First and Last Loves

by John Betjeman

  I am torn in mind between the three great beauties of Western Wight: the silvery-green inland country along the railway line from Yarmouth to Newport with its glimpses of old stone manor farms, thatched cottages and protecting hump of Downs, Dorset without the flint; the colossal untamed landscape of the south-west coast from the Needles to St. Catherine’s point, and Alum Bay. They are all beautiful and all can be seen from Freshwater.

  Hayling Island

  Hayling Island! Hayling Island!

  What did I expect to see?

  Beetling cliff and chalky highland,

  And the salt spray splashing me?

  But this was quite the wrong picture. If it was not for the long wooden toll bridge from Havant—a halfpenny for foot passengers, 8d. for motor cars—or the short, choppy ferry from Portsmouth, you would never know you were on an island at all. The Hayling people certainly must always remember they are islanders, for if ever they wish to go shopping, or out to tea in some place that is not Hayling, they must pay toll or ferry fare.

  Hayling is just a piece of inland Hampshire that has slithered—oaks, elms, winding lanes and all—out of England into the sea. As for beetling cliffs and chalky highlands, they are not to be seen, the twelve square miles of the place are flat as a pancake. As for salt spray splashing me, even the open bit of coast at the southern end is rarely troubled by great waves, for the Isle of Wight and Selsey Bill protect Hayling from any big seas that come charging in from the English Channel.

  The island is like the letter T lying upside down in salt water, the cross beam of the T facing the open water. Along the four and a half miles of this cross beam is a stretch of windy beach with a great deal of fine greyish-silver sand. Then the long narrow upright part of this inverted letter stretches north towards the mainland. Either side of it are the vast and lake-like reaches of Chichester Harbour on the east with the flat Sussex coast in view; Langstone Harbour on the west with the smoke, gasworks, cranes and chimneys of Portsmouth uncompromisingly present. Far inland is the noble outline of Portsdown.

  There is no doubt that the way to see Hayling is on a bicycle or on foot. “It’s so beautiful here in May and June,” a postman said to me, “that I often feel I should pay for bicycling about these flowery lanes instead of being paid to do it.” And the pleasure of the island is partly the sudden sight of salt water.

  I walked down a narrow lane, past bungalows drowned in flowering shrubs, past hedges and under elms. Then I found a path bordered with long grass topped with cow parsley, so that the effect was of breaking rollers rearing backwards to leave me a walking space; and then suddenly there was a pebbly strand with calm harbour water stretching for miles, with sailing boats and dinghies dotting the middle distance, and inland oaks and ilex hanging over the salt waters, and not a soul in sight. And there was the ripple and suck of a smooth tide flooding over silvery mud and the salt, sand-coated vegetation of the marshes. That is part of the quiet country Hayling—the oldest Hayling.

  The island divides itself into three kinds of life—farming, amateur sailing, and seaside holiday camps. But the oldest, the farming life, is obviously most efficient. The land is rich; gardens, golden melancholy Guernseys browsing in meadows of clover, rich flat fields on the west and north all proclaim that. Right in the middle by the shops, near the red-brick cinema and the bus stops, is a big thatched dairy farm, where Guernseys look sadly out of their stalls at passing motor buses and motor cars. “Rus in urbe,” indeed.

  The two old country churches are founded in agriculture. They are stone buildings of about 1150, each with central tower, shingled spire and lean-to aisles. The smaller one at North Hayling is the prettier, with its sloping east wall buttressed up from falling into the road, and its old timbered roofs and porches, for it has been less tinkered with by the Victorians than the other.

  Here and there in the Island old brick cottages with thatched roofs remind one of the country quiet. But what, I ask myself, can account for these trim houses hidden among wind-slashed oaks and elms, each with its mown lawn and quota of purple aubretia, its flowering prunus and scarlet-flowered japonica? The answer is not far to seek. In sheltered creeks on the coast of Hayling are moored privately-owned yachts and dinghies. The directory shows me that captains in the Royal Navy, and even admirals, inhabit the houses around. Colonels too, at last able to indulge their taste for sailing, find retirement here from Army life. Bronzed men in shorts or corduroys with open shirts instead of the dazzling uniforms of their regular occupations are messing about here in boats. The flap of sail, the creak of rowlocks, the splash of water bailed out of the hold, echo in each calm inlet.

  I was down by a saltern at six o’clock—that magic hour when tackle is stowed and rubber-soled feet walk homeward from the quay. Cars drawn up outside one of those pretty sheltered houses told me that cocktail time had started. Here was the close and friendly fellowship of sailors—amateur and professional—those other permanent residents of the island besides farmers and tradesmen; contented and busy from one Regatta to another.

  Lastly, there is the seaside life. This is seasonable. There is nothing so sad-looking as an amusement park which is not working. The Dodgems and the Giant Wheel down by the seashore rise inertly, among gorse and cupressus.

  Some fields were full of empty caravans, the iron tables and chairs of tea places stood vacant in little gardens: no queues were at the ice cream kiosk which had just opened; no cars were parked along the shore. Winter salt had not yet been cleaned off the plate-glass windows of sun lounges in big hotels. Yet the only imposing architecture of Hayling Island—far more imposing than the two old churches or the cottages—is the gracious seaside architecture of another age which may be seen here at the Portsmouth end of the island. A stately Georgian crescent, worthy of Brighton itself, but unfinished, two large stucco Georgian houses near it, and some Italian-style villas behind, show that Hayling Island has been loved for its sands for more than a century.

  In June the amusement park will be beginning to turn, families in bright summer clothes will be crowding into caravans, clubs and heads will be showing above the sand dunes of the golf course, bicycles will be stacked against walls, young limbs will be turning bronzed or freckled, stretched out on the long grey sands, shrimping nets and tin buckets will hang like fruit outside the shops. The seaside will be coming to life. From our villages the Mothers’ Union or the Women’s Institute will be packing into a coach for Hayling Island. They will cling to the sea front. In quieter reaches admirals, captains and colonels will be hoisting sail, and in elm and oak-protected fields farmers will be making hay while the sun shines—and so will everyone else.

  Lyndhurst

  Lyndhurst! Lyndhurst Way, Lyndhurst Grove, Lyndhurst Drive, Lyndhurst Crescent. The suburbs of England are full of the name. I cannot think why so small a place should so have taken the public fancy.

  I believe Lyndhurst means “Forest of lime trees,” but a more truthful description would be “Forest of Douglas firs” or even “Forest of oak and beech.” Lyndhurst is the capital of the New Forest and it is up at the northern and wildest end, where Rufus was killed by an arrow.

  The original New Forest, the Norman Forest, was of oak, then there were plantations of beech and later, in Victorian times, miles and miles of fir. People say you cannot properly see the New Forest from the main roads and they are quite right. But on a warm evening you can smell it between the wafts of petrol scent which linger on the tarmac—the resin scent among the conifers, the coconut smell of gorse on an open heath, the tropic scent like the Palm House at Kew under oaks and beeches, where holly shines and bracken is a young green.

  Outside Lyndhurst the forest begins to look less wild. Victorian brick cottages peep about among the trees. Lodge gates stand guard to winding drives of laurel and azalea, at the end of which—how deep, how far, who knows?—are the country houses of the formerly rich. Five or six times a year perhaps, the verderers come to the Swainmote which is held in the King’s H
ouse at Lyndhurst. Strange rights of turbary, pannage and smoke money go with certain old freehold cottages. The Forest laws are administered from Lyndhurst and it is as well to know some of them. For instance, an entomologist must apply to the King’s House at Lyndhurst for a permit to catch moths and butterflies; and he is not allowed to sugar the trees. No licence is required, on the other hand, to be stung by flies among the oaks of the New Forest. These flies, called stouts, seem to carry small poisoned swords and draw blood. Hornets abound. When Tennyson, his wife and children and William Allingham, the poet, were swimming through bracken on July 15th, 1866, on their way to the great beeches of Mark Ash, Tennyson paused midway and said solemnly: “I believe this place is quite full of vipers.” After going a little further he stopped again and said: “I am told that a viper bite may make a woman silly for life or deprive a man of his virility.”

  Despite the main roads and the modern houses and the coaches of Lyndhurst, wild life comes right into it. Wild New Forest ponies wait about outside the National Provincial Bank, or stand at the cross roads, in the middle of the traffic.

  Lyndhurst is like Aldershot without the Army. Most of the houses are two storeys and the only old and remarkable one is the gabled King’s House near the church. But before motor cars came into existence and with them the “caffs,” “kiosks,” guest-houses, before the petrol pumps, wires, poles and signs that follow the motor car—before all these things, Lyndhurst, lost in the Forest and its nearest railway station three miles away, must have been a paradise to stay in. Now it is a suburb for Southampton business people, with cricket grounds around it and a golf course.

  Fifty years ago, artists, poets and musicians booked lodgings in the district. The huge Crown Hotel, rebuilt in 1897 in a half-timbered style, opposite the church, is a relic of those times. In fact Lyndhurst was the home of Victorian romance—wild nature after the smoke of towns, fir trees with a faintly Rhineland look, oak woods which took one back to the Forest of Arden, cultivated people instead of the vulgar throng. Ah! What a paradise it must have been to those rare Victorian souls! They expressed their gratitude in the huge church they built of red and yellow brick. Lyndhurst parish church was designed by William White and is in the most fanciful, fantastic Gothic style that ever I have seen, and I have seen a great deal. The spire itself is of brick, a remarkable feat. Inside, the brick columns have pipes of Purbeck round them and their capitals were carved by Mr Seale with leaves of New Forest trees. Unexpected dormers and gables jut out from the huge roof. The tracery of the windows is as strange as tropic plants. Some of the stained glass windows are by Morris and Burne-Jones and Rossetti. The prevailing colours inside are red and yellow. But Victorian stained glass and Victorian-coloured brick does not go with frescoes. Lord Leighton came to stay with Hamilton Aidé the song-writer and he painted a fresco over the altar of the church free of charge. It shows our Lord in white in the middle with the foolish virgins on one side and the wise ones on the other.

  Lyndhurst church is capital, full of originality and thought and care. It expresses the courage and conviction of the Victorians. It is their lasting monument, towering on its mound above the gables of the Victorian houses and the oaks and beeches and fir trees of the New Forest.

  Weymouth

  Safe and wide and sheltered Weymouth Bay! Of course it is called the Naples of Dorset. But any seaside place whose bay is in the shape of a crescent is called the Naples of wherever it happens to be. The test is, is Naples called the Weymouth of Italy? No. When wet south-westerly gales such as Naples never saw are thundering on Chesil bank to the west of the town, when there is a smack and suck and roar of waves upon those miles of squeaking pebbles, so loud in its rolling of millions upon millions of sea-smoothed stones that the noise travels miles inland, then Weymouth lies snug and sheltered. That eerie Chesil Bank and the shelfed and lumpy length of Portland protect the place from the prevailing storms. The distant chalk and grassy downs of Dorset, studded with earthworks and tumuli, keep off the winds from the north. Though plumes of spray try to mount the cliff top, along all that white and shadowy stretch of splendour to the east of Weymouth—Durdle Door, Lulworth, and the Kimmeridge ledges to St. Alban’s Head—Weymouth has no cliffs at all, unless you call its modest Georgian terraces and hotels cliffs. And spray does not often blow in at their windows.

  Weymouth is on the mouth of the River Wey. It has water almost all round it—the brackish semi-tidal stretch of what once was called “the Backwater” behind the seaside part of the town. It is now known as “Radipole Lake” since Municipal effort is trying to develop it as an “amenity”—too late, I fear, for the railway runs close beside it and the new industrial suburb of Westham gives it a red brick crown. Salt marsh, unsuitable even for the greediest speculative builder as a site for seaside chalets, lies to the east of Weymouth. The River Wey runs out between old wharves and houses of the united towns of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis. And here the river is deep enough to harbour Channel Island steamers. If it were not for the gracious Georgian terraces, mostly of dark-red brick, relieved by bow windows, or by houses in silver-grey Portland stone, Weymouth would be, as it once was, two tiny villages either side of a tidal river, with acres of salt marsh and a wonderful sandy beach.

  As it is, there are three Weymouths. The Weymouth of the Fleet, Weymouth itself, and Weymouth of the summer visitors.

  Weymouth of the Fleet! From distant windy downs above the town, or better still, from that neck of railway, road and pebbles which links Portland to the mainland, may be seen in Portland harbour the ships of the Royal Navy, and lovely they look in the sunlight in their new greeny-grey coats of paint. And loveliest of all is the harbour, at night when the Fleet is in. Then not all the fairy lights and flood lights along the seafront of Weymouth round the corner could match this rival constellation to the heavens, twinkling against the velvet blackness of Portland. Ah, with what longing did the girls of Weymouth, Wyke and Rodwell, lean from upstairs windows and look across to those twinkling lights and whisper the magic words “The Fleet is in!” What dances! What parties! I once fell desperately in love with a Weymouth girl, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. I never declared my affection. I do not think I even had a dance with her. I just looked and loved while the moon shimmered in Weymouth Bay and the Fleet twinkled in Portland Harbour, and the band played My Sweet Hortense.

  Now for Weymouth itself. It is Hardy’s “Havenpool Town” where the Chapel Organist of his strange poem was seen by a suspicious member of the congregation “comrading close a sea-captain,” it is old Weymouth. A place of narrow straight streets, still undisfigured. Every house that can has a bow window as though desperate to glimpse somehow the sky and the sea. The houses are mostly brick, a few stucco-faced. The graceful late Georgian bows are semicircular and rise to the first floor but do not generally reach the second floor. The bows are painted cream and their wooden cornices are well moulded. A few dignified classic buildings are in Portland stone—and how richly silvery-white this stone is here—where it is near its native quarry and unblackened by London smoke. The Guildhall, a stately building of 1836, in Greek Ionic style, and Melcombe Regis Parish Church are of this stone.

  And what of Weymouth of the summer visitors? When George III stepped out of his bathing machine into the sea at Melcombe and the band struck up “God Save the King,” he set a fashion. Then the town expanded in dark brick or silver stone terraces along the sea front. These terraces may not be grand Georgian like Brighton, but they are simple country work, a setting down by the sea of the decent houses of the county town of Dorchester. The best work of art in Weymouth (except possibly the forbidden Thornhill altar piece) is the statue of King George III where all the buses meet at the front. Poor good King George who made Weymouth a famous watering place! What has Weymouth done to you but paint your statue and its attendant lions in garish colours, making you clash ridiculously with the noble Portland stone plinth on which you stand?

  The sands and the
bands and the bathing and the climate are all fine. But to see Georgian Weymouth going jazzy, to see arcades of pin-tables, blaring with electric lights and synthetic music, while the sun shines and the waves sparkle outside, to see hideous new buildings in white tiles jammed up against old brick and Portland stone, is rather like seeing an old woman in a dress too young for her. If Weymouth thinks the old woman is worth preserving, let her save the famous stretch of Georgian seafront, from the gentle beauty of Pultney and Devonshire Buildings at the west to the grander terraces on the east of the Esplanade. And let her save those modest Georgian streets and lanes of the old town. It will pay in the end. Buildings are the only record of civilisation. Weymouth still looks civilised. But how long will it be allowed to keep this asset of a civilised appearance?

  Sidmouth

  A silver mist of heat hung over Sidmouth when I came into it. A silver mist of heat was over it when I went away. The climate is so dominant in Sidmouth you can almost touch it. In Connaught Gardens—a modern piece of Italian-style gardening on a cliff top, with a view through arches of red cliffs five hundred feet high—sheltered from the sea breeze, plants would flower and flower as high as the cliffs themselves if only the wind would let them. For that is one of the first things I noticed about Sidmouth. As soon as I was out of the gentle sea breeze I was in a hot-house where wonderful west country bushes filled the air with scent, and enormous butterflies lit on asters and on antirrhinums, themselves twice as large as life. Fuchsia bells seemed three times the size of those anywhere else in Britain. If it were not for the sea Sidmouth, I thought, would be tropic forest. Devon hills protect it on all but the seaward side. Peakhill and Salcombe Hill guard the town west and east. Woods and little Devon fields climb their slopes. Other hills, blue-wooded, rise far inland. And here is the little valley of the River Sid—a brown moorland stream which disappears in shingle by the site of the old gasworks (now a car park) at one end of the sea front.