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Home, Gordon, 1878-1969

"Yorkshire"

Another monument shows
Sir William Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring at
Harrogate. The Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in the
cause of Charles I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658,
'being beheaded by order of the tyrant Cromwell, ... was translated to
a better place.' So says the inscription on a large slab of black
marble in the floor of the chapel. The last of the male line of the
family was Sir Charles Slingsby, who was most unfortunately drowned by
the upsetting of a ferry-boat in the Ure in February, 1869.
When we have progressed beyond the market-place, we come out upon an
elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose
perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are
scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle--poor and of small account
if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar;
where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing
mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the lowest
story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only two
sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled.


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