to Professor Mason, then a Master at Wellington, as they were returning from Chapel on the morning of All Saints' Day, "that I should be able to look at that, every morning?" The College estate was bordered on the North by Hennican's Lodge and Easthampstead Park, on the West by Mr John Walter's large estate of Bearwood, and on the South-west by a place originally belonging to a Mr Gibson, called Sandhurst Lodge; between the last two estates the road climbed a high heathery plateau called the Ridges, with an exquisite view over the richly wooded and watered plain of Hampshire, extending to Hindhead. Under the Northern slopes of the Ridges, past a charming piece of water called Heath Pool, ran an ancient Roman Road called the Devil's Highway, which climbed the hill, and joining the Ridges Road, passed through the little village of Finchhampstead, and descended into the flat to Eversley. The Ridges was my father's favourite walk because of the fine air and wide prospect. I well remember one long summer afternoon spent up there with him, and my mother and brother; we found some rude pottery, which proved to be British, in a plantation that had been recently trenched, we geologised in a gravel-pit, and he then read us Gareth and Lynette, which had lately appeared, as we lay on the heather. But the great charm of the place was the pine wood on the East of the College. You could step out of the College gates and walk for hours among the redshafted aisles, with the soft carpet of fir needles, in roads of grey sand, with the wind rustling in the thick foliage at the top. Inside the wood near Edgebarrow was a little house called the honey-woman's cottage, with a formal garden and box hedges; just beyond this was a tract 1 Now Ravenswood. planted with large spruce firs, an avenue called by my father the "Eternal Calm" because on the windiest days it was peaceful there. The air of the whole place was always singularly fresh to his mind, "charged with ozone' and laden with the aromatic scent of the firs, and in summer blowing sweet over tracts of heather. When we returned from our holidays, I remember how he used to breathe the air and praise it. To the North of the College there was a marsh, which was made into three lakes, and fitted for bathing purposes. The place was carefully laid out and planted; rhododendrons flourished greatly, and the main approach to the College was planted with huge beds of them, flanked by an avenue of Wellingtonias, a suggestion of Mr Menzies, the Deputy Ranger of Windsor Forest and a great friend of my father's. At one time these trees seemed doomed to failure from the inveterate habit of birds perching on the thin topmost spray. This my father obviated by having poles of slightly greater height fixed close to the trunks, and they are now fine grown trees. The College originally consisted of two courts, in the Louis Quatorze style, of brick with stone facings, flanked by two high towers with lead roofs which gave a stately aspect to the whole. Professor Munro said that the place reminded him of a Spanish convent. One of the then unused dormitories was fitted up as a Chapel. The Master's Lodge was in the North front of the College, over, and on each side of, the principal entrance. It had a small walled garden to the East, with a rockery of broken carvings from the stoneyards, overlooked by a tall chimney vomiting smoke, very terrible to childish minds. In the early days of the College the Prince Consort often came over to see it, and suggested numbers of little details both for use and ornament. One story I may B. I. II perhaps mention. At the North-east corner of the College stands a group of poplars. The Prince Consort, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, then a boy, had driven over from Windsor; Prince Albert was walking about looking at the College: at the corner he stopped and said, "You want some tall trees there-poplars I think "-and dug his walking-stick into the ground five or six times. My father said to a workman who was with them, "Put some marks into those holes," which was done, and the poplars planted on the identical spots. The College was opened in 1859 by the Queen in person; there were about eighty boys, Foundationers, sons of officers, "Heroum Filii" as the motto says. They wore an odd dark-green uniform, with brass buttons, plaid trousers, and a cap like a postman's with red lines and a gilt crown in front. This was a suggestion of the Prince Consort's, who disliked the Academic, or Ecclesiastical, dress that remained at certain English Schools, as being a badge of their monastic origin." The uniform was soon given up, and the cap has since lost its peak, and is seldom worn. The death-blow was dealt to the uniform when Lord Sackville Cecil1 and the Hon. A. W. Charteris had tickets given up to them at the station. The College was ornamented in a stately manner with bronze busts of famous soldiers, and at each end of the main wings, in external niches, stood life-sized figures of great generals such as Anglesey, Combermere, Hill, Murray, Blücher, and others, from whom the dormitories were named. Dr Temple came from Rugby to see the start, and to render any assistance that he could. The grounds were still unformed, and all down the front drive where the rhododendrons now stand, the heather which had been cut 1 Died Jan. 1898. |