The Bath Road Part 9

So much for modern Reading, whose princ.i.p.al hero is George Palmer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PALMER'S STATUE.]

Mr. George Palmer, whose death occurred in 1897, enjoyed the distinction of having a statue erected to him during his lifetime, an unusual honour which he shared with few others--Queen Victoria, the great Duke of Wellington, Lord Roberts, Reginald, Earl of Devon, and, of course, Mr.

Gladstone. Mr. Palmer's fellow-townsmen elected to honour him in this way, and decided to have a statue which should be in every way true to life, and show the man "in his habit as he lived"--one in which the clothes should be as characteristic as the features. Our grandfathers would have represented him wrapped in a Roman toga, but those notions do not commend themselves to the present age, and so the effigy stands in all the supremely _un_-decorative guise of everyday dress: homely coat, and trousers excruciatingly baggy at the knees; bareheaded, and in one hand a silk hat and an unfolded umbrella. This is possibly the only instance in which these last necessary, but unlovely articles have been reproduced in bronze.

Ancient Reading knew nothing of biscuits or sauces. It was the home of one of the very greatest Abbeys in England. The Abbot of Reading ranked next after those of Westminster and Glas...o...b..ry, and usually held important offices of State. In the Abbey, Parliaments have been held, Royal marriages celebrated, and Kings and Queens laid to rest. Yet of all this grandeur no shred is left. There are ruins; but, formless and featureless as they are, they cannot recall to the eye anything of the architectural glories of the past, and the bones of the Kings have for centuries been scattered no man knows whither.

There are pleasant stories of Reading, and gruesome ones. Horrible was the fate of Hugh Faringdon, the last Abbot, who was, in 1539, with one of his monks, hanged, drawn and quartered for denying the religious supremacy of that royal wild beast, Henry the Eighth. The King had been friendly with him not so long before, and had presented him with a silver cup, as a token of this friends.h.i.+p.

[Sidenote: _THE KING AND THE ABBOT_]

One wonders if this unfortunate prelate was the same person as that Abbot of Reading mentioned by Fuller. The Abbot of that story was a man particularly fond of what have been gracefully termed the "pleasures of the table." His eyes, as the Psalmist puts it, "swelled out with fatness,"--and his stomach, too, for that matter. To him came one day a hungry stranger, fresh from the appetizing sport of hunting. He had lost his way, and craved the hospitality of the Abbey. That hospitality was extended to him, promptly enough, and he was seated at the Abbot's own table.

It will readily be guessed that this hungry stranger was the King. He had wandered thus far, away from Windsor Forest and his attendants, and was genuinely famished. The Abbot, however, had no notion who he was; but he could see that this strayed huntsman was a very prince among good trencher-men, and envied him accordingly. "Well fare thy heart," said he, as he saw the roast beef disappearing; "I would give an hundred pounds could I feed so l.u.s.tily on beef as you do. Alas! my weak and squeezie stomach will hardly digest the wing of a small rabbit or chicken."

The King took the compliment and more beef, and, pledging his host, departed. Some weeks after, when the Abbot had quite forgotten all about the matter, he was sent for, clapped into the Tower, and kept, a miserable prisoner--not knowing what his offence might be, or what would befall him next--on bread and water. At length one day a sirloin of beef was placed before him, and he made such short work of it as to prove to the King, who was secretly watching him, that his treatment for "squeezie stomach" had succeeded admirably; so, springing out of the cupboard in which he had secreted himself, "My lord," says he, "deposit presently your hundred pounds in gold, or else you go not hence all the days of your life. I have been your physician to cure you, and here, as I deserve, I demand my fee for the same."

The Abbot was enlightened. He, as Fuller says, "down with his dust, and, glad he escaped so, returned to Reading, as somewhat lighter in purse, so much more merry in heart, than when he came thence."

Little remains at Reading to tell of the coaching age. Where are the "Bear," the "George," the "Crown"? Gone, with their jovial guests, into the limbo of forgotten things, almost as thoroughly as the civilization of Roman Calleva--the Silchester of modern times--situated at some distance down the road from Reading to Basingstoke, and whose relics may be seen gathered together in the Reading Museum. To that collection should be added a set of articles used in the everyday business of coaching. They would be just as curious to-day as those Roman potsherds of a thousand years ago.

XXIV

The Bath Road climbs, with some show of steepness, out of Reading, presently to enter upon that stretch of nearly seventeen miles of comparatively flat sandy gravel road which, for speed cycling, is the best part of the whole journey. The surface is nearly always splendid, save in very dry seasons, when the sand renders the going somewhat heavy, and the cyclist may well be surprised to learn that it was here, between Reading and Newbury, that Pepys and his wife, travelling in their own coach, lost their way, entirely through the badness of the roads.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STAGE WAGGON. (_After Rowlandson._)]

[Sidenote: _THE "BERKs.h.i.+RE LADY"_]

In spite of these modern advantages, the road is quite suburban and uninteresting until Calcot Green is pa.s.sed, in two miles and a half. But it is here, amid the pleasant, though tame, scenery that Calcot Park, the home of the famous "Berks.h.i.+re Lady," may be sought.

The "Berks.h.i.+re Lady" was the daughter of Sir William Kendrick, of Calcot, who flourished in the reign of Queen Anne. Upon the death of her father, she became sole heiress to the estate and an income of some five thousand pounds per annum. Rich, beautiful, and endowed with a vivacious manner, it is not surprising that she was courted by all the vinous, red-faced young squires in the neighbourhood; but she refused these offers until, according to an old ballad--

"Being at a n.o.ble wedding In the famous town of Reading, A young gentleman she saw Who belonged to the law."

We may shrewdly suspect that she not only "saw" him, but that they indulged in a desperate flirtation in the conservatory, or what may have answered to a conservatory in those times.

The "Berks.h.i.+re Lady" was evidently a New Woman, born very much in advance of her proper era. For what did she do? Why, she fell in love with that "young gentleman" straight away, and so furiously that nothing would suffice her but to send him an anonymous challenge to fight a duel or to marry her.

Benjamin Child--for that was the name of the young and briefless (and also impecunious) barrister--was astonished at receiving a challenge from no one in particular; but, accompanied by a friend, proceeded to the rendezvous appointed by the unknown in Calcot Park. Arrived there, they perceived a masked lady, with a rapier, who informed the pair that she was the challenger:--

"'It was I that did invite you: You shall wed me, or I'll fight you, So now take your choice,' said she; 'Either fight, or marry me.'

Says he, 'Madam, pray what mean ye?

In my life I ne'er have seen ye; Pray unmask, your visage show, Then I'll tell you, aye or no.'"

The lady, however, would not unmask:--

"'I will not my face uncover, Till the marriage rites are over; Therefore take you which you will, Wed me, sir, or try your skill.'"

The friend advised Benjamin Child, Esq., to take his chance of her being poor and pretty, or rich and--plain (those being the usually accepted conjunctions), and to marry her, which he accordingly promised to do. He had a reward for his moral courage, for the lady unmasked and disclosed herself as the beautiful unknown with whom he had flirted at the wedding.

That they "lived happily ever afterwards" we need find no difficulty in believing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEALE.]

Many stories were current locally of this Mr. Child. One, in particular (certainly not a romantic one), related his great fondness for oysters, of which he was in the habit of consuming large quant.i.ties; in fact, he is said to have kept a museum of the tubs emptied by him, for one room in Calcot House was fitted round with shelves, upon which these empty mementos were arranged in regular order. It was his humour to show his friends this unique arrangement as a convincing proof of his capabilities in that particular branch of good living.

Upon the death of his wife, Calcot became unbearable to him, and he sold it. But, curiously enough, nothing could induce him to quit the house, and the new proprietor was reduced to rendering it uninhabitable to him by unroofing it. Mr. Child then retired to a small cottage in an adjoining wood, where he spent the rest of his days in retirement.

The Kendrick vault in the church of St. Mary, Reading, was exposed to view in 1820, when, among the numerous coffins found, was one bearing the inscription, "Frances Child, wife of Benjamin Child, of Calcot, first daughter of Sir W. Kendrick, died 1722, aged 35." The coffin was of lead, and was moulded to the form of the body, even to the lineaments of the face. Mr. Child was the last person buried in this vault. His coffin, of unusually large dimensions, is dated 1767.

[Sidenote: _THEALE_]

Two and a half miles from Calcot Green, and we are at Theale, a village prettily embowered among trees, but possessing a large and extraordinarily bad "Carpenter's Gothic" church, built about 1840, which looks quite charming at the distance of a quarter of a mile, but has been known to afflict architects who have made its close acquaintance with hopeless melancholia. In fine, Theale church is a horrid example of Early Victorian imitation of the Early English style.

And now the road wanders sweetly between the green and pleasant levels beside the sedgy Kennet. Road, rail, river, and ca.n.a.l run side by side, or but slightly parted, for miles, past Woolhampton and the decayed town of Thatcham, to Newbury, and so on to Hungerford.

A short mile before reaching Woolhampton, there stands, on the left-hand side of the road, quite lonely, a wayside inn, the "Rising Sun," a relic of coaching times. They still show one, in the parlour, the old booking-office in which parcels were received for the old road-waggons that plied with luggage between London and Bath, and talk of the days when the house used to own stabling for forty horses. A larger inn is the "Angel," at Woolhampton, with a most elaborate iron sign, from which depends a little carved figure of a vine-crowned Bacchus, astride his barrel, carved forty years ago by a wood-carver engaged on the restoration of Woolhampton Church. Tramps and other travellers unacquainted with the cla.s.sics generally take this vinous heathen G.o.d to be a representation of the Angel after whom the inn was named.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WOOLHAMPTON.]

Woolhampton, once blessed with two "Angels," has now but one, for what was once known as the "Upper Angel" has been re-named the "Falmouth Arms."

Although Woolhampton village possesses a railway station on the Hants and Berks branch of the Great Western Railway, travellers will look in vain for the name of it in their railway guides. If they will refer to "Midgham," however, they will have found it under another t.i.tle.

Originally called by the name of the village, it was found that pa.s.sengers and luggage frequently lost their way here in mistake for Wolverhampton, also on the Great Western, and so the name had to be changed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THATCHAM.]

[Sidenote: _THATCHAM_]

Three and a half miles from Woolhampton comes Thatcham, famed in the coaching age for its "King's Head" inn, but now a decayed market town which has sunk to the status of a very dull village. A battered stone, all that remains of a market cross, stands in the middle of the wide, deserted street, enclosed by a circular seat, bearing an inscription recounting the history of the market, and the kingly protection which Henry the Third afforded the place against the "Newbury men." But, kingly help notwithstanding, the "Newbury men" have long since s.n.a.t.c.hed its trade away from Thatcham, which has become a village, while Newbury has grown to be a town of 20,000 inhabitants. The only interesting object in the long street is Thatcham Chapel, an isolated Perpendicular building, purchased for 10_s._ by Lady Frances Winchcombe in 1707. She presented it to a Blue Coat school which she founded in the village.

XXV

Newbury, the "hated rival," is three miles down the road. Within a mile of it in coaching times, but now not to be distinguished from the town itself, is Speenhamland, the site of that famous coaching inn, the "Pelican," whose charges were of so monumental a character that Quin has immortalized them in the lines:--

"The famous inn at Speenhamland, That stands beneath the hill, May well be called the Pelican, From its enormous bill."

Alas! how are the mighty fallen! The Pelican is no longer an inn, but has been divided up, and part of it is a veterinary establishment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAIL AND RIVER: THE KENNET AND THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.]