But there is a patch of corrugated iron by the Eashing
cottages and bridge which calls for a Society of Destroyers.
Godalming has two fine parks for neighbours, Peperharow and Loseley.
Peperharow, which became the first Lord Midleton's in 1712, once
belonged to Sir Bernard Brocas, who was Master of the Buckhounds to
Richard II; afterwards it came to the great family of the Coverts.
Peperharow Park has its own church, but the beauty of the place is in
the parkland itself, with its noble trees and stretches of grass, and
the Wey running through it down to Eashing. Deer wander in the sunshine
there, dark and comely under the great cedars, or grazing slowly and
sedately by the banks of the stream. One might walk out from Godalming
only to watch the Peperharow deer; but a walk beyond the park brings
another pleasure. Above Peperharow the Wey is bridged again, by stone as
old, I think, as at Eashing: the buttress of the main part of the bridge
is the same shape as Eashing's. Above the bridge is a fall built across
the stream: only a few inches of masonry, but it changes the stream
completely. The higher water is a broad, shadowy pool, cooled and
darkened by alders meeting overhead and dipping in the water; below, the
shallow water ripples over stones, as clear and black as a northern
salmon stream. The difference between the Wey here and the Wey at
Eashing or Tilford is, of course its bed. The Wey runs over as many beds
as any little river in England; here it races over clean ironstone.
Loseley has a longer story than Peperharow, and Loseley House is a very
fine old Tudor building, the best, perhaps, in Surrey, after Sutton. Sir
William More built most of it, and took much of the stone from Waverley
Abbey, for which it would be difficult to forgive him if he had made a
less beautiful house. Sir William More was son of Sir Christopher,
Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex under Henry VIII. Sir Christopher first had
the estate in 1515; at the Domesday Survey the Earl of Arundel had it.
The family history of the Mores is too long for a chapter; so would be a
detailed list of the furniture and pictures of the house, some of which
are catalogued in the guide-books, though the general public may see
them but seldom. The house has had royal visitors; Queen Elizabeth came
to see Sir William More there, and King James and his son were both
guests of Sir George More, Sir William's son. It was Sir George More who
was so furious with his daughter for marrying John Donne, though he
lived to be good enough to forgive her.
[Illustration: _The Wey above Peperharow._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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