The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1907-11-29
RURAL ENGLAND.
Holiday GlinDSGS Of One Of the
Great ShireS
By |. N. FORD.

! geography now seems as unfair as Mr..
Dickens travesty of American poll
tics in Martin Chuzzlewit." The
| Conservative landholder has become
A.! a globe trotter as we'll as a primrose
! gathering Imperialist; and not even
the narrowest minded Little England
er would think of spreading the out
line of his county over the whole
| page and of tucking the kingdom into
a corner and leaving the terrestrial
ball to roll on in insignificance at the
bottom Yet each county when close
! ly studied is a little world by itself.
Physical features, historical associa-
tons and traditions of architecture
impart individuality to it and differ
entiate it from adjacent shires. Tray
eled Americans after tramping up and
down the Continent and making the
circuit of the globe would not lack
occupation if they were to take
house in an English county and to
spend six months in exploring it. 1t
might be more enjoyable than globe
trotting, and certainly it would be less
fatiguing What can the casual tour
list know about so Characteristic
county as Northampton, with its COM
manding position in the Midlands and
it's prominence in English history?
He may halt in his motor circuit of
the cathedral towns to glance at that
marvel of Gothic architecture, the
decorative west screen of Peterbor-
ough; or if he is a conscientious
American pilgrim, he will find the
! homes of the Washingtons at Sui
grave and Brington and of the Frank
Inns at Ecton; but probably he will go
north with a rush by one of the trunk
lines, or return to Liverpool for his
ship without giving a thought to the
historic shire stretching across the
kingdom from Warwickshire to the
fens of Lincoln and Cambridge. Yet
there is not a county south of the
Tweed that deserves more deliberate
study.
This village of BriXwOrth, from
which I am dating holiday letter,
interests sportsmen because the ia
, nous Pytchley hounds are kennelled
in it, and they are well worth seeing
when out with their keepers for an
airing on the hills, and still more i'll
the autumn when in full cry for cub
hunting, for Northampton is one OF
| the best of hunting shires, with Win
ter sport we'll organized and heartily
supported by the great land owners.
The village concerns antiquarians and
students of architecture even more
closely for the strange church or .he
hill rivals in antiquity the one il Dow
er attached to the Roman pGaTCS and
while it has undergone successive al
terations, it is without doubt one of
the oldest structures in the kingdom.
There is Roman material in The walls
\ and piers, even if a basilicl has not
been converted into church, and tho
square tower with semi-crcular
shaft on the outer face half way TO
the spire was loopholed by the Saxons
for defence by 'archers against Danish
invaders. Characteristic traces o.
every style of construction, from Rom.
an or later Saxon to Norman. Tran
sition, Gothic and Tudor, can be
found in this venerable structure. ana
nearly as much can be said of the
church at Earl's Barton, pear by, with
the most beautiful Saxon tower in
England-a convincing pcoof that the
primitive architecture which the Nor
in trKr
was not without decorative quality At
Brigstock there is another composite
church with a round projection added
to the tower as at BriXworFa. and with
suggestions of Roman methods in tao
interior arch and it's crude decoration
and in the long and short work ann
horizontal and vertical strips of the
walls Barnack tower is as distnc-
lively Saxon as Castor is Norman.
Both primitive Romanesiue and the
Norman type following it can be stud.
led in the parish churches of unpre-
tentious villages The square, en-
battled tower the landmark Of pic
tuesque England, is the s.oried memo
rial of the rise or decline of genius
for construction and decoration
Sometimes the story OF the ancient
church is told with dramatic realism
by the verger. At RothwelI he De-
gins languidly, uncovering the brass
e5 and pointing out the features al
the tumble Of styles, but when the en-
trance to the crypt under the south
aisle is approached he is transformed
into a weird and grotesque grave-dig
ger of Shakespearian quality Light.
ing a candle for each follower, he
leads the way into a subterranean
chamber where thousands of skulls
and skeleton arms and legs are