HIGH WATER AT MORTLAKE.
We must now turn back to Brentford, where the little Brent, which has made its way from the uplands of Hendon, falls into the Thames. Its aspect from the river, perhaps owing to the contrast which the opposite bank has so long presented, is not attractive. Brentford is a very ancient settlement. Some have thought that this spot was the scene of Cæsar’s passage of the Thames; certainly it was the chief town of the Middle Saxons. Were there not also two kings of Brentford? But when did they live? On this, history is silent; but the tradition is an old one. The town has always had a rather unsavoury reputation; “it is referred to by Thomson, Gay, Goldsmith, and others, chiefly on account of its dirt.” Indeed, the remarks on it might be thus summed up:—There are three kings at Cologne, and two at Brentford, and in the matter of odours the towns are proportional.
HOGARTH’S TOMB AT CHISWICK.
Some of the views in the neighbourhood of Kew Bridge are very pretty; the houses by the riverside often group picturesquely; the stream is diversified by one or two wooded islands; barges floating down the Thames, or moored against its banks, combine well in foreground and middle distance; but after this there comes an uninteresting interval. The right bank is occupied largely by market gardens, the land lies low, and in places has an unkempt aspect; the passenger by the towing-path sees heaps suggestive of refuse to other senses than that of sight, but as Mortlake is neared the prospect again brightens on the right bank of the river, though the left remains rather monotonous. Some attractive houses stand by the waterside. There is the well-known “Ship” Inn, and the odour which is sometimes wafted from the shore, though due to art rather than to nature, is more pleasant than that of most chemical processes, for it is suggestive of good English beer. Mortlake has lost its tapestry works and its potteries, but it has retained its brewery. Once every year Mortlake is numbered among the famous places of England, for here is a limit, generally the winning-post, of the aquatic Derby—the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race. This we shall presently mention a little more fully. Enough now to cast a glance at the townlet itself, which, like all places near London, is developing, and becoming more townlike.
The name of Mortlake appears in English records at a very early date, as it was an important manor belonging to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The manor itself appears to have included much more than the present parish, but the house was in the village. It was a not unfrequent residence of the archbishops down to the time of Cranmer, by whom the lands were alienated in exchange to the king. Only the tower of the church is old, and this is not particularly interesting; the remainder is Hanoverian, and suitable to its period. Here are entombed Dee and Partridge, the astrologers; Philip Francis, the supposed author of “Junius”; and John Bernard, Sir Robert Walpole’s “only incorruptible Member of Parliament”; while in the neighbourhood lived Colston, the philanthropist; Jesse, the naturalist, and Henry Taylor, author of “Philip van Artevelde”—a fair share of celebrities for a quiet little suburban town.
Just beyond Mortlake is the village of Barnes, with the bridge of the South-Western Railway spanning the Thames. The houses and gardens by the riverside give a bright and homelike aspect to the scene. The church incorporates fragments of an ancient building, and the rectory has been occupied by more than one clergyman of mark. Inland, stretching back across the peninsula, and thus offering a short cut from Putney, well known to the frequenters of boat-races, lies Barnes Common—a breezy spot, bright in summer with blossoming furze, which happily is still sacred from the builder, and untouched by the landscape gardener.
From Kew Bridge down to Putney Bridge Father Thames follows a course even more serpentine than usual. Its double loop forms an almost regular S, the axis of each fold lying nearly north and south. The general direction of its flow also has changed, from a northerly to an easterly course; thus, at Mortlake, we are again brought by the river into the vicinity, comparatively speaking, of Richmond Park, on its northern side; while, on the left bank, Chiswick may almost be said to make two appearances on the riverside. The older part, however, of this place lies below Mortlake. It still retains traces of its ancient picturesqueness, when Chiswick House was a favourite residence of the Dukes of Devonshire, and its fêtes among the chief events of a London season. Chiswick is, however, greatly changed since then—still more from the days when it was the home of Hogarth, whose tomb is in the churchyard. New houses have sprung up, the iron-roofed sheds of a ship-building establishment—devoted especially to the construction of torpedoes—uglify, if the word be permitted, the margin of the Thames, and the incessant clang of hammers disturbs the peace of the stream. Henceforth, we find ourselves within the grasp of the metropolis. Once or twice, it is true, the river seems to slip away again into the freedom of the fields, but it is only for a brief space; it is soon prisoned again between the walls of the workshop, or doomed to remain in sight of the unsightly performances of the nineteenth-century builder.