STREATLEY TO HENLEY.
Streatley, the Artists' Mecca--Goring versus Streatley--Goring from
the Toll-gate--Streatley Mill--Weirs and Backwaters--Antiquity
of Streatley and Goring--Goring Church--Common Wood--Basildon
Ferry and Hart's Wood--A Thames Osier Farm--Whitchurch
Lock--Pangbourne--Hardwicke House and Mapledurham--Caversham
Bridge--Reading and its Abbey--A Divergence to the Kennet, with
calls at Marlborough, Hungerford, and Newbury--The Charms of
Sonning--"The Loddon slow, with verdant alders crowned"--St.
Patrick's Stream--Shiplake Weir--Wargrave and Bolney Court--Park
Place--Marsh Lock--Remarks on Thames Angling--The Approach to
Henley.
"The village swarms with geniuses and their æsthetically dressed
wives," was the touching lament written in "Our River" by Mr. Leslie,
R.A., with regard to the Berkshire village of Streatley. The sentence
is, in some senses, both a description of the place as you may see it
at almost any time during the summer season, and an indication of the
reason of its popularity amongst artists. No doubt it is the fashion in
the sketching months for mere idlers at the palette to saunter and pose
up and down the village street, in company with the strangely-dressed
women-kind who some years ago provoked an outburst from a Royal
Academician. But it is also, and has long been, the resort of genuine
workers with the brush, who make Streatley their temporary home
because, in the long white bridge, shady backwaters, lively weir, busy
mills, woods, and hills, they find materials worthy of their ambition
and their care. In the Thames Valley this portion of the river may be
pronounced the Mecca of landscape painters. Streatley, however, is the
fashion, because it is honestly deserving of such a distinction. Unlike
many popular stations, it does not owe repute to one distinguishing
attraction, but to many advantages which, in combination, raise the
village to a high position upon the catalogue of places to be enjoyed,
talked about, sketched in water colours, immortalised in oil, and
haunted by the inoffensive people referred to in the first line of this
chapter.
Streatley receives more assistance from Goring, however, than is
generally acknowledged in set phrase. The Oxfordshire village on the
left bank is, indeed, as by common consent, ignored in conversation,
the word Streatley doing duty for both sides. The two communities are
separated, not only by the river, which, after the straight length
above, widens out into unusual breadth, but by the toll-bridge, which
fixes a coin of the realm as an additional barrier between the few
hundreds of persons who constitute the respective populations of Goring
and Streatley. The villages possess certain characteristics in common.
To each is allotted a mill. That of Goring is the more modern, and
probably best furnished with appliances for contributing to the trade
and commerce of the country, and its rapid little stream is marked
"private" to warn off the ubiquitous angler who may look with longing
eye upon the shoals of barbel which congregate in its deep strong
current. The mill at Streatley is quite another affair--time-stained,
decidedly picturesque in its antique pattern of architecture, and
maintaining to this day a simple half door, suggestive of--
"The sleepy pool above the dam,
The pool beneath it never still,
The mealsacks on the whiten'd floor,
The dark round of the dripping wheel,
The very air about the door
Made misty with the floating meal."
The country behind Goring is stamped with strong characteristics by
the receding hills, which soon develop into the historic Chiltern
range; and at the rear of Streatley we mount, direct from the village,
the grassy sides of the chalk downs of Berkshire, which, geologists
maintain, were once a continuation of the Chilterns. The lock and weir
are on the Goring side, but the distinction is to some extent nominal,
since, standing upon the crown of the long wooden bridge, it will be
seen that there are two weirs and backwaters, imparting a special
animation to the character of the river. The eye wanders with delighted
satisfaction from the merry streams to the reedy eyots, to the grand
trees of the one side and the osiers and green meadows of the other,
while weirs and backwaters play and plash throughout the livelong day.
Above the lock, the Thames, after broadening for the express purpose,
throws an arm each to Goring and Streatley, and the Goring weir, within
the distance of half a mile, is the primary cause of several of those
sequestered backwaters which add so many potent and diverse charms to
the Thames. The stream issuing from the Streatley mill is too near,
for proper effect, to the spectator who stands upon the bridge; and
requires to be looked at from the meadow, to which the tow-path crosses
at the bridge from Berkshire to Oxfordshire. While at Goring there
are many private grounds adorning the bank, with a rich background of
shrubbery, ornamental walks, gay flower-beds, and pleasant residences,
at Streatley we have the inn, the boat-builders' and timber-yard, and
the pretty cottage gardens of the waterside and of the straggling
street extending therefrom up towards the foot of the downs. The
toll-bridge invites excellent acquaintance with the river at close
quarters, that down stream being exceptionally fine; but it is the high
land sheltering either Streatley or Goring which commands rare birdseye
views of the river and adjacent country.
[Illustration: STREATLEY TO HENLEY.]
Streatley is supposed to have derived its name from Icknield Street,
a Roman road continued from the other side by a ford. The cartulary
of the Abbey of Abingdon refers to a gift of land at "Stretlea" by
the King of Wessex who ruled /A.D./ 687. Domesday Book deals
with the manor, whose tithes at the time of the production of Magna
Charta were under the assignment of Herbert Pone, Bishop of Sarum, who
probably built and endowed the church, which has lately been restored,
and whose square tower is always a distinctive object amidst the trees.
The neighbourhood centuries ago obtained a reputation for health-giving
qualities, and one of the memorial brasses in the church, dated 1603,
incidentally bears testimony thereto by recording the virtues of an
inhabitant who had six sons and eleven daughters. More than a hundred
years since a medicinal spring at Goring was somewhat famous for its
powers of healing, and Plot, the historian, mentions the water of
"Spring Well" as celebrated for its curative properties in certain
cutaneous disorders. The church at Goring, close to the river, is a
historically interesting as well as picturesque structure. The grey
square tower, with its round-headed windows divided into two lights
by a central pillar, bespeaks its venerable age, and gives promise of
the specimens of Norman and Early English architecture to be found in
and around the edifice. Built in the reign of Henry II., dedicated to
Thomas à Becket, and enlarged when King John tried to rule the country,
it was connected with an Augustinian nunnery, of which traces still
exist; and the remains of a priory have been built into a farmhouse
some two miles from the village. The body of the church is singularly
composite in its character. To its one lofty original Norman aisle
without chancel, a north aisle, porches, and other appurtenances, have
been at different times added.
A road ascending from Streatley skirts Common Wood, and at its
highest point opens out a magnificent panorama of Thames Valley. The
tow-path, however, as mentioned in a previous paragraph, now runs
along the Oxfordshire bank, and the line of pedestrian traffic is
therefore on that side. The short distance intervening between the
banks lends undoubted enchantment to the shady recesses and warblings
of the feathered songsters of Common Wood. When you have re-crossed
by the wooden bridge towards the southern end of the hilly wood, the
scene changes. Admirably situated at a bend of the stream stands the
substantial, and the reverse of hidden, modern mansion termed the
Grotto, surrounded by a clean-shaven lawn, which is intersected by
gravelled walks, one of which follows the bank of the Thames, and is
o'er-canopied with trees. From the sharp and picturesque curve of the
river the bold round-headed hill of Streatley, the cosy village, the
broad, divided river, and the Norman tower and delightful grounds of
Goring, stand out a clear broad picture, which is almost suddenly lost
round the bend studded by the eyots below the Grotto grounds.
The undulating chalk lands, rich in corn, roots, or pasture, as the
exigencies of crop rotation may require, and dotted here and there by
dark clumps of firs and larches, are absorbed opposite the Berkshire
village of Basildon by Hart's Wood. The trees fringe the Thames
closely, and densely clothe the wooded steeps. At all seasons these
fine hanging plantations are fair to see; but there are special effects
in spring and autumn, the intermixture of larches, at the former
period, giving the wood a glow of dainty colour before other trees
have put forth their leaves, and the abounding beeches, elms, oaks,
and chestnuts, when mellow October comes round, making it equally
conspicuous by the wondrous tints of decay.
The tow-path terminates for the time being abruptly opposite the snug
village of Basildon; this may be gained by enlisting the services
of the ferryman, who dwells in the solitary cottage under a line of
full-headed pollards. The village and even its church are half-hidden
in foliage, and there is an effective background formed by the
plantations of Basildon Park. Passing peeps of the house are vouchsafed
as we descend the river, steering by the Berkshire side of the group of
islets in the middle. The parted stream marks the site of yet another
Hart's Lock (Hart's Old Lock), of which no token remains. The chalk
downs still appear on the Berkshire side, and the ridge that maintained
Hart's Wood swerves in unison with the course of the river, and, well
covered with wide-spreading oaks, shelters Coombe Lodge from the north
and east. The osier beds of the Thames give employment to numbers of
women and children, and maintain a distinct riverside trade. On a
recent visit I was fortunate in witnessing the operations of an osier
farm, thus described in my note-book:--The men, women, and children
clustered on the farther shore, busily engaged in an occupation which
is not at first apparent, come upon you with a surprise as you enter
the next meadow. Out of the river formal growths of tall green sheaves
seem to flourish within a ring fence. There is a rude building, half
shed and half cottage, at the mouth of a gully, and in an open space
between it and the Thames the above-mentioned people are working.
Proceeding down the path the mystery gradually unfolds. We are facing
an osier farm. The tall slender sheaves are bundles of withies that
have been reaped from the islands and osier beds, and punted to this
depôt. Here, in a square enclosure, they are planted _en masse_ in the
water, and the cut branches make the best they can of divorcement from
the parent root, and preserve their vitality until they are required
for use. The girls and boys are very handy at the operation of peeling.
They take up a withy from the bundle last landed from the pound, draw
it rapidly through a couple of pieces of iron fixed to a stand, and in
a twinkling the bright green osier has become a snow-white wand. This
humble colony of workers, about whom little is generally known, is one
of many engaged in an out-of-the-way industry, hidden from the eyes
of the world in some nook of the Thames. It is the first which meets
our observation on the journey from Oxford. But even this simple form
of industry has challenged the attention of the scientific. At the
Inventions Exhibition of 1885 at South Kensington, an apparatus for
willow-peeling was shown amongst the labour-saving machines.
[Illustration: GORING, FROM THE TOLL-GATE.]
Whitchurch Lock, two miles and a half below Basildon Ferry, is the
halting-place for Pangbourne, the twin villages of Whitchurch and
Pangbourne occupying similar positions, and enjoying the same type
of communication as Goring and Streatley. St. Mary's Church, before
its restoration, must have been a remarkably quaint building, and its
singular wooden steeple attracts a considerable amount of attention
even now. Amongst the curiosities in the interior, besides the memorial
windows of stained-glass, is a monument to a sixteenth-century lord
of the manor of Hardwicke, and his dame, represented kneeling
at a _prie-dieu_; and a tablet with the following very original
inscription:--
"To Richard Lybbe, of Hardwick, Esq., and Anne Blagrave united
in sacred wedlock 50 years are here againe made one by death she
yielded to yt change Ian. 17, 1651, which he embracied Ivly 14,
1658.
/Epitaph./
"He, whose Renowne, for what completeth Man,
Speaks lowder, better things, then Marble can:
She, whose Religious Deeds makes Hardwick's Fame,
Breathe as the Balme of Lybbe's Immortall Name,
Are once more Ioyned within this Peacefull Bed;
Where Honour (not Arabian-Gummes) is spred,
Then grudge not (Friends) who next succeed 'em must
Y'are Happy, that shall mingle with such Dust."
The resemblance of the twin villages of Pangbourne and Whitchurch
to the dual communities with whose concerns this chapter opened is
sustained in several features. The reach immediately above Pangbourne,
which is one of the very lovely stations of the Thames, is straight
and uninteresting. The cut on the Whitchurch shore makes an abrupt
curve to the lock, and the breadth of the river above the wooden
toll-bridge, own cousin to that at Streatley, and the two islands
side by side near the lock, produce a vivacious backwater, and a fine
weir-pool, twenty-five feet deep, abounding in holes, eddies, and
scours intimately known to London anglers, to whom Pangbourne is as
much the object of worship as Streatley is the haven of desire to the
artists. The wooden bridge, as at the last-named station, is the best
coign of vantage from which to obtain adequate views of the three
distinct streams, which gallop in joyous ebullitions of foam from the
obstructions planted in the channel. A goodly current rushes from the
very new-looking mill on the Whitchurch shore. The lower part of the
church is concealed by trees, but clear above the rooks' nests in the
swaying tops may ever be seen the wooden spire. The turbulent pool
at Pangbourne weir may best be studied from the timber-yard on the
Berkshire side, and there is a subsidiary weir which assists the larger
body to create a homely and miniature delta before the scattered forces
are collected in one uninterrupted volume of water at the bridge. The
scenery at Pangbourne is not less charming than that of Streatley,
and it is in both places of a character peculiar to the hilly country
through which the Thames now flows. A wide-spreading prospect of
the valley may be obtained from Shooter's Hill. Both Whitchurch and
Pangbourne lay claim to a past history of some importance, but the
old church, save the red-brick tower, which only dates from 1718, was
replaced in 1865 by the present building; and this contains, amongst
certain architectural qualities, an oaken pulpit, probably of the time
of Elizabeth, carved in arabesques. The Pang bourne, which gives a name
to the village, is a pretty trout stream joining the brimming river,
straight from the village, at the tail of the noisy weir, and coursing
with its overflow down the gravelly shallow.
The undulating chalk hills, prolific of agreeable changes in the
scenery, continue without cessation for many miles below Pangbourne,
but on the opposite side we have once more the flat meadows, neat
farms, and humble cottages of agricultural Berkshire. The Thames, which
had arrived at Pangbourne by a south-easterly course, moves for a short
distance from west to east along a straight and deep-running reach. The
recurring woods on the left are a welcome foil to the level land on the
right, and the distant landscapes are now very striking.
[Illustration: WHITCHURCH CHURCH AND MILL.]
Under the hill on the Oxfordshire side, about a mile and a half
below Pangbourne, Hardwicke House, a notable specimen of the Tudor
manor-house, is a conspicuous feature. From the meadow on the opposite
shore you have a perfect view of this most picturesque exterior. The
colour of the brickwork has deepened, in the course of time, to the
darkest of red; and its gables and clustering chimneys are clearly
defined against the screen of noble elms which intervene between the
house and the north wind, and cover the slopes behind it. The trim
terrace is raised safely above the river; old yew, cedar, oak, and
elm-trees cast long shadows upon the mossy turf, and indicate alleys
and bowers such as those in which Charles I. spent some of the time
passed by him at Hardwicke, "amusing himself with bowls" and other
sports. Numbers of the trees upon the lawn, and some of the cool, quiet
nooks of its shrubberies, are, no doubt, precisely what they were two
hundred years ago.
[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM: THE CHURCH AND THE MILL.]
Hardwicke House is, however, but an item in the catalogue of strong
and varying attractions of the section of the Thames which began with
Streatley, and which may be said to end at Mapledurham, something less
than a mile farther down. Many lovers of the River Thames declare
that, take it all in all, there is no sweeter spot from source to
sea than this. In 1883 the hand of renovation was laid upon one of
the overfalls, introducing of necessity an element of change; but
the lock, weir, and lasher, the great bay of swirling water by them
formed when there is no scarcity of supply, the backwaters, brook, and
shallows have not been interfered with. As of yore, the whispering
trees overhang the swift current, the lazy lilies wave in the tranquil
backwater, and the rare old mill, first, perhaps, of its class upon
the river, remains, like the face of a familiar friend, to greet the
visitor, who, with each returning season, will assuredly, on the moment
of arrival, bestow his earliest attention upon it. Mapledurham has,
indeed, an almost unrivalled collection of good things to offer in the
grounds of Purley on the west and those of the Elizabethan mansion on
the east. Mapledurham House, largely concealed behind the foliage,
is not at first so visible to the passer-by as Hardwicke; but it is
too celebrated as a genuine example of Elizabethan architecture, and
too well worthy of deliberate examination, to be neglected. The house
was built in 1581 by Sir Michael Blount, who was Lieutenant of the
Tower of London, and in the Blount family it has ever since remained.
The name is a corruption of Mapulder-ham, and mapulder was the old
English designation of the maple-tree. The glorious avenue of nearly
a mile in length by which the front of the house is reached is,
however, of handsome elms, but around the mansion are grouped poplars,
oaks, beeches, and firs in picturesque profusion. From the right
bank below the lock the gables, bays, oriels, roofs, and decorated
chimneys, amidst such surroundings, constitute a striking picture. In
the house are secret rooms and passages, supposed to have been used
in the time of the Civil War by the Royalists for the concealment
of priests or soldiers. By-and-by, in resuming your voyage down the
river, Mapledurham House becomes the central object of another type of
picture, composed of the delightful old mill, the curious church tower,
the symmetrical trees, and the bright streams gathering from between
the islands, and fresh from the mill race, and so continuing the
sober volume of the Thames by Purley, and parallel with the railway.
Mapledurham Church is near the manor-house, from whose grounds access
is obtained to the churchyard by a pair of huge old-fashioned iron
gates. It is a restored church, the south aisle of which is claimed
by the Blount family as a private mortuary chapel. Purley is a small
rustic Berkshire village, standing back half a mile from the river. The
church, however, is nearer, and the ancient tower bears a scutcheon
with the arms of the Bolingbroke family, and dated 1626.
A horse-ferry below Mapledurham conveys the pedestrian to the Oxford
side, where, for less than half a mile, the tow-path continues. The
ferryman is not always to be found, and the pedestrian, stopped by the
iron railing, had better follow the footpath skirting the beautiful
park at Purley. Backward glimpses may thus be indulged in of the mill,
church, and manor-house, with a breadth of fertile meadow intervening;
and, walking up the steep road towards Belleisle House, the temporary
desertion of the river will be amply repaid by the extensive general
view of the Thames Valley which has just been traversed. Purley
Hall, built by South-Sea-Bubble Law, was the residence of Warren
Hastings during his trial. For the boating-man, the river makes no
exceptional demand upon his strength or imagination for several miles.
The divergence by land, as above suggested, brings you presently to
the "Roebuck," where a second ferry within the half mile assigns
the tow-path once again to the Berkshire shore. The old-fashioned
boating-tavern has not been demolished, but perched upon the hill above
the Caversham Reach a more modern hotel tempts the oarsman to pause
and refresh, and the holiday-maker to look out upon the remarkable map
of river and landscape for which the situation is celebrated. The
thatched roof, ancient kitchen, and tap of the original wayside inn are
left standing--an eloquent contrast by the side of its successor.
The Thames between Purley and the eelbucks at Chasey Farm is studded
with a variety of islands. They are at their best but small and tiny,
bearing a few trees, or a crop of osiers, or amounting to nothing more
important than a bed of rushes. Insignificant, however, though they
may be, they preserve the character of the river, breaking as they
do the monotony of the current, which, in the more level tract now
watered by the Thames, shows an increasing tendency to the commonplace.
The conclusion will be irresistibly forced upon us that we have at
length, with reluctance, parted from the beautiful section which
includes Streatley and Goring, Pangbourne and Whitchurch, Hardwicke and
Mapledurham--scenic pearls of price lying within a convenient range of
not more than seven miles.
Notice-boards upon a willowy eyot, and a fence athwart the stream,
forbidding the passage of boats round the considerable backwater to the
left, introduce us to a permanent line of eelbucks. Soon the bridge and
church of Caversham appear afar; and, dimly, to the right, the chimneys
and roofs of Reading. The Thames is again bordered on the north by
hills, a continuation of the range which began at Hart's Wood. From
Mapledurham Lock, however, the river, instead of running parallel with
the hills, made a detour, and ran side by side with the railway, until,
at the Chasey Farm eelbucks, it turned north again to meet them. "There
is not," wrote Mary Mitford in her "Recollections of a Literary Life,"
"such another flower-bank in Oxfordshire as Caversham Warren," and this
reference is to the breadth of country extending from the sedge-lined
river to the tree-crowned chalk hills which have terminated their
guardianship of the northern banks of the Thames. From the brow of
the hills, upon which modern residences have of late years multiplied
exceedingly, there are widespread prospects through which the silver
Thames pursues the even tenor of its way, more beautiful from the
distant standpoint than, for some miles above Caversham Bridge, it is
when near at hand.
The bridge at Caversham is one of the plainest on the Thames, and this
suburb of the county town is not in any way remarkable for its romantic
adornments. The bridge was nevertheless of sufficient importance to
draw from "Cawsam Hill" (the rustics to this day so pronounce the word
Caversham) a furious onslaught from the troops of General Ruven and
Prince Rupert, who "fell upon a loose regiment that lay there to keepe
the bridge, and gave them a furious assault both with their ordnance
and men--one bullet being taken up by our men which weighed twenty-four
pounds at the least." Sir Samuel Luke's diary, in which this scrap of
history is preserved, goes on to state that the "loose regiment" made
the hill "soe hott for them that they were forced to retreat, leaving
behind seven bodyes of as personable men as ever were seene." And,
according to Leland, there stood in the time of Henry VIII., at the
north end of Caversham Bridge, "a fair old chapel of stone, on the
right hand, piled in the foundation because of the rage of the Thames."
In consequence of the danger in which the meadows stood of floods, in
the old pre-drainage days, when the river often played pranks unknown
to modern times, the bridge was constructed of stone in its most
critical part, but extended partly in wood by a number of arches over
the pasturage. Before the days of the Cavaliers, as far back, indeed,
as 1163, Caversham Bridge was the scene of a trial by battle, adjudged
by His Majesty Henry II. Henry of Essex, the King's Standard-bearer,
had charged Robert de Montford with cowardice and treachery. At a fight
in Wales the Standard-bearer had thrown down his flag and fled, and
his plea was that he believed at the time that the king was killed.
The trial by sword is said to have been performed upon one of the
islands near the bridge, with almost fatal results to the challenger,
for though he recovered from what were at first supposed to be mortal
wounds, he was obliged to retire to the abbey, where he exchanged the
accoutrements of the soldier for the habit of a monk.
The Thames leaves Reading to the right, but according to some
topographers the town derived its name from the Saxon "Rheadyne"
("rhea," a river), or from the British word redin (a fern), the plant,
as stated by Leland, growing thereabouts in great plenty. Hall,
however, makes light of these derivations, urging that the name simply
meant that Reading was the seat and property of the Rædingas family.
The Thames approaches close to the town below the pretty island, of
about four acres in extent, which monopolises more than half the river,
midway between Caversham Bridge and Lock; and is to the traveller
by rail from London one of the earliest indications--with its line
of willows on the farther bank, and the playing-fields intervening
on the southern side--that the town is at hand. The facilities
inherited by the inhabitants for bathing, boating, and angling are a
boon appreciated to the full, and the Thames materially contributes
to the reputation enjoyed by Reading as one of the most desirable
country towns of England. The principal branch of the river below the
swimming-baths sweeps to the left, but the navigable channel runs
through the lock south of the small island. The divisions by islets and
curvature of the course between the lock and Lower Caversham make the
Thames a beautiful feature of the locality.
Full of historical memories (it is supposed that the Danes brought
their war-ships up the Thames to the mouth of the Kennet), Reading is
proudest, perhaps, of the abbey, of which so many interesting portions
are well preserved in connection with the Forbury, the name given to
the pleasure-grounds for the people, most creditably maintained by
public subscription. There were four noted abbeys in the south of
England--Glastonbury, Abingdon, St. Albans, and Reading, and Reading
was not the least important. The wife of King Edgar founded the
establishment as a nunnery, and Henry I. pulled it down to make room
for two hundred Benedictine monks. It was given out that the hand of
St. James the Apostle was deposited in the abbey, and the so-called
relic "drew" a perennial inflow of support. Royal bones were laid in
the abbey. Henry himself expressed a wish to be buried within its
walls, and his body, accordingly, having been rudely embalmed at Rouen,
was wrapped in bull-hides, and conveyed to Reading for ceremonial
interment. At the Dissolution the royal tomb was destroyed and the
king's bones ejected, with other _débris_, to make room for a stable.
But the abbey during its existence was a power in the land. In it John
of Gaunt married his Plantagenet wife, and there the marriage of Henry
IV. to Lady Grey was proclaimed. The abbots of Reading were peers of
Parliament, ranking only below their brethren of Glastonbury and St.
Albans. They had the right of coinage; they gave to the abbey much
wealth; and amongst the relics was one sent to Cromwell, and described
by the commissioner who was sent down to inquire into the revenues as
"the principell relik of idolytrie within thys realme, an aungell with
oon wyng that brought to Caversham the spere hedde that percyd our
Saviour is syde upon the crosse." The last abbot of Reading, defying
the bulky Defender of the Faith, was hanged, drawn, and quartered,
with a couple of monks, within sight of his own abbey gateway. What
of the building was left after the energetic measures of bluff King
Hal, was finally razed by Commonwealth victors. Portions, however,
of the ancient chapel and chapterhouse are left, and the old gateway
stands, patched up with modern materials, in excellent preservation on
the south side of the Forbury. It is understood that the abbey stones
have been worked up into some of the public buildings of the town, and
some of them were undoubtedly carted right and left, far and near, for
miscellaneous use. The most interesting fragment is a Norman archway
belonging to the abbey mill, and still spanning the mill race known as
Holy Brook.
[Illustration: FLOODED MEADOWS, FROM CAVERSHAM BRIDGE.]
When the Plague raged in London, king, statesmen, and judges, with
their courts, removed to Reading. Later, the royal troops held
temporary possession of the town, and, after a ten days' siege by
the Roundheads, the garrison displayed a flag of truce. Charles, and
the looting Rupert, operating from Caversham Hill, tried in vain to
retrieve the disaster, and when they were driven back, the garrison
surrendered. In the reign of James II. the royal troops and those
of the Prince of Orange, had a tussle in Reading market-place, one
December Sunday morning, James's men, after a brief engagement,
promptly leaving the enemy masters of the position. Archbishop Laud
was a native of Reading; and John Bunyan, as related by Southey, was
a frequent visitor to the town:--"The house in which the Anabaptists
met for worship was in a lane then, and from the back door they had a
bridge over the River Kennet, whereby, in case of alarm, they might
escape. In a visit to that place Bunyan contracted the disease which
brought him to the grave." Valpy was head-master of Reading Grammar
School; and Judge Talfourd was one of the later worthies of the clean,
thriving, Berkshire capital.
The River Kennet, referred to in the previous paragraph, runs through
Reading. The great abbey was built upon it, yet within view of the
broader Thames flowing through the level meads northwards. The Hallowed
or Holy Brook, in which the Reading schoolboy of to-day angles for
roach and dace, was a timely tributary turned to ecclesiastical uses,
and employed to grind corn for the Benedictines, and minister generally
to the refectory. The Kennet is, with the Loddon in the same general
portion of the home counties, one of the most considerable tributaries
in the great watershed of the Thames. Drayton, as usual, fastening upon
some quality that accurately describes the character of his stream,
says:--
"At Reading once arrived, clear Kennet overtakes
Her lord, the stately Thames; which that great flood again,
With many signes of joy, doth kindly entertain.
The Loddon next comes in, contributing her store,
As still we see, the much runs ever to the more."
[Illustration: THE THAMES AT READING, FROM THE OLD CLAPPERS.]
The clear Kennet is, moreover, in other respects an exceedingly
interesting river, and a stream, too, of some practical importance.
It rises on the edge of the Wiltshire Downs, and for three or four
miles runs in modest volume until it passes through the old town
of Marlborough, a steady-going Wiltshire borough, deriving its life
not from manufacture, mining, pump-room, or esplanade, but from the
land, as represented by the cattle, corn, malt, cheese, and woollen
fabrics which are the subjects of barter and exchange at its periodical
markets. In the palmiest days of coaching, four-and-thirty four-horse
coaches used to stop at Marlborough on their journey between Bristol
and London, the high road at that time running through what is now
the centre avenue of the College grounds. The Vale of Kennet is here
bounded by the Wiltshire Downs on the east, and Savernake Forest on the
west. The forest is about a couple of miles from the town, and is the
stateliest forest in the kingdom belonging to a private proprietor.
It is sixteen miles in circumference, finely timbered, and possessing
that too-often-lacking essential of a forest, harmonious alternation
of hill and dale. There is a glorious avenue of beech-trees five miles
long; and in the spring season the hawthorn-trees, of immense age, with
heads that often compete in size and shape with the ordinary forest
trees, and each standing bravely by itself, are a marvel of fragrant
bloom. Amongst the groves of oak, beech, and chestnut, and undergrowth
of bracken, fern, bush, and briar, there are hundreds of fallow deer;
and a considerable head of red deer is still successfully maintained.
The Kennet ornaments the Park of Ramsbury Manor, and touches Littlecote
Park, a tragic reminiscence of which is given in the notes to Sir
Walter Scott's poem of Rokeby.
So far, the Kennet has watered Wiltshire; but soon after leaving
Chilton Lodge it enters Berkshire, meandering through a tract of marsh,
and, dividing into two streams, runs through the decayed but once
considerable town of Hungerford. Pope signalised the river in the line--
"The Kennet, swift, for silver eels renowned;"
and the successful attempt recently made by the Flyfishers' Club
of Hungerford to introduce grayling into it reminds one of the
super-excellent quality of the fish indigenous to its waters. The
Kennet and Avon navigation makes the connection of this portion
of Berkshire with the River Thames direct and valuable. The canal
navigation, forming a waterway between the Thames and the West of
England, is for the first nineteen miles, namely, from Reading to
Newbury, the River Kennet itself; from Newbury to Bath, the canal
proper is cut for a distance of fifty-six miles; and the Avon river
completes the communication to Bristol. The numerous locks in the
Vale of Kennet are connected with this system of navigation, which is
practically associated with the concerns of the Great Western Railway.
Hungerford, the town which has been here noticed as standing upon the
Kennet, was described by Evelyn as a "town famous for its troutes,"
and it has well preserved its reputation. Amongst the inns of the town
is one named after John o' Gaunt, who was a person of note in both
Hampshire and Berkshire. His association with Reading has been already
signified in the reference to the burials and funerals which took place
in the abbey; and in Hungerford is a horn, highly honoured as a gift
of John o' Gaunt to the town, and as a memento of the right of fishing
enjoyed by the commoners, who still maintain the custom of fishing the
Kennet three days per week. At Hungerford, in 1688, the negotiations
which ended in the substitution of James II. by William of Orange were
conducted.
The Vale of Kennet, from the Hungerford meadows to within a few miles
of Reading, is a compact stretch of rural loveliness. We hear of the
Vale of Avoca, the Vale of Llangollen, and the Vale of Health, but we
do not find the valley through which the Kennet flows magnified in
song, though of the smiling and peaceful order of valley landscape
it has few competitors in England. Its green pastures lie by still
waters, and its little hills seem to drop fatness. Between Reading and
Marlborough the eye may, right or left, almost at any moment, rest upon
limpid and often rippling water. Narrowed here to the dimensions and
restless volume of a goodly lowland trout stream, it there journeys
at an even pace, betraying anger and vexation only when subject to
artificial restraint; as, for example, when it boils and swirls at a
mill-tail, or races impetuously round into the repose of a backwater.
The Kennet and Avon Canal is mixed up rather bewilderingly, to a
run-and-read stranger, with the river. Pleasant brooks and brooklets
thread the water-meads, garnished with forget-me-nots and cuckoo-pints;
while in the moist hollows the marsh marigold blossoms in golden
clusters. Ancient roofs of thatch-covered tenements, built in another
generation, appear now and then; and long-established farmhouses and
beautiful mansions vary the prospect on either side of the valley in
whose typical English country scenery there is no break of continuity.
At the town of Newbury the Kennet becomes navigable, and so continues
throughout the remainder of its course, which is concluded a little
below the town of Reading, at the point where the Thames dips to the
south as if to meet it, and almost touches the Great Western Railway
line. Newbury is a very old town, as the description in Foxe's "Book
of Martyrs," of the burning of Palmer, Askew, and Gwyn, in the middle
of the sixteenth century, will show. In the fifteenth century Newbury
was famous for its cloth weaving, and "Jack of Newbury," who may
almost be said to be the patron saint of the town, was a wealthy cloth
manufacturer. He kept a hundred looms at work, and on the invasion
of the country by the Scots marched the entire force into the field,
and received much compliment upon their martial bearing and superior
garments. The two battles between Charles I. and his masterful
parliamentarians are historical, and the canal near Newbury Lock passes
the ground where the Roundheads camped prior to the first battle of
Newbury. In the corn-fields and grass-lands of the rural outskirts of
the town, occasional traces are unearthed of a battle in which six
thousand men were killed, and a suitable monument, raised by public
subscription, stands to commemorate where--
"On this field
Did Falkland fall, the blameless and the brave,"
and to record that Lord Carnarvon, Lord Sutherland, and other Cavaliers
also, perished in the unfortunate cause of their unfortunate king.
[Illustration: SONNING-ON-THAMES.]
The Thames from Reading to Sonning calls for no marked comment, and I
must confess to a habit, when in these parts, of leaving the waterside
at Caversham Bridge and travelling to Sonning along the high road that
passes Lower Caversham, by farmhouses, corn-fields, and pastures, and
one of the osier farms described on a previous page. A road at right
angles conducts to the "French Horn" Inn, and to the bridges here
spanning the Thames. Arriving at Sonning by river, however, you glide
underneath the woods of Holme Park, and so take into calculation the
church and village from a point of view highly favourable to their
scenic pretensions. No visitor can do justice to the exquisite beauties
of this village without leaving the water and exploring the bridges,
islands, and waterways which are so lavishly distributed between the
widened banks. On the "French Horn" shore, the left branch sweeps
round and streams abroad in a skittish shallow under a lightly-built
bridge. At first it is difficult to decide whether this is a backwater
or the main stream. Looking upwards, you notice that another channel
yonder follows a row of pollards and orchard-trees on the "White Hart"
side. There are separate streams, apparently, on either side of the
bridge; and a shoulder-of-mutton-shaped eyot and other islets create
a rapid current in another direction, overhung by a perpendicular
bank. This is topographically confusing, but most agreeable in its
endless motion and diversity. There are two divisions of the bridge;
and beyond the first an independent backwater gallops down from the
mill, past which, and its chestnut-trees, is the brick county bridge.
The houses of the village, clad with creepers, and often embowered in
fruit-trees, and the square tower of the church, as represented in the
engraving, constitute one of the most familiar pictures of the Thames.
A charming walk, immediately above and below the lock--locally termed
the Thames Parade--extends along the skirts of the woods of Holme
Park, the projecting boughs of which o'er-canopy the towing-path, and
are reflected in the water. The eyot is connected with the shores by
the lock and weir, duly illustrated on another page from a favourite
point of view. One of the choicest views at Sonning may be obtained by
standing on the Parade, say a hundred yards above the lock, and peeping
under the boughs of the trees towards Reading, which sometimes looks
almost romantic in the dreamy obscurity of an enveloping haze.
[Illustration: SONNING WEIR.]
Sonning, or Sunning, was not, in all probability, as some maintain, the
seat of a bishopric, though it was a standing residence of the Bishops
of Salisbury, who had a palace here through successive generations.
Even in Leland's time it was "a fair olde house of stone, even by the
Tamise ripe, longying to the Bishop of Saresbyri; and thereby a fair
parke." The church, without which the charming landscape would lose
one of its most harmonious features, contains curious monuments, a
celebrated peal of bells, and rich carved work. It is peculiarly rich
in memorial brasses, many full-length figures of the Barker family
dating from the middle of the sixteenth century. Very different is
the view down the river, when the back of the observer is turned upon
the graceful trees drooping into the water, the masses of chestnuts
and elms interspersed between the houses, and the divided stream and
osier-bedded islets. The sinuous course is for a couple of miles
between low banks; while in the somewhat distant background appear the
towering woods, with which we shall become by-and-by more intimately
acquainted. On the lower side of the bridge the river at once collects
its scattered forces, and proceeds stately and slow until a chain of
islets diversifies the course, and, with the assistance of sundry sharp
twists in the left bank, gives increasing strength to the current,
and braces itself for the press of business demanded by the mill and
lock at Shiplake. The Rev. Jas. Grainger, author of the "Biographical
History of England," was Vicar of Shiplake, and, in his dedication to
Horace Walpole, remarks that he had the good fortune to retire early
to "independence, obscurity, and content." The rev. gentleman, who
considered Shiplake as synonymous with obscurity, died at the altar
of his church while performing divine service, and is buried within
its walls; and the tablet which marks his grave refers, as does the
dedication, to the obscurity which at Shiplake accompanied the content.
The church stands upon a very charming slope. The southern face of the
tower is mantled over with ivy, and the sacred edifice does not lose
in dignity by the near neighbourhood of farm buildings, rickyards, and
orchards. From the porch there is a fine view of the valley of the
river. The church, in which Lord Tennyson was married, was restored in
quite recent times, but the stained-glass windows are so ancient that
they are supposed to have been originally in the Abbey of St. Bertin at
St. Omer.
The singular vagaries of the mouth of the Loddon introduce an
unexpected variety above Shiplake. It was this tributary, mentioned
after the Kennet by Drayton, in the lines previously quoted, which gave
Pope a hint for his fable of Lodona, and he stamps the character of the
Loddon in the line--
"The Loddon slow, with verdant alders crowned."
The Loddon is, nevertheless, scarcely a river on its own merits to
inspire a poem, though it is in an especial degree the kind of stream
which has attracted the consideration of pastoral poets. Almost any
portion of the country watered by the sluggish Loddon might have
yielded just such scenes as Gray describes in his immortal Elegy.
The river rises in the North Hampshire downs, and flows by the site
of that Basing house which is famous in the annals of Cromwellian
warfare. Fuller, the church historian, resided in the mansion during
the siege, and amidst the confusion of the battle is reported to have
composed some portion of his "Worthies of England." Fragmentary ruins
of the house are yet shown. Every visitor must bear witness to the
debt owed by Strathfieldsaye Park to the Loddon, which divides it
into two unequal parts. The quantity and quality of the water gave
the late Duke of Wellington an opportunity, of which he perseveringly
availed himself, of indulging privately in the pursuit of trout
breeding, a project which was abandoned soon after his death. The
Loddon in Berkshire passes by Swallowfield, where in his son's house
Lord Clarendon wrote his "History of the Rebellion." Two centuries
earlier than that the manor was the property of John, Duke of Bedford,
Regent of France; and it has been in later times of more immediate
interest to the admirers of Mary Russell Mitford, as being her home
and burial-place. Her ever-delightful book, "Our Village," is composed
of rural word photographs, taken when the lady lived at Three Mile
Cross, and all the scenes are faithful pictures of Loddon-side life.
On returning from a recent visit to the Loddon, an old friend of Miss
Mitford's, in Reading, gave me, as a memento of the authoress whom we
both admired, a note in her handwriting, and after it had been some
time in my possession I discovered that the small envelope in which
it was enclosed was one which had been previously sent to, and turned
by, the industrious old lady. The operation had been performed with
wonderful neatness, and it was only by accident that I discovered
inside, and in faded ink, the original address, to "Miss Mitford, Three
Mile Cross, Reading, Berks." Arborfield succeeds Swallowfield, and the
river here feeds the picturesque lake in Mr. Walter's park at Bearwood.
The Loddon next touches Hurst, and flows in its lazy way to Twyford,
so called from the two fords, which are represented in these days by
bridges, crossing the two arms of the river. After a north-eastern
course of some twenty-four miles, the Loddon here runs into the Thames.
It should perhaps be stated, with reference to Pope's fable of Lodona,
that it was not connected with the Loddon proper, but with one of
the inconsiderable tributaries of a tributary that ripple through
part of Windsor Forest. The poet was, nevertheless, quite accurate
in his description of the Loddon as "slow," and "with verdant alders
crowned." It is an altogether different river from the Kennet, which is
bright, and abounding in gravelly shallows, after the fashion of the
Hampshire chalk streams, and is a famous trout river. The Loddon, on
the contrary, is deep, dark, sluggish, almost troutless, and thickly
furnished with the alder, of which it has been written--
"The alder whose fat shadow nourisheth,
Each plant set near to him long flourisheth."
This attribute is only a poetical fancy, but the alder is essentially
a tree whose roots are at home when planted by the river, and which is
always contributing some evidence of its vigour--in the winter with
its catkins hung out to freeze, in the spring with its queer little
black cones, and in the summer and autumn by the glossy green leaves
which are merciful to the defects of shape in its branches, and which
sturdily hold on when the leaves of other trees have been snatched and
scattered.
The water of the Thames flows into the Loddon through the private
backwater known as St. Patrick's Stream, but the Loddon finally
joins the Thames below Shiplake Lock, after indirectly opening into
it by means of the mouths of St. Patrick's Stream. There is also,
intersecting Burrow Marsh, a backwater, irreverently termed Burrow
Ditch, and this joins with St. Patrick's Stream in swelling the volume
of the Loddon. It should perhaps be explained that although under its
normal conditions the Thames, through both branches, runs into the
Loddon, in times of flood the position is reversed, and the Loddon
pours its current into the Thames.
Shiplake has more than the ordinary share of backwaters and
bye-streams, and on this account is a favourite resort of anglers.
Independently of the virtually three outlets by which the waters of
the Loddon escape, there are Phillimore Island and Shiplake Mill to be
considered. By following the course of the loop formed by St. Patrick's
Stream, the lock may be avoided; but the stream is a very strong one.
Half-way round the bend the comfortable farmhouse of Burrow Marsh will
be noticed, and the upper portion of the backwater is generally so
choked with rushes as to be almost imperceptible. The weather-board
mill and the weir are prettily set, and the islets abounding above
the lock are links in a chain of choice Thames scenery. Near Shiplake
Lock, as the illustration to that effect will signify, stands an island
which is a favourite camping-out spot for boating-men who do not fear
the risk of rheumatism, and who prefer a night on shore under canvas
to the cramped and unsatisfactory repose attempted by those who decide
to spend the night in their boats. For miles downwards from this point
the Thames winds through scenery in which hill and woodland again take
their welcome place. The views on water and from land may change in
degree, but the general character is ever that of quiet beauty. The
commanding situations upon the elevated ground overlooking the valley
have long been built upon, and, on brow, slope, or level, mansions of
varying styles succeed each other. Phillimore Island takes its name
from the late learned owner of Shiplake House opposite. It is a dainty
little bit of dry land in the midst of the water, covered with willows,
poplars, aspens, and one or two chestnuts. Down stream Wargrave Hill
with its imposing white house finishes the view for the time being.
It was at the "George and Dragon" hostelry, at Wargrave, about a
quarter of a mile below Shiplake Weir, that Mr. Leslie and Mr. Hodgson,
R.A., entered into a temporary partnership in the production of a
humorous signboard. Wargrave was once a market-town, but it is now,
happily for those who seek its quietude, a mere village far removed
from the noise of the world. Sequestered backwaters between and at the
rear of the islands, suggest a change for the visitor who is tired
of the shaven lawns, pretty villas, and park-like grounds behind
the public ferry and the sleepy village. The railway runs the other
side of the river, crossing it below Shiplake Lock, and so passing
by Bolney Court to Henley. A high road to the latter place runs past
the "George and Dragon," and, under the towering woods, are the eyots
opposite Bolney Court; while on the other side of the space, known as
Wargrave Marsh, the Hennerton backwater, or Wargrave Stream, extends
for over a mile, and is crossed by two modest foot-bridges. This
backwater is well known for its aquatic offerings, and the artist has
appropriately "happened" upon it at a characteristic moment, when a
bevy of fair boaters have discovered that the lilies are in flower,
and have ventured up to gather the æsthetic blossoms. In the secluded
village of Ruscombe, between Shiplake and Wargrave, Penn, the founder
of Pennsylvania, died, and was buried; and the notable objects of the
neighbourhood may be concluded by mention of the monument, in Wargrave
Church, to the memory of Thomas Day, who wrote "Sandford and Merton,"
and was thrown from his horse and killed on Bear Hill close by. The
heights, of which there are no lack in the neighbourhood, give many
picturesque and wide-spreading views of the river and the surrounding
country. The islands in the Thames opposite the remarkably plain
mansion of Bolney Court are a truly beautiful group, even if they have
escaped the popularity accorded to less charming reaches of the river.
Up stream a fine pine wood will be noticed; Hennerton House, to the
right, stands on a lofty steep, embowered in trees; and below are the
dark woods and white cliffs of Park Place.
[Illustration: SHIPLAKE: A CAMPING-OUT PARTY.]
Park Place now absorbs all the notice of the downward traveller. For
miles above, the wooded heights have been visible, increasing in
beauty as we approached nearer and nearer. They will now be close on
the right hand, until progress is temporarily checked at Marsh Lock.
The mansion was built originally by one of the Dukes of Hamilton. The
father of George III., when Prince of Wales, lived there; and George
IV., before he came to the throne, and the first Earl of Malmesbury,
there abode. The marvellous beauty of the situation, and the splendid
success attending the efforts of those owners who understood how to
compel Art to assist, by judiciously developing, Nature, have made Park
Place what it is. The principal agent in this latter work was Marshal
Conway, who, nevertheless, in many respects, carried his notions of
improvement to excess. Towards the end of the last century much had
been done to endow it with the attractions which made it so desirable
a residence; but the Marshal, devoting all his time to additional
embellishment, ran no little danger of pushing from the sublime to the
ridiculous. The inhabitants of Jersey, to mark their appreciation of
his governorship of the island, presented him on his departure with
a Druid's Temple or Tomb, which had been found by workmen during his
reign on the summit of a hill near St. Heliers. The relics were brought
to Park Place and set up on the summit of one of the lesser eminences.
Forty-five stones, averaging seven feet in height, four in breadth,
and from one to three feet in thickness, were arranged in a circle
sixty-five feet in circumference, and in the exact positions, so far as
could be understood, which they occupied in the dim era of antiquity.
The Marshal built also an artificial Roman amphitheatre, approached by
a long underground passage leading to a valley planted with cypress;
constructed a bridge from materials carted over from the remains of
Reading Abbey; overhung a walk, at the end of which was a marble tomb,
with weeping willows; and elsewhere excavated a cavern, and left
other tokens of his eccentric restlessness. The mansion was rebuilt
by its present owner, Mr. Noble, in the French-Italian style; but its
principal merit is the incomparable situation (300 feet above the level
of the Thames), and surroundings of nine hundred acres of superbly
wooded hill and dale, velvet lawns and romantic glades, mossy dells and
tangled thickets. The domain is entered by seven lodges, and east of
the house a cedar is pointed out as having been planted by George III.
The latest considerable, and not least sensible, addition to Park Place
is the Gothic boat-house, at which visitors, who have the privilege of
roaming over the grounds, are permitted to land. The really handsome
exterior is not belied by the artistic furnishment within, comprising
pictures, carvings, and statues. The walk through the grounds, with its
surprises of mimic ruins and suggestive emblems, its sylvan glories
which owe nothing to the hand of man, and the fairy-like glimpses which
owe everything to the bountiful river, is a treat, indeed, of which
one never tires, and which every sojourner in these parts should, in
duty bound, make his own. From the bosom of the river the white gleams
of chalky cliff contrast admirably with the masses of foliage. The
residence at Park Place shows well from the second or third meadow
below Marsh Lock; but the fields on the Henley side are being converted
into brick-yards, and the first view of the town is marred by the
coal-sheds, sidings, and ugly little railway station, to which the
adjacent block of terrace-buildings cannot be accepted as in any degree
a set-off.
The fine old weir which, until recent years, furnished an everlasting
object-lesson to young artists at Marsh Lock, has been superseded by
a modern arrangement erected near the paper-mill, and worked by a
travelling pulley; but on the right bank the brick-mill, house, and
exquisitely kept river frontage of its gardens, improve by time, and
worthily complete the charms of Park Place; and, zig-zagging across the
broad Thames, there remains the wooden bridge by which the barge-horses
cross from Oxfordshire to the farther shore and back again without
touching land. Underneath the high staging, the river, in alternate
pools and shallows, reveals a pebbly bottom more resembling the bed
of a mountain-born salmon river than the placid Thames. In the rapid
and moderately deep water running from the paper-mill, the patient
observer, waiting on a sunny day until the fish have recovered from
the alarm communicated by the shadow cast as he took his position,
will have favourable opportunity of observing the kind of creatures
which inhabit the waters. In the spring months, when the barbel are
congregated on domestic cares intent, the almost incredible piscatorial
resources of the Thames can be easily understood, and this particular
run of water at times appears to be crowded with this sport-giving
species.
The district of which Henley is in a sense the riparian metropolis is
one of the best along the entire length of the river for the angler,
in whose interests we may agree, perhaps, to break off our downward
voyage for the moment, in order to complete the information proffered
in brief in the first chapter, with respect to the piscatorial
capabilities of the river. Although the right of the public to fish
in the Thames has been frequently called in question, and threatened
with opposition, it remains one of the principal rivers in England free
to the general angler. Probably forty or fifty years ago men fished
from any section of the tow-path, or with their boats moored in any
pool, without let or hindrance. Within the last quarter of a century,
however, and especially within the last fifteen years, anglers have
increased probably a thousandfold. A distinct angling literature has
been established. The clubs and fishing societies of London alone may
be numbered by hundreds, and the increased facilities of locomotion all
over the country combine, with other progressive changes, to promote
a spirit of sport, and develop the sporting instincts of the people
in this innocent direction. One of the results of the multiplication
of the angling fraternity, and the consequent hard fishing to which
the River Thames has been put, was seen in the evidence given before
the Special Committee of the House of Commons during the session of
1883. Prominent amongst the grievances complained of by witnesses who
appeared for the general public, was the assertion that waters which
had been free to anglers, all and sundry, from time immemorial, were
now claimed as private fisheries by riparian owners; and the report
of the Committee, as many readers will remember, though it was only
an expression of opinion, was rather against than for the anglers. In
many of the most important districts of the Thames local Preservation
Societies have been established, vested with some sort of control over
the fishing, and enforcing, by their bailiffs and keepers, those
by-laws of the Thames Conservancy which were framed after consultation
with gentlemen representing the different classes of metropolitan
anglers. It is only, therefore, in rare instances, that permission
to fish is refused to the public, and the system of preservation is
acquiesced in by all earnest sportsmen, who do not need to be informed
that unless the pastime of angling is conducted on strictly fair
principles, the Thames, or any other river, would soon be depopulated
of its fish.
[Illustration: BACKWATER AT WARGRAVE: A POOL OF WATER-LILIES.]
For angling purposes the River Thames may be roughly divided into three
sections. The first comprises the tidal waters, in which the fishing is
principally confined to roach, dace, barbel, and an occasional trout in
Teddington Weir. Of the coarser fish, incredible quantities have been
caught since the regular supervision of the river was undertaken by
the local Piscatorial Society of Richmond. The next division is from
Teddington Weir to Staines, where the city waters end, and over this
the Thames Angling Preservation Society, the most important of its kind
in the country, holds sway. The last section comprises all the water
between Staines and Oxford, and as I have already intimated, of this
Henley is the principal station, or head-quarters.
The trout-fishing of the Thames is probably not what it was in the
palmy days when salmon were caught in the river, but it is still
surprisingly good, considering the very much-restricted haunts of
the fish. It is supposed by many persons who have only a passing
acquaintance with Thames trout that it is a distinct species. The fish,
it is true, is in external non-essentials different from most of its
family, and has, through a long course of residence in the Thames,
established certain characteristics of its own. A typical Thames trout,
with its deep thick body, shapely head, silvery sides, and fine spots,
is an extremely handsome fish, and second to none in its sport-yielding
qualities when fighting for its life in a tumbling bay. The difficulty
is to catch it. Trout-fishing in the Thames commences on the 1st of
April, and terminates in the middle of September; and is chiefly
confined to the weirpools. Here, in the foaming and churning water,
all the predatory instincts of the species find ample opportunities of
practice amongst the delicate bleak and other small fry which love the
rapid turbulent streams. Whatever the Thames trout might have been in
olden times, it is not to be denied that his representative in these
days has no partiality for insect food, of which, however, such a
river does not yield an abundance; hence few anglers attempt that most
sportsmanlike method of angling for trout--the artificial fly. Failing
this, the most fashionable mode is that of spinning with a bleak
or small dace, and latterly this has been supplemented by the less
commendable practice of live baiting.
In many of the upper waters, as at Henley and Reading, _salmo fario_
of the ordinary kind have been artificially hatched and turned into
the river. Loch Leven trout have also been introduced, and one of the
latest efforts at acclimatisation has been with Great Lake trout and
land-locked salmon, sent to this country by the United States Fish
Commission, and introduced to the Thames through the National Fish
Culture Association and Thames Angling Preservation Society. Whether
these interesting experiments in pisciculture will be attended with
success time only will prove, but there can be no question that the
number of common trout in the Thames have, of late, largely increased,
though a greater proportion of small fish have, as might be supposed,
been taken.
The principal sport of the Thames, however, must be looked for in what
are called the coarse or summer spawning fish, for whose advantage
a close time has been instituted between the 15th of March and the
15th of June. The latter date is full early for many of the species.
At the same time, the periods at which the fish get into condition
after spawning depend so much upon the varying circumstances of the
water that the angling public have been, reasonably enough, allowed to
enjoy the benefit of any doubt that might have been entertained. The
increasing number of steam-launches has in many ways interfered with
the pursuit of angling, and the disciples of Izaac Walton entertain
anything but a friendly feeling towards the frequenters of the Thames
who take their pleasure in other ways than through fishing-rod or
punt. The Thames fish have, indeed, many enemies to contend with, and
angling in its waters with success becomes a more and more uncertain
and difficult art every year. The fish that has deteriorated, most
probably, from the introduction of the steam-launch is the pike. The
Thames is not, naturally, except in a comparatively few reaches, and
at the weirs and mill-pools, a trout stream; but it is precisely
the water in which the voracious pike should flourish. The beds of
reeds and rushes, the eyots, the deep holes under willow-lined banks,
the long straight reaches down which the currents, "strong without
rage," maintain their easy progress--these are the natural haunts
of _Esox lucius_. But pike-fishing has suffered greatly on account
of the pernicious and Cockney system of trailing from the stems of
pleasure-boats and steam-launches. By the murderous flights of hooks,
dragged in their wake, without any exercise of skill or attention on
the part of the owners of the apparatus, infant fish, too often under
the legal minimum of length, are taken. Any pike-fisher who is wise
will, therefore, avoid the watery highways which are swept and harried
by this legion of pot-hunters.
In the particular district, however, at which we are pausing to indulge
in these piscatorial reflections, the troller or live-baiter may find
his most liberal opportunities. No steam-launch can push its way up
the overshadowed and tranquil backwaters of Hennerton, or round about
the islands at Bolney. The skilful pike-fisherman will not only seek
such undisturbed retreats as these, but will obtain his best sport by
deftly dropping his paternoster fitted with one gimp hook upon a gut
trace, and baited with gudgeon or small dace, between banks of weeds,
and in those odd and beautiful clearings in the aquatic forests which
the practised eye may always find. The Thames, nevertheless, as a pike
river, has for some years been a disappointment, and will so continue
to be until trailing is prohibited by law.
After the month of October the pike angler has a fairer chance of
sport. Simultaneously with the disappearance of the steam-launches and
pleasure-boats, from which angling is conducted as a passing amusement,
and in utter ignorance of the science, or even rudiments of the art,
the decay of the weeds begins. This is the signal for a general exodus
from summer quarters by the fish. They sheer off into deep water. The
pike, no longer concealed in a thicket of subaqueous vegetation, from
which he has, during the summer months, pounced like an insatiable
ogre upon the silvery wanderers swimming heedlessly about in search of
minute freshwater crustacea and larvæ, takes to the life of a roamer,
free from much of the harassing which kept him close, out of the range
of roistering Thames excursionists. But it is unfortunate for the pike
that the keen sportsman also benefits by this change. The dying down of
the weeds leaves him space for the exercise of his skill at the precise
time when his game may be taken at disadvantage. Pike-fishing is,
therefore, the winter recreation of the angler in the Thames, though,
for the reasons indicated, large specimens are rarely killed now.
The perch, most cosmopolitan of fishes in the rural districts of
England, the bold biter idolised by schoolboys, whose easy prey under
favourable conditions he is certain to be, has almost disappeared from
some portions of the Thames. Henley used to be a grand perch preserve,
and the late Mr. Greville Fennell, whose angling contributions to
literature were chiefly founded upon his observations and experiences
in the reaches between Henley and Pangbourne, gave it at one time a
first place on the list of good perch waters. But cosmopolitan as the
perch may be in its character, habits, and haunts, it is more difficult
to rear than many other of the summer spawners, and the peculiar
manner in which it hangs its eggs in festoons around the roots and
branches beneath water, renders it an easy victim to the rough usages
of swiftly-passing traffic. Shiplake hole, and the "tails" (as the
fishermen term them) of all the islands mentioned in this chapter,
are still favourite places for perch during the winter time, when the
steam-launches are in dry dock, though the quality and quantity of the
well-beloved zebra of the fresh water have unfortunately declined in
the Thames.
The carp family thrive, as ever they did, and in some years are caught
in unusually large numbers, rejoicing the hearts of the professional
fishermen who have languished for want of customers through a series of
depressing fishing seasons. The head of the family is very rarely taken
in the Thames proper. Some carp, however, are found in the Cherwell,
and by accident, at very rare intervals, solitary specimens are
caught in the Thames itself. But these are the accidental wanderers;
exceptions proving the rule. Bream are more plentiful, but the most
prolific of all are chub, roach, dace, and gudgeon. The popularity to
which the Canadian canoe has risen on the Thames is not a little due
to the adaptability of the light and elegant boat for chub-fishing.
Regulating the drifting of the canoe with one hand, the operator, armed
with a suitably short and supple fly-rod, drops down some fifteen yards
distant from the overhanging willow-bushes, from under whose branches,
close to the loamy or gravelly bank, a lightly-dropped fly of large
dimensions will, in the calm of a July or August eventide, seduce the
great bronze-coloured "chevin" to its fate, while, in the winter time,
artful concoctions of cheese-paste, and other gross baits, directed
down stream by a long Nottingham line and the familiar float tackle,
will be equally efficacious in the formation of a bag. Roach and
dace-fishing, the simplest of angling practices, as conducted from the
comfortable floor and chair of a Thames punt, continues to be, as of
yore, the most familiar form of the contemplative man's recreation for
the average citizen. In the mysteries of fly-fishing, and the ingenious
devices invented for betraying the fishes that follow spinning-baits
of all descriptions, improvements real and so-called are continually
announced, but no change seems to have been suggested for many years
in the ancient methods adopted on the Royal River for the capture of
barbel by ledgering, and roach and dace by ground-baiting, plumbing,
and Thames punt-tackle. Angling in the Thames is a source of untold
delight and innocent enjoyment for tens of thousands of persons every
year, and long may the day be postponed when the modest privileges of
the London anglers, whose opportunities are limited, and whose ambition
in the matter of sport is easily satisfied, are reduced or interfered
with.
The deeper pool across the river, near the flour-mill at Marsh Lock,
used to be a favourite resort of those anglers who pursued their
sport from a boat; and the bank from the paper-mill towards Henley
witnesses many an exercise of patience from the youthful Waltonian.
The utilitarian spirit which has rendered necessary the hideous iron
weir above the mill, and which is step by step destroying so many of
the gems of Thames scenery, has, however, built a black barricade from
the miller's boat-house to the head of the eyot, completely cutting off
the communication by water with the further bank. The stream below is
narrowed by the two islands in the middle of the channel, and rendered
busy by that constant traffic of pleasure-boats which is inevitable in
proximity to such towns as Henley and Reading. During the last quarter
of a mile the familiar buildings and substantial bridge of Henley have
opened to view, and we conclude the voyage to this stage amidst the
bustle of boats and boatmen, and a parting glance at the head of Isis
as chiselled by the Hon. Mrs. Damer. Water-plants are entwined around
the face, which aptly looks in the direction of the river's source.
/William Senior/.
[Illustration: HENLEY REGATTA. (_From an Instantaneous Photograph._)]