who visited Woodhall Spa, in 1897, says: “Woodhall is as unlike the usual run of fashionable watering places as one can well imagine. It is a charming health resort—situated on a dry, sandy soil, where fir trees flourish—there are wild moors, purple with heather, and aglow with golden gorse; a land of health, and the air deliciously bracing. I do not think (he adds) there is a purer or more exhilarating air to be found in all England, or for that matter out of it.” [27a]
Of the surrounding scenery it need hardly be said that we are not in the land of “the mountain,” though we have the “brown heath, and shaggy wood,” and occasionally, not far off, “the flood,” sung of by Scotia’s bard. But within sight are the Wolds, whose precipitous sides have, to my knowledge, astonished strangers, who, judging from the country traversed by the railway from Peterborough, expected to find the whole county as level as a billiard table. [27b] The flatness of the country, however, is amply made up for by other redeeming features. Within a mile of the Spa a view is obtained stretching more than 20 miles, with the grand Cathedral (which Ruskin says is “worth any two others in the kingdom”) crowning the “steep” hill of Lincoln on the horizon. “’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,” says the poet Campbell; and this prospect, slightly undulating, with extensive woods barring it at intervals, and village spires rising from their midst, seen through the marvellously clear atmosphere which we often enjoy, is a sight worth seeing.
An old writer [27c] describes the air as being “crass, and full of rotten harrs”; and Drayton,
in his “Polyolbion” [28a] speaks of the “unwholesome ayre, and more unwholesome soyle”; but that condition of things has long ago passed away. Another charming effect of these distant prospects is the glorious sunsets. Kingsley, in his “Hereward the Wake,” truly says, the “vastness gives such cloudlands, such sunrises, such sunsets, as can be seen nowhere else in these isles.” A writer, whom I have already quoted, says, “I am inclined to think the sky scenery, if I may be allowed the term, the finest and most wonderful in the world.” As to “its gorgeous sunsets, you look upon an atmosphere saturated with colour, so that it becomes opalesque; and the sinking sun, seen through the vibrating air, is magnificent. From the slopes of far California I have looked down upon the sun dipping into the wide Pacific, amid a riot of colour, but nothing like this.” [28b] Nor is this any exaggeration. The visitor to Woodhall may see it for himself, and the writer has often gazed upon it. Towards evening the soft blue of the distance becomes gradually lit up by the lowering sun with the most gorgeous and varied shades of purple, gold, and ruby, until he sinks below the horizon in a blaze of crimson glory. Then follow, softer, more mellowed tints of violet, pink, emerald green, exquisite greys, and varying hues of the most delicate kinds, until they slowly fade away into the shades of night, or the silvery sheen of the moon.
For the student of nature, there are special attractions in the botany of the neighbourhood; scarcely less in its ornithology. The wild, four-footed creatures also are in unusual variety; and within easy reach the antiquarian will find objects of very special interest.
In these pages it would be impossible to treat of all these subjects fully.
I will take botany first. And I would here make the preliminary observation, that, in specifying different plants to be found in the near vicinity, I shall not indicate exactly the habitat of each, for the sake of preserving to Woodhall Spa in the future some of its choicest attractions. The track of the invading tourist is too often marked by massacre. A French ambassador, describing some years ago the country life of our gentry, said that one of the first proposals, made after breakfast by the host, would be, “Let us go out and kill something”; and this national tendency has disastrously affected our Flora as well as our Fauna. A
writer has said, “There is a base sort of botanist who prods up choice treasures wantonly to destroy them. They are murderers, to be classed with those who have stamped the quagga out of Africa, or those who fly to firearms if Nature sends a rare migrant creature of air, or earth, or water, in their way.” Go through our English lakes, as the writer did recently, after not having visited them for several years, and you will find, for instance, the falls of Lodore, where once the parsley-fern abounded, now entirely stript of it. Just as—to take a parallel case—in a certain stream in Borrowdale, where some years ago the writer caught so many trout that the widow, in whose cottage he lodged, offered to keep him any length of time gratis, so long as he would supply her with fish at the same rate; now, in that stream hardly a fish is to be caught, from its so constantly being “flogged” by the tourist. The same holds good, though, so far, in a less degree, at Woodhall. “Ichabod” may be writ in large characters over the record of some of the plants once plentiful. I shall, therefore, leave the botanist, with few exceptions, to hunt out the specimens for himself, only stating that they exist. But is not this, after all, the chief charm of his pursuit to the true lover of Nature? To have everything found to hand for him may indeed lessen his labours, but it robs him of all the gratification with which he can exclaim “Eureka,” as his eyes rest upon the long-sought prize which he has found for himself. The difference between the true botanist and the sportsman has been thus defined: “The sportsman seeks to kill; the botanist seeks to find, to admire, and to preserve.” Would that it were always so. From the great difference in the soils in the immediate neighbourhood, varying from the lightest sand to the stiffest clay, or from the peat and bog of the fen to the gravel of the moor, or the leafy mould of the wood, there is also a very great variety of wild plants. The late Rev. R. H. Webb, author of “The Botany of Herts,” was some years ago a frequent visitor at Woodhall Spa, and he assured the writer, that in all his experience he had never known so large or so interesting a variety as was to be found in this neighbourhood. On one occasion the writer, collecting wild plants for a flower show, gathered, in the course of a morning’s walk, more than 110 different specimens. Probably the rarest plant was the Silene Quinque vulneralis, the discovery of which led to a lengthy correspondence, it being rarely found in England, though fairly common in Jersey.
It was growing in a field which now forms part of the garden of the Victoria Hotel. The alterations necessary to make that transformation extinguished it, or rather buried it out of sight; but as some correspondents gave instances where it had recurred in localities in which it had for years been unknown, there is no absolute reason why it should not also reappear in this case. Should it do so, we can only cry, parce, precor, to the too ruthless collector. The Osmunda Regalis, again, a few years ago was very plentiful; the writer has had plants of it which grew to be three, four, and even five feet in height, but it is now quite extinct. Not only so, but the writer, finding this to be the case, replanted some roots of it in 1897, where he fondly hoped they would escape observation, but, on going to look for them the following year, he found the soil dug up all round the place by the trespassing marauder, and not a trace of them was left.
The following plants have been mentioned by different authorities as among those which are be found. The Rev. E. Adrian Woodruffe Peacock, secretary to the Lincolnshire Naturalists’ Union, says: “We may expect to find some of the following rare plants—Ranunculus Hederaceus, Corydalis claviculata, Raphanus Raphanistrum, Silene Quinque-Vulnera (most rare), Silene Anglica (not so rare), Vicia Bobartii, Cotyledon Umbilicus, Sedum Villosum, Sedum Reflexum, Drosera Anglica, Epilobium Tetragonum, Campanula Ranunculoides. At a meeting of the Alford Naturalists’ Society the secretary exhibited the following plants, obtained from the Woodhall district, presenting a striking difference to the plants found about Alford, owing to the sandy moorland soil of Woodhall:—Calluna Erica (ling), Erica Tetralix (cross-leaved heath), Artemisia Vulgaris (mugwort). Marrubium Vulgare (white horehound), Teucrium Scorodonia (wood sage), Hydrocotyle Vulgaris (white-rot), and the Hardfern (Lomaria Spicant); also fruiting specimens of Solidago Virgaurea (golden rod), Lepidium Campestre (field pepper-wort), Cotyledon Umbilicus (wall penny-wort).”