Rural Rides Read online

  THROUGH THE SOUTH EAST OF HAMPSHIRE,

  BACK THROUGH THE SOUTH WEST OF SURREY, ALONG THE

  WEALD OF SURREY, AND THEN OVER THE SURREY HILLS

  DOWN TO THE WEN

  Botley (Hampshire) 5th August

  I got to Fareham on Saturday night, after having got a soaking on the South Downs on the morning of that day. On the Sunday morning, intending to go and spend the day at Titchfield (about three miles and a half from Fareham) and perceiving, upon looking out of the window, about 5 o’clock in the morning, that it was likely to rain, I got up, struck a bustle, got up the ostler, set off and got to my destined point before 7 o’clock in the morning. And here I experienced the benefits of early rising; for I had scarcely got well and safely under cover, when St Swithin began to pour down again, and he continued to pour during the whole of the day. From Fareham to Titchfield village a large part of the ground is a common enclosed some years ago. It is therefore amongst the worst of the land in the country. Yet, I did not see a bad field of corn along here, and the Swedish turnips were, I think, full as fine as any that I saw upon the South Downs. But it is to be observed that this land is in the hands of dead-weight people, and is conveniently situated for the receiving of manure from Portsmouth. Before I got to my friend’s house, I passed by a farm where I expected to find a wheat-rick standing. I did not, however; and this is the strongest possible proof that the stock of corn is gone out of the hands of the fanners. I set out from Tichfield at 7 o’clock in the evening, and had seven miles to go to reach BOTLEY. It rained, but I got myself well furnished forth as a defence against the rain. I had not gone two hundred yards before the rain ceased; so that I was singularly fortunate as to rain this day; and I had now to congratulate myself on the success of the remedy for the hooping-cough which I used the day before on the South Downs; for, really, though I had a spell or two of coughing on Saturday morning when I set out from Petworth, I have not had, up to this hour, any spell at all since I got wet upon the South Downs. I got to Botley about nine o’clock, having stopped two or three times to look about me as I went along; for, I had, in the first place, to ride, for about three miles of my road, upon a turnpike-road of which I was the projector, and, indeed, the maker. In the next place I had to ride, for something better than half a mile of my way, along between fields and coppices that were mine until they came into the hands of the mortgagee, and by the side of cottages of my own building. The only matter of much interest with me was the state of the inhabitants of those cottages. I stopped at two or three places, and made some little enquiries; I rode up to two or three houses in the village of Bodey, which I had to pass through, and, just before it was dark, I got to a farm-house, close by the Church, and what was more, not a great many yards from the dwelling of that delectable creature, the Bodey Parson, whom, however, I have not seen during my stay at this place.1

  Bodey lies in a valley, the soil of which is a deep and stiff clay. Oak trees grow well; and this year the wheat grows well, as it does upon all the clays mat I have seen. I have never seen the wheat better in general, in this part of the country, than it is now. I have, I drink, seen it heavier; but never clearer from blight. It is backward compared to the wheat in many other parts; some of it is quite green; but none of it has any appearance of blight. This is not much of a barley country. The oats are good. The beans, that I have seen, very indifferent.

  The best news that I have learnt here is, that the Bodey parson is become quite a gende creature, compared to what he used to be. The people in the village have told me some most ridiculous stories about his having been hoaxed in London! It seems that somebody danced him up from Bodey to London, by telling him that a legacy had been left him, or some such story. Up went the parson on horseback, being in too great a hurry to run the risk of coach. The hoaxers, it appears, got him to some hotel, and there set upon him a whole tribe of applicants: wet-nurses, dry-nurses, lawyers with deeds of conveyance for borrowed money, curates in want of churches, coffin-makers, travelling companions, ladies’ maids, dealers in Yorkshire hams, Newcasde coals, and dealers in dried night-soil at Islington. In short, if I am righdy informed, they kept the parson in town for several days, bothered him three parts out of his senses, compelled him to escape, as it were, from a fire; and then, when he got home, he found the village posted all over with handbills giving an account of his adventure, under the pretence of offering 500l. reward, for a discovery of the hoaxers! The good of it was the parson ascribed his disgrace to me, and they say that he perseveres to this hour in accusing me of it. Upon my word, I had nothing to do with the matter, and this affair only shows that I am not the only friend that the Parson has in the world. Though this may have had a tendency to produce in the Parson that amelioration of deportment which is said to become him so well, there is something else that has taken place, which has, in all probability, had a more powerful influence in this way; namely, a great reduction in the value of the Parson’s living, which was at one time little short of five hundred pounds a year, and which, I believe, is now not the half of that sum! This, to be sure, is not only a natural but a necessary consequence of the change in the value of money. The parsons are neither more nor less than another sort of landlords. They must fall, of course, in their demands, or their demands will not be paid. They may take in kind, but that will answer them no purpose at all. They will be less people than they have been, and will continue to grow less and less, until the day when the whole of the tithes and other Church property, as it is called, shall be applied to public purposes.

  Boston (Hampshire), Wednesday Evening, 6th August

  This village of Easton lies at a few miles towards the north-east from Winchester. It is distant from Botley by the way which I came about fifteen or sixteen miles. I came through Durley, where I went to the house of fanner Mears. I was very much pleased with what I saw at Durley, which is about two miles from Botley, and is certainly one of the most obscure villages in this whole kingdom. Mrs Mears, the farmer’s wife, had made, of the crested dog’s tail grass, a bonnet which she wears herself. I there saw girls platting the straw. They had made plat of several degrees of fineness; and, they sell it to some person or persons at Fareham, who, I suppose, makes it into bonnets. Mrs Mears, who is a very intelligent and clever woman, has two girls at work, each of whom earns per week as much (within a shilling) as her father, who is a labouring man, earns per week. The father has at this time, only 7s. per week. These two girls (and not very stout girls) earn six shillings a week each: thus the income of this family is, from seven shillings a week, raised to nineteen shillings a week. I shall suppose that this may in some measure be owing to the generosity of ladies in the neighbourhood and to their desire to promote this domestic manufacture; but, if I suppose that these girls receive double compared to what they will receive for the same quantity of labour when the manufacture becomes more general, is it not a great thing to make the income of the family thirteen shillings a week instead of seven? Very little, indeed, could these poor things have done in the field during the last forty days. And, besides, how clean; how healthful; how every thing that one could wish, is this sort of employment! The farmer, who is also a very intelligent person, told me, that he should endeavour to introduce the manufacture as a thing to assist the obtaining of employment, in order to lessen the amount of the poor-rates. I think it very likely that this will be done in the parish of Durley. A most important matter it is, to put paupers in the way of ceasing to be paupers. I could not help admiring the zeal as well as the intelligence of the farmer’s wife, who expressed her readiness to teach the girls and women of the parish, in order to enable them to assist themselves. I shall hear, in all probability of their proceedings at Durley, and if I do, I shall make a point of communicating to the Public an account of those interesting proceedings. From the very first; from the first moment of my thinking about this straw affair, I regarded it as likely to assist in bettering the lot of the labouring people. If it has not this effect, I value it not
. It is not worth the attention of any of us; but I am satisfied that this is the way in which it will work. I have the pleasure to know, that there is one labouring family, at any rate, who are living well through my means. It is I, who, without knowing them, without ever having seen them, without even now knowing their names, have given the means of good living to a family who were before half-starved. This is indisputably my work; and when I reflect that there must necessarily be, now, some hundreds of families, and shortly, many thousands of families, in England, who are and will be, through my means, living well instead of being half-starved; I cannot but feel myself consoled; I cannot but feel that I have some compensation for the sentence passed upon me by Ellenborough, Grose, Le Blanc and Bailey;2 and I verily believe, that, in the case of this one single family in the parish of Durley, I have done more good than Bailey ever did in the whole course of his life, notwithstanding his pious Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer. I will allow nothing to be good, with regard to the labouring classes, unless it make an addition to their victuals, drink, or clothing. As to their minds, that is much too sublime matter for me to think about. I know that they are in rags, and that they have not a belly-full; and I know that the way to make them good, to make them honest, to make them dutiful, to make them kind to one another, is to enable them to live well; and I also know, that none of these things will ever be accomplished by Methodist sermons,3 and by those stupid, at once stupid and malignant things, and roguish things, called Religious Tracts.

  It seems that this farmer at Durley has always read the Register, since the first appearance of little two-penny trash.4 Had it not been for this reading, Mrs Mears would not have thought about the grass; and had she not thought about the grass, none of the benefits above mentioned would have arisen to her neighbours. The difference between this affair and the spinning-jenny affairs is this; that the spinning-jenny affairs fill the pockets of ‘rich ruffians’, such as those who would have murdered me at Coventry;5 and that this straw affair makes an addition to the food and raiment of the labouring classes, and gives not a penny to be pocketed by the rich ruffians.

  From DURLEY I came on in company with fanner Mears through UPHAM. This UPHAM is the place where Young, who wrote that bombastical stuff, called ‘Night Thoughts’, was once the parson, and where, I believe, he was born. Away to the right of Upham, lies the little town of Bishop’s Waltham, whither I wished to go very much, but it was too late in the day. From Upham we came on upon the high land, called Black Down. This has nothing to do with that Black-down Hill, spoken of in my last ride. We are here getting up upon the chalk hills, which stretch away towards Winchester. The soil here is a poor blackish stuff, with little white stones in it, upon a bed of chalk. It was a Down, not many years ago. The madness and greediness of the days of paper-money led to the breaking of it up. The corn upon it is miserable; but, as good as can be expected upon such land.

  At the end of this tract, we come to a spot called Whiteflood, and here we cross the old turnpike-road which leads from Winchester to Gosport through Bishop’s Waltham. Whiteflood is at the foot of the first of a series of hills over which you come to get to the top of that lofty ridge called Morning Hill. The farmer came to the top of the first hill along with me; and he was just about to turn back, when I, looking away to the left, down a valley which stretched across the other side of the Down, observed a rather singular appearance, and said to the farmer, ‘What is that coming up that valley? is it smoke, or is it a cloud?’ The day had been very fine hitherto; the sun was shining very bright where we were. The farmer answered, ‘Oh, it’s smoke; it comes from Ouselberry, which is down in that bottom behind those trees.’ So saying, we bid each other good day; he went back, and I went on. Before I had got a hundred and fifty yards from him, the cloud which he had taken for the Ouselberry smoke, came upon the hill and wet me to the skin. He was not far from the house at Whiteflood; but I am sure that he could not entirely escape it. It is curious to observe how the clouds sail about in the hilly countries, and particularly, I think, amongst the chalk-hills. I have never observed the like amongst the sand-hills, or amongst rocks.

  From Whiteflood you come over a series of hills, part of which form a rabbit-warren, called Longwood warren, on the borders of which is the house and estate of Lord Northesk. These hills are amongst the most barren of the Downs of England; yet a part of diem was broken up during the rage for improvements; during the rage for what empty men think was an augmenting of the capital of the country. On about twenty acres of this land, sown with wheat, I should not suppose that there would be twice twenty bushels of grain! A man must be mad, or nearly mad, to sow wheat upon such a spot. However, a large part of what was inclosed has been thrown out again already, and the rest will be thrown out in a very few years. The Down itself was poor; what then must it be as corn-land! Think of the destruction which has here taken place. The herbage was not good, but it was something: it was something for every year, and without trouble. Instead of grass it will now, for twenty years to come, bear nothing but that species of weeds which is hardy enough to grow where the grass will not grow. And this was augmenting the capital of the nation. These new enclosure-bills were boasted of by George Rose and by Pitt as proofs of national prosperity! When men in power are ignorant to this extent, who is to expect any thing but consequences such as we now behold?

  From the top of this high land called Morning hill, and the real name of which is Magdalen hill, from a chapel which once stood there dedicated to Mary Magdalen; from the top of this land you have a view of a circle which is upon an average about seventy miles in diameters and I believe in no one place so little as fifty miles in diameter. You see the Isle of Wight in one direction, and in the opposite direction you see the high lands in Berkshire. It is not a pleasant view, however. The fertile spots are all too far from you. Descending from this hill, you cross the turnpike-road (about two miles from Winchester), leading from Winchester to London through Alresford and Farnham. As soon as you cross the road, you enter the estate of the descendant of Rollo, Duke of Buckingham, which estate is in the parish of Avington. In this place the Duke has a farm, not very good land. It is in his own hands. The corn is indifferent, except the barley, which is every where good. You come a full mile from the roadside down through this farm to the Duke’s mansion-house at Avington and to the little village of that name, both of them beautifully situated, amidst fine and lofty trees, fine meadows, and streams of clear water. On this farm of the Duke I saw (in a little close by the farm-house), several hens in coops with broods of pheasants instead of chickens. It seems that a gamekeeper lives in the farm-house, and I dare say the Duke thinks much more of the pheasants than of the corn. To be very solicitous to preserve what has been raised with so much care and at so much expense, is by no means unnatural; but then, there is a measure to be observed here; and that measure was certainly outstretched in the case of Mr Deller. I here saw, at this gamekeeping farm-house, what I had not seen since my departure from the Wen; namely, A WHEAT RICK! Hard, indeed, would it have been if a Plantagenet,6 turned fanner, had not a wheat-rick in his hands. This rick contains, I should think, what they call in Hampshire ten loads of wheat, that is to say, fifty quarters, or four hundred bushels. And this is the only rick, not only of wheat, but of any corn whatever that I have seen since I left London. The turnips, upon this farm, are by no means good; but, I was in some measure compensated for the bad turnips by the sight of the Duke’s turnip-hoers, about a dozen females, amongst whom there were several very pretty girls, and they were as merry as larks. There had been a shower that had brought them into a sort of huddle on the roadside. When I came up to them, they all fixed their eyes upon me, and, upon my smiling, they bursted out into laughter. I observed to them that the Duke of Buckingham was a very happy man to have such turnip-hoers, and really they seemed happier and better off than any work-people that I saw in the fields all the way from London to this spot. It is curious enough, but I have always observed, that the women al
ong this part of the country are usually tall. These girls were all tall, straight, fair, round-faced, excellent complexion, and uncommonly gay. They were well dressed, too, and I observed the same of all the men that I saw down at Avington. This could not be the case if the Duke were a cruel or hard master; and this is an act of justice due from me to the descendant of Rollo. It is in the house of Mr Deller that I make these notes, but, as it is injustice that we dislike, I must do Rollo justice; and I must again say, that the good looks and happy faces of his turnip-hoers spoke much more in his praise than could have been spoken by fifty lawyers, like that Storks who was employed, the other day, to plead against the Editor of the BUCKS CHRONICLE, for publishing an account of the selling-up of farmer Smidi, of Ashendon, in that county. I came through the Duke’s Park to come to Easton, which is the next village below Avington. A very pretty park. The house is quite in the bottom; it can be seen in no direction from a distance greater than that of four or five hundred yards. The river Itchen, which rises near Alresford, which runs down through Winchester to Southampton, goes down the middle of this valley, and waters all its immense quantity of meadows. The Duke’s house stands not far from the river itself. A stream of water is brought from the river to feed a pond before the house. There are several avenues of trees which are very beautiful, and some of which give complete shelter to the kitchen garden, which has, besides, extraordinarily high walls. Never was a greater contrast than that presented by this place and the place of Lord Egremont. The latter is all loftiness. Every thing is high about it; it has extensive views in all directions. It sees and can be seen by all the country around. If I had the ousting of one of these noblemen, I certainly, however, would oust the Duke, who, I dare say, will by no means be desirous of seeing arise the occasion of putting the sincerity of the compliment to the test. The village of Easton is, like that of Avington, close by the waterside. The meadows are the attraction; and, indeed, it is the meadows that have caused the villages to exist.