An English holiday with car and camera

Front matter

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Preface

The reasons why people travel are many and various; some travel for their health, a few bold spirits set forth in search of adventure in littleexplored lands; others roam therein after big game, still others wander far afield simply because they are naturally restless, and find their only rest in movement. Sundry unenterprising folk travel merely because their friends do ; others go abroad, perchance, to escape from domestic worries or to find distraction from business cares. Stevenson has it that " we travel to find friends, and he is a fortunate voyager who finds many." For myself I frankly confess that I travel for none of these things, but purely for pleasure, and, like the famous Dr. Syntax, " in search of the picturesque," added to which is the joy and the health of a life in the open air. Nor when I go on a pleasure jaunt do I desire much company — one sympathetic companion is all I crave ; more may prove disturbing to a contemplative mind ; two may readily be catered

for at country inns ; with a party the accommodation

vii viii AN ENGLISH HOLIDAY

is less sure — and what better companion can a man have than his wife ?

Rural England is only a half-explored country ; the guide-book compilers have merely skimmed it, in fact they chiefly concern themselves with well-known spots that are written about endlessly. Some of the most interesting and picturesque places we came to they do not mention at all (at least those guide-books I consulted, after the journey was done, solely to see if they did mention them) ; to give one instance, of many, there is the historic and quaint old moated manor-house of Cote in Oxfordshire, that closed its gates against Charles I. and wherein Oliver Cromwell once slept. Other places of much beauty and interest we came across they briefly dismiss in a line, or at most in two ; to them they are but names !

Rural England is not to be thoroughly explored in a man's life -time; hardly, perhaps, a single county would reveal all its treasures to the most zealous searcher in that period. For years now past have I taken long summer journeys in some portion of our own homeland, and on each journey do I find new delights and make fresh discoveries, of which this volume gives many a sample. The photographs reproduced therein are but a tithe of those I took on the tour, for the picturesque material was everywhere abundant: the difficulty

PREFACE ix

has been to make a selection from the multitude of subjects secured.

My photographs, though they lack the charm of pencil drawings, have the virtue of being accurate representations of scenes and places we visited, and I trust may serve to show how much of interest and beauty there is to be found in rural England. The lens, it must be remembered, will only produce a picture if a picture is before it ; unlike an artist, it has not the power to romance, invent, or alter things, so as to add to their picturesqueness. There is no poetry about a lens ; it simply records facts !

The car in which we took our journey was one of moderate horse-power and moderate in price ; moreover, it was comfortably seated, and provided a sufficiency of room for a reasonable amount of luggage : it was quiet -running, and had ample power to mount any hill, however steep; the engines gave us no trouble of any kind from start to finish — and what more could even a millionaire desire, or obtain ? unless it were excessive speed, which we did not wish for or require.

For the rest I must refer my readers to the following pages.

J. J. HISSEY.

Trevin Towers, Eastbourne.

Chapter I Pack

Our summer holiday — Where shall we go? — An open programme— Along the south coast — Towns old and new — An ancient seaport — A history in stone — ^A narrow escape — ^An incident of old-time travel — The work of the craftsman I

Chapter II

Smugglers and wreckers — A Saxon church tower — Country sounds — '*A cupful of beauty'' — ^A quiet and ancient village — Forest scenery— The art of losing one's way — Country inns — Wood fires — The fisherman's holiday — Corfe Mullen — ^The soul of scenery -19

Chapter III

A pastoial country — The charms of a river — A finished town— - An experimental holiday — Red-letter days — ^A mysterious carving — ^An ancient British stronghold — An unrecorded historical episode — Wayside crosses — A quiet valley — The value of the picturesque • 3^

Chapter IV

Pleasant wandering — Stalbridge cross — ^A truthful tramp — Where Sir Walter Raleigh had his pipe extinguished — A character — A chat by the way — ^A guide who failed — Wincanton — Photographs as guides to places — Annchair travel — Country life 54

xi xii AN ENGLISH HOLIDAY

Chapter V Pagb

A sleepy hamlet — ^A picturesque and ancient manor-house — The kindness of strangers — A drowsy land — Miles from anywhere — An old priest's house — Tact — Muchelney Abbey and abbot's house — ^A quaint bit of carving — The finest church tower in Somerset — A hanging chapel 72

Chapter VI

On a market day — Hotel Visitors' Books — ^Across the marshes — A ruined church — " The Mump " — " The Isle of Athelney" — ^An evening drive — A country of dykes — Squatters — ^A moving fence ! — The chance company at our inn — ^The joys of the road .88

CHAPTER Vn

Admiral Blake's birthplace — A picture with a strange history — Gazeboes — Coleridge's cottage at Nether Stowey — Stories of Somerset smugglers — The Quantock country — How "The Ancient Mariner" came to be written — ^An eventful walk — ^A poet's blunder — A neglected comer of England 105

CHAPTER Vm

Quantock superstitions and legends — A Somerset story — ^Old folk-airs — A pseudo-Roman tombstone — Cleevc Abbey — A monkish jest — ^An architectural mystery — The vale of flowers — Dunster — ^A quaint market-place — A fortified inn — Exmoor — ^A bit of wild England . .125

CHAPTER IX

Through the heart of Exmoor — A stag hunt — The land of the wild red deer — ^A primitive bridge — Forty miles of beauty — ^Belated — ^The wayside inn — A curious charity — " The crime of duelling " — Very ancient history — A scold's chair — " Two great curses of a man's life " . .142

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER X

PAGB

An old coaching hostelry — Changed times — " The chief charm of English travel" — Loitering by the way — No inn for miles — Bread " aged 69 " ! — ^Antique frauds — The virtue of distance — The longest road in Britain — The personality of places — Enmore Church and Castle — Two old helmets — ^A curious sale — Strange customs . • iS7

CHAPTER XI

An interesting old church — Sun-dials — ^A " tumble-down " stile — ^A fighting parson — An ancient home and its story — The right of pigeonry — An English Holland — ^A remote spot — Signposts and the new era of road travel — ^A gigantic maze — ^A lonely landscape — Berkeley Castle — ^The old-fashioned inn — The life of a feudal lord .176

CHAPTER XII

" God's wayside inns " — ^A curiously placed church tower — In search of epitaphs — "The Earl of Suffolk's fool" — Berkeley Castle — Houses with traditions — Guides — The making of history — Relics — A curious conceit in a sun-dial — ^An historic chamber — A gruesome tragedy — The view from Berkeley Castle's keep — A romance in stone . .198

CHAPTER XIII

Whither ? — A bit of old England — An ancient town — A lonely hostel — ^Traditions — A desolate stretch of country — Sleepy hollows — The silence of the uplands — The magic of sound — Memories — ^Wood fires — The charm of old houses — The spirit of place 221

CHAPTER XIV

Tetbury — ^A quaint market-hall — "The way of the wind" — Roofs — The romance of the car — Pleasant experiences — The courtesy of country folk — Undiscovered England 1 — xiv AN ENGUSH HOLIDAY

PACF

Beverstone Castle and its story — A legended Elizabethan home — ^A ghostly conveyance and driver — ^A pilgrims* bam — Medieval miracles — The pre-Reformation priest — The real John Bull — ^Travellers learn strange Osicts . .238

CHAPTER XV

The glamour of an evening drive — Curious place-names — "Nowhere" — The old Thames Head — Belated — ^At the "Hop-Pole" — Oliver Cromwell as an hotel-keeper — A mighty tithe-bam — The art of signboard painting — Puzzling carvings — ^A study of ancient amiour and dress — ^Tame sport 261

CHAPTER XVI

The value of the imagination — An astonished tramp — A house of mystery — ^A quaint and picturesque old home — A conceit in clipped yews — The making of friends — A discovery — Epitaph to a lady " aged 309 " ! — ^The joy of the road — Historic ground — ^A spot for a pilgrim — Accidental fame — Belated and inn full — ^A leaning town — People and places ......... 279

CHAPTER XVn

English villages — A moated manor-house — The picturesque past — New men and old acres — ^A deserted home — An out-of-the-way spot — A stranger's curious story — A mystery explained — A remote hamlet — A timber-towered church — A dealer in old houses — The gentle art of transplanting ancient buildings ...... 300

CHAPTER XVni

An old gate-house — The Nunnery, Salford Priors — A quaint interior — Ghostly chambers — ^A priest's hiding-place — "The prettiest village in all England" — Belated — The wind on the Cotswolds — Over the hills — Miles from anywhere— ^The glamour of speed — A delightful resting spot — At Nature's wayside hostelry 324.

CONTENTS XV

CHAPTER XIX

PAGE

Far from civilisation — A cheerful solitude — ^The magnetism of the lane — Hampton — A house with a history — Travellers' luck — ^A remote spot — ^An anglers'- and artists'-haunted hostelry — East Hagboume — An old dame's opinions — The courtesy of country folk — Comicalities in carving — The cult of spelling — ^At an old coaching inn . 343

CHAPTER XX

Water-colour sketches as guides — Buckingham — Maids Morton — ^A graceful epitaph — Stopped on the road by deer — Towcester — A puzzling sign — "The World's End" — The homeland of the Franklins — ^A Saxon towered church — A curious round house — Thrapstone — A quaint and ancient hostelry — Horn windows ..... 367

CHAPTER XXI

The charm of pastoral scenery — Fotheringhay and its memories — ^A monument of ancient piety — A beautiful gateway — Country quietude — Over the Fens — Solitude and space — Wisbech — The old-world town of Lynn — The scenery of East Anglia — Moorland and forest — ^Thetford — Ipswich . 389

CHAPTER XXn

Hotel versus inn — Constable's cottage — A monkish tradition — Bell cage in East Bergholt churchyard — Constable's country — A quaint custom — Dunmow and its flitch of bacon — Sleepy old towns — A ford — Curious tombstones — The end of the journey ...... 409

INDEX 423

ILLUSTRATIONS

PACK

Saxon Tower of Earl's Barton Church Frontispiece

An Ancient Half-timber Pigeon-Cote . .22

An Old Bridge 34

A Country Inn 40

Two Dorset Crosses 49

MUCHELNEY ABBEY: THE ABBOT'S HOUSE ... 84

Gazebo, Nether Stowey no

A Wayside Cottage 122

In THE Valley of the Exe 146

A Devon Cottage 164

West Bower 183

Old House at Doughton 232

Beverstone Castle 249

Pilgrims' Barn, Beverstone 255

Gable of Bredon Tithe-Barn 272

Cleeve Prior 284

Cleeve Mill, on the Avon 292

huddington court 305

DoRMSTON Church 318

The Moat House, Dormston 320

Gat£*House: The Nunnery, Salford Priors 326

The Nunnery, Salford Priors 332

Cote. A House with a History 348

xvii

XVUl

Cote, from the Moat

"The Sun-dial," East Hagbourne

fotheringhav church

Constable's Cottage, as restored, Felixstowe Bell Cage, East Bergholt Churchyard Map of Author's Route ....

PAGE

4.10 413

End of Book

Chapter I

Our sommer holiday — Where shall we go ? — ^An open programme — Along the south coast — Towns old and new — An ancient seaport— A history in stone — A narrow escape — An incident of old-time travel— -The work of the craftsman.

One still warm August evening found my wife and self enjoying the fragrance and comparative coolness of the outside air, comfortably seated in the old stone-built summer-house that stands at the end of the tiled garden terrace ; from thence we looked down over a yew -enclosed lawn with its mossencrusted sun-dial, and beyond, through pillared pines, we caught a glimpse, on the high horizon, of the distant sea shimmering in the moonlight. Overhead the stars were shining softly down from a calm, cloudless sky, and upward, borne across the stillness, we heard, or fancied that we heard, the slumberous wash, wash, wash of the summer waves lapping lazily on the shingly shore, — and there we sat, my wife and I, in silent enjoyment of the restful quietude.

At last we had experienced an almost perfect day whose end was peace. For the past fortnight, and for longer, it had done little else but rain.

For weeks the clouds had raked the hills,

And vexed the vales with raining ; And all the woods were wet with mist.

And all the brooks complaining.

I had sat for some time drowsily smoking a postprandial pipe in perfect contentment, letting my thoughts drift as they do in dreams, when I was awakened from my reverie by my wife exclaiming, " I wonder if you are thinking about our projected holiday.^ Now is the time for touring, before the evenings draw farther in ; and after so much bad weather surely a spell of fine days should follow. Moreover, the barometer is rising ; let us pack the motor car to-morrow and be off somewhere ; home is delightful, but housekeeping becomes monotonous in time and a trifle wearisome."

Then I suddenly remembered that the year was growing old, and that for various reasons our usual annual holiday on the road had been delayed. Though why that tranquil evening should specially have suggested a roving expedition to the better half of " we " I cannot say ; unless, perchance, it were the sight and sound of the distant sea, and mental visions of possible ships voyaging thereon spurred her imagination and aroused thoughts of wandering ; such wandering taking the shape of a cruise on land as being the nearest thing to a sea voyage and its freedom we could command. Not

THE TRUE CHARM OF TRAVEL that an ocean voyage appealed to us, for the modern mail steamer has robbed the sea of much of its mystery, of most of its poetry, and nearly all of its terror ; it has become a mere floating hotel, or even palace, wherein one suffers from too much company and too much luxury. Now to tour without roughing it, be it in ever so mild a manner, to be taken instead of taking oneself, is to lose the zest, the personal interest, the excitement, and true intent of travel ; for is not that very word derived from " travail " ? But this is a matter apart We were minded to journey on land, and by car, taking our own time and suiting our own convenience. Unless you be master of your conveyance you are simply conveyed from one spot to another much as a parcel is, — with more dignity truly, still you are just carried !

The true charm of travel, to my mind at least, is to be able to dictate the direction, to have it in one's power to stop or to go on, to loiter or to hasten, as the mood of the moment inclines. So on a driving or a motor tour the element of individuality comes to the fore ; the man who travels thus asserts his freedom, and can enjoy to the full the charm of independence, — subject to the possible but slight risk of a breakdown of horse or car, — and such is the essence of a true holiday. Time-tables trouble him not, for he is master of his own time ; he needs no cab to take him to the station ; he has no trains to catch, or miss, or wait for ; no tickets to purchase ; no luggage to look after or worry about, for that goes with him, either in carriage or in car, and is ever at command — ^so the friction of travel is reduced to a minimum.

When, some years a^o, I ventured on my first motor tour — motors not then being so perfect as they now are — I was warned that I was tempting Providence overmuch, and that the least evil I could expect was to break down ''miles from anywhere " and leave my car behind, lucky if I escaped without personal hurt However, on that first and experimental journey of five hundred miles, taken with my wife alone and without a man to help in case of need, the car gave practically no trouble. A few stoppages we had, owing to my inexperience, but I soon discovered the causes and set matters right, having taken the simple precaution before starting of becoming acquainted with the working, the treatment, and the driving of my car. From that expedition I returned home delighted with the novelty of motor travelling ; but what impressed me most was, that as I was driving a machine that never tired, I had only myself to consider. I could extend my day's stage at my own pleasure. When driving horses I have often been compulsorily anchored at an inn for the night when both a lovely evening and my quarters inclined me to proceed, but fatigued horses forbade me following my inclinations. Moreover, a car will not shy ; it will not bolt if you leave it unattended when calling a halt by the roadside, and a shed will serve it well enough for a night's shelter if you are pressed for accommodation. The motor car has restored to us our heritage of the road. The old coaching inns, too, are waking up

I THE RESURRECTION OF THE ROAD 5

after their long sleep and neglect, and are preparing, with more or less success, to welcome the modernday wayfarer in the good old-fashioned manner. When, after the coming of the railway, the roads became almost deserted, and the fine country-side hostelries, with their century -gathered traditions, forsaken and forgotten, who would have thought that the whirligig of time would bring forth their resurrection ? Now it only remains for the country landlords of to-day to improve their accommodation, and to rediscover the art of good cooking, to be as prosperous as their forefathers. The modem roadtraveller does not so much desire luxury as comfort and cleanliness.

But I have wandered a good deal from my opening scene. When the curtain rose my wife and self were discovered seated in our summer-house, and a gentle hint was thrown out to me that we had not yet taken our usual summer holiday, and that as we possessed a motor car we might as well make use of it, and start forth a-touring therein. That we both needed a change was manifest, for of late I had felt, and had even dared to complain, that the children had become noisier and more rampageous than ever; on the other hand, my wife declared that housekeeping was a burden, and the management of tradespeople and servants simply a drudgery. So to divert our thoughts we got a -chatting about the delights of travel ; pleasant memories of past journeys were brought to mind, till the call of the country, with the visions of green trees, green fields, and fair landscapes it conjured up, came to us and would not be denied, — ^a call that comes surely, sooner or later, to those who live by the sea as well as to those who dwell in towns. So, as we chatted on, the wander fever took possession of us,

And all our fancies fled away Upon an English holiday.

To-morrow we would pack the car with our needful baggage, not forgetting maps, a supply of rugs, waterproofs, and such luxuries as sketch-books, camera, and a luncheon-basket, the last enabling us to be entirely independent of hotels during the day, the only compulsory thing being to find quarters for the night We had no seas to cross — the road from our own door would take us into Arcadia! The sole difficulty that suggested itself to me was to find fresh roads to traverse and taverns new wherein to take our ease, for we had already explored a goodly portion of our own country, and had even jokingly remarked that, at some not distant date, it would be needful to have England enlarged in order to provide us with new ground to travel over !

"Where shall we go?" my wife asked of me across the breakfast - table the next morning. "Wherever you like," I replied. "Personally, I've no particular destination in view, neither am I in any hurry to arrive at that delightfully indefinite locality. We've all England before us ; let us take the fortune of the road, just driving in the direction where the country looks the most inviting. It is not a bad idea to have no plan, it leaves us so

A UTERARY PILGRIMAGE absolutely untrammelled ; we're bound to arrive somewhere by the evening." So the matter would probably have rested had it not been that, glancing at the newspaper, my eye chanced upon the following paragraph : — ** A project is on foot for the purchase by public subscription, and the preservation, of the cottage at Nether Stowey (a remote village at the foot of the Quantocks) which was the home of Samuel Taylor Coleridge a hundred years ago, where he wrote his most famous poems, including * The Ancient Mariner' and * Christabel/ " The reading of that paragraph settled the detail as to where first to make for. To us the land of the Quantocks was a terra incognita ; thither would we go. When we arrived there it would be time enough to discuss our further route. For the moment that hastily arranged programme sufficed.

Then a map of England was consulted as to the best line of country to take for Nether Stowey, so as to avoid as far as possible traversing familiar ground. Finally it was decided to drive from our home at Eastbourne along the south coast as far as Southampton, then to cross the New Forest to Ringwood, next to make for Wimborne Minster, from there to follow up the valley of the Dorset Stour (for a river valley suggests pleasant wandering), and from some point farther on to strike westward to the Quantocks. Unfortunately, as far as Wimborne, we should have to journey over thricetravelled roads, but beyond Wimborne we should be in a country having, for us, the glamour of the unknown.

It has been said that motorists rush through the country seeing nothing, eager only to conquer distances ; that they need a continent to travel in to satisfy their speed-craze and space-hunger ; but the fault lies in the man, not in the car ; moreover, there be motorists and motorists. It is not necessary because you elect to travel by car to emulate the rush of the railway ; you can meander about in a car in as leisurely a fashion as though you were driving a horse. Ours was intended to be a leisurely tour; we meant to see and enjoy the country we passed through, not to obtain fleeting and soonforgotten visions of it; otherwise, except for the fresh air, express trains would have conveyed us from place to place as well. Still, preaching and practising are not always the same thing ; and after all this saying I am bound to confess that we took advantage of the powers of the motor to make moderate haste over our first long stage to Wimborne, so as to get into a fresh country without needless delay; but it was not so much by mere speed that we covered the stretch of well-known ground at the start as by an uninterrupted progress. For a space we sped along, content to take a broad view of scenery, without slowing down or calling a halt to renew our acquaintance with the familiar.; later on we would loiter to our hearts' content — and we did !

After all, we never started on our wanderings on the appointed day ; for one thing and another unexpectedly delayed us till the late afternoon, when it was mutually agreed that we would put off our

A DEUGHTFUL EXPERIENCE departure till the next morning. But as a salve to our consciences for the loss of time it was stipulated that we would rise, and without fail, with the sun, take a hasty breakfast, and be off. The morrow actually found us up '' betimes," as Mr. Pepys has it, whilst indeed both sea and sky were dull and grey and longing for the dawn ; and before the day was much over an hour old we had mounted the car and were on our way.

It was a delightful experience driving forth in the first freshness and fragrance of the early morning, when the roads were free from traffic, children, idlers, dogs, and fowls. We were soon in the coimtry and gliding swiftly and smoothly through a world stilled in sleep. Wilmington's ruined Priory was passed on our left, with its prehistoric ''Old Man" cut out of the sloping down-side above — a strange figure that has puzzled many a learned antiquary as to its origin. Then presently a dip in the road revealed ahead a wide, green level land stretching far away from the foot of the Downs till lost in an infinity of blue, where the far-off horizon line seemed to melt into the sky. A wide green world fading away into nothingness, a prospect that brought with it a sense of solitude and spaciousness. What scenic possibilities might not lie in that blue beyond whither we were tending ? Our eyes rejoiced in their unaccustomed liberty of range, whilst our poetic imaginings were unrestrained. It is well to see broadly at times, it helps one to think so ; whilst now and then to indulge one's fancy is to lift oneself out of the rut of the commonplace. Why should lo AN ENGUSH HOUDAY chap.

always the painter, the poet, or the novelist do our romancing for us ?

Looking backward, nestled in a wooded hollow of the Downs and but a short distance away, we caught a glimpse of the retired village of Alfriston, a spot well worth a visit for its fine old flint-built church, each flint being painstakingly squared. Ad majorem Dei Gloriam justly might those ancient monks have inscribed upon the sacred edifice they constructed with so much loving labour. Close beside this church still stands a rare specimen of a pre- Reformation priest-house (a lowly dwelling) ; and the village street is graced by a quaint and ancient pilgrims' inn with curious carvings on its front. How old that hostelry is I should not care to guess — nearly, if not quite, four centuries I am told.

Presently the compact, clean, and homely little town of Lewes came in view, dominated by its grey old castle, now time -rent, worn, and no longer defiant At the foot of the hill up which the red-roofed town climbs, and at the same time clusters round its crumbling feudal stronghold, we had a vision of the toy river Ouse brightening the landscape by its silvery gleaming as it took its winding way through the level and luxuriant meadows southward to the sea. Dotted on the summits of the downs around were several white, old-fashioned windmills spreading their whirling sails to the brisk breeze, thus giving a feeling of movement and life to the peaceful prospect Then it struck us that the miller, if he has corn to grind, must, to earn his