The river winds extravagantly at Weybridge, where it receives the waters of the river Wey and the Bourne, and is full of islands and backwaters. Some way downstream, and on the Middlesex shore, is little Shepperton, one of the most secluded places imaginable, consisting of a church, a neighbouring inn—the King’s Head—and some old-fashioned country residences. It forms a pretty scene. In the churchyard there will be found a stone with some verses, to
Margaret Love Peacock, Born 1823, Died 1826, one of the children of Thomas Love Peacock who lived many years at Lower Halliford, and died there, 1866.
[4] The battle of Sedgemoor was fought beside the Bussex Rhine.
[Illustration: INTERIOR, LITTLETON CHURCH.]
COWAY STAKES—WALTON-ON-THAMES—THE RIVER AND THE WATER COMPANIES—SUNBURY—TEDDINGTON—TWICKENHAM.
There are some very pleasant places on this Middlesex side of the river: Shepperton Green and Lower Halliford notable among them; Lower Halliford fringing the river bank most picturesquely and rustically. Between this and Walton is the place known as “Cowey, or Coway, Stakes,” traditionally the spot where Julius Cæsar in 54 B.C. crossed the Thames, in his second invasion of Britain. Cæsar himself, in his _Commentaries_, writing, as was his manner, in the first person, says: “Cæsar being aware of their plans, led his army to the Thames, to the boundary of the Catuvellauni. The river was passable on foot only at one place, and that with difficulty. When he arrived there he observed a large force of the enemy drawn up on the opposite bank. The bank also was defended with sharpened stakes fixed outwards, and similar stakes were placed under water and concealed by the river. Having learnt these particulars from the captives and deserters, Cæsar sent forward the cavalry, and immediately ordered the legions to follow. But the soldiers went at such a pace and in such a rush, though only their heads were above water, that the enemy could not withstand the charge of the legions and cavalry, and they left the bank and took to flight.”
Many of these ancient stakes have been found, during the centuries that have passed—the last of them about 1838—and they have been for many years the theme of long antiquarian discussions. Formed of young oak trees, “as large as a man’s thigh,” each about six feet in length, and shod with iron, their long existence under water had made them almost as hard as that iron, and as black as ebony.