower by Parliament, only to be let out again by the king a few hours later. He gave Bibles and prayer-books and plate to his father’s church, and £500 for the poor of Bridekirk.
The other vicar’s son was Thomas Tickell, friend of Addison, whose . works he edited. He is remembered for his lines on the death of . Addison, in which, writing of the funeral at the Abbey. he gives this fine description of the scene:
Can I forget the dismal night that gave
My soul’s best part for ever to the grave?
How silent did his old companions tread,
By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead,
Through breathing statues, then unheeded things,
Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings I
What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire;
The pealing organ, and the pausing choir;
The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid:
And the last words that dust to dust conveyed!
This poem, the work of one of our minor poets, was described by Dr Johnson as the grandest funeral poem in our language.
BRIDEKIRK keeps alive the name and fame of St Bridget. or St Bride. A lovely story is told that when Bride was a girl she went to Palestine and became a serving-maid in the inn at Bethlehem. She would be there when Joseph and Mary arrived; she would see the the shepherds and the wise men and the little donkey in the stable.
It is said that she helped Mary to nurse the Child, and that when Mary was able to walk to Jerusalem carrying the Child with her, Bride walked before her with a candle in each hand. So it is that we associate St Bride with Candlemas, the second day of February, the day on which all candles were blessed in the days when churches were lit by candle light. The story goes that though the wind was rough Bride always walked where it was so still that the candles did not go out.
Ever after this St Bride was the friend of mothers and babies. In the western islands of Scotland the nurse will say when a baby is born, “Come in, Bride.”
Bride always wore a mantle of blue, and when she found a lost child crying for its home she would comfort him and put her mantle round him, singing this lullaby:
O, men from the fields
Come softly within.
Tread softly, softly,
0 men coming in.
Lying off the beaten track, its ancient church has a fine view across the lowlands and the Solway to the magnificent mass of Criffell; towering above the Scottish hills coming down to the sea. It is said that a church stood on this spot in the second century, that the Romans built another, and that still a third was here in the sixth century when St Mungo came, perhaps baptising his converts in the Holy Well, which we see in a field close by. The well is called by his name, and so is the church, St Mungo of course being none other than the great Cumbrian apostle Kentigern. It was a hermit who nicknamed him Mungo, meaning My Darling.
The church as we see it takes us back no farther than Norman days, but it has possessions older than itself. In the porch are two fragments of 10th-century crosses, and part of a worn cross-head which may be 1700 years old.
The church the Normans built was much changed in the 14th century, when it was given chapels and a new chancel. But there is still an arcade of the 12th century, and a high and narrow Norman doorway with chevron ornament. Its tympanum has a chequer pattern, and is thought to be part of one of the hogback monuments the Normans would find here when they came. The chancel has walls richly panelled in modern oak and a traceried reredos with panels of wheat and grapes. By the chancel arch are a worn head and a smiling boy.
There is a wealth of fine coffin stones six and eight centuries old, many found in the churchyard where they were buried by the 14th century builders. Some are in fragments, some whole. Some have shears by their cross-stems, others swords; one has a very beautiful fleur-de-Iys head, and one in the chancel is richly carved on the edges. In the north chapel, under an arched recess, is a fine stone engraved with cross and shield in memory of Adam Crookdake, a celebrated warrior in these parts 600 years ago. He lived at Crookdake Hall, two miles away. On the chapel walls are many memorials to the Ballantines and their descendants, one a coloured heraldic brass on which we see a griffin with a sword and a green lobster.
Very charming in a chancel recess are the tiny marble figures of two little boys sleeping on their dainty bed, twins who lived for only a few hours about a century ago. Also in the chancel is a stone with an intricate mass of lettering in memory of Richard Garth of 1673, a vicar turned out by Cromwell. A massive cross on the old steps in the churchyard is a tribute to Richard Taylor, who was vicar 4(j years in our own time, and an attractive cross by the gate is in memory of the men who died for peace.
About a mile from Bromfield is The Gill, an old home now a farm. It is still owned by the family of Reay to whom it is said to have been given by William the Lion, the Scottish king who died the year before Magna Carta, and this gives it one of the longest records of tenure in the north of England.
It is Great and Little, two grey hamlets of winding ways set pleasantly on the slopes of a hill above the hurrying Derwent, here crossed by a fine stone bridge. A stone a mile away marks the site of the ancient church which has vanished like the mill which once stood beside it. In the fields between the two parts of the village is a 19th-century church with little to show of its own, but with a splendid view of the Cumbrian mountains. Two centuries ago the almshouses were founded for four poor women, and three centuries ago the Baptists built a chapel here and the Quakers a meeting-house.
It is Little Broughton which can boast the greatest son, for here Abraham Fletcher was born in 1714. It is said that his education ninepence, and certainly the only thing he did not have to pick for himself was his father’s trade of tobacco pipe making. Reading writing, and arithmetic he taught himself, and it was the lure of arithmetic which drew him up a rope to the cottage loft at the end the day in his father’s workshop, there to study till he could no keep his eyes open.
By 30 he was a schoolmaster with a gift for mathematics, and a wife who discouraged learning as an unprofitable thing. But again he was able to tum knowledge to profit studying the medicinal properties of plants and selling herbal mixtures till all the people spoke of him as Dr Fletcher. His proudest moment was when he held in his hands the first of his two mathematical books, called the Universal Measurer, a survey of every theory of measurement, He died at 18, having many years before accurately predicted his length of life to within 16 days.
Here was once a castle belonging to Hugh de Morville, who kept back the crowd with his sword while Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral; but not for this is Burgh famous. It is famous for its memories of our great king Edward the First, who died here within sight of the country which feared his very name. He was on his way to crush the redoubtable Robert Bruce, and, reaching Burgh, he would see this Norman church and these spacious views of the Solway Firth. The church was to see him again, for it was not long before they brought his body back from the marshes to lie in state.
It is fitting that such a historic building should have kept its fascination down the centuries, for this church with its striking tower and its old yew near by is indeed a fascinating place. We have called it Norman, but parts of it are thought to be Saxon, and plainly to be seen in these walls are Roman stones from Hadrian’s Wall, which is still traceable hereabouts. The site of the church was once a Roman station.
There are big Norman beak-heads at the north door, and another one high up in the chancel, while near the altar is the grim stone face of a man with a beard and a drooping moustache. The nave has a 13th-century aisle, some of the capitals of its massive pillars being simply ornamented.
The great west tower, built in the 12th century, is like a Norman castle. An immense square of masonry, it is set back two-thirds of the way up, and heavily embattled. There is no ornament, and no buttresses other than thickenings of the wall. Big round-headed windows at the top leave the belfry open to the weather, exposing its bells, which are said to be 600 years old.
This well-nigh impregnable village fortress must have played its part in the incessant warfare of the border. Its only entrance is by an immensely strong iron gate in the nave, turning on two hinges and protected by three great bolts. It reminds us of the door into Great Salkeld’s tower. Beyond is an inner doorway without a door, over it three curious carvings perhaps of animals. The inside or the tower is lighted by three little windows with sills seven feet deep, and the stone roof is vaulted.. A spiral stairway leads up to the belfry. and altogether it would be hard to find a queerer tower anywhere.
The church is curious for having at its east end something like another tower, so old that it may be Saxon. Outwardly it does not show us a tower, for the very thick walls do not rise above the chancel roof. It is reached by a door in the east wall, leading to a little room where a priest is thought to have lived. Very interesting at this end of the church are marks made by the sharpening of arrows, perhaps intended for Edward’s hammering of the Scots.
John Stagg who was born in this village in 1770 lived to set his name securely in the county’s roll of fame. He was the son of a tailor and such a promising lad that it was intended he should be educated for the church. But tragedy came early to rob him of his sight and he was forced to eke out a living by selling books and playing the fiddle. His wanderings gave him a great knowledge of the country folk, and this found expression in various volumes of verse. He will for ever be known as the Blind Bard of Cumberland.
A mile or two from the village, on Burgh Marsh, is a pillar with a canopied head of the king. the 19th-century successor of a, 17thcentury memorial put up by one of the Dukes of Norfolk. It stands on the marshes where King Edward died.
Great of stature, invincible in courage, with a real love for his people, Edward was of powerful and subtle intellect, and sometimes in his necessity observed the letter rather than the spirit of his laws. But, although he cruelly hanged 200 Jews in London and banished the remainder from the realm, and though he oppressed the Scots with a heavy hand, he was in his violence only a son of his age.
He it was who first established the principle of no taxation without national consent; he instituted the Customs and originated our import duties; he maintained the common law against the Church and advanced the people at the expense of feudal tyrants.
Regarding himself as King of Scotland, he was provoked by Robert Bruce’s rising to organise his last war. He was a majestic white-haired old man, a Hercules in decline, but with spirit unflagging. Too ill to ride, he was borne by horses to Carlisle. where in a last fury he mounted his steed, rode two miles a day, and reached
this place only to die.
He took leave of the worthless Edward the Second, bidding him send his heart to Holy Land with 100 knights, and not to bury his body until the Scots were utterly subdued. His bones, he said, were to be carried before the army from battlefield to battlefield until the end, so that he might still lead his forces to victory. Then, with the name of God on his lips, he sank back and died.
Tucked in between Crummock Water and its own lake of Buttermere, it lies in all the splendour of Lakeland scenes, with little but a church and an inn to turn our thoughts from nature back to man.
Yet the Fish Inn has a poignant memory, for it was the home of a Cumberland girl whose fame once went all over England and found its way into verse and drama. She was Mary of Buttermere, known everywhere for her beauty and the cruel tragedy of her marriage. Her story belongs to Caldbeck, where she lies in the same churchyard as John Peel.
The small plain church of Buttermere is very attractive, with much fine woodwork. The font cover was given by the children; the ceiling has 16 angels looking down, the altar rails are delicately carved, the pulpit has traceried panels and a vine frieze, and there is a reading- desk given by the old boys of a Southampton headmaster who died on his way to this church.
Small as it is, the village serves for the two beautifully-placed lakes of Buttermere and Crummock Water. It is the only place hereabout where there is room for a village, so immediately and steeply do the mountains rise from the shores of the lakes. Between lake and lake is about two-thirds of a mile of flat ground, across which Buttermere Lake sends its outlet waters by 3· brook’s course to Crummock Water, and Crummock sends them on by the River Cocker to the Derwent.
There is so much of beauty and interest about these closely neighbouring
lakes that it is impossible to see them adequately in a few
hours. Everyone compares them. Buttermere, the smaller, is much
the better wooded on both sides, and its woods give it a softer charm.
Both are hemmed in by mountains close at hand; but Crummock
Water seems the more overhung, though with one exception the
Buttermere mountains are higher.
We cannot boat on Buttermere, but we can on Crummock. The general views over Buttermere are the more extensive and the best. They include the Buttermere Fells, Honister Crag, and the descent from the pass; and southward over the lake the bold summits Red Pike, High Style, and High Crag. Down Red Pike come the white, tumbling, vociferous waters of Sour Milk Gill, seen from afar. Red Pike, after a rugged climb, has the. best view from these Buttermere hills; and over that way, under High Crag, goes the ,walking path to the central cone of English mountains, Scafell Pike and his peers.
Buttermere possibly has the preference over Crummock Water, for Crummock looks harder, with Mellbreak, a most aggressive hill for its height, rising abruptly from the shore on the one hand, and Whiteless Pike and massive Grasmoor, farther back, frowning wild and rugged. But Crummock Water takes on a softer beauty at its lower end, while at its upper end it gives passage across its waters to whoever will see Scale Force, the waterfall with a sheer leap of 120 feet. And, lastly, there are for the pilgrim here the attractions of the mountains on either side of Newlands Vale, most easily seen from Buttermere.