BROCKENHURST AND THE MOORLAND
Instead of beginning with Lyndhurst in the middle of the Forest, as most Forest books do, and branching out thence like a starfish, it has seemed good to me to take first Brockenhurst, not only because at its big junction many travellers arrive, but because in its infinite variety it shows more of the characteristic features of the land. There is the open Forest stretching away, with its wide views and its silver border of sea, with its marshy hollows and crested heights; there is the Boldre—Byldwr, or full stream—gliding through meadow and thicket till it becomes the broad Lymington River and meets the tide between the marshes; there are the deep green woods of the manor climbing up from the riverside to meet other woods at Ladycross, or opening out on the uplands at Heathy Dilton; and, lastly, the village is still full of interest and old-world corners, though, alas! threatened with development into villadom at the Rise and beyond.
IN BROCKENHURST VILLAGE
Hard by the station, on a bare plot of ground, once a small village green, stands the smithy at the meeting
of the ways. It bears date 1540, and from the reign of Henry VIII till that of Edward VII a Masters shod the horses of travellers at this spot; now it has passed into other hands. Just beyond the forge a low-browed workshop and thatched cottage used to stand a little back from the road, where Mr. Pope and his forebears for many generations—one may say for many centuries—practised a unique industry, the making of hobby horses, for which the district has been famed time out of mind. The little old premises with precious store of wood were burnt in a disastrous fire one Christmas night; but the old business is still carried on, though in new quarters, and still the traveller may see in the station yard piles upon piles of these conventional steeds of exactly the same pattern, beloved of our ancestors in their childhood, straight-bodied, straight-legged, standing on four little wheels, so as to be dragged along by a string, each adorned with a narrow strip of fur nailed along his neck to represent a mane, and brightened with daubs of red or blue paint, laid on with just the traditional touch. They go forth in their hundreds—north, south, east, and west—to find a market; so the children must love them still, and have not grown too sophisticated to find joy in their crude suggestion.
As we go up the village we note, with a sigh, how fast new shops are ousting old thatched cottages,
and new names replacing the old, though still one, Purkess, said to be the lineal descendant of the charcoal burner who conveyed the body of the slain king to Winchester, carries on a long-established grocery business.
Brockenhurst is hardly so much one village as a bundle of hamlets loosely tied together, rejoicing in such names as Shark’s Island, Gulliver’s Town, or the Weirs. Even the parish church is not in the village, but stands alone on a knoll at the edge of the park, nearly a mile away; but then it has only of late years been made a parish church, having existed anciently as a chantry chapel, probably a timber or wattled structure. Portions of the present building, the nave and the beautiful south door, date from the twelfth century. The Early English chancel is a later addition, and very much later is the north aisle with its prim Georgian windows. It is thought the dedication to St. Peter was made either when it was rebuilt in stone or when the chancel was added. About the end of the eleventh century it was placed under the charge of the vicar of Boldre, and after the Reformation it remained attached to Boldre as a chapel-of-ease, served by the same vicar until 1866, when it was made into a separate ecclesiastical parish, the advowson being sold by John Peyto Shrubb to John Morant of Brockenhurst Park.
Though regrettable modern patchwork has marred the simple beauty of its lines as approached from the village, yet, seen from the shady lane on the other side, the little church is still delightful, seeming to crouch down into its crowded graveyard with its high-shouldered gables and its quaint steeple, surmounted by the traditional weathercock. By the gate stands an historic yew, and another hollow trunk is carefully shored up, showing scarce a sign of life amidst its shrouding ivy. Big trees stand round, and about the grassy margins of the lane the little rabbits nibble, scurrying away at the approach of the early worshipper.
The road follows the park paling, and at one point a double avenue gives a fine view of the house, much of which was rebuilt in Georgian style in the early part of the last century. Though stately, the front is far less picturesque than the older portion facing the gardens. These are a marvel of topiary art, with pleached alleys, arches, and columns, not of yew merely, but of the far less tractable hornbeam.
That Brockenhurst Manor, or the nucleus of it, existed before the afforestation is attested by an entry in “Domesday Book”: “The same Alvic holds a hide in Broceste. His father and uncle held it in parage. It was then assessed at one hide, now at half a hide. There is land for one plough.... There is a church and wood worth twenty swine.”
This mention of the church raises an interesting point. Recent writers have referred it to Brockenhurst church, but since Boldre, of equal antiquity, stands contiguous to the Manor of Brockenhurst—the Broceste of “Domesday”—and was for centuries the parish church of Brockenhurst as well as of Boldre Bridge, Pilley Street and Pilley Bailey, East End, East Boldre, Lymington, and Sway, it is more likely this is the one specified, whereas that at Brockenhurst was merely a chantry attached to Boldre. In Dugdale’s Monasticon, vi. 304, is this entry: “Richard de Redvers, who died in 1107, confirmed to the Priory of Christchurch, Twyneham, the church of Boldre with the chapel of Brockenhurst. This confirmation was repeated by his son, Baldwin, Earl of Devon, and by Henry (de Blois) Bishop of Winchester.” In 1291, by which time a vicarage had been ordained, the church of Boldre with a chapel was assessed at £21, 6s. 8d., a pension to the Priory being chargeable as compensation for tithes. The extent of the parish is suggested by the saying that the blue lungwort with red buds, called by the country folk “Joseph and Mary”, is found only in Boldre parish. Rare elsewhere, it grows freely in the south of the Forest, most of which was comprised in that parish.
SQUATTER’S COTTAGE
Beyond Brockenhurst Park the wide moor stretches southward to Shirley Holms, westward till it merges
in the high plateau of Sway Common and meets the crest of Setthorns. North and east, Hinchelsey Moor slopes down to the bogs that fringe the Weirs. The name of this straggling line of squatters’ dwellings has caused much speculation, since of weir there is no trace, nor any water beyond ditch and bogland. Some have been driven to the supposition of a wire fence dividing manor and forest, but the name is old, and wire fencing is not. Possibly the derivation from Wer, A.S., shelter or defence (German, Wehr), may apply to refuge sought by outlaw squatters. The New Century Dictionary gives also “dikes”, and as ditches abound on both sides, this seems the most likely. Old inhabitants say that before the digging of these ditches the district was so marshy, so haunted, not by fever and ague only, but by will-o’-the-wisp and colt-pixy, that it got called “the Weird”, subsequently corrupted into Weirs (pronounced “wires”).
Shorn of much of its beauty by the disastrous burning of 1908, the great moor has still the charm of space, of long lines of distance only hemmed in by the blue hills above the Needles, and of an infinite play of colour. The average lover of the picturesque fancies a moor is brown all over alike. Let him stand here on the height and try to count the hues. The glory of the furze will take some time yet to recover,
but already the ground gorse creeps about with trickles of pale gold, and the heather spreads a rich crimson mantle over the blackness, the true purple of kings. Later comes the silvery bloom of the ling. The grass alone, poor and sparse as it is, has a gamut of tints, through dull green and hay colour to ash grey, and in the wet places are streaks of vivid emerald. The short growth of bracken that clothes every rise is amber and bronze and russet, and in the rain quite red. In the hollows spring bog-myrtle and sun-dew, sheets of cotton-grass lie like shining pools, and in certain favoured spots lurk the buckbean and shy blue gentian.
No fear of losing the way on this stretch of forest, for from every side may be seen the lofty, slender shaft of Arnewood Tower, looking like a watch tower, and known in the country round as “Petersen’s Folly”. Popular legend connects it with the Swedenborgian tenets held by Mr. Petersen, and various tales are told to account for its building. It is said he intended it to bear an ever-burning light, but the Board of Trade forbade this lest it might throw ships out in their reckoning, so it stands forlorn and purposeless, useful only as a beacon to wayfarers by land.
Leaving the high moor on the eastern side, a rough forest track descends through dense pinewoods, haunt of squirrel and woodpecker. In winter, sheltered from
the wind that sweeps above, there is a hushed stillness; but so soon as the spring sunshine has called the little red, furry folk from their beds, one hears a continual light patter of pine cones dropped between the needles, and earlier than the cuckoo’s call echoes the strident laughter of the yaffle. There is a singular feature about this wood: composed for the most part of young, ugly, and too thickly planted trees in rows painfully straight, in the midst occur rings of fine old pines irregularly planted and surrounded by a bank, their lofty wide-spreading tops rising above the rest of the wood and forming what is locally known as a “hat”. About them the bracken rises breast high, its tender green catching blue lights in summer, no less lovely when winter rains have reddened its rust colour to match with the red tree trunks.
At the foot of the hill by the river stands a gabled house, a short alley of cypress and Irish yew leading to its deep porch. This is Roydon, by some spelt “Royden”, and interpreted as “the rough ground”; but seeing that its green pastures by the river are less rough than most parts, the sense Roi don, “the king’s gift”, is to be preferred. For it was granted by Henry III to Netley Abbey, and, reverting to the Crown at the Dissolution, was bestowed upon John Cook, a “friend” of Cromwell, probably as compensation for some subservient act of surrender. At his
death, in 1587, it was acquired by the Knapton family, who held the Manor of Broceste from 1582 to 1700. In 1771 it was bought by Mr. Edward Morant, and re-united to the Brockenhurst property. In one of the older rooms a stone is let into the wall bearing the initials W. H., G. N., and E. D., and the date 1692. A piece of embroidery is still preserved in the family signed “Anna Knapton, Roydon Manor, 1685”. For a quarter of a century the house was in the occupation of Mr. Hooker, appropriately named Sylvester, and in his time its pleasant rooms received many guests, notably that delightful writer, Mr. W. H. Hudson, who immortalized it in his Hampshire Days. Since then the alley, not pleasing modern taste, has been reduced to six decapitated stumps.
Along the stream lie fields lush with meadowsweet and purple loose-strife, and the upper reaches are the haunt of the otter. Another small, wild animal may sometimes be met with on the uplands between Roydon and the moor. Not long ago I spied, scudding away at a rapid trot, what looked like a queer little grey dog with almost no ears and a bald head, by which last I recognized the shy badger.
BOLDRE BRIDGE
The other side the river Boldre church stands on a hill, wrapped about in woodland solitude, far from all its many villages. About a mile beyond, on Vicar’s
Hill, lies the pleasant vicarage, in which a century ago Mr. Gilpin passed his placid days and wrote his Picturesque Scenery of the New Forest. He was something of a dilettante, and modern readers may now and then smile at his rigid canons of Taste—as it was understood in the eighteenth century. He is very severe upon the beech tree, and one cannot help suspecting that it annoyed him by refusing to blend with his style of sylvan landscape. But he loved the often-unappreciated country along the shore, and for this may be forgiven much. In the garden still stands the mighty plane tree which he reckoned the oldest in England.
Of his Charity School in the little cottage where the daffodils grow, between Boldre Bridge and Pilley Street, nothing survives but the name—Gilpin’s Cottage—to keep his memory green. Not long before his death he indited a quaint little pamphlet, recording his wishes for its management. It deserves to be preserved for its sound good sense, though, to be sure, its provisions seem a little out-of-date to-day. Only the three R’s are contemplated, and of arithmetic the first four rules alone were to be taught to the boys, while for the girls neither sums nor writing were held needful; reading, with needlework and housewifery, were enough for a woman. Clothes as well as learning were supplied. To our
modern notions one pair of stockings a year for each child seems a meagre allowance, till we recollect that shoes and stockings would only be worn on Sunday.
In his time the Foresters seem to have been a lawless race, and their lives rough and hard; but nowadays one happy feature of life in the Forest is the comparative prosperity of its poor. Many own their cottages, being descended from squatters, and to most of the older dwellings are attached Forest rights, comprising from one to ten loads of fuel, either peat or firewood, liberty to turn out cattle or ponies for a nominal fee, geese or donkeys free, and “pannage” for pigs—that is, leave to browse in the enclosures in the season of acorn and beechmast. These advantages are known as “chimney rights”, and are closely connected with the hearthstone. In old days, when lawless or landless men often sought refuge in the Forest, a custom grew up that an encroacher who already had a roof on and a fire burning on his hearth could no longer be dispossessed; so often a hovel of sods, heather-thatched, was put up in a night and the claim established. Straggling hamlets of this kind sprang up usually on the border of a manor, as at the Weirs, at Beaulieu Rails (properly Royal, being Crown land), and at Hilltop. Now solid cottages in most cases replace the hovels, and some have got into the hands of the jerrybuilder,
with lamentable results. The almost complete disappearance of the heather thatch is much to be regretted: it makes a splendid roofing, as impervious to heat and cold as straw, and its rich brown colour tones in wonderfully with the moorland landscape, especially when wet with winter fog and rain.
I have heard the Forester criticized as “independent”. Why should he not be? He works when he needs, often for himself, and there is a dignity about him, and a determination to stand upon his ancient rights; he would rather give than take, and he would be affronted if you offered payment for his little gifts of sloes, of honey, or of “musharoons”. The special forest industries are disappearing; the last charcoal burner’s hut is really only preserved as a curiosity. You rarely see the gipsies platting mats or baskets, though there is an old man who still goes round, and sits by the roadside, reseating your old chairs with cane or rushes.
One of the favourite camping grounds of the gipsies is a crest of moor, fringed with Scotch firs, called Coldharbour, a name accounted for by some as Col d’arbres, “the ridge or neck of trees”. It may well be, for the pines are a striking feature, very old and in their grouping very lovely, shorn by the prevailing winds into harmonious curves, bending away from the sea; for over Setley Plain the sea
winds sweep, and often the sea mists too. Lifting my eyes from my writing, I can see as many as three caravans drawn up in the shade, for it is fair-time, and the spot, but just aside from the high road, affords a night’s shelter to these nomads who travel from fair to fair, pasture too for their horses, and water from a pond formed at the bottom of an old gravel pit just below.
It is generally the vanners who come to this spot, vagrants rather than true gipsies (“Diddyki”, the Romany calls them), and untidy in their leavings, which the genuine gipsy seldom is. These prefer to set up their snug little tents in the thicket of the Brake just across the plain. Here I have found a young mother with an infant of days in a tent on hoops, not much larger than a gig-umbrella, a fire hard by in a bell tent with a hole at the top. Going to pay a call with a pink flannel to wrap the baby in, I found mother and child warm, happy, and content, the former rejoicing in the permission accorded, under these circumstances, of a stay of two weeks. Once I ventured to condole with a gipsy woman on wild wintry weather in such a tent. She tossed back her jet-black plaits: “Oh, I likes it, my dear; I’m used to it, ye see”.
If by nothing else, the gipsy may be distinguished from the ordinary tramp by his cheerful insouciant
outlook on life, as well as a sense of humour not yet quenched by the Missioner, the Board School, and the perpetual harass of having to move on. These three factors, especially the second, tend to stamp out the gipsy as a race apart, or to make of him a very unsatisfactory low-class vagrant—a poor exchange. Unhappily the Missioner is rarely content to bring religion to the gipsy and leave him a gipsy still. He must needs try and induce him to abandon his way of life, to forsake his wholesome tent for an insanitary slum, and to send his children to school. If the Board School system is turning out a failure for our little peasants, what can we say for it when it claims the gipsy? The gipsy child simply cannot assimilate book-learning. He goes in sharp as a needle, cunning as a fox, sagacious with ancient woodland lore, long-sighted, keen of ear and scent; he comes out stupid, blear-eyed, often slightly deaf. The new knowledge drops away from him in a month; the old has been stamped out. You have made of him a lazy good-for-nothing, liable to colds and ailments hitherto unknown.
One rainy winter day I met a gipsy friend of mine and stopped to buy a brush. A little girl of eleven was helping to carry the basket; the wet and mud were squishing out of the poor child’s boots, from the burst sides of which a sopped rag of stocking
was exuding. I suggested that bare feet would be safer. “True it is, my lady, and full well I know it, but what can I do? ’Tis the schoolalities, you see; to school she must go, and I don’t like for folks to pass remarks on my children.”