nut{and J{e,cord 21

Journa{ of tfie Rut{andLoca{ Jfistory & Record Society Rutland Local History & Record Society

The Society is formedfrom the union in June 1991 of the Rutland Local History Society, foundedin the 1930s, and the Rutland Record Society, foundedin 1979. In May 1993, the Rutland Field Research Group for Archaeology & History, foundedin 1971, also amalgamatedwith the Society. TheSoc iety is a Registered Charity, and its aim is the advancement of the education of the public in all aspectsof the history of the ancient County of Rutland and its immediate area. RegisteredCharity No. 700723

PRESIDENT vacant CHAIRMAN Mrs Auriol Thomson VICE-CHAIRMEN ProfessorAlan Rogers, Robert Ovens HONORARY SECRETARY MrsSue Howlett, c/o Rutland CountyMuseum, Oakham, Rutland HONORARY TREASURER Dr Mike Tillbrook HONORARY MEMBERSHIPSECRETARY Mrs Enid Clinton HONORARY EDITOR Tim Clough HONORARY ARCHIVIST Carl Harrison, Record Officefor Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland HONORARY LEGAL ADVISER John Ervin EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The Officersof the Society and the following elected members Edward Baines, Mrs Elizabeth Bryan, Mrs Audrey Buxton, David Carlin, Hilary Crowden, Mrs Kate Don, Miss Christine Hill, Dr Ian Ryder EDITORIAL COMMITTEE ProfessorA Rogers, ME Baines, THMcK Clough (convener), Mrs S Howlett, RP Jenkins, Mrs A Thomson, Dr M Tillbrook ARCHAEOLOGICAL GROUP ORAL HISTORY GROUP Mrs K Don (convener) Mrs L Ryder (convener) HISTORIC ENVIRONMENTGROUP Mr D Carlin (convener) HONORARY MEMBERS Sqn Ldr AW Adams, MrsO Adams, Mrs B Finch, PNLane, B Waites Enquiries relating to the Society's activities, such as membership, editorial matters, historic buildings, archaeology, or programmeof events, should be addressed to the appropriate Officerof the Society TheSociety welcomes new members, and hopes to encourage them to participate in the Society's activities at all levels, and to submit the results of their researches,where appropriate, for publication by the Society The address of the Society is c/o RutlandCounty Museum, Catmose Street, Oakham, Rutland, LE145 6HW, telephoneOakham (01572 758440) website: http:www.rutnet.co.uk/rlhrs 'Rut{and 'Record 21

Journa{ of the 'Rut{andLoca{ J-fistory & 'Recore[Society No 21 (for2001)

Editorial: Catching up with the Past 2

Notes on Contributors 2 The First Lady of Lyndon: The Letters of Mary Barker (1655-79) Sue Howlett 3

'A certain Mr. Nouelle .. .': A Rutland Association for the Musician Anton Kammel Michaela Freemanova 17

Uppingham by the Sea: Typhoid and the Excursion to Borth, 1875-77 Ni9el Richardson 22 Rutland History and Archaeology in 2000 Edited by TH McK Clou9h 38

Cover Illustration: Boys from Uppingham School outside a cottage at Borth, Cardiganshire, in 1876 (photograph: Uppingham School archives)

Contributions and editorial correspondence should be sent to the Honorary Editor, Rutland Local History & Record Society, Rutland County Museum, Catmose Street, Oakham, Rutland, LEl 5 6HW

Published by the Rutland Local History & Record Society- Copyright© RLHRS and authors 2003 ISSN 0260-3322 ISBN O 907464 31 9

Printed by Leicestershire County Council's Central Print Services, County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester Editorial - Catching up with the Past

This Editorial must begin with an apology to subscribers for the late appearance of this issue. It has always been the intention of the Society to publish the Rutland Record annually, and this has generally been achieved except for one year in the early days of the Society when financial constraints meant that one issue covered two years. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the publication schedule has fallen very much behind over the last couple of years, and the Editor would like to thank members for their patience and understanding. However, in the interval, the Society has been able to bring to the light of day a major research report, Time in Rutland, its most ambitious publication so far and one supported by a substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund's Millennium Awards scheme. It has been very favourably received. It is now intended to catch up with the publication schedule by bringing out the next two or three issues at closer intervals; there will also be an index of nos 11-20 which will be circulated to members as part of their subscription entitlement. As well as the annual journal, there are also several occasional papers waiting in the wings, and it is intended that this year will see good progress with these. Besides the substantive articles in each issue, the Society also includes regular reports of work undertaken by other organisations in Rutland as well as its own work. We believe that this is an important function, putting on record a wide range of activities which contribute to our understanding of the county's history, and is well illustrated by the reports in this issue. Inevitably, these will be rather out of phase in the next couple of issues, but this will be rectified as the programme stabilises. We also hope to return to the practice of including bibliographical updates and reviews of Rutland publications in each edition.

In a wider context, a number of changes are taking place which will affect historical study in Rutland. The Society is reviewing its activities and functions; the Rutland County Museum has successfully applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a grant to make its services more accessible, for example by providing a new study room, and its Curator of long standing has now retired, to be replaced by a Service Manager supported by a revised staff structure; a local branch of the Leicestershire & Rutland Family History Society has been established.

The rapid spread and development of digitisation techniques and internet access, including the Society's own site, is already revolutionising the way in which our research is carried out. However, it is important not to lose sight of the importance of the written word as a means of presenting research into our history and archaeology. No matter how convenient and effective a tool the digital archive or surrogate copy may be, it is not necessarily a sure substitute for ink on paper - or indeed parchment or vellum. We know that these materials will last for centuries; we cannot yet know how long the digital substitutes will survive. We cannot keep everything: our archivists are very well aware of the need to be representative, but selective, in what is retained from the past. But what is the future, not just of the past, but of the present? Increasingly, there is no modern paper archive: does that mean that there will soon be no modern history? That we cannot predict with any certainty at all.

Notes on Contributors

Michaela Freemanova studied musicology at Music ('My honourable Lord and Father', to be Charles University, Prague (PhD 1973). Between published in 2003) and is preparing a full edition of 1975-1987 she worked in the Czech Music Kammel's correspondence. Museum (Department of the National Museum, Sue Howlett, currently Honorary Secretary of Prague), in 1992-1993 she was the music curator of RLHRS, gained Leicester University's MA degree Prague Castle, and today she works for the Czech in Historical Studies in 1992. Having taught Academy of Science. With her husband, David English for many years in further and secondary Freeman, she organised numerous courses in education, she now works in adult education as making and playing copies of historical music part-time tutor of literature and local history. instruments and four international Early Music Festivals (1991-1994). Her research interests are Nigel Richardson was Second Master at Upping­ music and music life of the l 7th-early 19th cen­ ham School, and taught history there from 1971- turies. With the musicologist Eva Mikanova she 1989. He has been Headmaster of the Perse School, prepared an article on Antonin Kammel for Early Cambridge, since 1994.

2 The First Lady of Lyndon: The Letters of Mary Barker (1655-79) SUE HOWLETT

Rutland Record 19 contained a11 article entitled 'A less literate letters of his second wife are supplemented Country Wife: Anne Barker of Hambleton (1646-47)' by Abel Barker's detailed record-keeping (all con­ (Howlett 1999). The domestic life of Anne and Abel tained in the Barker MSS at the Record Office for Barker, vividly recounted in her letters, was cut Leicetershire, Leicester and Rutland, DE 730). To­ tragically short by her death eighteen months after gether these tell a storyof social advancement, marital marriage. Abel Barker, High Sheriffof Rutland, and a chidings, local gossip, sick children, estate rising man under both Commonwealth and Restoration manage-ment, and the building and furnishing of the governments, found himselfwith a motherless infant grand new house at Lyndon. heir to provide for. In this sequel to that article, the

s an eligible widower, the upwardly mobile Abel dignitary. Geoffrey Palmer was to become Charles ABarker made no haste to fill the gap left by the ll's Attorney General; his sister had married Alexan­ death of his lamented wife Anne in 164 7. England der Noel, youngest brother of the first Viscount was in turmoil, although the execution of King Campden (Wright 1684, 109). Charles I leaves no record among the letters so The financial transaction was a crucial aspect of meticulously copied into Abel Barker's letter book marriage. Abel Barker, negotiating this time for him­ (DE 730/4). Often addressed to fellow members of self, modestly requested the sum of £1,500 as his new Rutland's Parliamentarian County Committee, these wife's jointure, the same sum as that so painstakingly chart concerns with taxes and rents, land deals and obtained by his mother from Sir Thomas Burton nine local intrigues. Influential acquaintances and relatives years earlier. No letters appeared to have passed on both sides of the political divide were carefully between the engaged couple, although the unsettling cultivated. legal changes caused the male participants some On a more personal note, he informed his mother­ anxiety. In 1653 the Republican Parliament's new in-law, Lady Frances Burton, in December 1654: 'I Marriage Law decreed that civil marriage was re­ cannot find in myself any inclination to alter (as yet) quired in a magistrate's presence, without which a my present condition.' Yet seven months later he had church ceremony alone was invalid. Among Abel two prospective brides in view. A few days before the Barker's papers, this civil marriage certificate rejection of his hand by Rebekah Parsett of London, survives (fig. I). It records that on 6th September Abel also wrote to Geoffrey Palmer Esquire on 21 st 1655, two days after the burial of his first father-in­ July 1655 regarding Mary Noel: law, Abel and his bride: 'came before me Evers Armyne Esquire one of the Justices of peace for the Sir, I am verysensible that being most obliged unto county aforesaid at Ketton in the said county and you of all others, I have not been so happy as to were then and there married according to the form of make any acknowledgement answerable: the con­ the statute in that behalf provided... ' (DE 730/1/43). sideration of this hath caused me to reflect upon For the new bride and her young stepson in the your relations, and to place my affections upon substantial farmhouse at Hambleton (now known as your niece my neighbour. 1 hold it my duty to the Old Hall, fig. 2), life must have been relatively intimate so much unto you, as the author of that comfortable. Abel Barker was a man of cultivated happiness I propose to myselftherein. .. (DE 730/4/224) tastes, having recently requested a London relative to 'buy me a book called Pembroke's Arcadia lately Mary Noel of Whitwell was an astute choice. When reprinted with the life of Sir Philip Sidney the author' the political climate changed, her family connections (HMC 1876, 394). Such treasured possessions, or brought valuable benefits to the aspiring local clothes and household linen, may have been kept in

3 Letters of Mary Barker

Fig. 1. The civil marriage certificate ofAbel Barker and Mary Noel, 6th September 1655 (by courtesy of ROLLR: DE 730/1/43)

Fig. 2. The Old Hall, Hambleton (photograph: author) Letters of Mary Barker the wooden wall-cupboard in the principal bed­ longer than needs you must. My daily prayers are chamber, which still today records in its carved to God for your health and safe return to me. It is design the year of Abel's marriage to his first wife: out of the earnest desire I have to manifest my dear 1646. All luxury goods and most clothes had to be affection to you that makes me trouble thee with ordered from London, where they might be purchased this. God send you good success in your business. I by a reliable agent or friend, and sent to Hambleton, remain, your faithful loving wife, often by the Uppingham or Harringworth carrier. On Mary Barker 25th May 1656 Abel Barker ordered 30 bottles of [PS along side of page] Remember to buy me some various wines to be sent from London, for which he sherry of amber. I pray you buy me a laced pinner paid 44 shillings, as well as £3 8s for a boy's suit and coifof the new fashion for myself, and I would (HMC 1876, 395). have a satin mantle for my child to christen itin, let The renewed blessings of marriage did not keep it be either blue or red satin which[ever] you can Abel Barker permanently at Hambleton. His expan­ best get and laced with a broad silver lace and ding estate of owned and rented lands, with the lined with sarsnet. You might buy it cheaper than I thriving sheep and wool business, were managed in can get anybody [to] do it for me, if you have time. his frequent absences by his brother Thomas or Ifnot, stay not to do it, and I will send afterwards neighbour and agent, John Musson. The majority of to somebody. letters which Abel later copied into his letterbook [PPS at bottom of page] I received your letter after were written at Hambleton, but his wife's letters I had written this which hath rejoiced my heart to confirm a record of frequent visits to London and the hear you are well. All our friends are well and accommodation at which he could be found. In present their service to you. autumn 1656 Abel may have attended the Court of (DE 730/1/45) Chancery, where in one of several lawsuits he challenged the terms of Sir Thomas Burton's will. The fashionable 'pinner and coif' requested by Mary Always sharp in financial affairs, he no doubt wished were a close fitting cap with two long flaps, one on to improve the prospects of his son, Burton's grand­ each side, pinned on and hanging down. The Shorter son, although the letterbook does not record details of Oxford English Dictionary (1989) records the ap­ the legal outcome. pearance of 'pinner' in 1652, four years before this Mary Barker's original letters were kept among letter. Her expected child's cloak was to be lined with her husband's papers, rather than surviving only in sarsnet, the 'thin soft textile with slight sheen' which copies as those of his first wife. Her handwriting is Anne Barker had purchased a decade earlier for new looped and flowing, cursive in contrast to her pre­ bedhangings at Hambleton (Howlett 1999, 379). decessor's clear italic hand, but the spelling is more A brief letter sent in October 1656 indicates erratic and often requires phonetic interpretation. For Mary's happiness in her marriage. After the greeting example 'an nower' (fig. 3) must mean an hour, 'Dearest Heart' she exults: 'It joys my heart to see while in the letter below 'suckess in your beseness' how well I am beloved of you ... ' (DE 730/1/46A). By indicates appropriate wifely concern. Paper was a May of 1658 Abel was once again in London, with precious commodity, and Mary's letters normally fill his brother Thomas, and staying at the Rose in a single sheet, with frequent additions and after­ Smithfield. Back in Hambleton, Mary, now the thoughts compressed into the margin. Mary's first mother of a younger Mary, was troubled by a minor extant letter, addressed to her husband 'at Mr Bras­ domestic problem: sington in Clement's Churchyard' [London], is dated 10th May 1656. Its contents imply that pregnancy ... I pray you, buy me a bell to ring up the maids to had quickly followed the wedding. me out of the kitchen for I cannot make them hear [For reasons of clarity all extracts from original call [I} never so loud. I will trouble you with no letters have been modernised in their spelling and more for fear of hindering your return... punctuation.] Mall [Mary] presents you with her duty by, dear Heart, your truly loving wifeMary Barker. Dear Heart (DE 730/l/72A) I hope you got safe and well to London, and by this time are ready to return to her who mourns for The end of the 1650s, and with them Cromwell's your absence. Hambleton is a sad place without Protectorate, brought anxious times in Rutland. Abel your dear company. I trust to God you will stay no Barker's links with Parliamentarians were well

5 Letters of Mary Barker known, although his extended correspondence with For Mr Wr ay a Scrivener between the Two Temple the regicide Colonel Thomas Waite had used a dis­ Gates. creet code of initials rather than names. However, Sir, When I was last in London you was pleased to there is no evidence of Abel ever having borne arms let me know, Mr Audley intended to part with his against the king. His growing wealth and local status, land in Lyndon, and that you should understand his reinforced by newly acquired connections with the resolution therein this vacation. You have now had Royalist Noels, secured his continued respect. Early the opportunity to do the same, and ifyou shall do in 1660 Abel Barker was serving as Treasurer for me the fa vour to acquaint me therein, you will Rutland, being requested by a local magistrate to pay oblige ... yours etc 20 shillings to an Oakham carpenter, Thomas A. B. Hambleton 12 August 1661 Crampe, suffering from leprosy (HMC 1876, 403). (DE 730/4/286) With the Restoration imminent Abel took care to confirm his political reliability. The preserved copy While Abel was protecting and enhancing his inter­ of a 'Loyal Address' to Charles II, in Abel's ests within the county community, Mary now found handwriting and signed with the names or marks of herself the harassed mother of three young daughters, 51 Rutland villagers, suggests that he was working Mary and the twins Thomasin and Elizabeth. Her hard to demonstrate his allegiance to the Stuart letter of 26th May 1661, addressed to Abel 'at the dynasty. With elections to a new Parliament and the Dog and Ball in Fleet Street near the New Pageant' fiery Royalist, the second Viscount Campden, instal­ contains a postscript longer than the letter itself: led as the first Lord Lieutenant of Rutland (as dis­ tinct from Leicestershire and Rutland), Abel had to My Dearest Heart, to deny rumoured accusations of dis­ act quickly I am very glad to hear of your safe arrival to town. loyalty: I hope the journey with the good company you had up, hath put by that distemper you was troubled For Captain Sherard withal! a little before you went. I am in a sad con­ Sir, I perceive by your letters to my Lord Campden dition for my poor children who are all so troubled [whooping cough] that you question the integrity of my intentions, in with the chin cough that I am performing the agreement made before his lord­ cifraid it will kill them. There is many die on it, in ship... For a gentleman in his own country and this town some, and abroad that we hear of I am before the chief person there, to be accused with fain to have a candle stand by me to go in to them breach of promise, labouring for voices and subtle when the fit comes, for it will stop their wind which designs, is a heavy charge: wherein although I frightsme so I know not what to do. doubt not but time the tryer of truth will soon chart We are all in great danger of the smallpox, [Elsie my innocence, yet I shall not I hope seem of fensive more now than ever, for Ealse Neckealls to you, in requesting you will please to produce Nicolls?] hath it. She was almost well before they that letter of information you received last Tues­ came out, so that we did not fe ar any such thing, day, or acquaint me with the author and contents but all my servants went which troubles me, for I thereof .. fear some of them may have it, and then you may Hambleton, 16 March 60 [1661, New Style] think what danger I and my poor children are in. (DE 730/4/283) It is sad weather here, nothing but floods every day or every two days since you went. I can give Ten days later Abel was nervously reassuring his you no better account of anything here at this time father-in-law that he fully supported Lord Camp­ but pray we may be in a better condition by the den's son in the elections to the Cavalier Parliament. next, and remain thy truly loving wife It was crucial to maintain the good will of the Noels MBarker ... and Sherards, dominant families under the new dis­ [PS along side of page] Sam did not bring any bales pensation: in 1661 Edward Noel, later to be Earl of as you writ of, stir as he will about it. I desire to Gainsborough, achieved the desired election as have the children 's stockings and gloves and some Knight of the Shire together with Philip Sherard skins sent down the next week for I am in great (Wright 1684, Additions xvi). But by August of that need of them, but for anything else you may let it year Abel felt secure in his reputation and financial alone till you come down. My service to my brother prospects. Looking around for a good investment, he Andrew and my brother Barker. I will have one heard that the desirable manor of neighbouring Lyn­ pair of shoes for Thomasin. Since I wrote my letter, don might be on the market: the waters being out that the carriers could not

6 Letters of Mary Barker

Fig. 3. Letter from MaryBarker to her husband, 22nd June 1673 (bycourtesy of ROLLR: DE 730/J/119b)

7 Letters of Mary Barker

come, so my letter was here till night, and then Nan amongst the childrenf very much. I pray God keep Pal/and came running to me for her mistress. She is ours from it i itbe his will. Here Sam Barker 's wife very weak and keeps her bed. I went [on] horse­ came on Saturday to me with a great many stories back and it was [?] so that I was like to be of what the bone-setter should say to her, and other drowned, and since I came up she hath sent again business besides of her husband and Pridmer, but I to me that [they] are afr aid she [might] die tonight. would not meddle for making any difference with I dare not go from my children all night but I have her and her neighbours. All I said was that I was sent for my sister Colling ... verysorry I gave her that trouble, to be speaking qf I know not what to do in these troubles now you to her disparagement, for I held her a discrete are away. I doubt your mother will not live another person or I should not a [have] come to her house week. in that condition. She tells me she heard out of (DE 730/1 /53) Derbyshire that my cousin Barker is to be married to one of their country again, he hath a great Despite Mary's fears for her mother-in-law's health, estate, one Sir John Carston 's son. This is all the Mrs Elizabeth Barker lived on to appear in the 1665 news here at present. The little ones present you Hearth Tax records with her home in Hambleton of with their duty by, dear heart, thy truly loving wife five hearths, a considerable property although half M Barker. the size of her son's home. In answer to Mary's ur­ (DE 730/1 /55) gent summons, her next letter of 2nd June I 66 1 records the arrival at Mrs Barker's of 'my sister The wife of Samuel Barker, Abel's cousin, was a Colling [Abel's sister Thomasin Collin of Great widow from Lancaster, E Wildbore (Wright 1684, Easton] ... , my sister Goodman [Abel's sister Eliza­ Additions 33). Their home at South Luffenham was beth] and my brother Greene [the husband of Abel's recorded in 1665 as having seven hearths, one of the sister Mary].' Clearly the family was anxious about two largest in the village. 'Pridmer' may be Hugh the weak condition and fluctuating strength of the Pridmore, also of South Luffenham, where his house matriarch. Smallpox was still rife in the neighbour­ had just one hearth. The prospective marriage of a hood, but Mary informed her husband with relief tha1 Miss Barker with the son of Sir John Corston does the family remained free of the disease, although: not, according to Wright, seem to have taken place. From the noisy and probably smelly vicinity of the ... My poor children are all sadly troubled with the Smithfield pens, Abel Barker moved his London chin cough. Mall is much the worst. They have such lodgings within a week to the 'Flower de Luce [Fleur fits that it stops their wind and puts me into such de Lys] and Crown over against St Clement's Church frights and fears that I am not myself.. I have my door in the Strand'. During this stay in London, the share of troubles in the world and always the worst occasion when he probably first heard of the possi­ in your absence ... bility of purchasing land at Lyndon, Abel was able to (DE 730/1/54) make use of the new postal service to communicate One of these troubles concerned her mother-in-law's with his family in Rutland. In 1662 the first Royal servant, Mall Rit [Wright?] who is described as 'so Mail was officially launched, with services out of cross a creature, I did not know what she might do ... London from a central post office, carried by post your mother would not endure the sight of her.' The horses, post or public coaches, or carriers' carts. offending Mall arrived with her clothes to stay at According to Liza Picard (1997, 73), the service Abel's home, to his wife's great annoyance: 'She is a could take up to four days, with a charge on delivery bad creature, but I will let all alone till your return.' of 2d per sheet up to 80 miles and 3d for longer A few weeks later, on 30th June 166 I, Abel distances. Mary's reply to this address is dated 5th Barker was again in London although his lodgings July 1661: this time were 'the Rose in Smithfield near the pens.' In this letter Mary reports on family news and enig­ My dearest Heart, matic gossip: I received your letters by the post and give you thanks fo r them. I thank God my children are a My Dearest Heart great deal better than they was when you went. The I hope you are safe arrived to town on Saturday chin cough hath left them, but a dry cough it hath night. I desire to know ifyou reached thither in that left on them all, which troubles me forfear of their day and half My children I thank God are all so lungs. I desire a paper of lozenges for them, and a well as you left them. The pox doth increase pair qf stockings for Thomasin and a pair of shoes

8 Letters of Mary Barker

for them both, some perfamesfo r the chambers and condition in all my life. [It] matter not how plain it one pair of long white Holland [fine linen] gloves is, so I have something to keep me warm. I am in a for myself These things I desire ifyou have money, threadbare condition more ways than one. I desire if not I shall be content. Bell is as raggedy as a by all means a printed calico frock fo r Mai. beggar boy, I pray you let him have a suit. I am It is reported all over the country how that you sorryI hear nothing of your coming down, I doubt was sent for up by the Duke. My brother Alexander you will want a shirt very much. I am in haste and came to me [on] purpose to know if it was so, the hot weather makes me write so ill. I am to go to because he was so oft en asked about it. You may my father 's to see some friends before they go into think these things are no small trouble to me, being Yorkshire this afternoon. We have not done sheep they concern one so near to me as you are. I will clipp ing yet, John hath spoken to one to learn not trouble you nor myself any more with the [teach? or possibly learn from] the shepherd how to town 's business, let them do what they will, there is cut [shear] the sheep. The children present you with enough of them with you by this time. their dutyby, Dear Heart, thy truly loving wife I sent you a letter by Mr Faulker, I hope you M Barker. have it. I hope God will give me patience in all (DE 730/1/56) conditions and make me contented with what falls out. I have this comfort so long as I have children, In October 1661 Abel Barker was at home in Ham­ though I am deprived of your company. I am not bleton, receiving news from Mary's uncle, Geoffrey without while I have them which is all I desire in Palmer, that Hugh Audley was ready to sell Lyndon your absence, who is your truly loving wife, and would demand around £9,400, £500 more than MBarker. he had paid for the land. As newly appointed Attor­ ney General to Charles II and recently knighted, Sir [PS] Let us know ifLamples shall be ploughed Geoffrey Palmer's influential position must have of­ before you come home or not. ThoughI heard not a word from you about Lyndon, yet I was told there fered useful connections which his Rutland relation was but four hundred pound betwixt you and would not be slow to exploit. The following letter of Audley, Mr Cost said he would write to you if he 16th February lacks a year to date it precisely, but knew where you l , to let you know there was one references in that and the next to the purchase of ay of their four[?] would buy Lyndon ifyou would not, Lyndon suggest the followingyear, 1662 [New Style, one that hath many thousand pounds lately fallen to being before the former start of the year on 25th him. This he said to my man Sam last Fr iday. I March]. Abel was now using the address of Sir Geof­ thought good to let you know this. I hope you will f frey Palmer's 'old chamber in the Temple Church­ not forget me, in this business. I shall refer mysel yard', where the following plaintive missive arrived: to you. I pray God send you good success in all your business, for you have many irons in the fire My Dearest Heart, at once. (DE 730/ 1/58) I am glad to hear you have had your health so well, pray God it may so continue. I did verily believe I 'Hart' was a tailor employed by Mary Barker, as should have heard of your coming down this week, indicated in her letter of 17th May 1670. 'Moll', the I think it a long time since I see you. I hope it is the family name for Mary, the Barkers' eldest daughter, troublesome business that detains you from me and was then aged six. Her printed calico frock would, in my children [and] you will make all things sure at the seventeenth century, have been of cloth with welt this [?] I hope, being you take so large a time. of Indian cotton and warp of linen (Cunnington et al I hope you will satisfyyourself in your stay, that you have not made more haste than good speed, as 1960). 'The Duke' who summoned Abel Barker was sometimes formerly you have said, which is the probably George Villiers, second Duke of Bucking­ reason I do not desire you to come down to us, as I ham, owner of Burley on the Hill and favourite of have done, for fear of a chiding. I would be lath to Charles II, while 'Mr Faulker' may have been one of have you angry at your return, as you was at your the Fawkener family of Uppingham, with whom Abel departure, for that hath been trouble to me ever Barker had occasionally corresponded. 'Lamples' since. was a field in Hambleton parish, later divided into I must desire you, ifyou cannot come down the Upper and Nether Lampleys. According to Cox next week, to send me some stuffto make me [a] ( 1994, 187) a field named Lamp Layes was recorded gown or let me know ifI should send for one to in 166 l , with later variant spellings, although it is not Hart. Truly this is all [in] pieces, so that I cannot identified on R Sterndale Bennett's 1943 survey of wear it another week. I was never in so ragged a Rutland field names.

9 Letters of Mary Barker

Presumably Abel Barker had personal reasons for After long Puritan years of austerity, the marking of not sharing with his wife news of the progressing Valentine's Day, with other annual festivals, was re­ plans to purchase Lyndon jointly with his brother vived at the Restoration. In the same year that Mary Thomas. Mary, however, had concerns of her own. Barker belatedly selected her husband, Samuel Pepys As the daughter of a younger branch of an ennobled wrote on February 14th: 'I did this day purposely family, she must have been keenly aware of the im­ shun to be seen at Sir W. Batten's, because I would portance of adequate financial provision for her three not have his daughter to be my Valentine, as she was daughters, since the heir to the estate would obvious­ last year.. .' (Pepys, i, 226). ly be her stepson, Thomas. The following letter, ad­ While Mary Barker fretted about her children's dressed again to her husband at 'Sir Geoffrey Pal­ health and Abel with his brother Thomas negotiated mer's old chamber', reveal Mary's fears for future for the Lyndon estate, others saw Abel Barker as an security, amid a profusion of more immediate domes­ influential figure on the Rutland scene. Two letters tic crises. Although undated, its postscript suggests a survive in the Barker archives from Abraham Wright, date of February 1662: Vicar of Oakham and father of the historian James Wright (VCH II, 10) who sent gifts of quinces and My Dearest Heart, grapes fromth e "poor old Beadhouse of Oakham" - I received your letters by the post and return you the Hospital of St John and St Anne. Hugh Ducie, thanks fo r the satisfaction you have given me meanwhile, now appointed Sheriff of Rutland, wrote therein. I hear you 're in a manner agreed aboul in 1661 to thank Abel Barker for advice in under­ Lyndon, and that you 're like to buy it. I wonder 1 taking the role and for assistance to a mutual friend. should never hear anything from you of it. I much During the 1660s Abel Barker served as Justice of desire to know [if] it be so. No t that I shall desire the Peace, and also as one of 'His Majesty's anything therein fo r myself, but desire you to have Commissioners for the money to be raised by a poll a care of my children. Yo u know what is best to within the county of Rutland', responsible for levying prefe r daughters. Ifyou put all into land, I desire taxation subsidies in various years. His brother-in­ you will take care how they shall be provided fo r law Andrew Noel was the officer responsible for the out of that, ifGod should cut off you and I before 1665 Hearth Tax registers (Bourne & Goode 199 1, they are of age. This is all I desire. 45), in which some of those mentioned in the letters This d hath been so turbulent a wind that it ay are to be found. The Barker correspondence contains hath done a great deal of hurt abroad, and us more many examples of warrants to chief constables of than ever we had. All the rails are blown down in the court on both sides, and the out hovel down to various ·parishes for the collection of taxes, with the ground. The wagon is broke a [in] pieces that schedules of parish assessments and individual pay­ ments. Among the surviving letters is one from the stood under it. The hay is blown all [ou t of?] the hovel, and the thatch off the outhouses, and a great Lords of the Treasury dated 1667, demanding of all deal of hurt in the field. It is a great flood, it hath Rutland's Commissioners and Justices of the Peace more efficient collection of the Hearth Tax, which not been the saddest weather fo r a day and a night that ever I knew in my life. I was fo rced to rise in the surprisingly had proved unpopular. In the same year morning by day and take up my children and carry the Privy Council wrote to urge stricter enforcement them into the kitchen to be dressed. The wind broke by Rutland's magistrates of the laws against 'all the windows and beat in the rain so that we could persons making, or striving to make, converts to the not stay above. I am not very well so that I cannot Roman Catholic faith' (HMC 1876, 404). write any better. Before Mary Barker's next letter to her husband I desire two frocks fo r the twins, of printed was written, a significant change had taken place in calico, and one fo r Ma ll, fo r the Spring is coming the family fortunes. On 19th September 1665, having on and the other will be too hot. They are very proved his loyalty and usefulness to the Stuart regime necessary fo r them and cheap, so that I hope you and his growing status in the county community, will buy them. Thus in haste I remain your truly Abel Barker was created a Baronet, the lowest loving wife hereditary order. His coat of arms is described as MBarker. 'Party fessewise and nebuly sable and or three mart­ [PS along side of letter] I draw you fo r my lets countercoloured' (VCH II, 75). The baronetcy Va lentine and choose you, I fo rgot to send you survived only two generations, becoming extinct word in my last ... when Sir Abel Barker's son Thomas died without (DE 730/l/58A) issue in 1708 (Burke 1838, 37).

10 Letters of Mary Barker

This welcome advancement must have been a con­ by all means. I leave to you wholly the putting me siderable spur to Abel Barker and his brother in mourning clothes [which] will be very trouble­ Thomas in building suitable new homes on their some to me this summer. A plain Farrendine gown recently purchased manor of Lyndon. The new and petticoat of the same is mourning with black Baronet looked forward to moving his family from knots, therefore ifyou please let my suit of knots be the now outmoded farmhouse at Hambleton to the far black with a pair of gloves and a [?] which is all at grander Lyndon Hall, influenced by the impressive present from her that is your truly loving wife, Thorpe Hall outside Peterborough, which had been M Barker. Hambleton, May 16. built during the 1650s in the new classical style. The [No year given, but probably 1670] ten-year building programme, frequently delayed as [PS along side of page] Prayex cuse me for the man Mary records in her letters, meant that it was not is in haste and I cannot write well at this time. until 1677 that Sir Abel Barker and his Lady Mary (DE 730/1/72) were able to take up residence at Lyndon. Abel's Mary Barker's uncle was presumably Sir Geoffrey untitled brother, Thomas, probably had to be content Palmer, who died in 1670. The John Bell probably with the slightly more modest 'Top Hall', completed referred to was listed in the 1665 Hearth Tax as at Lyndon a few years earlier. For a description of owning one hearth at Hambleton, although his Lyndon Hall and Top Hall, see Pevsner (1984, 484f). rejected and preferred ladies cannot be identified! No Barker letters survive from the years 1665-66, Richard Hull, appointed Rector of Lyndon by Abel which might have cast a personal light on the impact and Thomas Barker in 1662, died during 1670. of events such as the Great Plague or Great Fire of Longden (1940, vii, 115 and 151) admits some con­ London. In 1670 when correspondence resumes, fusion between a Richard Hall, Rector of Lyndon, Lady Mary was still concerned about the poor state and Richard Hull, Rector of Pilton, who also died in of her wardrobe: 1670. The Farrendine gown which Mary intended to wear as mourning for her uncle was a cloth of silk For Sir Abel Barker Baronet at Mr Pawlin 's, a and wool. The 'suit of knots' to decorate it was a set shoemaker in the Strand between the Maypole and of ribbon bows applied to a gown or sometimes worn St Clement's Church, London. on the head (Cunnington et al 1960). Mary was My Dearest Heart anxious to know the appropriate and fashionable mourning style of the time, since in a subsequent I am very glad to hear you have my letters, I was letter to the same address, dated 17th May 1670, she much troubled at it. I would have you to make a added further details to the requested purchases. It is black suit, by all means, fo r you want one [as] yours is quite out. It will serve you at other times as interesting that, following Abel's obvious reluctance well as now. to share details of the purchase of Lyndon with his I would not, ifI could avoid it, meet the body of wife, her letters appear solely concerned with domes­ my uncle, by reason I have nothing handsome to go tic and traditionally feminine interests: in at such a time. I believe we shall not be invited. I My Dearest Heart will do what you will have me, therefore consider what you think best, and let me know, and I will My brother [Andrew] Noel being sent for up by [?] follow your directions. to wait on the corpse down, I take this opportunity Wi ll 's sister Betty is extremely ill, some think to desire you, to let my gown be a plain black she will die. It is all for John Bell, he hath quite Farrendine gown and petticoat, not French, but [thrust?] her off for ever as I hear, he goes three such as I had before, and that my suit of knots may times a week to Sue Sison. be black satin with a peak, and a pair of sad Mr Hull hath been very sick, he is now coloured gloves, and a twisted roll for my head something better. Ifhe be well this morning, he is laced with black satin .. . which is the fashion for set forward with his daughter, who was here to see mourning this summer. My Lady Mackworth [of me last week, and a great deal ofcompany, so that Empingham and Normanton] told me so, the Ladies I am quite without wine or sweetmeats. Yo ur at Whissendine [the Sherrard family] are so [?] and brother was here yesterday and my brother Miss Mackit told me the like, last Sunday, who [ Andrew Noel] and his wife and other company. came on purpose to let me know that the gentleman There is a great deal of talk at Exton of my uncle her son was apprentice with did work for the young [Viscount Campden?] as my brother tells me, but I Duchess of Albemarle and two other duchesses, will not commit such things to paper, by [fear?] of and that he is a very fashionable tailor. His name is miscarrying. Prayb uy Mall and I our Indian gowns Tryder, you know where he lives, not far from Mr 11 Letters of Mary Barker

Abram. You may ifyou please inquire of him, but date. £40 was spent on a bed, including 'sky colour i not make wares of him, this time, for he cannot ft sarsnet' for lining the curtains and a bedstead with me by that measure, so well as Hart 's man can sackcloth bottom, cords and curtain rods. Among the because he hath seen me and hath my measure 'turned chairs', pincushions and powder boxes, already. Hart makes my cousin Sherwood 's niece sixpence was spent on a 'close stool' [enclosed Mi ss Denton 's clothes, as well as anybody, and chamberpot]. 'For housekeeping' were listed items of everybody that sees them commends them, and if wine and 'A box of sweetmeats'. Among the many he will he may do so by mine. We pay as well as clothing items purchased were 5 ½ yards of black anyone, pray give him a charge to do them well. Spanish cloth at £1 per yard, crepe for a hatband and When I was at Lyndon at the christening, 'a walking staff for Sir Abel, while Lady Mary Parson Hull, though he was but in a rotten condi­ received 13½ yards of black Farrendine for £5, and tion, did vent and talk at a greatrate, and bade me Hart was to make her a 'cordirobe' with busk send to you to present him again, ifhe did forget, [stiffened corset] and low pocket for £1 5s. Her his old living at Lyndon, and that he might have a request for a suit of knots and roll for her hair was clerk, and things handsome in the church, but you met, along with a 'lemon colour printed sarsnet must mend their wages[?] he said, for none would Indian gown', 'whole suit of plain lawn linen with do it for that. I was sent for home, as soon as the child was christened, to my Lady Mackworth and Holland sleeves', shoes and two pairs of 'sad and other company. Your brother told me last Sunday white gloves'. The eldest daughter, Mary, received a what he said to Miss Fawkener, and that he talked 'cordirobe' made by Hart of 'sad colour' striped of him and you to her, and a great deal of simple Tabby [thick taffetta], a sky-coloured Indian gown stuffI should not [have] troubled you with this, but and a 'suit of coloured knots with silver'. The twins, that you mayknow how to carry it to him, ifyou see Thomasin and Elizabeth, had 'Tiffany linen' suits, him, for I think he is set forward. Robin Closes sky-coloured knots and two Bibles. Thomas, the son [Robert Close] was buried yesterday. Nothing more and heir, on this occasion received only a hat with its but the presentation of your children 's duty to you box and a pair of Holland sleeves and cuffs. by her that is, Dear Heart, thy truly loving wife Two interesting items are included on this M Barker revealing list: a silver bowl and beaker were bought [PS along side of page] Pray buy your god­ for Lady Campden and engraved with her arms, daughter Miss Pen something, a toy or a bauble while £1 was paid for 'Ellis['s] opinion about that is pretty. executor[?] of Sir G.P. [Geoffrey Palmer]'. Even (DE 730/1/73) while earnestly meeting his wife and daughters' de­ mands for fashionable items, Sir Abel Barker; as Mr Hull's desire for a clerk is explained by the notice always, was ready to cultivate and improve his own of Robert Close's burial in the Lyndon parish register material interests. However, further details of this (DE 1938/1 ), describing him as 'the parish clerk of and other concerns of Sir Abel's later life elude us, Lyndon'. This barely decipherable entry appears to since the letterbook containing copies of letters sent be the last in Richard Hull's hand, since the next item by Abel Barker since 1642 ends with a note to his reads 'Richard Hull Rector of this parish of Lyndon brother in 1665, requesting Thomas to pay the rent departed this life October 28th [1670] buried 29th'. for lands in Gunthorpe to the infant William Ducie. The christening performed by the minister, 'in a rot­ On 8th December 1670 Sir Abel Barker of ten condition', eludes identification. Mary's reference Hambleton, Baronet, drew up his will. His body was to Thomas Barker's conversations with Miss Faw­ to be buried at Hambleton 'in decent manner but kener, of the influential Uppingham family, suggests without any funeral solemnity'. In recompense for her a possible suit of marriage, although Wright (1684) marriage jointure, Mary was to receive various closes gives no record of any marriage taking place and and meadows including Wingbridge Close and the Thomas died in 1680 without issue. adjacent Middle Close in the parish of Lyndon. Cox Lady Mary's urgent concern for suitable mourn­ (1994) identifies both these fields: Wingbridge Close ing clothes for her husband and especially herself was was 'in the extreme SW corner of the parish ... fascinatingly answered by a surviving shopping [where] a small bridge crosses the River Chater into account. Among Abel's hand-written papers is a list, Wing parish'. The widow would receive a share of with prices, of several dozen items 'Bought at the jewels, plate and 'household stuff and a home in London in May [16]70'. Furniture was included, Uppingham. Lady Mary Barker would be able to live although Lyndon Hall had not been completed at this in style, with her husband's coach and 'two of my

12 Letters of Mary Barker

Fig. 4. Lyndon Hall, built by Sir Abel Barker (photograph: author) best horses'. The heir, Thomas, was to receive 'my My Dearest Heart Saddle Mare', most of the lands and household property. His three half-sisters would each receive I was in great perplexity when the carrier came, and had no letter fo r me. I shall not be well again fifteen hundred pounds at the age of 21 or on their this d or two. I have received your letter from Mr marriage. Until this time, for their maintenance, £20 ay Green 's house an hour af ter the carrier boy was a year would be increased to £30 at the age of 16. come. Truly I am in so great a disorder I can The 'poor of Hambleton' and 'poor of Lyndon' hardly write. I am sorryyou cannot come down so would benefit from a bequest of £5 to each. Abel's soon as you intended. Your building goes not on in brother and executor, Thomas Barker, would inherit the least, fo r it is the saddest weather that ever was lands in Lincolnshire and be granted certain lands in known of man fo r this time of the year. The Lyndon for a period of thirty years, after which they carpenters have done what they can do within would return to his nephew's inheritance. doors, Mr Sturgess tells me, and all the masons was During the period 1665-75, Sir Abel must have constrained to go away. Suttons stayed the longest, been greatly preoccupied with the planning and but John said they did more hurt than good. building of Lyndon Hall, concerning which only frag­ Here hath been such a flood in Tween Brooks mentary accounts survive in the family archives. It as was never seen before. All your meadows are appears that his wife continued to be excluded from flatten [flooded] everywhere. involvement with the progress of her new home. A I desire to know if Mr Hudson be fo und, fo r I letter of June 1672 is more concerned with local am in great want of a gown, and would have those gossip and social activities, with the request that: things I sent fo r all bought, ifpossible. 'Mall desires you to buy her a pair of pendants with All your corn is threshed out, and the old all wires to go over her ears of the newest fashion'. By sold. I would know ifyou will se ll any of that. It June of 1673, Sir Abel must have expressed concern rises very much, it was seven groats a strike about the slow progress in completing his grand new [me asure of grain] of [on] Friday. There is a great house at Lyndon. In a month of hostile weather, many people desire to buy, but I tell them I cannot Mary was unable to reassure him. On 22nd June she let them have it so without your order. John washed wrote (fig. 3) to: but halfhis sheep, the rain beat them out. He must wash them again, he saith. The weather is so uncer­ Sir Abel Barker Baronet at Mrs Donathy 's house tain he can do nothing [as] to washing your sheep over against the sign of the Black Raven in Old yet. On Thursday last John Bell called at break [ of] Southampton Buildings: day fo r Sam and two or three more, to help him to

13 Letters of Mary Barker

get out all his catile to save them from drowning, Mary's final letter in this fascinating collection is all the dykes meet. dated 25th November 1675 and written to Sir Abel Pray God send you a good journey down, you who had presumably stayed throughout the month at will find dirt enough. 1he children present you with the same London address. their duty by, Dear Heart, thy truly loving wife MBarker. My Dearest Heart, (DE 73O/ I, unnumbered letter) I never knew the least word, that my brother Abel Barker's architect was the well-known John Barker intended for London. Yo u may wonder I did Sturges, who had connections with Chatsworth not write to you of his coming to town, as you House, Belton House and Milton Park (Mayhew desired in your letters. Truly I was never acquain­ 1999). However the June weather proved unseasonal ted with it. for building work. The location of the aptly-named HenryGreen hath taken all away as he should. I showed my son your letter of what you desired, flooded 'Tween Brooks' can be seen on R Sterndale and he said he did look to your grounds, and after Bennett's 1943 survey of Rutland field names (in the shepherds. Rutland County Museum), filling a large triangular I shall be glad to see you, and hope when your area between two converging tributaries of the River business is at an end, you will be for the country Gwash. again. We all are very much troubled with colds, Two years later, on 2nd November 1675, we learn and most people in the town [village], and other that Mary's stepson, the young heir Thomas, now towns everywhere. aged 18, was assuming greater responsibilities on the My cousin Betty Green saith that muffe are a estate in his father's absence, while Mary reported on great deal cheaper in Wal/brook, at Farr 's shops, the various activities of employees, several of whom than in the Exchange, which, with the presentation can be identified from the Hearth Tax (Bourne & of your children 's duty, is all from her that is, Dear Goode 1991): Heart, thy truly loving wife MBarker. For Sir Abel Barker, Baronet, at MrSlaught er 's, a (DE 730/1/76) Stationer over against Se rgeant 's Inn in Chancery Lane. Henry and Betty Green were probably family mem­ bers of Abel's sister Mary, who married a Greene of My Dearest Heart Rolleston, Leicestershire (Wright 1684, Additions John Musson hath received your money last 33). The New Exchange had recently been built in the We dnesday, and not before. My son did sell ten Strand, with two long double galleries of rich shops, sheep at 19 shillings a piece to Ne d Ward, I have mainly drapers and mercers (Picard 1997, 138), but given an account to you. I do not know whether my its prices were perceived to be excessive. brother Barker comes to town or not ... No further letters survive to record the family's My daughters present their duty to you and move to Lyndon Hall (fig. 4), which took place desire you not to forget the muffe and laced hood around 1677. Perhaps, finally, Mary might have felt for them. We are all mighty ill of the cold. I desire confident that they had achieved a desired level of a few oranges and lemons, and the children a roll social prominence, so that she and her daughters of goocolet [chocolate]. could move in noble circles fashionably dressed and Douke hath been down at [?] and they are all living in appropriate grandeur. The house was well here again now. Chapman hath been at home 2 furnished and protected: in 1677 Sir Abel purchased days and Douke did intend to be away a week at 24 yards of 'printed Kidderminster' for £2, as well as Presons[?] and Mrs Garners to thatch, but the 'a suit of 12 locks, 12 staples and 2 master keys' for snow[?] hath prevented him and they are all £3 10s. A small manuscript volume of accounts threshing today, which is all at present from her covering this period shows that Lady Mary received that is Dear Heart thy truly loving wife an allowance of £200 per annum for housekeeping, MBarker (DE 730/1, unnumbered letter) but still spent no more than £50 yearly on clothes for herself and her three daughters. The women's hori­ John Musson, Abel Barker's agent over many years, zons remained restricted to Rutland, while for Sir was taxed on two single-hearth houses at Hambleton. Abel and his son a twenty-day trip to London cost However, the single-hearth houses of both Richard £8, covering coach, horses and lodgings. Douke and John Chapman were not chargeable in The completion of Lyndon Hall and his family's 1665. installation in that gem of elegant style marked the

14 Letters of Mary Barker

J...o 00 ao. 00 1..0 . "I) L4 . 08 1 7· o{ oo . 00 oo 00

,.-,-_f.r·;;;. f ..� ..... ' .. ,. ,.,,. , ·' ·•' ..c.· . ' ,'..-.•1" �- '-"'· .. '

Fig. 5. The inventory post mortem of Sir Abel Barker, 30th September 1679 (courtesy of ROLLR: DE 730/1(131)/81)

15 Letters of Mary Barker summit of Abel Barker's hard won rise to fortune and taken on 30th September 1679, shortly after his social prominence. The county confirmed his leading death, by 'Toby Hippisley the elder & Tobias Hippis­ position with the election of Sir Abel Barker and ley the younger Gent' (DE 730/1 / l 31/8 l; fig. 5). In Philip Sherard as the two Knights of the Shire in 1665 'Mr Tobias Hippesly', presumably the father, 1678. Two newsletters dated 1678-9 giving accounts had possessed a substantial house of seven hearths at of events in Parliament (DE 730/1 /77; HMC 1876, Hambleton, second in size only to the Old Hall. At 398) provide evidence that Sir Abel kept in touch Lyndon Hall, the inventory lists thirteen separate with national affairs even while at home in Rutland. chambers for family members and their servants, as Sadly, Sir Abel's enjoyment of his imposing new well as many other rooms including Gallery, Great home and brief role on the national stage was short­ Parlour, Withdrawing Room, Kitchen, Pastry Scul­ lived. He died in 1679, aged 61, to be buried on 2nd lery, Pantry and Brewhouse. There were plate and September 'according to the Act for burying in wool­ jewels worth £120, 'Household stuffat Hambleton' len' (Lyndon parish register). His son Thomas, who worth £23, as well as two coaches, many horses, remained unmarried, inherited the baronetcy, which sheep and other farm animals and crops. Sir Abel died with him in 1708. Sir Abel Barker's replacement was owed £330 in unclaimed debts, giving the total as MP for that Parliament was Sir Thomas Mack­ value of his 'Goods, chattels and credits' as £3,110. worth (Wright 1684, Additions xvi). It was an impressive record of the rewards of merit, Lady Mary Barker's three daughters all married rather than inheritance. From dealing in land and well. The eldest, Mary, married Christopher Dighton sheep, cultivating those who counted and emulating and spent her last years at Lyndon where she was the Vicar of Bray in those turbulent times, Sir Abel buried in 1685. Thomasin's husband, Colonel Par­ Barker ensured that Lyndon Hall, with its resident sons, wrote a letter to her family in December 1697 families of Barker and Conant, continued to play a describing the pomp with which she had been buried significant part in the subsequent history of Rutland. in St Margaret's Church, Westminster. Lady Mary herself disappears from the face of history with Sir Acknowledgements Abel Barker's death. She may have lived on at Lyndon Hall, enjoying the comfort and pleasures I would like to thank Mr Edward Conant of Lyndon which her husband worked so hard to provide, and Hall for his interest and assistance. The Record which on her stepson's death without issue in 1708 Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland passed to the descendants of Samuel Barker, the kindly gave permission to reproduce extracts and cousin from South Luffenham. illustrations fromthe Barker manuscripts while Tim A final record of the sum of Sir Abel Barker's Clough, Honorary Editor, has been a fount of material achievement is provided by the inventory wisdom and helpful advice.

Bibliography

Bourne, J, & Goode, A (eds.), The Rutland Hearth Tax Howlett, S, A Country Wife: Anne Barker of Hambleton 1665 (Rutland Record Society 1991) ( 1646-4 7), Rutland Record 19 ( 1999) Burke, J & J B, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of Longden, H I, Northamptonshire and Rutland Clergy the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England from 1500 (Northampton 1938-52) (London 1838) Mayhew, C, Lyndon, Rutland (Rutland Local History & Cox, B, Place Names of Rutland (English Place Name Record Society 1999) Society lxvii-lxxix, 1994) Picard, L, Restoration London (London 1997) Cunnington, C W, Cunnington, P, & Beard, C, Dic­ Pevsner, N, Leicestershire and Rutland (2nd ed, Har- tionaryof English Costume (London 1960) mondsworth 1984) Diary of Samuel Pepys (2 vols, Everyman, London Shorter Oxfo rd English Dictionary(2nd ed, 1989) 1906) Victoria County History, Rutland (I[, 1935) Historical Manuscripts Commission, Appendix to the Wright, J, History and Antiquities of the County of Fifth Report (London 1876) Rutland (London 1684, republished I 973)

16 'A certain Mr. Nouelle ...': a Rutland association for the musician Anton Kammel

MICHAELA FREEMANOV A

In the first years of his stayin England between 1765- British Envoy to Florence) played a very important 1784, the Bohemian violinist Antonin (Anthony John) role in his life around the years 1766-1767. During Kammel acquired a number of patrons in London high this time, Kammel visited Stamford and Cottesmore, society; the family of the Earl of Gainsborough, and travelled in the company of a member of the Noel namely his daughter Lady Lucy Mann and her hus­ family; he described his impressions in his letters to band Horatio Mann, a nephew of Horace Mann (the Bohemia to his employer, Count Wa ldstein.

n early 1765, the Bohemian musician Anton England's musical and social life in the 1760s and IKammel (1730-1784) came to England on a non­ I 770s. Introduced to the court by Johann Christian artistic mission, as an agent trying to sell wood for Bach, Kammel never rose to the status of a Royal ship's masts to the British Admiralty. The trees household musician.3 One of the obstacles might came from the Bohemian estates of his employer, have been the fact that he was, and remained, a Count Vincent Ferrerus Waldstein (the owner of the Roman Catholic. Nevertheless, over the years, he large Mnichovo Hradiste estate in north-east Bohe­ acquired a number of high society patrons, some of mia, a music lover and an important supporter of the whom were themselves Catholic. Some of his pat­ arts). This venture, which also involved Johann rons ('Milor Malton', 'Milor Hamilton', 'Miss Christian Bach, finished disastrously - the trees, Chudley', or the Austrian Ambassador to London, badly cut in Hamburg, were, it seems, finally sold Count Sailern) he seemingly knew through Count for building timber. Nothing, it appears, ever came Waldstein, who provided him with their addresses out of Kammel's own trading ideas, concerning, for and letters of recommendation.4 Later, as can be example, sales of Bohemian semi-precious stones to seen from his letters and the dedications of his com­ England. positions, he acquired powerful supporters for him­ Kammel was born in Belec, Bohemia, on 21st self. These included George Pitt (Lord Rivers), Lord April 1730. He learned to play the violin under the 'Thenham', Sir William Young (mentioned above), great composer, violinist and teacher Giuseppe Tar­ the Earl of Aylesford, the Duke of Dorset, the Duke tini ( 1692-1770). Soon after his arrival in England, of Devonshire, Earl Spencer, Thomas Anson MP early in the reign of George III, Kammel established and others. 5 Among the most important supporters of himself successfully in London as a sought-after Kammel in the I 760s were members of the Mann violinist, music teacher and composer, and also ap­ family - Horatio Mann (a son of Galfridus [Geoff­ peared in fashionable places like Bath, Blandford, rey] Mann, the younger brother of the British Envoy Newbury and Salisbury. In the end, he remained in to Florence, Sir Horace Mann, Bt) and his wife, England up to his death - even if in his letters to Lady Lucy Mann, the third daughter of Baptist Noel, Count Waldstein he often expressed a wish to return 4th Earl of Gainsborough, who owned the neigh­ to Bohemia and live modestly on the Waldstein bouring Rutland manors of Exton and Cottesmore. estates.' Afterchanging his address several times, he Lady Mann's musical interest no doubt arose bought a house in Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly, from her artistic upbringing at Exton Hall, the which he was able to keep even though he lost a family seat. Her father in particular was a very great portion of his savings in the 1770s, first active and cultured man, and in the 1740s and 1750s through Alexander Fordyce's banking affair and there were many occasions when the family indul­ later in an American land-buying scheme in which ged in dramatic, literary, theatrical and musical 2 Sir William Young was involved. events at Exton. It has recently been pointed out that Kammel's letters to Count Waldstein, written in Handel visited twice in the 1740s, and that amongst a mixture of German, Italian, Latin, Czech, and later the Noel family papers bills forthe purchase of sheet also English, are highly interesting documents of music by Handel and Corelli, for example, and for

17 Anton Kammel

6 the binding of musical scores survive. plays very well; I made much money here already The Manns appear in Kammel's correspondence through my old violin, [and } also lost a lot of it, as for the first time in the summer of 1766, in his letter I must pay for everything very dearly... from Bourne Place, a Queen Anne mansion at At the end of his letter he returns to the Manns once Bishopsbourne, in Kent, a few miles south-east of agam: Canterbury. The estate is referred to in Leopold Mozart's travel diaries from 25th-30th July 1765 as ... Thewhole Mann family was publicly toasting the follows: health of Your Excellency. The whole family, Esq Tay[lor], Mr Sole [and} George Pitr are, unknown Zu Canterbury die hauptkirch, und van Canter­ to you, sending their best regards. Many times I bury sind wir 4 meil au/ die country to Mt r: Man at had to describe [to them} Your Excellency and the Burn plas gegangen, dieses war ein sehr schones whole family estate, together with all benefits, Landgutt. [which} amazed everybody. The woods, the high [In Canterbury the main church, and from and low hunting possibilities, the width and length Canterbury we went four miles to the country, to of the estate... Mr Man at Burn Plas, this was a very beautiful 7 In the autumn of 1766 Kammel's health improved. estate]. He travelled to Ireland (or was it Scotland? - see the Kammel's letter shows that he was recovering from date-line of the letter, quoted below), seemingly in a three-month illness at the Mann's: the company of a member of the Noel family, whose identity remains unrevealed. Perhaps a Rutland his­ Bournplace, the 5th of Ju ly 1766 torian can suggest who he was. Kammel was full of Yo ur Ex cellency, my most gracious Lord and · optimism and cheerfully looked forward to the Father! future - also because of the prospect of marrying 10 I received with greatest pleasure your dearest letter into a rich family: here in the country. I stay already the 4th week at a Edenbourg in Irland [sic}, October 20th, 1766 certain Horatio Mann. His uncle is the English Envoy to Florence. This man is very rich, has more Yo ur Excellency, my most gracious Lord and than one hundred thousand gulden of yearly Father! income. He likes me very much; and he is my best Already it is the 8th week, since I, with a certain .friend that I have here in England. He is now just 1 Mr. Nouelle who is a great lover of Music, am year married, his wife is an extraordinary beauty, looking at [various} countries. Our trip and our loves music and puts up with me very well. In brief, identity, wherever we come, is incognito. I attended all the house gives me all veneration and here even the greatest assemblies. My name is Sig .friendship. [. . .} For 3 months I felt very miserable. Marchese Carmellino. In my life I haven 't seen so My illness started in early March and lasted almost beautifu l women as here in Irland, day af ter day I to early June; it consisted of extraordinary am more and more in love. A1y beauty.from Lon­ depression, and started by much thinking and anxi­ don, which I should marry, writes me diligently, so ety, to which the well-known mast-trees contribu­ that I would not forget her, she is beautifu l and ted very much. But now, praised and thanked be the chaste, she is 70 or 80 000 gulden worth, but she Lord, my health is so much better, and I hope to does not want to leave England. In the coming win­ keep in it ... ter I shall already persuade her and make her to Later in this letter, Kammel described to Count come with me to Bohemia. Otherwise my health is Waldstein his lasting doubts concerning the wood well and all my plans too. [.. .} In 7 or 8 days I shall trading, even if he believed that if the Count would return .from here to England, to go with the come to England he would not recognise in him any Cavalier Mann for a woodland snipe [hunting], more a musician, but an established tradesman. which I had to promise 2 months ago. Believe me, Music also made him anxious: Y[our} E[xcellency], England is the only place in the world to find .freedom [and } money. The ... I have so much trouble with music and other generosity and good will of an Englishman could things, and I must struggle terribly against the not be described. But, Y[our} E[xcellency} should other virtuosos; nevertheless, I have done for Ger­ not imagine that I would like to stayhere for good. man and Czech virtuosity so much honour, as In the next year, perhaps, I shall have the honour to nobody else here in England was able to do; the kiss Yo ur Excell[ency's] hand, here in London or Englishmen say that I am the saviour of all surely in Mnichovo Hradiste. Bohemian and German virtuosi; but, as Giardinl' Music still remained his greatest pleasure: already won a lot, I can 't beat him, because he also has many good .friends, and to tell the truth, he ... Concerning music, I find more and more 18 Anton Kammel

beautiful thoughts in my composing, not long ago I with a request for financial support before he would composed a whole Pantomime, which begins with a be able to start trading on the Count's behalf), if he Symphony, fo llowed by 12 Andantes and 12 Alleg­ would consent to Kammel's Op. 1 being dedicated ros including a concluding allegro, I assure Y[our J to him: E[xcellencyJ that through this Pantomime I amazed everybody, all the Ladies andLords and Gentlemen Write to me, Your Excellency, whether I could dare scy that they haven 't heard anything similar in to dedicate my Trio to my most honourable Lord, or their lives. 52 solos fo r the Violin, which, to tell the to somebody else. [The printing] would cost appro­ truth, are very beautiful, and 6 fo r the Viola da ximately 70 Ducats here. But it would make the 11 gamba, which start in a veryde corative wcy... name of Your Excellency well known in the world, and I fe el it my first worldly duty to dedicate it to The later part of the letter shows that Kammel again Your Excellency. wished to sort out the problems around the Wald­ stein masts. He was still trying hard the following In factKammel's first works, issued in 1766 in Eng­ year, but growing tired of people who wanted to land by John Welcker, his main publisli.er then, were make their own profit at the Count's expense. In Sei Trii, Di Violino e Basso, Composti da Antonio ma early 1767 he visited Cottesmore in Rutland and Kammel/; dedicati Alla Ill Sig/11Lady Lucy Ma nn. also took part in a public concert in Stamford, Opera Prima (fig. I). Only three years later, in probably at the Assembly Rooms - although it has 1769, appeared A Second Sett of six SONATA S fo r not been possible to establish the exact date of the two Violins & a Bass Humbly Dedicated To his Ex­ concert or where it was held: cellency Count Vincent of Waldstein BY Antonio Kammel/, Opera Terza. Cotesmore, January 1767 The text of the handwritten dedication of the Six Monsieur, Your Excellency, My most gracious Trios fo r Violin and Basso Op. I shows Kammel's Lord, Lord and most beloved Father, deep appreciation for Lady Lucy Mann's support, extremely important for a foreigner who was trying ...Fr om dcyto day I am gaining more friends here; and I am doing so well that I cannot describe it to findhis place in London society: enough to Your Excellency. I am missing neither friends nor money, everything goes according to my §j#E" J� " wishes and pleasure. I am highly esteemed, every­ � J� wria, .:7/J,,,a, la,fa0na, e- kJ>rvv- body likes me. I believe that the reason fo r it is my ciJakmm� aJ miu- � bv� good upbringing and suitable ways of living... Lady Lucy Mann, who is a charming Lady, &aj> imk, d � = nz&tO- clw d � and Mr. Mann, who has the best mind in the m,� di,� �mie-Jnache,.wtto-i world, and is my best fr iend, are sending their di, �e i � omle,, � tul£l, � dinw-­ regards to YourEx cellency. Their only wish is to � del,k, inddeMe, mm � p i meet Your Excellency. Last Saturday I played in to/lLi,� c/w� Ja a, � .w b cumµ­ Stamford, which is a small town, fo r example as 12 aciu,ta,,� IW/v tne/lO- clwdi,� ami­ Jungbuntzlau, 2 solos in a public concert. The !i&wno-,� COll/ cui,,,UNW- e-MU0-Jemj;re, clapping was such as I never had in my life; ria, [there was} Mann himself,young and old ladies 0i VJ- §j#E' and Misses, all of them in love, [and] I made them even more loving through my old violin, and [I myself] was the second day very much in love with one young lady... [Highly esteemed Lady! Mixing with high society had some other advan­ Your Ladyship became my first and principal pro­ tages: tector on my appearance in this capital. My debt I list here to Your Excellency, what I have shot this towards you, as well as my feelings, oblige me to year here in England: 2 I 2 quails, 58 hares, 178 publish these efforts of mine under your auspices, snipes, 69 crows, 287 rabbits ... to demonstrate in public my everlasting gratitude for these favours, which your benevolence found The Manns are not mentioned in Kammel's later the pleasure to offer me, as well as the most humble correspondence with Count Waldstein. There is, reverence, with which I am and shall remain Your however, one more document to be mentioned. ln Ladyship's most humble and devoted servant his first letter from England, written on 29th March Antonio Kammell 13 1765, Kammel asked Count Waldstein (together London, March 15th, 1766].

19 Anton Kammel

/}--

SEI TRI I �· DI VIOLINO E BASSO,

f'OMPO§.TI I))_A

A _..l�T_'-i T- /(l\v, ""RT-L� r- o· K�iTuIELL;

D.EIDI CATI _,_�LLA LUCY

Fi g. I. The title page of Anton Kammel 's Op. I, 1766 (British Libraryg.2 42(12))

Notes

I. Kammel's letters were discovered by the Czech ments and publications (newspapers, directories, musicologist Eva Mikanova, in the Waldstein fam ily memoirs, etc.), as well as the available biographical papers surviving at the Waldstein familystate ly home and music dictionaries and other relevant materials. in Mnichovo Hradiste (Milnchengratz), East Bohemia. Her research was considerably helped by a nwnber of Today, they are housed in the Regional State Ar­ mainly British colleagues, institutions and other sup­ chives, Prague. The relevant documents concerning porters among which, for the purpose of this article, Kammel's stay in Britain were researched by should especially be mentioned Viscountess Campden Michaela Freemanova, using contemporary docu- (Exton Park, Oakham ), T H McK Clough, lately

20 Anton Kammel

Curator of the Rutland County Museum (Oakham), brother of Admiral Lord George Anson, bequeathed to and the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Kammel 'an annuity of fifty pounds a year' for his Rutland (Wigston Magna). Some earlier research into lifetime ( cf. Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Wills Kammel's life had been carried out by Tomislav and Administrations, Public Record Office, Kew, Volek and Zdei\kaPilk ova (see n.10). PROB I 0/2611 - the original will). 2. Alexander Fordyce's banking speculations led to a 6. Horatio and Lucy Mann were married on 13th April crisis in the British financial market in 1772. Sir 1765. Although they were at Bourne Place when William Young, 1 st Baronet, was the Governor of Kammel stayed there, the main family seat of the Dominica in the West Indies, but in 1773 he resigned Manns was at Linton, south of Maidstone, Kent. and returnedhome. In his papers in the Public Record Horatio eventually succeeded to the baronetcy but not Office, Kew (shelf-marks C.O.71/4; C.O. 72/1; until 1786, eight years after Lucy's death in I 778; see C.O.72/8; C.O.76/9) there is no record of Kammel GEC[o kayne], Complete Baronetage V, 1707-1 800 having been an owner of land in America. (Exeter 1906), 103-04. The informationon the Mann 3. The information on Kammel not being a Royal and Noel familyrelations I owe to T H McK Clough; see also J Clark, Exton and the Noel family, Rutland household musician, as previously thought, was Record supplied by the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle. 19 (1999) 382-99, which describes the family None of the period London directories mention papers held in the Record Office for Leicestershire, Kammel as a Royal musician; he appears as such only Leicester & Rutland. in later sources, such as the music dictionaries - for 7. Cf. 0 E Deutsch - W A Bauer: Mozart Briefe und example Gerber's, Choron's, Dlabacz's, Sainsbury's, Aufteichnungen, I, 1755-1776 (Kassel 1962) 199. Fetis's or Eitner's. 8. The Italian violinist Felice Giardini (1716-96) 4. 'Milor Malton' was almost certainly Charles Watson­ flourished in England from 1750-84 and in the early Wentworth, related to the Watson family of Rock­ 1790s. ingham, Northamptonshire; his mother was Mary, daughter of Daniel Finch, Earl of Winchilsea and Not­ 9 'Esq Taylor' was an unidentified supporter of tingham, of Burley on the Hill - another Rutland con­ Kammel, described by him as a baron and a rich nection; CW-W was created Baron and then Earl of landowner. Mr Sole was probably John Cochaine Malton in 1750; as Marquis of Rockingham he be­ Sole, Esq, a dedicatee of Kammel's Six trios fo r two came First Lord of the Treasury in 1765-66 (Diction­ Violins and a Violoncello With a Thorough Bass fo r ary of National Biography). 'Milor Hamilton' could the Harpsichord, Op. 16, published in London by have been the 7th Duke of Hamilton, who succeeded John Preston in 1780. to the title in 176 I but died in 1769. 'Miss Chudley' was probably the scandalous Elizabeth Chudleigh, 10. There is no mention of Kammel giving a concert in who married the 3rd Earl of Bristol in 1744 and then, Edinburgh in the local 1766 periodicals (thanks for notoriously, engaged in a bigamous marriage with the help go to Irene G Danks from the National Library of Duke of Kingston in 1769, being known thereafter as Scotland, Edinburgh), but no 'Edenbourg' has been the Duchess of Kingston (Dictionaryof National Bio­ identified in Ireland. Kammel 's marriage plans graphy). The Austrian Ambassador, Count Sailern changed several times; in 1768 he married Ann Edi­ catt - who was not rich (cf. No. 1392, in: A Register­ (replaced in 1771 by Count Belgioioso), was most Book fo r Marriages in all Parish Churches and probably Christian August von Sailem und Aspang Chapels 1760-1 768, in the Greater London Record (1717-1801; cf. Historischheraldisches Handbuch zum genealogischen Taschenbuch der grafischen Office, London, and Zdei\kaPi lkova's Kammel article New Grove Dictionaryof Music and Musicians, Ha user, Gotha 1855). in the London 1980, vol. 9, 787-8). 5. George Pitt was created Baron Rivers in 1776; he was evidently a musical man, since Horace Walpole 11. The Pantomime mentioned by Kammel is probably mentions him thus in a letter of 20th July 1761: 'The identical with A third sett of trios or Ballo consisting new Queen is very musical. George Pitt has asked to of two Acts with a short introductory Overture to each be her Majesty's grand harper' (Letters, ed Paget Act and a collection of Airs &c. Compos 'd by Antonio Toynbee, vol V, 82, cited by G E C[okayne], Kammel!, published by John Welcker in 1774 (British Complete Peerage). Lord 'Thenham' has not been Library, g.270.v.(2.)). identified. Heneage Finch, 3rd Earl of Aylesford, who 12. Mlada Boleslav, East Bohemia (near to Mnichovo died in 1777, had strong Rutland fam ily connections: Hradiste), in Kammel's time an administrative centre he married his cousin Charlotte Finch, granddaughter for Boleslav County. of Daniel Finch, 7th Earl of Win chi I sea, of Burley-on­ the-Hill. The Duke of Dorset may have been Charles, 13. Both sets of violin sonatas are to be found in the 2nd Duke ( 1765-69), while th.e Duke of Devonshire British Library, Op. 1 under the shelf-mark will have been William, 5th Duke ( 1764-1811 ). The g.242.(12.), Op. 3 under the shelf-mark g.222.h.(l .). 1 st Viscount Spencer (l76 1) was created Earl in 1765. The extract from Karnmel's Op. I is published by Thomas Anson, MP for Lichfield and the elder kind permission of the British Library.

21 Uppingham by the Sea: Typhoid and the Excursion to Borth, 1875-77 NIGEL RICHARDSON

Ty phoid broke out in Uppingham School three times for support. Fearing that a mass loss of confidence by during 1875-76. Its Headmaster, Edward Thring, parents would mean the end of the School and of his blamed a complacent To wn Sanitary Committee; the life 's work, Thring took the School off to the coast of Committee and its zealous Medical Offi cer of Health mid-Wales for an entire year - an event which he later claimed that the School itselfwas at fault. Both sides described as 'unique in the historyof schools '. appealed to the Local Government Board in London

Introduction tea brewed by N esta Matthews as we discussed it all around Bryan's dining table at their house in Lyd­ It was a great honour to be asked to give the Bryan dington), I spent the best part of a year finding out Matthews memorial lecture for 2002. Bryan entered about it. But (as we shall see) I think it remains per­ the School as a boy in 1930, and apart from five haps a job only three-quarters done - so far, at least. years away at Oxford he worked devotedly, in it and I attempt three things here. First I give an account for it, until his death early in 1987 (Waites 1988, 282). of what we discovered in the 1970s, primarily about From Entrance Scholar in 1930 to Librarian and the School. The second part is concerned more with Archivist in his final years, and Acting Headmaster work I have done since then on the Town's role, and in 1975, his career spanned that period when more why I now think that we produced a rather partial and more staff became narrow specialists in just one account. Then briefly I suggest some furtherlines of subject. A true polymath, he bucked that trend and investigation which still need to be done. I am very taught no fewer than ten, many to a high level. He conscious of omitting quantities of detail, and that pioneered the development of Geography and Geo­ there will be many whose knowledge of Uppingham logy, and his General Studies courses in Art Appre­ on the ground is much greater than mine. ciation played to packed classrooms. He also ran the Uppingham Association for 42 of those years, creat­ Uppingham in the early 1870s ing a bond between the School and its former pupils which is the envy of many of us who now work in Uppingham in 1875 was a town of 2,600 people, schools elsewhere. roughly twice its population at the start of the cen­ That he was a formidable local historian was tury. A limited sewerage system had been laid along demonstrated in his book about the School's first the High Street and North Street in 1858, and there 400 years, By God 's Grace (1984), and in his Book were major additions to the south and west in 1872. of Rutland (1978). He was a founder member of the About three-quarters of the dwellings still relied on Rutland Record Society, its first Honorary Secretary cesspools; few had internal water closets of any sort. and later Vice-President, and a committee member Nearly all the inhabitants relied for their water of the Rutland Historic Churches Preservation Trust. supply on wells serving individual properties. I myself taught at U ppingham from 1971 to Like many small towns (and larger cities too), 1989, and there have been many times in compiling population pressure had made public health arrange­ this account when I have wished that I could consult ments inadequate for the new demands on them, him. He was generous with both his time and advice especially in years of exceptional weather. 1875 was over my researches into the great typhoid outbreak a year of very unusual weather: sharp frosts at the of 1875-77. Browsing in the School library one beginning and end of the year; dramatic rains ( over afternoon in 1975, I came across a little volume en­ eight times the normal amount) and flooding in June titled Uppingham by the Sea (1878), written by John and October. The town was a sea of mud. Skrine (one of Thring's staff) and describing events Frosts would have caused cracked drains and of which I was only dimly aware. A centenary was pits; mud would have blocked up drain ventilators in the offing - of the School's epic migration to unless they were regularly inspected and cleared. The Borth. With a lot of encouragement from both Bryan School Magazine, describing a football match on 9th himself and Geoff Frowde (as well as many cups of October, speaks of 'the well-known malaria called 22 Upp ingham by the Sea the churchyard smell, which must be a perpetual and probably with a fear that press interest might reproach to all anti-cremationists and which has lead to great parental concern, the School did little thoroughly pervaded the atmosphere of the valley' over the summer to remedy any defects, hoping that (Uppingham School Magazine, 1875). the problem would go away. It seems likely that Dr In rural Victorian England there were not many Thomas Bell, its Medical Officer and a local GP planning controls. For example, material from the who lived at No 23 in the High Street, took what Lower School cesspits (now the Lodge, on Stockers­ nowadays would be called an excessively laid-back ton Road) was pumped out and used on the celery attitude to it all in the early stages. Even if he was beds in the garden as fertiliser. The garden drained unaware of the exact causes of typhoid fever (which into the stream, which then flowed on down the would be likely, given that the key discoveries about valley, becoming polluted successively by further its causes were, tantalisingly, still a fewyears away), effluent, oozings from the old gas works, 'the drain­ he should surely have spotted its symptoms and ings from manure heaps, a cowshed, a pigsty, a warned Thring and the Town of the need for urgent stable and other accumulation of filth', plus cesspit action. As it was, he was a somewhat prickly and overflow and drainage from the cemetery, before jealous man, who allowed professional rivalries to becoming the feeder of 'the bathing place and swim­ obscure the real priority once the later crisis broke. ming pond' and then 'passing to the South of Bis­ With the holidays over, the boarding houses pre­ brooke where [says the report writer] I am informed pared for the new term. Mr Chapman, a local plum­ it is used for brewing purposes ... ' (Haviland 1876). ber who also lived in the High Street, at No 39, was There is little in the Stamfo rd Mercury at the start called to the Lower School. There was an obstruc­ of that year to indicate great drama; the weekly para­ tion between the trough closets and the cesspits. He graph of news is mostly taken up with news of the lowered a candle into one of the drains and, accor­ Hunt, entertainments and a temperance lecture to ding to a subsequent report, 'a tremendous explosion come. There were however warnings about drainage took place, the sewer gases igniting and at the same deficiencies in a report from a Mr Pidcock in 1872 time burning his whiskers, eyebrows and hair'. (Local Government Board papers MH 12 - Public The School later claimed that this account was Record Office), and reports of scarlet fever in the much exaggerated, but it proved to be the prelude to Town in early 1875 - including contamination of the a full-scale second outbreak which came in Septem­ water supply from a number of wells. This caused a ber/October. Over 50 cases occurred in five separate leading scientist of the day, Mr Thudicum, to do houses along High Street West and Stockerston some detailed analysis - and Edward Thring, on Road. It claimed the lives of Cecil Mullins, the behalf of the School, to call for improvements (LGB young son of the housemaster of West Deyoe ( on the papers MH 12). But little was done. corner of High Street West and Spring Back Way), If the Town had changed only slowly, the School three more in the Lower School and then one in had been transformed over the previous twenty-five Redgate, right up on the hill to the south on London years, since Edward Thring became its Headmaster Road. Very reluctantly, the School had to close in 1853. He turned it from a small country grammar again, this time until after Christmas. school of less than 30 pupils into a nationally known By now, rumour was rife - for example, in Cal­ school with 300 boarders. This had brought in extra decott it was alleged that a death there was due to permanent inhabitants in the formof staffand, impor­ one of the school's maids being allowed to go home, tantly, a big growth in buildings in a short time. even after it was known she had contracted the disease. The School protested that the nature of her Typhoid arrives illness had been far fromclear. And much was being Typhoid entered the School for the first time (as far made of a boy (whose name we do not know) from as we know) in June 1875. It seems to have been an Southampton who had arrived in Uppingham to start isolated case, but one nine-year-old boy in the work at the Lower School, only to hear when he got Lower School, B E Hawke, the son of Lord Hawke, out of the coach at the Falcon that he was entering a died (school archives). This had been built in 1868 place of death. People said that because he had no when the Rev R J Hodgkinson left Thring's staffand money for the return journey, he stayed. The set up a prep (or feeder) school. They had had an up­ School's claim that every effort had been made to and-down professional relationship over the years: forewarn the boy of the state of affairs, that he had he was beholden to Thring for recommendations to been offered his fare home but had chosen to stay parents to join it, but he was legally beyond Thring's nonetheless, went largely unheard. The boy was dead control - something worth remembering in the light within a month. of later criticisms. Rumours had now reached the Town authorities With the school's summer holidays imminent, that all was not well - authorities in the shape of the

23 Uppingham by the Sea

Sanitary Sub-Committee of the Uppingham Union. Adderley, and a number of ratepayers on grounds of Thring himself went to meet the Committee - but expense (school archives). only in mid-October, by which time there had been Rogers Field looked at both the School and the 30 cases, five of which were to prove fatal. The Town. He believed that the School had not been Committee suspected that Thring's visit to them was exactly over-active in putting its own sanitary house only because his hand was being forced by the pres­ in order. In particular he alleged that even afterthis sure of events; word was getting out about the second outbreak, some of the masters were less than second outbreak, even as far away as Liverpool, then enthusiastic about spending money on improve­ a key catchment area. On the other hand, Upping­ ments. However, it is important to remember that in ham being a small place, it is hard to avoid the those days they owned the boarding houses they feeling that they must have heard rumours and could lived in, and they may well not have had much have made contact with him earlier, had they wish­ money to spare, having only recently built them. ed. We can only speculate on this important point - Haviland's inspection focusedvery largely on the but it was crucial in inflaming passions from now on. School and was explosive in nature, sarcastically setting out a case in fifty pages plus appendices The experts move in (Haviland 1876). The boarding houses had cesspits Be all that as it may, from this meeting came a that had remained unemptied over many years. In plethora of experts' reports. The Sanitary Commit­ the Lower School he found a system of rubber tee used its Medical Officer of Health, Dr Alfred piping to these pits largely rotted away. In many Haviland from Northampton, a man whom both Dr places, pits were unventilated; gases became trapped Bell and Thring himself came heartily to loathe. The in pipes and escaped back into the closets and thence London authorities sent up Mr Rogers Field, one of into other areas of the boarding houses. Where there the top sanitary engineers of his day (besides advi­ were ventilators, they were badly sited - in one case sing Wellington College on its diphtheria outbreak, just below the window of the matron's room. Worst he also designed the drains at both Sandringham and of all, there was a familiar pattern of the under­ Bagshot Park). When the long Uppingham battle was ground streams which fed the wells at each house, over, Field advised on its new bye-laws (Field 1877, crossing the path of broken drains and thus setting 1878) and then wrote a guide forsanitary authorities up classic conditions for cross-infection. He com­ nationwide on the legal powers and drainage designs plained bitterly that, after the second outbreak in the they needed. Both sides also took advice from a top autumn began, life at the School had gone on as government sanitary inspector, Robert (later Sir usual, with boys visiting other infected houses. Robert) Rawlinson and a Nottingham engineer, Alf­ But he went even further, alleging that dormi­ red Tarbotton, who was asked to give specific advice tories were overcrowded, and the meals unwhole­ on improvements to the houses. some, while the system of lessons before breakfast, Rawlinson concentrated on the town, of which he which caused a 12-14 hour gap between meals over­ was highly critical, especially in a private note to the night, was said to weaken resistance to infection. In central government authorities in London. He repor­ an age long before common agreed standards or ted that the School and others had been complaining boarding school inspections, no-one at the School about sewage disposal and cesspits since at least seems to have been prepared for such scathing 1855, alleging that material from leaking cesspits fil­ criticisms about things like the lack of nurses at the tered into the subsoil dangerously near the wells of sanatorium or of treatment given in specific cases drinking water. Where new sewers had been laid, there, or for complaints about overcrowded and many were much too close to the surface of the poorly ventilated studies. Considering that most of ground, and as the system was still incomplete and these buildings were of recent construction, the had no adequate sewage farm, it could be considered School seems to have had very poor technical advice worse than useless. from its architects. He said that the Sanitary Committee's local inspectors had been inactive over the flushing of The conflictsgrow drains, and that ventilators were blocked up. He reg­ Disease was immensely damaging to its reputation, retted the state of the water supply - individual wells though. Possibly in an attempt to divert criticism for nearly every property - and he recorded repeated away from the School, Thring accused the Commit­ requests over the years from the School and others tee of grave neglect. He had long believed that the for improvements; Haviland agreed with him on this Committee was smug, and he now believed that it issue (almost his only concession to the School). would gloat over him, using his discomfiture as a SignificantlyRawlinson also suggested opposition to smoke-screen to hide its own inefficiency for over improvements from one local landowner, Sir Charles two decades. 24 Uppingham by the Sea

Not surprisingly there were some unedifying in a search for suitable temporary locations for the slanging matches - Thring hauled at least one com­ School. He met them in Chester, along with Mr W T mittee member through the streets to show him the Jacob, one of his two supporters amongst the Trus­ evidence of broken sewers. There was also an un­ tees (the other was Mr T H Birley), and they all then seemly row between one housemaster and Haviland travelled down through Wales. They looked at hotels at the Falcon Hotel over the latter's demand to be in Llandrindod Wells and elsewhere, but settled on allowed into the houses again to collect more evi­ the Cambrian Hotel in Borth, Cardiganshire (modern dence. Thring was accused of telling the boys they Ceredigion), as the answer to their problems (fig. 1 ). would be 'cowards and deserters' if they asked their parents to take them home. He replied that he was Borth merely trying to prevent the spread of infection to In all sorts of ways this was a voyage into the other parts of the country. It seems to have been unknown. Only one of Thring's fellow travellers extraordinarily bitter. seems to have known the area at all. Never can his Meanwhile Thring made a number of key moves. reserves of idealism, optimism and energy have been Firstly, there was the decision to make major im­ more called upon, for the potential difficulties (and provements to the houses - in line with what the risks) were immense. reports recommended; it made practical sense and it First there was the nature of the village itself. would seize the moral high ground. Secondly, he Borth was far less economically developed than decided to appeal over the heads of the Uppingham Uppingham; earlier in the century it had been des­ Sanitary Committee direct to the Local Government cribed in Nicholson's Cambrian Traveller 's Guide Board in London (the government department to (1840) as 'a miserable fishing village'. Although the which sanitary committees were answerable), urging arrival of the Cambrian Railway a decade earlier had it to order drainage improvements at the ratepayers' made it much more accessible it was not yet sharing expense. the new-found activity of Aberystwyth to any great Thirdly, convinced that he had to put pressure on degree. It was well-known for its shrimps - 'the the Town to improve its water supply, he promoted a fishing being carried out by sailors' wives and bill in Parliament for a private company to provide widows and superannuated sailors' in about twenty mains water - with himself and some trusted allies small boats (Jenkins & Jones 1876, 155). Cargoes of as its Board of Directors. coal came up the coast from time to time. All these would take time. But it was another ex­ A two-mile straggling coastal strip with moun­ ceptionally wet and muddy winter, and events over­ tains behind (fig.2), it has Aberystwyth a few miles took him. Within three weeks of the pupils returning to the south, and the huge expanse of the Dovey in January 1876 came a new outbreak in the same estuary just to the north. In 1876 it boasted (besides houses, and others in the house on the corner of its railway station), a nearly-completed church, a School Lane, as well as in School House within the number of cottages along its single main street, and main school buildings itself. Telegrams rained down one large hotel - not actually in use, and whose on the School from worried parents all over the purpose in being built remains a mystery. Maybe the country, and Thring had little option but to close the very simplicity of the place was what attracted School altogether at the beginning of March 1876. Thring; it was described in the Welsh Gazette in And so the pupils were sent home again - on a 1908 by 'An Old Schoolboy' as 'a village, laid on a day described by Thring as one of 'wild winds and ridge of sand and shingle. A peculiarity ... is its long pitiless snows'. Shortly afterwards he held a house­ street. If the buildings on each side of it were bigger masters' meeting, at which the Rev W Campbell of it would be the finest looking street in the world. It Lorne House asked the famous question: 'Don't you is said that it was made straight so that the people at think we ought to flit?' (ie, set up the School else­ one end could see what people at the other end were where). The School's Trustees met to consider the up to, and so that one policeman can keep an eye on idea and turned it down flat. With only two dissen­ them all at the same time'. ting voices (those of the two Trustees elected by Secondly - and ironically - Borth's sanitary ar­ Thring and the masters) they chose to take a very rangements seem very unlikely to have been as strict definition of their Charity responsibilities, and advanced as Uppingham's. It was on the Irish Sea recorded that they were responsible forthe School at coast and thus - Thring probably guessed - rudely Uppingham, and that if it went anywhere else, they healthy. He was probably unaware of the very high felt no obligation to finance it - other than to con­ incidence of tuberculosis which dogged the area well tinue to pay the masters' salaries. into the twentieth century (partly because houses It seems that Thring had already sent one or two were damp and few had damp courses). Jenkins and staff to trawl the coast from mid-Wales northwards Jones' Cardiganshire County History (1998, 435)

25 Uppingham by the Sea

Fig. 1. TheCambrian Hotel, Borth, with the wooden assembly hall built at the rear (photograph: Up pingham School Archives)

Fig. 2. A general view of Borth at the time of the school 's occupation, with the Cambrian Hotel at the distant end of the village (photograph: Uppingham School archives)

26 Uppingham by the Sea records that: 'Cardiganshire had an unenviable repu­ race, jerking their awkward little limbs over a road­ tation for high infant mortality, deaths of mothers in side ditch. Our boys looked on as men look at childbirth, rotten teeth, hearing defects, blindness, monkeys, half-amused, half-indignant at the antics, imbecility and madness ... Until the 1960s, services which imitated humanity so abominably' (Skrine such as piped water, mains sewerage services and 1878, 52). Thring recorded that: 'Some of our party electricity supply remained wholly inadequate'. tasted the painful pleasures of the poor in the scant Whether or not he knew any of this, Dr Bell and naked simplicity of cottage lodgings' (Borth either declined to leave his other Uppingham Primary School leaflet, Ceredigion Archives). patients to come with them or was not invited to do A fourth problem lay in formidable limitations in so. Thring recruited a former pupil, Dr Christopher local services. No school was known ever to have Childs, to be Medical Officer at Borth. This, very taken itself off to a single place, although Rugby predictably, led to a stream of questioning and sus­ School had once been dispersed to houses all over picious memoranda from Bell over the next few the Lake District during a scarlet fever outbreak. months, but Thring was right in doing this; the 1871 There was no knowing how faror how quickly such Borth census lists amongst its inhabitants one nurse a move would force the hand or either the Town or but no doctor (the nearest, and the hospital, were in the London authorities. Meanwhile the presence of a Aberystwyth). school community of this size demanded a range of We also know from the Aberystwyth Observer goods and services, but Borth had few. that for much of the year 1876-77, a fierce debate Again, the census of 1871 is revealing. In Borth was going on within the Aberystwyth town council itself (as opposed to the string of villages and houses about the need for a better water supply and the best stretching up the valley and classified as Morfa means of obtaining it; increasing population was Borth) there were listed 142 people in 36 family putting pressure on local facilities here as well as households. Fifty-one of them were under 21, but back in Rutland. In Borth itself a spirited meeting only 26 were aged 15 to 40; even then it seems that a took place at the house of one Captain Delahoye on good deal of youthful migration took place. Slater's 15th August 1876 to demand a better water supply. Business Directory for 1876 lists a post office There were demands for at least two more taps to (whose postmaster, the ubiquitous Abraham L Lewis be provided from the main pump, and for the Cam­ fulfilled many other roles), a variety of shop-keepers brian Railway Company to restore a supply which it and two hotels - but there appear to have been no had allegedly disrupted when the railway itself was painters, plumbers, glaziers, tailors, clockmakers or built - and there was much talk about inconvenience solicitors - to name just a few. The census lists two and foul smells during summer. Not surprisingly, for hotels, four public houses and 36 lodging houses, of in Borth as elsewhere the local ratepayers were very which we know that the School took over 27. resistant to paying for improvements themselves, Above all, would the parents actually support the they expected the Railway Company to do it. It does masters by sending their sons off to a place they had seem as if the presence of the School had focused probably never heard of? sudden local attention on all these issues - both through the original circumstances which brought Preparing the way about its removal to Borth and the pressure which its All through March and early April 1876 the School presence was now to put on water supplies there. property was packed up. On 16th March the Cam­ Thirdly, there must have been a formidable brian Hotel was leased for £1 a head per week, language difficulty. Borth was deep in the heart of which included board, bed and laundry, but not Welsh-speaking Wales. Even allowing for the pas­ washing. But it could only accommodate 150 boys sing of time, the fact that comparatively few records plus a few staff - and the School had 300 pupils. and artefacts seem to have remained in the area after The rest of the School and teachers had to be found the School left it suggests that the cross-over of lodgings with the local residents through the length School and locals was comparatively limited. The and breadth of the village. On 27th March, an School brought its own 'servants' with the masters. advance guard of staff arrived to set up the extra But the School's presence aroused a good deal of accommodation and facilities needed for teaching. local curiosity. Thring and Skrine recorded (with Thus, from the plan's first inception to the first signs frankness, but in a style which would surely be seen of the impending invasion, barely three weeks had as deeply patronising nowadays) that: 'at a football elapsed. match ... at Bow Street, we heard the unintelligible Around the same time a chartered goods train of cries of the Welsh rustic children' and 'the village eighteen trucks arrived at Borth, carrying 300 bed­ boys, fired by the novel example [ of athletics] steads, the Headmaster and a certain number of staff scrambled down the street, in corduroys, in a foot- and matrons. Thring directed the work like a military

27 Uppingham by the Sea

operation (indeed, although ordained, he was School Room and are now in the Uppingham School reckoned to have many of the qualities of a good Archives for safe keeping - one of Thring's Borth military commander) - with bedsteads and tons of Lyrics (1881) was devoted to them. Prayers were bedding, tables, chairs and bookshelves distributed held in the School Room behind the hotel, lessons in around 27 separate houses. Wary locals described the any room large enough to seat twenty, and meals in whole thing in the early days as an 'invasion' (accor­ the draughty corridors of the Cambrian Hotel. Stan­ ding to the Cambrian News), until trust was estab­ dards of accommodation varied. Some found cosy lished. Some local labour was also employed despite fireside lodgings but others cramped top floors (fig. the language difficulties. 5). Nearly everyone shared a room as it was impos­ All other equipment was procured locally. A sible to provide single studies. A correspondent of large amount of plastering and cleaning was done, a the Uppingham School Magazine (Summer 1876) washroom of thirty basins constructed, and yards of suggested that tradition could be restored in this trestle tables erected in the corridors and larger respect by bringing 200 bathing machines from rooms of the Cambrian Hotel, so that the whole Llandudno, each having been suitably furnished, and School could eat at one sitting. Plans were made for lining them up on the sea front. The only facility a large wooden building, eighty feetby twenty, to be found to be seriously lacking was that of a library. constructed at the rear of the hotel (fig. I), so that Borth lies inside a bay. Its single street runs right the whole School could meet for assembly. Provi­ along the sea front behind the pebbly beach (fig. 2). sion was also made for a sick room, the old stables Behind the town there is a low-lying and rather became the school carpentry shop, and the coach uninteresting marsh. However, at either end of the house was turned into a gymnasium. bay steep peaks rise up and two rivers, the Dovey and the Lery, run from them into the sea. A whole Term begins range of features was thus at hand to interest those On 4th April 1876, when the School arrived by train, keen on wildlife, the sea, geology, hill walking and everything was as ready as it could be. The Masters angling. (fig. 3) were waiting on the platform (fig. 4), ready to Swimming presented no problems, and runners direct the boys to their lodgings. Over 290 actually found new interests in the steep hill courses round turned up, and Thring was heartened that so few out about - although there were one or two dramas when of the full complement of 300 were unwilling to boys got lost. Expeditions were organised to visit the share in his great adventure. great peaks nearby, using the ever-helpful Cambrian And so they all settled into a routine. As Borth Railway which had become the School's artery to the had no bell, three flags were raised at strategic outside world. Thring himself was especially enthu­ points to call the school to Prayers in the morning: siastic about the cleansing nature of the sea air, and two of these hung until very recently in the Old was all for long, bracing hikes. The boys were

Fi g. 3. Themasters of Uppingham School at Borth in 1876 (photograph: Uppingham School Archives) Back Row: The Rev W Va le-Bagshawe, W d'ABarnard, The Rev A J Tu ck, The Rev J H Skrine, W F Rawnsley, The Rev G H Mullins, Dr Sc hlottmann, C W Cobb, Herr C Beisiegel, He rr P David, W C Perry. Front Row: The Rev B H Williams, H Candler, The Rev W Campbell, The Rev E Thring, The Rev W J Earle, The Rev G Christian, S Haslam

28 Uppingham by the Sea

Fig. 4. Borth railway station, where the school arrived on 4th April 1876, and where the masters completed their voting papers for Uppingham's local elections (photograph: Uppingham School archives)

Fig. 5. A group of boys outside one of the cottages in which they studied (photograph: Upping.ham School archives)

29 Uppingham by the Sea

Fig. 6. The School Football XV at Borth, December I 876 (photograph: Uppingham SchoolArchiv es) L K Roughton*, R L Caunter*, G C Paton, T G Ridley, J E Oldfield, H W J Buckna/1 (c apt), G W Richards, J B Maul, F W Styan, 0 H Cochrane, CRBail ey, J Jacob, H Drake, D G Riddiford, C E Pearson * The Sc hool Roll has A G No rman and S D Maul instead of Roughton and Caunter fo r the 1876 Borth XV advised to be careful about snakes whenever they According to the author of South Wales Squires crossed the river. (Vaughan 1926), cricket was more or less unknown Some very keen amateur archaeologists began in that part of Wales, and the notably eccentric Sir digging on the beach, but an attempt at starting an Pryse Pryse (who would have remembered it from aquarium proved ill-fated. The School also made his Eton days) supported it with enthusiasm - to the efforts to integrate itself into the local community. extent of walking through nearby Bow Street on one The 1 st XI played cricket against local sides; the occasion in fullwhites: 'The sudden appearance of a choir sang at the first service in the newly-completed man clad all in white proved an alarming spectacle church - to which the School later donated a fine for the villagers, for everyone jumped to the conclu­ East window - and gave two concerts in Aberyst­ sion that the baronet was taking a stroll in puris wyth, as well as singing Bach's Christmas Oratorio naturalibus. There was a general stampede into the at the formal inauguration of the wooden School houses; blinds were hastily pulled down and the Room (although the event took place as late as doors were locked - "Indeed," (said an excited August, well over four months after it was first villager afterwards) "if it had been anybody but Sir used). A large number of the School turned out to Pryse Pryse we would have killed him for coming follow the local hounds. out like that without his clothes!" ' For more organised sport (cricket, rugby and athletics), they relied on some rather rough land Keeping up the pressure back at home offered by the Bishop of St. Davids (fig. 6) and a Despite having left the scene of all his problems, better strip from a local landowner and generous Thring had to remain involved in what was going on benefactor of good causes, Sir Pryse Pryse, whose back in Uppingham. His main eyes and ears there support was later recognised by Thring on the during this year was Dr Thomas Bell. Difficult dedicatory page of Borth Lyrics (Thring 1881 ). But personality or not, Dr Bell's immense letter-writing this was several miles away at Gogerddan, which activities have provided us with very valuable evi­ meant an afternoon train trip down the line to Bow dence. Thring needed him there, because he was Street - as mentioned in 'The Colony', one of determined not to let his absence from Uppingham Thring's lyrics (Appendix I). One item which relax the pressure. Over the next few months there Thring had refused to leave behind in Uppingham were to be questions in Parliament, repeated letters had been the large roller from the Upper ( one of the and articles in the national and regional press (from school playing fields) and the Committee of Games both sides in the dispute, some written anonymous­ ordered teams of fagsto put it to good use. The fine ly) - and in The Lancet and the British Me dical foravoiding this highly important activity was 2d. Journal. Within a few days of his arrival in Borth a

30 Uppingham by the Sea dispute broke out over whether the absent masters January the little community survived gales, floods would have the right to vote in Uppingham's annual and flying debris hurled over the sea wall; elderly local elections. Jn the end the voting papers were folk and animals had to be taken to safety (although collected from each boarding house, taken down to a flock of 150 sheep were drowned), and the School Borth by train, filled in on the platform while the did its bit in helping with all the clearing up. The messenger waited, and then sent straight back; they descriptions of the storms are graphic; even local arrived in Uppingham with 15 minutes to spare. people claimed never to have seen anything like it There had been no intention to spend more than (stated the Aberystwyth Observer). The master in one term away, but it soon became clear that this charge of the Borth National School wrote in the would not be enough. No return could be contem­ logbook that 'never such an event occurred in the plated until both mains water and sewerage had been memory of any men living in the village' (Cere­ sorted out. As the driving force and major share­ digion Archives). holder in the new water company, Thring had to get But by April 1877 enough was judged to have regular news of disputes over where the new water been done back in Uppingham to make it safe to supply should go - until Parliament finally passed return. The water supply had been set up, and we the necessary bill in July. He strongly suspected that have to assume that significant sewerage and the Committee was quite happy to play for time, to drainage improvements had been made. On the last see him run up huge debts and even to force him to day nearly all the inhabitants of Borth turned out to bring the School on a humiliating return to Upping­ ham before his main aims had been achieved. A ceaseless correspondence was kept up with local Rutland landowners and other townspeople to keep pressure on the London authorities to speed up approvals in principle, designs and appropriate loan facilities and interest rates. He made a great deal of moral capital out of the sudden and belated exposure of the poor state of the cesspits in the Uppingham Union workhouse (now Constables, on the Leicester Road). He was no doubt helped by the fact that shopkeepers and other ratepayers had begun to get restive as trade declined. Elsewhere at much the same time (notably in Armley, Leeds) there were examples of ratepayers lining up to oppose expen­ sive improvements proposed by a Medical Officerof Health and a local Committee - but not in Upping­ ham, so the decision to take the School away was probably vindicated, for it forced the issue. Even so, work on the water supply began only in September, and the planned 30th November finish­ ing date proved hopelessly optimistic. Eventually it resulted in the water tower which dominated the Fig. 7. We lcome Home de corations in Upping.ham landscape of that part of the town near the current High Street, May 1877 (Upping.ham School archives) Sports Centre on Stockerston Road until its removal say farewell. Songs were sung in front of the Cam­ in the 1990s. brian Hotel and 'hearty cheers exchanged' (reported Two more terms, and the Return the Cambrian News). A delegation from the town gave speeches praising the School's behaviour and On 15th September the School convened in Borth expressed gratitude for the help rendered during the fora second term - boarding up windows against the flood. Thring replied, praising the good which had gales, suffering a ten-day outbreak of scarlet fever, come out of the stay and the friendship offered by and lighting fires to keep people warm - wherever the people of Borth. The boys cannot have been fires could be lit. A third term began on 9th January wholly glad to go back; a number claimed that Borth 1877 - incredibly with only one premature with­ was 'the best place that they had ever visited'. Even drawal of a pupil since the whole venture began; allowing for the fact that all through the year the indeed, a few boys actually joined the School for the School was keen to present an upbeat image to the first time as term started. On the night of 29th outside world (and to be well thought-of locally) and

31 Up pingham by the Sea

fed regular items of this sort to both local and the exception of the schoolroom and the chapel, the national newspapers, there is probably some truth in property belongs to private individuals'. the claim. So the pressures on Thring must therefore have On 4th May 1877 banners, garlands and 'Wel­ been immense. The School's governing body of come Home' arches adorned Uppingham High Trustees was distinctly detached about the whole Street (fig. 7) and nearly the whole populace turned episode; some of them had long been wary of what out to welcome the School home. The Seaton bus they saw as his extravagance over the new school was commandeered and towed up the High Street central buildings (as opposed to houses) which he and back again at the head of a procession, with expected them to finance. They declined to finance boys hanging precariously all over it. A band played an independent report into the causes of the disease and there was much cheering. On 8th May addresses in 1875, and left the masters to pay the costs were exchanged between the leaders of Town and themselves. When Thring went to them in March School. One result was the Uppingham Mutual Im­ 1876 and asked forfinancial backing forthe move to provement Society, to provide lectures and other Borth, they hid behind their perceived responsi­ entertainments for both Town and School. Another bilities to the Charity Commissioners and declared was the publication of a set of more or less bucolic that they were Trustees only of the School at poems, Borth Lyrics (Thring 1881 ), later set to Uppingham. They disputed sums disbursed at Borth. music by Paul David (Novello nd), commemorating Thring and his assistant staff also risked very and celebrating the best of the exodus - but making large sums of capital in redecorating the Cambrian only the most oblique referenceto its cause. Hotel and financing transport and extra equipment; some, maybe Thring himself, gave up the equivalent Analysis of a whole year's income - we cannot be sure. We know that a group of parents, led by Captain Stanley Bryan Matthews, GeoffFr owde and I worked on all Withington of Liverpool, wrote to The Times and to this to produce a special magazine in 1976. The all parents in May 1876 announcing a fund to which story proved rather more than I had bargained for, they could contribute to defray the costs. Only a full and eventually took me to all over the country. It led eighteen months after the Return did the Trustees get in 1977 to a historical booklet (Uppingham School special permission from the Charity Commissioners Archives), several newspaper articles and a (not very to raise tuition fees, and then repaid a total of £3,275 good!) documentary play, which we eventually took to the masters - just over half to Thring himself and on a tour of schools in the United States. grants down to £8 to others (these figures too need A first period of research into these events threw multiplying by about 40 to calculate today's values, up a number of questions. Was it just a quaint so Thring received the equivalent of about £70,000 Victorian saga, or did it have greater significance? It was clear that relationships between School and himself). We have to assume that he was greatly out of pocket. No wonder he fought so hard. Town had never been wholly easy in Thring's time - partly because of the School's changing status and Knowledge about typhoid expansion and also because the School's charitable status exempted it from some rate payments - on the During our researches, we also found out a little Chapel, School House and the Schoolroom behind about contemporary knowledge of typhoid itself - the Church. Against this, however, (as Fr Cormac another area which Bryan worked on for us. Typhoid Rigby, the leading authority on Thring, has recently in the 1870s was still a well-known killer; The pointed out to me) we have to offset the substantial Times, reporting on the Uppingham outbreak, stated rates paid by each housemaster in respect of the that 150,000 people a year in Britain caught it, and it boarding houses which they owned. was only I 5 years since Prince Albert had died of it Thring and his masters also had a great deal of - one of 5,000 such victims each year. It seems like­ money riding on the successful outcome of this ly that its distressing and protracted symptoms and crisis. By 1875 he had been in post for nearly a progression contributed much to inflaming passions quarter of a century, building the School up drama­ and tempers. The key discoveries in microbiology tically. He had persuaded others to join him in build­ and bacteriology were still a few years away, and ing houses at their own expense and taking the reliable treatment emerged only in the 1940s. It is profits; thus they all had plenty to lose - materially understandable that Haviland and his fellow-doctors and in terms of their life's work - if the venture seemed at times to be conscious that they were failed. Kelly's Directory for 1876 states that 'the looking through a glass darkly - but a glass which cost of the buildings raised in late years exceeds would soon become clear - as they struggled to ask £40,000 [roughly £1.6m at today's prices] but with themselves the right questions, and went offon false

32 Upp ingham by the Sea trails involving noxious gases outside windows and Sanitary Committee was dominated by two clergy­ investigation of water samples forthe wrong things. men, the Rev Barnard Smith of Glaston and the Rev William Wales, Rector of Uppingham and a local Public Health and government reform landowner. They worked closely with Dr Haviland First there is the background - in the form of the and with the Local Government Board. dramatic change in death rates from typhoid and The Uppingham Union oversaw no fewer than 35 other diseases which came over England in the last parishes as well as the workhouse on the Leicester quarter of the nineteenth century. Starting with Ed­ Road. The Sanitary Committee was one of several win Chadwick's great investigation of fifty English sub-committees. Its Minutes have, alas, failed to sur­ towns with high mortality rates in 1840s, and spur­ face (so far, at least), but we have at least four other red on by individual episodes like the Great Stink in sources relevant to all this: Barnard Smith's own London during the unusually hot summer of 1858, detailed account of the events leading up to Havi­ momentous improvements started to take place in land's report, the minute book of the Union itself, its sewer design and water supply. dealings with the Local Government Board, and the These changes took time to have an effect, and annual reports of the Medical Officer of Health to they came to the cities before the countryside: death that Board. rates from typhoid climbed sharply in the 1860s and The evidence suggests first that Barnard Smith in 1870s, as the substantial new housing stock built a particular must have been dreadfully over-worked, century earlier began to become outdated. In the as all this new government legislation and expecta­ 1880s and 1890s, however, the importance of good tion bore down on him. Besides all his parish and public and private health became much more firmly charity duties in G laston (Thomson 1999) he was on rooted in the public imagination. Thring would pos­ every sub-committee of the Union - a practice sibly have been aware of these changes even in the which his successor as Chairman ended less than a mid-1 870s. Had typhoid come to Uppingham even a week after Smith's death. decade later, the town would surely have been better The evidence also suggests, that the Guardians prepared - both practically and intellectually. (committee members) of the Union really did strive Secondly, there are the dramatic changes in to do the right thing. Their smallpox vaccinations (a national and local government through the Public big issue of the time) were well up to the average Health Acts of 1872 and 1875, and secondary legis­ each year. They accounted scrupulously for work­ lation such as the Infectious Diseases Notification house expenditure. They consulted the Local Govern­ Act of 1879. In just a few years which exactly span ment Board very meticulously through their clerk the Borth affair in 1876-77, central government gave over a whole variety of issues, from payment of local authorities the power to appoint Boards of workhouse officials to the sum they should contri­ Health in cities or sanitary committees in towns. It bute to Haviland's salary when he was first appoin­ compelled them to remove nuisances, and to provide ted. They set up new sub-committees very promptly adequate water, sewerage and drainage and to in response to changing national legislation. They remove slums. And it set up a network of Medical had spent nearly £3,000 on improvements in 15 Officers of Health. We should also note a common years, and more were intended in the future. Al­ perception held at the time about Medical Officers though anonymous letters to The Times (presumably of Health in general - that they posed a threat to the encouraged by the School) depicted Uppingham as a old idea that 'An Englishman's home is his castle'. 'plague-stricken city', it seems to have been no more This would certainly go a long way towards explain­ unhealthy than many other places at the time. ing Thring's extraordinary hostility to Haviland and And the Committee did put pressure on the Local to two local clergymen, the Rev Barnard Smith and Government Board to grant them accelerated powers the Rev William Wales, as explained below. (or bye-laws) to enforce better building regulations All these changes were to be supervised by the and to organise sanitary improvements over several Local Government Board - another largely new cre­ years before 1875, and also to borrow money or ation. The speed and recent nature of all this is very raise rates to pay for them. Whether this obsession significant - but the changes were not quite fully with bye-laws (and whether their preoccupation with developed: Haviland believed that Thring was on the the claim that they should be given the status of an very edge of the law in not notifying the second urban Sanitary Authority rather than a rural one) typhoid outbreak to the authorities; a decade later he were justified is hard to say; there are certainly would have been in breach of it. suggestions in the Local Government Board papers that they had quite enough powers already to do Local and national government in practice what was necessary, and the comings and goings on The Uppingham Poor Law Union which ran the this issue took nearly five years after the passing of

33 Uppingham bythe Sea the Public Health Act of 1872 - until, in fact, the ever been written about him, although several typhoid crisis overtook them. volumes of his diaries and letters were published in At central government level, the Local Govern­ the years following his death (Parkin 1898) and ment Board was still a fledgling organisation in others have also written about him ( eg Rawnsley 1875. Treasury control kept it short of money, and 1926, Hoyland 1946). its work was far from glamorous. It did not rate Cormac Rigby wrote his Oxford DPhil thesis on highly in prestige terms where civil service recruit­ Thring in the 1960s, and this has provided a great ment was concerned; not surprisingly it came over deal of valuable background (Rigby 1968). He recog­ the next few years to have a reputation for slowness nises that the typhoid episode was the greatest drama and grinding bureaucracy. If its dealings with of Thring's career - a turning point afterwhich came Uppingham in this period are anything to go by, the Thring's last decade, which he described as 'the reputation seems deserved; it seems to have pro­ years of maturity'. Thring believed passionately in ceeded with extreme caution, to have worried away all-round education at a time when many schools about whether the plans for the new railway would were classically narrow: drawing, painting, modern cut across the route of the proposed new water languages, natural science, music, gymnastics, car­ supply, and to have done very little to put pressure pentry all came within his orbit, and he wrote at on its allied agency, the Public Works Loan Board, length on the skills needed to be a good teacher at a to speed up the necessary finance. time when others gave it little thought. He believed On the other hand the Local Government Board that boys needed personal space, hence his desire for was regularly bombarded with memos - and the individual studies and partitioned dormitories; he rail­ occasional visit - fromboth Thring and the Sanitary ed against state interference, central inspection and Committee. Between 1870 and 1877 there are nearly payment by exam results. He believed that schools 200 references to business between the Board and must not cater simply for an intellectual elite. one side in this dispute or the other - and that is Thring was a great man: but he was also not a before its overburdened civil servants started on the man to let others get in his way. There is plenty of activities ofrest of the country. evidence that he did not suffer fools gladly. When In making this defence of the Town authorities I under pressure he did not mince words; his diary out­ should say Cormac Rigby is not convinced. He was pourings are littered with such phrases as 'these jacks­ kind enough recently to discuss all this with me in-office' and 'local tyranny'. His annotated copy of recently; he castigates the Town both for its lack of Haviland's report is still held by the School - urgency and lack of action, both before the first scrawled on with words like 'irrelevant', 'rambling' outbreak, and during the winter of 1875-76. and 'tautological'. He was highly strung, admitting to nervous indigestion as he returned to Uppingham Personalities each year from the summer holidays. When times What of the personalities involved? I have men­ were difficult he tended to withdraw into periods of tioned already the mixture of complacency and prick­ self-righteousness which his opponents found hard liness which typified Dr Bell, the School Doctor. to tolerate and impossible to understand. The personalities of the main antagonists provide an Like many people with inner demons to conquer, added dimension, for one of the main reasons why Thring had an outwardly very strong sense of self­ this dispute became so remarkably bitter must surely destiny. He likened the School's time at Borth to the lie in the inability of anyone to compromise. exile which the Israelites underwent in the Old Tes­ tament, and each year after the Return he preached Th e Rev Edward Thring about God's deliverance at the annual Borth Com­ We have already seen Thring's forceful, messianic, memoration Service on St Barnabas' Day, 11th June. even bullying characteristics - born surely of He was a tortuous sermoniser in a way that many desperation - and we identified them back in 1975- foundi rritating, perhaps patronising - even in an age 76. He was in post from 1853 until he died in 1887, of highly articulated ideals. and he was without doubt one of the great figures of He was also a man with powerful friends, whom Victorian education, second perhaps only to the he was not afraid to use to bring pressure to bear on famous Dr Thomas Arnold of Rugby in fame. Des­ others. He was well placed to keep up this pressure, pite the fact that he was an original thinker with a and his literary outpourings included two major distinctive educational philosophy, a man of quite articles in The Times, describing the great Welsh exceptional energy and the man who put Uppingham adventure. He had published plenty of other books, School very much on the national map as one of the and he moved in national circles amid the moving figures in the foundation of the Head­ educational debates of the day. Charismatic, but not masters' Conference in 1869, no major book has wholly attractive, perhaps ....

34 Upp ingham by the Sea

The Rev Barnard Sm ith Uppingham's former country grammar school, even Barnard Smith was a former 28th Wrangler (not 4th, though he sat on its governing body. He seems to pace Longden 1938-52, as Thomson (1999) points have given Thring a challenging time in that role - out) and a successful Senior Bursar and Classical including threatening him at the time of the decision Lecturer of Peterhouse, Cambridge, who had accep­ to go to Borth that 'the Trustees will stop it all'. He ted the plum living of Glaston, where he was insti­ also refused to have the bells of the Church rung tuted on 26th January 1861, shortly before his during the celebrations to mark the School's return. marriage that October (Longden 1938-52). He was a There is a suggestion in his obituary article in the man of means - he built the very fine Rectory there. Northampton Herald (1879) that he had moved to He too did not suffer fools gladly, and he was not a Uppingham because of ill health - possibly brought man to cross lightly - but he also inspired great on by sustained opposition in Northampton. He too affection and loyalty in his supporters both in Glas­ had strong supporters, but also vociferous enemies, ton and in Uppingham, not least for his formidable in part because of his vigorous collection of the work rate, although by 1875-76 he had had to be Church Rates - to the extent that his enemies drew persuaded to stay on as Chairman of the Union for cartoons of him and nicknamed him 'Billy Wales, the following year. It seems that he had had enough. the black slug'. He ran his parish very efficiently, and its chari­ ties scrupulously. He probably had a very tidy mind. Dr AlfredHavila nd He wrote a pamphlet on the importance of correct Contrary to my expectation, Haviland was not mere­ procedures in matters of ecclesiastical dilapidations, ly an officiouslocal doctor with the imposing title of and the style of his mathematical textbooks ( eg Medical Officer of Health. His obituaries in The Arithmetic fo r Schools) is laconic and businesslike. Lancet and the British Medical Journalshow him to One suspects that Thring (with his florid style and have been a true Victorian polymath - surgeon, big-picture mentality, but less patience for the detail) author and founder of the science of medical map­ would not have been at home with a Bursar of any ping; he wrote a number of learned works on pat­ sort. It is not surprising that they did not get on - but terns of disease in various parts of the country, as it is hard to read exactly what Thring meant when, well as a pamphlet on the medical dangers of hurry on hearing in Borth in January 1877 of the and excitement when travelling by train. supremely ironical news of Barnard Smith's own But he too was a man never afraid to court death from typhoid, he remarked: 'Poor fellow, it is controversy. He stated categorically that Uppingham fearful to be taken suddenly away while in the midst had been a much healthier-than-average place before of doing such wrong.' 1875, although there is at least some evidence to the contrary. There are suggestions that he exceeded his The Rev Chancellor William Wales legal powers in some of the visits to houses during William Wales, the Rector of Uppingham, appears his investigations in the autumn of 1875. He em­ to have played the role of able lieutenant. He was a broiled himself in a dispute with Rogers Field over key figure on the Uppingham Poor Law Union, and engineering arguments as to where the new water Chairman of the Nuisances Committee, responsible works should be sited. He described the whole epi­ for street clearance. Like Barnard Smith, he had held sode on one occasion as 'this tedious dispute'. his living for a long time - since December 1858, This tendency to confront seems to have been in nearly 20 years (Longden 1938-52). He was near character with his activities elsewhere. The North­ retirement - a Rector supported by two curates, and ampton Herald in 1903 speaks of 'his great indepen­ also a man of means and of land. He appears to have dence of spirit'. It also describes how he and his been rather imperious, and another cleric with a Health Authority got embroiled in an extraordinary strong sense of public duty. dispute over the printing costs of his annual reports - His secondary role as Chancellor of the Peter­ which they thought were far too long, and to which borough Diocese suggests another tidy, legalistic he retorted by having them printed on cheap news­ mindset and strong sense of procedural appropriate­ paper. Furthermore, when Northampton was allowed nesses - and probably shared interests and friendship to extend itself to the south side of the River Nene, with Barnard Smith. Wales had done remarkable' he wrote that 'Northampton has placed its dead successful work over a long period in his earlier (and where the living ought to be housed and the living probably much more fashionable) living at All where the dead ought to be buried.' Not an easy man: Saints, Northampton, from 1833-59. He had strong small wonder that he and Thring fell out so quickly. interests in the SPCK, Sunday Schools and educa­ tional matters generally; it is unlikely that he would Unanswered questions have wholly approved of what Thring had done to Some questions still remain. To what extent did the

35 Uppingham by the Sea inhabitants of the Town stand to lose from the Hodgkinson, who ran the Lower School for Thring, School's temporary absence? How large a direct preached regularly in Wales's parish church. Are employer was the School? If Borth residents talked there others in this saga with similarly divided loyal­ about the School's move as an 'invasion', those of ties? In these, as in many other ways, this descrip­ Uppingham must surely have seen it as a 'desertion'. tion represents work still in progress. Can more be discovered about changing attitudes amongst the ratepayers to the cost of reform as the Is it significant? crisis developed and the School leftthe town? Trade Meanwhile, it is possible to see these events in one directories need to be compared with census infor­ of two contradictory ways. In terms of the history of mation for 187 l and 1881, for an examination of the disease, they probably represented little out of the 1851 census return in Uppingham undertaken recent­ ordinary in nineteenth century rural England. There ly (Uppingham Local History Study Group 2001) is no special mention of Uppingham in any of the shows that there were disputes back in the 1840s annual reports of the national Medical Officer of between the various Town agencies about how much Health to the Local Government Board during the to spend on sanitary improvements. We need to dis­ 1870s, even though typhoid outbreaks in Croydon cover how many shopkeepers there were and how and Ascot led to special appendices in those reports. many people employed by the School. So we have to conclude that the Uppingham out­ Can more be discovered about how far improve­ break was seen by the authorities as not untypical. ments had really gone by April 1877 - especially in But we are also left with an extraordinary tale - sewerage? More work needs also to be done on the both about Victorian education and about evolving local power structures in a rural community, and on medical knowledge and local government - as well Thring's ability to lobby and persuade them. Some as a collection of unusually powerful personalities. of the evidence is there in his letters, albeit in extract As Thring himself claimed: 'That year at Borth form. How much did the School's networks and the stands alone in the history of schools: the School town ones actually overlap? The Rev William Wales died and is alive again.' Whether Barnard Smith, was both a school Trustee and a Sanitary Committee buried in a less elaborate grave in a different leading light; he was one of the masters' sternest churchyard less than two miles away from Thring, critics, and yet he was also a longstanding friend of would see it in quite the same way must be a matter senior housemaster William Earle. The Rev R J for conjecture.

Bibliography and Sources

Field, R, Bye-Laws and Regulations with reference to Parkin, G R, Edward Thring: Headmaster of Uppingham House Drainage, adoptedby the Up pingham Sanitary School. Life, Diary and Letters (I, 1898, and later Authority and allowed by the Local Government volumes) Board. With explanations and suggestions by R F Rawlinson, R, Uppingham: Town and School Reports (London 1877, 2nd ed 1878) (Uppingham School archives) Haviland, A, Report on the late Outbreak of Enteric Rawnsley, W F, Edward Thring, maker of Uppingham Fever in Archdeacon Jo hnson 's School Uppingham ... School (London 1926) (1876) Rigby, C, The Lifeand Influence of Edward Turing ( 1968: Hoyland, G, The Man who made a School (1946) Bodleian Library and Uppingham School Archives) Jenkins, G H, & Jones, I G, Cardiganshire County Skrine, J H, Uppingham by the Sea: a narrative of the History: 3: Cardiganshire in Modern Times (Cardiff year at Borth (London 1878) 1998) Thomson, A, A Study of Roles and Relations in a Rutland Longden, H I, Northamptonshire & Rutland Clergyfrom Village ... : Glaston c 1860-90 (MA dissertation, Eng­ 1500 (Northampton 1938-52) lish Local History, University of Leicester 1999) Matthews, B, By God 's Grace: a history of Up pingham Thring, E, Borth Lyrics (Uppingham 1881) School (1984) Uppingham Local History Group, Up pingham in 1851: A Matthews, B, TheBook of Rutland (Buckingham 1978) night in the life of a thriving town (Uppingham 2002) Novello & Co, Songs of Uppingham School ... composed Up pingham SchoolMagazine (Uppingham, various dates) and arranged by the Music-Masters of Up pingham Vaughan, H M, TheSouth Wales Squires: a Welsh picture Schoolfrom ADI 856 (London nd) of social life (London 1926) Nicholson, G, The Cambrian Traveller 's Guide and Waites, B (ed), Whowas Who in Rutland, Rutland Record Pocket Companion (3rd edn, London, 1840) 8 (1988)

36 Uppingham by the Sea

Appendix 1 - The Colony, from Borth Lyrics (Thring 1881)

East and west, and north and south, Open on the level sward As if we were shot from a cannon's mouth, Slid Gogerddan's* hills between, Hurrah, Hurrah! here we all are. When Gogerddan's genial lord Never was heard in peace or war, Looked upon the starry green, The firstin the world are we, Lady-bright with summer stars, Never, oh, never, was heard before, Heard the schoolboys' loud hurrahs. Since a ball was a ball, And a wall a wall, Lo! the panting cricket train And a boy to play was free, Up the valley slowly creeps, That a school as old as an old oak tree, Lo! a boyish hurricane Fast by the roots, was flungup in the air, E'en over Cader Idris sweeps. Up in the air without thought or care, Never in the good greenwood And pitched on its fe et by the sea, the sea, Lived more gaily Robin Hood. Pitched on its feetby the sea. Little bits of fairy world, Ere the old school walls were dumb Fairy streamlets, dropping rills, With the silence of despair, And the Lery softly curled "March boys, march! the end has come!" In amongst the dreaming hills: Rang the watchword proud and clear. Never in the good greenwood We our standard rallied around, Lived more gaily Robin Hood. Thrice a hundred faithful found. East and west, and north and south, Playgrounds - leagues on leagues of shore; As if we were shot from a cannon's mouth, Class-rooms - all the sea-king's caves; Hurrah, Hurrah! here we all are. We are touched by Ariel's power, Never was heard in peace or war, Free of air, and earth, and waves. The first in the world are we, We are elves of Ariel's range, Never, oh, never, was heard before, Nought but suffers a sea change. Since a ball was a ball, And a wall a wall, Ah! the wand has laid its spell And a boy to play was free, Over cricket-fieldsand trees; That a school as old as an old oak tree, Presto! - woods, and mountains, shells, Fast by the roots, was flung up in the air, Rocks, and sea-anemones; Up in the air without thought or care, Thrice turn round and shut your eyes, And pitched on its feet by the sea, the sea, Open to a fresh surprise. Pitched on its feet by the sea.

* Gogerddan: the seat of Sir Pryse Pryse, Bart

37 Rutland History and Archaeology in 2000

Edited by TH McK CLOUGH

The following abbreviations are used in this section: APS Archaeological Project Services LMARS Leicestershire Museums, Arts & Records Service RCM Rutland County Museum ROLLR Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland RR Rutland Record SMR Leicestershire & Rutland Sites and Monuments Record TLAHS Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological & Historical Society ULAS . University of Leicester Archaeological Services

I - Archaeological Fieldwork during 2000 Short reports, arranged in alphabetical order by parish, submitted by APS, RLHRS Archaeological Group, ULAS, and others.

Ayston, Parliament Field (SK 8600) Edith Weston, Church Lane (SK 92700535) An end-of-blade scraper which could date as far back A watching brief was undertaken by C Moulis of APS as the late Upper Palaeolithic/early Mesolithic (fig. 1) during development adjacent to the 12th century St was found on the ploughsoil with nearly 300 other Mary's church in the medieval centre of Edith Weston. worked flints of the late Mesolithic, Neolithic and Ear­ Two large pits, probably quarries for the extraction of ly Bronze Age during a fieldwalking survey by the stone, were revealed. Both were medieval in date and RLHRS Archaeological Group in November 2000. The had been backfilled with material containing animal end-scraper and some of the flints have been seen by bone and ceramics of the period, including the substan­ Lynden Cooper of ULAS and Roger Jacobi of the Bri­ tial remains of a 12th- l 4th century cooking pot made tish Museum. in kilns in the Stanion-Lyveden area, some 15 miles to Late Upper Palaeolithic flint material was found the Sin Northamptonshire. Foundations and a floor of four miles to the W on the Leicestershire-Rutland a large limestone and brick structure of post-medieval border by ULAS (RR 17 (1997), 322). The Glaston date were also revealed. A second limestone and brick early UpperPala eolithic site lies two miles to the E. wall and associated stone slab floor is probably another Abundant tap slag was also recovered and, noted by building. A circular well, lined with limestone, was Jane Cowgill as being pre-1500 in date, indicates iron also exposed. These features probably represent the smelting in the vicinity (RLHRS R35; SMR 80SE.BS, remains of Edith Weston hall and associated structures, BT). buildings of probable medieval origin that were Elaine Jo nes, RLHRS demolished in 1957 (RCM Al5.2000). TobinRayner, APS Caldecott (SP 8694) Great Easton Archaeological Fieldwork Group recor­ Empingham, 11 Church Street (SK 949085) ded a late Iron Age and Roman site SW of the villa An archaeological watching brief was undertaken by previously reported (TLAHS 74 (2000), 256-7). Pottery ULAS on behalf of Mr T Ellison, during groundworks included samian, colour-coated ware, Northampton­ for a new dwelling on land at 11 Church Street, shire hard grogged ware, and grey ware. The Group Empingham. The site lies within the historic core of a also recovered a large assemblage of early medieval village of archaeological significance, and observations pottery derived from the Deserted Medieval Village of recorded a multiple inhumation burial, probably of Snelston, but from outside the area of the Scheduled Romandate. The burials were lifted because they were Ancient Monument. This is dominated by Stanion­ threatened by the development. In addition a linear Lyveden wares with a small component of Stamford feature, possibly an infilled boundary ditch or soak­ wares and other fabrics(SMR 89SE.AE, AA). away, was recorded (RCM A4.2000). Richard Pollard, LMARS Way ne Jarvis, ULA S

38 Rutland in 2000

Empingham, Main Street (SK 951087) during the later Mesolithic as a temporary fieldstat ion. Development in the medieval core of Empingham was A small pit was also revealed which contained the monitored by APS on behalf of Landbilt Ltd. Previous broken remains of at least two later prehistoric pottery investigations in the area had revealed medieval en­ vessels. Due to the relatively undiagnostic nature of the closures defined by gullies and postholes at the site, sherds a general Bronze Age-Iron Age date was sug­ while just to the E stone foundations of a medieval gested. One sherd, however, displayed characteristics building had been identified. A group of postholes and of the Deverel-Rimbury tradition, perhaps hinting at a an intermittent ditch, aligned E-W, parallel with Main more general Bronze Age date for the assemblage. This Street, were identified in the SW comer of the site. would tie in with earlier finds of Bronze Age cre­ Other ditches, also aligned either parallel or at right mations during sand quarrying nearby in the 1940s angles to the modern highway, were revealed else­ (Powell 1950). A small background scatter of flints, where across the area, and a calf burial was identified. including a Later Neolithic/Early Bronze Age strike-a­ These remains were all undated but were sealed by light, was also recovered. subsoils containing 18th-l 9th century artefacts, to­ gether with moderately abundant, redeposited medieval Medieval remains (l lth-14th century) pottery. A moderate quantity of As suggested from the results of the evaluation, the iron-smelting slag, probably medieval or earlier in maj ority of the archaeological remains represented date, was also recovered and may imply metal pro­ early medieval lifein Glaston. No continuation of the duction in the vicinity. Two recent ditches, aligned N­ Anglo-Saxon cemetery recorded during the 1940s' S, one of large size and probably a former field boun­ quarrying (Leeds & Barber 1950) was revealed, al­ dary, were also revealed, and there were also a few though a small group of human bone retrieved from a prehistoric flints (RCM A 17.2000). 12th century pit may represent remains from a distur­ TobinR ner, APS bed burial. Activity during the medieval period began ay in the I0th- 11th centuries when a series of Ii near Glaston, Grange Farm (SK 896005) ditches combined to demarcate a squared area of land. Following the discovery of medieval features during a It is likely that this area represents the northern end of previous evaluation (TLAHS 73 (1999), 119) further a common feature within medieval villages known as a excavation was undertaken by ULAS in advance of 'toft'. The toftwas an enclosed farmyardwithin which proposed redevelopment. An unexpected discovery of both the domestic dwelling and farm buildings would an early Upper Palaeolithic site was made towards the have been located, and various associated activities end of the scheduled excavation, with important fauna! undertaken. Additional ditches to the W and N of the and archaeological remains. As the discovery was enclosed area suggested extra enclosures on the outside clearly of national significance a second stage of of the toft. Successive recutting of the ditches and excavation was undertaken with financial support from analysis of the range of pottery finds from within English Heritage and specialist support from the Bri­ suggested that the toft was in active use until the late tish Museum and the Natural History Museum (Cooper 13th century. Within the toft area a small scatter of pits 2001, Thomas and Jacobi 200 l ). A fuller report on the and postholes suggested low level activities, a conclu­ results of this excavation will be published in a future sion that was also supported by the general lack of volume of TL AHS. The site attracted wide publicity, finds in any greatquantity. There was a marked fall-off and many visitors attended special open days (fig. 3). in activities within the exposed part of the toft as the The first stage of excavation, following on from an centuries progressed, and it seems likely that life may evaluation in 1998 (RR 20 (2000), 450), produced have foc used on the suggested domestic area to the S, archaeological evidence of activities on the site during nearest the current A47 road. Following the redundan­ the later prehistoric and early medieval periods. cy of the toft boundary a mixed soil layer, containing quantities of refuse, further indicated a periodof aban­ Later prehistoric remains donment on the site. Excluding those thought to be Palaeolithic, some l 00 A phase of quarrying in the early 14th century was worked flints were recovered from the site. There is a indicated by several large pits on the eastern edge of strong late Mesolithic flint component of perhaps up to the site, adjacent to the current Wing Road. A timber 65 pieces with an evident bladelet technology and/or structure situated within the quarried area appeared to patinated appearance. There are several diagnostic respect the edges of the quarry pits and mayhave been pieces such as a microlith of micro-tranchet form, a related to this phase of activity. A single ditch was the truncated bladelet and two burins on truncations. The only evidence of further medieval activity, dating to discarded tools from the assemblage hint at the activi­ the later 14th or early 15th century. Further quarrying ties that may have been undertaken on the site, particu­ during the 17th century onwards had left its mark on larly the microlith, which may point to toolkit main­ the site and several large pits had disturbed the tenance, and the burins, which are suggestive of bone, medieval and earlier remains. At some point between wood or antler working. Given the upland location of 1841 and 1886 (based on the available cartographic the site it might be suggested that the site was used evidence) a walled boundary was introduced to the site

39 Rutland in 2000 which, interestingly, accurately reflected the earlier toft fluve between the Welland valley to the S and the boundary, suggesting that the original enclosed area Gwash valley to the N. This faulting has been still held importance. attributed to extensional stresses in the bedrock caused Archive: LMARS GLA2000; finds to be retained by by the cambering of competent strata on the valley the formerlandowner, Captain RE J Boyle. flanks and the squeezing out of the underlying Liassic clays. Such processes would have been particularly Cooper, L, The Glaston glutton and other strange beasts, operative under periglacial conditions. These condi­ Rescue News 83 (2001), 1-3. tions seefll to occur (but have not been recognised as Leeds, E T, & Barber, J L, An Anglian Cemetery at such) along many of the E-W ridges which characterise Glaston, Rutland, Antiq Jo urn XXX (1950), 185-9. central and southern Rutland, where the Geological Powell, T G E, Notes on the Bronze Age in the East Map shows faulted inliers of higher Middle Jurassic Midlands, XVI (1950), 65-80. Proc Prehist Soc strata round hilltop settlements such as Manton, Wing Thomas, J, & Jacobi, R, Gl aston, Current Archaeol 173, (200 I), 180-4. and Seaton as well as at Glaston. The writer's interpretation of the bedrock geology Ly nden Cooper & John Thomas, UL AS at the Glaston site is therefore as shown in the Geological observations accompanying diagrammatic section (fig. 4). The main The writer visited the site on 2nd June 2000 and was floor of the excavation is formed of downfaulted clean asked by Lynden Cooper to comment on the geological brown-yellow (and, when dry, running) sands of the conditions present. He was shown around the excava­ LES. The stratigraphic level at the top of the excava­ tion by Simon Calcot, consultant geologist to English tion is at, or very close to, the geological boundary Heritage, who had been commissioned to investigate between the LES and the conformably overlying LLL fully the superficial deposits which carry the archaeo­ with relict blocks or rafts ( the so-called doggers) of the logical material. basal LLL resting on the sands. These rafts or mini­ As noted above, these archaeological layers have outliers are formed of hard banded and close-bedded yielded palaeontological and anthropogenic material, sandy and silty limestone characteristic of the Colly­ the formerincluding bones of woolly rhinoceros, horse weston slate facies found in the basal part of the LLL and wolverine and the tooth of a bison, and the latter in this part of Rutland. The rafts may be in true including flint implements, notably a leaf point tool stratigraphic position or more likely may have sunk and a core. The age is put tentatively at around 30,000 slightly into the soft underlying sands as a result of years bp (before the present), placing the level well periglacial repositioning. Small faults and thrusts de­ within the Devensian cold period. The bedrock, which tectable in cleaned sections of the LES sands are con­ has been well cleaned, comprises softyellow sand with sistent with the above-described processes responsible large irregularly scattered rafts of hard layered sandy for the down-faulted inlier. The breaking up of the limestone or calcareous sandstone ( called '

40 Rutland in 2000

Fig. 1. Early flint end-scraper.from Ayston Fig. 2. Neolithic polished stone axe.fr om Tinwell (s cale 1 :2; drawing: Elaine Jones) (s cale 1 :2; drawing: Elaine Jo nes)

Fig. 3. Visitors touring the Glaston Palaeolithic site at an open day (photograph: Elaine Jones)

s EXTENSIONALSTRESS GLASTON VILLAGE EXTENSIONAL STRESS

\ I > CAMBERING RAFfS OF LLL ✓ / CAMBERING \�\ I

Q-IATER VALLEY

FAULTS

SQUEEZED UL QAY SQUEEZED UL Q.AY

Fig. 4. Diagrammatic N-S section of bedrock geology across the Glas ton ridge (Clive Jones) LLL (black) = Lower Lincolnshire Limestone (Collyweston Slate Facies) LES (white) = Lower Estuarine Series (now Grantham Formation) NS (dotted) = Northampton Sand Formation UL (dashed) = Upper Lias Clays

41 Rutland in 2000 pottery present suggest an earlier Roman settlement. of former flues/ chimneys. Around the oven detailed Nearly 200 pieces of Neolithic/Bronze Age flint, hand cleaning produced occasional post-holes but no including fourteen "scrapers", were also retained coherent building plan was recovered. (RLHRS Rl 8). Archaeological evidence for occupation appears to be dissipating as the soil strip moves slowly south­ Hartley, R F, The Me dieval Earthworks of Rutland: a wards, confirming the results of the air photographs, survey (Leicester 1983) geophysical survey and trial trenching. Elaine Jo nes, RLHRS Quarry extension, evaluation Ketton, Geeston, R Welland bank A number of areas previously unavailable for study (SK 98900422) were subject to fieldwalking, geophysical surveys and In response to a proposal to create a lake alongside the a programme of selective trial excavation. Although R Welland, APS carried out a programme of field small quantities of worked flint and Roman and medi­ survey and evaluation. Adjacent to the site are earth­ eval pottery were recovered, no new sites were located works of the shrunken medieval settlement, and ridge during fieldwalking. The geophysical reconnaissance and furrow crosses the investigation area. Earthwork survey similarly did not locate any previously un­ survey recorded this ridge and furrow and the edges of known archaeological features. some of the probable settlement closes. Subsequently, The combination of detailed geophysical survey four evaluation trenches were excavated. Three of and trial excavation confirmed the presence of archaeo­ these were located on the river floodplain and revealed logical features previously known from aerial photo­ only natural alluvial deposits. The fourth trench, graphs. Other than an example of pillow mounds in one positioned at the edge of the ridge and furrow field, most of the remains appear to represent Iron Age earthworks, revealed two pits or postholes and a N-S or Roman field systems, though one ring ditch could gully. The latter is aligned approximately at right­ either be settlement related, or possibly a round angles to the ridge and furrow which is oriented E-W. barrow. There was no evidence for Second World War All three features are probably of Late Saxon-medieval or later defences associated with North Luffenham date but also contained Romano-British pottery. A airbase, as had previously been suggested from the air single fragment of Early Saxon pottery and a small photographic evidence. quantity of medieval or earlier iron-smelting slag were (RCM A25. l 998) also recovered. However, in spite of the location of the Jan Meadows & Mark Holmes, site adjacent to the river it was judged that the Northamptonshire Archaeology proposed lake would not impinge on any archaeo­ logical deposits (RCM A8.2000). Ketton, St Mary (SK 981043) Steve Malone, APS APS maintained a watching brief on behalf of V Couzens Ltd during the installation of a drain through Ketton, Grange Top Quarry the 12th century church and churchyard. Saxon stone­ (SK 966052 (centre)) work has previously been found in the church, and a priest is mentioned in Domesday Book. A former Quarry watching brief graveyard soil, apparently of medieval date, was re­ A programme of observation and recording begun vealed and contained an undated burial. A single frag­ earlier by Northamptonshire Archaeology on behalf of ment of redeposited Late Saxon pottery was recovered Castle Cement Ltd continued throughout 2000. The from this burial. An undated stone culvert was also stripped area progressed to the S, exposing a con­ identified within the medieval graveyard soil. Deposits tinuation of the previously observed drove, aligned and features associated with documented mid-19th NE-SW, and on its western side its junction with a century restoration of the church occurred extensively further drove, aligned NW-SE, was recovered. The (RCM Al6.2000). system of drove ways was clearly modified during the Paul Cope-Faulkner, life of the settlement with a small cemetery placed in a Northamptonshire Archaeology close defined in the NE-SW example (TLA HS 74 (2000), 257-8). This route opened out into the fields at Oakham, Ashwell Road (SK 8609) its southern end, with only the eastern side defined by Worked flints and Roman, medieval and post-medieval recut ditches. The other drove produced evidence for pottery were found during building development one side having been defined by a line of mature trees, (RLHRS R33). the large root boles surviving. Sue Davidson, RLHRS Detailed examination of a single T-shaped malting oven took place. This example had a small oven on one Oakham, Cattle Market, South Street side of its stoke hole. Samples for analysis were taken (SK 85580860) from a number of points within the flues to see if In advance of groundworks for a proposed retail particle size might provide an indication ofthe location development on the site of the redundant cattle market

42 Rutland in 2000 on South St, Oakham, an initial archaeological mitiga­ Ridlington, St Mary Magdalen & St Andrew tion strategy was implemented with a view to excava­ (SK 847027) ting any archaeological deposits which would be Replacement of the pew support platform within the disturbed within the footprint of the proposed develop­ church during August 2000 and January 2001 required ment. Since disturbance of potential archaeological archaeological recording. A rammed earth floor, pro­ deposits was likely to come from the proposed 33 bably a mix of lime, sand, earth and mud, was exposed stanchions to support the main frame of the building, when the overlying rotten pew supports were removed. these were excavated using archaeological principles. This floor sealed and protected any early archaeo­ The main frontage of the proposed building (along logical evidence; its date is not known, but it could South St) was also subjected to a controlled archaeo­ have been laid in the late 17th century because it parti­ logical strip and additional evaluation. Substantial ally covered a brick vault, and it is certainly earlier remains of 19th century yard activity were discovered than the 1860 renovations because it abutted a robber/ and recorded in the NW of the development area, and a foundation trench of an earlier N aisle wall. "Lumps possible cellar and undated pit were revealed in and bumps" protruding through the floor indicated a association with the ruined building in the NE of the possible earlier N wall to the nave. area. All archaeological work was undertaken by On top of this earth floor, reused old timbers had ULAS in November 2000 (added to RCM A 12.1998). been laid as part of the pew platformsupport. Amongst Simon Chapman, ULAS these, Elizabeth Bryan noted a 15th-l 7th century moulded ceiling beam and two window shutter beams Oak.ham,3 Choir Close (SK 861 088) from a big window in a substantial house which were An archaeological inspection of eight auger samples pre- 17th century and therefore medieval or late medi­ was undertaken by ULAS on behalf of Smithers eval. These timbers were rotten and not retained Purslow & Company on 23rd June 2000. Pottery dating (RLHRS R32, R36). from the 1 0th/1 Ith centuries was retrieved (RCM Elaine Jones, RLHRS Al 1.2000). Sally Warren, ULAS Ridlington (SK 8302) Yet another iron slag concentration, on land N of Oak.ham, Stamford Road (SK 869086) Holygate Road and W of the earthworks of the Sche­ Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit were duled Ancient Monument, was reported to Robert commissioned by John Samuels Archaeological Con­ Ovens by Michael Gray of Ridlington. The date is not sultants on behalfof David Wilson Estates to undertake known as no associated dating evidence such as pottery a programme of trial trenching and excavation on land was to be seen (RLHRS R24; see also RR 20 (2000), offStamford Road, fol lowing a desk based assessment, 449). a geophysical survey, and a programme of trial Elaine Jo nes, RLHRS trenching and excavation. Excavation revealed a series of Iron Age/ Romano­ Thorpe by Water (SP 9096) British enclosures and associated features situated The site of the Roman pottery reported in RR 20 along the southern bank of a stream that marked the (2000), 449, was fieldwalked by RLHRS in November northern extent of the site. Archaeological depositssur ­ 1999. More than I 00 Romano-British potsherds were vived largely at the bottom of the valley slope where collected. Metal objects and six bronze coins were they were protected from later truncation by ploughing found by the East Leicestershire Detector Group led by by a build-up of colluviurn/alluvium. Further up the Steve Houghton. The earliest coin was possibly AD hill slope only the most substantial features survived. 238-70, while two were of Constantine I (AD 307-37). The remains of an eaves-drip gully, a pit and These finds may point to a previously unrecorded several small sections of linear features dated to the Roman settlement overlooking the River Welland flood Early-Middle Iron Age. A series of substantial ditches plain which may be part of a planned Roman landscape and associated gullies and pits suggested a settlement as other sites have been recorded, for example, at focus in the NW corner of the field, dating to the Late Drayton, Turtle Bridge, Tixover, Caldecott and Ketton Iron Age. A smaller, contemporary enclosure dating to (RLHRS R22). the first century BC had been cut through the Late Iron Elaine Jo nes, RLHRS Age ditch sequence. This ditch was subsequently recut Tinwell sometime towards the end of the first century/early second century AD. Post-Roman and modern features Coin hoard were also found, including medieval ridge and furrow. A hoard of some 2,600 late 3rd century Roman coins The evidence suggests that flash floods occurred originally buried in a pot was found during a metal­ periodically during occupation of the site, necessitating detectors' field day in a field on high ground near the recutting of eaves-drip gullies and other more shal­ Ketton quarry, between the valleys of the Gwash and low features, as well as substantial ditches. the Welland. The site was then examined by Rutland per Patrick Clay, ULA S County Museum staffwho recovered a few additional

43 Rutland in 2000 coins and potsherds, and identifiedthe base of the pit spar crystals are rare. Rock clasts include very fine­ in which it had been buried. The hoard and its pot were grained "rhyolite", with some comprising feldspar­ later acquired by the Museum following a Treasure chlorite or feldspar-epidote intergrowths.' The rock, Inquest (RCM A47.2001). which is a banded volcanic tuff from the Borrowdale The RLHRS Archaeological Group was invited to Volcanic Series and displays softsedimentary faulting, conduct a fieldwalking survey of the area to ascertain is assigned to the petrological Group VI, which has an whether or not there was any additional evidence of a origin in the Langdale area of the Lake District. Roman presence to shed light on the originsof the coin The axe is one of a small number of such deposit. implements from the same prolific source, probably The immediate site of the hoard had no previous dating from the 3rd millennium BC, which have been archaeological record, although just to the S aerial discovered in Rutland, mostly as stray finds. Others are photographs showed very faint cropmarks which, with known from Great Casterton, Market Overton, Oakham hindsight, may have included Iron Age enclosures. (two finds), Pickworth and Ridlington (Clough & This situation, with enclosures on high ground with Cummins 1988, 47, 199, 201; RCM records). Only the fine views, can be compared with the Iron Age settle­ Great Casterton axe is recorded as having had any ment discovered four miles to the S at Tixover (RR 13 archaeological associations: it was found in 1905 about (1993), 144). 5m deep in a fissure in a stone quarry with human Romano-British settlements are common in the remains - a full account was published at the time general area, for example at Empingham and Great (Rutland Magazine III ( 1907-08), 13-2 1 ). Casterton on the R Gwash, and Ketton (including the Very little worked flint of the period was recovered quarry area) and Tixover on the R Welland. Ermine during the fieldwalking, and so it is difficult to inter­ Street (the Great North Road, or Al) runs about a mile pret this findarchaeol ogically, despite the existence of away to the E of the site. the nearby Great Casterton and Pickworth finds. During fieldwalking, a concentration of Roman pottery associated with fragments of clay brick and tile Clough, TH McK, & Cummins, W A (eds), Stone Axe and burnt stone was found across the NE part of the Studies 2: The petrology of prehistoric stone imple­ field. Late Iron Age pottery has also been identified ments from the British Isles (CBA Research Report (Richard Pollard, LMARS, pers.comm.), adding cre­ 67, London 1988) dence to the possibility of lron Age enclosures S of this Tim Clough, RLHRS site. The ploughsoil in this field varies from brown Uppingham, The Beeches (SK 869003) rubbly limestone patches to wet dark greyclayey soils. A geophysical survey was carried out by ULAS at land These contrasts may reflect the underlying geology, east of the Beeches (site D), Uppingham, on behalf of which can be seen exposed in the N face of Ketton Stoneleigh Planning Partnership. Although no definite quarry where the Boulder Clay overlies faulted Middle archaeological anomalies were detected, the location of Jurassic strata. Details are given in Dr Clive Jones's a former pump, a dump of iron and brick, and possible notes in the site archive report, and will be included in geological faultingwere identified. a fullerreport on the coin hoard and the site which will Adrian Butler, ULAS be published in due course (RLHRS R30). Uppingham, Firs Avenue (SK 862003) Elaine Jones, RLHRS A programme of archaeological work including field­ Polished stone axe walking, geophysical survey and trial trenching, was In addition to the Roman material, a complete small carried out by ULAS on land west of Firs A venue, Neolithic polished stone axe or rubber was found Uppingham (SK 862003). The desk-based assessment during the fieldwalking(fig. 2). It is well finished, with had identifiedseveral prehistoric sites in the immediate its butt and sides smoothed but not faceted. It is vicinity including finds of Mesolithic and Neolithic unusual in that the cutting edge has been rounded off flint. The fieldwalking survey recovered over 300 flints rather than sharpened, implying that it was used for from the Mesolithic through to the Bronze Age. These some purpose other than cutting. Relatively few of the included two fragments of piano-convex knives, often thousands of stone and flint axes known exhibit this associated with Bronze Age burials. characteristic. Its dimensions are: length 99mm; thick­ Topsoil magnetic susceptibility and magnetometer ness 23mm; width of cutting edge 47mm; weight surveyswere carried out by ULAS over land W of Firs 150gm (RCM A27.2001). Avenue proposed for residential development. High The axe has been thin-sectioned for petrographic levels of magnetic susceptibility were recorded over analysis by Dr R A Ixer of the University of Birming­ part of the site, indicating possible archaeological acti­ ham (implement petrology no. RUT 11). Dr lxer des­ vity. This was confirmed by the magnetometer survey, cribes the rock as follows: 'An epidotised crystal-lithic which revealed a large number of pit and ditch type tuffwith a faint planar fabric. Small plagioclase laths anomalies including enclosures, two probable pit align­ are common, whereas equant, untwinned, zoned feld- ments and a possible pit circle.

44 Rutland in 2000

An archaeological evaluation by trial trenching with former use of the land. The work was commis­ followed fieldwalking and geophysical survey; nine sioned by Uppingham School, in advance ofa planning trenches were positioned to target possible features application for a new languages building on the land identified in these surveys. Positive results were (RCM A7.2000). obtained from all nine of the trenches, mostly con­ Jennifer Browning, ULAS firming the presence of archaeological features previ­ ously suggested by geophysical anomalies. However, Whissendine, StaplefordRoad (SK 825145) several features were identified which had not been An archaeological evaluation was carried out on land detected by geophysics. Primarily they were pits (in­ offStaplef ord Road, Whissendine, in July 2000. ULAS cluding a possible Iron Age pit alignment) and ditches, were commissioned by Birch Homes to undertake the many of which contained flint flakes and tools and work. The site is located in the historic settlement core some pottery fragments. The presence of a thin layer of of Whissendine. Earthworks representing ridge and alluvium was also identified in the south of the furrow agriculture and a possible hollow way were development area, which appears to have masked and present in the western part of the area. Seven trenches preserved underlying archaeological features (RCM were excavated across the site, with three targeting the A9.2000). potential medieval street frontage. A number of Adrian Butler, Simon Chapman archaeological features were revealed, consisting of & Vicki Priest, ULA S ditches, gullies, pits and postholes. The medieval acti­ vity particularly concentrated around the street front­ Uppingham, The Middle playing field age, in the form of well-dated ditches and gullies. Less (SP 865993) discrete activity, in the form of ditches, pits and post­ Removal of the turf and ground preparation for a new holes, was present towards the west of the area and was all-weather pitch for Uppingham School exposed the less well dated (RCM A 12 2000). outline of pits filled with brown soil cut into the red Jennifer Browning, ULAS Northampton Sand ironstone rubble bedrock. The top­ soil scrape contained a small quantity of iron slag, Wing, Field 4500, Station Road/Preston Road Romano-British pottery, and some worked flints. (SK 885028) Elaine Jones, RLHRS Archaeological control and supervision of ground­ works was undertaken by ULAS for Nick Parsons/ Uppingham, The Thring Centre, Uppingham Creative Landscapes and Mr and Mrs Bews, prior to School (SP 86529977) the excavation of a wildlife pond at Station Road/ In April 2000 archaeological trial trenching was carried Preston Road, Wing, Rutland (SK 885028). No signi­ out on land off High Street West, Uppingham, by ficant archaeological deposits or finds were identified ULAS. Six trenches were excavated, revealing a during machining. A single flint blade was found in the number of post-medieval and modern features, which topsoil at the north end of the trench (RCM A2.2000). have been interpreted as garden activity, corresponding Way ne Jarvis, ULAS

Negative watching briefs carried out in Rutland in 2000

Braunston: Meadowsweet Farm (SK 819072), Michael Ridlington: Manton Lane (SK 85603 1 ), RLHRS for Derrick and Sally Warren, ULAS LMARS Cottesmore: Former bus depot (adjacent to 27 Main Seaton: 2 Church Lane (SK 905981 ), Wayne Jarvis, Street) (SK 902 136,) Sophie Clarke & Wayne Jarvis, ULAS ULAS Stretton: Hawthorne Farm, (SK 9491 59), Vicki Priest, Geeston: High Street (TF 98604 1 ), Sally Warren, ULAS ULAS Great Casterton: Strawson's Farmyard (TF 003095), Tixover: Tixover Grange (SK 9790 18), Northampton­ Michael Derrick and Sally Warren, ULAS shire Archaeology Leighfield: Leigh field Lodge, gazebo (SK 82804 1 ), Wing: 2 Church Street (SK 89403 1 ), Elaine Jones, Elaine Jones, RLHRS for LMARS RLHRS for LMARS

45 Rutland in 2000 II - Other Reports for2000

Record Officefor Leic estershire, Leicester & Rutland

The followingRutland accessions were recorded in 2000: Parish Council Records dence and business papers, 18th/ 19th DE 5818 Seaton, councillors' declarations, 1895- century; photographs and plans, 20th 1979; overseer's receipts and payments century; transcripts and translations of book, 1887-1908; highway accounts, medieval documents, 1990s. 1890-93; rating records, 1895-1950; allot- DE 5835 Royal Leicestershire, Rutland & Wycliffe ment rent books, 1907-74; payments books, Society for the Blind: Minutes, 1975-96; c. 1 895-1908, &c. financialrecords, 1976-99. Parish Records Business Records DE 5706 Brooke, facultyfor redecora tion, 1999. DE 5879 British Railways Property Board files re DE 5707 Lyddington, churchwardens' accounts, Park Gate Iron an d Steel Co Ltd, mineral 1911-12. line and sidings, Tinwel l crossings, 1960- DE 5899 Market Overton, accounts, 1936-88; PCC 61; private sidings at Ketton, 191 1-53; Minutes, 1935-76. Ketton RDC water main, 1951-52. DE 5826 Teigh, papers re "time capsule", 2000. Clubs and Societies DE 5708 Thistleton, coronation celebrations, accounts, 1937. DE 5733 Leicestershire and Rutland Football League DE 5866 Uppingham, PCC papers, 1960-98; fileon records, including balance sheet, 1957; church history, c. 1930. AGM papers, 1958; handbooks, 1950-61; DE 5882 Uppingbam, faculties, 1992-97. programmes, posters, &c., 1950-52. DE 5902 Leicestershire and Rutland Ornithologi­ Other Churches cal Society accounts, 1972-97. DE 5728 Uppingham, Methodist Chapel, photo­ graphs and notices, c. 1900-65. Antiquarian No tes, &c DE 5744 & DE 5771 CharityRecords Notes by F H Cheetham on churches and DE 5816 Oakham, Hospital of St John & St Anne: historic buildings for Victoria County His­ financial papers, I 789-1820; Minutes and toryof Rutland (volume 11), 1930-31. accounts, 1779-1944; survey of Oakham Robin P Je nkins, Keeper of Archives and Barleythorpe, pre-1811; correspon-

Rutland County Museum

The museum continued to acquire objects of local measures in the museum, which are backed up by vari­ interest and provenance through the year. These ranged ous indentures of verification and other weights and from archaeological finds, some of which are mention­ measures archive material. ed in the archaeological reports above, to 20th century The museum obtained an extensive range of ephemera. Particularly worthy of note in the list given material, including a good set of tinsmith's tools, from here are perhaps the half-gill dry measure and the Marshalls, Uppingham's premier ironmongery and collection of material fromMarshalls ofUppingham. hardware store, many years ago. The opportunity to The measure is one of a set of Rutland county acquire further material fromthe family was therefore standard dry measures ranging fromhalf -gill to bushel very welcome. This includes not only tools and equip­ dated 1825, of which the remainder were already in the ment but also a range of manufacturers' posters and museum collections. A quarter gill measure was added point-of-sale material. to the set in 1879. The half-gill failed the verification The Friends of the Museum purchased the 58th test in 1925 and was replaced by a new one. It was lost (Rutlandshire) Regiment items to augment the small sight of unti I the donor found it in about 1950 in a amount of material relating to the county's eponymous workshop in London's east end, where it formed a han­ regiment. This part of the collections is managed so as dy grease pot! Eventually, he enquired of the museum not to conflict with the interests of the 48th (Northamp­ what it was, and this led to its acquisition. It is thus tonshire) Regiment's museum in Northampton - the happily reunited with its fellows, and joins the com­ 58th was absorbed into the 48th more than a century prehensive set of Rutland standards weights and ago.

46 Rutland in 2000

Looking ahead, the museum continued to work on H36.2000 Map of Rutland drawn from memory, and its plans for future development with a view to submit­ Triennial Festival prize certificate for it, ting an application for grantaid to the Heritage Lottery 1924 Fund. Its aims are to improve access, both physical and H53.2000 The Bulletin and Scots Pictorial, 27th intellectual, to its collections, and to develop its activi­ March 1954, account of railway accident at ties so as to serve the needs of its users better, and to Oakham broaden its user base. That there is a demand is well H58.2000 Stoneware jar, Robert Draper, late W illustrated by the ever-varying range of enquiries re­ Compton, Uppingham ceived, whether in person or, increasingly, by e-mail H59.2000 Rutland standard half-gill measure, 1825 H60.2000 58th (Rutlandshire) Regiment major's from around the world. shako, I 869-78 pattern; other ranks' shako Selection of acquisitions received during 2000 plate, 1855-61 H20.2000 Linocut of the George Hotel, Oakham, H62.2000 Tools and equipment from Marshalls, iron­ c. 1946 mongers, Uppingham H29.2000 Pocket book of Caroline Croden, Ridling­ H63.2000 Manufacturers' advertising material from ton Lodge, with farm accounts, I 850s-60s the same source Tim Clough, Curator

Rutland Historic Churches Preservation Trust

The Trust's biennial Sponsored Cycle Ride took place personal donations or those given in memoriam, and on I Ith September I 999 and attracted 200 walkers and particularly wishes to acknowledge two generous riders, despite the hills and the heatwave. The highest legacies received during 1999-2000. number of churches visited was 57, by Salvador Vali­ Applications for help were received from St ente, winner of the Davenport Cup, and 50 or more Andrew, Hambleton, for spire repairs; St Peter & St churches were visited by five others of all ages. They Paul, Langham, for nave limewashing; All Saints, and other representative participants - a rider who ran Oakham, for repairs including roof leadwork; Oakham several miles to fetch another bicycle when his was Congregational Church for restoration of a historic stolen while he visited a church, a blind walker who mud wall; and St Peter & St Paul, Exton, for survey has supported the Trust for many years, and an 80- and repair of the monuments. A total of £17,000 was year-old who rode to 31 churches - attended a pre­ promised and £9,985 actually spent, some relating to sentation hosted by Col T C S Haywood, President. grants offered earlier. Several more churches indicated The ride could not take place without the support of their need for future help with large-scale repairs, and many stewards and providers of refreshments. This the Trust hopes that all those who care for Rutland's time it raised £13,518, of which, as always, half was churches and chapels will continue to seek its returned to the churches. Since the Rides began in assistance as soon as problems arise. 1987, they have raised a total of £90,898. Throughout, The Trust has been saddened by the deaths during the Ride Administrator has been Alan Southern, to the year of Mrs Wyn Avison, former Honorary Secre­ whom a tremendous debt of gratitude is owed. He will tary, the Rt Rev Bill Westwood, former Vice-President, be succeeded by Richard Adams, himself a Davenport and the Ven Barnard Fernyhough, lately Archdeacon of Cup winner. Oakham. Their enthusiasm and example will continue The Trust is most grateful to all its supporters, to be an inspiration. whether for the Ride, from Church Councils, through Linda Worrall, Ho norary Secretary

Rutland Local History & Record Society

The Society was greatly saddened by the death of its tary until the Annual General Meeting, and thanks are Chairman, John Field, on 2nd July 2000. An obituary due to her for all she has done to ensure that the work was included in Rutland Record 20 (2000), 414. He of the Society has grown over this year. was succeeded as Acting Chairman by Professor Alan Before John Field died, he indicated an intention to Rogers, Vice-Chairman. start a wide-ranging review of the activities and struc­ The year also saw the resignation of the Society's tures of the Society, its relationships and roles. The Honorary Secretary, Philip Rayner, to whom we are Executive Committee began this process by holding an grateful for the hard work he put into helping the away-day to look at the constitution; this was hosted at Society. Sue Howlett agreed to serve as Acting Secre- Holywell Hall by the President, Prince Yuri Galitzine.

47 Rutland in 2000

A membership drive began with new publicity material groups, which continue to thrive. The Archaeology for which Robert Ovens and others were responsible. Group, whose report appears below, has been con­ Informal discussions took place with the Friends of the vened by Elaine Jones; she now retires from this role, Rutland County Museum. and there have also been dis­ which she has fulfilled for many years, and the Society cussions with the museum about the services provided thanks her in particular forher contribution. to the Society. Without the museum's help and support The Heritage and Environmental Group expresses in terms of accommodation and expertise it would be the views of the Society on planning applications hard to run the Society. which impinge on the historic built environment. The The Society has supported the museum's bid to the Society also plays a large part in the George Phillips Heritage Lottery Fund for assistance in developing the Award for new or adapted buildings whose design en­ building, and looks forward to the day when a local hances the historic environment. Peter Lane, David studies room can house the local history collections, Carlin, Carolyn Cartwright and Elizabeth Bryan have including those of the Society, and make them more helped with this. Substantial financial assistance was easily available. In this respect, the President has gene­ provided by the Society to preserve some domestic rously donated a wide range of books and papers on wall paintings at Preston which were thought worthy of local history to the Society. These have been listed, and conservation. More assistance is needed in this area, it is hoped to house these more adequately and make and members are invited to offer help where they can them accessible. We are very grateful to Prince Galit­ to ensure that the voice of local historians continues to zine for this and all his support to the Society. Our be heard. other holdings will also be listed. Alan Rogers, Chairman The Society wishes to record its thanks to Carl Harrison and the staffof the Record Officeat Wigston for the help they continue to give. Their concern to Archaeology Group help make the local history records which they hold on The Group continued an active programme of field­ behalf of Rutland available to those from this area who walking during the year, with very usefulresults as can need to consult them is most welcome. be seen from the archaeological reports above. These The annual activities of the Society have continued could not have been achieved without the efforts of the - an outing to Uppingham. a social evening, a series of team. David Carlin, Sue Davidson, Hilary Eyre, Clive public lectures shared with the Friends of the Museum. Jones, Jenny Macconnell, Jenny Naylor and Robert and the Bryan Matthews Lecture. The Society also Ovens. Specialist identifications, reports and advice considered whether other meetings should be held out­ were received from Elizabeth Bryan, Tim Clough side Oakham and invited members' suggestions. (RCM), Lynden Cooper (ULAS), Steve Houghton and The Society was able to assist with the County the East Leicestershire Detector Group, Roger Jacobi Council's Millennium History Project, led by Vikki (British Museum), Clive Jones, and Richard Pollard Pearson. This established a number of historical (LMARS); these were much appreciated. Finally, the plaques around the county, created a series of walks Group would like to thank all those farmers and land­ and cycle routes with accompanying leaflets, held local owners who have kindly let the Group enjoy their history workshops, and ran a most successful local beautiful places. Fieldwalking continued through the history fair. winter of 2000-01 on the shores of Eyebrook Reser­ On the publications side, Rutland Record 20 was voir, at the invitation of Roger Marshall of the Corby published in February 2001, and work is in hand for an Water Company, and the results will be included in a Index of RR 11-20. However, the maj or research futurereport. activity of the year has been the survey of Time in Other activities and events included a pottery iden­ Rutland which Robert Ovens and Sheila Sleath have tification workshop on finds from the fieldwalking been conducting and which will be published in the survey of Martinsthorpe deserted medieval village in Society's Research Report series. Several exhibitions October, led by Elaine Jones, Robert Ovens and Sheila of material from this project have been held in various Sleath, and an exhibition on known archaeological sites places, and a maj or grant towards the costs of publi­ in Uppingham parish prepared for the annual "village cation has been offered by the Heritage Lottery Fund's visit". Finally, the Group's Christmas dinner, arranged Awards for All programme. again by Maureen Dodds, was held at the Blue Ball, Without this voluntary help, the work of the Society Braunston. could not go ahead, and the same is true of its sub- Elaine Jo nes, Convener

48 RUTLAND LOCAL HISTORY & RECORD SOCIETY

Registered Charity No. 700273

The Society's publications, with their main contents, are currently available as follows:

Rutland Record 1 (£1.00 post free) Rutland Record Series Emergence of Rutland; Medieval hunting grounds; 1. Tudor Rutland: The County Communityunder Henry Rutland field names; Illiteracy in 19th century Rutland VIII, ed. Julian Cornwall (1980). The Military Survey of Rutland Record 2 (£1.00 post free) 1522 & the Lay Subsidy of 1524, with introduction Archdeacon Johnson; Thomas Barker's weatherreco rds; (now £4.50, members £3.00) Rutland Agricultural Society; Rutland farms in 1871 2. The Weather Jo urnals of a Rutland Squire, ed John Rutland Record 6 (£1.50, members £1.00) Kington (1988). Thomas Barker's 18th century weather, Transitional architecture in Rutland; Family of Rutland farmingand countryside records, with introduction stonemasons; Restoration of Exton church (now £7.50, members £5.00) Rutland Record ? (£1.50, members £1.00) 3. Stained Glass in Rutland Churches, by Paul Sharpling Rutland place-names; Rutland Domesday; Lords and (1997). Complete survey and gazetteer; introduction; peasants in medieval Rutland; Shakespeare in Rutland lists of glaziers, subjects, dedicatees,donors, heraldry (now £10.00, members £8.00) Rutland Record 12 (£2.00, members £1.50) Deer parks; Preston records; Thring at Uppingham; 4. Time in Rutland: a history and gazetteer of the bells, Jeremiah Whittaker; Joseph Matkin; Cinemas in Rutland scratch dials, sundials and clocks of Rutland, by Robert Ovens & Sheila Sleath (2002) Rutland Record 15 (£2.00, members £1.50) (£24.00, members £20.00) Meadows at Seaton; 18th C Rutland elections; Rutland Fencibles' 1794 Riding School; Childhood at Stocken Occasional Publications Rutland Record 16 (£2.00, members £1.50) l. DomesdayBook in Rutland: the dramatis personae, Iron smelting; Saxon archaeology; Stilton cheese; by Prince Yuri Galitzine (1986)(OP) Oakham in 1871; Rutland Hotel, Wanganui 2. TheOakham Survey 1305, ed Allen Chinnery (1988). Rutland Record 17 (£2.00, members £1.50) Medieval survey: population, occupations, topography, Byrch's charity; Maj-Gen Robt Overton; 50-52 High St, customs, and personal/place-nameevidence Uppingham; White Hart, Uppingham (£3.50, members £2.50) 3. TheRutland Hearth Tax 1665, ed Jill Bourn& Rutland Record 18 (£2.50, members £2.00) Amanda Goode (1991). Population and payment Earthworks at Belton-in-Rutland; Peter de Neville; information, with introduction (£3.50, members £2.50) Oakham gallows; Buckingham's house at Burley 4. The Hi story of Gilson's Hospital, Marcott, by David Rutland Record 19 (£2.50, members £2.00) Parkin ( 1995). The charity, its almshouse, trustees, Anne Barker; Exton and Noel family; 14th century beneficiaries, and farm at Scredington, Lines; Rutland bacon; Emigrantsto Australia foundation deed, Gilson's will (£3.50, members £2.50) Rutland Record 20 (£3.50, members £3.00) 5. Lyndon, Rutland, by Charles Mayhew (1999). Guide Rutland castles; Medieval site at Barrowden; to the village and church (£2.50, members £2.00) Mompesson and Rutland inns; George Phillips 6. The Hi story of the Hospital of St Johnthe Evangelist Rutland Record 21 (£3.50, members £3.00) & St Anne in Okeham,by David Parkin (2000). The Mary Barker letters; Anton Kammel, musician; 600-year old charity: history, chapel, trustees and Uppingham School and Borth, 1875-77; annual reports beneficiaries (£3.50, members £2.50) Index of Rutland Record 1-10, compiled by John Field 7. The 1712 Land Taxfo r Rutland, with Poll Book fo r (1994) (£2.50, members £1.50) 1710 - in preparation,fo r publication 2003

Index of Rutland Record 11-20 - in preparation, fo r Postage and packing publication 2003 Rutland Record, Index, Occasional Publications: 75p The following issues are out of print: each; Stained Glass: £1 .50; Tudor Rutland, Weather Rutland Record 3, 4, 5, 8 (Who was Who in Rutland), Journals: £2.00 each; Time in Rutland: £5.00. Maximum 9, 10 (Burley-on-the-Hill), 11, 13, 14; please enquirefor on any one UK order except Time in Rutland: £3.00; details of contents;occasionally second-hand copies overseas chargedat cost - please enquirefor details: become available payment in sterling only All orders forpubli cations, with payment in sterling including postage as shown above, andtrade enquiries should be sent to: The HonoraryEditor, RLHRS, c/o Rutland County Museum, Catmose Street, Oakham, Rutland, LE 15 6HW, England. Membership enquiries should be sent to the Honorary Membership Secretary at the same address. Rut{and Record 21

Journa[ of tfie '.Rut[am[Loca[ J-{fs tary & Record Society

The First Lady of Ly ndon: The Letters of MaryBar ker (1655-79) 'A certain Mr. Nouelle ...': A Rutland Association for the Musician Anton Kammel Uppingham by the Sea: Ty phoid and the Excursion to Borth, 18 75-77 Rutland History and Archaeology in 2000