Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2

by George Frisbie Hoar

Now if we turn from the north view to the west, we get a different landscape. Right before us, a mile off, is Robin's Wood Hill, a Cotteswold outlier; in Saxon times called "Mattisdun" or "Meadow-hill," for it is grassed to the top, among its trees. "Matson" House, there at its foot, was the abode of Charles I. during his siege of Gloucester in 1643. To the left of this hill we have again the Vale of the Severn, and beyond it, a dozen miles away, and stretching for twenty miles to the southwest are the hills of the Forest of Dean. They are steep, but not lofty—eight hundred or nine hundred feet. At their foot yonder, fourteen miles off, is the lake-like expanse of the Severn; and where it narrows to something under a mile is the Severn Bridge that carries the line into the Forest from the Midland Railway. Berkeley Castle lies just on the left of it, but is buried in the trees. Thornbury Tower, if not Thornbury Castle, further south, is visible when the sun strikes on it. Close to the right of the bridge is an old house that belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh; and, curiously enough, another on the river bank not far above it is said to have been occupied by Sir Francis Drake just before the coming of the Armada. The Duke of Medina Sidonia, who commanded the Spanish fleet, was ordered to detach a force as soon as he landed, to destroy the Forest of Dean, which was a principal source for timber for the British navy; and it is probable that the Queen's ministers were aware of this and took measures in defence, with which Drake had to do.

Two miles lower than the bridge is the Forest port of Lydney, now chiefly used for shipping coal; and as the ex-Verderer of the Forest resides near it, and he would be able to furnish information of interest to our American visitor, we decided to drive to Lydney to begin.

It was too late to start the same day, however; and Senator Hoar stayed at Upton, where his visit happens to mark the close of what is known as the "open-field" system of tillage; a sort of midway between the full possession of land by freehold, and unrestricted common rights. The area over which he walked, and which for thousands of years has been divided by "meres" and boundary stones, is now to be enclosed, and so will lose its archaeological claims to interest. In one corner of it, however, there still remains a fragment of Roman road, with some of the paving stones showing through the grass of the pasture field. The name of this piece of land gives the clue to its history. It is called Sandford; a corruption of Sarn Ford, from sarnu (pronounced "sarney") to pave; and fford, a road. These are Celtic Cornish and Welsh words; and it should be noted that the names of the Roman roads in the Island as well as those of the mountains and rivers, are nearly all Celtic, and not Latin or Saxon.*

[Footnote] * The Whitcombe Roman Villa, four miles east of Upton, stands in a field called Sandals. In Lyson's description of it, written in 1819 it stands as _Sarn_dells. The paved road ran through the dell. [End of Footnote]

We made a short delay in the morning, at Gloucester, to give Senator Hoar time to go on board the boat "Great Western" which had just arrived in our docks from Gloucester, Massachusetts, to visit the mother city, after a perilous voyage across the Atlantic by Captain Blackburn single-handed. Senator Hoar having welcomed the captain in his capacity of an old Englishman and a New Englander "rolled into one," we set out for Lydney, skirting the bank of one arm of the Severn which here forms an island. It was on this Isle of Alney that Canute and Edmund Ironside fought the single-handed battle that resulted in their dividing England between them.* We pass on to the Island at Westgate Bridge; and a quarter of a mile further leave it by Over Bridge; one of Telford's beautiful works. Just below it the Great Western Railway crosses the river by an iron bridge, the western piers of which rest upon Roman foundations.

[Footnote]
* Sharon Turner's "Anglo Saxons," Vol. III., Chap. XV.
[End of Footnote]

One remarkable thing which I believe I forgot to mention to George Hoar as we crossed the Island, is, that the meadows on both sides of the causeway belong to the "Freemen" of the city; and that, go back as far as we may in history, we cannot find any account of the original foundation of this body. But we have this clue to it—that Gloucester was made into a Colony in the reign of Nerva, just before the end of the first century; and in each Roman colony lands were allotted to the soldiers of the legions who had become freemen by reason of having served for twenty-five years. These lands were always on the side of the city nearest the enemy; and the lands we are crossing are on the western side of Glevum, nearest the Silures, or South Welsh, who were always the most dangerous enemies the Romans had in Britain. Similarly, at Chester, the freemen's lands are on the west, or enemy's side, by the Dee. In Bath it was the same.

Immediately after passing "Over" Bridge we might turn off, it time permitted, to see Lassington Oak, a tree of giant size and unknown age; but as Emerson says—

There's not enough for this and that—
Make thy option which of two!

and we make ours for Lydney. A dozen miles drive, often skirting the right bank of the Severn, brings us to Newnham, a picturesque village opposite a vast bend, or horse-shoe, of the river, and over which we get a beautiful view from the burial ground on the cliff. The water expands like a lake, beyond which the woods, house-interspersed, stretch away to the blue Cotteswold Hills; the monument to William Tyndale being a landmark on one of them—Nibley Knoll. Just under that monument was fought the last great battle between Barons. This battle of Nibley Knoll, between Lord Berkeley and Lord Lisle, left the latter dead on the field, at night, with a thousand of the men of the two armies; and made Lord Berkeley undisputed master of the estates whose name he bore.