6o SOUTH COUNTRY TROUT STREAMS 



reproach to civilisation. If we are so much more 

 advanced in the science of drainage than our 

 ancestors of a hundred years or so ago, how opaque 

 must have been the darkness in which they dwelt 

 in regard to these matters ! 



The Wey below Guildford never seems to have 

 been regarded as a trout stream. Best had nothing 

 The to say of its trout at a time when he was 

 "VVey ready to extol those of the Mole ; and in 

 these days only an occasional fish is taken below 

 Guildford. The Angling Society of that town, 

 which numbers over a hundred members, has ex- 

 tensive fishing rights, and has done something 

 towards getting up a small head of trout ; but we 

 have to go above Godalming to get into the real 

 trout-fishing portions of the stream. The Wey rises 

 in Hampshire, one branch near Alton and the 

 other near Selborne. The former, flowing by 

 Farnham and Crooksbury Common, joins the latter 

 — which passes Kingsley and Frensham — by 

 Tilford, and the stream then flows by Elstead and 

 through Pepperharrow park to Godalming. Both 

 branches of the stream above Tilford are swelled by 

 several little tributaries, some of which contain 

 trout. There is for instance a small stream which 

 comes from the beautiful Alice Holt wood, and 

 joins the Alton branch a mile or two below Farn- 

 ham ; whilst a stream coming from Ripley pond 

 and another from Woolmer join the same branch 

 further down. The Selborne branch receives seve- 

 ral tributaries, amongst them a considerable one 

 coming from near Haslemere, some of the springs 

 of which supply the Crichmere fish ponds with 

 very fine water. Trout are fairly plentiful in this 

 branch, and of a good quality. In the upper 



