BURLEY, THE WESTERN BORDER
The western border of the New Forest is a great contrast to the eastern. Towards Southampton Water the boundary is an arbitrary one—the farms and woodlands on the one hand are much the same as on the other—but on the west a natural rampart divides the wild down country from the Avon valley, along which an elm-shaded road connects a chain of pretty villages. From the height of Godshill and Windmill Hill on the north the ridge runs southward by Hydes Common
through the two Gorleys, by Ibsley, sloping away to Latchmoor Bottom, till it reaches Mockbeggar, an oddly named hamlet nestling in the downs. On the one side are rugged uplands, on the other smiling villages, elm trees, and orchards of red apples—for this is a fine cider country.
At Moyles Court the downs break off to let Docken Water through to meet the Avon. It is a fine old house, interesting as having been the home of Lady Alice Lisle, the innocent victim of her charity to Monmouth’s defeated soldiers, though she, unlike Mrs. Knapton of Lymington, was in no way implicated in the rebellion. Hard by stands an oak which should have been the prime glory of the Forest; for it is finer than any within its present precincts.
After the ford the hills rise again steeply to Picked Post, a high point which looks across the intervening forest, over wood beyond wood, to Bramshaw Telegraph, a hundred feet higher still. From here by Bushy Bratley extends a lofty plateau right away to Stony Cross, over which roam multitudes of Forest ponies, and on a hot noonday it is a curious sight to see a drove of them gathered together on an open spot, locally called a “shade”—apparently from the absence of anything of the sort—standing close in a circle, heads inward, waving tails outward, to defend
them from the Forest fly. The cows do the same thing, but they keep to themselves.
A little to the south Burley lies in a dip between the hills, sheltered yet high. Its fine position has been the destruction of its charm, for it has attracted too many residents, who have cut up the surrounding oak groves with up-to-date “artistic” houses, and brought the usual train of shops, motor garages, and civilization generally to mar the village street. Unfortunately some years ago the owner of Burley Manor found himself obliged to part with much of the land, which was developed for building, with disastrous effect, especially at Burley Lawn, which might really pass for a suburb of Clapham Common. The church does nothing to redeem it. It is a mean little structure, belonging to the worst period of ecclesiastical architecture, when three lancet windows at the east end were considered the acme of good taste.
BURLEY MOOR
An interesting feature is the annual pony fair. There is one also at Swan Green, by Lyndhurst, and another at Brockenhurst, but that at Burley is the best, affording more space. The one at Brockenhurst, where the ponies are penned into a dirty yard by the station, has little charm for a looker on. At Burley one can see their paces tried over the open lawn, and great and smart is the concourse of horsemen, carriages, and motors. A still more interesting
business, but one not so easily seen, is the gathering them in from the Forest. Men on clever, well-trained ponies go out, armed with long stock whips, driving the startled creatures together, often into bogs to secure them.
Westward and southward towards Holmsley the moor is broken into heights and hollows, giving a magnificently varied outline, and diversified with wooded enclosures on the lower slopes. Here the fallow deer may often be met with, though the red hardly come so far south. Wilverley Post, at the crossroad, is a favourite spot for deerhound meets as well as foxhound, and the coverts to the north-west are seldom drawn in vain. Eastward slopes of broken ground, lightly wooded and dotted with clumps of thorn, tangled in honeysuckle and bramble, lead down to the chain of woods towards Lyndhurst. One of the most beautiful of these is Burley Old Wood. This still keeps many of its fine old oaks, besides magnificent beeches, and there is more variety than in most of the enclosures, for besides these there are ash, chestnut, and hornbeam, mingled with the dainty elegance of the silver birch; some yews, too, as large and old as any at Sloden. So fine is the grouping, that even on a grey day of drizzling rain, with none of the dappling sun and shadow that lend such a charm to woodland ways, it lost nothing of its magic.
To pass through the gate into Burley New Enclosure is like a sudden step from a mediæval city into a modern industrial suburb. The trees are in straight, ruled lines, too thick-set to admit of fair growth, and gladly we extricate ourselves and, returning by the raised causeway that crosses the stretch of bog at Longslade Bottom by Markway Bridge, we regain the highroad at Wilverley Post.
Opposite Wilverley stands the blasted tree known as the Naked Man, holding up its bleached, appealing arms to heaven, now welcomed as a signpost rather than shunned as a bogy. A little beyond is Setthorns, with a small, lonely keeper’s lodge at the edge of it. This wood must have been very lovely before the intrusion of the railway that now cuts across it, and indeed still has great charm. In Mr. Gilpin’s day it had been recently cleared of its fine oaks, and bitter are his lamentations over their disappearance and that of the grove of yews that flourished below. But he wrote more than a century ago, and since then the wood has been replanted—happily before the new fashion of straight rows of young trees, like a cabbage garden, had come in. One of the most entrancing of bridle-paths enters the road just below the railway bridge and, passing down by a steep descent, emerges on the Avon Water—not to be confounded with the
river Avon—which here broadens into a pool. The stream passes under Meadend Bridge, which forms the Forest boundary at this point, and flows on to join the sea at Keyhaven.
Sway, once the most picturesque of villages, perched on its high common, is now nearly overwhelmed with red brick and vulgarity, probably consequent on its possession of a railway station. It is only partly within the Forest bounds. From here a road running by a ridge of down leads to Shirley Holms, one of those primeval patches of oak and holly, clear of undergrowth, that are specially beloved of the gipsies for close overhead shelter and clear space beneath for tent and fire. This road comes out on the main highway at Battramsley Cross; but if the objective be Brockenhurst, a better way is to turn at Marlpit Oak and go down by Latchmoor (or -mere), the pool of corpses. This ill-omened name belongs to some great battle of long ago, but a dark tradition of last century still hangs about the spot.
By Marlpit Oak, a lofty landmark on the bare heath, beloved of deer-stealers in the old poaching days, with a dense thicket round about its knees, good to hide in, there lurked one night three men of the outlaw type who used to haunt the Forest. They were lying in wait for a traveller known to be returning to his home with a large sum of money.
Though they were three to one, he showed fight; so they murdered him and dragged his body down to Latchmoor, where they threw it into the pool. Across the moor at Setley stood a little inn of evil repute, called the “Three Feathers” or the “Three Pigeons”, or some such name. Here they called for drinks, threw their money about freely, and bragged in their cups; so they were taken and hanged at Marlpit Oak. The bodies, hanging in chains, have mouldered into dust, the gallows tree no longer adorns the spot where now the cheery foxhounds meet on many a winter morning; but it was some time before the inn recovered from its evil savour. People would call it the “Three Murderers”; so at last it had to be pulled down, rebuilt, and rechristened as the “Oddfellows Arms”, under which title it has become a respectable wayside hostelry.
And now we find ourselves again at Setley by Brockenhurst, our brief survey done—a few characteristic spots gleaned, yet more, I fear, left out than included. We may be thankful for so much old-world beauty still spared, yet are we not without a haunting sense of menace. Though the Forest has been rescued from the utilitarian destruction that once threatened it, it has more insidious foes. All Forest lovers are dismayed at the advance of the Scotch fir, which encroaches ever more and more,
and bids fair to swamp the whole woodland. There are only two valid reasons for planting a tree of such small value. One is the need for shelter for wood better than itself on the windy uplands; but then the firs should be weeded out as the timber grows strong enough to hold its own. Another thing is that, being a thirsty soul, it will quickly reclaim marshy land. But this in itself would be matter of regret to the lovers of wild nature, for the bogs have their special bird and plant life. It is hard to see why so much space should be sacrificed to stiff, straight rows of firs so densely planted that none can reach perfection or attain their one beauty of broad, spreading heads. Perhaps small profits with quick returns appeal to a generation that plants for itself. We no longer plant timber for posterity, as did our forefathers.
The new fashion of excessive game-preserving, which is practised on the manors though not in the Forest itself, is answerable for the destruction of much wild life. The keepers wage war on jay and magpie, owl and hawk, and even the little harmless squirrel has been so diminished in the last year or two, that you may take many a long ramble through the woods and never once hear his chatter or watch his nimble spring from tree to tree. A powerful plea for a sanctuary comes from the pen of E. W., the writer of a series of delightful articles on “Out of
Doors,” in the Hampshire Chronicle. After deploring the utter extinction of many bird species and increasing rarity of others, she goes on:
“What we want is a sanctuary, and a sanctuary of great extent near the South Coast; the New Forest is ready to our hand and requires no making—wood and water, sea and moor, all are there. We also need, when we have got our ideal sanctuary, an army of keepers who shall be as anxious to keep alive, as the keepers of the present time are anxious to kill.”
But the worst enemy of the Forest is its admirer. He comes, falls in love with it, craves a house within its borders, praises it to his friends, and invites them down. So the fashion comes, and the fashion creates a demand. Land rises to a fancy value, and when times are so hard for the landowners, what can they do but relinquish their fairest sites to the speculative builder? If this goes on, our descendants may wonder why we cared so much for an endless firwood, diversified with “artistic” villas—or perhaps they will like it. In the country that lies East of the Sun and West of the Moon they would doubtless pass a law that all manors within the Forest, coming into the market, should be resumed by the Crown and enclosed as wood or waste for ever.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland
Transcriber’s Note
Where illustrations appeared mid-paragraph in the original, they were moved to precede that paragraph.
Inconsistent punctuation at the end of quotations was not changed.
The name ‘purlieu’ was capitalized: ...‘from Cadnam through Dibden Purlieu’...
In some handheld devices, the font for definitions may appear in bold.