HENLEY REGATTA. (From an Instantaneous Photograph.)
[CHAPTER V.]
HENLEY TO MAIDENHEAD.
The Best Bit of the River—Henley—The Church—The “Red Lion”—Shenstone’s Lines—Henley Regatta—The First University Boat-race—Fawley Court—Remenham—Hambledon Lock—Medmenham Abbey and the Franciscans—Dissolution of the Order—Hurley—Lady Place and its History—A Strange Presentiment—Bisham Abbey and its Ghost—Bisham Church—Great Marlow—The Church and its Curiosities—“Puppy Pie”—Quarry Woods—The Thames Swans and the Vintners’ Company—Cookham and Cliefden—Hedsor—Cliefden Woods—The House—Raymead—The Approach to Maidenhead.
NOTWITHSTANDING the old proverb concerning comparisons, we may venture to assert of this section of the Thames that it is the richest in natural beauties. Though there are spots on the upper part of the river which individually can hold their own with any, there will nowhere be found such a succession of exquisite views of noble reaches of water, of wooded bluffs and slopes, of green meadows and tree-covered islands, of old villages and stately or ancient mansions. There is, of course, nothing between Henley and Maidenhead which can rival the grand grouping of Windsor Castle on its wooded eminence, or the formal magnificence of Hampton Court; neither can the gardens of Kew, or the park on Richmond Hill, be equalled by anything on this part of the Thames; still, it affords us such a series of beautiful views of meadows, woods, and buildings that only between Richmond and Kew can we be induced to hesitate in awarding the palm to the portion of the river which is the subject of this chapter.
At Henley-on-Thames we are on the border of Oxfordshire. From its bridge we obtain not the least striking of the views to which we have alluded. The wider expanse of the upper valley contracts a little as the stream approaches the base of Remenham Hill, whose wooded slopes descend to the neighbourhood of the water. The Thames is deflected slightly towards the left as it commences the curve, in which, a mile or so farther down, it sweeps round the base of the long shelving spur which forms the northern termination of Remenham. On the Oxfordshire side the ground rises more gradually, but perceptibly, from the river bank. Just where the valley is narrowest is the site of Henley. A little farther down the hills recede on this side, and a fertile strath intervenes between their base and the water’s edge.
Henley is an old town—indeed, Plot claims for it the distinction of being the oldest town in Oxfordshire—but it makes little figure in history. A conflict between the royal and the parliamentary troops in the “Great Rebellion” is almost the only stirring incident which it has witnessed. Moreover, it has retained fewer relics of ancient days than many places of more modern date. Even its church, which is well situated in the neighbourhood of the river, is not a building of unusual antiquity. The greater part of the fabric is in the Perpendicular style. The tower is even younger, and is said to have been erected by Cardinal Wolsey, so that it belongs to the latest period of Tudor work. Several of the windows have been filled with modern stained-glass, and the interior has been carefully restored, so that the church is not unworthy of its position. Some of the monuments have a certain interest, though no great historical personages have found a grave here. One commemorates Richard Jennings, “Master Builder of St. Paul’s Cathedral”; another, Jack Ogle, an almost forgotten humorist of the days of the Restoration; a third, the widow of Sir Godfrey Kneller; and a fourth, General Dumouriez, who ended an eventful life at Turville Park, in this neighbourhood. He was one of those unlucky men who have the misfortune to be too rational for the age in which they were born. A distinguished soldier even in his youth—for by the time he was four-and-twenty he had been wounded almost as many times—he fell under Court displeasure for his liberal opinions. These the Bastille did not eradicate, so that he afterwards became a member of the Jacobin Club. But though he had striven and suffered for freedom, though he had headed the troops of the Directory in a successful campaign in Belgium, he was too moderate in his views to satisfy the fanatics of the Revolution, and, to save his own life, was obliged to put himself into the hands of the Austrians. At last he came to England, where he lived for nearly twenty years the unobtrusive life of a man of letters.