MINOR ENGLISH LAKES.
SITUATION rather than size is the main beauty of lakes and pools of water. Those of large dimensions are seen only in the Lake Country proper. But the number of smaller
lakes and pools, natural and artificial, scattered in most English counties is very large. In some districts, like the Norfolk Broads and Surrey valleys, the pools and rivers are so close together as to give character to a whole neighbour- hood. More often each stands by itself, and makes part of the scenery rather than the scenery itself. True lakes are nearly always of the same character, with a sedgy head at which a stream flows in, banks more or less steep, being the sides of a natural valley, and something in the form of a dam at the lower end, with an' overflow to retain, but not wholly block, the waters. This is the scarcest form of lake in the South. We believe that there is not one in Devon, where Dartmoor and Exmoor are too much like masses of inverted cones to make lake-holding valleys. But in the Looe Pool in the far West Cornwall has a real lake. It is fed by the Helston River, which, winding down under steep woods and
promontories covered with golden gorse, is blocked where it should enter the sea by a natural bar of white sand piled by all the force of the Atlantic rollers. It is not a salt lagoon, but a fresh-water lake, full of trout, which may be. caught from the sandbar as well as from the sides. Tree- fringed and covered with waterfowl front land, lake, and sea, it winds .back among. the hills inland. If the waters rise too high, the men of ,Helston by an ancient custom present a purse of money to the owner of the lake, and so obtain leave to cut the bar that lies between the iron .cliffs on either side. If the final scene in the Legend of King Arthur as consecrated by Tennyson needed identification, that "last dim, weird battle of the West" could be fixed nowhere else than by the shores of the Looe Pool. "The waste sand by the waste sea" is seen in the wide long strand that here only along that rugged coast fringes the iron shore. Here is
that land-
" Of old upheaval from th' abyss, Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt, And the long mountains ended in a coast Of ever-shifting sands, and far away The phantom circle of a moaning sea."
Hard by under the cliffs at Gunwalloe is a tiny shrine between the rocks and a marsh, "on a dark strait of barren land," where the "sea wind sings, shrill chill with flakes of foam." All these things may be seen by the Looe Pool even as the poet wrote them.
Slapton Lea, in Devon, would be called on the Norfolk coast a fresh-water Broad. Such lakes tend to form where the shore is barred by sandhills or shingle banks, even where there is no connection with the salt water. It is full of fresh- water fish, and the gathering place of the largest flocks of coots seen in England. Dorset and Somerset are not lake- bearing counties ; but the former possesses the finest salt- water lagoon in England, the Fleet behind Chesil Bank, with its Swannery at the head by Abbotsbury. Surrey, with Vir- ginia Water to head the list, the largest artificial lake in
England, redeems its lack of rivers by its pools ; but we doubt if there are natural lakes in the Midlands. The land surface does not lend itself to the accumulation of waters. But of artificial pools there are many, and among them some of the most beautiful in England. In Oxford- shire and Buckinghamshire some of these are so extensive that at Brill, almost in the very heart of England, a flourishing wild - duck decoy exists, the ducks being supplied largely by birds that shelter by day on the lakes that lie in and about the valley of the Upper Thames. Among these are those at Wootton, at Blenheim, at Eynsham Hall, at Buscot Park, near Faringdon, and big reaervoirs like Clat-trott, where the great crested grebe used to breed long before it was Protected in Norfolk, and so spread elsewhere. Blenheim is a true lake, filling a natural valley, the dam at the end which holds up the water being rendered invisible by the windings of the banks. These -banks are of smooth turf, making a steep declivity to the water's edge, and set with great beeches, oaks, and cedars. The water covers two hundred and sixty acres, but seems far more extensive owing to the bays, peninsulas, and curves. It gains greatly also from being entirely surrounded by this immense park, from which the deer come down to drink, and by which the large flocks of wild duck, widgeon, and teal are protected from interference. Yet this fine lake was made by "Capability "- Brown, who said exultingly that "the Thames would never forgive him for what he had done." The famous Surrey ponds belong to a class of lakes which in Norfolk are called "meres." These are generally not deep, have as a rule no stream of exit, but receive drainage water, and rise or shrink with the seasons, being largely recuperated in summer by dews and mists, and in winter by fogs. There is a little mere in the very centre of the Norfolk town of Diss 17 ft. deep, but the major part are shallow, tree-fringed, and greatly beloved of fish and fowl. A small and exquisite mere lies* in the heart of the pine-woods not two miles from Sandown race- course, full of rare plants on which rare insects feed. In Norfolk the most famous of all the meres are those owned by Lord- Walsingham. Several pools and meres, both in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Surrey, have shrunk and dwindled recently, and from other causes than the natural filling up caused by the dense aquatic vegetation of the Norfolk Broads and rivers. Dry seasons have a good deal to do with this loss, especially where the pools are near a public road or heath. The waters recede, and carts are driven far into the pool, and break the "pan," whether of ironstone, or even of clay, which lines the bottom and keeps the water in Snnething of this kind happened in the case of Woolmer -Pond, and Frensham Great Pond has suffered in the same way from injury to the ironstone crust at the bottom.
The place of dwindling or vanishing lakes is more than made up for by those added to the list. We have only drained artificially one great piece of water, Whittlesea Mere unlike the Dutch, who can never see a lake without wishing to be ploughing the bottom of it. But not a year goes by in which fresh pools, and sometimes considerable lakes, are not added to our landscape. Part of this satisfactory increase is due to the formation of artificial lakes to beautify the new great houses being built. One of the prettiest of these minor lakes is one of twenty-five acres under the fells at Wyresdale Park in North Lancashire, made mainly for the purpose of holding rainbow trout in a perfectly natural condition. Very many others have been formed, not so important in area, though they are pretty features in our domestic scenery. Far larger and more striking are the reservoirs constantly being made and added to to increase the water supply of great towns. This is a process which has been going on for more than half a century, but increases with each year in proportion to the growth of the population. It may be said that for every square mile added to the towns the artificial lakes which supply the water must be augmented in some ratio, either of depth or width. Many reservoirs are in beautiful situations, and become fine expanses of water. The first to be constructed were those to supply the canals, especially the Grand Junction Canal. Those for urban water supply followed later. Hertfordshire was furnished. by the early canal-makers with many lakes, which lie in the clayey wooded valleys north of London. The 'Welsh Harp' lake is perhaps the best known ; but there are others not less pretty and of considerable size, such as that at Neasden, and the fine pool at Elstree. Tring Reservoir has become a famous wildfowl lake. It is in the hands of Lord Rothschild for sporting purposes, and the duck-shooting has become some of the best in the South. The common bittern recently bred there, the only known case of this bird's return to England in the nesting season. Bristol has created a new lake .between the Mendip and some of the foothills. The water is contained by a high dam at one end of a valley, but flows naturally up the side combes among the trees. Leeds possesses a lake called Adel Dam. Bradford has made a great tarn on the back of the grouse-moors near Ilkley. The Lower Thames Valley is, unhappily, not adapted for Storage _reservoirs in natural situations. It is too flat, with the result that though the new lakes at Staines will Cover one hundred acres, and might have become a great ornament, they will neces.. sarily be contained not in pools, but in what are practically tanks, made by raised earth embankments, which render the water invisible. It is not in the least necessary to have a rugged country to form beautiful lakes in. The writer spent some time on one lately in Essex, in a park in the centre of typical Essex scenery. It was three-quarters of a mile long, full of fish, with many rare wildfowl on it, and an eagle had been seen by it the same morning, sitting on a dead tree at the lake. head, in surroundings of water and timber as fine as on any lake in the South. The Broads and their connecting streams contain five thousand acres of land and two hundred miles of navigable river, without counting the largest of all English tidal lakes, Breydon Water. But we have not yet enough meres and lakes in England, either for scenery or for water supply. Those who increase the number, either for pleasure or use, deserve all the credit that the public is willing to bestow upon them.
Previous page
