A Wiltshire Village by WH Hudson
William Henry Hudson was born in Argentina in 1841 and died in his adopted England in 1922.
The Biography Channel says of him -
"Writer and naturalist, born near Buenos Aires. He came to England in 1869 and became a British subject in 1900. His early writings concerned the natural history of South America, but he is best known for the account of his rambles in the New Forest in Hampshire Days (1903), his romantic novel Green Mansions (1904), and the autobiographical Far Away and Long Ago (1918). His ornithological works include Birds in London (1898), and The Book of a Naturalist (1919). A bird sanctuary was created in his memory in Hyde Park, London (1925), and Epstein's sculpture "Rima' (a character from Green Mansions) erected there." [It was unveiled by the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin.]
Apart from this wandering through Hampshire, he has links with Wiltshire. His work "A Shepherd's Life" (1910) depicting the life of Caleb in South Wiltshire is a true classic which has often been reprinted but never seems to figure in the US-centric reviews of his life. When he died he was laid to rest with his wife in Broadwater Cemetery, Goring by Sea, Sussex, the final resting-place of that great Wiltshire author, Richard Jefferies.
It was by chance that some years ago I came across a reference that Mr Hudson had resided in Burbage for a while and eventually tracked down a copy of the appropriate work. A Traveller in Little Things – published 1921; is a collection of 37 sketches, 14 of which had already appeared in The New Statesman, Saturday Review, Nation and Cornhill Magazine. One sketch, A Wiltshire Village, recounts his brief stay in our village.
His feelings about the lure of spirit of Burbage - Try to ignore me and it will be worse for you : a secret want will continually disquiet you : recognise my existence and right to dwell in and possess your soul, as you dwell in mine, and there will be a pleasant union and peace between us
is perhaps what insires me to maintain this web site.
After reading the article two questions beg answers; when was it written and where was he saying?
For the first the only clues are that he was with his sister and not his wife. He married Emily Wingrave in 1876 and she died in Worthing in 1921 although she had been an invalid since 1911 Although based in London all his life he often went wandering to research his work - especially between 1900 and 1910 - and so it is probably during that period that he took residence in Burbage. Also he talks of the carts on the roads and never of motor vehicles so this would place it before World War 1 and probably much earlier. It would be nice to think that he came here during 1909 to finish "A Shepherd's Life". His decision to rent a cottage in the village was not unusual and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says "His intolerance of class boundaries and an ability to encourage others to talk while he listened attentively enabled him to establish a rapport with people of the rural working class about whom he wrote much and among whom he made many friends. When he was out of London and away from his literary companions he chose to stay in cottages and farmhouses where he could be privy to the life of the community"
Where was he staying? Presumably at a cottage on the High Street which stood 10 steps up from the road and had a yew tree in the garden. Does anyone know of such a cottage or remember one of that design? Since 1900 some cottages have been demolished and others altered to make way for road widening, footways, motor access and adjacent developments. Having talked to people the most probable is Yew Tree Cottage in the centre of the High Street. It is one of the oldest cottages in the village and is instantly recognisable as its siting creates the narrowest part of the High Street. The Yew Tree is still there but there are no longer any steps however the current owner filled in such a feature many years ago and where the path met the road can still be determined by the repairs to the walls.
The acticle is in pdf format and is you do not already have the software, a free reader can be obtain from Abode Acrobat