CHAPTER VI
KNARESBOROUGH AND HARROGATE

It is sometimes said that Knaresborough is an overrated town from the point of view of its attractiveness to visitors, but this depends very much upon what we hope to find there. If we expect to find lasting pleasure in contemplating the Dropping Well, or the pathetic little exhibition of petrified objects in the Mother Shipton Inn, we may be prepared for disappointment. It seems strange that the real and lasting charms of the town should be overshadowed by such popular and much-advertised ‘sights.’ The first view of the town from the ‘high’ bridge is so full of romance that if there were nothing else to interest us in the place we would scarcely be disappointed. The Nidd, flowing smoothly at the foot of the precipitous heights upon which the church and the old roofs appear, is spanned by a great stone viaduct. This might have been so great a blot upon the scene that Knaresborough would have lost half its charm. Strangely enough, we find just the reverse is the case, for this railway bridge, with its battlemented parapets and massive piers, is now so weathered that it has melted into its surroundings as though it had come into existence as long ago as the oldest building visible. The old Knaresborough kept well to the heights adjoining the castle, and even to-day there are only a handful of later buildings down by the river margin. The view, therefore, is still unspoiled, and its appearance when the light is coming from the west can be seen in the illustration given here.

When we have crossed the bridge, and have passed along a narrow roadway perched well above the river, we come to one of the many interesting houses that help to keep alive the old-world flavour of the town. Only a few years ago the old manor-house had a most picturesque and rather remarkable exterior, for its plaster walls were covered with a large black and white chequer-work, and its overhanging eaves and trailing creepers gave it a charm that has since then been quite lost. The restoration which recently took place has entirely altered the character of the exterior, but inside everything

has been preserved with just the care that should have been expended outside as well. There are oak-wainscoted parlours, oak dressers, and richly-carved fireplaces in the low-ceiled rooms, each one containing furniture much of the period of the house. Upstairs there is a beautiful old bedroom lined with oak, like those on the floor below, and its interest is greatly enhanced by the story of Oliver Cromwell’s residence in the house, for he is believed to have used this particular bedroom. Slight alterations have taken place, but the oak bedstead which he is said to have occupied, minus its tester and with its posts cut down to half their height, still remains to carry us swiftly back to the last siege of the castle. A very curious story is told in the Gentleman’s Magazine of March, 1791. It gives an anecdote of Oliver Cromwell which Sir John Goodricke used to relate. When he was quite a small boy, he was told by a very old woman who had formerly attended his mother, Lady Goodricke, how Oliver Cromwell came to lodge at this house when she was but a young girl. ‘Having heard so much talk about the man,’ she said, ‘I looked at him with wonder. Being ordered to take a pan of coals and air his bed, I could not, during the operation, forbear peeping over my shoulder several times to observe this extraordinary person, who was seated at the fireside of the room untying his garters. Having aired the bed, I went out, and, shutting the door after me, stopped and peeped through the keyhole, when I saw him rise from his feet, advance to the bed and fall on his knees, in which attitude I left him for some time. When I returned again I found him still at prayer, and this was his custom every night so long as he stayed at our house, from which I concluded he must be a good man, and this opinion I always maintained afterwards, though I heard him very much blamed and exceedingly abused.’

Higher up the hill stands the church with a square central tower surmounted by a small spike. It still bears the marks of the fire made by the Scots during their disastrous descent upon Yorkshire after Edward II.’s defeat at Bannockburn. Led by Sir James Douglas, the Scots poured into the prosperous plains and even the dales of Yorkshire. They burned Northallerton and Boroughbridge, and then came on to Knaresborough. When the town had been captured and burnt, the savage invaders endeavoured to burn out the inhabitants who had taken refuge in the church-tower, but the stoutness of the stone walls prevented their efforts to destroy the building. It is quite possible that the roofs at that time were thatched, for some years ago much partially-burnt straw was discovered in the roof. The chapel on the north side of the chancel contains the interesting monuments of the old Yorkshire family of Slingsby. The altar-tomb in the centre bears the recumbent effigies of Francis Slingsby, who died in 1600, and Mary his wife. Another monument shows Sir William Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring at Harrogate. The Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in the cause of Charles I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658, ‘being beheaded by order of the tyrant Cromwell, ... was translated to a better place.’ So says the inscription on a large slab of black marble in the floor of the chapel. The last of the male line of the family was Sir Charles Slingsby, who was most unfortunately drowned by the upsetting of a ferry-boat in the Ure in February, 1869.

We can wander through the quaint little streets above the church and find much to interest us, particularly in the market-place, although quite a number of the really ancient little houses that had come down to quite recent years have now passed away. On one side of the market-place stands a most curious little chemist’s shop, with two small-paned windows, very low and picturesque, that slightly overhang the footway. There seems to be small doubt that this is the oldest of all the long-established chemists’ shops that exist in England. It dates from the year 1720, when John Beckwith started the business, and the conservatism of the trade is borne out by the preservation of some interesting survivals of those early Georgian days. There are strangely-shaped old shop-bottles, mortars, and strips of leather that were used for quicksilver in the days when it was worn as a charm against some forms of disease.

Just above the manor-house there is still to be seen one of the last of the thatched houses, at one time common in the town. It is the old Vicarage, and it still contains oak beams and some good panelling. When we get beyond the market-place, we come out upon an elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle—poor and of small account if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar; where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the lowest story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only two sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The walls enclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatly destroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position. There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remain fragments of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthouse there are evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port opening into the moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading from the castle yard. The passage was opened out in 1890, and in it were discovered a considerable number of stone balls, probably used for the ‘balistas’ mentioned in one of the castle records. It is a dismal fact to remember that, despite the perfect repair of the castle in the reign of Elizabeth, and the comparatively small amount of destruction caused during the siege conducted by Lilburne and Fairfax, Knaresborough’s great fortress was reduced to piles of ruins as the result of an order of the Council of State not many years after its capture. Subsequently, as in the case of such splendid structures as Richard I.’s ChÂteau Gaillard, the broken remains were cheap building stone for the townsfolk, and seeing that in those days archÆological societies had yet to be instituted, who can blame the townsfolk?

Lord Lytton gives a story of the siege that we may recall, seeing that there is so little to vividly bring to mind the scene during the strenuous defence of the castle by the plucky townsfolk. ‘A youth,’ we are told, ‘whose father was in the garrison, was accustomed nightly to get into the deep, dry moat, climb up the glacis, and put provisions through a hole where the father stood ready to receive them. He was perceived at length; the soldiers fired on him.’ The poor lad was made prisoner, and sentenced to be hanged in quite medieval fashion within sight of the garrison. There was, however, a certain lady who, with great difficulty, prevented this barbarous order from being carried out, and when the castle had capitulated and the soldiers had left the boy was released.

The keep is in the Decorated style, and appears to have been built in the reign of Edward II. Below the ground is a vaulted dungeon, dark and horrible in its hopeless strength, which is only emphasized by the tiny air-hole that lets in scarcely a glimmering of light, but reveals a thickness of 15 feet of masonry that must have made a prisoner’s heart sick. It is generally understood that Bolingbroke spared Richard II. such confinement as this, and that when he was a prisoner in the keep he occupied the large room on the floor above the kitchen. It is now a mere platform, with the walls running up on two sides only. The kitchen (sometimes called the guard-room) has a perfectly preserved roof of heavy groining, supported by two pillars, and it contains a collection of interesting objects, rather difficult to see, owing to the poor light that the windows allow. The small local guide-book gives us a thrill by stating that a very antique-looking chest is ‘said to have been the property of William the Conqueror.’ We hope it was, but long for some proofs. The spring mantrap is of no great age, and it was in use not many years ago, when the owner was in the habit of exhibiting it on market days with a notice upon it to inform the public that every night he adjusted its deadly jaws in some part of his orchard. There is much to interest us among the wind-swept ruins and the views into the wooded depths of the Nidd, and we would rather stay here and trace back the history of the castle and town to the days of that Norman Serlo de Burgh, who is the first mentioned in its annals, than go down to the tripper-worn Dropping Well and the Mother Shipton Inn.

When we have determined to see what these ‘sights’ have to offer, we find that the inn is a fairly picturesque one, but with scarcely a quarter of the interest of the old chemist’s shop we saw in the market-place. The walk along the river bank among a fine growth of beeches is pleasant enough, and would be enjoyable if it were not for the fact that it leads to a ‘sight’ which has to be paid for. Under the overhanging edge of the limestone crag hang a row of eccentric objects constantly under the dripping water that trickles down the face of the rock, which is itself formed entirely by the petrifying action of the spring some yards away from the river. The water being strongly charged with lime, everything within its reach, including the row of ‘curiosities’ in course of manufacture, are coated over and finally reduced to limestone, the process taking about two years. When we have come away from the well we feel we have seen all the sights we are equal to, and gladly leave St. Robert’s Chapel and the other caves to be seen at some more convenient season. The story of Eugene Aram and the murder of Daniel Clark is a page in the history of Knaresborough that may perhaps add interest to the town, but it is certainly likely to rob the place of some of its charm, so without wasting any time on a visit to the cave where the murdered man’s body was buried, we go out on the road to Harrogate.

The distance between the towns is short, and soon after passing Starbeck we come to Harrogate’s extensive common known as the Stray. We follow the grassy space, when it takes a sharp turn to the north, and are soon in the centre of the great watering-place. Among the buildings that rise up in imposing masses on each side of us we can see no traces of anything that is not of recent date, and we find nothing at all to suggest that the place really belongs to Yorkshire.

Walking or being pulled in bath-chairs along the carefully-made paths are all sorts and conditions of invalids, and interspersed among them are numbers of people who, if they have any ailments curable by the waters, are either in very advanced stages of convalescence or are extremely expert in hiding any traces of ill-health.

There is one spot in Harrogate that has a suggestion of the early days of the town. It is down in the corner where the valley gardens almost join the extremity of the Stray. There we find the Royal Pump Room that made its appearance in early Victorian times, and its circular counter is still crowded every morning by a throng of water-drinkers. We wander through the hilly streets and gaze at the pretentious hotels, the baths, the huge Kursaal, the hydropathic establishments, the smart shops, and the many churches, and then, having seen enough of the buildings, we find a seat supported by green serpents, from which to watch the passers-by. A white-haired and withered man, having the stamp of a military life in his still erect bearing, paces slowly by; then come two elaborately dressed men of perhaps twenty-five. They wear brown suits and patent boots, and their bowler hats are pressed down on the backs of their heads. Then nursemaids with perambulators pass, followed by a lady in expensive garments, who talks volubly to her two pretty daughters. When we have tired of the pavements and the people, we bid farewell to them without much regret, being in a mood for simplicity and solitude, and go away towards Wharfedale with the pleasant tune that a band was playing still to remind us for a time of the scenes we have left behind.