IN THE WALLOPS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20280, 14 April 1934, Page 17 (Supplement)

IN THE WALLOPS.

Laughter in Quaint English Village. AN ANCIENT TOWN. r J'HOSE who live in the Wallops are never in the dumps. I had often wondered if the inhabitants, of villages with curious or amusing names saw anything funny in them, but I had no need to wonder here (says a writer in the “ Daily Express,” London, in a dispatch from The Wallops, Hants.). “Is this Wallop? ” I asked and was greeted by a shout of laughter from a group of old men. “ Ee, zur,” one called, 44 that it be: all the Wallops, Nether, Middle and Over Wallop.” The Wallopers can well afford to laugh at the name, for they live in a place of great beauty. Their noisiest industry is water-cress growing. A faint bluish mist hung over the thickly-thatched roofs when I woke this morning and looked out of the window. Tall pillars of smoke rose straight into the air, and the silence was broken only by the occasional crow of a cock, the chirp of a finch, or the gentle plash of a waterhen plunging into the crystal stream which flows through Wallop and spreads out over the wide cress beds. Portsmouth is the name of Wallop’s cress king, and, curiously enough, Wallop is the family name of the Earls of Portsmouth, who have estates here. Little Stone Dams. Mr John Portsmouth showed me the little stone dams a few inches high which make the water spread over a wide expanse of flat land. It is this shallow, slowly-running water which makes the cress so green and succulent and so attractive to the waterhens. There was one shameless waterhen having her—could it have been a cock waterhen?—breakfast when I looked out of my bedroom window this morning. The feathers of her speckled breast quivered in little waves of orgy as she gobbled. Overhead a few finches twittered in the thatch on the wall. For here in Wallop they thatch the walls as well as the roofs. Chalk is the principal building material, and unthatched walls would absorb rain and burst. One wall I saw had done so. and was little more than a heap of white powder. Wallop traces its existence back for many years before the Saxons invaded England. The oldest-known form of the name if Guoloppum. which was used bv the Romans. Queen Guinevere. wife of King Arthur of the Round Table, passed through Wallop on her flight from Winchester to sanctuaiy in the Abbey of Amesbury. So I was told by Mr Fred Shadweil, who must surely be the merriest of all the merry men of Wallop. “ Wait till T be dressed right, sur.' 1 he said, making a sudden dive for his house. A moment later he came out wear-

ing a smock and a bandless, almost shapeless felt hat, which rose 6n the top of his poll like a sugarloaf and drooped round his ears like faded rhubarb leaves. “ Hundred an* thirty years oTd this zmock be,” he explained. Best Irish linen, it be, and look at the zmocking. Women to-day can’t do that zo well.” . Mr Shadweil completed his dress with a white-spotted red kerchief. “ Right varmer I be now,” he said. “ Always ready for a laugh hcie, people be,” he went on. 44 They laughs easy. There was old George that used to live up the road. One day he savs to me: ‘Fred, I be seven ty-vour to day.’ “‘Are you, George? * I zed. “ ‘ Yes,’ he zed, ‘ an’ vour fathei’s eldest zister were zeventj'-vour' last month.’ “ 4 Well,’ I zed, ‘ she’s zix weeks older than you, George.’ “‘Yes,’ he zed, laughin’, ‘she always were.’ ”