The Town, College and Neighbourhood of Marlborough ... Illustrated

Front matter

THE TOWN, COLLEGE, AND NEIGHBOURHOOD OF MARLBOROUGH. THE DEVIL'S DEN, CLATFORD BOTTOM. THE TOWN, COLLEGE, AND NEIGHBOURHOOD OF MARLBOROUGH. KY F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S., F.S.A., AUTHOR OF " FA.MILIAR WILD FLOWERS," " ART TEACHING," "THE PRINCIPLES OF ORNAMENTAL ART," "MATHEMATICAL INSTRUMENTS, AND HOW TO USE THE.M," ETC. ETC. ILLUSTRATED. " I was inclined from my childhood to the love of antiquities ; and my Fate dropped me in a country most suitable for such inquiries." — John Aubrey, 1648. " When thou seest Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel, Make me partaker of thine happiness." —Shakespeare. LONDON : EDWARD STANFORD, 55, CHARING CROSS, S.W i88i. LONDON : R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor. BREAD STREET HILL.

Introduction

. THOUGH it is the ordinary fate of prefatory remarks to be passed unread, they afford thc writer a desir able opportunity of justifying himself to his readers by vindicating his claim, so far as may be, to their patience and consideration. We avail ourselves then of this opportunity, and find, we believe, our full justification in the two quotations on our title page ; for we may echo the words of John Aubrey, written in reference to the same district, and may point out, in the first place, how full of all manner of interest the old town of Marlborough and all the country round about are, and then in the spirit of our second quotation, endeavour to share with others the gratification we have ourselves so bounteously received. When we were told during a parliamentary election that the eyes of Europe were upon us, it was felt by some possibly that the old town was receiving its due recognition at last, while others, we are aware, were conscious that the remark savoured of hyper bole ; but the men of Marlborough are heirs in no

INTRODUCTION.

. VI mean inheritance. Old families pride themselves on a descent from the Norman conquest, and see in the long pedigree extending from one of the great horde that flocked from all parts of Europe to the plunder of Britain, the charter of their social position ; but the old town of Marlborough was flourishing long before William the Norman was ever heard of, and it reappears time after time in our country's history, surviving many a peril of fire and siege, and even that more modern danger, the breaking up of thc old coaching times; and is now perhaps more widely known, and more firmly established than ever, thanks to the vivifying influences of the great school in its neighbourhood. Some few pictures of its past and present it will be our pleasant task to portray, as we call up the long line of Druid priests wending their way to their temple ; the funeral procession of some Belgic warrior going to his rest on the far-extending downs ; the tramp of the Roman legionaries to their station ; the invading hosts of Danes and Normans ; the marching and counter-marching of Royalist and Parliamentarian, and the stream of life flowing later on between London and Bath.

Marlborough, too, is more or less intimately associated with many who have individually played no mean part in the history of England, and whose names are from other causes familiar to us as household words ; but these we must dwell on at greater length later on. We have, we

INTRODUCTION.

. VII trust, said sufficient now to stimulate our readers to desire to know more of this ancient borough. Should we, after all, fail, the fault will lie in the exponent, in the unsatisfactory use made of the materials at hand, not the lack of interest in the materials themselves. Farewell then, reader, for a while ; we shall meet again, we trust, as Chapter I. opens before us, and we would fain hope that we may be companions together all the journey through, and only part when we have traced together the fortunes of the ancient borough of Marlborough. .I,h i-3 I CONTENTS.

Chapter I

Marlborough in 18S1 — Railway communication — The High Street — Municipal and parliamentary borough — Population — The charter of John — The arms and seal of the borough — Town Hall — Great fire in 1563 — Previous Town Halls — Town maces, deeds, charters, weights and measures — The pillory — The stocks, whipping-post, and cucking-stool — The parliament of Henry III. at Marlborough — Statutes of Marleberge — Provincial parliaments — Edward VI. 's Grammar School — Its original ordinances, scholarships, and other benefactions — Dr. Sacheverell — The pent-house — Leland on the Marlborough of his day — Old monastic foundations — St. Margaret's Priory — The church of St. Peter and St. Paul — The church of St. Mary the Virgin — The church library — Wesley and William Penn in Marlborough — Reading and Mutual Improvement Society — Coffee tavern — the Savernake Cottage Hospital - The rifle range — Marlborough common — -The Union — The Cemetery — Siege and capture of Marlborough by the Royalists in 1642 — Marlborough contingent to the British force on the sailing of the Armada — The volunteers of 1798 — The old prison — Visit of Ploward — The old theatre

Chapter II

Derivation of the name of Marlborough — Merlin — Danish invasions — Saxon coins — The "Marlborough bucket" — Marlborough mint— The curfew-bell — Henry I. holding court at Marlborough — Marlborough Castle — Connexion of Henry II. and John with Marlborough — Eleanor of Castile — Hugh Le Despencer — The poll-tax as-essment — Wars of the Roses — Ship-money — Visit of Charles II — The home of the Seymours — Dr. Watts and Thompson — The old "Castle Hotel" — The coaching-days — Extracts from Marlborough court books— Peter Peers — The Marian persecutions — The plague — Funeral expen es in Marlborough of James Montague, Bishop of Winchester — "Ve White Harte" — Marlborough CONTENTS. X PAGE tokens — The Yeomanry Cavalry — Fires in 1679 and 1690 — Thatched roofs forbidden in Marlborough by Act of Parliament — The Marlborough Journal — The pillory in use — Public whippings — Outlawry and transportation to His Majesty's plantations — State lotteries and Marlborough prize-winners — Marlborough races — Backsword and wrestling — Light coinage — The London and Bristol post-chaise — The Mayor, the market-people, and the butter — Enigmatical list of villages near Marlborough — William Jay and his old i-choolmaster — The Duke of Marlborough — The Bishop of Marlborough — Distinguished men of Marlborough — Visits in 1859 and 1879 of the Wiltshire Archæological and Natural History Society to Marlborough — Visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1873— Mummers — Carol-singing 35-72

Chapter III

The College — Admirable situation for a public school — House badges and colours — The BradJeian — The gymnasium — The College rifle corps — Shooting matches — Wimbledon successes — The Art Society — The Christmas concert — The Carmen Marlburunse — "Auld Lang Syne" — The Museum — The Natural History Society — Key of Marlborough Castle — The Debating Society — Public school periodicals — The Marlburian — The Marlborough Magazine — Reading-room: — Adderley library — The minstrels' gallery in the "old " house — Dining-hall — The Chapel — Memorial windows — The wilderness and bathing-place — Cricket pavilion — College bank — The old house, new house, and lower school — The housemaster — The magistral staff — The modern school — The upper school — Exhibitions and scholarships — School prizes — Original scheme of the school — Early difficulties — The first head master — Dr. Cotton's work — His successors — Voss — Distinguished old Marlburians 73-107

Chapter IV

The College mound — John Evelyn's visit — Macaulay — The White Horse of Marlborough — The Uffington White Horse, and those of Cherhill and Broad Hinton — Preshute church — The font, piscina, bells, bra>s, and hatchment — The Daniel family — The church register — Derivation of Preshute — Eve of Preshute — The burial-ground of the Society of Friends — Manton — The Reading-room — Old carriages preserved at Mantcn — Th*! BasKervilles — Manton cross — CONTENTS.

XI PAGE '63 Manetune in Domesday Book — Clatford, the alien priory here — The cist-vaen, or devil's den — Legends associated with it —Theories as to purpose of cist-vaen — The greywethers, their situation and origin — Saracen stones — John Aubrey — Derivation of Sarsen — Growing stones — Fyfield church, font, &c. — Alured de Merleberg — Lockeridge — Overton — Charter of Athelstan — Flying machines — Barrows on Overton hill — Opened by Sir Colt Hoare — Their contents — The " Trophie " — The Roman road — British trackway — Cherhill camp — Ancient British forests and morasses — Hackpen, East and West Kennet — Kennet Stone avenue — Aubrey on Avebury — Pepys at Avebury — Description and measurements of the temple — Merciless destruction of remains during last century — The sanctuary — Stukeley's visit and theory — The Beck hampton avenue — The Druid priesthood — Bardic poems — Other stone circles in the vicinity — The " devills coytes" — Longstone cove — Sir John Lubbock's Bill for the preservation of ancient monuments, and the Wiltshire remains therein scheduled — Avebury church — Stone coffin, font, Norman doorway, &c. — Alien priory at Avebury — Avebury manor — Swallow-head springs — The source of the Kennet — Silbury hill — Memorial mounds — The Waterloo mound — Ancient Greek sepulchral mounds — References in Herodotus and Homer — Theories as to object of Silbury — Local legends and customs — Aubrey on Wilts rustics — Stukeley on Cunedha — Silbury thrice opened — " Long barrow " 108

Chapter V

Martinsell, its camp, and the prospect — British village — Huish hill encampments — Knap hill entrenchment — The Wansdyke — Tan hill — The Belgæ, the kingdom of Wessex — Saxon and other dykes — Barbury Castle — The downs in summer and in winter — Chisbury camp — Great Bedwyn — Leland thereon — Ancient royal right to quarters and provision — Monuments to the Seymours — The Kennet and Avon canal — Roman roads, camps, pavements, &c. — The Littlecot pavement — Anlonini Tier Bi'itanniarum — The Roman station of Cunetio — Folly Farm — Roman coins — Mildenhall — The old church and endowed school — Polton and the Polton family — Ramsbury — The bishopric — The Burdetts — The greater excommunication for stealing the episcopal deer — Littlecot — Aldbourne Chace — A hunting-ground and battle-field — Savernake forest — Thomas Moore's visit — The grand avenue — The eight walks — The ruins — The king oak — The forest churches — Grant of Athelstan — Derivation of Savernake — Isbury — Find of British coins — Savernake forest house — The pictures, family pedigree, and tenure-horn — The column — The Manor of Wolfhall — CONTENTS.

PACK •206 The birthplace of Jane Seymour — Wedding festivities — Other visits of Henry VIII. — Burbage — The Seymour chapel — Other Memorials — Easton and its Trinitarian priory — The Llewellyn window — Pewsey — The old church, piscina, sedilia, bells, &c. — Huish — The Winterbournes — Broad Hinton — The old church and its monuments, effigies, and stone coffin — Ogbourne St. George — The alien priory — Ogbourne St. Andrew — The Og-bourne, and Leland thereon— Rockley — Preceptory of the Knights Templars 164- LIST OF AUTHORITIES CONSULTED 207-20S APPENDIXES.

Parliamentarian collection for Marlborough after the great fire — Statuta de Marleberge — Dugdale and the Hospital of St. John — Marltborowe? s Miseries — Old methods of spelling Marlborough — Merlin and Stonehenge — Ship-money — Solutions to enigmas on names of surrounding villages — Programmes of the meetings of the Wilts Archæological Society at Marlborough in 1859 and 1S79 — The text of the College Carmen — Natural History Society's Observations — The Marlborough Magazine — Macaulay on the Marlborough home of the Somersets — The Obsequies of Patroclus — Merlin's Castle at Marlborough — Devices and Inscriptions on old bells — Poem on the Quakers' Burial-ground, Manton — Manton in Domesday Book — Examples of cist-vaens — Advertisement of the London, Bath, and Bristol Flying Machines — Alured of Marleberg — Domesday Book arrangements — Aubrey on Avebury — Visit of King Charles II. to Avebury — Stukeley 011 the Destroyers of Avebury — The Sanctuary — Witness and Memorial Stones mentioned in the Bible — Schedule of the Antiquities within the scope of Sir John Lubbock's Bill for their preservation — Drayton on the Wansdyke — Fuller on Wiltshire — Principal county landowners mentioned in Domesday Book — Camden on Marlborough Downs — Preston's Flora of Marlborough — Im Thurn's birds of Marlborough — The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle — Circular of Society of Antiquaries of London on Retoration — Sir Francis Burdett — Entomology of Marlborough — Ferns of Marlborough — Rare British coins found at Marlborough — The Froxfield Institution — Ogbourne in the Domesday Book 209-234 IXDEX 235-243 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE the devil's den, clatford bottom . Frontispiece GENERAL MAP OF THE DISTRICT .... Facing 5 THE PILLORY 1 4 DOORWAY OF ST. MARY THE VIRGIN, MARLBOROUGH Facing 2 3 COURT, MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE .... Facing 75 KEY OF MARLBOROUGH CASTLE 84 INTERIOR OF COLLEGE CHAPEL .... Facing 88 GARDEN FRONT, MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE . Facing 97 ARMS OF MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE 106 LYCH GATE, FYFIELD CHURCH 1 28 ONE MILE ON THE BATH ROAD .... Facing 1 35 PORTION OF OUTER RING, AVEBURY 1 40 DIAGRAM OF AVEBURY, STONEHENGE, &C 145 FONT OF AVEBURY CHURCH Facing 1 53 THE GRAND AVENUE, SAVERNAKE .... Facing 1 88 THE FOREST COLUMN 1 93 ANCIENT MAP OF THE DISTRICT .... Facing NEIGHBOURHOOD OF MARLBOROUGH. NEIGHBORHOOD OF MARLBOROUGH. " Now pray I to hem that harkene this tretyse or rede, that yf ther be onything that displease hem, I praye hem that they arrete it to the defaulte of myn unkonnyng and not to my will, that would have seyde better if I had knowing." — Chaucer.

Chapter I. Ome

ten or twelve years ago we received an appointment at Marlborough ; whereupon several of our friends said, " And where is Marlborough ? " As possibly some of our readers may feel in the same dilemma, anxious to be interested and yet unable to give a local habitation to the name, we may at once say that it is in Wiltshire, some seventy-five miles from London, and on the old coach road B between the metropolis and the west of England. This position on one of the great lines of communication gave it, in times past, a share in almost all that was going on. When Bath was in its glory and height of fashion, Marlborough was a favourite stopping place on the road, and thus it shared in the golden shower ; on the other hand, when the fugitives fled from the plague-stricken metropolis, the contagion scourged the inhabitants.

The place, in the civil wars, was too important to be overlooked : batteries sprang up on all the heights ; the boom of the cannon and the rattle of musketry were no unfamiliar sounds, and its stout resistance more than once provoked barbarous revenge in the hour of triumph. During the contest between the houses of York and Lan caster the district was attached to the fortunes of the Henries. During the war between Charles I. and his parliament the sympathies of the town were strongly with the latter, and in each case they shared fully in the triumphs of their cause, or bore their full portion of the bitterness of defeat. We may perhaps, with best advantage, in the first place describe Marlborough as it is, as the place in its present condition is well worthy of consideration. We shall then very soon discover that it owes much also to the past — that it is in fact what centuries have made it ; and we shall then the more readily turn to its records.

The noble school in its neighbourhood may well receive attention in another chapter, as we trace it from its small beginnings to its present fame, and see how the early days of difficulty and adversity have been the prelude of a great prosperity — a NEIGHBOURHOOD OF MARLBOROUGH. 3 prosperity not alone in a mere money sense, but in the greater wealth that springs from the love of its sons and makes it a sunny memory all the world over. Some who have been educated within its plain brick walls have carried its lessons of patient perseverance amidst the long winter of the arctic snows ; some have borne its lessons of manly devo tion to duty through the difficulties of Indian administration ; while others, not a few, have given their lives for England in the trenches of Sebastopol, the scorching plains of Africa, or wherever else the call of duty found them at their posts.

How different soever their careers, how widely separated in life or in death, all were alike the children of Marlborough, and it their Alma Mater. In other chapters we must dwell for a while on the wonderful records of antiquity, the pre-historic monuments found in the neighbourhood — the mysterious hill of Silbury, the great stone ring of Avebury, the tumuli that dot in such profusion the open downland, the traces left by Saxon and Roman, and, in conclusion, say something of the wealth of natural beauty found in the long sweep of these chalk downs, or in the rich umbrageous recesses of the noble forest of Savernake. The difficulty will be, rather where and when to stop than any lack of interesting materials ; so we plunge at once into our subject, and endeavour to give our readers some idea of what they will see when they visit the Marlborough of 1881.

The ordinary visitor to the old town will now probably arrive by railway, though it is within a com paratively small number of years that he has been B enabled to do so, Marlborough having been without railway communication long aftermost English towns enjoyed that advantage. Even at the present time the service cannot be considered brilliant, though a railway now in course of construction will, it is to be hoped, prove a great advance. The passenger leaves the main line at Reading, and, after a series of stoppages at intermediate stations, finds himself at Savernake, the junction for Marlborough, the whole journey from London being timed to take three hours. This space of time would, on the Midland Railway, take him as far as Nottingham. Marl borough suffers not only as places suffer that are on branch lines, but has the additional aggravation of being a branch even from a branch.

The line to which we have just referred as in process of con struction runs, roughly speaking, at right angles to the present system, and is the one link wanting to connect such important places as Liverpool and Southampton in a more direct communication. Even as early as the year 1845 a Manchester and South ampton line was planned, but the scheme came to nothing. Thirty years afterwards, in 1S75, the first sod of the Marlborough, Swindon, and Andover Rail way was turned ; but the scheme for some time received but little support, and it is only quite recently that matters have been pushed actively forward. This railway, some twenty-seven miles in length, is the missing link. The completion of this line will bring Marlborough and the south of England into direct communication with the manufacturing districts and coal-fields of the north.

We need give no MAP OF THE DISTRICT KOUIfD MArtLBOROUGH further details beyond this one striking fact, that the distance from Swindon to Marlborough may be walked in something under three hours, while it can only be done by railway after a journey of some fifty-five miles. As the new line will do it in about twelve miles, the increased facility of communication is something enormous. The main road from London to Bath has become so favourite a track with bicyclists, that many pro bably will have made their first acquaintance with Marlborough as they have ridden in, in lordly inde pendence of the Great Western Railway. The distance is some seventy-four and a half miles, and the road for the most part excellent. A line of telegraph wires borders the road for the whole distance, and prevents any possibility of straying from the track.

The principal places en route are Hounslow, nine and three-quarter miles from London ; Slough, twenty and a half ; Reading, thirty-nine ; Newbury, fifty-six ; and Hungerford, sixty-four and a half. For some few miles of the latter part of the journey the road traverses a portion of the forest of Saver nake, and the pedestrian, or the bicyclist of the pre sent day, after enjoying the verdant shade, emerges, as did the passengers in the old coaching days, from a somewhat deep cutting, and finds all at once a widely stretching panorama spread before him, the silvery Kennet winding at his feet, the downs stretching miles away into blue haze, and in the middle distance the ancient towers and town of Marlborough. Whether we enter by the railway or the road from London, the first impression will possibly be disap pointing ; though the general view of the town, either from the platform of the railway station or from the eminence called the London Hill, is strikingly picturesque.

Our feeling, on first entering, is that things are decidedly common -place ; as we, however, journey on, we turn a corner sharply to the left, and see at once before us the noble stretch of the High Street — one of the widest in England, and almost half a mile in length. The houses that fringe it are no two of them alike : as the town is built on the side of a hill, the level of the pathway on the north side is considerably higher than that of the south — a feature that adds to the quaint picturesqueness of the place. The houses on the north or upper side are many of them perfect studies for the artist, who lingers with delight as he scans their projecting gables, and hunts up bits for his sketch-book. The vista is closed by the dark red buildings of the college and the stretch of down that rises beyond.

It has been from time to time suggested that this noble roadway should be planted with an avenue of trees, but this would, we think, on the whole be a mistake. Such avenues are a charming feature in many Continental towns ; but in Marlborough the country can be so readily reached, that this rus in urbe is not so called for, and the houses are themselves so quaintly attractive, that one would hesitate to run the risk of blotting out the general view that can now be obtained. It was originally proposed that a line of telegraph posts and wires should run down the street ; but the prompt action of some few individuals averted such a Vandalism, and this ingenious but unsightly development ofthe nineteenth-century science and energy makes a slight detour round the town, instead of cutting through it.

Marlborough is the post and market town for a considerable outlying district, and it is also a municipal and parliamentary borough. Its nearest neighbours of any note are Salisbury on the south, at a distance of twenty-seven miles, Devizes to the south-west, some fourteen miles away, Swindon about eleven miles to the north, and Hungerford some ten miles to the east. The municipal borough is composed of the two parishes of St. Peter and St. Mary, and at the census of 1871 contained a population of 3,660 souls ; while the parliamentary borough includes the two parishes already mentioned and the adjoining parish of Preshute — a population of 5,034, according to the same census. Marlborough was first formally incorporated by charter in the fifth year of the reign of King John, but it claims the privilege of having been a borough by prescription for a hundred years or more before it received its charter.

Since its formal enrolment, several of our monarchs have granted confirmatory and additional charters, preserving and extending its ancient rights, immunities, and privileges. The original arms of the town, granted to it " for ever," consisted of a castle in silver on a black shield ; but about the middle of the seventeenth century those still in use were adopted. Avoiding, in a book of this character, the somewhat pedantic course of adopting the phraseology of heraldry, we must endeavour in a necessarily more roundabout way to describe the bearings. The upper part of the shield has a broad horizontal band of gold ; in the centre of this band is placed a battlemented tower, and on either side of the tower a red rose ; below this golden band the shield is divided by two slanting lines into four parts, the upper and lower being red, and the two lateral portions blue : the upper portion bears on its scarlet a silver bull, and the lower has three silver greyhounds; the two side portions each bear. a silver cock on the field of blue ; the supporters are two silver greyhounds ; the crest is a battlemented tower on a grassy mount.

These arms may be seen duly em blazoned in the Town Hall, carved on the gates of the College, and elsewhere. It was in former times the custom for each person, on admission to the corporation, to present the mayor with a white bull, two white capons, and two greyhounds ; but this tribute has since been changed into a money payment. Impressions of the ancient seal of the borough — the castle the sole device on the shield — may be seen on deeds preserved in the Record Office, London, and in the British Museum. The legend surrounding the shield is, " Sigill commvne de Marleberge. " The present Market-house and Town Hall possesses no architectural beauty, though its position at the head of the High Street is an admirable one. The building contains the assembly-room, court-room, and council-chamber ; and though considerable alterations at a heavy cost have been made in it in the last few years, the greatest improvement of all — its demolition and the erection of a more worthy building — yet remains for some future time.

Compared to the stately hotels-de-ville of Belgium and Germany, buildings with a duration of centuries and fraught with associations, the municipal building of Marl borough would appear to have a peculiarly evanescent character, as within the last three hundred years there have been four successive buildings. We find in the town accounts during the reign of Elizabeth that extensive repairs were required on what is there called the Guildhall, and early in the seventeenth century the building was demolished. In the corpor ation accounts for the year 163 1 we find an order for the erection of a new building, and particulars of its cost; but the great fire of the 28th of April, 1653, destroyed this second building after a brief duration of twenty-two years. In an interesting old book entitled, " Take Heed in Time, or, a Brief Relation of Many Harms which have of late been done by Fire in Marlborough," and published in London in the same year, we have a very graphic account of the terribly destructive nature of this conflagration.

In it we read that, " The famous and flourishing town of Marlborough had of late two faire parish churches, one called by the name of St. Peter, and the other church called by the name of St. Marie's. There was likewise many fair streets and stately buildings, espe ci illy one gallant street called the High Street, in which they kept their markets. The street wherein the market was kept is supposed to be full as large in length and breadth as Cheapside, and on both sides had many goodly shops well filled with rich and costly commodities ; no braver wares can be had or bought in London than was to be had in the famous towne of Marlborough. At the upper end of the market-place was a gallant building called the Town Hall, wherein the magistrates sat and held the sessions of the peace : there were many faire innes, taverns, and victualling houses, to entertain carriers and travellers, and such which had occasion to make use of them ; for it stood upon the road between London and Bristoll, and, to be briefe, it wasa towne of very good orders and government.

Thus, having told the situation and substance of the towne, I shall with God's leave, though with a grieved heart, declare unto you the manner of the ruine and destruction of the same. On Thursday, the 28th of April, in the house of one Mr. Freeman, a tanner, as some of his servants were imployed with drying of barke, the barke took fire so suddenly that it quickly did much harme. The house standing on the south side of the street, towards the west end of the towne near unto St. Peter's church, the fire prevailed so much that it took hold of the dwelling-house, and so running a crosse the street from one side to the other, it came to be of such force and vehemency that the like was never seene in England before, by the report of some of them that were eye-witnesses of that sad object. It burned in both sides of the streete all the innes, taverns, gentlemen's houses, shopkeepers' houses : grosers, mercers, haberdashers, all lost both houses and goods in that consuming fire.