Derbyshire (England) -- Antiquities; Derbyshire (England) -- History
In the second division of the forest, viz., that of Ashop and Edale,
there are two of these township pictures, viz., Castleton and Hope.
Castleton is, unfortunately, mutilated; the parts to the left hand
of the castle are missing. As to Peak Castle, it is fairly obvious
that some effort, however poor, has been made to reproduce the actual
buildings (4). The old Norman keep of the time of Henry II. is
evidently intended to be shown in the centre of the background. The
fore-part shows the later substantial enclosing of the inner bailey,
probably of Edwardian date, most of which has long ago disappeared.
Perhaps the most interesting detail of this, the oldest picture of
the celebrated fortress, is the building within the bailey which is
surmounted by a cross, and is, therefore, clearly a detached chapel.
There are two or three entries in the record history of the Peak Castle
which have not yet been made public, which refer to this chapel as in
use in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As to the church in the
town below, it is difficult to offer any conjecture as to how the
drawing can coincide with the present remains of the ancient church.
The draftsman seems to have had very exaggerated ideas as to the size
of the south porch.
With regard to the picture of Hope, little more can be said than that
here again it is very difficult to fit in this outline drawing with the
fabric of the church as it now exists, except that the western tower
still bears a low broached spire (5).
[Illustration: No. 4.]
The third, or Champayne, division of the forest has pictures of four
towns, viz., those of Chapel-en-le-Frith, Fairfield, Wormhill, and
Tideswell.
The various buildings that are grouped round the large church of
Chapel-en-le-Frith are sufficient to show that this old market town was
a place of some importance (6). In this case the church was rebuilt
throughout in the early part of last century, and there is very little
of historical record or other remains to tell us anything as to its
original proportions. There is, however, one gruesome record which
apparently shows that its size was considerably greater than that of
its successor; for in 1648 fifteen hundred prisoners of the Scottish
army defeated at Preston were confined within its walls when being
marched to London. They were kept in the church for over a fortnight,
and it is not surprising to learn that upwards of fifty died within
its walls. The outline drawing seems to suggest that the church was
of cruciform shape, with a tower and spire in the centre. The only
indication of a window is the large circular one of the south transept
over the porch; it is exceedingly unlikely that the draftsman produced
such a window as this from his own imagination.
[Illustration: No. 5.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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