Great numbers of people visit Stony-Cross in the summer. Large parties come out from Southampton, Winchester, and the neighbouring towns, and pic-nic under the trees that are scattered about; and a pleasanter place for a summer day’s excursion cannot be well imagined. There is a great charm in visiting a spot marked by a singular historical event 700 years ago, and finding it so similar in all its present features.
It lies on a wide slope amongst the woods. From the Ringwood road above, splendid views over the country present themselves; not far off is a capital inn, and below are a few scattered cottages, standing amid their orchards, a picture of forest simplicity and peace. When I was there, the trees hung with loads of fruit, yet the little wooden houses stood, some of them empty and unprotected; their inhabitants, I suppose, being out working in the woods. I sate on the trunk of a fallen tree, and contemplated them with a feeling of delight. Supposing that it might be in one of them that the descendants of the Purkess who conveyed the king’s body to Winchester, lived, I went to the only one where there appeared anybody at home, to inquire, and learned that Purkess had lived at Minstead, a mile off. This village is said to have received its name from the exclamation of Rufus, when the arrow struck him;—“O myne stede!” Yet he is said to have died instantly: if, therefore, this were the spot of his death, how came Minstead by the name? But the house of Purkess was at Minstead; and the man also is said to have lived near, in a small hut, and maintained his family by burning charcoal. Possibly the difficulty may be explained by what is very likely, that Purkess might be working in the wood at the time of the accident, and conveyed the body to his house before he conveyed it thence to Winchester in his cart. The name of Purkess is not mentioned by any historian, but the fact of the body being so conveyed is, and constant tradition says that Purkess was the man, and that he received as a reward the grant of an acre or two round his hut. His male descendants have continued to occupy the same house, and carry on the same trade from that time till very recently. The last of the lineal occupiers of the hut died an old man a few years ago; his daughter had married away, and his son, having learned some other trade, had gone to Southampton to practise it; so that here a singular residence of 700 years ends. The family is said to be the most ancient in the county. It was said that a piece of the wheel of the cart on which the body was conveyed, had always been preserved in the hut. When I asked if this were true, “Yes,” said the cottager, “the old man had a curious old piece of wood that he used to shew, and when the parties were gone, he used to laugh and say, ‘it did very well for the gentlemen.’” Alas! for the honour of all relics that are too shrewdly inquired into!
Mrs. Southey, on reading the former edition, wrote me the following interesting particulars of the Purkess family. “Many of the race and name are still living in and about Minstead. The old cottage of the Purkess who ‘found the monarch’s corse,’ stood close to an estate of my father’s, now in possession of the Buckleys, where some of my childish years were spent. A damsel of the family,—Lydia Purkess, a true forest damsel, who had three or four colts for her portion, and used to break them in herself without saddle or bridle, other than a rope,—was a great ally of mine, wee thing that I was, bringing me whortle-berries, and service-berries, and dormice, and all sorts of things, to our trysting-place in the holly hedge that divided our domains. The same damsel, when a little broken in herself, became in after years our servant, and lived here many years, till she married. She came to visit me the other day, and I made her vivify my recollection about the old cottage and the cart wheel. The forester you questioned on the subject was an envious churl. The cottage was pulled down when falling, about five years ago. The part of the wheel did exist (who dares question our forest creed?) in the possession of the same Purkesses till the death of my Lydia’s grandfather, and what became of it then she cannot tell. When George III. came last into Hampshire, taking up his abode at Cuffnell, near Minstead, he sent for the heir of the Purkesses and their heirloom, the wheel, but it was with ‘the things which have been and are no more.’ I have preserved a sketch of the old cottage; without doubt, I should think, one of the most ancient, if not the most, in the forest. The reed-pen drawing I send you is a fac-simile of that sketch.”
And still—so runs our forest creed,
Flourish the pious yeoman’s seed,
Ev’n in the self-same spot:
One horse and cart their little store,
Like their forefathers; neither more
Nor less, the children’s lot.—The Red King.
Much interesting information respecting this fine old forest is to be found in “Gilpin’s Forest Scenery.” The Rev. William Gilpin lived at Boldre, in a sweet old parsonage, in a fine situation, facing noble woods. He built and endowed a school-house there, out of the profits of the sale of his drawings, and lies buried in that churchyard. I visited his tomb with Mrs. Southey, who lived near, and who, like all poetical people who live near one, has an attachment to the forest as enthusiastic as that of her venerable friend Gilpin himself.
Gilpin supposes that the peculiar breed of wild horses with which this forest abounds, are a race descended from the Spanish jennets, driven ashore on the coast of Hampshire in the dispersion of the Invincible Armada. Great numbers of these are annually taken and sold. They are useful for any kind of employment, and are remarkable for being sure-footed. The colts are either hunted down by horsemen, or caught by stratagem. He gives also a curious account of herding the hogs in this forest, which has been so frequently quoted that most readers must be familiar with it.
There is a numerous population within the limits of this forest; having got a habitation there by one means or another. On the skirts of the forest, and round its vast heaths, are numbers of poor huts, whose inmates have very little visible means of existence, but profess themselves to be woodmen, charcoal-burners, and so on; but it is pretty well understood that poaching and smuggling are their more probable vocations. Some of their cabins are the rudest erections of boughs, turf, and heather. Their poles for charcoal-burning are reared in huge pyramids, with the smaller ends uppermost; and they tell a story in the forest, of a popular physician who was sent for on some urgent occasion, and coming to a certain place was met by a party of men, who told him he must submit to be blindfolded. He did not feel in a condition to resist, and therefore acquiesced in the proposal with an apparent good will, though inly not so well pleased with the adventure. He continued to see sufficiently to discover that they took him down a wild and dismal glen. It was evening; and the light of the charcoal fires was seen glimmering here and there. They came to a huge pile of poles, which the men partly removed, and led him through a sort of labyrinthine passage within them, where his bandage was removed, and he found his patient lying in the midst of a hut, which furnished plenty of evidence that it was not merely the retreat, but the depôt of smugglers. Without, however, seeming to notice anything but his patient, he prescribed, received his fee, was again bandaged, and reconducted to the spot where he had been met, and wished a very good night.
“Foresters and Borderers,” says John Evelyn, “are not generally so civil and reasonable as might be wished.” And that seems to be exactly the character of those in the New Forest. Many of them, like those in the woods of America, are mere squatters, but the attempt to disturb them is much the same as to disturb a hornets’ nest. Conscious that there is no strength but in making common cause, they are all up in arms at any attempt to dislodge any of them. A few years ago, I read in the newspapers of an attempt of the farmers to remove some of these suspicious neighbours to a greater distance, which brought out such a host of hostile foresters against them, threatening to burn their houses over their heads, as compelled them to send for the military. This is just in keeping with the character given of them in the neighbourhood. They are a fine race of men, say they, but many of them desperate. In severe winters the distress and destitution of these wild people have sometimes been found to be beyond description, both in intensity and extent.
In this forest are nine walks, and to each a keeper. It has also two rangers, a bowbearer, and landwarden. There is also an officer of modern date in the constitution of a forest, the purveyor, appointed by the commissioners of the dockyards at Plymouth, whose business is to assign timber for the use of the navy. There are also various inferior officers, as vermin killers, etc. Many of these offices are now merely sinecures, and are held by gentlemen who rarely see the forest; the greater part of their concern with it being to receive their salaries, and the number of fat bucks belonging by prescription to the office. The lodges were handsome buildings, fit for the residence of any gentleman, and were mostly so occupied. The one at Lyndhurst, called “The King’s House,” where George III. used to take up his residence during his hunting expeditions, is a substantial brick building close to the road. In it is preserved one of the stirrups of Rufus.