BISHAM CHURCH
The woods alone would be sufficient to give Marlow a high rank among river places. But all this is below the bridge, and above there is much to see. Not far off, on the right bank of the river, is Bisham, a tiny village with its church and abbey, now a dwelling house. The whole of Bisham is well worth lingering over. The cottages stand along the road in straggling fashion, old and new, and some of the gardens are bright with homely, sweet-scented flowers, among which, stocks and sweet-williams seem to be the favourites in the summer. One tumble-down row, rather off the road, is a mass of honeysuckle, and roses and ivy. The little church stands so near to the margin of the river that not a dozen yards separate its tower from the flood. A low moss-grown stone parapet edges the churchyard; over this elms dip their crooked boughs in a vain endeavour to touch the ripples as they spring playfully upward, driven by the wind. The little church has a square stone tower, wonderfully softened, so that it looks as if it must fray to powder at a touch. The brick battlements are a later addition, but the gentle river air has breathed on them so that they tone in harmoniously. Some of the windows are transition Norman. For ages the little church has stood there looking out across the water to the green flat meadows, and though it has been rebuilt and altered, there is much of it that is fairly ancient. The Hoby chapel was built about 1600, by the disconsolate widow of Sir Thomas Hoby, Ambassador to France; in it are several fine tombs, and on that of Sir Thomas, his lady, who was learned, as it was the fashion for great ladies to be in her time, wrote long inscriptions in Latin and Greek and English; the last of which ends up with:
"Give me, O God, a husband like unto Thomas,
Or else restore me to my husband Thomas!"
Eight years later she married again, so that she had presumably found a husband "like unto Thomas." The Hoby window in this chapel, with its coat of arms, is especially interesting, and when the morning sun streams through in tones of purple and gold upon the worn stones, the effect is striking.
There are one or two good brasses in the church, and a small monument to two children who are traditionally said to have owned Queen Elizabeth as mother!
HURLEY BACKWATER