Chapter VIII: Part 8

ffrancis Bradshawgh being nowe 1610 of the In^r Temple London, and Counsello^r of the Law Esq now maried to Barbary one of the daughters of S^r John Davenport of Davenport in the County of Chester Esq^r (unto which ffrancis, the mano^r of Abney, by Eham, decended or was devised, from and by Godfrey Bradshawgh his unckle who [dyed w^{th}out yssue] did purchase the same Mano^r and dyed w^{th}ou issue And the said [Leonard] ffrancis the father had other sonnes viz Humphrey, Roland, George, and Peeter (and diue^{rs} daughters hereunder also mentioned) by the said Anne And the said Godfrey the eldest, haueing as aforesaid, other young^r sonnes, Len^rd, Godfrey, Peeter, and Henery as first abovesaid the same Henery the youngest brother dyed also younge and w^{th}out yssue And the said Leon^rd the second sonne of the said Godfrey the eldest hath yssue Leon^rd, Peeter and Mary yet livenge And the said Peeter the third sonne of the said Godfrey the eldest maried with one of the daughters of M^r Johnson of the redd Crosse in Wattlinge streete Citizen and Merchant Tayler of London, by whome he hath nowe two sonnes viz Edward and yett liveing, god blesse them The said Godfrey the ffather had also diu^rs daughters viz Amye who dyed unmaried Marie who maried one Smith of Lincolnsh^r, by whome hee had a sonne who now is a vintner & keepeth the three tonnes att Yeald hall gate in London Hellen maried to one Martin Ashe of Ashgate in Brampton nere Chesterfeild by whome hee hath diuers children

The same ffrancis the ffather also had diue^{rs} daughters, viz

Endorsed. _Anthony Bradshawes Pedigree in his handwriting._) ]

Godfrey, the eldest son of William Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, was born 29th September, 1531, and began his experiences of the troubles of life very early. At what date he married Margaret, daughter of Roger Howe, of Ashop, is not recorded; but as early as 1550, when only 19, he and his wife are quarrelling like the children they undoubtedly were, and after ineffectual attempts “to cause them to continue lovingly together as man and wife,” their respective parents took the necessary legal proceedings to separate them so that each might be enabled to marry again. The old MSS. connected with this part of Godfrey’s life are very curious reading, as they arrange for the partition of the household goods, and even to the return to Margaret’s parents of the clothes provided for a possible nursery. After the divorce, Godfrey did not go far afield for a second wife. He married Emma, the daughter of Anthony Shawcross, of Shawcross, quite a near neighbour. In 1568 serious troubles arose[53] in consequence of his having enclosed a portion of his land at Chinley, not two miles distant from Bradshaw. His action was highly resented by the inhabitants, who pulled his fences down, burnt a house, and

[53] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xxi., p. 61.

“assembling themselfs together in great companies at the Towne of Hayfield w^{th} unlawfull weapons that is to saye w^{th} bowes pytche fforks clobbes staves swords & daggers drawen Ryotously dyd then & there assaulte & p’sue the sayd Godfrey & Edward Bradshawe.”

On another occasion certain people

“on foote & Raulphe Mellour upon his horse backe ryotouslye followed the sayd Edward Bradshawe & Godfrey Bradshawe the space of one quarter of a myle from the sayd towne of Heyfield & w^{th} drawen weapons had ryotouslye like to have slayne & murthered the sayd Godfrey & Edward.... At another tyme by nyght ... the sayd p^rcell of grounde beinge newlye enclosed agayn by the sayd Godfrye by ther consents beinge quicksetts w^{th} xliii hundreth quicksetts willowes & willowe stacks they dyd pull downe the same agayne,” etc., etc.

The disturbances were eventually quelled, and the rioters tried in the Court of the Star Chamber.

On the 10th April, 1570, Godfrey executed a deed of entail of Bradshawe on himself for life, with remainder to Francis, his eldest son, and then to Leonard, Godfrey, Peter, and Henry, his other four sons, in tail male, in default to his three brothers, Henry, of Marple, Francis, and Anthony. In a list of the principal landowners in the High Peak for 1570 appear the names of Godfrey Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, and of his wife’s brother, Leonard Shallcrosse, of Shalcross.[54]

[54] _Reliquary_, vol. viii., p. 189.

Godfrey died early in the year 1607, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Francis, who was married when quite a child to Anne, one of the four daughters and co-heiresses of Humphry Stafford, of Eyam. Indeed, he was not much more than nine years old according to the register of his birth, for the 4th May, 1565, appears to have been the day on which he was married. The Staffords had been settled at Eyam certainly as far back as the reign of King John, at which time their lands were held “by hereditary right for the free service of finding one lamp burning before the altar of St. Helen in the church at Eyam throughout the year during divine service.”[55]

[55] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xxiii., p. 83.

The possessions to be divided among the four daughters appear to have been very considerable. In 1568 a deed was executed to enable Francis Bradshawe and Anne, his wife, peaceably to enjoy a fourth part of the lands lately the inheritance of Humphry Stafford. This consisted of much of the ancient domain of the Staffords actually in Eyam, with the Old Hall, and included lands in the vicinity at Monyash, Chelmorton, and other places, as well as the whole of the townships of Bretton and Foolow. No evidence exists as to the destiny of the two children for some years after their marriage. Ten years later, however, they were apparently living in the Old Hall at Eyam, and on the 8th of January, 1576, a settlement of the hall and lands at Eyam was executed on the young couple, and upon their eldest son. The deed must have been drawn up either before or immediately after his birth, for a space has been left blank throughout the original deed for the Christian name of “their son and heir.” The Manor of Abney, which marched with his wife’s estates, was bought in October, 1593. It adjoins Bretton and Foolow, which are townships in the ecclesiastical parish of Eyam.

There is no evidence that Francis Bradshawe ever lived in Bradshaw Hall, which devolved on him on the death of his father, Godfrey, in 1607. Only three years elapsed between this event and his eldest son’s marriage, and in all probability the Hall had no permanent tenant until after it had been rebuilt. At any rate there is little doubt that Francis Bradshawe, the elder, as he is generally styled, lived on at Eyam Hall, where his chief interests lay, until his death, of which date there is no record. After the year 1615,[56] when he qualified as a magistrate for the county, nothing is known about him. His wife died before the 18th December, 1606, the date of a settlement of “money which rightly belonged to the said Francis in right of Anne, his late wife.” Francis, the eldest son of their very large family, succeeded him. The first date of which there is any evidence of his being in possession of the estates is 10th June, 1619, when he executed a deed entailing them on his heirs male. This same year, too, evidently marked the completion of the rebuilding of the Hall, for a stone is still in existence inscribed F.B., B.B., 1619, which most probably formed the centre-piece over the doorway in the entrance porch, now demolished. His wife was Barbara, daughter of Sir John Davenport, of Davenport, co. Chester. In his marriage settlements, bearing the date of 1610, he is described as barrister-at-law of the Inner Temple. Possibly he made London and Eyam Hall his headquarters till the completion of the hall, which work may well have begun soon after his grandfather’s death in 1607, when it was probably assigned to him as a future residence. It is fairly certain that the present hall was the first stone-built residence of the Bradshawes, for the following reason. After the civil wars of Stephen’s reign, it was found necessary to forbid such substantial residences to be built without permission from the King. Timber, therefore, was the principal material used for ordinary buildings, and only in the time of the Tudor Sovereigns did the long established custom of ignoring the stone of the district begin to die out. The half-timbered houses still so prevalent in Cheshire are scarce in our own county, but 300 years ago they were probably common enough, and as a contrast to the stone walls must have added considerably to the beauty of the Peak country. Such a house, therefore, we may well imagine the original Bradshaw Hall to have been, standing in a conspicuous place on the slope of Eccles Pike.

[56] _Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals_, by Dr. Cox, vol. i., p. 38.

In the time of Henry VIII., however, the ancient custom of allowing the smoke to find its own way out through a hole in the tiling, which was called the “louvre,” began to be discontinued, and stone-built chimneys were then added outside the timber house for the sake of safety. Mr. Gunson, in his article on Bradshaw Hall,[57] says:—

[57] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xxv., p. 5. I am indebted to Mr. Gunson for much of the description of the actual building.

This chimney contained a broad archway opening into the room in which the log fire was kindled. This seems to have been the case at Bradshaw, for on the line of what was formerly the outside wall of the hall is still standing a great stone chimney stack. That it was the chimney to the ancient Hall, and is the oldest portion of the present building, there can be but little doubt, for it plays no part in the later design. Moreover, a portion of the top where the plaster ‘parging’ of its flue can still be seen has been taken down to allow the main timbers of the present roof to pass over its head; it has been filled in and its archway beneath built up. When the architect designed the later building he found that this old stack fell into line with his plan and served as a support for the great staircase which he built around it.”

No doubt it was the presence of this huge and apparently useless block of masonry, running the whole height of the house, which gave rise to the generally accepted notion that Bradshaw Hall possessed a secret chamber or “priest hole.” This legend is adopted by Mr. Allan Fea, who remarks in his interesting book on _Secret Chambers and Hiding Places_: “Bradshaw Hall has or had a concealed chamber high up in the wall of a room on the ground floor, which was capable of holding three persons.” Of course, tradition says “the wicked judge was hidden here.” The actual place here described is a modern cupboard, which has not been in existence a century as yet!

One other remnant of the old house remains in the present structure. To use Mr. Gunson’s words:

“The staircase is supported on bearing timbers made of principals from the old high-pitched roof, in which the mortices and oak pins still disclose their previous use and design; these, after serving their original purpose for generations, were yet sound enough to be used to sustain the heavy staircase—a remarkable testimony to the quality of the oak selected for such purposes some six centuries ago, and still apparently as good as ever.”

The interior of the house some sixty or seventy years ago was somewhat altered to meet the requirements of two families of farm tenants; but as originally built, it contained the dining-hall—which was also the usual living room of the family—out of this opened the withdrawing room. These two rooms occupied the whole of one wing, and were accessible from the main entrance through a vestibule or small hall, lighted by a quaint little window on the right, and entirely shut off from the big staircase. The dining-hall was a spacious room, lighted by a pair of four-light windows, now converted into modern sash lights.

“Above, to support the floor of the upper storey are massive oak beams about 16 ins. deep by 14 ins. wide. On the left is a very fine segmental arch over the entrance to the staircase; it has a span of 4 ft., and its depth from front to back is 4 ft. 1 in., being deeply splayed on the outer side. Altogether the design is striking, and if the old window lighting the staircase behind it were but opened out, the effect would be distinctly quaint and picturesque.”

Another archway leads to the kitchen, and at the top of the hall was the original great fireplace and a door, which led into the withdrawing room. The same kind of beams cross the ceiling of this room, though in a different direction to those of the hall, and it is lighted by similar windows. All the rooms at Bradshaw are exceptionally lofty, and the windows, which have not been tampered with,

“are beautifully proportioned examples of the plain mullioned and transomed type. An especial feature of Bradshaw is that all the door jambs have been splayed off. The direction always follows the line of general traffic, and the idea evidently was to cut off the corners, and especially in the case of the kitchens, no doubt to facilitate the carriage of the heavily laden trenchers to the dining hall.”

The kitchen and offices formed the other wing.

“The massive staircase is about 4 ft. in width, and consists of solid oak steps; it is supported by the ancient chimney stack, and opens into a small landing on the first floor, from which access is given to various bedrooms, and through them to others. This landing, which was originally lighted by the usual four-light window, now partially built up, has a remarkable ceiling, cornice, and frieze, in plaster work. Around the latter in raised letters is the following verse:—

LOVE GOD BVT NOT GOLD. A MAN
WITHOVT MERCY OF MERCY SHALL
MISS BVT HE SHALL HAVE MERCY
THAT MERCYFVL IS.”

An inventory[58] of the contents of the hall, taken after the death of Francis Bradshawe gives us not only an idea of the contents of the mansion house of a gentleman of that period, but it also furnishes us with the names of the various rooms. Among them is mentioned “The Gallerie, the Gallerie Chamber, and the Clocke Chamber.” The contents of his own bedroom are as follows:

[58] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xxv., p. 66.

“One bedstedd w^{th} curtaines and Vallancies and all other Furniture, a Truckle Bedd and Fether bedd thereon Two tables one Standinge Cupboard Three Chaires two plaine Chaires Nyne Joynt Stooles two little ones a Close Stoole six Tables and Cupboard Cloathes. Two Skreenes, a Lookeing Glasse Three Brushes a p^r of Snuffers Firepan and Tongs.”

Over the kitchen a fine example of an oak panelled room still remains in good condition. The contents of the cellars are described in the inventory as “one greate tuninge vessel and 3 lesser vessells and twentie barrells.” These big cellars have apparently been filled in and flagged over, for in spite of the legend that they still exist, it has been found impossible to discover their position. Of the outbuildings, the big cow house still remains, of the same date as the hall, with windows of a similar design.

The principal entrance to the hall, with its porch, now removed, originally faced Eccles Pike, over which ran an ancient highway, and connected with this was an old bridle road leading to the stone-built arch which was the main gateway. This is still in admirable condition, and beyond the fact that there are indications that originally the archway was enclosed with double gates, which are not now in existence, it is much as it left the builders’ hands. Over it, on the side facing the hill, is a shield bearing a coat of arms, as follows: “Argent two bendlets between two martlets sable” for Bradshawe. Impaling “or a chevron gules between three martlets sable” for Stafford. Above the shield is the Bradshawe crest, “A stag at gaze proper under a Vine Tree fruited proper.”

This coat bears the impress of the work of an amateur, as Francis Bradshawe could only have impaled the Davenport arms as borne by his wife’s family, while he had the right to bear the Stafford arms quarterly with his own, because his mother was an heiress. Had his father built the archway, as some writers have suggested, the Stafford coat would have been borne over the Bradshawe shield on a “Scutcheon of pretence.”

On the reverse side of the archway is the inscription, “Francis Bradshawe, 1620,” below which is a shield bearing the curious device, apparently heraldic, of a thorn between six nails. It has puzzled several students of heraldry. The suggestion was made a few years ago, which is almost certainly the correct one, that it is no heraldic achievement, but “a rebus” on the name Bradshawe:

“viz six nailes for the plural ‘Brads’ a species of nail, and the thorn for the old English Haw hence Brads-haw, that the scroll of foliage surrounding the shield may be a spray of barberry, the whole being in honour of Barbara Bradshawe, whose name would thus appropriately follow that of her husband as her initials did upon the stone of the previous year.”

A feature of the walling round Bradshaw is its heavy double coping. The building of the archway and stone fence would not have been built till after “the bulky traffic necessary during the building operations no longer prohibited a restricted approach.” This would account for the date of the gateway being a year later than that of the hall. Here, then, Francis Bradshawe and his wife took up their abode, in the old home rebuilt and modernized according to the fashion of the times. In the year 1630–1 he served the office of High Sheriff for the county, succeeding Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston. The accounts connected with his shrievalty were kept with scrupulous care. They were published in the _Archæological Journal_ for 1904, and are very quaint reading. The board and lodging of the two judges on circuit, for all the officials connected with the Court of Assize, and for the prisoners awaiting their trial, as well as the expense entailed by the execution and burial of those condemned to be hanged, are all included. Contrary to the custom of the present day, the grand jury were fed at the High Sheriff’s expense, and a band was provided to entertain them. Among his personal expenses we read that £11 6s. was paid for lace, £1 3s. 10d. for twenty-six long buttons, 19s. for two dozen “silke and gould buttons and a neeke button,” £30 for twenty-six hatbands, 10s. for his boots, £2 3s. 4d. for his saddle, 11s. 8d. for the fringe, and £1 3s. 10d. for the “silver boole,” which may have been his buckle, but might possibly have been a bowl to be used as a loving cup. At Kirk Ireton he is charged for the hire of a horse, as well as for the keep of the one he left behind, which item suggests the probability that in riding his own horse, as would have been most likely, all the way from Bradshaw to Derby, he had been obliged to change horses on the road, and Kirk Ireton, being on his line of route in travelling by the old but now disused road from Bakewell, he had elected to make the exchange there. During this year he had the misfortune to lose his wife. The entry of her death in the parish registers of Chapel-en-le-Frith for the year 1631 is as follows: “Barbara, the wife of Francis Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, High Sheriff for this Countie this yeare, was buried in the chancell the xviiijth day.” On the 31st of July, 1632, he married as his second wife Lettice Clarke, widow, described in the Chapel-en-le-Frith register as “step-daughter to Sir Harvey Bagott, Knt.” She was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Dilke, of Maxstoke Castle, co. Warwick. After his death she married, as her third husband, Sir John Pate, Bart. Francis Bradshawe died 25th March, 1635, and was buried with his wife on the 27th. His will, made about a month after his second marriage, left two-thirds of his residue to his brother George, his successor in the family estates, and one-third to his widow. She appears to have made Bradshaw her residence till about the year 1637, at which date Bradshaw Hall was apparently occupied by a Mr. Thomas Wigstone; at any rate, he is described as of Bradshaw in the register of the baptism of his daughter Lettice in the October of that year. He may have been a friend or relation, but Nicholas Lomas, who, according to the register, died at Bradshaw in 1640, would certainly have been a tenant. Francis Bradshawe was the last member of the family to reside at Bradshaw; notwithstanding the large amount of money that had been expended on the hall only fifteen years before.

George Bradshawe, his brother and successor, lived throughout his married life at Eyam; the old Hall, the home of the Staffords, his mother’s ancestors, having been entirely rebuilt for him. He was buried in Eyam Church, 25th June, 1646. His widow lived on at Eyam until she and her only unmarried daughter were driven away by the plague, which was raging in that village during the years 1665 and 1666. Francis, the eldest son, who inherited all the Bradshaw estates, had married in 1652 Elizabeth Vesey, a Yorkshire heiress, and he elected to live in his wife’s ancestral home at Brampton, co. York, and there did all the future Bradshawes, of Bradshaw, live, forsaking the old home and county. Francis Bradshawe died at Brampton, 21st December, 1659, leaving two sons. Francis, the elder, who succeeded to the estates but died unmarried in 1677, left all his estates to his brother, John Bradshawe. Living as his father had done in the old hall at Brampton, John Bradshawe allowed strangers to continue to rent Bradshaw Hall. In 1660, during the minority of his brother, the hall had been let to Edward Ash and Thomas Wright, and he himself let it to John Lowe in 1693. In 1717 John Bradshawe was High Sheriff for the County of Derby, but he died where he had lived, at Brampton, co. York, in November, 1726, leaving by his wife Dorothy, daughter of Anthony Eyre, of Rampton, co. Notts, a son, George, and a daughter, Elizabeth. George Bradshawe succeeded to the Bradshawe estates, but dying childless in 1735, the estates devolved on his sister’s son as heir-at-law and from him the present representative of the family is descended.

It is a curious coincidence that the last official act of George, the last Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, of which there is any evidence, was, only three months before his death, to execute a lease, dated 13th September, 1735, for eleven years to Robert Lowe and John Jackson of the old hall of his ancestors, in which document it is described as “all that capital messuage with the appurtenances lying and being in the parish of Chapel-en-le-Frith, commonly called or known by the name of Bradshaw Hall.”

OFFERTON HALL.

By S. O. Addy, M.A.

The hamlet of Offerton is near Hathersage, and now consists of three houses, called Offerton Hall, Offerton House, and Offerton Cottage. It stands high, but the moors on the south rise higher still, and partly hide the rays of the midday sun from these buildings. So, as you walk up the hill on a summer’s morning, the gateway of the hall, already darkened by time, is further darkened by shadows. But there is plenty of light when you get into the courtyard.

You ascend a little-used, narrow lane, with walls on either side, and leaving Offerton House, itself a quaint old building, on your right, you presently enter the courtyard of Offerton Hall through a tall gateway, which stands between farm buildings on one side and a barn on the other. Within the archway on either side are mullioned windows, and just beyond the archway is a door, as if a porter once kept the gate.

Open the barn doors and peep inside. At one end, raised high above the floor, you will see a large wooden platform, which can be raised up and down at will, and is used for clipping sheep. You will also notice that the great oak beams or rafters which support the roof of the barn extend down to the ground. These beams are thick and rude, and have hardly been touched by the carpenter’s tools. They are locally known as “crucks,” which is an older form of “crutches.” A book which has just been published contains an extract from a lease dated 1432, in which “crukkes” are mentioned, and it is remarkable that the word is used as a translation of _laquearia_.[59] The barn at Offerton Hall consists of four bays, measuring 15 feet by 16 feet each, so that the floor of each contains 240 square feet. Some of the crutches are bigger and heavier than the others, and they all rest on stone pedestals, varying, according to the size of the crutches, from two to four feet from the ground, the crutches which stand on the two lowest pedestals being the thickest. All the crutches have mortise holes for rafters on their outer faces about a foot above the lowest of the two tie-beams by which they are joined together. This shows that the roof of the barn, or the roof of an earlier building which the crutches once supported, sloped from the ridge to the ground. The tie-beams are held in their places by tree-nails or wooden pegs.

[59] The lessee covenants to build a house “de octo laquearibus, Anglice viii. _crukkes_.”—Ling Roth’s _The Yorkshire Coiners_, 1906, p. 155.

As I have shown elsewhere, the bay was a unit of measurement, containing 240 square feet. The evidence supporting this conclusion may be seen in various ancient documents. For instance, in the twelfth century, the villans of Aucklandshire had to “make the bishop’s hall in the forest, of the length of 60 feet, and of the breadth within the posts (_infra postes_) of sixteen feet.”[60] In other words, the hall was to consist of four bays of 240 square feet each, like those in the barn at Offerton. In 1694 there was a fire at Long Eaton, near Derby, which “consumed fourteen dwelling houses, togeather with the barnes, stables, outhouses, and other buildings, containeinge ninety bayes of buildings.”[61] Here the houses of a village are estimated by the bay, which must have been a recognised measure of quantity. It appears in the Eckington Court Rolls that in 1758 a man borrowed £40 on the security of “all that one bay of a barn, situate and being in the High Lane, called the Farr Bay, and all that close there called the Farr Over Close adjoining to the High Lane aforesaid southwards, containing by estimation three acres.” In 1764 an Eckington man and his wife surrendered “all that middle bay of a barn situate and being at High Lane aforesaid, together with twelve yards and two feet of land in length on the north side of the said barn, and one yard in breadth, with all the priveledges and appurtenances to the same belonging,” to the use of John Gill, of Cuckhold’s Haven, in the parish of Eckington, sicklesmith. The meaning is that bays, being measures of quantity, were sold like acres, or, rather, like links of sausages. We must not, of course, suppose that all bays were exactly of the same size, or that each of them contained an area of exactly 240 square feet. We might as well expect every acre in the fields to contain exactly 4,840 square yards.

[60] _Boldon Buke_ (Surtees Soc.), pp. 26, 62.

[61] Document in Cox’s _Annals of Derbyshire_, vol. ii., p. 294.

In examining the outside of Offerton Hall, the first thing to be noticed is a small projection from the back or western side. It is a quadrangular tower, and contains the stairs which supply the two upper floors of the building. As will be imagined from the outer appearance, the stairs are not spiral, but go in short, straight flights, with proper landings. The steps are of stone; first, six steps and then a landing; in nine more steps you get to the first floor; after this, six steps and a landing, then, the uppermost floor or garret. The staircase is really a detached room, and you can only get into it by opening a door. Taking the word in its etymological meaning, a staircase is a “case” which holds a “stair” or ladder. In some old Lincolnshire houses the “stair” is in fact a ladder inside a little closet, like a voting compartment, in a corner of one of the rooms. At Garner House, about a mile from Offerton, the winding stair, now of wood, but formerly of stone, is in a round turret at the back of the house; half of the turret is visible outside, the other half is concealed in the wall.

Offerton Hall is one of those buildings which have escaped the practical joke of “restoration.” It consists of a “house-place” or large central room, with a projecting wing on either side—a form which was very common in the seventeenth century. In the angle formed by the “house-place” and the southern wing is a yellow-washed stone porch, about two feet deep. Just above the entrance to the porch is a tiny window, with diamond panes and angular top. Below, in an incised panel, the letters M.G. are carved, and, just beneath those letters, R.G. 1658. Although the plan of the house is consistent throughout, it was not all built at the same time, and the two pairs of initials may represent two different owners or builders. Ralph Glossop, of Offerton, appears in the Hope Easter Roll for this very year 1658, and also Edward Glossop, of the same place.[62] A list of the freeholders of Derbyshire made in 1633[63] shows that Ralph Glossop was the only freeholder at Offerton in that year. According to Hunter’s large _Pedigree Book_, printed by the Harleian Society, Ralph Glossop, of Offerton, married Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Jeremy Ward, of Ashop, in Derbyshire.[64] This Ralph Glossop is not, like his neighbour Thomas Eyre, of Highlow, described in the list of freeholders as an esquire, and accordingly Offerton Hall would seem to have been the residence of a substantial yeoman.

[62] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xi., p. 21.

[63] _Op. cit._, vol. vi., p. 7.

[64] _Familiæ Minorum Gentium_, 647.

Opening out of the little porch is a strong oak door, studded with iron nails. The height of the door is five feet eight inches, and it is below the level of the sill or threshold, so that when you enter the house you go down one step. As you enter you must take care both of your head and your feet, or you may come to grief at both ends. Dr. Troels Lund says that in Danish houses of the sixteenth century “the door was extremely low, so that a person entering had to bend down, and at the same time the sill was so high that the foot had to be well lifted up. And if a man had reason to fear a hostile attack, it was a considerable help that the entrance, which was always a weak point, should be as narrow and low as possible; if the door were burst open, the enemy might get his death-blow as he stepped over the sill with his back bent and his foot lifted up.”[65]

[65] _Das Tägliche Leben in Skandinavien während des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts_, Copenhagen, 1882, p. 12.

At Offerton Hall, instead of lifting your leg up you have to drop it down, and at the same time if you are a tall man you have to bend your neck. In the English, as in the Danish case, the intention was to make entrance difficult, and to prevent surprises. The thick oak door opens inwardly. As you go in you do not see the house-place; you face the great chimney wall, and to get into the house-place you pass through another door on your right. Thus the house contains both an inner and an outer porch, the inner porch answering to the “speer” of Lancashire cottages which have no outer porch. The door of entrance is fastened by an oak bolt one foot nine inches in length, and three inches by four in thickness. The bolt fits into a hole in the wall, and is drawn out by an iron ring.

The house-place, or “house-body” as they call it at Halifax, is still the centre of domestic intercourse, as it has always been. As you enter, your back is turned to the great fireplace which once warmed all the house, and which was kept burning day and night. When you get inside the house-place the great vault of the chimney, more than eleven feet wide, is before you, spanned by a depressed arch. People in the neighbourhood speak of the chimney of Offerton Hall as “a lantern chimney.” If you ask them why it was so called, somebody may tell you, without blushing, that it was because a man went up to sweep it with a lantern. The term “lantern chimney” is not to be found in dictionaries, and may therefore be presumed to be unknown. There must once have been a louver or lantern at the top of the chimney at Offerton, like the one, for instance, at Tisbury, in Wiltshire, figured in Parker’s _Glossary_. The chimney at Tisbury is octangular, with a conical roof, like the top of a stable lantern, and with lateral holes for the emission of smoke. The summit of the chimney at Offerton may originally have been of this form.

The base of the chimney has a breadth of twelve feet six inches on one side, and ten feet six inches on the other. It is built of stone, and in the chamber above the house-place it begins to taper off, so that its sides might be compared to the “steps” on the Great Pyramid. Big central chimneys like this are the first rude attempts to get rid of the open hearth, from which the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof, or by a louver. It is said that “chimneys were not used in the farmhouses of Cheshire till within forty years of the publication of King’s _Vale Royal_ (1636); the fire was in the midst of the house, against a hob of clay, and the oxen lived under the same roof.”[66]

[66] Whitaker’s _Craven_, 1812, p. 334.

The rooms of the house are about eight feet high on the ground floor, and seven feet on the upper floor, and the principals supporting the roof in the garret are a good deal like the crutches which have just been described. There is no panelling in the house, and no cellar. In front of the building is an old-fashioned garden.

In 1545 Robert Glossop, of Offerton, was fined for trespassing on Abney Common.[67] In 1465 John Glossop, of Wodsetys, in Norton (Norton Woodseats, near Sheffield), leased to Henry Foliaumbe a messuage in Offerton called Le Storthe for twelve years.[68] It would not be difficult to make out a considerable history of the Glossop family and their relations from the Lichfield wills and the other usual sources of information.

[67] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xxiii., p. 89.

[68] Jeayes, _Derbyshire Charters_.

We must not be in too great a hurry to conclude that Offerton means upper farm, as Over Haddon means Upper Haddon. Overton, in Ashover, means upper farm, but Mr. Jeayes has shown that in the thirteenth century Offerton, in Hathersage, occurs once as Hofnertoun, and that a man called Eustace de Hofnerton lived there.[69] Other early forms of the name are Offirtun and Offreton; in _Domesday_ it appears as Offertune, a berewick of Hope. Mr. Searle has told us that _Offerd_ is found in Old English charters and in _Domesday_ as a form of the man’s name _Osfrith_,[70] and, if we could put aside Hofnertoun as a scribe’s error, this is probably the first element of the word. In the thirteenth century we have Over Offerton and Nether Offerton, otherwise _Kauereshegge_.[71] Was Nether Offerton ever so called? Possibly the scribe should have written _Hauereshegge_, a form of Hathersage, as old documents show.

[69] Jeayes, _Derbyshire Charters_.

[70] _Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum_, Cambridge, 1897.

[71] Jeayes, _op. cit._

The Offerton Hall estate is the property of H. Cunliffe Shawe, Esq., of Weddington Hall, Nuneaton, to whom it has descended from Robert Newton, Esq., of Norton House, who was born in 1713 and died in 1789. Mr. Newton was a wealthy man and a great purchaser of land, this being one of his many estates. In a survey belonging to Mr. Shawe, made about eighty years ago, the Offerton Hall property is described as containing eighty-five acres, and as including the following fields: The Acre with Kentny Barn, Great Kentny, Kentny Meadow, Kentny Wood, Breedy Acre with the Precipice, Wild Hey, Siss Acres, Cornhill Cap Meadow, and Great White Ley. As the map shows, Kentny Meadow is close to the hall. A place called Kenteney, in Upper Offerton, is mentioned in deeds of the thirteenth century.[72] This name represents an older _Centan-īg_, meaning Centa’s “island,” and we have the same termination _ey_ (_īg_ or _īeg_) in Abney, which adjoins Offerton, and in a manuscript survey of 1451 is written Albeney.[73] We can rely upon this form of the name, not only because it was taken from an older survey, but because the surname De Albeney occurs in North Derbyshire in 1250.[74] Now the surname Albeyn is found at Chesterfield in 1339,[75] and is the English form of the Latin _Albāgnus_. Abney, therefore, means Alban’s “island.” Eyam, which adjoins, is written Eium or Eyum in the thirteenth century, and the termination _-um_ is so very frequent that we cannot doubt that it is a dative plural, and that the word means “islands.” These “islands,” it need hardly be said, were not pieces of land surrounded by water. They remind us of the intermixed townships which are so frequent in some parts of England, as if strangers or conquerors had settled amongst a conquered people. At Eyam, the “islands” seem to have been the lands which were held by military tenure, or “hastler lands,” as they were known in the neighbourhood.

[72] Jeayes, _Derbyshire Charters_.

[73] _Feodarium_, in the possession of the Duke of Norfolk.

[74] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_.

[75] Jeayes, _op. cit._

Siss Acres may be six acres, for Chaucer has _sis_ for six. If so, the word is interesting as pointing to French influence in the neighbourhood.

In 1611 it is said that Offerton is a manor of itself, then in the tenure of Henry Cavendish, Esq.[76]

[76] _Derbyshire Archæological Journal_, vol. xxiii., 89.

ROODS, SCREENS, AND LOFTS IN DERBYSHIRE CHURCHES

By Aymer Vallance, F.S.A.

Although still comprising a considerable amount of excellent screenwork, the county of Derby has suffered grievous losses in this regard, losses for which, if fanaticism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was primarily responsible, ignorance and indifference in the eighteenth century, and wilful perversity of so-called “restorers” during the “Gothic revival” of the nineteenth, have produced consequences not less disastrous.

At the beginning of the religious revolution in England, inaugurated in the reign of Henry VIII., every church and chapel in the land had its rood-screen, surmounted by a rood-loft. Above them both was the great rood, or cross, with a figure of Our Lord outstretched upon it, flanked almost invariably by statues of St. Mary and St. John. Of these ornaments the rood-loft was the latest to be developed, not becoming general previously to the fifteenth century. It had, however, been preceded in cathedral and monastic churches by the pulpitum, a thick wall with a gallery on the top of it at the west end of the quire. In churches of this class, the rood-screen would be situated parallel to the pulpitum, but further westwards, in the nave.

The pulpitum and the parish church rood-screen, although the former is usually a solid stone structure, while the latter consists of openwork, and is of wood rather than of stone, so far resemble one another that both have a central doorway, whereas the cathedral and monastic rood-screen appears to have had, as a rule, two doorways in it, one at the north and the other at the south end, with an altar (which ranked as the principal one among the altars of the nave) placed between them. It was in front of this altar, and at the foot of the great rood, that the procession, which perambulated the church before High Mass on Sundays and great feasts, having traversed the appointed route, finally drew up to make a solemn station. This done, those taking part in the procession would file off to right and left in two divisions, either of them passing through one of the doors in the rood-screen, and thence under the pulpitum into the quire for the celebration of the chief service of the day.

In illustration of the foregoing, it is of interest to recall that excavations, carried on at the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century, on the site of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Dale, revealed, at the eastern crossing, the bases of the two parallel walls of the pulpitum, about five feet apart, and pierced by a central doorway, 4 ft. 6 in. wide. A year later much of the tile pavement of the nave was unearthed, disclosing the tiles spaced and arranged in bands to mark the exact position for the procession, as before described. Further may be cited the accounts of the sale of the effects of the abbey, drawn up by order of the Royal Commissioners on its dissolution in 1538. This document is dated 24th October, in the thirtieth year of King Henry VIII.’s reign. It enumerates, beside “the seats in the Quier; a crucifyx, Mary and John; a payre of organs; ... the rode alter in the Churche,” _i.e._, in the nave, “and a rode there,” _i.e._, presumably the great rood. Another item disposed of, viz., “The partition of tymber in the body of the Churche,” most probably refers to the rood-screen in the nave; while the before-named “rode alter” would be, by analogy, the altar in the midst of the rood-screen; for such was the usual dedication. The greater number of the fittings of Dale Abbey were acquired at the sale by Francis Pole, of Radburne. It is, therefore, not without good reason that certain linen-fold panels in Radburne Church—eighteen in all—have been identified as belonging formerly to the rood-screen of the abbey church. And yet another item sold, “a grate of yren” (iron) “abowte the Founder and the tymber worke there” would include parclose screenwork such as is described hereafter.

The church of another Premonstratensian abbey also, that of Beauchief (founded between 1172 and 1176), had its altar of the Holy Cross. Evidence of the fact is extant in the shape of a deed, _circa_ 1300, by which Sir Thomas de Chaworth, lord of Norton, made over the entire village of Greenhill, moor included, by way of endowment, to maintain a canon to celebrate mass at the altar of that name in perpetuity. I have found no other particulars of Beauchief bearing on the present subject except in the inventory, dated 2nd August, 1536, wherein occurs:—“It’m a p’ of organnes,” which same may be assumed to have stood upon the top of the pulpitum.

Neither, again, has very much that is relevant come to light concerning the vanished church of the Augustinian canons at Darley. Their abbey, in its time the largest and most important of the religious houses of Derbyshire, was suppressed in the autumn of 1538, as the result of three months’ unremitting pressure on the part of Cromwell’s agent, Thomas Thacker. This man actually wrote, at the close of the first three months, to inform his master how little effect his cajoleries and threats had had upon the abbot; and to solicit the all-powerful minister’s favour and help in securing possession of the house and goods for himself, when he should have succeeded in the design of coercing the unhappy man. It is at least some slight satisfaction to know that Thacker’s petition was disregarded as far as Darley Abbey was concerned. The abbot’s consent to the suppression at length wrung from him, no time was lost before cataloguing and selling the effects of the abbey. The inventory of the sale is dated 24th October (only two days later than the signing of the act of “surrender”), and comprises the “Great Crucyfyx” of the abbey church and “tymber about ... Seint Sythes Chapell,” meaning, obviously, the parclose screens that surrounded it.

With the foregoing may be compared the priory church of another Augustinian house, founded in 1172 at Repton. The inventory of the sale, dated likewise in October in the year 1538, specifies, besides the rood, at least six partitions of timber, or parcloses, fencing round the chapels respectively of Our Lady, St. John, St. Nicholas, and St. Thomas. The church, dismantled, as has been stated, under Henry VIII., still continued standing “most beautiful,” according to the testimony of the historian Fuller, until the reign of Queen Mary, when, in a single day, it was utterly demolished by the intruder in occupation, Gilbert Thacker. This miscreant belonged to a family deeply tainted with the guilt of sacrilege. He was, in fact, son and heir of the before-named Thomas Thacker, and becoming alarmed at the news of the rehabilitation of the religious orders, and determined to prevent such an eventuality in the case of Repton Priory, promptly acted on that resolve by destroying, as he himself expressed it, “the nest, for fear the birds should build therein again.” Excavations conducted in 1882 and two successive years on the site of the former church, discovered practically all that is ever likely, under the circumstances, to be learned from investigations on the spot. The results, embodied in two reports by Mr. W. H. St. John Hope, were published in volumes vi. and vii. of the _Journal of the Derbyshire Archæological Society_, from which, as comprising the whole of the available information relevant to the present subject, the following particulars have, for the most part, been extracted.

The stone pulpitum, like that at Dale, occupied the space between the two piers of the eastern crossing; but, unlike the Dale pulpitum, the Repton one was a solid structure. It measures 5 ft. 4½ in. deep from east to west, and is pierced by a central doorway 4 ft. 4½ in. wide. Its eastward front, against which backed the return stalls, measures 26 ft. 2 in., the total width of the quire. The westward façade (except for the door-jambs, which are moulded and flanked on either side by an ornamental buttress, and when uncovered in 1883 showed traces of brilliant scarlet and black colouring) was austerely plain. Its flatness was relieved, however, by the loft above being made to overhang. That this was so is deduced from the fact that had the loft-floor not projected beyond the area of the base of the pulpitum, there would have been insufficient room for anyone ascending to the top to turn round on emerging from the staircase. The latter, 3 ft. 2½ in. wide, was hollowed out of the solid in the northern half of the pulpitum, and raked upwards in a straight flight from south to north. The “pair of organs” named in the inventory, stood, it may be assumed, on the platform at the top. That the pulpitum itself must have been coeval (_circa_ 1275–1300) with the piers and integral in structure with them, is manifest from the plinth that forms the base of pulpitum and piers alike being finished with the same hollow chamfer continuously all round it. A curious feature is that, notwithstanding there is a step leading up from the nave to the pulpitum door, on the east side there is a descent of one step again on to the floor of the quire. South of the pulpitum a screen of wood shut off the quire’s south aisle (which is ten feet wide) from the transept. Another screen, in line with the last-named one, extending 21 ft. 9 in., _i.e._, as far as the south wall of the transept, enclosed the spacious chapel of Our Lady, which was situated parallel to the quire, on the south side of the quire’s south aisle. The former existence of these screens is proved by holes sunk in the masonry to receive the timber work. The north transept was too ruinous to furnish any indication of its ancient screen arrangements; but there were found some signs of a screen having stood between the first pair of piers in the nave (which, exclusive of the aisles, is 22 ft. 2 in. wide). This would, of course, be the position of the rood-screen proper.

To resume, as to collegiate churches, some were provided, like cathedrals, with a solid pulpitum, others with a rood-loft only, which in their case had to do duty for pulpitum; that is to say, the ceremonial singing of the Gospel was wont, as in cathedrals and monastic churches, to take place on the top of it at High Mass on Sundays and great feasts. The knowledge of this circumstance has given rise, apparently, to the mistaken notion that the rood-loft in ordinary parochial churches was used for the same purpose, which was decidedly not the case. Nay, in some parish churches sculptured stone desks, projecting from the north wall of the chancel, near the high altar, were provided expressly, as authorities on the subject agree, for the reading of the Gospel at that spot, in contradistinction to the cathedral, monastic, and collegiate usage. The Derbyshire parish churches of Chaddesden, Crich, Etwall, Mickleover, Spondon, and Taddington are especially remarkable as being fitted with lecterns of this description.

Against the east side of a pulpitum return stalls for clergy or monks were invariably fixed; but that this arrangement was not confined exclusively to cathedral, monastic, and collegiate churches is proved by the fact that certain Derbyshire churches, which have never belonged to any of those categories, and could scarcely even be described as connected except indirectly with cells of religious houses in their neighbourhood, _e.g._, those at Chaddesden, Elvaston, Norbury, and Sawley, were provided with return stalls in the chancel. And again, not least extraordinary, in the out-of-the-way parish of Chelmorton, the ancient rood-screen, itself of stone, to this day still has a stone bench attached to it, and running the length of its eastern side, for clergy to occupy, backs to the screen and faces towards the altar, just as though in a cathedral quire or in that of some religious order.

Three of the before-named churches, viz., Chaddesden, Elvaston, and Norbury, present (or, rather, if the handiwork of the mediæval joiners had not been subsequently tampered with in any of them, would present) a feature highly characteristic of Derbyshire churches in the treatment of the outer ends of the return stalls that flank the passage through the rood-screen into the chancel. The Norbury specimen (see illustration), handsomely sculptured, with a panel of vine ornament, and with a projecting elbow formed of the half-length figure of an angel, is, however, in point of size the least accentuated of the three. But the pair at Chaddesden, with a series of enormous crockets climbing high up the eastward face of the muntins which form the entrance jambs, if scarcely noticeable when the screen is viewed from the nave, are very conspicuous from within the chancel; so much so, indeed, as to dominate and outscale all the rest of the screenwork to which they belong. How so strange an anomaly ever came to be introduced into an ordinary parish church is merely conjecture. The quire of the church of All Hallows, Derby—the sole collegiate foundation in the county surviving as such until the sixteenth century—must, of course, have been furnished with return stalls; but whether they exhibited the huge proportions of those at Chaddesden, or whether, if that were so, the Chaddesden stall ends were or were not deliberately imitated from those of All Hallows’, one may wonder and argue as one will, without the possibility of arriving any the nearer to positive assurance on the subject.