Artistic Connections with Brignall and the Mill
Sir Walter Scott, the distinguished Victorian
novelist, was a frequent visitor at Rokeby Park (four miles
from the Mill) and wrote his poem “Rokeby” inspired
by the locality.
Up the river from the Park, above Brignall, and close
to the Mill, is Scargill Cliff, a spot interesting to readers
of "Rokeby." Walter Scott represents Guy Deuzil
and his lawless band living here in a cave with
"A little entrance low and square,
Like opening cell of hermit lone,
Dark winding through the living stone."
It is possible to see the old entrance to such a cave on
the riverbank walk between the Mill and The Morritt Arms
and dark winding through the living stone really
describes this spot so well…
Sir Walter Scott, wrote about the locality in Rokeby
but he also wrote a poem specifically referring to Brignall
Banks which surround the Mill itself.
Brignall Banks
O, BRIGNALL banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there,
Would grace a summer queen:
And as I rode by Dalton Hall,
Beneath the turrets high,
A Maiden on the castle wall
Was singing merrily:—
'O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green!
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English Queen.'
'If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me
To leave both tower and town,
Thou first must guess what life lead we,
That dwell by dale and down:
And if thou canst that riddle read,
As read full well you may,
Then to the green-wood shalt thou speed
As blithe as Queen of May.'
Yet sung she, 'Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are green!
I'd rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English Queen.
'I read you by your bugle horn
And by your palfrey good,
I read you for a Ranger sworn
To keep the King's green-wood.'
'A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn,
And 'tis at peep of light;
His blast is heard at merry morn,
And mine at dead of night.'
Yet sung she, 'Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are gay!
I would I were with Edmund there,
To reign his Queen of May!
'With burnish'd brand and musketoon
So gallantly you come,
I read you for a bold Dragoon,
That lists the tuck of drum.'
'I list no more the tuck of drum,
No more the trumpet hear;
But when the beetle sounds his hum,
My comrades take the spear.
'And O! though Brignall banks be fair,
And Greta woods be gay,
Yet mickle must the maiden dare,
Would reign my Queen of May!
'Maiden! a nameless life I lead,
A nameless death I'll die;
The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!
And when I'm with my comrades met
Beneath the green-wood bough,
What once we were we all forget,
Nor think what we are now.'
Chorus. Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather flowers there
Would grace a summer queen.
The poem contains a riddle and does not give an answer
to it – anyone with a plausible answer please let
me know…I have my own theories involving demon lovers
and the like.
Not only did one of our greatest English writers make the
Brignall Gorge his subject, one of our greatest English
landscape artists, J.M.W. Turner,1775-1851,
painted here…
An engraving of Turner’s watercolour of the old church
at Brignall survives. Here is a description of it:
The River Greta runs through a gorge; a small church
and churchyard can be seen on a flat piece of ground beside
the river in the middle distance. In the immediate foregound
can be seen the tops of a dense tangle of trees; a boy climbs
one to retrieve a kite.
This engraving was the last but one plate in T. D. Whitaker's
"The History of Richmondshire, in the North Riding
of Yorkshire", of 1823.
The engraving was first catalogued in 1870, when John Ruskin
(foremost art critic of his age) placed it 'as an example
of the best English painting and engraving of recent times',
able to capture local colour and subtle tones of light -
particularly distinguishing between the evening light on
the hills, and the light of the moon. He also praised Turner's
design, 'among the loveliest of all Turner's local landscapes'.
In "Lectures on Landscape" he described the
strength symbolised by the boy climbing to retrieve his
kite, and the final end indicated by the gravestones in
the churchyard. His students were to model themselves upon
the boy, rather than those who flew falcons and war-eagles;
and to learn to accept death as the final rest.
Ruskin moralising in true Victorian fashion but fascinating
all the same.
The original painting was destroyed in a fire in 1877 and
Ruskin expresses regret at what a pale imitation the engraving
is.
Turner also painted a watercolour of the view of the castle
from the river at Barnard Castle which is justifiably world
famous.
John Sell Cotman (born 1782)
painted scenes in Yorkshire and Durham and they are widely considered
to be among the finest watercolours ever painted and are justifiably
world famous. He discovered the River Greta in 1805 and painted some of
his best pictures of scenes only a couple of miles from the Mill.
He mentions in a letter that he rode to "the Mill on the ford"
(almost certainly Brignall Mill) and that two sketches were made on the
expedition but they are lost. The river is so unspoilt and
unchanged in the last two hundred years that it is quite possible to
recognise some of the exact spots which Cotman represents in his
paintings. Two paintings of Greta Bridge survive and one of
the bathing pool above the bridge is very similar to the scene today.
The painting of Scotchman's stone shows a stone largely
unchanged in two centuries - I guess the boulder is so large that
even the Greta in full flood is unable to shift it.
David Hill's book Cotman in the North is a scholarly account of Cotman's work with many colour reproductions and a full account of his work around Brignall.
Other historical information
