By far the nearest way to Richmond from Leyburn is across the moor,
a rough and desolate road, but preferable to the terrible long way by
Catterick, more than double the distance (by rail it is four times the distance!). This is the prettiest village of any on the way (which is not
saying much, be it said). The early fifteenth-century church has some
good monuments and brasses, one of the latter to a lady who for
many years before she died
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carried her winding-sheet about with her; and one would naturally
suppose one with such gruesome ideas would still walk the earth for
the edification of the timid, but she doesn't.
The entrance to Richmond by the nearest way is very charming. You
come suddenly upon the castle perched up over the river, and as you
wind down the hill the grouping of its towers is thrown into
perspective, forming a delightful picture with the river and the bridge
for a foreground. Three kings have been prisoners within these
formidable Norman walls: two kings of Scotland, William and David
Bruce, and after the lapse of three centuries, Charles I., who passed
here on his way to Holdenby. The stalls and misericordes in the fine
old church came from Easby Abbey. They are boldly carved, and one
of them represents a sow playing a fiddle for the edification of her
little pigs. There is a curious coloured mural monument, on the east
side of the chancel, of Sir Timothy Hutton and his wife and children—
twelve of them, including four babes, beneath two of which are these
verses:
"As carefull mothers do to sleeping say, Their babes that would too
long the wanton play; So to prevent my youths approaching
crimes, Nature my nurse had me to bed betimes."
The next is less involved:
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"Into this world as strangers to an inn This infant came, guest
wise; Where when 't had been and found no entertainment worth her
stay, She only broke her fast and went away."
Altogether it is a cheery tomb. Faith, Hope and Charity are there, one
of whom acts as nurse to one of the babes. Her ladyship's expression
is somewhat of the Aunt Sally type, but that was the sculptor's fault.
The ancient church plate includes a chalice dated 1640. The registers
are beautifully neat and clean, and full of curious matter, such as the
banns being read by the market-cross.
Apropos of Yorkshire marriages, the odd custom prevails in some
parts of emptying a kettle of boiling water, down—not the backs of the
happy pair, but down the steps of the front door as they drive away,
that the threshold may be "kept warm for another bride," we presume
for another swain. The way also of ascertaining whether the future career of those united will be attended with happiness is simple and
effective. All you have to do is, as the bride steps out of the carriage,
to fling a plate containing small pieces of the wedding-cake out of a window upon the heads of the onloo
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kers. If the crowd is a small one, and the plate arrives on the
pavement and is smashed to pieces, all will go well; but if
somebody's head intervenes, the augury is ominous; which, after all,
is only natural, for is it not likely that one thus greeted would call at the house to bestow his blessing upon somebody? What a pity this
pretty custom is not introduced into the fashionable marriages of St
George's, Hanover Square. It would at least create a sensation.
For the rest of Richmond church, well—it was restored by Sir Gilbert
Scott. It is regrettable to find the piscina on a level with the floor, beneath a pew seat!
The curfew still rings at Richmond, telling the good people when to go
to bed; but whether they go or not is another matter. We are told it is,
or was, also rung for them to get up again at six o'clock; and the aged
official whose duty it was to ring the morning bell, like a wise man, did
so at his leisure, lying in bed with the rope hanging from the ceiling.[35]