Autobiography of Seventy Years Part 76

[Footnote]

* The Whitcombe Roman Villa, four miles east of Upton, stands in a field called Sandals. In Lyson's description of it, written in 1819 it stands as _Sarn_dells. The paved road ran through the dell.

[End of Footnote]

We made a short delay in the morning, at Gloucester, to give Senator h.o.a.r time to go on board the boat "Great Western"

which had just arrived in our docks from Gloucester, Ma.s.sachusetts, to visit the mother city, after a perilous voyage across the Atlantic by Captain Blackburn single-handed. Senator h.o.a.r having welcomed the captain in his capacity of an old Englishman and a New Englander "rolled into one," we set out for Lydney, skirting the bank of one arm of the Severn which here forms an island. It was on this Isle of Alney that Canute and Edmund Ironside fought the single-handed battle that resulted in their dividing England between them.* We pa.s.s on to the Island at Westgate Bridge; and a quarter of a mile further leave it by Over Bridge; one of Telford's beautiful works. Just below it the Great Western Railway crosses the river by an iron bridge, the western piers of which rest upon Roman foundations.

[Footnote]

* Sharon Turner's "Anglo Saxons," Vol. III., Chap. XV.

[End of Footnote]

One remarkable thing which I believe I forgot to mention to George h.o.a.r as we crossed the Island, is, that the meadows on both sides of the causeway belong to the "Freemen" of the city; and that, go back as far as we may in history, we cannot find any account of the original foundation of this body.

But we have this clue to it--that Gloucester was made into a Colony in the reign of Nerva, just before the end of the first century; and in each Roman colony lands were allotted to the soldiers of the legions who had become freemen by reason of having served for twenty-five years. These lands were always on the side of the city nearest the enemy; and the lands we are crossing are on the western side of Glevum, nearest the _Silures,_ or South Welsh, who were always the most dangerous enemies the Romans had in Britain. Similarly, at Chester, the freemen's lands are on the west, or enemy's side, by the Dee. In Bath it was the same.

Immediately after pa.s.sing "Over" Bridge we might turn off, it time permitted, to see La.s.sington Oak, a tree of giant size and unknown age; but as Emerson says--

There's not enough for this and that-- Make thy option which of two!

and we make ours for Lydney. A dozen miles drive, often skirting the right bank of the Severn, brings us to Newnham, a picturesque village opposite a vast bend, or horse-shoe, of the river, and over which we get a beautiful view from the burial ground on the cliff. The water expands like a lake, beyond which the woods, house-interspersed, stretch away to the blue Cotteswold Hills; the monument to William Tyndale being a landmark on one of them--Nibley Knoll. Just under that monument was fought the last great battle between Barons. This battle of Nibley Knoll, between Lord Berkeley and Lord Lisle, left the latter dead on the field, at night, with a thousand of the men of the two armies; and made Lord Berkeley undisputed master of the estates whose name he bore.

We now leave the river, and turn inland; and in a short time we have entered the Forest of Dean proper; that is, the lands that belong to the Crown. Their area may be roughly set down as fifteen miles by ten; but in the time of the Conqueror, and for many years after, it was much larger; extending from Ross on the north, to Gloucester on the east, and thence thirty miles to Chepstow on the south-west. That is, it filled the triangle formed by the Severn and the Wye between these towns.

It is doubtless due to this circ.u.mstance of its being so completely cut off from the rest of the country by these rivers that it has preserved more remarkably than any other Forest, the characteristics and customs of ancient British life, to which we shall presently refer; for their isolation has kept the Dean Foresters to this hour a race apart.

Sir James Campbell, who was for between thirty and forty years the chief "Verderer," or princ.i.p.al government officer of the Forest, lives near Lydney. He received us with great kindness, and gave us statistics of the rate of grown of the oak, both with and without transplantation. Part of them are published in an official report on the Forest (A 12808. 6/1884. Wt.

3276. Eyre & Spottiswoode, London) and part are in ma.n.u.script with which Senator h.o.a.r has been presented. Briefly, the chief points are these:

In 1784 or thereabouts acorns were planted in "Acorn Patch Enclosure" in the Forest; and in 1800 trees marked A and B were taken from this place and planted opposite the "Speech House." Two, marked D and F, were drawn out of Acorn Patch in 1807 and planted near the Speech House fence. Another, marked N, was planted in 1807, five and one-half feet high, in the Speech House grounds, next the road; and L, M, N, X, have remained untransplanted in the Acorn Patch.

The dimensions were (circ.u.mference, six feet from the ground), in inches-- A B D F L M N X In 1814, Oct. 5, 14-3/4 14 11 9-1/2 15-5/8 18-1/2 13 24-1/2 1824, Oct. 20, 29-1/2 28-3/4 25-3/8 22-1/8 22-1/2 23-3/4 30-1/8 32-1/8 1844, Oct. 5, 58-1/2 58 45 46 35 34-1/2 57 44-1/2 1864, Oct. 1, 73-1/2 71 59-1/2 67-3/4 46-1/2 44 73-1/4 56

Another experiment tried by Sir James Campbell himself gave the following results:

Experiment begun in 1861 to test the value, if any, of merely lifting and replanting oak trees in the same holes without change of soil, situation, or giving increased s.p.a.ce; as compared with the experiment already detailed, which was begun in 1800.

In 1861, twelve oak trees of about 25 years' growth, which had been self-sown (dropping from old trees afterwards cut down) in a thick plantation, were selected, all within gunshot of each other, and circ.u.mferences measured at five feet from the ground. Of these, six were taken up and immediately replanted in the same holes. The other six were not interfered with at all.

Aggregate admeasurement of six Aggregate admeasurement of six dug up and replanted. Marked not interfered with. Marked in in _white_ paint 1, 2, 3, &c. _red_ paint 1, 2, 3, &c.

1861, 24-1/2 inches 27 inches (_i. e._, 2-1/2 inches more than the transplanted ones, at starting.) 1866, 37-3/4 " 46-1/2 " (_i. e._, 10-7/8 inches more than the transplanted ones at starting.) 1886, 118-1/4 " 118-5/8 " (_i. e._, the transplanted ones had now _regained_ 10-1/2 inches.) 1888, 125-1/2 " 123-1/2 " (The transplanted trees in '88 had outgrown the others by 2 ins.) 1890, 133-7/8 " 128 " (The transplanted trees in '90 had outgrown the others by 5-7/8 ins.) 1892, 141 " 131-1/4 " (The transplanted trees in '92 had outgrown the others by 9-3/4 ins.)

Thus proving that merely transplanting is beneficial to oaks; the benefit, however, being greater when the soil is changed and more air given.*

[Footnote]

* The Earl of Ducie, who has had very large experience as an arboriculturist, does _not_ hold the view that oaks are benefited by transplanting, if the acorns are sown _in good soil._ In the case of trees that show little or no satisfactory progress after four years, but are only just able to keep alive, he cuts them down to the root. In the next season 80 per cent. of them send up shoots from two to three feet high, and at once start off on their life's mission.

[End of Footnote]

From Lydney a drive of a few miles through pleasant ups and downs of woodland and field, brings us to Whitemead Park, the official residence of the Verderer, Philip Baylis. The t.i.tle "Verderer" is Norman, indicating the administration of all that relates to the "Vert" or "Greenery" of the Forest; that is, of the timber, the enclosures, the roads, and the surface generally. The Verderer's Court is held at the "Speech House," to which we shall presently come: but the Forest of Dean is also a mineral district, and the Miners have a separate Court of their own. That some of their customs go back to a very remote antiquity we may well believe when we find the scale of which the Romans worked iron in the Forest; a scale so great that with their imperfect method of smelting with Catalan furnaces, etc., so much metal was left in the Roman cinder that it has been sought after all the way down to within the present generation as a source of profit; and in the time of Edward I., one-fourth of the king's revenue from this Forest was derived from the remelted Roman refuse.

I have a beautiful Denarius of Hadrian which was found in the old Roman portion of the Lydney-Park Iron Mine in 1854, with a number of other silver coins, some of them earlier in date; but when we speak of the "mines," the very ancient ones in the Forest were rather deep quarries than what would now be termed mines. As we drive along we now and then notice near the roadside, nearly hidden by the dense foliage of the bushes, long dark hollows, which are locally known as _"scowles,"_ another Celtic word meaning gorges or hollows; something like ghyll in the Lake District, "Dungeon Ghyll," and so on. These were Roman and British Hemat.i.te mines. If we had been schoolboys I would have taken Senator h.o.a.r down into a scowl and we should both have come back with our clothes spoiled, and our arms full of the splendid hartstongue ferns that cover the sides and edges of the ravine. But they are dangerous places for any but miners _or_ schoolboys; and I shrank from encouraging an enthusiastic American to risk being killed in a Roman pit, even with the ideal advantage of afterwards being buried with his own ancestors in England! So I said but little about them.

The Miners' Court is presided over by another government officer, called the "Gaveller"; from a Celtic word which means _holding;_ as in the Kentish custom of "Gavelkind."* These courts are held in "Saint Briavels" (p.r.o.nounced "Brevels") Castle: a quaint old building of the thirteenth century, on the western edge of the Forest, where it was placed to keep the Welsh in check. It looks down on a beautiful reach of the river Wye at Bigswear; and it was just on this edge that Wordsworth stood in 1798, when he thought out his "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey," etc.

Five years have pa.s.sed; five summers, with the length Of five long winters; and again I hear These waters rolling from their mountain springs With a soft inland murmur. Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs.

Senator h.o.a.r will recall the scene from the railway below: the

"Plots of cottage ground" that "lose themselves 'Mid groves and copses";

and he will say how exactly the words describe

These hedge-rows; hardly hedge-rows; little lines Of sportive wood run wild,

for they cover yards in width in some places, as he will remember my pointing out to him. The castle is placed on the outside of the Forest and close on the Wye, to guard what was seven centuries ago the frontier of Wales; and the late William Philip Price (Commissioner of Railways and for many years member of Parliament for Gloucester) told me that when he was a boy the Welsh tongue was still spoken at Landogo, the next village down the river, midway between Bigswear and Tintern.

[Footnote]

* I suspect "Gaffer," the English equivalent of "Boss," may be the same root: _i. e.,_ the _taker_ or contractor.

[End of Footnote]

Philip Baylis showed us some of the old parchments connected with the Mine Court; one doc.u.ment especially precious being a copy of the "Book of Denys," made in the time of Edward III. It sets forth the ancient customs which formed the laws of the miners. At this point the Verderer had to settle some matter of the instant, but he put us under the care of a young man who acted as our guide to one of the ancient and giant oaks of the Forest, on the "Church Hill" enclosure, about three-quarters of a mile up the hill above the Park. Nicholls ("History of the Forest of Dean," page 20) thinks the name Church Hill comes from the setting apart of some land here for the Convent of _Grace Dieu_ to pay for ma.s.ses for the souls of Richard II., his ancestors and successors.

It was a steep climb; and the evening twilight was coming on apace as we followed the little track to the spot where the old oak rises high above the general level of the wood, reminding one of Rinaldo's magical myrtle, in "Jerusalem Delivered":

O'er pine, and palm, and cypress it ascends; And towering thus all other trees above Looks like the elected queen and genius of the grove!

Only that for an _oak_ of similar standing we must say "king"

instead of "queen"; emblem as it is of iron strength and endurance.

It is not so much the girth of the tree as its whole bearing that impresses a beholder; and I do not think either of us will forget its effect in the gloom and silence and mystery of the gathering night.

Resisting a kindly pressure to stay the night at Whitemead, that we might keep to our programme of sleeping at the Speech House, we started on the last portion of the long day's drive.

The road from Parkend, after we have climbed a considerable hill, keeps mostly to the level of a high ridge. It is broad and smooth; and the moonlight and its accompanying black shadows on the trees made the journey one of great beauty; while the mountain air lessened the sense of fatigue that would otherwise have pressed heavily on us after so long a day amid such novel surroundings. The only thing to disturb the solitude is the clank of machinery; and the lurid lights, as we pa.s.s a colliery; and then a mile of two more with but the sound of our own wheels and the rhythm of the horses' feet, and we suddenly draw up at an hotel in the midst of the Forest, its quiet well-lighted interior inviting us through the doorway, left open to the cool summer night air. We are at the Speech House. We had bespoken our rooms by wire in the morning: Senator h.o.a.r had a _chambre d'honneur,_ with a gigantic carved four-post bed that reminded him of the great bed of Ware.

His room like my "No. 5," looked out over magnificent bays of woodland to the north. The Speech House is six hundred feet above the sea, and the mountain breeze coming through the wide open window, with this wonderful prospect of oak and beech and holly in the moonlight,--the distance veiled, but scarcely veiled, by the mist, suggest a poem untranslatable in words, and incommunicable except to those who have pa.s.sed under the same spell. We speak of a light that makes darkness visible; and similarly there are sounds that deepen the long intervals of silence with which they alternate. One or two vehicles driving past; now and then the far-off call of owls answering one another in the woods--one of the sweetest sounds in nature--the varying cadence carrying with it a sense of boundlessness and infinite distance; and with it we fall asleep.

If there is anything more beautiful than a moonlight summer night in the heart of the Forest of Dean, it is its transformation into a summer morning, with the sparkle of dew on the gra.s.s, and the sunrise on the trees; with the music of birds, and the freshness that gives all these their charm.

As soon as we are dressed we take a stroll out among the trees.

In whichever direction we turn we are struck by the abundance of hollies. I believe there are some three thousand full grown specimens within a radius of a mile of the Speech House.

This may be due to the spot having been from time immemorial the central and most important place in the Forest. The roads that lead to it still show the Roman paving-stones in many places, as Senator h.o.a.r can bear witness; and the central point of a British Forest before the Roman time would be occupied by a sacred oak. The Forest into which Julius Caesar pursued the Britons to their stronghold, was Anderida, that is, the Holy Oak; from _dar,_ oak (Sanskrit, daru, a tree), and _da,_ good. It is worth remarking that this idea survives in the personal name, Holyoak; for who ever heard of "Holyelm," or "Holyash," or a similar form compounded of the adjective and the name of any other tree than the oak. If there is an exception it is in the name of the _holly_. The Cornish Celtic word for holly was Celyn, from Celli (or Kelli), a grove; literally a _grove-one;_ so that the holly was probably planted as a grove or screen round the sacred oak. Such a planting of a holly grove in the central spot of the Forest in the Druid time, would account for these trees being now so much more numerous round the Speech House than they are in any other part of the woods. The Saxon name is merely the word _holy_ with the vowel shortened, as in _holi_day; and that the tree really was regarded as holy is shown by the custom in the Forest Mine Court of taking the oath on a stick of holly held in the hand. This custom survived down to our own times; for Kedgwin H. Fryer, the late Town Clerk of Gloucester, told me he had often seen a miner sworn in the Court, touching the Bible with the holly stick! The men always kept their caps on when giving evidence to show they were "Free miners."

The oaks, marked A. B., of whose growth statistics have already been given, stand on the side of the Newnham road opposite the Speech House. The Verderer is carrying on the annual record of their measurements.

We return to the house by the door on the west; the one at which we arrived last evening. It was then too dark to observe that the stone above it, of which I took a careful sketch several years ago, is crumbling from the effects of weather, after having withstood them perfectly for two centuries. The crown on it is scarcely recognizable; and the lettering has all disappeared except part of the R.

We breakfast in the quaint old Court room. Before us is the railed-off dais, at the end, where the Verderer and his a.s.sistants sit to administer the law. On the wall behind them are the antlers of a dozen stags; reminders of the time, about the middle of the present century, when the herds of deer were destroyed on account of the continual poaching to which they gave occasion. Many of the cases that come before the Court now are of simple trespa.s.s.

This quaint old room, with its great oak beam overhead, and its kitchen grate wide enough to roast a deer--this strange blending of an hotel dining-room and a Court of Justice, has nevertheless a link with the far distant past more wonderful than anything that has come down to us in the ruins of Greece or Rome.

Look at the simple card that notifies the dates of holding the Vederer's Court. Here is an old one which the Verderer, Philip Baylis, has kindly sent to Senator h.o.a.r in response to his request for a copy.

V. R.