Morris loved the place with an intense love, and brought back to the house much of its old ways, with much else of his own, in artistic “Morris tapestries” and other hangings, such as were designed by him and Burne-Jones, made at Merton by Wimbledon, and sold at the establishment of Morris & Co. in Oxford Street. We do not commonly look upon Socialists as anything but discontented artisans and weekly wage-earners in general; but Morris performed his share of street-corner spouting with such, and yet dreamed golden dreams of the World Beautiful, and did much to make it so. But, at the same time, his lovely wares in wall-papers, in hangings and carpets, in furniture and stained-glass, were of the most expensive kind that none of those “have nots” could by any means possess. The famous Morris books, too, produced at the Kelmscott Press, Hammersmith, were of those prices that only plutocrats could afford, and were produced strictly after the individualistic and anti-Socialistic theory of “limited edition.”

The only new house in Kelmscott village is one built to preserve the memory of this man who wrought such beautiful things and preached doctrines so impossible; and on the front of it is a very ornate tablet, bearing a portrait-medallion. The work is, however, in such low relief and so elaborated that it is difficult to be clearly distinguished.

Away through the scattered village, and out at the other end, stands the little decayed parish church of St. George: decrepit and surrounded in most melancholy fashion by spindly overhanging lime-trees. The place oppresses the stranger, even on summer days, with gloom, which is increased as he walks up the dank little pathway to the south porch, among the serried graves of a numerous local family, each one within his concrete bed. The quite plain headstone to William Morris is close by.

There is no feeling of this melancholy in the account written by Morris, in his News from Nowhere, of a village church; but which was evidently a description of this:

“We went into the church, which was a simple little building with one aisle divided from the nave by three round arches, a chancel, and a rather roomy transept for so small a building, the windows mostly of the graceful Oxfordshire fourteenth-century type. There was no modern architectural decoration on it; it looked indeed as if none had been attempted since the Puritans whitewashed the mediaeval saints and histories on the wall.”

The building is chiefly of Early English date, consisting of nave, chancel, rudimentary north aisle of a makeshift character, and north and south transepts and clerestory. There is a rough tub-font. Some traces of ancient colouring are found on the round-headed arches of the nave-arcade; while the accompanying illustration will show that the sculptured capitals of the columns are of great, if simple beauty, and doubtless studied in the long ago from the water-plants of the Thames.

Nothing can equal the calm delights of those still, hushed hot days of early summer on these reaches of the upper Thames, when the tall sweet grasses of the meadows by which we float are ripening to the scythes of the reapers, and before the birds have quite finished their wild torrent of springtime mating song. Here, with the boat drawn up beside some tall sheaf of growing rushes, we may listen to the twittering distant song of the skylark, flying, an almost invisible speck, high up in the intensely blue sky; and may see the water-rat swimming across the stream. Cows gaze with a mild curiosity from the banks, under the welcome shade of the willows, or recline, with a certain lumpish dignity, among the buttercups and daisies. The fragrance of spring is yet in the land, and that man who, lazing here, lights a cigarette, and so imports an alien fragrance, offends against his environment.

So we shall come, after many intervals and halts by reedy shores where the waterlilies grow, to Radcot Bridge; the meads spreading wide on either hand, and the great imposing landmark of Faringdon Clump for always prominent in the view on the right: now, with the continued extravagant loopings of the river, far ahead, now abreast of us, and again in the rear; so that it becomes difficult to believe this elusive landmark really one and the same hill.

Beneath Faringdon Clump lies the little town of Great Faringdon, great only in its quietude, somewhat broken, it is true, in these latter days by motor-cars, that, rushing along the ridgeway road on which it is situated, indecently disturb its slumbrous dignity.

Faringdon Clump is emphatically the landmark of this district, even as Wittenham Clumps are the geographical pointers of a wide district between Oxford and Wallingford. Many people know it as “Faringdon Folly.” The height of Faringdon Hill itself, on which the clump of Scotch firs called “the Folly” is situated, is about 500 feet, and Faringdon town, although beneath it, is not itself by any means in the levels, as those who, cycling to it from the Thames at Radcot Bridge, shall easily find, as they come laboriously up the ascending gradients.

But, before we reach Radcot Bridge, the newly-built Grafton Lock has to be passed through. It is situated in a grassy solitude, and takes its name from an insignificant hamlet quite remote from the river. At Grafton Lock, indeed, the lock-keeper’s wife and daughter, who between them take our threepence and work the lock-gates, are pleased to see the infrequent stranger, and to exchange the news, and receive well-earned compliments on the beauty of the lock-garden.

Now comes Radcot Bridge, neighboured and overhung by a wealth of trees; tall, slim, spiring poplars, and others that spread boldly out. Radcot Bridge is your only possible halting-place hereabouts for the night; for here is the waterside “Swan” inn, with its lawn sloping down to the river, its landing-steps and boathouse: and Faringdon and its inns are three miles distant. Thither, however, you must needs fare, if so be the “Swan” is full.

The single-span, round-arched bridge through which one comes in these times is not the real original bridge, nor is the present course of the Thames at this point the real original river. This is a new cut, made in 1787, to improve the navigation, then still considered to be of considerable commercial importance. The old course of the river flows sluggishly to the right-hand, and is not now practicable for boats. Here still stands the ancient gothic bridge, with its three pointed arches and the base and socket of what was once a cross on the eastern parapet. This bridge and the causeway built to it, across the meadows, once formed a more important means of communication than now, for the road across the Thames from Faringdon led northwards to Burford, and so by degrees into the Midlands. Its strategic value has been at least twice illustrated. The bridge itself dates from about 1300, and was on December 20th, 1387, the scene of a sharp action in which Henry, Earl of Derby, met and defeated Robert de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, favourite of Richard the Second. Many of de Vere’s men were drowned here on that December day, and their commander himself narrowly escaped, by swimming across the river, half clad in his armour. His force seems to have been taken completely by surprise. The “Henry, Earl of Derby” of this affair was he who twelve years later, 1399, at last succeeded in deposing Richard, and reigning in his stead, as Henry the Fourth.

The second occasion of Radcot’s figuring in martial annals was a skirmish in the long course of the Great Rebellion, when Faringdon House, up yonder, three miles away in the town, was held for the King, and the bridge was occupied as an outpost. Cromwell’s men appear to have driven the outpost in, with some loss.

But, before an end is made with Radcot Bridge, let us note the little-known fact that it was hence, in those seventeenth-century times, when roads were little better than muddy tracks across the fields are now, that much of the stone employed by Wren in the rebuilding of St. Paul’s Cathedral was brought to London. The old quarries whence this stone came have been closed now for two hundred years, but the site of them is still to be found at a spot to this day known as “Kit’s Quarries,” near Burford, eight miles north of Radcot Bridge. I have written about Christopher Kempster—the “Kit” of those quarries—in another place,[1] and have shown that he was firstly clerk of works and master-mason in the employment of Sir Christopher Wren for many years, not only in the rebuilding of St. Paul’s Cathedral, but also in the general rebuilding of the City of London churches. Retiring from those positions, he bought the quarries, and thenceforward dealt largely in the stone with which he had once built.

The stone was conveyed from near Burford, along eight miles of bad roads, and here at Radcot Bridge, on the old course of the river, before the new channel was cut, was loaded, into barges, and so found its way to London.

It will be well to explore into the level Oxfordshire hinterland behind Radcot Bridge. There we shall, in the course of two miles, find the untidy village of Clanfield, which straggles lengthily on either side of the grassy edges of a stream three parts dry in summer, and thus revealing to the disgusted wayfarer rich and varied deposits of unconsidered village refuse—in the way of battered tins and old boots embedded in the ooze. Thistles, nettles, and scrubby weeds bedevil the grass that might so easily be made beautiful.

But there are evidences that Clanfield is awakening to better things. A “Village Institute” has arisen amid these rank undesirables, and tentative clippings, sweepings, and garnishings may be noticed. The church and churchyard are, fittingly enough, in the forefront of these improvements.

It is a charming village church of moderate size, built in the Perpendicular period, and dedicated to St. Stephen, as those well versed in saintly symbols may readily perceive on approaching, by a glance at the curious figure of the saint himself, boldly sculptured on the tower. He bears in his right hand a little heap of what look like apples, but are intended to represent stones, in allusion to the manner of his martyrdom, by being stoned to death. On the west side of the tower is a tablet to the memory of James Joy and Robert Cross, killed by lightning when at work side by side in the fields, August 9th, 1845. Over the south door is an ancient sundial, cut into the masonry, and screened from casual observation by the porch, which is thus seen to be a later addition.

CHAPTER III