Conisborough Castle on Good Friday

April 1882

Mexborough and Swinton Times April 14.

At Conisborough Castle.

Good Friday customs in connection with churches and buns and loaves and shillings and special sermon and cessation of business and Sunday services are ancient.

Excursions and cricket matches and games and fair gatherings on the holiday are of modern growth. A monster bill distributed far and wide in our district called attention to a monstre tea and annual gathering of Primitive Methodists at Conisborough Castle on Good Friday, to a camp meeting service, to a public tea with ham provided for 800 persons, a large marquee, to a cloakroom, the profits of which were to be given to the Braithwell Chapel fund, and to special train run by the M.S. and L. Railway company from Doncaster and Sheffield and Barnsley and intermediate station.

The day came in bright and joyous. 10 special trains were run along the line, it may be conveying an average of 1000 people; and there were the two ordinary trains of the day. According to the official returns, there were booked to Conisborough from Sheffield 1070 passengers, from Rotherham 450 passengers and from Mexborough 1302; no set figures can be given as to the other stations.

The roads too, approaching the hill were covered by traps and carriages and wagonettes and walkers coming from each direction. The drive from Rotherham was enjoyable; some of the Doncaster people went on foot; Mexborough dwellers had a stroll on through Denaby, the spreading village, with its bone works and the Main at hand, past an elbow of the scattered Conisborough; all villages beyond and near contributed their quota; the River canal bore its skiff parties.

Our looker on wrote lately of his interest in that queer mingling of rocks and  quarries and woods and water, which make up the entangling view through which he was passing in train through the neighbourhood.

“Telescopists,” he said, “talk gravely of sunspots, six groups, now nearly 100 millions of miles away and the intense agitation of the Sun’s atmosphere at present. But he and others could see then, and might have seen especially on Good Friday, that many thereabout were enjoying these beautiful sunny days and were making the best of them. The earth was green: the hedges were in bud: the trees were in life and vigour – those trees which have been described as being indeed in their fullness the glory, the beauty, and the delight of nature, without a defect, affording light, shade, shelter, coldness, freshness, music, all the colours of the rainbow, dew and dreams dropping their umbrageous twilight at eve or morn, dropping some direct, soft, sweet, soothing, and restorative from leaves.”

The trains had ceased to run ere three o’clock, and the mount was then hugged and covered by, it may be 20,000 people, men, women, children of all grades and ages, drawn from far and near. The Castle and the slopes are attractive to picnic parties, and stroller groups at all period through spring, summer and autumn; and since the Good Friday multitude began, eight or nine years ago, to transfer itself from the Edlington woods, which it had made so ragged, its size and rapidly grown. Last Friday, the crowd was larger than of any such previous occasion.

Atop the groups and parties were at various points the stragglers between. The Methodist preachers were close to their marquee, at the end of a grass drop edged by no more than a couple of hundred listeners. But the marquee was fully used, or there had been sold tickets to the value of £31 5s, and the sum taken at the doors was £1 2s 5d, and with the gift of money and provisions from Mexborough and elsewhere, the total income was £39 2s 4d, and after deducting outlay, there remained a profit of £21 8s, to be handed over to help pay off the debt on the Braithwell Chapel.

The addresses were given by, among others, the reverent, J Scruton, circuit Minister, Mr T Watson, of Doncaster, and Mr G Platt of Mexborough. They were long and earnest and the speaker talking about 4 o’clock spoke much of the vanities of the world and widely illustrates his subject by reference to men of note, ancient and modern, Alexander, Napoleon, and their ultimate cowardice when approaching their ends. The centre of groups at other points was a woman singing, with her boy playing: here and there a tramp was met bearing on the front on his hat a printed card describing his woes, stands were next to the pathway covered with cakes and oranges: youths were lounging, smoking their pipes and chatting with their sweethearts.

A wide, turf worn flat on the Don side presented the scene of a country fair. The sugar and fruit and buns and toys stands were in rows: a set of crowded swing boats took up a wide space: shooting galleries were in full use: London vans, the homes of half made girls and furnished with curiosities human and general were around with painted face boards. There was scarce an inch of standing room and the noise was deafening.

The centre point of interest to strangers was a summit where lies the Castle ruins. A string band had gathered within the walls, and playing vigorously had drawn a crowd. The Castle as is known belongs to the Earl of Leeds, and Mr Blyth, who occupies a farm around, charged a penny to each who ascended the 25 stone stairs and wound across the inner lodges to reach the broken top of the tower. He and a policeman were on guard and the pass up and down was intermittent.

It may be interesting to most of the visitors to tell that it is one of the most ancient in the kingdom. It was a fortress of Hengist, the Saxon general, being situate at the angle of a Valley called Mexborough Ings, where Aurelius Ambrosius defeated Hengist in the year 487, forcing him to seek refuge in the Castle, and afterwards again in 489 defeated him, took him prisoner, and by the advice of Eldred, Bishop of Gloucester, beheaded him at the Northern gate of the citadel.

William the conqueror gave the Castle to William De Warren and in the rain of King Edward III; John Earl of Warren gave it to his mistress Maude de Hereford. It was afterwards, the property of Richard Earl of Cambridge, who was named de Coningsburgh, because he was born there. Through his grandson, King Edward IV, it continued with the Crown until James II granted it to Lord Dover. It afterwards became the property of Mr Edward Cooke, and then of the Duke of Leeds.

The strong tower keep is almost entire, though more than 1300 years old. The Castle is irregular but oval in form, and is at the foot on the outside 700 feet in circumference. The entrance was on the North side by a drawbridge, the masonry which still remains. The only objects other than the bare walls, are on each side of the tower, and appear to the top of the wall hollow beneath. The noble tower was strengthened by six large square buttresses. The breaking walls appear to be yards in thickness. In the centre of the floor is a round hole, and entrance to a lower apartment, a dungeon, at the bottom of which is a draw well.

The ascent and descent were hazardous to nervous folk. But those who reached the top had their full reward. The view around was delightful. Near at hand on another bump, was the Conisborough village, with its ancient church in the centre of the group: other villages and towns were in the distance: woods and meadows and corn lands cover the vales and the slopes and the hilltops: factory chimneys were far away: the little river below was bright in the sunshine and alive with boats.

All these matters went on till towards five o’clock, the time of return by the first train Sheffield way. Others who went on toe or in trap or by further train remained far later, and were even joined by walkers, who had had their tea before starting. In certain of the railway carriages the music was repeated for the occupants by the fiddler or the guitar man who had spent the afternoon on the hill.

The 10 or 12 extra porters at the little railway station had had their afternoons repose, and were well on till late performing their responsible work.

The day had been a contrast to that of last year, when the rain fell in torrents: and its enjoyment will be kept in memory during the next 12 months