THE POST OFFICE AS PHILISTINE.
LORD FARRER'S letter on the threatened disfigurement of the beautiful road between Albury and Shen will have been read by many with deep interest; by a few with a renewed sense of impotency, hoping against hope that those in authority will realize before it is too late the extent of the loss and the destruction which they are inflicting on the countryside. Lord Farrer may succeed where others have failed; many will pray that he may succeed; but there is little hope to be gained from looking at similar cases of threatened disfigurement. I should like to set out a personal experience of my own in regard to lines of telephone posts, and if in doing so too many "I's" come into the narra- tive I hope they may be forgiven, since one of the points I wish to emphasize is the ignorance and help. lessness of an individual, which seem to use probably typical, and which, because they are typical, explain much that happens in the country year after year without visible protest. On a day early in May I was driving into Godalmiug from Hambledon by the road from Hydestile through Ban- bridge. This road I have always considered, not merely one of the most beautiful in Surrey, but one of the most beautiful of all that I know in the South of England. On each side of Busbridge Hollow, where the view widens into a valley of green fields, with ducks sailing on a pond under a wooded hill, the road runs between high banks of sand, arched over by great beeches springing from each side. To my dismay I found the road littered the whole way with piles of telephone poles. There they were ; there was no doubt about it; unlikely as it had seemed, for there are few houses which could be served by a line coming that way, this road was to be spoiled. Here is my first point: the posts are there, ready to be put up before the public: learns what is happening. Lord Ferrer, I see, gained his knowledge as to the Albury-Shere line from a notice published in the Surrey Times of June 6th. I was not so vigilant; but can anybody say that publication of such a notice in a local paper is all that should be required of the Post Office ? Ought not the Post Office at least to send notice of its intention to the owners of the property adjoining the road P Let that point pass, however ; the immediate question as regards Busbridge Hollow was whether anything could be done to save the beauty of the road. I thought at once of the General Purposes Committee of the Surrey County Council, and their undertaking to do what they could to prevent the disfigurement of the countryside; and I wrote to the Committee to draw their attention to the threatened disfigurement of one of the most beautiful pieces of scenery in the county. After some days I received a letter from Mr. T. W. Weeding, clerk to the Council, written from the Council Offices at Kingston, informing me that the road in question appeared to be in the area of the Guildford Rural District Council, or the Hambledon Rural District Council, to whom my protest should be addressed. I wrote, therefore, to the Chairman of the Hambledon Rural District Council, and received from him by return of post a most courteous letter, in 'which le agreed with use that "telephone and telegraph
Poles are horrible destroyers of the quiet of landscape," but pointed out that this plea alone, in his experience, had never prevailed against their erection, though the Post Office would always consider alternative routes, and would consent, if assisted in the extra cost, to lay their wires underground. He went on to inform me that Busbridge was in the area of the Guildford Rural District Council, and that he had heard nothing of the line of poles which I men- tioned; but that there had been an application to the Hambledon Rural District Council to authorize the extension of telephone posts from the corner of Hambledon Heath to a house near my own, and that this had been referred to the Parish Council for their observations. The Parish Council had suggested certain restrictions as to position, and these restrictions would be observed.
This was information wholly unexpected. The new line of
telephone posts from Rambled= Heath would do almost as much damage to scenery as the Busbridge line; the damage would only be less because the distance to be traversed is sluorter. The road from Rambled= up which the line was to come—is to come, rather—is just as beautiful as the Busbridge Road. Rock Hill, Hambledon, is one of the most charming spots in the county. The great height of the banks on each side of the road and the over-arching beeches make it, In my opinion, even more beautiful than the Shore road to which Lord Ferrer refers, and Hambledon, like Shore, has hitherto been a quiet country village. However, turning from Hambledon to Busbridge, I wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Guildford Rural District Council in reference to the Busbridge poles. He also replied most courteously by return of post, and Informed me that in regard to Busbridge Hollow he entirely agreed with all I said, but that unfortunately the District Council had no power to prevent the line coming; the Post Office people nominally naked the Council's leave, but they could come without it. What the Council could do, he told me, was to see that the poles were not erected to the danger of the public, and in his opinion it was doubtful whether the line could come down the Busbridge road without danger to the public. He told me that he would forward my letter to the surveyor, and that the Council would urge my views, but that really the matter rested with a higher authority, the Post Office.
There, then, the matter stands. The Post Office, apparently, has taken no notice. The poles are being erected; the trees are being lopped, and even here and there felled, to make room for the posts and wires; the Post Office does not even clear away the branches it cuts down. The beauty of Busbridge Hollow is destroyed. The beauty of Rock Hill will be destroyed also; the Post Office marches steadily on with pick and axe, and the countryside blackens before it. The private Individual and the villagers who take a pride in the beauty of their village are powerless.
Let me not be misunderstood. I have, of course, no objection to the telephone. I have every sympathy with those who want it. But I submit that the Post Office in supplying the want of individuals has no right to destroy what belongs to the community: no right to destroy what ought to belong to posterity. The whole situation is an anomaly. Here on the one band we have a National Trust for preserving places of natural beauty, a National Art-Collections Fund for buying beautiful pictures, a Kyrie Society, a Selborne Society, sub- acriptions for the purchase of beauty spots and open spaces such as Hydon Ball in this very neighbourhood from which I write: and on the other hand here is one of the moat beautiful roads in the South of England, already in the possession of and open to all English men and women, being deliberately spoiled and disfigured. I submit that this is all wrong. The telephone must come, granted. But it can be brought in different ways. It can be brought by different routes, as Lord Ferrer shows; and I claim that there are eases when it ought to be brought underground. With towns and railway lines the overhead wire may be the better way : with country villages and beautiful country roads the right way is under- ground. I submit that we have reached a gage in this mutter: that we should realize that the Post Office, if it brings as con- venience, is bringing needless destruction with it—and that it is time we should look round and see whether we cannot pre- serve what beauty is left to us, before our country lanes and commons become a mere network of posts and wires.
E. P.
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