Woods and heath together have an area of 132 acres; but owing to the large horizon, the broken surface, and the wild and varied character of the woodland scenery, the space seems practically unlimited: the sense of freedom, which gives Hampstead Heath its principal charm and tonic value, may be here experienced in even a greater degree than at that favourite resort. To the dwellers in the north, west, and south-west of London this wild spot is little known. From Paddington or Victoria you can journey to the end of Surrey and to Hampshire more quickly and with greater comfort than to Bostell Woods. To the very large and increasing working population of Woolwich and Plumstead this space is of incalculable value, and they delight in it. But this is a busy people, and on most working days, especially in the late autumn, winter, and early spring months, the visitor will often find himself out of sight and sound of human beings; nor could the lover of nature and of contemplation wish for a better place in which to roam about. Small woodland birds are in great variety. Quietly moving about or seated under the trees, you hear the delicate songs and various airy lisping and tinkling sounds of tits of several species, of wren, tree-creeper, goldcrest, nuthatch, lesser spotted woodpecker, robin, greenfinch and chaffinch, and in winter the siskin and redpole. Listening to this fairy-like musical prattle, or attending to your own thoughts, there is but one thing, one sound, to break the illusion of remoteness from the toiling crowded world of London—the report at intervals of a big gun from the Arsenal, three miles away. Too far for the jarring and shrieking sounds of machinery and the noisy toil of some sixteen to eighteen thousand men perpetually engaged in the manufacture of arms to reach the woods; but the dull, thunderous roar of the big gun travels over wide leagues of country; and the hermit, startled out of his meditations, is apt to wish with the poet that the old god of war himself was dead, and rotting on his iron hills; or else that he would make his hostile preparations with less noise.
At the end of day, windless after wind, or with a clear sky after rain, when the guns have ceased to boom, the woods are at their best. Then the birds are most vocal, their voices purer, more spiritual, than at other times. Then the level sun, that flatters all things, fills the dim interior with a mystic light, a strange glory; and the oaks, green with moss, are pillars of emerald, and the tall red-barked fir-trees are pillars of fire.
Some reader, remembering the exceeding foulness of London itself, and the polluting cloud which it casts wide over the country, to this side or that according as the wind blows, may imagine that no place in touch with the East-end of the metropolis can be quite so fresh as I have painted Bostell. But Nature’s self-purifying power is very great. Those who are well acquainted with outer London, within a radius of, say, ten miles of Charing Cross, must know spots as fresh and unsullied as you would find in the remote Quantocks; secluded bits of woodland where you can spend hours out of sight and sound of human life, forgetting London and the things that concern London, or by means of the mind’s magic changing them into something in harmony with your own mood and wholly your own:
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.
Bostell Woods is a favourite haunt of birds’-nesting boys and youths in summer, and as it is quite impossible to keep an eye on their doings, very few of the larger and rarer species are able to breed there; but in the adjoining wooded grounds, belonging to Christ’s Hospital, the jay, magpie, white owl and brown owl still breed, and the nightingale is common in summer.
Not far from Bostell we have the Plumstead and Woolwich Commons, together an area of about 450 acres; but as these spaces are used solely as recreation grounds, and are not attractive to birds, it is not necessary to describe them. West and south-west of Greenwich, in that rural portion of the South-east district through which our way now lies, the first open space we come to is the Hilly Fields (45 acres) at Brockley; a green hill with fine views from the summit, but not a habitation of birds. A little farther on, with Nunhead Cemetery between, lies Peckham Rye and Peckham Rye Park (113 acres). The Rye, or common, is a wedge-shaped piece of ground used for recreation, and consequently not a place where birds are found. From the narrow end of the ground a very attractive prospect lies before the sight: the green wide space of the Rye is seen to be bounded by a wood (the park), and beyond the wood are green hills—Furze Hill, and One Tree, or Oak of Honor, Hill. The effect of distance is produced by the trees and hills, and the scene is, for this part of London, strikingly rural. The park at the broad extremity of the Rye, I have said, has the appearance of a wood; and it is or was a wood, or the well-preserved fragment of one, as perfect a transcript of wild nature as could be found within four miles of Charing Cross. This park was acquired for the public in 1891, and as the wildest and best portion was enclosed with an iron fence to keep the public out, some of us cherished the hope that the County Council meant to preserve it in the exact condition in which they received it. There the self-planted and never mutilated trees flourished in beautiful disorder, their lower boughs mingling with the spreading luxuriant brambles; and tree, bramble, and ivy were one with the wild grasses and woodland blossoms among them. If, as tradition tells, King John hunted the wild stag at Peckham, he could not have seen a fresher, lovelier bit of nature than this. But, alas! the gardeners, who had all the rest of the grounds to prettify and vulgarise and work their will on, could not keep their hands off this precious spot; for some time past they have been cutting away the wild growths, and digging and planting, until they have well nigh spoiled it.
There is no doubt that a vast majority of the inhabitants of London, whose only glimpses of nature can be had in the public parks, prefer that that nature should be as little spoiled as possible; that there should be something of wildness in it, of Nature’s own negligence. It is infinitely more to them than that excessive smoothness and artificiality of which we see so much. To exhibit flower-beds to those who crave for nature is like placing a dish of Turkish Delight before a hungry man: a bramble-bush, a bunch of nettles, would suit him better. And this universal feeling and perpetual want of the Londoner should be more considered by those who have charge of our open spaces.
Small birds are abundant in Peckham Park, but there is no large species except the now almost universal wood-pigeon. A few rooks, in 1895, and again in 1896, tried to establish a rookery here, but have now gone away. The resident songsters are the thrush, blackbird, robin, dunnock, wren, tits, chaffinch, greenfinch, and starling. Among the blackbirds there are, at the time of writing this chapter, two white individuals.
Close to Peckham Rye and Park there are two large cemeteries—Nunhead on one side and Camberwell Cemetery on the other. Both are on high ground; the first (40 acres) is an extremely pretty spot, and has the finest trees to be seen in any metropolitan burying-ground. From the highest part of the ground an extensive and charming view may be had of the comparatively rural district on the south side. Small birds, especially in the winter months, are numerous in this cemetery, and it is pretty to see the starlings in flocks, chaffinches, robins, and other small birds sitting on the gravestones.