9
1895 – Cooke Yarborough’s concern
The vicar’s offer is declined
In 1895 there was yet another attempt by the Church to gain control of the Public Walk.
The Reverend Cooke Yarborough
|
The Reverend James Cooke Yarborough was vicar at the time and in a letter to the mayor he observed that the Public Walk, previously well maintained with flowerbeds and paths, had fallen into neglect and had become unsightly. Furthermore, he noted that the Corporation had railed off and let part of the land which was not the purpose for which it was intended. The vicar proposed the Church should lay out the Public Walk as a garden and be responsible for its maintenance thus relieving the Corporation of the financial burden. |
In this proposal he was closely following one of Avery Moore’s many ideas. Accompanying his letter to the Mayor was the same drawing of the Public Walk that Avery Moore had sent to the Corporation when he was trying to gain control of the land. The drawing showed flowerbeds at each corner and one at the centre of the area.
Forty years had elapsed since Avery Moore had made his claim to the Public Walk and it is interesting to observe how often in this story the Church demonstrates a continuity of purpose and ideas (as perhaps one should expect of it). Only exceptionally, such as when the Corporation billed Berthon for using a gate after a lapse of some 20 years, is the Corporation capable of sustaining a comparable memory span. In a similar context, Henry Holmes observed in his notice to parishioners that the Church had lost the Processional Way “through ‘laches’ or neglect; notwithstanding the maxim of law, that no Time runs against the Church”
Cooke Yarborough's proposal to take over the Public Walk and the associated maintenance costs was turned down flat by the Corporation. Quite possibly the phrase that the vicar had used in his letter: "[the Corporation] has let and railed off part of the land which was not the purpose for which it was intended" - had alerted the Corporation to the existence of the Public Trust. The Corporation not only refused to entertain Cooke Yarborough's idea but also ceased to let the land and had the railings removed.
An offer made with the best of intentions
Cooke Yarborough then gave notice that he intended to rail off "that part of the land which does belong to the Church" which was the Processional Way along the west wall of the Abbey. The railings remained there until the Second World War when they were removed together with those around the churchyard as scrap metal to assist in the war effort.
Some three years later, Cooke Yarborough seemed to feel it necessary to explain the reason behind his proposal to take over the Public Walk. In a letter to Henry Guard who was Romsey’s town mayor at the time, he regretted the fact that the Corporation had not accepted his idea. He went on to explain that his intention was not to lay out the ground as a Public Walk and Pleasure Ground but rather to lay it to grass leaving a roadway: "to show up the Abbey in which every inhabitant of Romsey takes a pride".
The Reverend Cooke Yarborough’s incumbency came to an end in 1910. Following the First World War, the Memorial Park was established and this took over the function of the Public Walk. With the growth in car ownership, part of the land was covered with tarmac so that it could be used as a car park. Other than that, there is very little on record concerning the Public Walk in the 20th century until the 1980s when a new vicarage was built on its western boundary. This revived many of the arguments and problems that Avery Moore had experienced when building his vicarage in 1855.
