BOOKS.
OLD ENGLISH HOUSES.* '
This is an interesting book spoilt by an inapposite jisotilaritY' being written in the familiar style of the local guide-book. Had Mr. Moss told us more of the fine timbered houses which he has photographed, and less of his fruitless attempts t" get • Pilgrimages in Cheshire and Shropshire. By Fletcher Noss. IublihebY the Author at the Old Paraouage, Didlibury. ClOs. 6d.] tea, we should have found more pixafit- and a-gfeater pleasure alias book. But not even facetiousness can undo the effect °f his illustrations, and Mr. Moss's Pilgrimages should be passed over by no one who cares for the beauty of our English
architecture. •
"Life is far too short," says Mr. Moss, "to see the beauties of this English land," and he has chosen two counties— Cheshire and Shropshire--for his pilgrimage. From several points of view the choice is admirable. For though Cheshire and Shropshire once looked out upon the marches of Wales, and built `strongholds for their dwelling-places, peace came to them with the Tudors, and the speculating builder has seldom visited them. Hence they contain as fine a set of timbered houses as any -English county can boast, and they display with magnificent effect the style of architecture most characteristic of our land. The mansions of a later date are perhaps more stately and more gracious; but they are too often framed upon foreign models, and suggest the taste of King Louis's architects. The black and white houses of Cheshire and .§,hropslaire, however, are purely English in design, and their beauty of colour is as remarkable as their simplicity of °utile. Moreover, they look precisely what they are : the dwelling-places of gentlefolk. They are neither prisons nor fortresses, even though the disused moat of many a pleasure-house suggests that in more warlike days defence was at least as important as amenity. Now of this timbered style no finer specimen' may be found than Spele Hall. Dutton is unhappily no better than a fragment But Speke Hall still preserves the aspect of Tudor times. As we see it to-day so it was designed by the architect who built it. It is no museum of styles; you cannot detect the taste of successive owners in inappropriate additions, and the courtyard, the library, the ancient yewsare harmoniously suited. Across the front may be read the simplest of inscriptions : "This worke, 25 yards long was wholly built by Edw. N. Esq. Ano. 1598." That the house was " wholly " built is evident, and " Edw. N. Esq.," whose monument still endures, is Edward Norres., Memor- able also is the inscription in the great hall. Thus it runs :— " Slepe not till U hathe considerd how thow bathe spent ye day past. If thow have well don thank God. . If otherways repent ye.". Nor is the splendour of Spelie singular. Well- hough, Gawsworth, Kerry on Peel, and Marton are its worthy rivals, while Tabley, though of a different style, is even more splendid.
The castles which preeaded these timbered houses were devastated by fire and sword, though everywhere the churches remain to tell of an older time. But the timbered halls of Cheshire have escaped the destruction of repair because they lie beyond the knowledge arid arabition of the wealthy. Riches and poverty are equal enemies to ancient houses. Now it is an impoverished squire who is forced to let his mansion fall into ruins ; now a wealthy landlord finds the house which suited his fathers atoo small for his pride or his hospitality. Or worse still, the -jerry-builder comes along, and sees a chance to break up a park into pleasant little building-plots, in each of which a trim villa shall stand surrounded by a neat garden. The jerry-builder, indeed, is the worst foe that English architecture ktows. The ruin he has wrought-during the last century in the neighbourhood of our big towns, especially in the neighbourhood. of London, is incal- culable, and, as we have saidait is the good fortune of Cheshire and Shropshire to lie far outside the radius of his 'enterprise. For enterprise will not be denied, and architecture is not protected by the respect which attends the masterpieces of other arts. Of course, the practical necessities of life are in part respon- sible for this devastation. But practical necessity is not a sufficient excuse. Maybe a house is so familiar that we forget it is an object of beauty as well as an object of convenience. Perhaps, also, the fact that architects are not wont to sign their works-robs them of the personal interest which might preserve them. The fiercest Vandal would hesitate to destroy the creation of Inigo Jones or Wren, unless, indeed, he were a city father. But'the wrong seems small when it is inflicted upon the house of-a nameless builder. At any rate, the destruction of ancient monuments is a common vice ; and Ma Moss's book, while it proves the wealth of Cheshire and Slaapshire, makes us regret the more the prodigal reckless- ness-we have witnessed in the South. • But Mr. Moss has not only pict- ured many an ancient bouse for us, he - has collected maiay a curiosity of legend =arid history. Several steries -he tells of- the plague, which ones was a scourge of Cheshire. At Malpas a whole family— Dawson by- name—was destroyed. One after another they died, until Richard, being left " skim of ye plague, and per- ceyving he must die at yt time, arose out of his bed and made his grave and cast stravie into it, and went 'and layd hint doun in ye say-A grave, and caused -clothes to be layd uppon him, and so 'departed out of this world: this he did because he was a strong man, and heavier than his nefew and another
wench wire able to bury. Then ye nefevi John ' haveyng layd himself in a dich died hi yt night. Then Rose ye servatt, ye last of yt household, died also." The story is gruesome in its completeness, and doubtless may be matched in many another parish. Far more, romantic 'is the tale of the Boseobel Oak, although the Royal oak itself, as Mr. Moss says, was long since made into snuff-boxes and keepsakes. But its successor is already a noble tree, and an efficient shade for the devout. Hard by is the thatched cottage where the six faithful Pendrills lived, and the beau. tiful ruined convent of Whiteladies, where first the King found refuge in his flight. Thai there is scarcely a place with- out its associations of history or romance, associations which may live in a house or haunt a ruin, but which will surely perish or be forgotten when the pick of the restorer be beard. For this sentiment "the paoud Etnithian conqueror bid 'spare the house of Pindarus," and for this sentiment, as well as for their beauty, we too should bid spare the great houses Of England. Beauty and hentiment are not everywhere to find, and though they still endure in distant counties, the railroad may bring the most reniote within an hour or two of London, and thenceforward reverence will wage in unequal strife with greed.
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