After London

[wolfinthewood]

I don't know when I first noticed that our next door neighbour’s rose has a bud on it. Around the New Year, I think. It is the kind of rose that has a second flowering in the autumn; still, I have never seen it in bud in January before. The bud is still there, still pinky white, though browning at the edges now. I do not think it will open.

Yesterday we went for another muddy walk, or rather, a stroll: in Aylestone water meadows, on the outskirts of Leicester. Where we found a king cup flowering (marsh marigold to some); more than a month before I would normally have expected to see this.

Here in the English Midlands, autumn has merged imperceptibly into spring, with only one light fall of snow and a mild frost or two to gesture towards the possibility of winter.

From today’s Guardian: ‘The world's scientists yesterday gave their starkest warning yet that a failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions will bring devastating climate change within a few decades.’

As a child, I once read a piece about the prophecies of Thomas the Rhymer. I think it was probably a tailpiece to some retelling of his journey to Elfland. The writer noted cheerily that some of the prophecies ascribed to him by tradition had never been fulfilled, and quoted one of them:

     York was, London is, and Edinburgh shall be
     The biggest and bonniest o’ the three.

I remember cudgelling my young brains over this, and concluding with some regret – since I always wanted to believe in wonders – that Thomas must have got it wrong. I lived in Greater London. London was vast, and growing more or less visibly all the time. There was no chance, none at all, that Edinburgh could ever catch up. It never occurred to me for one minute that London might disappear.

The Victorians, famously, believed in progress, and bequeathed that optimistic faith to the twentieth century. What we need now is to look with clear eyes at where that has brought us and take an equally firm mental hold on the importance of, and potential for, damage limitation.

The Victorian writer who is on my mind a lot at the moment is Richard Jefferies. If he was a believer in progress at all, you certainly wouldn’t tell it from his novel After London. This may have been the first ever post-disaster sf novel, though I am open to correction on that. It is an interesting read, though the story never really arrives anywhere. Jefferies, mainly a nature writer by trade, was better at description than narrative.

***

Now the most striking difference between the country as we know it and as it was known to the ancients is the existence of the great Lake in the centre of the island. From the Red Rocks (by the Severn) hither, the most direct route a galley can follow is considered to be about two hundred miles in length, and it is a journey which often takes a week even for a vessel well manned, because the course, as it turns round the islands, faces so many points of the compass, and therefore the oarsmen are sure to have to labour in the teeth of the wind, no matter which way it blows.

Many parts are still unexplored, and scarce anything known of their extent, even by repute. ... Yet the Lake cannot really be so long and broad as it seems, for the country could not contain it. The length is increased, almost trebled, by the islands and shoals, which will not permit of navigation in a straight line. For the most part, too, they follow the southern shore of the mainland, which is protected by a fringe of islets and banks from the storms which sweep over the open waters.


...

The Lake is also divided into two unequal portions by the straits of White Horse, where vessels are often weather-bound, and cannot make way against the wind, which sets a current through the narrow channel. There is no tide; the sweet waters do not ebb and flow; but while I thus discourse, I have forgotten to state how they came to fill the middle of the country. Now, the philosopher Silvester, and those who seek after marvels, say that the passage of the dark body through space caused an immense volume of fresh water to fall in the shape of rain, and also that the growth of the forests distilled rain from the clouds. Let us leave these speculations to dreamers, and recount what is known to be.

For there is no tradition among the common people, who are extremely tenacious of such things, of any great rainfall, nor is there any mention of floods in the ancient manuscripts, nor is there any larger fall of rain now than was formerly the case. But the Lake itself tells us how it was formed, or as nearly as we shall ever know, and these facts were established by the expeditions lately sent out.

At the eastern extremity the Lake narrows, and finally is lost in the vast marshes which cover the site of the ancient London. Through these, no doubt, in the days of the old world there flowed the river Thames. By changes of the sea-level and the sand that was brought up there must have grown great banks, which obstructed the stream. I have formerly mentioned the vast quantities of timber, the wreckage of towns and bridges which was carried down by the various rivers, and by none more so than by the Thames. These added to the accumulation, which increased the faster because the foundations of the ancient bridges held it like piles driven in for the purpose. And before this the river had become partially choked from the cloacæ of the ancient city which poured into it through enormous subterranean aqueducts and drains.

After a time all these shallows and banks became well matted together by the growth of weeds, of willows, and flags, while the tide, ebbing lower at each drawing back, left still more mud and sand. Now it is believed that when this had gone on for a time, the waters of the river, unable to find a channel, began to overflow up into the deserted streets, and especially to fill the underground passages and drains, of which the number and extent was beyond all the power of words to describe. These, by the force of the water, were burst up, and the houses fell in.

For this marvellous city, of which such legends are related, was after all only of brick, and when the ivy grew over and trees and shrubs sprang up, and, lastly, the waters underneath burst in, this huge metropolis was soon overthrown. At this day all those parts which were built upon low ground are marshes and swamps. Those houses that were upon high ground were, of course, like the other towns, ransacked of all they contained by the remnant that was left; the iron, too, was extracted. Trees growing up by them in time cracked the walls, and they fell in. Trees and bushes covered them; ivy and nettles concealed the crumbling masses of brick.

...

Thus the low-lying parts of the mighty city of London became swamps, and the higher grounds were clad with bushes. The very largest of the buildings fell in, and there was nothing visible but trees and hawthorns on the upper lands, and willows, flags, reeds, and rushes on the lower. These crumbling ruins still more choked the stream, and almost, if not quite, turned it back. If any water ooze past, it is not perceptible, and there is no channel through to the salt ocean. It is a vast stagnant swamp, which no man dare enter, since death would be his inevitable fate.

Richard Jefferies (1848–1887)

from After London or Wild England (1885)


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