Burnt Row, Somercotes. A Poem By Thomas Ragg, 1837

by SLHS on Wednesday 28 August 2019

1. BACKGROUND

In 1802, Somercotes consisted of a small number of houses in what is now known as Lower Somercotes, plus the lower part of Somercotes Hill. The Alfreton Ironworks was opened that year and the main source of work for the majority of the population would have been in the small number of collieries and ironstone mines dotted in the landscape. That year, on 27 August, a dreadful fire destroyed a small row of terraced houses in which three young children were reported to have died.

The event made the pages of newspapers all over England, and through their reporting it also appeared in the “Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics and Literature for the Year of 1802”, actually published in the following year. A transcript of the entry follows: “August 27th. Early this morning several persons observed an unusual smoke to issue from the chimney of a house in the possession of Thomas Harding, at Somercoates-common near Alfreton, in Derbyshire. The door was broken open, and the internal part of the house was found all in a smoke and burning, but not in flames. Before any person could get upstairs the chamber floor fell to the ground, and its ruins brought with it the remains of three young children burnt to death; one without its head, and the other two wanting some of their limbs. The parents of these unfortunate infants went on Monday afternoon to Ripley [about two miles from thence] to some merriment and very imprudently left the children all night by themselves.”

Some thirty five years later, a man named Thomas Ragg wrote and published a poem about the fire in Somercotes. By then, the houses that had been destroyed must have been rebuilt, and their replacements became known locally as the “Burnt Row”.

An anthology of writings called “Ward’s Miscellany & Family Magazine” reprinted the poem by Thomas Ragg from his own work “Sketches from Life, Lyrics from the Pentateuch and other Poems”. “Ward’s Miscellany” described the work of a poet and took Ragg’s poem as an example to illustrate their points. Part of the article states that “…The real poet, therefore, finds access to the heart of his reader by the mere force of his genius. Mr. Ragg is a poet, and as such, needs no intrinsic recommendations to the favour of the public…” The article in “Ward’s Miscellany” continues “…Among the Sketches from Life are some extremely touching. We select a quotation, although somewhat long, “Burnt Row”, a tragical incident simply and pathetically narrated in the fine old ballad style”

2. THE POEM

BURNT ROW by Thomas Ragg [1808-1881]

[Note - due to the text editor on this website, bullet points have been used to distinguish the start of each line of verse]

Have you ever been to Somercoates
In Rocky Derbyshire?
If so, then haply you’ve heard my tale
If not you shall shortly here

For in Somercoates some houses stand
Which people call Burnt Row
And the elds, they dolesome things relate
Which happened there long ago

The sun was up, the morn was fair
The mists were fleeing away
And the birds sand sweet in the bushes roun’
To welcome the rising day

A mother said to her eldest girl
To her eldest girl said she
“We go to your aunt’s today my dear
So take care of your sisters three”

“The give me a kiss, my sweet mother
For you scolded me yester e’en
And though I own I was naughty then
I wish I never had been”

“And give me another, my mother dear
For I feel, I can’ tell why
As though I should kiss those lips no more”
And a tear sprang into her eye

“Oh foolish child,” said the good woman
“Tis but a few miles we go
And we shall return by the full moon light
By a path that we well know”

“There is no river for us to cross
No pit lies in our way
And many a long from the wake will come
So banish your fears I pray”

The tear went back in the daughter’s eye
And a smile came o’er her cheek
But Oh! It was not a smile of joy
For she felt as her heart would break

She tendered her little sisters fair
As merrily they played
And strove to throw off the load of care
That oft her young spirits preyed

But her smiles were like the trancient gleam
That pierces the thick mists through
When clouds envelop the bright sun-beam
And the heavens wear a murky hue

She played with her little sisters three
Till the long summer day was spent
As over the green grass joyfully
They danced to their hearts content

And to bed they went when the night came on
Though she trembled over her prayers
And sleep, ere long, with soothing charm
Had lulled her bosom’s cares

How sweet the sleep of the young must be
When troubles are small and few
When the heart is light, and the thoughts are free
And stainless as morning’s dew

For sweet it is even to see them sleep
And watch the unconscious smile
That over the rosy face will creep
Though the lips are closed the while

But oft tis but a poison cup
Which charms their cares away
And greedily as they drink it up
Destruction grasps its prey

The moon rose over the mountains high
The midnight hour was past
And kindred who met at the wake that day
Prepared for their homes at last

“But what is that light in the heaven yonder!”
The wife to her good man said
“It does not come from the moon I wist
It seems such a fiery red”

“Tis the northern light” said the company
“Though seldom in summer-tide
Its beautiful tints thus brilliantly
Spread over the welkin wide”

“But it changes not” the mother said then
As though of her distant home
And her daughters words rushed into her mind
That was tossed like the wild seas foam

And many and deep were the mother’s sighs
As homeward they went along
Though they laughed at her fears, and told her oft
To bridle her foolish tongue

The flame grew brighter and brighter still
As on the road they went
Till nought appeared but a glowing red
Half over the firmament

The leaves were tinged with a ruddy hue
And the moon grew deadly pale
And each, as he looked at the other’s face
Felt all his courage fail

“There must be a fire in Somercoates
For see it is drawing near”
“Yes, there is a fire in Somercoates
And my children are burning there”

The mother said with a bursting heart
As her tears in torrents flowed
And nothing they spake would comfort her
As they hastened along the road

Away, away to the fatal place
Breathlessly hurried they all
And just arrived in time to see
The roofs of two houses fall

“The row is on fire! The row is on fire!”
How many will share in the woe
But from thought of the many to share in her grief
To her no comforts flow

For O, what a sight for a mother there
Her children all lifeless lay
And the lips that sued for a kiss that morn
Were blackened and shrivelled away

She gave her children a long, long gaze
Then laughed like a maniac wild
And never another word she spake
Save “Kiss thee? O yes, my child”

Three days she suffered in speechless woe
‘Twas all that her strength could do
Then the earth that over her children spread
Covered the mother too

Twelve years passed on. In a distant town
Where wondered the Avon’s tide
A priest was sent in haste one night
To pray be sick man’s side

"What lies on your conscience so black?” said he
“The blood that the Saviour spilt
Is sufficient and more sufficient to cleanse
Every penitent heart from guilt”

But in vain were his prayers, his preaching vain
Still writhing in agony
The sick man said as he wrung his hands
“O, there is no hope for me!”

“I hated a neighbour in Somercoates
Twelve long, long years ago
And to injure him sought, with malice as deep
As a spirit accursed could know”

“I set fire to the home where his children lay
In innocent sleep locked fast
And twelve houses were burnt in that dreadful night
By the brand these fingers cast”

“The mother was laid in her children’s grave
The father looked up no more
But nobody knew how the fire broke out
And the wonder at length passed o’er”

“My conscience smitten with keenest pangs
I fled from that dreadful scene
Still hoping that time would banish it all
As though it had never been”

“But withersoever my body went
No peace could my spirit find
The awful dead of that sad, sad night
Is ever before my mind”

“And now I am going alas to reap
The seed that I have sown before
For that brand has purchased a place for me
In fire to be quenched no more”

“Though dark are thou deeds”, said the holy man
“A penitent still may’st thou die
For the Saviour came but to seek the lost
Then now to his bosom fly”

“I cannot, I cannot” the sick man cried
“See, the demons are round me now
The brand that I threw in the house that night
Is fixed on my burning brow”

“O mercy, O mercy! Tis all too late
My doom is fixed I see!”
Then he drew up his legs and died in bed
Crying “There is no hope for me”

3. NOTES ON THE EVENT AND THOMAS RAGG

The life of Thomas Ragg, the author of the work is interesting in its own right. Thomas Ragg was born in Nottingham on 11 January 1808 but moved with his parents, George and Jane Ragg to Birmingham a year after his birth. At the age of 11 he worked in the printing office of the Birmingham Argus before taking an apprenticeship with his uncle, who was in the hosiery trade, in Leicester. In 1834 Ragg moved to Nottingham, his place of birth, to work for a bookseller. By then he had already had poetry published. He became editor of the Birmingham Advertiser and in 1845 set up a stationers and printers in that city. Through his work he was introduced to Dr. George Murray, then Bishop of Rochester, who persuaded Ragg to accept ordination into the church. He was later appointed a curacy in Southfleet, Kent and then at Malin’s Lee in Shropshire. In 1865 he was appointed the perpetual curate of Lawley, where he remained until his death in 1881.

How he came to hear of the tale may never be known, as the event itself happened six years prior to his birth. The latter part of the poem is also a mystery. Who the self-confessed arsonist and murderer was is not mentioned and nothing can be found so far in the records which would corroborate Ragg’s work.

Burnt Row, however, is recorded. The Derbyshire Times & Chesterfield Herald published on 11 July 1863 recorded that in Somercotes “…when peaceable folk were thinking of retiring to rest, they were suddenly annoyed by a parcel of persons of Selston Common, setting up a most discordant noise, near the Burnt-row”. Several other instances of the name are recorded, one giving the address as “Burnt Row, Somercotes Hill” but from 1930 mention of the name seems to disappear from the records. It was common for locals to give alternative names to buildings; Seely Terrace, for example, was often know as Long Row, and Hollyhurst Terrace as the Dog Kennels; so it appears that “Burnt Row” was a name given to a row of houses rebuilt sometime after the fire. The name never gained official sanction, and does not appear on any maps.