SHEPPERTON.
Largely frequented by anglers, Weybridge must take care if it desires to retain the favour of boating-men. While the towing-path crosses the boat-yard, and dredging is neglected by those, whoever they may be, on whom the duty rests, it is very difficult to avoid grounding; so that many owners have been taking their boats away, as the constant dragging not only scratches but strains them. Shepperton, on the Middlesex shore, is a pretty village, small and quiet, with its chief places of residence hidden away behind trees, or peeping out upon the river. It has a railway terminus, on the South Western system, and is about an hour, that is, nineteen miles, from Waterloo. The deeps afford tolerable fly-fishing in the trout season, and are more frequently fished for jack, perch, roach, and barbel. There are several good swims in pretty equal favour with anglers, to wit the upper deep, the lower deep, and the old deep, east of the creek rails. Besides these, the creek itself is often resorted to. The anglers’ inns at Shepperton are the “Anchor” and the “Crown.” It is an unspoilt Thames-side village, this Shepperton, in spite of its many pleasure-seeking visitors; a class, to say the sad truth, apt to disclose a selfish indifference to the pleasure of others. If the holiday-maker is to be traced by scientific investigation, the marks to be looked for will be broken bottles, greasy sandwich-papers, and lobster-shell, just as flint tools and weapons denote other and earlier savages who have lived on the earth, and have made it as disagreeable as possible for their fellow-brutes. Shepperton Lock and Ferry are both picturesque in themselves, as well as being foregrounds of scenery that is charming to the eye nurtured by art. Truly, landscape-painting has done noble service in fostering the love of nature. Though real beauty must be above the skill of man to imitate, it is a curious truth that no age in which that skill has not been exercised has ever left any written records of a feeling for the grandeur of mountains, or the simple loveliness of woods, fields, and brooks. Chaucer, you say? Why, Chaucer pictured everything because he had seen it in pictures; had the very soul of a limner; lived in the sincerest age of art; saw Flanders and Italy; was familiar with all that was exquisite in the refinement of courts; and, unless his appointment as clerk of the works at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, was a gross sinecure, knew how a daisy should look in stone as well as in nature’s finer fashioning. He who imagines Chaucer to have displayed natural observation without cognisance of art has totally misread Chaucer’s time, rich in actual colour, as in the very dress that distinguished “gentle and simple;” for, as Mr. Ruskin has said, speaking of “the lovely and fantastic dressing of the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries” (in the very heart and flower of which period Chaucer lived), “no good historical painting ever yet existed, or ever can exist, where the dresses of the people of the time are not beautiful.”
Shepperton, hale, green, and old, in its plentiful trees, mostly elms and horse-chestnuts, has likewise an age in history. It is a noted spot for Roman remains; it has a church that was venerable and still retains claims to veneration; and it has a rectory-house older, for the most part, than the parish church to which it belongs. The dwelling in question is of fifteenth century erection, and is principally of timber, the soundest, the strongest, the most enduring—English oak. Builders will come back in time to the wisdom of such building, as they are even now aware of the folly which assumes iron to be fireproof. Halliford is our next halt, a mile down from Shepperton Railway Station, the nearest to the place. It is quite accessible enough for anglers, whose interest, if not whose taste, leads them to a preference of seclusion to racket and noise. Proverbially “jolly,” the angler understands jollity in the Waltonian sense, as, indeed, the most sensible of us all, anglers or not, understand it. The vulgar adverb, “awfully,” does, indeed, too literally qualify at times the modern adjective. Halliford Bridge was washed away some years ago by the floods; and now the Surrey and Middlesex shores are connected by a brick and iron structure which is named Walton Bridge, and which, having been the occasion of war between Bumbledom on both sides the river, was painted of two colours, a chromatic difference that greatly increased the normal ugliness of the design. The most plentiful fish at Halliford are roach and bream, but there is an abundant variety of others. To distinguish this little place from another Halliford, which is a hamlet of Sunbury, it is sometimes called Lower Halliford. The views along and across the river, every way, are charming; and as we look over to Oatlands, the Surrey hills form a beautiful background; while on one side we have Walton and Ashley Park, and on the other Weybridge. The “Red Lion” is a favourite haunt of anglers, and all who visit the spot by road or river; and other houses of entertainment are the “Crown,” the “Ship,” and Mrs. Searle’s. The narrow creek adjacent to the “Red Lion” is in frequent request as a harbour for punts and small craft in general. A little further and we come to Walton, having crossed the river once again into Surrey.
HALLIFORD.
Walton-on-Thames was, in old Saxon days, as its name plainly indicates, a walled town. Etymology apart, the traces of its having been fortified speak for themselves in the neighbouring remains of important earthworks. It is now a village; and, as a village, large; but it is not quite large enough to be considered a town; and of its walls there are no traces above ground. Walton Bridge crosses the river just where there was once a ford that, as relics show, was strongly defended. A little above Walton is the spot at which Cæsar crossed, in the time of his second invasion. It is called Cowey Stakes, and has afforded matter for many an antiquarian discussion. The “Stakes” were driven in front of the bank to repel attempts at landing. Some accounts of them state that they were placed upright in two rows, across the shallow bend of the river, so as to support a bridge. Walton has an interesting church, very old in some parts, but modern in others, with Norman piers, on one of which may be read, deeply cut, the verse ascribed to Queen Elizabeth, when princess, and when it was sought by Mary to entrap her in a heresy regarding the doctrine of Transubstantiation.
“Christ was the Worde and spake it;