Chapter IV: Part 4

The actual origin of the house may properly be attributed to Thorpe. He claims nothing for himself, he only leaves certain drawings behind him (Figs. 1 and 3).

In comparing Thorpe’s plan with the actual ground-plan (Fig. 2), it will be found that the main dimensions tally almost exactly; the corner pavilions, however, are not quite so large as he shows them, and the projection of the wings beyond the entrance and garden fronts is rather larger than he indicates. The hall is built to his dimensions of 60 feet by 30 feet. As to the general similarity of the two plans, the likeness is obvious, but the difference in the thickness of the various main walls should be observed. The variations in the positions of the internal cross walls need hardly be considered, because they result, in all probability, from comparatively recent alterations. But in the main skeleton there are several noteworthy discrepancies. The corner pavilions in Thorpe’s plan do not overlap the north and south fronts, whereas they do in the building itself. The entrance porch as built is quite different from what he shows, and so is the projecting window in the centre of the south or garden front. The two central bays which he shows on the east and west fronts do not appear in the building itself; as a matter of fact the east front has six large windows between the pavilions, whereas the west has seven. Thorpe shows both these fronts treated alike.

Comparing Thorpe’s half-elevation with the photograph of the building (Fig. 4), the general likeness again is obvious. But Thorpe shows no basement windows; his front porch agrees with his plan and differs from the actual work; he shows two four-light windows in the front at the side of the porch, whereas there are actually a four-light and a five-light; he shows a single pilaster between these windows, whereas there are two. The end of his wing has a four-light window; the building itself has a five-light. Niches which he does not show have been made on the main front as well as on the flanks of the various projections. He shows several ways of ornamenting the pedestals of his pilasters; in execution they have the gondola rings shown to the left of his ground story. The curly gable of his corner pavilion, although carefully shown, does not quite tally with the gable as carried out; nor does his angle turret on the central tower agree with what was built. He evidently started by treating the angle with quoins surmounted by a small turret at the top, but he subsequently lengthened the turret downwards. The pilasters which he shows on this central block do not appear in the building; if they had they would have served to bring that part of the composition more into harmony with the lower part, and nothing would probably have been heard of the suggestion that the central pavilion is part of an older building. A study of the plan and of the building, however, disposes of this suggestion, nor could the lofty hall and the room over it be harmonised with any known treatment of houses prior to the Elizabethan era.

The discrepancies here pointed out do away with the idea that Thorpe’s drawings were made from the building after erection. They are easily accounted for on the supposition that the drawings were modified in the course of being carried out.

If we turn to Smithson’s drawings, we find that his plan (Fig. 5) tallies almost exactly (as to the main walls) with the existing plan. This leads to the supposition that his plan was drawn from the actual building at a time when the addition of forecourts was contemplated; if, indeed, owing to the considerable and irregular slope of the ground they were ever contemplated. His elevation of the corner pavilion (Fig. 6) agrees almost accurately with the actual building.

There is one point in connection with the Thorpe drawings which bears forcibly upon the question as to the source whence the ideas which underlay our English Renaissance came. There was a tolerably widespread desire in Elizabeth’s time to benefit by what was being done in foreign lands. A young architect, John Shute, was sent by the Duke of Northumberland to study architecture in Italy. Lord Burghley made more than one inquiry for books on architecture recently published in France, and John Thorpe himself, as his drawings show, studied Italian, French, and Dutch books. One of the French books to which he devoted considerable attention was Androuet du Cerceau’s _Les plus Excellents Bastiments de France_, published in 1576, and in that book are a few plans with corner pavilions such as those at Wollaton. The disposition of Wollaton is so unusual that it is quite possible that Thorpe may have put into practice here some of the ideas he gleaned from Du Cerceau’s book. Some of Du Cerceau’s plans he copied into his own MS. book, but in doing so he adapted them to English uses, and it was much the same with Wollaton. The plan is not a direct copy; it is only the general idea which may have been derived from the French source. Thorpe having designed the plan and elevation, may be presumed to have handed them over to Robert Smythson, who, with the help of the master-workmen from Italy, carried the work out. Such a course of procedure would at any rate reconcile the claims of the various parties.

But leaving the question of who designed the house, a few words must be bestowed upon the structure itself. Its plan, although of foreign origin, was so contrived as to comply with old-established English habits. The central position of the hall rendered it not altogether easy of access in the usual way--that is, into the passage at the end called the “screens.” The most direct way from the front door to the hall is that which now exists, but this leads you into the middle of the side, not into the screens. Thorpe, therefore, kept his hall floor above the level of his front door, and led the visitor, not directly into the hall, but round to the right, and so, by way of a flight of steps, up to the end of the hall, and delivered him into the screens in the usual way. The spare space not occupied by the stairs he devoted to the porter’s rooms. Smithson’s plan shows a similar arrangement. A further reason for keeping the hall floor raised was that, contrary to the prevailing custom, he put his kitchen and servants’ rooms down in a basement. This was almost a necessity of the design, for being of a pretentious nature, it was obliged to be grand on every side, and the kitchen and inferior premises had to be hidden away in a basement in order not to spoil the symmetry of the four show-sides of the house.

The disposition of the house, with a central hall surrounded by rooms two stories high, necessitated an unusual height for the hall, which is over 50 feet high. Its window-sills also had to be above the roofs of the surrounding rooms, and they are some 35 feet from the floor. The upper floor of these adjacent rooms on the east side was devoted to the long gallery, but modern alterations, necessitated by constant use, have not only divided this up into a number of small rooms, but have effectually obliterated from the interior of the whole house all its Elizabethan character, except what remains in the basement and in the great hall. The fine stone screen remains here, and agrees with the sketches in the Smithson drawings: the original roof is also left--an excellent specimen of Elizabethan work. It has this peculiarity, that though fashioned like an open hammer-beam roof, it supports in reality the floor of a large room over, called the Prospect Room, which occupies the upper part of the central block that forms so conspicuous a feature of the house.

It only remains to say that the house was entirely new from its foundations, and that it occupied eight years in erection. There was apparently no building here before it, although very frequently we find Elizabethan houses enveloping the remains of a humbler predecessor. The Willoughbys had lived at Wollaton for some generations previous to the building of the mansion, but their home was a house somewhere near the church. It has been suggested that the central block is earlier in date than that which surrounds it; but reflection shows that the hall must necessarily have been built in relation to the lower buildings round it. There is nothing to indicate any alterations of an older building; the detail of the central block, although different, is contemporary with that of the rest of the house, and the whole of it is shown on Thorpe’s drawing. Everything, therefore, tends to prove that the whole house was built at the same time. Duchess Cassandra tells us that the stone was brought from Ancaster, and that the same pack-horses which brought it took back Sir Francis’s coal in exchange. Notwithstanding that he got his stone for nothing, she says, and that labour was much cheaper in those days, the house cost Sir Francis £80,000.

The external treatment is of pronounced classic character, with plenty of pilasters and bold cornices. There are a number of circular niches containing busts of classic personages such as Virgil, Plato, Aristotle, and Diana. The master-workmen out of Italy were presumably familiar with these celebrities, and so might have been Mr. Robert Smythson, gent., but the ordinary English workman must have been rather puzzled by them, and perhaps secretly relieved when he heard that a shipload of them had gone down, an accident that is said to account for some of the niches being empty. But, _pace_ Duchess Cassandra, a good deal more assistance in English houses came from the Dutch than the Italians in the time of Elizabeth, and it would not be surprising if the building accounts, which are some day to be published, showed that Holland rather than Italy was the source whence some of the lower work was derived (in spite of the gondola rings which adorn the bases of some of the pilasters), as it was almost certainly the place where the curly gables of the pavilions had their origin.

The Smithson drawings, which have come to light again in recent years, are of very great interest. It is difficult to say what was their exact purpose. The elevation of the pavilion (Fig. 6) may have been drawn from the executed building. On the other hand, it may have been a development of Thorpe’s rather rough sketch. If so, it would probably be the work of Robert Smythson, and thus link him up with John; and, assuming that they were father and son, John must have preserved his father’s drawing among his own.

The plan (Fig. 5) has already been surmised to represent an idea of adding a forecourt to each front; but the levels of the ground seem to preclude the possibility of their ever having been carried out, and the drawing may be merely an exercise of fancy. In any case it appears odd to modern notions that the principal objects opposite to three of the fronts should be the stables, the dairy and laundry, and the bakehouse and brewhouse. On the fourth or entrance front there was to have been a gatehouse, which was quite a customary feature. The forecourt lying between the gatehouse and the mansion was to have been surrounded by a raised terrace or colonnade, as is indicated by the flights of steps leading up to it.

The plan of the orchard (Fig. 7) is entitled “Sur Percevalles Willoughbyes Newe Orcharde at Wollaton, Ann. Domi. 1618.” It is curious, inasmuch as the central part corresponds in outline with the plan of the house. Whether it was ever carried out or not is not known. Sir Perceval, it will be remembered, was the son-in-law and successor of Sir Francis, the builder of the house.

The drawings of the screen (Fig. 8) are of peculiar interest. There are three of them: one is the general design, differing in some respects from the actual work, and suggesting that it was the original design subsequently modified; another is a sketch for the upper carved panels between the columns (Fig. 9), and it agrees with the existing carving; the third is a sketch for the panels in the frieze above the screen (Fig. 10), and it agrees, in the main, with the actual work. All these facts point to the drawings being the originals from which the work was executed; they may, therefore, without forcing the argument, be fathered upon Robert Smythson, and they thus provide another link to connect Robert with John.

It is always interesting to find out who the men were who designed the old buildings which we admire so much. The houses did not grow of themselves, there were definite means employed to gain the results; and a careful study of such drawings as survive is gradually helping us to further knowledge on the subject. Several groups of men at this period seem to have been proud of their work and to have preserved their drawings. Among them were the Thorpes, father and son; the Smithsons, who for several generations (excluding Robert, who, however, seems to be taking his place in the family) were architectural designers of acknowledged ability; and Inigo Jones with his nephew and successor, John Webb. The lives of these men covered almost the whole of that interesting period in English architecture when the Italian influence was gradually transforming our methods of design. The elder Thorpe, who was already at work in 1570, saw the early stages; Inigo Jones, who died in 1652, was the agent who familiarised his countrymen with the finer forms of Italian design, and established the reign of Palladianism, the effects of which lasted for more than a century and a half. The work at Wollaton represents an early step in this long development, and will always be interesting on this account alone, apart from the striking, and indeed magnificent, individuality of the house itself.

THE ANCIENT AND MODERN TRENT

BY BERNARD SMITH, M.A.

THE RIVER TRENT

The valley of the Trent deserves to be considered as one of the most interesting of the antiquities of the county of Nottinghamshire. When our ancestors dubbed it “The broad vale of Trent,” they unconsciously laid stress upon its width, and, in fact, rightly, because the present river Trent is a misfit--too small for the valley--a shrunken representative of that ancient stream which carved the great steep-sided trench between Nottingham and Newark.

There is something very human about the behaviour of rivers; they live and move. In their youth, and at their headwaters, they are full of energy, constantly overcoming difficulties and removing obstacles from their course. As mature streams their paths are smoother and their ways more orderly. In old age they wander lazily to the sea, often haltingly and dropping their burdens on the way. But--unlike human beings--they are constantly at work. Should their energy be greater than is required to carry their load of rock-waste, they employ it in lowering and widening their beds, and in clearing and straightening their path to the sea. If all their energy is required to carry their load they can still burrow sideways into their banks, although they cannot now cut downwards. If the load is too great they wisely drop the overburden and carry that which their strength is equal to. The power of a river should never be gauged by its work or appearance at ordinary times, for tremendous vigour--out of all proportion--comes both with increase in volume and increase in pace, conditions only fulfilled when the river is in flood. Rivers, again, are more than human in the manner in which they adapt themselves to their environment. If hard rocks must be crossed they take the shortest path in a narrow gorge; if soft rocks are traversed they follow them as long as possible, meandering somewhat lazily along the path of least resistance; they thus tend to become adjusted to the texture and grain of the rocks over which they flow.

THE ANCIENT TRENT

The history of the river Trent is intimately connected with the story of the Great Ice Age in Britain. This event--so recent from a geological standpoint--was fairly distant from the human point of view, since nearly all of the Palæolithic relics of this country date from the retreat of the ice.

Long before the Ice Age (at a time when great earth movements were taking place upon the Continent and building up the Alps) the younger rocks in the Nottinghamshire area were uplifted and tilted gently to the east, away from the older and underlying Carboniferous rocks of the Pennines, and were thus brought within the influence of destructive processes.

Rivers, running down the slope in the direction of the North Sea, began to cut deeply and form a plain, whose general surface agreed roughly with the slope of the river channels. The higher beds on the west were stripped away, because a river is more active and cuts more deeply at its head than near its mouth. Hence the original surface of the uplifted plain has gone; the new surface slopes on the whole from west to east, and the older rocks are more elevated than the younger ones.

Tributary streams, developed along north and south lines in the soft belts of rock, became in time more important than the first-formed west to east streams. One of these tributaries, no doubt, working its headwaters backwards from the Humber, formed a valley in the red clays of Nottinghamshire which lie west of the Lincoln Cliff, and tapped the easterly-flowing waters, thus forming a river very similar in direction to the present Trent.

However this may be,[41] there is no sign of that river and that valley at the present day, although they were doubtless the guiding lines which eventually determined the course of the Vale.

Nottinghamshire was invaded by ice-sheets descending from the north. The direction of movement was rather from the west of north in the west of the county, and from the east of north in the south-east of the county; and as the ice advanced the rivers were naturally destroyed, partly by refrigeration, but chiefly by being invaded by ice. When the climate ameliorated the floods were let loose and the waters sought their old channels.

As the ice-front retreated it left behind it a mass of gravel which was in part washed from the ice-front by water draining the ice, and in part introduced by floods from distant sources. At the same time it is possible that much of the gravel was deposited beneath the surface of a large sheet of water; for in late-glacial times the water in this district seems to have been augmented by floods pouring into the basin from the direction of the Cheshire Plain and endeavouring to escape to the North Sea, since its escape to the Irish Sea was prevented by the Irish Sea ice. In our district it is thought that the water, finding its passage to the Humber barred by the retreating extremity of the ice-sheet, which rested against the cliff north of Lincoln and extended thence to the high ground north-west of Kelham, was forced to pour over a low gap in the hills at Lincoln.

The highest elevations between Newark and Lincoln, near Coddington, Potter’s Hill, Swinderby, Eagle, and Doddington, are capped by the gravels of late-glacial age. The Lincoln gap was then cut down; the ice had now probably retreated--although there is no direct evidence--and already opened up the way to the Humber, and a second series of gravels distributed by running waters on gently-inclined slopes of the solid formations and in hollows scoured through the older gravels. Such gravels occur near Nottingham, Radcliffe, Farndon, and Newark; and from the latter place they stretch to Winthorpe and Langford, and thence in a well-defined S-shaped belt to within one and a half miles of Lincoln. They are also found to the east of that city. The waters were again rapidly lowered and escaped by two exits--the Humber and the Lincoln Gap. Gravels formed at this stage occupy not only the floor of the present Trent valley, but below Newark spread widely over the ground to the east, abut against the well-marked terrace of the second series near Langford and Eagle, and sweep round the northern flank of the Doddington Hills to Lincoln.

The rather scanty evidence at our disposal tends to show that all these deposits were formed after the retreat of the ice, for although they rest upon boulder-clay (the ground moraine of the ice-sheet) at several points, they are never found beneath it. Between Nottingham and Newark the valley floor is almost certainly post-glacial, for, were it not so, we should expect to find boulder-clay on the valley slopes or beneath the river deposits--but such relics are wanting. The river had, however, established its present course very soon after the close of the Ice Age, because the bones of extinct mammalia--mammoth, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus--have been found in the valley deposits above Nottingham. At such a time heavy floods would occur when the winter snowfall melted in the spring, and the river and its feeders would be larger and more powerful than the present stream, which cannot lift and spread gravel over its flood plain.

Between the flood-periods the stream was choked with débris and gravel-bars, and compelled to split up into rapidly changing branches which spread the gravels far and wide. Such was the ancient Trent--a powerful flood immediately after the Ice Age, but slowly dwindling in volume and power as, in course of time, it cut deeper and deeper and sunk its valley below the level of the earlier-formed gravels, which were therefore left as terraces and flats above the level of the latest and lowest flood-plains (Fig. 1). The older gravels are probably of Palæolithic Age, although no remains of the earlier Stone Age have been found in them. Palæolithic man, however, inhabited the district, for signs of his presence have been discovered in the Creswell Caves, hence it is reasonable to expect that Palæolithic implements may eventually be discovered in some of the oldest post-glacial gravels between Nottingham, Newark, and Lincoln.

In the Idle and Leen valleys there are also gravel terraces of considerable antiquity, whose history is very similar, although somewhat shorter than those of the Trent.

THE PRESENT RIVER TRENT

Since the accumulation of the river gravels there has been slight widening of the valley in places, but hardly any deepening. The gravels, as a rule, are spread over it from side to side beneath the recent alluvium of the present enfeebled river, and the surface of the alluvial plain is at a slightly lower level than that of the gravel terraces. At ordinary times the river meanders to and fro among its ancient gravel-bars without sufficient energy to clear away all the detritus brought down to the flat by its tributaries. It rearranges the mixed sandy gravel of the old river, depositing the sand above the gravel, and placing a layer of loam, derived mainly from red Triassic rocks, upon the top of all. Thus the alluvial plain--within the old gravel plain--is built up both by lateral wandering of the river and by the floods which level up the surface.

Between Midsummer and Christmas A.D. 1346 long continued rains caused one of the most disastrous of the early recorded floods. In 1683 the bridges at Nottingham and Newark were destroyed by ice and water, due to the breaking up of a frost (which began in September, accompanied by much snow). Muskham and Holme also suffered severely. The Brampton bank (Breach Pit Bank) was broken five times previous to 1730, and again in 1824, since when a new bank has been erected. The banks near Newton and Torksey gave way in November 1770 and flooded all the lands on both sides of the Foss Dyke as far as Lincoln, flooding villages and destroying great quantities of hay and corn. Water stood several feet deep in the houses of Narrow Marsh, Nottingham. Floods also occurred in 1774 and 1790.

The great flood of Candlemas 1795 was--like that of 1683--the result of a quick thaw after a frost, which lasted from December 24, 1794, until February 9, 1795, and was accompanied by some 15 inches of snow. In Notts, as well as in Staffordshire and Derbyshire, the whole of the Trent valley was a scene of desolation, rendered more terrible by the masses of ice and melted snow carried along by the waters. The outer river bank near Spalford (the Wath Bank) burst at the south-east end of South Clifton Hill (Fig. 2), where the signs of the flood are still discernible (the hollow formed, though now dry, was long filled with water). An immense breach was formed, into which 80 loads of faggots and over 400 tons of earth were dumped before it was filled up.

Sweeping across country from this gap, the water soon converted some 20,000 acres of land, west of Lincoln, into a vast lake, and only stopped here because the High Street at Lincoln was raised above the general level of the Foss Dyke. The country inundated being in those days largely composed of swamp lands (now drained and cultivated), the damage would bear no comparison to that which would be caused by a similar flood at the present day.

With one exception it entered every house in Spalford, and Girton village street was submerged 3 feet. The water rose to a height of 4 feet 6 inches on North Collingham Churchyard wall (31 feet 6 inches above O.D.). In Nottingham the inhabitants of Narrow Marsh were prisoners for two days and nights, the water being 3 feet deep in some places. Water also entered these houses in 1809.

A great inundation took place in 1814 after snow and frost, and thousands of acres of hay and corn were laid under water by a high flood on the 5th August 1839; whilst in November 1852, before the bank gave way near Dunham, the waters were halfway up the western wall of Collingham Churchyard and drowned Girton village street to a depth of 2 feet. At Nottingham the waters rose 14 feet 9 inches above their mean level.

In more recent times a sudden thaw produced an immense flood in January 1867, and in October 1875 thousands of acres were deluged in the Trent valley, the scene from Nottingham or Newark Castles being most remarkable, buildings, hedges, and railway lines alone appearing above the water-line. Marks registering this flood are preserved at Nottingham, Fiskerton (Trent House), Newark, Collingham, Girton,[42] and Low Marnham (the stone crosses at North Muskham and Holme are said to be records of floods, but are unfortunately undated). So deep was the water that a four-oared boat was rowed by Newark Magnus boys across country to Averham and Kelham. At Low Marnham, which is entirely surrounded by a flood-bank, a great struggle took place to prevent the water from overtopping the bank and flooding the village, in which there was a valuable store of grain. When all efforts seemed to be in vain, relief came at the critical moment by the bursting of a bank near Ragnall.

This flood was at Nottingham 5½ inches higher than that of 1852, 23½ inches higher than that of July 1875, and 28 inches higher than that of a later flood in January 1877. The flood of 1795 is estimated to have been 10 inches higher than that of 1875.[43]

The severe floods of 1887, 1895, and 1901, and the recent flood which at Nottingham culminated at 6 A.M. upon the 4th December 1910, will live long in the memory of Nottinghamshire people. In the latter case incessant rains, following upon a severe snowstorm, produced a flood against which the improvements in drainage and dredging of the river bed were alike impotent. The floods continued to rise between Nottingham and Gainsborough and produced scenes unparalleled since 1875. Official figures for the height of the Trent at Trent Bridge in the recent big floods are[44]:--

October 1875 80.38 feet above mean sea-level at Liverpool.

„ 1901 79.65 feet „ „ „ „

July 1875 78.46 feet „ „ „ „

„ 1895 78.25 feet „ „ „ „
Yesterday (December
4, 1910) 78.63 feet „ „ „ „

One of the most remarkable features was the flooding of the Midland Railway line from beyond Attenborough to the centre bridge of the Nottingham Midland Station. All trains between Nottingham and Trent had to plough their way for five miles through water 3 to 4 feet deep in places; every locomotive, however, got through safely. At Collingham the water rose to within less than a foot of the 1875 level, whilst it poured bodily over the flood-bank near Gainsborough.

(View from Nottingham Castle looking South.)]

It will be seen from the above account that whereas the smaller floods usually inundate the lower and recent alluvial plain, mostly meadow and pasture land, the more severe floods (_e.g._ 1875) cover large tracts of the higher-lying river gravels of the ancient Trent, now occupied by such villages as West Bridgford, Fiskerton, Collingham, Holme, Girton, and Dunham.

BLOWN SANDS

As we trace the gravels northwards from Nottingham to Newark, and thence to the Humber, the stones of which they are composed are noticed to become increasingly finer, and there is much more sand mixed with them. During the later days of the ancient Trent, when its waters kept altering their courses, the river channels, when dry, laid bare the sand, which was caught up by the prevalent winds--then, as now, blowing from the south-west. The sand was swept up on to the higher parts of the river plain, and accumulated as dunes near what is now the main road from Collingham to the north.

Although to some extent fixed in position by the growth of grasses and gorse, and partly destroyed or levelled by agricultural operations, there still remain enough dunes to give a characteristic seaside-like appearance to the district, especially near Girton and Besthorpe. It is interesting to note that, since a part of the tract has been brought into cultivation, the drifting has again commenced, the sand being piled up in the north-east corner of every arable field, and swept away from the south-west corner. The direction of the winds which formed the original dunes also accounts for the nearly complete absence of blown sands on the western side of the Trent valley below Newark.

It is related that in the coaching days wheeled traffic often experienced considerable difficulty in passing along the high road near Besthorpe and Girton because of the great depth of the sand which had been blown into it from the dunes.

CHANGES IN THE COURSE OF THE TRENT

We have seen that the ancient Trent wandered freely over its gravelly flood-plain, splitting up rapidly into branches, and abruptly altering parts of its course with every flood. Nowadays, although floods still occur, the river’s course is more or less controlled by flood-banks, and the chief changes are due to the slow action of the river swinging into and undermining its bank as it sweeps round its curves; yet, even within historical times, we have records of sudden changes in course. These changes are of two classes--firstly, those in which the river has found a new channel through the old gravels; and, secondly, those in which the river has shortened its course on its present alluvium. As examples of the first class we may cite the cases of Kelham and Muskham.

Rastall, quoting from an autograph of Thomas Heron of Newark, says: “Where the main stream now runs by Kelham there was a small brook which, not being sufficient for the various purposes of the Sutton family resident there, a cut was made from the Trent to the brook which gave a turn to the whole current ... it then forced its way and formed that channel which is now seen. There were carriage bridges over the brook at Kelham and Muskham ... and they were obliged to build bridges over the new and extended river.” This probably occurred before 1225, because tolls were at that date collected at Kelham Bridge.

According to Dickinson and Throsby, the hamlet of Holme was attached to the parish of North Muskham, until the Trent, in A.D. 1600, separated the two places during a high flood (Fig. 3). Saxton’s map, however, published about 1576, shows Holme already cut off. A will of Stephen Surflett, of the same date, leaves land for the maintenance of the water-bank at Holme; it is therefore probable that the change took place in Surflett’s lifetime. The alluvium between Muskham and Holme is three times the width of the stream, whilst that at Kelham is no wider than the river itself; but whereas the Kelham cut was nearly straight, that at Holme must have followed a winding course: subsequent movement of the meanders down stream would account for the greater width of the alluvial strip. An old man living at Holme last century remembered a barge sinking in the river on a spot, now an orchard, 100 yards from the stream.

The stippled areas are gravel.]

Changes in course on the recent alluvium have taken place sometimes by artificial means, but usually in a natural manner.

The Nottingham Borough Records for 1392 give an account of a “Process against the Lord of Colwick for obstructing the course of the Trent,” the substance of which is that William de Colwick, Knight, and one Richard Byron, Knight, and others, have diverted the waters of Trent from its ancient course at Over Colwick into a trench, by which a portion of the said water of Trent formerly held its course, by planting obstructions, such as willows and piles. The water totally left its former course and ran by the aforesaid trench to the mill in Over Colwick, where a closed “wear” was made. The former course, about 1¾ miles in length, between the village of Adbolton and the village of Over Colwick, was destroyed and filled up by sand, willows, and other obstructions, so that ships could not come up the river to Nottingham for nine years.

In judgment the “wear” and all other nuisances were ordered to be cast down and removed. The mill-weir was apparently destroyed, but the water held to the diverted course (_i.e._ the trench by which a portion of the said water of Trent formerly held its course). The ancient course is the Old Trent now defining parts of the boundaries of Colwick and the Borough of Nottingham. In some manuscript notes from the “Perambulation of the Forest of Sherwood [31st Queen Elizabeth]”, by Launcelott Rolston and others, it is stated that the boundary “ascendeth by the River of Trent, by the Abbey of Shelforde w^{ch} is on the Southe pte of the Trente, and above the same Abbey it doth followe the ould course and streame of the Trente wh^{ch} there is dryven of the north pte from its ould course and so ascendeth still to Collwicke by the River of Trente and so to Nottingham Bridge.” The above-mentioned “old course” is still traceable to the west and south-west of Shelford.

Instead of passing Kelham, as at present, the Trent, or a branch of it, formerly passed Newark some 345 yards distant from the castle, and joined the Devon below the town. This Old Trent, now a mere trickle in a narrow winding valley, separates the hundred of Newark from that of Thurgarton. Above Newark an artificial cut connects the Old Trent with the Devon, which, after flowing beneath the castle, joins the Trent at Crankley Point 1½ miles down stream. The arrangement is shown in an old map of 1558 in C. Brown’s _History of Newark_.

At some unrecorded date the stream has cut off from Carlton parish a field upon which the villagers still exercise right of pasturing cattle. This field, Carlton Home, by its uneven surface, appears to have been formed by lateral movement of the river; the old flood-bank may have fixed the parish boundary (Fig. 2).

Sutton South Holme was an island in 1834; a part of the western stream-course still exists as a long pool. Across the river, and belonging to Sutton, is Smithy (Smeemus) Marsh, a pasture some 120 acres in extent. A bank, ditch, and the parish boundary on the east fix the site of the Old Trent, which changed its course before the date of Saxton’s map.

South of Clifton Hill, east of the Trent, an old meandering course, more than a mile long, cuts off a piece of ground known as “The Ropes.” This old course is probably of great antiquity, because it was the boundary of four parishes; it was once half the width of the Trent (Fig. 2). Other old courses may be seen on Marnham Holme, Fledborough Holme, and under Newton Cliff. The island south of Dunham Bridge, shown on maps from 1794–1834, was shaped like an inverted Welsh harp. The river invaded a neighbouring drainage-channel at the turn of a meander, which has since progressed down stream, as shown by the necessity for a new tow-path bank.

Old and deserted meandering channels and dying pools occur in such numbers on the recent alluvium that the conclusion is forced upon us that, without embankments, the valley would rapidly revert to a state of wildness similar to those of the rivers of young countries (_e.g._ the Mississippi Valley, where channels and pools occur in great numbers).

Evidences of recent lateral movement are extremely numerous; the example at Holme given above is a case in point. Roman pottery occurs in the gravel on the west bank above the site of the Roman bridge near Cromwell, where the river runs straight; and a block of dressed Blue-Lias stone was recently found here upon the site of the new lock, at least 25 feet from the present (river) bank. Again, in A.D. 1649 a field, situated beyond the Trent, but in Collingham parish, once of 35 acres, had been reduced to 8 acres by encroachment.

Near the “Crankleys,” about a mile north of Newark, an old loop of the Trent forms a curved “ox-bow” lake. This loop appears as a right-angled bend in a map (revised and published in 1725) drawn up by the chief engineer of the Scottish army besieging Newark in 1646. It also appears in Chapman’s map of 1774. In 1861 the Great Northern Railway was carried across the then well-developed loop, and to facilitate operations the bridge was first built upon the neck of the loop and the river diverted to a new channel cut across the neck beneath the bridge. Human remains, of Neolithic Age, with antlers of deer and bones of ox and horse, were found beneath the bridge at a depth of 25 feet, having been deposited in the bed of the river when it happened to be flowing at that spot. By lateral movement of the river the remains were entombed until thus brought to light.

The lateral movement and windings of the “smug and silver Trent” were evidently well known to Shakespeare, for in _King Henry IV._, Part I., Hotspur and Glendower are warmly debating about one of the meanders north of Burton. Hotspur suggests straightening the river’s course, but Glendower will not have it altered. The meander referred to is apparently one of the abandoned “rounds” near Burton and Bole, nearly opposite Gainsborough. In Shakespeare’s time they would have been much more like huge half-moons--to use Hotspur’s expression--than like circles, such as Burton Round.

By 1790 the necks of the loops were almost severed, and in February 1792 the Bole Round was breached by the river, possibly aided by the Trent bore or “ægir”--an event celebrated three years later by a Mr. Gurnill, senior, of Gainsborough, who published a map (a copy is in the possession of Mr. J. S. Lamb, of Beckingham) showing that the other loop (Burton) would soon suffer the same fate. The first vessel to pass through the breach was the property of Mr. James Cuttle, of Lincoln. White’s _Directory of Nottinghamshire_ for 1832 states that “Until 1797 the Trent here (Burton) took such a circular sweep that a boatman might have thrown his hat on shore, and, after sailing two miles, have taken it up again, but in that year the stream forced itself through the narrow neck of land in a straight line, in consequence of which the old winding channel was filled up and divided betwixt the counties of Nottingham and Lincoln, besides which the latter had now about one hundred acres on the west side of the course of the present river.” Both rounds have recently been transferred to Nottinghamshire, and remain as swampy hollows in Burton and Bole parishes, whose boundaries they partly define.

Dr. Wake and others assume that the floods are efforts of the Trent to regain its old channel, now occupied by the Fleet stream, which is undoubtedly a part of the old river (Figs. 2 and 3). Between Langford and Girton there is a low westerly-facing cliff or terrace of gravel and sand, beneath which the Fleet stream flows from Winthorpe to join the Trent near Girton. The relations between the cliff and the alluvial flat make it clear that the Trent has worked along different parts of the cliff at one time or another. The expansions at Langford, Besthorpe, and Girton, and formerly at North and South Collingham, must also be regarded as relics of the old Trent; but whether it flowed beneath the whole length of the gravel cliff at one and the same time is an open question.

The river has certainly moved from east to west, and is still doing so, having on its right hand a well-dissected gravel plain, on its left an unbroken sheet of gravel upon which it tends to encroach. It first left the Wath Bank (Spalford) at some time before 900 A.D., according to Wake, when the hundreds were defined; deserted the Fleet Mere between the tenth and sixteenth centuries, and lastly separated Holme from Muskham. There were possibly also intermediate stages when the river cut through from North Collingham to Carlton Rack, and when the Kelham parish boundary was crossed.

Thus the old story is repeated. The ancient waters flowed directly from Newark to Lincoln, then some of them fell away to the west to find exit by the Humber. Now the river flows in a northerly direction, but is edging to the west side of its valley--an effect probably due to freer egress through the remarkably narrow gap between the Keuper hills of Marnham and South Clifton, which would tend to shorten and straighten the course as far south as Kelham and Averham.

The Trent has from very early times been a means of communication and a highway. Domesday Book records that the water of Trent was kept so that if any should hinder the passage of boats he should make amends. Henry I. gave the Bishop of Lincoln permission to erect a bridge at Newark, “so that it may not hurt my city of Lincoln nor my borough of Nottingham.” Acts of Parliament relating to the navigation were passed between 1699 and 1794, and troubles about weirs arose as early as 1292. These and other instances mentioned above show that importance was attached to the control of the waters from fairly early times.

The Trent is supposed to be a tamed river. Its banks are fortified by flood-banks, piles, stones, cement, and even sunken barges; yet it persists in meandering. As fast as it undermines the flood-bank, the latter is repaired from the outside, hence the river, as it were, pushes the outer flood-bank before it when vigorously swinging outwards, but leaves the inner bank isolated by deposit of sediment. A second or inner bank then becomes necessary to carry the tow-path. Again, if the natural swing of the river is tampered with, it retaliates by readjusting its course below the point of interference. Thus, although tamed, the river under certain conditions has its own way, and never in more striking manner than when, overlapping its flood-banks, it bursts its bonds and surges far and wide over the broad Vale of Trent.[45]

THE FOREST OF SHERWOOD

BY REV. J. CHARLES COX, LL.D., F.S.A.

There is abundant evidence that the central and western parts of the county of Nottingham was well wooded in the earliest historical times. It was otherwise with the eastern or Clay division of the shire. Among other evidences of this may be mentioned the place-names, a single example of which may be here noticed. The terminal “field”--which is usually spelt feld in olden times--signified a place where trees had been felled, so as to make a clearing for cultivation. Such place-names are invariably to be found in the western half of the shire, as at Ashfield, Balkfield, Basingfield, Eastfield, Farnsfield, Haggonfield, Highfield, Lynsfield, Mansfield, Northfield, Plumfield, Southfield, Wilfield, and a score or two of others which will be found marked on the larger ordnance maps. Such names are looked for in vain on the eastern side of the county.

This well-timbered portion of Nottinghamshire probably served as a great hunting district for the later Saxon kings, and is well known to have been thus used in the earliest Norman days. It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to emphasise the fact that the old term “forest” had no particular connection with woods, great or small. The word was used for many centuries to denote a wild district reserved for the hunting of royalty, or of those specially licensed by the Crown, which was placed under special legislation in order to preserve the deer. Such tracts of country always included a certain amount of woodland or undergrowth, which served as shelter or covert for the larger game; but it was equally essential that there should be open glades and stretches of moorland for the feeding and general sustenance of the deer. Neither red nor fallow deer could possibly live in a district exclusively woodland. Many of these royal forests had but a scanty amount of timber of any kind, such as the western forests of Exmoor and Dartmoor, or the central forest of the High Peak, where the red deer used to swarm in almost fabulous numbers. Of all the royal forests of England, Sherwood, on the contrary, seems to have been exceptionally abundant in timber, and hence the red deer were not nearly so numerous at any time in her history as in the wilder parts of Derbyshire. The Forest of Sherwood, or Nottingham as it was sometimes called, probably gained its name of Shirewode or Shirwood from the fact that a considerable length of the forest boundary was also the boundary between the two shires of Derby and Nottingham.

The Forest of Sherwood embraced at one time upwards of a fourth of the whole county. The Doomsday Survey shows that not a few of the places which were afterwards within the forest limits were members of the King’s great manor of Mansfield; hence it became a comparatively easy matter for the early Norman kings to extend this large amount of royal demesne into a large forest. The first precise historic notice of the forest occurs in the year 1154, when William Peverel the younger had it in his control and held the profits under the Crown. On the forfeiture of the Peverel estates, in the early days of Henry II., Sherwood Forest lapsed to the King, and it was for some time administered by the successive sheriffs of the joint counties of Nottingham and Derby. In the days of Richard I., Sherwood was held by his brother John, Earl of Morton. John made a charter grant of all the liberties and custody of the Forest of Sherwood to Maud de Caux and her husband Ralph Fitzstephen. This charter included permission to hunt hare, fox, wild cat, and squirrel, with dogs and hounds; the right to all cablish or wind-fallen wood; the valuable inner bark or bast of the lime trees; a skep (basket) out of every cartload of salt passing through the forest, and half a skep for a half load; the pannage dues for pigs; the fees for unlawed dogs; and also all goods and chattels belonging to “brybours” taken by them without the forest. Bribour was a mid-English term for a robber or pickpocket. The charter also sanctioned the holding of a park at Laxton by Ralph and Maud, wherein they might hunt deer without molestation by the forest ministers.

This definite mention of robbers, whose presence was evidently not uncommon within the dense thickets and woodlands of Sherwood towards the close of the twelfth century, is instantly suggestive of the name of the world-famous Robin Hood. Although this great ballad hero is pretty closely associated in legend and tradition with the north of Yorkshire and other parts of England, he is emphatically the outlawed chieftain of the glades of Sherwood. There are but few English-speaking youths who have not revelled in the tales of Robin Hood, with Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, and his other lawless associates, and more particularly in their delightful adventures with the Sheriff of Nottingham, and other purse-proud travellers. Although it is always admitted that Robin Hood was an outlaw and a robber, the reason why he has gained such well-merited fame is on account of the whole garland of ballads always representing him as an advocate of humane though socialistic principles and a protector of the oppressed. As Drayton sings in his _Polyolbion_, at the close of the sixteenth century:--

“From wealthy abbots’ chests and churches’ abundant store
What oftentimes he took he shared among the poor;
No lordly bishop came in lusty Robin’s way,
To him, before he went, but for his pass must pay;
The widows in distress he graciously relieved,
And remedied the wrongs of many a virgin grieved.”

Up to the present no earlier mention of this hero has been found than that which is contained in the _Vision of Piers Plowman_, written about 1377, wherein the character of sloth is introduced saying:--

“I can noughte perfitly my paternoster, as the prest it syngeth;
But I can rymes of Robyn hood and Randolf erle of Chestre.”

In the next century the references are fairly numerous, the most interesting of which is a petition to Parliament in 1439 complaining that one Piers Venables of Derbyshire, after rescuing a prisoner, had assembled unto him many misdoers and “in manure of insurrection weinte into the wodes in that countrie like as it hadde be Robyn Hode and his meyne.”

The ballads pertaining to Robin Hood were so esteemed by our forefathers, that one of the earliest ventures of printing in England was the issuing by Winken de Worde, about 1495, of a sheaf of these rhymed stories under the title _A Lyttel Geste of Robyn Hode_.

A few learned pedants have ingeniously argued that Robin Hood was but a visionary being, his very name, according to a German critic, being but a corruption of Woden, whilst Mr. Sydney Lee has come to the conclusion that he was but a “mythical forest elf.” Doubtless a variety of legends of widely differing dates have centred round this Sherwood hero which could not possibly pertain to the same individual, but it is impossible to believe that there was not a real outlaw of this name who gained this almost immortal celebrity. More or less ingenious attempts have been made to identify him exactly with some particular epoch or individual; but most of these attempts, such as that of Mr. Hunter in 1854, who thought that he had found him under the guise of a porter of Nottingham Castle in the time of Edward II., are put forth regardless of the fact that Hood was, as is now the case, a fairly common name, and Robert (with its diminutive Robin) was about the third favourite Christian name in all England. There is no room here to debate this matter at any length, but on the whole the probabilities are strong that the original Robin Hood flourished in the days of Richard Cœur de Lion.

At all events, it is quite impossible to dissociate Sherwood from thoughts of Robin Hood, and for our own part we feel satisfied that the weight of evidence is strongly in favour of the reality of his existence, although a modern poet says:--

“Sherwood in the twilight is Robin Hood awake?
Gray and ghostly shadows are gliding through the brake:
Shadows of the dappled deer dreaming of the morn,
Dreaming of the shadowy man that winds the shadowy horn.”