Folklore of Northamptonshire

by Peter Hill

  If you walk around the earthworks of the long-vanished Cistercian abbey at Pipewell, you might be lucky to find an interesting memorial. When the site was excavated in 1909, little was found as all the structure above ground had long been taken away for building purposes, and what little was underground probably plundered over the years. However, a stone tablet was laid with the inscription ‘Abbas RIP’. It is still in situ, marking the abbot’s grave, but is usually overgrown with grass.

  There are also some interesting faces carved in stone on churches. On the south side of the chancel of Holy Trinity at Rothwell is the Rothwell Imp, which has been likened to that at Lincoln Cathedral. It is probably a fertility or apotropaic (having the power to avert evil or bad luck) figure, or possibly the whim of a stonemason or his apprentice active at the time. On the outside of the church of St Botolph at Stoke Albany is a stone corbel of a head wearing spectacles – a modern idea also seen in the county at St Peter’s in Oundle. This particular figure is that of Frank Scuffham, a former rector. More bizarre are the fifty-one heads of men, women and grotesques on the corbel table forming a frieze around the exterior of the church of St Peter at Stanion. One story is that they represent the number of villagers living at the time of carving, though one wonders about the grotesques!

  A stone benefactor’s tablet in the church of Holy Trinity, Blatherwycke.

  An inscribed stone placed on the site of Pipewell Abbey during excavations in 1907.

  The Rothwell Imp in the choir at the church of the Holy Sepulchre, Rothwell.

  The bespectacled image of a former incumbent, Canon Frank Scuffham, on the church at Stoke Albany.

  Three of the fifty-one heads on the exterior of St Peter’s church at Stanion. The heads are believed to represent the people living in the village at the time of carving.

  One figure that is partly apotropaic and part fertility-inducing is the so-called Green Man. With the exception perhaps of Yorkshire, the county has more Green Men figures than anywhere else in the British Isles – over 360 can be seen on and in religious and secular buildings. The fact that so many figures are still in existence is attributable in the north of the county to the durable limestone that has been prized for other buldings of stature around the realm. It is also due to the determination of the people themselves. At Finedon, the village seems to have been particularly fond of its church furnishings during the period of iconoclasm that began during the Reformation and flared up again during the Civil War. Therefore it took special measures to ensure their preservation: the font was plastered and then encased in wood, painted and used for a long period as a horse trough, while a plainer substitute was used. However, it is the remarkable set of elaborate carvings on the pillars of the chancel and nave that merit special attention. When the church was being restored between 1846 and 1848, layers of plaster were stripped away and there, in pristine condition and looking the same as when they were carved in the fourteenth century, were a fine group of Green Men. Breathing out masses of luxuriant foliage, they now live once again, fulfilling their symbolic roles of regeneration and life. They are among the best figures to be seen in the whole country.

  One of the county’s finest Green Men, dating from the fourteenth century, at Chichele College, Higham Ferrers.

  Running the length of the ceiling in the nave of the church of St Mary the Virgin at Warmington is a well-preserved set of wooden Green Men depicting all the standard forms, including a tongue poker, a figure framed with foliage and others with foliage emanating from the nose, eye or mouth.

  Often positioned at the vulnerable points of a church – especially the windows, doors and roof – the Green Man figure would repel any evil forces attempting to enter the sacred precincts. The combination of face and foliage acted as a spur to the medieval churchgoer to flourish in life – and death – by following the true path, with some of the more bestial figures acting as a warning to those who might stray, for evil too can flourish.

  During the eighteenth century, a gravedigger working in the churchyard of Holy Trinity at Rothwell felt the ground cracking beneath his spade and feet and this led to the discovery of a small dark room under the ground, full of bones and skulls. It was later estimated that it contained the remains of 1,500 people, subsequently believed to be either victims of the Black Death or casualties of the Battle of Naseby. Later research revealed them to be mainly medieval in date, and they were probably the remains of townspeople who had died from natural causes. One theory is that they were placed in the crypt from other parts of the graveyard to make room for the building of the nearby Jesus Hospital in 1585. Today they are neatly stacked in piles and can be seen whenever the bone crypt is open to the public, currently on Sunday afternoons during the summer.

  The cover of a treatise on the origins of the bone crypt at Rothwell, 1880.

  Edna Essex, who grew up in the town, recalls her class being taken down into the crypt in the days before electricity was laid on. Every second or third child was given a candle to hold as they made their way down the gloomy steps. When they reached the bottom:

  The verger blew them out so we were in total darkness for a while, until someone lit them all up again. All the children yelled of course ... There was one [skull] there that really smiled and had all its teeth, the grinning skull.

  In Corby village, when a row of three houses in Church Street was demolished during the 1960s, six stone slabs that had been inserted in the stonework at various places were saved and removed to the Civic Offices in the town, where they were displayed, together with some old datestones, on the wall behind the reception desk. The slabs were originally from a memorial tablet in the church but until recently it was a mystery how they came to be used for the houses, or to whom they belonged. The mystery has now been partially solved: the connection was with John Twickten, incumbent of the village church from 1614 until 1657, whose daughter Bridgit died tragically early at the age of nineteen in 1638. Before he himself died, Twickten requested in his will, which was proved in 1657, that he wished to be buried ‘either in the grave of my deare daughter or close to the grave of my sonne’. There were only three memorials to the family set in the chancel floor: Twickten’s memorial stone lay alongside those of his son and wife. It could be that Dr Twickten was buried in his daughter’s grave and that is the reason why her memorial stone came to be discarded.

  A view of the interior of the bone crypt discovered by a gravedigger at Rothwell in the eighteenth century.

  Bulwick may have the tallest tombstone in the county. Set high up in the spire of the church of St Nicholas is an irregularly shaped piece of masonry with a worn inscription. Its provenance is of great interest: in the nineteenth century, a local stonemason needed a slab of a certain size to repair the spire. He thought hard, not having such a piece to hand, and began to look around the churchyard. Eventually his eyes alighted on just what he was looking for: a broken tombstone, said to be of a female relative, Hannah Ireson, who had died in 1724. This was duly inserted into the appropiate place and is still there today!

  A sketch of parts of a tombstone originally inserted into the walls of a row of now demolished cottages in Church Street, Corby village.

  The highest tombstone in the land: a slab used for the repair of the church steeple at Bulwick.

  The lantern tower of the church of St Mary at Weldon.

  Another complete fabrication in the county is that the lantern tower on the church of St Mary at Weldon was lit up as a beacon to guide travellers through the dark woods of Rockingham Forest. Nothing in the thirteenth-century perambulations or early maps describe or depict any vast stretches of tree-covered land, most of it being ploughland or pasture. Also, the church originally had a spire, as shown on maps of 1585 and 1630. Lightning struck the spire in 1700 and it was not replaced. Instead, a miniature octagonal tower was inserted within the confines of the larger main tower and this in turn was superseded in the nineteenth century by the present lighthouse tower.

  The tower
is significant because the church has a double association with Horatio Nelson. Firstly, Dr John Clark, a ship’s surgeon in service during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, retired shortly after the Napoleonic Wars and settled in the village. Probably impressed with the larger lantern towers he had noticed at nearby Lowick and Fotheringhay, he may have paid for the present tower with its unusual lighthouse design to remind him of the years he had at sea. He certainly gave a window to the church in 1860, with an inscription referring to his service at Trafalgar. The second connection with Nelson is another window, made of sixteenth-century Flemish glass and depicting the Adoration of the Magi, which was given by Nelson to Sir William Hamilton, husband of Nelson’s mistress, Emma. It was given to the church in 1897 by the Reverend William Finch Hatton, whose father had inherited many of Hamilton’s effects.

  The unusual clock face at Whilton.

  The clock face on the exterior of the church of St Mary at Whilton has only four minutes between each digit instead of five, which in theory means that time should pass more quickly in the village than elsewhere! Other unusual clocks can be seen at Raunds, where there is a rare fifteenth-century clock adorned with angels and benefactors but with no numbers on the dial, and at the church of St Mary at Wappenham, where there is a one-handed clock dating from the reign of Elizabeth I.

  In the north wall of the chancel of St Botolph’s at Stoke Albany is a low arch that, until 1790, housed an ornate fifteenth-century monument depicting Johannes de Ros, whose family were lords of the manor from 1285 until the death of Edmund, Lord Ros, early in the sixteenth century. Johannes was the son of William de Ros, who had been Lord High Admiral to Edward II and Edward III. The monument showed him as a recumbent figure dressed in armour, with his hands clasped in prayer and his feet resting on a dog – a common form of funerary design in the Middle Ages. There was an inscription: ‘Hic jacet Johannes de Ros le bon compagnon’. The ‘bon compagnon’ appellation was given by Edward III for his faithfulness and loyalty, particularly in his opposition to Hugh Despenser, an unpopular, greedy and ambitious member of the King’s Council whom many wished to remove. It is said that on one occasion a brawl, involving fists and drawn swords, took place in Parliament, at Lincoln Cathedral, between Johannes and one of the Despenser faction, in front of the King, who promptly separated the two parties. Johannes was made Steward of the King’s Household and was one of twelve guards or advisors to the monarch. He later fell on hard times, however, for when he died in the village in 1377, he is said to have been so poor that the King was asked for – and gave – 200 marks (approximately £134) for his burial. The present tower is said to have been his gift during more prosperous times.

  The monument was removed in 1790 because the minister at the time felt it looked ‘black and hideous’. However, it is said that the real reason for this was the constant complaint by a clergyman’s wife who felt unsettled by its presence whenever she was in church! First of all, the effigy was overturned and used as a seat, before being broken up and buried under ‘an adjoining brick pavement’! The only remaining clue to the monument’s original presence is the Ros family coat of arms of three water bougets, which can be seen at the top of the arch.

  If you visit Great Oakley, there is a huge mound beside the village hall, the height of which stretches for several metres above the houses. It is covered in conifers and, if you look carefully, you will see a set of worn steps leading to the summit. It has always been a talking point in the area as to why it was constructed.

  Arthur Tomblin (1838-1911) was educated at Cambridge and came to the village in 1859, at the age of twenty-one, as curate of the church of St Michael, becoming rector five years later. He soon integrated himself into the village way of life and the front garden of the rectory became a famed attraction in the north of the county, where his prize roses were greatly envied. He was a man of many talents, among which was as an opening batsman in the village cricket team: it was said he could easily have played for the county. He was also an expert marksman with the rifle or pistol, often inviting the young men to take part in a shooting contest, issuing them with revolvers and challenging them to ‘cut the candles in two’ in a passage under the building.

  Arthur Tomblin, rector of Great Oakley, in his early days, c. 1870.

  One of Tomblin’s favourite pastimes was to walk up Harper’s Brook on stilts and he would frequently offer a penny to any child who could walk the farthest without falling in. Years later, John Smith, one of the boys who had taken up the challenge, recalled his own participation and how the rector laughed when he fell in. Another boy, Fred Campion, one day decided to play a prank on the rector, who had a habit of leaving an upstairs window open whenever he had a shave. A few years later, in 1915,John Smith, who was with Fred, reminisced about the incident:

  Fred crept up behind the garden wall, and aimed a shot with his catapult from the gateway, and only missed him by a very small margin. Mr Tomblin straightaway got his revolver and threatened to shoot Fred. Not even a hare ever ran away from the scene as quickly as we did!

  In around 1886, however, a sudden change came over the rector. He began to build a huge mound of earth and rubble and invited village children to help him, paying them between a halfpenny and sixpence, according to what they brought. The mound slowly got higher, no doubt with the addition of his prize rose bushes and parts of the rectory roof and walls which he had torn down.

  A view of the delapidated rectory, parts of which were used by Revd Tomblin for the giant mound in the 1890s.

  For many years afterwards, there was much local gossip as to why he had built the mound – for he never gave his secret away. There were many rumours, guesses and assertions: people suggested that he was trying to recreate Mount Ararat; that he wanted the village to have a landmark in its centre; or that he would stand on the top with a powerful brass telescope to see what people were having for breakfast! The most persistent gossip was that he had been snubbed by the patron of the village Sir Richard de Capell Brooke after asking for the hand of the youngest of his three daughters, though there was an age gap of around thirty years between them. The family only visited the village on occasions, preferring to live at Woodford, where a street is now named after them. What is more likely however is that the two men were not kindly disposed towards one another and Tom decided to show his contempt in some form.

  In church, Tomblin’s sermons became offensive, with weird ramblings and comments, and he was eventually prevented from performing services and allowed only to officiate at births, deaths and marriages. In 1892, he wrote an epitaph for his bête noire, the last two lines of which were: ‘and if he’s gone to a lower level, let’s all commiserate with the Devil’! He was removed from the rectory in 1900 after its condition was condemned by a health inspector, and went to live in a house on the road to Corby, provided for him by Lady Cardigan of Deene Park, where he built a smaller mound of packing cases and rubble. Passers-by would be offered refreshment in the form of sweet pea wine!

  On a lighter note, some witty literature has survived which has caused considerable amusement and amazement since its redicovery. It became fashionable in the latter years of the eighteenth century for town traders to attract wider attention to the range of wares they offered for purchase and thereby increase their profits. One way of doing this was the rhyming advertisement, which could reach extraordinary proportions in length. Some may well have been mass-produced by a particular printer. What is incredible is how one of these was used for drumming up trade in a small Northamptonshire community. John Chaney of Naseby, who advertised himself as ‘a tea dealer, draper, druggist and auctioneer’, used a lengthy 128-line advertisement for the incredibly wide range of services and goods he had to offer, many unheard of today. He offered edible, household, medicinal, surgical and decorative goods, and clothing – not bad for a village business. The following is a short extract from the advertisement of around 1775, which was reproduced in the Northampton County Magazine:

 
Then let me inform you in what things I trade

  I’ve flour to make Bread of, and Bread ready made;

  Good Butter and Cheese, that each palate may please,

  Fat Bacon well cur’d and good Boiling Peas,

  With Coffee, and Chocolate, Coco’s and Teas,

  I’ve Sugar, and Raisins, and Currants likewise,

  With which you may sweeten your Puddings and Pies.

  I have Pepper and Salt, I have Oatmeal and Rice,

  I have Hops, I have Treacle and Nutmegs for Spice;

  I have Oranges, Lemons or candied or not,

  Anchovy’s rich Essence I Likewise have got;

  And to relish the taste of your juvenile Gluttons

  I have Ginger-bread Cakes, and Ginger-bread Buttons;

  Spanish-juice, Sugar-candy, warm Peppermint Drops,

  And sugar-plums such as you’ll find in few Shops.

  To chear up your spirits and to keep you from gripes,

  I have at your service Tobacco and Pipes.

  I have Cinammon, Cloves, fine Mace and Salt-fish,

  And good things to furnish a gentleman’s dish

  Much shorter, though no less witty, was a trade advertisement formulated and printed by Alan Jones, who was landlord of the Cardigan Arms in the quiet hamlet of Deenethorpe in the 1920s and ’30s. The hostelry has long since been demolished but a rare copy of the advertisement offering a ‘Free Pass’ still exists, as a snapshot of a colourful chapter in the life of the community many years ago. It was in the form of a notice attached to the wall, stating that anyone who could perform a set of impossible tasks and would promise to patronise that particular hostelry and keep to its ten commandments would be issued with the free pass. The notice began with ‘essential information’ and ended with a jolly verse: