An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 61 New Putney Bridge was opened the same month (from it I was astonished to see the ease with which the piles of the old bddge were drawn), and a new "Cripper" trike bought. We had a short cruise on the "Lotus" on 12th June, and got stuck on the weeds on Surlingbam Broads, and I think this was when the episode of the giblet pie took place. The r 5th was a memorable day ! In July was the Royal Agricultural Show in Norwich, to which I went with Profesi5or Voelcker, followed by a long <;ruise in the "Lotus," wliich included a memorable hoax of the Theodore Hook type at Catton. During another voyage in August and September, I heard of the birth, on 22nd August, of my youngest son, Gilbert Walter Rye, and before I finished ! was negotiating for the purchase of the pits under St. Leonard's Priory, which house I had later on. I then had the idea of terracing these pits and building glass houses, which from their south aspect would have brought flow~rs and fruit on without artificial heat, and with a good fru\it and flower market just beneath and close by. Someth~ng, however, stopped it, but I still think it would have been a good speculation. In December my eldest son won the Bedford History Prize at St. Paul's, and as usual I spent7 my Christmas holiday on the Norwich river in my boat. Our winter sail at Christmas was with Plaskett and B. Little, and afterwards we drove across to Barton Broad and Irstead Shoals on perhaps the coldest <lay I ever remember. It wa~ so cold indeed that we could not keep ahoard the boat, but turned in at the Great Eastern Railway Hotel at Thorpe. It was snug, but cold as usual, and I remember the tide never turned but the water ran down for two days, so we had to get back by train. In 1887 the'' Squire Controversy'' was on, and during this year I had a good deal to do with J. Bain, the great Scotch genealogist about the alleged Scotch <lescent of the Stywards. I met Matthew Arnold and Knowles of the ''Contemporary" at Miss Mary Henniker's. I cannot say I was impressed with the former who talked incessantly when he was not eating, and ate incessantly when be was not talking. Miss Henniker was thinking of getting up a peri;dical about East Anglia which she afterwards brought out, and through her I bad the privilege of rummaging through the library at Broome Hall