STREATLEY—BASILDON—PANGBOURNE—MAPLEDURHAM—PURLEY
Beside the long rustic street of Streatley is the restored—nay, the
rebuilt—church, with a new font and almost everything else new. The old
font has been walled into the masonry at the junction of nave and chancel.
The street goes mounting towards the broad high road that runs closely
neighbouring the river on this Berkshire side, between Wallingford and
Reading. Between this and Wallingford we have only the two villages of
Moulsford and Cholsey, and they lack interest. Cholsey is the “Celsea”
of Domesday. Boating-men know Moulsford only as that place where the old
waterside inn, the Beetle and Wedge, is situated. The queer sign has
puzzled many town dwellers, but it presents no difficulties to country
folk, for a “beetle” is well known to them as a heavy wooden mallet,
used in splitting timber, and the “wedge” is the iron wedge inserted
in the timber and struck by the “beetle.” The inn has, like most other
Thames-side inns, been largely added to and altered; but old frequenters
of the river have ardent memories of it and their morning “rum-and-milk.”
Does any one in these latter days take that old traditional Thames-side
morning drink, “rum-and-milk,” that once most favoured of all up-river
restoratives? Have we not, in “those dear dead days beyond recall,” as we
lay in our more or less lavender-scented beds in some old-world waterside
hostelry, been awakened by the clink of a trayful of glasses and heard a
knock at the door, with the call, “Your rum-and-milk, sir”?
We had not ordered rum-and-milk at that untimeous hour, but as this was
obviously the proper thing to be done, the custom of the country, so to
say, we drank that strange drink—rather a heady and heavy drink, without
question—and were promptly sent off to sleep again by it.
The charms of Streatley and of Streatley Hill have been sung by Mr.
Ashby-Sterry, who is a kind of picnic and banjo poet-laureate of the
Thames as it was in those famous riverside years, the ’eighties, when the
charms of the river had not long since been discovered, and commercialism
had not yet begun its reign: the years when Molloy and Cotsford Dick,
and Marzials had just entered upon their song-writing and composing. Mr.
Ashby-Sterry is not a Tennyson, but one cherishes an endearing picture
of him, clothed in boating-flannels and a “blazer,” laurelled—if one
may express it so—with bulrushes, and discovered seated in company with
some cooling tipple, gently but firmly declining to perform any physical
exertion: least of all that involved in climbing Streatley Hill, which
is indeed a “breather.” Perhaps he is not even a little bit like that,
really; but his writings are responsible for such a mental picture:
“ … I’m told that you
Should mount the Hill and see the view;
And gaze and wonder, if you’d do
Its merits most completely:
The air is clear, the day is fine,
The prospect is, I know, divine—
But most distinctly I decline
To climb the Hill at Streatley!”
But to have done with all this, and to make our way to Basildon, which,
although it is divided into Upper and Lower, is in the total of those
parts but a small place. I do not know (nor apparently does any one else)
from what Basil or Basileus—what leader of men—Basildon takes its name.
That, like so much else, is lost among unrecorded things, but the world
knows a something else more immediately to the point; and that is the
fact that Charles Morrison of Basildon Park died in the early part of
1909, worth about six millions and three-quarters sterling. The estate
was later sworn for probate at the remarkable figure of £6,666,666; an
extraordinary array of numerals, almost exactly the Number of the Beast,
“six hundred threescore and six,” mentioned in the thirteenth chapter of
Revelation, multiplied by ten thousand.
The ornate gates of the noble demesne of Basildon Park look upon the
road, and are very florid, with stone gate-piers surmounted by urns
filled to overflowing with stony representations of most of the kindly
fruits of the earth, and upheld by cupids. Basildon church, with a
farm or two and the parsonage, lies down near the river in a tongue of
meadow-land so cut off by the river on its north side and the railway
on the south that it is, in effect, much more remote than many places
hundreds of miles away. The high-road, like the railway, cuts across the
base of this piece of land; and as only a narrow lane runs through it
and simply ends at the church, there is no inducement for the ordinary
wayfarer to venture this way. Strangers are rare down by that nook where
Basildon church stands, almost hidden by trees, and I should not be
surprised to learn that the few people who live there mark those days as
special, and keep them in memory, when they chance to see a strange face.
There are many remote corners along the shores of the winding Thames, but
none more secluded than this of Basildon.
It is a small church that serves for the place, and the body of it
appears to have been wholly rebuilt of late years. The tower, an
eighteenth-century red-brick affair, is an almost exact counterpart, on
a smaller scale, of the tower of Pangbourne church. Beside the massive
polished granite tomb of the Morrisons stands a sculptured group of two
boys represented as bathers standing on a rushy river-bank. This is
the pathetic memorial of Ernest and Edward Deverell, aged sixteen and
fifteen, who were drowned while bathing in the Thames, June 26, 1886.
[Illustration: WHITCHURCH.]
The road on to Pangbourne gradually nears the river again, and touches it
at what was until some twenty years since one of the loveliest reaches
of the Thames, for here the stream is bordered by a long ridge of chalk
hill, broken here and there into cliffs that used to shine whitely into
the water. Keeley Halswelle painted an exquisite picture of this scene,
and it was hung in the Royal Academy; and that is now the only thing left
of it, for Shooter’s Hill—the name of this ridge—has been purchased by a
highly-successful trader in what is satirically known as the “rag trade”
(why is it that the drapery trade is so greatly affected by Welshmen?)
who has not only set up for something in the way of a country gentleman
here, with his ornate house and picture-gallery, and his gardens and
hot-houses, but has, in addition, quite in the way of the businessman,
made the purchase an investment by scooping out nine or ten sites from
those wild riverside chalk-cliffs, and building on them a series of
villas, described in the guide-books as “bijou residences.” So the quiet,
ancient beauty of Pangbourne Reach is now a thing of the past, and
instead of the white cliffs, the stream reflects red-brick.
Something has already been said, in the opening pages of this
book, respecting the recent spoiling of Pangbourne village by the
overbuilding in it: all brought about by the convenience of a main-line
railway-station in the very midst of the place; and therefore nothing
more may be written. The same remarks apply in degree to Whitchurch, at
the other end of the long bridge that here joins the two banks.
There is a dull high road out of Pangbourne, and there is a delightful
towing-path, crossing the mouth of the little Pang bourne, and going
with a fine view across river to Hardwicke House, amid its beautiful
lawns on the Oxfordshire side, and presently to Mapledurham Lock.
Hardwicke House has associations with the troubles of Charles the First,
and was greatly injured during the fighting about Reading.
Although there is no public ferry at Mapledurham Lock, boats there afford
an opportunity of crossing the river; greatly, no doubt, to the chagrin
of the Blounts, who own Mapledurham, and have not only distinguished
themselves in modern times by seeking the aid of the law-courts to forbid
fishing in the river at this point, but have so arranged that there is no
inn at Mapledurham, and have placed every conceivable obstacle in the way
of any one save themselves enjoying the scene. Notice-boards informing
the stranger that this, that, and the other are “Private” start out at
unexpected corners; and there is only wanting one touch to make this
attitude thorough. The suggestion is hereby offered that, for thoroughly
scaring away those insistent persons who do not entirely believe in such
notices, there should be added to them, _more Americano!_ “This means
YOU.”
But there is reason in most things, and the reason for this
uncompromising attitude is found, according to rumour, in the nearness
of Mapledurham to Reading, which sends out numerous boating-parties at
holiday times; and such parties, we all know, are not always discreet,
either in word or deed.
[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM MILL.]
The old mill of Mapledurham is, now that Iffley Mill has become a thing
of the past, the most picturesque on the Thames. Near by it stands the
humble little church, amid tall elms, with monuments of the Blounts and
others, secluded from lesser folk in a side chapel. A curious small mural
monument, with the representation of a dropped curtain, is to be seen
here, to the memory of Captain Adrian Rose, born 1878, died 1908. He
served in the Boer War.
The beautiful late Tudor mansion of the exclusive Blounts, built by Sir
Michael Blount, Lieutenant of the Tower in 1581, stands a little way
back from the river, and turns its front away from it. Like so many
Elizabethan manor-houses, its plan is that of an elongated capital
letter E, the upper and lower projecting limbs formed by the wings; the
middle being the entrance. The view of it at some little distance down
the mile-long avenue of stately elms is delightful, whether you see it
under the mid-day sun, or by the mellow romantic afterglow of a summer
evening. At either time the richness in colour of its old red-brick
front, patterned in lozenge shapes by vitrified bricks of a darker hue,
is evident. It is a house of some romance. Legends tell that on the death
of a Blount, or prophetically before such an event—it is not quite clear
which—an elm of the long avenue falls; by which it would seem that the
owner of this avenue of many trees, a large proportion of them past their
prime and prone (as elms especially are) to fall suddenly and without
apparent cause, must sometimes receive a shock to his nerves, especially
if he be superstitious; and as the Blounts have ever been Roman
Catholics, it seems safe enough to deduce superstition in many of them.
The family have been seated here some four hundred years, and are kin of
that Sir Walter Blount who was slain at Shrewsbury fight, in 1403; cut
down by Douglas, who mistook him for King Henry. “A gallant knight he
was,” says Hotspur, pointing out to Douglas his mistake, “his name was
Blunt, semblably furnished like the King himself.”
As popish recusants, and as Royalists in the civil war, the Blounts have
suffered sequestration, and have seen hostile soldiers quartered in their
old house, and the Sir Charles Blount of that time was slain in the
service of the King at Oxford in 1644.
A literary association illuminates their annals at a later period,
the spinster Martha Blount, having been Pope’s “Stella” or “Patty,” a
constant friend and correspondent, and the recipient at the poet’s death
of his books, his plate, and £1,000. That Pope was not in sympathy with
the rural surroundings of Mapledurham seems evident from his lines upon
Miss Martha on one occasion returning hither
“To plain work, to purling brooks,
Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks.”
But then, that was the approved eighteenth-century way!
[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE.]
A long three miles leads direct from Mapledurham to Reading—a lovely road
through woodlands, by way of Caversham; but Caversham spoils it all, at
the end: Caversham, the cross-river suburb of Reading, where the new
streets impinge upon the fair face of the country, and where the gasworks
and the destructors, and suchlike evidences of civilisation abound, and
crying children and angry mothers cry and spank. If I were a Blount and
owned Mapledurham, I would not journey from it by way of Caversham, that
is quite certain! The best way is undoubtedly by river, past delightful
Purley; or by the road along the Berkshire bank, through Upper Purley,
and past Tilehurst railway station.
Purley might well be thought to lie outside the strife of the wicked
world. The “lea” down in which the village lies is so secluded that
none others than those who live here, or have business in the place,
ever come into it—unless they be stalwart or inquisitive explorers of
the calibre—shall it be said?—of the present writer. The “village,” of
a few rustic cottages, lies down below the high road, between the tall
embankment of the Great Western Railway and the river. You may hear the
trains numerously rushing by, swishing with a curious sound past the
dense trees that fill this little nook and flourish upon the embankment
itself, but you cannot well see them: only the arm of a tall signal-post
wagging continually between the signal to proceed or to stop. The trains
tell the villagers, plainly enough, that there is a busy world; and they
can see it, plainly enough, when they go for their weekly marketing to
Reading; but the business of it all passes by, out of sight, in the
manner typified by those swiftly-moving trains.
There should be no ill in this place; but since they are human beings
that live here, and not angels, there has been of late a good deal of
trouble, well-known to local people in what was styled by the Berkshire
newspapers of 1907-8 “The Purley Scandal.”
There need have been no scandal, so far as the outer world was concerned,
had it not been for the action of the rector of the parish.
But let a summary of the case, extracted from one of the newspapers, here
be given:
“A Mrs. Moule had been head mistress of the Purley Church of
England school for twelve years, and had conducted it during
that time efficiently, with nothing to be urged either against
her abilities or her character. But Mrs. Moule had a daughter
who loved not wisely but too well. The result was that the
girl had to get married hastily. She left the village until
the child was born; then she went to stay with her mother
for a few days. The rector of the parish—one of those nice,
charitable Christian gentlemen with whom our readers are by
this time well acquainted—demanded that Mrs. Moule should turn
her daughter out of doors for at least six months. The mother
refused, her ‘conduct’ was brought to the notice of the school
managers by the holy man aforesaid, and she was dismissed her
employment. The Education Committee of the Berks County Council
supported the parson and the managers in their monstrous act of
injustice, and tried to burke discussion. The whole question
was then raised at a special meeting of the Council, when the
decision arrived at was ‘that this Council expresses a wish
that the Education Committee will, should opportunity offer,
sanction Mrs. Moule’s appointment to a similar post to that
which she recently held.’”
Here we see in working that truly British love of compromise, which has
been aptly defined as a middle course by which neither party is satisfied.
The church of Purley lies quite remote, at the end of the scattered
cottages, and through a woodland path. The body of it has been rebuilt,
but the red-brick seventeenth-century tower remains, with a sculptured
heraldic shield of the Bolingbrokes on its south face.
INDEX
Transcriber’s Note: This index originally appeared in Volume II and has
been copied here for the convenience of the reader.
Abingdon, i. 159, 216-33
Ashton Keynes, i. 22-30
Augustine, St., i. 47
Bablockhythe, i. 161
Bampton, i. 121-4
Barnes, ii. 253-8
Basildon, i. 295
Benson, i. 268
Besselsleigh, i. 157-60
Beverley Brook, ii. 258
Binsey, i. 190-92
Bisham, ii. 45-50, 201
Bourne End, ii. 56
Boveney, ii. 109
Bray, ii. 69-81
Brentford, ii. 220-36
Brightwell, i. 268
⸺ Salome, i. 268
Buckland, i. 118-21
Burford, i. 105-7
“Burlington,” ii. 251
Burnham Abbey, ii. 105
Buscot, i. 89-92
Cæsar, Julius, ii. 157, 221-9
Cambridge, H.R.H. Duke of, ii. 64
Carfax Conduit, i. 215
Castle Eaton, i. 50-58
Caversham, i. 304-7
Chamey Brook, i. 124
Chertsey, ii. 150, 161, 201
Chiswick, ii. 245-53
Cholsey, i. 293
Churn, River, i. 17-19, 45, 94
Cirencester, i. 9-13, 18
Clanfield, i. 107-9
Clewer, ii. 110
Clifton Hampden, i. 247, 252-6
Cliveden, ii. 60-64
Coln, River, i. 66, 73, 74
Colne, River, ii. 141
Cookham, ii. 59
Cote, i. 124-7
Coway Stakes, ii. 157-65, 221
Cricklade, i. 30-46, 69
Crowmarsh Gifford, i. 283
Cumnor, i. 161-85
Damer, Anne Seymour, ii. 25
Datchet, ii. 131
Day’s Lock, i. 256, 259
Dorchester, i. 259-68
Dorney, ii. 86-105
Down Ampney, i. 47
Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester, i. 171-85
Eaton Weir, i. 92
Eisey Chapel, i. 50
Eton, ii. 115-19
Ewen, i. 21
Eynsham, i. 186-9
Fairford, i. 66, 73-85
“Fair Rosamond,” i. 193-6
Faringdon, i. 102, 110-17
Folly Bridge, i. 197-9
Fulham, ii. 259, 273-92
⸺ Palace, ii. 276-92
Gathampton, i. 290
Gaunt’s House, i. 141-5
Godstow, i. 193-6
Goring, i. 284-90
Great Faringdon, i. 102, 110-17
⸺ Marlow, ii. 51-6
Grove Park, ii. 245
Halliford, ii. 158
Ham, ii. 185
Hamble, River, ii. 30
Hambleden, ii. 30-4
Harcourt family, The, i. 146-9, 155, 186; ii. 136
Harcourt, Sir William, i. 207, 212
Hart’s Weir, i. 92
Hell-Fire Club, The, ii. 34-8
Henley, ii. 22-30
Hennerton Backwater, ii. 22
Hoby, Lady, ii. 49
Horton, ii. 137-41
Hurley, ii. 41-5
Hurst, ii. 8-10
Iffley, i. 200-7
⸺ Mill, i. 22, 203
Inglesham, i. 64-6
⸺ Round House, i. 64-6
Isis, River, i. 16, 69; ii. 5
Isleworth, ii. 210-20
Jesus Hospital, ii. 81
Kederminster family, The, ii. 120-8
Kelmscott, i. 66, 93
Kemble, i. 19-21
Kempsford, i. 58-64, 91-8
Kew, ii. 237
Kew Gardens, ii. 220, 230, 237
Kit’s Quarries, i. 106
Laleham, ii. 145-9, 162
Langley Marish, ii. 119-28
Latton, i. 47
Leach, River, i. 66, 94
Lechlade, i. 66-73, 85
“Lertoll Well,” i. 47-9
Leslie, G. D., R.A., ii. 64
Little Wittenham, i. 247, 251
Littleton, ii. 149
Loddon, River, ii. 7, 17
Long Wittenham, i. 241, 251
Maidenhead, ii. 64-8
Mapledurham, i. 300-4
Marlow, ii. 51-6
Marsh Lock, ii. 25
Medley, i. 190, 196
Medmenham, ii. 34-8
Milton, John, ii. 137-41
Mongewell, i. 268, 283
Morris, William, i. 94-8
Mortlake, ii. 253
Moulsford, i. 293
New Bridge, i. 138-41
Newnham Murren, i. 283
Norreys family, The, ii. 82-5
North Stoke, i. 283
Northmoor, i. 124, 145
Nuneham Courtney, i. 207-15
Oaklade Bridge, i. 29, 94
Oatlands, ii. 161, 167
Ockwells, ii. 82-6
“Old England,” ii. 225
“Old Man’s Bridge,” i. 117
Old Windsor, ii. 131
Osiers, i. 132-6
Palmer family, The, ii. 89-105
Pangbourne, i. 5; ii. 296-9
Patrick Stream, The, ii. 17
Penton Hook, ii. 150
Petersham, ii. 185-211
Pope, Alexander, i. 151, 304
Purley, i. 307-11
Putney, ii. 259-63
⸺ Bridge, ii. 263-73
Pye, Henry James, Poet Laureate, i. 113-15
Radcot Bridge, i. 101-7, 117
Ray, River, i. 50
Reading, i. 304, 307; ii. 1
Richmond, ii. 193, 209, 210, 237
Robsart, Amy, i. 172-85
Runnymede, ii. 132
Ruscombe, ii. 11
Rushes, i. 137
Rushey Lock, i. 118
St. Augustine, i. 47
St. Frideswide, i. 190, 192
St. John’s Lock, i. 89
St. Lawrence Waltham, ii. 11
Seacourt, i. 190
Seven Springs, i. 17
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, ii. 55
Shepperton, ii. 154, 158, 162
Shifford, i. 127
Shillingford, i. 268
Shiplake, ii. 17
⸺ Mill, i. 25
Shottesbrooke, ii. 11-17
Sinodun, i. 247-251, 256
Smith, Rt. Hon. W. H., ii. 30
Somerford Keynes, i. 21
Sonning, ii. 1-7, 10
Sotwell, i. 268
South Stoke, i. 283
Staines, ii. 141, 145
Standlake, i. 141
Stanton Harcourt, i. 146-56
Stanwell, ii. 142-5
Steventon, i. 234
Strand-on-the-Green, ii. 238-45
Streatley, i. 290-5
Sutton Courtney, i. 234-41
Swillbrook, The, i. 29, 94
Swinford Bridge, i. 186
Tadpole Bridge, i. 118, 121
Thame, River, i. 16
Thames and Severn Canal, i. 14, 45, 59, 64
Thames Head, i. 8, 14-18
Thames, River, i. 16-18; ii. 25
“Torpids,” i. 199
Trewsbury Mead, i. 15
Turnham Green, ii. 246-8
Twickenham, ii. 178
Twyford, ii. 8
Upper Somerford Mill, i. 21
Vicar of Bray, ii. 69-77
Villiers, Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, ii. 101-5
Walker, Frederick, ii. 45, 59
Wallingford, i. 272
Walton, ii. 158, 161, 165
Warborough, i. 268-83
Wargrave, ii. 18-22
Water Eaton, i. 50-3
Water Hay, i. 29
Wey, River, ii. 154
Weybridge, ii. 150-4, 161
Whitchurch, i. 5; ii. 290
Willows, i. 128-32
Windrush, River, i. 141
Windsor, ii. 110-15
Wittenham, Little, i. 247, 251
⸺ Long, i. 241, 251
Wraysbury, ii. 135-7
Wye, River, ii. 59
Wytham, i. 166, 186-90
_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._