Sixty Years a Bookman With Other Recollections and Reflections
9781465639738
281 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
In what is known as the Stroud Valley, Gloucestershire, or, as it was deservedly called by Queen Victoria, the Golden Valley, stands a little straggling village called the Thrupp, in which on July 12, 1844, I was born; but my early recollections of this beautiful valley began at a village about one mile distant, named Swells Hill, to which my parents afterwards removed. This village is situated on the side of the eastern portion of the Cotswolds, a district full of beautiful hills, gorge-like valleys, dells and glades, celebrated not only for its beauty and historical associations but for its numerous industries. Swells Hill overlooks the busy village of Brimscombe and is on the fringe of the delightful Minchinhampton Common, which consists of some thousand acres of open country; its highest part being about 650 feet above the sea level; on it, there are many local traditions of great battles having been fought, and on one particular spot in the centre of the Common the celebrated George Whitfield preached in 1743 to thousands of people. Minchinhampton Common was presented to the parish so named in the reign of Henry VIII by Dame Alice Hampton. On it are now golf links, which are well known all over the country and many notable contests have been played there by some of our most celebrated professionals. From the quarries on this Common I have often collected fossils of snakes and other reptiles which I suppose belonged to some prehistoric period, but how long ago I have been unable to learn. Pit dwellings, long and round tunnels with camps and earthworks, abound in this district. Some of the depressions in the surface of the Common vary in depth. I used to be told that they were the burying places of those who had fought in the days of the Civil Wars. I cannot of course guarantee the correctness of this statement, but I do know that these depressions have frequently given me in my school days very much pleasure, as in the winter they were often filled with snow, and a good run and jump landed one in the centre of the hollow. It was a great pleasure to see who could jump the farthest and come out the wettest. As far as I can remember, most of my early education, or what may be called my twopenny education, was acquired at an old-fashioned Dame's School and a local Church School where the main ideas of education were answering the questions in Pinnock's "Catechism" and learning, and I must say immediately forgetting, the questions and answers from the Church Catechism; but I have no doubt I received impressions which were useful in after life. When about nine years of age, I was sent to Amberley School. To reach this School I had to cross Minchinhampton Common, nearly two miles from my home; this distance I traversed sometimes four times a day. At that time home lessons were considered of great importance, but the weariness of them made a lasting impression upon me. However, it was at this School that I obtained the best part of my education.
