The Henson Journals

[191]

Monday, April 12th to Saturday, April 17th, 1915. Lichfield.

We travelled to Lichfield in order to visit the Charnwoods, who there live in the house of Mrs Thorpe, Lady Charnwood's mother. We were fortunate in the article of weather, and enjoyed our stay very much. The view of the cathedral from my dressing–room was admirable. We visited the Cathedral, which is very pretty, & contains some good things. Especially charming is the Flemish glass in the Lady Chapel. The monument to Bishop Hacket is adorned with a very long Latin eulogy, which emphasizes his merits as a protagonist against the 'Babylonian' superstition of the Jesuits. Hacket's palace, an old timbered mansion in the corner of the Close, has been replaced by a larger house built by a later bishop. We visited the market–place where Dr Johnson did his famous penance, and his father's house, which now contains an interesting collection of Johnsoniana. I also went to the church on the hill, where lie the sage's parents beneath a slab inscribed with a Latin epitaph from his hand. On Tuesday afternoon we motored to Repton, where we visited the parish church dedicated to St Wynstan. It has a notably beautiful spire, and a remarkably interesting Saxon crypt. In the vicarage garden a grass–covered mound is said to contain the bones of the Mercian kings. The extensive ruins of a conventional church are incorporated in the buildings of the public school, which has made Repton widely known. We visited also the parish church of Elton, which has no great claims of its own, but contains the fine tombs of the Stanley family. These recumbent statues of the 14th & 15th centuries are noble examples of medieval art. I walked much with Charnwood, whom I found an intelligent though somewhat pedantic person, enormously impressed with his public importance as a member of the House of Lords. Mrs Thorpe is an exceptionally well–read lady.