MENACED BY BUILDING

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 71, 20 September 1930, Page 25

MENACED BY BUILDING

CHURCHYARD OF GRAY'S ELEGY

■■ The ehurcli and churchyard of Gray's immortal "Elegy" at Stoke Poges is in imminent danger of being imprisoned by new buildings and robbed of its beauty and seclusion.

The process oJ; Lriek-and-inortar growth has been intensified of recent years, and many warnings have been raised, says the "Daily Telegraph." As far back as two centuries ago individual enterprise saved the tiny estate of Jordans,six miles away, where lie1 the remains of William Perm, the founder of Pennsylvania, and several of his kinsfolk. But, except that the National Trust has acquired the adjacent field, with Gray's memorial in it, nothing effectual has been done to pay like honour to the poet.

There is a widespread desire to ensure the right perpetuation of the "country churchyard" that is said to have inspired the most famous poem in the language, and thus become what has been called "the best-loved shrine in English poetry." Accordingly the Perm-Gray Society has now been formed by a group of local enthusiasts, and options have been secured in order to.proservo the immediately surrounding land. The objects aro fourfold: To purchase and preserve the surrounding fields; to complete the purchase of the Manor House and 30 acres of land reaching down to tho lake; to transform the Manor House into a permanent museum in memory of Gray and Perm; to acquire tho remaining land as a private park belonging to the society's members, and a pieco of land adjoining the churchyard in which members can be buried if. thej so direct.

Three years are left in which the project may be carried out, and it is for this term that options have been

acquired. To achieve tlio fnll programme it is estimated that a sum of £30,000 will be required, and nearly £2000 has been promised already. One way of raising the remainder is to admit lif o members to the society on payment of four guineas, or else an annual subscriptioj' of a guinea for five years.

Tho church, dedicated to St. Giles, is annually visited by an average of 100,----000 people, many of whom are visitors from the overseas Dominions and the United States. It ;s calculated that a fee of a shilling apiece from those visiting the museum would sufiiee to cover all annual expenses and keep the gardons ani park in order. For the museum a large number of relies and treasures have been collected or promised, and one important acquisition now available is "an authentic oil portrait of G-ray from the brush of Benjamin Wilson. ,

As indicating the need for action it may be said that no fewer than 150 factorie have been set up during the last few years in the course of developing the Slough Trading Estate and similar ventures more. or less in touch with the Great Western Railway, and those havo entailed extensive building schemes in the way of house accommodation in various grades.

A coloured map issued with tho printed appeal to-day shows that a broad belt of housing plots has advanced from the railway line northwards, where houses and other buildings have already been built or are in prospect of building.

Tho secretary for tho society is Mr. T. H. Robinson, Church Cottage, Stoke Poges, and influential ownerj and sympathisers have joined as vice-presidents under tho chairmanship of Dr. Montague Ehodes James, Provost of Eton College.