Wanderings in Wessex by Edric Holmes

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In 1625, for some unknown reason, the two upper stages of the tower
were pulled down and the present wooden belfry erected. Outside the
"nuns door" is a very fine eleventh-century Rood that owes its
preservation to the fact that for many years it was covered by a
tradesman's shed!

Nothing remains of the conventual buildings but a few scanty patches
of masonry. The history of the Abbey was not a very edifying one and,
although every effort was made to save the house at the Dissolution,
chiefly by the exhibition of the imposing royal charters of foundation
and re-endowment, the many scandals recorded gave the despoilers an
additional, and possibly welcome, excuse for their work.

A great amount of careful and reverent restoration was carried out
some years ago by the late Mr. Berthon, a former vicar; but he will
probably be remembered by posterity as the inventor of the portable
boat that bears his name and which is still made, or was till
recently, in the town. Romsey (usually called _Rumsey_) is not a good
place in which to stay and, apart from the Abbey, is quite
uninteresting. In the centre of the town is a statue of Lord
Palmerston, who lived at Broadlands, a beautifully situated mansion a
short distance away to the south.

A pleasant journey by road or rail can be taken up the valley of the
Test between the low chalk hills of Western Hampshire to Stockbridge
(or even farther north to Whitchurch or Andover, but these districts
must be left until later). At Mottisfont, four miles from Romsey, was
once a priory of Augustinians. Remnants of the buildings are
incorporated with the present mansion. In the church perhaps the most
interesting item, by reason of the alien touch in this remote corner
of Hampshire, is an heraldic stone of the Meinertzhazen family brought
here from St. Michael's, Bremen, at the end of the nineteenth century.
The square font of Purbeck marble is of the same date as the Norman
arch in the chancel. Just to the south of the village a branch line of
railway follows a remote western valley to its head and then drops to
the Avon valley and Salisbury. To the east is another lonely stretch
of country through which the ridge of Pitt Down runs to the actual
suburbs of Winchester. At the western end of this ridge, and about
three miles up the Test from Mottisfont, are the villages of
Horsebridge and King's Somborne on the southern confines of what was
once John of Gaunt's deer park. The present bridge is higher up the
stream, but the railway-station is on the actual site of the ancient
road between Winchester and Old Sarum and the "horse bridge" was then
lower down stream and almost immediately due west of the station.
Somborne gets its prefix from the fact that an old mansion usually
called "King John's Palace" formerly stood here, it may be that it
belonged to John of Gaunt. Certain mounds and small sections of wall
are pointed out as the remains of this house; they will be found to
the south-west of the church; a much restored, but still interesting,
thirteenth-century building. The font, of Purbeck marble, is very
fine; of interest also are the late Jacobean chancel rails and certain
crosses and monograms on the north doorway.

A road runs for six miles north-westwards up into the chalk hills by
the side of the Wallop brook to the euphoniously named villages of
Nether, Middle, and Over Wallop. The first and last have interesting
churches, but the excursion, if taken, should be as an introduction to
perhaps the most remote and unspoilt region of the chalk country.
Although the Wallop valley is fairly well populated, the older people
are as unsophisticated as any in southern England. The scenery is
quietly pleasant, the hills away to the southwest exceeding, here and
there, the 500 feet contour line. One of them, near the head of the
valley, is named "Isle of Wight Hill." It is only upon the clearest of
days that the distant Island is seen over the shoulder of the
neighbouring Horseshoe Hill and across the long glittering expanse of
Southampton Water.

Proceeding up the fertile valley of the Test, Stockbridge is reached
in another three miles. This sleepy old country town and one-time
parliamentary borough occasionally wakes up when sheep fairs and other
rural gatherings take place in its spacious High Street, but on other
days it is the very ideal of a somnolent agricultural centre; it is,
therefore, a pleasant headquarters from which to explore the
north-western part of the county. The long line of picturesque roofs
and broken house-fronts, in all the mellow tints that age alone can
give, makes as goodly a picture as any in Hampshire. On the right-hand
side, going down the street, is the Grosvenor Inn with its projecting
porch. Next door is the old Market House and across the way stands the
turreted Town Hall.

Alone in a quiet graveyard at the upper end of the town is the chancel
of old St. Peter's church, now used as the chapel of the burying
ground. Most of the removable items were taken to the new church
erected in High Street in 1863, including certain fine windows and the
Norman font of Purbeck marble. In a neglected corner of the old
churchyard is the tombstone of John Bucket, one-time landlord of the
"King's Head" in Stockbridge. It bears the following oft-quoted
epitaph:

And is, alas! poor Bucket gone?
Farewell, convivial honest John.
Oft at the well, by fatal stroke
Buckets like pitchers must be broke.
In this same motley shifting scene,
How various have thy fortunes been.
Now lifting high, now sinking low,
To-day the brim would overflow.
Thy bounty then would all supply
To fill, and drink, and leave thee dry,
To-morrow sunk as in a well,
Content unseen with Truth to dwell.
But high or low, or wet or dry,
No rotten stave could malice spy.
Then rise, immortal Bucket, rise
And claim thy station in the skies;
'Twixt Amphora and Pisces shine:
Still guarding Stockbridge with thy sign.

The main street crosses the Test by two old stone bridges and from
these, glancing up and down the street, one has a charming view of the
surrounding hills which fill the vista at each end. The road out of
the town to the east runs over the shoulder of Stockbridge Down on
which is a fine prehistoric entrenchment called Woolbury Ring. Thence
to Winchester is a long undulating stretch of rough and flinty track
with but few cottages and no villages on the way until tiny Wyke,
close to the city, is reached. One welcome roadside inn, the "Rack and
Manger," stands at the cross roads about half way, and occasional
ancient milestones tell us we are on the way to "Winton."

Our itinerary through west-central Hampshire has not included that
little known fragment of the county that lies to the west of Romsey
and is a district of commons and woods, part of the great forest-land
that we shall hurriedly explore in the next chapter. The chief
interest here, apart from the natural attractions of the secluded
countryside, is a simple grave in the churchyard of East Wellow, a
small by-way hamlet about four miles from Romsey. Here is the last
resting place of Florence Nightingale who lies beside her father and
mother. The supreme honour of burial at Westminster, offered by the
Dean and Chapter, was refused by her relatives in compliance with her
own wish. So East Wellow should be a pilgrim's shrine to the rank and
file of that weaponless army whose badge is the Red Cross.

[Illustration: BARGATE, SOUTHAMPTON.]

CHAPTER II

SOUTHAMPTON WATER AND THE NEW FOREST

Bitterne is now a suburb of Southampton on the opposite side of the
Itchen, but it may claim to be the original town from which the Saxon
settlement arose. It is the site of the Roman Clausentium, an
important station between Porchester and Winchester, and when the
Saxons came up the water and landed upon the peninsula between the two
rivers they probably found a populous town on the older site. This
conjecture would account for the name given to the new colony--_Southhame
tune_--ultimately borne by the county-town and the origin of the shire
name. It is as the natural outlet for the trade of Winchester and Wessex,
standing at the head of one of the finest waterways in Europe, that
Southampton became the present thriving and important town.

To-day its commercial prestige, if not on a par with Liverpool, Hull
or Cardiff, is sufficiently great for the town to rank as a county
borough. The magnificent docks are capable of taking the largest
liners, and as the port of embarkation for South Africa its
consequence will increase still more as that great country develops.
On the banks of the Itchen many important industries have been
established during the last quarter of a century and, as a result of
this and the inevitable disorder of a great port, Southampton's
environs have suffered. But more than any other town in England of the
same size, have the powers that give yea or nay to such questions
conserved the relics of the past with which Southampton is so richly
endowed. The most famous of these is the Bargate (originally "Barred"
Gate), once the principal, or Winchester, entrance to the town. It
dates from about 1350, though its base is probably far older. The
upper portion, forming the Guildhall, bears on the south or town side
a quaint statue of George III in a toga, that replaced one of Queen
Anne in stiff corsets and voluminous gown. The various armorial
bearings displayed are those of noble families who have been connected
with the town in the past. Within the upper chamber are two ancient
paintings said to represent the legendary Sir Bevis, whose sword is
preserved at Arundel, and his squire Ascupart. Sections of the town
wall may be found in several places, but the most considerable portion
is on the north side of the Westgate, where, until the middle of the
last century, when Westernshore Road was made, high tides washed the
foot of the wall. The arcading of this portion is much admired, and
deservedly so. So far as the writer is aware, no other town in England
has medieval defences of quite this character remaining. The
picturesque Bridewell Gate is at the end of Winkle Street and not far
away is all that remains of "God's House" or the Hospital of St.
Julian, "improved" out of its ancient beauty. The chapel was given to
the Huguenot refugees by Queen Elizabeth; a portion of the original
chancel still exists and within the Anglican service continues to be
said in French. The house known as "King John's House," close to the
walls near St. Michael's Square, dates from the twelfth century and is
therefore one of the oldest in England. Another old building in Porter
Lane called "Canute's House" is declared by archaeologists to be of
the twelfth century, but Hamptonians, with some degree of probability,
claim that the lower walls are certainly Saxon, so that the
traditional name may be right after all. In that part of the town
nearest to the docks are several stone cellars of great age upon which
later dwellings have been erected, in some cases two buildings have
appeared on the same sturdy base. A particularly fine crypt is in
Simnel Street, with a window at its east end. At the corner of Bugle
Street is the "Woolhouse," said to belong to the fourteenth century;
very noticeable are the heavy buttresses that support this fine old
house on its west side. Another old dwelling in St. Michael's Square
may have been built in the fifteenth century. Tradition has it that
this was for a time the residence of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

[Illustration: THE ARCADES, SOUTHAMPTON.]

The reference to Canute's House brings to mind the tradition, stoutly
upheld by Hamptonians, that it was at "Canute's Point" at the mouth of
the Itchen, and not at Bosham or Lymington, that the king gave his
servile courtiers the historic rebuke chronicled by Camden. By him,
quoting Huntingdon, we are told that "causing his chair to be placed
on the shore as the tide was coming in, the king said to the latter,
'Thou art my subject, and the ground I sit on is mine, nor can any
resist me with impunity. I command, thee, therefore, not to come up on
my ground nor wet the soles of the feet of thy master.' But the sea,
immediately coming up, wetted his feet, and he, springing back, said,
'Let all the inhabitants of the earth know how weak and frivolous is
the power of princes; none deserves the name of king, but He whose
will heaven, earth, and sea obey by an eternal decree.' Nor would he
ever afterwards wear his crown, but placed it on the head of the
crucifix." There is little doubt that Southampton was one of the
principal royal residences during the reign of the great Northman, and
nearly a hundred years before, in Athelstan's days, it was of
sufficient importance to warrant the setting up of two mints.

The only medieval church remaining to Southampton is St. Michael's,
which has a lofty eighteenth-century spire on a low Norman tower. Here
is another of those black sculptured Tournai fonts one of which has
been noticed in Winchester. The interior must have presented a curious
appearance in the early years of Queen Victoria. During her
predecessor's reign the incumbent placed the pulpit and reading-desk
at the west end and reversed all the seats so that the congregation
sat with their backs to the altar. The purpose of this is beyond
conjecture. St. Mary's, designed by Street, was erected on the site of
the old town church in 1879 as a memorial to Bishop Wilberforce. All
Saints' in High Street is a classic building standing on the ground
occupied by a very ancient church. Isaac Watts was deacon of Above Bar
Chapel, noteworthy for the fact that the immortal hymn "Oh God, our
help in ages past" was first sung within its walls from manuscript
copies supplied to the congregation by the young poet. Among other
famous men who were natives of Southampton may be mentioned Dibdin and
Millais.

As might be expected from its geographical position and the many
centuries it has been a gate to central England, Southampton has had a
chequered and eventful history. Before the days of those supposedly
impregnable forts in Spithead which bar to all inimical visitors a
passage up the Water, the town was not immune from attack from the sea
and in 1338 an allied French, Genoese and Spanish fleet sailed up the
estuary and attacked the town to such good purpose that the burgesses
were forced to fly and from a safe distance saw their homes burned to
the ground. Another assault was made by the French in 1432, but
profiting by bitter experience, the citizens had by now constructed
such defences and armed them so well that this attack was an
ignominious failure.

The port was the scene of several great expeditions overseas before it
gave its quota to that greatest of all crusades in 1914. It saw the
start of Richard Lion-Heart's transports, filled with the chivalry of
England, on their way to challenge the power of Islam. The town
records show that 800 hogs were supplied by the citizens for feeding
the army _en route_. Perhaps the most famous of the sailings was that
of the twenty-one ships that carried the English army to the victory
of Crecy. Again seventy years later there was another great sallying
forth to the field of Agincourt, nearly frustrated by the machinations
of Richard, Earl of Cambridge. This scion of the Plantagenets and his
fellow conspirators were beheaded and afterwards buried, as recorded
on a tablet there, in the chapel of God's House. From Southampton the
_Mayflower_ and _Speedwell_ sailed in 1620: the latter being discarded
at Plymouth.

The modern aspect of Southampton's streets is that of the bustle and
activity of a midland town, and the narrow pavements of Below and
Above Bar have that metropolitan air which a crowd of well-dressed
people intent on business or pleasure gives to the better class
provincial city. It would seem that the inevitable accompaniment of
such prosperity is the meanness of poorly-built and squalidly-kept
suburbs. When the superb situation of Southampton is considered one
can but hope that some day, in the new England that we are told is on
the way, a great transformation will take place on the shores of
Itchen and Test.

The excursion that every visitor should take is down the Water to
Cowes. Few steamer trips in the south are as pleasant and interesting.
In consequence of the double tides with which Southampton is favoured,
the chance of having a long stretch of ill looking and worse smelling
mud flats in the foreground of the view is almost negligible. Unless a
very thorough knowledge of the shore is desired, the view from the
deck will give the stranger an adequate idea of the surrounding
country. The passing show of shipping, of all sorts, sizes and
nationalities, is not the least interesting item of the passage. The
writer's most vivid recollection of Southampton Water in the early
summer of 1918 is not of the beautiful shores shimmering in the June
sun, but of an extraordinary line of "dazzle ships" in the centre of
the waterway, moored bow to stern in a long perspective, or it would
be more correct to say, want of perspective, the brain and the eye
being so much at variance that the ends of the line could scarcely be
believed to consist of ships at all.

[Illustration: NETLEY RUINS.]

The ruins of Netley Abbey can best be seen by taking the pleasant
shore road from Woolston and Weston Grove. The distance is a little
over two miles from the Itchen ferry. The so-called Netley Castle was
once the gate-house of the Abbey, converted into a fort when Henry
VIII devised the elaborate scheme of coast defence that has dotted the
southern seaboard with a more scattered (and more picturesque) series
of Martello towers.

The ruins of the Cistercian Church which once graced this shore and
raised above the trees its lighthouse tower, a seamark by day and a
beacon by night, are among the loveliest in Wessex. Though perhaps
these relics of a former splendour, when they consist of more than a
few bits of broken masonry, should rather be said to be heartrending
in their reminder of what we have lost.

Not so beautiful is the great pile, a mile to the south, built during
the Crimean war for the invalid warriors and named after their Queen.
A short distance away is another great building, or series of
structures, erected during the Great War, to further our claim to the
empire of the air.

[Illustration: ON THE HAMBLE.]

The Hamble river is the only considerable stream before the barrier
spit of Calshot Castle is reached. This comes down from historic
Bishop's Waltham with its considerable remains of the "palace" of the
earlier Bishop of Winchester. After passing Botley, an ancient market
town, the river widens into an estuary haven altogether out of
proportion to the stream behind it, and at Bursledon, where it is
crossed by the Portsmouth highway, it becomes really beautiful: the
curving banks are in places embowered in trees that descend to the
water's edge. When the tide is full the scene would hold its own with
many more favoured by the guide books. The fields around are devoted
to the culture of the strawberry for the London market, and the crops
are said to be finer than those of the better-known Kentish districts.

Two finds from the stream bed are in Botley market hall, a portion of
a Danish war vessel and an almost entire prehistoric canoe.

[Illustration: GATE HOUSE, TITCHFIELD.]

A name better known to the majority of our readers will be that of the
Meon, a further reference to which district will be found in the
concluding chapter. The waters of this longer stream rise on a western
outlier of Butser Hill and, draining a remote and beautiful district
served by the Meon Valley Railway, reach Titchfield Haven over three
miles below the Hamble. Titchfield, two miles as the crow flies from
the sea (for we are now on the open waters of the Solent), is a
pleasant old town with an interesting church and the gatehouse remnant
of a once famous abbey of Premonstratensians. Part of the tower and
nave of the church are Saxon, and the remainder is in a whole range of
styles. A chapel on the south was once the property of the abbey and
is called the Abbot's Chapel, this has a fine tomb of the first and
second Earls and first Countess of Southampton. Perhaps of more
interest to some visitors will be the flag hung near the opening to
the chancel. This was the first to fly over Pretoria after the British
occupation.

The western shore of Southampton Water may be accepted as the eastern
boundary of the New Forest, as the straight north and south valley of
the Salisbury Avon is its western barrier. From the sea at
Christ-church Bay to the Blackwater valley west of Romsey is about
twenty miles and all this great district partakes more or less of the
character of the country seen from the Bournemouth express after it
leaves Lyndhurst Road. To attempt to describe in detail this unique
corner of England would be beyond the possibilities of this book or
its author, and only the barest outline will be attempted.

One authority claims 95,000 acres as the extent of the Forest. The
present writer would increase this estimate considerably. About
two-thirds of the more central portion are crown lands, and as will be
seen by the most superficial view (from the afore-mentioned express
train for instance) much of the central woodland is interspersed with
farms and arable land and a large extent of open heath, as are those
outlying fringes in the Avon valley and elsewhere. It is unaccountable
that the word "forest" should have so altered in meaning during the
course of centuries that its earlier significance has almost become
lost. The word is associated in every one's mind with the density of
tropical foliage or the dark grandeur of northern fir woods. Forest as
a topographical suffix denotes a wild uncultivated tract of hilly or
common land, more often than not quite bare of trees. The great
expanse of Radnor Forest is well known to the writer and not even a
thorn bush comes to the mind in picturing its miles of fern-clad
billowy uplands.

The "New" Forest was first so called by the Conqueror. He brought
within its bounds certain tracts that had been preserved by his
predecessors, but that he "burnt and razed whole villages, and
converted a smiling countryside into a wild place devoted to the
king's pleasure" is extremely improbable, unless we may credit William
with an altruistic care for the sport of his great-grandchildren at
the expense of whatever little popularity he may have had in his own
time. Undoubtedly the folk of this part of Hampshire felt aggrieved at
losing their rights over a great stretch of wild common where the more
democratic Saxon kings had taken their pleasure without interfering
with the privileges of the churl. That certain small settlements were
at some time abandoned is attested by names such as Bochampton,
Tachbury, Church Walk, etc., and it is said that Rufus established
certain dispossessed peasantry in far-off portions of his kingdom. The
Conqueror's immediate successors made cruel and arbitrary laws, in
connexion with the preservation of the deer, that were much mitigated
by the Forest Charter of 1217 which provided that death should no
longer be the penalty for killing the King's deer, but merely a fine,
or imprisonment in default.

The wild life of the Forest is much the same as that of the remoter
parts of rural England, apart from the ponies and the deer. Of the
latter only a few still roam the glades. An Act was passed in 1851 for
their removal, when the number was reduced from nearly 4,000 to about
250 of two kinds--fallow deer and red deer. Latterly roe deer have
appeared, adventurers from Milton Abbey park. The New Forest pony was
a distinct breed and the writer has been told that it was the
descendant of a small native horse, but its characteristics have been
lost through scientific crossing with alien breeds. A legend used to
be current in the Forest that the ponies were descended from those
landed from the wrecked ships of the Spanish Armada, but there is a
limit to what we may believe of this wonderful fleet. Most villages
along the south coast having rather more than the usual proportion of
dark-haired folk have been claimed as asylums for the castaway sailors
and soldiers of Spain by enthusiastic amateur anthropologists.

Before breaking-in, the Forest pony is a wild and often vicious little
beast--more so, perhaps, than its cousins of Wales and Dartmoor--and a
"drive," when the little horses are corralled, is an exciting and
interesting affair, human wits being pitted against equine, not always
to the advantage of the former.

Small companies of rough-coated donkeys may occasionally be seen, in
an apparently wild state, roaming about the more open parts of the
Forest. Some years ago the breeding of mules for export was a
recognized local concern, but this seems to have fallen into
desuetude.

Badgers and otters are common, as is the ubiquitous squirrel. The
badger, however, is seldom seen by the chance visitor by reason of its
nocturnal habits, but it is said to be more numerous than in any
similar wild tract in the south. The smaller wild mammals, carnivorous
and herbivorous, and a truly representative family of birds, including
one or two rare visitors, have here a perfect sanctuary. The forest is
obviously a happy hunting ground for the lepidopterist and botanist.
The latter will find many of the rarer British orchids in the central
"dingles" and on the more remote western borders. During the Great War
a large number of trees were felled and the usually silent woods
re-echoed with the noises of a Canadian lumber camp. About this time
great flocks of migratory jays from central Europe were noticed in the
eastern parts of the Forest. For the pedestrian who toils over the
Forest roads in the height of summer there is one form of wild life in
evidence that claims his whole attention, and that is the virulent and
audacious forest fly. Only the strongest "shag" and gloved hands can
keep this horrible creature at bay.

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