Ancient Streets and Homesteads of EnglandRimmer, Alfred
History
Ancient Streets and Homesteads of England
Rimmer, Alfred
England -- Description and travel; Historic buildings -- England
Two illustrations shall be taken from the northern counties: and the
first shall be the town of Kendal, which our author dismisses as
containing hardly any architectural reminiscences of the past. To this I
somewhat demur. Kendal, indeed, has no ancient houses, but its
ground-arrangement is very singular; and this must be very ancient. It
consists almost entirely of one broad winding street a mile in length,
from which narrow lanes, which are not properly streets, open to the
right and left, each being entered by a very small passage. Such narrow
passages could very easily have been defended, in case of forays from
the Scottish border; and it might be conjectured that they were planned
with this danger in view. This question, indeed, must be dismissed as a
puzzle nearly as great as that which is connected with the origin of the
Chester _Rows_. The point of historical interest, for the sake of which
Kendal is here brought forward, is this,--that through this broad
winding street, where the ground rises and falls very boldly, and where
even now the houses are so varied in character that on days of light and
shade they supply many good subjects for pictures, the troops of Charles
Edward marched or straggled in 1745, both on the way to Derby and on
their return. Through this circumstance, especially if we combine it
with stories current in the neighbourhood concerning that time, this
dull Westmorland street acquires a new and lively interest.
A second example is supplied by village after village in that
wide-spread country of the dales which lies south-east of Kendal.
Through Airedale and Ribblesdale, from Bradford to Lancaster, and
northward to some considerable distance, there are a multitude of
specimens of a curious kind of doorway, which I do not recollect to have
seen elsewhere. These doorways generally consist of two curves, more or
less regular, and more or less enriched with ornament, and with the
initials of the families of some now forgotten dalesmen: the dates range
from about 1630 to 1730: the earlier forms are simpler than those which
follow; and after the later period they seem to cease suddenly. However
this provincialism of rural architecture is to be explained, it is a
social and artistic fact worthy of being observed and permanently
recorded.
Turning now to the Midland Counties, I will again illustrate the subject
by a couple of instances. Mr. Rimmer most accurately notes that the
ancient Roman way of Watling Street passes along the north-eastern
frontier of Warwickshire: but beyond this he does not make much use of
a county which is by no means poor in historical associations. One place
which would have given him excellent materials for description and for
drawing, and not far from that part of this county, where, to quote the
old rhyme,
From Dover to Chestre goth Watlyn-Street,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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