Let not the cyclist by any means omit to look for a singularly puzzling epitaph on a broken flat stone on the north side of the church, whose meaning has been utterly obscured by lapse of time. It runs thus:—
Here Lies the Body of
SARAH BRAMSTONE,
of Eton, Spinster; a person who dared
to be just in the Reign of
George the Second.
Obijt Jan. ye 30th, 1765. Ætat 77.
This is, indeed, strange, for it is impossible to believe that law and order were so hard to preserve in the days of the second George that for a person to “dare to be just” should be so notable a thing. A popular hymn urges us to “dare to be a Daniel,” but what lions lurked in the narrow path that Sarah Bramstone trod? It must be confessed that this sorely piques the curiosity. We know what befell Solomon, Julius Cæsar, William the Conqueror, and hundreds of other highly important historical characters, and know also that even they did not always dare so much; but we shall never know the secret of this tombstone.
Notice, also, on the north side of the church the white marble tomb of George Fordham, the jockey, who died, aged fifty, in 1887, with the odd and significant quotation, “’Tis the pace that kills.” Those who did not know the amiable George might well take that as an aspersion upon his character; but Fordham was the gentlest of jocks and a model husband and father, and this is but a singularly unhappy phrase in such a connection.
Leaving Upton Church, we take a road that leads from opposite it to George Green, crossing the old Bath road, and over the Great Western Railway. A direct road runs thence to Langley Park, through whose recesses there is an entirely unhindered right of way for self and cycle. Black Park is alone worth the ride; a vast stretch of solemn pine-woods, where the breezes die away in hollow murmurs, or sink to absolute silences amid the clustered giant trunks. The sunlight filters down in scanty patches to the carpeting of pine needles, on whose yielding bed you walk with silent footsteps, save for the occasional breaking of a dry twig, whose destruction sounds with startling distinctness in this solitude. Few ever come to these woodlands, and it is likely enough that you will have them all to yourself, excepting, indeed, the wood-pigeons, breaking now and again into a weird chorus of cooing.
But its great lake of about thirty acres is, perhaps, the chief feature of Black Park. Seated by its shore, with the close ranks of the great solemn pines overhanging the sullen water, you see with what appropriateness the park is named. It is a kind of place where you can readily imagine yourself a Robinson Crusoe. Little sandy beaches run out into the water; the inky recesses of the woods look as though they awaited the explorer to come and discover the savages and the big game that doubtless lie hidden there; and, in fact, all you want, to be completely happy, is a raft, a rifle, a suit of goat-skins, a Man Friday, and some enemies to shoot at. It is certainly a spot R. L. Stevenson would have revelled in.
If it were not that Burnham Beeches have to be reached, nothing could be more delightful than to stay here the afternoon, taking tea, perhaps, at the “Plough” at Wexham Street (which must not be confounded with Wexham village). Leaving the lake at the end where it borders the road, turn to the right. In half a mile you reach the pretty hamlet and turn left, then right, then left again. This brings one into the broad road leading from Wexham village to Farnham Royal and Burnham. On reaching this road (which runs right and left), instead of crossing it, turn to the right, and then to the left once more. This brings us into a tree-shaded lane, which dips downwards. On the right, on the edge of the meadow overlooking this lane, a momentary glimpse of a solemn, mausoleum-like monument is caught. This sufficiently notifies the fact that we are at Stoke Poges, for it is the memorial erected to the poet Gray by a descendant of William Penn, who once resided at Stoke Park. The park, of which the great, odd-looking mansion may be seen from Stoke Poges churchyard, has belonged to men of light and leading. It is now the residence of Mr. Bryant, of Bryant & May, who purchased it of Mr. Jeremiah Colman, of Colman’s Mustard.
The melancholy looking monument, looking like a tea-caddy or biscuit-box on a pedestal, bears verses from Gray’s mournful muse—from the “Elegy,” and from the “Lines on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.” Having inspected this, walk a few yards down the lane. Here a white gate on the right, with an old lodge absolutely covered from the ground to the topmost bricks of the chimneys with ivy, appears to lead into the park. This is, however, the entrance to Stoke Poges churchyard. Leaving the cycle here, by the cottage fence, we walk to this place of pilgrimage through a very beautiful modern lych-gate in carved oak. The spire and “ivy-covered tower” of the church appear beyond; the whole, strange to say, quite as beautiful as one expects it to be; with the sole exception that the churchyard is now too large and too crowded with staring white marble monuments to fully realise the rural note of the famous poem. But that is a detail. Under the east window, in the churchyard he has immortalised, Gray is appropriately laid to rest, in a quiet, unpretending tomb, with his mother and his aunt.