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THE WISLEY GARDEN

231

Donne, the poet, perhaps knew the paintings well. In the days when he was still unforgiven by Sir George More of Loseley for having run away with his daughter Anne, he and his bride lived for some years as the guests of Sir John Wolley, Queen Elizabeth's secretary, at Pyrford Park. May it not have been the seven-streamed Wey by Pyrford which gave him his stanzas for The Bait, his parody of Marlowe ?

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset
With strangling snare, or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;
Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wandering eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait;
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas! is wiser far than I.

Two miles further down the Canal-perhaps nearly four by the Wey itself-stands another little church, almost, like Pyrford and Woking, on the edge of the stream. Wisley church is the tiniest of the little group between Send and the Thames, but is not otherwise remarkable. The village is not much more than a farmhouse and a noble barn; perhaps Wisley is better known for its pond and its garden. The garden, unhappily, is almost a thing of the past. Experiment and officialdom have settled heavily on its sandy soil, and the wilder charm of the old pleasance has left it. A few years ago, when its late owner, Mr. Wilson of Weybridge, was alive, it was a delight to many hundreds of visitors, whom the owner generously allowed to share in his pleasure in rare and beautiful flowers. He had collected into a few acres of ground, protected by ingeniously laid out plantations, an almost incredible variety of plants, especially flowering bulbs, and in his woods and ponds, besides, had tried to establish other

232

BULL-FROGS AT WISLEY

CHAP.

curious and interesting wild life. Bird-boxes fastened to the trees were to tempt tits and nuthatches; in the reeds of the ponds great bull-frogs used to squat croaking, and little green

frogs climbed the leaves above them.

To-day that is hardly more than a memory. When the owner died the garden was bought by Sir Thomas Hanbury and presented to the Royal

XX

KEW DESCENDS

233

Horticultural Society. The society came down from Kew upon the fold; and on the open ground beside the old garden, tangled and unhappy, set down a row of superb glasshouses, planted a number of specimen fruit trees, and devoted itself forthwith to up-to-date research and education on the most

approved lines of modern scientific arboriculture and hybridisation in hothouses.

Last of the little bunch of Weyside churches is Byfleet, with a belfry built on some magnificent oak beams. Byfleet Manor House used to be a royal hunting lodge, and was given with

234

A GHOST IN VELVET

CH. XX

the right of free warren by Edward II to Piers Gaveston. Its last royal owner was James the First's queen, Anne of Denmark, and it was probably she who built the massive walls and the forecourt of the garden of the present home. But the manor house itself is early Georgian; and though it has had some ugly additions, it still stands square and strong behind its fine old gateway. James is supposed to have planted the Scotch firs in the garden, to remind Queen Anne of the home she left behind her in the north.

Such a building would be sure to have some quaint traditions. It is known locally as the King's House, and there is a legend that Henry VIII was nursed there. He may have been, but not in the present building. It has no regular ghosts, but Miss Frances Mitchell, writing on the history of the Manor in the Surrey Archæological Collections, tells us that Anne of Denmark is said to have been seen moving through the lower rooms; and there is a very dim tradition of a dwarf in purple velvet who wanders in the forecourt. A third legend, in which the rustic historian apparently confuses Anne of Denmark with the last Stuart Queen, relates that Queen Anne came to Byfleet and from a neighbouring hill watched Marlborough win the battle of Blenheim.

CHAPTER XXI

RICHMOND AND KEW

The Woking of the Surrey Thames.-Peasants in the field.-Ham House. -The Cabal.-Petersham.-Richmond Hill.-The Heart of Midlothian.-Deer in the sunlight.—Queen Elizabeth dying.-Kew Palace. The secret of the Gardens.

WOKING is the centre to which it is difficult not to return in exploring the Wey and the Wey villages: Surbiton is the centre of the roads about the Surrey Thames. Surbiton has tramways besides a railway, and Surbiton station is perhaps the most convenient starting point either for Hampton Court on the Middlesex bank, or for Kingston, or through Kingston to Ham and Richmond and Kew. Kingston, in one direction, has its own chapter; so have the Dittons and Walton in another; beyond Kingston lies a walk (not often taken, perhaps), along the river bank to Ham and Petersham; a walk that leads to Richmond Park and its deer dozing among the bracken in the afternoon sun, and Kew Gardens waiting in the evening the best hour of all the day among those ordered flowers and trees.

I never saw Ham until one day, walking out from Kingston, I suddenly found myself in the fruitful spaces of market gardens and farms. It is the suddenest change. Kingston, with the oldest memories of all Surrey towns, is as new and noisy as a thoroughly efficient service of tramways can make it; and then, within a stone's throw of bricks and barracks, you come upon acres beyond acres of level farmland, bean-fields and cabbage-fields and all the pleasantness of tiled soil and trenched earth and the wealth of kindly fruits. When I saw the fields by Ham on a hot day in August there were