Summer Days in Shakespeare Land

by Charles G. Harper

You may notice, when the wind ruffles the leaves of the willow, that the description is exact; the underside of a willow-leaf being different from the upper, and of a hoary, grey-white tint.

“Binton bridges” are not, as might perhaps be assumed, bridges side by side, but are continuations, across the two channels of the river. Immediately across them the sign of the “Four Alls” inn attracts notice. It is a picture-sign showing the King, “I rule all”; a bishop, “I pray for all”; a guardsman, “I fight for all”; and a mournful-looking person, seated, wearing a suit of black clothes and a thoughtful expression of countenance: “I pay for all.” It is a sign to be matched in other parts of the country, and was invented long ago by some sardonic person who had pondered deeply upon the functions of the Monarchy, the Church, the Army, and the tax-payer. But he lacked the savage, saturnine humour of the person who thought of the “Five Alls,” another sign not unknown in the length and breadth of the land. The Fifth All being the Devil: “I take all!”

The first part of Welford soon appears, on the right. It might be styled the chief part, because here, among the scattered groups of cottages, the church is found. The church itself is only mildly interesting, but the old lych-gate is a quaint survival, as weather-worn and rustic and untouched as Welford itself; its rude timbers seamed and bleached with the weather of over four centuries. Past the church you come down Boat Lane to the river, where the weir can be heard roaring. There are some particularly sketchable cottages in this lane, as will be seen by the illustration over-leaf.

Returning, and proceeding southwards, other ancient thatched cottages are passed, and then we come to the maypole, doubtless regarded as the centre of the village. It is still dressed on May Day every year, and stands here all the year on its mound, a thing for the stranger to wonder at, gaily painted in bands of red, white and blue. It is not, of course, the only existing maypole in England. I myself, moi que vous parle, know about a dozen; but they are sufficiently unusual to attract attention.

The rest of Welford straggles along a broad street to the left, and presently ends obscurely in meadows leading to the river. Across field-paths one comes in this direction to the very out-of-the-world little village of Weston-on-Avon. The explorer who finds Weston feels like some member of the Geographical Society who has wandered in strange, outlandish parts and comes back to read a paper on the subject; but I dare say it is similarly discovered very frequently. Meanwhile, I have no travellers’ tales to tell of the manners and customs of the people, who are, as commonly elsewhere, of two sexes and walk upright on their hind legs, and some are old and some young, and others yet middle-aged. And there is the railway station of Milcote, only a mile away, situated in a field. No one seems ever to go to it, or come from it; “Milcote” being a species of dream place represented only by two remote houses. I believe the station must have been set down there by some railway manager suffering from strong delusions.

Weston-on-Avon is really a very charming little place, with a small aisle-less Late Perpendicular church, remarkable for the continuous range of windows high up in the north wall, giving the interior an unusual brightness and grace. The tower is furnished at its angles with gargoyles of an unusual size and imaginative quality.

Returning to Welford, a by-road leads by the meadows called “Welford Pastures” to Barton, and across the Roman road, the Ryknield Street, to the hamlet of Marlcliff, below Bidford, where the Avon becomes broader and navigable and lined with beautifully wooded cliffs, densely covered with foliage to the water’s edge. A mile further is the village of Cleeve Priors, where the picturesque old “King’s Arms” inn, with its horseman’s upping-block in front, dates from 1691. Here, too, is a small seventeenth-century manor-house, with heavily-barred and grated door, breathing old-time distrust and suspicion.

Returning through the village to the waterside, the river may be crossed here, by the long plank footbridge, only one plank wide, at Cleeve Mill and lock; and Abbot’s Salford reached, on the Evesham main road, just missing Salford Priors, where, if we wish to see it, there is a fine old church. Salford Priors was anciently the property of the Priory of Kenilworth, and Salford Abbots that of Evesham Abbey. Here, enclosed within a jealous high wall, is the old Hall, generally called “the Nunnery,” because of a Roman Catholic sisterhood having been established here in modern times. It is a small Jacobean mansion, very tall in proportion to its size, and curiously huddled together. Quaint curved and re-curved gables of a bygone fashion, deeply set windows, and lofty stone chimney-stacks, give the place a reticent look; the look of a house with a history and secrets of its own. There are so many amateurs of the quaint and historic nowadays that the occupiers of Salford Hall have grown a little tired of showing strangers the genuine old hiding-hole in the garret; behind a quite innocent-looking cupboard. You open the cupboard and see a commonplace row of shelves. No one would suspect a secret there. But when a wooden peg is removed, the shelves, together with the back of the cupboard, push back on hinges, admitting to a hiding-hole for priest or cavalier, or any whose necessities led him to store himself uncomfortably away here. Once inside, the fugitive could fix the door with a peg, so that it could not be moved from without.

Harvington, which comes next on our way to Evesham, is a delightful cluster of old timbered houses, with a church whose Norman tower has been given a modern spire. The village is at least half a mile from the river, but it takes its name, originally “Herefordtun,” from an ancient paved ford still there, a most charming and interesting scene. The ford is practically a submerged paved road, such as those by which the Romans crossed rivers, and is broad enough for wagons to pass. The roads on either side are, however, only byways, leading to the Littleton villages and the Lenches.