The New Forest: its history and its scenery/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
THE VALLEY OF THE AVON CONTINUED.—TYRREL'S FORD, SOPLEY, AND WINKTON.
After we leave Ringwood the road for a mile or two is less attractive in its scenery. Still, here, as in every part of England, there is something to be seen and learnt. The Avon flows close by, famous for a peculiar eel, locally called the "sniggle" (anguilla mediorostris), which differs from its common congener (acutirostris) in its slender form and elongated under-jaw, and its habits of roving and feeding by day.[1] The river has, also, like some of the Norwegian streams, the peculiarity of forming ground ice. For the botanist, along the hedge banks, the blue and slate-coloured soapwort is growing throughout the summer and autumn, with purple cat-mint and wild clary. In the waste places the thorn-apple shows its white blossoms; whilst red stacks of fern and black turf ricks stand by every cottage door to remind us how close we are to the Forest.
After we pass Bisterne,[2] the road becomes more interesting. To our right rises the range of St. Catherine's Hills, that is, the fortified height, where remain the four mounds of the watchtowers and the traces of the camp. Presently we come to Avon-Tyrrel and the blacksmith's forge, built on the spot where Tiril's horse is said to have been shod, and which pays a yearly fine of three pounds and ten shillings to Government.
The actual Ford itself is some little way from the road. Round it stretch meadows, with strong coarse grass and sedgy weeds, branches of the Avon winding here and there, fringed by willows, the main stream flowing out broad and strong, with islands of osiers and rushes, where still breed wild duck and teal, the whole backed by the gloom of St. Catherine's Hills crested by their darker pines. The old road, used now only by the turf-cutters, crossing the former mill-brook, follows the bed of one of the many streams, till, reaching the river at its widest part, bends across, gaining a lane on the opposite side, which leads away past Ramsdown into Dorsetshire, and along which tradition says the knight rode to Poole.
The next village we reach is Sopley, that is the soc leag, land with the liberty of holding a court of socmen; just as the neighbouring village is called Boghamton (bocland)—the village of the charter-land, or, as we should now say, freehold. Its interesting little church, Early-English and Perpendicular, is dedicated to St. Michael, and built, in memory of the saint's burial-place, on a mound. The Avon flows below, and the old manor-house, now a mere cottage, stands in an adjoining meadow. On the deep north porch rests the archangel, on a corbel head. The fine old oak roof of the nave was covered up some sixty or seventy years ago by a plastered ceiling; but the corbel figures, playing the double pipe and viol, are still standing. In the north aisle are the heads of Edward III. and his queen. Two brackets for images project from the window in the north transept, whose jambs, now whitewashed over, were once painted with frescoes of the mystical vine, in green and red. Here, in the north wall, too, is an aumbrie, whilst the broken stone stairs to the rood-loft still remain. In the north transept a hagioscope looks into the chancel, where, on the floor, lie two Early Decorated figures, formerly placed in tombs under the rood-loft, and said originally to have been brought from the ruined church of Ripley. In the east window burns the fiery beacon of the Comptons.
Here, too, the whole of the church has been most impartially, and, I may add, successfully defaced. Everywhere has a snowstorm of whitewash fallen. I know not why we in these days should think that God delights in ugliness. Our forefathers at least thought not so. It would be well if for a moment we would consider how He adorns his own house, leads the green arabesque of ivy over its walls, and brightens the roof with the silver rays of mosses, and crowns each buttress with the aureole of the lichen.
Leaving Sopley, we come to "Winkton, the Weringetone of Domesday, where stood two mills, which were rated, as we have seen was often the case, by their yield of eels.
The views here are full of quiet beauty; the river winding along between its green walls of rushes, set with white and purple comfrey and yellow loosestrife, flowing into the darkness of the trees, and then again coming out by meadows, across which rises the Priory Church of Christchurch, standing out clear and sharp against the dark mass of Hengistbury Head.
Footnotes edit
- ↑ See Yarrell's History of British Fishes, vol. ii. pp. 399–401.
- ↑ The ordnance map here falls into an error, placing Sandford a mile too far to the south; whilst it omits the neighbouring village of Beckley, the Beceslei of Domesday, and "The Great Horse," a clump of firs, so called from its shape, a well-known landmark in the Forest, and to the ships at sea, as also "Darrat," or "Derrit" Lane. For the barrows in the latter place, see chapter xvii.