Highways and Byways in Surrey Part 2

Away with every toil and care, And cease the rankling thorn to wear; With manful hearts life's conflict meet, Till Death sounds the retreat."

Vernon House, a Tudor building changed from its old name, Culver Hall, and altered so as to front on West Street, has an unhappy memory of the Parliament wars. Charles the First lodged there one December night, a closely guarded prisoner on his way from Hurst Castle to Windsor. A month later he was to leave Windsor for Whitehall. He had little to give his host, and gave him all he had. It was a white morning cap of quilted silk, which Mr. George Vernon, inheriting from his grandfather, left in 1732 to his grandson, "desiring it may always go to the next heir male of my family, as a testimony of our steadfast loyalty and adherence to the Crown, which is the only bounty my family ever received for all the losses and expenses they sustained for the royal cause, which amounted to several thousands of pounds."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _In Farnham Churchyard._]

I had nearly forgotten Farnham's painter. He was Stephen Elmer, and a picture of his, "The Last Supper," hangs in the church tower. But his forte was painting fish and game, dead and alive. In a curious old pamphlet, "_The Earwig, or An Old Woman's Remarks on the present Exhibition of Pictures of the Royal Academy--a critical pamphlet published in Fleet Street_, 1781, I find the following entries. Of the painters and subjects, Mr. Elmer and Mrs. Robinson belong to Surrey. The rest supply the setting:--

"10. Thais--Sir Joshua Reynolds, R.A.--The face was painted from the famous Emily Bertie ... It was a cruel _snouch_ in the Painter, a fine Girl having paid him seventy-five guineas for an hour's work, and being unable to pay for the other half of her portrait, to exhibit her with such a sarcastic allusion to her private life--to call her Thais--to put a torch in her hand, and direct her to set flames to the temple of Chast.i.ty. Such rigorous punishment seldom is inflicted by a rich man on a pretty woman, merely from her want of money.

79. d.a.m.n'd bad.

106. Mrs. Mahon in the character of Elvira--J. Roberts.--Painting, painted.

107. Portrait of Mrs. Robinson--J. Roberts.--At some distance the effect nearly the same as the preceding number; but on closer inspection, the colour not quite so thickly laid on. We must do justice to the Exhibiting Artists by saying that there are no worse _of their size_ in the room than these Dulcineas.

129. Brace of Pheasants--S. Elmer, A.--No artist can come nearer to the object he attempts. His fish, his birds, and fruit are as exquisitely fine as any of the Flemish masters."

The National Gallery lacks an Elmer: private collectors may be luckier.

Mr. J.E. Harting, to whom all Surrey naturalists owe a debt, reminds me that many of Elmer's best pictures were engraved to ill.u.s.trate Daniel's _Rural Sports_, and that it was Elmer who painted the picture of the hybrid between a blackc.o.c.k and a pheasant which readers of _Selborne_ will remember was sent by Lord Stawell to Gilbert White. "It had been found by the spaniels of one of his keepers in a coppice, and shot on the wing."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Frensham Pond._]

CHAPTER III

FRENSHAM AND TILFORD

A Surrey Labourer.--The Witch's Caldron.--Frensham Ponds.--The Last of the Blackc.o.c.k.--Herons and Waterlilies.--The Tilford Oak.--Cobbett's Mistake.--Silver Billy.--The heroic age of Cricketers.

Farnham has expanded to the south-east, and not prettily. But it is the key to the great stretch of pine wood, heather and bogland which lies to the south about Frensham, Tilford and Crooksbury Hill; and it is the best centre from which to visit Waverley Abbey and Moor Park, and to take long walks over some of the wildest country in the county. A week would not be long enough to explore the dozen square miles south of the town.

Wrecclesham lies to the south-west, almost on the Hampshire border, and still makes green pottery of patterns which were favourites in the sixteenth century. Further south runs the tiny Bourne, the stream by which Cobbett and his brothers had so good an education, as we have just seen, in the sand. The Bourne, which runs dry in summer, has few a.s.sociations as a stream; one, perhaps, will remain with it. Readers of _The Bettesworth Book_ and _Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer_ will perhaps not be very wrong if they fix on this sandy valley as the Surrey which Bettesworth knew best. Than the _Memoirs_, I think, no more discerning study of an old labourer's fight to keep on his own legs, out of the workhouse, earning his own money with his spade and hoe, belongs to any Surrey village.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pierrepont House and Bridge._]

Deep country begins south of the Bourne, with the first Surrey bridge over the Wey, or rather one of the two Weys that are to join at Tilford.

Untouched as yet by any town, the little river runs here over gravel and sand, clear and weedy. Trout lie under the bridge below Pierrepont House, in George III's day a seat of Evelyn Duke of Kingston, who named it after his family. He was the Duke who married the beautiful Countess of Bristol when her lawful husband was still alive: perhaps she used to stare into the Wey at Pierrepont and wonder whether it was worth doing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Beside Frensham Pond._]

Frensham stands a little distant from the river, just a cottage or two and a church. But the church holds a famous relic--an enormous caldron of beaten copper. n.o.body knows its age; everybody has a story about it.

It was brought by the fairies, is one tradition; it was nothing of the kind, is another. Mother Ludlam, the witch of Moor Park, four miles away, used it for boilings and philtremakings, according to one story; yet another connects it with a great stone which used to lie in the neighbourhood. John Aubrey, the antiquary, who "perambulated" Surrey in 1673 and 1674, gives the legend in full:--

"In the vestry of the church, on the north side of the chancel, is an extraordinary great kettle or caldron, which the inhabitants say, by tradition, was brought hither by the fairies, time out of mind, from Borough hill, about a mile from hence. To this place, if any one went to borrow a yoke of oxen, money, etc., he might have it for a year or longer so he kept his word to return it. There is a cave where some have fancied to hear music. On this Borough hill (in the t.i.thing of Cherte, in the parish of Frensham) is a great stone lying along, of the length of about six feet: they went to this Stone, and knocked at it, and declared that they would borrow, and when they would repay, and a Voice would answer when they should come, and that they should find what they desired to borrow at that Stone.

This caldron, with the trivet, was borrowed here after the manner aforesaid, but not returned according to promise; and though the caldron was afterwards carried to the stone, it could not be received, and ever since that time no borrowing there....

"The people saw a great fire one night (not long since), the next day they went to see if any heath was burnt there, but found nothing."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Frensham Pond Hotel._]

"These stories," says Aubrey, "are verily believed by most of the old women of this parish, and by many of their daughters." The daughters ought to have known better. So ought Aubrey, according to Salmon, another Surrey historian, writing in 1736. He cannot understand why there should be anything astonishing about the size of the caldron, "there having been many in England till lately to be seen, as well as very large spits which were given for entertainment of the parish at the wedding of poor maids." It was a notable thing to roast an ox whole.

Clearly it would be satisfactory to boil a sheep.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Frensham Pond._]

From Frensham village a road runs straight across the common to the south-west corner of the Great Pond, but the prettiest road to the water is by the side of the Wey. The Wey runs here deep and clean, edged with forget-me-nots through all the summer, winding and straightening through serene and shining pastures. There is nothing quieter in all Surrey than this little path by the tiny river, with the bank on one side rich with roses and elderflower, and on the other the sunlight gleaming on the chestnut coats of the cattle moving slowly through the sedge. Here is an old oak bridge, solid and lichened; here, facing the stream, a high bank of white sand, bored and tunnelled by sand-martins; a little further, and the brushwood flames with the pink and crimson spires of a thousand foxgloves. The gra.s.sy path runs on, until on a sudden bend the ground rises, and over a wooden stile opens out the vista of the great Frensham Pond. Could there be a deeper contrast? Behind lies green pasture-land, rush and sedge, oak and alder; before you, the shoulder of a hill purple with ling, the long level of grey and silver water, dancing under the wind away to a far strip of yellow sand flecked with patches of white foam; high above that, burnt and blackened ridges of heather-ground and gorse. Frensham Pond has often been painted, but that is the view I should choose, as I saw it first. To one coming up from these green depths of pasture, the air blows across the water with the freshness of the sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Devil's Jumps, beyond Frensham Pond._]

Frensham Pond still lies open and wild to the sky, though it may not be long before its shyer visitors leave it for more secluded waters. The motor omnibuses from Farnham have not yet frightened them all away. Coot and moorhens paddle in and out of the reeds, and great grebes float leisurely about its surface. It has always been famous for its fishing.

In Aubrey's time it was "well known for its carps to the London fishmongers," and to-day it holds pike, perch and tench. I heard of no carp. Who would eat a carp?

In the bar of the little inn that stands on the edge of Frensham Pond there is an interesting case holding two blackc.o.c.ks and a grey-hen, whose unhappy lot it was to be shot--perhaps the last of their race seen in this part of Surrey. They were killed nineteen years ago, in 1889.

Actually the last blackc.o.c.k chronicled in Surrey were a pair seen near Hindhead, I believe in 1906.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Devil's Jumps, from Frensham Common._]

From Frensham Great Pond one may push on to Hindhead, three or four miles to the south-east, or may return to Farnham through Tilford by way of the Little Pond, another broad and shining stretch of water. The way to Farnham is the better, for it means leaving the high road for the natural paths that run over and round the windy ridges of the commonland to the east. From the rising ground between the two Frensham ponds there is a fine panorama of pine and heather. Crooksbury Hill juts up dark and commanding to the north; the level line of the ridge on the left, a few hundred yards away, is broken and humped with barrows; far away to the east lies Charterhouse, grey in the haze by G.o.dalming; behind, to the south-east, the Devil's Jumps, three little squat, conical hills whose very oddity is one of their attractions. They edge the horizon like inverted pudding bowls covered with bracken, and with bell-heather kindling to crimson in the July sunlight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Bridge at Tilford._]

July is the month in which to visit Frensham Little Pond. It was an accident which first showed me the pond as it ought to be seen, and as few see it. I had been watching a number of herons through my gla.s.ses; one of them eyeing me discontentedly from the reeds on a southern arm of the water, and three more flapping majestically over the trees, apparently dropping suddenly down into the valley of the Wey. Trying to take a short cut to the stream I missed my way among the woodland rides, and suddenly found myself again on the edge of the pond. It was worth making the mistake. The northern corner of the pond by the little boathouse is one sheet of white waterlilies. The corner runs into a rough triangle, with two sides fifty yards in length and a base of perhaps thirty yards. There must be nearly a thousand square yards of lilies, and from five to ten lilies to the yard, green buds, opening blossoms, and great white cups and gold-centred chalices, wet and swaying in the wind. Through all the summer those lilies flower, and there cannot be as many people see them as there are lilies.

Fortunately, it would be difficult to find them unless you were walking: you could not drive a motor-car or ride a bicycle down those sandy lanes, and n.o.body on foot would pick the lilies.

To walk from Frensham Little Pond over Tilford Common to Tilford is to traverse some of the wildest and freshest commonland in Surrey. For some distance from the northern corner of the pond the way runs through woodland, crossed and recrossed by so many sandy paths that it is a good deal easier to get lost than to find the high road running into Tilford from the south. It is worth while getting lost, for that matter, if only to realise the wildness of the place; though it would perhaps be better to choose daytime for the business, for there are some awkward-looking, though perhaps not dangerous, bogs on the lower ground near the Wey.

This lower ground, by the way, is a wonderful place for rabbits. You come suddenly out from the wood on the border of a reedy field, and see dozens of scampering bodies cleaving paths through the shaking rushes.

Now and then a rabbit, puzzled by the silence following the sound of the invader's coming, sits and c.o.c.ks up a pair of ears above the gra.s.s; his head goes a little higher, his timorous eye catches yours, and the greenery closes behind him.

Tilford to-day cannot be very different from the Tilford of the days of Cobbett. It is a straggling little hamlet, lying about the triangle formed by its cricket-green. The Wey runs halfway round the green, and is crossed by two grey and ancient bridges. But the chief glory of Tilford is its mighty oak, one of the greatest of English trees. Its age is unknown, and perhaps would hardly be known if it were felled. It has been claimed as "the oak at Kynghoc," mentioned in the charter given to Waverley Abbey in 1128; but that oak is mentioned as standing on the Abbeyland boundary, and the Tilford oak has never stood on the boundary.

These historic oaks make difficult problems. Wherever you find a great tree, local legend gathers round it. Queen Elizabeth dined under it or shot a stag under it; Charles II climbed in it; Wesley preached under it; it is the boundary of the parish; it was the boundary of the Abbeyland eight hundred years ago. But was it always, then, the greatest tree for miles round? Eight hundred years ago, may there not have stood another tree near where it stands to-day, as large or even larger?

Surely the traditions of one great tree pa.s.s, when the tree falls, to its nearest great neighbour; but they pa.s.s so seldom, and so slowly, that the villagers hardly note the change. Three generations are born and die, and no villager living has seen the older greater oak; the younger, slighter tree succeeds to its glories. Tilford's oak to-day is called by all Tilford the King's Oak. On the old estate maps it is Novel's Oak; Novel, perhaps, was a yeoman farmer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Between Tilford and Elstead._]

Cobbett made a curious mistake about the Tilford Oak. He and his son were riding through Tilford to Farnham on an autumn day in 1822:--

"We veered a little to the left after we came to Tilford, at which place on the Green we stopped to look at an _oak tree_, which, when I was a little boy, was but a very little tree, comparatively, and which is now, take it altogether, by far the finest tree that I ever saw in my life. The stem or shaft is short; that is to say, it is short before you come to the first limbs; but it is full _thirty feet round_, at about eight or ten feet from the ground. Out of the stem there come not less than fifteen or sixteen limbs, many of which are from five to ten feet round, and each of which would, in fact, be considered a decent stick of timber. I am not judge enough of timber to say anything about the quant.i.ty in the whole tree, but my son stepped the ground, and, as nearly as we could judge, the diameter of the extent of the branches was upwards of ninety feet, which would make a circ.u.mference of about three hundred feet. The tree is in full growth at this moment. There is a little hole in one of the limbs; but with that exception, there appears not the smallest sign of decay."

Visitors to Tilford can amuse themselves with trying over Cobbett's measurements. I could not reach to measure it ten feet from the ground; but at five feet I made its girth, in July, 1907, twenty-four feet nine inches. Probably it was not much less when Cobbett was a little boy.

That independent, combative mind would not accept another's measurements, and if he remembered the tree as a little tree, then a little tree he was right in remembering. Since his day the signs of decay have set in; the oak is still superb, but a Jubilee sapling has been planted as a neighbour. Centuries hence the sapling, perhaps, will be the King's Oak again.

Tilford has another memory of green old age. William Beldham--"Silver Billy," because of his straw-coloured hair--lived most of his life in the village, where he kept an inn, and died in a cottage close under the oak. He was born at Wrecclesham on February 5, 1766, and died February 20, 1862, aged 96, having played thirty-five years' unbroken "great"

cricket, as Lillywhite calls it--a finer name than first-cla.s.s. Let John Nyren, most discerning of biographers, describe him:--

"William Beldham was a close-set, active man, standing about five feet eight inches and a-half. He had light-coloured hair, a fair complexion, and handsome as well as intelligent features. We used to call him 'Silver Billy.' No one within my recollection could stop a ball better, or make more brilliant hits all over the ground.

Wherever the ball was bowled, there she was. .h.i.t away, and in the most severe, venomous style. Besides this, he was so remarkably safe a player; he was safer than the Bank, for no mortal ever thought of doubting Beldham's stability. He received his instructions from a gingerbread baker at Farnham, of the name of Harry Hall....