Bedhampton revisited…

“The past sure is tense
they’re heading up for the main event
all those people seem to be hell-bent
see those people up on top of the fence
and the man down there
selling knotholes through the fence
the little shoe generation man…”

[‘The Past Sure Is Tense”: Captain Beefheart (1982)]

…and what better soundtrack to consider local history with than one by the good Captain.

So…Bedhampton, through sepia tinted, vignetted images as we await the emergence of  the sunlit uplands of Brexit.

Mill Lane Railway Bridge [Image © John Callaway 2020]

Today’s walk took in the Mill Lane Railway Bridge. The archways are all fenced off, and it seems to be fighting a never ending battle against encroaching greenery and graffiti. However, there’s still a certain elegance to be found in the the gentle sweep of the arches and the trailing ivy…

Arch… [Image © John Callaway 2020]

I’ve used the following quote from the Hampshire Advertiser (19/12/1846) before, but re-reading it I was struck by the language and content. Verbose, yet saying very little, and a suggestion that agreement for its construction was settled by discussion outside of parliament. Can’t imagine anything like that happening under the present Government of this country.

Anyway…you decide.

“The most remarkable of all the railway works between Chichester and Portsmouth is a bridge over the line, erected at a cost of £6,000, for the sole accommodation of Messrs. H. and J. Snook, of Bedhampton Mill, the extent and importance of whose business may be in some measure inferred from their having made choice of this mode of access to its principal seat, rather than accept offers, really munificent, made by the Company for a level crossing.

The bridge consists of seventeen arches, and is all the more noticeable and costly for the obliquity of its angle with the railway. We understand that the gentlemen for whose use it is made secured this compliance with their views and wishes by an agreement, made while the Bill was in Parliament, which they would otherwise have opposed”.

PWC 1939… [Image © John Callaway 2020]

The walk continues through land owned by Portsmouth Water Company, emerging alongside Hermitage stream, fed by spring water from the South Downs. The Bedhampton and Havant spring complex in Hampshire is one of the best examples of chalk karst springs in the UK. There’s more information here for the geologically inclined, but the short version is that this is how Portsmouth gets its water…

Hope springs eternal anyone…?

Hermitage Stream [Image © John Callaway 2020]