THE ARTIST'S SURREY HOME
There are few fairer counties in England than Surrey, and of Surrey
the fairest portion is admittedly the extreme south-western edge which
skirts Sussex to the south and Hampshire to the west. Travellers
from London to Portsmouth by the London and South-Western Railway on
leaving Guildford pass through the middle of the right angle which this
corner makes, and cut the corner two miles beyond Haslemere almost
exactly at the point where the three counties meet. As the steep rise
of nearly 300 feet which has to be surmounted in the six miles which
divide Witley from Haslemere is being negotiated by the train, the most
unobservant passenger must be struck by the singularly beautiful wooded
character of the country on either side, and by the far-extended view
which is unfolded as the eye looks southward over the Weald of Sussex.
It was to Sandhills, near Witley, that Mrs. Allingham came to live
in 1881 with her growing family, and it was in this corner of Surrey
that she found ample material for almost all her work during the next
few years; and it is there that she has returned at intervals for the
majority of those cottage subjects which the public has called for,
ever since her first portrayal of them shortly after her commencement
of landscape painting in these parts.
Witley consists of groups of irregularly-dotted-about houses, which
hardly constitute a village, and would perhaps be better designated
by the proper name--Witley Street. A few years ago every one of the
houses counted their ages by centuries, and were fitting companions
of the ancient oaks and elms that shaded them. Some few are left, but
the majority are gone, many so long before the term of their natural
existence had run that it was a troublesome piece of work to destroy
them. There is also an old "Domesday Book" Church. Drawings of almost
all of the cottages, from the hand of Mrs. Allingham, are in existence
somewhere or other, but she never seems to have painted this or other
churches, having apparently little liking for them, as had Birket
Foster. In the present case the omission to do so arose from the fact
that in painting it she would have formed one of the occupants of
half-a-dozen outspread white umbrellas, all taking a stiffly-composed
subject from the same point of view.
Sandhills, where our artist lived, is on the Haslemere side of Witley,
on a sloping common of heather and gorse, topped with fir trees. From
thence the view, looking southwards, extends far and wide over the
Weald of Surrey and Sussex, Hindhead, a mountain-like hill rising
behind, and Blackdown, a spur stretching out on to the Sussex Valley
to the right. In the distance are to be seen the rising grounds near
Midhurst and Petworth, Chanctonbury Ring with its tuft of trees, called
locally "The Squire's Hunting Cap," and on a clear day the downs as far
as Brighton and Lewes.
It is indeed a healthy and bracing spot, and one calculated to induce
a painter to energetic work, and a delight in doing it. Subjects lay
close at hand, the Sandhills garden furnishing many a one. "Master
Hardy's," a charming cottage tenanted by a charming old man, was
within a stone's throw, and received attention inside and out. Of the
Hindhead Road, which passes south-west, a single Exhibition, that of
1886, contained six subjects, all of them wayside cottages, but no
one of which, when the Exhibition opened, was as depicted, having in
that short time been "done up" by local builders at the bidding of
Philistine owners.
The neighbourhood round is, or perhaps we should say was, also prolific
in subjects--Haslemere, four miles south-west, with its pleasant wide
old streets, and with fields tilted up at the end of it, furnished its
Fish-Shop, and other thoroughly English village scenes.
Some two miles south of Haslemere was Aldworth, Lord Tennyson's
house, a mile over the Sussex border, although always spoken of as
his "Surrey" residence. To Mrs. Allingham's work there we shall have
occasion to refer later on.
The varied summits of Hindhead (painted a century earlier by Turner and
Rowlandson, and at that time adorned with a gibbet for the benefit of
the highwaymen who infested the Portsmouth Road, which passes over it),
in one place bare moor, in another crested with fir trees, lay some
distance northward of Haslemere; but our artist did not often depict
them, although they presented themselves under many a charming aspect,
and never more glorious than at sunset in their robes of violet and
gold. A thoroughly characteristic view of them is however given in the
Lord Chief Justice's drawing (Plate 19).
To the southward of Sandhills stretches, as we have said, the Weald.
To this district Mrs. Allingham made frequent excursions, not only for
cottages, which she found at Hambledon, Chiddingfold, and Wisborough,
but for spring and autumn subjects in the oak woods and copses which to
this day probably bear much the same aspect as did the ancient Forest
of Anderida (whose site they occupy) in the time of the Heptarchy.
Oak is the tree of the wealden clay on the lower levels, but elms grow
to a grand size on the higher ground, where ashes are also numerous.
Spanish chestnuts "encamp in state" on certain slopes, and many of the
hills are "fringed and pillared" with pines. The interminable hazel
copses are interspersed with long labyrinthine paths, the intricacies
of which are only known to the countryside folk. Not so long ago the
cutting down at intervals of the young wood for the purposes of hop
poles, hurdles, and kindling, brought in a handsome revenue to the
owners; but of late years wire has taken the place of wood for the two
first of these objects, and the labourers prefer dear coal to wood,
even as a gift, for it does not entail cutting up. As railway rates to
bring it to the metropolis are prohibitive, it is hard to say what the
consequences will be in a few years, but the probabilities actually
point to a return to the primitive conditions which existed in the
Saxon times to which we have referred.
In the spring the country round is decked with primroses, bluebells,
and cowslips in the woods, hedgerows, and fields, being fortunately
outside the range of the marauders from London; and it is indeed
pleasurable to ramble from copse to field, and back again. But in
autumn and winter the deep clay soil makes it heavy travelling in the
deep-cut roads and lanes, cumbered with the redolent decay of the
leafage from the trees.
The cottars were, when the majority of these drawings were made, rural
and old-fashioned, and many had lived hereabouts through numerous
generations. A quiet, taciturn folk, contented with moderate comforts,
on good terms with their wealthier neighbours, not often feeling the
pinch of poverty.
Maybe all are not so good-looking as Mrs. Allingham has depicted
them, but they vary much, some being flaxen Saxons, others as dark
complexioned as gipsies.
As will be seen, they have a taste and enjoyment for colour, if not
for change, in the gardens with which their cottages are fairly
well supplied. These are bright at one or other season of the year
with snowdrop, crocus, and daffodil, lilac, sweetwilliam, and pink,
sunflower, Michaelmas daisy, and chrysanthemum.
* * * * *
The following drawings have been selected as illustrating the
neighbourhood of Mrs. Allingham's home at Sandhills:--
[Illustration:
18. A WITLEY LANE
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. H. W. Birks._
Painted 1887.]
It is very seldom that we encounter a drawing of Mrs. Allingham that
deals with Nature in winter's garb. In this respect she differs from
Birket Foster, who rightly considered that trees were oftentimes as
beautiful in their nude as in their clothed array. Especially did he
delight in the towering framework of the elm, which he regarded as the
most typical of English trees.
Nor is it often that we see Mrs. Allingham afield so early in the
spring as in this lane scene, where the elms are clothed only in their
"ruddy hearted blossom flakes."[8] Perhaps this absence is due to
prudential reasons, to avoid the rheumatism which appears to be the
only ailment which the landscapist runs against in his healthy outdoor
profession.
Those who have seen the woods of Surrey and Sussex at this time of
year know what a lovely colour they assume in the budding stage, a
colour that makes the view over the Weald from such a vantage-ground
as Blackdown a sea of ravishing violet hues, almost equalling that of
the oak forests as seen in February from the Terrace at Pau, which
stretch away to the snow-clad range of the Pyrenees--perhaps the most
delicately perfect view in Europe. But the day selected for this sketch
was evidently a warm one for the time of year, or we should not
see that unusual occurrence, an open bedroom window in a labourer's
cottage.
The flowering whin is no index to the season, for we know the old
adage--
When the whin's in bloom, my love's in tune.
But the catkins on the hazel, and the primroses on the banks, must
place it round that elastic date, Eastertide.
These wayside primroses remind one of a strongly expressed opinion of
Mrs. Allingham's, that wayside flowers should never be gathered, but
left for the enjoyment of the passers-by--a liberal one, which was
first instilled into her by her husband, who wrote verses upon it, from
which I cull the following lines:--
Pluck not the wayside flower,
It is the traveller's dower;
A thousand passers-by
Its beauties may espy.
* * * * *
The primrose on the slope
A spot of sunshine dwells,
And cheerful message tells.
* * * * *
Then spare the wayside flower!
It is the traveller's dower.
[Illustration:
19. HINDHEAD FROM WITLEY COMMON
_From the Water-colour in the possession of the Lord Chief Justice of
England._
Painted 1888.]
When this drawing appeared in the Exhibition of 1889 there were some
who called in question the truthfulness of the colour of distant
Hindhead, affirming that it was too blue. But when the air comes up
in August from the southward, laden with a salty moisture, and the
shadows are cast by hurrying clouds over the distance, it is altogether
and exactly of the hue set down here. Had the effect been incorrect
it would hardly have been acquired by so critical a collector as Lord
Alverstone, nor would it have been hung in his Surrey home, where it
invites daily comparison with Nature under similar aspects. The drawing
was painted on the spot, from just behind the artist's house, and is
one of the few instances where she has added to the charm of her work
by a sky of some intricacy. In her cottage and other drawings, where
buildings or other landscape objects are of primary importance, she has
felt that the simpler the treatment of the sky the better, and with
good reason. Here, where a large expanse calls for interesting
forms to cover it, she has shown her complete ability to introduce them.
Mrs. Allingham's house at Sandhills was below the foreground slope, to
the right of the cottages whose roofs rise from the ling. The highest
point of Hindhead seen here is Hurt Hill, some nine hundred feet above
sea-level, a name which Mr. Allingham always held to be a corruption of
Whort Hill, from the whortleberries with which its slopes are covered,
and which in these, as in other parts are called "wurts."
[Illustration:
20. IN WITLEY VILLAGE
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. Charles Churchill._
Painted 1884.]
This drawing was in The Fine Art Society's Exhibition in 1886, the
catalogue stating that the cottage had disappeared in the spring of
1885. It was pulled down by its owner to be replaced by buildings whose
monotonous symmetry, to his eye no doubt, appeared in better taste.
The cottage was still far from the natural term of its existence,
as evidenced by the troublesome piece of work it was to dislocate
the sound, firm old oaken beams of which its framework was built
up. Mr. Birket Foster, who equally with Mrs. Allingham mourned its
disappearance, regretted that he could not rebuild it in his own
grounds.
The blackening elms, and the ripe bracken carried home by the cottar,
show that the time when this picturesque dwelling was painted was late
summer, probably that of 1884. Mrs. Allingham was clearly then not of
Ruskin's opinion concerning the wrongness of painting trees in full
leaf, for she found the blue-black of the trees a harmonious background
to her red and russet roof.
The work throughout shows a loving fidelity to Nature, as if the artist
had felt that she was looking upon the likeness of an old friend for
the last time, and wished to perpetuate every lineament and feature.
[Illustration:
21. BLACKDOWN FROM WITLEY COMMON
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Lord Davey._
Painted 1886.]
This view is taken from the same bridle-path as is seen in Lord
Alverstone's "Hindhead," but at a lower elevation, and looking
some points more to the south; also at a later time of year, probably
in early October, to judge by the browning hazels. The bracken-covered
elevation in the distance is Grays Wood Common, which lies to the south
of the railway, and the spur of blue hill seen in the distance is
Blackdown. Aldworth, Lord Tennyson's seat, lies just this side of where
the hill falls away. The drawing is one of three only in the whole
collection where Mrs. Allingham has introduced a draught animal.
[Illustration:
22. THE FISH-SHOP, HASLEMERE
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. A. E. Cumberbatch._
Painted 1887.]
One can well understand the local builder in his daily round past
this picturesque little tenement casting longing eyes upon its uneven
roof, its diamond-paned lattices, its projecting shop front, and its
spoutless eaves, which allowed the damp to rise up from the foundations
and the green lichen to grow upon its walls, and that he rested not
until he had set hands upon it, and taken one more old-world feature
from the main thoroughfare at Haslemere. Such was actually the case
here, for the shop has long ago disappeared, but it was not until, much
to its owner's regret, interference was necessary. Were it not that it
indeed was the fish-shop of Haslemere, it might well have served for
the toyshop in which the scene of "The Young Customers" was laid. In
the days when this was painted the accommodation provided was probably
sufficient for the intermittent supply of an inland village, for
Haslemere was not, until the last few years, a country resort for those
who seek fine air and beautiful scenery, and can afford to pay a high
price for it.