Part 10
Cowes makes the Mecca of the yachtsman, as St Andrews of the golfer. It is the most famous station of those idle craft that in our day diverge into two different forms--the steam vessels, models of comfort and elegance, even luxury, some of them fitted for making pleasure-cruises all over the world; and the mere sailing boats, that seem utterly useless but as racing machines to skim like butterflies over some quiet sea, with their decks as often as not half under water--“a sort of metal torpedo with two or three balloons fixed on to it.” This is a pastime as expensive as the turf, and sometimes as unsatisfactory to the amateurs who seek social glory thereby. Not all the gentlemen who swagger about in blue jackets here are so much at home on the ocean wave as for the nonce they would fain appear. Not all those big and smart craft so much admired in the roads of Cowes are very familiar with the breeze or the billow of the open sea. The sailing masters and crews of some of them must have a good easy time of it; and one suspects they prefer being in the service of a fine-weather sailor, whose purse is his main qualification for seamanship, to taking orders from some old salt who knows the ropes as well as they do. We remember Jack Brag and his skipper Bung. But there are yachtsmen of another school, whose blood has the salt in it that goes so far to make England what it is, men who, without having the means to own idle vessels, dearly love playing the mariner in good earnest, and can spend no happier holiday than in working some small craft with their own hands, taking rough and smooth as it comes, getting health and pleasure out of return for a month or so to something like the old Viking life, and all its tingling charm of a struggle with the forces of nature. Sailors of this stamp can here buy or hire craft of all kinds, but perhaps more cheaply at other ports on the Solent, for it is not only at regatta-time that Cowes has a name for high charges.
The Solent with its almost landlocked waters, its many creeks, and its havens of refuge never more than a few miles off, makes a good cruising-ground for small craft such as can be sailed by the owner with the help of one or two hands working for love or money. Yet there are special difficulties here in the broken shore-line, the shifting banks, the shallows, and the treacherous currents, that call for some nautical ability, and even local experience to interpret the many buoys and beacons marking the channels of a watery labyrinth. The chief danger, apart from an occasional rough sea and squalls to be looked out for through openings in the land, is the violence of the tides, that encounter one another from each end of the Solent, so as to produce the peculiar result of a double high water--the ebb, after an hour or so, being driven back up to Southampton by a fresh flow.
There are, of course, various yacht clubs that take the Solent for their province; but the admiral of them all is the “Squadron,” one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, whose members have the much coveted right to fly St George’s white pennant on their yachts, and other privileges. Its membership is the port for which some of the most sumptuous yachts are fitted out. Many a millionaire would give a large slice of his fortune for admission to this body; but ill-gotten gold that buys titles, social advantages, and lordly yachts, is not an _Open Sesame_ here; and there are aspirants who know, like Spenser, what it is in this matter “to have thy Prince’s grace and want _his_ peers’.” Princely, royal or imperial patronage is seldom wanting for the regatta at the beginning of August, with which, passing on to the coast from Goodwood, the fashionable world disperses itself for the season in the blaze of fireworks that marks the end of “Cowes week.” During this week, Cowes becomes the focus of “smart” society, money and champagne flying over it like sea spray, and all its accommodation crammed; indeed, it would have no room for half its visitors, if not a few of them did not bring their own quarters in the shape of the innumerable yachts that by day are radiant with rainbow bunting, and by night illuminate the waters of the
Solent with thousands of lights. It is said indeed that, of late years, yachting begins to decline in fashion; that the expensive craft are allowed to take longer holidays, and that “Cowes week” is not filled with such a cloud of canvas. It may well be that our “smart set” find the winds and waves disturbing to the calculations of Bridge.
During Cowes’ water-carnival, some of the finest yachts afloat may still be seen at anchor off the R. Y. S. Clubhouse, standing out prominently on the sea-front, with its flagstaff and jetty, at which only members and officers of the navy are privileged to land, under the muzzles of a miniature battery brought from Virginia Water for holiday service. This building, whose glass gallery is the grand stand of yacht racing, has been adapted from the old castle of Henry VIII., in the seventeenth century used as a state prison. Here Sir William Davenant spent his hours of confinement in writing an heroic poem, _Gondibert_, which one fears to be hardly read nowadays, unless it makes part of prison libraries. There are some score cantos of it, filling eight score or so of folio pages; and this, as in the contemporary case of the bear and the fiddle, brings the story only to the middle, for as the author puts it in metaphors readily suggested at Cowes, “‘tis high time to strike Sail, and cast Anchor (though I have run but half my Course) when at the helm I am threatened with Death, who, though he can visit us but once, seems troublesome, and even in the Innocent may beget such a gravity as diverts the Musick of Verse.”
The parade of Cowes runs on beyond the castle, past gardened villas, to open out as the Green, a strip of sward set with seats that make the pit of the open-air theatre for which the Solent is stage in its yacht-racing season. At the end of this is the point marked by a brick ivy-clad mansion called Egypt, why so called, one knows not, unless that the name, occurring elsewhere in England, seems sometimes connected with gipsy memories. Did one wish to go gipsying, this end of Cowes was once fairly well adapted for such purposes; but cottages of gentility keep on spreading along the sea edge.
At Egypt is the bathing beach, from which the sea wall extends onward towards a bank of wild shrubbery called the “Copse,” a miniature Undercliff, where, rooted in singularly tenacious mud, an almost impassable jungle offers scope for the adventurous imagination of youth. This is skirted by a rough path above the shore, where at morn and eve may be seen flesh and blood _replicas_ of Frederick Walker’s “Bathers,” or of Mr Tuke’s “August Blue” scene, exhibited “without the formality of an apparatus,” as the Oxford man in _Humphrey Clinker_ has it. As for the bathing-machines further back, a guide-book of his generation states that “from the manner in which they are constructed, and the position they occupy, a person may safely commit himself to the bosom of Neptune at almost any state of the tide.” Yet one may hint to strangers not desirous of committing themselves to Abraham’s bosom, that the currents run strong here, and that some parts of the shallow shore deepen suddenly.
One of the sandiest bathing-places on this shore is at Gurnard’s Bay, about two miles along, which has an hotel of its own and other beginnings of a seaside resort. This used to be a landing-place from the mainland; and here was the site of another Roman villa. The guide-books of a future generation may have more to say about Gurnard’s Bay; but I must ask the reader now to turn back to Cowes.
At the back of the town is its Church, built in the time of the Commonwealth, that did not much foster church architecture; and behind this stands the manorial mansion of Northwood Park in somewhat gloomy grounds opened by funereally classical gates. The older parish church is that of Northwood, some way inland, which itself, in its day, had been an offshoot of Carisbrooke. Northwood Park hived for a time the foreign nuns who lately swarmed to other quarters at Ryde. This mansion had long been looked on by true blue Protestants as a half-way house to Rome, when it was the home of William George Ward, a prominent name in the “Oxford Movement” that so much shifted the Anglican establishment’s centre of gravity. He went over to the Roman Church, and moved to another house near Totland Bay, where his neighbour Tennyson had warm words to say over his grave--
My friend, the most unworldly of mankind, Most generous of all ultramontanes, Ward, How subtle at tierce and quart of mind with mind, How loyal in the following of thy Lord!
The chief hotels and lodging-houses are found on that part of the parade east of the “Squadron,” which at one time occupied the Gloucester Hotel. The crooked main street leads us to the river suburb of Mill Hill, and to the floating bridge by which the Medina is crossed to East Cowes. There has been talk of a tunnel here, as under broader channels; but the amphibious folk of this port are still content with their ferry.
East Cowes, though at one time the more important side, has long been eclipsed by its western neighbour. It may be described as a suburb of ambitious roads mounting the wooded background from a rather mean frontage, so as to bring into curious juxtaposition some characteristics of Norwood and Rotherhithe. At the seaward end it has a short esplanade of its own, from which is to be had a fine sunset view over the Solent. The old fortress on this side has entirely disappeared. The most interesting house here is Slatwoods, the boyhood’s home of Dr Arnold of Rugby, his father having been collector of customs at this port. Arnold, born in a house at West Cowes now marked by a tablet, but brought up on the other side, always had
an affection for Slatwoods, and slips of its great willow tree were transplanted to his successive homes at Laleham, Rugby, and Fox How.
East Cowes is shut in by the grounds of East Cowes Castle and Norris Castle, mansions of the modern Gothic period, that have had noble occupants and royal guests. Norris Castle, at the point of the estuary open to briny breezes from every quarter, was in 1833 tenanted by the Duchess of Kent, sea-air having been ordered for her daughter’s precious health. The Princess Victoria made here a collection of sea-weeds which she presented to her friend Maria da Gloria, the girl-queen of Portugal; and no doubt in this sequestered nook she was able to go about more freely than at Bognor or Brighton. She seems to have much enjoyed her stay on the Solent, probably then taking a fancy to this neighbourhood, which in later life led to the purchase of Osborne, her favourite residence when Balmoral was too bleakly bracing. The park begins beyond the ascent out of East Cowes, extending along the wooded northern shore towards the small inlet called King’s Quay, that pretends to be a landing-place of King John, who, after signing Magna Charta, is dubiously said to have sulked here among the pirates of the Island.
Osborne Manor, whose name has been clipped to so aristocratic a sound, would have been originally no more than an _Austerbourne_ or _Oyster-bed_, that, from the Bowermans, an old Island family not yet extinct, came to belong to one Eustace Mann, who, during the troubles of the Civil War, is supposed to have buried a mass of gold and silver coins in a coppice still known as Money Coppice, and having forgotten to mark the spot, was never afterwards able to recover his treasure. Had it been found in the course of the last half century, a curious lawsuit might have arisen between the rights of the Crown and of the Queen as private owner. By marriage the estate came into the hands of the Blachfords. From Lady Isabella Blachford it was purchased by Queen Victoria in 1840, who enlarged her property here to an area of upwards of 5000 acres, bounded north by the Solent, south by the Ryde and Newport road, east by the inlet of King’s Quay, and west by the Medina.
The Blachford mansion, spoken of a century ago as one of the largest and best in the Island, gave place to the palace of Osborne, royally adorned with pictures and statuary, that turns its Palladian face to the Solent, while from the road behind only the flag tower and campanile can be seen peeping above the rich foliage of the park. A “Swiss Cottage” contained the model dairy and kitchen, where the princesses are understood to have been instructed in housewifely arts, and a museum of curiosities collected by the princes in their travels through an empire on which the sun never sets. At Barton Manor-house, a picturesque old mansion added to the estate and adapted as residence of the steward, was the Prince Consort’s home-farm, which “a Mr Wilkinson, a clergyman” is quoted in guide-books as praising for a model of all that could be done to make the best of a naturally poor soil. The late Queen’s love of seclusion prompted her to increase and enclose her demesne, till she could drive for miles in her own grounds, kept strictly private during the royal residence.
Behind Osborne, overlooking the Medina, is Whippingham Church, whose parish takes in Osborne and East Cowes, as West Cowes was a dependent on Northwood. This church, sometimes attended by the royal family, is rich in mortuary memorials, among them Theed’s monument of the Prince Consort, placed here by “his broken-hearted and devoted widow, Queen Victoria,” and the chapel that is the tomb of Prince Henry of Battenberg, married in Whippingham Church, 1885. The structure, finely situated, has a singularly un-English look, its German Romanesque features understood to have been inspired by the taste of the Prince Consort, on which account her late Majesty’s loyal subjects would fain have admired the effect, as many of them could not honestly do. A wicked tale is told of a gentleman well known in the architectural world, who, on a visit at Whippingham, was surprised by a summons to Osborne. Unfortunately, this stranger had not been furnished with a _carte du pays_, and when the Queen led the conversation to Whippingham Church, asking advice what should be done with it, he bluntly gave his opinion: “The only thing to be done, madam, is to pull it all down!”--whereupon the uncourtly adviser found his audience soon brought to an end.
Other stories or legends are locally current, illustrating the difficulties of etiquette that hampered her Majesty’s desire to be on friendly terms with her less august neighbours. One hears of guests scared off by the sight of a red cloth on the steps to mark how royalty would be taking tea or counsel within; and of others suddenly bundled out of the way, when the Queen’s unpretentious equipage was announced as approaching. It seems that majesty’s neighbours were not all neighbourly. A lady of title here is said to have closed her gates to the Queen’s carriage, which never again took that direction. Such an assertion of private rights would have astonished that high-titled Eastern potentate, of whom it is told that, being entertained at the seat of one of our greatest dukes, he advised the then Prince of Wales to have their host executed without delay as much too powerful a subject!
After the death of Queen Victoria, the present Sovereign gave up this estate to be in the main a public memorial of her, though Osborne Cottage is still occupied by the Princess Henry of Battenberg, Governor of the Island with which she has so many happy and sorrowful associations. The palace has been in part adapted as a home for convalescent officers, the room in which the Queen died and other
apartments being kept as used by her, to make a sight at present open on certain days. In the grounds are the new buildings of a Naval College, whose cadets will be brought up in view of the famous anchorage haunted by memories of our “wooden walls,” and often stirred by the mighty machines that have taken their place, we trust, to the same good purpose.
Of all the naval pageants these shores have beheld, none could be more impressive than when, that dull winter afternoon of 1901, stirred only by tolling bells and booming minute guns, the body of Europe’s most venerated Sovereign was borne across the Solent through a mile-long lane of British and foreign war-ships, on her last journey to Windsor.
THE GATES OF THE ISLAND
Before turning away from the Solent, we may take a look at its northern shores, and the mainland ports making gateways of the strait and island that serve their populations as playground.
Cowes lies opposite Southampton, with which it has direct communication up the long inlet of Southampton Water, the least expeditious passage to the Island, but the pleasantest in fine weather, most of the hour’s voyage being by that wooded arm of the Solent, where on one side stretch the heaths and copses of the New Forest’s Beaulieu corner; while the other is broken by the mouths of the Hamble and of the Itchen. Between these creeks, stands conspicuous the Netley Hospital, said to be the longest building in England, overshadowing Netley Castle, adapted as a modern mansion, and the picturesque old ruins of Netley Abbey, fallen to be a junketing resort for Southampton. The Royal Victoria Hospital, a name well earned by the late Queen’s interest in it, was built for soldiers invalided in the Crimean War, and became to our army what the Haslar Hospital, at Gosport, is to the navy. Netley Bay is now headquarters of the Motor-Yacht Club, housed in an ex-Admiralty yacht.
Too many of the Isle of Wight passengers who embark or land at Southampton Pier, know not what a mistake they make in hurrying on without a look at one of the most interesting old towns in England, which from the railway or the docks may appear to be no more than one of its most prosperous ports. The Northam and Southam of early days have here grown into a still growing municipality, whose lively streets imbed some most notable fragments of the past, now reverently preserved. The largest portion of the walls is a stretch of curious archways facing the west shore, behind which filthily picturesque slums have been cleared away and replaced by a pile of model lodging-houses that our era of sanitation puts in bold contrast with the Middle Ages. These Arcades, as they are called, seem to have been the defensible entrances to a line of mansions, very eligible for their period. Behind, beside the spire of Southampton’s oldest church, is a Tudor house said to have accommodated Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn on their brief honeymoon. The oldest of the houses on the sea front, by the “King’s Quay” as it used to be called, is believed to have been tenanted by King John, perhaps by Henry III; and among the many King John’s lodges and King John’s palaces scattered over England, this seems to have the best right to the honour thus claimed for it.
Further on, near the end of the pier, is the West Gate, under which Henry V.’s men-at-arms and archers clanked out on their way to Agincourt.
Suppose that you have seen The well-appointed king at Hampton pier Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet With silken streamers the young Phœbus fanning: Play with your fancies, and in them behold Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing; Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails, Borne with the invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea, Breasting the lofty surge: O do but think You stand upon the rivage and behold A city on the inconstant billows dancing; For so appears this fleet majestical, Holding due course to Harfleur.
Such a floating city as Shakespeare saw here in his mind’s eye, would seem but a hamlet beside the streets of craft from all the world that now crowd Southampton docks. Behind them, near the foot of High Street, is a building which, if tradition lie not, may boast itself the oldest house in England, for, stable as it is now, it sets up to be a remnant of King Canute’s residence, who on the shore hereabouts, perhaps enacted his famous scene of commanding the waves, more effectually restrained by the heroes of modern industry; but on that oft-told tale Leslie Stephen drily remarks, “that an anecdote is simply the polite name of a lie.”
From the Quay quarter, what a well-known novelist styles the “brightest, airiest, lightest, prettiest High Street in England,” leads up to the Bargate, imposing survival of mediæval architecture, with which Southampton is proud to hamper her busy main thoroughfare, long after prosaic Londoners have banished their obstructive Temple Bar. The long street, hence known as “Above Bar,” goes out between pleasant parks, then as a lordly avenue that begins one of the finest high-roads in the kingdom, running on to Winchester. As this avenue is approached, on the left stands a building that should be viewed with grateful respect by all conscientious tourists and their guides, since it is the headquarters of the Ordnance Survey maps. Further on, beside the road, is reached Southampton Common, one of the prettiest natural parks and playgrounds at the gate of any great town, seeming to be, what indeed it is, a half cleared bit of the New Forest.
The woods of the New Forest come within a few miles of Southampton, which has other pleasant scenes about its salubrious site on a gravelly spit projecting between the Itchen and the Test, angling streams of fame. Its sea-front on the West Bay is hardly an admirable point unless at high water, as it more often shows a green expanse of slime and malodorous weed that by no means _ladet zum Baden_, fit rather for the paddling of adventurous mud larks. But the citizens, more ingenious than Canute, catch the elusive tide in a basin that makes an excellent open-air swimming bath. The strong smell of seaweed is offensive to some strangers, who may comfort themselves by considering it as wholesome: had this rubbish bank been German, it would probably be utilised for some sort of _Kur_, with a three weeks’ course of sanatory sniffs, and a _Nach-kur_ of whey treatment in the Isle of Wight. Southampton had once indeed a chalybeate spa of its own, to which its Victoria Rooms seems a monument.
This old seaport has had notable sons, from Isaac Watts, whose statue in the park looks down on a flower-bed visited by busy bees, to Charles Dibdin, whose nautical songs were not so well adapted to the restraint of angry passions. If all tales be true, its oldest celebrity is that Bevis of Hampton, whose story, indeed, inconvenient critics father upon a twelfth century French romance; and it has certainly been told in several languages: so far off as Venice, this widely popular hero is found figuring as a sort of local Punch. But for the confusion of all who doubt his Hampshire origin, the name Bevis Mount still preserves on the Itchen bank the memory of a stronghold he threw up here against the Danes; and who was he if not Bevis of Hampton? The story also gives him a connection with the Isle of Wight; so, as we began with dull history, let us draw towards an end with a taste of what, one fears, must count rather as fiction, perhaps expanded about some core of legendary fact.