Rural Rides Read online

  The same person (a very civil and intelligent man) that showed me the nursery, took me, in my way, back, through some plantations of oaks, which have been made amongst fir-trees. It was, indeed, a plantation of Scotch firs, about twelve years old, in rows, at six feet apart. Every third row of firs was left, and oaks were (about six years ago) planted instead of the firs that were grubbed up; and the winter shelter, that the oaks have received from the remaining firs, has made them grow very finely, though the land is poor. Other oaks planted in the open, twenty years ago, and in land deemed better, are not nearly so good. However, these oaks, between the firs, will take fifty or sixty good years to make them timber and, until they be timber, they are of very little use; whereas, the same ground, planted with Locusts (and the hares of ‘my lords’ kept down), would, at this moment, have been worth fifty pounds an acre. What do ‘my lords’ care about this? For them, for ‘my lords’, the New Forest would be no better than it is now; no, nor so good, as it is now; for there would be no hares for them.

  From NEW PARK, I was bound to BEAULIEU ABBEY, and I ought to have gone in a south-easterly direction, instead of going back to Lyndhurst, which lay in precisely the opposite direction. My guide through the plantations was not apprised of my intended route, and, therefore, did not instruct me. Just before we parted, he asked me my name: I thought it was lucky that he had not asked it before! When we got nearly back to Lyndhurst, we found that we had come three miles out of our way; indeed, it made six miles altogether; for, we were, when we got to Lyndhurst, three miles further from Beaulieu Abbey than we were when we were at New Park. We wanted, very much, to go to the site of this ancient and famous Abbey, of which the people of the New Forest seemed to know very little. They call the place Bewley, and even in the maps, it is called Bauley. Ley, in the Saxon language, means place, or rather, open place; so that they put ley in place of lieu, thus beating the Normans out of some part of the name at any rate. I wished besides, to see a good deal of this New Forest. I had been, before, from Southampton to Lyndhurst, from Lyndhurst to Lymington, from Lymington, to Sway. I had now come in on the north of Minstead from Romsey, so that I had seen the north of the Forest and all the west side of it, down to the sea. I had now been to New Park and had got back to Lyndhurst; so that, if I rode across the Forest down to Beaulieu, I went right across the middle of it, from north-west to south-east. Then if I turned towards Southampton, and went to Dipten and on to Ealing, I should see, in fact, the whole of this Forest, or nearly the whole of it.

  We therefore started, or, rather, turned away from Lyndhurst, as soon as we got back to it, and went about six miles over a heath, even worse than Bagshot-Heath; as barren as it is possible for land to be. A little before we came to the village of Beaulieu (which, observe, the people call Beuley), we went through a wood, chiefly of beech, and that beech seemingly destined to grow food for pigs, of which we saw, during this day, many, many thousands. I should think that we saw at least a hundred hogs to one deer. I stopped, at one time, and counted the hogs and pigs2 just round about me and they amounted to 140, all within 50 or 60 yards of my horse. After a very pleasant ride, on land without a stone in it, we came down to the Beaulieu river, the highest branch of which rises at the foot of a hill, about a mile and a half to the north-east of Lyndhurst. For a great part of the way down to Beaulieu it is a very insignificant stream. At last, however, augmented by springs from the different sand-hills, it becomes a little river, and has, on the sides of it, lands which were, formerly, very beautiful meadows. When it comes to the village of Beaulieu, it forms a large pond of a great many acres; and on the east side of this pond is the spot where this Abbey formerly stood, and where the external walls of which, or a large part of them, are now actually standing. We went down on the western side of the river. The Abbey stood, and the ruins stand, on the eastern side.

  Happening to meet a man, before I got into the village, I, pointing with my whip, across towards the Abbey, said to the man, ‘I suppose there is a bridge down here to get across to the Abbey.’ ‘That’s not the Abbey, Sir,’ says he: ‘the Abbey is about four miles further on.’ I was astonished to hear this; but he was very positive; said that some people called it the Abbey; but that the Abbey was further on; and was at a farm occupied by fanner John Biel. Having chapter and verse for it, as the saying is, I believed the man; and pushed on towards farmer John Biel’s, which I found, as he had told me, at the end of about four miles. When I got there (not having, observe, gone over the water to ascertain that the other was the spot where the Abbey stood), I really thought, at first, that this must have been the site of the Abbey of Beaulieu; because, the name meaning fine place, this was a thousand times finer place than that where the Abbey, as I afterwards found, really stood. After looking about it for some time, I was satisfied that it had not been an abbey; but the place is one of the finest that ever was seen in this world. It stands at about half a mile’s distance from the water’s edge at high-water mark, and at about the middle of the space along the coast, from Calshot castle to Lymington haven. It stands, of course, upon a rising ground; it has a gentle slope down to the water. To the right, you see Hurst castle, and that narrow passage called the Needles, I believe; and, to the left, you see Spithead, and all the ships that are sailing or lie any where opposite Portsmouth. The Isle of Wight is right before you, and you have in view, at one and the same time, the towns of Yarmouth, Newton, Cowes and Newport, with all the beautiful fields of the island, lying upon the side of a great bank before, and going up the ridge of hills in the middle of the island. Here are two little streams, nearly close to the ruin, which filled ponds for fresh water fish; while there was the Beaulieu river at about half a mile or three quarters of a mile to the left, to bring up the salt-water fish. The ruins consist of part of the walls of a building about 200 feet long and about 40 feet wide. It has been turned into a barn, in part, and the rest into cattle-sheds, cow-pens, and inclosures and walls to enclose a small yard. But, there is another ruin, which was a church or chapel, and which stands now very near to the farm house of Mr John Biel, who rents the farm of the Duchess of Buccleugh, who is now the owner of the abbey-lands and of the lands belonging to this place. The little church or chapel, of which I have just been speaking, appears to have been a very beautiful building. A part only of its walls are standing; but you see, by what remains of the arches, that it was finished in a manner the most elegant and expensive of the day in which it was built. Part of the outside of the building is now surrounded by the farmer’s garden; the interior is partly a pig-stye, and partly a goose-pen. Under that arch which had once seen so many rich men bow their heads, we entered into the goose-pen, which is by no means one of the nicest concerns in the world. Beyond the goose-pen was the pig-stye, and in it a hog, which, when fat, will weigh about 30 score, actually rubbing his shoulders against a little sort of column which had supported the font and its holy water. The farmer told us that there was a hole, which, indeed, we saw, going down into the wall, or rather, into the column where the font had stood. And he told us that many attempts had been made to bring water to fill that hole, but that it never had been done. Mr Biel was very civil to us. As far as related to us, he performed the office of hospitality, which was the main business of those who formerly inhabited the spot. He asked us to dine with him, which we declined, for want of time; but, being exceedingly hungry, we had some bread and cheese and some very good beer. The farmer told me that a great number of gendemen had come there to look at that place; but that he never could find out what the place had been, or what the place at Beuley had been. I told him that I would, when I got to London, give him an account of it; that I would write the account down, and send it down to him. He seemed surprised that I should make such a promise, and expressed his wish not to give me so much trouble. I told him not to say a word about the matter, for that his bread and cheese and beer were so good, that they deserved a full history to be written of the place where they had been eaten and drunk. God bless me
, Sir, no, no! I said, I will, upon my soul, farmer. I now left him, very grateful on our part for his hospitable reception, and he, I dare say, hardly being able to believe his own ears, at the generous promise that I had made him, which promise however, I am now about to fulfil. I told the farmer a little, upon the spot, to begin with. I told him that the name was all wrong: that it was not Beuley but Beaulieu; and that Beaulieu meant fine place; and I proved this to him in this manner. You know, said I, farmer, that when a girl has a sweet-heart, people call him her beau? Yes, said he, so they do. Very well. You know, also, that we say, sometimes, you shall have this in lieu of that; and that when we say lieu, we mean in place of that. Now the beau means fine, as applied to the young man, and the lieu means place; and thus it is, that the name of this place is Beaulieu, as it is so fine as you see it is. He seemed to be wonderfully pleased with the discovery, and we parted, I believe, with hearty good wishes on his part, and, I am sure, with very sincere thanks on my part.

  The Abbey of Beaulieu was founded in the year 1204, by King John, for thirty monks of the reformed Benedictine Order. It was dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary; it flourished until the year 1540, when it was suppressed, and the lands confiscated, in the reign of Henry VIII. Its revenues were, at that time, four hundred and twenty-eight pounds, six shillings and eight pence a year, making in money of the present day, upwards of eight thousand five hundred pounds a year. The lands and the abbey, and all belonging to it, were granted by the king, to one THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY, who was a court-pander of that day. From him it passed by sale, by will, by marriage or by something or another, till, at last, it has got, after passing through various hands, into the hands of the Duchess of Buccleugh. So much for the abbey; and, now, as for the ruins on the farm of Mr John Biel, they were the dwelling-place of Knights Templars, or Knights of St John of Jerusalem. The building they inhabited was called an Hospital, and their business was, to relieve travellers, strangers, and persons in distress; and, if called upon, to accompany the king in his wars to uphold Christianity. Their estate was also confiscated by Henry VIII. It was worth at the time of being confiscated, upwards of two thousand pounds a year, money of the present day. This establishment was founded a little before the Abbey of Beaulieu was founded; and it was this foundation and not the other, that gave the name of Beaulieu to both establishments. The abbey is not situated in a very fine place. The situation is low; the lands above it rather a swamp than otherwise; pretty enough, altogether; but, by no means a fine place. The Templars had all the reason in the world to give the name of Beaulieu to their place. And it is by no means surprising, that the monks were willing to apply it to their abbey.

  Now, farmer John Biel, I dare say, that you are a very good Protestant; and I am a monstrous good Protestant too. We cannot bear the Pope, nor ‘they there priests that makes men confess their sins and go down upon their marrow-bones before them’. But, master Biel, let us give the devil his due; and, let us not act worse by those Roman Catholics (who by-the-bye, were our forefathers) than we are willing to act by the devil himself. Now then, here were a set of monks, and also, a set of Knights Templars. Neither of them could marry; of course, neither of them could have wives and families. They could possess no private property; they could bequeath nothing; they could own nothing; but that which they owned in common with the rest of their body. They could hoard no money; they could save nothing. Whatever they received, as rent for their lands, they must necessarily spend upon the spot, for, they never could quit that spot. They did spend it all upon the spot: they kept all the poor; Beuley, and all round about Beuley, saw no misery, and had never heard the damned name of pauper pronounced, as long as those monks and Templars continued! You and I are excellent Protestants, farmer John Biel; you and I have often assisted on the 5th of November to burn Guy Fawkes, the Pope and the Devil. But, you and I, farmer John Biel, would much rather be life holders under monks and Templars, than rack-renters under duchesses. The monks and the knights were the lords of their manors; but, the farmers under them were not rack-renters; the farmers under them held by lease of lives, continued in the same farm from father to son for hundreds of years; they were real yeomen, and not miserable rack-renters, such as now till the land of this once happy country, and who are little better than the drivers of the labourers, for the profit of the landlords. Farmer John Biel, what the Duchess of Buccleugh does, you know, and I do not. She may, for any thing that I know to the contrary, leave her farms on lease of lives, with rent so very moderate and easy, as for the farm to be half as good as the farmer’s own, at any rate. The Duchess may, for any thing that I know to the contrary, feed all the hungry, clothe all the naked, comfort all the sick, and prevent the hated name of pauper from being pronounced in the district of Beuley; her Grace may, for any thing that I know to the contrary, make poor-rates to be wholly unnecessary and unknown in your country; she may receive, lodge, and feed, the stranger; she may, in short, employ the rents of this fine estate of Beuley, to make the whole district happy; she may not carry a farthing of the rents away from the spot; and she may consume, by herself, and her own family and servants, only just as much as is necessary to the preservation of their life and health. Her Grace may do all this; I do not say or insinuate that she does not do it all; but, Protestant here or Protestant there, farmer John Biel, this I do say, that unless her Grace do all this, the monks and the Templars, were better for Beuley than her Grace.

  From the former station of the Templars, from real Beaulieu of the New Forest, we came back to the village of Beaulieu, and there crossed the water to come on towards Southampton. Here we passed close along under the old abbey-walls, a great part of which are still standing. There is a mill here which appears to be turned by the fresh water, but the fresh water falls, here, into the salt water, as at the village of Botley. We did not stop to go about the ruins of the abbey; for you seldom make much out by minute inquiry. It is the political history of these places; or, at least, their connexion with political events, that is interesting. Just about the banks of this little river, there are some woods and coppices, and some corn-land; but, at the distance of half a mile from the waterside, we came out again upon the intolerable heath, and went on for seven or eight miles over that heath, from the village of Beaulieu to that of Marchwood. Having a list of trees and enclosed lands away to our right all the way along, which list of trees from the south-west side of that arm of the sea which goes from Chalshot castle to Redbridge, passing by Southampton, which lies on the north-east side. Never was a more barren tract of land than these seven or eight miles. We had come seven miles across the forest in another direction in the morning; so that a poorer spot than this New Forest, there is not in all England; nor, I believe, in the whole world. It is more barren and miserable than Bagshot heath. There are less fertile spots in it, in proportion to the extent of each. Still, it is so large, it is of such great extent, being, if moulded into a circle, not so little, I believe, as 60 or 70 miles in circumference, that it must contain some good spots of land, and, if properly and honestly managed, those spots must produce a prodigious quantity of timber. It is a pretty curious thing, that, while the admirers of the paper-system are boasting of our ‘waust improvements Ma’am’, there should have been such a visible and such an enormous dilapidation in all the solid things of the country. I have, in former parts of this ride, stated, that, in some counties, while the parsons have been pocketing the amount of the tithes and of the glebe, they have suffered the parsonage-houses either to fall down and to be lost, brick by brick, and stone by stone, or, to become such miserable places as to be unfit for any thing bearing the name of a gentleman to live in; I have stated, and I am at any time ready to prove, that, in some counties, this is the case in more than one half of the parishes! And, now, amidst all these ‘waust improvements’, let us see how the account of timber stands in the New Forest! In the year 1608, a survey of the timber, in the New Forest, was made, when there were loads of oak timber fit for the navy, three hundred
and fifteen thousand, four hundred and seventy-seven. Mark that, reader. Another survey was taken in the year 1783; that is to say, in the glorious Jubilee reign. And, when there were, in this same New Forest, loads of oak timber fit for the navy, twenty thousand eight hundred and thirty ‘Waust improvements, Ma’am’, under ‘the pilot that weathered the storm’, and in the reign of Jubilee! What the devil, some one would say, could have become of all this timber? Does the reader observe, that there were three hundred and fifteen thousand, four hundred and seventy-seven loads? and does he observe that a load is fifty-two cubicfeet? Does the reader know what is the price of this load of timber? I suppose it is now, taking in lop, top and bark, and bought upon the spot, (timber fit for the navy, mind!) ten pounds a load at the least. But, let us suppose, that it has been, upon an average, since the year 1608, just the time that the Stuarts were mounting the throne; let us suppose, that it has been, on an average, four pounds a load. Here is a pretty tough sum of money. This must have gone into the pockets of somebody. At any rate, if we had the same quantity of timber now, that we had when the Protestant Reformation took place, or even when Old Betsy turned up her toes, we should be now three millions of money richer than we are; not in bills; not in notes payable to bearer on demand; not in Scotch cash credits; not, in short, in lies, falseness, impudence, downright blackguard cheatery and mining shares and ‘Greek cause’ and the devil knows what.