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DONCASTER, PONTEFRACT AND TOWTON
In Edwardian times the story was -
IT is a grey morning. Now and then a splash of rain whips across the window pane, or a sobbing wind slips in and stirs the curtains gently. The sky is dark with rough clouds, and there is every sign of breaking weather. I will not travel on the long road to York, stored as it is with very noble memories, until the sun shines and I can do them justice. In the meantime it is pleasant to linger in the comely streets of Doncaster, which is in a truer sense than Bawtry the gate of Yorkshire; for in this town, built to command the passage of the Don, more than one north country storm cloud has broken and discharged itself in blood.
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Doncaster Market
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To me it seems that all the north country, properly so called, lies beyond the Don, if not indeed beyond the Humber. There is nothing in the aspect of Doncaster today which marks it as distinct from any other trim and prosperous town in the great midland shires, where burly, good-humoured farmers go about the streets, and life is slow and ruminating. From time to time the town wakes up to busy life and action; but that is in the autumn, when the slim racehorses are brought out of the station with quivering nostrils and large, timid eyes, tossing their delicate heads and starting nervously at every sound. Then the crowds gather thickly under the tall trees that flank the avenues beside the racecourse on the London road; and the cool autumn sun shines down on a scene of tense excitement which breaks into roars like thunder when the horses get away from the starting-post, and now one and now another draws before the rest. But in the months that lie between those tumultuous days of fete, Doncaster slumbers as soundly almost as the Roman Emperor who is fabled to lie buried at the corner of Hall Gate, forgotten by the townsmen tramping to and fro above him.
Sleepy the town may be, but it is admirably comfortable; and thus we find that poets, who generally start upon their
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Doncaster Guildhall
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loftiest flights from spots where their baser parts are best attended to, have sung at some length the praises of its civic head:
"Sweet girls of Pindus, hither bring
Your drums and bagpipes hollow
The Mayor of Doncaster I sing
Assist me, oh Apollo!"
It was vastly well for the author of this tripping verse, aided by the god whom he piously invoked, to celebrate the pomp of the municipality. But Apollo is not likely to help me with my prose; and so I must choose humbler subjects. I go wandering through the goodly, well-kept streets, till I reach the bank of the deep and treacherous river,
"The shelving slimy river Don,
Each year a daughter or a son"
as the half-forgotten rhyme puts it, with some trace of that old pagan fancy which saw in a stream of flowing water a cruel, sentient thing, drawing now one and now another to death within its embraces.
On
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Doncaster Minster
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a little knoll stands the once ancient parish church, an old building reconstructed, dominating the town from this side with some grandeur : and before me lies the town bridge, crossing the river in the very spot where all the chivalry of Northern England on an October day in 1536 lay beneath the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ, a gallant host of thirty thousand men well armed and encamped on the further bank of the river, in full face of the royal army which King Henry VIII. had sent to check them, and against which they were as four to one. Thus early in our wanderings in Yorkshire have we encountered the most bitter of north country tragedies, one of which the scars and ruin will confront us again and again in the records of ruined families and slaughtered monks. Whatever may have been the truth of the charges brought against the conduct of the monasteries, there was nothing in this great armed protest against their suppression which was not noble. Those who made it were the very pith and marrow of the northern counties, men who all their lives had been warders of England against the raiding Scots, veteran soldiers, hoary statesmen, peaceful country gentlemen, hot-blooded lads, all of whom had been taught to look with awe on the houses of religion so richly endowed by the piety of their ancestors, so exquisitely built when other dwellings had no beauty save that of strength, hallowed by the most sacred associations of four centuries, the burial-places of their fathers, the schools where they themselves were taught. To the abbots and priors they had resorted for advice in every difficulty; from their number they had chosen the executors of their wills and the trustees of their estates there was no intimate transaction of their lives in which the monks were not concerned, and that not as intruders, but as wise friends willingly consulted. These trusted counsellors it was who were torn suddenly from the midst of the society which relied on them, and which had no substitutes to take their place. That society would have been base indeed if it had struck no blow in their defence.
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Bradshaw’s Railways Guide for DONCASTER in 1866
Population 16,406. A telegraph station. Hotel—Royal. Market Day—Saturday. Fairs—Feb 2nd, April 5th, August 5th, and Nov 16th. Races—Third week in September and March.
The Roman Danam, and Saxon Donacastre, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on the river Don, and the North Midland Railway, best known for its Races, established in 1703, in March and September. The most important race is the St. Leger, in September, for 3-year old horses, so called from a sporting man who established it in the last century. The course for the St. Leger is 1 3/4 miles round, and was run by Mr. Peirse's "Reveller'' in 1818, in 3 minutes 15 seconds; in 1846, "Sir Tatton Sykes" ran it in 3 minutes 16 seconds. Everything relating to the ground and the Race Stands, is carefully kept up by the Corporation, to whom they produce a valuable yearly income of £2,000. Another feature of the town is the beautiful Church, now in the course of erection, by J. G. Scott, at a cost of £60,000, in place of the one destroyed by fire Feb. 28th, 1853. Christ Church was built and endowed by the Jarratt family. Doncaster is clean and well built. Among the principal buildings are the new Town Hall and Mansion House, and Markets. Lacy, the dramatist, was a native; and Miller, the historian, a resident; and the Yorkshire Deaf and Dumb School, founded in 1829.
It was here, in 1536, that Aske, the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace (a rising of 40,000, in favour of the old religion), met the herald of Henry VIII, who took him to court, and afterwards hung him at York. The scenery is rather tame, but the flat carrs (carse land in Scotland), to the east, having been well drained, are very fertile - much clover and woad are raised, and hunters, of course, are bred. Vast quantities of potatoes also are grown on the warp land, near the Trent and Humber.
Near Doncaster are the following: — Cusworth, the residence of W. B Wrightson, Esq., MP, situate
on a hill, with a view of Lincoln and York Cathedrals. Wheatlev Hall, Sir W. Cooke, Bart., was built about
1680. Sprotborough, Sir J. W. Copley, Bart. Tickhill Castle, at present the seat of the Earl of Scarborough
is near to Sandbeck, and has in its immediate neighbomhood the picturesque ruins of Roche Abbey.
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So there the host lay along the further bank of the river Don, menacing and angry, a splendid and pathetic protest against the progress of resistless forces which were even then moulding the old feudal world into a modern shape; and if it had attacked the King's small army, who can doubt that it might have set back the hands of the clock for a few hours still ? But the powers which rule events are not to be so flouted. Robert Aske, that simple lawyer and country gentleman, who emerges from obscurity as a leader of this great army, was filled with noble scruples, and dispersed his troops on a pledge of redress of grievances. The action was as prudent as that of a swallow which builds its nest in the crater of Vesuvius, trusting that the fires will never break out again. The King's wrath burst forth; the blood of noble gentlemen who trusted him was poured out like water; and the whole great tragedy swept onwards to a close of which we can say nothing but "Alas, alas!"
It is long, very long ago since Robert Aske went bravely to the scaffold, while the gibbets stood thickly by the wayside in every part of Yorkshire. But he and his comrades are not yet forgotten, their sturdy manhood is a cherished memory in Yorkshire, and it may be that he would not have deemed his life a wasted one had he known how many of those who hear his story told after three centuries can still say of him that he did well.
It is time to leave Doncaster, yet before I go I have another tale to tell . . . [some other time perhaps]
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Large portions of this page are based upon the book “Highways and Byways in Yorkshire” by Arthur H Norway; 1899
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