Above, rises Hinchelsea Knoll, with its old hollies and beeches; and still farther to the north the high lands round Lyndhurst and Stony Cross crowned with woods. Westward, the heather stretches over plain and hill till it reaches Burley. Making right through Hinchelsea, and then skirting the north side of Wilverley plantations, we shall come to the valley of Holmsley, so beloved by Scott, and which put him in mind of his native moors, without seeing which once a year, he so pathetically said, he felt as if he should die. Its wild beauty, however, is in a great measure spoilt by the railroad, and the large trees which grew in Scott’s time have all been felled.
Burley itself, which now lies just before us, is one of the most primitive of Forest hamlets, the village suddenly losing itself amongst the holms and hollies, and then reforming itself again in some open space. So thoroughly a Forest village, it is proverbially said to be dependent upon the yearly crop of acorns and mast, or “akermast,” as they are collectively called. To the south-west stands Burley Beacon, where some entrenchments are still visible, and the fields lying round it are still called “Greater” and “Lesser Castle Fields,” and “Barrows,” and “Coffins,” showing that the whole district has once been one vast battle-field.
Close to the village are the Burley quarries, where the so-called Burley rock, a mere conglomerate of gravel, the “ferrels,” or “verrels,” of North Hampshire, is dug, formerly used for the foundations of the old Forest churches, as at Brockenhurst, and Minestead, and Sopley in the Vale of the Avon. The great woods round Burley have all been cut, except a few beech-woods, but here and there “merry orchards” mingle themselves with the holms and hollies, wandering, half-wild, amongst the Forest.[107]
Turning away from the village, and going north-east, before us rise great woods—Old Burley, with its yews and oaks, where the raven used to build; Vinney Ridge, with its heronry at one extremity, and the Eagle Tree at the other; whilst behind us are the young Burley plantations. Here, near the Lodge, scattered in some fields, stand the remains of the “Twelve Apostles,” once enormous oaks, reduced both in number and size, with