10. The Deer Park
The great house of Mersham Hatch stands boldly upon its hill, a large red-brick mass, with wings right and left, and well surrounded with high trees behind, whilst its singularly picturesque park lies in front.
E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen: Other Stories, 1880, p. 325
The above was written at a time when what was originally intended as the rear façade of Mersham le Hatch was used as the front. A stone portico was added to give a more impressive air to what was now the front entrance. By Caldecott’s time, Adam’s original intentions had been restored, though maintaining the portico, so the Deer Park was once again behind the house.
Together with the schoolyard, the Deer Park is the only part of our former haunts still visitable and, unlike the former, I believe it looks much as before. Today, however, public access is strictly confined to the path leading straight through. In our day, you were allowed to roam much of it, and nothing much happened as a rule if you strayed off-limits.
Entering from the Ridgeway end, just after the corner beyond Holly Cottage, which Betty Rayment shared with other staff for so many years, and the former village shop, the path goes down fairly steeply. To the right was the clearing that Miss Murdin called “The Parson’s Cat Wood” but, even at the time of my last visit, the entrance had become overgrown so I daresay you would not even notice, today, that there was a clearing. At the bottom of the hill you find the Heron Pond on your right and you can see, if not visit, the Lake on the left.
The ground between the Heron Pond and the Boat Pond in Hatch Park was for the most part of a rushy, swampy nature; and although patches of fern grew here and there …
E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen: Moonshine, 1871, p. 157
Maybe there were herons in 1871. I never saw one, though I did once see a serpent of some kind cavorting in it. Nor did I see any boats on the Lake. I think there may have been some remnant of a boat house. The terrain remained exactly as described. If you wanted to reach the Lake with dry feet, you had to continue some way until a path led off to the left. Meanwhile, on your right was a small glade, with another larger one later on, till you came to the Sand Pit, fancifully described here through the eyes of a rabbit:
I was born of honest and respectable parents, well-to-do rabbits in the great warren in Hatch Park, which, in those happy days, was generally known as “the sand-pit”, an ancient and honourable name, which, for aught I know, still belongs to the dear old place. I can remember the sand-pit when there were not a great many rabbit holes in it, forty or fifty at most, and only a fair quantity of our race, mostly relations, lived in it. I believe that now the place is a perfect honeycomb ; hundreds upon hundreds of holes there are, from one end of it to the other, and all along the bottom of the park and in the beech plantation ; and hundreds upon hundreds of merry rabbits live there as gay and as happy as I used to be in those early days.
E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen: Crackers for Christmas, 1883, p. 47
The Sand Pit remained pretty well as described. Alas for the rabbits, those were the years in which myxomatosis was deliberately introduced to control the rabbit population. We were warned not to touch them and the only rabbit I ever saw was clearly suffering, unable even to run away.
After the Sand Pit, you were soon out on the road again. If you dared – this area was out of bounds even then – you could turn right and enter the hunting woods that lay between the Deer Park and the road from Smeeth to Mersham. There were risks:
I glanced round, and saw at once that it was James Cornell, the Hatch keeper. Fortunately, he was too far off to hurt me much, but he roared out in a voice which I thought at the time was the loudest I ever heard, "Go home, go home— get along with ye!" a command which I obeyed without losing a moment, and was out of the park before he had done yelling.
E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen: Moonshine, 1871, p. 56
The Cornell tradition was maintained in the 1960s by Mr. Crouch, who could be pretty severe if he met someone in a forbidden area and usually followed up by phoning Miss Dave.
I almost forgot about the deer. A horde of Caldecott children could be relied on to send the boldest stag into hiding. If you roamed alone you could sometimes get fairly close. Legend has it they would come right up to the house during the holiday periods when we were away. A wilder legend has it that Walter “Wiley” Todman once chased one, leapt onto it and got a ride.
Just as we could roam most of the Deer Park freely, restrictions regarding the surrounding countryside were few in those days. We had the “Country Code” drummed into us from our time with Miss Murdin – close all gates behind you and walk round the edge of a field not across it were the principal commandments. As long as you obeyed those, you were fine.
But back to the Deer Park, or rather the view of it from the back of the house. I think I have this ingrained deep within me. The gentle slope down to the Lake, the line of trees behind it, then, far beyond, the Downs closing the horizon. It remains with me as a model of quiet perfection. The interesting thing is that it is partly manmade. The Lake was not a natural one, though maybe some sort of stream originally passed that way. Its actual placing with respect to the House and the Downs is exactly as the eye requires it, an inspired act by a long-distant landscape gardener.
When the Channel Tunnel came to be built, the original plan was to have the new railway line barge across this landscape, destroying its beauty forever. In those days, a man like Lord Brabourne had enough clout to compel the powers that be to have it pass the other side of the A20. One can dispute the rightness of a situation where inherited entitlement can decree which side of a road a new public railway is to pass. In this case, I am glad he had his way. A pity, then, that the present owners have blocked off the view to all but themselves with their crass wall. They deserve to wake up one day to find a busy railway yard in place of the Lake.