House survived the Great Fire
I watched Rebecca on TV again last week. I have seen it so many times in various versions I can almost say the lines with the characters! Seeing the evil Mrs Danvers once more made me think of the Danvers family of Northamptonshire.
They lived in Culworth, near Brackley, but one member made his home in Northampton's Market Square in the famous Welsh House, also known locally as Dr Danvers' House.
It was originally built in 1595 and owes its Welsh association to the times when the drovers brought sheep down the Welsh Lane to the markets of Banbury and Northampton in medieval times.
In the 1920s it suffered by having its frontage ruined. Large shop windows appeared when the ground floor was converted into commercial premises housing three shops including The Army Stores.
Then 50 years later in 1972 it was proposed to demolish the Welsh House completely. Can you believe it?
It was one of very few buildings to survive the Great Fire of 1675 and the only one in the Market Square.
Even the stone market cross erected in 1535 was destroyed in that blaze.
Thankfully, after a great deal of discussion, it was decided not to raze the Welsh House to the ground, but to rebuild it at the mouth of the Grosvenor Centre with Church's China relocating from the much mourned Emporium Arcade.
So the building has seen many changes over the centuries, but it is still very beautiful even though it is dwarfed by its modern bedfellows.
I hope people stop to look up at its lovely stone frontage with the three shields, the arms and the Welsh motto, HEB DYW. HEB DYM. DWYA DIGON. Without God, without everything. With God enough.
One of the shields, the initials WEP and the date 1595, suggest that the house may at that time have been built or at least occupied by the Parker family. John Parker had been sergeant-at-law in Northampton and his son, Samuel, who was born in the town, became Bishop of Oxford in 1686. By this time, the Parkers had left the Welsh House.
But it was in 1675, when it was the home of Dr Daniel Danvers, that the house saw its most courageous moment. "The spacious Market-hill was covered with all sorts of wares and goods, which the affrighted owners were forced to leave when they were enclosed by a wall of fire," says a contemporary document, "and only one little door led them to escape out by Mr Danvers's house, which was the only house that remained in the square."
Indeed many hundreds of people sought refuge there and escaped the conflagration by rushing through the house and into the open fields beyond.
Dr Danvers was one of the Commissioners named by an Act of Parliament for the rebuilding of Northampton. He died in 1699.
Much later the Welsh House was used for a while as the offices of the Northampton Herald and during that time a small oratory was uncovered on the staircase.
Quite what form this took is not clear, but it may have been a small niche for a statue of some kind.
So Dr Daniel Danvers was the only member of the family to make his home in Northampton, the rest all lived in Culworth.
Although I doubt that any of the family still lives there, Danvers is preserved in the name of the electoral ward in South Northamptonshire that takes in 10 beautiful villages.
One day I shall explore the Danvers family in more detail. I fancy there may be a few skeletons in the Culworth cupboards!
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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