So you're going to England! : And if I were going with you these are the things I'd invite you to do

Front matter

REFERENCE LIBRARY OF HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

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2 Park Street, Boston

Preface

In beginning this third book of our little series (which I hope to continue with at least three more), I have a delightful sense as of writing a long, familiar letter to a great many friends who are none the less realizable because most of them’I have not seen. If it were the fortune of many books to elicit such letters as the two preceding volumes of this series have brought me, I’m sure that authors would wear an air of beatitude more general than any other craftsmen. Perhaps they do!

But what I want to say is that, thanks to the graciousness of a very great number of readers in expressing themselves regarding So You’re Going to Paris and So You’re Going to Italy, I have been enabled to learn why they found those books helpful; and this gives me some guidance without which I should feel bewildered indeed to know where to begin a book on England and, still more, where to leave off.

Perhaps even the friendly letters mht not have sufficed for this knowledge, had they not been supplemented by my invaluable experience, this year past, in planning travel for patrons of The Clara Laughlin Travel Services. In conference and by correspondence I have come to know the needs and desires of a great many prospective visitors to England.

The time allotted to Great Britain in the average inclusive trip to Europe seldom exceeds a fortnight and only occasionally amounts to a month.

Five days in and around London, a glimpse of the Shakespeare country, and a half-day at Chester, is an ordinary ‘bite’ at England.

vill | PREFACE

~ Then comes the slightly-less-hurried traveller who wants to see Cambridge as well as Oxford, and ‘take in’ Ely and Peterboro while he’s about it; or the one who yearns toward the English Lake district, but is dismayed on learning that it is three hundred miles from London; or another who wants to know how much time he must take to see something of York and Lincoln, or of Devonshire.

It is not only futile to chide the average traveller on his nibble at this and his nibble at that — it is almost snobbish; the time at his disposal is fixed, not by his desires, but by his necessity, and the only helpful thing to do for him is to enable him to hurry more discriminatingly and to miss a minimum of what he would like to see on a road over which he may not pass again.

On the other hand, there are fewer travellers now than formerly to whom a European tour is a matter of once-in-alifetime; every year sees an increase in the number of persons whose plan of life includes frequent trips to Europe and a fairly leisurely survey of one section each trip, with perhaps one restful sojourn, and a short stay in some few familiar places. ye

So, in planning our little book on England, I have tried to keep equally in mind the several classes of travellers to whom it might be helpful: those on a comprehensive tour of Europe, with a fortnight or less for the British Isles; and those on a more leisurely programme, with perhaps a month or more for England alone; those who must economize closely in the matter of money as in the matter of time; and those who can indulge in the great delight of motoring in England — a delight by no means so costly as many may imagine, and well within the reach of thousands who go to Europe; those who must see what they can between their landing port and London, and between London and their port of departure from England; and those who

PREFACE 1X can plan round-trips of several days’ duration, from London and back by a different route.

To essay a comprehensive book on England would be preposterous. The Muirheads, those past-masters of guide-book excellence, who wrote the Baedekers before they embarked upon the authorship and publication of The Blue Guides, filled what would equal more than twelve _ hundred such pages as these, with close-packed information about England outside of London and its environs, and almost as much more on the latter.

If I were to outline all the trips that England offers, my book would be too bulky to carry, and even then would leave us no space for those stories-by-the-way which are, evidently, what make travel interesting for most of us. Furthermore, The Blue Guides have done the comprehensive thing so well-nigh perfectly that I do not see why they should ever have a successful competitor.

What most travellers seem to need is a counsellor who may help them to select, from among England’s infinite riches, some of the outstanding delights; who may help them to plan their time and conserve their means and energies; and who may jog their memories of certain things read or studied long enough ago so that they have been crowded back by more recent concerns and have got a bit unserviceable in their retirement, perhaps.

Let me say something, at the outset, about the varied delights of travel in England. This ought to be a superfluous paragraph; but it isn’t! Almost every day, in my studios for travel consultation and sales, we deal with persons who cannot conceive a first trip to Europe without Lucerne and Interlaken and the Rhine and Cologne Cathedral and ‘staged’ sights like the Island of Marken, but who seem content with ten days, or less, for all that the British Isles have to offer them.

X PREFACE

I have tried to find the reasons for this. Sometimes there are definite ideas in the prospective traveller’s mind that tend to make him cut his English stay to a few days’ duration. Again, the allotment of time is made, not because he has any disinclination for England, but because the charms of other places have been more strongly urged upon him.

England has no governmental agency for the encouragement of what the French call ‘tourisme.’ Three of her principal railway systems do, individually, a small amount of foreign advertising and get into circulation a little of the extraordinary variety of splendid literature they publish. But England’s attractions for the tourist are insufficiently vaunted.

Some persons will tell you that this may be because England does not care to welcome the tourist as Continental countries do. This is not the case; but I can comprehend how it may seem so. And again we must remember that lack of a government department to foster touring in England; not only is there an inadequate propaganda abroad in its behalf, but there is an inadequate organization for it at home. That is to say, there is no national direction of anything that pertains to the special interests of the tourist in England; he is left (according to the English conception of hospitality) very much to his own devices, which is Eng- Jand’s way of doing unto others as she would that they should do unto her. But her guests do not always understand this.

The fact that England does not officially invite us to visit her must not be interpreted to mean that she is indifferent as to whether we come or not. I’m sure she wants us very much. I admit that I have many times, on crossing from France into England, had to accustom myself to many differences in the manner of my English ‘hosts’ as compared with the manner of the French hosts I had just left.

PREFACE xl

But it seems to me that each year, latterly, there has been less and less need to remind myself that England was really glad to have me there. (And by ‘me’ I mean, of course, not me as:an individual, but me as an American traveller.)

This year I was not merely impressed, but touched, with the evidences of courteous interest I had from strangers in every part of England; ‘strangers,’ that is, in the sense of persons whose names I never knew, to whom I had no other introduction than that I was in evident need of direction. I motored several thousand miles in England just before beginning this book. And it seemed to me that at no time in all those journeyings did we stop a single minute to search for our signboard or consult our route sheet, that some one did not step up and in the finest possible spirit of hospitality ask us if he could be of any assistance.

The English-Speaking Union is undoubtedly doing a great deal to foster amity and promote mutual understanding between Mother England and her married daughter, ‘Mrs. Uncle Sam.’ But in my humble opinion there must be other and even greater influences at work in the same behalf — strong, silent forces which reach far beyond what oratory or print or other organization effort can penetrate.

I venture to say that the American who can feel strange or alien in England now must be one who has no drop of Anglo-Saxon in his blood and has had no education in those Anglo-Saxon traditions and ideals on which our country was founded; or one who has gone to England with a chip on his shoulder.

England does want us, even though she does not officially urge us to come. I’m not aware that any American ever stays a short instead of a longer time in England because he is not sure he’s wanted there; but I do think that some Americans fail to remember the manifold attractions of England, when apportioning their time abroad, because xi PREFACE those attractions have not been urged upon them as effectively as others have. I hold no brief for the charms and satisfactions of England as against those of other mother countries like Italy and France; but I hope I may be able to do something, in this book, to induce further acquaintance with England than most American travellers have yet made.

English weather has a bad name. English people tend to complain of their weather almost as excessively as Californians tend to overpraise theirs. If England ever does institute a national bureau of tourism, I hope she will begin operations by importing a lot of ‘missionaries’ from Los Angeles and converting the English, if not to praise of their weather, at least to a conspiracy of silence on its defects.

As a matter of fact, English weather is not half so bad as it’s reported. When it’s bad, perhaps it’s horrid; but I think that’s true of many another place. And when it’s good, it’s very, very good. In the last three sojourns I’ve made in England, the weather was perfection itself; and as I look back over a great many other visits there, I seem to recall much more sunshine than rain. Throughout the June that is just past as I write, England was a Paradise of beauty beneath smiling skies that never once got brazen or tearful.

During the time of year that most Americans are abroad on pleasure bent, England probably offers them as excellent an average of weather conditions as they could find anywhere.

Another consideration is that of cost. There is, I think, no denying that England is more expensive for the traveller than most other countries of Europe. This is not especially true of railway fares, which in England are three and a half cents a mile (American money) first class and two cents third class, about the same as for first class in France and

PREFACE xii five cents for the same accommodation in Italy. And I think that in England a slightly smaller per cent of one’s bill than is customary on the Continent suffices for tips.

American money is at practically no premium in England, and we pay as high for what we want as the English people themselves pay for the same things; whereas in most other countries of Europe our advantage, in buying, over the natives is very considerable.

London has always been very expensive for those who want de luxe accommodation; and it stillisso. But, even at that, its hotel and restaurant prices need not dismay any one who is used to paying for the same grade of luxury in New York. And theatre prices in London are somewhat lower, now, than in most American cities.

In touring, most Americans choose only the best hotels in the smaller places. These vary in price, according to the popularity of the place, and to the season; but at no time, I should say, are their rates quite so high as Americans would pay for a similar grade of accommodation at home.

Motoring in England is as near an unalloyed delight as any one (in my humble opinion) can hope to attain this side of Paradise. The roads are marvellous; the service for ~ motorists leaves scarcely anything to be desired; and the delights by the way are inestimable.

I strongly advise for motorists membership in the Automobile Association (five dollars to foreigners) which is worth many times the price, even for a short stay in England. (Address: Fanum House, New Coventry Street, London, W. 1.) Even to those whose American automobile club memberships give them affiliation with the Royal Automobile Club of England, I should say that an A.A. membership was well-nigh indispensable; as, in my experience, the routing service of the latter is by far the more satisfactory. Excellent help in routing may also be had xiv PREFACE

(and free!) of the Michelin Tyre Company at sl Fulham Road, 8.W. 3.

I will not take space here for the regulations about transporting foreign cars into England; since those regulations are accessible in so many places, and detailed-information (constantly revised to date) is always available at the office of The Clara Laughlin Travel Services.

The service of companies hiring cars for touring is excellently organized, and addresses of these, with recommendations, will be furnished on request. The plan of hiring a car to drive yourself has also gained favor in England; and most fortunately so, for driving one’s car in England is a delight which no one who can drive would willingly forego. (And here let me say that for one who really wants to become acquainted with any country, sitting in a back seat, without responsibilities as to the route, is a very poor way of doing it, compared with what he gets who either drives or minutely directs the driver.)

In writing the chapters of this little book, following certain journeys that may be taken in England, I am not presupposing that they will be motor journeys; for I know that the majority of travellers in England cover their principal distances by train, and motor out from and back to central — points. But I am following roads rather than railroads because (after much consideration of the best way to handle the matter I want to present) it seems the most serviceable arrangement.

I have tried, in planning, to make each journey include a variety of the interests that England holds: historic sites and natural beauty; cottage homes and castles; ruined abbeys and magnificent estates; glorious cathedrals and gardens all-abloom; quaint old inns, and typical modern pleasure resorts.

Bearing in mind that of six journeys outlined, besides

PREFACE XV those out of London, many travellers will be able, on their first visit to England in company with my little book, to make but two or three, I have endeavored to constitute each journey a cross-section of English history, English beauty, and English life.

Nature has been bountifully kind to most localities in England; romance has been spread over nearly every foot of English soil; man has wrought marvels of architecture and charmful cottages and lovely gardens and quaint, ‘story-book-y’ villages wherever he has found it expedient to live in England.

_ If any one were to ask me to name one or two possible journeys in England whose charms are so transcendent that they surpass all the rest, I couldn’t do it.

As a matter of fact, any traveller who makes (as all travellers must) two journeys between London and his debarkation and embarkation ports covers ground as full of interest as any he could find in England. This he will not realize if he whisks through on a boat-train; but, if he will take a little more time for that necessary transit, he may, with little more expense, see many things which will enrich him forever after.

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CONTENTS PART I

EN ROUTE FROM Ports oF ENTRY

. SOUTHAMPTON AND VICINITY . DovER oR FOLKESTONE, EN ROUTE TO LONDON . PLymMouTH TO LONDON

. From LiverPoot To LONDON

PART II AND Now YoOu’VE CoME To LONDON

. Your First Lonpon Day

. YOUR SEcoND Lonpon Day . Your THIRD Lonpon Day

. YouR FourtH Lonpon Day . YouR Firru Lonpon Day

. SunDays In LonDON

. THis AND THAT

PART III Two CrrcuLaR Tours out or LONDON

. WEST FROM LONDON TO THE WYE . NorTH FROM LONDON TO THE ENGLISH LAKES III.

SouTH FROM Keswick TO LONDON

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ILLUSTRATIONS

THE STRAND IN 1547: THE PROCESSION OF EDWARD VI on HIS WAY TO HIS CORONATION AT WESTMIN- STER Frontispiece

From an engraving after an ancient painting, reproduced in Charles Gordon’s Old Time Aldwych, Shep way, and Neighbourhood

SOUTHAMPTON 6 From a print published in 1790

Tue Deatu or NELSON 50 From a painting by J. M. W. Turner CHAUCER AT THE CourRT oF Epwarp III 78 From a painting by Ford Maddox Brown SEcTION OF THE BAYrEuxX TAPESTRY SHOWING A PART OF THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS 88 Tue NortH TOWER OF EXETER CATHEDRAL 110 From a print published in 1803 Ture BoyrHoop oF WALTER RALEIGH 116 From a painting by Sir John Everett Millais SouTtH PROSPECT OF THE CITY OF CHESTER 134 From an old print PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF SAINT Mary’s CuurcH, ALL- Sous, UNIVERSITY, AND QUEEN’S COLLEGES IN

OXFORD 182 From an old print

XX ILLUSTRATIONS

TRIAL OF QUEEN CATHERINE BEFORE Henry VIII 192

From a painting by Edwin Austin Abbey. Reproduced from a photogravure in Edwin Austin Abbey, R.A., by E. V. Lucas, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons

NORTHWEST VIEW OF WESTMINSTER HALL 198 From an old mezzotint after an eighteenth-century drawing

CHARLES OF ORLEANS IN THE TOWER OF LONDON 254

From an old manuscript in the British Museum. Reproduced from a color print in Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower’s The Tower of London

THE CHAPEL OF THE CHARTERHOUSE 296 From a painting by Hubert von Herkomer

Saint Pauu’s CATHEDRAL, WITH LoRD Mayor’s SHow

ON THE WATER 304

From a print published in 1804

REGENT’S PARK | 314 From ‘a print published in 1828

SAINT JAMES’S PALACE FROM THE NORTHWEST 332 From a print published in 1809

Tue Famity oF Str THomAsS MoRE 358 From a photogravure of Hans Holbein’s drawing in Gerald S. Davies’s Hans Holbein the Younger

Lincoun’s INN Hatt, CHAPEL, AND CHANCERY Court 384 From a print published in 1830

Tue Last Voracr or Henry Hupson 404 From a painting by John Collier

GLOUCESTER 426 — From a print published in 1793

ILLUSTRATIONS Tue DEATH OF CHATTERTON From a painting by Henry Wallis

Tue Dreatu or Amy RoBSART From a painting by William Frederick Yeames

Rasy CASTLE From a print published in 1791

Saint BotouipH’s CuurcH, Boston From a print published in 1795

Xxi

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I SOUTHAMPTON AND VICINITY

Mork travellers to and from England use Southampton than use any other English port; it is her principal gateway for her colonial subjects, the principal destination or point of call for trans-Atlantic ships, and several services ply between French Channel ports and Southampton.

How many of all these scores of thousands who pass through Southampton each year do so otherwise than by boat-trains to and from the docks, I have no means of knowing. But I am sure that a very great number of those who think of Southampton only as a transfer-place would be delighted, and richly rewarded, if they would make it a place of sojourn for several days after debarking or before sailing.

I have stopped as long as a week at a time in Southampton, making daily trips out to points of interest in the vicinity, without anywhere near coming to the end of the great attractions thereabouts, to say nothing of beginning on the lesser ones.

I do not vaunt Southampton itself as the pleasantest place in the world to spend a week. But it is the most convenient centre for a region extraordinarily rich in varied interests; and one can be very comfortable making headquarters there, and find at his disposal many means of conveyance to the places he wants to visit.

The traveller who can hire a motor for two full days can do very fair justice to this vicinity in three days. Those who use trains between points cannot make so inclusive a survey in that time, but can see a great deal in three days; and many of them would, I think, be well repaid for a week spent hereabouts.

Bearing in mind the strict limitations on the average traveller’s time abroad, I am outlining the chief possibilities of this locality in a three-day programme, with a suggestion here and there as to its extension by the more leisurely.

To approach Southampton without some sense of its natural eminence as a harbor is, I think, to miss a great thrill.

Here we are, drawing close to that ‘tight little island’ of Great Britain which has so marvellously received the world’s influences and the world’s products, and assimilated them, and — isolated though she is; unproductive of anything considerable that her people need for their barest sustenance — has made herself a World Power, the centre of an Empire the greatest ever known.

And this port by which we’re entering is probably the second, on all her coastline, through which those influences and products of the outside world began to flow.

I’m not ignoring the theory (probably uncontested, now) that the separation of Britain from the mainland of the Continent is a comparatively recent matter, dating back no farther than a few thousand years; previous to which there was no ‘English Channel’ to cross. But during all those centuries of English history which most interest us, she has been water-girt; and access to her has been none too easy, by reason of currents, winds, tides, and a coastline that cannot be said to invite landing in many places.

SOUTHAMPTON 5

Hilaire Belloc has written a book called ‘The Old Road’ in which I have found much which interprets and illumines travel in this part of England. And in this book he advances good arguments for the theory that Dover was the first English port, and Southampton the second.

‘Conscious human design,’ he thinks, ‘could hardly have improved the conditions afforded by the Wight’ for a great harbor. Behind the Isle of Wight lies ‘a vast sheltered sheet of water, in shape a tripod, one of the arms of which, five miles in length by nearly one in breadth, is absolutely landlocked and safe in all weathers, while the other two are so commonly smooth and so well provided with refuge as to form a kind of large harbor with subsidiary harbors attached. To this great refuge two entries are provided, each aided by a strong tide, each narrow enough to break the outer sea, but not so narrow as to present grave dangers to small craft.’

The landmark by day and beacon by night which guided early mariners toward this perfect harbor was Saint Catherine’s Point on the southernmost tip of the Isle of Wight.

If wind or tide drove a bark west of this point, it could round the Needles and in the shelter of that projection make for the Solent. But on an ordinary course from the mouth of the Seine, the mariner would steer to eastward when he saw Saint Catherine’s (visible some thirty miles or so from the south) and enter Southampton Water by Spithead.

About the earliest explorers who came hither and found this harbor, you probably don’t care a lot; and if you did care, I couldn’t help you — because my reading doesn’t often take me back of the Trojan War, or thereabouts. I’m hoping it may suffice you, as it does me, to wonder which of the Roman commanders first found this access. We know it wasn’t Julius Cesar (who landed in Kent), but it may have been Vespasian’s discovery, or it may have been a humbler Roman navigator who was buffeted out of his course to a Kentish landing (at or near Dover) and driven hither.

At any rate, Vespasian came here, and saw and conquered. And we may imagine his legion sailing across Spithead after he had subdued the Isle of Wight.

Those of us who love naval reviews (of which these waters have witnessed and still witness so many) may like to see a long succession of craft afloat here, from the galleys of Rome to the latest thing in battleships. Others of us will be content to see only a few: Coeur-de-Lion’s Crusaders setting forth to fight Saladin; Edward III’s army embarking for France to press his claim to the throne of his grandfather, on the battlefield of Crécy; and Henry V’s army en route to Agincourt, seventy years later, with the French throne all but won.

Most Americans, however, will scarce be able to see other ships than two: the Mayflower and the Speedwell; the latter sailing into Spithead, from Delfshaven, bringing those of the to-be Pilgrim Fathers who had survived twelve years of exile in Holland; and then, the two vessels (the Speedwell of sixty tons burden, and the Mayflower of a hundred and eighty tons) pointing their prows westward, on that August day of 1620, and disappearing from view in the Solent. One, at least, of the outward-bound must have strained his gaze landward for the last glimpse of familiar shore before passing through the Needles into the English Channel: John Alden, the young Southampton cooper who had been hired by the Pilgrims because they needed a man of his trade.

The old Saxon name of Alden’s birthplace was Hamtun, or ‘Home-town’; and when another place chose the same

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SOUTHAMPTON 7 name, this Hamtun (in 962) altered its appellation to — Suthamtun, or South-home-town.

The Saxon and Danish kings seem to have liked it well; in old charters it is designated as ‘the Royal town called Hamtun.’ Alfred the Great had shipyards here. Harold, the last of the pre-Norman kings, was lord of a manor at ‘Suthamtun.’ From Charlemagne’s day, if not earlier, it - has been the English end of a well-nigh constant communication with France.

If the ghosts of ships ride the winds and waves as the ghosts of men and women haunt castle chambers and halls, then this is indeed one of the most crowded harbors in the world.

But we shall be safely piloted through it; and if our course crosses that of a Roman galley, or one of King Alfred’s fleet, or seems to ram a Crusader’s ship or a Venetian vessel bringing silks and spices, we need not worry for the safety of those other voyagers, nor for our own.

And now we’ve come to those great docks which can accommodate the biggest ships afloat; and after a parley with the customs examiner (not so brief as it used to be, but still briefer than awaits us when we reach home), we are ready to locate ourselves in ‘Suthamtun.’

Those who like a large hotel and who expect to make several expeditions by train from Southampton will choose the South-Western Hotel, belonging to the railway (which also owns the great Southampton Docks, near by) and situated at the Town Station, opposite Queen’s Park and the Dock Gates. Those who prefer a smaller hotel, less expensive and more typically English, will probably seek the Dolphin in High Street, or the Royal Pier Hotel on the Town Quay.

For Southampton itself, a half-day’s stroll will suffice. Let us suppose that your explorations begin with High

_ Street which runs straight north from the Town Quay with its hotel and its amusement pier, and becomes the London Road as it reaches the city’s limits.

Just where High Street begins, back of the Town Quay, you'll find Winkle Street on your right (as you face north) and Porter’s Lane on your left. In the former is God’s House, a hospice or almshouse, in which four aged men and four aged women find ‘snug harbor’ before answering the clear call to cross the bar and put out to sea. Hospitality in God’s name has been extended here since the twelfth century, and I find the place a sweet one to visit. Some of my friends are made melancholy by the sight of old age, through with the stress of life, awaiting the Great Adventure. If you feel that way about it, omit Winkle Street, and note only the near-by gate in the old wall, called ‘God’s House Gate.’ Then enter Porter’s Lane to see the house called Canute’s, where he may or may not have lived, but where you may spend a few moments recalling him, because he was a picturesque and potent personality. He was only eighteen when his father’s death left him King of England — this sovereignty having been yielded to his father, the King of Denmark, but a month before, and having to be won again by young Canute, in many a battle.