The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 131, February, 1909Various
History
The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 131, February, 1909
Various
Adventure stories -- Periodicals; English periodicals; History, Modern -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Voyages and travels -- Periodicals
Strange, then, that her own memorial is the prime curiosity of
Weybridge! Its history is this: After her death the inhabitants of
the town were desirous of commemorating her thirty years’ residence
among them, and it suddenly struck them that a way was ready to hand.
Till about fifty years earlier there had stood in Seven Dials a pillar
supporting a sundial which presented a face to each of the streets.
It was from this adornment, indeed, that the classic district got its
name. Believing that treasure was buried beneath the pillar, some
night-birds threw it down and excavated beneath it, to find nothing.
Rumour, they discovered, was a lying jade. The stones, instead of
being set up again on their old site, were conveyed to Sayes Court,
Addlestone, with a view to their re-erection there, but this was not
done, the column remaining dismembered till the occupier of Oatlands
died. Now this bit of London out of town the inhabitants resolved
should be converted into a memorial of the Duchess. So the stones
were purchased and set up on the green, with the substitution of a
ducal crown for the block on which were the dials. This was used for
some time afterwards as a mounting stone at an inn hard by. It then
constituted a puzzle, because, though in Seven Dials--according to the
testimony of everybody who described it--there were seven faces, the
number on close examination proved to be only six.
[Illustration: THE “SEVEN DIALS” PILLAR, AT WEYBRIDGE, SURREY.
_From a Photograph._]
Another class of “freak” memorials have a twofold peculiarity: they
are singular in themselves and are also remarkable by reason of the
tardiness with which they were erected. Maud Heath’s Column, on
Bremhillwick Hill, near Chippenham, is as good an instance as any.
The title of the good lady to grateful remembrance is that she left a
bequest by which a causeway was constructed in 1474 from Chippenham
to the shoulder of Bremhillwick Hill. Her claim was from the outset
acknowledged, inscriptions along the route of the causeway expressing
gratitude to her for having made it. But this was not enough for a
former vicar of Bremhillwick. After pedestrians had for more than three
centuries been called upon to bless the public-spirited lady, and had
been told, moreover, precisely where her causeway began and where
it ended, the vicar came to the conclusion that she ought to have a
statue, and moved himself to that end. A preliminary difficulty was
that no portrait of Maud Heath was known to exist; but ultimately, with
the co-operation of the Marquess of Lansdowne, the clergyman triumphed,
and the column on Bremhillwick Hill--which was set up in 1836--is the
result. The sculptor of the statue on the top of it had to fall back
on his imagination, and he represented a woman in fifteenth century
costume, with a staff in her hand and a basket by her side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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