Isleworth, an ancient and almost forgotten village overlooking the Thames, is not by any manner of means to be confounded with the station of that name, or with the better-known outlying portion of the parish known as Old Isleworth. The reason of this popular ignorance of Isleworth is easily to be found in the pronounced bend of the river by which it stands, the great roads in the neighbourhood going approximately direct, and leaving Isleworth in a very rarely travelled nook, not often penetrated, except by those who have some especial reason for calling at Isleworth itself. It is thus a singularly old-world place, and, strangely enough, it is more often seen from afar, from the towing-path on the Surrey side, than at hand.

The village, however little known it may be to-day, was sufficiently well known to the compilers of Domesday Book, in whose pages it appears in the grotesque spelling, “Ghistelworde.” Afterwards it is found written Yhistleworth, Istelworth, Ysselsworth, and at last, before the present formula was found for it, “Thistleworth.” A vast deal of contention has raged around the meaning of the place-name, and with such an orthographic choice you could give it almost any meaning you chose; but there can be little question but that it comes from two words, the Celtic uisc for water, and the Saxon worth for village. It is, indeed, distinctly a water-village, for not only does the Thames flow by it, but here the Crane, rising near Northolt, and coming down through Cranford, falls into the Thames, near by a little nameless brook that rises on Norwood Green. It is indeed the confluence of the Crane and the Thames that contributes so largely to the picturesqueness, the somewhat squalid waterside picturesqueness, of Isleworth; for the outlet of the smaller into the larger river is closed by little dock-gates, and the space thus shut in is presided over by the huge, and in themselves unbeautiful, flour mills of Messrs. Samuel Kidd & Sons. There is, however, always a something attractive about flour-mills, let the builders of them build never so prosaically; and here, where the little stream comes sliding out beneath the massive buildings, and where the road passes over the little dock, the sight of the barges coming up, each laden with their thousand or so quarters of wheat for the mills, is found generally interesting, especially to boys sent about some urgent business; the more immediate and pressing the errand, the more attractive the mills; which have their historical interest to the well-read in local story, for they are the successors, on this same spot, of the ancient water-mills of the Abbey of Sion.

Most of the houses at Isleworth are old brick structures, with heavily sashed windows, and the humbler houses and cottages are very much out of repair. There is a look of the passive mood and of the past tense about the place, and you expect (and probably would find if you inquired) holes in the stockings of every other inhabitant, patches on their posteriors, and mere apologies for soles on their footgear; while shocking bad hats are the only wear. The artist who knows what’s what will already have perceived that Isleworth is a place likely to have pictorial qualities, and in his supposition he will be quite correct. It would certainly have captivated Whistler. Imagine the parish church on the river-bank, at the end of this rather feckless street of houses; imagine a very large old inn, the London Apprentice, almost dabbling in the water, and then conceive two large islands, or eyots, or aits, as they may with equal correctitude be called, off-shore, dividing the stream of Thames in two. They are extremely interesting eyots, for they grow to this day abundance of osiers, whose periodical harvesting, for the making of baskets, is a by no means negligible local industry. Lately I walked through Isleworth on the day before Christmas, and there, stepping down between two rows of little tenements forming Tolson’s Almhouses, and looking down upon the river from the railed wall at the farther end, could be seen lying six or eight great barges that had come, not from foreign climes, but from the creeks and ports of the Essex and the Kentish coasts, from the Swale, the Medway, the Blackwater, or the Crouch. Each and all of them had at their mastheads a bundle of holly fastened to a spar, in honour of the coming Day. Beyond them rose the ivy-clad tower of the church, and an occasional pallid gleam of sunshine broke upon the river. It was a pretty and a touching scene.

A great deal of very unreliable and really unveracious “history” has been written about the inn, the London Apprentice, said to have been a favourite haunt of highwaymen, among whom our ubiquitous old friend, Dick Turpin, of course figures; but we may disregard such tales. It was once, however, a favourite resort for water-parties from London.

The tower of the church is a really beautiful and sturdy pinnacled stone Gothic building, but the body of the church was rebuilt in 1705, from designs left, so it is said, by Sir Christopher Wren; and it is, within and without, typical of the style then prevalent: that well-known type of exterior of red brick, pierced with tall, factory-like windows, and an interior modelled after a “classic” type, with galleries, and painted and gilded more like a place of amusement than a place of worship.

A few much-worn brasses remain from an older building, notably one to Margaret Dely, a Sister of Sion during the brief revival of the Abbey under Queen Mary.

But the most interesting monument is one of ornate design, in marble, placed in the west entrance lobby, under the tower. This is partly to the memory of Mrs. Ann Tolson, and partly to Dr. Caleb Cotesworth, and narrates, in the course of a very long epitaph, a romantic story. Ann Tolson was the donor of the group of almshouses already mentioned, for six poor men and an equal number of poor women. She married, as the epitaph very minutely tells us, firstly Henry Sisson and then one John Tolson. When he died “she was reduced to Narrow and Confined Circumstances, and supported herself by keeping School for the Education of Young Ladies, for which She was well Qualified by a Natural Ingenuity. A strict and Regular Education, and mild and gentle Disposition. By the loss of Sight She became unfit for her Employment, and a proper object to receive that Charity, She was Sollicitous to Distribute.” In the midst of these misfortunes, Dr. Caleb Cotesworth, a connection of hers by marriage, died. As the epitaph, with meticulous particularity goes on to report, he “had By a long and Successful practice at London” amassed a fortune of “One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Pounds and upwards.” A part he distributed by his will among relatives, “and the residue, One Hundred and Twenty Thousand Pounds and upwards he gave to his Wife.

They both died on the 2nd May, 1741
But she survived,

and Dying Intestate, her Personal Estate became Distributable among her three next Of Kin, one of whom was the above Ann Tolson. With a sense of this Signal Deliverance and unexpected Change from a State of Want, to Riches and Affluence, She forthwith appointed the Sum of Five Thousand Pounds to the establishment of Almshouses for Six men and six women,” and then the giddy old thing went and married a third time, although over eighty years of age, one Joseph Dash, merchant, of London. She died, aged 89, in 1750; and this monument, for which she had left £500, for the narration of her interesting story, was soon afterwards duly placed here.

Opposite the monument of this lady is that of Sir Orlando Gee, a factotum of Algernon, Duke of Northumberland and Registrar of the Admiralty, who died in 1705. It is a very fine marble monument, with a half-length portrait effigy of Sir Orlando himself, in the costume and the elaborate wig of his period. He is represented in the act of reading some document unspecified.

The Middlesex shore, when once past Sion Park, now grows thickly cumbered with buildings, and the view of the Surrey side from Middlesex is distinctly preferable to that of Middlesex from Surrey. For on the opposite shore stretch the long reaches of Kew Gardens, whose beauties no one, I suppose, has ever yet exhausted; the grounds are so extensive and their contents so varied, so rich and rare.

But, after all, I see, the extent of Kew Gardens is not so great, measured by acreage instead of their riches. I detest mere facts, and love impressions; but here is a fact, for once in a way books of reference give the size of Kew Gardens as some 350 acres only.

The Director and his colleagues in botany and arboriculture look across to the factory chimneys of Brentford with dismay, and write alarming things in annual reports about the effects of the noxious fumes from those chimneys upon the trees and plants of the gardens, so Brentford, we may take it, is a menace, and since the Brentford Gas Company is a highly prosperous and expanding business, and is certainly in the front rank as a fume-producer, the menace we may further suppose to be increasing. The end of these things no man can foresee, but the passing away of Kew Gardens would be a thing too grievous to contemplate.

Brentford, it is true, cannot by any means be styled a village, and it owns indeed the dignity of the county town of Middlesex. Thus it would find no place in these pages, were it not that Brentford sets up as the rival of Coway Stakes near Walton, for the honour of being that historic spot where Julius CÆsar crossed the Thames. It is only of recent years that this claim has been put forward, and until then Coway Stakes scarcely knew a competitor. But at different times during dredging operations in the bed of the river, and in the course of building new wharves and other waterside structures, great numbers of ancient oak stakes have been discovered, extending with intervals, from about four hundred yards below Isleworth ferry down to the upper extremity of Brentford eyot. Near Isleworth ferry they were found in 1881, in a threefold line, interlaced with wattles and boughs, and continue, generally in a single line, at intervals, under the river banks, with advanced rows in the bed of the river, past the places where the river Brent falls into the Thames in two branches. The stakes, that have been numerously extracted in these last thirty years, are in fairly good preservation, and measure in general fifteen inches in circumference.

The criticism, of course, arises here, How could the Britons at such necessarily short notice have executed so extensive a work to impede the passage of the Romans, who came swiftly up from Kent and who could not have been confidently expected at any one point? The stakes extend for about two miles and appear to have been thoroughly and methodically arranged. The wattling, too, is evidence of care and deliberation. Doubts must arise. They may have been already long in existence before CÆsar came, and have been intended for defence against rival tribes; or again, they may not really be so ancient as supposed; and their object merely for the protection of the banks from being eroded by the current.

The name, Brentford, refers of course to a ford across the Brent near its confluence with the Thames, which is broad and deep here; but there was also, doubtless, a ford across the Thames, at this place, for the present depth of the river has been produced in modern times by the industrious dredging works of the Thames Conservancy. But still at low tide between Brentford ferry and Kew bridge the river has normally only three feet depth of water, and in summer sometimes much less. Children can at such times often be seen wading far out into the bed of the stream. There must evidently have been a ford across the Thames here in ancient days, as well as across the Brent, and we know from later historic events that undoubtedly took place here that this junction of rivers was always an important point.

Thus much may be said in support of the modern contention that it was here CÆsar crossed on his way to Verulam, and it may be conceded to those who hold this view that the delta formed by the two outlets of the Brent is curiously named “Old England.” It will be found so called on large Ordnance maps, and by that name it has been known from time immemorial. Much significance may be found in that title in such a place as this. Nothing is known as to the origin of it. It has just come down to us from the old, dim ages of oral tradition, and is now fixed by printed maps. The significance of the name is, however, strangely supported by that of a spot far indeed removed from it, but (if we accept the theory that Brentford is really the scene of CÆsar’s crossing) most intimately correlated in history. This second name has also been handed down in like manner out of the misty past. We need not wonder at it. Tradition was everywhere strong in times before the people could read, but their memory has become gradually atrophied since they have become literate, and the wisdom and the legends of our forefathers are fading away. Fortunately, the art of printing, which, in conjunction with the widespread ability to read, has destroyed much oral tradition, has at the same time fixed and perpetuated many floating legends and memories.

This fellow traditional name is “Old England’s Hole,” the title given by many generations of rustics to a hillock on the summit of Bridge Hill, beside the Dover road between Canterbury and Dover, and adjoining Barham Downs, where CÆsar fought with and defeated the Britons, July 23, 54 B.C. It is a hillock with a crater-like hollow in the crest, and was one of the forts in which the Britons long held out. CÆsar himself, in his Commentaries, describes these forts and the storming of them by his soldiers; and the rustics of the neighbourhood have fixed upon this particular spot, and say in effect “This is Old England’s Hole, and here a last stand for freedom was made by your British forefathers.”

“Old England,” on the banks of Brent and Thames, is partly included within Syon Park and in part extends over the squalid canal outlet and the sidings, docks, and warehouses the Great Western Railway has established here; but the name more particularly attaches to the meadow just within the park. It forms from the Surrey shore a charming picture not at all injured by those commercial activities of docks and railways adjoining: perhaps even gaining by contrast. There the earthy banks of the Thames, in general hereabouts steep and some ten or twelve feet high, are lower and shelve gradually; and in the meadows a noble group of bushy poplars stands behind a few willows that look upon the stream. There are trees, too, in the background, and the spire of the modern church of St Paul, Brentford, forms a not unpleasing feature on the right.

Brentford Ferry, down below “Old England,” commands an extensive view down river, towards Kew Bridge and along the northern channel of the Thames, divided here into two channels by the long and narrow Brentford Eyot, thickly grown with grass and underwood, and planted with noble trees. It is acutely pointed out by Mr. Montagu Sharpe that the boundary-line dividing the counties of Middlesex and Surrey is not at this point made to follow the stream midway, as customary elsewhere, but is traced along the northern channel; and he sees in this fact a hint that the original course of the river was along that branch, and assumes that the main stream is of later origin; that the river at some time later than the era of the Romans made this new way for itself.

On the steep bank above Brentford Ferry there was placed in May 1909 a sturdy granite pillar with inscriptions setting forth the historical character of the spot. The events known to have taken place at Brentford, and the crossing here by CÆsar, now boldly assumed, form a very remarkable list, as this copy of those inscriptions will sufficiently show:

This memorial has certainly been placed in a most prominent position, and challenges the attention of the passer-by along the footpath past Kew Gardens, on the opposite shore. As you approach by the ferry-boat, the crazy old stone and brick stairs leading steeply up, beside the broad and easy incline of the shingly ferry-slip, look most imposing, and group well with their surroundings.

Where the old original ford across the Brent was situated no man knows, but perhaps near to its junction with the Thames, at a spot where the waters from the greater tidal river rendered the ford impassable except at the ebb. That was the awkward situation of Old Brentford, and one not for very long to be endured by travellers along the great West of England road that runs through this place. Thus it gave way at a very early period to a new ford, somewhat higher up the Brent; and around it in the course of time rose the town of New Brentford, whose being and name in this manner derived directly from the needs of travellers for a ford passable at all hours. The ford was replaced by a bridge in 1280, and that by later stone bridges, or patchings and enlargements of the original. The present representative of them is a quite recent and commodious iron affair, built over the stone arch: very much more convenient for the traffic, but not at all romantic. New Brentford church stands near by; that of Old Brentford is a good quarter of a mile along the road, back towards London, but there is nothing old or interesting about it, seeing that it was entirely rebuilt a few years ago.

The Brent, as it flows through the town, is not easily to be distinguished amid the several canal cuts, where the close-packed barges lie, but it may with some patience be traced at the western end of the broad and retired road called “The Butts,” an ancient name significant of a bygone Brentford, very different from the present aspect of the place. “The Butts” is a broad open space, rather than a road, and the houses, old and new, in it are of a superior residential character that would astonish those—and they are far the greater number—who know Brentford only by passing through its narrow and squalid and tramway-infested main street. “The Butts” would appear to have been an ancient practice-ground in archery.

The Brent appears at the extremity, down below a very steep bank, and barges lie in it, on the hither side of a sluice. It goes thenceforward in a pronounced curve, to fall into the docks, and passes by the backs of old houses and some still surviving gardens, with the church-tower of St. Leonard’s, New Brentford, peering over old red roofs and clustered gables.

In an old-world town such as this there are many charming village-like corners and strange survivals, when once you have left the main arteries of traffic. Brentford is, of course, a byword for its narrow, congested, squalid High Street, down which the gasworks send a quarter-of-a-mile of stink to greet the inquiring stranger; but it is a very long High Street, and the gasmaking is in Old Brentford; and at the westward end, New Brentford, you are far removed from those noisome activities and among the barges instead. It is largely a bargee population at this end; and the bargee himself, the cut of his beard (when he has one it is generally of the chin-tuft fashion affected by the Pharaohs, as seen by the ancient statues in the British Museum), the style of his clothes, and his manner of living his semi-amphibious life are all interesting. It would need a volume to do justice to the history, the quaintnesses, and the anomalies of Brentford, which, although the “county town” of Middlesex, and thus invested with a greater if more nebulous dignity than London—merely the capital of the Empire—is not even a corporate town. If I wanted to justify myself for including it in a book on villages, I should feel inclined to advance this fact, and to add that, although the traditional “two Kings of Brentford,” with only one throne between them, are famous in legend, no one ever heard of a Mayor of Brentford, either in legend or in fact. When it is added that Old Brentford owns all the new things, such as the gasworks, the brewery, and the waterworks, and that the old houses are mostly in New Brentford, the thing is resolved into an engaging and piquant absurdity. It is to be explained, of course, in the fact of Old Brentford being so old that it has had to be renewed.

The very names of Brentford’s streets tell a tale of eld. It is only in these immemorially ancient places that such names as “Town Meadow,” “The Butts,” “The Hollows” “Old Spring Gardens,” “New Spring Gardens,” “The Ham,” “Ferry Lane,” or “Half Acre” are met with. They are names that tell of a dead and gone Brentford little suspected by the most of those who pass by. No unpleasing place this waterside town when the “Town Meadow,” that is now a slummy close, was really a piece of common land green with grass and doubtless giving pleasantly upon the river. And when Old and New Spring Gardens first acquired their name, perhaps about the age when Herrick wrote his charming poems, or that era when Pepys gossiped, they were no doubt idyllic spots where the springs gushed forth amid shady bowers. To-day they are old-world alleys, with houses declining upon a decrepit age that invites the attention of improving hands. There was an ancient congeries of crooked alleys and small cottage property near the corner of Half Acre known as “Troy Town.” It stood hard by where the District Council offices are now placed, but tall hoardings facing the road now disclose the fact that Troy Town is in process of being abolished. The name is curious, but not unique. It is found frequently in England, and seems generally to occur as the name of an old suburb of a much older town; some place of picnicking and merry-making, where there were arbours, and above all, a maze, either cut in the turf or planted in the form of a hedge, like that most glorious of mazes at Hampton Court. Such were the original “Troy Towns”; and whatever once were the clustered alleys in Brentford that were called by that name, certainly they have carried out to the full, and to the last, the mazy, uncharted idea.

But this old suburb of Old Brentford must at an early date have been swallowed up in the growth of New Brentford and at a remote time have lost everything of its original character except its old traditional name. Names, we know, survive when all else has vanished or been utterly changed.

Ferry Lane is one of Brentford’s many quaint corners. There is an old inn there, the “Waterman’s Arms,” and a stately old mansion, “Ferry House.” And there is a curious old malthouse, too, which, in the artistic way, simply makes the fortune of Ferry Lane, so piquant are the outlines of its roofs and its two ventilating shafts, like young lighthouses. Buildings of such simple, yet such picturesque lines do not come into existence nowadays.

And so to leave Brentford, with much of its story untold. To tell it were a long business that would lose the sense of proportion which to some degree, let us hope, distinguishes these volumes. So nothing shall be said of those two mysterious “Kings of Brentford” who shared, according to tradition, the throne; nothing, that is, but to note that a brilliant idea has of late occurred to antiquaries, puzzled beyond measure by these indefinite kings. It is now conceived that the legend originally was of the two kings at Brentford, and that so far from sharing one throne happily together, they were Edmund Ironside, the Saxon king, and Canute the invading Dane (or Cnut, as it seems we are expected to style him now), who was severely defeated here by Edmund, and driven out of Brentford across the river.

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