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Picture source: Ed Fowler
The Leathern Bottle was situated at Wain Hill. This pub was present by 1811, closed in 1911 and is now in residential use. The extant building is still called The Leather Bottle.
The Fritillaries of August, 1914 by Vio Prudence Summerhayes This last summer before the war would be marked by quite an event. We were to have a family holiday, the first and last. It's ironic that it should have been planned for August, 1914. It wasn't a very ambitious project by most standards. There was no question of the sea or anything like that. We were just going to the Chiltern Hills again, but not merely for the day, we were going to stay there. This was tremendously exciting and things must have been financially easier for us even to contemplate such a thing. We had taken an old converted pub called the Leathern Bottel which stood at the base of the downy part of the Chilterns near the village of Bledlow and could only be approached by a wide grassy road that we were told was Roman. Mother looked down her nose a bit as though we were to be contaminated by staying at such a place, though she was assured that it was years since the house had been used as an inn and had been purged of its association long since. The Leathern Bottle on Hempton Wainhill, pronounced Whinnal, outside Bledlow, Buckinghamshire, in the Chilterns. The structure still exists, though it has been transferred into a private home with added structural features. It was certainly a major operation to get seven children and all their goods and chattels to such an out of the way place and not only the family but various friends and for some inexplicable reason the ducks and chickens were to come as well. Perhaps it was to provide us with eggs but the hens caught the holiday atmosphere. The freedom went to their heads. They refused to go on laying in the nest boxes and took to making nests in hedges and ditches. This led an added excitement for we all had to search for their hidden caches. To my childish eyes the Leathern Bottel seemed a paradise, although I suppose it was really very inconvenient in its isolation. Every morning we had to tramp across the dewy meadows to fetch the milk and the post from Bledlow, and the morning papers. I can still see my elder sister walking back carrying the milk, and somehow at the same time reading the headlines with a great air of tension. Indeed, as the news grew worse and worse we became aware of a certain amount of bickering and hostility amongst our elders and our Fräulein. When things went well, they were jubilant and poor Doy would have red eyes. When things went better for Germany they were silent and resentful, as my elder sister was always militantly patriotic, while Doy walked with a lighter step. It must have been quite a strain but we were only dimly aware of these adult things and shockingly enough the atmosphere of excitement only served to heighten our enjoyment. There were so many things to enjoy. The Leathern Bottel had a garden on several levels with several greengage trees in it. The fruit was just getting ripe (this seems to point to early September) and we gorged ourselves since there was no taboo here about helping ourselves, but I don't recollect any undue tummy aches. On the other side of the grass road was a dear little pond where the ducks had the time of their lives splashing about. In the hedges behind the pond there were bushes of fat green gooseberries which seemed very mysterious to me, although I suppose it had all been part of the gardens at one time. The back of the steep, sloping garden led straight out on to the thymy Downs where hundreds of little harebells with their fragile stalks and Azure colour carpeted the ground. There were crowds of rabbits with their grassy tussocks, tiny pansies and Totter grass [also known as Quaking Grass]. Totter Grass was associated with Faeries, it seems The air seemed full of butterflies. There were the Chalk Blues as azure as the harebells; red admirals, painted ladies, peacocks and the much sought after fritillaries. The word fritillaries transports me even now straight onto the Downs. My brothers, who collected butterflies, were wildly excited by all this profusion and were off at once with their butterfly nets. The sought after fritillary My younger sister and I were also in a state of mad exhilaration. To underline that we were "on holiday" we had been provided with little striped cotton shorts and felt deliciously free, Sylvia soon tore the seat of hers by sliding adventurously down a slope. The days were never long enough for all our adventures and we were sometimes allowed to stay up late and take "the night walk" up the winding chalky path onto the very top of the Downs. How silent and wide it seemed up there in the darkness as we watched for shooting stars and were told the names of the various constellations twinkling so high above us. We were all as intoxicated by our new freedom as the hens. This was accentuated because neither of our parents were there. I don't know whether this had been intended. No doubt, as the war drew closer the whole project of our holiday had been in jeopardy and there must have been great heart burnings whether to cancel it. In any case I don't think my father had been coming for it was a time of year for his annual territorial camp. I suppose he had first helped to convey us, our belongings and the chicken house on its wheels to the Chilterns and then gone off to his camp in his khaki, which he was to wear for the next four years or so, while my mother looked after the practice. In any case we were on our own and I don't think we took Cook, so that the older ones had to work quite hard and didn't share our delicious sense of freedom. My two brothers with butterfly hunting, or fishing in the small stream around Thame, sometimes permitted me to come with them on the strict understanding that I behaved myself and didn't disturb the proceedings. I was quite aware of the honour bestowed on me and liked nothing better than to accompany them, especially chasing butterflies across the Downs. Oh, those butterflies of our youth. There seemed to be so many more of them and indeed, there were before modern farming methods destroyed their habitats. Our walled garden was full of them. How they glowed amongst the hot summer borders, sitting motionless on the flowers, fluttering above the buddleias, sunning themselves on the warm bricks of the garden wall. So near it seemed, almost with the reach but as you approached, stealthily and quietly, off they would go, tantalizing, mysterious, radiant creatures. Much as I loved to go with my brothers on expeditions I usually managed to get left behind. In my youth I lived in even more of a dream that I do now. Time and place meant nothing. Through getting left behind on one of those expeditions I had an experience which has remained vividly in my mind. Every detail is clear like a Pre-Raphaelite painting, not only because of the strangeness of the experience but because it precipitated an inner conflict. I knew that my brothers had set off down the grassy Roman road which went winding on past the house. At length I set off to follow them and soon found myself on unfamiliar ground. Hearing their voices far away to the right, I turned off the track and suddenly it seemed as though I had stepped into another world. I found myself in an extraordinary wood which was like nothing I had ever seen before. A deadwood wood which was smothered thickly in vivid green, spongy moss. This carpeted the ground and had spread up the flowing trunks of the great trees so that although they still stood upright they were dead. They had no leaves, only dry and brittle branches. The moss had covered the mounds of the rabbit burrows so that they looked like little thrones set about between the trees. Because of the moss my footsteps made no sound. Everything was silent, hushed. Nothing moved, there was no sign of life. I stood there, my heart beating loudly in the silence. Surely I had strayed into some enchanted wood out of a fairytale. It was eerie in the greenish light reflected from the moss and I was a little afraid. Then, all at once, I saw an enormous butterfly fluttering in and out, or was it a moth of the dead branches. It was the only living thing in that strange dead world. It came closer and closer and my heart beat faster. It was not only the creature’s beauty that stirred me but covetousness and ambition. What a prize to take to my brothers! I was sure it was something rare and sought after, if indeed it were real. But could it be real? It seemed enormous. If only I could catch it, but I had no net. I stretched out my hand. To my astonishment the butterfly alighted on it. Its touch was so light, so feathery that I could scarcely feel it, but there it was, mine for the taking. At first, a sense of great triumph flushed through me. I already saw the look of delight that would spring into Jackie’s face when I brought it to him, the merit and distinction which would be mine and these were very dear to me. To earn praise from Jackie was a most coveted honour. Now it was within my grasp. Yet I didn't close my fingers over the delicate creature. I much admired my brothers’ collection of butterflies all spread out in their cabinet in neat and labeled rows. I much enjoyed the excitement of the chase, the triumph of the capture of these elusive, glowing, fluttering creatures. Yes, I admired the collection but I didn't like the pins which secured the butterflies and somehow, although the colours were still bright, the wonderful glow had gone. And I didn't like the business with the ether which would kill the butterflies and their faint struggles. Yet to bring in such a wonderful specimen. To be the hero of the day. "Well done, little Vio … clever little Vio". The temptation was overwhelming. After all they said the ether didn't hurt, well not much, and my brothers didn't impale the poor things on pins as other people did and watch their dying struggles. No, it was all quite painless, yet… Oh, if only the butterfly would go… But still it lay there, looking up at me out of its large eyes, or so it seemed, and it was so trusting, so beautiful. No! I couldn't do it. I shook my hand suddenly and the great butterfly floated away, soaring up and up through the dead trees like a gleam of sunlight. Far away I heard my brother's voices. Now I didn't want to join them. I lay down on the cushiony moss and drifted off into my daydream. Yet still I heard voices and it seemed that they were calling me. It must be part of a dream, I thought. I must be asleep for now it appeared that I heard my father's voice calling as well, drifting in through the silence of my enchanted Wood. I felt genuinely afraid. I knew that my father was miles away. It must be his spirit, I thought. He had already been killed in this war that was why I was hearing and calling… calling…calling. Some while later I arrived back to find the house in something of turmoil. "Where have you been?" "We've been calling and calling". It seemed that the voices I had heard had been no dream. My father had been there and he had been calling me. They had indeed, all been looking and calling . . . for my father had been on a sudden 24-hour leave and came home to see us before finally going off with his regiment. Now he would go away and get killed, I thought morbidly, and I should never see him again. It was all because of that frightful wood and the butterfly. If I had captured it I would have taken it to my brothers and seen my father. Now I would never see him again. Never. Yet through my misery, I still felt the light touch of the butterfly on my hand and saw it rising higher and higher through the trees into the freedom of the sky. I never told anyone about it. I never told about the wood, never until today. It has lain like a green jewel in my mind all mixed up with the years of the war, the sadness of partings. This was the last episode I remember that halcyon summer before the dark clouds finally covered the sun. So ends the story, as told by Vio Prudence Turner years after the event. Vio was about eight years of age that summer. She was the sixth of seven children. The family is pictured on the first page in a photo taken very close to the time of the story itself. Since J.O. is not in uniform, the picture may date from slightly earlier, perhaps 1913. The story ends with the mention of “the dark clouds” covering the sun. The “dark clouds” of course, are a reference to the events unfolding on the continent at the time of the story. World War I was about to begin. Few suspected that this war would be as devastating as it turned out to be. But the “dark clouds” were a reference, too, to the devastating effects which the war would have upon the family. John Orlando, Vio’s father, was to spend the next five years as a doctor, first in the trenches of France, and later on the front in Italy and Austria. Vio’s older brother, Jack, who was fourteen at the time of the outbreak of the war, was to lose his life on the front, in France, less than a month before the end of the war, in 1918. Lucy, Vio’s older sister, was to take her own life in a moment of despondence in 1922. So, you see, those “halcyon” weeks at the Leathern Bottel, lived forever in Vio’s mind as the very last moment in which the family functioned as a whole. The subtitles to the story were written by Derek Turner, son of Vio. Derek and I spent some time researching the story and sorting through the countless other pubs named “Leathern Bottel” before landing on the very thing on the dirt path extension of Iknield Way on Hempton Wainhill.
Jack Denny-Brown (July 2024)
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Date of photo: 2015	Picture source: Google Streetview