Occasionally a salmon, taking advantage of a flood, will ascend as high as Stockbridge, but this does not happen every year. At Romsey, however, gentlemen anglers find their reward, though anything more unlike a salmon river could not be found, unless, indeed, it should be the Stour and the Avon, to which we shall come presently. The Test in its upper and middle reaches is seldom so deep that the bottom, and the trout and grayling for which it is justly celebrated, cannot be clearly seen. It gets less shallow below Houghton Mill, and at Romsey there is water enough for salmon of major dimensions. But the current is even and stately, salmon pools as they are understood in Scotland and Ireland do not exist, and there are forests of weeds to assist the fish to get rid of the angler’s fly. The most noted landmark on the banks of the stream is Romsey Abbey, long restored to soundness of fabric, yet preserving all the appearance of perfect Norman architecture. Near it the first Berthon boats were built and launched on the Test by the vicar, whose name is borne by this handy collapsible craft. The Test enters Southampton Water at Redbridge, which is in a measure the port of lading for the New Forest.
Photo: W. Pouncy, Dorchester.
THE FROME AT FRAMPTON COURT (p. [24]).
There are tiny streams in the recesses of the New Forest little known to the outer world. The BEAULIEU river is worthy of mark on the maps, and when the tide is full it is a brimming water-way into the heart of the forest. The acreage of mud at low-water, however, detracts from its beauty, and the upper portion, from near Lyndhurst to the tidal limit, is small and overgrown. The ruins of Beaulieu Abbey, set in the surroundings of an exquisite New Forest village, far from the shriek of the locomotive whistle, or the smoke and bustle of a town, are truly a “fair place.” Beaulieu is one of the most entrancing combinations of wood, water, ruins, and village in the county, and the Abbey is especially interesting from its establishment by King John, after remorse occasioned by a dream.
The LYMINGTON river, the mainland channel opposite Yarmouth, in the Isle of Wight, is tidal to the town, a tortuous creek in low-water, the course, however, duly marked by stakes and beacons. The great Poet Laureate, Tennyson, used to cross to his Freshwater home by this route, and in the late ’fifties the writer of these words often took passage by the Isle of Wight boats for the privilege of gazing from a reverent distance at the poet, whose cloak, soft broad-brimmed hat, and short clay pipe filled from a packet of bird’s-eye, filled the youthful adorer with unspeakable admiration.
