1790 - Hookham, Thomas - Tour of the Isle of Wight

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Bishop's Waltham.
Bishop's Abbey, Waltham / [Hookham, Thomas]. Tour of the Isle of Wight (London, 1790), vol. I, pp. 105-106.

By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-10-22. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2018-10-22.

Allusion

The town of Bishop's Waltham is a small, disagreeable, ill-paved, inconvenient spot, and possessed of no one requisite to make it otherwise. It received the name of Bishop's Waltham, from its being formerly a palace of the bishop of Winchester. [Vol. I, p. 106:]

 Some years ago a party of the inhabitants of this town retired to a recluse dell in the forest, from whence they issued forth during the night; and, their numbers rendering them formidable, commitetd depredations in the neighbourhood, killing deer, sheep, &c. for their subsistence. As they chiefly made their appearance in thenight [sic], they were named the Waltham Blacks. The place of their residence was a recess, inaccessible by any other way than a subterranean passage. They dressed like foresters; the cross-bow was their weapon; and some say they asserted that they the descendants of Robin Hood; certain however it is, that they lived, like him, by plunder. In this licentious state they remained, a considerable time; and at last were dispersed by the activity of the neighbouring gentlemen.

 We left Bishop's Waltham without regret, and crossed the forest of Wykeham [...][1]

Source notes

IRHB's brackets.

IRHB comments

For an expanded paraphrase of this passage, see 1792 - Anonymous - Account of the Bishop's Abbey at Waltham. Also see Robin Hood's Dell (Bishop's Waltham).

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