FRENSHAM AND TILFORD
A Surrey Labourer.--The Witch's Caldron.--Frensham Ponds.--The Last
of the Blackcock.--Herons and Waterlilies.--The Tilford
Oak.--Cobbett's Mistake.--Silver Billy.--The heroic age of
Cricketers.
Farnham has expanded to the south-east, and not prettily. But it is the
key to the great stretch of pine wood, heather and bogland which lies to
the south about Frensham, Tilford and Crooksbury Hill; and it is the
best centre from which to visit Waverley Abbey and Moor Park, and to
take long walks over some of the wildest country in the county. A week
would not be long enough to explore the dozen square miles south of the
town.
Wrecclesham lies to the south-west, almost on the Hampshire border, and
still makes green pottery of patterns which were favourites in the
sixteenth century. Further south runs the tiny Bourne, the stream by
which Cobbett and his brothers had so good an education, as we have just
seen, in the sand. The Bourne, which runs dry in summer, has few
associations as a stream; one, perhaps, will remain with it. Readers of
_The Bettesworth Book_ and _Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer_ will perhaps
not be very wrong if they fix on this sandy valley as the Surrey which
Bettesworth knew best. Than the _Memoirs_, I think, no more discerning
study of an old labourer's fight to keep on his own legs, out of the
workhouse, earning his own money with his spade and hoe, belongs to any
Surrey village.
[Illustration: _Pierrepont House and Bridge._]
Deep country begins south of the Bourne, with the first Surrey bridge
over the Wey, or rather one of the two Weys that are to join at Tilford.
Untouched as yet by any town, the little river runs here over gravel and
sand, clear and weedy. Trout lie under the bridge below Pierrepont
House, in George III's day a seat of Evelyn Duke of Kingston, who named
it after his family. He was the Duke who married the beautiful Countess
of Bristol when her lawful husband was still alive: perhaps she used to
stare into the Wey at Pierrepont and wonder whether it was worth doing.
[Illustration: _Beside Frensham Pond._]
Frensham stands a little distant from the river, just a cottage or two
and a church. But the church holds a famous relic--an enormous caldron
of beaten copper. Nobody knows its age; everybody has a story about it.
It was brought by the fairies, is one tradition; it was nothing of the
kind, is another. Mother Ludlam, the witch of Moor Park, four miles
away, used it for boilings and philtremakings, according to one story;
yet another connects it with a great stone which used to lie in the
neighbourhood. John Aubrey, the antiquary, who "perambulated" Surrey in
1673 and 1674, gives the legend in full:--
"In the vestry of the church, on the north side of the chancel, is
an extraordinary great kettle or caldron, which the inhabitants say,
by tradition, was brought hither by the fairies, time out of mind,
from Borough hill, about a mile from hence. To this place, if any
one went to borrow a yoke of oxen, money, etc., he might have it for
a year or longer so he kept his word to return it. There is a cave
where some have fancied to hear music. On this Borough hill (in the
Tithing of Cherte, in the parish of Frensham) is a great stone lying
along, of the length of about six feet: they went to this Stone, and
knocked at it, and declared that they would borrow, and when they
would repay, and a Voice would answer when they should come, and
that they should find what they desired to borrow at that Stone.
This caldron, with the trivet, was borrowed here after the manner
aforesaid, but not returned according to promise; and though the
caldron was afterwards carried to the stone, it could not be
received, and ever since that time no borrowing there....
"The people saw a great fire one night (not long since), the next
day they went to see if any heath was burnt there, but found
nothing."
[Illustration: _Frensham Pond Hotel._]
"These stories," says Aubrey, "are verily believed by most of the old
women of this parish, and by many of their daughters." The daughters
ought to have known better. So ought Aubrey, according to Salmon,
another Surrey historian, writing in 1736. He cannot understand why
there should be anything astonishing about the size of the caldron,
"there having been many in England till lately to be seen, as well as
very large spits which were given for entertainment of the parish at the
wedding of poor maids." It was a notable thing to roast an ox whole.
Clearly it would be satisfactory to boil a sheep.
[Illustration: _Frensham Pond._]
From Frensham village a road runs straight across the common to the
south-west corner of the Great Pond, but the prettiest road to the water
is by the side of the Wey. The Wey runs here deep and clean, edged with
forget-me-nots through all the summer, winding and straightening through
serene and shining pastures. There is nothing quieter in all Surrey than
this little path by the tiny river, with the bank on one side rich with
roses and elderflower, and on the other the sunlight gleaming on the
chestnut coats of the cattle moving slowly through the sedge. Here is an
old oak bridge, solid and lichened; here, facing the stream, a high bank
of white sand, bored and tunnelled by sand-martins; a little further,
and the brushwood flames with the pink and crimson spires of a thousand
foxgloves. The grassy path runs on, until on a sudden bend the ground
rises, and over a wooden stile opens out the vista of the great
Frensham Pond. Could there be a deeper contrast? Behind lies green
pasture-land, rush and sedge, oak and alder; before you, the shoulder of
a hill purple with ling, the long level of grey and silver water,
dancing under the wind away to a far strip of yellow sand flecked with
patches of white foam; high above that, burnt and blackened ridges of
heather-ground and gorse. Frensham Pond has often been painted, but that
is the view I should choose, as I saw it first. To one coming up from
these green depths of pasture, the air blows across the water with the
freshness of the sea.
[Illustration: _The Devil's Jumps, beyond Frensham Pond._]
Frensham Pond still lies open and wild to the sky, though it may not be
long before its shyer visitors leave it for more secluded waters. The
motor omnibuses from Farnham have not yet frightened them all away. Coot
and moorhens paddle in and out of the reeds, and great grebes float
leisurely about its surface. It has always been famous for its fishing.
In Aubrey's time it was "well known for its carps to the London
fishmongers," and to-day it holds pike, perch and tench. I heard of no
carp. Who would eat a carp?
In the bar of the little inn that stands on the edge of Frensham Pond
there is an interesting case holding two blackcocks and a grey-hen,
whose unhappy lot it was to be shot--perhaps the last of their race seen
in this part of Surrey. They were killed nineteen years ago, in 1889.
Actually the last blackcock chronicled in Surrey were a pair seen near
Hindhead, I believe in 1906.
[Illustration: _The Devil's Jumps, from Frensham Common._]
From Frensham Great Pond one may push on to Hindhead, three or four
miles to the south-east, or may return to Farnham through Tilford by way
of the Little Pond, another broad and shining stretch of water. The way
to Farnham is the better, for it means leaving the high road for the
natural paths that run over and round the windy ridges of the commonland
to the east. From the rising ground between the two Frensham ponds there
is a fine panorama of pine and heather. Crooksbury Hill juts up dark and
commanding to the north; the level line of the ridge on the left, a few
hundred yards away, is broken and humped with barrows; far away to the
east lies Charterhouse, grey in the haze by Godalming; behind, to the
south-east, the Devil's Jumps, three little squat, conical hills whose
very oddity is one of their attractions. They edge the horizon like
inverted pudding bowls covered with bracken, and with bell-heather
kindling to crimson in the July sunlight.
[Illustration: _Bridge at Tilford._]
July is the month in which to visit Frensham Little Pond. It was an
accident which first showed me the pond as it ought to be seen, and as
few see it. I had been watching a number of herons through my glasses;
one of them eyeing me discontentedly from the reeds on a southern arm of
the water, and three more flapping majestically over the trees,
apparently dropping suddenly down into the valley of the Wey. Trying to
take a short cut to the stream I missed my way among the woodland rides,
and suddenly found myself again on the edge of the pond. It was worth
making the mistake. The northern corner of the pond by the little
boathouse is one sheet of white waterlilies. The corner runs into a
rough triangle, with two sides fifty yards in length and a base of
perhaps thirty yards. There must be nearly a thousand square yards of
lilies, and from five to ten lilies to the yard, green buds, opening
blossoms, and great white cups and gold-centred chalices, wet and
swaying in the wind. Through all the summer those lilies flower, and
there cannot be as many people see them as there are lilies.
Fortunately, it would be difficult to find them unless you were walking:
you could not drive a motor-car or ride a bicycle down those sandy
lanes, and nobody on foot would pick the lilies.
To walk from Frensham Little Pond over Tilford Common to Tilford is to
traverse some of the wildest and freshest commonland in Surrey. For some
distance from the northern corner of the pond the way runs through
woodland, crossed and recrossed by so many sandy paths that it is a good
deal easier to get lost than to find the high road running into Tilford
from the south. It is worth while getting lost, for that matter, if only
to realise the wildness of the place; though it would perhaps be better
to choose daytime for the business, for there are some awkward-looking,
though perhaps not dangerous, bogs on the lower ground near the Wey.
This lower ground, by the way, is a wonderful place for rabbits. You
come suddenly out from the wood on the border of a reedy field, and see
dozens of scampering bodies cleaving paths through the shaking rushes.
Now and then a rabbit, puzzled by the silence following the sound of the
invader's coming, sits and cocks up a pair of ears above the grass; his
head goes a little higher, his timorous eye catches yours, and the
greenery closes behind him.
Tilford to-day cannot be very different from the Tilford of the days of
Cobbett. It is a straggling little hamlet, lying about the triangle
formed by its cricket-green. The Wey runs halfway round the green, and
is crossed by two grey and ancient bridges. But the chief glory of
Tilford is its mighty oak, one of the greatest of English trees. Its age
is unknown, and perhaps would hardly be known if it were felled. It has
been claimed as "the oak at Kynghoc," mentioned in the charter given to
Waverley Abbey in 1128; but that oak is mentioned as standing on the
Abbeyland boundary, and the Tilford oak has never stood on the boundary.
These historic oaks make difficult problems. Wherever you find a great
tree, local legend gathers round it. Queen Elizabeth dined under it or
shot a stag under it; Charles II climbed in it; Wesley preached under
it; it is the boundary of the parish; it was the boundary of the
Abbeyland eight hundred years ago. But was it always, then, the greatest
tree for miles round? Eight hundred years ago, may there not have stood
another tree near where it stands to-day, as large or even larger?
Surely the traditions of one great tree pass, when the tree falls, to
its nearest great neighbour; but they pass so seldom, and so slowly,
that the villagers hardly note the change. Three generations are born
and die, and no villager living has seen the older greater oak; the
younger, slighter tree succeeds to its glories. Tilford's oak to-day is
called by all Tilford the King's Oak. On the old estate maps it is
Novel's Oak; Novel, perhaps, was a yeoman farmer.
[Illustration: _Between Tilford and Elstead._]
Cobbett made a curious mistake about the Tilford Oak. He and his son
were riding through Tilford to Farnham on an autumn day in 1822:--
"We veered a little to the left after we came to Tilford, at which
place on the Green we stopped to look at an _oak tree_, which, when
I was a little boy, was but a very little tree, comparatively, and
which is now, take it altogether, by far the finest tree that I ever
saw in my life. The stem or shaft is short; that is to say, it is
short before you come to the first limbs; but it is full _thirty
feet round_, at about eight or ten feet from the ground. Out of the
stem there come not less than fifteen or sixteen limbs, many of
which are from five to ten feet round, and each of which would, in
fact, be considered a decent stick of timber. I am not judge enough
of timber to say anything about the quantity in the whole tree, but
my son stepped the ground, and, as nearly as we could judge, the
diameter of the extent of the branches was upwards of ninety feet,
which would make a circumference of about three hundred feet. The
tree is in full growth at this moment. There is a little hole in one
of the limbs; but with that exception, there appears not the
smallest sign of decay."
Visitors to Tilford can amuse themselves with trying over Cobbett's
measurements. I could not reach to measure it ten feet from the ground;
but at five feet I made its girth, in July, 1907, twenty-four feet nine
inches. Probably it was not much less when Cobbett was a little boy.
That independent, combative mind would not accept another's
measurements, and if he remembered the tree as a little tree, then a
little tree he was right in remembering. Since his day the signs of
decay have set in; the oak is still superb, but a Jubilee sapling has
been planted as a neighbour. Centuries hence the sapling, perhaps, will
be the King's Oak again.
Tilford has another memory of green old age. William Beldham--"Silver
Billy," because of his straw-coloured hair--lived most of his life in
the village, where he kept an inn, and died in a cottage close under the
oak. He was born at Wrecclesham on February 5, 1766, and died February
20, 1862, aged 96, having played thirty-five years' unbroken "great"
cricket, as Lillywhite calls it--a finer name than first-class. Let John
Nyren, most discerning of biographers, describe him:--
"William Beldham was a close-set, active man, standing about five
feet eight inches and a-half. He had light-coloured hair, a fair
complexion, and handsome as well as intelligent features. We used to
call him 'Silver Billy.' No one within my recollection could stop a
ball better, or make more brilliant hits all over the ground.
Wherever the ball was bowled, there she was hit away, and in the
most severe, venomous style. Besides this, he was so remarkably safe
a player; he was safer than the Bank, for no mortal ever thought of
doubting Beldham's stability. He received his instructions from a
gingerbread baker at Farnham, of the name of Harry Hall....
"He would get in at the balls, and hit them away in a gallant style;
yet, in this single feat, I think I have seen him excelled; but when
he could cut them at the point of the bat he was in his glory; and
upon my life, their speed was as the speed of thought."
[Illustration: _The King's Oak, Tilford._]
When were the great days of Surrey cricket? When Surrey could lend All
England William Beldham, and still win--which they did twice--a Tilford
man might answer. At all events, they were days in which cricketers
lived to heroic ages. Abarrow, who lies at Hambledon over the Hampshire
border, lived to be 88; James Aylward, "rather a bulky man for a
cricketer," was buried close to Lord's ground, aged 86; Barber, who
kept the Bat and Ball on Broad Halfpenny Down, was 71; William Fennex,
at the age of 75, walked ninety miles in three days, carrying an
umbrella, clothes, and three cricket bats (but he died soon after);
William Lambert, almost the greatest of Surrey hitters, and the first
player who ever made two centuries in the same match, died at 72; Lumpy
Stevens, who won L100 for Lord Tankerville by hitting a feather once in
four balls, and lies in Walton churchyard, was 84; John Small, who saved
his life by playing his violin to a ferocious bull, to the "admiration
and perfect satisfaction of the mischievous beast," lived to be 89; Tom
Sueter--"I have never seen a handsomer man than Tom Sueter," wrote
Nyren--lived to be 77; "Shock" White, with his bat as broad as his
stumps, "a short and rather stoutly-made man," was buried at Reigate,
aged 91; Yalden of Chertsey,--he jumped over a fence and then on his
back caught the ball--was 84; and John Wells, buried at Farnham, died at
the age of 76. John Wells shared with "Silver Billy" a curious
distinction. He was Beldham's brother-in-law, and an admiring publican
at Wrecclesham put up a sign to draw thirsty wayfarers to Wrecclesham's
best beer. It was "The Rendezvous of the Celebrated Cricketers, Beldham
and Wells." If it were still standing, it would attract a pilgrimage.
[Illustration]