by Peter Hill
A man is kept engaged in the yard to do all Cursing, Swearing and Bad Language that is required in the Establishment. A dog is kept to do all the barking. Our potman (or Chucker Out) has won 75 prizes and is an excellent shot with a revolver. An undertaker calls every morning for orders.
Here’s to the working man, who fears no master’s frown
May his Beef and Beer increase and wages never go down.
May his dear homely wife be the joy of his life
Never kick up a racket, but love and respect the jolly old man
Who wears a workman’s jacket.
five
NATURAL OR SUPERNATURAL?
One can imagine the awe our ancestors felt towards trees, with their immense stature and girth, plugged into the depths of the earth and stretching up towards the sky, linking three different worlds. Some of the trees seemed to be of great age, with the ability to withstand the ravages of time and the weather. Some even appear to have human facial features (simulacra) or other illusory formations, all carved by Nature’s hand, when observed from certain angles, or depending on lighting conditions, a good example of which can be seen outside the churchyard at Croughton. It is no wonder that trees were associated with the supernatural; one belief was that a nature spirit or elemental often lived in a tree with the ability to animate it – or even be the tree itself – therefore it could share any suffering, or die if harmed. If humans posed a threat, the results could be unpredictable.
A woodman once went into Salcey Forest to fell a tree. As he was about to strike the trunk of an old oak, a fairy jumped out and begged him not to hurt the tree. Moved by fright and surprise, he obliged. As a reward, the fairy granted him three wishes that he could make at any time. He made his way home as dusk fell to tell his wife of his encounter but, for some unknown reason, all memory of the fairy had vanished by the evening. While they were dozing in front of the hearth, the man licked his lips and muttered that he fancied a bit of hog’s pudding. No sooner had he said this when there was a rustling in the chimney and a link of sausage landed at his feet. As this happened, he suddenly remembered his earlier encounter and told his wife, who called him a fool for his forgetfulness. While chastising him, she muttered: ‘I wish em wer atte noäse!’, which means ‘I wish they were on your nose’ and the link of sausages duly attached themselves, stubbornly resisting all attempts by the man to remove them. He hastily wished for the cursed things to go away, whereupon they instantly did so and all the wishes were used up.
This pollarded beech in Wakerley Woods is one of many fine ancient trees surviving in the county. It is one of three trees planted around 1620 to mark various parish boundaries in the area.
The old tree outside the chuchyard of Croughton. The variety of shapes and images carved by nature catch the eye and stir the imagination.
Many of our outstanding oak trees with immense girths have been lost in time, so much so that legends have grown up around them. The Lowick Oak, which stood in a field in the south of the village until it fell down in 1968, had a girth of 25ft and a height of 90ft. These measurements were reported by locals, some of whom are still alive, and verified in media coverage. A photograph was taken of a table laid for dinner inside the trunk. Stephen’s Oak stood in the vicinity of Stephen’s Oak Riding, which lies near Fermyn Woods between Brigstock and Lyveden. According to tradition, it was large enough to hold thirty boys from Brigstock quite comfortably!
Northamptonshire has an excellent network of waterways, including many wells and springs, as place names such as Sywell, Twywell, Pipewell, Scaldwell, Yarwell, Hollowell and so on testify. Three areas were particularly rich in springs. In Cottingham parish even today you can see the remains of at least six pumps, a well-head at adjoining Middleton and evidence of water constantly overflowing into some of the lanes in the vicinity of the church. The area around Boughton was also noted for its springs, in particular St John’s Spring which still exists by the walls of the ruined church, and a fine spring at Grotto Spinney, which has some of the purest water found anywhere. In Aynho parish, a strong limestone area, there are numerous springs, the names of which have gradually disappeared over the years. Mentioned in the mid-1800s were Town Well, Friars Well, Painters Well – a petrifying spring – and Puckwell, whose name has a supernatural connection and is a rare example of a name that hadn’t undergone Christianisation.
Some wells were believed to have supernatural powers to predict the future. The Drumming Well at Oundle, now long filled in, was said to have a drumming sound ‘like a march’ coming from its depths whenever a catastrophe was about to befall the land. One observer in the seventeenth century noted that:
...it beat for a fortnight at the latter end of the month and the beginning of this month. It was heard in the same manner before the King’s death and the death of Cromwell, the King’s coming in and the Fire of London.
In later years, a leading geologist explained that the noise was caused by air being expelled from rock crevices into the well through a ‘water seal which was periodically in bubbles’.
A domed well in Boughton Spinney, one of the many springs in the county. A similar structure can be seen near Pytchley.
St John’s Spring outside the ruins of the church at Boughton Green.
Another particularly interesting spring was mentioned by Morton in The Natural History of Northamptonshire. This was Marvelsike Spring in Boughton Field, close to Brampton Bridge and the Kingsthorpe road. He stated that:
...it never runs but in mighty gluts of wet and whenever it does is thought ominous by the country people who from the breaking out of that spring are wont to prognosticate death, the death of some great personage or very troublesome times. It did not run when I was there on Oct 22, 1703 but the forgoing winter it did and had not run before for two years.
A supernatural element may be implicit in the name of Mother Redcap’s Well at Harlestone. The name was a common appellation for an alewife: in other words, any local woman brewing and selling ale. There was a public house of that name in Northampton until the end of the nineteenth century and a slogan could be seen above the doorway:
Please to step in and taste my tap,
’twill make your nose red as my cap.
A general rhyme also existed at the time that the hostelry was flourishing, although it did not necessarily refer to that particular establishment:
Old Mother Redcap according to her tale,
Lived twenty and a hundred years,
By drinking very good ale.
It was her meat, it was her drink
And medicine besides,
And if she still had drunk that ale
She never would have died!
It is possible that such miraculous water existed at Harlestone and was used for brewing, but redcap was also the name for the headwear of certain elementals, so it is feasible that local folk believed the spring to be the haunt of fairies or similar beings, like the fairy pool near Brington where sprites were frequently seen gambolling among the water plants.
Stones have long held a fascination among people – with some justification. Next time you are out in the fields or walking in the street, you will probably see, if you look carefully, an isolated stone, perhaps tucked away in a corner, having no apparent use. Dotted around the county are a number of these stones, like boulders of granite or quartzite – and they are not of local origin. In some cases, these have been transported by human means from some distance away but the majority have been deposited by glacial action. They have consequently given rise to all kinds of legends, such as having been dropped or thrown by giants or the Devil. However, because of their uniqueness they have been seen as a symbol of sanctity and, as a result, they have been used throughout the ages for special purposes: for oath swearing; as assembly points for community matters such as settling disputes; for trading and bargaining purposes such as the Jo Stone at Gretton; and even marking the centre of a village. In some cases, they were considered to have certain inhe
rent properties that could be of communal benefit in some way, either spiritually or materially.
In the extreme north of the county, in a ridge and furrow field near East Farndon, lies the Judith Stone, a large granite boulder lying in a hollow, which is believed to mark an assembly point where tribes met on important occasions during the Bronze and Iron Ages. Being on elevated ground with sweeping views, the site was obviously of strategic importance and would have been part of a communications network across the hills of the county in times of danger. The stone gets its modern name from Countess Judith, the niece of William I, who owned a great deal of land in the county.
The Jo Stone at Gretton, where local agricultural trading and bargaining formerly took place.
The ancient Judith Stone in a field at East Farndon, a glacial boulder used a tribal meeting point.
Sometimes the shape of a stone, whether man-made or natural, could give it a particular role in community life. Such a case was the Witch’s Chair at Weldon, an L-shaped piece of rock sited some way out of the village, off the road to Upper Benefield, and used, according to tradition, for carrying out village justice. It is said that in the fourteenth century a man murdered his lover in a fit of jealousy after he found out she was attracted to another man. He was apprehended by the villagers and chained to the stone chair to starve to death. After a few days, the village officials went to check on the results, but were astounded to see him looking healthy and in good spirits. Thinking something was amiss, they resolved to find out what was going on, and hid themselves close by early the next day. They soon had their answer when a baker from Benefield arrived and promptly began giving food and drink to the prisoner. They later dealt with the baker, leaving the prisoner to fulfil his predestined sentence.
Several sites around the county have stories telling of occasions when attempts at building a church on a certain site have been unsuccessful, with all the hard work undone and the tools removed, apparently by supernatural forces like elementals or demons. It was more likely, however, to have been local pagan opposition to a Christian takeover of a particularly sacred site that had been venerated since time immemorial, causing fear, anger and superstition to come into play. This would accord with recent research which shows that, contrary to what is widely believed, few churches actually stand on former pagan sites. Church Stowe, or Stowe Nine Churches near Daventry, has such a story. For eight consecutive days, the tools, trenches and stonework from the day’s work kept vanishing overnight in the valley where the church was being built and were found dumped at another site further away on top of the hill. A watch was kept on the ninth night by a specially chosen person, who could not believe his eyes when he saw a hairy creature ‘of great strength’, carrying out the task. The church was consequently built at a different site – where it stands today.
A variation of the legend states that fairies, annoyed that a church was being erected near their dancing place, kept dismantling the stonework but left it in piles on the ground. On the ninth night a monk kept watch, spending the time hidden and deep in prayer. This had the desired effect, for the fairies never appeared again and the work was finally completed on the chosen site. Apart from this ‘nine false starts’ theory for the name of Stowe Nine Churches, there is another which asserts that nine churches can be seen from the summit on a clear day but for this to be achieved one would need remarkable eyesight!
A number of stones are said to move at certain times of the day or on special days of the year. A pair of eagles on the gateposts of Drayton House at Lowick were said to be able to fly away if the clock ever struck thirteen. If you are lucky enough to be able to see through the hedges lining a field track between Weekley and Warkton, you will notice a statue on a pedestal standing in marshy ground. Known traditionally as Stone Moses, it now stands at the source of a spring which once fed water through conduit pipes to the grounds of Boughton House some distance away. A former owner, Sir Ralph Montagu, had been Ambassador to France between 1660 and 1678 and, after seeing the fountains and palace of Versailles, began to extend his home in a similar style of grandeur, landscaping his grounds to include fountains and statues, among which was Stone Moses. When a new water and drainage system was installed, the statue was moved to his present site, a move which gave rise to colourful stories. Children playing in the vicinity were warned not stay out after dark or Stone Moses would get them. And, in keeping with our theme, at midnight he slips off his pedestal and goes down to the River Ise a few metres away for a drink.
Stowe church, built on the present site after various thwarted attempts, according to legend.
Stories have been told through the centuries of toads surviving incarceration in trees, coal seams and rock, enclosed in cavities which fit round them snugly, without food or air for several years, living on moisture generated from their skin or from a humid substance exuding from the stone: toad in the hole, perhaps? An experiment was conducted in 1825 at Oxford where six cells were made in a block of limestone and six in ironstone. Toads were then sealed inside them with glass and putty and they were buried 3ft down in the ground. After a year they were opened; those in limestone had survived but those in ironstone were dead, apparently because of a crack in the glass. This may have led to such an experiment taking place at Rushton, when a new road and bridge was built replacing the old route over the Ise in 1829. Live toads were placed in small slate and cement hatches at the foundations to see if they could survive for 1,000 years. Today the hatches under the bridge are cracked and some are empty – perhaps they have since escaped!
Stone Moses, said to walk to the Ise for a drink of water at midnight.
The bridge at Rushton, built in 1829. Live toads were placed in the hatches as an experiment in survival.
Celestial phenomena such as eclipses and comets have always caused great wonderment or been a source of superstition. Some have been spectacular, such as the meteor seen at Middleton Cheney in 1806, the appearance of which was reported in a London newspaper as follows:
This evening precisely at six o’clock, a very bright meteor like a rocket passed over the parsonage of Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire, in the direction southwest to north-east. It glided along horizontally not more swiftly than a bird flies, and seemed at a height of not more than 29 to 30 yards, and as it became extinct within the distance of about half a mile before it reached the hill in that direction, its height above the ground could not be mistaken. No sparks issued from it, but it was followed by a smoky train.
Other wondrous sightings that became talking points for a long time and led to all kinds of speculation included one at Gretton in the early evening of 15 September 1749, when a meteor shot across the sky, with thunder, black clouds and whirlwinds that drew up water from local streams. Columns of smoke formed over the village with ‘bright arrows’ darting to the ground. In September 1693, villagers in the county were startled by the strange erratic behaviour of a long bright shooting star, which, unlike normal meteors, formed a strange letter ‘W’. On 27 October 1776, a large fireball was seen in the north of the county; it eventually landed in a field between Tansor and Fotheringhay, exploding with a deafening sound that could be heard for miles, its impact causing fragments to ignite and setting light to a barn. Most unnerving of all celestial sights, however, was that which appeared in May 1929 at Far Cotton:
Eyewitnesses spoke of seeing a brilliant streak of lightning go across the sky and then heard a loud explosion. Mr E. Allen of Oxford Street described seeing after the explosion, a tongue of red flame which appeared to strike him on the forehead.
Earthquakes are also no stranger to the county, a notable recent example being that felt in the north of the county in the early hours of 23 September 2002. However, one of the worst was that which occurred on 30 September 1750, rocking the area between Newton and Rothwell. The tremor lasted for between twenty and thirty seconds and caused buildings to shake and shudder considerably, none more so than the church where the vicar was taking a service. He rec
orded in the parish register:
I thought the Roof would crash then, or we would be swallowed up by the earth ... it was like a mighty wind, or rather the driving of many Coaches ... the Earth was sensibly perceived to heave under our feet. The church totter’d from the Foundation and the East Window shook most violently, as if all was coming down, and from the Roof, which we thought was falling on us, we heard dreadful Crackings.
A fire broke out in the town at around midday on 20 November 1675 and one can imagine the trauma it caused to the people of Northampton. A strong southwesterly wind blew the flames from the cottage of an elderly woman living in a lane near the castle. It struck the thatched buildings in its path as it spread to Market Place and Derngate, finishing almost half a mile from where it had started. In the Drapery, the fire was reported to have made ‘a noise like thunder’. By the time it had abated after six hours, over 600 houses had been destroyed, although only eleven people had lost their lives. Inevitably, amazing tales arose from the event: there were stories of an apothecary’s servant seen walking along Gold Street with flames on each side as he carried a barrel of gunpowder, and of three rainbows seen together in the sky after the heavy rain that followed.
Fires also had devastating consequences for other towns in the county. In 1462, Kingscliffe had to be virtually rebuilt and realigned after ‘a hundred dwellings’ were said to have been destroyed. In 1718, most of the old town of Thrapston – over fifty houses – was destroyed by fire; much of it was later rebuilt in brick. However, certainly the most remarkable fire was the one that occurred at Wellingborough in July 1738, when flames spread from a baker’s shop in Silver Street, where oats were being dried, into the neighbourhood. The fire melted the lead of the church roof, destroyed 800 houses and left several others badly damaged, making 120 people homeless. The damage could have been worse, had it not been for the efforts of a brave sixty-year-old woman from Pebble Lane with the apt name of Hannah Sparke, who, with the aid of others, helped smother the flames with blankets soaked in beer from the large stock of barrels in her cellar! A plaque was later erected in commemoration and the heroine given ‘the freedom of the town’ as a token of gratitude.