Thames Valley Villages, Volume 2 (of 2) — John Shaqi
Thames Valley Villages, Volume 2 (of 2)Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
History
Thames Valley Villages, Volume 2 (of 2)
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
Thames Valley (England)
A brass in the north transept to Richard Gill, Sergeant of the
“Backhouse”—i.e. the Bakehouse—to Henry the Seventh and Henry the Eighth,
describes him as “Bailey of the Seaven Hundreds of Cookeham and Bray in
the Forest Division.” Near by is a brass to “Thomas Noke, who for his
great Age and vertuous Lyfe was reverenced of all Men, and was commonly
called Father Noke, created Esquire by King Henry the Eight. He was of
Stature high and comly; and for his excellency in Artilery made Yeoman of
the Crowne of England which had in his Lyfe three Wives, and by every of
them some Fruit and Off-spring, and deceased the 21 of August 1567 in the
Yeare of his Age 87, leaving behind him Julyan his last Wife, two of his
Brethren, one Sister, one only Son, and two Daughters living.”
Thomas Noke is represented with his three wives, while six daughters and
four sons are grouped beneath.
Returning through Twyford to Sonning, the outlet of the Loddon,
“The Loddon slow, with verdant alders crowned,”
is found in that exquisite backwater, the Patrick Stream, where a
picture of surpassing beauty is seen at every turn. By a long, winding
course, fringed richly with rushes, and overhung with lovely trees, the
Patrick Stream wanders through meadow lands and finally emerges into the
Thames again, just below Shiplake Lock. By dint of making this long but
delightful _détour_, and thus avoiding Shiplake Lock, it is possible to
do the Thames Conservancy out of one of those many threepences for which
it has so insatiable an appetite.
Shiplake, on the Oxfordshire bank, is the place where Tennyson was
married, but the church has been largely rebuilt since then. The windows
are mostly filled with ancient glass brought from the abbey of St.
Bertin, at St. Omer. Shiplake Mill, once a picturesque feature, is now,
at this time of writing, a squalid heap of ruins.
Wargrave, on the Berkshire side, is said to have once been a market-town,
and it is now growing again so rapidly that a town it will soon be once
more. Its houses crowd together on the banks, where the George and Dragon
Inn stands, giving upon the slipway to the water: all looking out upon
the spacious Oxfordshire meadows. The sign of the George and Dragon Inn—a
double-sided one—painted by G. D. Leslie, R.A., and J. E. Hodgson, R.A.,
in 1874, shows St. George on one side, as we are accustomed to see him on
the reverse of coins, engaged in slaying the dragon; and on the other,
the monster duly slain, the saint is refreshing himself with a noble
tankard of ale.
[Illustration: WARGRAVE CHURCH.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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