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Low Hall,
Knaresborough |
 Foreward
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Low Hall lies three miles from the old market town of Knaresborough much of which used to belong to the Slingsbys including the noted Dropping Well on the banks of the Nidd where articles including some of their children's toys became fossilised. Unlike the plain of York, the country is undulating with coverts and many fine trees, The farm which belonged to the Slingsbys was efficiently run by Frederic Hartley who followed his grandfather as their agent, It was a standing joke that Hartleys disliked taking their coats off and loathed getting their hands dirty. In fact there was a wonderful foreman in the person of a great character called Tom Herrington. In those days the women of the family were expected to wait on their men and it would have been unthinkable for a gentleman to clean his shoes or even carry a parcel, although he would have been considered a bad-mannered boor if he failed to help a lady to put on her coat or did not offer to carry it for her or to open the door for her, At first sight the house is like many of the other farms in the West Riding, a square white block, four windows, slate roof and Georgian type of door, but the back is much older. Long and low beautiful red brick, red-tiled roof and two probably Tudor windows. The long drawing room contained the most beautiful things. Heirlooms from the Hartleys Swanwicks and ffoulkes, beautiful old furniture, china, glass and Chinese bowls and prints of great value. There was an outstanding collection of books leather bound Greek Myths, poetry, the Arcadians with the engravings by Hansen, Goethe's Faust and other translations by my grandmother's noted cousin Anna Swanwick. There was also a large portrait of Elizabeth Hartley's grand- father Captain ffoulkes of Gwernygron St. Asaphs. The red dining room was memorable for it was here the family mainly lived. The garden was unimaginative with its plain iron railings and Granny for ever practical had gooseberry bushes in the flower beds on either side of the path^ but the wallflowers under the sitting room windows were magnificent, perhaps because they were much favoured by the cat, who delighted to lie under them, thus creating their natural habitat of ground as hard as stone. The nurseries were in the old wing with two-doored rooms which led into each other and, as my Mother found when she took me there when I was six weeks old, were bitterly cold. It was there that she saw an old woman looking at me in my cot then, as she came in at the door, the old body went out of the other. Mystified, my Mother went downstairs and described her to the family, who agreed that it was the ghost of their old nurse Bessie who had come back to see "Li'Ie Dickie's baby". The drawing room long and low was a veritable Aladdin's Cave. It not only contained beautiful old furniture, but exquisite Chinese bowls and other beautiful china and many pictures and prints by such people as Angelica Kaufman. The red dining room with its big coal fire, grandfather's armchair at one side and granny's at the other, was where the family lived and there was a curious library of old books - clerical, classical, and works by Anna Swanwick, including her translation of Aeschylus illustrated with unique steel engravings by Flaxman, and also translations from Goethe, These were unique as he (Flaxman) relied only on the thickness of his lines to give the impression of figures in bas-relief. China bowls or knick-knacks inherited from the ffoulkes were always exquisite and members of the family gained an interesting if superficial knowledge of the Classics. One also remembers a ffoulkes dress sword and dagger and a wonderful collection of sea shells, including a Nautilus kept in a Victorian work table. But although this house was full of beautiful things, money was scarce as farmers made very little. Granny was a wonderful woman and the fact that she had been deaf from the age of seventeen did not deter her, but may have been a protection from her large and very noisy family. She was not only a wonderful cook and housekeeper, but a clever wine-maker. The children collected cowslips and made a little pocket money by gleaning sheep's wool from the hedges and fields. On one occasion there was a explosion and Granny told me how she had rushed to her still room "My dear, I simply rushed saying, 'My cowslip wine, my cowslip wine'". Sure enough, it was pouring under the door, but to my horror there was your Father. He was quite a little boy, on his knees lapping it up like a kitten with milk. You can see, child, I thought he would be dreadfully drunk. Not a bit of it, it didn't affect him at all," What a good thing I thought that small beer and not tea or coffee was the breakfast beverage even for small boys. As a small girl I found the kitchen fascinating with its huge deal table gigantic iron pots and pans and a great open fire with ovens on one side and on the other side a boiler with a brass tap, and a long iron fender in front, all brightly polished with black lead and, in spite of this primitive contraption, enormous meals were cooked. Great roasts, plum cakes and delicious puddings. I have recently seen a duplicate in York Castle Museum, There was a large staff, many of whom were given dinner and several cats plus pet lambs basking in the warmth. One of the lambs disliked cats and would come in at the door which opened into the yard. She would than butt one after another and when they had all fled sit down in front of the fire as though she possessed the place, The cellar too had charm and here they set the milk in a square metal-lined trough so that when cream was needed they pulled up the plug so that the milk poured out and the cream could be scooped. And I believe it was in the cellar that they could cure their own hams and bacon. Added to the usual saltpetre, etc., they had black treacle, and my Father always said that the result was better than any bother. According to my Mother, a small lively Cornish woman, meals were enormous and of surpassing richness. She found them too much, but not the family who could not understand why she was so active while they were somewhat comatose after dinner. The evening meal was high teas slabs of meat, apple pie eaten with lumps of Wensleydale cheese, and plum cake. Supper was produced at 9,30 - sandwiches, biscuits, etc, and more tea, No wonder my aunts sometimes felt 'seedy'. There was no bathroom, but several hip baths, although the men thought it unmanly motto have a cold bath in a huge shallow round tub every morning and their huge Turkish sponges were things of wonder, Face flannels were flannel, and had to be de-slimed with the sponges by rubbing with salt. Aunt Jessie was the eldest daughter and had to shoulder much responsibility., She was a promising artist at the Caldron School of Animal Painting in London, but could not concentrate for long, as she was constantly called home because Granny was ill and after youngest sister Aunt Alice unable to manage. Perhaps this was why she was 'such a dreamer' and rather eccentric, but we children adored her. She was the roost wonderful raconteur and could turn the simplest fairy story into a living and dramatic epic. One of her greatest achievements was Perseus and Andromeda. We shuddered with anticipation over the tooth and eye of the graii and shuddered lest he accidentally looked at Medusa instead of in his mirror. But we regarded the rescue of Andromeda as rather the anti-climax - in fact, rather soft. Unfortunately, our imaginations were over-stimulated. We had nightmares and concocted horrible folklore and Odysseys of our own. It was a hotch-potch of folklore - Greek Myths, Yorkshire, Cornish and Irish folklore. Our greatest treat was to sleep with Aunt Jessie. Her old iron bed was narrow and full of lumps and you were lucky if you had any bedclothes. I remember being awakened by a weird noise and Aunt Jessie saying, 'It's all right dear, only my pet lamb Rosie's skin falling off the bed.' She fed and loved the orphan lambs, but why so many died I never knew. The floor of her room consisted of bare boards, with mats of lamb skins, an emu's skin and a dingo's skin brought back from Australia, and there may have been a kangaroo skin. The rest of the decor was that of a studio with her easel and paints. A plaster pack of hounds ran across the mantelpiece, a pair of plaster hounds sat on either side of the grate and a large turtle shell formed a fire screen. She was a big handsome, rather mannish, woman with a great mop of lovely but unruly hair, but when she cut it short it looked remarkably well and her hands were beautiful, long and slender with filbert nails. At one time she was constantly 'putting out' her knee-caps. Instead of removing the semi-lunar cartilages, the old treatment was weeks in bed and, as she tried to run the farm poultry, she had two incubators in her room and, as her appetite was good, she ate heartily in bed getting fatter and fatter. Although Low Hall was isolated, Granny must have kept up to date. Amongst other things I have one of the first babies bottle teats ever made which she bought for my Father, her first baby. It is solid silver with a cork made to fit into a bottle top. These were originally made by a chemist, name unknown, for the Middlesex Hospital. As a matter of fact, she really fed every baby herself and this old teat shows tooth-marks. One of her stories of how she wrapped him up and took him in the gig to show him to a friend when he was six weeks old, although it was bitterly cold and been snowing. I can well imagine he was weighed down with clothes - shirt, enormously tight cotton binder, napkin, woollen pitch, long padded back flannel, cotton petticoat, long robe, jacket, cashmere pelisse, little round hat, veil, and probably a big shawl on top. Another story,; 'You know dear, when I was young a regiment of militia came to the town. We had never met the army before and we had a wonderful time, but one girl - I am afraid she was terribly fast - when an officer took her into supper said, 'Can I get you some lobster Miss ....o.? She replied, 'Oh yes please, I love anything in red.'' Really Granny, how shocking - and I wondered if the anonymous lady was Miss Swanwick.' Grandfather employed the same Irish people, men and women who came over every year to deal with the potato harvest, and other seasonable work. They were much loved by the family, who seem to have been very good to all their labourers. Their wages were abysmally meagre, but they had the usual tied cottage, a row of potatoes and I believe milk as well as their own pigs and garden produce. There was an occasional rabbit and the shepherds wives would make lambs-tail pies when they were cut off. And of course blackberries and other fruit, and sometimes eggs. The following story was considered so humorous that the children took'.the opportunity of asking the same question, "Mr. •••••••• you have very fine children. What do you feed them on? He had invented them originally to enable his poor patients to grow plants in window boxes in the distressed slums of London where all plants had hitherto blackened and died. Frederic Lever started to train as an Actuary, but hated it and suffered from ill-health. Painting was his real love and he trained at the Caldron School in London, where he met Aunt Jessie who invited him to Low Hall, where of course he met Alice whom he married in 1908. After a spell of dairy farming at Markington near Knaresborough he took up painting as his profession. They lived for some time in the New Forest, but the last 30-odd year of his live was spent in the beautiful scenery of the Welsh mountains at Arthog on the south side of the Mawddach estuary. Here he built up a considerable reputation as an artist and was regularly hung at the R.O.I, in Piccadilly. He died at the age of 82. Alice survived him by four years and died in 1963 in her 90th year. One member of the family at Low Hall was Elizabeth Hartley's old father Joseph Swanwick, who spent his retirement making the most exquisite pencil sketches of Low Hall and the country round it. He also made exquisite scrapbooks and amused himself reading Anna Swanwick's books, which shocked his attendant because of Flaxman's nude gods and goddesses. She treated him like a child. 'Now then Swanwick, drink up your coffee'. Elizabeth was thought to be an heiress, but when he died there was not one penny. Another person they cared for was a deaf and dumb person, a farm pupil from a well-to-do family of German origin called George Schroeder. He spoke remarkably well and was a classical example of family indifference, and with a little more expert tuition he could have achieved much more. Aunt Jessie was very good to him and after he had been assaulted by a well-known bad character (who thought George would be easy to rob, but found himself in the ditch), she found him about to shoot and was just in time to prevent him. The case was difficult as, although all the family could speak on their fingers, an outside interpreter had to be found. The defendant accused George, but the police were only too glad to have caught him at last. Their father would reply 'Pase, Missus, Pase'.. In the light of modern knowledge this was not funny, for it shows the lack of protein in the average workman's diet, but at least these children thrived because they were fed on a good vegetable one. Again Granny used to send the girls round with baskets of delicious food for the sick or bedridden. On one occasion one of them went to a poor body who groaned and moaned, 'Eh I am that bad, I am that seedy.' Then just as my Aunt was leaving she routed 'Eh Missie, tell your mother I could eat a bit of meat noo.' A great joke, but the poor soul was probably suffering from lack of protein and was bitterly disappointed to find the invalid diet did not contain a piece of good meat for which she was craving. Low Hall was known as '"ARTLEY'S IEAT 'OOSE", and very kind and hospitable they were too. Nobody seems to have been turned away without a meal. Grandfather and Grandmother were a devoted couple and had eleven children. Six boys and five girls, one of whom died at birth. It was sad that Uncle Sydney was lost in the H.M.S. Condor, and that Reginald died in his teens, one of typhoid and Alfred of what they called 'galloping consumption', probably pneumonia. Grandfather was extraordinary in that he appears not to have done anything for his sons' careers after they left school. My Father found farm work repugnant and had always wanted to be ordained, but there was never any money. Uncle Frederic was an accountant and followed his father as agent for the Slingsbys and later to Lord Mountgarret. All the boys went to school at Fauconberg Grammar School, Beccles, then under the Reverend Alfred Octavius Hartley as headmaster. They all did well except Harry, the youngest, who ran away. He remained at the farm, but was an extraordinary character^ immensely lazy and prone to hypochondria. He had every imaginable illness. Poor Harry, he is not long for this world; But he lived to be 86. The writer remembers him carving a gigantic joint, quoting and mis-quoting the Old Testament as he did so. He referred to young women as 'nice young heifers' and had an embarrassing way of diagnosing and prescribing for feminine complaints, but when Granny was ill he proved to be a jolly good nurse. Although he inherited the farm, all the pay he is said to have received is 6d a week pocket money and all else found. Strangely he studied and knew the tonnage, etc. of almost every British ship of any size. Richard Hartley was finally able to go to the Theological College at St.Aiden's in Wales. With the help of a friend in Staveley, Sydney managed to qualify as a doctor, but this is a mystery. Perhaps he had a scholarship. He pro&ably went into the Navy because he could not afford to buy a practice and did not marry because he may have had to refund the money. He was thirty years old when he died. Frederic while agent to the Slingsbys bought their lovely old dower house in Knaresborough, a Queen Anse building which is now a charming hotel. My Aunts, like most women of that period, came off badly where education was concerned a pity, as like the other Victorian women such as their mother's cousin Anna Swanwick, they had very good brains. She had the advantage of a private tutor and like Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Fry and others, had money behind her. Nevertheless Aunt Minnie and Aunt Alice went to a Froebal School and Kindergarten at Edgbaston, which was run by Caroline Garrison Bishop and Emily Last, who was the first cousin of John Growse who married Aunt Minnie. When Aunt Amy was left a widow with two small children she took a course in massage and later became head masseur of the Royal Baths at Harrogate. Alice married Frederic Ward Lever, the son of Doctor Lever of Harrogate, who had married the daughter of the famous Doctor Ward M.D. and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was a noted botanist and inventor of the Ward Boxes' which made possible the transport of seeds of the rubber trees from South America to Malaysia and other plants as well.
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