Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide -
Eisey,
Map: Eisey
The northern bank now ascends the mound of Eisey, whence you may look down upon the eager darting water and muse, perhaps, as once I did.
Why so headlong, tiny stream,
Under wistful willows wending;
Why so swift to grasp the dream,
Mad to learn the story's ending?
Surely here is sweeter life.
Here within the tender meadows;
Rest is here, beyond is strife;
Here is light, beyond are shadows.
Here against some rigid stem
Scarce thy first small fight thou winnest;
For what sterner diadem
Is the battle thou beginnest?
Round thy cradle little hills
On each side lean down rejoicing;
All day long the murmuring rills
Secrets of thy vale are voicing.
Little needest thou to run
Where the restless sea is heaving;
With these islets share the sun;
Why thine innocence be leaving?
Yet no moment would he stay,
Ever onward rippling, racing;
So I sped him on his way,
In the dusk my steps retracing.
"Tiptoe upon a little hill," on the slender River's left bank, stands the chapel of St. Mary at Eisey; as small and lonely
as distant lonely Shifford.
[Fred, in Additions and Corrections, adds: ... the correct, name for Eisey mound is Gasson's Chapel Hill. Under the chancel
is said to be buried a Georgian font, belonging to the old church. ]
As once I reached the top of the little ascent I beheld through the treetops in the full east the dark mass of Faringdon
Clump; and though I had sculled and tramped them I still wondered what mystery the wooded valleys between might hide,
watered by the hidden Thames. Eisey church is of painfully new Norman work, certainly superimposed upon an ancient Norman
foundation. Its rounded apse is the only one I remember in all this part of the country, ancient or modern. No doubt this
feature disappeared through the fashion that arose in the twelfth century of extending churches eastwards. Of the scene from
its little mound Mr. Haselhust had a fine sketch in his show of water colours a few years ago; one indeed captivating to
the eye as it lingers down the grassy slope to the tremulous thread of water spanned with a rustic footbridge, and across to
the great tower of Cricklade looking over so proudly to its little sister of Eisey. Whose church I originally found locked;
but gained admission at a later visit, and found the modern Norman maintained within. I beheld with regret the cracks in the
chancel arch, another point of sympathy with the Oxfordshire church. The building dates back, I believe, less than half a
century, though I found a tombstone of 1824. The old church is described as barnlike. It is now a chapel to Latton church;
but has its own register from 1571. A Walter Jones was vicar during the Commonwealth, his first entry being in 1647; he was
buried in 1666. It contains entries, usual in the eighteenth century, of people buried in woollen shrouds. This custom
arose out of an enactment of Charles II, first heard of in 1666, but having to be re-enacted in 1678 "in respect that there
was not a sufficient remedy thereby given for offences against the said law. " It laid down that no corpse should be buried
in any stuff or thing other than what was made of sheep's wool only; nor might the coffin be lined with anything but wool;
under a penalty of five pounds. The Act was to be read "presently after divine service" on the first Sunday after the feast
of St. Bartholomew for seven years; and remained in force till 1815, contributing no little to the growth of the wool
trade.
In 1694 4s. 3d. was collected at Eisey for "ye relief of French Protestants"; and in 1699 17s. 6d. "towards ye relief of
ye voridois"; perhaps the Vaudois, then reinstating themselves in their native valleys.
One of the old parish clerks here must have been an amusing character. On one occasion the vicar forgot he was due to
celebrate a marriage. The couple arrived, and the old gentleman went to fetch the absentee from two or three miles away;
and fearing that the couple would not wait to get married he managed to lock them into the church during his lengthy absence.
At another time during service the vicar was reading steadily on, expecting the clerk to get up and hand round the offertory
bag, which for some time he failed to do. At last he suddenly jumped up with a loud "I clean forgot 'n"; which apology he
repeated at each several pew. And once he could not "find the place," Roman figures being the obstacle. The vicar waited
patiently; when all at once he called out: "I've got he. " "Alas! he is no longer in the tiny village, the demand for
cottages for younger and more active labourers being too great; but he is still flourishing in the neighbourhood. " The
hamlet is but a handful of cots and farms, standing rather upon the Severn Canal than the River. It is, indeed, under a blue
and rain washed sky and fleecy clouds, no unpleasant a walk hither from Kempsford along the path by the canal. The ford to
it across the Thames from the south is against the rustic bridge by the church, well known to hunting men.
You see nothing now-a-days of what Leland noted:
"Nunne-Eiton" which "longgid to Godstow"; and which stood where "Amney goith into Isis a Mile beneath 'Dounamney. " The
"mile" should be at least two miles and a half. This was a small property belonging, as Leland said, to Godstow, and is
mentioned under several names in the English Register of about 1450 of that house: Water-eaton, West-eton, Nuns-eton, and
Eton-mynchons. No doubt it stood at Water Eaton, and not at Eisey as some will have it.
It was not a nunnery, at first, at all events, but a manor held by the "Holi minchons of Godestow. " Reginald, son of Roger,
Earl of Hereford, granted it about 1142 "to god & to our ladi, & to seint John baptiste & to the holi minchons," to hold
"well & worshipfulli, freli & quietli" for the good of his own soul and the souls of his ancestors. The charter is re-stated
later: Reginald and his wife Emmeline "willid to be knowe that both thei & his too sonis, Reinolde & hameline, & also his
too dowhters anneis & Iulian," gave it for the "remedi of their sinnis. " And no man was to let or hinder the gift, or vex
the minchons to make them weary of it (evidently you could tease them), but they were to enjoy it in peace,"in woode & in
plaine, in medes & pasturs, in waters & millis & in pondis, in weiis and pathis," and in all the other picturesque manner of
it. A dispute afterwards arose, as early as 1195, between the abbey of Cirencester and Godstow, as to the relation of the
Eaton chapel to Eisey, the mother church, of which Cirencester owned the rectory; and Pope Celestine III decreed that Eaton
was to be subject to Eisey as a chapel-of-ease, that the great tithes were to go to Eisey and the lesser to Godstow, and that
Eaton was to have its own churchyard.
I did not, to my regret, notice the junction of Amney Stream with Thames; in the maps, the very maps that still shew Water
Eaton church, it is marked as ending at the canal, and I foolishly did not consider that its waters could not flow into that,
but must merge somewhere into Thames. Two or three meadows above Eisey Bridge the Dance Brook enters upon the southern bank,
little deserving its title here, whatever be the case higher up its course. It gives its name to the Dance Common just
outside Cricklade. Now a farm blocks the way, but if you persevere round you will arrive at a rustic bridge called
Hatchett's, on the outskirts of Cricklade, where baptisms have been performed within living memory. Rose Cottage adjoins it,
well known to men who navigate through to Cricklade; above which Taunt marks an old weir site; perhaps the ruinous old
house on the right bank was the weirkeeper's; it stands at the head of the pool. And then the walk is barred by "nimble
footed Churn "; and I went to my night's rest back across Hatchett's Bridge and into Cricklade.
Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide -
Eisey,
Map: Eisey