| Description | [Diary Transcription]
8
1825
August Saturday 13
9 5/60
1 20/60
§
came up to bed at 10 10/60 — reading over Ward’s Buxton guide till 11 3/4 — Fine day — Fahrenheit 64° at 11 3/4 p.m. —
Very rainy, boisterous night, and rainy morning till near 10 — Breakfast at 10 1/4 — at 11 10/60 off in the gig — meant to
have gone along the Congleton road, but the clouds were so black in that direction, went 4 miles on the Ashbourn road
and in returning turned along the Duke’s drive into the new Bakewell road and got home at 12 50/60 — the wind so high I could
scarce keep my hat on — a slight shower, in returning — felt sleepy on coming in — lay 1/2 asleep on the sofa a considerable [time] —
then talked to my aunt — About Eliza Raine somehow or other speaking of her many excellent qualities ssaid
when my aunt spoke of the danger poor Sam might have been in said the danger was not to him but like the stag
they all turned their blind side to the water whence the danger came and said it was not my fault Eliza and I did not
go off together bade her never name it none knew but Mrs. Barlow ~ in excuse said I was fifteen at the time ~ At 3 1/2 came upstairs —
my aunt had a bath at 4 — Dinner at 5 1/4 — all the evening talking to my aunt — about Eliza Raine more fully praised her
as the best I had ever known she had pinched herself and given me money I had had twenty pounds at a time from her said how
she gave me up to Isabella because she thought it for my interest and happiness how inflexibly she persis
ted in it and that it was this I grieved so at when Isabella left me the first time [illegible] more than her going then said how
after all Eliza had the moment she was of age made her will giving me all she had said I had not seen such
high honour from anyone my aunt agreed I said she had behaved to me more like an angel more than anything else and I was
then too thoughtless to return it as I ought to her I had not behaved as I ought to π- [Mariana] who had been so diffe
rent I had nothing to reproach myself with could all my conduct to π- [Mariana] be known thought it would do me credit I thought
more and more of Eliza should never feel such an attachment to anyone again Mrs. Barlow reminded me the most of her ~
Came upstairs at 10 10/60 — settled our accounts — wrote the above of today — windy boisterous night — very heavy shower for 2 or 3 minutes
about 4 p.m. — afterwards one or 2 showers — the wind is now whistling dismally, now at 11 20/60 at which hour Fahrenheit 66° — Mrs. Fitzherbert
dined here again today, but got up and left the table before the rest of the ladies — dined in her great leghorn bonnet as yesterday —
Sat up making notes from volume 1. Amélie Mansfield till 12 3/4 —
[margin text:] Eliza Raine
Sunday 14
8 10/60
12 1/2
L
1/2 hour making notes from volume 2. Amelie Mansfield — Breakfast at 10 10/60 — went to church at 10 50/60 — Service at 11 — Mr. Spencer
read the prayers, and part of the communion — a Mr. Poole read the other part, and preached an indifferent sermon from the 1st Epistle general of St —
John iii. 17. in behalf of the bath charity — I think he did not preach 1/2 hour — but I lost a little now and then being all but
asleep 2 or 3 times — out of 760 patients this last year, I heard, only nine had received no relief at all — a very large proportion (I did
not hear how many) had been cured — 2 gents [gentlemen] and a lady ([illegible] always the lady of highest rank happening to be in the
church) Lady Radclyffe, the widow of Sir Joseph Radclyffe late of Mills bridge, and the present wife of a Mr. Peel — went about into each
pew collecting subscriptions — the poor woman looked sorry for herself and a little gauche — £52.1.6 1/2 § (they said at dinner)
were collected — It being a rather wet morning, not so many people at church as last Sunday — talking to my aunt till 2 10/60
then went to the top of St. Anne’s Cliff, and walked about there for an hour — Came upstairs at 3 35/60 — Dinner at 5 1/4 —
no Mrs. Fitzherbert today — Had observed to my aunt yesterday that I thought one of the gents. [gentlemen] at the bottom of the table must be Mr.
Stamford Caldwell — he was there again today, and Mr. Caldwell written (as are all our names) on the back of his
chair — we looked at each other en passant as if mutually fancying we recollected each other —
I do not mean to take any notice of him — came upstairs at 7 for 3/4 hour, and made notes from volume 2 Amélie Mansfield —
Talked to my aunt all the rest of the evening — tea at 8 — Came up to bed at 9 3/4 — Great deal of rain last night and till
after 10 this morning — heavy showers during service and from about 3 1/2 p.m. showers perpetual showers the rest of the afternoon
and evening with high whistling wind — very high wind all the time I was out walking — Fahrenheit 63° at 10 p.m. —
on returning from walking found a letter (forwarded from Shibden by my uncle) from ‘Charles Hering, 9 Newman Street Oxford Street’ London
dated 10 August informing me he had that day sent off my books (arrived from Paris) by the waggon — ‘They have been detained a long
§ a great many gave sovereigns — the 2 ladies and Mr. Serjeant Bosanquet (in the same pew with me) all gave a sovereign each — I
gave five shillings —
9
1825
August
‘while both at the custom house at Calais and here in consequence of the trifling circumstance of having a buckle and rings,
‘which it was feared would cause a seizure of the whole’ —— Mr. Hering’s bill comes to £3.18.10 — of which the duty is £1.12.0
and freight £1.2.7 — the other expenses are warehousing entry — Quay charges — lighterage — etc. I think I could have brought them
over cheaper myself — I should have bought the books cheaper (on the whole) in London — after coming up to bed read from page 99. to 109. volume 1 —
Rousseau’s Confessions and wrote the whole of this of today — Read aloud to myself from page 45. to 59. iii. Amélie Mansfield —
Monday 15
8 40/60
12 55/60
§
§
§
L
Breakfast at 10 1/4 — At 10 3/4 off in the gig to Tideswell (by the new road along Miller’s dale) — fine drive — 7 1/2 miles —
hilly — 1 40/60 hour in going — Stopt at the Bull’s head, a small public house facing the south side of the church — yet the clerk told me the George
Inn (close to the east end of the church) is the head Inn, and the landlord is one of the present church wardens — very handsome old church
‘of the conventual form’ as observed in Moore’s Buxton guide — They are going to new pew it, and have pulled up all
the floor — great many bones scattered about — saw a coffin which must have been very near the surface — noticed one
skull which had the upper teeth on the right side quite perfect, and the inside gum adhering to them — the skull, too, was covered
with short clammy hairs — noticed it as a male skull — yet the clerk told me it must have been interred 40
years — they buried all or rather would bury all the bones again as near as possible to the places where they were found — nobody said anything against
disturbing all these bones — the tabular monument, to the memory of Sampson Meurrill, records that in less than
2 years he fought 11 battles in France, and that he was knighted by the duke of Bedford at St. Luce — this monument
is the only 1 of the kind I ever remember to have seen — under the table of the monument lies the naked effigy of the
knight sculpted in grit stone, and rather reddened over — naked effigy, because though wrapt in a winding sheet
according to the manner of that time yet he being merely lying upon it, and it being only folded in a narrow fold just across his
middle, the rest being folded back along each side of him, the figure seems naked, except the head which (all but
a little of the face?) is covered — there is also a tabular monument to the memory of Robert Pursglove (bishop of Hull)
who died A. D. 1579 having endowed the free grammar school of Tideswell with property at that time to the amount of
£13.6.8, now said to produce upwards of £400 a year — the table of this monument is made interesting by the full
length portrait (probably a very good likeness) of the bishop engraved on brass — a flat stone in the chancel marks the
date of the church by recording that John son of Thomas Foljambe who died in 1358 ‘contributed largely towards the building of
the church’ — vide page 50/119 Moore’s Buxton Guide printed at Derby in 1819. the living is a vicarage — the clerk, a remarkably
civil intelligent man, said it was only worth about £100 a year, but the clergyman had the school (which the clerk valued
at 2 or £300 a year) and this made up — Thurstan de Bower and his wife were reared up against the end of the South
transept (traditionally said to have built this transept) to be put up again there or somewhere else where they might
stand more conveniently — 2 (nameless) single ladies, too, were reared up against the wall, waiting for their future destination —
Somehow this church, and the 2 monuments above named, interested me more than usual — the tower (a square one) is peculiar — ‘each corner
is surmounted with an octagonal turret, that is embattled and terminated by a pinnacle: in each space between
the turrets, is another pinnacle, smaller than those that are upon the turrets’ Moore’s Guide 48/119 — I inquired for
Wheston hall — about a mile from Tideswell — would be in my way if I returned by the old road through Fairfield to Buxton —
too bad, and hilly — the limestones so washed by the rain — so uncovered the horse could scarcely hold his feet when I went that
way to Cheetor — Wheston hall now occupied by Mr. Cheeke an attorney — let to him by the duke of Norfolk — there
is a small Roman Catholic chapel there — a fine old cross near the house, in the village — but 2 old crosses lately
destroyed there in making a new road about 13 or 14 years ago — Gave up all thought of Wheston, and after having been 3/4
hour at the church — and 25 minutes at the little Inn, set off home again — arrived in 1 1/2 hour at 3 p.m. — Dinner at 5 5/60 —
afterwards wrote 2 2/3 ppages and one end to my uncle giving a pretty good account of my aunt, and asking him to tear off and send Whitley the note I wrote
at the bottom of page 3 desiring him to pay Mr. Hering the £3.18.10 which I begged my uncle to enclose with the note —
the post office here open all night, said the tea maid, — Sent my letter to my uncle (Shibden) about 8 1/2 — tea at 8 —
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