HURLEY ISLANDS - THE WORK OF CAPABILITY BROWN?
Harleyford Manor Listed Building Description 1987:
"The islands in the river may also form part of the designed landscape,
and it is possible that Lancelot Brown may have worked on the formation or shaping of them.
The small island closest to the house is mown lawn with many specimen trees.
The larger island behind this, to the south, has a more natural character and is rather overgrown."
There are seven lovely islands - mainly accessible by boat from below lock - though of course the lock island is
accessed by the two footbridges from the Left bank (but not via the lock gates).
1829: A Tour on the Banks of the Thames by A Walton & R Walton (2011 edition available)-
The appearance of things at this point is peculiarly interesting ;
on whichsoever side the eye turns is beheld lovely groves,
romantic cottages, green lawns, blissful bowers;
while the water rolling gently on, softly murmuring as it flows,
gives an agreeable finish to so excellent a picture.
The number, too, of ladies and gentlemen who are to be seen in their skiffs
enjoying the gentle motion of their fairy vessels
as they are slowly wafted over the silver wave, or engaged in their punts,
"studious the finny creatures to deceive", all these
tend to throw a charm over the scene more easily felt than described.
1881: George Leslie, "Our River" -
All the backwaters about Harleyford are very pretty, and in one of them Mr. Fildes painted his boat picture, "Fair, quiet, sweet rest".
'Fair, quiet, sweet rest' by Sir Samuel Luke Fildes RA
There are generally a good many artists at Hurley, and two or three house boats can usually be seen moored off the lock-house. Lady Place and Hurley Mill, with its fine old weathercock, afford a great variety of subjects for the artist. Some curious old fishponds inside the grounds of Lady place, the well-known wall with its old ivy on it, the dovecot, barns, and gateways, all testify to the grandeur and beauty of the house that has perished. Not the least picturesque features about here are the little wooden bridges, where the tow-path changes sides; long may they exist, as it is ten to one if they are ever repaired it will be with iron. The boat-house just above, which belongs to Sir Gilbert East, is not an ugly one, and in time it will look very much better, as it is chiefly the varnish which spoils it now.
In Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows, Mole and Rat are out on the river at night time searching for baby Otter who has gone missing. They are approaching a weir with islands below it, rather like Hurley -
Rat, who was in the stern of the boat, while
Mole sculled, sat up suddenly and listened with a passionate intentness. Mole, who with gentle strokes was just
keeping the boat moving while he scanned the banks with care, looked at him
with curiosity.
"It's gone!" sighed the Rat, sinking
back in his seat again.
"So beautiful and strange and new! Since it
was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is
pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and
go on listening to it for ever.
No! There it is again!" he cried, alert once more.
Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spell-bound.
"Now it passes on and I begin to lose
it" he said presently.
"O, Mole! The beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin clear
happy call of the distant piping! Such
music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is
sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for
us!"
The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed.
"I hear nothing myself", he said, "but the wind playing in the reeds
and rushes and osiers."
The Rat never answered, if indeed he
heard. Rapt, transported, trembling, he
was possessed in all his senses by this new divine thing that caught up his
helpless soul and swung and dandled it, a powerless but happy infant in a
strong sustaining grasp.
In silence Mole rowed steadily, and soon they
came to a point where the river divided, a long backwater branching off to one
side.
With a slight movement of his head
Rat, who had long dropped the rudder lines, directed the rower to take the
backwater. The creeping tide of light
gained and gained, and now they could see the colour of the flowers that gemmed
the water's edge.
"Clearer and nearer still," cried the Rat joyously.
"Now you must surely hear it! Ah - at last - I see you do!"
Breathless and transfixed the Mole stopped
rowing as the liquid run of that glad piping broke on him like a wave, caught
him up, and possessed him utterly. He
saw the tears on his comrade's cheek, and bowed his head and understood. For a space they hung there, brushed by the
purple loosestrife that fringed the bank;
then the clear imperious melody imposed its will on Mole, and
mechanically he bent to his oars again.
And the light grew steadily stronger, but no birds sang as they were
wont to do at the approach of dawn; and
but for the heavenly music all was marvellously still.
On either side of them, as they glided onwards,
the rich meadow-grass seemed that morning of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable. Never had they noticed the roses so vivid,
the willow-herb so riotous, the meadow-sweet so odorous and pervading. Then the murmur of the approaching weir began
to hold the air, and they felt a consciousness that they were nearing the end,
whatever it might be, that surely awaited their expedition.
A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights
and shining shoulders of green water, the great weir closed the backwater from
bank to bank, troubled all the quiet surface with twirling eddies and floating
foam-streaks, and deadened all other sounds with its solemn soothing
rumble. In midmost of the stream,
embraced in the weir's shimmering arm-spread, a small island lay anchored,
fringed close with willow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it
hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping it till the hour should come,
and, with the hour, those who were called and chosen.
Islands beneath Hurley Weir -
"In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir's shimmering armspread"
Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation
whatever, and in something of a solemn expectancy, the two animals passed
through the broken, tumultuous water and moored their boat at the flowery
margin of the island. In silence they
landed, and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage and undergrowth that
led up to the level ground, till they stood on a little lawn of marvellous
green, set round with Nature's own orchard trees - crab-apple, wild cherry, and
sloe.
"This is the place of my song-dream, the
place the music played to me," whispered Rat, as if in a trance.
"Here in this holy place, here if
anywhere, surely we shall find Him!"
Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall
upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted
his feet to the ground. It was no panic
terror - indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy - but it was an awe that
smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some
august Presence was very, very near.
With difficulty he turned to look for his friend, and saw him at his side
cowed, stricken, and trembling violently.
And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches
around them; and still the light grew
and grew.
Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his
eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons
seemed still dominant and imperious. He
might not refuse, were death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he
had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden.
Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble
head; and then, in that utter clearness
of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fullness of incredible colour,
seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the
Friend and Helper; saw the backward
sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight;
saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly
eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke
into a half smile at the corners; saw
the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long
supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted
lips; saw the splendid curves of the
shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward;
saw, last of all, nesting between his very
hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round,
podgy, childish form of the baby otter.
All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the
morning sky;
and still as he looked, he lived;
and still, as he lived, he wondered.
"Rat!" he found breath to whisper, shaking.
"Are you afraid?"
"Afraid?" murmured the rat, his eyes
shining with unutterable love.
"Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet - and yet - O, Mole, I am afraid!"
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth,
bowed their heads and did worship.
[ If C S Lewis could portray Christ as
Aslan the Lion, then why not our God as Pan the Piper? This is not some betrayal of Christianity in
favour of an older religion - rather it is a question of the setting within
which the eternal truths are portrayed.
There is nothing but goodness and holiness and joy here.
Whatever your faith and lack of it, you know
and appreciate that.
Those who would introduce evil into such a story bear a great and terrible responsibility.
Kenneth Grahame has given us a story of
the experience of the numinous - the holy awe at the presence of the divine
- which is almost unique, as far as I am aware, in that it is so English and set
on the river. Those who use manually
propelled boats know something of the silence and beauty that led him to this
evocation of holiness. Cherish it!
And - there are now baby otters back on the Thames!
Which is all to say that the islands
below Hurley weir are a very special place. ]
I had for years instinctively identified
Hurley as the place to set the quotation above but now I have come across
authority for it -
1893: The Rural Pan, An April Essay, by Kenneth Grahame,
(read online) -
Meanwhile, nor launches nor lawns tempt him that pursueth the rural Pan. In the hushed recesses of Hurley backwater where the canoe may be paddled almost under the tumbling comb of the weir, he is to be looked for; there the god pipes with freest abandonment.
1909: Fred Thacker (writing about the Thames above Oxford in The Stripling Thames) -
And who knows, for eyes that can see and for ears that can hear, from what fringe of willows or rushy island the shaggy god may not emerge to cut and fashion a reed and blow thereon with mad delight some "unheard, sweeter melody"? For neither is he dead, nor Syrinx; herebouts they still inhabit as surely as anywhere in England.
The reeds that rustle in the breeze
Still whisper of the god's pursuit
Slim Syrinx startled turns and flees
Great Pan has shrilled his oaten flute!
1901: The Thames Illustrated by John Leland -
Too many hasten along Henley-ward who might linger pleasantly to explore the backwaters,
and discover the beauties of the little islands which make veritable archipelagoes
between Temple Lock and Medmenham.
There are dense woods, sometimes shadowing the stream, sometimes retiring from the shore,
rugged escarpments of chalk, fields where you can see the plough breaking the glebe,
or the corn ripening for harvest, while the rooks forsake the elms and wing their way across the river,
where the swans float, kingfishers darting across the backwaters,
and even herons yet sometimes seeking their prey in the shallows.
There are stately houses, too, with beautiful gardens to grace the shore.
1906: G.E.Mitton -
Certain places are frequently associated with
certain seasons of the year, and to my mind at Hurley it is always summer. The
smell of the new mown hay on the long island between the lock channel and part
of the main stream, the faint, delicate scent of dog-roses, and all the other
scents that load the summer air, seem to linger for ever in this sheltered
place.
The backwater running up on the other side of this island to the weir is
a very enticing one. Thirsty plants dip their pretty heads to drink of the
water that comes swirling from the weir like frosted glass, and trees of all
sorts-ash, elm, horse-chestnut, and the ubiquitous willows and poplars-lean
over the water in crooked elbows, giving a sweet shade and a delicious
coolness.
The weir is a long one, broken by islands into three parts. Another
long island is parallel to the first one. Indeed, Hurley is a complicated
place, and one that is ever new.