Читать книгу Nooks and Corners of Lancashire and Cheshire - James Croston - Страница 12

He that is unmerciful, mercy shall miss;

But he shall have mercy that merciful is.

And on the inside:—

Love God and not gold,

Sleep not until U consider how U have spent the time;

If well, thank God; if not, repent.

There were formerly in this room, and may be now, a helmet, breastplate, and pair of spurs that were supposed to have belonged to John Bradshaw, but which are more likely to have been worn by his elder brother Henry, the Parliamentarian soldier. On the window of the same chamber is inscribed the well-known prophetic lines that John is said to have written when a lad attending the Macclesfield Grammar School. On the right of the entrance hall are two small chambers, of comparatively little interest; and adjoining them is the servants’ hall, the most noticeable feature in which is a moulding in stucco, and here also is repeated the family arms—argent, two bendlets sable, between as many martlets of the second; with the crest, a stag at gaze under a vine tree fructed ppr., and the motto, “Bona Benemerenti Benedictio.” A passage in the rear of the house communicates with a door on the north or terrace front, on the lintel of which is carved the date 1658. The outbuildings are extensive. They are partly of stone and partly of brick, and with their quaint gables, pinnacles, and clock tower form a very picturesque grouping. They are commonly supposed to have been erected by “Colonel” Henry Bradshaw, for the accommodation of his Roundhead troopers; but the idea is dispelled by the initials

B

H E

and the date, 1669, which may still be discerned—an evidence that they were erected in more peaceable times by Henry, the Colonel’s son and successor, who, as we have seen, married Elizabeth Barcroft, and became heir to much of his uncle’s wealth. Altogether, the old place is a deeply-interesting memorial of times now happily gone by. Its history is especially instructive, and it is impossible to wander through its antiquated chambers without recalling some of the momentous scenes and incidents in the country’s annals. Happily, evil hands have not fallen upon it. It is preserved with jealous care; and from the few changes it has undergone we gather the idea—always a pleasant one—that here antiquity is reverenced for its worth.