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for ever in attendance on her alabaster queen. And here are the ‘‘ waterworks,” 
or cuts, some miles in length, made by sanguine Rowland Vaughan, to control 
the vagaries of the river. Next, Vowchurch, where every blade and spray is 
rejoicing in the welcome moisture, and waving towards Heaven for more. And 
here is Peterchurch, amongst its meadows, knee-deep in verdure. Surely, from 
its luxuriance, this was well-named the Golden Valley! Roscoe has said of it: ‘‘ The 
far-famed Golden Valley, gay with yellow flowers, well deserves such a fairy-tale 
naine”; but now an archeologist at our elbow reminds us that the ancient British 
name for the river was Dwr—water—the root of all such river names as the 
English Derwent, the French Adour, the Peninsular Douro, and the Italian Dora. 
So ‘‘ Dyffryn Dwr,” the valley of water, was easily transformed by the monks 
into Val d’Or, which thus became the Golden Valley of to-day. Never mind—it 
is a real Golden Valley, and just now a valley of water, none the less. 
At Dorstone, the party was received by the Rev. Thomas Powell, the rector, 
whose little ‘‘Guide to the Golden Valley ” was already in the hands of most of them. 
He had, with great kindness, made the needful arrangements for the earlier part of 
the day, and for the benefit of such as might find it difficult to climb up to 
Arthur’s Stone, some of the neighbours most kindly sent a supply of saddle 
horses—handsome and useful animals, that did their duty cleverly. The first 
visit was made to the Church, which, as Mr. Powell pointed out, had been partly 
rebuilt, some fifty years since. He gave an account of the finding of an inscribed 
stone, commemorating the foundation of a chantry chapel on the north side of the 
chancel by Ricardus de Brito, one of the murderers of Thomas 2 Beckett; who, 
with his three companions, is believed to have lived in penitence on the Black 
Mountain, not far from this spot: a few relics of the structure, dedicated to St. 
Faith, A. D. 1171, had been preserved. Mr. Blashill observed, in confirmation 
of the probability of the story, that the Augustinian priory of Woolspring, near 
Weston-super-Mare was founded by Tracy, another of the murderers, But the 
stone now in question is lost, as well as the copies taken from it, so the story, 
though thus well verified, passes to the somewhat easy custody of tradition—a 
thing to be regretted. The Church still contains a very handsome piscina, a 
portion of its oak rood-loft, and some other remains of the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries. The school was next visited, and an account given of its endowment, 
with certain property in London, diminished in value to this day by the great 
fire of 1666. Still it seemed to be doing its work bravely upon a nice little 
assemblage of children, who remained as still as mice, and one could not help 
wishing them joy of the widened prospects which must result from the closer 
union of their Valley with the world beyond. Passing across the Village Green, 
where the ancient cross now carries a sundial (the temporal is so much nearer to 
us than the eternal !) a start was made for ‘‘ Arthur’s Stone.” After a stiff climb 
of half-an-hour this massive relic of pre-historic times was reached, and Mr. 
Piper read a paper giving the most likely conjectures as to its origin and use, 
as well as the old accounts of its condition. A broad table, some 18 feet long, 
stands on rude upright slabs, and other stones lie around, one large stone lying 
solitary, several yards away. Its ancient name of “‘Thor Stein,” seems to have 
