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FROM PADDINGTON TO PENZANCE
By the Author of the Present Volume.
_Demy 8vo, cloth extra, 16s._
THE BRIGHTON ROAD:
_OLD TIMES AND NEW ON A CLASSIC HIGHWAY_.
WITH A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE AND NINETY ILLUSTRATIONS.
“The revived interest in our long-neglected highways has already
produced a considerable crop of books descriptive of English road life
and scenery, but few have been more attractive than this substantial
volume. The author has gathered together a great deal of amusing
matter, chiefly relating to coaching and life on the road in the days
of George IV., wherewith to supplement his own personal observations
and adventures. He wields a clever pen on occasion--witness his graphic
sketch of the ‘ungodly tramp’ whom he met between Merstham and Crawley.
The book, in brief, is inspired by a genuine love of the road and all
its associations, past and present, animate and inanimate. Its ninety
illustrations, partly sketches made by the author on the way, and
partly reproductions of old-time pictures and engravings, will add
greatly to its attractions.”--_Daily News._
“This is a book worth buying, both for the narrative and the
illustrations. The former is crisp and lively, the latter are
tastefully chosen and set forth with much pleasing and artistic
effect.”--_Scottish Leader._
“The Brighton Road was merry with the rattle of wheels, the clatter of
galloping horses, the bumpers of hurrying passengers, the tipping of
ostlers, the feats of jockeys and ‘whips’ and princes, the laughter
of full-bosomed serving-wenches, and the jokes of rotund landlords,
and all this Mr. Harper’s handsome and picturesque volume spreads well
before its readers. To the author, Lord Lonsdale, with his great feat
on the road between Reigate and Crawley, is the last of the heroes, and
the Brighton Parcel Mail is the chief remaining glory of what was once
the most frequented and fashionable highway of the world. As Mr. Harper
sadly says, ‘the Brighton of to-day is no place for the travel-worn;’
but, with his book in hand, the pedestrian, the horseman, the coachman,
or the cyclist, may find the road that leads to it from town one of
the most interesting and entertaining stretches of highway to be found
anywhere.”--_Daily Chronicle._
“Space fails us to mention the many sporting events that have been
decided upon, or near, the Brighton Road. They are duly recorded in
this lively volume.... An old writer, speaking of Brighton shore,
talks of the ‘number of beautiful women who, every morning, court the
embraces of the Watery God;’ but these Mr. Harper found wanting, so he
fled to Rottingdean.”--_Spectator._
“This handsome book on the Brighton Road should be attractive to
three classes in particular--those who like coaching, those who enjoy
cycling, and the ‘general reader.’”--_Globe._
“A pleasant gossiping account of a highway much trodden, ridden,
driven, and cycled by the Londoner; a solid and handsome volume, with
attractive pictures.”--_St. James’s Gazette._
“The Brighton Road is the classic land, the Arcadia, of four-in-hand
driving. An ideally smooth, hard, high road, with no more of uphill
and down than a coach could travel over at a canter going up, and
at a rattling trot, with the skid on, going downhill, it was a road
that every sporting Londoner knew by heart, and many a London man and
woman who cared nothing for sport.... The ancient glories of the road
live for the author, and when he walks along the highway from London
to Brighton, he seems to tread on holy ground. He would never have
written so pleasant a book as ‘The Brighton Road’ had he been less
of an idealist. He has, however, other qualifications for bookmaking
besides a delight in coaching and its ancient palmy days. Something
of an archæologist, he can speak learnedly of churches, both as
ecclesiologist and artist, and has an eye for the human humours as well
as the picturesque natural beauties of the road. His book is enriched
with over ninety good illustrations, mainly from his own hand. Add to
this, that Mr. Harper writes English pleasantly and well, with thorough
love for and knowledge of his subject, and the reader of this review
will see that ‘The Brighton Road’ that I am inviting him to buy or
borrow is a thoroughly honest, good, and readable book.”--_Black and
White._
LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
[Illustration: “GREAT SHIPS LAY ANCHORED.”
_Frontispiece._]
FROM PADDINGTON
TO PENZANCE
_THE RECORD OF A SUMMER TRAMP FROM
LONDON TO THE LAND’S END_
BY
CHARLES G. HARPER
AUTHOR OF “THE BRIGHTON ROAD,” ETC.
[Illustration]
_ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR WITH ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR DRAWINGS_
_Done chiefly with a Pen_
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1893
[Illustration]
_To General Hawkes, C.B._
_MY DEAR GENERAL_,
_Although we did not tour together, you and I, there is none other
than yourself to whom I could so ardently desire this book to be
inscribed--this by reason of a certain happening at Looe, and not at
all for the sake of anything you may find in these pages, saving indeed
that the moiety of them is concerned with your county of Cornwall._
_I have wrought upon this work for many months, in storm and shine;
and always, when this crowded hive was most dreary, the sapphire seas,
the bland airs, the wild moors of that western land have presented
themselves to memory, and at the same time have both cheered and filled
with regrets one who works indeed amid the shoutings and the tumults
of the streets, but whose wish is for the country-side. You reside in
mitigated rusticity; I, in expiation of some sin committed, possibly,
in by-past cycles and previous incarnations, in midst of these roaring
millions; and truly I love not so much company._
_Yours very faithfully_,
CHARLES G. HARPER.
PREFACE
[Illustration]
_Before I set about the overhauling of my notes made on this
tour--afoot, afloat, awheel--from London to Land’s End, I confided
to an old friend my intention of publishing an account of these
wanderings. Now, no one has such a mean idea of one’s capacities as
an old friend, and so I was by no means surprised when he flouted my
project. I have known the man for many years; and as the depth of an
old friend’s scorn deepens with time, you may guess how profound by now
is his distrust of my powers._
_“Better hadn’t,” said he._
_“And why not?” said I._
_“See how often it has been done,” he replied. “Why should you do it
again, after Elihu Burritt, after Walter White, and L’Estrange, and
those others who have wearied us so often with their dull records of
uneventful days?”_
_“I do it,” I said, “for the reason that poets write poetry, because I
must. Out upon your Burritts and the rest of them; I don’t know them,
and don’t want to--yet. When the book is finished, then they shall be
looked up for the sake of comparison; at present, I keep an open mind
on the subject.”_
_And I kept it until to-day. I have just returned from a day with these
authors at the British Museum, and I feel weary. Probably most of them
are dead by this time, as dead as their books, and nothing I say now
can do them any harm; so let me speak my mind._
_First I dipped into the pages of that solemn Yankee prig, Burritt,
and presently became bogged in stodgy descriptions of agriculture, and
long-drawn parallels between English and American husbandry. Stumbling
out of these sloughs, one comes headlong upon that true republican’s
awkward raptures over titled aristocracy. The rest is all a welter of
cheap facts and interjectional essays in the obvious._
_Then I essayed upon Walter White’s_ “Londoners Walk to the Land’s
End”--_horribly informative, and with an appalling poverty of epithet.
This dreadful tourist was used (he says) to sing and recite to the
rustics whom he met._
_“’Tis a dry day, master,” say the thirsty countrymen to him; while he,
heedless of their artful formula, calls not for the flowing bowl, but
strikes an attitude, and recites to them a ballad of Macaulay’s!_
_And yet those poor men, robbed of their beer, applauded (says our
author), and, like Oliver Twist, asked for more._
_Then an American coach-party had driven over part of our route,
following the example of_ “An American Four-in-Hand in Britain,” _by
Citizen Carnegie. Indeed, we easily recognise the Citizen again, under
the name of Mæcenas, among this party, which produced the_ “Chronicle
of the Coach.”
_The same Americanese pervades both books; the same patronage of John
Bull, and the same laudation of those States, is common to them;
but for choice, the Citizen’s own book is in the viler taste. Both
jig through their pages to an abominable “charivari” of their own
composing, an amalgam of_ “Yankee Doodle” _and the_ “Marseillaise,”
_one with (renegade Scot!) a bagpipe “obbligato.”_
_They anticipate the time when we shall be blessed with a Republic
after the model of their own adopted country; the Citizen (I think)
commonly wears a cap of liberty for headgear, and a Stars and Stripes
for shirt. This last may possibly be an error of mine. But at any rate
I should like to see him tucking in the tails of such a star-spangled
banner._
_These were the works which were to forbid a newer effort at a book
aiming at the same destination, but proceeding by an independent route,
and (as it chanced) written upon different lines--written with what I
take to be a care rather for personal impressions than for guide-book
history._
_We won to the West by no known route, but followed the inclinations of
irresponsible tourists, with a strong disinclination for martyrdom on
dusty highways and in uninteresting places. This, too, is explanatory
of our taking the train at certain points and our long lingering at
others. If, unwittingly or by intent, I have here or there in these
pages dropped into history, I beg your pardon, I’m sure; for all I
intended was to show you personal impressions in two media, pictures
and prose._
CHARLES G. HARPER.
LONDON, _October 1893_.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
I.
PAGES
Leaving London--The Spirit of the Silly Season--An Unimportant
Residuum--The Direct Road--And the Indirect--To Richmond
by Boat 1–5
II.
Radical Richmond and its Royal Memories--The Poets’ Chorus--The
Social Degradation implied by Tea and Shrimps--No Water at
Richmond 6–9
III.
Rural Petersham--The Monuments of Petersham Church--Ham House--
Beer, Beauty, and the Peerage--The Earls of Dysart and
their Curious Preferment--Village Hampdens and Litigation--
Ham and the Cabal--Horace Walpole and his Trumpery
Ghosts--Kingston--The Dusty Pother anent Coway Stakes--
The Author “drops the Subject”--The King’s Stone--The
Reader is referred to the Surrey Archæological Society, and
the Tourists pursue their Journey--The Philosophy of the
Thames--To Shepperton 9–17
IV.
Windsor and Eton--The Terrific Keate--Persuasions of Sorts--
Bray and its Most Admirable Vicar--Taplow Bridge--Boulter’s
Lock--Cookham 17–23
V.
An Indignant Man--Advantages of Indignation and a Furious
Manner--_Al fresco_ Meals--Medmenham Abbey--Those unkind
Topographers--The Hell Fire Club--From Hambledon to Henley
23–28
VI.
Regatta Island--Its Shoddy Temple--The Preposterous Naiads and
River Nymphs of the Eighteenth Century Poets--Those Improper
Creatures _v._ County Councils--A Poignant Individual--Mary
Blandy, the Slow Poisoner 28–33
VII.
Picturesque Wargrave--The Loddon River and Patricksbourne--
Sonning--A Typical Riverside Inn--Filthy Kennet Side--
Reading to Basingstoke 33–35
VIII.
Hampshire Characteristics--White of Selborne as a Vandal--Holy
Ghost Chapel 35–38
IX.
A Dreary Road--Micheldever--Hampshire Literary Lights--The
Worthies--“Johēs Kent de Redying” 38–41
X.
Winchester--The City Lamps--The Cathedral--Saint Swithun
41–48
XI.
Wykeham--The Renaissance in the Cathedral--The Puritans--
Winchester Castles, Royal and Episcopal--A Graceless
Corporation--The Military--Saint Catherine’s Hill 48–55
XII.
A Literary Transfiguration--Wyke--An Unique Brass--The
Romance of Lainston--Sparsholt 56–59
XIII.
A Rustic Symposium 60–64
XIV.
Camping-out of Necessity--The Tramp _en amateur_--Soapless
Britons--The Livelong Day 64–65
XV.
Restoration at Romsey--Prout justified--An Unsportsmanlike
Palmerston 66–68
XVI.
The New Forest--The Woodman’s Axe--The coming Social Storm--
Lyndhurst--Brockenhurst--Avon Water 68–74
XVII.
A Superior Pedestrian--Christchurch--An Enigmatical Epitaph
74–76
XVIII.
Bournemouth--The Interesting Invalid--Languorous Romances--
Bournemouth, the Paradise of the Unbeneficed 76–79
XIX.
Our Encounter with an American 79–81
XX.
By the Sea to North Haven--Studland--Our Coldest Welcome at an
Inn--To Swanage 82–83
XXI.
The Isle of Purbeck--Purbeck Marble--Domesticated Swanage--The
Rush for Ground-rents 83–86
XXII.
Corfe--Corfe Castle--Those Ubiquitous Roundheads 86–88
XXIII.
Lulworth Castle--The Dorset Coast--Osmington 88–90
XXIV.
Weymouth and George the Third--An Old-time Jubilee--A Gorgeous
Individual--Railways and Derivatives--Hotel Snobbery 91–93
XXV.
Abbotsbury--The Abbey Ruins--Saint Catherine’s Chapel--
Historic Wessex--The Chesil Beach--West Bay, Bridport--A
Hilly Country 93–97
XXVI.
Chideock--One who fared at Dead of Night--Early Rising 97–99
XXVII.
Charmouth--Concerning Rainy Days by the Sounding Sea--The Devon
Borders--A Humorous Wheelman 99–101
XXVIII.
Axminster--The Battle of Brunenburgh--The “Book of
Remembrance”--Axminster Carpets 102–104
XXIX.
Drakes of Ashe--Axmouth--The Fearful Joys of the Day-tripper--
Seaton 105–107
XXX.
Exeter, a Busy City--Richard the Third--A Chivalric Myth--
Northernhay--The Cathedral: Black but Comely--St. Mary
Steps 108–111
XXXI.
The Suburb of Saint Thomas--Alphington--Exminster 112–116
XXXII.
A Grotesque Saint--The Pious Editor 116–118
XXXIII.
Beside the Exe to Powderham--The Courtenays--The Atmospheric
Railway 118–120
XXXIV.
Starcross and its Aspirations--The Warren--Langstone Point--
Mount Pleasant--The Limitations of Dawlish 120–124
XXXV.
The Legend of the Parson and Clerk 124–127
XXXVI.
Teignmouth--The Sad Tale of the Market House--Doleful
Ratepayers--Teignmouth Harbour--Devon Weather--Society--
To Shaldon 127–133
XXXVII.
The (more or less) True Story of an Artist--Labrador
Tea-gardens--Peripatetic Organ-grinders--The Author’s
Indignation moves him poetically--And he reflects upon
Comic Songs 133–137
XXXVIII.
Devon Combes--Maidencombe--Where the Devil died of the Cold--
Who was Anstey, of Anstey’s Cove?--“Thomas” of Anstey’s 137–140
XXXIX.
Torquay--Still growing--The Witchery of Tor Bay Scenery--
Charter Day--Napoleon on board the “Billy Ruffian” 140–144
XL.
Teutonic Paignton--Thoughts on German Bands--The Present
Author loves a Comely Falsehood, but destroys a Lying
Tradition-- Berry Pomeroy and the Seymours 144–149
XLI.
Totnes--Brutus the Trojan--“Oliver, by the Grace of God”--To
Dartmouth 149–153
XLII.
Down the Dart--Nautical Terms 153–154
XLIII.
Dartmouth--Castles of Dartmouth and Kingswear--Fighting the
Foreigner--An Unrestored Church--Paternal Government 154–159
XLIV.
Dittisham and the Dart--Tea at Dittisham, and so “Home” 159–162
XLV.
Stoke Fleming--A Country Coach--Slapton Sands--To Kingsbridge 163–165
XLVI.
Kingsbridge--Its one Literary Celebrity--“Peter Pindar” upon
his Barn--Kingsbridge Grammar School 165–171
XLVII.
Salcombe River--Voyage to Salcombe--Hotel hunting--Salcombe
Shops--The Castle 171–176
XLVIII.
Voyage to Plymouth--The Tourists are Extremely Ill--Land at
last--The Hoe and its Memorials--Politics and Patriotism--
The Hamoaze--Saltash 176–183
XLIX.
An Old Author on the Characteristics of Cornwall--Saint
Budeaux--The Three Towns--Stained Glass extraordinary 184–187
L.
Antony--Richard Carew: a Seventeenth Century Poet--The
Tourists are entreated despitefully, and quarrel 187–190
LI.
Carew’s Epitaph at Antony--Downderry 191–192
LII.
A Lovely Valley, a Moorland Stream, and what befell there 193–195
LIII.
Looe--Stage-like Picturesqueness--Hotel Visitors’ Books 195–201
LIV.
Talland--Humorous Memorials of the Dead--Epitaph on a
Smuggler--“John Bevyll of Kyllygath”--A Notable
Devil-queller 201–207
LV.
The Road to Polperro--The “Three Pilchards” Inn--Saturday Night
at Polperro--John Wesley’s Experiences of that Place 207–213
LVI.
Lanteglos-juxta-Fowey--A Cornish Cross--Polruan--Again the
Comic Song!--Fowey--Tourists’ Lumber 214–218
LVII.
Par: a Cornish Seaport 219–220
LVIII.
An Old-time Adventure--Deserted Mining Fields--Saint Austell 220–225
LIX.
By Carrier’s Cart to Mevagissey--John Taylor, the “Water
Poet,” on his Adventure there--Exceptional Britons 225–228
LX.
Mevagissey--Gorran Haven--The Inhospitable Hamlet of Saint
Michael Caerhayes--In the Dark to Veryan--Hospitality of
the Village Inn 228–234
LXI.
Treworlas--Philleigh by the Fal--Truro City--Truro Cathedral
234–239
LXII.
A “Lift” to Redruth--Local Tales--Saint Day--Redruth--The
Tourists are taken for “Hactors,” and are sorrowfully
obliged to disclaim the Honour 239–242
LXIII.
A Rainy Day--Available Literature of the Hotel--The
Cornishman and the Church--Cornish Livings 242–245
LXIV.
Cam Brea--The Disillusionments of Exploration--Pool _v._
Poole--Dolcoath Mine--Squalid Camborne 246–249
LXV.
The Hamlet of Barrepper--Cornish Names--Marazion 249–252
LXVI.
Alverton--Mount’s Bay--Penzance--German Band-itti--Pellew’s
Birthplace--Saint Michael’s Mount, and the Loyal Saint
Aubyns--The Newlyn School--Bridges, Potsherds, and Old
Boots 252–262
LXVII.
To Land’s End--Saint Buryan--The First and Last House in
England 262–268
LXVIII.
Home again 268–269
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
“GREAT SHIPS LAY ANCHORED” _Frontispiece_
VIGNETTE _Title-page_
Page
DECORATION v
PREFACE HEADING vii
DECORATION xi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxi
THE WRECK 1
RICHMOND LOCK WORKS 5
RICHMOND BRIDGE 6
NEW INN, HAM 11
HAM HOUSE 14
BELOW KINGSTON 15
“HER HENRY” 18
“W. E. GLADSTONE” 19
STAIRCASE IN ETON COLLEGE 20
WINDSOR: EARLY MORNING 20
CLIEVEDEN 22
DOVE COTE, HURLEY 25
ABOVE HURLEY 26
MEDMENHAM ABBEY 27
POIGNANT INDIVIDUAL 29
EVENING AT HENLEY 33
SONNING BRIDGE 34
INSCRIPTION: SHERBORNE SAINT JOHN 36
HOLY GHOST CHAPEL, BASINGSTOKE 37
ENTRANCE TO THE CLOSE, WINCHESTER 43
WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL 45
ST. SWITHUN AND THE INDIGNANT TOURIST 47
THE DEANERY, WINCHESTER 50
BISHOP MORLEY’S PALACE 52
HIGH STREET, WINCHESTER 52
A PEEP OVER ROOF-TOPS, WINCHESTER 54
SAINT CATHERINE’S HILL FROM ITCHEN MEADS 55
“AD PORTAS,” WINCHESTER COLLEGE 56
BRASS, WEEKE 58
INTERIOR, SPARSHOLT CHURCH 59
ROMSEY ABBEY 66
LYNDHURST 71
A FORD IN THE NEW FOREST 73
“FLASHED PAST” 75
CORFE CASTLE 86
“POLITICS AND AGRICULTURE” 89
“GAZED AFTER US” 90
“EXTREMELY AMUSING, I DO ASSURE YOU” 92
“HUMOROUS WHEELMAN, GARBED FEARFULLY” 101
AXMOUTH, FROM SEATON 105
SEATON BRIDGE 106
“LOATHLY WORM” 107
EXETER CATHEDRAL: WEST FRONT 110
SAINT THOMAS 112
EXETER, FROM THE DUNSFORD ROAD 112
ALPHINGTON 113
AN EXMINSTER MONUMENT 115
EXMINSTER SAINT 116
TURF 119
STARCROSS 120
LANGSTONE POINT 122
MOUNT PLEASANT 123
LEE MOUNT, DAWLISH 124
SEA WALL, TEIGNMOUTH 126
RAILWAY AND SEA-WALL, NIGHT 128
RAILWAY AND SEA-WALL, FROM EAST CLIFF, TEIGNMOUTH 128
THE TEIGN 130
TEIGNMOUTH HARBOUR 131
MAIDENCOMBE 138
BERRY POMEROY CASTLE 147
FROM A MONUMENT, BERRY 149
EASTGATE, TOTNES 151
DARTMOUTH CASTLE 156
ANCIENT IRONWORK, SOUTH DOOR OF SAINT SAVIOUR’S CHURCH, DARTMOUTH 158
ARMS OF DARTMOUTH ON THE OLD GAOL 159
FORE STREET, KINGSBRIDGE 166
HEADMASTER’S DESK, KINGSBRIDGE 170
KINGSBRIDGE QUAY: EVENING 172
BOLT HEAD 178
DRAKE’S STATUE 181
SALTASH STATION 186
GUILDHALL, EAST LOOE, AND BOROUGH SEAL 197
“COMPARATIVELY PROSAIC FISHERMAN” 198
THE “JOLLY SAILOR” 200
SEAL OF WEST LOOE 201
TALLAND CHERUBS 203
AN OLD SHOP, POLPERRO 211
LANTEGLOS-JUXTA-FOWEY 214
A CORNISH MOOR 220
FONT, SAINT AUSTELL 224
A NOTE AT GORRAN 229
ROSELAND INN, PHILLEIGH 236
LANDER 237
CARN BREA 246
DRUIDICAL ALTAR, CARN BREA 248
SAINT MICHAEL’S MOUNT 253
PENZANCE, FROM ABOVE GULVAL 254
SAINT MICHAEL’S MOUNT: ENTRANCE TO THE CASTLE 256
PENZANCE HARBOUR: NIGHT 256
CHEVY CHASE HALL 259
PENZANCE 260
LUDGVAN LEAZE 261
SAINT BURYAN 262
SAINT GERMOE 263
THE LONGSHIPS LIGHTHOUSE 264
CARN KENIDJACK 266
SAINT LEVAN 267
SAINT GERMOE’S CHAIR 268
_From Paddington to Penzance_
I.
There were two of us: myself, the narrator, the artist-journalist of
these truthful pages, and my sole companion, the Wreck. Why I call
him by this unlovely title is our own private business, our exclusive
bone of contention; not for untold gold would I disclose the identity
of that man, the irresponsible, the nerveless, mute, inglorious
fellow-wayfarer in this record of a summer’s tour. Let him, nameless
save by epithet, go down with this book to a more or less extended
posterity. But I give you some slight portraiture of him, so that you
shall see he was not so very ill-favoured a Wreck, at any rate.
[Illustration: THE WRECK.]
This man, willing to be convinced of the pleasure and the healthful
profit of touring afoot, yet loth to try so grand a specific for varied
ills, delayed long and faltered much between yea and nay ere he was
finally pledged to the trip; but a time for decision comes at last,
even to the most vacillating, and at length we set out together on this
leisured tour.
It was time. When we left London the spirit of the silly season roamed
abroad, and made men mad: the novelists were explaining diffusely
in the columns of the public press why they wrote no plays; the
playwrights were giving the retort discourteous (_coram publico_) to
the effect that the novelists had all the will but didn’t know how, and
the factions between them made any amount of copy for the enterprising
editor who looked on and, so to speak, winked the other eye while
the combatants contended. Unsuccessful Parliamentary candidates
were counting the cost of their electoral struggles, and muttering
melodramatic prophecies of “a time will come”; the eager journalist
wandered about Fleet Street, seeking news and finding none, for the
Building Societies had not yet begun to collapse; and the chiefest
streets of town were “up.”
Those happy men, the layers of wood-paving, had created a delightful
_Rus in Urbe_ of their own in Piccadilly, and enjoyed a prolonged
sojourn amid such piney odours as Bournemouth itself never knew:
here was health-giving balsam for them that had no cash to spend in
holiday-making! But indeed almost every one had left town; only an
unimportant residuum of some four millions remained, and wide-eyed
emaciated cats howled dismally in deserted areas of the West End, while
evening breezes blew stuffily across the Parks and set the Londoner
sighing for purer air where blacks were not, nor the shouting of the
streets annoyed the ear.
If you take the reduced ordnance map of England, and rule a straight
line upon it from Paddington to Penzance and the Land’s End, you will
find that the distance by this arbitrary measurement is some 265
miles, and that the line passes through or near Staines, Basingstoke,
Salisbury, Exeter, Truro, and Redruth, to Penzance and Sennen Cove, by
Penwithstart, touching the sea at three places _en route_--Fowey, Par,
and Charlestown, neighbouring towns in Cornwall.
The most direct coach-road is given by Cary, of the _New Itinerary_,
as 297 miles 5 furlongs. It was measured from Hyde Park Corner, and
went through Brentford, Hounslow, Staines, Egham, Bagshot, Hartford
Bridge, Basingstoke, Whitchurch, Andover, Salisbury, Blandford,
Dorchester, Bridport, Axminster, Honiton, Exeter, Crockernwell,
Okehampton, Launceston, Bodmin, Redruth, Pool, Camborne, Hayle River,
and Crowlas. The route, it will be seen from this breathless excerpt,
was commendably direct, thirty-two miles only being added by way of
deviation from the measured map. On this road, so far as Exeter at
least, much might be gleaned of moving interest in matters of coaching
times, but beyond the Ever Faithful City no first-class nor very
continuous service seems to have been maintained: the _Royal Mail_,
_Defiance_, _Regulator_, _Traveller_, _Celerity_, and _Post_ coaches
finding little custom farther west.
I keep all love for high-roads for those times (rare indeed) when I go
a-wheel on cycles; it is better to fare by lanes and by-ways when you
go afoot, and then to please yourself as to your route, caring little
for a consistent line of march: consistency is the bugbear of little
minds. So swayed by impulse and circumstances were we, that I should
indeed fear to set about the computation of mileage in this our journey
from East to West: for our somewhat involved course, your attention,
dear reader, is invited to the map.
We packed our knapsacks overnight, and the next morning
By nine o’clock, as City-ward
Belated clerks were pelting hard,
we had taken a hansom from Paddington, bound for Westminster Bridge,
thence to voyage by steamer to Richmond.
Set down at Westminster Pier, we waited for the Richmond boat, while
the growls and grumblings of the streets sounded loudly from the Bridge
overhead, and mingled with the hoarse thunder of trains crossing the
abominable squat cylinders and giant trellis-work that go to make the
railway-bridge of Charing Cross.
I am not going to weary you with a description of how we slowly paddled
up stream in the Richmond boat, past the Houses of Parliament on one
hand, and Lambeth Palace and Doulton’s on the other; under Vauxhall
and other London bridges, into suburban reaches, the shoals of Kew,
and past the dirty town of Brentford (noted for possessing the ugliest
parish church in all England), until at length we came off the boat at
Richmond town. No: if I were to commence with this I know not where I
should stop, and so, perhaps, the best way to treat the voyage would be
by a masterly display of “reserved force.” Assume, then, that we are at
length (for this steamboat journey is an affair of considerable time
though few miles)--at length arrived at Richmond.
[Illustration: RICHMOND LOCK WORKS.]
II.
What semi-suburb so pleasant as Richmond, quite unspoilable, though
jerry-buildings and shoddy hotels conspire to oust its old-world air;
though the Terrace elms are doomed; though on Saturdays and Sundays of
summer, Halberts and Arrys, Halices and Hemmers, crowd George Street,
and shout and sing and exchange hats, and row upon the river, where,
from the bridge, you may see them waving their sculls windmill fashion,
and colliding, one boat with another, so that, their little hour upon
the water being finished, the boatowners levy extra charges for scraped
paint and broken scull-blades.
[Illustration: RICHMOND BRIDGE.]
How many towns or neighbourhoods can show such courtly concourse of
old: kings and queens, statesmen, nobles, poets, and wits? Palaces
so many and various have been builded here, that the historian’s
brain reels with the reading of them: eulogistic verse, blank and
rhymed, has been written by the yard, on place and people, chiefly by
eighteenth century poets, who then thronged the banks of Thames and
constituted themselves, virtually, a Mutual Admiration Society. Thomson
wrote and died here; near by, Gay, protected by a Duke and Duchess
of Queensberry, lapped milk, wrote metrical fables, grew sleek, and
presently died; Cowley, Pope, and a host of others contributed to the
flood of verse, commonly in such journalistic tricklings as these:--
“... rove through the pendant woods.
That nodding hang o’er Harrington’s retreat;
And stooping thence to Ham’s embowering walks,
Beneath whose space, in spotless peace retired,
With her the pleasing partner of his heart,
The worthy Queensberry yet laments his Gay,
And polished Cornbury woos the willing muse.”
Literary ladies, and blue-stockings too, have thronged Richmond, and
to this day there stands on the Green a row of charming old houses,
fronted with gardens and decaying wrought-iron gates, called Maid of
Honour Row, where were lodged such maids of rank whom interest or
favour could admit to that honoured, though hard-worked and thankless
guild. Madame D’Arblay, who, as Fanny Burney, was a domestic martyr to
the royal household, has shown us how empty was the title and painful
the place of “Maid of Honour.”
But despite royal associations, perhaps, indeed, on account of them,
the Richmond of to-day is Radical: it has been distinguished, or
notorious, for its Radical tradesmen any time these last hundred and
forty years, from the time when the institution of “Tea and shrimps,
9d.” may be said to date. Tea, by itself, is not distinctly Radical,
but I confess I see the germs of Republicanism in shrimps, and I should
not be surprised at hearing of red-capped revolts originating at any of
those places--Herne Bay, Margate, Ramsgate, Greenwich, Gravesend, Kew,
and Richmond, where the shrimp is (so to speak) rampant.
Time was, indeed, when a “dish of tea” was distinctly exclusive and
aristocratic: it has been, with the constant reductions of duty,
rendered less and less respectable. The first step in its downward
career was taken when the “dish” was substituted for the “cup,” and its
final degradation is reached in the company of the unholy shrimp. The
“cup of coffee and two slices” of the early morning coffee-stall is
vulgar, but seems not to sound the depths of the other institution.
Let Chancellors of the Exchequer be warned ere it is yet too late;
with the disappearance of the last halfpenny of the duty upon tea will
come the final crash. Tea and shrimps will be obtainable for sixpence,
and monarchy will no longer rule the land; perchance Chancellors of
the Exchequer themselves will be obsolete and dishonoured officers
of State. Perhaps, too, in some far distant period, Richmond will
succeed in obtaining a water supply. Now she stands on one of the
charmingest reaches of Thames, and yet, within constant sight of his
silver flood, drinkable water is hardly come by in Richmond households.
This is the penalty (or one of them) of popularity; the wells that
were all-sufficient for Richmond of the past do not suffice for the
population of to-day, which has gained her a charter of incorporation,
and lost her an aristocratic prestige. The rateable value of Richmond
must be very large indeed, but what does it avail when hundreds of
thousands of pounds are continually being spent in fruitless borings
for water? Richmond folk, nowadays, have all of them a species of
hydrophobia, induced by a tax of too many pence in the pound for the
water rate. Uneasy sits the Mayor, and the way of the Council is hard.
“Reader! when last I was at Richmond town,
A man in courtesy showed me an empty pit,
And said, ‘The Reservoir,’ at which name I sniggered,
Because an engineering print informed me once
They never would fill reservoirs at Richmond.”
Thames, too, has been shockingly inclined to run dry at Richmond, so
that there is building, even now, a lock that is to supersede that of
Teddington in its present fame of largest and lowest on the river.
We looked into Richmond church and noted its many tablets to bygone
actors and actresses, chief among them Edmund Kean, who died at the
theatre here, so recently rebuilt. Then we hied to a restaurant and
lunched, and partook (as in duty bound) of those cakes peculiar to the
town. Then we set forth upon our walk.
III.
To continue on the highroad that leads out of populous Richmond toward
the “Star and Garter,” is to find one’s self presently surrounded with
rustic sights and sounds altogether unexpected of the stranger in these
gates. To take the lower road is to come directly into Petersham,
wearing, even in these days, an air of retirement and a smack of the
eighteenth century, despite its close neighbourhood to the Richmond of
District Railways and suburban aspects.
The little church of Petersham is interesting despite (perhaps on
account of) its bastard architecture and singular plan, but the
feature that gives distinction is its cupola-covered bell turret,
quaintly designed and louvre-boarded. The interior is small and
cramped, and crowded with monuments. Among these the most interesting,
so it seemed to us, was that to the memory of Captain George Vancouver,
whose name is perpetuated in the christening of Vancouver Island.
Others of some note, very great personages in their day, but now
half-forgotten, are buried in the churchyard and have weighty monuments
within the church. Among these are an Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, a
vice-admiral, a serjeant-at-law, Lauderdales, Tollemaches, and several
dames and knights of high degree. Perhaps more interesting still,
Mortimer Collins, author of, among other novels, that charming story,
“Sweet and Twenty,” lies buried here.
And from here it is well within three miles to the little village of
Ham, encircling, with its scattered cottages and mansions of stolid
red brick of legitimate “Queen Anne” design, that common whose name
has within the last two years been so familiar in the mouths of men.
You may journey into the county’s depths and not find so quiet a spot
as this out-of-the-world corner, nor one so altogether behind these
bustling times. It has all the makings of the familiar type of an
old English village, even to its princely manor-house. Ham House is
magnificent indeed, and thereby hangs a tale.
Its occupiers have been for many generations the Earls of Dysart,
whose family rose to noble rank by sufficiently curious means in
the time of Charles I., an era when the peerage was reinforced by
methods essentially romantic and irregular. Beauty (none too strictly
strait-laced) secured titles for its bar-sinistered descendants in
those times: in our own it is commonly Beer that performs the same
kindly office.
[Illustration: _New Inn, Ham_]
The first Earl of Dysart had in his time fulfilled the painful post of
“whipping-boy”--a species of human scapegoat--to his sacred Majesty,
and by his stripes was his preferment earned.
I am told that it is not to be supposed this house and manor are the
property of the Dysarts: they pay and have paid, time almost out of
mind, an annual rent into the Court of Chancery for the benefit of the
lost owners.
“But yet,” said my informant at Ham--the strenuous upholder of public
rights in that notorious Ham Common prosecution,--“but yet, although
this is their only local status, the Dysart Trustees have endeavoured,
from time to time, to assume greater rights over Ham Common and public
rights-of-way, than even might be claimed by the veritable lord of the
manor.”
In the early part of 1891, the Trustees placed notice-boards at
different points of the Common, setting forth the pains and penalties
and nameless punishments that would be incurred by any who should cut
turf or cart gravel, exceeding in this act (it seems) their rights,
even had they possessed the title, for there is extant a deed executed
by Charles I., in favour of the people of Ham, giving the Common to
their use for ever.
Fortunately there was sufficient public spirit in Ham for the resisting
of illegal encroachments, and eventually the notice-boards were sawn
down by village Hampdens. Thereupon followed a prosecution at the
instance of the Dysart Trustees, with the result that the defendants
were all triumphantly acquitted.
It were indeed a pity had this, one of the largest and most beautiful
commons near London, been gradually drawn within the control of family
trustees. It is now a breezy open space of some seventy-eight acres,
stretching away from Richmond Park to near Teddington, and pleasingly
wild with gorse and sandpits and ancient elms.
Here, almost to where the Kingston road bisects the Common, the avenue
leading to Ham House stretches its aisle of greenery, its length nearly
half-a-mile. To pursue this walk to the wrought-iron gates of the
House is to be assured of interest. Erected in the early years of the
seventeenth century, it remains a splendid specimen of building ere yet
the day of contracts had set in. The red-brick front faces toward the
river, and includes a spacious courtyard in whose centre is placed a
semi-recumbent stone figure of Thames with flowing urn. Along the whole
extensive frontage of the House, placed in niches, runs a series of
busts, cast in lead and painted to resemble stone--a quaint conceit.
But it is not only the splendour of design and execution that renders
Ham House so interesting. It was, in the time of Charles II., a
meeting-place of the notorious Cabal--that quintette of unscrupulous
Ministers of State whose doings were a shame to their country. Here
they plotted together, and under this roof the liberties of the lieges
were schemed away. Those were stirring times at Ham. Now the place
wears almost a deserted look. The courtyard is grass-grown between
the joints of its paving, and it is many years since the massive iron
gates enclosing the grounds were used. It seems to have been lonely
and decayed, even in Horace Walpole’s time. He says, “Every minute
I expected to see ghosts sweeping by--ghosts that I would not give
sixpence to see--Lauderdales, Tollemaches, and Maitlands.” For my
part I think I would give a great many sixpences not to see them,
either by night or by day, whether or not they carried their heads in
the place where heads should be, or under their arms, an exceedingly
uncomfortable position, even for ghosts, one would think. I have not
that horrid itching (which I suppose characterises the membership of
the Psychical Research Society) for the society of wraiths and bogeys,
and hold ghosts, apparitions, spooks, and spunkies of every kind in a
holy horror.
[Illustration: HAM HOUSE.]
Therefore, we presently departed hence, and came, in course of time, to
Kingston. Whether or not Kingston can be identified as the place where
Cæsar crossed the ford across the Thames in pursuit of Cassivelaunus
and his cerulean-dyed hordes of Britons, our ancestors, is, I take it,
of not much concern nowadays, although antiquaries of our fathers’ time
made a great pother about the conflicting claims of Kingston and Coway
Stakes, at Shepperton, to the honour, if honour it be, of affording
passage to the victorious general and his legions. I like something
of more human interest than these dry bones, and, I doubt not, you
who endeavour to read these pages are of the same mind; so, to make
your pilgrimage through this book the lighter, I think “we had better”
do like Boffin, in the presence of Mrs. Boffin--that is, “drop the
subject.”
But the subject to which we must come (for no one who writes upon
Kingston can avoid it) is only one remove nearer. I refer to that bone
of contention (excuse the confusion of ideas) the King’s Stone, now set
up and railed round in Kingston market-place, and carven with the names
of the seven Saxon kings crowned here. It is this stone which has
caused many pretty controversies as to whether or not it confers the
name upon the town, or whether or not the place was the King’s Town.
You may, doubtless, if you are greedy of information on these heads,
find all conceivable arguments set forth in the pages of the Surrey
Archæological Society’s Transactions. I confess my curiosity does not
carry me to such lengths. The stone is there, and, like good tourists,
we accepted as so much gospel the facts set forth on it, and cared
nothing as to the etymology of Kingston. Instead, we busied ourselves
in hiring a boat which should take us to Reading, a journey which we
estimated of a week’s duration.
[Illustration: BELOW KINGSTON.]
Geographers, physical and political, tell us that Thames drains and
waters all that great district which lies between the estuary of
the Severn and the seaward sides of Essex and Kent; that it is the
fertiliser of square miles innumerable, and the potent source of
London’s pre-eminent rank amongst the cities of the earth. This is all
very true, but the geographers take no note of Thames’ other functions;
the inspiration of the poets and the painters, the enrichment of
innkeepers and boat-proprietors, and the pleasuring of all them that
delight in bathing and the rowing of boats. Everywhere in summer-time
are boats and launches and canoes, punts and houseboats, and varieties
innumerable of floating things; for when the sun shines, and the
incomparable river scenery of the Thames is at its best, the heart
of man desireth nothing more ardently than to lie in a boat upon the
quiet mirrored depths of a shady backwater, or better still, to sit
within the roaring of the weir, where the swell of the tumbling water
acts like a tonic upon the spirits, and the sunlight fashions rainbows
in the smoke-like suspended moisture of its foam. These are modern
pleasures. For centuries the Thames has flowed through a well-peopled
country, yet the delights of the river are new-found, and only in
the eighteenth century did the poets’ chorus break forth in flood of
praise. But to-day every one who can string rhymes makes metrical
essays upon the Thames, and writers without number have written
countless books upon it. From Kingston to Oxford, houseboats make
populous all its banks, and the quantity of paint and acres of canvas
that have been expended upon artistic efforts along its course, from
Trewsbury Mead to the Nore, must ever remain without computation.
For these reasons ’tis better to say little of our journey this
afternoon to Shepperton, past Hampton Court, the Cockney’s paradise,
to Hampton, Sunbury, Walton, and Halliford. The river was crowded with
boating parties, with those who raced and with others who paddled
lazily, and when night was come the houseboats hung out their paper
lanterns, all red and yellow, that streaked every little ripple with
waving colour.
That night saw the first unpacking of our knapsacks, and the
irrevocable disappearance of their orderly arrangement. Chaos reigned
ever afterward within their ostensibly waterproof sides, for to man
is not given the gift of packing up, and we were not superior to the
generality of our sex. I remember perfectly the shower of things that
always befell o’ nights when I came to the ordeal of unpacking my
knapsack: how razors, comb and brush, pencils, and neckties and other
articles dropped from it; and, I make no doubt, it was the same with
the other man.
IV.
Chertsey we passed this morning, heated with rowing, but between
this and Laleham we were so far fortunate as to fall in with some
acquaintances on a steam-launch who took us in tow so far as Old
Windsor Lock, where we cast off and proceeded alone, landing at one of
the many slips by Eton Bridge.
Windsor and Eton claimed us for the remainder of the day for the due
pursuance of some desultory sight-seeing, but Eton chiefly, for the
sake of its College, where “her Henry,” that unhappy pious founder,
Henry VI., stands in effigy in the great quadrangle, and casts a “holy
shade,” according to Grey.
[Illustration: “HER HENRY”]
The “College of the Blessed Mary of Eton beside Windsor” has numbered
among its scholars a goodly proportion of our famous men; and many of
their names, carved on the woodwork of the schools in their schoolboy
days, remain to this day. On the doorway leading from the Upper School
into that place of dread, the headmaster’s room, may be seen carved,
in company with other well-known names, that of “W. E. Gladstone;”
and once within that apartment, your attention is drawn to the block
whereon many have suffered, in less heroic wise, and by no means so
tragically, as the martyrs of Tower Hill, but perhaps more painfully,
for birch twigs, _with_ the buds on them, must sting dreadfully. But
these things are become historical relics rather than engines of
contemporary punishment: they belong to the days of the terrific Keate
and his robustious predecessors, who were wont to regard the _fortiter
in re_ as more convincing and a better preservative of discipline than
the _suaviter in modo_.
[Illustration: W. E. GLADSTONE]
It seems that everywhere the iron gauntlet gives way to the kid glove
in our times; persuasion is to-day more a mental than a physical
process. There are relics in plenty at Windsor and Eton of those times,
only at Windsor these things take higher ground: _there_ for persuasion
read diplomacy in this era, where it had used to be a performance
requiring the assistance of axe and chaplain. The Castle survives,
its mediæval defences restored, for appearance sake, but its State
apartments filled with polite furniture, dreadfully gilded and (we
thought) tawdry. It makes a picture, this historic warren of kings and
princes, and its Round Tower commands a glorious view, altogether an
imposing range of turrets, battlements, and loopholed walls; but, alas!
Henry the Eighth’s massive gateway was guarded by a constable of that
singularly unromantic body--the Police, and his presence there made
everything save the gas-lamps and the shop-fronts of Windsor streets
seem of paste-board fashion and unreal.
[Illustration: STAIRCASE IN ETON COLLEGE.]
The river is the proper place from whence to view the Castle: the time,
early morning; for then, when the mists cling about the water, and the
meadows are damp with them, that palace and stronghold, that court
and tomb of royalty bulks larger than at any other time, both on sight
and mind.
[Illustration: WINDSOR: EARLY MORNING.]
Thus we thought, when the early hours of the morning found us afloat
again. Boveney, Monkey Island, were passed, and now arose above all the
trees, the tall poplars that identify Bray to the distant view more
surely than church or anything contrived at the hands of man. They
range in rows, and are at once formal and touched with a delightful
note of distinction. The village, too, is of the quaintest, with
almshouses that should make the poverty housed within them dignified
with a dignity that we who live in London’s hutches of brick and
mortar, and are numbered with a plebeian number, may never know.
And at this Bray (we are told) lived that weathercock vicar, who
twirled with every political wind, and by his dexterity kept his
benefice and earned immortality. O most sensible Vicar of Bray: wholly
admirable and right reverend exponent of expediency!
When once the bend of the river just above Bray is reached there is
an end, for the time, of beauty, for the reach runs straight, and on
either bank the encroachments of villadom are forming a continuous
frontage of houses on to Taplow and Maidenhead, and three parts of the
way to Cookham. Taplow Railway Bridge, brick-built, with bricks of a
jaundiced hue, straddles over the water in two strides, an unlovely
bridge, but remarkable for the great span of its arches, and for their
extreme depression. So flat are the two arches of Taplow Bridge,
that it seems scarcely credible they can bear the weight of the heavy
trains constantly crossing. Yet fifty years have passed, and still the
constant traffic of the Great Western Railway passes unharmed.
[Illustration: CLIEVEDEN.]
Beyond Taplow comes Maidenhead, most favoured of riverside towns,
and, at the far end of Maidenhead, Boulter’s Lock, the busiest on the
river, filled from morn to eve of summer days with boats full of the
smartest frocks and prettiest girls one would wish to see. No more
charming sight than Boulter’s on a busy day, when the boats are going
up stream to Clieveden and Cookham. Clieveden woods on the right hand,
and Ray Mead level on the left, with the river between, green with
the reflections of the trees, and splashed here and there with the
bright-coloured blazers of the rowers, make a sight to be remembered.