HENLEY—THE BRIDGE AND ITS KEYSTONE-MASKS—REMENHAM—HAMBLEDEN—MEDMENHAM ABBEY AND THE “HELL FIRE CLUB”—HURLEY—BISHAM
Passing Marsh Lock, the town of Henley comes into view, heralded by its tall church tower, with four equal-sized battlemented turrets; a quite unmistakable church tower. The noble five-arched stone bridge here crossing the Thames, built in 1789, at a cost of £10,000, is one of the most completely satisfactory along the whole course of the river. The keystone-masks of the central arch show sculptured faces representing Isis and Thames. Isis appropriately faces up-river, and Thames looks down-stream. These conventionalised heads of a river-god and goddess are really admirable examples of the sculptor’s art. They adorn the title-pages of the present volumes, which display Isis with a woman’s head, and Father Thames, bearded, with little fishes peeping out of the matted hair, and bulrushes decoratively disposed about his temples. These masks were the work of that very accomplished lady, the Honourable Mrs. Anne Seymour Damer, who at the time when Henley bridge was a-building resided at Park Place. She was cousin to Horace Walpole, for whom she carved an eagle so exquisitely that he wrote under it—enthusiastic cousin as he was—Non Praxiteles sed Anna Damer me fecit. One terrible thing, however, stamps the lady irrevocably as a gifted amateur: she gave her work to the bridge authorities. Most reprehensible! The recipients were duly grateful, as witness the Bridge Minutes. True, they do but acknowledge one mask: “May 6, 1785. Ordered that the thanks of the Commissioners be given to the Honourable Mrs. Damer for the very elegant head of the River Thames which she has cut and presented to them for the Keystone of the centre arch of the bridge.”
This conventional head of Father Thames is that made familiar by the eighteenth-century poets, who personified everything possible. It is that Father Thames who
“From his oozy bed
… advanced his rev’rend head;
His tresses dropped with dews, and o’er the stream
His shining horns diffused a golden gleam.”
Only, as we see, bulrushes here take the place of his “shining horns.” The head of Isis was a portrait of Miss Freeman of Fawley Court.
