THE AVON AT AMESBURY (p. [22]).
The ancient hospital of St. Cross is one of the best-known features of the Itchen in the neighbourhood of Winchester, but there are charming country-seats along the whole remaining course—fair homes of English gentlemen, planted above the grass land whence the evening mists of summer rise to shroud the winding stream and far-stretching water-meads, and adorned with smooth-shaven lawns intersected by gravel-walks, winding amidst shrubberies and parterres to the sedgy banks of the silently gliding river. But St. Cross is unique with its gateway tower and porter’s hutch, where the wayfarer may even now make the vagrant’s claim for dole of beer and bread, the former no longer brewed on the spot, and for its own sake not worth the trouble often taken by sentimental visitors to obtain it. Fine old elms surround the venerable home of the brethren of this cloistered retreat; the river flows close to its foundations; and, facing you across the stream, rises the bold rounded steep surmounted by the clump of beech-trees on St. Catherine’s Hill. The speculative builder, however, has long been pushing his outworks towards this breezy eminence where the Wykeham College boys of past generations trooped to their sports.
SALISBURY CATHEDRAL (p. [22]).
The Itchen as it narrows to serve the South Stoneham water-wheels loses much of its beauty, and is finally, after its course of twenty-five miles, abruptly stopped at the flour-mill. Through artificial outlets it tumbles into the tideway, and becomes at a bound subject to the ebb and flow of the Solent. Southampton, after a temporary depression due to the withdrawal of the Peninsular and Oriental Company to other headquarters, has launched out into renewed enterprise; great docks have been added, and the extension is likely to continue in the future. Queen Victoria opened the Empress Docks in 1890; the graving docks were the next scheme, and in 1893 the new American line of steamers began to run. In 1833 her Majesty, then the Princess Victoria, opened the Royal (or Victoria) Pier, which was rebuilt in 1892 and re-opened by the Duke of Connaught; and from it and other vantage points commanding views are to be had of the estuary, and of the New Forest on the further side. To meet this vigorous revival of commercial development, the suburbs have pushed out in all directions, and the estuary of the Itchen, from the Salmon Pool at South Stoneham to the Docks, is now bordered by modern dwellings, and presents an appearance of life in marked contrast to the dreariness of a quarter of a century ago.
In its general characteristics the Test resembles the Itchen. It is ten miles longer, and has a tributary assistance which its sister stream lacks; but there are in its valley similar country mansions, ruddy farm-houses, picturesque cottages and gardens, water-meads and marshy corners, mills and mill-pools, rustic bridges, and superb stock of salmon in the lower, and of trout and grayling in the higher, reaches. It springs from the foot of the ridge on the Berkshire border, and is joined below Hurstbourne Park by a branch from the north-east. For the first few miles it is the ideal of a small winding stream, and is established as a chalk stream of the first class at Whitchurch. It skirts Harewood Forest, and takes in a tributary below Wherwell. The principal feeder is the Anton, which is of sufficient magnitude to be considered an independent river. For quite sixteen miles the Test runs a sinuous course, as if not certain which point of the compass to select, but eventually it goes straight south. Stockbridge is the only considerable town, and that owes its reputation to ample training downs, and to the periodical races which rank high in that description of sport. Between this and Romsey there are many bye-waters, and it requires one accustomed to the country to distinguish the main river.