THE ROMANCE OF BISHAM AND HURLEY
One of the greatest calumnies I ever heard expressed was the remark,
"What, writing a book about the river! Why, the river is all alike,
isn't it?" It is true that many reaches of the river are so exceedingly
attractive that there is a danger of applying the adjectives "pretty"
and "beautiful" and "charming" to many of them, but the sameness is
not in the reaches, it is in the poverty of one's own language. What
can be more different, for instance, than the river about Maidenhead
and the river above Marlow? Yet both are delightful. The patrons of
the Maidenhead part no doubt outnumber those of Bisham and Hurley,
but that is because Maidenhead is one of the most accessible places on
the river. The station at Marlow is on a branch, and many a weary hour
must be spent waiting, if one is dependent on trains. This is the only
station for Hurley and Bisham, unless we go on equally far in the other
direction to Henley. However, this is one of the reasons why the Marlow
section is preferable to the Maidenhead one--when you do get there.
Great Marlow itself is a fairly important place for a riverside
village. It is like a little country town, and though many new
red-brick villas are springing up, it could not be called "residential"
in the way that the word could be applied to Richmond, for instance.
The ground plan is very simple. One wide street runs straight down to
the bridge, and another street crosses it at the top. In the latter is
to be found Marlow's chief literary association, for here still stands
the cottage where Shelley lived. It is marked by a tablet, and is a
low, long building, creeper-covered, and is now divided into several
cottages. Here he wrote _The Revolt of Islam_ and _Alastor, or the
Spirit of Solitude_.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF MARLOW]
Down by the water side the whole aspect of Marlow is bright and open.
It must be entirely different from the older Marlow, when the wooden
bridge--which crossed the river lower down than the present one--and
the old church were still in existence. At present, in the summer all
is gay and clean looking. The suspension bridge, which is the best of
the modern sort of bridges from an artist's point of view, is rather
low over the water; standing on it one can look right down on to the
green lawn of the Compleat Angler Hotel, and see the many-coloured
muslins, the white flannels, the gay cushions, the awnings, and the
sunshades, as if they were all a gigantic flower bed. The red hotel
itself is from this point caught against the background of the Quarry
Woods. Opposite to it is the very green strip of the churchyard
coming right down to the edge of the river, and only separated from
it by a low stone parapet: weeping willows fling their green spray
out over the water, and behind is the church. It is undeniable that
the materials used in the church are distinctly ugly, but the steeple
goes some way towards redeeming it, and if it can be seen silhouetted,
so that the materials are lost in dimness, and only the outlines are
apparent, it becomes at once more than passable. Spires are not common
in Thames-side churches, which are far more often capped by rather low
battlemented towers.
One of the glories of Marlow is its weir. It runs in a great
semicircular sweep below the hotel; and, from a terrace there, one can
look right down into the swirling water; or by coming up the backwater
below in a boat, one can land at the hotel without facing the lock at
all, a great advantage. The weir is in several planes, and the extended
flood makes a perpetual wash, rising to a roar in winter, and dwindling
to the merest tinkle in summer. Marlow is distinctly a summer place:
its openness, its many trees, its wide reach of water, and the splash
of the weir are all summer accompaniments; and in winter, when the wind
sweeps down from the south, the unprotected side, and the water hisses
and bubbles in its struggle to get down to lower levels, it is weird
and melancholy.
[Illustration: QUARRY WOODS]
The lock channel is fringed by several islets, and there is the usual
mill, and a pretty wooden foot-bridge. Several of the most graceful of
our trees, the dainty silver birch, stand near the mill. On some of the
lower islands osiers grow, and there are one or two neat boat-houses.
Wide meadows fringe the river below; and eastward--the bridge lies
due north and south--are the famous Quarry Woods, held by many to be
superior even to the Clieveden Woods. In some points they are, and
not the least of these is that they are traversed by several roads,
while those at Clieveden are kept strictly private. The woods are
composed almost wholly of beech, the tree that loves the chalk, here
so abundant, and only a few patches of larch may be seen in clumps
among them. Beginning at the water's edge, rising above the curious
white castle with harled walls called Quarry Hill, now to let, the
woods continue in a straight line inland, getting further and further
from the river as they go. It is difficult to say at what season of
the year they are the most beautiful. In early spring, before the buds
burst, if looked at in the mass, there is to be seen a kind of purple
bloom made by the myriad buds, which is not found in any mixed woods.
In spring the buds burst out into that tender indescribable green,
like nothing else in the world, and the new-born leaves, suspended
from their dark and almost invisible twigs, are for all the world like
fronds of giant maidenhair. In the autumn the whole ground is one blaze
of rich burnt-sienna, a carpet of leaves laid so industriously that not
a speck of the bare brown earth appears; and from this rise the stems
smooth and straight, lichen-covered every one, and thus transformed to
brilliant emerald. Where the light strikes through the rapidly thinning
branches, they have the very glow of the stones themselves. It is an
enchanted wood, and at any moment a wizard might peep out from behind
one of those magic trunks.
[Illustration: BISHAM CHURCH]
The woods alone would be sufficient to give Marlow a high rank among
river places. But all this is below the bridge, and above there is
much to see. Not far off, on the right bank of the river, is Bisham,
a tiny village with its church and abbey, now a dwelling house. The
whole of Bisham is well worth lingering over. The cottages stand
along the road in straggling fashion, old and new, and some of the
gardens are bright with homely, sweet-scented flowers, among which,
stocks and sweet-williams seem to be the favourites in the summer.
One tumble-down row, rather off the road, is a mass of honeysuckle,
and roses and ivy. The little church stands so near to the margin of
the river that not a dozen yards separate its tower from the flood.
A low moss-grown stone parapet edges the churchyard; over this elms
dip their crooked boughs in a vain endeavour to touch the ripples as
they spring playfully upward, driven by the wind. The little church
has a square stone tower, wonderfully softened, so that it looks as if
it must fray to powder at a touch. The brick battlements are a later
addition, but the gentle river air has breathed on them so that they
tone in harmoniously. Some of the windows are transition Norman. For
ages the little church has stood there looking out across the water
to the green flat meadows, and though it has been rebuilt and altered,
there is much of it that is fairly ancient. The Hoby chapel was built
about 1600, by the disconsolate widow of Sir Thomas Hoby, Ambassador
to France; in it are several fine tombs, and on that of Sir Thomas, his
lady, who was learned, as it was the fashion for great ladies to be in
her time, wrote long inscriptions in Latin and Greek and English; the
last of which ends up with:
"Give me, O God, a husband like unto Thomas,
Or else restore me to my husband Thomas!"
Eight years later she married again, so that she had presumably found
a husband "like unto Thomas." The Hoby window in this chapel, with
its coat of arms, is especially interesting, and when the morning sun
streams through in tones of purple and gold upon the worn stones, the
effect is striking.
There are one or two good brasses in the church, and a small monument
to two children who are traditionally said to have owned Queen
Elizabeth as mother!
[Illustration: HURLEY BACKWATER]
From the reign of Edward VI. to 1780 the Hoby family held the abbey,
and then it was bought by the ancestors of the present owner. It is
a splendid group of masonry, and stands very effectively near the
river. The tall tower, the oriel windows, and the red tints against
the fine mass of greenery, make a very unusual picture. Bisham at one
time belonged to the Knights Templars, who founded here a preceptory.
But their Order was dissolved in the reign of Edward II. In 1338 the
Earl of Salisbury established here a priory for Augustinian monks.
This was twice surrendered, having been re-established after the first
time. It is rather curious that the last prior, being permitted by
the tenets of the Reformed Church to marry, became the father of five
daughters, each of whom married a bishop; while he himself was Bishop
of St. Davids. Poor Anne of Cleves was presented with the abbey by
her sometime husband the King, who, however, died before the gift was
confirmed. She was allowed to retain it, and from her it passed to
the Hobys as aforesaid. The house has therefore a long history, and
much of the fabric is very old. One of the oldest parts is the fine
entrance gateway, dating from the reign of King Stephen. The great
hall is supposed to have been at one time the church of the abbey. As
three Earls of Salisbury, the great "King Maker" Warwick, and Edward
Plantagenet, unhappy son of an unhappy father, were all buried in the
abbey church, there is every reason to suppose that their bones lie
beneath the pavement in the hall.
During Queen Mary's reign Princess Elizabeth was a prisoner at
Bisham under the charge of Sir Thomas Hoby. No doubt she "took water"
frequently, and glided gently down with the stream; for people were
accustomed to use their river when there were no roads to speak of.
She must often have gazed upon the Quarry Woods in all their flaming
splendour of autumn, but the Marlow she knew is so different from our
Marlow we can hardly otherwise picture it. Several alterations were
made at the abbey while Elizabeth was there, such as the construction
of a dais, and a large window; small points, which show, however, that
she was treated with all due respect. And she herself has left it on
record that she received kindness and courtesy from her enforced hosts.
These alterations were followed subsequently, in her own reign, by the
rebuilding of much of the abbey, which was then made as we now see it.
[Illustration: BISHAM ABBEY]
It is inevitable that such a historic house should have a tradition or
two attached to it; and traditions are not lacking. It is said that
the ghost of someone drowned in the river rises at times in the form
of a mist, and spreads all across the channel, and woe be to anyone who
attempts to penetrate it. Another tale is that the house is haunted by
a certain Lady Hoby, who beat her little boy to death because he could
not write without blots. She goes about wringing her hands and trying
to cleanse them from indelible inkstains. The story has probably some
foundation, for a number of copybooks of the age of Elizabeth were
discovered behind one of the shutters during some later alterations,
and one of these was deluged in every line with blots. We all know that
great severity was exercised by parents with their children at that
time; even Lady Jane Grey had to undergo "pinches, nips, and bobs,"
until she thought herself "in hell," while with her parents, and the
story, if not the ghost, may safely be accepted.
Another tradition tells of an elopement. One of the Earls of Salisbury,
about to set out for the Holy Land, sent for his daughter, who was a
nun at the convent of Little Marlow, to bid him farewell. She came to
him at Bisham, and while there was persuaded by one of the squires to
elope with him. The pair crossed the water, but were almost immediately
captured. The girl was presumably returned to her nunnery, where her
escapade would give her something to think of during all the monotonous
days that followed, and the man was imprisoned at Bisham. In attempting
to make his escape he fell from a high window and was badly injured. It
is said that he afterwards took the vows and became a monk.
Temple Mill and House and Lock, which come next to Bisham up the river,
recall the possession of the Knights Templars. This and Hurley Lock are
the two nearest together of all on the river, and experienced oarsmen
frequently catch the second one by making a dash on high days and
holidays when there is likely to be a crowd and consequent delay.
Interesting as Bisham is, it is rivalled by Hurley, with its remains of
the fine old mansion Lady Place.
In order to reach the lock one passes under a high wooden foot-bridge,
"the marrow" to one further up. On the lock island is a large red-brick
mill-house, near which stand one or two evergreens; while on an apple
tree in the lock-keeper's garden is a fine growth of mistletoe, of
which he is justly proud. Mistletoe grows a good deal in the valley
of the Thames. It is not as a rule easily seen, owing to the foliage
of the trees on which it grows; but in the winter, across the frozen
meadows, against the cold white sky, it may be seen in great tufts that
look like giant nests.
It is supposed that the seeds of the mistletoe in order to become
fruitful must pass through the body of the missel thrush, which is
extremely partial to them, and seems to be almost the only bird that
will touch them, hence its name; and if, as is conjectured, the seeds
cannot germinate without this process, we have the phenomenon of an
animal forming the "host" for a vegetable parasite.
Beyond the lock there is a sheltered channel with the quaintest
old-world flavour about it, a flavour which grows yearly more and
more difficult to find as it melts away before the onward sweep of
the advertising age. A strip of green turf is lined by an old brick
wall with lichen and moss growing on its coping, so that when the sun
catches it, it is like a ribbon of gold. Tall gate piers, crowned by
stone balls, frame a bit of the excellently kept velvet lawns of Lady
Place. There are many of these old piers and balls, and nearly all are
overgrown with roses.
Look to the blowing rose about us--'Lo,
Laughing,' she says, 'into the world I blow,
At once the silken tassel of my purse
Tear, and its treasures on the garden throw.'
--_Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyam._
The splendid cedars, themselves a guarantee of age that no modern Midas
can summon to deck the grounds of his new mansion; the tinkle of a
cowbell from the meadow near; and the Decorated windows of Lady Place
peering over the wall; all add to the impression made by the whole.
The abbey was founded in 1086 for Benedictine monks. It is interesting
to note what a very great attraction water always held for monks;
doubtless the necessity for Friday fish was one reason for this; but
one likes to think that they also loved the river for its own sake,
and that they found in the current the same sort of fascination which
it holds for us now. It may be also that it was the constant gliding
of the water, an emblem of their own smoothly running lives, that drew
them so strongly:
Glide gently, thus for ever glide,
O Thames! that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side
As now, fair river! come to me.
O glide, fair stream, for ever so,
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow
As thy deep waters now are flowing.
* * * * *
How calm! how still! the only sound,
The dripping of the oar suspended!
The evening darkness gathers round
By virtue's holiest powers attended.
--_Wordsworth._
Of this abbey not much remains. The crypt is isolated, standing away
from the remainder of the buildings, and anyone may penetrate into
it. The old moat is excellently well preserved, and its circuit shows
that the abbey premises must have extended over at least five acres of
ground. The church, which is now the parish church, is an odd little
building. It has a single aisle, and the original work is Norman,
though it has been much modernised. It forms part of a courtyard or
quadrangle, and faces a large, barn-like structure, which was the
refectory; in parts this is also Norman, and in it are the Decorated
windows. The materials used in the construction of this refectory
are most curious--brick, chalk, flint, any sort of rubble, all mixed
together, and very solid. The stable is built in the same way, and it
is amazing that such heterogeneous stuff should have stood the test of
time. Not far off also is a dove-house of a very ancient pattern. The
interior, with its cavernous gloom and the numerous holes in the chalk
for the birds to nest in, is well worth looking into. Indeed, the whole
of this side of the buildings--away from the river--is worth landing to
see. It is all within a very few yards, and once past the modern house
we find the little church with its old-fashioned wooden tower, the
green with its well-grown elms, and the dove-house and stable, which
combine to form a very unusual scene altogether.
Sir Richard Lovelace, created Baron Lovelace by Charles I., built
Lady Place on the site of the abbey in 1600. He was a relative of the
Cavalier poet of the same name.
In Macaulay's history there is an account of Lady Place, given
graphically as he well knew how. He is speaking of a descendant of the
founder, and he says:
"His mansion, built by his ancestors out of the spoils of the Spanish
galleons from the Indies, rose on the ruins of a house of Our Lady in
that beautiful valley, through which the Thames, not yet defiled by the
precincts of a great capital, nor rising and falling with the flow and
ebb of the sea, rolls under woods of beech round the gentle hills of
Berkshire. Beneath the stately saloon, adorned by Italian pencils, was
a subterraneous vault in which the bones of ancient monks had sometimes
been found."
The third Lord Lovelace plotted for the coming of William of Orange,
and in the crypt many a secret meeting was held to arrange the details.
It is said that the actual invitation which brought the Dutchman over
was signed in this low, dark vault.
Lady Place later belonged to a brother of Admiral Kempenfelt, who went
down with the _Royal George_.
Certain places are frequently associated with certain seasons of the
year, and to my mind at Hurley it is always summer. The smell of the
new mown hay on the long island between the lock channel and part of
the main stream, the faint, delicate scent of dog-roses, and all the
other scents that load the summer air, seem to linger for ever in this
sheltered place. The backwater running up on the other side of this
island to the weir is a very enticing one. Thirsty plants dip their
pretty heads to drink of the water that comes swirling from the weir
like frosted glass, and trees of all sorts--ash, elm, horse-chestnut,
and the ubiquitous willows and poplars--lean over the water in crooked
elbows, giving a sweet shade and a delicious coolness. The weir is a
long one, broken by islands into three parts. Another long island is
parallel to the first one. Indeed, Hurley is a complicated place, and
one that is ever new. The swans certainly appreciate it. Drayton says
"Our flood's queen, Thames, with ships and swans is crowned." I don't
know about the ships; nothing very large can get above Molesey Lock;
but as for the swans they abound, and especially about here.
The swans on the river belong to the Crown, the Vintners' and the
Dyers' Companies. The grant of this privilege to the companies goes
back so far that it is lost in the mists of antiquity. The Crown is
far the largest holder, but as the numbers of swans, of course, vary
from year to year, it is difficult to form an estimate of the total.
The Vintners, who come next, own perhaps 150. They preserve only those
that live below Marsh Lock, with the exception of a few black ones,
which, contrary to expectation, have thriven very well, and find a
happy hunting ground about Goring and Moulsford. The system of marking,
called swan-upping, has been modified of late years, as a protest was
made against it on the ground of cruelty. Before that time the Vintners
marked their swans with a large V right across the upper mandible,
but now they give only two little nicks, one on each side. From this
comes the well-known sign of old yards and public-houses, the Swan
with Two Necks, a corruption of nicks! The Dyers have a nick on one
side only. The origin and variety of swan marks is a curious subject.
The process of swan-upping, or as it is often incorrectly called,
swan-hopping, gives an occasion for a pleasant excursion, as it occurs
about a fortnight before the August Bank-Holiday, in the very height
of the summer. Only the birds of the current year are done, as the
marks generally last for life, and though they are accustomed to see
too many people to fear mankind, the handling naturally frightens them.
The swans, as a rule, find their own living, grubbing about in the
banks and on the river bottom, and they are also occasionally fed from
house-boats and pleasure boats, but in winter sometimes they are hard
put to it, and provision has to be made by their owners.
A swan exercises on me something of the same fascination that a camel
does; though far be it from me to compare the two in grace. They are
both full of character, and both preserve a strictly critical attitude
toward the human race. In the case of the swan, nature has perhaps
dealt unfairly with him, for the curious little black cap, at the
junction of bill and head, technically known as the "berry," gives
him a fixed expression which he has no power to alter, even if he
felt beaming with good humour. As it is, he is condemned to go through
life as if he momentarily expected an attack upon his dignity and was
prepared to repel it. When the sun is shining and the swan dips his
long neck in the water and flings it upon his shoulders, the large,
glistening drops, running together on the oily surface, lie like a
necklet of diamonds in the hollow of his back.
The irises and bur-reeds line the low banks above the weir, and a line
of short black poplars give some shade.
And on by many a level mead,
And shadowing bluffs that made the banks,
We glided, winding under ranks
Of iris and the golden reed.
--_Tennyson._
I have said that Hurley is a summer place, and so it is; but there is
one spring beauty which those who know it only in summer must for ever
miss. On the slopes where the heights on the northern side fold into
one another there is a little pillared temple, and about and around it
some lavish and generous person has planted crocuses in big battalions,
and they lie there in the sun, royal in purple and gold, and quite as
rich in tint as those lights shining through the stained glass window
at Bisham we saw a while ago.
Above the next stretch of the river stands the great modern palace of
Danesfield, which is built of chalk, one would imagine a singularly
unlasting material. Though hidden by trees from directly beneath,
from a distance it is very noticeable, and the white walls gleam out
beneath the red tiles in a way that cannot be overlooked. It is well
thus to have used local material, for local it is, as can be seen by
the great chalk cliffs that line the river side; and the idea is daring
and original. The interior fittings are worthy of any palace, and no
pains and cost has been spared. It is a worthy object to build a house
which shall rank with those bygone mansions on which their owners
so lovingly lavished their thought and time, and which have also so
frequently disappeared. The name arises from the fact of there having
been a Danish camp in the neighbourhood, and the place is still pointed
out. After this there is rather a flat bit of meadow land, fringed
with sedge and many a gay plant, growing gallantly in blue and mauve.
We pass two reedy islands opposite a line of little houses called
Frogmill, and then we see Medmenham Abbey, which looks more imposing
than it is, being at the best a carefully composed ruin. However,
sometimes these compositions, if artistically done, are worth having,
and Medmenham has memories behind it. It was once a real abbey, founded
for Cistercian monks in 1200. But after the Dissolution the buildings
fell into ruin. Later they became the headquarters of the daring and
impious club known as the "Hell Fire" Club, of which one of the leading
spirits was Sir Francis Dashwood, afterwards Lord Le Despencer, the
same who built the church at West Wycombe, only a few miles away as
the crow flies. This is a church where the pulpit and reading desk
are armchairs; the latter stands on a chest of drawers, which, being
pulled out, serve as steps. On the tower of the church an immense ball
like a gigantic football is tethered by chains. This can contain twelve
people, and the mad lord held meetings here with his friends. The motto
of his club was _Fay ce que voudras_, and the members went as near to
devil worship as they dared. Once while they were at Medmenham someone
let a huge ape down the chimney, when the revellers, worked up to a
frantic pitch of excitement and more than half drunk, thought that his
Satanic majesty had paid them a visit in good earnest. From such orgies
Medmenham has long been free, and it is now a respectable dwelling
house with a nice bit of cloister over which ivy hangs in folds, and to
which the word "picturesque" may quite fitly be applied.
There is a ferry over the river at Medmenham, and, not far off, the old
Abbey Hotel, in which numbers of artists stay. Up the green lane is a
curious old house, once the residence of Sir John Borlase, whom Charles
II. used to visit, riding here on horseback, accompanied frequently, so
it is said, by Nell Gwynne. Standing by the high road, which here is
not half a mile from the river, is a quaint little church with wooden
porch and shady evergreens, a very model of what a tiny village church
should be.