The picture above, as with the previous blog, is the frontispiece of a book published in 1824 and entitled ‘A History of the Church and Priory of Swine in Holderness’, thus a history of the parish and of the Cistercian nunnery which existed there up to the Reformation of the late 1530s. The author was Thomas Thompson, a wealthy banker and buisinessman of Hull and an avid antiquarian in the vein of Rev. William Dade and George Poulson (s.p.b.s). The picture on the frontispiece shows a rural scene with a church tower in the distance and the stump of a preaching cross in the centre. This stump was a well known feature in Swine up to the 20th century but whether or not it still exists I am not sure. The outline of the pig on the shield in the foreground is misleading as the name Swine is derived from a Viking landowner rather than the quadraped shown.
Thompson’s Dedication and Preface to the book are of some interest. The Dedication is to ‘The Right Honourable the Earl of Shaftesbury … Lord of the Manor of Swine’. This was Cropley Ashley-Cooper (1768 – 1851) 6th Earl of Shaftesbury who had been an M.P. up to 1811 and thereafter Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords, as Thompson states in the Dedication. His son was to be the famous social reformer Anthony Ashley – Cooper (1801 – 1885) from whom the Crown purchased the estate at Swine in 1865 (Swine remains a Crown estate).
Thompson signed-off the Preface with the date and his address, ‘Cottingham Castle, near Hull, June, 1824’. Today Castle Hill Hospital stands on the site and grounds of Thompson’s ‘Cottingham Castle’, Castle Road also named from the site. Cottingham Castle was a mock-Gothic period house which Thompson had built as his family home, it had no longer pedigree than that – it was destroyed by fire after Thompson’s death. One part still stands, the folly/tower at the west end of the site, beside the busy main road.
(to be continued)