Celia Fiennes . . .
. . . was amazing.
Celia was born in 1662, in Salisbury, a 15-minute modern-day drive from Stonehenge. Remarkably, Celia rode side-saddle through every county in England (accompanied by two servants). Her adventures included two long journeys through northern England and Scotland and included a close drowning and a highwayman’s attack. Celia kept a journal, later published:
Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary. London: Field & Tuer, The Leaderhall Press, 1888.
Unusual for this time period, Celia did not marry. This and her family’s wealth provided the freedom and opportunity she had for such adventurous travel. At the time, travel for pleasure was still very unusual and as a female traveler, Celia was remarkable. Her explorations started for health reasons in the south of England, then continued well beyond.
Wrote Celia:
“If all persons, both Ladies, much more Gentlemen, (sh)ould spend some of their tyme in Journeys to visit their native Land, and be curious to Inform themselves and make observations of the pleasant prospects, good buildings, different produces and manufactures of each place . . . (this) would be a souveraign remedy to cure Epidemick diseases.”
Most consider the fine lady in the well-loved children’s nursery rhyme, “Ride A Cock Horse* To Banbury Cross” to be Celia:
Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady upon a white horse;
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
And she shall have music wherever she goes.
The rhyme first turned up in print in the early 18th century, around the time that Fiennes was gaining a reputation for her travels. What’s more, Celia’s brother was a viscount who lived at Broughton Castle in Banbury. For ‘fine lady’ should we read ‘Fiennes lady’?
Celia lived to be 78 years old, dying in London, in 1741. She is remembered with a memorial near Whitchurch, 45 miles south of Liverpool, to commemorate the 300th anniversary.
*The phrase ‘cock horse’ originates from the 15th century. It can mean a high-spirited horse or an uncastrated horse. A cockhorse may also refer to the additional horse to assist in pulling a cart or carriage up a hill. From the mid-sixteenth century, it came to mean a hobby horse or an adult’s knee.
To order my book!:
Rain Dodging:
A Scholar’s Romp through Britain in Search of a Stuart Queen
order Amazon.com Barnes & Noble Bookshop.org
Thank you.
