Her lord, the stately Thames; which that great flood again,
With many signes of joy, doth kindly entertain.
The Loddon next comes in, contributing her store,
As still we see, the much runs ever to the more.”
THE THAMES AT READING, FROM THE OLD CLAPPERS.
The clear Kennet is, moreover, in other respects an exceedingly interesting river, and a stream, too, of some practical importance. It rises on the edge of the Wiltshire Downs, and for three or four miles runs in modest volume until it passes through the old town of Marlborough, a steady-going Wiltshire borough, deriving its life not from manufacture, mining, pump-room, or esplanade, but from the land, as represented by the cattle, corn, malt, cheese, and woollen fabrics which are the subjects of barter and exchange at its periodical markets. In the palmiest days of coaching, four-and-thirty four-horse coaches used to stop at Marlborough on their journey between Bristol and London, the high road at that time running through what is now the centre avenue of the College grounds. The Vale of Kennet is here bounded by the Wiltshire Downs on the east, and Savernake Forest on the west. The forest is about a couple of miles from the town, and is the stateliest forest in the kingdom belonging to a private proprietor. It is sixteen miles in circumference, finely timbered, and possessing that too-often-lacking essential of a forest, harmonious alternation of hill and dale. There is a glorious avenue of beech-trees five miles long; and in the spring season the hawthorn-trees, of immense age, with heads that often compete in size and shape with the ordinary forest trees, and each standing bravely by itself, are a marvel of fragrant bloom. Amongst the groves of oak, beech, and chestnut, and undergrowth of bracken, fern, bush, and briar, there are hundreds of fallow deer; and a considerable head of red deer is still successfully maintained. The Kennet ornaments the Park of Ramsbury Manor, and touches Littlecote Park, a tragic reminiscence of which is given in the notes to Sir Walter Scott’s poem of Rokeby.
So far, the Kennet has watered Wiltshire; but soon after leaving Chilton Lodge it enters Berkshire, meandering through a tract of marsh, and, dividing into two streams, runs through the decayed but once considerable town of Hungerford. Pope signalised the river in the line—
“The Kennet, swift, for silver eels renowned;”