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Vetusta Monumenta: Ancient Monuments, a Digital Edition

Plate 2.13: Engraving of Clithero Castle

Plate 2.13 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts Clithero Castle as it appeared in the sixteenth century. Engraving by George Vertue after a drawing originally produced for a survey of the properties of the Duchy of Lancaster conducted by the Chancellor of the Duchy, Ambrose Cave, in 1561. This concludes the sequence of eight drawings of castles preserved in the Office of the Duchy of Lancaster, including Plates 1.39, 1.40, 1.41, 1.42, 1.44, 1.46, and 2.11. 317 x 466 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1753. Current location: The ruined stone keep and parts of the curtain wall remain along with buildings that were added in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Clitheroe, Lancashire, UK.

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1. Plate 2.1: Engraving of Plans for Rebuilding London, 1666 (1 of 2) Plates 2.1-2.2 of Vetusta Monumenta reproduce three plans for rebuilding the city of London after the great fire of 1666. The plans were originally submitted to King Charles II in September of 1666 and February of 1668 by John Evelyn and Christopher Wren. Engravings by George Vertue after the original plans by Evelyn and Wren. 478 x 355 mm and 486 x 353 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1747. Current location: Society of Antiquaries of London. Drawings: Volume 1 [196h], fols. 68-69.
2. Plate 2.2: Engraving of Plans for Rebuilding London, 1666 (2 of 2) Plates 2.1-2.2 of Vetusta Monumenta reproduce three plans for rebuilding the city of London after the great fire of 1666. The plans were originally submitted to King Charles II in September of 1666 and February of 1668 by John Evelyn and Christopher Wren. Engravings by George Vertue after the original plans by Evelyn and Wren. 478 x 355 mm and 486 x 353 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1747. Current location: Society of Antiquaries of London. Drawings: Volume 1 [196h], fols. 68-69.
3. Plate 2.3: Engraving of a Portrait of George Holmes Plate 2.3 of Vetusta Monumenta reproduces a portrait (c. 1731-1733) of George Holmes, a founding member of the Society of Antiquaries and dedicated Deputy Keeper of the Tower of London. The engraving augments the original oil painting by depicting a more mature Holmes surrounded by objects symbolic of his intellectual and professional pursuits. Engraving by George Vertue after Richard van Bleeck. 332 x 215 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1750. Current location: The original portrait now hangs in the Fellows Room of the Society of Antiquaries of London, London, UK.
4. Plate 2.4: Engraving of Ancient Deeds and Seals Plate 2.4 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts two early- to mid-fourteenth-century deeds and three seals, which confirm land charters related to ecclesiastical establishments in Yorkshire. 478 x 318 mm. Engraving by George Vertue after his own drawings. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1751. Current locations: Rawlinson’s collection passed to the Bodleian Library and to St. John’s and Hertford Colleges, Oxford University, UK.
5. Plate 2.5: Engraving of a View of the Savoy from the Thames Plate 2.5 of Vetusta Monumenta is the first of three depictions of the Savoy engraved for Volume II. This plate presents a picturesque view of the Savoy Hospital from across the river Thames and records the state of the site in 1736, before it was mostly destroyed by fire in 1776. The drawing was made at the same time as the drawings for Plates 2.12 and 2.14. Engraving by George Vertue after his own drawings. 314 x 463 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1750. Current location: The only surviving building of the Savoy Hospital is the Hospital Chapel, now The Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy, London, UK.
6. Plate 2.6: Engraving of the Warrant for Beheading Charles I Plate 2.6 reproduces the death warrant dated 29 January 1649 for executing Charles I, who was publicly beheaded the following day outside of the Banqueting House at Whitehall. Handwritten on parchment and bearing fifty-nine signatures with accompanying seals, the warrant was in the possession of Charles I’s executioner from 1649 until 31 July 1660 when, following the Restoration of Charles II, the House of Lords confiscated the warrant and used it to identify the individuals who had authorized Charles I’s execution. On 1 June 1749, James West (1703-1722) alerted the Society of Antiquaries of London “that the original Instrument and order, signed and Sealed for the taking off King Charles First’s Head”—which had been housed in the Parliamentary Archives since 1660—“was to be seen,” likely as a consequence of the centennial anniversary of the regicide. Engraving by George Vertue after his own drawing. 418 x 484 mm (bifolium). Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1750. Current Location: The warrant has remained in the House of Lords Record Office in the Parliamentary Archives ever since its confiscation in 1660 (Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/10/1/297A), London, UK.
7. Plate 2.7: Engraving of Greensted Church with Objects Commemorating St. Edmund Plate 2.7 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts a range of objects that find commonality in their association with St. Edmund the Martyr. The central image of the Church of St. Andrew, Greensted, Essex, is rendered along with the burial shrine of St. Edmund and a seal fragment from the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, both in Suffolk. Engraving by George Vertue after Smart Lethieullier and John Lydgate. 312 x 447 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1752. Current location: The church still stands in Greensted, Essex, UK; the shrine of St. Edmund was destroyed during the Reformation and the abbey was suppressed, but its ruins may still be seen in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, UK; the seal fragment is attached to MS Add. Charter 17226 in the British Library, London, UK.
8. Plate 2.8: Engraving of Gloucester Cross Plate 2.8 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts the Gloucester Cross, framed by scaled-up images of the sculptures of English kings and queens that were located in the niches of the second story. By including the town hall and other buildings in the background and staffage figures in the foreground, the print emphasizes the civic importance of this fourteenth-century market cross. Engraving by George Vertue after Thomas Ricketts. 441 x 295 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1751. Current location: Originally in Gloucester, UK, the cross was demolished in 1751.
9. Plate 2.9: Engraving of Roman Pavements Found at Winterton and Roxby Plate 2.9 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts three fourth-century CE Roman mosaic pavements discovered in North Lincolnshire in 1699 and 1747. Figures I-III depict two large nearly intact pavements, the Ceres and Orpheus Pavements, with a related fragment, all discovered at Winterton in 1747. Figure IV shows a fragment of a large geometric mosaic discovered nearby at Roxby in 1699. Engraving by George Vertue after Charles Mitley. 441 x 591 mm (bifolium). Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1752. Current locations: Some fragments of the Orpheus Pavement are in the North Lincolnshire Museum, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, UK; the Ceres Pavement has been reconstructed and is on display at University Campus North Lincolnshire, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, UK; and fragments of the Roxby pavement remain buried in situ at Roxby, Lincolnshire, UK.
10. Plate 2.10: Engraving of Doncaster Cross Plate 2.10 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts the Doncaster Cross, which was erected in honor of Otho de Tilly, land steward to the count of nearby Conisborough from about 1165 to 1188. The dense text on either side of the cross relates a brief history of Otho de Tilly, the cross itself, and the manner in which the Society acquired the painting on which this engraving is based. Engraving by George Vertue after an anonymous early seventeenth-century painting. 509 mm x 300 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1752. Current location: The original cross in Doncaster, UK, was demolished in 1792 but was replaced by a replica ex-situ the following year.
11. Plate 2.11: Engraving of Sandal Castle Plate 2.11 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts Sandal Castle as it appeared in the sixteenth century. Engraving by George Vertue after a drawing originally produced for a survey of the properties of the Duchy of Lancaster conducted by the Chancellor of the Duchy, Ambrose Cave, in 1561. Further drawings from this cache were engraved as Plates 1.39, 1.40, 1.41, 1.42, 1.44, 1.46, and 2.13. 307 x 461 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1753. Current location: The lower courses of the barbican, foundations of some of the towers, the base of the keep, and fragments of walls from the great hall and kitchen can still be seen in Sandal Magna, West Yorkshire, UK.
12. Plate 2.12: Engraving of Savoy Hospital Plate 2.12 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts the prison and chapel buildings in the Savoy Hospital complex as they stood in 1736. The Hospital Chapel, depicted from two different sides in the lower half and the upper right portion of this plate, is the only Savoy building that survives today. The drawings were made at the same time as the drawings for Plates 2.5 and 2.14. Engraving by George Vertue after his own drawings. 459 x 334 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1753. Current location: The Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy, London, UK.
13. Plate 2.13: Engraving of Clithero Castle Plate 2.13 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts Clithero Castle as it appeared in the sixteenth century. Engraving by George Vertue after a drawing originally produced for a survey of the properties of the Duchy of Lancaster conducted by the Chancellor of the Duchy, Ambrose Cave, in 1561. This concludes the sequence of eight drawings of castles preserved in the Office of the Duchy of Lancaster, including Plates 1.39, 1.40, 1.41, 1.42, 1.44, 1.46, and 2.11. 317 x 466 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1753. Current location: The ruined stone keep and parts of the curtain wall remain along with buildings that were added in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Clitheroe, Lancashire, UK.
14. Plate 2.14: Engraving of a Plan of the Savoy Plate 2.14 of Vetusta Monumenta reproduces an annotated ground plan of the various buildings comprising the Savoy Hospital as they stood in 1736. This plan concludes the sequence of views of these buildings presented in Plates 2.5 and 2.12. Engraving by George Vertue after his own drawings. 479 x 356 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1754. Current location: The Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy, London, UK.
15. Plate 2.15: Engraving of Canterbury Cathedral and Priory with a Portrait of Eadwine (1 of 2) Plates 2.15-2.16 of Vetusta Monumenta reproduce two images from a twelfth-century manuscript, the Eadwine Psalter. The first is a plan of the monastery precinct at Christ Church, Canterbury, including Canterbury Cathedral as it stood prior to 1174. The second plate reproduces an author portrait of Eadwine of Canterbury, after whom the entire manuscript is named. Engravings by George Vertue after drawings of the manuscript made at Cambridge in 1753 by an unknown draftsman. 590 x 465 mm (bifolium) and 342 x 225 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1755. Current location: The rebuilt cathedral and some architectural remains of Christ Church Priory are at Canterbury, Kent, UK; the Eadwine Psalter is at Trinity College (MS R.17.1), Cambridge University, UK.
16. Plate 2.16: Engraving of Canterbury Cathedral and Priory with a Portrait of Eadwine (2 of 2) Plates 2.15-2.16 of Vetusta Monumenta reproduce two images from a twelfth-century manuscript, the Eadwine Psalter. The first is a plan of the monastery precinct at Christ Church, Canterbury, including Canterbury Cathedral as it stood prior to 1174. The second plate reproduces an author portrait of Eadwine of Canterbury, after whom the entire manuscript is named. Engravings by George Vertue after drawings of the manuscript made at Cambridge in 1753 by an unknown draftsman. 590 x 465 mm (bifolium) and 342 x 225 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1755. Current location: The rebuilt cathedral and some architectural remains of Christ Church Priory are at Canterbury, Kent, UK; the Eadwine Psalter is at Trinity College (MS R.17.1), Cambridge University, UK.
17. Plate 2.17: Engraving of a Roman Bronze Lamp with Vase and Bells Plate 2.17 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts a Roman lamp, an amphora-style vase, and two hand bells from 1366 (left) and 1547 (right). Engraving by George Vertue (his last for Vetusta Monumenta) after his own drawings. 455 x 300 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1756. Current locations: The lamp, vase, and bell on the right are all untraced, but the bell on the left is in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London (LDSAL 133), London, UK.
18. Plate 2.18: Engraving of Two Roman Bronzes (Silenus and a Lamp)
19. Plate 2.19: Engraving of a Medieval Seal and Mantelpiece Plate 2.19 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts the third conventual seal of Canterbury Cathedral (13th century) and a segment of a wooden mantelpiece from a house in Saffron Walden featuring carved images and letters (16th century). The plate itself contains commentary on the objects in cursive script. Engraving by James Green after drawings provided by John Ward. 444 x 303 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1758. Current locations: Impressions of the seal are located at National Archives, Kew, UK, and the British Library, London, UK; the mantelpiece remains in situ in the house in Saffron Walden, Essex, UK.
20. Plate 2.20: Engraving of Bronze Age Horns with Medieval Brooch, Arm-Rings, and Shield Plate 2.20 of Vetusta Monumenta depicts two silver arm rings and three bronze horns from Ireland, a fifteenth-century buckler from Wales, and a Viking Age brooch from the Western Isles of Scotland. This engraving documents a conscious effort by the Society of Antiquaries to systematize graphic practices in antiquarian illustration. Engraving by James Basire Sr. after his own drawings. 459 x 330 mm. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1763. Current locations: The arm rings, buckler, and brooch (Canmore ID 10515) are untraced, as is the first horn. The two remaining horns (Figs. IV-V) are in the collection at Mount Edgcumbe House, Cornwall, UK.

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Plate 2.13: Clithero Castle Plate: View of Clitheroe Castle engraved by George Vertue (1684-1756) after a drawing from the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The original drawing belonged to a cache of nine Elizabethan drawings of castles held by the office of the Duchy of Lancaster. They were produced to illustrate a survey of the properties of the Duchy of Lancaster, undertaken by the Chancellor of the Duchy, Ambrose Cave (c. 1503-1568), in 1561. Smart Lethieullier’s (1701-1760) discovery of these drawings during a visit to the duchy office ultimately led the Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) to commission Vertue to engrave eight of them on 20 April 1732 (SAL Minutes I.288). Plate 2.13 is part of a series that also includes Plates 1.39, 1.40, 1.41 1.42, 1.44, and 2.11.

Object: The plate shows Clitheroe Castle, East Lancashire, based on a drawing completed in 1561 when Ambrose Cave, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, ordered it to be surveyed along with the other properties of the duchy. Clitheroe Castle is located atop a steep limestone crag at the south end of the town of Clitheroe. It overlooks the valley of the River Ribble. Depicted are the gatehouse, bailey, curtain wall as well as the stone keep. Neither the chapel of St. Michael (mentioned in the text printed on the plate) nor the domestic buildings that were once located in the bailey are shown (McNulty 1942). Today, the ruined stone keep and parts of the curtain wall remain along with buildings that were added in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that nowadays house a museum.

Transcription: CLITHERO CASTLE in LANCASHIRE / THIS castle is situated at the bottom of a very high mountain, called Pendle hill, near the river Ribel in Blackburn hundred. It was built in the reign of K. Henry the second, by Robert de Lacy, lord of the Honour of Pontefract, and fourth descendant from Ilbert de Lacy, who came into England with William the Conqueror. Within the castle he likewise built a chapel, dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, for the benefit of his household servants, shepherds, and foresters; and departing this life January 21, 1193, was buried in Kirkstall abbey in the county of York, which had been founded by his father Henry de Lacy, about ye year 1147. This print was engraved from ye eighth & last draught of ye antient castles lodged in ye Dutchy office of Lancaster, & published by this Society. / G. Vertue sculpsit. Published according to Act of Parliament, Dec. 20, 1753. Sumptu. Societ. Ant. Lond. 1753.

Commentary by Katharina Boehm: This engraving of Clitheroe Castle is the final print in a series comprising eight castles in the Duchy of Lancaster, engraved by George Vertue from a set of Elizabethan drawings on which Smart Lethieullier had stumbled during a visit to the duchy office. Vertue was tasked with producing the plate during a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries (SAL) on 26 July 1753 (SAL Minutes VII.72); as was usual, every fellow of the society received three prints (VII.96).

Like William Camden’s Britannia, the text provided on the plate ties the history of the castle closely to the de Lacy line (Camden 1722, 972). Ilbert de Lacy participated in a series of campaigns, undertaken by William the Conquer to establish control over northern England, in 1069-70. In return, he was granted extensive land holdings in West Yorkshire, including the Honour of Pontefract where he built Pontefract Castle (see Plate 1.42). Ilbert’s descendants were given additional land holdings, among them lands which became the Honour of Clitheroe. Most of these holdings had previously belonged to Roger of Poitou, who may also have erected an earlier, potentially wooden, fortification on the site of Clitheroe Castle (Pounds 1994, 43). Camden does not comment on which of the de Lacys built Clitheroe Castle. The SAL sourced the information provided on the plate from William Dugdale’s The Baronage of England after the Norman Conquest. Dugdale notes that Ilbert’s great-grandson, Robert de Lacy “began the Building of Cliderhou Castle in Blackburneshire; and therin a Chappel dedicated to S. Michael the Arch Angel; wherein […] he caused Divine Service to be celebrated, and the Sacraments to be administered to his Houshold Servants, Shepherds, and Foresters, as had been usual for those who lived within the Precincts of other Chapelries in the Parish” (1675-76, 99). Dugdale also mentions Robert de Lacy’s date of death and place of burial, as stated on Vertue’s plate (100).

The text on Vertue’s plate makes no reference to the later history of the Clitheroe. However, discussions of other duchy castles that had previously appeared in the series are likely to have given those members of the SAL who frequented the meetings a rough idea of the shared history of these castles. The Honour of Clitheroe passed to the house of Lancaster in 1311 and became incorporated into the Duchy of Lancaster on the marriage of John of Gaunt to Blanche of Lancaster. Like the other duchy castles, Clitheroe Castle was briefly used as a royalist garrison during the Civil War. John Evelyn (1620-1706), who followed the clash between Charles I and Cromwell’s Parliament closely, reported in his correspondence the fortification of Clitheroe Castle in March 1649 as well as Parliament’s decision to dismantle it just a few weeks later (Evelyn 1857, 36, 43). However, the castle was never completely demolished. A plan of Clitheroe, dated 1723 and published in 1941 but now lost, shows not just the keep and curtain wall but also the chapel of St. Michael mentioned on Vertue’s plate (Langshaw 1941). This plan also indicates that by the early eighteenth century, several modern buildings had been erected in the castle grounds: a courthouse, stables, and the Steward’s House from which the administrative matters of the castle estate and the Blackburn Hundred (the shire of Blackburn) were managed until 1822 (Bradley 2008, 10). A print based on Samuel Buck’s 1727 drawing of the south view of Clitheroe Castle shows the keep and curtain wall ruined and overgrown; the same print also provides a glimpse of the roofs of two of the aforementioned modern buildings (Buck 1774, 147). It was the castle’s attractive location near Pendle Hill—rather than the availability of new antiquarian research into the castle’s history—that made it a popular subject for engraving in later eighteenth-century antiquarian publications. Plates included in Francis Grose’s The Antiquities of England and Wales (1783, inserted after page 120) and Thomas Pennant’s A Tour from Downing to Alston-Moor (1801, inserted after page 76) each show Clitheroe’s keep, the courthouse, and the Steward’s House from a great distance, with Pendle Hill in the background and no architectural details discernible.

The Elizabethan line-drawings on which Vertue’s engravings of the duchy castles are based were produced for the utilitarian purpose of documenting the castles’ state of repair, and none of them are highly finished. However, of this set, the drawing of Clitheroe Castle, measuring 39cm x 57 cm (MPC 1/94), stands out because it appears to be the only drawing left unfinished by the artist. Depicted in outline are the keep, curtain wall, bailey, and gatehouse, as well as the limestone rock, on which the castle sits. However, the sketch shows neither the chapel nor any of the domestic buildings that must have been located in the bailey when the drawing was made, such as the kitchens, Great Hall, stables and living quarters featured in the other drawings. Most of these other drawings render not only the castles but also neighboring towns, villages, mills and aspects of the surrounding landscape. In the instance of Clitheroe Castle, the Elizabethan draughtsman made no attempt to situate the castle in the landscape which surrounds it. The sketch also contains noticeably less architectural detail than the other drawings. The only feature on which the artist bestowed a lot of care in execution is the doorway of the gatehouse with its round-headed arch and a recessed door, decorated with three great fleur-de-lys iron strap hinges. While this archway, like the gatehouse, probably dates to the twelfth century (Adams 2005-6, 185), the extravagant door might have been the same door that is mentioned in the castle records of 1324: the carpenter spent 29 days making a “magnam portam”, using a great number of newly acquired iron hinges and bindings (Whitaker 1872, II.70; Edwards 1984, 369). In any case, the most likely explanation for the careful rendition of the door is that the draughtsman wished to illustrate that the main entryway into the castle was still secured by a heavily fortified portal.

Despite the slapdash quality of the sketch, Vertue took great pains in honoring the dimensions, scale, and skewed perspective of the Elizabethan rendition of the castle: two different grid patterns, one of which appears to have been abandoned as unsatisfactory, extend across the width of the castle in the 1561 sketch. The second grid pattern is numbered, presumably in Vertue’s hand. B.J.N. Edwards notes that Vertue’s engraving of the castle corresponds very closely to the second grid, although the angle of the curtain wall on the farthest left edge of the castle is marginally increased on the engraving (1984, 367). Vertue added in a number of details: he outfitted the keep, windowless in the original, with four narrow windows. The original sketch shows a deep groove on the curtain wall, most likely indicating the existence of a wall walk (Adams 2005-6, 186). Vertue extrapolated the continuation of this wall walk by inserting a line on the inside of the northern wall as well as on the outside of the wall to the right of the gatehouse; both are absent from the original. He also embellished the portal of the gatehouse with clavos (door studs). In order to give realistic depth to the different parts of the castle, Vertue used carefully gradated shading: in his version, sun hits the castle from the west, creating attractive contrasts between those parts of the curtain wall that are drenched in sunlight and those that are cast into deep shadows. The line-drawing of the original sketch makes minimal use of shading: as a result, the walls, keep and gatehouse are all flattened and appear cardboard-thin, bringing to mind a child’s paper castle rather than a rugged medieval fortress. Vertue’s shading brings out the rough texture of the stones that were used in building the castle, giving heft and substance to its walls.

The massy weight that Vertue gives to Clitheroe’s architecture imbues his version of the castle with greater realism than the sixteenth-century drawing. However, Vertue followed the original in depicting a bailey that is eerily void of internal buildings. In addition, Vertue’s version shows the entire bailey to be overgrown with weeds and grass, which creates the impression that whatever domestic buildings once occupied the bailey are long vanished. Examining the engraved castle, we are caught in a strange paradox. We are not gazing at a ruin; on the contrary, the parts of the castle that remain are intact and well-fortified—and yet what we see is the mere fortressed husk of a castle, emptied of all buildings and facilities that once must have sustained its religious and social life. The forlorn aspect of the bailey is heightened by Vertue’s insertion of two tiny human figures shown next to the keep. Their small size makes the empty bailey appear even larger; at the same time, their size heightens the perceived distance between these figures wandering inside the castle walls and the bustling world outside.

Compensating for (or, perhaps, taking license from) the fragmentary nature of the Elizabethan sketch he was working with, Vertue embedded Clitheroe castle in beautifully detailed environs. It is tempting to speculate that Vertue might have been riled by the criticism that his latest engraving from the castle series, the print of Sandal Castle, had faced in some quarters of the society; Thomas Wilson, another fellow of the SAL, had compared Vertue’s work unfavorably with Francis Vivares’ fashionable landscape views. (For a brief discussion of this episode, see Plate 2.11.) While Vertue’s other engravings of duchy castles sometimes include small picturesque features that are absent from the original drawings, this is the only print in the series that locates the castle in a fully developed landscape of Vertue’s own devising. To the right of the castle, the plate shows the town of Clitheroe, presented against a backdrop of craggy hills. Neither the location nor the appearance of these hills are a close match for Pendle Hill: the isolated Pennine hill with a sloping plateau which dominates the Ribble Valley and is shown on Buck’s print of Clitheroe Castle. It still seems likely, however, that Vertue envisioned the hills in the distance as a visual token of Pendle Hill—or of the Pennines in general—given that the text on the plate notes that Clitheroe “is situated at the bottom of a very high mountain, called Pendle hill.” To the left of the castle, Vertue depicts a village, presumably Waddington, which formed part of the Honour of Clitheroe. Closer to the left margin of the plate, we find a charmingly weathered cottage with a thatched roof nestled in trees and located atop a small hill that overlooks a brook. The presence of the cottage reinforces the Georgic theme that Vertue introduced via the staffage shown in front of the castle (absent from the Elizabethan original), including a peasant with his hay cart, two rustics approaching the castle, a lady giving alms to a vagrant, and a group of three grazing horses.

The Georgic idyll in which Vertue embeds Clitheroe evokes a relationship to the past, as well as an approach to engraving as a tool of historical knowledge, that differ markedly from the only other plate in the castle series that has a distinctive agricultural focus, namely Vertue’s engraving of Tickhill Castle (see Plate 1.46). Vertue followed his Elizabethan source closely when he included two water mills and one windmill in the engraving of Tickhill Castle. The sixteenth-century survey of the duchy castles made note of the associated mills, farms, forests and fields, and Vertue’s engraving preserves the original drawing’s attention to Tickhill’s agricultural properties. His inclusion of the mills documents an important aspect of Tickhill’s history, and it also demonstrates the ability of engravings to provide a fastidiously faithful rendition of the source drawing. While the plate of Tickhill is interested in agricultural systems of the later sixteenth century, the landscape that surrounds Clitheroe is not intended as a historical record. Instead, this timeless rural idyll, which nods to the emerging vogue for the picturesque and is populated by conventional staffage rustics, clearly presents an imagined¬—rather than historical—countryside. Vertue’s immediate audience might have felt reminded of a passage from John Dryden’s influential translation of the second book of Virgil’s Georgics: “To lead a soft, secure, inglorious Life. /A Country Cottage near a Crystal Flood, /A winding Vally, and a lofty wood” (1697, ll. 689-91). Vertue’s landscape offers viewers a retreat from their busy modern existence, a quiet realm conducive to reflection and flights of fancy. By pairing this landscape with the fragmentary visual record of Clitheroe Castle, Vertue’s plate seems to suggest that inquiries into the past unavoidably become the province of the imagination when they come up against the limits of archival sources. The mysterious void at the center of the print—Clitheroe’s implausibly deserted, overgrown bailey from which every trace of former life has disappeared—reminds viewers that once the physical traces of the past are gone, the space they leave behind has to be filled by the imagination.

Works Cited:

Adams, Paul. 2005-6. “Clitheroe Castle.” Castle Studies Group Journal 19: 179-92.

Bradley, Jeremy. 2008. Clitheroe Castle, Clitheroe, Lancashire: Archaeological Investigation. Project Report. Lancaster: Oxford Archaeology North.

Buck, Samuel and Nathaniel Buck. 1774. Buck’s Antiquities. Vol. I. London: Sayer.

Camden, William. 1722. Britannia, or a chorographical description of Great Britain and Ireland, together with the adjacent islands. Translated by Edmund Gibson. 2 vols. London: Mary Matthews.

“Clderowe”: Unfinished Perspective View of Clitheroe Castle. 1561. MPC 1/94. The National Archives, Kew.

Dryden, John. 1697. The Works of Virgil Containing His Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis. London: Tonson.

Dugdale, William. 1675-76. The Baronage of England, or, An Historical Account of the Lives and Most Memorable Actions of Our English Nobility in the Saxons Time to the Norman Conquest. London: Newcomb.

Edwards, B. J. N. 1984. “George Vertue’s Engraving of Clitheroe Castle.” Antiquaries Journal 64, no. 2: 366-72.

Evelyn, John. 1857. Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn. Vol. 3. Edited by William Bray. London: Colburn.

Grose, Francis. 1783. The Antiquities of England and Wales. Vol. 3. New ed. London: Hooper.

Langshaw, Arthur. 1941. “The Site of the Castle Chapel.” Clitheroe Advertiser and Times 31 (January).

McNulty, Joseph. 1942. “Clitheroe Castle and Its Chapel: Their Origins.” Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 93: 45-53.

Pennant, Thomas. 1801. A Tour from Downing to Alston-Moor. London: Oriental Press.

Pounds, Norman John Greville. 1994. The Medieval Castle in England and Wales: A Social and Political History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Society of Antiquaries of London. 1718-. Minutes of the Society’s Proceedings.

Whitaker, Thomas Dunham. 1872. An History of the Original Parish of Whalley, and Honor of Clitheroe. To Which Is Subjoined An Account of the Parish of Cartmell. 4th edition. 2 vols. London: Routledge / Manchester: Gent.