In the early years of the 20th century, there came to live for a while in Hurstbourne Priors, a singer with a national reputation, Harry Plunket Greene. Like others who have come to, and learnt to love the valley, he wrote a book about it —Where the Bright Waters Meet*, the bright waters being the Bourne, and the Test into which it flows just below Hurstbourne Priors.

Discovering a Hampshire Village ...

Fishing in Whitchurch on the Test, he tells how:— 

"One Sunday morning we determined that we would follow the Test down the valley and see what the country was like. The road ran round a deer park which lay on the high ground on our right, with the river some way below on our other side, and after following this for a couple of miles we came round a corner on top of a village and fell over head and ears in love with it on the spot. It lay facing us in a broad hollow at the foot of a steep hill, It was a gorgeous day without a breath of wind, and tile smoke from the thatched cottages rose up in straight blue lines against the dark elms of the hill behind. The valley ran at right angles to the one we had come through, and in the middle of it lay the village in a golden sheet of buttercups, and through the buttercups under the beech woods of the deer park there ran a little chalk stream clear as crystal and singing like a lark.

One Sunday morning                        "There was a Church half hidden in the trees and the people were just coming out after service, and there was an indescribable feeling of peace over the whole scene. It was a typical picture of English country life which Constable might have painted or Gray have sung. We followed the stream up through the meadows past the Church. We sat in the buttercups and watched the deer and the black sheep and the Highland cattle in the park above, and the wild duck on the broad water by our side, and we vowed that if ever we wanted to live in the country this would be the one and only village in the world for us."

After he left the village, when developments of which he disapproved had taken place (cress-beds, tarry roads, polluting the river water, and over-stocking of the trout) he closed the book with a moving farewell to the Bourne:—

.... "And so I say goodbye to her. The water-cress beds above the viaduct have scarred her face and marred her beauty for ever. The pollard is there still, but the trees with the wild bees are gone. The black death is creeping through the chalk and covering her eyes with a film. Materialism has her in its grasp, and the road-hog must be served.

"But somewhere, deep down, I have a dim hope that one night the fairy godmother will walk along the tarry road and stop on the bridge and listen and send a message to me in the dark; and that when the mists begin to lift and the poplars to shiver and the cock-pheasants crow in the beech-woods, the little Bourne will wake and open her eyes and find in her bosom again the exiles that she had thought were gone for good — the silver trout, and the golden gravel, and the shrimp and the duns — and smell the dust of the road, and see the sun once more, and the red and white cows in the grass, and the yellow buttercups in the meadow and the blue smoke of the cottages against the black elms of the Andover hill — and me, too, perhaps, kneeling beside her as of old and watching the little iron-blue, happy, laughing, come bobbing down to me under the trees below the Beehive bridge on the Whitchurch Road."

The rivulet he loved flows beside his grave in Hurstbourne Priors Churchyard. The headstone is inscribed simply:—

HARRY PLUNKET GREENE
Singer
1865 to 1936

and nearby is the grave of his son:—

DAVID PLUNKET GREENE
November 19th 1904 — February 24th 1941
"No life begun shall ever pause for death"

As those who have trod its banks pass, the making of "liquid history" by the little Bourne goes on through the centuries, enriched by their passing.

Monday Morning June 7th

by 1st. train - I started a little late for Hurstbourne - arrived there at 2. & found Gwen & Ricardo waiting at the station to meet me. Gwen’s dear little house looking charming with its new white walls & papers. Richard sublimely healthy with delicious curls & a ruddy skin. Harry returned from his fishing at dinner time but left the next morning.

Tuesday June 9th.

Poured with rain most of the day - but Gwen & I seized a pause in the afternoon to go up & call on Portsmouths - walked through their lovely Park with huge clumps of Beech trees & deer to their very hideous house & found Lord P wrapped in surgical bandages with goggles & clumps of scarlet beard escaping starting off in his motor - Lady P. to our relief was away so we returned having done our duty. Little Lady Maud Vivian -whom I never realised till yesterday was Maud Clements of Dublin days lived in the village & came in after tea. Having seen her last aged 19 going to her 1st. balls radiant & charming it was almost terrible to see her as a widow - a sad little black figure with one little girl - she said I looked exactly the same & hadn’t changed at all - it made me shy & ill at ease - & I didn’t know where to begin. She is luckily much comforted by having "a call". Lord Radstock being a great hero of hers & she goes about saving & reclaiming in the village. She took us to her little house - so pathetic - with a great deal of Londony silver ...

I go home today. Hurstbourne Priors is perfectly foul. Every second a car passes, children yell incessantly & and the backs of our houses are like suburbs — the gardens running up parallel — and ours & Eva’s field planted with frightful hen houses & runs — and then the Tovanis [William Tovani was the curate from 1906 until 1909, and then vicar until 1927] — Thank God I’ve gone from here. It’s so small & surrounded after the other.