Opposite Wilverley stands the blasted tree known as the Naked Man,
holding up its bleached, appealing arms to heaven, now welcomed as a
signpost rather than shunned as a bogy. A little beyond is Setthorns,
with a small, lonely keeper's lodge at the edge of it. This wood must
have been very lovely before the intrusion of the railway that now
cuts across it, and indeed still has great charm. In Mr. Gilpin's day
it had been recently cleared of its fine oaks, and bitter are his
lamentations over their disappearance and that of the grove of yews
that flourished below. But he wrote more than a century ago, and since
then the wood has been replanted--happily before the new fashion of
straight rows of young trees, like a cabbage garden, had come in. One
of the most entrancing of bridle-paths enters the road just below the
railway bridge and, passing down by a steep descent, emerges on the
Avon Water--not to be confounded with the river Avon--which here
broadens into a pool. The stream passes under Meadend Bridge, which
forms the Forest boundary at this point, and flows on to join the sea
at Keyhaven.
Sway, once the most picturesque of villages, perched on its high
common, is now nearly overwhelmed with red brick and vulgarity,
probably consequent on its possession of a railway station. It is only
partly within the Forest bounds. From here a road running by a ridge
of down leads to Shirley Holms, one of those primeval patches of oak
and holly, clear of undergrowth, that are specially beloved of the
gipsies for close overhead shelter and clear space beneath for tent
and fire. This road comes out on the main highway at Battramsley
Cross; but if the objective be Brockenhurst, a better way is to turn
at Marlpit Oak and go down by Latchmoor (or -mere), the pool of
corpses. This ill-omened name belongs to some great battle of long
ago, but a dark tradition of last century still hangs about the spot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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