by Peter Hill
The poignant inscription on a gravestone in the churchyard at Welton.
Here a poor wanderer hath found a grave
Who death embraced while struggling with a wave.
His home far off in the broad Indian main
He left to rid himself of slavery’s chain.
Friendless and comfortless, he passed the sea
On Albion’s shores to seek for liberty.
Yet vain his search for aye with toiling brow
He never found his freedom until now.
Another curiosity lies along the road between Gretton and Harringworth, set back from the verge and now almost lost in the undergrowth. Fanny Blaydes, the wife of the vicar of Harringworth, was returning home with friends in a horse and carriage after a visit to Gretton one Sunday afternoon in 1884, when the horse took fright on a downward slope, the shafts going up as high as the animal’s head causing it to panic. As this happened, Mrs Blaydes jumped off and fell onto a grass verge, the impact knocking her unconscious. She died shortly afterwards and at a later date her husband erected a stone in her memory on the spot where she had died, with the inscription: ‘Sudden Death, Sudden Glory’.
The Blaydes Stone beside the Gretton– Harringworth road, a monument marking the site of an untimely death.
Lying alongside a bridleway between Brigstock and Weldon is a commemoration stone from the time of Charles I, known as the Bocase Stone. It records the site of a large oak tree blown down by a gale early in the seventeenth century. The inscription reads: ‘In This Plaes Grew Bocase Tree.’ Speculation has always been rife as to the meaning of its name, with suggestions ranging from the corruption of the surname of a local huntsman to Robin Hood or others using the tree to hide their bows and arrows! It is more likely, however, to come from the French ‘bocage’, meaning a wood adjoining a field.
The Bocase Stone, near Brigstock, whose name and purpose have been the subject of much speculation.
three
A CORNUCOPIA OF CUSTOMS
We can categorise customs under four headings: those connected with the agricultural year, those of the church calendar – these two were often intertwined – those of a secular nature, and superstitious rituals. At one time, at least sixty holidays would have been taken annually and countless others performed when the occasion demanded, such as fundraising events – known as ‘ales’ – for the needy, many of which helped to consolidate social bonds and community charity. The feast days were subsequently reduced to twenty-five during the Reformation, in an Act passed in 1552, and by 1834 there were only four, which were now known as Bank Holidays. Today we have eight.
If a community felt let down by the behaviour of an individual or group, a common way of showing disapproval and dealing with the problem was to put on a unified front by making a lot of noise and using guising. Such a custom had its roots in ancient times, when any form of social deviance was believed to have a potentially harmful effect on the growth of the crops or the harmony of the community; however, these roots had long been forgotten when the custom was performed in later times. This custom was known variously around the county as lewbelling (in the southern part), lowbelling, rough music, tin-canning, tin-kettling, nagging-out or banging-out (around Piddington). It would often be accompanied by ‘riding the stang’, in which someone impersonating the offender by wearing similar clothes and using their mannerisms would be carried around on a pole or in a cart, or by the parading of an effigy of the offender(s) which would then be burned, like the guy on Bonfire Night. This would be aimed at anyone who had strayed from the norm by lapsing into some form of immorality, like wife-beating, nagging, malicious gossiping, rumour-mongering, adultery or incest.
The custom was particularly common in the nineteenth century and was carried on into the early 1900s. Several records exist in contemporary newpapers and in the memoirs of county people. Blisworth in particular was far from tolerant on several occasions and often fell foul of the law. In 1895, two policemen confronted and stopped 200 demonstrators who had gathered outside the house of an unmarried couple with tin cans and kettles and effigies of the offenders. The last case was recorded there in 1936.
Members of the Broughton Tin Can Band in the 1920s.
In 1909, at Middleton Cheney, a procession passed along the street banging washtubs and carrying an effigy of a person who had caused offence, which was later burnt on the village green. The marked house was surrounded in order to make the culprit come out. At Shutlanger in the 1930s, lowbellers gathered to create pandemonium outside the home of a man who had been having an affair with a married woman. Their methods worked, for the culprit moved away from the village shortly afterwards.
The custom still survives in one place, albeit only for fun. At Broughton, during the second week of December, a procession known as the Tin Can Band takes to the streets in the early hours of the morning, making as much noise as possible with pots, pans, lids, drums and so on, starting from the church gates at midnight. It is said to have originated during the 1920s in order to scare off a group of gypsies who had encamped in the village precincts but earlier versions exist, with a leader being chaired round directing the noisy proceedings.
In November 1929, the parish council, being of the opinion that the custom was stupid and antisocial, put up warning notices in the village stating that ‘the practice of the Beating of Tin Kettles and the noise created thereby’ would not be allowed to take place that year, and threatened police action against anyone doing so. The notice was issued despite the village being overwhelmingly in favour of the custom. The police were duly called in but found themselves swept up in the festivities. They finally had to do their duty in getting the names and addresses of those who had caused trouble. Fines were later given to the fifty-four revellers found breaching the peace, but these were paid for by a dance put on especially to raise money for the fines. Response was generous, with folk coming from Kettering and nearby villages, with the result that there was enough money left over for a day out for the elderly. The custom took place again the following year, with less police involvement and fewer charges, and has continued ever since, a rare and perhaps precarious survival of the once widespread practice of ‘rough music’.
Another unique custom, but one which has long disappeared, was ‘Auction by Pin and Candle’, a tradition known to date back to the seventeenth century, in which a piece of land – often belonging to the Church or a charity – was let for a set period. In Northamptonshire it had become almost defunct by the end of the nineteenth century and was considered to be noteworthy on the rare occasions it was still carried out. At Corby in 1892, the custom was considered to be worth mentioning in the following notice of the letting of the Charity and Town Lands in South Wood:
A curious and ancient custom has just been observed at the village of Corby near Kettering, where the land belonging to the parish charities has been let by the interesting custom of a burning candle. A pin was inserted in the candle a short distance from the light and the bidding advanced until the pin dropped ... watched and attended by many of the parishioners. When the heat dislodged the pin, the last bidder found that he had the land on lease for eight years.
Bidding in progress during a pin and candle auction at Corby, c. 1918.
Nether Heyford appears to have been the last to let out grazing rights for the following twelve months on its big village green – one of the largest in England, at just over two hectares – the custom continuing until 1924. However, at Raunds the same system was used but for a different purpose: selling property. The last recorded occasion was in 1889 when ‘Mr William Hills, according to ancient custom, put three old tenements up for sale in Rotton Row’.
The hobby horse was originally a fertility symbol, ridden by a person with a stang, or pole, between the legs like a witch’s broom, covered in a skirted frame. At street pageants and festivals, the hobby horse would look out for the young women in a crowd and chase them, enveloping them under its skirts, theoretically to
ensure they would later conceive but in reality to impart good luck. According to churchwardens’ accounts, this custom was fairly common in the county at one time but slowly vanished. It survived for a time at Culworth where the hobby horse was specially painted on 1 January for the village’s Hobby Horse Night. An original hobby horse is now kept in the museum at Northampton. However, in the summer of 1995, the horse made a welcome return to the county, appearing at Barnwell Country Park along with a giant Green Man, as part of the Common Ground Apple Day festivities.
The Hobby Horse makes a welcome reappearance after a long absence in the county, at Barnwell Country Park, 1995.
On the third Monday after Twelfth Night, the beginning of the ploughing season was originally marked with the blessing of the plough in church. By the fifteenth century, however, the plough had begun to be drawn round the streets from house to house to raise money for the good of the parish. By the end of the eighteenth century, this practice had degenerated into a fun activity for personal gain, in which participants known in the county as ‘plough moggers’ or ‘plough witches’ would dress up as various characters or wear special clothes. They would then either whiten their faces or blacken them with soot or blacklead and then go around the houses, performing a short play and demanding money from the occupants. At Raunds, one of the participants in the 1890s was Matthew Kirk, who recalled how he and several other plough witches, including a squaw and a character called Old Pat, blackened their faces and wore grotesque garb in preparation for the ritual. He wore an inverted chimneypot hat and others had hunches on their backs, with a knave of hearts sewn on, which gave rise to the name ‘red jacks’. As they made their way round the streets, carrying besoms, many a door would be hastily locked at their approach. This was not unusual, since many folk did not consider it harmless fun. For example, Norah Field recalled her childhood memories of this custom in Rothwell:
Every year a possy [sic] of them with blackened faces shouting and banging on tin cans, came round begging for money. Plough Moggers they were called. As a little one they scared me to death, and I think Mother as well, for I remember one dark night they swarmed up to the back gate shouting and making a terrific din, and being alone, we hid in the pantry.
At Weldon, Florence Colyer had a similar experience as a four-year old child, when a group of moggers, using features of the mummers’ plays, walked into her house. She vividly remembered the occasion:
I remember four or five men, with their faces blackened or reddened and wearing extraordinary garb, bursting through the front door calling out: ‘In comes I, I never bin before, three merry actors at your door!’ They then proceeded to dance around, asking if they could perform their play. I was so frightened, being only about four years old that I hid under the table. My grandmother produced a coin or two and said, ‘You’ll have to go, this child is terrified’.
Some kind of threat when asking for money was not unusual. For example, at Brigstock the use of red sheep-dip was the usual form of intimidation: ‘Tinker, tinker, poor ploughboy, if you don’t give anything I’ll raddle your face!’ A refusal in some cases led to the ground outside the dwelling being ploughed! Sometimes the response could be at the moggers’ expense: on one occasion in Northampton, the moggers were told by the householder to wait while he went to get some money; he subsequently returned not with cash but with a dog, which he promptly set loose on them. More humorously, at Althorp House, a mogger whose face was made up half black and half white was told by the butler who opened the door that he did not like him because he was two-faced!
St Valentine’s Day was a special day in the county, not just for lovers but for children who would get together in groups for the custom of Gwain Valentinin – going from house to house, like trick or treating at Halloween, in the hope of being given apples or a few pence to share out among themselves, after offering a rhyme. At Ecton it was: ‘Morrow, morrow, Valentine, empty your purse and fill mine!’ At many other places, the rhyme – given here in a dialect version – was:
Good morrow, Valentine. Plazt to give me Valentine
I be yourn, if ye’l be mine. Good morrow, Valentine.
At Kislingbury, St Valentine’s Day was a day for the girls to play pranks by going around the streets throwing Valentines at people’s doors and then running away. In the villages around Northampton, special sweet plum Valentine Buns were baked by godparents to give to their godchildren on the Sunday before and the Sunday after St Valentine’s Day. Elsewhere, ‘catching’ was a common feature of the day for young people, who would get up early in the morning in order to be the first to say, ‘Good morrow, Valentine’ to their parents or any elder relatives. By doing this before the adults had a chance to answer or before the adults spoke to them, they were rewarded with a present.
On Shrove Tuesday, the Pancake Bell was rung, preceded by a shriving bell at ten o’clock or earlier for people to come and confess. Bells were still rung in the county as late as 1850, though no longer for confession. The Pancake Bell was usually rung at eleven o’clock for an hour. At Daventry, where it was called the Panburn Bell, and Staverton, one side of the bell was ‘buffed’, meaning muffled with leather, while at Blakesley and Oundle, two bells were thought to sound as if they were saying ‘Pan On’. Ringing did not last long up at Stamford Baron, where each bell was ‘tolled for a short while’. At five villages – Islip, Lowick, Higham Ferrers, Stanwick and Aldwincle St Peter – the young were allowed to ‘jangle the bells’, while at Sudborough it was an occasion for the women to have a go and at Thrapston it was the turn of the boys. There was an added attraction to the occasion at the church of All Hallows in Wellingborough: while the sixth bell, called Old Pancake, was rung, pancakes were thrown from the tower windows. One wonders if they were caught or landed on anyone! In some villages, special rhymes were chanted by children on the day. At Geddington, the rhyme was identical to that chanted on Tander Day at Spratton: ‘If you don’t give us a holiday, we’ll run away’.
For adults, there were other ways of celebrating. There may perhaps have been a traditional game of football in which, before rules were laid down in the mid-1800s, was a case of anything goes, with no set number of players, no teams, no passing, only kicking, pushing and hacking down, in order to keep the ball in one’s possession! The day was less dangerous and exhausting at Harpole, where a clay-pipe-smoking competition took place in which the contestants were allowed to light up only once, with the one who smoked the longest being declared the winner.
On Palm Sunday, real palms were rarely carried in procession; their substitute being pieces of a tree called sallow or grey willow, which flowers just before Easter – earlier than most other plants. This practice would be normal for a county then under the Diocese of Lincoln, whereas some other dioceses used yew. In his poetry, Clare describes how ‘gold stamened catkins stand out, rich strains of sunny gold show where the sallows bloom.’
An associated Palm Sunday custom, which was unique to the county, was the eating of figs at teatime. The market at Northampton always had extra supplies delivered on the Saturday before for purchase by people of all social classes. Until fairly recently, the custom was still being honoured at Peterborough, Weldon and other villages in the north of the county.
It was commonly believed that Good Friday was a lucky day to bake cakes and bread. It was said that items baked on this day would never to go mouldy and could avert calamities. However, during the eighteenth century, the opposite view appears to have been taken in Northamptonshire, at least in some areas, as there was a well-known saying:
He who bakes or brews on Good Friday will have his house burnt down before the end of the year.
This was probably due to some lingering superstition or religious fervour – declaring the day unlucky as it was when Christ was crucified – or a combination of both. Whatever the case, the nineteenth century saw many a hot cross bun and fresh ale consumed over the Easter period in the county.
May Day
No other
season of the year can evoke as much happiness among people as spring. After the dark, cold days of winter, the return of spring – with the anaemic sun gaining in strength and warmth and bringing lighter, longer days, the Earth rewakening after her long sleep with the birth and blooming of new life, and birdsong and the sounds of insects filling the air – was a time for joy and celebration.
The first day of May signalled the custom of ‘bringing in the may’, which lasted from the medieval era until the seventeenth century and involved young people spending much of the night and the early part of the morning searching for flowering branches, or ‘knotts’, of may to bring home around sunrise. This would be a time of freedom and temptation for many of the young gatherers and it was an activity scorned by Puritans, one of whom by the name of Featherton wrote: ‘of tenne maydens which went to fetch May, nine of them came home with childe’. It was also common for girls to wash their faces in the dew, as it would supposedly add fairness to their complexions, eradicate any blemishes in the skin and perhaps improve eyesight. It was even supposed to bring them a husband within a year!
Once the branches were gathered, the young people returned to the village, singing May carols. A branch of the tree – later a garland – would then be taken from cottage to cottage. In some villages in the county, the branches were either left on the doorstep or protruding from a chimney of certain houses, perhaps the home of a popular girl, which had been determined beforehand by the Mayers. For anyone who was not held in such esteem, this would be substituted with blackthorn, thistles, nettles or wrinkled crab apples left over from the autumn, depending on how she was regarded!
Eventually the branch of may was replaced by a specially made garland, which was taken round the houses by a procession of people singing a special May song. The may blossom and foliage would have been used for the garland, together with other flowers, commonly bluebells (referred to as wild hyacinths), cowslips, buttercups, daisies, sweet violets and dog violets, wild pansies and wood anenome. Dolls representing the Queen of May, or even the Virgin Mary, were added to the decorations. Hone’s Every-Day Book (1824) has the earliest description of a Northamptonshire garland, as it was made at Kingsthorpe:
