Identifier: cu31924014023463 (find matches)
Title: The cottages and the village life of rural England
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson), 1854-1930 Quinton, A.R
Subjects: Cottages Villages
Publisher: London, J.M. Dent & sons ltd. New York, E.P. Dutton & co.
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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the hall With revel, wassal-rout and brawl; Methought that still with trump and clang The gateways broken arches rang : Methought grim features, seard with scars, Gazed through the windows rusty bars. The Scots of Harden and other clans lived by these raids.One Walter Scot became tired of the warfare and lazy in the daysof Queen Mary. One day on sitting down to dinner he and hisretainers, when the cover of a huge dish was raised, beheld simplya pair of clean spurs. It was a hint from the lairds wife thatthey must shift for their next meal. So Scot of Harden soundedhis bugle, mounted his horse, set out with his followers, andreturned next day with a bow of kye and a bassend (brindled)bull. These peel-towers were raised to defend the homesteads onthe Borders from the marauding Scots, and though time hasdestroyed many, many a farmstead contains the kernel of thelower storey of a tower, around which the rest of the buildingshave been erected. The name, peel, is derived from the wooden 40
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LIFE OF RURAL ENGLAND palisade which guarded the farm and its buildings ; but as woodenfortifications were easily destroyed by fire, the great weapon ofthe freebooters, stoneworks were substituted, and then a towerraised, and hence the word was transferred from the oaken palisadeto the stone tower. It had a vaulted basement, which was thestorehouse of the family, and above the common room of the family.On the third storey was the womens bower, while at the top werestationed the fighting men who kept watch and ward, and had abeacon ready to summon aid from a neighbouring peel. Such werethe original structures. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuriesother buildings were added, a hall and solar, and some have deve-loped into country houses with much luxury and refinement,such as Levens, Bleage, and Barton; while others are in ruins,such as Arnside, Lammerside, and Capperside, while the majorityare farmhouses and retain recollections of the sad times whenfire and sword swept the country

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