CHAPTER I 

 The Surroundings ot Lord Liltord's Home 



The life and work of Lord Lilford was to so great 

 an extent inseparably related to his home, that it seems 

 necessary to give some idea of this from the point of 

 view of a visitor. 



The nearest town to Lilford of any pretensions is 

 Oundle, which lies on the Midland Railway, about half- 

 way between Kettering and Peterborough ; for Lilford 

 is in the north-west corner of Northamptonshire, on the 

 borders of what was once Rockingham Forest. It is in 

 the valley of the river Nene, which, rising near the 

 Haddons, runs the length of the county, and crosses the 

 junction of Lincoln, Norfolk and Cambridge to enter 

 the Wash. 



"Ours," writes Lord Lilford (August 5th, i860) 

 " is a deep, slow-moving, muddy, weedy stream, producing 

 pike, perch, eels, roach, carp, tench, dace, bream, ruff, rudd, 

 chubb, bleak and gudgeon, and very rarely a trout." ' 



1 To the Rev. Canon Tristram. 



