Out of the Chalk. 73 



a fine-flavoured Wandle trout on the table around which 

 they sat. • 



The Wandle country (valley we can scarcely term its 

 course) is surpassingly charming. Beddington Park is open 

 to the public with its rare trees, fine church and churchyard, 

 and the red brick building which, once famed as Beddington 

 Hall, is now used as a Female Orphan Asylum. Queen 

 Elizabeth was a visitor to the Carews at Beddington, where 

 the first oranges ever grown in the country — the fruit having 

 been brought hither by Sir Walter Raleigh — were to be seen. 

 Poor Lady Raleigh, in the later days of gloom and death, 

 wrote to Sir N. Throckmorton, asking that " the worthi 

 boddi of my nobell hosbar Sur Walter Raleigh " might be 

 buried in Beddington Church. The church, whose tower 

 is seen peeping above the lofty tree-tops, is a restored 

 building, but some of the venerable trees around the church- 

 yard must have weathered centuries of storm and sunshine. 



A large, perhaps the major, portion of the Wandle country 

 is enclosed with park palings and high walls. It is a country 

 that teems with villas and " desirable residences ; " with 

 highly cultivated grounds which an ordinary pedestrian 

 would find it as difficult to enter as Parliament (perhaps as 

 things go he would find it much more difficult), while a 

 strolling angler would risk instantaneous cremation if he 

 dared to look through a hedge. It is, of course, very 

 natural that when a gentleman has spent money and time in 

 beautifying his country residence he should wish to keep it 

 to himself; and equally natural that the owner of a well- 

 stocked trout river should not insult his fish by allowing 

 every pot-hunter to thin them out. 



There is to my knowledge one bit of free water on the 

 Wandle, and one only, namely, the ford at Hackbridge. 

 The space at the angler's disposal is not vast, and there are 



