Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/An autumn walk in the New Forest
AN AUTUMN WALK IN THE NEW FOREST.
Sweet daughter of a rough and stormy sire,
Hoar winter’s blooming child—delightful spring,
Whose unshorn locks with leaves
And swelling buds are crowned.
From the green islands of eternal youth,
Crown’d with fresh flowers and ever-springing shade,
O! hither turn thy step.
So sings Barbauld of the spring, yet to me the Autumn is by far the most delightful season, with its gay robed forests, its teeming orchards, and waving corn. Nature is silent in autumn, but not so man; every wood and field echoes with life; from the note of cheery horn, coming with the breaking day, and reminding one that the hunting season is nigh at hand, to the swelling harvest strain that rises more energetically than harmoniously from the valley beneath us—all these fill the air, and make us almost forget that the birds are silent.
Early autumn is the best time of the year to visit our great woodland districts, and this autumn found me in the heart of the New Forest, among whose glades she has been keeping holiday in right royal panoply. I had visited the same spot once before, and longed to con over again the bright lesson taught me by a voice now silent.
I have always pitied those (and their name is legion) who hurry away to seek out beauties of scenery in distant lands, oblivious or ignorant of the gems that lie in their own fair country. England will well bear comparison with any land, especially in woodland scenery, and in my opinion there is no better example to be found than in that district of Hampshire called the New Forest. Tennyson knows this, and no doubt our gratitude is due to the inspiration there gained for some of those immortal word-paintings that ring and glow with the very voice and presence of Nature thrilling the spirit strings, like the old familiar notes that have mingled in every scene of love, joy, or grief.
No part of England contains a greater diversity of landscape than the New Forest. The undulating surface, covered in some parts by spreading woods, in others by heath, or patches of cultivation, with deep ravines, rocky heights, streams, and beyond all the blue sea. Yet perhaps the great charm lies in the natural wood, and the consciousness that we are gazing at Nature’s own handiwork; this knowledge, to a mind trained from childhood in artificial life, lends a new interest and awakens a new enthusiasm,—the same which dazzles and delights us in the great tropical forests.
The stately trees take every form of beauty and foliage, and, now in their autumn garb, are of every hue and tint. The everlasting green of the holly forms a dense under-growth, contrasting with the gay colours, and making some of the paler robed trees stand out as if they were endowed with the power of motion. The purple of the heathlands has given place to a soft sober grey, round which the gay woods stand like serried ranks of plumed and caparisoned warriors.
Yet lovely as the Forest is, when seen from the hill-top or open plain, it is even more so when, wandering beneath the arching boughs, you gain the deeper shadows where, here and there only, a ray of sunlight darts across like a golden spear, or lies flickering upon the mossy ground. Here, too, you will find the brooks that vein the forest, and exceedingly lovely they are; stealing upon you from behind some dark thicket, rippling along, their bright waters tinged with iron, and gilding the edges of the mossy stones until they resemble gems in a setting of gold, in other places, throwing a fretwork of the same bright tint over the pendent ferns and grasses, and again in others, gathering a deep amber-colour as it lies under some spreading myrtle.
I never saw the power and beauty of reflection more vividly pourtrayed than upon the bosom of these silent pools in the Forest brooks; every leaf and spray is reproduced, intensified, and enriched by the transparency of the water, suffering the warm hue of the mineral sediment in its bed to shine up through all, making, in their frames of gnarled root, fern, and moss, a matchless picture and study for the painter.
I made Stoneycross my head-quarters for the first week, wandering day after day into the Forest, seldom meeting any one, save a woodman, except near the site of what is called Rufus’ stone, the memorial which marks the spot tradition assigns as the death-scene of William—a death poetically denounced as a just retribution for the sin of afforesting the hitherto fertile district, a fertility which I fancy existed in the imagination of the writers who found it a fair field to draw from; and coming generations will bless, rather than blame, the love of sport that has left them such memorial of the past as the New Forest.
Thanks be to Nature, some green spots remain,
Free from the tread and stain of that gross world,
Whose god is commerce and religion gain,
Its altars furnaces, whose smoke is curled
Around the very clouds. Be praise again
To Nature and her God.
There still are flowing meadows, pathless woods,
Groves, hills, and vales, forests, and solitudes.
From Stoneycross I crossed to Lyndhurst, and from thence by way of Brockenhurst to Beaulieu Abbey, which is, I think, as fair and picturesque a remnant of olden days as any in the land; and if (as history would have believe) King John really erected it in a fit of superstitious apprehension, he merited the absolution he gained, right royally, for in no part of his wide domains could he have fixed upon a more peaceful or suitable spot, sheltered from the cold blasts, and guarded by the Exe from surprise. Nor did the royal generosity (or fear) rest content with the building,—the endowment was in proportion, and the district for miles round bears traces of the extent of the immediate possessions. The ruins of various small chapels are still standing, built to enable the husbandmen and others to attend Divine Service, despite of wind or weather; and Cowley Pond, which lies to the eastward, and covers some ninety acres in extent, proves that when the good old fathers fasted, they took care to fast well.
It was in the reign of Henry III. that the revenues of Beaulieu were still further enriched, and that Innocent III. constituted it a sanctuary; and it was here Margaret, Countess of Warwick, the Kingmaker, fled, and that Walter Purbeck obtained a short respite. Nor is it difficult to picture to the imagination many a romance illustrating the proud days of the old Abbey, whose great gates stood between the outcast and the avenger, and where meat, raiment, and rest were open to all—the just and the unjust, the beggar and the prince.
When the suppression of the monasteries afforded Henry VIII. a little diversification from his matrimonial perplexities, Beaulieu was completely dismantled, the stones being carried away to build a martello tower, now known as Hurst Castle, leaving us a few ruined arches and windows wreathed with ivy, and crowned with wallflower and wild pink, as monuments of the past.
From Beaulieu I went to Christchurch, the latter part of the way lying along the seashore; and as I stood upon some high ground near Chewton, a picture, unsurpassed by anything I had as yet seen, lay before and round me: to the south the bright blue sea, flecked with snowy-tipped waves, with the Isle of Wight rising clothed in purple, crimson, and gold, and a veil of mist floating round her brow; below me, and stretching on in a beautiful curve, the white beach of Christchurch bay, on the other hand, the great Forest glowing in the wondrous autumnal hues, blending in with the evergreen and grey heath, until it formed a mass of colour no human skill could pourtray; and away far northward lay the purple hills, melting and uncertain in the mid-day haze.
Christchurch bells were calling to a weekly afternoon service as I entered the town, a fitting refrain to the glorious lesson which Nature had been teaching me on my way along the beach. So after a glance at the familiar sign swinging before the old posting-house, I passed on; and entering by the north porch, stood once again in the solemn Priory Church—a church which well deserves a chapter to itself, mixed up as it is with so much historical interest, to say nothing of its own peculiar beauty. Its very building is, according to tradition, marked by a miracle, our Saviour himself being said to have joined the workmen in their pious labour, while the stones themselves were carried by the angels from the place where the church was originally destined to be erected. Standing as it does upon a rising ground between the Avon and the Stour, its tower has long been a landmark, both from sea and forest.
The exterior of the building is very highly ornamented, and shows less signs of decay than the interior, the view of which is grand and melancholy, for everywhere one sees the marks not only of “Time’s defacing fingers,” but, what is still more painful, wilful mutilation and neglect. It is surely worthy of a better fate than that fast closing round it. Nor have I ever seen a place that would better repay the outlay and care of a judicious restoration.