Priorsford

“ I never go to Priorsford without getting them some tablet at their dear Miss Smart's. Rory said to me solemnly the last time he was here, after a very successful visit to the shop, 'There's nobody in England like Miss Smart.'"
"I dare say not," said Mrs. Douglas. "London shops don't encourage small boys to poke in behind the counter. Miss Smart is so good-natured that her shop is a sort of Aladdin's Cave to all young Priorsford—Ann, have you remembered to put in my Life about Alis and the others being born?" ”

“ As I have said, it was tea-time in Priorsford.
The schools had skailed, and the children, finding in the weather little encouragement to linger, had gone to their homes. In the little houses down by the riverside brown teapots stood on the hobs, and rosy-faced women cut bread and buttered scones, and slapped their children with a fine impartiality; while in the big houses on the Hill, servants, walking delicately, laid out tempting tea-tables, and the solacing smell of hot toast filled the air. ”

“ Hope," said Pamela, laying down her cup, "this is most depressing hearing. I came here to find simplicity."
"You needn't expect to find it in Priorsford. We aren't so provincial as all that. I just wish Mrs. Duff-Whalley could hear you. Simplicity indeed! I'm not able to go out much now, but I sit here and watch people, and I am astonished at the number of restless eyes. So many people spend their lives striving to keep in the swim. They are miserable in case anyone gets before them, in case a neighbour's car is a better make, in case a neighbour's entertainments are more elaborate.... ”

“ New-mown grass drying in the sun, indescribable sweet scents from the flower-thick roadsides, the smiddy smell of hot iron sizzling on big hoofs, wafts from the roses in the garden—those most fragrant, red, loose-petalled roses that now I never see. Inside the house was cool and dark, with drawn blinds. D'you remember the parlour? I can tell you where every bit of furniture in it stood. The bureau behind the door, and along the wall the old, wide sofa. I've often told you about the upholsterer from Priorsford, who came to prescribe for it when its springs began to subside? ”

“ I made inquiries about rooms and found that in a little house called Hillview, owned by one Bella Bathgate, I might lodge. I liked the name of the house and its owner, and I hope to find in Priorsford peace and great content.
"Having been more or less of a fool for forty years, I am now going to try to get understanding. It won't be easy, for we are told that 'it cannot be gotten with gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.... ”

“ Despite its present atmosphere of peace and quietude, Hereford saw strenuous times in the fierce warfare which raged between the English and Welsh, though few relics of those days remain. The streets are unusually wide and with few exceptions the buildings are modern. Surrounding the town is a stretch of green, level meadow, upon which graze herds of the red and white cattle whose fame is wider than that of their native shire. No doubt there are many familiar with the sleek Herefords who have no idea from whence they take their name. ”

“ By the time he reached London he had got sixty thousand men of all sorts and sizes about him, for the people in those days were fond of changing their leaders, and Hereford was popular as the latest novelty. The Duke of York—the king's uncle—moved to the West End, as Henry and his forces entered at the East; but Henry of Bolingbroke—alias Hereford, who was also the nephew of York—invited the latter to a conference. ”

“ Hereford is a clean and pleasant old town, quite unsmirched by any factory chimneys, and largely concerned in cider-making, county business, and matters educational and ecclesiastical: a typical cathedral town, with the virtues and failings of its type in great perfection. It is not so rich in Tudor architecture as Shrewsbury, Ludlow, or Tewkesbury, but has a fair sprinkling of seventeenth-century houses, and many restful byways of Queen Anne or Early Georgian type. ”

“ I well remember one occasion while we were at Hereford, a very pompous and extremely proper town, as all cathedral cities are; my lord and I were robed for the reception of the High Sheriff (as he is called) and his chaplain, who were presently coming with the great carriage to take us to be churched before we charged the grand jury.
Hereford is a very stately place, and enjoys a very high opinion of its own importance in the world. It is almost too respectable to admit of the least frivolity in any circumstances. ”

“ No one can be many minutes in Hereford without detecting that not only the people but the very buildings take their key from the grand cathedral that, calmly gazing into the face of Time, has seen of men and houses generations come and generations go.
Hereford as an ecclesiastical centre is one of the most ancient in Great Britain, but until the commission of Offa’s grievous crime it must have been comparatively unimportant, with a small wooden structure for a church. ”

“ In 1788 he settled at Hereford in the dual capacity of editor and printer of Pugh's ‘Hereford Journal.’ Two years later he accepted an engagement from Charles, eleventh duke of Norfolk, the owner, jure uxoris, of extensive estates in the county, to compile and edit a history of Herefordshire. The terms were 2l. 2s. per week for collecting materials, with extra payment for journeys out of the county, the work to be the property of the duke. The first volume, containing a general history of the county and account of the city, was published, 4to, Hereford, 1804 ”

“ The Bishop and the bishopric are known everywhere, as something which is a man's own as much as the shire with its sheriff and lord-lieutenant. It is not so where geography is less happy. I remember the remark forty years ago, when the great restoration of the church of Hereford was going on. It was said that the people of Herefordshire cared for their cathedral church; it was an essential part of their shire and city. But the people of that part of Shropshire which was in the diocese of Hereford did not care for the church of Hereford ”

“ Sollars to Hereford. The landscape all the way is characteristic of the country: a scene of quiet fields and gentle river, of thatched cottages and gay gardens. It is not exciting, but it is extremely pleasant. Characteristic as it is, however, it does not represent Herefordshire at its best. The hills above Ledbury, the hop-gardens round Leominster, the woods and the wide views near Richard’s Castle, are all more distinctive and more beautiful than this part of the Wye Valley. ”

“ Pyrford itself, on its outskirts, unhappily, is beginning to hear Woking. The Woking builder's hammer is already ringing under its trees. But the heart of Pyrford hitherto remains untouched. A cluster of red-brick farm-buildings, a footpath over meadows of buttercups, a score of arching elms, and a little shingle-spired Norman church on a knoll above the stream—Pyrford is one of the smallest and sweetest of Weyside villages. Few churches have so strong an impression of an untouched past. ”

“ I crossed the Severn at the ferry of Ash, about ten miles above Bristol, and got to Monmouth to dinner through a rugged, indifferent country. It is a pitiful old town, and hath nothing remarkable in it; and from thence through a fat fertile country I got to the city of Hereford at night.
Hereford is the dirtiest old city I have seen in England, yet pretty large; the streets are irregular and the houses old, and its cathedral a reverend old pile, but not beautiful ”

“ Hereford was the king's demesne; and the honor of being his immediate tenants appears to have been qualified by considerable exactions. When he went to war, and when he went to hunt, men were to be ready for his service. If the wife of a burgher brewed his ale, he paid tenpence. The smith who kept a forge had to make nails from the king's iron. In Hereford, as in other cities, there were moneyers, or coiners. There were seven at Hereford, who were bound to coin as much of the king's silver into pence as he demanded. At Cambridge the burgesses were compelled to lend the sheriff their ploughs. ”

“ Just come from hard blows at Beachley, and crowded quarters in Monmouth, they were on the way to a city of more pretension, and promising sweeter delights. Hereford was at the time a centre of distinction, full of gentry from the surrounding shires; above all, abounding in the feminine element, with many faces reputed fair. Lingen’s gallants meant to have a carousal in the capital city, and knew they would there find the ways and means, with willing hosts to entertain them. ”

“ The Priory purports in its chartulary [43] to have been founded by “good Queen Mold,” the wife of Henry I., in 1108, and its most interesting endowment, the Portsoken, the land of the English Knights’ Gild outside Aldgate, in virtue of which the Prior of Christchurch, or Creechurch, as it was nicknamed, was ex officio an Alderman of the City of London, was given in 1125. There does not, however, seem to be any mention of a school in connection with the church before or after the foundation of the Priory either in its chartulary, or elsewhere. ”

“ Then, in 1275, when he was quite an elderly man, he became Bishop of Hereford.
And a true ‘Father in God’ he proved himself to be, to the poor people, at least, for he had one or two very serious and rather funny quarrels with the rich and powerful nobles who lived in his Diocese. These quarrels arose not because he was jealous of his own dignity, but because he was jealous of the dignity of the Church, and he imagined that any slight or insult paid to him as Bishop, was really a slight and insult paid to the Church of God. ”

“ Norfolk. So he has often sworn to me by God's body, but I do not trust him the more for that. He is attempting to draw the Earl of March into the scheme of the four lords to destroy the others, Hereford. If that be the case, we can never trust them.
Norfolk. Certainly not. Though they may not accomplish their purpose now, they will contrive to destroy us in our houses ten years hence.
Hereford must have taken the earliest opportunity to communicate this confidential conversation to the king. It showed him that the king was carefully watching those who had formerly appeared as his enemies. ”

“ Hereford Cathedral bears the name of Ethelbert of East Anglia, king and martyr, round whose death, at the hands of the men of Offa of Mercia, this story of his comrade centres, and dates its foundation from Offa's remorse for the deed which at least he had not prevented. In the sanctuary itself stands an ancient battered statue--somewhat hard to find--of the saint, and in the pavement hard by a modern stone bears a representation of his murder. ”

“ In the depth of the inclement winter, after the relief of Nantwich, Sir Thomas Fairfax, in obedience to the orders of the Parliament, marched back into Yorkshire to join his father, Lord Fairfax, who was hastening to unite his forces with the Scottish army, which, led by Lesley, Earl of Leven, had crossed the border and marched knee-deep in snow upon the soil of England, preparatory to an attack upon York. ”

“ Hereford replied that he would not go; upon which Edward exclaimed, "By the everlasting God, sir earl, you shall either go or hang." "By the everlasting God, sir king," replied Hereford, coolly, "I will neither go nor hang." Edward did not feel himself sufficiently powerful to punish this haughty reply; and, fearing lest he should find the same spirit of resistance in all the barons, he abandoned his intention of sending an army into Gascony. ”

“ Llanthony Priory.—This was formerly an Augustinian convent, with a church attached, founded by Milo, Earl of Hereford, in 1136. It was founded as an asylum for the convenience of the priory in Monmouthshire of the same name, which was so liable to be harried and pillaged by the Welsh. This priory was dissolved in 1539. The church was finally destroyed to make way for the Ship Canal. Some remains exist in a farm, of which the masonry is good. A gateway, in the Perpendicular style, still survives.125
The Old Judges' House. ”

“ Breeders’ names from the county are famous at the national cattle shows, and the number, size and quality of the stock are seen in their supply of the metropolitan and other markets. Prize Herefords are constantly exported to the colonies.
Manufacturing enterprise is small. There are some iron foundries and factories for agricultural implements, and some paper is made. There are considerable limestone quarries, as near Ledbury.
Communications.—Hereford is an important railway centre. ”

“ Hereford. It will be marvellous, indeed, if the king, after having said so before the people, should cause it to be annulled.
Norfolk. It is a marvellous and false world that we live in; for I know well that, had it not been for some persons, my lord your father of Lancaster and yourself would have [476] been taken or killed, when you went to Windsor after the Parliament. The Dukes of Albemarle and Exeter, and the Earl of Worcester and I, have pledged ourselves never to assent to the undoing of any lord without just and reasonable cause. ”

“ At Hereford the reeve’s consent was necessary when a burgage was to be sold, and he took a third of the price. When a burgess died the king got his horse and arms (these Hereford burgesses were fighting men) ; if he had no horse, then ten shillings ‘or his land with the houses.’ Any one who was too poor to do his service might abandon his tenement to the reeve without having to pay for it. ”