There is a beautiful valley not far
from Kingsclere and Newbury, surrounded by lovely hills covered with
woodland. In this valley in a quiet little village appropriately
called Woodlands, formed about half a century ago out of the large
parish of Kingsclere, there is a little hamlet named Ashford Hill, the
modern church of St. Paul, Woodlands, pretty cottages with pleasant
gardens, a village inn, and a dissenting chapel. The churchyard is
full of graves, and a cemetery has been lately added. This pretty
valley with its homes and church and chapel is a doomed valley. In a
few years time if a former resident returns home from Australia or
America to his native village he will find his old cottage gone from
the light of the sun and buried beneath the still waters of a huge
lake. It is almost certain that such will be the case with this
secluded rural scene. The eyes of Londoners have turned upon the
doomed valley. They need water, and water must somehow be procured.
The great city has no pity. The church and the village will have to be
removed. It is all very sad. As a writer in a London paper says:
"Under the best of conditions it is impossible to think of such an
eviction without sympathy for the grief that it must surely cause to
some. The younger residents may contemplate it cheerfully enough; but
for the elder folk, who have spent lives of sunshine and shade, toil,
sorrow, joy, in this peaceful vale, it must needs be that the removal
will bring a regret not to be lightly uttered in words.
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