SOUTH-WEST LONDON
Introductory remarks--Comparative large extent of public ground in
South-west London--Battersea Park--Character and popularity--Bird
life--Clapham Common: its present and past character--Wandsworth
Common--The yellowhammer--Tooting Common--Tooting Bec--Questionable
improvements--A passion for swans--Tooting Graveney--Streatham
Common--Bird life--Magpies--Rookery--Bishop's Park,
Fulham--A suggestion--Barn Elms Park--Barnes Common--A
burial-ground--Birds--Putney Heath, Lower Putney Common, and
Wimbledon Common--Description--Bird life--Rookeries--The
badger--Richmond Park--Its vast extent and character--Bird
life--Daws--Herons--The charm of large soaring birds--Kew
Gardens--List of birds--Unfavourable changes--The Queen's private
grounds.
In the foregoing chapters the arbitrary lines dividing the London postal
districts have not been always strictly kept to. Thus, the Green Park
and St. James's Park, which are in the South-west, were included in the
West district, simply because the central parks, with Holland Park,
form one group, or rather one chain of open spaces. In treating of the
South-west district it will again be found convenient to disregard the
line at some points, since, besides excluding the two parks just
named, I propose to include Kew Gardens, Richmond Park, and Wimbledon
Common--large spaces which lie for the most part outside of the
Post-Office boundary. These spaces do nevertheless form an integral part
of London as it has been defined for the purposes of this book: they
belong to the South-west district in the same way that Hampstead Heath
does to the North-west, Hackney Marsh and Wanstead Old Park to the East,
Plumstead and Bostell to the South-east. All these open spaces _touch_
London, although they are not entirely cut off from the country. Again,
for the same reason which made me exclude Epping Forest, Ham Common,
&c., from the East district, I now exclude Hampton Court Park and Bushey
Park from the South-west. It might be said that Richmond Park is not
less rural than Bushey Park, or even than Epping Forest; that with
regard to their wild bird life all these big open spaces on the
borders of London are in the same category; but the line must be drawn
somewhere, and having made my rule I must keep to it. Doubtless before
many years the tide of buildings will have completely encircled and
flowed beyond the outermost open spaces described in this and the
preceding chapters.
Within these limits we find that the South-west district, besides being
the least densely populated portion of London, is immeasurably better
off in open spaces than any other. There is, in fact, no comparison. The
following is a very rough statement of the amount of space open to the
public in each of the big districts, omitting the cemeteries, and all
gardens, squares, greens, recreation grounds, and all other open spaces
of less than ten acres in size. West London, _including_ Green Park and
St. James's Park, has about 1,500 acres. North London (North-west and
North districts), which has two very large spaces in Regent's Park and
Hampstead Heath, has about 1,300 acres. East London, excluding Epping
Forest, Wanstead Flats, and Ham Common, has less than 1,000 acres.
South-east London, 1,500 to 1,600 acres. South-west London has about
7,500 acres, or 2,200 acres more than all the other districts together.
This does not include Old Deer Park, which is not open to the public.
If we include Green, St. James's, Bushey, and Hampton Court Parks, the
South-west district would then have about 8,650 acres in large open
spaces. All the rest of London, with the whole vast space of Epping
Forest thrown in, would have 7,500, or 1,150 acres less than the
South-west district.
* * * * *
The large open spaces of South-west London, although more scattered
about than is the case in other metropolitan districts, do nevertheless
form more or less well-defined groups. Battersea Park is an exception:
it is the only open space in this district which has, so to speak, been
entirely remade, the digging and planting, which have been so vigorously
going on for several years past, having quite obliterated its original
character. Coming to speak of the open spaces in detail, I propose first
to describe this made park; to go next to the large commons south of
Battersea--Clapham, Wandsworth, Tooting, and Streatham; then, returning
to the river-side, to describe Bishop's Park, Fulham, and its near
neighbour, Barnes Common; and, finally, to go on to the large spaces at
Kew, Putney, Wimbledon, and Richmond.
* * * * *
Battersea Park (198 acres), formerly a marsh, has within the last few
years been transformed into the most popular open-air resort in the
metropolis. The attempt to please everybody usually ends in pleasing
nobody; at Battersea the dangerous experiment has been tried with
success; for no person would be so unreasonable as to look for that
peculiar charm of wildness, which still lingers in Bostell Heath and
Wimbledon Common, in a garden planted in a marsh close to the heart of
London. The ground has certainly been made the most of: the flat surface
has been thrown into mounds, dells, and other inequalities; there are
gardens and rockeries, large well-grown trees of many kinds, magnificent
shrubberies, and, best of all, a pretty winding lake, with an area
of about 16 acres, and large well-wooded islands on it. Besides the
attraction which the beautiful grounds, the variety of plants and of
ornamental water-fowl and other animals have for people generally,
crowds are drawn to this spot by the facilities afforded for recreations
of various kinds--boating, cycling, cricket, tennis, &c. This popularity
of Battersea is interesting to us incidentally when considering its wild
bird life, for it might be supposed that the number of people and the
incessant noise would drive away the shyer species, and that the birds
would be few. This is not the case: the wild bird life is actually far
more abundant and varied than in any other inner London park. Mere
numbers and noise of people appear to have little effect on birds so
long as they are protected.
Battersea Park has a good position to attract birds passing through or
wandering about London, as these are apt to follow the river; and it
also has the advantage of being near the central parks, which, as we
have seen, serve as a kind of highway by which birds come into London
from the west side. In the park itself the lake and wooded islands, and
extensive shrubberies with dense masses of evergreen, tempt them to
build. But it must also be said, in justice, that the superintendent
of this park fully appreciates the value of the birds, and takes every
pains to encourage and protect them. A few years ago, when he came to
Battersea, there were about a dozen blackbirds; now as many as forty
have been counted feeding in the early morning on one lawn; and in
spring and summer, at about four o'clock every morning, there is such a
concert of thrushes and blackbirds, with many other bright voices, as
would be hard to match in any purely rural district. It is interesting
to know that the wren, which is dying out in other London parks, has
steadily increased at Battersea, and is now quite common. Robins and
hedge-sparrows are also more numerous than in our other open spaces. A
number of migrants are attracted to this spot every summer; of these the
pied wagtail, lesser whitethroat, reed-warbler, and cuckoo bred last
season. The larger birds are the wood-pigeon, moorhen, dabchick, and to
these the carrion crow may now be added as a breeding species.
* * * * *
Clapham Common (220 acres) is the nearest to central London of that
large, loose group of commons distinctive of the South-west district,
its distance from Battersea being a little over a mile, and from Charing
Cross about three miles and a half. Like Hackney Downs, it is a grassy
space, but flatter, and having the appearance of a piece of ground not
yet built upon it may be described as the least interesting open space
in the metropolis. To the smoke and dust breathing, close-crowded
inhabitants of Bethnal Green, which is not green nor of any other
colour found in nature, this expanse of grass, if they had it within
reach, would be an unspeakable boon, and seem to their weary eyes like
a field in paradise. But Clapham is not over-crowded; it is a place of
gardens full of fluttering leaves, and the exceeding monotony of its
open space, set round with conspicuous houses, must cause those who live
near it to sigh at the thought of its old vanished aspect when the small
boy Thomas Babington Macaulay roamed over its broken surface, among its
delightful poplar groves and furze and bramble bushes, or hid himself in
its grass-grown gravel-pits, the world forgetting, by his nurse forgot.
These grateful inequalities and roughnesses have been smoothed over,
and the ancient vegetation swept away like dead autumn leaves from
the velvet lawns and gravel walks of a trim suburban villa. When this
change was effected I do not know: probably a good while back. To the
Claphamites of the past the furze must have seemed an unregenerate bush,
and the bramble something worse, since its recurved thorns would remind
them of an exceedingly objectionable person's finger-nails. As for the
yellowhammer, that too gaily apparelled idle singer, who painted his
eggs with so strange a paint, it must indeed have been a relief to get
rid of him.
At present Clapham Common is no place for birds.
* * * * *
Wandsworth Common (183 acres) is a very long strip of ground,
unfortunately very narrow, with long monotonous rows of red brick
houses, hideous in their uniformity, at its sides. Here there is no
attempt at disguise, no illusion of distance, no effect of openness
left: the cheap speculative builder has been permitted to spoil it all.
A railway line which cuts very nearly through the whole length of the
common still further detracts from its value as a breathing-space. The
broadest part of the ground at its western extremity has a good deal of
furze growing on it, and here the common joins an extensive piece of
ground, park-like in character, on which stands an extremely picturesque
old red brick house. When this green space is built upon Wandsworth will
lose the little that remains of its ancient beauty and freshness.
Among the small birds still to be found here is the yellowhammer, and
it strikes one as very curious to hear his song in such a place. Why
does he stay? Is he tempted by the little bit of bread and no cheese
which satisfies his modest wants--the small fragments dropped by the
numberless children that play among the bushes after school hours? The
yellowhammer does not colonise with us; he goes and returns not, and
this is now the last spot in the metropolis within four miles and a half
of Charing Cross where he may still be found. He was cradled on the
common, and does not know that there are places on the earth where the
furze-bushes are unblackened by smoke, where at intervals of a few
minutes the earth is not shaken by trains that rush thundering and
shrieking, as if demented, into or out of Clapham Junction.
I fear the yellowhammer will not long remain in such a pandemonium. The
people of Wandsworth are hardly deserving of such a bird.
* * * * *
Tooting Common is the general name for two commons--Tooting Bec and
Tooting Graveney, 144 and 66 acres respectively. A public road divides
them, but they form really one area. Tooting Bec has a fair amount of
gorse and bramble bushes scattered about, and a good many old trees,
mostly oak. The number of old trees gives this space something of a
park-like appearance, but it is not exhilarating; on the contrary,
its effect on the mind is rather depressing, on account of the perfect
flatness of the ground and the sadly decayed and smoke-blackened
condition of the trees. An 'improvement' of the late Metropolitan Board
of Works was the planting of a very long and very straight avenue of
fast-growing black poplars, and this belt of weed-like ungraceful trees,
out of keeping with everything, has made Tooting Bec positively ugly.
Another improvement has been introduced by the County Council; this is
the usual small pond and the usual couple of big swans. The rage for
putting these huge birds in numberless small ponds and miniature lakes
can only proceed from a singular want of imagination on the part of the
park gardeners and park decorators employed by the Council; or we might
suppose that the Council have purchased a big job lot of swans, which
they are anxious to distribute about London. These dreary little ponds
might easily be made exceedingly interesting, if planted round with
willows and rushes and stocked with a few of the smaller pretty
ornamental water-fowl in place of their present big unsuitable
occupants.
Tooting Graveney has a fresher, wilder aspect, and is a pleasanter place
than its sister common. Its surroundings, too, are far more rural, as
it has for neighbours Streatham Park and the wide green spaces of Furze
Down and Totterdown Fields. Tooting Graveney itself is in the condition
of the old Clapham Common as Macaulay knew it in his boyhood. Its surface
is rough with grass-grown mounds, old gravel-pits, and excavations, and
it is grown over with bushes of furze, bramble, and brier, and with
scattered birch-trees and old dwarf hawthorns, looking very pretty. Wild
birds are numerous, although probably few are able to rear any young
on the common. The missel-thrush, now very rare in London, breeds in
private grounds close by.
* * * * *
Streatham Common (66 acres) is the least as well as the outermost of the
group of large commons; it is but half the size of Clapham Common. But
though so much smaller than the others, it is the most interesting,
owing to the hilly nature of the ground and to the fine prospect to be
had of the country beyond. It forms a rather long strip, and from the
highest part at the upper end the vision ranges over the beautifully
wooded and hilly Surrey country to and beyond Epsom. This upper end of
the common is extremely pretty, overgrown with furze and bramble bushes,
and pleasantly shaded with trees at one side. Birds when breeding
cannot be protected on the common; the wild bird life is nevertheless
abundant and varied, on account of the large private grounds adjoining.
It is pleasant to sit here on a spring or summer day and watch the jays
that come to the trees overhead; like other London jays and the London
fieldfares, they are strangely tame compared with these birds in the
country. Out in the sunshine the skylark mounts up singing; and here,
too, may be heard the nightingale. He does not merely make a short stay
on his arrival in spring, as at some other spots in the suburbs, but
remains to breed. Yet here we are only six and a half miles from Charing
Cross. It is still more surprising to find the magpie at Streatham,
in the wooded grounds which join the common. Rooks are numerous at
Streatham, and their rookery close to Streatham Common station is a
singularly interesting one. It is on an avenue of tall elms which
formerly stood on open grass-land. A few years ago this land was built
over, rows of houses being erected on each side of and parallel with the
avenue, which now stands in the back gardens or yards, with the back
windows of the houses looking on it. But in spite of all these changes,
and the large human population gathered round them, the birds have
stuck to their rookery; and last summer (1897) there were about thirty
inhabited nests.
[Illustration: NIGHTINGALE ON ITS NEST]
* * * * *
From Streatham we go back to the river, to a point about a mile and
a half west of Wandsworth Common, to Fulham Palace grounds on the
Middlesex side, and the open spaces at Barnes on the Surrey side.
Bishop's Park, Fulham, of which about 12 acres are free to the public,
is one of London's rare beauty-spots. A considerable portion of the
palace grounds is within the moat, and the moat, the noble old trees,
and wide green spaces, form an appropriate setting to the ancient
stately Bishop's Palace. The lamentable mistake has been made of placing
this open space in the control of the Fulham Vestry; and, as might
have been expected, they have been improving it in accordance with the
æsthetic ideas of the ordinary suburban tradesman, by cutting down the
old trees, planting rows of evergreens to hide the beautiful inner
grounds from view, and by erecting cast-iron painted fountains, shelters,
and other architectural freaks of a similar character. That the
inhabitants of Fulham can see unmoved this vulgarisation of so noble
and beautiful a remnant of the past--the spot in London which recalls
the moated Bishop's Palace at Wells--is really astonishing.
To the bird-lover as well as to the student of history this is a place
of memories, for here in the time of Henry VIII. spoonbills and herons
built their nests on the old trees in the bishop's grounds. At the
present time there are some sweet songsters--thrush, blackbird, robin,
dunnock, wren, chaffinch, and a few summer visitants. Here, too, we find
the wood-pigeon, but not the 'ecclesiastical daw' or other distinguished
species, and, strange to say, no moat-hen in the large old moat. How
much more interesting this water would be, with its grass-grown banks
and ancient shade-giving trees, if it had a few feathered inhabitants!
Simply by lowering the banks at a few points and planting some reeds
and rushes, it would quickly attract those two very common and always
interesting London species, the moorhen and the little grebe. The
sedge-warbler, too, would perhaps come in time.
I have been informed that London Bishops care for none of these things.
Looking across the river from Fulham Palace grounds, an extensive
well-wooded space is seen on the south bank; this is Barn Elms Park, now
occupied by the Ranelagh Sporting Club. It is one of the best private
parks in London, with fine old elm-trees and a lake, and would be a
paradise of wild birds but for the shooting which goes on there and
scares them away.
Close to Barn Elms is Barnes Common (100 acres), a pleasant open heath,
not all flat, grown with heather, and dotted with furze and bramble
bushes and a few trees. One of its attractions is Beverley Brook, which
rises near Malden, about eight miles away, and flows by Coombe Woods,
Wimbledon, through Richmond Park, and, finally, by Barnes Common to the
Thames: the brook and a very pretty green meadow separate the common
from Barn Elms Park.
The London and South-Western Railway Company have been allowed to
appropriate a portion of this open space; but that indeed seems a very
small matter when we find that the parishes of Barnes and Putney have
established two cemeteries on the common, using a good many of its
scanty 100 acres for the purpose. What would be said if the Government
were to allow two cemeteries for the accommodation of the parishes
of Kensington and Paddington to be made in the middle of Kensington
Gardens? I fail to see that it is less an outrage to have turned a
portion of Barnes Common into hideous walled round Golgothas, with
mortuary chapels, the ground studded with grave-stones and filled with
putrefying corpses. It is devoutly to be hoped that before very long the
people of London will make the discovery that it rests with themselves
whether their house shall be put in order or not; and when that time
comes that these horrible forests of grave-stones and monuments to
the dead will be brushed away, and that such bodies as the Barnes
Conservators and the Fulham Vestry will for ever be deprived of the
powers they so lamentably misuse.
It would be difficult for any bird, big or little, to rear its young on
a space so unprotected as this common; many birds, however, come to
it, attracted by its open heath-like character. Here the skylark and
yellowhammer may be heard, as well as the common resident songsters
found in other open spaces. The carrion crow is a constant visitor, and
very tame, knowing that he is safe. Beverley Brook has no aquatic birds
in it, but it would be easy to make a small rushy sanctuary in the
marshy borders, protected from mischievous persons, for the moorhen,
sedge-warbler, and other species. I have seen a small boy with an
earthworm at the end of a piece of thread pull out thirty to forty
minnows in as many minutes. Little grebes and kingfishers would not
want for food in such a place.
* * * * *
South and west of Barnes Common, London, as we progress, becomes
increasingly rural, with large private park-like grounds, until we
arrive at the open spaces of Putney Heath, Lower Putney Common, and
Wimbledon Common, which together form an area of 1,412 acres, or nearly
three times as large as Hampstead Heath. It seems only appropriate that
the most rural portion of the most rural district in London should
have so large an open space, and that in character this space should
be wilder and more refreshing to the spirit than any other in the
metropolis. It has the further advantage (from the point of view of the
residents) of not being too easy of access to the mass of the people.
This makes it 'select,' a semi-private recreation ground for the
residents, and a 'Happy Hampstead' to a limited number of cockneys of a
superior kind. Here the fascinating game of golf, excluded from other
public spaces, may be practised; and the golfer, arrayed like the poppies
of the cornfield and visible at a vast distance, strolls leisurely about
as his manner is, or stands motionless to watch the far flight of his
small ball, which will kill no one and hit no one, since strangers
moving about on the grounds are actually fewer than would be seen on
the links at Hayling, or even Minehead.
It is a solitary place, and its solitariness is its principal charm. A
wide open heath, with some pretty patches of birch wood, stretches of
brown heather, dotted in places with furze-bushes like little black
islands; but on that part which is called Putney Heath furze and bramble
and brier grow thick and luxuriant. One may look far in some directions
and see no houses nor other sign of human occupancy to spoil the effect
of seclusion and wildness. Over all is the vast void sky and the
rapturous music of the skylark.
At Wimbledon one has the idea of being at a considerable elevation; the
highest point is really only 300 feet above the sea level, but it is set
in a deep depression, and from some points the sight may range as far as
the hills about Guildford and Godalming. There are persons of sensitive
olfactories who affirm that when the wind blows from the south coast
they can smell the sea-salt in it.
[Illustration: WIMBLEDON COMMON]
But Wimbledon is not all open heath and common; it has also an extensive
wood, delightfully wild, the only large birch wood near the metropolis.
The missel-thrush, nuthatch, and tree-creeper breed here, and the jay
is common and tame; I have seen as many as six together. In this wood a
finer concert of nightingales may be heard in summer than at any other
place near London. In winter fieldfares and pewits are often seen.
Carrion crows from Coombe Woods and other breeding-places in the
neighbourhood are constantly seen on the common in pairs and small
parties, and are strangely familiar. Rooks, too, are extremely abundant.
Richmond Park is their roosting-place in winter, and there are numerous
rookeries, large and small, in the neighbourhood--at Sheen Gate, at
various points along the Kingston road, at Norbiton and Kingston, on
the estate of the late Madame Lyne Stevens, at Coombe Woods, and at
Wimbledon itself, in some large elms growing at the side of the High
Street on Sir Henry Peek's property. Concerning this rookery there is
an interesting fact to relate. About six years ago the experiment of
shooting the young rooks was tried, with the very best intentions, the
rookery being greatly prized. But these rooks were not accustomed to be
thinned down (for their own good) every summer, and they forsook the
trees. Everything was then done to entice them back; artificial nests
were constantly kept on the tree-tops, and in winter food in abundance
was placed for the birds; but though they came readily enough to regale
on bread and scraps they refused to settle until last spring (1897),
when they returned in a body and rebuilt the rookery.
This book is mainly about birds, but I cannot help mentioning the fact
that in the wood at Wimbledon that rare and interesting mammal, the
badger, found at only one other spot on the borders of London, is
permitted to spend his hermit life in peace.
Here, in solitude and shade,
Shambling, shuffling plantigrade,
Be thy courses undismayed.
It may seem almost absurd in writing of a London wild animal to quote
from Bret Harte's ode to the great grizzly in the Western wilderness!
Nevertheless Wimbledon may be proud to possess even the poor little
quaint timid badger--cousin, a million times removed, to the mighty
bear, the truculent coward, as the poet says, with tiger claws on baby
feet, who has a giant's strength and is satisfied to prey on wasps'
nests.
Recently, on one of the largest estates in England, in a part of the
country where the badger is now all but extinct, it was reported at the
big house that a pair of these animals had established themselves in the
forest, which, it may be mentioned, is very large--about eighteen miles
round. A grand campaign was at once organised, and a large number of men
and boys, armed with guns, spades, hatchets, pitchforks, and bludgeons,
and followed by many dogs, went out to the attack. Arrived at the den,
at the roots of a giant beech-tree, they set to work to dig the animals
out. It was a huge task, but there were many to help, and in the end the
badgers were found, old and young together, and killed.
Let us imagine that when this business was proceeding with tremendous
excitement and noise of shouting men and barking dogs, some person
buried at that spot in old Palæolithic times had been raised up to view
the spectacle; that it had been explained to him that these hunters were
his own remote descendants; that one of them was a mighty nobleman, a
kind of chief or king, whose possessions extended on every side as far
as the eye could see; that the others were his followers who served and
obeyed him; and that they were all engaged in hunting and killing the
last badger, the most terrible wild beast left in the land! I think that
the old hunter, who, with his rude stone-headed spear had fought with
and overcome even mightier beasts than the grizzly bear, would have
emitted a strange and perhaps terrifying sound, a burst of primitive
laughter very shrill and prolonged, resembling the neigh of a wild
horse, or perhaps deep, from a deep chest, like the baying of a
bloodhound.
* * * * *
Richmond Park (2,470 acres) both in its vast extent and character
is unlike any other metropolitan open space. The noblest of the
breathing-spaces on our borders, it is also the most accessible, and
more or less well known to tens of thousands of persons; but it is
probably intimately known only to a few. Speaking for myself, I can say
that after having visited it occasionally for years, sometimes to spend
a whole day in it, sometimes to get lost in it, both in fine and foggy
weather, I do not know it so well as other large open spaces which have
not been visited more often. Any person well acquainted with the country
would probably find it easy at a moment's notice to name half a dozen
parks which have pleased him better than this one, on account of a
certain monotony in the scenery of Richmond, but in size it would
surpass most or all of them. So large is it that half a dozen such
London parks as Clissold, Waterlow, and Ravenscourt might easily be
hidden in one corner of it, where it would not be easy to find them.
There are roads running in various directions, and on most days many
persons may be seen on them, driving, riding, cycling, and walking; yet
they all may be got away from, and long hours spent out of sight and
hearing of human beings, in the most perfect solitude. This is the
greatest attraction of Richmond Park, and its best virtue. Strange to
say, this very quietude and solitariness produce a disturbing effect
on many Londoners. Alas for those who have so long existed apart from
Nature as to have become wholly estranged, who are troubled in mind at
her silence and austerity! To others this green desert is London's best
possession, a sacred place where those who have lost their strength may
find it again, and those who are distempered may recover their health.
The largeness and quietness of Richmond, its old oak woods, water, and
wide open spaces, and its proximity to the river, have given it not only
an abundant but a nobler wild bird life than is found at any other point
so near to the centre of the metropolis. Here all the best songsters,
including the nightingale, may be heard. Wild duck and teal and a
few other water birds, rear their young in the ponds. Our two most
beautiful woodland birds, the green woodpecker and the jay, are common.
Rooks are numerous, especially in winter, when they congregate to roost.
Here, too, you may hear the carrion crow's 'voice of care.' Jackdaws
are certainly more plentiful than anywhere within one hundred miles of
London. One day I counted fifty in a flock, and saw them settle on the
trees; then going a little distance on I saw another flock numbering
about forty, and beyond this lot from another wood sounded the clamour
of a third flock. Even then I had probably not seen _all_ the Richmond
daws; perhaps not more than half the entire number, for I was assured by
a keeper that there were 'millions.' He was a very tall white-haired old
man with aquiline features and dark fierce eyes, and therefore must have
known what he was talking about.
Best of all are the herons that breed in the park, and appear to be
increasing. One fine evening in February last I counted twenty together
at Sidmouth Wood. A multitude of rooks and daws had settled on the
tree-tops where the herons were; but after a few minutes they rose up
with a great noise, and were followed by the herons, who mounted high
above the black cawing crowd, looking very large and majestic against
the pale clear sky. It was the finest spectacle in wild bird life I had
ever seen so close to London.
It is a great thing for Richmond to have the heron, which is no longer
common; and now that the kite, buzzard, and raven have been lost, it is
the only large soaring inland species which, once seen, appears as
an indispensable part of the landscape. Take it away, and the large
comparatively wild nature loses half its charm.
In a former chapter I have endeavoured to show how great the æsthetic
value of the daw is to our cathedrals. The old dead builders of these
great temples owe perhaps as much to this bird as to the softening and
harmonising effects of time and weather. Again, every one must feel that
the effect of sublimity produced on us by our boldest cliffs is greatly
enhanced by the sea-fowl, soaring along the precipitous face of the
rocks, and peopling their ledges, tier above tier of birds, the highest,
seen from below, appearing as mere white specks. A similar effect is
produced by large soaring birds on any inland landscape; the horizon is
widened and the sky lifted to an immeasurable height. Some such idea as
this, of the indescribable charm of the large soaring bird, of its value
to the artistic eye in producing the effect of distance and vastness in
nature, was probably in our late lost artist-poet's mind when he painted
the following exquisite word-picture:--
High up and light are the clouds; and though the swallows flit
So high above the sunlit earth, they are well a part of it;
And so though high over them are the wings of the wandering hern,
In measureless depths above him doth the fair sky quiver and burn.
Speaking for myself, without the 'wandering hern,' or buzzard, or other
large soaring species, the sky does not impress me with its height and
vastness; and without the sea-fowl the most tremendous sea-fronting
cliff is a wall which may be any height; and the noblest cathedral
without any jackdaws soaring and gamboling about its towers is apt to
seem little more than a great barn, or a Dissenting chapel on a gigantic
scale.
* * * * *
Kew Gardens, with the adjoining spaces of Old Deer Park and the Queen's
Private Grounds, comprising an area of about 600 acres, with a river
frontage of over two miles, is in even closer touch with London than its
near neighbour, Richmond Park. From the heart of the city two principal
thoroughfares run west, and, uniting on the farther side of Hammersmith,
extend with few breaks in the walls of brick and glass on either side to
Kew Bridge. The distance from the Mansion House to the bridge is about
ten miles, and the few remaining gaps in the westernmost portion of this
long busy way are now rapidly being filled up. What was formerly the
village of Kew is now an integral part of London the Monotonous, in
appearance just like other suburbs--Wormwood Scrubs, Kilburn, Muswell
Hill, Green Lanes, Dulwich, and Norwood.
Kew Gardens (251 acres) is, or until very recently was, one of the three
or four spots on the borders of the metropolis most favoured by the
birds. They were attracted to it by its large size, the woodland
character of most of the ground, and its unrivalled position on the
river in the immediate vicinity of several other extensive open spaces.
The breeding place of most of the birds was in the Queen's Private
Grounds, a wedge of land between the Gardens and Old Deer Park, a
wilderness and perfect sanctuary for all wild creatures. In this green
wooded spot and the adjoining gardens the following species have
bred annually: missel-thrush, throstle, blackbird, redstart, robin,
nightingale, whitethroat, lesser whitethroat, blackcap, garden-warbler,
chiffchaff, willow-wren, wood-wren, sedge-warbler, dunnock, wren, great,
coal, blue, and long-tailed tits, nuthatch, tree-creeper, pied wagtail,
tree-pipit, spotted flycatcher, swallow, house-martin, greenfinch,
common sparrow, chaffinch, starling, jay, crow, swift, green and lesser
woodpecker, wryneck, cuckoo, pheasant, partridge, wood-pigeon, moorhen,
dabchick--in all forty-three species. Besides these there is good reason
to believe that the following six species have been breeders in the
Queen's grounds during recent years: goldcrest, marsh tit, goldfinch,
hawfinch, bullfinch, and magpie.
This list will prove useful to London naturalists in the near future, as
many changes in the bird life of Kew may shortly be looked for. With the
opening of the Queen's grounds the partridge and pheasant will cease to
breed there; the crow is not now allowed to build in the gardens; the
nightingales have decreased to a very few birds during the last three or
four seasons; and last summer (1897) the wood-wren failed to put in
an appearance. To say that there will be other and greater changes is
unhappily only too safe a prophecy to make. For several years past
tree-felling has been vigorously prosecuted in the gardens to give them
a more open park-like appearance; new gravelled roads have been laid
down in all directions, and the policy generally has been that of the
landscape-gardener which makes for prettiness, with the result that the
aspect and character of this spot have been quite altered, and it is
fast becoming as unsuitable a breeding place for the summer warblers and
other shy woodland species as any royal west-end park.
Up till two months ago, it was some consolation to those who grieved at
the changes in progress in Kew Gardens to think that the Queen's private
grounds adjoining were safe from the despoiler. This area is separated
from the gardens by nothing but a wire fence; one could walk the entire
breadth of the grounds with that untrimmed, exquisitely beautiful
wooded wilderness always in sight; many acres of noble trees--oak, ash,
elm, beech, hornbeam, and Spanish chestnut; a shady paradise, the old
trunks draped with ivy, or grey and emerald green with moss; masses of
bramble and brier, furze and holly, growing untouched beneath; the open
green spaces a sea of blue in spring with the enchanting blue of the
wild hyacinth. There was not anywhere on the borders of London--that
weary circuit of fifty miles--so fresh and perfect a transcript of wild
woodland nature as this, with the sole exception of Lord Mansfield's
private grounds at Hampstead.
Unhappily just before the announcement was made early in 1898 that the
Queen had graciously decided to admit the public to this lovely ground,
a gang of labourers was sent in to grub up the undergrowth, to lop off
lower branches, and cut down many scores of the noblest old trees, with
the object apparently of bringing the place more into harmony with the
adjoining trim gardens. It is earnestly to be hoped that nothing further
will be done to ruin the most perfect beauty-spot that remains to
London.
Here our survey ends.