This essay was written in 1914 by Alexander Campbell Yorke 1852-1925, Rector of Fowlmere, 5th son of Henry Reginald Yorke 1802-1871 (Rector of Wimpole and brother of the 4th Earl of Hardwicke); the author was then a man of 62 and remembering his childhood at Wimpole Rectory.
This adaptation was edited by David Ellison and originally published as "Wimpole As I Knew It" by 'Bassingbourn Booklets' in 1979. A Biographical Note by David Ellison was published as an introduction to the booklet and can be found on this website.
Wimpole Rectory still stands in the grounds of Wimpole Hall. In 1996, the National Trust converted the lower floor into the Rectory Restaurant. The upper floors have been refurbished and are being used as estate offices.
My home was in the [Wimpole] Rectory from 1852 to 1871, and for the fifteen months
thereafter my associations with it were close and intimate. In the wide
bush of Australia and New Zealand my recollections were photographed on
my memory, and Wimpole was the Mecca towards which eyes and heart were
often turned.
There cannot be many glebe houses in England so comfortable and liveable
as Wimpole Rectory. Such as it is my father [1] made it. Although its twenty-two
rooms may seem to be unnecessarily extravagant, in large measure they
were forced upon him.
When my father took possession in 1835 the house consisted of the central
block under the two gables, with the room used as a study behind it, and
two nurseries that overlooked the yard. The present dining-room was the
kitchen. There were thus four rooms on the ground floor, and seven on
the upper floor.
The house was in shocking neglect. It was for the most part a lath and
plaster building painted yellow, the plaster in many places fallen away
from the laths. Against the east end of the house the old tithe barn leant
a decrepit shoulder. Along its front ranged the cart sheds. On its north
side lay the little farmyard. As there was no arable glebe, and as tithes
in kind had ceased, these buildings were useless.
Wimpole Rectory c1928
Yet they were part of the glebe, and therefore had to be maintained and
brought under periodical Dilapidations. The difficulty was met by turning
the barn into kitchen, scullery, larder and servants hall; and,
upstairs, the nurseries and laundry. By a slight enlargement of the back
he made rooms to construct a back staircase of the same measurements as
the front, in order that the servants might find no excuse for using the
front stairs when about their work. Then as Cambridgeshire mud is a caution,
he threw out the back hall, with its two upper floors, to save the front
hall from dirty feet. The offices were built round the old farm yard.
Such is the genesis of the house. The conversion of the cart sheds into
the covered way was the contrivance of which my father seemed
to be proudest.
The garden was supposed to be the kitchen garden, as the old medlaar
tree and the apple trees in the border near the drive testify; but my
father found it a mass of docks and nettles. Every flower bed he pegged
out with his own hands, and save for some changes on its east side, it
remains much as I always remember it. The hard frost of 1859-60 killed
a fine arbutus and a Judas-tree; from the latter a chair was made that
is still in my possession.
The two fine chimney-pieces were his erection. That in the dining-room
he pieced together himself, with a carpenter to do the nicer fitting.
The side pilasters are made from an old sundial pedestal cut in half.
He gave an old woman a flannel petticoat for it, and had it to pickle
for weeks to remove its coats of pea-green paint. The three panels are
the head of an old bedstead, and the centre panel is charred by some old
rush light. Of the masks above, the right hand one is a snuff box, and
it can still be opened by the curious.
The one in the dining room is made of Flemish carving bought from time
to time in Belgium. My uncle Hardwicke bought in these two mantelpieces
for the Rectory. He paid £185 for them. The cost of these alterations
and enlargements was great. My father has often told me that they cost
him over £5,000.
[1] Henry Reginald Yorke, Rector of Wimpole and brother of the 4th Earl of Hardwicke.
Of the Church and its Services
[Refers to St Andrew's Parish Church, Wimpole]
The gallery in those days was supported by plain panelled,
square, wooden pillars, painted stone colour. The pulpit, prayer desk
and clerk's desk formed a modest and unpretentious three-decker.
The pulpit was quite plain with a door, and I do not think the report,
that the moveable platform in the library of the Hall is fashioned out
of it, has any probability. The pews were all high-backed with doors painted
in two shades of stone colour; and down the central gangway was a file
of little benches without backs for the boys of the Sunday School. The
officials of the estate and the upper servants of the Hall sat in the
Chicheley Chapel. The Rector's pew, square and high-backed, was east
of the pulpit, just under the tablet to my mother's memory.
The old lord and his family sat in the gallery, carpeted and furnished
as a comfortable room. Across the south-west corner of it was a fireplace.
Round its crackling fire the family drew their chairs in winter for the
sermon. Sometimes the old lord made a desperate clatter, stoking and poking.
Not seldom he knocked all the fire irons down with a clash. This was chaffingly
taken by my father as a signal that the sermon was getting too long.
There was no vestry. A cupboard under the stairs did duty partly as the
coal hole, partly as a screen behind which the Rector donned his bedgown
and doffed it for his black silk before the sermon. The chapel was warmed
by a large square stove just below the steps into the chapel.
Through my boyhood Arrington sang its praises to the sound of the clarionet;
Barrington lifted up its voice to the melody of a barrel organ. The late
Mr. John Beaumont of Whaddon had given an organ to his parish church,
but he had seen that church packed to hear the wondrous music of an iron
cello made by the village smith. It is therefore imaginable that in the
early nineteenth century, the Wimpole psalmody must have been quaint.
But, as I knew it, it was decent, and reverent, if very unassuming. We
had a harmonium in front of the sanctuary of which the schoolmaster (first
Mr. Harrison, then Mr. Horsefield) was the musician. The men of the choir,
in broadcloth or velveteen, sat round on the benches against the wall
north and south of the sanctuary. The girls who supplied the treble sat
facing the congregation on benches at the side and in front of the harmonium.
These girls were always dressed in white straw bonnets with scarlet ribbons
and 'curtain', and in black frieze cloaks with deep collars
of scarlet cloth. The Canticles were chanted, 'Mornington' being
the favourite chant for the Magnificat. The responses and alternate verses
of the Psalms were monotoned; the Amens were inflected. We used the old Mitre Hymn Book and when its Appendix was published, 'Jerusalem
the Golden', 'Brief Life is here our Portion' and 'O
Paradise' were mighty favourites. One hymn tune, peculiar to Wimpole,
and of unknown origin, called 'Ishmael' used to sweep us off
our feet.
My father, with a twinkle in his eye, used to tell how the witty Dr Wilberforce,
bishop of Oxford, preaching once in Wimpole church, had defined our service
as "the ornamental parochial". The Sunday services were at 11
and 3. 'Sacrament Sunday' was the first in the month. On the
other Sundays the 11 am service was always Matins, Litany and Ante-Communion,
with sermon.
Wimpole Parish Church Exterior c1905
Note the proximity of the East Wing of Wimpole Hall, now demolished.
Postcard Image
Wimpole Parish Church Interior c1905
Note the
interior walls of the Nave were painted a deep red oche. Postcard Image
Before each service the Sunday School was held in the Chicheley Chapel.
It largely consisted in rote work. As his co-adjutor in this my father
had an Arrington man, John Charters; he was a Wesleyan, and sometimes
had field preachings in the meadow behind his cottage under Arrington
hill. He was a good and religious man, a blacksmith by trade. He had charge
of the boys on the benches in the central passage during service. I see
him now in his brown velveteen, with finger ever ready to slip between
the pages of his large brown Prayer Book, the more effectually to swing
it against some mischievous head.
One summer afternoon from his eyrie in the pulpit, my father saw two
tramps creeping barefoot past the church to make an inroad on the rectory.
He signalled to John Charters to go out and keep guard. And he signalled
again and again. Each signal was misinterpreted as a call to exercise
discipline on his charges. John's Prayer Book played about their
heads, as Samson's jawbone upon the men of Lehi. His pathway was
strewn with weeping, groaning boyhood. From that day John was dubbed 'the
boy banger'.
My father was what would have been called in Scotland "a paperr
meenisterr" for he always read his sermons. He had a large supply
of manuscripts to draw upon, stacked in the lower cupboards of his study.
Whenever he used one of these he would spend a day on touching it up.
For this process he used a phrase caught from Bishop Harvey Goodwin; "cuffing
and collaring my old sermons". He was always simple and earnest;
and I can remember how once, in his declining years, the old preacher
broke down and wept.
For robes he always at church wore the double-breasted cassock, with
broad girdle tied at the back; a full surplice open down the front; a
black scarf; and, in the pulpit, his MA gown. This, for the last five
or six years of his life, he discarded in favour of the surplice. But
I believe his motive was chiefly economy, and I can well remember his
surprise that the daring innovation passed without comment.
Churchings and baptisms were always taken during the 3 pm evensong. The
woman to be churched was always seated in the pew nearest to the Clerk's
desk. She always wore a veil over her face. Except on 'Sacrament
Sundays' there were no collections at any of the services. 'Diocesan'
and 'Missionary' and 'Temperance' Sundays did not
exist. Harvest Festival services had not reached us.
Round about the Park and Parish
[Wimpole Hall and Estate]
......On the hill to the west of the mansion stood the Hill House,
a Georgian pleasure house for tea and spadille. It was of brick and
stucco, with interior fittings of wood painted to look like green marble.
From its upper floor could be viewed a lovely prospect of wood and tilth
to the Royston hills.
View of the Hill House, Wimpole
Engraving published March 1781
On the flat below the Hill House were held in 1857 the revelries connected
with Lord Royston's coming of age. The big tent for the feasting,
packed with farmers and tenants of the estate, was erected on the side
towards the Walnut Avenue. To me, a bairn of five, the supreme attractions
were the real Punch and Judy show, and the Acrobat - a marvellous
creature in spangled tights, who contorted himself hideously and swallowed
a great sword and lumps of fire, till I thought that like Marley's
ghost he must have no bowels.
On this same flat I once saw what now I know to be one of the wonders
of the world - two eels making their way to their family and ancestral
home in the Spring pond.
A legend has sprung up of late years that the Walnut Avenue was planted
by the 'old Lady Hardwicke', from nuts brought in her pocket
from (?) somewhere. I myself, as I shall presently recount, saw that
old lady buried in 1858; and those trees were much older than her marriage
(circa 1783). The story that I was taught was that they were the remnant
of a larger avenue, the greater part of which was cut down during the
French war, as walnut was then in great demand for musket stocks.
The Spring pond was that which supplied the eels for the mansion kitchen.
"Wina's pool" (after which Wimpole is believed to have
been named - I wish I would remember what we called it!) - was stocked
with carp and tench. I well remember as one of the good things of life
a carp from thence, stuffed with truffles, and served in a port wine
sauce! Once, when almost dying of starvation among the sand-hills on
Eyre's Creek in western Queensland, the vision of that lordly carp
haunted me through a whole day's tramp.
In the open space, not far from the present cricket ground, was the
Stew Pond, whose connection with old-time gourmandising lives in the
name. I can remember a water souchet of a monstrous perch brought
in from thence. That pond, like the old horse pond at the bottom of
the rectory garden, is now filled in. It, and "Wina's Pool"
used to be surrounded by low black posts with a single iron rail; very
ugly! My father used to say that his brother (the 4th Earl) had them
put up to celebrate his office as Post Master General, held by
him in the short-lived administration of Lord Derby in 1852.
The upper and lower ponds were the home of jack and pike. I and my
brothers have caught some fair sized fish there, 12 or 14 lbs; and I
remember that we once caught one with a smaller jack down its throat,
and in the jack s tummy was an undigested roach. My father used to tell
me how once, when the water had been run off for the purpose of cleaning
and deepening the ponds, two huge pike, weighing 36 lbs each, had been
taken out. He used to say that they were as long as our drawing room
hearth rug; but their eating was very weedy and muddy.
My uncle had a wonderful boat built with a wheel at the stem, so that
it could be wheeled from pond to pond. It was cumbersome and not a success.
These ponds chiefly linger in my memory as scenes of jolly skating
parties. While my cousins and my brothers and sisters were at home,
and the large St Quentin contingent from Hatley could come, they were
merry parties indeed. On the big island we used to light a fire to cook
the Irish stew and other warming meats. It was at one of these parties
that Mr. H J Adeane proposed (for, I believe, the fifth time) for my
cousin Libbett's hand - and won her.
The dingle between the ponds lingers with me as a wealth of bluebells,
violets and primroses. I picked some there on Christmas Day of 1872,
so mild was the season. And I can remember a kingfisher's nest
in the chalk bank on the further side. My second brother Henry, once
when washing his hands in the little stream there, lost a handsome,
I think a carbuncle, ring. It was never found. Perhaps some day it will
be brought in as a specimen of Celtic or Saxon jewellery.
The park was stocked with deer, and many a stag fight have I seen.
In the lodge at the corner of the stables lived Job Male and his wife.
One day a stag attacked him, and pinned him against the sunk fence.
Job was a very strong man then; he took an antler in either hand, and
just turned the brute over on its back.
Sometimes when the dairy cattle were turned out, and the mares and
foals, I used - but you may be sure it was when my uncle and the family
were away - I used to put the gong in the porch, and banging on it,
soon had every hoof of stock standing in admiration on the sweep of
drive below. A great store of chestnuts used to be laid in under the
flight of steps to feed the deer in winter. They would get so tame as
to eat out of our hands.
The park on its chalk was a terror for the stranger and the thin-skinned.
Every bent was alive with harvest-bugs. My uncle used to grease his
boots to catch them; and I have seen the grease red with the little
torments. My father used to call them "the Wimpole witches"
and it must be allowed that some connection can be found between them
and "Old Scratch".
And, talking of wild beasts, here is a memory of something not seen
now. The first night that my father slept in the rectory no less than
thirty-six rats were caught on the front landing. He has told me how
he once saw an army of rats, a solid moving phalanx, emigrating from
the Home Farm. He used to impress upon me the danger of finding myself
surrounded by such; and used to point his story by telling me of a Wimpole
farmer, who, on his way home from Cambridge market, found himself and
his horse surrounded by an army of the vermin somewhere at the foot
of Orwell hill. They attacked him and his horse, and with difficulty
and a hunting crop he fought his way through. It does suggest that at
the Market Ordinary this agriculturalist.... But perish the thought!
Had he not kept his saddle for eight miles.
Arrington was, I believe, never part of my father's cure. Certainly
it was not in my early boyhood. Down to about 1860 The Reverend S B
Dowell was the vicar; and such services in the way of weekly oversight
as my father undertook were done voluntarily and neighbourly. Of course
our interest lay in the almshouses. There was 'old Robby'
who had been nurse in Lord Hardwicke's family. And Mary Lyon in
her mob-cap and short puffed sleeves. And Mrs. Cooper with an almost
unfailing greeting "Lawk-a-mussy-me-ho! How them girls (my sisters)
do grow!"
Arrington Almshouses c1900
The Almshouses were endowed in 1846 by Susan, 4th Countess of Hardwicke,
in memory of her mother.
Indelible is the memory of Peggy Payne, whose friendship was displayed
in the oft request - "Woan't -ee hev a look at my
poor dear leg?" No other epitaph should be hers but this of old:
Here lies the body of honest old Peg,
Who had no issue save one in her leg.
This same honest old Peg was so desperate cunning
That one leg stood still, while the other kept running.
At Arrington Bridge my thoughts run to Sophie Osbourne, a rather forbidding,
melancholy, old crone, who lived in a tarred wooden cottage close to
the Lodge. Apart from herself, of whom I was always rather afraid -
she would have been burned as a Wimpole Witch a hundred years earlier
- I used to like going there. She had decked, for a black-eyed hoyden
of a daughter, a wondrous 'corner', with all kinds of weird
and outlandish gew-gaws. I remember a pair of brass epaulettes her good
man had brought home from the wars. But she, poor soul, was a martyr
to the 'tic'; and I mind me of a queer diagnosis she once
expressed, "yer see, sir, the Room-tics and the Room-tiz meets
together and fights in my inside".
Tight up against the 'View' lived the Whitby family, pronounced
Whidby. Over against them, across the road, lived Whetstone ('Drybrick')
the Parish Clerk, a bricklayer. The Dimocks lived in the farm on the
north and the Titchmarshes on the south. In New Wimpole I chiefly remember
Joe Gadd the one-legged tailor, who used to cut down my big brothers'
clothes, to fit me, and his sister, Kaziah. They had a cousin, Ann,
who lived at the Victoria Lodge, and was induced by Mormons to go out
to Salt Lake. At home she had been consumptive. Out there she grew hale,
and became the mother of children.
I can just remember Mr. Harrison the schoolmaster, and his immediate
successor. The only time I ever saw my father in a real temper was after
an interview with the latter, who had said he wasn't any longer
going to stand "having Harrison always stuffed down his throat".
To him succeeded the excellent Mr. Horsfield, who I found still at his
post when I returned from New Zealand in 1897. Those were the days of
the old wooden school. At Christmas 1872 was given a Penny Reading in
the school, where for the last time before leaving England I appeared.
Ever since that evening I have had a weakness for "Hard times come
again no more" and a longing to hear again a ballad sung by my
cousin Libbett, "A rose looked in at the window, One bright November
morn".
Mr. Horsfield was a great friend of Mr. Smoothy who had bought Mr.
Russell's business from his widow. Many is the sixpence I spent
in barley-sugar and sugar-candy at that Arrington shop; and many the
cup of tea that I have had in its dark little parlour; Horsfield and
Smoothy were two good friends - 'requiescant in Pace'.
The new house and dairy at the Home Farm were built in my day. The
old farmhouse was quite unworthy, only lath and plaster, but it had
a great flagged kitchen; and in the dairy behind Mrs. Cambridge used
to give us boys dishes of cream. Mr. Eraut, the clerk of the works and
estate architect, lived in the lodge near the gate on the New Wimpole
road. He was from the Channel Islands. On my return, Mrs. Cambridge
was ending her days in the very house that the Erauts had lived in.
The Ellistons lived at Thornbury Farm. At Cobb's Wood Farm was
a man called Coy, whose son was a parishioner of mine in Masterton,
New Zealand. At Pate's End I can recall the Mulberry, Bullen and
Rule families. William Bullen was for years the rectory gardener.
There was also a queer, ogreish, old man, whose name has slipt me.
He was very wizened and very dirty; in great part due to his occupation
as stoker at the Saw Mill. Of him the following was told:
There was great waste of engine grease. It was thought the bearings
were heated, and brimstone was mixed with the grease to detect the faulty
bearing. The waste still went on, and there was no identificatory smell.
A watch was kept. It was then found that this old man was used to toast
his bread at the furnace fire, and butter it with the grease.
"But wasn't the brimstone nasty?"
"Well, it wor rather strong!"
Once, when the fires were raked out, and the boilers being cleaned,
the old fellow disappeared. He was found asleep snugly curled up in
the warm boiler.
The Saw Mill soon after its installation was the scene of two nasty
accidents. Mr. Adeane of Babraham was inspecting it with curiosity,
and watching the billets for firewood being sawn up by the circular
saw. A knotty billet was whirled by the saw against his forehead. He
was instantly killed. A man called Keep was the engineer. He tried to
adjust a belt in the big shed without stopping the machinery. His jacket
was caught, and his brains dashed out.
The engineer and friend of my boyhood was Chapman, a delightful and
enthusiastic man. He had a fine lathe of his own make, which stood in
his kitchen, and at which he sometimes allowed me to work. He had also,
as befitted a man who had worked on the foot-plate, a real working model,
of his make, of a railway engine. While at the mill he took up photography
and my albums are full of excellent views and portraits done by him.
His wife was a gentle soul, but deformed and hump-backed. What passion
of love, or tragedy of fate, was it that bound these two together?
Brick End carried for me the most memories; perhaps because it was
reached by a delightful walk through the shrubberies, past the old orchard
where Devonshire Pearmains blushed rosy red upon us; and partly because
its people were attractive. In the top cottage lived the Pratts. My
father used to say that he could trace the Pratts through the Registers
back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He might have gone further. For
there was a John Pratt, a servant of Geoffrey Cobbe, who was an aggressive
and prominent actor in the Peasants' revolt of 1381. Some day I
must look in the Hundred Rolls of 1279 to see if there be not even then
a Wimpole Pratt.* They were a handsome swarthy race. Charlotte, now
the aged and crippled Charlotte Rumbold, was a Pratt; and she was a
picture. The handsomest woman that I ever remember to have seen. In
harvest time to see her swinging along the road with a bundle of corn
balanced on her head, both arms akimbo, was a study in colour, figure
and poise.
(*Certainty is impossible, since surnames had hardly developed in
1279, but there is a tenant with the distinguishing description "ad
pratum" - near the meadow - and the surname Pratt may have been
so derived! If so, 700 years must be a near record. - David Ellison.)
Then came the Mulberries, he a son of Moses Mulberry of Pate's
End. Once, when visiting there with my father, we found Tom at home.
"Why, Tom! How comes it that you're not at work?"
"Lor, sir, I’ve been feeling mortal bad."
"Eh! What’s the matter?"
"I fetches my bre'th so short."
"Short? Where do you fetch it from?"
"Here!" said Tom, laying a hand like a side of bacon on his
chest.
"And where else should you fetch it from?"
"Here!" and the hand passed down over an acre of fustian
to his stomach.
"But I'm better than I wor" Tom continued.
"Taken anything for it?"
"I swaller'd a handful o' shot this mornin' to
keep my lights down!"
Next door was old Tom Ingrey, hedger and ditcher, and his old wife.
A crusty laconic fellow was Tom. I met him one morning down by the New
Wimpole corner.
"My old 'ooman's done for now," he said.
"What's up now, neighbour?"
"Bu'nt!
Aye, "Bu'nt" she was. She had fallen into the fire,
and after lingering a few days she fell asleep.
I think the Rumbolds came next; Charlotte and her husband living with
the old couple. These were 'dreffle old': at their death both
were over 90; she, who survived longer, reached, I think, 'her
97'. When the old man lay a-dying my father called me up to see
something that he said I was never likely to see the like of in my life.
The clothes were turned back from the old man's feet. He had never
cut his toenails in his life, and they were crumpled round his feet
like ram's horns.
Not long before old Mrs. Rumbold's death my father took me in
his phaeton to Brick End. She hobbled out to the gate to see him off,
and, as he was stepping into the carriage, he asked her if she had ever
seen a railway train. Her answer being in the negative,
"Get in, neighbour," said he, "and I'll drive you up the Old North Road" - the line had shortly before been
opened, so that I am writing of 1864 or '5 - "and you shall see a train for once in your life." "Lawk-a-mussy-me-ho, sir! I should be feared." And she wouldn't
come. "Tell me, Mrs. Rumbold. Did you ever go out of the parish in all your days?" "Lor' bless 'e, yes sir! I once walked to Or'ell"
A dirty, slatternly family, of bad reputation, named Harradine, lived
in one of the cottages just above the Valley Farm. At the Tower lived
Goodman, the head gamekeeper. He was rather a canting sort of man, He
told me once, when I met him with gun on shoulder going to shoot rabbits
in the park, that he felt "like David going out against the Philistines".
At the Valley Farm lived the Lambs.
Round this circuit of Ends and village my father used to go quietly
on his work. He had a weekly Cottage Lecture
at Brick End, in the Pratt's house;
at Pate's End, in the Mulberry’s;
at New Wimpole, in the Gadd's;
at Arrington Bridge, in the Whitby's;
at Pump Hall, in, I think, the Goates';.
Twice a week he took a scripture class in the school.
His successor, the Reverend Edward Liddell, did not think that a young
man was justified in living in so easy a cure. He resigned, and went
to Jarrow, where strenuous work soon broke him down with premature paralysis.
The Sunday School treat was always held in the Rectory meadow. There
was always a big 1 o'clock dinner, with huge rounds of beef, tarts,
and plum-puddings. Usually the feed was held under the elms near the
gate. Sometimes they were under the big chestnut in the shrubbery of
the mansion. It is literally true that I have heard a boy say that he
thought he could eat a bit more pudd'n if he might unbutton his
waistcoat; and another that he could if he might stand up!
Of some Social Conditions
Farming, I believe, was never doing better than during my boyhood.
Rents ran, I have heard, from £2 to £2 l0s. But wages did not advance
beyond the old 9s a week until, somewhere about 1856, the coprolite
digging forced its way on to the Wimpole Estates. The diggers received
from 20s to 25s per week, and farm wages had to go up, or not a labourer
would have been left on the land.
But if wages were low, so too were cottage rents. I have understood
that the comfortable cottages at Brick End were let at only 6d a week;
and that thus my uncle was always able to retain a good class of labourer
on his property. If that were so, the coprolites enabled my uncle to
continue that policy; for they brought him in quite £5,000 a year. Nor
could he wish to drive his men out into the barracks that the speculators
ran up to accommodate the diggers; each barrack, as at Whaddon, having
a beer shop under the same roof as the men's quarters.
And, if wages were low, luxuries were not in evidence. The clothing
factory as yet was not. The men dressed in fustian, velveteen and moleskin.
The older men still affected the smock frock, grey worsted stockings
and yellow gaiters of former generations. The women used plain print
dresses, and lindsey-woolseys, and alpaccas. In winter the older women
always used to come to church in long red cloaks. Bonnets were plain
straw, or silk, with muslin caps in front and heavy curtains behind.
No woman ever wore any jewellery other than her wedding ring.
Bakers', butchers' and grocers' carts did not go skurrying
about, delivering goods and taking orders. Bread, for almost the whole
year, was baked in the large brick ovens of every pair of cottages,
from the summer's gleanings. These were threshed by the housewife
with the flail, ground at the nearest mill, and, as I have said, baked
at home. Every cottager fattened a pig or two for home consumption;
and the midday meal was of boiled cabbage with a bit of bacon fat atop
to give it a flavour. Butcher's meat was only seen on Sunday. The
good man took out to the fields a dinner of cold liver, or some such
trifle of unappetising fare; and was therewith content. His wife never
let him go a-field without getting up to give him a hot breakfast.
At Russell's shop in Arrington, which served Wimpole too, hams
and bacon, such as every cottager now expects, were almost unknown.
Monstrous flitches hung inside, and either doorpost was garnished with
a gigantic ham. But it was bear's bacon and ham from the Rocky
mountains.
Tea I can remember at 4s a lb. It was a marvel when it dropped to 2s
6d. It was all China tea. India and Ceylon leaf came quite late in my
boyhood, and then only to flavour the weaker growth of China. Green
tea was a rare delicacy. A 2 oz twist of tea was an acceptable present
to the old cronies. The sugar affected by the cottage folk was a dark
stuff from Mauritius or Demerara, full of molasses and great lumps looking
like black beetles. The approved manner of drinking tea was, first to
put in the mouth a spoonful of this sugar, and then to gulp the tea
through it.
Sewing machines were unknown. I can recall the amazement and almost
incredulity with which I saw them in the 1862 Exhibition. Every cottage
housewife made her own and children's clothes, mended all the family
duds, and knitted her good man's stockings. In those days she hadn't
time to gad about and gossip.
Amusements did not exist for Wimpole. The annual feast, a time of beer
and noise, can hardly be remembered as recreation. Once or twice, in
charge of my nurse, I was allowed to view it of an afternoon. I remember
buying some gilt gingerbread, and seeing a van with a Fat Woman and
a Spotted Boy on exhibition. Cricket and football were impossible. None
of my brothers or cousins were cricketers; and the village lads were
too scattered. Once Mr. Cambridge of the Home Farm asked me to play
with his boys. But there were only two and himself. So, though the old
man called a sycophantic "Prutty! Prutty!" to my yorkers, the sport
languished after one evening.
For the cottager the one connection with the outer world was Matthew
Prime's, the Orwell carrier's cart. There were no bicycles
till my Rugby days: and then not for the poor. Mr. Dowell, the vicar
of Arrington, used to come over on a four-wheeled velocipede. My sisters
often walked to Cambridge for their shopping. I once walked to Royston
to order a fly for a visitor at the Rectory.
My father introduced the Matin Harvest Bell at 6 am so that the gleaners
might start fair to their work. He also introduced the clothing club;
and a winter evening school, held in the Rectory kitchen. There was
an annual dole of bread, of whose origin I am ignorant, given out on
one Sunday afternoon.
The Meyerses at the "Hardwicke Arms" used to brew their own beer;
and rattling good beer it was. We used to say that the water from their
horse pond brewed the best beer in the county. My uncle too used to brew
his own table-beer, and that for the Rent Dinner. All through the winter
he insisted on a Loving Cup of hot spiced ale being served, and drunk
with the usual ceremonies, at his table. The brewery at New Wimpole
was not built until after 1873. It was built, so it is said, because
my uncle had rowed with them for using the "Hardwicke Arms" as
a private residence and not as an Inn.
The introduction of the threshing machine set the country-side alight
with incendiarism in 1850. That is not in my recollection, but I do
remember the troops of Irish reapers that came in at every harvest.
I can also remember the dismay when the scythe was substituted for the
reap hook, and the horse rake for the hand rake. It must have been about
1860 that the steam plough was first used on the estate, somewhere on
the hill towards Eversden. Threshing machines were always hauled by
horse power from place to place. The first Traction Engine was regarded
as a danger and a road destroyer.
The Railway was then a new thing for us Boeotians. The GNR, although
it built the line to Shepreth, did not run the trains between Hitchin
and Cambridge. It was the Eastern Counties that then had the running
powers over the branch; and miserable was the accommodation offered.
The 3rd class carriages were just like cattle trucks, unglazed and un-upholstered.
The engines were like toys, small, and with funnels of disproportionate
length. The trains were 'Parliamentary', maintaining a dignified
speed of 15 miles per hour.
People were not quite reconciled to this reckless speed, over which
they themselves had no direct control. Mr. Chapman, the vicar of Bassingbourn,
always preferred to walk to London. My grandmother, Lady Campbell, on
her periodical visits to us, travelled in state in her own travelling
carriage with a pair of horses and a postilion. It must have been quite
'56 or '57 before she unbent her haughty reserve. Even then
she preferred the journey to Royston in her own conveyance. She, her
companion, and her maid, composed themselves with dignity in the travelling
carriage as of old, and were run up on to a truck at King's Cross,
pulled up the windows because of the smoke and the tunnels, and so were
borne to Royston, hitched on to the tail of a train.
There they were met by a postillion and a pair of horses from the Bull
Inn, and their ruffled dignity mollified before arrival at the rectory.
The splendour of the postilion in his plum-coloured jacket and silver-tasselled
cap, the importance of the great travelling carriage with its queerly
shaped 'imperials' strapped on the roof, linger among my earliest
peeps upon the world from the windows of my night nursery. Down to the
end of his life my father never would perform the double journey to
and from London in one day. It was tempting Providence twice in the
twenty-four hours.
In those days the Midland ran into London over the metals of the GNR
to King's Cross. The St Pancras station was still a wonder, and
its architecture and design matters for discussion, when I went to Australia.
The present station at Cambridge was considered a marvel of skill when
it was first erected. Prior to that, it and that at Ely, stood on either
side of the line, four towers at the corners with foot-bridges across
the metals. But, as regards communications with the south and west of
England, Cambridge stands exactly as it did fifty years ago.
It must have been about 1848 when the Bishop of Oxford paid a visit
to Lord Hardwicke. My father had a pleasant memory of his wit. The semi-Gothic
of Paddington, and the stupendous Doric of the Euston gateway were under
discussion. How to classify these achievements was the question. "Oh!
" said the Bishop, "I should put them under Early English
Railway."
The Old North Road past the Wimpole Gates was known to my father in
his boyhood, while he was at Harrow. It was then (circa 1817 - 1820) infra dig for a Harrow boy to wear a greatcoat. In the depth
of winter, on an outside seat, my father has travelled from Edinburgh
to London without a greatcoat. The only concession allowed to human
weakness was that the British boy might put on two starched shirts.
It was within his knowledge, although I do not think he claimed to
have been a passenger, that galloping down Arrington Hill to the change
at the "Hardwicke Arms", the coach ran into a mob of cattle. One
of the great beasts was lying down right in the road; and, before he
was up, the coach was atop of him; The beast gave a heave, and over
went coach and passengers into the ditch.
Amenities and Otherwise
My uncle and aunt did not entertain very largely; they always, until
marriage and duties dispersed the families, had a grand Christmas dinner
and family party. And while their own sons and daughters were at home,
they had private theatricals of considerable merit. But, though Lord
Lieutenant, his County entertainments were at long intervals.
I remember, way back in the 60s, a great Fete Champetre to which everybody
of County position was invited. It was not long after the formation
of the big Dining Room; and as marquees were not then much used, there
was a perpetual 'collation' throughout the afternoon in that
room. One of the guests was Mr. Sampson, Rector of Kingston: a Creole
from the West Indies. He had a full and mellow voice. My uncle was always
friendly with the old man, who used to hunt an old black mare two days
in the week; and drive her in his shandridan the other four. From the
head of the table my uncle called out:
"Sampson, are you looking after yourself all right?" and
the answer came rolling up,
"Thank you, my lord. I've feasted by eyes, and taken care
of my inside."
The fifth earl was guilty of an unpardonable omission of hospitality.
He gave a dinner and ball to all his tenants and estate officers. The
thing, I am told, was splendidly done, with a grand supper in the big
room. After supper when all was being cleared away, it was discovered
that Mrs. Wickes, the wife of the steward, had been forgotten, and was
sitting in high dudgeon, solitary, in the corner. Of course Lord Hardwicke
ought to have taken her into supper himself; but he had forgotten. Lord
Royston, a boy, and already in bed, was hauled out of the blankets, shoved
into his smartest velvets, and brought down to lead the lady to a tête-à-tête
supper in the Red Dining Room. She declined the hospitality, and refused
to be comforted. It is said that the rupture thus made between the earl
and his steward contributed not a little to the final disaster.
The thing I chiefest wish to tell of is of a Ball, a real County Ball,
which, if ever it was given, must have been in my boyhood. I speak doubtfully,
and the reasons for my reserve will by and by be set forth. I will only
say here that I have no knowledge of it save from a document in possession
of the Reverend E C Conybeare, late vicar of Barrington. That gentleman
took it down verbatim from a police pensioner in his village. The tale
is so interesting, so picturesque and so vivid, that it is worth preserving,
although I cannot tell it at the length and with the vigour of the original.
That police officer states that he then resided in Orwell, and was
detailed for duty at the front of the Mansion on the night of this County
Ball. The Ball was given by the Lord Lieutenant in honour of the Prince
of Wales, then residing at Madingley.
But the Prince could not be present. He had informed Lord Hardwicke
that he had been hastily summoned to his father's bedside, and
was leaving at once. His Lordship was not to stop the ball, only to
make HRH's apologies. Lord Hardwicke had replied and had requested
the Prince to apprise him of the condition, or of the death, of the
Prince Consort.
Carriages rolled to the door, and a brilliant company assembled. Dancing
went on. About midnight this constable heard the sound of galloping
hoofs in the distance down the Royston road. Nearer and nearer, louder
and louder. A pause for admission at the great gates. Then louder, louder,
louder as the ramping hoofs thundered along the Park Road. Into the
light before the hall door dashed a messenger from the Telegraph Office
at Royston; the sweat dripped from his horse. Up the steps he ran the
fatal yellow envelope in his hand. His Lordship comes hurriedly to the
door; tears open the envelope; sinks into a chair, saying, "Sinking
fast, Sinking fast!"
A hurried conference was held with Lady Hardwicke and it was decided
not to disturb the guests. Instructions were given to the messenger
to convey any further telegram to the man who would be waiting for it
at the lodge at the Whaddon end of the avenue. Wickes and Cambridge
were set to organise the matter. All hands that could be gathered were
posted at intervals of 200 yards down the long avenue. The man who was
to receive the message was to call its contents out to the next; and
so on, right up to the door of the mansion.
Suddenly out of the darkness was heard the calling voice. Louder, clearer,
clearer, louder boomed the call, until at last they heard it as the
boom of a passing bell; "Dead! Dead! Dead!" Sobbing and speechless
the earl and his countess sank down in the hall. The ball was over.
The old policeman confirms his story strangely. He says he knows it
is true because he remembers composing a poem on the Death of the Prince
Consort, as he walked home through the moonlit glades of Cobb's
Wood.
I have said that I do not remember this ball. Possibly I had not yet
returned from Cheam School for the Christmas holidays. Yet I think I
should have heard of it. After hearing the story I referred the question
to my cousins, the Lady Biddulph and the Hon Alexander Yorke, Neither
remembered it. Yet, even if absent, they would have been told about
it; certainly they would have been summoned to attend so important a
function.
Final discredit is brought upon the moving tale by a reference to dates.
I had a lingering recollection that the Prince Consort died on a Saturday.
Sir Theodore Martin's Life of the Prince Consort settles
it. The Prince of Wales "was summoned by telegram from Madingley"
on the evening of Friday 13 December 1861. He arrived at Windsor "at
3 o'clock on Saturday morning. The Prince Consort died at
10.15 on Saturday night 14 December 1861.
The ball could not therefore have been on the Friday night twenty-four
hours before Prince Albert's death. And I am positive that no power
on earth would have induced my uncle and aunt to give a ball on a Saturday
night, to people whose very distance would keep them out of bed till
well into the Sunday morning observance.
The story however, is too good to be lost.
A Link with the Past
Between my uncle, the fourth Lord Hardwicke, and the title and estates,
once stood five lives. The widow and dowager Countess of the third earl
long survived; dying on 26 May 1858.
I can recall standing at the rectory window that overlooked the churchyard, that of the Green bedroom, and seeing the funeral as the body was borne round the east end of the church to its resting place in the vault under the Chicheley Chapel. I can see now the shoulder-borne coffin, covered with scarlet velvet; the tawdry gilt mountings, and the gilt coronet atop.
I am writing this in 1914. That was in 1858, as I have said. The extraordinary
thing is that I have thus seen the obsequies of a lady whose grandfather
was married in the reign of Charles II. The 'merry monarch'
had given the bride away and had danced at the festivities. By a bridge
of only three arches I am linked to the year 1663. ... I think in Scott's "Tales of Grandfather" is some account of this wedding.
Uncle Hardwicke
A few reminiscences of the fourth Lord Hardwicke may be of interest.
Among ourselves he was known as 'Old Blowhard', a nickname
that came, I believe, from the Navy, and was disclosed to us boys by
my father.
It exactly suited him. He was a domineering, masterful old man; with,
at times, a very rough tongue. A martinet of the old school on his own
quarterdeck - that describes him. He was a terror to us his nephews.
We respected him, but we feared him; and it was only when age softened
him that I in any way can say I loved him. Looking back, and trying
to understand him, I think I should say that he was a man of a large
heart, but, where his interests were concerned, of a narrow mind: a
man accustomed to rule his ship, and determined to carry that discipline
into private life.
"Old Blowhard"
Charles Philip Yorke
(1799-1873)
The 4th Earl of Hardwicke
To us his nephews he was particularly stern, with a sternness that
he did not display towards most others of his kith and kin. Perhaps
it was that he feared, as we lived alongside him and thereby had a certain
range over his property, that we should presume on our relationship,
and must be kept down. At any rate, the rectory - and I include my father,
his own brother - was kept as much at arm's length as the lodge
where lived his steward. But perhaps we really were a nuisance.
When I was an undergraduate in 1870, I possessed a gun, was a fairly
good shot. But, whenever one of my cousins had asked me to join a shoot,
the old Blowhard, sitting on his pony 'Stonewall Jackson',
would call out:
"Goodman, put Master Campbell two hundred yards away from the
line. I'm not going to be shot at by one of my nephews."
Yet at the very time he allowed in the firing line a grandson aged
only 14, to whom he himself had given a gun.
About that same time my eldest brother, Colonel of the 12th Bengal
Lancers, was home on furlough. We were asked to dine at the Big House.
It was quite a family affair; besides ourselves only a married cousin
and her husband. This guest after dinner carried off my brother, and
perhaps an hour passed before they appeared in the Gallery where we
were sitting.
"Colonel Yorke, where have you been?" rapped out the old martinet.
"I've been with ---*, having a cigarette in your study.
"Then I would have you know, Colonel Yorke, that I don't allow my nephews to smoke in my study."
"Then, my lord, if your nephew may not enjoy the same hospitality
as your son-in-law, I will wish you a very good night."
(* Though Yorke omits the name: it was Victor Montagu, who tells
the identical story in his "Reminiscences of Admiral Montagu",
London, 1910 - David Ellison)
This painful little scene will enable a right perspective of his political
attitude. Take, for instance this from the same year 1870, just after
the telegraphs (and then we had already a station at Arrington) had
been taken over by the state. I heard him say at his own dinner table,
"That d____d fellow Gladstone will be putting a spy of his into
my livery, in order to receive a daily telegram about what Lord Hardwicke
had for dinner."
There wasn't a thought of self-importance in it. It was simply
that he must be captain, absolute Captain, in his own ship.
Taking of telegraphs, here's a funny little incident. In those
days we all had an instinctive dread of them. We could not think that
anyone would use them save for the most important and dire communication.
Thus when a yellow envelope was handed to him one night at dinner, his
Lordship gasped and we all apprehended the worst. Pulling himself together,
his lordship opened it. Then he banged his fist on the table.
"D___n the man! It's Monsieur ------, who telegraphs
from Paris, "Your venison is admirable. I am now enjoying that
magnificent haunch.""
As Captain Yorke, in 1833, he had been returned as Member for Cambridgeshire.
In this election he struck his prevalent note as 'Post Captain'.
From his old ship he obtained the use of the Captain’s gig and
crew. The gig was mounted on a trolly, the crew manned it, and with
oars raised to the salute, they were hauled through the town; Captain
Yorke, in full rig, cocked hat and all, sitting in the stern sheets.
My father used to tell me of this, and in 1898 I met John Hoppett,
who had been Porter at Trinity gate, and he told me that as a boy he
had been sat on a wall to see this procession.
His pet aversion was the wearing of foot-paths in the grass alongside
the roads in the park. Rows of stumps, sometimes six deep, were driven
in by the roadside for the unwary to break their toes against. I have
stood by the old man on his porch as he roared, simply roared, a volley
of mariner's oaths at a foot passenger beside the road below the
drive. No one, but the Captain of the ship, or his men on duty, was
to tread his quarter deck.
The big, big D that shows up in the above anecdotes was the fashion
not only of the 'Queen's Navee' in his days of service
but of ordinary conversation. The Duke of Wellington and Lord Melbourne
used the expletive freely even in talking to Majesty herself. I say
this in order that the following may not be judged too severely. It
relates to the building of the new stables in 1850.
In 1885 I was at Bodalla in New South Wales. The gardener was a chirpy,
cheery, chatty old man, named Bowman. One day he accosted me:
"Are you any relation of Lord 'Ardwicke: Ah! 'E wor a mighty proud gen'lem'n, 'e wor. When I wor a boy, I used to be at work buildin' them stables: and the old Lord, 'e
used to come down ev'ry mornin' arter breakfast. And oh Lor! 'E used to damn our eyes proper, 'e did. Ah! 'E wor a mighty proud gen'lem'n!"
These little characteristics do not picture the 'old lord'
in a very estimable light. But they are part of him. Yet, none could
have sat alone with the old man in 1872 as I did, when failing health
was upon him, and the great catastrophe to his house impending, - when
he was racked with the pain of arthritis, and estranged from his eldest
son, without finding that under his rough exterior there was a heart
as soft as butter.
My father was different. Too kind and gentle. A most delightful companion;
well-read, though not learned; able to converse on any topic well; a
bit of an antiquary; a bit of an artist; yet excelling in nothing but
lovableness. As he lay near his window in the days before his death
it was pretty to see him wave his hankerchief to the children as they
turned up the drive for their 'few broth' or milk, and to
watch the answering wave back with the little bob or curtsey. They all
loved him.
The Flavour of Old Times
....I think it was in 1856 that my father first went into residence
as a Canon of Ely. I was the first boy that wore knickerbockers at Ely.
No doubt they were very wonderful, as they had been built by my old governess.
Anyhow I used to be followed by a gaping crowd, asking, "Is it a
man or a boy?"
Ely was still in the period of George III. The official dinners of the
canons were only for the male creature. It caused quite a stir when my
father broke through the tradition and gave dinner-parties for both sexes.
It was as scandalous as mixed bathing. And that he should have his own
cook, and cook it all in his own kitchen! Who ever heard the like? It
was taking the bread out of the mouth of Mrs Brown who invariably dished
up boiled chicken and tongue, and of Mrs Smith who invariably sent up
roast chicken and bread sauce.
The dinners of the Ely 'Quality' were gargantuan. Vast tureens
of oxtail soup, huge masses of roast and boiled, all carved a l'Anglaise on the table. You sat down at 3.30 or 4 o'clock. You ate slowly and
healthily; washed down your viands with 'Sherry-white-wine',
heavy Madeira, or full flavoured Port. At 7, after three hours' stodge,
the ladies rose to go to the Drawing-room. The gentlemen sat over their
nuts and wine till 9. They then 'joined the ladies'. On entering
the Drawing-room they found, smoking on the side-table, a great bowl of
punch!
To these hospitable feasts, as to their dances, the approved conveyance
for the ladies was a Sedan chair. Out of this in my father's hall
I have handed scores of dames - aye, right down to 1870. But it is
time to leave this bygone society of Ely, where surely Mr. Pickwick, the
Wardles and Mrs Nickleby must have passed some portion of their lives.
We will make the return journey by road; and will choose our day, Christmas
Day, 1860.
As Canon in residence my father had to take the afternoon service in
the Cathedral, and yet desired to keep the usual Christmas festivities
at the Wimpole Big House. The only means of performing the journey was
by driving the whole twenty-three miles via Cambridge. The country was
deep in snow, and there was a parlous frost. The night of Christmas Eve
had registered 18 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. As we sat in the carriage
our breath hung in icicles from the roof. From Stretham to Wimpole was
nineteen miles and we slid on the snow like a sledge. The wheels could
not turn. What the driver must have suffered he never told. But when people
talk of wanting an 'old-fashioned winter'.... "Ugh - h!
With that cold snap on us, Uncle Hardwicke told us how once - when he
was in command of a vessel (was it the Crazy Jane?) - on the Nova
Scotia Station they were bowling along in pleasant summer weather, the
crew in white ducks and summer rig, when a fog and icy wind suddenly swooped
upon them. In shortening sail the hands of one seaman were frozen. The
man tried to restore his circulation by rubbing his hands together. His
fingers actually broke off!
....On my uncle's table I can always remember a small model
in brass of Trotman's anchor. He was a great advocate for that device.
It is told of him that demonstrating its efficiency in the House of Lords,
he planted his foot on the model (perhaps this very one) and, hauled so
stoutly on the cord that it broke, and 'old Blowhard' turned
a somersault on the floor of the Painted Chamber. As that form of anchor
was adopted in the Navy in 1852, and Lord Hardwicke was in the Government
that year, I suppose we can clinch the incident.
The 'Warrior', or first English ironclad, was launched in 1860.
I can remember the discussion in the Big House as to the merits of wooden
walls and iron. I was amazed to learn that people expected iron to float:
and, being in the experimental stage of boyhood, I went home, and conclusively
proved that it could NOT by throwing my nail scissors into the wash hand
basin. I can remember that talk caused by the laying of the first Transatlantic
cable in 1857.... I can remember the wonder of the [SS] Great Eastern, and
how Scott-Russell [1] visited Wimpole a few days after we had read of her
boiler bursting off Brighton. I can remember the Exhibition of 1862 [2] with
the Majolica Fountain, the Steam-hammer and the Tinted Venus....
We live in a time when parish doctors and district nurses and school
clinics occupy the field. I will therefore conclude this section by one
or two medical memories. The Rector of a neighbouring parish [Ed: Croydon?] was looked after by a very prim, precise and prudish sister, very much
the Rector's sister. This good lady came one day to ask for slugs
from our garden. Why? She was attending to the needs of a consumptive
parishioner, to whom in the last extremity she had prescribed a broth
of slugs boiled in milk. She told us of another patient in the agonies
of cancer, to whom she was administering poultices of live earthworms...
[1] John Scott Russell FRSE FRS FRSA was the Scottish naval architect and shipbuilder who built Great Eastern in collaboration with Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
[2] The International Exhibition of 1862, or 'Great London Exposition', was a World Fair. It was held in South Kensington, London.
"Here the Rector's reminiscences break off. He had been writing them in 1914, so possibly he put them aside for the duration, and never completed them, though giving a typed copy to W M Palmer, the Linton doctor and celebrated local historian.
"On Dr Palmer's death the essay, filed among his papers, was deposited with Palmer's notes in the Cambridge University Library. The full essay includes some historical and antiquarian notes which have been partly superseded by more recent work. In these selections older spellings have been retained, though capitalisation and punctuation have been slightly modernised."
David Ellison
From the 'Cambridge Evening News' June 1925:
"While reading the Athanasian Creed on Sunday morning, the Rev A Campbell Yorke,
rector of Fowlmere, was seized with a heart attack and expired almost
immediately. He was 74 and, by a tragic coincidence, was making preparations
to retire from active ministry. He had ministered in Australia and New
Zealand until 1897 when he came to England and took the living in Fowlmere."
This page was last updated on: 5 August 2020.
Rectory Restaurant, 2013
Wimpole Estate, National Trust
St Andrew's Parish Church, Wimpole A living church for the Parish of Wimpole, located within the National Trust's
Wimpole Hall Estate. The Church is managed and maintained by the Parochial Church Council.
