To the northward of Salisbury is that region filled with prehistoric relics known as Salisbury Plain. Here are ancient fortresses, barrows, and sepulchral mounds, earthworks, d.y.k.es, and trenches, roadways of the Roman and the Briton, and the great British stronghold, guarding the southern entrance to the plain, which became the Old Sarum of later times. Until within a century this plain was a solitary and almost abandoned region, but now there are good roads crossing it and much of the land is cultivated. It is a great triangular chalk-measure, each side roughly estimated at twenty miles long. The Bourne, Wiley, and Avon flow through it to meet near Salisbury, and all the bolder heights between their valleys are marked by ancient fortifications. Wiltshire is thus said to be divided between chalk and cheese, for the northern district beyond the plain is a great dairy region. Let us journey northward from Salisbury across the plain, and as we enter its southern border there rises up almost at the edge the conical hill of Old Sarum, crowned by intrenchments. When they were made is not known, but in 552 they were a British defence against the Saxons, who captured them after a bitter fight and overran the plain. Five centuries later William the Norman reviewed his army here, and after the first Domesday survey summoned all the landholders of England to the number of sixty thousand, who here swore fealty to him. The Normans strengthened it with a castle, and soon a cathedral also rose at Old Sarum, while a town grew around them. But all have disappeared, though now there can be traced the outlines of streets and houses and the foundations of the old cathedral.
When the clergy removed to Salisbury it is said they determined the new site by an arrow shot from the ramparts of Old Sarum, and moving the cathedral soon attracted the people. Old Sarum for some time remained a strong fortress with many houses, but the cathedral was taken down in 1331 and its materials used for building the famous spire at Salisbury.
The castle decayed, the town was gradually deserted, and as long ago as the sixteenth century we are told there was not a single house left there. And such it is to this day. Climbing the steep face of the hill, the summit is found fenced by a vast earthen rampart and ditch enclosing twenty-seven acres with an irregular circle, the height from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the rampart being over one hundred feet. A smaller inner rampart as high as the outer one made the central citadel.
Nearly all the stone has long ago been carried off to build Salisbury, and weeds and brushwood have overrun the remarkable fortress that has come down to us from such venerable antiquity. Under the English "rotten-borough" system Old Sarum enjoyed the privilege of sending two members to Parliament for three centuries after it ceased to be inhabited. The old tree under which the election was held still exists, and the elder Pitt, who lived near by, was first sent to Parliament as a representative of Old Sarum"s vacant mounds.
STONEHENGE.
A few miles" farther journey to the northward over the hills and valleys, and among the sheep that also wander on Salisbury Plain, brings us to that remarkable relic of earlier ages which is probably the greatest curiosity in England--Stonehenge. When the gigantic stones were put there, and what for, no man knows. Many are the unanswered questions asked about them, for the poet says:
"Thou n.o.blest monument of Albion"s isle!
Whether by Merlin"s aid from Scythia"s sh.o.r.e To Amber"s fatal plain Pendragon bore, Huge frame of giant hands, the mighty pile, To entomb his Britons slain by Hengist"s guile: Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore, Taught "mid thy ma.s.sy maze their mystic lore; Or Danish chiefs, enriched by savage spoil, To Victory"s idol vast, an unhewn shrine, Reared the huge heap; or, in thy hallowed round, Repose the kings of Brutus" genuine line; Or here those kings in solemn state were crowned; Studious to trace thy wondrous origin, We muse on many an ancient tale renowned."
[Ill.u.s.tration: STONEHENGE, FROM THE NORTH.]
Stonehenge is about nine miles north of Salisbury, near the town of Amesbury, where another ancient camp, known as "The Ramparts," crowns a wooded hill, around which the Avon flows, the camp enclosing nearly forty acres. Stonehenge stands in a bleak, bare situation on Salisbury Plain, and in its original perfection, as nearly as can now be judged, consisted of two concentric circles and two ellipses of upright stones, surrounded by a bank and ditch, outside of which is a single upright stone and traces of a hippodrome. The entrance to the cl.u.s.ter of circles was from the north-east, and the avenue to it is still traceable by the banks of earth. The outer circle at Stonehenge originally consisted of thirty upright stones fixed in the ground at intervals of about three and a half feet. On the top of them thirty other stones formed a continuous ring about sixteen feet above the ground. Within this circle, and leaving a s.p.a.ce about nine feet wide between, was another circle of thirty or forty unhewn stones about four to seven feet high. Within this, again, was the grandest part of the structure--a great ellipse formed of five triplets of stones or trilithons, each composed of two uprights and one placed crosswise. Within these was the inner ellipse of nineteen obelisks surrounding the altar-stone. Such was Stonehenge originally, but its ruins now appear very differently, and are only a confused pile of huge stones, for the most part such as are found on the neighboring plain and known as sa.r.s.ens (a siliceous sandstone), though some of the smaller ones may be boulders brought from a distance. The diameter of the enclosure is three hundred and thirty-six feet. On the outer circle sixteen of the uprights and six of the surmounting stones forming the ring remain in their original positions. Two of the inner trilithons, the highest rising twenty-five feet, remain perfect, and there are two single uprights, which lean considerably. The flat slab or altar-stone is lying on the ground. The avenue of approach opens in front of the inner ellipse and in a line with the altar-stone. In the avenue, outside the enclosure, is a block sixteen feet high in a leaning position, and known as the Friar"s Heel. The legend tells us that when the great Enemy of the human race was raising Stonehenge he muttered to himself that no one would ever know how it was done. A pa.s.sing friar, hearing him, exclaimed, "That"s more than thee can tell," and then fled.
The Enemy flung this great stone after him, but hit only the friar"s heel. The investigators of Stonehenge say that when standing on the altar-stone the midsummer sun is seen to rise to the north-east directly over the "Friar"s Heel." The traces of the avenue in which it stands are, however, soon found to divide into two smaller avenues, one running south-east and the other north, and the latter is connected beyond with a long enclosure called the Cursus, and marked by banks of earth stretching east and west for about a mile and a half: there is nothing known of its use. The whole country about Stonehenge is dotted with groups of sepulchral barrows, and at the western end of the Cursus is a cl.u.s.ter of them more prominent than the others, and known as the "Seven Burrows." Stonehenge itself inspires with mystery and awe, the blocks being gray with lichens and worn by centuries of storms. Reference to them is found in the earliest chronicles of Britain, and countless legends are told of their origin and history, they usually being traced to mythical hands. In James I."s reign Stonehenge was said to be a Roman temple, dedicated to Coelus; subsequently, it was attributed to the Danes, the Phoenicians, the Britons, and the Druids by various writers. Sir Richard h.o.a.re, who has studied the mystery most closely, declines all these theories, and says the monument is grand but "voiceless." Horace Walpole shrewdly observes that whoever examines Stonehenge attributes it to that cla.s.s of antiquity of which he is himself most fond; and thus it remains an insoluble problem to puzzle the investigator and impress the tourist. Michael Drayton plaintively and quaintly confesses that no one has yet solved the mystery:
"Dull heape, that thus thy head above the rest doest reare, Precisely yet not know"st who first did place thee there.
Ill did those mightie men to trust thee with their storie; Thou hast forgot their names who rear"d thee for their glorie; For all their wondrous cost, thou that hast serv"d them so, What "tis to trust to tombes by thee we easily know."
WILTON HOUSE.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SOUTH-EAST VIEW OF WILTON HOUSE.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRE-PLACE IN DOUBLE-CUBE ROOM.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LIBRARY, WILTON HOUSE.]
Returning along the valley of the Avon past the almost lifeless town of Amesbury, where there formerly was a grand Benedictine monastery long since gone to decay, we cross over to the Wiley Vale, and at about three miles distance from Salisbury come to the Earl of Pembroke"s seat at Wilton House. The ancient town of Wilton--or, as it was originally called, w.i.l.l.ytown--stands at the confluence of the rivers Nadder and Wiley. The Britons established it, and it was one of the capitals of the West Saxons. It was famous long before the Norman Conquest, and it afterwards obtained renown from the number and importance of its monastic establishments, having had no less than twelve parish churches, though not a trace of its abbey now remains. Henry VIII. dissolved it, and gave the site and buildings to Sir William Herbert, who was afterwards created Earl of Pembroke, and from its relics Wilton House was largely constructed. The town is now chiefly noted as the manufactory of Axminster and Wilton carpets, dextrously woven by operatives who use most primitive machinery. The Earl"s Park adjoins the town, and in it is Wilton House, one of the grandest palaces in England, standing upon the site of the abbey. The buildings were designed by Holbein, and the garden front being burned in 1648, was rebuilt soon afterwards, while the entire structure was enlarged and remodelled during the present century, the cloisters being then added for the display of the fine collection of sculptures. The plan of the house is a quadrangle, with a glazed cloister occupying the central square. Within this cloister and the hall leading to it are the well-known Pembroke Marbles--statues, busts, urns, vases, ba.s.si-relievi, and fragments of great value from Grecian and Roman works. This collection was formed during the last century, being gathered by the then earl from various sources. In the hall are statues, but its chief interest comes from the numerous suits of armor with which it is adorned, chiefly memorials of the battle of St. Quentin, fought in 1557, when the Earl of Pembroke commanded the British forces. One of the suits was worn by the earl himself, and two others by the Constable of France and the Duc de Montpensier, both being taken prisoner. On either side are entrances to various apartments containing valuable paintings. The chief of these is the "Family Picture," regarded as Vand.y.k.e"s masterpiece--seventeen feet long and eleven feet high, and filling one end of the drawing-room. It contains ten full-length figures--Philip, Earl of Pembroke, and his countess and their children. Above them, hovering in the clouds, are three other children, who died in early life. In the Double Cube-room, which is regarded as a gem in its way and has a most magnificent fireplace, there are some thirteen other paintings by Vand.y.k.e. Other paintings by Italian masters are also distributed on the walls of the various apartments, but the Vand.y.k.es are regarded as the gems of the collection. The library is a large and lofty apartment, with an oak-panelled ceiling, and a fine collection of volumes with appropriate furnishing. Out of the library window the western view over the terrace discloses charming pleasure-grounds, laid out in the Italian style from designs by a former Countess of Pembroke, while in the background is a beautiful porch constructed by Holbein. To the gardens, summer-houses and conservatories add their attractions, while beyond is the valley of the Nadder, over which a picturesque bridge leads to the park. This bridge has an Ionic colonnade, and in the park are some of the finest cedars to be seen in the kingdom. Here, it is said, Sir Philip Sidney wrote _Arcadia_, and the work shows that he drew much inspiration from these gardens and grounds, for it abounds in lifelike descriptions of Nature.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LIBRARY WINDOW.]
At Wilton also lived George Herbert the poet, and later Sidney Herbert, who was afterwards made Lord Herbert of Lea, and whose son is now the thirteenth Earl of Pembroke. A statue of Sidney Herbert has already been referred to as standing in Pall Mall, London, and another is in Salisbury. He was secretary of war, yet was the gentle and genial advocate of peace and charity to all mankind, and his premature death was regarded as a public calamity. He erected in 1844 the graceful New Church at Wilton. It was the Earls of Pembroke in the last century who were chiefly instrumental in bringing the manufacturers of fine carpets over from France and Flanders and laying the foundation of that trade, in which England now far surpa.s.ses those countries. The factory at Axminster, on the southern coast, was also afterwards transferred to Wilton. These carpets are all hand-made, and the higher cla.s.s, which are an inch or more in thickness and of the softness of down when trod upon, are also of the most gorgeous design and brilliancy of colors.
BATH.
Crossing over the hills to the north-west of Salisbury Plain, we descend to the attractive valley of another river Avon, and come to the "Queen of all the Spas in the World," the city of Bath. It is the chief town of Somersetshire, and is surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills. The abbey and princ.i.p.al streets are in the valley, while above, on its northern slope, rise terraces and crescents, tier upon tier, to a height of nearly eight hundred feet, the most conspicuous being the Royal and the Lansdowne Crescents. Many of the buildings are handsome, and are constructed of the white great-oolite, known as bath-stone. To its waters this famous resort owes its importance, but from an insignificant place Bath has risen to the highest point of popularity as a fashionable watering-place and in architectural magnificence through the genius of Architect Wood and Master-of-Ceremonies Beau Nash. The legendary king Bladud is said to have first discovered the Bath waters twenty-seven hundred years ago, and to have built a town there and dedicated the medicinal springs to Minerva, so that "Bladud"s Well" has pa.s.sed into a proverb of sparkling inexhaustibility. The Romans, pa.s.sionately attached to the luxury of the hot springs, made Bath one of their chief stations, and here and in the neighborhood the foundations of their extensive buildings have been traced, with the remains of altars, baths, tessellated pavements, and ornaments, and few British towns can produce such a collection of Roman relics. In the height of the Roman power in the fifth century the city extended nearly three miles along the valley, and was surrounded by a wall twenty feet high and nine feet thick. Such a fascinating spot was naturally selected for the foundation of a religious house at an early period, and we consequently find that the abbey of Bath was built by King Offa in the eighth century, and refounded by King Edgar in the tenth century. It existed until the dissolution in 1539. The church fell into decay in the reign of Henry VII., and the present abbey-church was then built, being for a long time unfinished. It has recently been restored. It stands at the southern extremity of High Street, and is a fine specimen of Perpendicular Gothic, the plan being a cross, with a tower at the intersection rising one hundred and sixty-two feet and flanked by octagonal turrets. The church is two hundred and ten feet long, and has a fan-traced, stone-vaulted roof seventy-eight feet high, while the western front contains a magnificent window flanked by turrets carved with angels, who are ascending and descending, but have, unfortunately, all lost their heads. The Pump Room, which is one of the chief buildings, is a cla.s.sical structure with a Corinthian portico bearing the motto, "Water, best of elements!" A band plays in the s.p.a.cious saloon, which also contains a statue of the genius of Bath, Beau Nash, whose monument is in the abbey-church. Here the waters, which are the hottest in England, reaching a temperature of 120, tumble continually from a drinking-fountain into a serpentine basin beneath. There are numerous other baths replete with comforts for the invalid, for this is essentially a hospital town, and the city also contains many stately public and private buildings, and its Victoria Park and Sydney Gardens are beautiful and popular resorts. The wild scenery of the neighborhood provides myriads of attractive drives and walks, while on top of Lansdowne Hill, where Beckford is buried, is his tower, one hundred and fifty feet high and commanding extensive views. The Bath waters, which are alkaline-sulphurous with a slight proportion of iron, are considered beneficial for palsy, rheumatism, gout, and scrofulous and cutaneous affections. The chief spring discharges one hundred and twenty-eight gallons a minute. While a hundred years ago Bath was at the height of its celebrity, the German spas have since diverted part of the stream of visitors.
FONTHILL AND BECKFORD.
It was at Bath that Pitt and Sheridan lived, but its most eccentric resident was William Beckford, the author of _Vathek_, who came to Bath from Fonthill, not far from Salisbury. His father, a London alderman, owned Fonthill, and died in 1770, leaving his son William, aged ten, with $5,000,000 ready money and $500,000 annual income. He wrote _Vathek_ in early life after extensive travels, but founded its scenes and characters upon places and people at Fonthill. He then began building Fonthill Abbey, shrouding his proceedings in the greatest mystery and surrounding his estate with a wall twelve feet high and seven miles long, guarded by _chevaux-de-frise_ to keep out intruders.
The building of the abbey was to him a romance pursued with wild enthusiasm. So anxious was he to get it finished that he employed relays of men, working day and night and throughout Sunday, keeping them liberally supplied with liquor. The first tower was built of wood, four hundred feet high, to see its effect, and it was then taken down and the same form put up in wood covered with cement. This fell down, and the third tower was built of masonry. When the idea of the abbey occurred to Beckford he was extending a small summer-house, but he was in such a hurry that he would not remove the summer-house to make a proper foundation for the tower, but carried it up on the walls already standing, the work being done in wretched style and chiefly by semi-drunken men. He employed five hundred men day and night at the work, and once the torches used set fire to the tower at the top, a sight that he greatly enjoyed. Beckford lived at the abbey, practically a hermit, for nearly twenty years, but his fortunes being impaired he removed to Bath in 1822. Preparatory to selling Fonthill, he opened the long-sealed place to public exhibition at a guinea a ticket, and sold seventy-two hundred tickets. Then for thirty-seven days he conducted an auction-sale of the treasures at Fonthill, charging a half-guinea admission. He ultimately sold the estate for $1,750,000. In 1825 the tower, which had been insecurely built, fell with a great crash, and so frightened the new owner, who was an invalid, that, though unhurt by the disaster, he died soon afterwards. The estate was again sold and the abbey taken down, so that now only the foundations can be traced.
BRISTOL.
Proceeding about twelve miles down the beautiful valley of the Avon, we come to its junction with the Frome, where is located the ancient city and port of Bristol, the capital of the west of England. A magnificent suspension-bridge spans the gorge of the Avon, connecting Bristol with its suburb of Clifton, and it is believed that the earliest settlements by the Romans were on the heights of Clifton and the adjoining Brandon Hill. The Saxons called it Bright-stow, or the "Ill.u.s.trious City;" from this the name changed to Bristow, as it was known in the twelfth century, and Bristold in the reign of Henry III. When the original owners concluded that it was time to come down from the hills, they founded the city in the valley at the junction of the two rivers. A market-cross was erected where the main streets joined, and Bristow Castle was built at the eastern extremity, where the Avon makes a right-angled bend. The town was surrounded with walls, and in the thirteenth century the course of the Frome was diverted in order to make a longer quay and get more room for buildings. Few traces remain of the old castle, but portions of the ancient walls can still be seen. In the fifteenth century the city-walls were described as lofty and ma.s.sive and protected by twenty-five embattled towers, some round and some square.
The abbey of St. Augustine was also then flourishing, having been founded in the twelfth century. Bristol was in the Middle Ages the second port of England, enjoying lucrative trade with all parts of the world, and in the fifteenth century a Bristol ship carrying nine hundred tons was looked upon with awe as a leviathan of the ocean. Sebastian Cabot, the great explorer, was a native of Bristol, and his expeditions were fitted out there, and it was Bristol that in 1838 built and sent out the first English steamer that crossed the Atlantic, the Great Western. It still enjoys a lucrative trade, and has recently opened new docks at the mouth of the Avon, seven miles below the city, so that this venerable port may be considered as renewing its prosperous career. It has over two hundred thousand population, and in past times had the honor of being represented in Parliament by Edmund Burke. When ancient Bristol was in its heyday, Macaulay says the streets were so narrow that a coach or cart was in danger of getting wedged between the buildings or falling into the cellars. Therefore, goods were conveyed about the town almost exclusively in trucks drawn by dogs, and the wealthy inhabitants exhibited their riches not by riding in gilded carriages, but by walking about the streets followed by a train of servants in gorgeous liveries and by keeping tables laden with good cheer. The pomp of christenings and funerals then far exceeded anything seen in any other part of England, and the hospitality of the city was widely renowned.
This was especially the case with the banquets given by the guild of sugar-refiners, where the drink was a rich beverage made of Spanish wine and known as "Bristol milk." In 1831 the opposition of the Recorder of Bristol to the Reform Bill resulted in serious riots, causing a great fire that burned the Mansion House and a large number of other prominent buildings. The troops suppressed the riots after shooting several rioters, and four were afterwards hanged and twenty-six transported. The city has since enjoyed a tranquil history.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BRISTOL CATHEDRAL, FROM COLLEGE GREEN.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: NORMAN DOORWAY, COLLEGE GREEN.]
Bristol Cathedral was the convent-church of St. Augustine"s Abbey, and was begun in the twelfth century. It formerly consisted only of the choir and transepts, the nave having been destroyed in the fifteenth century, but the nave was rebuilt in uniform style with the remainder of the church in 1876. The cathedral presents a mixture of architectural styles, and in it are the tombs of the Earls of Berkeley, who were its benefactors for generations. Among them was Maurice, Lord Berkeley, who died in 1368 from wounds received at Poictiers. The abbot, John Newland, or Nail-heart, was also a benefactor of the abbey, and is said to have erected the magnificent Norman doorway to the west of it leading to the college green. The most attractive portion of the interior of the cathedral is the north aisle of the choir, known as the Berkeley Chapel, a beautiful specimen of Early English style. The side-aisles of the choir are of the same height as the central aisle, and in the transepts are monuments to Bishop Butler, author of the _a.n.a.logy_, and to Robert Southey, who was a native of Bristol. This cathedral is not yet complete, the external ornamentation of the nave and the upper portions of the western towers being unfinished. Forty-seven bishops have sat upon the episcopal throne of Bristol. The old market-cross, which stood for four centuries in Bristol, was removed in the last century, but in 1860 it was replaced by a modern one erected upon the college green. The church of St. Mary Redcliffe, standing upon a red sandstone rock on the south side of the Avon, is the finest church in Bristol, and Chatterton calls it the "Pride of Bristowe and Western Londe." It is an Early Perpendicular structure, two hundred and thirty-one feet long, with a steeple rising over two hundred feet, founded in the twelfth century, but enlarged and rebuilt in the fifteenth century by William Canynge, who was then described as "the richest merchant of Bristow, and chosen five times mayor of the said town." He and his wife Joan have their monuments in the church, and upon his tomb is inscribed the list of his ships. He entered holy orders in his declining years, and founded a college at Westbury, whither he retired. It has for many years been the custom for the mayor and corporation of Bristol to attend this church on Whitsunday in state, when the pavement is strewn with rushes and the building decorated with flowers. In the western entrance is suspended a bone of a large whale, which, according to tradition, is the rib of the dun cow that anciently supplied Bristol with her milk. Sebastian Cabot, in all probability, presented the city with this bone after his discovery of Newfoundland. The chief popular interest in St. Mary Redcliffe, however, is its connection with Thomas Chatterton, born in a neighboring street in 1752, the son of a humble schoolmaster, who ultimately went up to London to write for the booksellers, and there committed suicide at the early age of seventeen. A monument to this precocious genius, who claimed to have recovered ancient ma.n.u.scripts from the church-archives, stands in the churchyard. Bristol is full of old and quaint churches and narrow yet picturesque streets, with lofty gabled timber-houses.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CLIFTON SUSPENSION-BRIDGE, BRISTOL.]
The great gorge of the Avon, five hundred feet deep, is, however, its most attractive possession. The suspension-bridge, erected by the munificence of a citizen, spans this gorge at the height of two hundred and eighty-seven feet, and cost nearly $500,000. It is twelve hundred and twenty feet long, and has a single span of seven hundred and three feet crossing the ravine between St. Vincent"s Rocks and the Leigh Woods. Alongside this gorge rises Brandon Hill, which Queen Elizabeth sold to two citizens of Bristol, who in turn sold it to the city, with a proviso that the corporation should there "admit the drying of clothes by the townswomen, as had been accustomed;" and to this day its western slope is still used as a clothes-drying ground. From this the tradition arose--which, however, Bristol denounces as a libel--"that the queen gave the use of this hill to poor freemen"s daughters as a dowry, because she took compa.s.sion on the many plain faces which she saw in one of her visits." Some hot springs issue out of St. Vincent"s Rocks, and these give Clifton fame as a watering-place. A fine pump-house has been built there, and the waters are said to be useful in pulmonary complaints. From this beginning large and ornamental suburbs have been terraced on the rocks and hills above the springs, while on the summit is an observatory. There is a hermitage cave of great antiquity carved in the perpendicular face of the rock just above the river, and known as the "Giant"s Hole." The entire neighborhood is full of charming scenery, and thus the ancient port presents varied attractions, combining business profit with recreation, while from the hilltops there are glorious views extending far down Bristol Channel to the dim hills of South Wales.
WELLS.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WELLS CATHEDRAL, FROM THE BISHOP"S GARDEN.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: WELLS CATHEDRAL, FROM THE SWAN POOL.]
Proceeding southward into Somersetshire, we arrive at the cathedral city of Wells, which is united with Bath in the well-known bishopric of Bath and Wells, and is considered the most completely representative ecclesiastical city in England. It gets its name from its numerous springs, taking their rise from the wells in the Bishop"s Garden, where they form a lake of great beauty, while bright, clear water runs through various streets of the town. After leaving the edge of the Bristol Channel the plain of the Somersetshire lowlands is bordered by rocky uplands, of which the most important is the elevated plateau known as the Mendip Hills, carved on the outside with winding valleys having precipitous sides. Wells nestles in a wide gra.s.sy basin at the foot of the Mendips, its entire history being ecclesiastical, and that not very eventful. It never had a castle, and no defensive works beyond the wall and moat enclosing the bishop"s palace. It seems to have had its origin from the Romans, who worked lead-mines among the Mendips, but the first fact actually known about it is that the Saxon king Ina established here a house of secular canons "near a spring dedicated to St. Andrew." It grew in importance and privileges until it became a bishopric, there having been fifteen bishops prior to the Norman Conquest. The double t.i.tle of Bishop of Bath and Wells was first a.s.sumed in the days of King Stephen. In looking at the town from a distance two buildings rise conspicuously--the belfry of St. Cuthbert"s Church and the group of triple towers crowning the cathedral. There are few aggregations of ecclesiastical buildings in England that surpa.s.s those of Wells, with the attractive gateways and antique houses of the close, the grand facade of the cathedral, and the episcopal palace with its ruined banquet-hall and surrounding moat. From the ancient market-square of the city, stone gateways surmounted by gray towers give access, one to the close and the other to the enclosure of the palace. Entering the close, the western front of the cathedral is seen, the most beautiful facade of its kind in Britain--an exquisite piece of Early English architecture, with Perpendicular towers and unrivalled sculptures rising tier upon tier, with architectural accompaniments such as are only to be found at Chartres or Rheims. The old Saxon cathedral lasted until Bishop Jocelyn"s time in the thirteenth century, when he began a systematic rebuilding, which was not finished until the days of Bishop Beckington in the fifteenth century, who completed the gateways and cloisters.
Entering the cathedral, the strange spectacle is at once seen of singular inverted arches under the central tower, forming a cross of St. Andrew, to whom the building is dedicated. These arches were inserted subsequently to the erection of the tower to strengthen its supports--an ingenious contrivance not without a certain beauty. The choir is peculiar and beautiful, and produces a wonderful effect, due to its groups of arches, the Lady Chapel and retro-choir, and the rich splendors of the stained gla.s.s. The chapter-house, north-east of the northern transept, is built over a crypt, and is octagonal in plan, the roof supported by a central column, while the crypt beneath has an additional ring of columns. The cloisters are south of the cathedral, having three walks, with galleries above the eastern and western walks, the former being the library. Through the eastern wall of the cloisters a door leads to a private garden, in which and in the Bishop"s Garden adjoining are the wells that name the city. The most important of these is St. Andrew"s Well, whence a spring issues into a large pool. The water from the wells falls by two cascades into the surrounding moat, and a conduit also takes away some of it to supply the town. From the edge of the pool is the most striking view of the cathedral.
[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW UNDER CENTRAL TOWER, WELLS CATHEDRAL.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF THE OLD BANQUET-HALL.]
The close is surrounded by various ancient houses, and the embattled wall with its bastioned towers and moat encloses about fifteen acres.
Here is the gateway known as the "Bishop"s Eye," and another called the "Dean"s Eye," the deanery where Henry VII. was entertained in 1497, the archdeanery, coming down from the thirteenth century, and the beautiful Chain Gate in the north-east corner that connects the cathedral with the Vicar"s Close. The latter, one of the most peculiar features of Wells, is a long and narrow court entered through an archway, and having ancient houses with modernized fittings on either hand. Bishop Ralph of Shrewsbury erected this close in the fourteenth century, and his monumental inscription in the cathedral tells us he was a great sportsman, who "destroyed by hunting all the wild beasts of the great forest of Cheddar." The moat and wall completely surround the bishop"s palace, and its northern front overhangs the moat, where an oriel window is pointed out as the room where Bishop Kidder and his wife were killed by the falling of a stack of chimneys upon their bed, blown down by the terrible gale of 1703 that swept away the Eddystone Lighthouse.
It was Bishop Ralph who made the walls and moat as a defence against the monks of Bath, who had threatened to kill him; Bishop Jocelyn built the palace. Adjoining it is the great banquet-hall, of which only the northern and western walls remain, in ruins. It was a magnificent hall, destroyed from mere greed. After the alienation of the monasteries it fell into the hands of Sir John Gates, who tore it partly down to sell the materials; but happily, as the antiquarian relates, Gates was beheaded in 1553 for complicity in Lady Jane Grey"s attempt to reach the throne, and the desecration was stopped. Afterwards, Parliament sold Wells for a nominal price to Dr. Burgess, and he renewed the spoliation, but, fortunately again, the Restoration came; he had to give up his spoils, and died in jail. Thus was the remnant of the ruin saved. It was in this hall that Whiting, the last abbot of Glas...o...b..ry, was condemned, and hanged on Tor Hill above his own abbey. The great bishops of Wells were the episcopal Nimrod Ralph, and Beckington, who left his mark so strongly on the cathedral and town. He was a weaver"s son, born at the village of Beckington, near the town of Frome, and from it got his name.
Hadrian de Castello, who had a romantic history, became Bishop of Wells in 1504. Pope Alexander VI. made him a cardinal, and afterwards tried to poison him with some others at a banquet; by mistake the pope himself drank of the poisoned wine, and died. The bishop afterwards entered into a conspiracy against Leo X., but, being detected, escaped from Rome in disguise and disappeared. Wolsey was Bishop of Wells at one time, but the most ill.u.s.trious prelate who held the see after the Reformation was Thomas Ken. He was educated at Winchester, and afterwards became a prebend of the cathedral there. Charles II. paid a visit to Winchester, and, bringing Nell Gwynne with him, Ken was asked to allow her to occupy his house. He flatly refused, which had just the opposite effect upon the king to that which would be supposed, for he actually respected Ken for it, and when the see of Wells became vacant he offered it to "the little fellow who would not give poor Nelly a lodging." Ken attended the king"s deathbed shortly afterwards. He was very popular in the diocese, and after the Sedgemoor battle he succored the fugitives, and with the Bishop of Ely gave spiritual consolation to the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth on the scaffold. Ken was one of the six bishops committed by James II. to the Tower, but, strangely enough, he declined to take the oaths of allegiance to William III., and, being deprived of preferment, retired to the home of his nephew, Izaak Walton. All reverence his sanct.i.ty and courage, and admire his morning and evening hymns, written in a summer-house in the Bishop"s Garden.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ENTRANCE TO THE CHEDDAR CLIFFS.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: HIGH ROCKS AT CHEDDAR.]
The Mendip Hills, with their picturesque gorges and winding valleys, were formerly a royal forest. It was here that King Edmund was hunting the red deer when his horse took fright and galloped towards the brow of the highest part of the Cheddar Cliffs. Shortly before, the king had quarrelled with Dunstan, and expelled the holy man from his court. As the horse galloped with him to destruction, he vowed if preserved to make amends. The horse halted on the brink as if checked by an unseen hand, and the king immediately sought Dunstan and made him abbot of Glas...o...b..ry. These hills were the haunt of the fiercest wild beasts in England, and their caves still furnish relics of lions to a larger extent than any other part of the kingdom. The most remarkable deposit of these bones is in the Wookey Hole, on the southern edge of the Mendips, about two miles from Wells. At the head of a short and picturesque glen, beneath an ivy-festooned cliff, is a cavern whence the river Axe issues and flows down the glen. The cave that disclosed the animal bones is on the left bank of the glen, and was but recently discovered in making a mill-race. It also contained about three hundred old Roman coins, rude flint implements, and skeletons of a mammoth and woolly rhinoceros. The larger cave, which is hung with fine stalact.i.tes, can be explored for some distance. Near the entrance is a ma.s.s of rock known as the Witch of Wookey, who was turned into stone there by a timely prayer from a monk who opportunely arrived from Glas...o...b..ry. The underground course of the Axe in and beyond this cave is traced for at least two miles. The Mendips contain other pretty glens and gorges, and from the summit of their cliffs can be seen the valley of the Axe winding away southward, while to the westward the scene broadens into the level plains that border the Bristol Channel, guarded on either side by the hills of Exmoor and of Wales. Little villages cl.u.s.ter around the bases of the hills, the most noted being Cheddar, famous for its cheese, straggling about the entrance to a gorge in which caves are numerous, each closed by a door, where an admission-fee is charged. Some of them are lighted with gas and entered upon paved paths. Lead-and zinc-mines are worked in the glens, and above Cheddar rises the Black Down to a height of eleven hundred feet, the most elevated summit of the Mendips.
GLAs...o...b..RY.
About six miles south-west of Wells is the ancient Isle of Avelon, where St. Patrick is said to have spent the closing years of his life, and where are the ruins of one of the earliest and most extensive religious houses in England--Glas...o...b..ry Abbey. A sixpence is charged to visit the ruins, which adjoin the chief street, but the remnants of the vast church, that was nearly six hundred feet long, are scanty. Of the attendant buildings there only remain the abbot"s kitchen and an adjoining gateway, now converted into an inn. This kitchen is about thirty-four feet square within the walls and seventy-two feet high. The church ruins include some of the walls and tower-foundations, with a well-preserved and exceedingly rich chapel dedicated to St. Joseph. On the High Street is the old George Inn, which was the hostelrie for the pilgrims, built in the reign of Edward IV. and still used. It is fronted by a splendid ma.s.s of panelling, and the central gateway has a bay-window alongside rising the entire height of the house. The church of St. John the Baptist in Glas...o...b..ry has a fine tower, elevated one hundred and forty feet and richly adorned with canopied niches, being crowned by an open-work parapet and slender pinnacles. Almost the entire town of Glas...o...b..ry is either constructed from spoils of the abbey or else is made up of parts of its buildings. One of the most characteristic of the preserved buildings is the Tribunal, now a suite of lawyers" offices. Its deeply-recessed lower windows and the oriel above have a venerable appearance, while beyond rises the tower of St.
John the Baptist. Behind the town is the "Weary-all Hill," from which arose the foundation of the monastery. Tradition tells that Joseph of Arimathea, toiling up the steep ascent, drove his thorn staff into the ground and said to his followers that they would rest there. The thorn budded, and still flowers, it is said, in winter. This was regarded as an omen, and they constructed the abbey there around the chapel of St.
Joseph. The ponderous abbot"s kitchen, we are told, was built by the last abbot, who boasted, when Henry VIII. threatened to burn the monastery, that he would have a kitchen that all the wood in Mendip Forest could not burn down. King Arthur was buried at Glas...o...b..ry, and a veracious historian in the twelfth century wrote that he was present at the disinterment of the remains of the king and his wife. "The shin-bone of the king," he says, "when placed side by side with that of a tall man, reached three fingers above his knee, and his skull was fearfully wounded." The remains of King Arthur"s wife, which were quite perfect, fell into dust upon exposure to the air.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GLAs...o...b..RY TRIBUNAL.]