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No. 44
Winter 2012 Journal of the Ottery St. Mary Heritage Society Including... FROM THE CHAIRMAN
As we anticipate the festive season and The Poetry Stones make plans for 2013, it is also a good time to reflect on what a busy and A number of our members have productive twelve months the enjoyed working with the Coleridge Heritage Society has enjoyed. Memorial Project and were delighted to witness the grand unveiling of the We have continued with our energetic ‘Kubla Khan’ Poetry Stones in the Henry’s Governors at loggerheads programme to research local history, to ‘Land of Canaan’ earlier this year. This document and preserve Ottery’s now popular attraction has received colourful past. Our monthly members’ much praise from locals and visitors to meetings have been well attended, and the town. Our congratulations to all we have been entertained by some those who successfully campaigned to first-class speakers on a variety of bring the project to fruition. subjects. Exhibition ‘Historic Ottery’ New Store in Town There was a huge amount of planning A project which has occupied a great and preparation for our five-day How the Priory got its name deal of time has been the setting up of exhibition “Historic Ottery” at the our newly acquired storage in the Old Boys School. This was well- town. Thanks to those members who attended and a great success. It gave us assisted with shelving and carpeting, the opportunity to bring ‘some’ (I and transportation of collections and emphasise ‘some’) of our museum displays from out-of-town storage, displays out of storage, and to remind much of which required refurbishing visitors of our on-going commitment and re-packing. to create a permanent Heritage Centre for the town. We are grateful to the Town Council who have generously provided these Coleridge Cottage new facilities, where we are able to In September, we took a coach party What was Wordsworth to secure our growing collection of archives and records relating to the to 17th century Coleridge Cottage in Coleridge? town’s history, not to mention our Nether Stowey, home to STC for expanding Heritage reference library, three years from 1797. It was during Plus: now displayed in glass-fronted book East Devon History Group news. shelves. It is the first time we have continued on p8 POH project looks at Ottery been able to access our collection Events line up properly since we lost our museum Letters, articles or any other premises in 2007. This has been a great submissions to the Journal can be step forward. emailed to www.otteryheritage.org.uk [email protected]
1 Editorial Forthcoming Events Unless otherwise noted, all the Society's meetings are held in the Institute, Yonder Street, Ottery St. Mary. 2012 • 8 January 2013 (Tuesday) 7.30 pm Operation Pied Piper John Brasier • 19 February 2013 (Tuesday) 7.30 pm Memories of the Penlee Lifeboat Disaster Mac Mclaren • 19 March 2013 (Tuesday) 7.30 pm
Betty William’s’ piece on Coleridge and Wordsworth (see this edition Geology, Landscape & Scenery in SE Devon p9) is usefully provocative on many fronts, and I hope it might spark Dr Malcolm Hart some further correspondence. Failing that, let me suggest an alternative method of assessing the poets’ lives in the lakes. • 16 April 2013 Greta Hall, to which Coleridge took his family in the summer of 1800, quickly became a busy and sometimes crowded family home What did Women Do All Day for the interrelated Coleridge, Southey and Fricker families, right up Dr Jane Whittle to the time of Robert Southey’s death in 1843. • 21 May 2013 Since then it was largely forsaken as a focus for family life and for the greater part of the 20th century it was a school. It became Devon Inns available again as a freehold in the 1990s in the middle of a period in the housing market where no-one would want a very large Robert Hesketh unmodernised house, let alone one with structural problems.You would have thought this was an ideal opportunity for the National • 18 June 2013 Trust or, at the very least, Keswick’s local council to acquire a building so centrally significant for the history of English letters; but AGM followed by Your Place in History - an no - they didn’t (in the NT’s case because they weren’t given it) or couldn’t (in Kewick’s case probably because they couldn’t afford it). opportunity for audience participation!
It fell instead, and happily as it turns out, to another large family, Colin Dean who took on the problems together with the luxury of the space and heritage value, and who have turned it into a very amenable Bed • 16 July 2013 and Breakfast/self catering destination. So your dutiful editor spent a recent weekend viewing exactly what caused Coleridge to ‘offer up Subject to be confirmed soap & blood daily, as an Eye-servant of the Goddess Nature’ (trying Chris Wakefield to shave while looking at the view of the mountains in his mirror) and considering what Southey daily mused on from his study • 17 September 2013 window. We lodged in the former rooms of Mrs Coleridge and Sara (STCs daughter) with our evenings spent around logs ablaze in Powderham Castle Southey’s fireplace (designed by his daughter Edith May Southey), leafing through an excellent short history of the place. Felicity Harper
It might seem inappropriate, brazen even, to extol my holiday adventures in these pages but if, like me, you want a deeper Heritage Society Trustees understanding of your chosen literary heros, then the places they Hon Chairman Robert Neal 813686 occupied and the things that they saw and wrote about are just about Acting Hon Secretary Chris Saunders 812962 as good as it gets. There is another point though: this also a reminder Hon Treasurer Jim Woolley 812176 that we cannot always rely on bodies like the National Trust to look Hazel Abley after our literary heritage. Fortunately Greta Hall is now, in a way Vaughan Glanville 812628 and for the moment at least, saved for the nation (should they want to visit - not all at once of course) and that will remain the case John Pilsworth 812737 while custom flourishes one hopes. Chris Wakefield 815262 Betty Williams 814044 www.gretahall.net/ for further information. Oliver Wilson 813021 Co-opted members Membership Sec. post vacant - see p8 Letters, articles or any other submissions to the Meetings Secretary Sylvia Wainwright 813041 Journal can be emailed to Articles or letters can be emailed to the Journal at [email protected] [email protected] www.otteryheritage.org.uk
2 Peter Orlando Hutchinson Project looks again at East Hill monuments Among the many interesting activities ‘ornamental’ dimension. Unless I have of East Devon AONB’s most recent overlooked a technical/archaeological landscape project (“In the Footsteps use of the term ‘ornament’, these of Peter Orlando Hutchinson”), has older ideas do seems a bit odd. been the re-examination of three Arriving at Hazel Riley’s new assessment is thus a great relief, in that unusual monuments that sit on the it all seems to make much better sense brow of East Hill overlooking Ottery than anything that has gone before. St Mary to see what a modern That is, I suppose, not uncommon in interpretation might add to archaeology, which often provides the Hutchinson’s notes about them made means only to speculate rather than to in his diary in October 1854. determine. The links with local history make all the difference, and the idea of Here’s what POH said... these monuments as late C18th/early C19th military redoubts is certainly Three barrows. good enough for me. The comparison with similar monuments in other parts Went with Mr. Heineken and of southern England is the clincher, Mr.Waterhouse to Ottery East Hill, to but it it also worth noting that POH enjoy the view and to show the latter a himself suggested in his original diary entry that these earthworks might be piece of Devonshire. We took the route Peter Orlando Hutchinson (1811- in our vehicle by way of Sidford, and military redoubts. A pity he did not 1897). East Devon’s AONB project revisit his thoughts after his [...] on till we reached the top of follows up POH’s acute recording of experience with the local Volunteer Ottery East Hill. Here we halted, and the East Devon Landscape in the Artillery, which he joined three years taking out our spyglasses searched the Victorian period. later, which might have settled the matter. countryside for half an hour on all landscape.It afforded the chance for sides. [...] Thence we started some entertaining graphics, but was a My only question is that POH says he northwards until we came to the three little leaky as a proposal and has been had an ‘ordnance map’ on which the barrows, the situations of which we superseded now by a thorough-going monuments were not marked. Given noted in order to lay them down on the and infinitely more satisfactory the primary military interest of these explanation in Hazel Riley’s report Ordnance map, where they are not. early maps, produced in the same from her assessment and survey work period which is suggested for the These barrows are cut into peculiar carried out for the POH project (also earthworks, their absence is curious. forms by the ditches made round them. in March this year.) The reference given (in Jeremy The most southerly one is in the shape Butler’s first volume of the Diaries - The title: “Napoleonic Military Sites 2000, p97) is B.R Nos 18-20 which I of a star with six points, like a fort or and a Prehistoric Ceremonial battery; the second is like a square but could not fathom, so there may be an Monument on East Hill, Ottery St answer to this minor concern in due bounded by curved lines bowing Mary, Devon” somewhat gives the course. inwards, and the most northerly towards game away quite early that the square Chineway Head is merely circular. and star shaped mounds are not Anyone with an interest in the humps prehistoric in origin. The new surveys and bumps up on East hill will profit These ditches are not likely to be confirmed that the northernmost of greatly from a careful read of Hazel ancient and perhaps were made at the the three monuments - the circular Riley’s report. These are available from time the barrows were planted with fir mound was of a piece with other the POH project on request. Email trees, some of which remain growing southwestern burial and funerary Phil Planel on on them. (1) monuments, and was not, as suggested [email protected] by other (post-POH) commentators, a I made of note of Hutchinsons barrow monument of the more You can also consult both the original interest in these monuments in the common ‘hump’ form that had been POH diaries and a transcription Autumn 2009 Journal, and also made a restructured for some reason. thereof on the East Devon AONB stab at an alternative interpretation of website (with his illustrations - which The review of earlier work shows the the “star-shaped” monument in my are marvellous) restructuring suggestion cropping up talk to members in March this year. again on the other two monuments in http://www.eastdevonaonb.org.uk/ This suggested that it may have been question - the square and star shaped index.php?page=poh-transcripts an Anglo Saxon boundary feature ones - with the intention it is known as a “wyrtrum” which left a suggested, of providing an star shaped relict version in the Chris Wakefield
3 East Devon Local History Workshop
John Torrance, convener of the East Devon History Group, reports on their 3rd annual conference
The third meeting was held on Monday Whimple orchards, which continue to this It was agreed to encourage groups to 19 November 2012 at Kennaway House, day in the post-Whiteway era. She and continue local research on the same Sidmouth. her family have approximately 100 acres of theme, and further presentations will be apple orchard. welcome next year. Phil Planel raised the Present: Norah Jaggers, Jean Wood (Beer); possibility of applying for a grant towards Barbara Farquharson, John Torrance Trevor and Sue Dymond (OSM) returned an eventual publication. (Branscombe); John Cochrane (Colyton); to the tithe map apportionment data for Mike & Dee Tracy, April Marjoram Ottery St Mary, also looking in detail at John Torrance (convener) asked members (Exmouth); Brenda Powell, Christine other sources for orchard history, such as to send research proposals to him at: Gibbins (Feniton) ; Julia Hutchings, Hazel the Exeter Flying Post manual index and [email protected] for Rose, Mary Rogers (Honiton); David making comparisons between the Ottery circulation to all groups. Proposals Seward, Ron Woodcock (Northleigh); orchard data and Sam Turner’s Devon- received so far are : A comparison of Vaughan Glanville, Trevor & Sue Dymond wide data produced by Devon Historic orchards on the Northleigh tithe map and (Ottery St Mary); Rab & Christine Environment Service (HES). The HES an earlier Netherton Hall estate map (Ron Barnard (Sidmouth Museum); David & data did not cover plots of land under a Woodcock) and a search through historic Daphne Rastall, Margaret Burrough hectare in extent and many orchards were Sidmouth newspapers for evidence of (Whimple) ; Roger Stokes (Woodbury); smaller than this. orchards in the Sid Valley (Rab and Chris Woodruff, Philippe Planel (AONB), Christine Barnard). and Cressida Whitton (Devon CC Barbara Farquharson (Branscombe) Historic Environment Service). reviewed sources of evidence for orchard 3. Beer Heritage Society reported on a history used by the Branscombe Project, project eliciting memories of Coronation Apologies for absence were received from especially oral sources, and pointed to the Day 1953. Feniton History group Shirley Brown (Colyton), Chris Wakefield importance of orchards for finding the circulated details of the year's activities. (OSM), Helen Tickle (Otter Valley) and disappeared farmhouses which once stood Exmouth Historical and Archaeological Gill Selley (Woodbury). within them. Society drew members' attention to the Devon Roll of Honour project (see 1. Chris Woodruff (Manager, E. Devon In addition, Ron Woodcock displayed Friends of Devon's Archives website at AONB) who reported last year that the photographs of cider-making at Collins http://www.foda.org,uk/projects or e- AONB had been chosen by English Farm, Northleigh in 1988, and of cider- mail direct to the organiser, Pete Best, at Heritage to produce a Historic making equipment now. David Rastall [email protected].) Environment Action Plan (HEAP), displayed albums relating to Whimple explained that there will be a two-strand orchards and cider industry. Phil Planel 5. The AONB was thanked for its approach, to produce a top-down strategic distributed 'A Brief History of East Devon generous hospitality, and John Torrance HEAP and bottom-up community Orchards' by Lesley Kerry, copied with agreed to arrange a meeting in autumn HEAPS. Branscombe and one other the author's permission by the AONB, and 2013. community would be selected for the also internet references for Devon community HEAPS, and consultants will orchards. John Torrance shortly be appointed to get the project off the ground. The project will involve adding depth and detail to the Devon East Devon Group Contact addresses HLC map, which is at AONB Chris Woodruff:
Tony Simpson discovers treasures of an unexpected sort in a library cast-offs bin...
I make a habit of rescuing library books. Richard Coley is one of only four These are books for sale that the library is Governors of the Church of St disposing of for various reasons – they are Mary Ottery who can date their careworn, damaged or ‘out of date’. I role to the reign of Henry VIII. have long stopped puzzling about this last The early years of the governors of category and enjoyed the fruits of my Ottery became mired in browsing from the ‘For Sale’ shelf. Is my controversy just like Henry’s fine collection on the slave trade (no longer turbulent marital history. Indeed on the public shelves) really out of date? there is a connection between the - slavery is certainly not out of date! I two. have combined material from these Henry is of course famous, or rescued volumes, especially their wonderful infamous - depending on your illustrations, with modern materials and point of view – for his six wives , shared it with dozens of groups in East or rather for the ‘great matter’ of Devon. his disposal of them. His divorce of My latest transfer from public to private - Catherine of Aragon (he later and then back to public again - is a divorced Anne of Cleeves) caused a collectors gem. Published in 1843 and in rift with the Pope and led to his good order it is an ‘Account of the Church excommunication from Rome. No of OSM ‘. A bonus is an Appendix doubt guided by the ambitious containing superbly drafted plans and line Thomas Wolsey and Thomas drawings of the Church by the architect Cromwell, Henry became Head of John Hayward. But this book is more than the Church of England which gave it promises. It is an early Victorian him control over England’s account of the Church’s architecture, churches including the extensive researched by F.G.Coleridge and based manor and church of Ottery on a survey by a team of the Diocesan which Bishop Grandisson had Church Architectural Society which visited earlier modelled on Exeter Henry VIII - the start of the problem. Ottery in 1841. It also admits to being in Cathedral (the church is still (pic: Wikimedia Commons) part ‘an antiquarian history’ including an described by Paul Johnson as appendix of latin documents and among ‘England’s best’). Church of St Mary Ottery. They snapshots of controversial aspects of the were to be in charge of the So how did the Church Governors Church property and surrounds as Church’s past , especially the role of come about? Being pre-occupied governors after the Reformation. well as houses for the vicar, the with his wives, invading France, choristers and the school house. This account was apparently written when defeating the Scots, enclosures and Henry had also established a new the church had been sadly neglected but building up the navy- Henry Grammar School in Ottery said to with the authors hoping that it ‘will be depended on a network of court have been the brain child of John restored in time to much of its pristine associates and advisors to rule over Haydon, one of the first governors splendour’ . The report must surely have his fast growing estates. Edward and owner of Cadhay House and played a part in bringing about the Seymour, Duke of Somerset to also a ‘bencher at Lincoln’s Inn’. restoration by among others Edward Blore whom Henry originally granted Again he gave the power of and William Butterfield with the Lady Ottery was convicted of felony and appointing the schoolmaster to the Chapel later restored by Henry Woodyer. executed in 1552. governors and to the new Vicar. Under Letters Patent the governors For this 170 year old book, catalogue According to this account, on December 24th 1546, the year were to administer tythes to the number 283 4235 I paid £1 from a value of £451.10s.2d, ‘to hold these library in East Devon. Parts of it have before Henry died he established a corporation of four governors to possessions to them and their been incorporated it in the following successors for ever of the Crown in account. be responsible to him for the 5 socage’. They were to pay 20s to a to work with the governors and office – Had Henry been alive they Vicar and also to provide ‘a from which they would in future may have been lucky to escape convenient habitation’ along with be elected.’ Despite this the with their lives . ‘food and raiment’ for two governors are said to have Chaplain. The first Vicar appointed ‘neglected their elections’ leaving Edward ruled that henceforth the under the Letters Patent was them to the Vicar who was said to Governors should account for all Mainwarynge Ralph appointed be ‘taking bribes’. He was also monies and that the Vicar could under Queen Elizabeth on 28th accused of having ‘made his not chose a Governor without the June 1580, who later held the elections not from among the consent of the eight assistants. vicarage of Sidmouth and assistants but from the inhabitants Two hundred and fifty years later Aylesbeare. at large’. an account of the Church ‘Matters did not long proceed Most seriously, despite all Henry’s Diocesan Architectural Society smoothly... the inhabitants were efforts to separate the Church from reported that circumstances were dissatisfied with some proceedings Rome the Governors and Vicar still bringing the governors and of the governors ’ and attempted were charged with electing assistants to ‘an open state of legal action against them, a Anthony Saunders - ‘a known and warfare’ . It concluded that situation inherited by the young noted Papist’- as a schoolmaster, ‘although the constitution of King Edward VI. His solution was granting him a pension of 10s ‘and governors and assistants still exists to make ‘eight of the most honest, other malpractices’. In 1598 Vicar ...in truth it is an anomalous best, discreet and quietest of the Nicholas Forward and the creation, of very doubtful policy’. parishioners’ as a body of assistants governors were expelled from Tony Simpson
really better, but the laws of trade are. felt that the best way of exterminating The 2 sides of The lowering of the duties payable on smuggling was not to augment the such things as silks, tea, and British staff of coastguardsmen, already spirits has, no doubt, done more to maintained at an enormous expense, FREE TRADE put down smuggling in our own but to extend free trade between The following extract first country than all the coastguardsmen nation and nation, and lower the appeared in the October 1892 and revenue officers on our shores. duties on such things as silks, tea, wine, tobacco and spirits. edition of “Home Words for Some thirty or forty years ago, on the Heart and Hearth”. The French coast - Dunkirk, Boulogne, Since this most desirable change was original article entitled “Our Cherbourg - were the head-quarters made to our laws of trading, we have Coastguard” was written by of unlawful traders, who would risk reaped immense advantages as a nation the late Rev. R. H. Blair, M.A., life and limb, first on the sea and then from the increase of international Rector of St. Martin’s, among the rocks, in carrying on their commerce. The number of Worcester illicit commerce. On the English side coastguardsmen - then called the there were numerous haunts of Preventive Service - has been much “The coastguard stations which smugglers all along the shores of Kent reduced; in some places their stations surround the coast indicate that all and Sussex. The revenue has been have been abandoned, and the officers were not friends who once found to suffer on both sides of the are chiefly now occupied in the less approached our shore. The very seas Channel to the extent of from arduous duty of watching the coast, required watching, lest they bore on £900,000 to £1,000,000 in the course assisting in cases of shipwreck, and their bosom boats laden with of a single year by the evasion of prepared on any emergency to render contraband goods. Smuggling in the lawful duties. In spite of thousands of service in case of foreign invasion.” days of our fathers was a very serious coastguardsmen stationed thickly matter. Organised gangs of daring and along the coast, day and night, the from Chris Saunders reckless men - sometimes numbering vessels of these rough and fearless men several hundreds - were engaged in stole into our creeks, and landed their this lawless occupation. Fierce goods in places known only to Letters, articles or any other encounters were constantly taking themselves and those in league with place. them. submissions to the Journal can be Happily smuggling is not by any It was a career which no system of emailed to means so common as it was. Times penalties or punishments could ever have changed. Men, perhaps, are not have destroyed; and at length it was [email protected]
6 How did ‘The Priory’ get its name?
‘The Priory’, an imposing 18th century building in Cornhill, Ottery St Mary has had many and varying uses in its long history. It is a common belief that monks dwelt here in days gone by, in fact the name ‘The Priory’ suggests as much, but despite its name, records reveal no direct ecclesiastic connection. Looking at the building itself, it seems thoroughly secular in design - the drain- heads proclaim its builder (C.B. 1719) rather than the Almighty, and the frontage is that of an opulent 18th century town house for someone wanting to make an impression. It just doesn't square with a Godly purpose. So how did it get its name? There is no mention of a "priory" in the OSM parish rolls (as transcribed by CD Whetham in 1913), and the property listed in the 1843 tithe apportionment has no tithe rent allotted - suggesting it wasn't connected to the church. The tithe schedule of 1846 refers to the site as a "House and Offices" owned and occupied by John Ellis LEE (he also owned about 26 acres of land - lots of it in Ottery town and much of it on the south and east side of Paternoster row). But in the 1851 census (five years later) John Ellis LEE is noted now living at an address in Sandhill Street, and styles himself as a "Land and Property owner". So some time between the tithe schedule of 1846 and the 1851 census, the ownership passed to Rev. George Smith, the vicar and master of The King’s School. Now the Victorians were fond of naming their properties with high flown sounding titles, and it would seem this is exactly what happened when the Rev Smith took possession and christened his new home ‘Priory House’. Top: The Priory, Cornhill, Ottery St ary By 1868 The King’s School, still run by Rev. George Smith, had experienced rapid Above: The King’s School prior to 1884 in its former home in decline. According to the report of the the College Endowed Schools Enquiry of 1868, the school was then “useless and cannot be The “Priory House School” was here said to be doing any work whatever”. purchase the Priory from the throughout the 1870s, and a Trades There were only four boys in a aforementioned Rev. Smith. This fine Directory of 1878 still shows the dilapidated room, and what should have Georgian house was conveyed to them for proprietor as Rev W C Frost. been the boarders' dining room was £1,100. The Royal Assent was obtained to occupied by two carriages. reopen the school there, and it opened for It took until 1881 for the Church business in 1896. The original Old Governors to remove the Rev George During this same period, by a strange Schoolhouse had been demolished in Smith, although he managed to secure a coincidence, a private school was 1884. handsome “golden handshake” of £480. operating successfully at ‘Priory House’, home address of the said Rev. George The King’s Grammar School operated The Charity Commissioners produced a from its more spacious and luxurious Smith: the proprietor of this independent scheme in 1883 under which the King’s establishment being a Rev. W C Frost BA. School buildings were to be sold and new premises provided. However the Church Governors decided early in 1894 to cont. overleaf
7 accommodation at The Priory from 1896 mentioned in the rent rolls and also to it close to the rear of what is now the to 1912. "Lambs Court". ‘The Priory’. In 1912, The King’s Grammar School From some time before 1657 until it was In view of its location and name, the inn moved from The Priory into purpose- burnt down in 1767, an inn called the built premises in Barrack Road (the ‘Holy Lamb’ was situated on the east side might well have been a hostelry associated present site). of what is now Cornhill. Behind the inn in some way with the College in pre was a ‘parcel of land containing other Reformation days. Following the 1914-18 war The Priory buildings and a bowling green.’ was home to the local branch of the Royal British Legion. It is likely that the Holy Lamb fell victim Robert Neal to the disastrous fire of 1767 which the From 1949 to 1974 it was the Ottery St Exeter Flying Post, 20 March, reported, Mary Police Station, Court House and “burnt with great vehemence the whole detention cells. These cells, located in the day and consumed between 40 and 50 of References: basement of the building, appear to have the most principal houses in the town. been changed little since their former use, OSM Parish Rolls (transcribed CD but are now utilised for storage. The exact location of the Holy Lamb cannot be pinpointed but the most likely Whetham 1913) Since 1974 this impressive, well preserved place would appear to be adjoining the Tithe Apportionments 1843 building has been a home for the elderly, narrow side lane leading to a court and Tithe schedule 1846 its graceful Georgian windows keeping the old hospital beyond. watch over one of the finest parish Census 1851 churches in the land. This entrance is immediately opposite the Trades Directory 1878 church (in earlier days the College) and The Holy Lamb Church records researched John Whitham the court leading to the hospital became Heritage Journal No.11, Ron Homer known as ‘Lamb Court’ and one of the The one other link with a potential buildings is named ‘Lamb Cottage’. It Manor Survey map 1775 ecclesiastic origin is its proximity to a would seem that the Holy Lamb inn lay Around Ottery St Mary (1994) Peter garden called "The Holy Lamb" on the northern side of this court, placing Harris and Gerald Gosling
.../continued from front page scholar and raconteur, Betty Williams Another Year MA who chose as her subject his time here that he produced his ‘Wordsworth and Coleridge’ in which Now, as the old year draws to a close, finest poetry. As a result of a major she debated the close friendship, we can reflect on all that has taken refurbishment project last year, we subversion and ultimate dissolution of place in a hugely eventful and were able to explore parts of the these two romantic poets. She spoke successful twelve months. A number of cottage not previously open to the of the union between these two men our loyal and hardworking members public, and enter atmospheric which was, at first, so productive and are no longer with us, the years take cottage rooms restored to reflect inspiring until emerging rifts began to their toll, but we remember all that the poet’s former family home. A draw them apart. they contributed to the building of tour of the garden, lunch at the our Heritage Society. We welcome the ‘Ancient Mariner’ hotel and a talk Membership Secretary new members who have joined us by Stephen Hayes of the National during the year, maintaining our It is with mixed emotions that we say Trust made for a relaxing and numbers which currently stand at 210. enjoyable day out. goodbye to Wendy Headeach, our membership secretary, who will be Many plans are already in hand for the Coleridge Anniversary leaving us at the end of the year. We coming year and we look forward Lunch are most grateful for the way she with confidence; do keep abreast of enthusiastically accepted the role at events through our Heritage Journal. I In October, our Coleridge such short notice, and we shall close with my sincere good wishes to Anniversary Lunch at the Tumbling certainly miss her cheerful smile you and your loved ones for a Happy Weir Hotel was highly successful. during her time in the job. We are Christmas and a healthy and Usually a ‘sell-out’ long before the delighted, however, that she will be prosperous New Year. event, there was such a clamour for embarking on a new and exciting tickets this year that extra seating chapter in her life and we wish her ROBERT NEAL had to be arranged. We were joined every success and happiness. by members of the Coleridge family from far and wide, several So now we are left with an important who were direct descendants of the post to fill on the committee. A great STC. We are grateful for their volunteer please, preferably with just a continued support. little secretarial experience, to come Letters, articles or any other and join the team; we’ll make sure you submissions to the Journal can be Guest speaker, a Trustee of the get all the assistance you need! emailed to Society, was our distinguished [email protected]
8 WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE
Betty Williams’ talk at this year’s Coleridge Anniversary lunch, centred on the relationship between Coleridge and Wordsworth - always a useful topic to stir debate as to which of them was more or less worthy, or more or less of a genius, or poet, or philosopher, or friend to the other.
You have all dined and imbibed Wordsworth ... and two by So, what makes a poet? As a part- well at this lunch to honour Coleridge. time poet myself, I ask you this Coleridge, so now, settle back and question, “Do you, deep down, prepare for the ‘hard sell’ – the talk! To call him and Wordsworth the consider all poets to be genius, or ‘Lakeland Poets’ is a bit of a slightly mad? Or both?” Why Wordsworth and Coleridge? misnomer, as STC should be Why not, in his native town, thought of on his own as a This is Hazlitt, writing of ‘Coleridge and Wordsworth’? “Nether Stowey” poet, for he Coleridge: “His genius had angelic wrote the farewell to his muse in wings and fed on manna. He talked Certainly Wordsworth became Poet 1802 in his ‘Ode to Dejection’, forever and you wished him to talk Laureate, certainly he produced then aged thirty. forever!” And Coleridge bowed to more, but like Victor Hugo (hélas!) Wordsworth, as “The Bard.” not invariably at his best. The great flow of his genius was mainly in one year, from the Writing to Southey, Coleridge In 1795 Wordsworth had resolved summer of 1797 to the spring of describes Wordsworth as “the only “to live by poetry”, and indeed he the following year – the time of his man to whom at all times, and in did, but even Homer sometimes main writing of ‘Christabel’, ‘Kubla all modes of excellence, I feel nods. Coleridge, on the other Khan’ and ‘The Ancient Mariner’. myself inferior – the only one, I hand, was principally a mean, I have yet met with.” ‘philosopher’, living largely on a At the age of 28 he wrote to Wordsworth, on Coleridge’s death, yearly bequest from the Wedgwood Godwin, “The poet is dead in me.” says of him, “He was the most family, but training as a preacher, By the age of thirty, the impetus of wonderful man that I had ever working as a lecturer and known.” astounding his listeners by a his poetry was gone, though he prodigious “gift of the gab”. started many poems, left For some years they lived in a unfinished, and throughout his life, “mutual admiration society” – not To take, for example, Palgrave’s on and off, he would re-work at forgetting the third member of the Golden Treasury; it includes eleven those three great poems of his party, Wordsworth’s sister, Dorothy. poems by John Keats, forty by youth. More than STC she ruled her brother’s life. 9 But both Coleridge and Wordsworth needed physical “One only leaf upon the tip of a tree – the sole love – Coleridge with Sarah and his children, and later remaining leaf – danced round and round like a rag perhaps with Sara Hutchinson, who finally fled his blown by the wind.” assiduous pursuit. Again, to quote her journal of 1802: Wordsworth had an illegitimate French daughter, born in 1792, and ten years later married Mary Hutchinson “They saw the first daffodils – as we went along there who bore him children. more and more, and yet more; and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt So what of the ten years between? Without going into of them along the shore, about the breadth of a the morality of the time, Keats had his lover Fanny, country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so Nelson his Lady Hamilton, and Byron was “mad, bad beautiful. and dangerous to know!” They grew among the mossy stones about and about So, what was the position of Dorothy Wordsworth? them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled She delighted in being a stimulus to both poets, and and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with yet, an inspiration to both was, I feel, jealous of Sara’s the wind, that blew upon them over the lake. Wind, part in Coleridge’s life, yet she was not given to either rain and the sound of waves like the sea could not blot man physically. out the daffodils.” A hero-worshipper all her life? Or a ‘management Two years later – queen’? “I wandered lonely as a cloud Ladies, would you have worn the ring your brother When all at once I saw a crowd was to give to his bride the following day? A host of golden daffodils She writes .... Beside the lake, beneath the trees Fluttering and dancing in the breeze “I gave him the wedding ring – with how deep a Ten thousand saw I at a glance blessing!! I took it from my forefinger where I had Tossing their heads in sprightly dance worn it the whole of the night before – he slipped it And then my heart with pleasure fills again onto my finger and blessed me fervently.” And dances with the daffodils” A wedding ring blessed – not by a priest – but by “She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,” says Wordsworth one’s sister? Gentlemen? An odd couple indeed! as he scans her journals. Though Dorothy and Mary, her brother’s wife, lived together most amicably. Not so her feelings for A famous poem, “Daffodils”, but not to everyone. Coleridge’s wife, of whom she wrote, “She is a sad In a serious quiz – to the question “Who wrote ‘I fiddle-faddler”.Yet she thought nothing of running wandered lonely as a cloud?’ the response by two upstairs in her wet clothes after walking near Nether graduates from one of our lesser universities, after Stowey and reappearing dressed in one of Sarah much deliberation and head-scratching, was “Lord Coleridge’s gowns, much to Sarah’s chagrin. Byron, we’ve heard of him.” English education? Yet she was impressed by Coleridge’s influence on However, take this “Answer to a Child’s Question” In Wordsworth’s intellect and his development on the its lyricism, mechanism of poetry. Perhaps she did not fully realise her brother was a poet of feeling, rather than thought. ‘Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove, Through her journal, we note, as Coleridge did in life, The Linnet and Thrush say, “I love and I love!” “Her eye watchful in minutest observation of nature.” In the winter they’re silent – the wind is so strong; In “Christabel”, he writes of : What it says, I don’t know, but it sings a loud song. “The one red leaf, the last of its clan But green leaves and blossoms and sunny warm That dances as often as dance it can weather, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, And singing and loving all come back together. On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love, The green fields below him, the blue sky above, Dorothy’s journal in March 1798 had noted –
10 That he sings and he sings and forever sings he – after not seeing her father for ten years, was acclaimed “I love my love and my love loves me!” in London for a translation from the Latin, for which she had received £125, and which she had worked on And this short lyric is by Coleridge. – ‘as a form of relaxation’! And she spoke Italian, The two poets are most often thought of as learned from her mother; who herself had learned it collaborators in the “Lyrical Ballads” which contains in order to teach her daughter. 23 poems by Wordsworth and four only by Coleridge. Those of us who have visited Nether Stowey, know Yet this, too, is an incorrect title as most are not lyrical just how small the cottage was, with tiny rooms. A fire – in other words ‘song-like’, nor are they in traditional to warm the place and for cooking. Dark at four ballad form. o’clock in the evening, lit only by tapers and the odd candle. Take for example the longest poem in the collection, Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner” – In a week he had Whilst the three set off on picturesque excursions, she written 300 lines, the longest part. Even Wordsworth chose to remain at home in charge of the washing and had written two couplets, but abandoned the effort as cleaning, caring for her baby son Hartley, in that small his style did not assimilate with that of Coleridge. cottage with only the most basic of facilities. This is for me the crux of the matter; that Wordsworth For weeks the two men were inseparable, walking was born to be a lyricist, despite Dorothy’s attempts to together and reading their poems one to the other. “philosophise” him, whereas Coleridge was a Then Coleridge formed his ‘grand plan’ of a Philosopher, and poet on the side. momentous work, with he the brain and Wordsworth the hands. “My admiration, I might say, my awe of his In 1797, Coleridge, married to Sara Fricker, father of a intellectual prowess has increased even to this hour,” son, Hartley, and already using laudanum “for he wrote. medicinal purposes”, resided at Nether Stowey. Their decidedly “odd” behaviour must have appeared Having met Wordsworth in Bristol, and desirous of most strange to their Somerset neighbours. renewing the acquaintanceship, he set off after a preaching session in Bridgewater through Taunton to Yet their close collaboration must soon cease, as the Racedown Lodge in Dorset where the Wordsworths Wordsworths, accused, amongst other things, of being were then living. French spies, were unable to renew their lease. And already Coleridge was smitten by attacks brought on This was a journey from Nether Stowey of some forty by his increasing use of laudanum. miles, where he arrived in late afternoon, leaping over a gate to be cordially welcomed by William and They decided on a tour of Germany, to learn German Dorothy. His “brief stay” was to last some three weeks. perfectly, in seven weeks according to Coleridge. So from September 1798 to July 1799 he was away from Later in July, STC drove them to Nether Stowey England, from Sara – pregnant again with another where, with Sara, the nine-month-old Hartley, friend child – and often travelling in the Harz mountains Charles Lamb and the Nanny, forced them all closer alone. By December of that same year the together – and in July, in what seemed an impulsive Wordsworths, suspected of revolutionary leanings, had move, the Wordsworths rented Alfoxden House, three moved to Dove Cottage in the Lake District and by miles only from their spell-binding new friend. The July 1800 Coleridge and family had moved to Greta “three persons and one soul” met almost every day, exchanged impressions and thoughts between the two Hall nearby. poets. Again, their friendship seemed to flourish and in 1803 Speculating deeply about the nature of poetry; we Coleridge joined the Wordsworths on a tour of “three” met frequently – yet the Wordsworths Scotland which he had to abandon through ill health. considered Sara Coleridge in a different league, “being Can genius live with genius? Consider the lives of different in organic sensibility” so she was never Gaugin and Van Gogh. Consider the life of Coleridge, allowed in the “sacred and privileged pale” of the dependant now on laudanum. Wordsworth circle. How many of you pop an aspirin a day or take a Poor Sara, her life was one almost of drudgery, and yet painkiller at the slightest twinge? Every age has its her mind and learning were not slow, for she was able drug, and in Coleridge’s time it was opium or to largely educate their daughter Sara who in 1822, laudanum, which could be bought anywhere, and in
11 the early 1800s was cheaper than gin! With similar now both men were aggrieved, believing the other effects. meant to end their friendship. In England laudanum, in France absinthe. So Coleridge left the Lakes forever, never to return; centring his life in London, giving lectures at the Who took it? – de Quincy, Elizabeth Barrett- London Philosophical Society and other institutions, Browning, William Wilberforce, Sir Walter Scott who some cancelled, some incomprehensible. By now took six grams a day for stomach cramps when swallowing a pint of Laudanum a day, in 1816 he writing “The Bride of Lammermoor” and also entered James Gillman’s house as a patient, remaining admitted later he couldn’t remember a single incident, there for the rest of his life. character or conversation he had written. Sarah Bernhardt who took opium to “calm her jitters” and For the next ten years he had rare meetings with once forgot a 250 line speech, shortened the play by Wordsworth, describing him always as “cold and 20 minutes and omitting a vital clue from the plot, scornful” or “stern and withdrawn” yet in 1828 both perplexing her audience! visited Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, and although William’s daughter Dora reported, “we get And Dorothy Wordsworth, who wanted so hard to on delightfully,” Coleridge in his notebooks noted, wean Coleridge from the drug – she took it for her “Recently all the shortcomings, which marked him in toothache! “I soon found that I was a burthen on his early manly years, have increased considerably; the them,” wrote Coleridge, despondent now from his grand flourishings of his philosophic and poetic addiction, and also by a love for Sara Hutchinson, genius, had withered and died.” Wordsworth’s sister in law – “I long for you till longing turns to grief – and I close up again, Their last meeting was in December 1830 when despondent, sick of heart.” Wordsworth and his wife dined with Coleridge who recorded it as a “happy Christmas day throughout.” In 1804 he went off to Malta to recover his health, and to work as secretary to Sir Robert Ball in Malta, When Coleridge died in 1834, aged 61, Wordsworth returning in 1806 after time spent in Sicily and Rome, said of him, “he was the most wonderful man that I then via Leghorn, Florence and Pisa where he sailed had ever known.” for England in an American ship. He himself died, aged 80, in 1850. Having left England determined to combat his opium addiction, he returned completely in its clutches, “Genius and genius? Selfish and self-absorbed?” disorientated, he lived in delusion, looking through From Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’: the magic glass of an opium-poisoned imagination. Alas, they had been friends in youth; In 1808 he moved to live with the Wordsworths in But whispering tongues can poison truth; Grassmere. “If he is not inclined to manage himself, And constancy lives in realms above; we can manage him,” wrote Dorothy. Painful And life is thorny, and youth is vain; ignorance! Whilst Southey writes, “He besots himself And to be wroth with one we love with opium, or with spirits – his present scheme is to Doth work like madness in the brain live with Wordsworth – it is from his idolatry of that A dreary sea now flows between, family that this has begun – they have always But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder humoured him in all his follies.” Southey also wrote, Shall wholly do away, I ween, “Wordsworth and his sister are of all human beings I The marks of that which once hath been have ever known, the most intensely selfish.” ‘Wordsworth and Coleridge?’ or ‘Coleridge and In 1810, after the failure of a new review, “The Wordsworth?’ Friend” which Wordsworth was against, genius fell against genius. Wordsworth had allegedly reported My dears - I leave it to you! Coleridge as a “rotten drunkard in the habit of running into debt at little pothouses for gin.” Betty Williams Coleridge asked for an apology, or an explanation, and
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