Another pub on a long,
long walk. A solid reason for turning in a little
early the night before was that this day was to be
a long haul over the tops into Wensleydale, but I
calculated we could make it to Bainbridge for lunch.
The weather was foul, the wind blew, we were tired,
and we only made it to the Rose & Crown in time
for lunch orders because I ran the last half mile
with a rucksack on my back. It was worth the run.
Hanging on the wall of
the Rose & Crown in Bainbridge was "Ex profundis",
a nice little piece of writing about Dr. Johnson and
his opinions of English pubs. I jotted it down, and
it is reproduced here for your pleasure.
Ex
profundis
Dr.Johnson, that indefatigable hitter of nails on
the head, is among those who have paid tribute to
what his descendants call pubs. "There is nothing,"
said the doctor, never once to mince his statements,
"in which so much happiness is produced as a
good tavern or inn." It is difficult to dispute
the theory that man is on the whole a kinder nicer
animal when he is standing in a pub with a glass in
his hand making friends with perfect strangers. The
point of view is that men who like pubs are less mean
in the mind and less pinched in the soul than most
of those who don't.
The Rose and Crown Hotel
is a Fifteenth Century coaching inn which (they tell
us) has an old established and enviable reputation
as the "Pride of Wensleydale". I am not
sure how much consideration they gave to cheese or
sheep or scenery, but there we have it.
The pub is nicely situated
overlooking the village green, which is complete with
possibly medieval stocks. At one time, every village
in England had its own stocks, due to legislation
passed in 1405. They were apparently a sign of civilization,
telling the world that there is indeed a civilized
judicial system in this here town and you had better
watch out or we will tie you up, beat you senseless
and throw rotten fruit at you semi-conscious body.
Some stocks go back to Saxon times. Of course some
villages just went all-out for the appearance of stern
justice and installed the full compliment of restraint
devices: The stocks (where the feet were secured);
the pillory (where the head and hands were "held
in durance vile"); and the whipping post (which
saved time by simply restraining the hands of the
victim while they were whipped repeatedly).
There is a nice road bridge
over the River Bain (hence Bainbridge, how did they
come up with that?), which is apparently the shortest
river in Britain, running the couple of miles from
Semerwater to the main Wensleydale river, the Ure.
Semerwater is one of only
half a dozen pieces of standing water in the Yorkshire
Dales and seems to evoke differing opinions. After
being told how beautiful the little lake was, Alfred
Wainwright, the revered hiking writer, trekked up
here specifically to wax lyrical about it, but instead
declared it a "muddy puddle" and promptly
went down to the pub. True, it is not immense, barely
qualifying as a lake, more of a tarn, but it is pretty,
and the River Bain is quite picturesque, with a nice
path along its banks.
Bainbridge was originally
a settlement in the forest of Wensleydale and this
memory lives on with the blowing of the forest horn
each evening from Holy Rood (September 27th) to Shrovetide.
The horn was blown to guide the travelers to the security
of the village, and it still hangs to this day in
the paneled hallway of the Rose and Crown. We were
so busy eating like starving Armenians that I never
did see the horn, but Doris, who did see it, tells
me it was nice.
Standing above Bainbridge
and clearly visible from both up and down the Dale
is the imposing Roman hill fort of Virosidum, which
once held up to five hundred Roman soldiers. Not much
is known about it, though in my research one scholar
declared: "What little is known of the fort indicates
that it was an important outpost guarding Wensleydale."
Well, I could tell him that much.
