Читать книгу History of Madeley including Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, and Coalport онлайн

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It is one of that class of buildings the country can ill afford to spare, for it speaks not to the antiquarian or the historian merely, but to all who take an interest in the manners, customs, and domestic arrangements of the past. It is difficult to say which are the original portions, but the vaults and cellaring, and some other parts appear to have belonged to a building which has undergone many changes. The windows, walls, and doorways of that portion of the building occupied by Mr. Round, and the substantial foundations that gentleman found beneath the surface in cutting a drain in the same direction, with a well 15 yards deep, indicate pretty clearly an extension of the buildings formerly on that side.

On going inside, and descending a spiral stone staircase to the basement story of the building, visitors will have opportunities of seeing how substantially the walls are built. They are a yard and a half in thickness, and have narrow openings, each growing narrower towards the outside, every two converging towards a point similar to what the reader has witnessed in many a fortress of byegone times, and designed no doubt for the same purpose, for defence. This staircase did not then as now terminate in what was the large hall, but in the adjoining apartment, now used as a brewhouse. The partition, too, which shuts off the entrance to another pair of stairs near the coat of arms on the north did not exist, nor the stairs either. The room is now 38½ feet long; then it would be 40, by 22 feet wide, and 14 feet high. Beneath these arms, on a daias, probably, the head of the house would sit dispensing hospitality. The chief staircase was near the other end of the hall, and composed of immense blocks of solid oak. The spiral stone staircase from the base of the building to the chapel at the top of the house was for the use, it is supposed, either of the dependents or the officiating priest. A further examination of the arms on the ceiling and a comparison with those in other parts of the building show them to be those of the Brooke family. An oak screen divides the chapel, which is wainscoted to the ceiling with oak. On the eastern side of this screen is a piscina, which has been cut out of the solid brickwork, and which at a subsequent period must have been concealed by the wainscoating. In the western division, behind the wainscoating, is a secret chamber, a yard square; probably for concealment in times of danger. It is communicated with by a panel in the wainscoat just large enough to admit a man, who, once inside, had the means of bolting and barring himself in behind the oak panel, which would look in no respect different to the others. This is called king Charles’s hole, but there is no evidence or well-founded tradition that he occupied it. There are a number of other curious nooks and small chambers which might have served purposes of concealment in troubled times, and probably did so, when the votaries of the two dominant religions, fired with a zeal inspired by their positions, alternately persecuted each other, as in the times of James, Mary, and Elizabeth. It is an error however, and one which Harrison Ainsworth among others appears to have fallen into, to suppose that the unfortunate king Charles either came to the Court House or was secreted in it. It is probable enough that, from the well known loyalty of the owner, the house would be searched by the Parliamentarians for the king, and the fact that they were likely to do so would lead to more discretion in selecting a place of concealment. The fine old wainscoating is falling from the rooms, and the whole place presents a scene of utter desolation.