THE BATH COUNTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 65, 17 March 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE BATH COUNTRY.

LOVELY VILLAGES. CHANGES AND SURVIVALS. (By G. A. THOMAS.) To arrive in England with the snowdrops, and to see nature's pageant unfold itself through a glorious spring and summer, is to wonder why people ever leave it. And when we arrived in 1933, after twenty years abroad, it was to wonder also what on earth is all this talk of England's climate, for neither in Australia nor New Zealand had I known more sunshine. We took a small cottage on the border of Wiltshire and Somerset, near Bath, for England is not to be found in London, and here in these western shires the country is at its loveliest. We woke up to crystal mornings of sun and frost, wo saw the browns and purples of winter fallow, and the huntsman way up on the liill. The villages here are of soft grey stone and slated roofs, and with hibernal cosiness they seem to snuggle down till winter shall have passed away. Then there is close to us the beautiful city of Bath. This, in the words of its official guide book, is "The Premier Spa of the Empire." For 2000 years its hot springs have been restoring health. But perhaps because the majority of "spas" are of far more recent growth, this ancient city, the "premier" of them all, does not look like a spa at all. In one street you might think that you were in an okl-fashioncd market town; turn the corner and you may believe yourself to be among London's most fashionable shops. Walk 011 and you will shudder at the dull provincial drabness, and not till you start poking about will it dawn 011 you that, save only for London itself, no city has more fascinating associations. The guide book boasts of wide streets and spacious parks, but you will wonder where they are, for in the centre of the town the streets are so narrow that traffic jams occur every few minutes, and the old abbey itself is so crowded about with buildings that it is difficult to get a look at it. And Bath cannot well escape congestion, for it has very little flat ground to play about with; it is built at the bottom of a cone, and take what direction you like you will very soon be walking up a hill. But it is worth doing, for you will come upon the finest gems of street architecture in England, where stone is used as it should be used. Changes in English Life. Twelve years ago passenger aeroplanes were a rarity, wireless in the home was practically unknown, and a motor car was still almost a luxury. The popular Press did not so loudly clamour for your penny, hikers had not arrived, and bicycles-made-for-two were as dead as door nails. 'Buses had not presumed to challenge railways, we blissfully believed in our prosperity, and a Test match was still an affair of crickrt.

And considering all those things it |£ was natural to look for changes that j J the passing of these years may have |, brought. Just down the road from our j , cottage there stands aii old moss cov- | s cred milestone which shows, on close in- j spection, that we are 101 miles from j Hyde Park Corner. And unless we walk ( oil down the lane to the highroad, which , is nearly a milct away, we may be ex- , cused for thinking that all this progress of man has had no effect on the face of England whatever. And even when we get down to that road we shall have i; only fleeting'impressions of change. It ' is the main Bath road, one of England's j most famous highways, and it looks to me exactly as it did twenty years ago. ■ Of further back than that I cannot ( speak. But here comes a great six- , wheeled lorry. That is new. It tears . along the road at forty, perhaps fifty , miles an hour. A colossal affair. Maybe it has a cargo of New Zealand butter! And as we walk back along the lane the autocratic voiiie of the 8.8.C. hails us from cottage doors, from cottages which we know from experience , will have no bathrooms, and high above us a huge monoplane drones along the clouds. i Seeing England. But although England seems to be full of newspapers and unseen voices and slot machines and tearing speed, yet the countryside absorbs all innovations and remains unchanged and unperturbed. These old Wiltshire farmers still touch their caps and bid you good morning, and villages retain tlieir peaceful charm. But come down to that high road on a Saturday or Sunday. The cars are more numerous and in more of a hurry than ever, and here come two hikers. A man and a woman. Or is it two m»n? Or two women? We shall have to wait till they come closer. No, it's a man and a woman. Or is that a man ? Perhaps its two women. Anyway they are both in khaki drill shorts, with shirts open at the neck and haversacks on their backs and a sort of boy scout poles in their hands. Surely they must be feeling self-conscious. But why should they? Here come some more; it is we who are out of place. And will you look at this! Cyclists—it must be a club. Forty of them at least. And, great heavens, half of them are mounted 011 bicycles-made-for-two! I thought such things were as dead as tiutton. They were, but thev have come to life again. The girls in plus-fours or shorts, oilskins strapped in neat rolls behind them, red in the face, and bare knees flashing up and down in the sunlight. From our cottage we have tramped over the surrounding country until we have covered it like a cobweb; there can scarcely be one lane we have not walked along, nor one square yard we have not seen. We have tramped backwards and forwards across what must surely be the loveliest countryside in the world; there were few of those "places of interest" that are mentioned in the guide books, but we talked with those whom we met by the way, and I do believe that we have seen a bit of England. And the astonishing thing is this, that whether it was a week day, a Sunday or 1 a holiday, we had those lanes entirely to ourselves. We have \?alked for mile

after mile without seeing anyone, save for the farmer in his field and the cottagers at the roadside; until every now and then we must needs cross the highway, and there, in an endless hurrying stream, would be the cars, cyclists and hikers. Seeing England? Perhaps, but not looking at it. Not hearing the music of running water ~ and the song of the nightingale. Not seeking to understand an English village.

They have good names, these villages that we have seen. Monkton, Farleigh, ' English Combe, Swainswick, and Newton 1 St. Loe. All bordering on the ancient and beautiful city of Batli, yet each one holding itself aloof. Within a two-mile radius we can count seven of these villages, each with its square-towered church and crumbling tombstones, its vicarage and manor house, its postmistress and inn. Tlicy are all alike and all vastly dilTereitt. One would have thought "that in the course of centuries they would have spread out until th.»y touched each other, or that they would have been absorbed by the neighbouring town. But not a bit of it, each remains a little world unto itself. Some more venturesome lad, disdaining his own, may set out on a Sunday morning to cross the fields and find a sweetheart in another village, but such a thing, one feels, would set tongues wagging for many a day. Unspoiled Inns. And in these unspoiled inns the brown beer still tastes good, and you can watch young 'Arrv throw a dart against the old 'un. "Bide thy time lad, bide thy time, thou'lt beat 'un yet." "Martha Webb of ys parish, dyd 21 April, 1025." Where is your great-great-grandson Martha Webb? Is he here in this village? Did he help to build the Sydney bridge? Is he a 100 per cent Chicago citizen? Or did he die for you at Loos? You are an old, old woman Martha Webb, but the yew tree stands here yet that gave your grandfather the bow he took to Cr'ecy, and every spring the flowers bloom afresh.