FOOTNOTES

1. The introduction of the woollen manufacture into the West of England, and also into the West Riding of Yorkshire, took place about the year 1336, during the reign of Edward III. At Exeter, and many other towns of Devonshire, it was long the staple trade. But of late years it has become attracted to the neighbourhood of the coalfields ,and the principal seats of the manufacture in the West are now Trowbridge, Bradford, Stroud and Frome. The general system, until quite modern times, was that of the workpeople weaving the masters materials at their own houses, as is sometimes done at the in the case of sailcloth. The West of England cloths were exported in an undyed and undressed state, and finished by the foreign purchasers, especially those at whence they were sent to France, Spain, and Portugal, and elsewhere, and sold as “Flemish Bays”. James the First, in 1608, prohibited the exportation of undyed cloths and granted to Alderman Cockayne the exclusive right dying and dressing cloth. The States of Holland and the German cities, upon this, prohibited the importation of all English dyed cloth, and the Alderman could therefore only sell his wares at home. The privilege was enjoyed only eight years, about which time the practice of dying the wool before weaving it was adopted. A large building at Winsham, long used as a cloth factory, is a conspicuous object from the banks of the river, and it is not above six or seven years since an extensive factory long carried on at Uplyme, near Lyme Regis, was burned down and the manufacture there abandoned.

2. It is a remarkably complete and nice example of the Elizabethan style. Some few alterations were made in the time of Charles 1 and Charles 11, but the great the original remains, and it is a perfect example of the period. The two bay medieval windows, one above the other, do not denote that the house was erected earlier than Elizabeth's time. It not unfrequently happened that such windows were inserted in Elizabethan houses, which showed that the mediaeval arrangements continued during the Queen's reign. The house took from fifteen to seventeen years in building. those days were not hurried over as at present. There is no doubt that the date of its erection was from 1590 to 1610. There are, as usual, two court-yards, one connected with the kitchen and offices, following the mediaeval arrangement. The whole of the centre of the house is divided into two parts, according to the custom of the period, and in order to keep the servants away from the other parts of the house. - Mr. Parker, at the annual meeting of the Somerset Archeological Society in 1866.

3. In the West of England the word Knap signifies a little mound, an eminence, a rather steep ascent-such as that which conducts from the river to the comfortable hostelry built some forty years ago upon a site known to have been that of an inn for a century previously. At present the Knap " is only nominally a hostelries its proprietor having no business object. But in former times it was much resorted to by anglers, and a landlord early in the present century is still remembered by very old people for his eccentricities. He was locally famous, among other accomplishments, for making walking sticks, the handles of which, especially, displayed endless diversity of ornamentation. His establishment and himself were thus announced upon a signboard still to be seen in the inn-yard.

Here's the Old Knap Inn
Please to walk in,
And you'll find
A good King.

4. The ancestors of this " George Henleigh " was not unknown to some kind of " fame: "- “Andrew Henley, Esq., was the first mayor of Taunton, in 1627. He was the son of Robert of Henley, Esq., of Leigh, Somerset, and is supposed to have been the great grandson of John Henley, who suffered for religion under Queen Mary. He was the great grandfather of Sir Anthony Henley, a gentleman well known for his literary abilities, who was the father of the late Lord Chancellor Henley, and grandfather of the present Earl of Northington. Mrs. Dorothy Henley, his wife, founded the Alms House, near St.Mary Magdalen's Church, in 1637, and endowed it with lands at Bishop's Hull and Ash Priory.

5. Colway is a tithing in the hundred of Whitchurch, and situated close to the town of Lyme Regis. The Henley family for years kept up their mansion there in great style. It was battered during the siege of Lyme in the Civil War, and the fragment, which remains, has long been occupied as a farmhouse. A road through an avenue of trees formerly led from the mansion to the church, and it is only within a few years that the last traces of it were swept away.

6. The marriage is thus recorded in the Gentleman's Magazine :-" August 21, 1752. Henry Cornish Henley, of Leigh, Esq., to Miss Hoste. £30,000. " He died November 1, 1773. Sandringham was purchased by the Prince of Wales from the Henley family.

7. The business of the Provost was to take care and keep an account of the goods and chattels which were possessed in common by the canons. In the year 1234, Joceline, Bishop of Bath, having finished the ordination of the provostship in the Cathedral of Wells, endowed that office with the manor and rectory of Coinbe St. Nicholas, as also with the manor and rectory of Winsham, and the rectory of Chard and Wellington, charged with the payment of the salaries of the fifteen Combe prebendaries, to each ;e6 13a 4d. With reference to Winsham it was decreed that he [the provost] shall leave to his successors 11 the demesnes in a proper state of cultivation, without any fixed number of acres or measure ; and of stock sixteen oxen, the price of each ox three shillings and sixpence ; and one plough-horse, value three shillings ; six sows and a boar, the price of all four shillings ; ewes and rams, in all one hundred and thirty-two, the price of each ewe or ram five-pence; and fifty-three lambs, the value of each twopence halfpenny. At Chard he shall leave the demesnes tillagecl, without number or measure, in the same manner as at Winsham, and the fallow without any stock," &C., &C. -

8. Free-warren was a franchise granted, under the feudal system, for the preservation of " beasts and fowls of warren.,, The beasts were hares, conies, and roes; the fowls were either campestres. as partridges, rails, and quails; or sylvestres, as woodcocks and pheasants; or aquatiles, as mallards and herons. "All these," says Blackstone, "being feroe naturae”, every one had a natural right to kill as he could. But upon the introduction of the forest laws, at the Norman Conquest, these animals, being looked upon as royal game and the sole property of our savage monarchs, this franchise of free-warren was invented to protect them by giving the grantee the sole and exclusive power of killing such game, so far as his warren extended on condition of his preventing other persons. A man, therefore, who had the franchise of warren, was in reality no more than a royal gamekeeper; but no man, not even a Lord of a Manor, could by common law justify sporting on another's soil, or even on his own, unless he had the liberty of free-warren. This franchise is almost fallen into disregard since the new statutes for preserving the game, the name being now chiefly preserved in grounds set apart for the breeding of hares and rabbits."

9. The rood was an image of Christ upon the cross, with attendant figures, made generallyof wood, but in small churches sometimes painted, as in the case of Winsham. The rood was placed in a loft, or gallery, between the nave and chancel. Beneath it the screen, which divided the chancel from the nave, and which was richly carved and adorned. Lights were kept burning in the loft, especially on festivals, and at one period the Epistle and Gospel were read from it. Rood lofts do not appear to have been in use in this country before the 14th century, and they were not general until the 15th century. An order for the removal of roods was issued by Elizabeth in 1550. They had previously been removed by order of Edward VI., but brought back again in the reign of his successor, Queen Mary. Some splendid lofts screens remain to the present day. Those in the churches of Kingsbury Episcopi, Honiton, Uffculme, Cullompton, and Totnes may be mentioned as instances in this part of the country. At Sherborne, Dorsetshire, is a small sculpture of a rood in stone, inserted in a niche on the outside of one of the walls,-the work of the 12th century. The symbolism of the rood screen-for in ancient times every article in a church was symbolical-was death. The nave signified the Church Militant, the chancel the Church triumphant. The rood-screen was the line of separation through which was a passage from one to the other, and it therefore " appropriately supported the image of Him who by his death hath overcome death.".

10. “Gentlemans Magazine “ for June, 1866. Among the Winsham parochial records is the following Presentment, made at the Visitation of the Dean and Chapter of Wells in 1692, in which a Great Frost is noticed-"The Presentment of Benjamin Sprake, churchwarden, in the absence of Walter Barrett, also churchwarden of Winsham, in the Countye of Somersett, at the Visitation for the Dean and Chapter of Wells, held at Winsham aforesaid the fifteenth day of Aprill, 1692.

Impr'mis : I pr'sent Matthew Paul, the elder, and William Stuckey, the younger, churchwardens for the present year 1692. Item : I pr'sent a considerable deal of worke done in- repairinge the Leads of the Tower, and glazing the Church windowes, and that the same is at pr'sent in indifferent repair.

Item : I pr'sent divers dilapidations in and about the parishhouses, which happening in or about the time of the, late great frost, wee had nott time nor money to repair.

P'r me, Benjamin Sprake.
Mathew Paull.
William Stuckey."

11. This bell was cast by Isaac Kingston, Bridgwater. The first bell bears the date 17 53, and the names of John Stuckey and Henry Willis, churchwardens; the second bell, William Toker, gent., and Mr. Jeffery, 1720 and the third bell the date 1656.

12. “Not long after, the clouds growing blacker, and ye day darkening apace Anno 1662-an Edict was issued forth by ye powers then in being that after the 24th day of ye 6th moneth (August) every teacher or preacher refusing to conform to those things which were to be imposed on them (part of which was a declaring their assent and consent to ye Book of Common Prayer, The Book of Articles and Ceremonies of ye Church of England according to ye decrees and canons of ye Prelates, &c. with other things required and enjoyn'd by the said Act) were to be ejected, deprived of those incomes before allotted them for their temporall maintenance, and not be permitted any more to teach or preach to ye people upon pain of imprisonment; so yt on one day, that black and dismall day (never to be forgotten), were many hundreds of eminent, pious, learned, faithfull ministers of ye Gospel in ye land put to silence and past vnder a civi death.”- Axminster Church Book of the Independent Chapel.

13. I suspect that this Mr. Henley, like members of many other “ county families,” was a member of the family at Leigh, which sympathised so much with the Duke of Monmouth, as to send £200 to his exchequer for carrying his cause to Sedgemoor. The eccentric and talented “ Orator Henley,” of whom mention has been already made, although bred a clergyman of the Church of England, became, about the time mentioned in the text, a sort of free lance among the dissenters in London.

14. “ History of Free Churches," &c., by the Rev. H. Mayo Gunn. In Dr. Calamy's “Nonconformists' Memorial" mention is made of a Mr. John Langdale, of Cricket St. Thomas, and also of Mr. John Tomer, of North Cricket, who went through much suffering and imprisonment. Towards the end of King Charles's reign he was again imprisoned, and, after being released, preached in the church at Beaminster, Netherbury, &c., agreeable e to his expectation; for he all along said that God would open his mouth to preach again in the churches. "-Second edition (I 802), edited by Samuel Palmer, iii., page 185.

15. The reputation of this now unsuspected hostelry was not of the highest a generation or two ago, and to trade upon the fears of the superstitious probably answered the purpose of the smugglers, who " used " the house to a very great extent. When a boy, I remember hearing, among other romantic relations, a story of the Devil having been caught in the cellar and walled up, as mentioned in the text, and that story bears a remarkable similarity to one told of the poet Virgil, who, in the Middle Ages, was regarded as a magician. Virgil is said to have been startled one day by a voice calling to him out of a small hole in a cave. It proceeded from an Evil Spirit who had been conjured into that place of confinement, and who undertook to show Virgil certain books of necromancy on condition of his release. The bargain was made, and the condition fulfilled. "He stood before Virgil like a mighty man, whereof Virgil was afraid, and he marveled greatly that so great a man might come out of so little a hole. Then said Virgil, I Should ye well pass through the hole that ye came out of ?' And he said 'Yes.' Said Virgil, I hold the best pledge that I have that ye cannot do it.' The Devill said, I consent thereto.' And then the Devill wrang himself into the little hole again. And when he was in, then Virgil closed him there again, so that he had no power to come out again, but there abideth still."-" Of the Lyfe of Virgilius and his Deth, and the many marvayles that he dyd”.

16. Combe is the very common name in the West of England for a little valley, and sometimes, as in Wales, for a cup-shaped depression in the bills. It is Anglo-Saxon, derived immediately from the Celtic cwm.

17. Under the feudal system, baronies consisted of many manors or lordships, and generally took their distinguishing name from the manor upon which the residence of the baron was fixed, and which became the Caput Baronioe as was the case at Castle Cary.

18. He was buried in Cricket church, where a monument with the following inscription is erected to his memory :-" “Sacred to the memory of the Right Hon. Alexander Hood, Lord Viscount Bridport, Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Admiral of the Red Squadron of His Majesty’s Fleet, Vice-Admiral of Great Britain General of the Main Forces, and the Senior Admiral of the Royal Navy, who departed this life on the third day of May, 1814, in the 87th year of his age. For his bravery, for his ability, for his achievements in his profession, for his attachment to his king and his country, consult the annals of the British navy, where they are written in indelible characters. Let this monument record his private virtues. He was a sincere and pious Christian, a faithful and affectionate husband, a warm and steady friend to merit, benevolent to the brave and virtuous in distress, kind to his domestics, the patron of unprotected youth, the poor man's benefactor, the seaman's friend. Beloved, revered, and deplored by all. In testimony of her high regard and veneration, this monument is erected by his very affectionate and afflicted relict, Mary Sophia Bridport.”

Underneath are the family arms :-Azure, a fret, argent, on a chief, or, three crescents, sable. Supporters :-Dexter, -Neptune, proper, mantled, vert, supporting with the left arm a trident, and resting the right upon an anchor, or. Sinister,-a sea lion, argent, supp'orting with the sinister paw an anchor, or. Motto, “Steady,” Crest :-A Cornish chough, proper, supporting with the dexter claw an anchor, or.

19. There is a memorial window to the second Lady Bridport and three infant children of the present Viscount - Edith, Charlotte, Albert Nelson, d. Henry Nelson. On the left side of the window is a marble monument with the following inscription, Sacred to the memory of Mary, wife of Rear-Admiral Hood, who died 12th September, 1786, after a short illness. She was daughter of the Rev. Dr. West, and niece to Lord Viscount Cobham, of Stowe, in Buckinghamshire, whose eldest sister her father married. From the purest testimony of esteem, and in just testimony of her pious benevolence and most amiable disposition, her affectionate husband has caused this most humble monument to be erected. " On the opposite side of the window is a monument to the second wife of the same nobleman: -" Beneath are deposited the remains of Mary Sophia, Viscountess Bridport. She died 18th February, 1831, aged 82 years, -in whose cultivated mind Providence implanted seeds of early benevolence, whence the fruits adorning her youth were matured in a vigorous old age, succouring the destitute, healing the broken-hearted, and cheering the wayworn traveller. Under a garb of extreme simplicity, she possessed a truly great soul, caring all for others and regardless of hersell In her support of country, ardent both in Church and State. To works tending to the public good, a most generous but silent benefactress. In her heart Friendship's sacred tie was rivetted by deeds that spoke its truth. The tears of the poor, and the affection and gratitude of him who raises this marble, consecrate it to her sacred memory."

20. This is a modern bridge of stone, consisting of only a single arch. Just below it, the Axe receives a tributary from the east, which rises near Pillesdon Pen and flows by Racedown and Thorneombe, as mentioned in page 185. It is called the Synderford Brook, and is particularly valuable as a breeding-stream, on account of the proximity of its mouth to the Ford Abbey preserves, in which it helps most materially to keep up the supply offish. The stream is small and woody; -not worth fishing with the fly, although a few parts of it are sufficiently open. The worm is the more appropriate bait. Being peculiarly a breeding- stream, it cannot be fished late in the season without material injury to the next year's stock of fish in the main river. Not a fish should be taken out of it after July. The same remarks apply also to the numerous other tributaries of the Axe.

21. There are two or three "publics" at Winsham-quite capable of supplying a hungry angler's bread-and-cheese-and-ale wants.

22. In the last edition I wrote as follows: -"A leap over that bog at the style, Piscator, and here we are in the Lady Meads, at the foot of which is Tytherleigh Bridge. Thence to the sea, through one of the loveliest of the lovely vales of Devon, and on the banks of one of the best and most neglected of its streams, is an uninterrupted range of open ground, over which the brother of the angle, be his caste or clothing what it will, may wander as he listeth, uninterrupted and unforbiddeil " To this I appended the following 'footnote An excellent letter, signed I D. L., Derwent Bank, Keswick,' was published in the Times newspaper of October 28th, 1851. The writer's object was that of inducing the anglers of Great Britain to combine for the purpose of obtaining an Act of Parliament for the better preservation of trout. “ By a legal enactment,” says he, “ which would summarily repress night poaching and the destruction of trout during the spawning season, and by the formation of Angling Associations in suitable districts, all classes would preserve the means of enjoying a healthy amusement, and the lesson of following his sport in an honest fashion could not fail to be applied by the peasant or artizan to his other relations in life.” The writer continues, with much good feeling and good sense, to urge the claims of the working man to a pursuit which too many absurdly fancy should be enjoyed only by the rich. Angling, in reality, is one of the few old English pastimes which was once pursued alike by all classes, and which had its share in the formation of the genuine English character as contradistinguished from that of all the other nations. A liberal encouragement of fair fishing among the working classes, divested of the spirit of caste with which society is now so unfortunately pervaded, would do more, perhaps, than all the keepers, and all the restrictive laws, to extinguish poaching and to restore our rivers to their former condition."

23. Mr. J. Yonge Akerman, formerly Secretary to the Royal Society of Antiquaries the well-known author of elaborate works on the Roman and other coins, and - I had almost said especially - of that charming little country book "Spring Tide, or the Angler and his Friends". The beverage is concocted thus, although the reader would vainly ask for it at the Knap: - Take two glasses of wine, one of port and one of sherry, two table-spoonfuls of moist sugar, a quarter of a nutmeg, and a sprinkle of ginger. Fill up with a pint of mild ale over a piece of well-baked (but not burnt) toast. These are the proportions; and if you will make it with a quart of ale, you, of course, must double the quantity of wine, &c. Any wine will answer the purpose, but if of two kinds the better. It should stand a quarter of an hour before it is drunk, that the flavour of the sop may be duly imparted to it.

 

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