Bruce Castle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Malleus Fatuorum (talk | contribs) at 00:57, 3 October 2008 (→‎The Hill School: a very short distance from -> close to). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Bruce Castle
Map
General information
Architectural styleElizabethan
LocationTottenham, London
Governing bodyLondon Borough of Haringey
This article is about the English manor house. For the village in Dominica, see Castle Bruce.

Bruce Castle (formerly the Lordship House) is a Grade I listed 16th century[1] manor house in Lordship Lane, Tottenham, London.

The house has been home to Sir William Compton, Richard Sackville, the Barons Coleraine and Sir Rowland Hill, among others, and after a period as a school, now houses a museum and the archives of the London Borough of Haringey, while the grounds now form Tottenham's oldest public park.

Origins of the name

The earliest known depiction of the house; detail of the 1619 Earl of Dorset's Survey of Tottenham. The Norman All Hallows Church and priory, then as now the oldest surviving buildings in the area, are also shown.[2]

The name derives from the House of Bruce, who had historically owned a third of the manor of Tottenham. However, there was no castle in the area at the time and the family are unlikely to have lived in the area.[3] Upon his ascension to the Scottish throne, Robert I of Scotland forfeited his lands in England,[3] along with any connection between the family and the area, the land then being granted to Richard Spigurnell and Thomas Hethe.[4]

The three parts of the manor of Tottenham were united in the early 15th century, under the Gedeney family, and have remained united since.[4]

In all early records, the building is referred to as the Lordship House. The name of "Bruce Castle" first appears to have been adopted by Henry Hare, 2nd Baron Coleraine (1636-1708),[3] although Lysons dates the usage of the name to the late 13th century.[4]

Construction

The round tower

A detached Tudor round tower standing immediately to the southeast of the house, and is generally considered the earliest part of the building,[5], although Lysons dates it to after the construction of the house.[4] The tower is built of local red brick, and is 21 feet (6.4 m) tall with walls 3 feet (0.91 m) thick. The purpose of the tower is not known; it is conjectured that it was built as a dovecote.[5] 2006 excavations demonstrated that the tower continues for some distance below the current ground level.[6]

Sources disagree on the date of construction of the current house, as no records survive of its construction. There is some archaeological evidence for the parts of the building dating to the 15th century,[5] Robinson's 1840 History and Antiquities of the Parish of Tottenham dates it to approximately 1514,[7] whilst the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments ascribes it to the late 16th century.

2006 excavations by the Museum of London uncovered the chalk foundations of an earlier building on the site, of which nothing is currently known.[6]

Although there is no archaeological evidence or surviving historical record of its construction and it does not appear in any illustrations, court rolls of 1742 refer to the repair of a drawbridge, implying that the building in this period had a moat.[5] A 1911 archaeological journal made passing reference to "the recent levelling of the moat".[8]

Early residents

It is generally believed that the earliest occupant of the house was Sir William Compton, Groom of the Stool to Henry VIII and one of the most prominent courtiers of the period, who acquired the manor of Tottenham in 1514.[5] There is no recorded evidence of Compton's living in the house, and as previously stated, the date of construction is in dispute and there is some evidence that the current building dates to a later period.[5]

The earliest reference to the building dates from 1516, when Henry VIII met his sister Margaret, Queen of Scots at "Maister Compton's House beside Tottenham".[7]

The Comptons owned the building throughout the 16th century, but few records of the family or the building survive from the period.[9]

Richard Sackville, by William Larkin.[10] Sackville's high debts led to the sale of the house to Hugh Hare.

In the early 17th century the house was owned by Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset and Lady Anne Clifford. Sackville ran up high debts through gambling and extravagant spending; the house (then still called "The Lordship House") was leased to Thomas Peniston and later sold to wealthy Norfolk landowner Hugh Hare.[11]

The 17th century: the Hare family

Hugh Hare, 1st Baron Coleraine

Hugh Hare (1606-1667) had inherited a large amount of money from his great-uncle Sir Nicholas Hare, Master of the Rolls. On the death of his father, his mother had remarried Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of Manchester, allowing the young Hugh Hare to rise rapidly in Court and social circles. He married Montagu's daughter by his first marriage and purchased the manor of Tottenham, including the Lordship House, in 1625, and was ennobled as Baron Coleraine shortly thereafter.[11]

Being closely associated with the court of Charles I, Hare's fortunes went into decline during the English Civil War. His castle at Longford and his house in Totteridge were seized by Parliamentary forces, and returned upon the Restoration in a severe state of disrepair. Records of Tottenham from the period are now lost, and it is not known what happened at the Lordship House during the period.[11]

Hugh Hare died at his home in Totteridge in 1667, having choked to death on a bone attempting to eat turkey whilst laughing and drinking,[11] and was succeeded by his son Henry Hare, 2nd Baron Coleraine.

Henry Hare, 2nd Baron Coleraine

Henry Hare (1635–1680) settled at the Lordship House, renaming it Bruce Castle in honour of the area's historic connection with the House of Bruce.[3] Hare was a noted historian and author of the first history of Tottenham. He grew up at the Hare family house at Totteridge, and it is not known when he moved to Tottenham; at the time of the birth of his first child, Hugh, in 1668, the family were still living in Totteridge, while by the time of the death of his first wife Constantia in 1680 the family were living in Bruce Castle, and according to Hare Constantia was buried in All Hallows Church in Tottenham. However, the parish register for the period is complete and makes no mention of her death or burial.[12]

Following the death of Constantia, Hare married Sarah Alston, to whom he had been engaged in 1661 but had instead married John Seymour, 4th Duke of Somerset. There is evidence that during Sarah's marriage to Seymour and Hare's marriage to Constantia, a close relationship was sustained between them.[13]

The Ghostly Lady of Bruce Castle

Although sources such as Pegram speculate that Constantia committed suicide in the face of a continued relationship between Hare and the Duchess of Somerset,[13] little is known about her life and the circumstances of her early death, and the castle is reputed to be haunted by her ghost.[14] The earliest recorded reference to the ghost appeared in 1858 – almost two hundred years after her death – in the Tottenham & Edmonton Advertiser.

A lady of our acquaintance was introduced at a party to an Indian Officer who, hearing that she came from Tottenham, eagerly asked if she had seen the Ghostly Lady of Bruce Castle. Some years before he had been told the following story by a brother officer when encamped on a march in India. One of the Lords Coleraine had married a beautiful lady and while she was yet in her youth had been seized with a violent hatred against her – whether from jealousy or not is not known. He first confined her to the upper part of the house and subsequently still more closely to the little rooms of the clock turret. These rooms looked on the balconies: the lady one night succeeded in forcing her way out and flung herself with child in arms from the parapet. The wild despairing shriek aroused the household only to find her and her infant in death's clutches below. Every year as the fearful night comes round (it is in November) the wild form can be seen as she stood on the fatal parapet, and her despairing cry is heard floating away on the autumnal blast.[15][12]

The legend has now been largely forgotten, and there have been no reported sightings of the ghost in recent times.[14]

Residents in the 18th century

Sarah Hare died in 1692 and was buried in Westminster Abbey,[13] and Hare in 1708, to be succeeded by his grandson Henry Hare, 3rd Baron Coleraine. Henry Hare was a leading antiquary, residing only briefly at Bruce Castle between lengthy tours of Europe; during his ownership, the interior of the house was remodelled and the current ornamental staircase installed in the east wing. His marriage was not consummated, and following an affair with a French woman, Rosa du Plessis, du Plessis bore him his only child, a daughter named Henrietta Rosa Peregrina, born in France in 1745.[16] Hare died in 1749 leaving his estates to the four-year-old Henrietta, but her claim was rejected due to her French nationality. After many years of legal challenges, the estates, including Bruce Castle, were granted to her husband James Townsend, who she had married at age 18.[16]

James Townsend was a leading citizen of the day. He served as a magistrate, was Member of Parliament for West Looe, and in 1772 became Lord Mayor of London, whilst Henrietta was a prominent artist, many of whose engravings of 18th century Tottenham survive in the Bruce Castle Museum.[16]

James and Henrietta Townsend's son, Henry Hare Townsend, showed little interest in the area or in the traditional role of the Lord of the Manor. After leasing the house to a succession of tenants, the house and grounds were sold in 1792 to Thomas Smith of Gray's Inn as a country residence.

John Eardley Wilmot

John Eardley Wilmot was Member of Parliament for Tiverton (1776–1784) and Coventry (1784–1796), and in 1783 led the Parliamentary Commission investigating the events that had lead to the American Revolution. He also led the processing of compensation claims, and the supply of basic housing and provisions, for the 60,000 Loyalist refugees who arrived in England in the aftermath of the independence of the United States.[17]

Following the French Revolution in 1789, a second wave of refugees arrived in England. Although the British government on this occasion did not offer organised relief to refugees, Wilmot, in association with William Wilberforce, Edmund Burke and George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham, founded "Wilmot's Committee", which raised funds to provide accommodation and food, and found employment for refugees from France, large numbers of whom settled in the Tottenham area.[17]

In 1804, Wilmot retired to Bruce Castle to write his memoirs of the American Revolution, and his role in the investigations of its causes and consequences. They were published shortly before his death in 1815.[17]

After Wilmot's death the house and its grounds were purchased by London merchant John Ede, who demolished building's west wing.[17] It was never rebuilt, resulting in the current "skewed" shape of the building. In 1827, Ede sold the house and grounds to Worcestershire educationalist Rowland Hill, for use as a school.

The Hill School

Sir Rowland Hill

Hill and his brothers had taken over the management of their father's school in Birmingham in 1819, which moved to Bruce Castle in 1827 with Rowland Hill as Headmaster. The school was run along radical lines inspired by Hill's friends Thomas Paine, Richard Price and Joseph Priestley;[18] all teaching was on the principle that the role of the teacher is to instill the desire to learn, not to impart facts, corporal punishment was abolished and alleged transgressions were tried by a court of pupils, while the school taught a radical (for the time) curriculum including foreign languages, science and engineering.[19][20] Amongst other pupils, the school taught the sons of many London-based diplomats, particularly from the newly-independent nations of South America, and the sons of computing pioneer Charles Babbage.[19]

In 1839 Rowland Hill, who had written an influential proposal on postal reform, was appointed as head of the General Post Office (where he introduced the world's first postage stamps), leaving the school in the hands of his younger brother Arthur Hill.[19] Arthur retired in 1868, leaving the school in the hands of his son Birkbeck Hill.

During the period of the School's operation, the character of the area had changed beyond recognition. Historically, Tottenham had consisted of four villages on Ermine Street (later the A10 road), surrounded by marshland and farmland.[21] The construction of the Northern and Eastern Railway in 1840, with stations at Tottenham Hale and Marsh Lane (later Northumberland Park), made commuting from Tottenham to central London feasible for the first time (albeit by a circuitous eight-mile route via Stratford, more than double the distance of the direct road route), as well as direct connections to the Port of London.[22] In 1872 the Great Eastern Railway opened a direct line from Enfield to Liverpool Street station,[23] including a station at Bruce Grove, close to Bruce Castle.[24] As a major rail hub, Tottenham grew into a significant residential and industrial area; by the end of the 19th century, the only remaining undeveloped areas were the grounds of Bruce Castle itself, and the waterlogged floodplains of the River Lee at Tottenham Marshes and the River Moselle at Broadwater Farm.[21]

In 1877 Birkbeck Hill retired from the post of Headmaster, ending the association of the Hill family with the school; the school itself closed in 1891, at which time the house and grounds were purchased by Tottenham Council. The grounds of the house opened to the public as Bruce Castle Park in June 1892, the first public park in Tottenham.[25] The house opened to the public as Bruce Castle Museum in 1906.[26][27]

Heraud's Tottenham

Bruce Castle was among the buildings mentioned in John Abraham Heraud's 1835 Spenserian epic, Tottenham, a romantic depiction of the life of Robert the Bruce:[28]

Lovely is moonlight to the poet's eye,

That in a tide of beauty bathes the skies,
Filling the balmy air with purity,
Silent and lone, and on the greensward dies—
But when on ye her heavenly slumber lies,
TOWERS OF BRUS! 'tis more than lovely then.—
For such sublime associations rise,
That to young fancy's visionary ken,

'Tis like a maniac's dream — fitful and still again.[29]

Bruce Castle Museum

The museum now holds the archives of the London Borough of Haringey, and houses a permanent exhibition on the past, present and future of Haringey and its predecessor boroughs, and temporary displays on the history of the area.[25] Other exhibits include an exhibition on Rowland Hill and postal history,[28] a significant collection of early photography, a collection of historic manorial documents and court rolls related to the area,[30] and one of the few copies of the Spurs Opus, the complete history of Tottenham Hotspur F.C., available for public viewing.[31]

In July 2006 the grounds were the location of a major community archaeological dig in 2006, organised by the Museum of London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre as part of the centenary celebrations of the opening of Bruce Castle Museum,[6] in which large numbers of local youths took part.[32][33] As well as large quantities of discarded everyday objects, the chalk foundations of what appear to be an earlier house on the site were exposed.[6]

Footnotes and references

  1. ^ Sources differ as to the date of construction; some sources date the current building to the 15th century. However, most agree that the current house was dates from the 16th century, although there is disagreement as to the exact date.
  2. ^ As with most other English maps of the period, the map is aligned south-north (e.g. "upside down" when compared to modern maps). The alignment of streets in the area is preserved today; the road running east-west is the present day Lordship Lane, and that running north-south past the church is the present day Church Lane; Bruce Grove does not yet exist, but its eventual route can be seen in the field boundaries running diagonally immediately south of the castle. The large field opposite the house (marked "Lease") is the northeast corner of the water-meadow which became Broadwater Farm. The fields to the east of Church Lane are the present Bruce Castle Park, while those to the west surrounding the church now form part of Tottenham Cemetery.
    Neither the depiction of the house nor the church is architecturally accurate.
  3. ^ a b c d Pegram, Jean. From Manor House... to Museum. Haringey History Bulletin. Vol. 28. London: Hornsey Historical Society. p. 2. ISBN 0903481057.
  4. ^ a b c d Lysons, Daniel (1795). "Tottenham". The Environs of London. 3. London: 517–557. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Pegram, page 3
  6. ^ a b c d "Bruce Castle Park community excavation, 2006". Museum of London. 2006. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  7. ^ a b Robinson, William (1840). History and Antiquities of the Parish of Tottenham (2 ed.). London. p. 216.
  8. ^ Page, William (1911). "Ancient Earthworks". A History of the County of Middlesex. 2: 1–14. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  9. ^ Pegram, page 4
  10. ^ An added inscription on this painting misidentifies the sitter as Edward Sackville, Richard's younger brother, later 4th Earl of Dorset. See Karen Hearn, ed. Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630. New York: Rizzoli, 1995. ISBN 0-8478-1940-X, p. 198-199
  11. ^ a b c d Pegram, page 5
  12. ^ a b Pegram, page 6
  13. ^ a b c Pegram, page 7
  14. ^ a b Underwood, Peter (1992). The A-Z of British Ghosts. London: Chancellor Press. pp. 146–147. ISBN 1-85152-194-1.
  15. ^ "The Ghostly Lady of Bruce Castle". Tottenham & Edmonton Advertiser (March 1858).
  16. ^ a b c Pegram, page 8
  17. ^ a b c d Pegram, page 9
  18. ^ Watts, Ruth (2005). Malcolm Dick (ed.). Joseph Priestly and his influence on education in Birmingham. Brewin Books.
  19. ^ a b c Pegram, page 10
  20. ^ A printing press designed by Rowland Hill and built by pupils of the school is currently on display at London's Science Museum. At this time, school curricula were almost always restricted to the classics; for a school to include engineering in the curriculum was almost unique.
  21. ^ a b "Tottenham Growth after 1850". A History of the County of Middlesex. 5. Victoria County History: 317–324. 1976. Retrieved 2007-06-06.
  22. ^ Lake, G.H. (1945). The Railways of Tottenham. London: Greenlake Publications Ltd. pp. 12–13. ISBN 1 899890 26 2.
  23. ^ Lake, page 22
  24. ^ Connor, Jim (2004). Branch Lines to Enfield Town and Palace Gates. Midhurst: Middleton Press. ISBN 1 904474 32 2.
  25. ^ a b "Bruce Castle Museum". London Borough of Haringey. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  26. ^ Pegram, page 11
  27. ^ "Haringey". Museum of London. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  28. ^ a b "Haringey". Hidden London. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  29. ^ Heraud, John Abraham (1835). "Tottenham: A Poem". Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  30. ^ "New Bruce Castle document sheds light on Tottenham history". London Borough of Haringey. 2007-08-31. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  31. ^ Fontaine, Valley (2008-09-26). "Spurs well and truly books, Bruce Castle Museum". BBC News. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  32. ^ "Financial statement, year ending 31 March 2007" (PDF). Museum of London. 2007-10-04. p. 17. Retrieved 2008-10-02.
  33. ^ "Locals invited to muck in at Bruce Castle". Museum of London. 2006-07-03. Retrieved 2008-10-02.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bruce_Castle&oldid=242636673"