Address: The Parish Church of Saint Mary the Virgin
Charlcombe
Bath and North East Somerset,
UK
In 1748 Sarah Scott (sister of Elizabeth Montagu, a British social reformer, patron of arts, salonist, literary critic, and writer who helped organize and lead the Bluestocking Circle) met Lady Barbara Montagu, with whom she maintained an intimate relationship until Lady Barbara’s death. They pooled their finances and took house together in Bath. In June 1751, Sarah Scott married George Lewis Scott, tutor to the Prince of Wales, but was an unhappy marriage. They remained together one year until she was “taken from her house and husband by her father and brothers” in mysterious circumstances. Lady Barbara Montagu, (“Lady Bab”), had accompanied the Scotts on honeymoon (a contemporary custom) and lived with them during their year together. After that, Lady Bab, who went to Bath because she was suffering from an incurable illness, set up home with Sarah Scott in a Bath suburb.
Lady Barbara died in August 1765. “Charlcombe is one mile and half northeast of Bath, and is a village of only nine houses and a church, small, but very ancient, and well worth an antiquary’s notice. The situation of this diminutive parish is under Lansdown: its views are not extensive, but very pretty. It is almost surrounded with hills adorned with woods and coppices. Visiting the church, our minds were forcibly struck on reading an inscription, pointing out the place of internment of the right honourable lady Barbara Montagu, daughter of George earl of Halifax. The idea of title, when connected with such a spot as this, would be an incongruity, did it not lead us to contemplate that equality to which all return, when we find those, whom birth and fortune buoy up above the common level of mankind, seeking their last repose in the obscurity of Charlcombe”. (An excerpt from A Picturesque Guide to Bath, Bristol Hot-Wells, the River Avon, and the Adjacent Country: Illustrated with a set of views, taken in the summer of 1792; by Mess. Ibbetson, Laporte and J. Hassell; and engraved in Aquatinta. London: Printed for Hookham and Carpenter, Bond-Street, 1793.)
Currently Charlcombe is a civil parish and small village just north of Bath in the Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority, Somerset, England. The parish has a population of 422 and includes the villages of Woolley and Langridge. The valley is currently the centre of attention for the Save Woolley Valley Campaign led by the SWVAG (chaired by Robert Craven).
1844 St Mary’s Charlcombe, Bath
The Anglican Church of St Mary in Charlcombe within the English county of Somerset was built in the 12th century. It is a Grade II* listed building. On the Chancel there is the monument to Lady Barbara Montagu, died 1765, by Ford of Bath, marble, a woman in robes rests on a plinth, aedicular surround with open pediment and arms.
It underwent Victorian restoration between 1857 and 1861. The work was probably carried out by James Wilson from plans drawn up by George Gilbert Scott. There is believed to be a holy well in the grounds. Charlcombe was formerly the mother church of Bath. In acknowledgment of this Bath Abbey sent a pound of pepper on an annual basis. On November 28, 1734, Henry Fielding got married to Charlotte Craddock in the church. Above the nave is a small bell turret. Inside the church is a font which is as old as the church itself. The parish is part of the benefice of Charlcombe with St Stephen's Church, Bath within the Diocese of Bath and Wells.
Around 1751, Sarah Fielding moved to Bath. Ralph Allen (b. 1693, d. 29 June 1764, was an entrepreneur and philanthropist, and was notable for his reforms to the British postal system.) probably lent her the Widcombe Cottage (Widcombe Lodge, Church St, Bath, Bath and North East Somerset BA2 6AZ, UK is still visible today and there is a plague to her above the gateway) and eventually left her an annual legacy.
Henry Fielding's House, Widcombe Lodge, Bath, c.1920s When Jane Collier died (summer 1755), Sarah Fielding coped with the loss of her loved ones (her brother Henry dead as well) by devoting herself to writing. Fielding is often seen as a reclusive figure, but Fielding was a significant influence in a community of like-minded women at Bath. These women included friends of the Duchess of Portland, who entertained many erudite women at her nearby home, “Bulstrode”. Among them were Elizabeth Elstob (1683-1756), “the Saxon Scholar”, who acted as governess to the Duchess’s children, Sarah Scott (née Robinson) (September 12, 1720 – November 3, 1795), Lady Barbara Montagu (sister to the second earl of Halifax, and no direct relation to Scott’s sister, Mrs Elizabeth Montagu), Elizabeth Cutts, Mrs Arnold, Mrs Adams, Margaret Riggs, Margaret Mary Rivaud, Miss Chudleigh, Mrs Anne Robinson Knight and possibly the poet, Esther Lewis.
Elizabeth Cutts was probably the sister of Mordecai Cutts Esq., of Thorne, Yorkshire. After the death of Lady Barbara Montagu, Cutts sometime was (as was Miss Arnold), Scott’s companion in an egalitarian sense. Miss Arnold is connected to a Mr Arnold of Wells, probably Christopher Arnold, Esq.
At some point in 1766, Sarah Fielding moved in with Sarah Scott near Walcot. In November 1767 Elizabeth Montagu wrote to Carter, “Poor Mrs. Fielding is declining very fast”. Fielding was living with Scott during the spring of 1768, when the Bath community of women opened an all-female establishment at a house in Hitcham owned by Elizabeth Montagu’s relative. Hitcham was a L-shaped early 17th century house with two stories, an attic, and a good garden (I suppose they refer to Hitcham Manor, 'Parishes: Hitcham', in A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3, ed. William Page (London, 1925), pp. 231-235 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/bucks/vol3/pp231-235 [accessed 2 January 2016]). Sarah Scott was joined by Elizabeth Cutts, Miss Arnold and Grace Freind. Montagu sent livestock and offered to pay Fielding’s travelling expenses to join them, but Scott’s letter to her sister reveals Fielding’s reticence to travel.
Sarah Fielding died at the age of 57 on April 9, 1768; she, like Lady Barbara Montagu, was buried on 14 April 1768 in St. Mary’s, Charlcombe, Bath, near the entrance to the chancel, close to the Rector's seat (Biography of Henry Fielding by Austin Dobson). Supposedly on a mural tablet, you should read “Esteemed and loved, near this place lies Mrs. Sarah Fielding. She died April 9, 1768, aged 60. How worthy of a nobler monument! But her name will be written in the Book of Life.” (Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century: Comprizing Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, Printer, F.S.A. and many of his learned friends; An incidental view of the progress and advancement of literature in this kingdom during the last century; and Biographical Anecdotes of a considerable number of Eminent Writers and Ingenious Artists. By John Nichols, F.S.A., Volume IX. London: Printed for the Author, by Nichols, Son, and Bentley, at Cicero’s Head, Red-Lion-Passage, Fleet-Street. 1815) But there is no grand memorial, no elaborate grave. Not even a simple marker to be seen.
There is a monument to her in the west porch of Bath Abbey, erected by her friend John Hoadly, poet and dramatist. “In this City lived and died Sarah, second daughter of General Henry Fielding; by his first wife, daughter of Judge Gould. Whose writings will be known, an incentives to virtue, and honour to her sex, when this marble shall be dust. She was born MDCCXIV, and died April MDCCLXVIII. Her unaffected manners, candid mind, her heart benevolent, and soul resign’d, were more her praise than all she knew or thought, though Athens’ wisdom to her sex she taught. The Rev. Dr. John Hoadly, her Friend, for the honour of the Dead and emulation of the Living, inscribes this deficient Memorial of her virtues and accomplishments.”
1910 Vintage Postcard - West Front - Bath Abbey - Bath England UK
The real life Hitcham “female utopia” was to fail by December 1768.
( Montagu Genealogy )https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zdRJwtySDT14.k4ln0xmbkVNk&usp=sharing
Lessons in Obedience, Death Defying Acts, The Doms Club (Sin City 6, 7, and 8) by Tricia Owens
Death Defying Acts
The Doms Club
Meet the author: Tricia has been writing m/m and ménage fiction since 2002. An avid traveler who has visited over 70 countries, she writes full-time in Las Vegas.
