Nuneham—every one knows Nuneham; for, by favour of the Harcourts, who own the place, it has for many years past been a popular spot for rustic teas. I raise my hat, or cap, as the case may be, to the Harcourts, past and present—to the memory of Sir William, that doughty political protagonist, and voluminous letter-writer to The Times over the signature of “Historicus,” who, although quite capable of leading a party, chose to be merely the trusty lieutenant of the windiest political wind-bag of any and every age; and to the present Mr. Lewis Harcourt, for the access they have permitted, and still extend, to their lovely domain. Every one, I say, knows Nuneham, for does not Salter, who runs his comfortable steamboats between Oxford and Richmond, drop passengers here, on the banks, and does he not call and pick them up again at the close of the day, conveying them from Oxford and back at the cost of one shilling? Yea; thousands have made that trip; and, given a fine day, there is, experto crede, not any trip more delightful. But if the day turn tearful, then Nuneham is the very last place to which any one who is not a fish or a duck would wish to go. Do I not know the misery of it at such times: the landing on the wet, clayey bank, under the trees of the glorious woods, which shed great spattering drops of rain on one; the half-mile walk, or rather, butter-slide, by the woodland track, to that picturesque thatched cottage in the lovely backwater, where the cottagers in fine weather supply open-air teas to these pilgrims, and in wet weather do the like; refusing, much to the said pilgrims’ disgust, to give them the much-needed shelter in their own dry and comfortable quarters; with the result that those unhappy persons grow cold and shivery and develop colds in their heads, and entertain savage thoughts of Nuneham? Truly, no more miserable experience is possible than that of sitting in one of the picturesquely-thatched arbours by the waterside, and dallying over a lukewarm tea, awaiting the hour for the up-river steamer’s arrival, while the moisture-laden wind comes searchingly in at the open front. And it does not make matters better to know that those disobliging cottagers are, all the while, crouching over their own roaring wood-log fires.
THE BRIDGE, NUNEHAM COURTNEY.
But let us dwell no longer upon these harrowing experiences. It does not always rain at Nuneham—but only when we want to go there. Then it rains all day. But when the sun shines, Nuneham is the ideal place for an idle day, and those draughty arbours the most exquisite of nooks. From them you look out upon a river scene that closely resembles some stage “set.” The trees, right and left, or, to speak in stage conventional language—on Prompt and Off-prompt sides—hang in that almost impossibly picturesque way we expect in the first act of a melodrama of the old Adelphi or Drury Lane type. You know the kind of thing; or, if you do not, go to Nuneham and see it. Anyway, take my word for it that this is sheerly competitive with the stage. Beneath these trees, whose other side, you are quite convinced, is merely canvas and framework, are the usual conventional rocks, on one of which the villain will presently sit and gloat over the impending fall of the hero. And swans come lazily paddling up to the rush-fringed margin of the river; and, really, all you miss is the limelight.
But if this scene seems to have been bodily taken from the stage, the queer timber bridge that here crosses the backwater gives quite another aspect to the place. Looking upon it for the first time, it appears in the likeness of some old friend whom, for the moment, you cannot exactly place; and then at last you have it. It closely resembles that bridge on the time-honoured Willow-pattern Plate, with which Oriental china has long familiarised us. If only we had the pagoda to one side, and the queer little figures, carrying their yet more queer little bundles, crossing it, the scene would be conventionally complete. To emphasise and properly accentuate these remarks, I include a view, taken by that amiable photographic friend and companion to whom the most of the pictures in this book are due. I have not dared to publish a view of the bridge looking upstream, for that and Iffley Mill are absolutely the two most hackneyed views of the river in existence. Instead, therefore, we are here looking downstream.
Nuneham is a curious combination of the ugly and the beautiful. The great mansion, ugliness incarnate, is surrounded by lovely and stately gardens, created about 1765 by the masterful Earl Harcourt, typical among the great landowners of that age. There is something not a little awesome about the megalomaniacal methods of those great ones of that period, who had such autocratic wills, so much money, and such unquestioned power. Earl Harcourt, in common with many others of his class and of his period, could not endure that the village and the church of Nuneham should be within sight of his windows, and so he abolished both, causing a new village to arise fringing the London road, and a new church, which stands as an indictment of the then prevailing want of taste, being in the likeness of a Greek temple, to be built in the woods at the back of the mansion. It is dated 1764. Here lies Sir William Harcourt, who died in 1904.
