THE OLD COACH-ROAD: BLANDFORD TO DORCHESTER
FROM this point the old coach-road becomes astonishingly hilly, so that
mere words cannot accurately portray it, and recourse must be had to the
eloquent armoury of the printer’s case to set it forth in any truly
convincing manner. The series of semicircular dumpling hills is not
adequately to be shadowed forth by the aid of mere brackets—we must
picture them thus:
[Picture: Representation of Hills in Type]
and, to give some notion of the quality of the surface during the heats
of summer, let a glaring white surface five inches deep in dust and
powdered flint be imagined, the whole stirred up into a stifling halo of
floating particles by the frequent passage of a flock of sheep. Such is
the Exeter Road between Blandford and Dorchester in the merry months of
summer.
Five miles of this bring us to the village of Winterborne Whitchurch,
anciently referred to as “Album Monasterium” or “Blaunch Minster,”
situated in the stony bottom where the little stream called the
Winterborne does not in summer flow across the road. John Wesley,
grandfather of the more famous John, the founder of Methodism, was vicar
of this parish in 1658, and on the Restoration was dispossessed, when he
took to a life of itinerant preaching amid the hills and dales of
Dorsetshire, not altogether dissimilar from that of his celebrated
grandson. Here, about 1540, was born George Turberville, the poet. To
this succeeds, in less than another three miles, Milborne St. Andrew, on
the less dried up Mill Bourne. This, the “Millpond St. Jude’s” alluded
to in _Far from the Madding Crowd_, is a pretty place, of an old-world
coaching interest, reflected from its partly thatched “Royal Oak” inn and
the post office, once the “White Hart,” with the imposing effigy of a
white hart still prominent on its cornice, in company with those of two
foxes and a row of miniature cannon. Up along a byroad, past the
feathery poplars that lend so feminine an air of beauty to the village,
is the church, and then the Manor House Farm, once the residence of the
Mansell Pleydells, who since the building of Whatcombe House, near by
Winterborne Whitchurch, in 1758, have left this residence to farming.
The red-brick pillars of the entrance-gates remain—partly ruined and
standing foolishly, without a trace of the old carriage drive that once
went between them—on the grass, surmounted still with sculptured displays
of military trophies surrounding a cartouche bearing the lichened arms of
the Pleydells, including an inescutcheon of pretence showing that before
they allied themselves with a Mansell they married money with a Morton.
It is a fine house, full of character, with unusually—and somewhat
foreign-looking—high-pitched roof. Grand old trees lead up to it, and in
the distance one perceives a manorial pigeon-house, against the skyline.
The old drive led round to the other side of the mansion, where it is
divided from the meadows by a moatlike cut in the Mill Bourne, now,
however, richer in mud than in water, and crossed by a brick bridge. We
can picture Lady Constantine, the susceptible young and wealthy widow of
the defunct Sir Blount, stealing at night over this bridge, to visit
Swithin St. Cleeve, stargazing in his lonely tower on the hilltop. In
the garden, with its sundial, are pretty old-world box-edged flower-beds
and shady arbours. Foundations of many demolished buildings are
traceable in the meadows.
[Picture: The Old Manor-House, Milborne St. Andrew]
The scene of _Two on a Tower_ is a selection from various places. “The
tower,” Mr. Hardy writes to me, “had two or three originals—Horton,
Charborough, etc.” Those other places are duly described in these pages,
but the “etc.” covers the curious brick obelisk built on the summit of
the earthwork-encircled hill near by this old manor-house of Milborne St.
Andrew, and called Weatherbury Castle. Standing on this “fir-shrouded
hilltop,” one may see, for many miles around, summer conflagrations among
the furze on Bere Heath, the tall tower in Charborough Park, which, much
more than this obelisk, resembles Swithin’s observatory, and, near at
hand, below, this old manor-house, the “Welland House” of the story.
From this eyrie, too, you perceive the old Exeter Road swooping whitely
downhill, and hear the hum of threshing-machines, coming up, like the
drowsy buzz of insects, from the vale.
[Picture: Weatherbury Castle]
It is not difficult to detect sarcasm in the description of this hill.
It “was (according to some antiquaries) an old Roman camp—if it were not
(as others insisted) an old British castle, or (as the rest swore) an old
Saxon field of Witanagemote—with remains of an outer and an inner vallum,
a winding path leading up between their overlapping ends by an easy
ascent.”
[Picture: The Obelisk, Weatherbury Castle]
Not so easy, really—indeed, demanding a rather strenuous climb. And when
you are on the crest of that ancient glacis (impregnable it might well
have been when men fought hand to hand) it is with some difficulty you
penetrate the dense woodland growing within this _ceinture_. Little can
in these times be seen of the obelisk from without: only from one
particular view-point can you observe its ultimate inches and the metal
ball that caps it, rising mysteriously from amid the topmost branches of
the fir-trees. Its situation is exactly described in the story: “The
gloom and solitude which prevailed round the base were remarkable. The
sob of the environing trees” (how like, by the way, to that passage in
Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s _Ruddigore_, “the sob of the breeze is heard in the
trees”) “was here expressively manifest, and, moved by the light breeze,
their thin straight stems rocked in seconds, like inverted pendulums,
while some boughs and twigs rubbed the pillar’s sides, or occasionally
clicked in catching each other. Below the level of their summits the
masonry was lichen-stained and mildewed, for the sun never pierced that
moaning cloud of blue-black vegetation. Pads of moss grew in the joints
of the stonework, and here and there shade-loving insects had engraved on
the mortar patterns of no human style or meaning, but curious and
suggestive.”
[Picture: E.M.P. inscription on obelisk] The why or purpose of this
slight brick structure are lost. The only clue, afforded by the
inscription on a stone tablet set in the lichened bricks, points to it
being the handiwork of a Pleydell. It was, in fact, built by Edmund
Morton Pleydell, but his purpose, if indeed he had one beyond a singular
notion of ornament, has passed, with himself, beyond these voices; and
the neglected condition of the monument—if indeed it be a monument—fully
bears out the moral reflection in _Two on a Tower_. “Here stood this
aspiring piece of masonry, erected as the most conspicuous and
ineffaceable reminder of a man that could be thought of; and yet the
whole aspect of the memorial betokened forgetfulness. Probably not a
dozen people within the district knew the name of the person
commemorated, while perhaps not a soul remembered whether the column were
hollow or solid, whether with or without a tablet explaining its date and
purpose.”
Regaining the high road and passing uphill by where the Dewlish toll-gate
once stood, and by an up-and-down course infinitely varied as to
gradient, we come at length down to the valley of the Piddle, and to
Piddletown, the “Weatherbury” of _Far from the Madding Crowd_, where
Gabriel Oak, come down in the world by the agency of Fate and his foolish
young sheep-dog, took service with his distractingly elusive dear,
Bathsheba Everdene, the lady-farmer. Weatherbury, as Mr. Hardy
regretfully tells us, is not the Weatherbury he once knew. It has indeed
been very largely rebuilt, and the rather stern and prim limestone
cottages that stand prominently in one of its several streets do not
altogether prepossess one in favour of this village that is not quite a
townlet and yet may quite possibly resent the more rustic definition.
The “several” streets are, after all, rather roads, with rows of houses
and cottages less integrally than incidentally there, and the several are
perhaps reducible to a term less connotive of number; but they run in
unexpected directions and uncovenanted angles, and so make an imposing
show, comparable with the effect produced by six supers who, by judicious
stage-management in passing and repassing, can be made to represent an
army. But the Piddle, running sparkling and clear through Piddletown,
redeems the conjoined effect of those streets and gives the place a final
and definitive _cachet_ of rurality, by no means belied by the very
large, though very rustic, church—happily still unrestored, and, with its
tall pews and fine Jacobean carved oak choir-gallery, a perfect picture
of an ancient Wessex place of worship. Hardean village choirs and
Gabriel Oak’s bass voice take, if it be possible, an even greater air of
actuality to the pilgrim who enters here.
The interest of Piddletown church is added to by the fine and curious
bowl font, diapered in an unusual pattern, and by the tombs of the
Martins of Athelhampton, who lie mediævally recumbent in effigy in their
own chapel, quite unconcerned, although scored over with the initials of
the undistinguished, and although their old manor-house of Athelhampton,
near by, on the road to Bere Regis, has since the time they became
extinct passed through several alien hands. Poor old fellows! Their
somewhat threatening motto, under their old monkey crest, of “He who
looks at Martin’s ape Martin’s ape shall look at him!” has lost any point
it ever had.
[Picture: Piddletown]
A touching epitaph desires your prayers for two of the family:
Here lyeth the body of Xpofer Martyn Esquyer,
Sone and heyre unto Syr Willym Martyn, knyght,
Pray for there Soules with harty desyre
That bothe may be sure of Eternall lyght;
Calling to Remembraunce that ev’ry wyhgt
Most nedys dye, and therefor lett us pray
As other for us may do Another day.
This church of Piddletown, or “Weatherbury,” is the scene of Sergeant
Troy’s belated remorse and of the acute misery of that incident where,
coming by the light of a lantern and planting flowers on Fanny Robin’s
grave, he sleeps in the porch while the rain-storm breaks and the
storm-water from the gurgoyles of the tower spouts furiously over the
spot.
“The persistent torrent from the gurgoyle’s jaws directed all its
vengeance into the grave. The rich tawny mould was stirred into motion,
and boiled like chocolate. The water accumulated and washed deeper down,
and the roar of the pool thus formed spread into the night. . . . The
flowers so carefully planted by Fanny’s repentant lover began to move and
writhe in their bed. The winter-violets turned slowly upside down, and
became a mere mat of mud. Soon the snowdrops and other bulbs danced in
the boiling mass like ingredients in a cauldron. Plants of the tufted
species were loosened, rose to the surface, and floated off.”
The street beside the church retains a good deal of its quaint features
of thatch and plaster, with deep eaves where the house-martins build. A
pretty corner including an old thatched house with architectonic windows
closely resembling those of a Queen Anne bureau, and supported on pillars
having a cousinship with classic art, is especially noticeable.
[Picture: A quaint corner in Piddletown]
If we wish to see the old mansion that served as model for Bathsheba’s
farm, we shall not find it in Piddletown, but must turn aside and proceed
up the valley of the Piddle, in the direction of Piddlehinton and
Piddletrenthide—usually termed “Longpiddle.” Before reaching these, at
the distance of rather over a mile, we come to Lower Walterstone, where,
behind noble groups of beeches, horse-chestnuts, and sycamores growing on
raised grassy banks, it will be found, in the shape of a Jacobean mansion
eloquently portrayed by the novelist:
“By daylight, the bower of Oak’s new-found mistress, Bathsheba Everdene,
presented itself as a hoary building, of the Jacobean stage of Classic
Renaissance as regards its architecture, and of a proportion which told
at a glance that, as is so frequently the case, it had once been the
manorial hall upon a small estate around it, now altogether effaced as a
distinct property, and merged in the vast tract of a non-resident
landlord which comprised several such modest demesnes. Fluted pilasters,
worked from the solid stone, decorated its front, and above the roof
pairs of chimneys were here and there linked by an arch, some gables and
other unmanageable features still retaining traces of their Gothic
extraction. Soft brown mosses, like faded velveteen, formed cushions
upon the stone tiling, and tufts of the houseleek or sengreen sprouted
from the eaves of the low surrounding buildings. A gravel walk leading
from the door to the road in front was incrusted at the sides with more
moss—here it was a silver-green variety, the nut-brown of the gravel
being visible to the width of only a foot or two in the centre. This
circumstance, and the generally sleepy air of the whole prospect here,
together with the animated and contrasting state of the reverse façade,
suggested to the imagination that, on the adaptation of the building for
farming purposes, the vital principle of the house had turned round
inside its body, to face the other way.”
The way from Piddletown to Dorchester, passing the hamlet singularly and
interestingly named “Troy Town,” which, although itself intrinsically
without visible interest, invites speculation, presently passes over
Yellowham Hill, clothed in luxuriant woods. This spot, the “Yalbury
Hill” of Troy’s excruciatingly pitiful meeting with Fanny Robin, figures,
together with the woodlands—the “Yalbury Great Wood” of _Under the
Greenwood Tree_—in several others among the Wessex stories. Coming to it
in old times, the coaches changed horses at the “Buck’s Head” inn, now
quite disestablished and forgot, save for the humorous description of it
to be found in the pages of _Far from the Madding Crowd_. Unswervingly
the highway passes over its crest and down on the other side, the
wayfarer along it watched by bright-eyed squirrels and the other lesser
fauna of this dense covert, while he thinks himself unobserved. It is a
lovely road, but you should see it and its encompassing woods in autumn,
when the October sunshine, with that characteristic golden sheen peculiar
to the time of year, falls between the rich red trunks of the firs on to
the golden-brown of the dried bracken; when the acorns are ripe on the
dwarf oaks and fall with startling little crashes into the sere leaves of
the undergrowth; when the nuts are ripe on the hazels and the
squirrels—too busy now to follow the wayfarer’s movements—are
industriously all day long gathering store of them over against winter.
Then Yellowham Woods are at their finest.
[Picture: Lower Walterstone Farm: Original of Bathsheba’s farm]
Where the descent from this eminence reaches an intermediate level,
preparatory to diving again downwards, the road takes a curve through the
park-lands of Kingston House, a stately but cold-looking mansion of
stone, figuring in that first novel, _Desperate Remedies_, as “Knapwater
House.” The bias of the architect, as he then was, is prominently
displayed in Mr. Hardy’s description of it: “The house was regularly and
substantially built of clean grey freestone throughout, in that plainer
fashion of Greek classicism which prevailed at the latter end of the last
century, when the copyists called designers had grown weary of fantastic
variations in the Roman orders. The main block approximated to a square
on the ground plan, having a projection in the centre of each side,
surmounted by a pediment. From each angle of the north side ran a line
of buildings lower than the rest, turning inwards again at their farthest
end, and forming within them a spacious open court, within which
resounded an echo of astounding clearness. These erections were in their
turn backed by ivy-covered ice-houses, laundries, and stables, the whole
mass of subsidiary buildings being half buried beneath close-set shrubs
and trees.”
Leaving aside, for the present, an exploration of Stinsford, down the
next turning, to come later to a particular and intimate discussion of
it, we proceed to Dorchester, whose houses, and those of its allied
suburb of Fordington, are now seen, crowning the ridge on which the old
county town stands.