Moor Park

“ He seems to have inherited his father’s extreme sensibility to failure, without that singular prudence which kept his father out of all situations in which any serious failure was to be apprehended. The blow fell heavily on the family. They retired in deep dejection to Moor Park, [Mr. Courtenay (vol. ii. p. 160) confounds Moor Park in Surrey, where Temple resided, with the Moor Park in Hertfordshire, which is praised in the Essay on Gardening.] which they now preferred to Sheen, on account of the greater distance from London. ”

“ As we approach the house from Baslow, crossing the Barbrook, which rises in the heights of East Moor, we enter the great park, and, passing the fruit and vegetable gardens on the right, its varied beauties are gradually unfolded with entrancing effect until Chatsworth itself is seen beyond the trees. ”

“ Jonathan Swift, Secretary.—A new Tale of a Tub.—Sir William Temple, Essayist.—Swift's "Stella."—A heart under a sundial.—Dorothy Osborne.—Mother Ludlam's Cave—Waverley Abbey.—Two tons of wine.—Comfort from Cromwell.—A Surrey Landmark.
Hardly two miles from Farnham, and reached by a road overarched by fine oaks, Moor Park stands on the banks of the Wey. A turn in the lane throws open a view of rich hayfields and pasture, with the river winding in and out under a ridge of oakwoods ”

“ The first encroachments on Moorfields took place, probably, after the fire, when thousands of citizens were homeless, and the Moor was used as a temporary place of encampment. Many of the houses then erected appear to have been fairly substantial, and it is probable that encroachments having been made in consequence of a sudden and dire necessity, and possession being nine points of the law, the City of London lost its park. ”

“ They arrived at the tower without being observed, and tying the donkey to a fig-tree, descended into the fourth vault of the tower.
The scroll was produced, the yellow taper lighted, and the Moor read the form of incantation. The earth trembled as before, and the pavement opened with a thundering sound, disclosing the narrow flight of steps. The alcalde, the alguazil, and the barber were struck aghast, and could not summon courage to descend. The Moor and the water-carrier entered the lower vault, and found the two Moors seated as before, silent and motionless. ”

“ On its seaward slope, hardly out of reach of the siren's bellowing note, Muir Park preserves the ancient forest, rooted in the litter of a thousand years. And round about the foot of city and mountain the waters of the bay are blue, the hills are bluer. The hills melt down to greenness in the spring, the water runs to liquid emerald, flashing amber; the hills are tawny after rains, the waters tone to the turbid, clayey river-floods; land and sea they pursue one another as lovers through changing moods of colour; they have mists for mystery between revealing suns. ”

“ Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like a pale-green ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feet at Tom Cross Rigg, and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, on Goathland Moor, coming into view again as it climbs steadily up to Sleights Moor, nearly 1,000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch of moorland spreads itself out towards the west. ”

“ And when we, who have long been dreaming of a visit to the Moor's metropolis, actually behold it, though it first appears as only a faint line of walls and towers, almost undiscernible through the rough sea of heated air-waves that surge between us and the city, now that Fez at last has risen from this endless plain over which we have been toiling southward for eleven days, we feel that we must draw rein, and for a few minutes indulge in the enjoyment of that creeping thrill. There are so few of them in life ”

“ The other end of the avenue, where there was also an iron gate, admitted to a large private park that seemed to belong to nobody, and of which we were free—a very wilderness of delight, a heaven, a terror of tangled thickets and not too dangerous chalk cliffs, disused old quarries and dark caverns, prairies of lush grass, sedgy pools, turnip fields, forests of pine, groves and avenues of horse-chestnut, dank valleys of walnut-trees and hawthorn, which summer made dark at noon; bare, wind-swept mountainous regions whence one could reconnoitre afar ”

“ A costly and imposing gateway, a Moorish music stand, bright with many colors, a boat-house crowning a little island in a miniature lake, a pretty bridge and a Moorish arch thrown across a ravine, a few handsome fountains, and, finally, the old mansion, renovated and enlarged, standing out against the densely-wooded hill from which the park takes its name—these are about all which have been attempted in that line. ”

“ In the matter of parks the city has made a most promising start. There are now in the city twenty-eight parks, counting large and small and not including any street parkways. Of this number Bever Park, Ellis Park, Daniels Park, May's Island Park, Riverside Park, and Whittam Park are considerable tracts, while George Greene Square, opposite the union station, with its beautiful display of flowers and rich green lawn, is one of the show spots of the city. ”

“ Perhaps the great artist who laid out the Green Park was a moralist and a seer, and divining the stream of ladies that come up from Brompton to Piccadilly he thought--well, well, his thoughts were his own, and now the earth is over him, as Rossetti would say.
Five-and-twenty years ago the white rays slanted between the tree-trunks, and the interspaces lengthened out, disappearing in illusive lights and shades, and, ascending the hill, the boy used to look over the empty plain, wondering at the lights of the Horse Guards shining far away like a village. ”

“ The hall of their triumph is waste and desolate. The bat flits about its twilight vault, and the owl hoots from the neighboring Tower of Comares.
Entering the Court of the Lions a few evenings since, I was almost startled at beholding a turbaned Moor quietly seated near the fountain. For a moment one of the fictions of the place seemed realized: an enchanted Moor had broken the spell of centuries, and become visible. He proved, however, to be a mere ordinary mortal: a native of Tetuan in Barbary, who had a shop in the Zacatin of Granada, where he sold rhubarb, trinkets, and perfumes. ”

“ It is to be regretted that the necessity for general plans in parks is not appreciated by most people as is the necessity for a general plan for city hall or court house. Yet a park is apt to include more naturally incongruous purposes and objects than a city hall. ”

“ That some actually are so and yet command the admiration of people of taste is an indication of their essential qualities and fundamental differences from parks proper. Few cities have anywhere near as many ornamental squares as they should. It ls particularly desirable that a city should have several of its principal public buildings facing upon a large public square, as the new custom house in New York faces upon the Bowling Green, not occupying it as the postoffice and municipal buildings occupy the City Hall Park. ”

“ It may seem to your citizens a decidedly foolish proposition to secure large areas of land for a park In the Columbia Slough district, and some explanation of the purposes to be accomplished is therefore called for. If the city acquires the hills and river frontages as suggested it will have an exceedingly valuable series of public pleasure grounds, but in none of these grounds is it possible to provide that entirely different type of landscape which is made up of great stretches of meadow land bordered and diversified by groves of trees. ”

“ It is at least doubtful whether, if Moorfields could be restored as a playground for the City, it would not be of more use to the City, from the point of view of the health of those who dwell in it, than are the Essex and Buckinghamshire estates. Almost every inch of available ground in the City has been built upon. ”

“ Winding down this ravine there could be a charmingly secluded rustic path in the shade of the existing fir trees, which would not only greatly enhance the value of this park to the citizens generally and to those living within easy walking distance of it in the thickly built-up portion of the city north of it, but would afford to residents on the ridge a more delightful and decidedly more convenient means of walking down and up the hill than exists or is likely to be made in the vicinity. ”

“ Although the population is not dense in this neighborhood, it is evidently destined to become so, as the car shops of the O. R. & N. Company are located here, and are likely to be extended so that a great many workmen will be employed. If the suggested river bluff parkway along the east side of the river below the center of the city is carried out, this little park with a view-commanding carriage concourse in it would form a worthy terminus. ”

“ Even the casual visitor of a day is stirred to curiosity by the straight, high wall of the great moraine for which Moraine Park is named, and by the high curved hill which springs from the northeastern shoulder of Longs Peak, and encircles the eastern foot of Mount Meeker. ”

“ On the road our traveller was robbed once more by the Moors, who added insult to violence; and when he was nearly perishing for thirst, beat away his faithful slave from the wells, without permitting him to draw water.
However, after much fatigue and extraordinary privations, they arrived in Ali’s camp at Benowm, where Park was immediately surrounded by crowds of fanatical Moors, attracted partly by curiosity, partly from a desire to vent their fierce zeal against a Christian. “My arrival,” says he, “was no sooner observed than the people, who drew water at the wells, threw down their buckets ”

“ To properly provide for the future in the matter of a meadow park, it is necessary to secure many hundred, if not several thousand acres and it does not appear that there is any better or more economical place to make this provision in the neighborhood of the city than along Columbia Sloughs. ”

“ The most expensive large parks, Central Park and Prospect Park, were located without taking advantage of the magnificent natural landscapes of the rivers and bays which distinguish New York and Brooklyn. There are many similar cases. Formerly people built with the backs of their houses upon the rivers and lakes, thus not only excluding the public from continuous access to them but ruining their beauty. Where land along the banks of rivers or along the shores of a lake can, in a city, be fairly well spared from commercial uses, public squares, parks and parkways should be located upon them. ”

“ Aside from the luxuriance of the woodland vegetation there is the added charm of seclusion to a degree rarely found in a public park. The steepness of the sides of the ravine and the narrowness of its bottom make it available for a comparatively small number of visitors at a time. One narrow walk or trail, perhaps dividing and reuniting at difficult places, is all that should ever be attempted as a way along or near the brook. A drive there would be ruinous to its natural beauty. ”

“ The launch rolls and umbrellas drip, and we have hundreds of yards along splashing wet pier, G. balancing on timbers and wire cables to keep a little out of the mud—one umbrella for the two. Then a jog up the town in a funny little victoria with yellow oiled canvas curtains, past little gardens with great red flowers on one tree, and trumpet-shaped white flowers hanging on the next, past soldiers in khaki, and turbaned Moors huddled in their draperies. The Moors look so out of place in Europe; they seem to have aimed at being picturesque and have failed, and know it and stick to it. ”

“ If the city can do nothing else in the way of acquiring parkways, it should at least secure the land needed for the eventual construction of this hillside drive, for in proportion to its cost it would be far more valuable than any other parkway possible to be laid out in the city, because of the views which it would command and the romantic local scenery which could be associated with it, and because it would be so characteristic and so conveniently accessible. ”

“ Bryce demanded.
“Judge Moore, representing the new owner, called round this morning and took me in tow. He said his client knew the property held for me a certain sentimental value which wasn't transferred in the deed, and so the Judge had been instructed to have the skid-road planked and the forest trail grubbed out—for me. It appears that the Valley is going to be a public park, after all, but for the present and while I live, it is my private park.” ”

“ The part of the city west of the river is already provided with two parks of considerable size, while the vastly larger section of the city east of the river has only one park that is more than a square—Columbia Park—and this, being flat and uninteresting and remote from any densely populated area is likely to be little more than an exaggerated square of interest almost solely to the immediate neighborhood. ”

“ These two met altogether fourteen times before the beginning of the end. They met in the Great Park, or on the heights and among the gorges of the rusty-roaded, heathery moorland, set with dusky pine woods, that stretched to the south-west. ”

“ It is particularly urgent that a city having beautiful local scenery adapted for parks and parkways should secure the land betimes lest these natural advantages he destroyed or irreparably injured by the owners. ”