The Bath Road: History, Fashion, & Frivolity on an Old Highway

XXV

Newbury, the “hated rival,” is three miles down the road. Within a mile of it in coaching times, but now not to be distinguished from the town itself, is Speenhamland, the site of that famous coaching inn, the “Pelican,” whose charges were of so monumental a character that Quin has immortalized them in the lines:—

“The famous inn at Speenhamland,
That stands beneath the hill,
May well be called the Pelican,
From its enormous bill.”

Alas! how are the mighty fallen! The Pelican is no longer an inn, but has been divided up, and part of it is a veterinary establishment.

RAIL AND RIVER: THE KENNET AND THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.

THOMAS STACKHOUSE

The most famous inhabitant of Newbury was that fifteenth-century clothier, that “Jack of Newbury,” whose wealth and public benefactions were alike considered wonderful in his day. The most notorious inhabitant was that scandalous Vicar of Beenham Vallance, near by, who flourished flamboyantly here between 1733 and 1752. Candour compels the admission that the Rev. Thomas Stackhouse, besides being the learned author of the “History of the Bible,” was also a great drunkard. That history, indeed, he chiefly wrote at an inn still standing on the Bath Road near Thatcham, called “Jack’s Booth.” He would stay there for days at a time, and write (and drink), in an arbour in the garden, going frequently from this retreat to his church on Sundays, where, in the pulpit, he would break into incoherent prayers and maudlin tears, asking forgiveness for his besetting sin, and promising reformation of his evil courses. But after service he was generally to be seen going back to his inn. Here one day a friend found him and reminded him that it was the day of the Bishop’s Visitation, a circumstance which he had quite forgotten. He went off, clothed disgracefully, and by no means sober. “Who,” asked the Bishop, indignantly, on seeing this strange creature—“who is that shabby, dirty old man?” The vicar answered the query himself. “I am,” he shouted, “Thomas Stackhouse, Vicar of Beenham, who wrote the ‘History of the Bible,’ and that is more than your lordship can do!” The historian of these things says this reply quite upset the gravity of the solemn meeting; and the statement may well be believed.

Camden says, “Newburie must acknowledge Speen as its mother,” and Newbury, in fact, was originally an offshoot from Speen, which was anciently a fortified Roman settlement in the tangled underwoods of the wild country between the Roman cities of AquÆ Solis and Calleva (Bath and Silchester). The Romans called it “SpinÆ,” i.e. “the Thorns,” a sufficiently descriptive title in that era. The Domesday Book calls it “Spone.” The fact of Speen having been the original settlement may be partly traced in the circumstance of its lying directly on the old road, while Newbury, its infinitely bigger daughter, sprawls out on the Whitchurch and Andover roads, which run from the Bath Road almost at right angles.

There are quaint houses at Newbury, and old inns; some of them, like the “Globe” or the “King’s Arms,” converted into shops or private houses, while others perhaps do a brisker trade in drink than in good cheer of the more hospitable sort. There are the “White Hart,” and the “Jack of Newbury,” with a modern front, and others. The Kennet divides the town in half, and runs under a bridge which carries the street across its narrow width, bordered with quaint-looking houses. Here is the old Cloth Hall, a singular building, neglected now that the weaving trade has decayed; and on the west side of the bridge stands the parish church with a small brass in it to the memory of the great “Jack,” and a very economical monument to a certain “J.W.C.,” 1692, just roughly carved into the stonework of a buttress at the east end.

AT THE 55TH MILESTONE.

INSCRIPTION.
NEWBURY CHURCH.

It is strange to think that only twenty-seven years ago (in 1872, as a matter of fact), at Newbury, a rag and bone dealer who for several years had been well known in the town as a man of intemperate habits, and upon whom imprisonment in Reading Gaol had failed to produce any beneficial effect, was fixed in the stocks for drunkenness and disorderly conduct at Divine service in the parish church. Twenty-six years had elapsed since the stocks had last been used, and their reappearance created no little sensation and amusement, several hundreds of persons being attracted to the spot where they were fixed. The sinful rag man was seated upon a stool, and his legs were secured in the stocks at a few minutes past one. He seemed anything but pleased with the laughter and derision of the crowd. Four hours having passed, he was released.

“JACK OF NEWBURY”

It is impossible to escape Jack of Newbury in this the scene of his greatness. “John Smalwoode the elder, alias John Wynchcombe,” as he describes himself in his last will and testament, in 1519, was the most prominent of the clothworkers in the reigns of the Seventh and Eighth Henrys. He is perhaps best described in the words of a pamphlet published towards the close of the sixteenth century:—“He was a man of merrie disposition and honest conversation, was wondrous well beloved of rich and poore, especially because in every place where he came he would spend his money with the best, and was not any time found a churl of his purse. Wherefore, being so good a companion, he was called of olde and younge ‘Jacke of Newberie,’ a man so generally well knowne in all this countrye for his good fellowship, that he could goe into no place but he found acquaintance; by means whereof Jacke could no sooner get a crowne, but straight hee found meanes to spend it; yet had he ever this care, that hee would always keepe himselfe in comely and decent apparel, neither at any time would hee be overcome in drinke, but so discreetly behave himselfe with honest mirthe and pleasant conceits, that he was every gentleman’s companion.”

This is so excellent a voucher for him that it is not surprising so universal a favourite stepped into the shoes of his master’s widow. She was rich, and he with a plentiful lack of coin; yet though she had a choice of suitors, including a “tanner, a taylor, and a parson,” she set her heart on Jack with something of the determination which characterized the “Berkshire Lady” already referred to in these pages; and though he was something loth, married him out of hand. We are not told that she regretted it, but probably she did, for the stories have it that she was a gossip and given to staying out late, while Jack stopped at home and went betimes to bed. Once, when she returned at midnight, and knocked at the door, he looked from his window and told her that, as she had stayed out all day for her own delight, she might “lie forth” until the morning for his. “Moved with pity,” as the narrative says, but more likely because her continual knocking kept him awake, he at last went down in his shirt and opened the door, when “Alack, husband,” says she, “what hap have I? My wedding ring was even now in my hand, and I have let it fall about the door; good, sweet John, come forth with the candle and help me seek it.”

He “went forth” accordingly, into the street, and she locked him out! We are not told what happened when he got in again.

He seems to have taken her loss, a little later, calmly enough, for he speedily married again, and although “wondrous wealthie,” he chose a poor girl who lived at Aylesbury. A grand wedding it was when Joan (for that was her name) and Jack were married. Her head, we are assured, was adorned with a “billement of gold, and her hair, as yellow as gold, hanging downe behind her.” In fact, “Her golden hair was hanging down her back,” as the music-hall songster has it; which goes far to prove that the modern penchant for yellow locks has a respectable antiquity, and warrants brunettes in using all the arts of the toilet to redress the errors of Nature.

JACK AS ENTERTAINER

Jack of Newbury entertained Henry the Eighth here, and, wonderful to relate, the floors of the house were covered with broad cloth, instead of the then usual rushes. Also, he equipped a hundred of his workmen, fifty as horsemen, and fifty armed with bows and pikes, “as well armed and better clothed than any,” and went with them to the Scotch war. The “Ballad of the Newberrie Archers” tells us how they distinguished themselves at Flodden Field; but it must be added that it is doubtful whether they ever reached so far; which proves the ballad-maker—the “special correspondent” of that time—to have been more eloquent than truthful. That Jack was the principal man of his trade must be evident from these facts and from the statement that he employed a hundred looms; and a great deal more evident from his having been selected to head the petition of the clothiers for the encouragement of trade with France. He had a pretty taste in sarcasm, too, if his retort upon Wolsey, to whom it had been referred, and who had delayed to answer it, is considered. “If my Lord Chancellor’s father,” said he, “had been no hastier in killing calves than he in despatching of poor men’s suits, I think he would never have worn a mitre.” It is only necessary to remember that Wolsey was the son of a butcher for the sting of this quip to be appreciated.

OLD CLOTH HALL, NEWBURY.

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