new forest.
this forest seems to retain not only more of the forest character than all our other forests, but to have maintained more exactly its ancient boundaries. william of malmsbury says, the conqueror laid waste thirty miles of country for this forest. the perambulation of the 22d of charles ii., extending from milton south along the avon west, to bramshire north, and within southampton water east, by fawley and boldre back to milton, includes about thirty miles square, and this is the extent that is now attributed to it by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. in the present hundred of new forest, we have the parishes of minstead, fawley, and boldre; the chapels, or curacies of lyndhurst, beaulieu, exbury, and brokenhurst. it is indeed the only one of our forests which now can give us a perfect idea of what an english[367] forest was in the feudal ages. it has not acquired, like windsor, too much of a park-like character by containing a royal residence; nor has it been enclosed, and shaped into quadrangular fields: but there it is, in its original extent,—vast, wild, stocked with deer; with its alternations of woods and heaths, morasses and thickets; interspersed with hamlets and farms, and forest-huts, as were the forests of old.
there are the glorious ruins of beaulieu, of which the able historian of winchester thus speaks:—“the curious traveller who visits beaulieu, descends at once into a lovely vale, enclosed with lofty trees, covered with the richest verdure, and watered by a flowing river, the whole of which seem to be the effect of magic. in the most enchanting part of this scene stands the ancient abbey. he will see, in the first place, the outward gate of the sanctuary, to which the brave but unfortunate margaret of anjou, the venturous impostor, perkin warbeck, and other fugitive victims of the laws, fled, with breathless haste, for safety. he will next come to the abbot’s house, with its turrets, moats, and other miniature fortifications, as perfect, and in as good condition as when it was first built. here fugitives of distinction were entertained. from this he will enter and survey the spacious and noble refectory, now the parish church, rich with innumerable ornaments and monuments of past ages. finally, he will trace in the splendid remains of the cloisters, chapter-house, and church, the chief effort, if not of the piety, at least of the taste and magnificence of the unfortunate king john.”
as you go from southampton to lyndhurst, you have a fine ride through the lower regions of the forest, and see enough to make you desire to steal away into the beautiful woodlands. lovely streams come winding out of its shades, and hasten towards the sea. you get glimpses of forest glades, and peeps under the trees into distant park-like expanses, or heathy-wastes. the deer are wandering here and there: here you see whole troops of those ponies peculiar to this forest; pheasants and partridges come often running out on the way before you. all about grow hollies, which were encouraged in most ancient forests for winter browze; and you have glimpses of forest trees that were enough to enrich all the landscape painters in the world. but if you wish[368] to know really what new forest is, you must plunge into its very heart, and explore its farthest recesses. you may go on from wood to wood, and from heath to heath; now coming out on the high ground, as on the ringwood road, the wild forest lying visible for miles around, and the country towards southampton and to the very sea, all spread out wide and beautifully to the eye;—now descending into profound solitudes, and the depth of woodland gloom. it is a wild, wide region, in which you may satiate yourselves with nature in its primitive freedom. in bilhaghe, in the forest of sherwood, you find a fragment of an ancient forest unique in its kind,—a region of old oaks, shattered by the tempests of five hundred years, and standing in all the hoary grandeur of age; and are thereby struck with a quick feeling of the mighty flight of time,—of the utter change and revolution of manners and government since those trees were in their prime; but when you step into the new forest, you step at once out of the present world into the past. you do not see it existing before your eyes as a remnant of antiquity, but as a portion of it, into which, as by some charm, you are carried. it is not a decaying relic; it is a perfect and present thing. the trees are not scathed and hollow skeletons, except in some few places, but stand the full-grown and vigorous giants of the wood. this is owing to the timber being cut down for the navy ere it begins to perish, and yet being left to attain a sufficient growth, and to furnish vast woods that extend over hill and dale, and give you foot-room for days and weeks without fear of exhausting the novelty. it looks now as it must have looked to the eye of one of our norman monarchs, except that the marks of the conqueror’s ravages and fires are worn out; the ruins of churches and cottages are buried beneath the accumulated mosses and earth of ages; and peaceful smoke ascends from woodland habitations.
in my brief visit to it, i set out from lyndhurst, and walked up to stony-cross, the place of rufus’s death. from the moment that i turned up out of lyndhurst, i seemed to have entered an ancient region. there was an old-world primitive air about every thing, that filled me with a peculiar feeling of poetry. i left behind the nineteenth century, and was existing in the twelfth or fourteenth. open knolls, and ascending woodlands on one side,[369] covered with majestic beeches, and the village children playing under them; on the other, the most rustic cottages, almost buried in the midst of their orchard trees, and thatched as hampshire cottages only are—in such projecting abundance,—such flowing lines. thatch does not here seem the stiff and intractable thing it does elsewhere; nor is it cut in that square, straight-haired fashion; but it seems the kindliest thing in the world. it bends over gables and antique casements in the roof, and comes sweeping down over fronts resting on pillars, and forming verandas and porches; or over the ends of the houses, down to the very ground, forming the nicest sheds for plants, or places to deposit garden-tools, milk-pails, or other rural apparatus. the whole of the cottages thereabout are in equal taste with the roof; so different to the red, staring, square brick houses of manufacturing districts. they seem, as no doubt they are, erected in the spirit, and under the influence, of the genius loci. the beehives in their rustic rows; the little crofts, all belong to a primitive country. i went on; now coming to small groups of such places; now to others of superior pretensions, but equally blent with the spirit of the surrounding nature;—little paradises of cultivated life. as i advanced, heathery hills stretched away on one hand; woods came down thickly and closely on the other, and a winding road beneath the shade of large old trees, conducted me to one of the most retired and peaceful of hamlets. it was minstead. there was an old school-house; and beneath the large trees that overshadowed the way, lay huge trunks of trees cut ready for conveyance to the naval dockyards; and the forest children, on their way to school, were playing amongst them; now climbing upon them, now pushing each other off with merry laughter; boys and girls, as i approached, scampering away, and into the school.
i know not how it is, but such places of woodland and old-fashioned seclusion, of such repose and picturesque simplicity, always bring strongly to my mind the stories of tieck. there must be a great similarity in the aspect of these scenes, and of those which he has so much delighted to describe. i thought of the old woman with her dog and bird. every solitary cottage seemed just as hers was. i seemed to hear the birch-trees shiver in the breeze, the dog bark, and the bird sing its magic song:
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alone in wood so gay
’tis good to stay,
morrow like to-day
for ever and aye:
o, i do love to stay
alone in wood so gay.
it was early autumn. all birds really had ceased to sing; and the deep hush of nature but made more distinct this spirit-song, amid the delicious reveries in which i went wandering along, enveloped as in a heavenly cloud. all over the moorland ground spread the crimson glow of the heather. i went onward and upward; passing the gates of forest lodges, and looking down into valleys, whence arose the smoke of huts and charcoal fires. and anon, i stood upon the airy height, and saw woods below, and felt near me solitude, and a spirit that had brooded there for ages. i passed over high, still heaths, treading on plants that grow only in nature’s most uncultivated soil, to the mighty beeches of boldre wood, and thence away to fresh masses of forest. herds of red-deer rose from the fern, and went bounding away, and dashed into the depths of the woods; troops of those grey and long-tailed forest horses turned to gaze as i passed down the open glades; and the red squirrels in hundreds, scampered up from the ground where they were feeding on fallen mast and the kernels of pine-cones, and stamped and chattered on the boughs above me.
a lady who till recently lived on the skirts of the forest, and who moreover has walked through the spirit-land with power, and is known and honoured by all true lovers of pathos and imagination, had solemnly warned me not to attempt to pass through the larger woods without a guide; but what guide, except such as herself, or as the venerable william gilpin would have been, could one have that we should not wish away ten times in a minute? if we must be lost, why, so let it be,—but let us be lost in the freedom of one’s own thoughts and feelings. delighted with the true woodland wildness and solemnity of beauty, i roved onward through the widest woods that came in my way, and once, indeed, i imagined that a guide would really have been agreeable. awaking as from a dream, i saw far around me one deep shadow, one thick and continuous roof of boughs, and thousands of hoary boles standing clothed, as it were, with the very spirit of silence. a[371] track in the wood seemed to lead in the direction i aimed at; but having gone on for an hour, here admiring the magnificent sweep of some grand old trees as they hung into a glade or a ravine, some delicious opening in the deep woods, or the grotesque figures of particular trees which seemed to have been blasted into blackness, and contorted into inimitable crookedness by the savage genius of the place,—i found myself again before one of those very remarkable trees which i had passed long before. it was too singular to be mistaken, and i paused to hold a serious council with myself. as i stood, i became more than ever sensible of the tomb-like silence in which i was. there was not the slightest sound of running water, whispering leaf, or the voice of any creature; the beating of my own heart, the ticking of my watch, were alone heard. it was that deep stillness which has been felt there by others.
the watchmen from the castle top
almost might hear an acorn drop,
it was so calm and still;
might hear the stags in hocknell groan,
and catch, by fits, the distant moan
of king-garn’s little rill.
the red king.
whichever way i looked the forest stretched in one dense twilight. it was the very realization of that appalling hush and bewildering continuity of shade so often described by travellers in the american woods. i had lost now all sense of any particular direction, and the only chance of reaching the outside of the wood was to go as much as possible in one direct line. away then i went—but soon found myself entangled in the thickest underwood—actually overhead in rank weeds; now on the verge of an impassable bog, and now on that of a deep ravine. fortunately for me, the summer had been remarkably dry, and the ravines were dry too,—i could descend into them, and climb out on the other side. but the more i struggled on, the more i became confounded. pausing to consider my situation, i saw a hairy face and a large pair of eyes fixed on me. had it been a satyr, i felt that i should not have been surprised, it seemed so satyr-like a place. it was only a stag—which, with its head just above the tall fern, and its antlers amongst the boughs, looked very much[372] like kühleborn of the undine story. as i moved towards him he dashed away through the jungle, for so only could it be called, and i could long hear the crash of his progress. ever and anon, huge swine with a fierce guffaw rushed from their lairs—one might have imagined them the wild boars of a german forest. at length i caught the tinkle of a cow-bell—a cheerful sound, for it must be in some open part of the forest, and from its distinctness not far distant. thitherward i turned, and soon emerged into a sort of island in the sea of woods, a farm, like an american clearing. i sate down on a fallen tree to cool and rest myself, and was struck with the beauty of the place. these green fields lying so peacefully amid the woods, which, in one place pushed forward their scattered trees, in another retreated; here sprinkling them out thinly on the common, and there hanging their masses of dark foliage over a low-thatched hut or two. the quiet farm-house too, surrounded by its belt of tall hollies; the flocks of geese dispersed over the short turf, and the cows coming home out of the forest to be milked: it was a most peaceful picture, and unlike all that citizens are accustomed to contemplate, except in spenser or the german writers. these cow-bells too, have something in their sound so quaint and woodland. they are slung by a leathern strap from the neck of the leader, having neither sound nor shape of a common bell, but are like a tin canister, with a ring at the bottom to suspend them by. they seem like the first rudimental attempt at a bell, and have a sound dull and horny, rather than clear and ringing. the leaders of these herds are said to have a singular sagacity in tracking the woods, and finding their way to particular spots and home again, by extraordinary and intricate ways.
having now a clear conception of my position, i proceeded leisurely towards stony-cross, the reputed place of the catastrophe of rufus. the tree whence the fatal arrow glanced, or, at least, the one marked by popular tradition as it, was standing till about a century ago, when a triangular stone was set down to identify the spot; with these inscriptions, one on each side:
1. here stood the oak, on which an arrow, shot by sir walter tyrrell at a stag, glanced and struck king william the second, surnamed rufus, in the breast, of which he instantly died, on the second of august, a.d. 1100.
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2. king william the second, surnamed rufus, being slain, as is before related, was laid in a cart belonging to one purkess, and drawn from hence to winchester, and was buried in the cathedral church of that city.
3. a.d. 1745: that the place where an event so memorable had happened, might not be hereafter unknown, this stone was set up by john lord delawar, who has seen the tree growing in this place.
this place is called in doomsday book, truham, by leland, thorougham, by other writers, choringham, and chuham. it is now known by the name of stony-cross. leland says that, in his time (the reign of henry viii.) a chapel was standing near the place, most probably built by some of king william’s descendants, to pray for his soul; it being the general opinion of the time, that the divine judgment for his cruelties in the forest had fallen upon him here more expressly, because here he had actually destroyed a church. no trace of such a thing is now visible, and indeed, it is one of the singularities of this spot, that so little vestige of the destroyed villages, churches, etc. is to be discovered.
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[374] 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[375] 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.”
purkiss's cottage, new forest
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[376] 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 dep?t 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.
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“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.
and still, in merry lyndhurst hall,
red william’s stirrup decks the wall;
who lists, the sight may see;
and a fair stone, in green malwood,
informs the traveller where stood
the memorable tree.
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in a note to this stanza of “the red king,” a poem on the death of rufus, by william stewart rose, bowbearer of the new forest, and therefore, as he himself tells us, successor to sir walter tyrrell, mr. rose says—“the stirrup, suspended among smoked escutcheons of the royal arms, and stags’ antlers, makes a good addition to the forest ornaments of the hall of judicature. the justice-seat and bar are of ancient and massive oak; an enormous bacon-rack of the same age and materials, surmounts the whole. the green habits of the judge and officers assort well with the rest; and it is impossible to see a court held under this sylvan pomp and circumstance—to view the mixed and oddly accoutred rabble of people attached—to hear their defences, founded on some wild notions of natural law, delivered in an uncouth jargon, still considerably dashed with anglo-saxon—to observe the sang-froid with which they hear the decision of their judges, and, not least, to observe the prompt dispatch of justice—it is impossible, i say, to witness such a scene (as a spectator once observed to me), without being transported in imagination back to the fourteenth century.”
with the exception of this and lady-cross lodge, all the forest lodges now standing are those appropriated to the use of the under-keepers. those appropriated to the principal keeper were all pulled down on the decease of the last royal lord warden, h. r. h. the duke of gloucester. boldrewood was the last that fell, on the death of the dowager lady londonderry, to whom it was lent by her son, the present marquess.
the fall of these fine old lodges reminds us of one feature which this forest and its neighbourhood possessed in catholic times, and which it has never lost, the glorious old abbeys. we have already spoken of beaulieu, but never of netley and of binstead in the isle of wight opposite, so beautifully alluded to by mr. moile in his most extraordinary poems. the state trials, which few people are acquainted with, but all lovers of poetry ought to know, must have also conferred something of their own character.
“in netley abbey,—on the neighbouring isle,
the woods of binstead shade as fair a pile;—
where sloping meadows fringe the shores with green,
a river of the ocean rolls between,
whose murmurs, borne on sunny winds, disport
through oriel windows, and a cloistered court;[379]
o’er hills so fair, o’er terraces so sweet,
the sea comes twice each day to kiss their feet;—
where sounding caverns mine the garden bowers,
where groves intone where many an ilex towers,
and many a fragrant breath exhales from fruit and flowers:—
and lowing herds and feathered warblers there
make mystic concords with repose and prayer;
mixed with the hum of apiaries near,
the mill’s far cataract, and the sea-boy’s cheer,
whose oars beat time to litanies at noon,
or hymns at complin by the rising moon;
where, after chimes, each chapel echoes round
like one aerial instrument of sound,
some vast harmonious fabric of the lord’s.”
the commissioners of woods and forests have made extensive plantations in various parts of the forest, which appear in a thriving condition, and are belted with a variety of pines—scotch, silver fir, weymouth pine, pinasters, etc., whose contrasted foliage makes a rich appearance.
