A CHAT ABOUT THIS AND THAT

(A Wheel in Wessex, No 38, February 1940)

There seems to be no end of interesting things that can be seen and noticed whilst cycling through our fair countryside. Take farm gates for instance. The general principle of gates is the same everywhere. Five horizontal bars and a stout support at each end, but it is when we come to the vertical pieces that things often differ. In different parts of the country people have different designs for gate making. Hampshire, for instance, has gates that have two vertical bars dividing the gate into three parts, and at the end nearest the hinge a diagonal bar connects with the vertical bar and the bottom hinge. In our home county the same idea is used, but the diagonal bar continues right across the gate to halfway. The methods of shutting gates also varies in different parts of the country. In Devon the method is generally to push an extra bit of wood across between the gate and the gate-post, whilst here at home, there is nearly always an iron clasp.

And now from gates to inns (no, Norman, not the Yew Tree!). At Godmanstone in Dorset there stands what is reputed to be the smallest Inn in England, the beer generally being served out through a small window! At Hambledon, Hants, is an inn which stands next to the field in which the first cricket match was played. At Beauworth, again in Hants, is the Fox & Hounds Inn which still uses to this day a very large water wheel for drawing up the drinking water. The landlord stands inside the wheel and walks, and walks, and walks until the barrel carrying the water reaches the top.

Whilst passing through the New Forest one very often thinks of King Rufus, and we remember that it was a charcoal burner who provided the cart which carried the dead body of the King to Winchester. The profession of charcoal-burning still thrives in the Forest today. A coppice wood is cut down and the sticks are cut into uniform lengths and piled onto a hearth in a heap. The heap is then covered with sods and then kindled. This smoulders for days, until all the wood is consumed and only black charcoal remains. This is used either for fuel, preservative or for paint making.

It was during a cycle tour such as this that I found Lacock, the place where photography was born. Just over 100 years ago a Mr W.H.Fox Talbot was experimenting in Lacock Abbey when accidentally he left some apparatus near a window, and later he found that the light rays through the glass had made a negative on a plate which was among the paraphernalia. And so photography was born.

On my way back from Lacock I crossed the Plain and noticed a dew pond. These pools are made by men whose ancestors made dew ponds for years before them. The pond is made by digging a wide shallow saucer between a foot and eighteen inches deep, the bottom is then beaten hard, and in the hollow is placed a layer of straw and reeds. On top of this is laid a thickness of clay which is made watertight. The 'pond' works in the following manner. On hot summer days the ground around the pond is warmed, but the heat cannot get to the clay because of the layer of non conducting material which forms the base of the pool, therefore when the sun goes down the clay is much cooler than the surrounding area, and it naturally attracts more moisture from the atmosphere. The hotter the weather therefore, the greater the contrast between the two surfaces and more heavy the deposit of dew. The water cannot get through the clay and in the days and weeks of summer the dew collects and makes a pond several inches deep of pure dew water.

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