I cannot perfitly my paternoster as the
Priest it singeth.
But I can rhymes of Robin Hood and Randall
Erie of Chester.
Queer company, and yet it was an old story that Robin did find an asylum at Chartley Castle.
[Illustration: THE HORN DANCERS, ABBOTS BROMLEY.]
We overtook an elderly man on the road returning home from his day’s toil on the Bagot estate, and he told us of an old oak tree of tremendous size called the “Beggar’s Oak”; but it was now too dark for us to see it. The steward of the estate had marked it, together with others, to be felled and sold; but though his lordship was very poor, he would not have the big oak cut down. He said that both Dick Turpin and Robin Hood had haunted these woods, and when he was a lad a good many horses were stolen and hidden in lonely places amongst the thick bushes to be sold afterwards in other parts of the country.
The “Beggar’s Oak” was mentioned in the History of Staffordshire in 1830, when its branches were measured by Dr. Darwen as spreading 48 feet in every direction. There was also a larger oak mentioned with a trunk 21 feet 4-1/2 inches in circumference, but in a decayed condition. This was named the Swilcar Lawn Oak, and stood on the Crown lands at Marchington Woodlands, and in Bagot’s wood were also the Squitch, King, and Lord Bagot’s Walking stick, all fine trees. There were also two famous oaks at Mavesyn Ridware called “Gog and Magog,” but only their huge decayed trunks remained. Abbots Bromley had some curious privileges, and some of the great games were kept up. Thus the heads of the horses and reindeers for the “hobby horse” games were to be seen at the church.
[Illustration: MARKET PLACE, ABBOT’S BROMLAY]
The owner of this region, Lord Bagot, could trace his ancestry back to before the Conquest, for the Normans found one Bagod in possession. In course of time, when the estate had become comparatively poor, we heard that the noble owner had married the daughter of Mr. Bass, the rich brewer of Burton, the first of the Peerage marriages with the families of the new but rich.
We passed the Butter Cross and the old inn, reminiscent of stage-coach days, as the church bell was tolling, probably the curfew, and long after darkness had set in, for we were trying to reach Lichfield, we came to the village of Handsacre, where at the “Crown Inn” we stayed the night.
(Distance walked twenty-five miles.)
Wednesday, November 1st.
Although the “Crown” at Handsacre was only a small inn, we were very comfortable, and the company assembled on the premises the previous evening took a great interest in our travels. We had no difficulty in getting an early breakfast, and a good one too, before leaving the inn this morning, but we found we had missed seeing one or two interesting places which we passed the previous night in the dark, and we had also crossed the River Trent as it flowed towards the great brewery town of Burton, only a few miles distant.