Shoreham, the humble and dull attendant upon Brighton, has an advantage over the great watering-place—which is streamless—in being situated on a river. It is not a beautiful place, but it has something of a harbour, in which you may find port in a storm, and it has a bridge across the ADUR. This river comes down from openings in the hills, having passed through pretty country, with such villages as Bramber (where there was once a broad estuary in which vessels anchored) and Steyning. The source of the Adur on the borders of St. Leonard’s Forest has been previously mentioned; but there are at least two other rills that have an equal claim. From Henfield the river runs south, through pasture land, and, as we have seen, winds past Bramber, supposed to be the Portus Adurni of the Romans. There is very little of the castle left, and that is almost hidden by trees. At New Shoreham the Adur turns eastward, and runs for a while parallel with the seashore.
These Sussex rivers which are projected from the neighbourhood of St. Leonard’s Forest can scarcely be considered as akin to the pure, bright chalk stream which was described at the commencement of this chapter; and the most important of the trio, the ARUN, does not in this respect differ from its fellows. Something more than passing glimpses of it are obtained from the carriage windows by the railway traveller as he speeds through the imposing scenery around Arundel. It is navigable for an unusual distance, and whatever beauty it possesses it owes to its surroundings. Of late years the river has become the Mecca of members of the London angling clubs, who charter special trains and invade the districts by hundreds on Sundays. The first stopping-place of any account from this point of view is Pulborough, the site of an old Roman settlement, with traces of camp and buildings, which will not, however, be found on Arun-side, but at Hardham and elsewhere. Amberley was rescued from oblivion, and from the desertion enforced upon it by neighbouring marshes, by the railway; and the scenery between it and Arundel has always been prized and worked at by artists. Swanbourne Mill as a picture is probably familiar to many who have never entered the county.
The splendidly kept castle at Arundel has not been dwarfed by the cathedral-like Roman Catholic church built by the Duke of Norfolk, and dedicated to St. Philip Neri. Even now it looks like the splendid stronghold that it was, and the most venerable in the land that it is, on its commanding terminal of swelling down, with the stream from the Weald narrowing between the hills through its beautiful valley, to the characteristic marsh flats beyond. The river hence to the sea does not call for admiration or comment, save that there is a remnant of a priory at Tortington, a point of view from which Arundel with its castle-crowned heights looks its best. Littlehampton, four miles from Arundel, is better known as a port of departure for steamships than as a watering-place competing with the pleasure resorts in more favoured situations on the coast.
Hampshire is a well-watered county, and classic ground for that new school of anglers who are classified as “dry-fly” men. The masters thereof graduated on the Itchen and the Test, most famous of all South-country chalk streams, and honourably mentioned in angling literature. To know that a man is a successful fisher upon either is tantamount to a certificate of the highest skill. The Hampshire rivers, other than these celebrated feeders of the Southampton water, are few, and modest in character. There is, it is true, a small trout stream at Fareham, a busy little seaport which owes its standing to its proximity to Portsmouth Harbour, and its attractions as a district abounding in country seats to the rampart of Portsdown Hill, affording at once protection from the north and opportunity for overlooking the Solent and the Isle of Wight. Less than three miles west, across the peninsula that sustains Gosport, is a considerable stream, little known outside the county, but an ever-present delight to the villages through which it lightly flows to the eastern shore of Southampton water. This is the Arle, or Titchfield river.
THE ROYAL PIER, SOUTHAMPTON (p. [19]).
Photo: Perkins, Son, & Venimore, Lewisham.
SOUTHAMPTON FROM THE WATER.
In its course of some score of miles the ARLE takes its share in a diversity of scenery of a soothing rather than romantic character. Rising in the South Downs, it begins by mingling with village and hamlet life in a sequestered valley; then it proceeds through an open forest country, and becomes navigable at Titchfield. The source of the stream is but a few miles west of Petersfield, but it begins with a sweep to the north and a loop round a southerly point, passing so much in the Meon district that it is often marked on the maps by that name, which was probably its only one in the past. Meonware was a Pictish province when there was a king of the South Saxons, and Saint Wilfrid preached Christianity to the British heathen. Indeed a portion of Corhampton Church, across the stream, is ascribed to that prelate. Wickham, most beautifully situated on the Arle, is celebrated as the birthplace of William of Wykeham, the great bishop-builder. Warton the poet lived his last days at Wickham, and died there in the first year of the century.