THE BEAUTY OF ENGLISH VILLAGES. are better off, and when
once this " tone " is gained friendly co-operation secures further benefits.
Fortunately, those really acquainted with the country know that there are, and that there always have been, a great many villages in which this genial tone exists, and which have been "happy," in the best sense of the word, for longer than living memory records. To-day life in them is even pleasanter than of old, because of those new contrivances and conveniences referred to. But the sources of mental pleasure and contentment have always existed, and still exist, in our country parishes in a degree which the importance recently and justly assigned to hygiene and comfort has perhaps for the moment somewhat obscured. The wonderful beauty possessed by nearly all the villages of the South, Centre, West, and East of England generally is an ever-present pleasure to the people. In the North the villages are often equally charming ; and though there are districts where a stark and unlovely style of cottage, devoid of garden or flowers, prevails, the natural gardens of beck-side, dell, and moor are so beloved by the villagers that they do not note the absence of more artificial beauties round their homes. This feeling is adopted quite unconsciously by any one who becomes a visitor among the plain buildings, but abounding natural beauties, of the villages of the North.
It is seldom that any one makes anew village now. There is scarcely a place for such a settlement. All the good sites are occupied, and in nearly every case they were chosen with the happiest good sense. When they were not, the site was changed ages ago; and the fact is chronicled in the name of some field or pool, indicating that close by was the site of a vanished settlement. Now and then some poten- tate has decided to denicher a village, and to reconstruct it elsewhere. Simon, Earl Harcourt, pulled down the old village of Nuneham Courtney when he enlarged the house, and rebuilt it in what was then considered a suitable rustic style on either side of the strait road to Oxford, certainly not to the advantage of the inhabi- tants, except that being by a high-road may be a form of satisfaction to some. But as a rule the sites of villages are beautiful in themselves, and further adorned by the natural growth of cottages and timber, for century after century, during which no foe has ever burnt the one or cut down the other. Over the whole length and breadth of the land, in nineteen instances out of twenty the country- man sees, and is perfectly aware, that his own home-village is a thing of beauty. Its church and its cottages, its forge and its inn, its mill and its farmhouses, its bridge or its ferry, all make natural pictures, and are besides a record of the ideas and life of different centuries. Do not imagine that the villager is indifferent to the dignity of antiquity, or insensible to the past of his ancient settlement. He is not, any more than to the natural beauties of the country round. It will be found that near every hamlet there is some walk, more beautiful than others, to which the people, old and young, stroll when at leisure. At Selborne it was the "Lithe," a hollow way where the rivulet ran ; in other places it is some hanging wood, or the local stream-side, or the verge of a sea cliff. On the hills near Sheringham, in Norfolk, where neither the fishing village nor the "Upper" Sheringham was remarkable for scenic beauty, there are some lovely heaths, the entrance to which bears the local name, known to every child and greybeard, of "Pretty Corner." If we could dig up a few English villages, and set them down as examples in the treeless plains of many parts of France, we should bestow an object-lesson in the combination of beauty and utility for which our neighbours might be grateful.
It might be thought that what are known now as "im- provements" and "comforts" devised for the village were never heard of till the end of the nineteenth century. That is a great mistake. Every village green was a "recreation- ground," and a good one. Other places had recreation- grounds, under a far prettier name, from remote times. The " Pleystow " at Selborne was only one of a number of these, some of which, we believe, still remain. It was mentioned in a grant in 1271. "This Pleystow, locus hulorum, or play place, is a level area near the church of about forty-four yards by thirty-six," says Gilbert White, and "is now known by the name of the Plestor. It continues still, as it was in old times, to be the scene of recreation for the youths and children of the neighbourhood, and impresses an idea upon the mind that this village, even in Saxon times, could not have been the most abject of places, when the inhabitants thought proper to assign so spacious a spot for the sports and amusements of its young people." In the middle was an oak with a seat round it. At Latimer, near Chenies, is such a tree, a huge elm, with a seat encircling it, and close by a village well, and a little precinct which may have been a " Pleystow." The old almshouses, the "parish pumps," village causeways—there is one in the village of Steventon, near to Didcot, which was built and main- tained by a private endowment—chantries, and schools show the strength of public spirit directed to village improvements through many centuries. Ewelme, in the Chilterns, is an example of a model village of the days of Agincourt. The Duchess of Suffolk rebuilt the church, adorned it most elaborately within and without, erected an exquisite almshouse (God's House) close by, and built a beautiful school, and a house for the priest, all of which are still in good order. The natural water- supply from the spring that gave the place its name (Aquelma) was so good that it needed no improvement, though the Duchess may have allowed the use of that which flowed in the conduits of her now vanished palace. Later it is believed that almshouses conferred a further benefit on the villages, by absorbing the widows or aged bachelors, who otherwise would have taken up house-room extravagantly, by requiring each a whole cottage for themselves.
Unfortunately for the beauties of England, the last ten or twelve years have seen a great and wholesale dis- figurement of our country villages. Instances could be found in hundreds where their charm has been wholly or in part destroyed by the intrusion of what may be termed the "settlers," who, pleased with the country surroundings, and entirely indifferent to the preservation of the general tone and character of the old houses and cottages, have run up the cheapest and ugliest little villas and bungalows around and among the village homes of the past. These houses, sometimes pretentious yet small, more often only common, and frequently built in brick terraces, like those which are ruining the appearance of the lovely village of Pangbourne, for example, are of the type which we are accustomed to see in the outskirts of large towns, and in the fourth-class suburbs of London. Stuck up on the slopes or among the fields surrounding some sweet old Sussex or Kentish village, they represent the very worst results of " individualism " seen in rural England. Their commonness, their utter discord with the environment, and in many cases their squalor, are most depressing ; for when the surroundings are allowed to go out of repair, there is a peculiar squalor about the brick "box," with its broken garden-rails, tin-roofed chicken-houses, and rusty wire, never suggested by the old-fashioned cottage even when dilapidated. Most people can cite some examples of spoiled villages in their own neighbourhood. But the extent and danger of the menace are better understood when a motor-ride is undertaken through the Southern and Home Counties. These buildings are probably less comfortable than many of the old cottages, and far less so than the small timber-and-plaster country homes, built two or three centuries ago, of which the old county towns of Kent and Sussex can show any number of examples.
How to prevent the disfigurement of our beautiful villages without unduly restricting the erection of new houses—which, per se, is good, for we want to see the rural population increase rather than the urban—is a most difficult problem. We do not know that we can at the moment suggest any solution, but we may say generally that could a working scheme be devised for preserving the beauty of the country districts without discouraging a return to the land, it would have our heartiest support.
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