The proud Marlovian probably doesn't want to continue reading...
Below is a rundown of comments made by those who found Great Marlow a bit less than to their liking.
The Town As A Whole
London Daily News opinion piece 1848 = "One of the most depraved towns in Bucks". It was apparently badly paved, badly drained, on the road to nowhere, those involved in the trade of skewer making* pretty much all criminals, one of the most politically corrupt places around etc. [That last bit was alas 100 per cent truth]. The list of insults goes on a while longer. I've summarized.
South Bucks Standard 1860 = says more lectures and adult education classes needed in Marlow to "uplift the minds of the people above the grovelling habits of yore for which they were famous".
Edward James Mortimer Collins 1869 = "rather commonplace and not particularly lively".
Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 1889 = "A Disappointment".
Photography (a journal) 1895= liked the bridge but "There is little of interest in the town itself".
Fishing And Fish Culture Journal 1886 = "In the town there is nothing particularly worthy of note". The fishing was however good and the air healthy it said.
Bucks Chronicle and Bucks Gazette 1859 - "It is seldom any change occurs in the dull monotony of Marlow life, it being one unvaried round of work, live, eat, drink, sleep and die".
The Church
The present All Saints church was erected in the 1830s at the cost of the 1600s church there before it. The claim that that old church was too far decayed and so must be replaced was doubted by many Marlovians at the time and the fact that the builders actually found the old structure hard to knock down suggests that it was not quite that decrepit. The flooding problems that the new church was supposed to avoid persisted after it was built for at least some time. The faux Gothic style of the church was seen as embarrassingly vulgar by more than a few residents.
So our Marlow ancestors or at least some of them would maybe not have been quite so hurt by the following comments from visitors about the church, and might instead have been nodding in agreement:
Bucks Gazette 1835 = "An extravagant pile of deformity". So bad it could not even be classed as any form of architecture, apparently.
South Bucks Free Press 1862 said despite large amounts of money spent on the church= "We have not the satisfaction of looking upon it as one of the grand architectural achievements of the age". In a different edition they said that the church was "very widely condemned as being one of the most barren, naked and worst conceptions of church architecture that could have been offered". It went on to describe the pulling down of the old church as a lamentable and costly blunder.
Book The Royal River: The Thames From Source To Sea, 1885 = said that the old church "could hardly have been as ugly as the present building". It suggested viewing the new one from a safe distance only.
Handbook for Travelers In Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire 1882= "An ugly modern structure".
Charles George Harper in Thames Valley Villages, 1910. "A very clumsy take on a Gothic structure..A fine old Norman structure was destroyed to make way for this.."
*To find out more about skewer making in Marlow see our post here.
More posts related to the churches of Marlow and their people see the Church Related option on the menu. For other general posts about everyday life in old Marlow, see the index here
Other Marlow quotes and complaints here and
Sources:
Article "A Stream of Pleasure" by Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Fennell. 1889. Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine. Volume 38. Via Google Books. Accessed March 2021.
The Daily News 30th November 1848, copy held British Library Archive. Accessed by me March 2021 via the BNA.
Photography [journal], Volume 7 page 399. Digitized by Google. Accessed March 2021.
The Royal River: The Thames From Source To Sea, 1885 by Cassell.
Handbook For Travelers In Berkshire Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire published by John Murray 1882.
South Bucks Free Press March 22nd 1862. Newspaper copy at British Library archives accessed via the BNA March 2021.
South Bucks Standard January 21st 1860. As above.
The Ivory Gate Volume One by Edward James Mortimer Collins. Published by Hurst and Blackett. Held at Oxford University Library. Digitized by Google.
Article - The Anglers Map of the Thames by F C Parker, in Fishing, Fish Culture and The Aquarium Journal May 1886, digitized by Google and accessed April 2021.
Bucks Chronicle and Bucks Gazette, 01 January 1859, as above
Written by Charlotte Day. Researched by Charlotte Day and Kathryn Day.
©Marlow Ancestors. If using this research credit this blog and link here to make sure our sources remain credited for information provided. Thanks!