Down below, in the valley of the Brockenhurst Water, lies Boldre, the Bovre of Domesday, with its meadows and cornfields. It is worth while to pause for a moment, and notice the corruption of Boldre into Bovre by the Norman clerks. The word is from the Keltic, and signifies the full stream (“y Byldwr”), and has nothing to do with oxen. We must, too, bear in mind that the various Oxenfords and Oxfords are themselves corruptions, and really come not from oxen at all, but Usk, literally meaning the stream-ford or stream-road, and are in no way connected with the various Old-English Rodfords to be found in different parts of the kingdom. This corruption of language we see daily going on in our own Colonies, but it is well to pause and remember that the same process has taken place in our own country.
Passing over the bridge, and up the village, and under the railway arch, we once more reach the Forest at Shirley Holms, coming out on Shirley and Sway Commons. Here again, as on Beaulieu Heath, there is not a single tree, nothing but one vast stretch of heather, which late in the summer covers the ground with its crimson and amethyst. There is only one fault to be found with it, that when its glory is past it leaves so great a blank behind: its grey withered flowers and its grey scanty foliage forming such a contrast with its previous brightness and cheerfulness.
But these two commons will at all times be interesting to the archæologist and historian. On the north-east side lies the Roydon, that is, the rough ground, a word which we find in other parts of the Forest; and not far from it is Lichmore or Latchmore Pond—the place of corpses—which is confirmed by the various adjoining barrows.[106]
After this point, there is nothing to attract the traveller, unless he is a botanist, to the south. Wootton, and Wilverley, and Setthorns, and Holmsley, are all young plantations, whilst at Wootton the Forest now entirely ceases, though once stretching five miles farther, as far as the sea. So let him make his way to Longslade, or Hinchelsea Bottom, as it is indifferently called, where about the middle of June blossoms the lesser bladderwort (Utricularia minor), and about the same time, or rather later, the floating bur-reed (Sparganeum natans).
Above, rises Hinchelsea Knoll, with its old hollies and beeches; and still farther to the north the high lands round Lyndhurst and Stony Cross crowned with woods. Westward, the heather stretches over plain and hill till it reaches Burley. Making right through Hinchelsea, and then skirting the north side of Wilverley plantations, we shall come to the valley of Holmsley, so beloved by Scott, and which put him in mind of his native moors, without seeing which once a year, he so pathetically said, he felt as if he should die. Its wild beauty, however, is in a great measure spoilt by the railroad, and the large trees which grew in Scott’s time have all been felled.
Burley itself, which now lies just before us, is one of the most primitive of Forest hamlets, the village suddenly losing itself amongst the holms and hollies, and then reforming itself again in some open space. So thoroughly a Forest village, it is proverbially said to be dependent upon the yearly crop of acorns and mast, or “akermast,” as they are collectively called. To the south-west stands Burley Beacon, where some entrenchments are still visible, and the fields lying round it are still called “Greater” and “Lesser Castle Fields,” and “Barrows,” and “Coffins,” showing that the whole district has once been one vast battle-field.
Close to the village are the Burley quarries, where the so-called Burley rock, a mere conglomerate of gravel, the “ferrels,” or “verrels,” of North Hampshire, is dug, formerly used for the foundations of the old Forest churches, as at Brockenhurst, and Minestead, and Sopley in the Vale of the Avon. The great woods round Burley have all been cut, except a few beech-woods, but here and there “merry orchards” mingle themselves with the holms and hollies, wandering, half-wild, amongst the Forest.[107]
Turning away from the village, and going north-east, before us rise great woods—Old Burley, with its yews and oaks, where the raven used to build; Vinney Ridge, with its heronry at one extremity, and the Eagle Tree at the other; whilst behind us are the young Burley plantations. Here, near the Lodge, scattered in some fields, stand the remains of the “Twelve Apostles,” once enormous oaks, reduced both in number and size, with
“Boughs moss’d with age,
And high tops bald with dry antiquity.”