Recently I went to find a grave in green leafy Cheshire. I
ensured I drove back through Gawsworth Hall in
Cheshire to look for another – within a stone’s throw of the hall itself. I
wasn’t looking for a soldier or booze-damaged guitarist but a court jester.
The Gawsworth gentry may have been rolling in money and
privilege but they lived over three hundred years ago and there was no
internet, they’d never heard The Beatles or known what a television was (and
peanut butter had not been invented – I’ve had lots of entertainment from
peanut butter but only Huge Sweaty Hetty knows about
that.) The Lord of Gawsworth employed a jest called Samuel
Johnson - nicknamed “Maggoty Johnson”.
I found Maggoty’s grave and it’s in an odd place in Maggoty Wood on
Maggoty Lane, about 200 metres from Gawsworth Hall.
There’re no other graves; it’s a wood of beech trees, not a cemetery, not
consecrated land. I thought it was more of a spinney than a wood as I could
imagine the gentry keeping game here centuries ago. You push through a gate and
go up into a wood of beech trees. At dusk you could walk passed this grade II
listed brick tomb but if you’re nosey like me you’d see it.
Maggoty was a
talented poet and musician and was probably one of England's last professional
jesters. He was of sharp wit, sprouted endearing repartee and a rainbow of
colour. Aged 38 he appeared at the Haymarket Theatre as an author in the
leading role of his play which ran for fifty consecutive nights. He had
numerous other works published.
The lord of
the manor at Gawsworth Hall thought so favourably of Maggoty
that he allowed him to retire to property in the hall’s grounds. He lived here
with his faithful female servant for many years. The grave I’m stood on houses
a tomb designed by Maggoty for his servant however when she died she was buried
in a Christian grave at her brother’s insistence. Eventually Maggoty died aged
82 and was given a Christian burial in the local churchyard. It was only discovered many years later that
his wish was to be buried in the vault. His body was dug up and re-buried here.
Samuel’s
violin is on display in the dining room at the hall.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Off to find Maggoty the court jester…
Not many folk get a lane named after
them…
Nearby in Gawsworth...
At Gawsworth
Hall where he was the court jester..