"The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate"

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James Hawse's The Shortest History of Ireland reveals that the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful, with its notorious verse

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

was written by Cecil Frances Alexander, the wife of the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, in Donegal at the height of the Irish famine.

At one of my first meetings as a councillor, Harborough was asked to make its response to the Thatcher government's proposed Community Charge, which was to be universally called the Poll Tax.

It's forgotten now, but the government's original proposal was that the Poll Tax should be phased in over 10 years. If they had kept to that, they might have got away with it. But Harborough was one of many Conservative-run authorities that was so enamoured of the new tax that they wanted it brought in at once.

I remember the debate: you could see the pound signs in some Tory councillors' eyes as they calculated how much the Poll Tax would save them and their neighbours.

In my own contribution, I used some of the approved clichés of the day, calling the proposal "a Robin Hood tax in reverse" and complaining that "the rich man in his castle will pay the same as the poor man at his gate".

One of the later speakers in the debate was Tim Brooks, a Tory and the owner of Wistow Hall. Rather painedly, he pointed out that owning a great house brought with it great expenses.

Anyway, the Conservatives made the mistake of listening to their rank-and file and brought in the Poll Tax at once. Among the consequences of this decision was the fall of Margaret Thatcher. 

Leicester and Leicestershire in the First English Civil War 3

The third and final part of this video deals with the Battle of Naseby, with starring roles for Market Harborough and Lubenham.

You can watch part 1 and part 2 on this blog.

The legacy of Saxon Leicestershire

Time for the third of Jim Butler's Hidden Histories videos.

This one explores the legacy of Saxon Leicestershire, through archaeological finds, place names and the lives of two remarkable ladies of Mercia.

The crypt beneath St Wystan's, Repton

Repton is a village in Derbyshire whose church is dedicated to St Wystan.

As we have seen, both Wistow in Leicestershire and Wistanstow in Shropshire claim to be the site of Wystan's original burial and the subsequent miracle,

What is sure is that young Wystan's bones were later moved to Repton and lay in the crypt beneath the church that is now named after him. The crypt dates from the early eight century.

Early in the 11th century his bones were moved to Evesham, whee they were lost when the town's abbey was sacked at the Reformation.

The remarkable crypt at Repton remains, even if it tries its best to defeat photographers.

Back to St Wistan's, Wistow

Seven years ago I wrote:

St Wistan's, Wistow, has Norman fabric but a pleasing Georgian interior, complete with box pews and plain glass.

I was back there yesterday, and my appreciation of church architecture must have come on because I was positively excited by the Norman arch above. It reminded me of those I saw at Breedon on the Hill.

That Georgian interior now includes a tablet in honour of someone I served on Harborough District Council with: Sir Timothy Brooks.

I wrote about him 10 years ago (note the connection to Iain Duncan Smith).

Goldeneye on the Grand Union at Wistow

Taken in May 2012.

The little church at Newton Harcourt

On the last day of May - and just look at the blue sky in the main photo - I visited St Luke's, Newton Harcourt, and discovered the remarkable grave of eight-year-old Christopher Gardner. Since then I have been looking into the story behind the 'little church' of Newton Harcourt.

A special article on the Newton Harcourt pages of the Leicestershire Villages site tells us how the Gardner family came to the village:

George Gardner, a stone mason by trade, left his family in London to fight in France in WW1. He suffered badly from the effects of gas and on returning to England was sent, by the army, to Wistow Hall to convalesce. He was befriended by Lord Cottesloe, who employed him as a clerk. Lord Cottesloe suggested that George should bring his wife and seven children from London to live in Leicestershire and offered to find them accommodation in Newton Harcourt. George accepted the offer, and the family arrived in 1916. 

On 22 May 1916, six Gardner children were admitted to Newton Harcourt School. The family expanded rapidly and soon outgrew their first home. They moved to two cottages in Long Row, Newton Harcourt, which had been knocked into one. School records for Newton Harcourt School, show that a further eight Gardner children were admitted between 1917 and 1932.

A 2003 article from the Leicestershire Historian takes the story forward. The words in quotation marks come from a Leicester Mercury article dated 8 November 1993:

“The white monument in St Luke’s churchyard, Newton Harcourt, is dedicated to Christopher (Chrissy) Gardner my little brother. He died of Diphtheria when he was eight years old in September 1924”. 

He went on to explain that the unusual monument was fashioned out of a large block of stone by his father Mr George Gardner who before the First World War, had been a stone mason in London. On later moving to Newton Harcourt he worked laying paving stones for Leicester Corporation. 

“The reason for the design of the monument was because one day Chrissy was heard to say that when he was big he would have a church of his own. His father always remembered that remark and it prompted him, following his son’s death, to send away for a large block of stone and he set to work making a miniature church. He worked on it each day when he got home from his job. A true labour of love carried out in the backyard of the family cottage in Long Row, Newton Harcourt. When the miniature church was complete my dad and his workmate took it to the churchyard on a wheelbarrow and erected it.”

The final words go to Arthur Mee in his King's England volume on Leicestershire:

In the shady churchyard is a striking modern monument in the form of a miniature church with spire, porch, windows, and battlements, set up in memory of a boy of eight, a little shrine not unlike a toy building he himself might have tried to fashion with a big box of bricks. We have come upon no other like it in any of our country churchyards.

St Wistan's, Wistow

Two years ago I was at Wistanstow in Shropshire, one of the candidate sites for the martyrdom of St Wystan and the subsequent miraculous growth of golden hair from his first resting place (his remains were later taken to Repton in Derbyshire).

But Wistow in Leicestershire has the strongest claim to be the site - when the Church appointed a commission to investigate the claimed miracle, its members all came from the East Midlands - and that is where I was today.

St Wistan's, Wistow, has Norman fabric but a pleasing Georgian interior, complete with box pews and plain glass. No burials have taken place in the churchyard since 1873 because of the risk of flooding from the neighbouring River Sence. And the grass had just been mown, so the lad would have got a short back and sides if he had tried any recent miracles.

St Wystan and Holy Trinity, Wistanstow

Three years ago I wrote about the three villages which contend as the site of the martyrdom of St Wystan. Today I visited one of them - Wistanstow in Shropshire.

The guidebook for Holy Trinity, Wistanstow, describes the stained glass in the boy saint's honour:

St Wystan stands in a window as a golden haired boy in a red cloak taking the crown from his mother, who is dressed in blue, white and gold. Below is the scene of his martyrdom. Above is a group of buildings by a river which may be to investigate his home and final resting place in Repton.

After that it would be churlish to point out that Wistow in Leicestershire has a much stronger claim to be the site of his martyrdom.

From Gumley Hall to Iain Duncan Smith

At my first meeting of Harborough District Council we were discussing our response to the Thatcher government proposed poll tax. Like most ruling Tory groups around the country, ours thought it was a great idea and told Whitehall that it should be brought in at once, not phased in over 10 years as proposed.

Like a good Liberal Alliance councillor I moved an amendment in favour of a local income tax. "It cannot be right," I said, "that the rich man in his castle pays the same as the poor man at his gate."

At which Tim Brooks, Tory councillor for Great Glen and owner of Wistow Hall, rose to say that I should bear in mind that owning a large house entailed considerable expense.

He later resigned from the council on being made Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire - we had a higher class of by-election in Harborough in those days.

I saw Sir Tim, as he now is, across the room at the reception after Vince Cable's lecture on Thursday evening. And I remembered that I had come across him when researching Gumley recently.

One of the tenants of Gumley Hall in the 19th century was Thomas Tapling, who was Conservative MP for Harborough when he died there in 1891. The subsequent by-election was won for the Liberals by my hero J. W. "Paddy" Logan.

This auction record reveals that Sir Tim's wife Ann (nee Fremantle) is the granddaughter of Tapling's sister.

Not only that. Ann's niece Elizabeth is married to the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith. In 2003 the Daily Mail reported:

Wife Betsy, whose work for her husband is under parliamentary scrutiny, contributes to the IDS budget through her stake in a family property company, Thomas Tapling & Co., which is co-managed by her father Lord Cottesloe.

Thomas Tapling & Co., incidentally, began in the 19th century as a manufacturer of textiles.

All this is a reminder of the persistence of Tory dynasties, both locally and nationally.

I don't know if this interests anyone else, but I wanted to write it down somewhere before I forgot it.

Another resting place for St Wystan

In March I noted that there are three villages that claim to be the resting place of St Wystan: Wistow in Leicestershire, Wistanstow in Shropshire and Wistow in Cambridgeshire.

Now English Buildings has suggested a fourth site for his burial. Writing of St Wystan's church at Repton in Derbyshire, the blog says:

It’s quite unusual for a parish church to have a crypt. You usually find these underground spaces beneath large cathedrals, where they housed sacred items such as the remains of saints. Parish churches didn’t often run to such precious relics, but monasteries sometimes did, and the church at Repton began as a monastic church, and an important one, that became the burial place of the kings of the Saxon Midland kingdom of Mercia. King Ethelbald of Mercia, who died in 757, was buried here; so was King Wiglaf (died 840). When Wiglaf’s grandson Wystan was murdered, he was laid to rest here too. When Wystan was canonized, Repton became a place of pilgrimage.

The martyrdom of St Wystan

In his biography of W. H. Auden, Humphrey Carpenter writes:

His elder brothers were called Bernard and John. By contrast his own first name, Wystan, was exotic; but it reflected one of his father's great interests in life. George Auden was a doctor of medicine by profession, but he was also widely read in many other fields, among them Saxon and Norse antiquities. 

This was partly the result of his having been educated at Repton school in Derbyshire, for the parish church there has a particularly fine Saxon crypt which attracted his attention when he was young. The church is dedicated to St Wystan, a Mercian prince who was murdered in the year 849 after he had objected to the uncanonical marriage of his widowed mother to his uncle - "a rather Hamlet-like story," remarked Wystan Auden. 

The story of St Wystan is recorded in a Little Guide to Shropshire, under the entry for Wistanstow, the place in the county where he was martyred. The author of the Little Guide was Wystan Auden's uncle, the Rev. J. E. Auden, and Wystan carefully preserved his own copy of it. He was very possessive about his first name; he said he would be "furious" if he met another Wystan.

Wistanstow is a charming village, not least because it is the home of The Wood Brewery and its tap, The Plough Inn. But Wistow in Leicestershire also claim to be the site of St Wystan's martyrdom - and the site of the miraculous growth of golden hair from his grave that first proved his saintliness. And I have always understood that it has the stronger claim: when the Church appointed a commission to investigate the claimed miracle, its members all came from the East Midlands.

So it was a surprise to read this in the Daily Telegraph review of Mick Sharp's book The Way and the Light: An Illustrated Guide to the Saints and Holy Places of Britain:

The churchyard at Wistow in Cambridgeshire, for instance, is the likely location of the 9th-century martyrdom of St Wystan. Each year on his feast day, human hair was said to grow through the churchyard grass. "But when I visited shortly after his feast," writes Sharp coyly, "the grass was neatly mown."

So three places claim to be the site of Wystan's martyrdom. Unless, of course, you know of any more.