British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: LUDLOW CASTLE, THE KEEP AND ENTRANCE.]

When we left the castle, though nearly noon, the custodian was still belated, and we yet owe him sixpence for admittance, which we hope to pay some time in person. A short walk brought us to the church--"the finest parish church in England," declares one well qualified to judge.

"Next to the castle," he says, "the glory of Ludlow is its church, which has not only the advantage of a commanding site but, as already mentioned, is held to be one of the finest in the country." It is built of red sandstone and is cruciform in shape, with a lofty and graceful tower, which is a landmark over miles of country and beautiful from any point of view. I have already mentioned the chime of bells which flings its melodies every few hours over the town and which are hung in this tower. The monuments, the stained-gla.s.s windows and the imposing architecture are scarcely equalled by any other church outside of the cathedrals.

We had made the most of our stay in Ludlow, but it was all too short.

The old town was a revelation to us, as it would be to thousands of our countrymen who never think of including it in their itinerary. But for the motor car, it would have remained undiscovered to us. With the great growth of this method of touring, doubtless thousands of others will visit the place in the same manner, and be no less pleased than we were.

From Ludlow we had a fine run to Worcester, though the road was sprinkled with short, steep hills noted "dangerous" in the road-book.

Our fine weather was very transient, for it was raining again when we reached Worcester. We first directed our steps to the cathedral, but when nearly there beheld a large sign, "This way to the Royal Porcelain Works," and the cathedral was forgotten for the time by at least one member of our party. The Royal Porcelain Works it was, then, for hadn't we known of Royal Worcester long before we knew there was any cathedral--or any town, for that matter? It is easy to get to the Royal Porcelain Works: a huge sign every block will keep you from going astray and an intelligent guide will show you every detail of the great establishment for only a sixpence. But it is much harder and more costly to get away from the Royal Worcester Works, and when we finally did we were several guineas poorer and were loaded with a box of fragile ware to excite the suspicions of our amiable customs officials. Nevertheless, the visit was full of interest. Our guide took us through the great plant from the very beginning, showing us the raw materials--clay, chalk and bones--which are ground to a fine powder, mixed to a paste, and deftly turned into a thousand shapes by the skilled potter. We were shown how the bowl or vase was burned, shrinking to nearly half its size in the process. We followed the various steps of manufacture until the finished ware, hand-painted, and burned many times to bring out the colors, was ready for shipment. An extensive museum connected with the works is filled with rare specimens to delight the soul of the admirer of the keramic art. There were samples of the notable sets of tableware manufactured for nearly every one of the crowned heads of Europe during the last century, gorgeous vases of fabulous value, and rare and curious pieces without number.

When we left the porcelain works it was too late to get into the cathedral, and when we were ready to start in the morning it was too early. So we contented ourselves with driving the car around the n.o.ble pile and viewing the exterior from every angle. We took the word of honest Baedeker that the interior is one of the most elaborate and artistic in England but largely the result of modern restoration. The cathedral contains the tomb of King John, who requested that he be buried here, though his life was certainly not such as to merit the distinction. Here, too, is buried the elder brother of King Henry VIII, Prince Arthur, who died at Ludlow Castle in 1502; and had he lived to be king in place of the strenuous Henry, who can say what changes might have been recorded in English history? All these we missed; nor did we satisfy ourselves personally of the correctness of the claim that the original entry of the marriage contract of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway is on file in the diocese office near the gateway of the cathedral. Along with the other notable places of the town mentioned in the guide-book as worthy of a visit is the great factory where the fiery Worcestershire sauce is concocted, but this did not appeal to our imagination as did the porcelain works. Our early start and the fine, nearly level road brought us to Stratford-upon-Avon well before noon.

Here we did little more than re-visit the shrines of Shakespeare--the church, the birthplace, the grammar school--all familiar to the English-speaking world. Nor did we forget the Red Horse Inn at luncheon time, finding it much less crowded than on our previous visit, for we were still well in advance of the tourist season. After luncheon we were lured into a shop across the street by the broad a.s.surance made on an exceedingly conspicuous sign that it is the "largest souvenir store on earth." Here we hoped to secure a few mementos of our visit to Stratford by motor car. We fell into a conversation with the proprietor, a genial, white-haired old gentleman, who, we learned, had been Mayor of the town for many years--and is it not a rare distinction to be Mayor of Shakespeare's Stratford? The old gentleman bore his honors lightly indeed, for he said he had insistently declined the office but the people wouldn't take no for an answer.

It is only a few miles to Warwick over winding roads as beautiful as any in England. One of these leads past Charlecote, famous for Shakespeare's deer-stealing episode, but no longer open to the public. We pa.s.sed through Warwick--which reminded us of Ludlow except for the former's magnificent situation--without pausing, a thing which no one would do who had not visited that quaint old town some time before. In Leamington, three miles farther on, we found a modern city of forty thousand inhabitants, noted as a resort and full of pretentious hotels.

After we were located at the Manor House there was still time for a drive to Kenilworth Castle, five miles away, to which a second visit was even more delightful than our previous one. For the next day we had planned a circular tour of Warwickshire, but a driving, all-day rain and, still more, the indisposition of one of our party, confined us to our hotel. Our disappointment was considerable, for within easy reach of Leamington there were many places that we had planned to visit. Ashow Church, Stoneleigh Abbey, George Eliot's birthplace and home near Nuneaton, the cottage of Mary Arden, mother of Shakespeare, Rugby, with its famous school, and Maxstoke Castle--an extensive and picturesque ruin--are all within a few miles of Leamington.

From Leamington to London was nearly an all-day's run, although the distance is only one hundred miles. A repair to the car delayed us and we went several miles astray on the road. It would have been easier to have returned over the Holyhead Road, but our desire to see more of the country led us to take a route nearly parallel to this, averaging about fifteen miles to the southward. Much of the way this ran through narrow byways and the country generally lacked interest. We pa.s.sed through Banbury, whose cross, famous in nursery rhyme, is only modern. At Waddesdon we saw the most up-to-date and best ordered village we came across in England, with a fine new hotel, the Five Arrows, glittering in fresh paint. We learned that this village was built and practically owned by Baron Rothschild, and just adjoining it was the estate which he had laid out. The gentleman of whom we inquired courteously offered to take us into the great park, and we learned that he was the head landscape gardener. The palace is modern, of Gothic architecture, and crowns an eminence in the park. It contains a picture gallery, with examples of the works of many great masters, which is open to the public on stated days of the week.

On reaching London, we found that our tour of the Midlands had covered a little less than eight hundred miles, which shows how much that distance means in Britain when measured in places of historic and literary importance, of which we really visited only a few of those directly on the route of our journey or lying easily adjacent to it.

VI

LONDON TO LAND'S END

The road from London to Southampton is one of the oldest in the Kingdom and pa.s.ses many places of historic interest. In early days this highway, leading from one of the main seaports through the ancient Saxon capital, was of great importance. Over this road we began the trip suggested by the Touring Secretary of the Motor Union. As usual, we were late in getting started and it was well after noon when we were clear of the city. At Kingston-on-Thames, practically a suburb, filled with villas of wealthy Londoners, we stopped for lunch at the Griffin Hotel, a fine old inn whose antiquity was not considered sufficient to atone for bad service, which was sometimes the case. Kingston has a history as ancient as that of the capital itself. Its name is peculiar in that it was not derived from King's Town, but from King's Stone; and at the town crossing is the identical stone, so says tradition, upon which the Saxon kings were crowned. It would seem to one that this historic bit of rock would form a more fitting pedestal for the English coronation chair than the old Scottish stone from Dunstafnage Castle.

After a short run from Kingston, we pa.s.sed down High Street, Guildford, which, a well qualified authority declares, is "one of the most picturesque streets in England." Guildford might well detain for a day or more anyone whose time will permit him to travel more leisurely than ours did. William Cobbett, the author and philosopher, who was born and lived many years near by, declared it "the happiest looking town he ever knew"--just why, I do not know. The street with the huge town clock projecting half way across on one side, the Seventeenth Century Town Hall with its ma.s.sive Greek portico on the other, and a queerly a.s.sorted row of many-gabled buildings following its winding way, looked odd enough, but as to Guildford's happiness, a closer acquaintance would be necessary.

Shortly after leaving the town, the ascent of a two-mile hill brought us to a stretch of upland road which ran for several miles along a tableland lying between pleasantly diversified valleys sloping on either side. From this a long, gradual descent led directly into Farnham, the native town of William Cobbett. The house where he was born and lived as a boy is still standing as "The Jolly Farmers' Inn." One may see the little house which was the birthplace of the Rev. Augustus Toplady, whose hymn, "Rock of Ages," has gained world-wide fame. On the hill overlooking the town is the ancient castle, rebuilt in the Sixteenth Century and from that time one of the palaces of the bishops of Winchester. Here, too, lingers one of the ubiquitous traditions of King Charles I, who stopped at Vernon House in West Street while a prisoner in the hands of the Parliamentarians on their way to London. A silk cap which the king presented to his host is proudly shown by one of the latter's descendants, who is now owner of the house.

One must be well posted on his route when touring Britain or he will pa.s.s many things of note in sublime ignorance of their existence. Even the road-book is not an infallible guide, for we first knew that we were pa.s.sing through Chawton when the postoffice sign, on the main street of a straggling village, arrested our attention. We were thus reminded that in this quiet little place the inimitable Jane Austin had lived and produced her most notable novels, which are far more appreciated now than in the lifetime of the auth.o.r.ess. An old woman of whom we inquired pointed out the house--a large square building with tiled roof, now used as the home of a workingmen's club. Less than two miles from Chawton, though not on the Winchester road, is Selborne, the home of Gilbert White, the naturalist, and famed as one of the quaintest and most retired villages in Hampshire.

But one would linger long on the way if he paused at every landmark on the Southampton road. We had already loitered in the short distance which we had traveled until it was growing late, and with open throttle our car rapidly covered the last twenty miles of the fine road leading into Winchester.

From an historical point of view, no town in the Kingdom surpa.s.ses the proud old city of Winchester. The Saxon capital still remembers her ancient splendor and it was with a manifest touch of pride that the old verger who guided us through the cathedral dwelt on the long line of kings who had reigned at Winchester before the Norman conquest. To him, London at best was only an upstart and an usurper. Why,

"When Oxford was shambles And Westminster was brambles, Winchester was in her glory."

And her glory has never departed from her and never will so long as her great cathedral stands intact, guarding its age-long line of proud traditions. The exterior is not altogether pleasing--the length exceeding that of any cathedral in Europe, together with the abbreviated tower, impresses one with a painful sense of lack of completeness and a failure of proper proportion. It has not the splendid site of Durham or Lincoln, the majesty of the ma.s.sive tower of Canterbury, or the grace of the great spire of Salisbury. But its interior makes full amends. No cathedral in all England can approach it in elaborate carvings and furnishings or in interesting relics and memorials. Here lie the bones of the Saxon King Ethelwulf, father of Alfred the Great; of Canute, whose st.u.r.dy common sense silenced his flatterers; and of many others. A scion of the usurping Norman sleeps here too, in the tomb where William Rufus was buried, "with many looking on and few grieving." In the north aisle a memorial stone covers the grave of Jane Austen and a great window to her memory sends its many-colored shafts of light from above.

In the south transept rests Ike Walton, prince of fishermen, who, it would seem to us, must have slept more peacefully by some rippling brook. During the Parliamentary wars Winchester was a storm center and the cathedral suffered severely at the hands of the Parliamentarians.

Yet fortunately, many of its ancient monuments and furnishings escaped the wrath of the Roundhead iconoclasts. The cathedral is one of the oldest in England, having been mainly built in the Ninth Century.

Recently it has been discovered that the foundations are giving away to an extent that makes extensive restoration necessary, but it will be only restored and not altered in any way.

But we may not pause long to tell the story of even Winchester Cathedral in this hasty record of a motor flight through Britain. And, speaking of the motor car, ardent devotee as I am, I could not help feeling a painful sense of the inappropriateness of its presence in Winchester; of its rush through the streets at all hours of the night; of its clatter as it climbed the steep hills in the town; of the blast of its unmusical horn; and of its glaring lights, falling weirdly on the old buildings.

It seemed an intruder in the capital of King Alfred.

There is much else in Winchester, though the cathedral and its a.s.sociations may overshadow everything. The college, one of the earliest educational inst.i.tutions in the Kingdom, was founded about 1300, and many of the original buildings stand almost unchanged. The abbey has vanished, though the grounds still serve as a public garden; and of Wolvesley Palace, a castle built in 1138, only the keep still stands.

How usual this saying, "Only the keep still stands," becomes of English castles,--thanks to the old builders who made the keep strong and high to withstand time, and so difficult to tear down that it escaped the looters of the ages.

A day might well be given to the vicinity of Winchester, which teems with points of literary and historic interest. In any event, one should visit Twyford, only three miles away, often known as the "queen of the Hampshire villages" and famous for the finest yew tree in England. It is of especial interest to Americans, since Benjamin Franklin wrote his autobiography here while a guest of Dr. Shipley, Vicar of St. Asaph, whose house, a fine Elizabethan mansion, still stands.

To Salisbury by way of Romsey is a fine drive of about thirty miles over good roads and through a very pleasing country. Long before we reached the town there rose into view its great cathedral spire, the loftiest and most graceful in Britain, a striking landmark from the country for miles around. Following the winding road and pa.s.sing through the narrow gateway entering High Street, we came directly upon this magnificent church, certainly the most harmonious in design of any in the Kingdom.

The situation, too, is unique, the cathedral standing entirely separate from any other building, its gray walls and b.u.t.tresses rising sheer up from velvety turf such as is seen in England alone. It was planned and completed within the s.p.a.ce of fifty years, which accounts for its uniformity of style; while the construction of most of the cathedrals ran through the centuries with various architecture in vogue at different periods. The interior, however, lacks interest, and the absence of stained gla.s.s gives an air of coldness. It seems almost unbelievable that the original stained windows were deliberately destroyed at the end of the Eighteenth Century by a so-called architect, James Wyatt, who had the restoration of the cathedral in charge. To his everlasting infamy, "Wyatt swept away screens, chapels and porches, desecrated and destroyed the tombs of warriors and prelates, obliterated ancient paintings; flung stained gla.s.s by cart loads into the city ditch; and razed to the ground the beautiful old campanile which stood opposite the north porch." That such desecration should be permitted in a civilized country only a century ago indeed seems incredible.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A COTTAGE IN HOLDENHURST, HAMPSHIRE.

From Water Color by Noelsmith.]

No one who visits Salisbury will forget Stonehenge, the most remarkable relic of prehistoric man to be found in Britain. Nearly everyone is familiar with pictures of this solitary circle of stones standing on an eminence of Salisbury Plain, but one who has not stood in the shadow of these gigantic monoliths can have no idea of their rugged grandeur.

Their mystery is deeper than that of Egypt's sphynx, for we know something of early Egyptian history, but the very memory of the men who reared the stones on Salisbury Plain is forgotten. Who they were, why they built this strange temple, or how they brought for long distances these ma.s.sive rocks that would tax modern resources to transport, we have scarcely a hint. The stones stand in two concentric circles, those of the inner ring being about half the height of the outer ones. Some of the stones are more than twenty feet high and extend several feet into the ground. There are certain signs which seem to indicate that Stonehenge was the temple of some early sun-worshiping race, and Sir Norman Lockyer, who has made a special study of the subject, places the date of construction about 1680 B.C. No similar stone is found in the vicinity; hence it is proof positive that the builders of Stonehenge must have transported the enormous monoliths for many miles. The place lies about eight miles north of Salisbury. We went over a rather lonely and uninteresting road by the way of Amesbury, which is two miles from Stonehenge. We returned by a more picturesque route, following the River Avon to Salisbury and pa.s.sing through Millston, a quaint little village where Joseph Addison was born in 1672.

A few miles south of Salisbury we entered New Forest, an ancient royal hunting domain covering nearly three hundred square miles and containing much of the most pleasing woodland scenery in England. This is extremely diversified but always beautiful. Glades and reaches of gentle park and meadow and open, heathlike stretches contrast wonderfully with the dark ma.s.ses of huge oaks and beeches, under some of which daylight never penetrates. We stopped for the night at Lyndhurst, directly in the center of the forest and sometimes called the capital of New Forest. It looks strangely new for an English town, and the large church, built of red brick and white stone, shows its recent origin. In this church is a remarkable altar fresco which was executed by the late Lord Leighton.

The fine roads and splendid scenery might occupy at least a day if time permitted; but if, like us, one must hasten onward, a run over the main roads of New Forest will give opportunity to see much of its sylvan beauty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GLADE IN NEW FOREST.]

Our route next day through the narrow byways of Dorsetshire was a meandering one. From Lyndhurst we pa.s.sed through Christchurch, Blandford and Dorchester and came for the night to Yeovil. We pa.s.sed through no place of especial note, but no day of our tour afforded us a better idea of the more retired rural sections of England. By the roadside everywhere were the thatched roof cottages with their flower gardens, and here and there was an ancient village which to all appearances might have been standing quite the same when the Conqueror landed in Britain.

Oftentimes the byways were wide enough for only one vehicle, but were slightly broadened in places to afford opportunity for pa.s.sing. Many of the crossings lacked the familiar sign-boards, and the winding byways, with nothing but the map for a guide, were often confusing, and sharp turns between high hedges made careful driving necessary. At times we pa.s.sed between avenues of tall trees and again unexpectedly dropped into some quiet village nestling in the Dorset hills. One of the quaintest of these, not even mentioned in Baedeker, is Cerne Abbas, a straggling village through which the road twisted along--a little old-world community, seemingly severed from modern conditions by centuries. It rather lacked the cozy picturesqueness of many English villages. It seemed to us that it wanted much of the bloom and shrubbery. Everywhere were the gray stone houses with thatched roofs, sagging walls and odd little windows with square or diamond-shaped panes set in iron cas.e.m.e.nts. Nowhere was there a structure that had the slightest taint of newness. The place is quite unique. I do not recall another village that impressed us in just the same way. Our car seemed strangely out of place as it cautiously followed the crooked main street of the town, and the attention bestowed on it by the smaller natives indicated that a motor was not a common sight in Cerne Abbas. Indeed, we should have missed it ourselves had we not wandered from the main road into a narrow lane that led to the village. While we much enjoyed our day in the Dorset byways, our progress had necessarily been slow.

In Yeovil, we found an old English town apparently without any important history, but a prosperous center for a rich farming country. The place is neat and clean and has a beautifully kept public park--a feature of which the average English town appears more appreciative than the small American city.

From Yeovil to Torquay, through Exeter, with a stop at the latter place, was an unusually good day's run. The road was more hilly than any we had pa.s.sed over heretofore, not a few of the grades being styled "dangerous," and we had been warned by an English friend that we should find difficult roads and steep hills in Devon and Cornwall. However, to one who had driven over some of our worst American roads, even the "bad"

roads of England looked good, and the "dangerous" hills, with their smooth surface and generally uniform grade, were easy for our moderate-powered motor.

Exeter enjoys the distinction of having continuously been the site of a town or city for a longer period than is recorded of any other place in England. During the Roman occupation it was known as a city, and it is believed that the streets, which are more regular than usual and which generally cross each other at right angles, were first laid out by the Romans. It is an important town of about fifty thousand inhabitants, with thriving trade and manufactures, and modern improvements are in evidence everywhere.

The cathedral, though not one of the largest or most imposing, is remarkable for the elaborate carving of the exterior. The west front is literally covered with life-sized statues set in niches in the wall, but the figures are all sadly time-worn, many of them having almost crumbled away. Evidently the Roundheads were considerate of Exeter Cathedral that such a host of effigies escaped destruction at their hands; and they were not very well disposed towards Exeter, either, as it was always a Royalist stronghold. Possibly it was spared because the Cromwellians found it useful as a place of worship, and in order to obtain peace and harmony between the two factions of the army the cathedral was divided into two portions by a high brick wall through the center, the Independents holding forth on one side and the Presbyterians on the other.

The road from Exeter to Torquay follows the coast for some distance, affording many fine views of the ocean. We were now in the "limestone country," and the roads are exceedingly dusty in dry weather. The dust, in the form of a fine white powder, covers the trees and vegetation, giving the country here and there an almost ghostly appearance. No wonder that in this particular section there is considerable prejudice against the motor on account of its great propensity to stir up the dust. So far as we ourselves were concerned, we usually left it behind us, and it troubled us only when some other car got in ahead of us.

Torquay is England's Palm Beach--a seacoast-resort town where the temperature rarely falls below forty degrees, thanks to the warm current of the Gulf Stream; and where the sea breezes keep down the summer heat, which seldom rises above sixty degrees. It is especially a winter resort, although the hotels keep open during the year. Most of the town is finely situated on a high promontory overlooking a beautiful harbor, studded with islands and detached rocks that half remind one of Capri.

From our hotel window we had a glorious ocean view, made the more interesting for the time being by a dozen of King Edward's men-of-war, supposed to be defending Torquay against "the enemy" of a mimic naval warfare.

On the opposite side of Tor Bay is the quiet little fishing village of Brixham, the landing-place of Prince William of Orange. We reached here early on a fine June day when everything was fresh after heavy showers during the night. The houses rise in terraces up the sharp hillside fronting the harbor, which was literally a forest of fishing-boat masts.

A rather crude stone statue of William stands on the quay and a bra.s.s foot-print on the sh.o.r.e marks the exact spot where the Dutch prince first set foot in England, accompanied by an army of thirteen thousand men. Our car attracted a number of urchins, who crowded around it and, though we left it unguarded for an hour or more to go out on the sea-wall and look about the town, not one of the fisher lads ventured to touch it or to molest anything--an instance of the law-abiding spirit which we found everywhere in England.

From Brixham, an hour's drive over bad roads brought us to Dartmouth, whither we had been attracted by the enthusiastic language of an English writer who a.s.serts that "There is scarcely a more romantic spot in the whole of England than Dartmouth. Spread out on one of the steep slopes of the Dart, it overlooks the deep-set river toward the sea. Steep wooded banks rising out of the water's edge give the winding of the estuaries a solemn mystery which is wanting in meadows and plough-land.

In the midst of scenery of this character--and it must have been richer still a few centuries back--the inhabitants of Dartmouth made its history."

As we approached the town, the road continually grew worse until it was little better than the average unimproved country highway in America, and the sharp loose stones everywhere were ruinous on tires. It finally plunged sharply down to a steamboat ferry, over which we crossed the Dart and landed directly in the town. There are few towns in England more charmingly located than old Dartmouth, and a hundred years ago it was an important seaport, dividing honors about equally with Plymouth.

The road to Dartmouth was unusually trying; the route which we took to Plymouth was by odds the worst of equal distance we found anywhere. We began with a precipitous climb out of the town, up a very steep hill over a mile long, with many sharp turns that made the ascent all the more difficult. We were speedily lost in a network of unmarked byways running through a distressingly poor-looking and apparently quite thinly inhabited country. After a deal of studying the map and the infrequent sign-boards we brought up in a desolate-looking little village, merely a row of gray stone, slate-roofed houses on either side of the way, and devoid of a single touch of the picturesque which so often atones for the poverty of the English cottages. No plot of shrubbery or flower-garden broke the gray monotony of the place. We had seen nothing just like it in England, though some of the Scotch villages which we saw later, matched it very well.

Here a native gave us the cheerful information that we had come over the very road we should not have taken; that just ahead of us was a hill where the infrequent motor cars generally stalled, but he thought that a good strong car could make it all right. Our car tackled the hill bravely enough, but slowed to a stop before reaching the summit; but by unloading everybody except the driver, and with more or less coaxing and adjusting, it was induced to try it again, with a rush that carried it through. The grade, though very steep, was not so much of an obstacle as the deep sand, with which the road was covered. We encountered many steep hills and pa.s.sed villages nearly as unprepossessing as the first one before we came to the main Plymouth-Exeter road, as excellent a highway as one could wish. It was over this that our route had originally been outlined, but our spirit of adventure led us into the digression I have tried to describe. It was trying at the time, but we saw a phase of England that we otherwise would have missed and have no regrets for the strenuous day in the Devonshire byways.