OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XVI, 19 October 1895, Page 482

OUR ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE NEW ZEALANDER IN EUROPE. ON THE THAMES AT COOKHAM, BURNHAM BEECHES. OF all places in England, of all places in Europe, none are so likely to delight the New Zealander as the two exquisite resorts now illustrated. Both are so close to London that the excursions are easily made. All colonials know Burnham Beeches by name, but somehow the number of Home-going colonials who make acquaintance with its charms is not so great as it should be.

The Burnham Beeches are all pollards. One tradition assigns their decapitation to Oliver Cromwell, probably, however, with no better ground than a belief in the great Protector’s taste for that process. Other versions assign a more distant date. At any rate, the trees are of very great age. They are, we believe, without a single exception, quite hollow. An old inhabitant who lately died, had it from his mother that she had played inside their trunks when she was a little girl. Something like a century of decay is thus reached. Perhaps, however, the best evidence of the time during which the trees have been mere shells is afforded by the growth of a good-sized oak from out of the midst of one of the Beech stems. The trees have, however, abated nothing of their vigour in branch and leaf by the decay of their trunks. Huge limbs, the size of an ordinary tree, spread in every direction, and support a leafy canopy over the soft and green sward beneath. The Beeches give a signal proof of the truth that a tree may be most beautiful long after it has ceased to be of any commercial value. With regard to the age of Burnham Beeches Mr Vernon Heath writes to the Times as follows : — In the poet Gray’s letter to Horace Walpole, dated September, 1737, he speaks of these trees as * most venerable beeches that, like most other ancient people, are always dreaming out their stories to the winds ’ : — ‘ A -d as they bow their weary tops relate In murmuring sounds the dark decrees of fate. While visions, as poetic eyes avow, Cling to each life, and swarm on every bough.’ Clearly Gray is here using the word ‘ venerable ’ to describe not the boles merely, but the limbs and boughs. Now, let us take some date of the Cromwellian period, say, that of the battle of Worcester, 1650, and it will be seen that between this and Gray’s letter there are only eighty-seven years, a period insufficient for the pollarded trees to have grown ‘ venerable ’ limbs. Gray’s letter, it will be observed, was written one hundred and forty-six years ago. I myself have known Burnham Beeches forty-six years, and during this time, in my belief, the boles of the great trees have scarcely in any way changed ; at all events there is no perceptible change, for they were just as much mere shells when I first knew them as they are now. At the time, too, of my early acquaintance with them, I remarked within the hollows some formations and characteristics, that have to this day in no way altered. Beyond this I used to find out all the very old people of the district, and learnt that within their knowledge of them these trees appeared in no way changed ; that they were hollow when they were young, and more than that, their fathers described and spoke of them as hollow trees when they were children.

Of course it may be said that this is traditional, but as my own fortv-six years of watching and observation is not, I think the evidence of the old people I actually saw and talked to may be allowed ; and say that one of these was eighty years of age. Then eighty and fortysix together would bring us to within twenty years of the

date of Gray’s letter. From this I evolve the theory that the boles were in his days much as they are now ; and this being so, I argue that the pollarding occurred long prior to Gray’s or Cromwell’s period, and, I believe that whenever it was done the trees were full grown. Such being the case, the age that has been accorded to them in the various articles that have lately been written — viz., 400 or 500 years, is obviously a great deal too little. It would not surprise me should it be discovered that those veritable giants of land of old were trees at the time of the Norman Conquest. It is at least a curious fact that the well-defined remains of a moat within the district of the beeches, which by the people in the neighbourhood is called * Harlequin’s Moat,’ is in the old records written Hardicanute ; and is, no doubt, one of the places of defence the Danish king made, when, on the death of his brother, the first Harold, he was on his way to seize the crown of England. COOKHAM. Supposing a visitor to London were limited to time and could make but one excursion up the Royal River, the reach he should unquestionably explore should be that from Henley to Maidenhead. The train can be taken to the former place, and on the trip ‘ down with the current ’ will be found perhaps the most beautiful and most pre-eminently English scenery in all Great Britain. The engraving on page 479 gives a very good idea of a ‘ bit ’ just above Cookham. The ivy-mantled tower of Cookham shows in the distance as this, one of the loveliest spots on the Thames, is approached. If it is summer time there will be ample evidence that this opinion is shared by many. There is no lack of boats on the river, but of all crowded lochs, Cookham on a fine day is the most crowded. Below Cookham bridge, a light iron structure, the river broadens out before it spurts up into channels rather perplexing to newcomers. In the neighbourhood of Cookham it is often difficult to say whether the foreground or the distance is the more beautiful. Here the ancient fabric of the church with its ivy-clad tower rises from the trim churchyard surrounded by aged trees, some of them little more than huge trunks, which still retain sufficient vitality to support a short but thick output of branches. Here, too, is an attractive hotel by the waterside. Let the thirsty colonial go ashore and ask for a pint of shandy gaff. Such shandy gaff, ye gods ! nectar for the gods, not a vile mixture of bad beer and worse aerated water, but strong ale and ginger pop out of the oldfashioned stone bottles. Cookham church, whichhasbeen mentioned, and the tower of which appears, is an interesting building. Henry lll.’s cook lies buried here, and there is a fine monument by Flaxman. The architecture is of the Early English period.