DOI Heft:
No. 28 (July, 1895)
DOI Artikel:Charlton, Edward William: Letters to artists, Ringwood as a sketching ground
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17294#0163
Ringwood as a Sketching Ground
into the marshes. Now stop and look about you.
Just in front is a dilapidated footbridge, quite
useless in winter, nor of much service in summer
except to sketch ; for that purpose it is invaluable,
even though it is almost hidden in thistles, reeds,
long grass, and flowering rush. On your left, you
have an irregular ogee of a tumbledown wooden
fence, the nearer curve in shadow, the further
catching the light. Between you and the fence is
a magnificent foreground of grasses and clover,
forget-me-not, ragged robin, meadow sweet partly
in bud, a few iris and much sorrel, the last a
brilliant transparent red against the evening light.
You will be standing amongst burdock and wild
sage, vetches, scabious, comfrey and dock, persi-
caria, plume thistles, marsh ragwort, and all
manner of flowers and vegetation to be found in
low-lying grounds. On the other side of the fence
is a hay-field partly cut, the grass still standing,
showing an uneven outline glittering with decep-
tive tints and studded with tall clumps of dock
which " tell " conspicuously against the translucent
sorrel. Some little distance ahead beyond a line
of tall trees, and with hardly a boundary hedge to
be seen, lie acres and acres of level hay-fields very
pink beneath the setting sun which lights up the
streams as they wind through the meads gleaming
a silvery grey. And against the glowing sky the
distant woods rise through the evening haze,
144
stretching away in a lessening line of ever-increas-
ing mystery. You will note how the cows splash
through the water, for in truth they are in it almost
all day, with only head and body visible, and you
will catch a glimpse of a hay wain going along
the ford. I say " along," because there are regular
river roads, main cart-tracks to the fields. The
hay-carrying along these river roads is a feature
in a Ringwood landscape, as indeed it is a fine
subject in itself.
The Avon and its tributaries here are truly
rivers of business rather than of pleasure. The
cows make use of them to wade about in all day,
munching reeds, and the owners thereof punt out
to milk them or bring them in for the night. The
water-bailiffs go about their business in their boats,
and the hay carts monopolise the river roads. A
pleasure boat is rarely to be seen. It is true
there is a fair amount of fishing to be obtained,
from small fry to thirty-pound salmon, and perhaps
the wild-duck shooters punting about and crouching
in the reeds on a bitter winter evening look upon
their sport as pleasure. They may, but they make
a business of it nevertheless.
In the autumn or after many a hot summer's
day ghostly white mists steal up from the streams
and envelop the whole surface of the meads,
producing a truly weird effect: for the tops of
the trees are visible and the foreground meadows
into the marshes. Now stop and look about you.
Just in front is a dilapidated footbridge, quite
useless in winter, nor of much service in summer
except to sketch ; for that purpose it is invaluable,
even though it is almost hidden in thistles, reeds,
long grass, and flowering rush. On your left, you
have an irregular ogee of a tumbledown wooden
fence, the nearer curve in shadow, the further
catching the light. Between you and the fence is
a magnificent foreground of grasses and clover,
forget-me-not, ragged robin, meadow sweet partly
in bud, a few iris and much sorrel, the last a
brilliant transparent red against the evening light.
You will be standing amongst burdock and wild
sage, vetches, scabious, comfrey and dock, persi-
caria, plume thistles, marsh ragwort, and all
manner of flowers and vegetation to be found in
low-lying grounds. On the other side of the fence
is a hay-field partly cut, the grass still standing,
showing an uneven outline glittering with decep-
tive tints and studded with tall clumps of dock
which " tell " conspicuously against the translucent
sorrel. Some little distance ahead beyond a line
of tall trees, and with hardly a boundary hedge to
be seen, lie acres and acres of level hay-fields very
pink beneath the setting sun which lights up the
streams as they wind through the meads gleaming
a silvery grey. And against the glowing sky the
distant woods rise through the evening haze,
144
stretching away in a lessening line of ever-increas-
ing mystery. You will note how the cows splash
through the water, for in truth they are in it almost
all day, with only head and body visible, and you
will catch a glimpse of a hay wain going along
the ford. I say " along," because there are regular
river roads, main cart-tracks to the fields. The
hay-carrying along these river roads is a feature
in a Ringwood landscape, as indeed it is a fine
subject in itself.
The Avon and its tributaries here are truly
rivers of business rather than of pleasure. The
cows make use of them to wade about in all day,
munching reeds, and the owners thereof punt out
to milk them or bring them in for the night. The
water-bailiffs go about their business in their boats,
and the hay carts monopolise the river roads. A
pleasure boat is rarely to be seen. It is true
there is a fair amount of fishing to be obtained,
from small fry to thirty-pound salmon, and perhaps
the wild-duck shooters punting about and crouching
in the reeds on a bitter winter evening look upon
their sport as pleasure. They may, but they make
a business of it nevertheless.
In the autumn or after many a hot summer's
day ghostly white mists steal up from the streams
and envelop the whole surface of the meads,
producing a truly weird effect: for the tops of
the trees are visible and the foreground meadows