Spiers: Journal of my wedding tour 1837

Friday 21 July

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“At early dawn was I abroad” & at 7 bid adieu to Ryde pier to which Miss Lawrence had kindly accompanied us. In half an hour we stepped onto the Portsmouth quay: breakfasted at the George, where we saw some portraits of the family 2 of them being young ladies the Misses Grey, taken at 15 & others of the same ladies 3 or 4 years subsequently, in which their charms are of course more developed & matured. I found an excuse to go into the bar to see the originals & nice looking damsels they were. – We left the town soon after, it seems to be old without being ancient or good; the fortifications are more considerable than I expected. We had a fine day’s ride to London with the exception only of a shower to lay the dust. We passed over the South Downs which were covered with sheep for many miles around, & the grass on which they were feeding looked short and sweet. The road is cut through a hill to a depth of 60 or 80 feet, and a magnificent embankment wall it forms. Beyond Petersfield a well wooded & extensive valley opened to our right & some miles after another one, called the devil’s punch bowl, around which our road continued for a long time. It is a beautiful spot & a donkey & boy at the bottom looked like grains of dirt in it. During a descent of some miles a succession of valleys accompanied us, well wooded & diversified & no end of bunches of lilac heath & of juniper berries were thrown to us by boys along the road. We dined

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