THE SOUTH-WESTERN PART—BROCKENHURST, BOLDRE, SWAY, HINCHELSEA, AND
BURLEY.
[Illustration: View in Frame Wood, Brockenhurst.]
At present we have seen nothing of the actual Forest. It is only as we
go northward that we begin to enter its woods. Instead of the old Forest
track, a road now runs from Beaulieu to Brockenhurst, along which we
will go. So, leaving the village, and passing a few straggling
half-timbered cottages, we reach Stickland’s Hill, where, down in the
valley, we can see the Exe winding round the old Abbot’s House set
amongst its green elms. Farther on we come to Hatchet Gate, and the
Forest then spreads before us, with Hatchet Pond on our left, and Little
Wood and the Moon Hill Woods on our right; whilst, here and there on the
common, rise scattered barrows.
And now, instead of keeping to the road, let the reader make right
across the plain, by one of the Forest tracks, to the woods at Iron’s
Hill. The stories, with which most books on the Forest abound, of
persons being swamped in morasses, are much exaggerated. Mind only this
simple rule—wherever you see the white cotton-grass growing, and the
bog-moss particularly fine and green, to avoid that place.
And now, when you are fairly out on the moor, you will feel the fresh
salt breeze blowing up from the Solent, and see the long treeless line
of the Island hills in strange contrast with the masses of wood in
front; whilst the moor itself, if it be August, waves with purple and
crimson, except where, here and there, rise great beds of fern-green
islands, in the red sea of heath.
Most of the finest timber at Iron’s Hill and Palmer’s Water has been
lately cut. Keeping on, however, we shall again come out upon the road
which leads down to the stream, close to a mill. Passing over the
footbridge, we skirt Brockenhurst Manor, where, at Watcombe, once lived
Howard the philanthropist, and so at last reach the village.
So greatly has the Forest been reduced in size, that Brockenhurst, once
nearly its centre, is now only a border village. Its Old-English name
(the badger’s wood), like that of Everton, the wild-boar place, on the
southern side of the Forest, tells its own story. It consists of one
long straggling street, and a few scattered houses, with one or two
village inns. Much of its wildness has been spoilt by the railroad; and
in consequence, too, of the adjoining manor of Brockenhurst, it appears
even less than it really is in the Forest. Still, however, if the reader
wishes to see the Forest woods and heaths towards the south, let him
come here, and the village accommodation will only give an additional
charm to the scenery. I, for my part, do not know that a clean English
village inn, with its sanded floor, and its best parlour kept for state
occasions, makes such bad quarters. It is a real pleasure to find some
spots on the earth not yet disfigured by fashionable hotels.
At Brockenhurst existed one of those tenures of knight-service once so
common throughout England. Here Peter Spelman, an ancestor of the
antiquary, held a carucate of land by the service of finding for Edward
II. an esquire clad in coat of mail for forty days in the year, and
whenever the King came to the village to hunt, litter for his bed, and
hay for his horse, which last clause will give us some insight into the
often rough living and habits of the fourteenth century.[102] Here, too,
not many years ago, droves of deer would at night, when all was still,
race up the village street, and the village dogs leap out and kill them,
or chase them back to the Forest.
The church, one of the only two in the Forest mentioned in
_Domesday_,[103] is built on an artificial mound on the top of a hill, a
little way out of the village, so that it might serve as a landmark in
the Forest.[104] The church has been sadly mutilated. A wretched brick
tower has been patched on at the west end; and on the north side a new
staring red brick aisle, which surpasses even the usual standard of
ugliness of a dissenting chapel. On the south side stands the Norman
doorway, with plain escalloped capitals, and an outside arch ornamented
with the indented and chevron mouldings. The chancel is Early-English,
whilst the plain chancel arch which springs without even an impost from
the wall, is very early Norman. Under one of the chancel windows rises
the arch of an Easter sepulchre, whilst a square Norman font, of black
Purbeck marble, stands at the south-west end of the nave.
If the church, however, has been disfigured, the approach to it
fortunately remains in all its beauty. For a piece of quiet English
scenery nothing can exceed this. A deep lane, its banks a garden of
ferns, its hedge matted with honeysuckle, and woven together with
bryony, runs, winding along a side space of green, to the latch-gate,
guarded by an enormous oak, its limbs now fast decaying, its rough bark
grey with the perpetual snow of lichens, and here and there burnished
with soft streaks of russet-coloured moss; whilst behind it, in the
churchyard, spreads the gloom of a yew, which, from the Conqueror’s day,
to this hour, has darkened the graves of generations.[105]
But the charm of Brockenhurst, as of all the Forest villages, consists
in the Forest itself. To the north runs the small Forest stream,
blossomed over in the summer with water-lilies. On the left lies Black
Knoll, with its waste of heath and gorse, running up to the young
plantations of New Park. On the right, Balmor Lawn, with its short,
sweet turf, where herds of cattle are pasturing, stretches away to
Holland’s Wood, with old thorns scattered here and there, in the spring
lighting up the Forest with their white may.
Just now though, it is the southern part of the Forest we must see. So
going back again for a little way upon the Beaulieu Road, and leaving it
just above the foot-bridge for Whitley Lodge, let the reader go on to
Lady Cross. Suddenly he will come out upon the northern edge of Beaulieu
Heath, and see again the Island Hills. To the people in the Forest, the
Island is their weather-glass. If its hills look dark blue and purple,
then the weather will be fine; but if they can see the houses and the
chalk quarries on the hill sides, the rain is sure to come.
Keeping straight on, with Lady Cross Lodge to our left, we enter Frame
Wood, with its turf and its bridle roads winding under the Forest
boughs. Down in the bottom runs the railroad bending away to the north.
On the other side, the thick woods of Denny rise; and the clump of
solitary beeches on the top of the knoll shows the last remains of Wood
Fidley, so well known as having given rise to the Forest proverb of
“Wood Fidley rain,” that is, rain which lasts all the day.
Here you can wander on for miles, as far as the manor of Bishop’s Ditch,
belonging to Winchester College, which the Forest peasant will tell you
was a grant of land as much as the Bishop of Winchester could in a day
crawl round on his hands and knees. As to losing yourself, never mind.
The real plan to enjoy the Forest is to wander on, careless whether you
lose yourself or not. In fact, I believe the real method is to try and
lose yourself, finding your greatest pleasure in the unexpected scenes
of beauty into which you are led.
There are plenty of other Forest rambles round Brockenhurst which must
not be forgotten. Just at the western edge of Beaulieu Heath, about
three miles off, stands Boldre Church, with its solitary churchyard
surrounded by trees. On one side, it looks out upon the bare Forest; and
on the other, down into the cultivated valley. Most suggestful, most
peaceful is this twofold prospect, telling us alike both of work and
companionship, as, too, of solitude—all of them, in religion, so needful
for man. Its tower stands boldly out, almost away from the church, just
between the nave and the chancel, serving formerly, like Brockenhurst
steeple, as a landmark to the Forest; whilst the long outline of the
nave is broken only by the south porch, and its three dormer windows.
Here Southey married his second wife, Catharine Bowles. And close to the
north side, under the shadow of a maple, lies one of the truest lovers
of Nature—Gilpin, the author of the _Scenery of the_ _New Forest_, with
a quaint, simple inscription on his gravestone written by himself. In
the church are tablets both to him and Bromfield, the botanist, a man
like him in many ways, but who, dying abroad, was not allowed to rest
beside him in this quiet graveyard.
The south aisle is the oldest part, with its three Norman arches rising
from square piers, whilst the north aisle is divided from the nave by a
row of Early-English arches springing from plain black Purbeck marble
shafts. In the east window of this aisle were once painted the arms of
the Dauphin of France—the fleurs de lis—blazoned, as they were formerly,
over the whole field, telling us the story of Lewis having been invited
to England and crowned king by John’s barons, and whose traditional
flight at Leap has been mentioned.
Down below, in the valley of the Brockenhurst Water, lies Boldre, the
Bovre of _Domesday_, with its meadows and cornfields. It is worth while
to pause for a moment, and notice the corruption of Boldre into Bovre by
the Norman clerks. The word is from the Keltic, and signifies the full
stream (“_y Byldwr_”), and has nothing to do with oxen. We must, too,
bear in mind that the various Oxenfords and Oxfords are themselves
corruptions, and really come not from oxen at all, but Usk, literally
meaning the stream-ford or stream-road, and are in no way connected with
the various Old-English Rodfords to be found in different parts of the
kingdom. This corruption of language we see daily going on in our own
Colonies, but it is well to pause and remember that the same process has
taken place in our own country.
Passing over the bridge, and up the village, and under the railway arch,
we once more reach the Forest at Shirley Holms, coming out on Shirley
and Sway Commons. Here again, as on Beaulieu Heath, there is not a
single tree, nothing but one vast stretch of heather, which late in the
summer covers the ground with its crimson and amethyst. There is only
one fault to be found with it, that when its glory is past it leaves so
great a blank behind: its grey withered flowers and its grey scanty
foliage forming such a contrast with its previous brightness and
cheerfulness.
But these two commons will at all times be interesting to the
archæologist and historian. On the north-east side lies the Roydon, that
is, the rough ground, a word which we find in other parts of the Forest;
and not far from it is Lichmore or Latchmore Pond—the place of
corpses—which is confirmed by the various adjoining barrows.[106]
After this point, there is nothing to attract the traveller, unless he
is a botanist, to the south. Wootton, and Wilverley, and Setthorns, and
Holmsley, are all young plantations, whilst at Wootton the Forest now
entirely ceases, though once stretching five miles farther, as far as
the sea. So let him make his way to Longslade, or Hinchelsea Bottom, as
it is indifferently called, where about the middle of June blossoms the
lesser bladderwort (_Utricularia minor_), and about the same time, or
rather later, the floating bur-reed (_Sparganeum natans_).
Above, rises Hinchelsea Knoll, with its old hollies and beeches; and
still farther to the north the high lands round Lyndhurst and Stony
Cross crowned with woods. Westward, the heather stretches over plain and
hill till it reaches Burley. Making right through Hinchelsea, and then
skirting the north side of Wilverley plantations, we shall come to the
valley of Holmsley, so beloved by Scott, and which put him in mind of
his native moors, without seeing which once a year, he so pathetically
said, he felt as if he should die. Its wild beauty, however, is in a
great measure spoilt by the railroad, and the large trees which grew in
Scott’s time have all been felled.
Burley itself, which now lies just before us, is one of the most
primitive of Forest hamlets, the village suddenly losing itself amongst
the holms and hollies, and then reforming itself again in some open
space. So thoroughly a Forest village, it is proverbially said to be
dependent upon the yearly crop of acorns and mast, or “akermast,” as
they are collectively called. To the south-west stands Burley Beacon,
where some entrenchments are still visible, and the fields lying round
it are still called “Greater” and “Lesser Castle Fields,” and “Barrows,”
and “Coffins,” showing that the whole district has once been one vast
battle-field.
Close to the village are the Burley quarries, where the so-called Burley
rock, a mere conglomerate of gravel, the “ferrels,” or “verrels,” of
North Hampshire, is dug, formerly used for the foundations of the old
Forest churches, as at Brockenhurst, and Minestead, and Sopley in the
Vale of the Avon. The great woods round Burley have all been cut, except
a few beech-woods, but here and there “merry orchards” mingle themselves
with the holms and hollies, wandering, half-wild, amongst the
Forest.[107]
Turning away from the village, and going north-east, before us rise
great woods—Old Burley, with its yews and oaks, where the raven used to
build; Vinney Ridge, with its heronry at one extremity, and the Eagle
Tree at the other; whilst behind us are the young Burley plantations.
Here, near the Lodge, scattered in some fields, stand the remains of the
“Twelve Apostles,” once enormous oaks, reduced both in number and size,
with
“Boughs moss’d with age,
And high tops bald with dry antiquity.”
And now, if the reader does not mind the swamps—and if he really wishes
to know the Forest, and to see its best scenes, it is useless to mind
them—let him make his way across to Mark Ash, the finest beechwood in
the Forest, which even on a summer’s day is dark at noon. Thence the
wood-cutter’s track will take him by Barrow’s Moor and Knyghtwood, where
grows the well-known oak. Here a different scene opens out with broad
spaces of heath and fern, where the gladiolus shows its red blossoms
among the green leaves of the brake; whilst on the hill, distinguished
by its poplars, stands Rhinefield, with its nursery, and, below, the two
woods of Birchen Hat, where the common buzzard yearly breeds.
Keeping along the main road, which is just before us, nearly as far as
the New Forest Gate, we will turn in at Liney Hill Wood, going through
the woods of Brinken, and the Queen’s Mead, and the Queen’s Bower,
following the course of the stream.
Very beautiful is this walk, with its paths which stray down to the
water’s edge, where the cattle come to drink; the stream pausing round
some oak roots, which pleach the banks, lingering in the darkness of the
shade, and at last going away with reluctance.
Few things, of their sort, can equal these lowland Forest streams, the
water tinged with the iron of the district, flashing into amber in the
sunlight, and deepening into rich browns in the shade, making the
pebbles hazel as it ripples over them.
All the way along grow oaks and beeches, each guarded with its green
fence of kneeholm, and furred with moss, which the setting sun paints
with bands of light. And so, in turn, passing Burley and Rhinefield
Fords, and Cammel Green, and the Buckpen, where the deer used to be fed
in winter, the path suddenly comes out by a lonely grass-field, known as
the Queen’s Mead, and immediately after enters the Queen’s Bower Wood.
At the farther end, a bridge crosses the brook by the side of one of the
many Boldrefords in the Forest; and in the distance, across Black Knoll,
shine the white houses of Brockenhurst.
[Illustration: View in the Queen’s Bower Wood.]