Over Fen and Wold

by James John Hissey

Then our road dipped down into a Devonshire-like lane, deep in shade, with high hedgerows on either side, and branching trees overhead, through the rustling foliage of which the softened sunshine shone in a subdued golden-green, delightfully grateful and refreshing to the eye. At the foot of the dip we crossed a little “babbling brook” on a little one-arched bridge,—a brook that flows past the foot of Somersby rectory garden, about half a mile away, and is locally known as “Tennyson’s brook.” One cannot but believe that this is the exception to the rule, and supplied the poet with the subject of his well-known poem. In this belief the stream had a special charm for us; of itself, though pleasant enough to look upon, it is insignificant, but the magic art of a great poet has made it as famous as many a mighty river, such is the power of the pen; a power that promises to rule the world, and dictate even to dictators! We halted here a little while and watched the tiny clear-watered stream flowing on brightly blue, sparkling and rippling in the light, and here and there, beneath the grassy banks and bramble bushes, showing a lovely translucent tawny tint, and again a tremulous yellow where it glided over its sandy shallows with many musical murmurings.

Along the road we had come Tennyson in his youth must often have roamed and tarried, for he was in love with the eldest daughter of Mr. Henry Sellwood of Horncastle; and Dame Rumour has it that he composed many of his early poems during those wanderings to and fro between Somersby and that town. The pleasant stretch of country that the road traverses has apparently little, if at all, changed since that time; so, much as it looked to us, must it have looked to the poet, with its leafy woods, its green meadows, its golden cornfields sloping to the sun, with the bounding wolds around, that beautify whilst limiting the prospect.

So driving on we came at last to old-world Somersby, a tiny hamlet that has never heard the sound of the railway whistle, nor known the hand of the modern builder, a spot that might be a hundred miles from anywhere, and seems successfully to avoid the outer world, whilst in turn the outer world as carefully avoids it! Most happy Somersby! We had found Arcadia at last! In this remote nook Time itself seems to be napping, very tenderly has it dealt with the poet’s birthplace and the scenes of his boyhood around. Here it is always yesterday. A peace that is not of our time broods incumbent over it, a tranquillity that has been handed down unimpaired from ages past lingers lovingly around.

On one side of the little-travelled road and a trifle back therefrom stands the rambling rectory, with its home-like, yellow-washed walls, and ridged and red-tiled roof; on the other stands the ancient church hoary with age; while just beyond the rectory is a quaint old manor house, or grange, formerly moated and now half buried in trees—and this is Somersby. A spot worthy of being the birthplace of a great poet, “a haunt of ancient peace.”

MILES FROM ANYWHERE

Approaching the rectory we knocked at the door, or it may be we rang a bell, I am not now sure which, and begged permission to be allowed to sketch or photograph the house, which was freely granted. Emboldened by the readiness to accede to our request we further gave a broad hint of what a great pleasure it would give us just to take a glance within as being the birthplace and early home of so famous a man; this favour was also most courteously granted. It must be well for the present dwellers in the now historic rectory that Somersby is miles from anywhere, and that anywhere in the shape of the nearest town is not a tourist-haunted one, or else they would have small respite from callers asking—I had almost written demanding—to see the place. To such an extent did Carlyle, even in his lifetime, find this tourist trespass that we are told “the genial author of Sartor Resartus actually paid a labourer in the parish £5 per annum to take admiring visitors to another farm and pretend that it was Craigenputtock!”

Entering Somersby rectory we were shown the quaint Gothic dining-room, designed and built by the poet’s father, that somewhat resembled the interior of a tiny church. A charming chamber, in spite of its ecclesiastical look, for it had the stamp of individuality about it. The oak mantelpiece here was carved by Tennyson’s father; in this there are eleven niches, with a figure of an apostle in each—seven niches over the centre of the fireplace and two on either side. By some error in the design, we were informed, the reverend craftsman had forgotten to provide a niche for the other apostle—surely a strange mistake for a clergyman to make!

In this quiet rectory, right away in the heart of the remote Wolds, Tennyson was born in 1809, whilst still the eventful nineteenth century was young. Under the red roof-trees at the top of the house is situated the attic, “that room—the apple of my heart’s delight,” as the poet called it. The rectory and garden have happily remained practically unchanged, in all the changeful times that have passed, since those days when the future poet-laureate sang his “matin song” there. At last the hour came when the family had to leave the old home. Tennyson appears to have felt the parting greatly, for he says—

We leave the well-beloved place
Where first we gazed upon the sky:
The roofs that heard our earliest cry,
Will shelter one of stranger race.

But such partings are inevitable in this world; in a restless age that prefers to rent rather than own its own home, even the plaintiveness of such partings appeals but to the few. The modern mind rather loves change than regrets it; the word “home” means not all it used to do in the days ago!