Thames Valley

“ Its forests, though numerous, have never formed one continuous belt; even the largest of them, the Forest of the Weald, between the downs of Surrey and Kent and those of Sussex, was but twenty miles across—large enough to nourish a string of hunting villages upon the north and the south edges of it; but not large enough to isolate the Thames Valley from the southern coast.
From the beginning of human activity in this island the whole length of the river has been set with human settlements never far removed one from the other ”

“ The floods were indeed more common and the passage of the river somewhat more difficult; cultivation did not everywhere approach the banks as it does now; and in two or three spots where there has been a great development of modern building, notably at Reading, and, of course, in London, the banks have been artificially strengthened. But with these exceptions it may be confidently asserted that no belt of densely inhabited landscape in England has changed so little in its natural features as the Thames Valley. ”

“ The range separates the Thames valley from the Vale of White Horse which is traversed by the small river Ock, and bounded on the south by a line of hills known as the White Horse Hills or Berkshire Downs, richly wooded along their base, and rising sharply to bare rounded summits. In White Horse Hill on the western confines of the county a height of 856 ft. is reached. The line of these hills is continued north-eastward by the Chiltern Hills in Oxfordshire, but a division between the two is made by the Thames in a narrow valley or gap at Goring. ”

“ In the greater part of modern popular history care is taken to emphasise the difference between the Middle and Dark Ages and the last few centuries. The forests of England are represented as impassable, or nearly so; the numbers of the population are grossly underestimated; the towns which have had a continuous municipal existence of 1500 years are represented as villages.
The same spirit would tend to make of the Thames Valley in the Dark and Middle Ages a very different landscape from that which we see to-day. ”

“ The Thames near London forms a convenient starting point, for the numerous dock-excavations, tunnels, deep drains and dredgings have laid open the structure of this valley and its deposits in an exceptionally complete way. The published accounts of the excavations in the Thames Valley are so voluminous that it is impossible here to deal with them in any detail; we must therefore confine ourselves to those which best illustrate the points we have in view, choosing modern excavations which have been carefully watched, noted, and collected from rather than ancient ones. ”

“ But it is also, and has long been, the resort of genuine workers with the brush, who make Streatley their temporary home because, in the long white bridge, shady backwaters, lively weir, busy mills, woods, and hills, they find materials worthy of their ambition and their care. In the Thames Valley this portion of the river may be pronounced the Mecca of landscape painters. ”

“ As it flowed out across the Dogger [4] district (where now is the famous Dogger Bank of our North Sea fishermen) it was joined by a number of tributary rivers, which flowed down eastwards from what we might call the “back-bone of England”—the range of mountains and hills which passes down through the centre of our islands. One of these tributaries was a [5] river which in its early stages flowed along what is now our own Thames Valley. ”

“ As early man grew to be civilized, as he learned to drain the flooded lands by the side of the stream and turn them from desolate fens and marshes to smiling productive fields, and as he learned slowly how to get from the hillsides and the plain the full value of his labour, so he realized more and more the possibilities of the great river valley.
The Thames flows in what may be regarded as an excellent example of a river-basin. ”

“ COTTAGES AND CAMPING OUT
This is supposed to be a "business" country, but one wonders why new wants which accompany any change of daily habit are so slowly realised. Take, for instance, the annual migration to the Thames Valley, which has assumed proportions never reached before. Beyond the enlargement of the riverside inns, little has been done to meet this new taste of English families for rustic life in place of the seaside ”

“ I was over the scattered clumps of town about Ealing, the little Thames a thread of blue to the south, and the Chiltern Hills and the North Downs coming up like the rim of a basin, far away and faint with haze. Up I rushed. And at first I had not the faintest conception what this headlong rush upward could mean.
Every moment the circle of scenery beneath me grew wider and wider, and the details of town and field, of hill and valley, got more and more hazy and pale and indistinct, a luminous grey was mingled more and more with the blue of the hills and the green of the open meadows ”

“ The preponderatingly military aspect of the Thames Valley in English history dwindles with the dwindling of military energy in our civilisation, and passes with the passing of a governing class that was military rather than commercial. ”

“ It is clearly evident, from such a very imperfect and rapidly drawn list, what was the economic power of the great houses, and one may conclude, even from the basis of such imperfect evidence, that the directing force of economic effort throughout the Thames Valley was to be found, right up to the Dissolution, in the chapter houses of Reading, of Chertsey, and of Westminster, of Abingdon and of the lesser houses. ”

“ But by this time the V-shaped gap had been cut sufficiently low to allow the River to flow through the hills, and to go on cutting its way still lower and lower.
[271]
CHAPTER FOUR
Reading
Reading is without doubt the most disappointing town in the whole of the Thames Valley. It has had such a full share of history, far more than other equally famous towns; has been favoured by the reigning monarch of the land through many centuries; has taken sides in internal strife and felt the tide of war surging round its gates ”

“ These three strongholds directly connected with the inland river are Wallingford, Reading and Windsor, and of the three Wallingford and Windsor were more directly military: the last, Reading, appears to have been but an adjunct to a large and civil population; the fourfold quality of Reading in the history of the Thames, as a civil settlement, as a religious centre, as a stronghold, and as one of the very few examples of modern industrial development in the valley, will be considered later. ”

“ It is interesting, in connection with this economic aspect of the Thames Valley, to note that, alone of the great river valleys of Europe, it has no railway system parallel to its banks. There is no series of productive centres which could give rise to such a railway system. The Great Western Railway follows the river now some distance upon one side, now some distance upon the other, as far as Oxford ”

“ Judged in this manner, Wallingford and Oxford are the early towns of the Thames Valley which afford the best subjects for survey.
Wallingford in Domesday counted, closes and cottages together, just under 500 units of habitation. It is, of course, a matter of conjecture how much population this would stand for. A minimum is here, as elsewhere, easily established. We may presuppose that a close, even of the largest kind, was but a private one; we may next average the inhabitants of each house at five, which is about the average of modern times, and so arrive at a population of 2500. ”

“ Such an institution as Reading, for example, or as Abingdon, went on perpetually receiving its immense revenues for generation after generation, and were under no temptation or rather had no capacity for spending it elsewhere than in the situation where their actual buildings were to be found.
In this way the great monastic houses founded a tradition of local wealth which has profoundly affected the history of the Thames Valley. ”

“ Chertsey, next up the river, took on the work. Like Westminster—though, by tradition, a few years later than Westminster—its foundation goes back to the birth of England. Its history is known in some detail, and is full of incident, so that it may be called the pivot upon which, presumably, turned the development of the Thames Valley above London for two hundred years. Its site is worth noting. The rich, but at first probably swampy, pasturage upon the Surrey side was just such a position as one foundation after another up and down England settled on. ”

“ It is through the Railway, and even then long after its first effect might have been expected, that the Valley of the Thames, later than any other wealthy district in England, loses, as all at last are doomed to lose, its historic tradition, and suffers the social revolution which has made modern England the unique and perilous thing it is among the nations of the world. ”

“ At about this level, though it is impossible to be quite precise, the steeper slopes, more especially on the northern side of the river, and the hills, continue to rise till sometimes—as at Hampstead and at Highgate—they reach an elevation of rather over 400 feet. We cannot, however, do more than speak in general terms, for in a valley like that of the Thames—mainly excavated in a soft and tenacious clay—a large part of the rainfall runs off, forming numerous brooklets and small streams, which carve out many minor undulations and shallow ramifying valleys. ”

“ Sweeping round the eastern side of the Berkshire slopes the Thames is checked by Hambledon Lock and its islands—well known to fishermen, the reach above being noted for pike—by Aston Ferry, where the river begins to strike out into the more open part of the valley, by Culham Court and the islands below, till it approaches a place well known to the pleasure-seekers of the present day as a sort of half-way house between Henley and Marlow, and as the fittest site for a picnic. ”

“ It was a soft breathless June morning, with a promise of sultriness later, but it was delicious enough swinging through the little towns with their freshly watered streets, and past the summer gardens of the Thames valley. ”

“ But as we come to Battersea Reach the signs of industry and commerce thicken around us; works of various kinds line the banks; the Surrey shore, once the more lovely, is now being covered thick with unattractive buildings. On the Middlesex side some traces of older days still occasionally linger—boulders of more solid rock incorporated in the clay of modern masonry—but farewell to the characteristic scenery of the River Thames, farewell to all natural beauty; its waters have now become a great highway of commerce. ”

“ The sweet-smelling grass is spangled with daisies and buttercups, though not so profusely as in the field adjacent, which is destined for a crop of hay; and the grove resounds with bird-music set in the rapturous key of the bridal season. And there, a few paces athwart the sward, under the shadow of trembling foliage, is the spot which for centuries was said to be the birthplace of the River Thames. We are at Thames Head, in Trewsbury Mead, in the parish of Cotes, in the county of Gloucestershire, three miles south-west of Cirencester. ”

“ Between the trees a little sloe bush keeps sturdy foothold. You may mark, moreover, a few straggling briars, bits of silver-weed, a root or two of the meadow cranesbill, a clump of poverty-stricken meadow-sweet, some fool’s parsley, wild strawberry plants, and a good deal of bold and always flourishing dandelion. This is the environment of the true source of the great River Thames. We are at Seven Springs.
Hence multitudinous initials are rudely carved upon the old trees and on the stone walls; hence strangers, during summer, drive hither and pay homage. ”

“ The deeper pool across the river, near the flour-mill at Marsh Lock, used to be a favourite resort of those anglers who pursued their sport from a boat; and the bank from the paper-mill towards Henley witnesses many an exercise of patience from the youthful Waltonian. The utilitarian spirit which has rendered necessary the hideous iron weir above the mill, and which is step by step destroying so many of the gems of Thames scenery, has, however, built a black barricade from the miller’s boat-house to the head of the eyot, completely cutting off the communication by water with the further bank. ”

“ A high, wide wooden bridge, bearing the name of Skinner’s Weir, now crosses our course, and soon we come to Pinkhill Lock, so called from a farm of that name in the neighbourhood. The weir is a new one, a great contrast in its severe and formal cut to the weather-worn structures to which we have been accustomed. The lock-house is quite a dainty cottage, and the garden one of the prettiest to be found along the Thames. The lock garden is generally a winsome little preserve, with its kitchen garden, flower-beds, sometimes a beehive, its stack of fagots, and a general air of rusticity ”

“ When we returned to Kingston there was a lonely but lovely walk along Thames side, seeking a bridge to give us a turning on the left, with sun and wind and rain, and ducks falling through the air with a ssh, and cunning swans sailing forward expecting food, and crying gulls. It was the towing path toward Teddington Lock. The riverside houses came down to the water with lawns and landing stages, terraces, gardens, formal beauties. The Thames is a fair stream; we have made it fair. Once it was otherwise, and England also—unnamed, unloved, wild, woody, marshy. Man has made it dear unto himself. ”