The Ken family finally died out in the seventeenth 46century, after having been settled here over four hundred years. A small mural monument to Christopher Ken and his family, 1593, remains10 in the little church, rebuilt in 1861 and uninteresting; but with a pretty feature in the unusual design of the pyramidal stone roof of its small tower.
Beyond Kenn, in a lonely situation midway between Yatton and the coast at the point where the waters of the Yeo estuary11 glide12 and creep, rather than fall, into the sea, stands the village of Kingston Seymour. The country all round about is more remarkable13 for the rich feeding its flat pastures afford the cows than for its scenic14 beauties. If it were not for the luxuriant hedgerows and the fine hedgerow trees, it would be possible to say, with the utmost sincerity15, that this corner of Somerset was tame and dull. But the dairy-farmers who occupy it so largely draw great prosperity from these flat meadows.
KINGSTON SEYMOUR.
Within the beautiful and delicately graceful16 old church of Kingston Seymour are tablets recording17 the floods once possible here, and the destruction wrought18 by two such visitations, in 1606 and 1703. An epitaph records the odd bequest19 of a certain “J. H.,” in bequeathing “his remains” to his acquaintance, and their still more singular joy at the legacy21:
He was universally beloved in the circle of
His acquaintance; but united
Namely, by bequeathing his remains.
47The centre of this district is Yatton, which now draws all surrounding traffic by reason of its junction23 station on the Great Western Railway. Here the traveller changes for Clevedon, or for Cheddar and Wells, or for Wrington Vale. Yatton takes its name from the river Yeo, which oozes24 near by, and itself hides in that form of spelling the Celtic word ea, for water, akin25 to the modern French eau. Thus Yatton is really, derivatively26, the same as Eton, near Windsor, the water-town beside the river Thames; Eaton by Chester, on the river Dee, and many other places throughout the country with the affix27 of “ea” or “ay.” An alternative derivation, as arguable as the first, makes Yatton derive28 from the “gate,” or gap, in the neighbouring hills, through which the Yeo drains on its way from Wrington. The village itself stands somewhat high, but overlooks a very considerable tract29 of low-lying country, formerly30 in the nature of a creek31, as proved by modern discoveries of a Roman boat-house and similar waterside relics32 near by.
The business brought by the junction-station of the Great Western Railway at Yatton has effectually abolished the village-like rustic33 character of the place. It is more by way of a townlet of one long street, remarkable for the unpleasing prominence34 of blank walls enclosing the grounds of residents whose desire for privacy appears to be excessive.
The great feature of Yatton is, however, its fine church. No traveller can have journeyed 48much on the Great Western Railway without having noticed, as his train approached Yatton, the singular effect produced by the tall tower of this fine building, surmounted35 by a spire36 that has lost the last third part of its original height, and has been finished off with small pinnacles37. The effect is almost uncanny, but by no means unpleasant, and the proposals that have from time to time been made to complete the spire are altogether to be deprecated. No records remain by which it can with certainty be said that the spire was ever completed when the church was at last finished, after building operations that extended from 1486 to 1500; but the evidence afforded by the Late Perpendicular38 cresting39 and pinnacles that finish off the incomplete structure, and are contemporary with it, seems to point to one or other of two hypotheses: that funds finally proved insufficient40, almost on the eve of the works being brought to a conclusion; or that the builders were alarmed by signs of their having already placed as much weight upon the tower as it could possibly bear.
YATTON CHURCH.
It is a noble church, designed in the last phase of pure Gothic architecture, with some few remains of Early English and Decorated from a former building, demolished41 to make way for this larger and more splendid place of worship. Here in the De Wyke chantry is the altar-tomb of Evelina de Wyke and her husband, c. 1337; and near by is that of Sir Richard Cradock Newton, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 1448, and 49his wife, Emma, or Emmota, Perrott. The recumbent effigies42 of the Judge and his lady are very fine. He wears the robes of his office and a collar with links of “S.S.,”—mystic letters generally considered to signify “Souveraigne,” and to be a badge of Lancastrian loyalty43. This example is considered to be the earliest known. The “garbs,” or wheatsheaves of the Judge’s coat-of-arms, may still be traced, as also the arms of his wife—three pendant golden pears on a red field, in punning allusion44 to “Perrott.”
Here also is the tomb of the Judge’s eldest45 son, Sir John Newton, and his wife, Isabel Chedder. All these had, in their time, greatly to do with the rebuilding and beautifying of Yatton church.
A curious epitaph in the churchyard, to the memory of a gipsy who died in 1827, reads:
Here lies Merrily Joules,
a beauty bright,
Who left Isac Joules, her
heart’s delight.
Prominent, close by, is the boldly stepped base of a churchyard cross, of which the shaft46 has long disappeared. Surviving accounts prove it to have been erected47 at a cost of ￡18, in 1499.
Yatton church, as we have seen, has a spire, an unusual feature with Somerset churches. Here, however, a small group of spires48 or spirelets occurs, including also those of Congresbury, Kingston Seymour, Kenn, and Worle. Congresbury spire is the most prominent of all, both 50from its own height and from the position it occupies in the vale below Yatton.
“Coomsbury”—for that is the local shibboleth—is a considerable village, taking its name traditionally from “St. Congar,” son of some uncertain “Emperor of Constantinople.” This really very autocratic personage endeavoured to marry his son to a person whom the young man could not love, and he fled his father’s Court; wandering in wild and inclement49 lands, until he came at last to this then particularly wild and unwholesome region. We cannot avoid the suspicion that the lady must have been a terror of the first water; or, alternatively, that Congar was not altogether weather-proof in the upper storey. He is said to have founded a hermitage here, A.D. 711, and a baptistry at which the heathen were admitted to the Church; and King Ina, we are told, became his most powerful patron. At last he went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and died there; but his body was conveyed back to Congresbury.
Thus the legend, which has no historical foundation whatever, and appears to be an ancient, but entirely50 idle tale: the name of Congresbury being really, in its first form, an Anglo-Saxon K?nigsburg; or, in modern English, Kingston. But “St. Congar,” although he finds no place in learned hagiologies, is still a belief at “Coomsbury,” and the villagers point to the stump51 of an ancient yew-tree as “St. Congar’s walking-stick.”
51The church itself is large and fine, but not so fine as that of Yatton. In the churchyard is the base of an ancient cross, and in the village itself a tall shaft of the fifteenth century, with the cross replaced by a ball.
THE RECTORY. CONGRESBURY.
The rectory was until towards the end of the eighteenth century wholly a fifteenth-century building; but the clergy52 of that time, little disposed towards arch?ology, and with marked leanings towards a certain standard of stately comfort and display, procured53 the building of the present large but ugly parsonage, and degraded the old building into a kitchen and outhouse. The expansive (and expensive) ideas of that time have for some generations past proved expensive indeed to the incumbents54 of Congresbury, for the large house and great lofty rooms cost much 52to keep in repair, and the ideas of the present-day clergy are not so nearly as they were like those of the old-fashioned free-handed country squires55.
In Congresbury churchyard a lengthy56 epitaph upon a former inhabitant incidentally tells us that belated highwaymen still troubled these parts in 1830, a period when most other regions had long seen the last of those unknightly “Knights of the Road”:
In Memory of
CHARLES CAPELL HARDWICKE
of this Parish
died
July 2nd 1849
50 years
And was buried at Hutton
His Friends
Erected this Monument
To Record
their admiration58 of his
Character
and
their regret at his
Loss
A.D. 1871
He was of such courage that being attacked by a highwayman on the heath in this parish, Oct. 21st, 1830, and fearfully wounded by him, he pursued his assailant and having overtaken him in the centre of this village, he delivered him up to Justice.
The old rectory, happily still standing, was built about 1446. Its chief interest lies in the projecting porch; the doorway59 surmounted with 53a sculptured panel enclosing the figure of an odd-looking angel with a cross growing out of his head, holding in his hands a scroll60 inscribed61 “Laus Deo.” The archway is pointed62 in the manner of an Early English arch, and sculptured with an imitation of the “dog-tooth” moulding of that period. Stone shields bear the arms of Bishop Beckington, and of the Pulteney family.
From Congresbury it is possible to again approach the coast, coming by level roads that run through flat alluvial63 lands to Wick St. Lawrence, a small and solitary64 village standing near the banks of the Yeo estuary.
The writer grows tired of writing, and the reader doubtless as weary of reading, of the richness of the land in these parts; but the occasion for and the necessity of this continued allusion are at least proofs of the fertility of Somerset and of the abundance of the good gifts bestowed65 upon this fortunate county, whose soil even oozes plentifully66 out at its river-mouths and in the way of muddy deposits conspicuously67 advertises this form of wealth. There can be no possible doubt of the great importance the dairying business has assumed in these parts. It has already been noted68 at Yatton, and here again the traveller by road, who thus sees the country intimately, is impressed, not only with the rich pastures, but with the beautiful stock he sees in them or driven along the road; and also with the numbers of carts he observes, with from one to half a dozen milk-churns, driven smartly across country to 54the nearest railway-station, to catch the up trains for Bristol or London.
The road to Wick St. Lawrence—i.e. St. Lawrence’s Creek—after crossing the Great Western Railway midway between Yatton and Puxton, winds extravagantly69 between high hedges, passing only an occasional farmhouse70. Rarely the stranger in these parts meets any other wayfarers71 than farming folk, and the children of Wick St. Lawrence at sight of him stand stock-still, with fingers in mouths, quaint20 figures of combined curiosity and shyness, clad in the old rustic way in homely72 clothes and clean “pinners.”
The remains of a many-stepped fifteenth-century village cross stand opposite the church: all steps and not much cross, ever since some village Hampdens in the long ago showed their hatred73 of superstition74 by leaving only about a foot and a half of the shaft. The church itself, with tall and rather gaunt tower, is a Late Perpendicular building, with elaborate stone pulpit. Here is an epitaph which would seem to have its warnings for those who might feel disposed to extend their explorations to the mud-flats of the Yeo estuary at low tide:
To the memory of James Morss, of this parish, yeoman, who dy’d November ye 25th 1730, aged 38 years.
With near Approaches, even to my soul:
Far from dry ground, mistaken in my course,
Thus vain I cry’d to God, who only saves:
In death’s cold pit I lay ore whelm’d with waves.
55Beyond the village, the road winds again in fantastic loops, and is crossed, without the formality of gates by the W. C. and P.L.R. This weird77 concatenation of initials sounds like a mass-meeting of household sanitary78 appliances, but those readers who have diligently79 persevered80 through the earlier pages of this book will understand that the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Light Railway is meant. Thenceforward, after more windings81 through a thinly peopled district, the road wriggles82 on to Worle; sending off a branch to the left hand for Woodspring, Swallow Cliff, and Sand Bay.
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1
ken
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| n.视野，知识领域 | |
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oozy
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| adj.软泥的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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6
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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8
curry
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| n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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estuary
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| n.河口，江口 | |
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glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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13
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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14
scenic
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| adj.自然景色的，景色优美的 | |
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15
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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16
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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17
recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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18
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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19
bequest
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| n.遗赠；遗产，遗物 | |
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20
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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21
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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22
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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23
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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24
oozes
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的第三人称单数 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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25
akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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26
derivatively
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| adv.衍生地 | |
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27
affix
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| n.附件，附录 vt.附贴，盖(章)，签署 | |
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28
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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29
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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30
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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31
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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32
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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33
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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34
prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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35
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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36
spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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37
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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38
perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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39
cresting
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| n.顶饰v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的现在分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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40
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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41
demolished
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| v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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42
effigies
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| n.（人的）雕像，模拟像，肖像( effigy的名词复数 ) | |
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43
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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44
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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45
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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46
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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47
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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48
spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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49
inclement
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| adj.严酷的，严厉的，恶劣的 | |
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50
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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51
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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52
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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53
procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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54
incumbents
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| 教区牧师( incumbent的名词复数 )； 教会中的任职者 | |
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55
squires
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| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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56
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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58
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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59
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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60
scroll
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| n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡 | |
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61
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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62
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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alluvial
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| adj.冲积的；淤积的 | |
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64
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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65
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
plentifully
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| adv. 许多地，丰饶地 | |
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67
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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wayfarers
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| n.旅人，（尤指）徒步旅行者( wayfarer的名词复数 ) | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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mire
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| n.泥沼，泥泞；v.使...陷于泥泞，使...陷入困境 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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80
persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
windings
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| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
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82
wriggles
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| n.蠕动，扭动( wriggle的名词复数 )v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的第三人称单数 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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