Thursday 30 August 2012

The Rosary Mile

Some years ago we used to attend Sunday Mass at Ty Mair, a chapel on the English/Welsh borders more commonly known as 'Courtfield' ancestral home of the Catholic Vaughan family.

                                   Ty Mair, "Mary's House" at Courtfield near Ross on Wye

The then matriarch of the family, Mrs Vaughan, produced a book on the history of Courtfield and, in it she described how Vaughans of an earlier era, when returning by horse drawn carriage back to Courtfield would commence saying the Rosary just as the carriage turned off the road onto the Vaughan estate.

There would then be a one mile journey down a track to the main house itself.

Their Rosary recitation became known as 'The Rosary Mile' and they would complete the five decades just in time as they drew up outside Courtfield.

It is a good habit and one that we, as a family, adopted many years ago both on leaving on a long journey by car or, upon our return.

It gives us not only spiritual protection but also physical protection against accident and tragedy and, it's another part of the fabric of traditional Catholicism.

For some concept of the history of the Vaughans (who, of course, gave us Cardinal Vaughan) this brief extract from 1880 goes just a little way to show what a spread of vocations went through that famous family:-


"Colonel John Francis Vaughan, of Courtfield, Herefordshire, whose death is announced as having happened on Friday last at Biarritz, at the age of 72, was one of the oldest and most respected members of the English Roman Catholic body. He was the father of the Bishop of Salford and brother of the Bishop of Plymouth. The eldest son of the Late Mr William Vaughan, of Courtfield, (who was deputy lieutenant for Herefordshire), by his first marriage with Teresa, daughter of the late Mr Thomas Weld, of Lulworth Castle, Dorsetshire, he was born in the year 1808. He was a magistrate and deputy lieutenant for Monmouth and a magistrate for Herefordshire and Gloucestershire &c. Colonel Vaughan was twice married - first in 1830, to Eliza Louisa, daughter of the late Mr John Rolls, of the Hendre, Monmouthshire; and, secondly, to his cousin, Mary Charlotte, only daughter of the late Mr Joseph Weld, of Lulworth castle."

1 comment:

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