Wales
More about Wales
The following extract from the Leeds Mercury details Wales as it was in 1900.
In this connection, Wales itself - where I have completed the 390th mile of my itinerary - has been described to me as the civilest village in Yorkshire. Profane language, with its concomitants, drunkenness, and the vices for which men and women used to go to Tyburn, are singularly rare; and hypocrites and bullies do not find the soil congenial. Nobody vilifies his neighbour; tenants are not evicted, while the collier or labourer who gets through misfortune into minor difficulties is soon rescued from the slough of despond by willing friends. Thus does the little community live in love and charity.
The two inns are wonderfully quiet and orderly at all times, though a little healthy conversation may be found going on there on a Saturday evening. If ever a few colliers have gathered there, and a poor mendicant comes in, he can have a capful of pennies and halfpennies in a very short time to help him on his road. While I was there a customer brought in for the inspection of my host and hostess a twisted glass walking stick, clear as crystal, five feet in length, tubular, and filled with sections of coloured spice beads, the whole having a most beautiful lustrous effect. It was made by a Wales man who had been a glass blower.
A circuitous road is often better than a direct one. This is palpable enough, for I had taken the good old Highway from Woodhouse to Shireoaks I should have seen nothing of Wales, which lies "on the road to nowhere." It is a wonder if one of my readers have not received a shock at the prominence I have given to this name, but up to the present time I have not been the recipient of a letter from anybody drawing my attention to the fact that Wales is a hundred or two miles beyond the latitude and longitude allotted to a Yorkshire itinerary. Better not to be too hasty, for, after all, Wales, like Blubberhouses, is in Yorkshire. Strange to say, the chief inn is the "Leeds Arms," most of the land in this district belonging to the Duke of Leeds, whose ancestors lived at Kiveton Park, about a mile and a half from here, prior to their migration to Hornby Castle in North Yorkshire, the Hall having been demolished in 1812.
It seemed rather remarkable that that very evening a young fellow from Leeds, who was painting and decorating for the Vicar of Todwick, should come into the “Leeds Arms” at Wales and inquire what the name of the village really was, and how spelt, for he had some dubiety as to the reliability of the local pronunciation. My Landlord said that if his letters were addressed “Wales, Yorkshire” they often went round the sister Principality, and turned up days late: but that they invariably came direct if the superscription was “Wales, near Sheffield.” Thank heaven there are no Llanfairpwll-gwgngyll-gogerch-wryny-drobwillandisllio-gogogoch's in the Yorkshire Wales!. The dulcet notes of the harp are never heard in this little cantle of the Leeds Duchy, and Ap Tommes would never condescend to acknowledge any other Wales than his own, no matter how explicit and insistent the local topographical work.
To be more serious, it is quite evident that the two Wales’s as place-names have the same meaning. All the natives of Teutonic blood have called the bordering tribes by the name of Walsche that is, Welshman, or foreigners. Strictly speaking, Wales is a corruption of Wealhas, the plural of “wealh.” Welshman, or foreigner.
Until I came to Wales, I had seen no snow for 10 days, but here, on March 8th, I found it lining the hedge bottoms. There are no good views of Eckington, Killamarsh, and several other villages some miles away, both in Yorkshire and Derbyshire. I saw the lights of these villages long after Wales lay obscured in total darkness. In a relative position on the Derbyshire side of the border lay the village of Clown; yet clowns do not hail from there, nor pantaloons either, anymore than Welshmen hail from Wales. Owing to the superiority of their numbers, the Clowners could “lick” the Welshmen, if they choose: but both folk are peaceful as needs be.
One of the early owners of Wales was William de Gras, whose mother was a sister of Richard Strongbow. Earl of Pembroke, and whose son Anselm became Bishop of St. Davids. In the fifteenth century the Hewetts, London merchants of princely renown, had considerable possessions here. Sir William Hewett, whose daughter Ann married the Dick Whittington Osborne, his apprentice, directed his executors to pay 6s. 8d. (a pettifogging lawyer’s letter-fee!) to each poor maiden at Wales who should take to herself a husband within one year after his demise. Doubtless, the siege of the Swains would at once take place, and it would be interesting to know how the parish liber matrimoniorum is affected during the year when this payment held good. Sir William’s lands at Wales passed through Ann, his daughter, into the Osborne family, now represented by George Godolphin Osborne, Duke of Leeds.
I lay overnight at the Leeds Arms, a house almost too good for such an out-of-the-way village, and presided over by the most kind-hearted landlady, who looked too good for her present position. The girls name was Patience; but she did not look as though she had ever smiled at grief on a monument. Paraffin oil and candles light the villagers on their evening path, but their principal inn has electric bells, even as far as the bedrooms. There is a commodious kitchen, where in the evening stillness I could hear my elaborately attired hostess reading the war news aloud to her husband and son from my copy of the “Leeds Mercury.”
At ten o’clock she came to ask, “Did I mind sleeping in a double-bedded room with the groom? She had plenty of other rooms, but the beds had not been aired lately.” When mine hostess added. “This is him,” the young groom pushed his face out from behind the door for approval, and grinned broadly.
“Well, if that is he,” I replied, “I shall be glad of his company, and can have no fear as to the safety my life or watch. But I should advise the young man to remove all loose cash from his pockets.”
Thereupon the young man preceded me upstairs with the candle, and until 2 o’clock in the morning I was listening to the melodious “Yoo-hoo-oo! Youp-youp! Waff-waff! of the sleepless watch-dog.
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