SURREY, MIDDLESEX, AND SUSSEX STREAMS 65 



once lain concealed. " Nature has conspired with 

 art to make the garden one of the most delicious 

 spots in England," wrote the poet with enthusiasm 

 of Denham Court. Then, too, there is Denham 

 Place, with its pretty fishery. This is the scene of 

 Sir Humphry Davy's angling meet between 

 Halieus, Poietes, Ornither, and Phyxius. In the 

 days of Sir Humphry the Colne was a pure trout 

 stream, and there was a rule at Denham against 

 killing a trout in the May-fly season of under 2 lbs. 

 — a rule, by the way, that made Poietes declare 

 with some testiness, " I cannot say that I approve 

 of this manner of fishing ; I lose all my labour." 

 Denham has been famous for its fine trout in much 

 more recent times than Sir Humphry Davy's ; but 

 the fishing seems to have begun to deteriorate 

 while the late General Goodlake was living there. 

 He stocked the Colne so far back as 1874 with 

 American brook trout, — an experiment, like others 

 of the same kind, not attended with success. 



The Colne, dividing Middlesex from Buckingham, 

 runs in several branches to Uxbridge and West 

 Drayton, where it receives a tributary coming from 

 Ruislip reservoir. There is some free water on 

 Uxbridge Moor, where a certain number of trout 

 are taken by various methods — not many, I am 

 afraid, with the fly ; and at West Drayton there 

 is the well-known angling club bearing that name, 

 with its club house at Thorney Weir. The trout 

 fishing begins on the club water on April 1st 

 and ends on September 30th. Re-stocking has 

 been tried, not altogether without some little 

 success ; but the Colne here is too full of coarse fish 

 to be a really good trout water, and fly fishing does 

 not yield good baskets. A large fly fished down 



