Its evocative too. The view from the cottage of adjoining farmland and forest brought to mind Izaak’s descriptions of tranquil meadows, although marred a little by the constant blare of the London midland mainline a 100 metres away!
The cottage is nicely done. Upstairs there are lots of stuffed fish, vintage tackle, some good books, a couple of H. Cholmondeley-Pennell’s, and even a copy of Waterlog. A nice little detail had been added to the recreated kitchen, I reckon for the attention of visiting fisherman. Nailed up on the wall next to the plastic model of hung game, was the skin of a porcupine with quills intact. I’m not sure how readily available porcupine quills were back in the mid 17th century, but still. I did the Japanese tourist thing taking photos of anything that moved but I won’t spoil it for anyone who intends to visit by posting too many photos.
One of the panels in the museum says that Walton may have chosen the place for its access to the adjacent ‘river’, the river meece or shallowfield brook. The stream is mentioned in one of his poems in the chapter on trout ‘Or with my Bryan and a book, Loyter long days near Shawford-brook’. I wandered over to take a look and soak up the Waltonian vibes. Private and overgrown, no doubt inhabited by the odd heavy bellied chavender.
The museum had a pile of tasteful A4 prints showing the stained glass portrait of IW in Winchester cathedral for sale.
A mere 20p each. I immediately thought of my TFF compatriots and bought up a few more. So I have eight copies available free to anyone who would like one, just pm me your address.
I also have a booklet ‘Izaak Walton – a short introduction’ by E.G. Marriot from Nottingham Fly Fisher’s Club, free to anyone who would like a quick read about his life. The author is not the first fly fisherman I’ve come across who makes it sound like all of IW’s fishing was the casting of an upstream dry over rising trout on the Dove, and he just happened to incidentally pen some appendages about ‘coarse’ fishing. Ugh!
