Below Cookham Bridge, a light iron structure, the river broadens out before it splits up into channels, in a way that is rather perplexing to new-comers. On the left hand is the original main channel, which takes a great bend outwards towards Hedsor before curving back to pass under the shadow of the Cliefden woods. Then comes “the cut,” with its locks—an artificial canal made to avoid the circuit and difficulties of the old channel. Beyond this are the entrances to two smaller channels, one leading to Odney weir, the other entering the Thames some distance below Cliefden House. In the neighbourhood of Cookham it is often hard to say whether the foreground or the distance is more beautiful. Here the ancient fabric of the church, with its ivy-clad tower, rises from its trim churchyard, surrounded with aged trees, some of them little more than huge trunks, which still retain enough vitality to support a short but thick output of branches. Here is an attractive hostel by the waterside. Here are the narrower arms of the river running up invitingly by the side of pleasant gardens and under the shadows of giant trees—places where the idler may linger for a long summer afternoon in some shady nook. Contemplative pursuits appear to be much in favour near Cookham. Fishing for roach out of a punt beguiles the time, and the excitement is of the mildest form, one, probably, from which few persons, however highly strung their nerves, would be debarred. An aroma of botanic origin, but not attributable to any flowers, sometimes steals over the water, to announce that the boat, half hid among the bushes, is not untenanted, and that the occupant is a victim to the herb denounced once by an enthusiastic divine as “the gorging fiend.” Here is a student of books, but the volume bears a resemblance to the literature of railway stalls rather than of the academy. Here is a devotee of the brush. He, at least, is at work, but in a leisurely way, as if he entered too fully into the spirit of the picture to spoil it by over-much intensity. In short, Cookham is one of the prettiest, pleasantest, laziest spots that the peripatetic traveller could find within a two hours’ journey from Charing Cross.
COOKHAM.
Cookham Church, which has just been mentioned, is almost hidden by the bridge and by houses from the prettiest part of the river, though well seen higher up the stream. Its low tower is partly covered with ivy; the body of the church is of various dates, the oldest part being Early English. It contains several modern stained-glass windows and old monuments, especially brasses. The cook of Queen Eleanor, wife of Henry III.; the “master clerk of the Spycery, under King Harry the Sixt,” have their tombs within the church; a modern monument by Flaxman commemorates the death by drowning of Sir Isaac Pocock, and a bas-relief by Woolner adorns the tomb of Frederick Walker, the well-known artist.
In the distance, to the left of Cliefden, and seemingly forming with it one demesne, lies Hedsor Park, the seat of Lord Boston, with its imitation castle, which would be improved, pictorially speaking, by a judiciously administered dose of dynamite. Hedsor overlooks the old course of the river, but is not approached by the traveller on the Thames, who has to follow the new cut, the only navigable channel. There is nothing attractive in the house, which is in the modern Italian style, and is hardly worthy of the magnificent situation it occupies. The tiny church, which is within the park enclosure, and has been beautifully restored, contains some monuments of the Irby family. Dropmore Park, with its noted pinetum and fine gardens, lies still farther back, another creation of the same reign. The house was erected and the grounds were laid out by Lord Grenville, at the beginning of the present century, about the time that he was Prime Minister.
The chief point of interest about the new cut—which, as might be expected, has rather too much of the Dutch canal about it to attract the traveller just fresh from Cookham—is that, in making it, a number of skeletons, with swords and spears of Roman workmanship, were found entombed together; indicating that these meadows had been the scene of some long-forgotten conflict.
