erharow the Wey is bridged again, by stone as
old, I think, as at Eashing: the buttress of the main part of the bridge
is the same shape as Eashing's. Above the bridge is a fall built across
the stream: only a few inches of masonry, but it changes the stream
completely. The higher water is a broad, shadowy pool, cooled and
darkened by alders meeting overhead and dipping in the water; below, the
shallow water ripples over stones, as clear and black as a northern
salmon stream. The difference between the Wey here and the Wey at
Eashing or Tilford is, of course its bed. The Wey runs over as many beds
as any little river in England; here it races over clean ironstone.
Loseley has a longer story than Peperharow, and Loseley House is a very
fine old Tudor building, the best, perhaps, in Surrey, after Sutton. Sir
William More built most of it, and took much of the stone from Waverley
Abbey, for which it would be difficult to forgive him if he had made a
less beautiful house. Sir William More was son of Sir Christopher,
Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex under Henry VIII. Sir Christopher first had
the estate in 1515; at the Domesday Survey the Earl of Arundel had it.
The family history of the Mores is too long for a chapter; so would be a
detailed list of the furniture and pictures of the house, some of which
are catalogued in the guide-books, though the general public may see
them but seldom. The house has had royal visitors; Queen Elizabeth came
to see Sir William More there, and King James and his son were both
guests of Sir George More, Sir William's son. It was Sir George More who
was so furious with his daughter for marrying John Donne, though he
lived to be good enough to forgive her.
[Illustration: _The Wey above Peperharow._]
I like to look at these great houses from a distance. When one enters a
house that has been used by an historic family for generations, the
first thing that demands attention is far more often than not something
new, an alteration, an adaptation of old means to new methods. The mark
set on the house is of the living, and the fascination of it belongs to
other years gone. But distance blots out all the innovations; the haze
of half a mile sets it in the landscape as it has stood for centuries. I
like to look at Loseley from the dusty, forgotten places of the old
pilgrims' road passing at the boundary of the park; not that the
pilgrims ever saw Loseley, but the old countrymen still using the road
wou
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