HAMPTON COURT TO RICHMOND.
Coming from London, Thames Ditton is the first point at which, in summer, the house-boat, elsewhere ubiquitous, is met with. The charm of the lagoon-like life which the house-boat affords has not lacked eulogists; but who shall justly describe the calm delights of dusk upon the river? It is as undefinable as happiness. The red gleam of sunset is splendidly spectacular; the gloom of dusk upon the water is weird, and a world of mystery seems to reside beyond. The plash of oars continues until the last speck of light has been folded into night; the boats shoot out from the encompassing darkness, ripple past, and enter the farther shadows. Strange fancies enter the imaginative mind, and these gliding boats seem like phantom craft shooting from shadow-land to shadow-land. Sometimes there comes a hissing launch, its lights flashing meteorically across the stream, and throwing their beams in among the rushes and osiers like sudden electric jets, or the fitful gleam of a will-o’-the-wisp. The awakening on the river has something of the idyllic, especially on a Sunday morning, and if the moorings be cast within earshot of church bells. Ditton is a prime point for the disportment of small craft from Kingston and Surbiton, and on fine Saturdays and Sundays the river hereabouts is crowded. All this movement is of course unfavourable for the punt-angler, unless he be astir early or on a day when the water is more or less deserted. In winter, however, when boating possesses charms only for the hardiest of enthusiasts, a good creel can be made within a stone’s throw of the “Swan.”
Between Thames Ditton and Surbiton the river banks possess nothing of especial interest. The broad reach is, however, exceedingly pretty. On the Middlesex shore is a more than usually picturesque towing-path, broad and grassy, backed by the full hedgerow which bounds the park of Hampton Court. On the Surrey side the reeds and alders are profuse, and edge the water almost without break. The river front of Surbiton wears a decidedly foreign air, with its tall white houses, and winding walks and shrubberies along the bank. This esplanade, starting from the water-works, extends for some distance towards Kingston, and is an excellent hint to the local authorities of other water-side suburbs. Surbiton is an interesting spot to rowing men, for it is the head-quarters both of the well-known Kingston Rowing Club and of the Thames Sailing Club. Other interest it does not possess, and everything in and about it is painfully modern. But it is a pretty spot, and being within easy access of London is full of attraction to those who toil and spin daily within sound of the boom of Great Paul. Anything that Surbiton lacks in antiquity its ancient and dignified parent, Kingston, can supply. Kingston Bridge lies pretty well a mile farther down stream, almost at the opposite extremity of the town. The view from the facing bank still has something of the foreign air of Surbiton; but the aspect is Netherlandish rather than French, which the other is. The square red tower of the church, the congeries of tiled roofs, and the quaint little summer arbours in the sloping garden of the river-side hotel, contribute greatly to this effect. The not unhandsome stone bridge, the twin-brother of that at Richmond, which connects Hampton Wick with Kingston, is a modern successor of a long ancestry of bridges, the earliest of which dated from Saxon times. Civil war, rather than time, seems to have made an end of all the previous bridges save that which immediately gave place to the present. For centuries London Bridge was the only other permanent means of crossing the Thames; consequently, when there occurred one of the frequent commotions in which our ancestors delighted, there was a good deal of competition between the two sides to get Kingston Bridge destroyed first, and so prevent communication between Middlesex and Surrey. In the strifes of the Roses it fared ill, and during Sir Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion it was broken down to prevent the passage of the insurgents. Since then, nearly three centuries and a half ago, the bridge has been more tenderly treated.
KINGSTON, FROM THE RIVER.
THE MARKET-PLACE, KINGSTON.
Kingston is a very interesting old town, and was an important place, and the scene of the coronation of Saxon kings a thousand years ago. It is remarkable as being the last municipal borough on the river, with the exception of the City of London itself. All the other places have to put up with local boards or vestries, or other undignified mushroomy governing bodies. Kingston possesses the real antique thing—mayor, aldermen, town councillors, mace, and all the other symbols of municipal importance, and is duly and rightly proud thereof. Few English towns can boast of such antiquity, and of fewer still can it be said that they have been boroughs since the days of John Lackland. It seems always to have been a loyal town—the result, perhaps, of its ancient regal associations—and much money appears to have been spent by the olden burghers for bell-ringing and other diversions when confusion had overtaken the king’s enemies. When the Earl of Northumberland was taken, for instance, the Kingston ringers benefited to the extent of twenty pence—a clear exemplification of the saying that one half of the world lives upon the misfortunes of the other half. When Prince Charles returned from his Spanish expedition in 1624, the joy of the townsmen was so demonstrative that they must needs spend three and fourpence upon the clangour of joy-bells. Doubtless the young prince, who was much at Hampton Court, was well known in the town, and when, after his accession, his troubles pressed thick upon him, the townsmen were loyal to the core. The actual hostilities of the great rebellion began and ended at Kingston, singularly enough. There the first, armed force assembled; there, near Surbiton Common, Buckingham and Holland made the last stand for the crown, in which fight Lord Francis Villiers, who is buried in Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster, was slain.