38 



One can fancy the disgust of the office drudgery of those days driving the high- 

 spirited boy to run away, and it may also be readily imagined how his better 

 thoughts had begun to jirevail by the time he sat to rest on Highgate Hill, and 

 heard the bells ring out in fancy — 



*' Turn a^ain, Whittinijton, 

 Lord Mayor of Lcndon ! " 



A stone marks liis vesting-jilace, and alms houses for thirteen poor men on High- 

 gate Hill remain to bear out the tradition. He was thrice Lord Mayor of London, 

 and his last mayoralty was in the year 1419. These jiarticulars have been chiefly 

 derived from Mr. Cooke's account of the parish of Soler's Hope, in the History of 

 Herefordshire (Vol. iii., jip 139 — 142), a book which demands its place in every 

 county library that deserves the name. A full description will be found there, 

 with the pedigree of the family, and the arguments fcjr the probability of his 

 having supplied cats, so lucratively to himself, to destrfiy the rats of Madeira, the 

 Canaries, and islands off the coast of Africa. 



The church of Soler's Hope was not visited. Nothing remains there referring 

 to .the Whittingtons, but a portion of a very ancient shield bearing their coat of 

 arms. 



The extreme seclusion and rurality of the district was well experienced to-day, 

 in its narrow lanes and distant cottages ; the weedy so-called "summer fallows," 

 and the solitary hugh chimney-stacks of cottages ruined and gone. The trees so 

 shaded the roads, and the hedges were so wild that the travellers had ever to 

 watch against losing their hats from the overhanging boughs of an oak, or getting 

 their faces scratched by the thorns on a long spray of wild roses. Well might the 

 few inhabitants that were to be seen at the scattered cottages gaze at the unwonted 

 sight of so many visitors winding along the lanes, and give but doubtful answers 

 as to where Oldbury Camp was to be found. The Ridge Hill— the scene, up to 

 twenty years since, of the annual saturnalia of the district, the " Wake " — was in 

 full sight. " It's the Aymestry Limestone," said the President, with such geolo- 

 gical emphasis that none dare dispute it; and on reference to his map the way to 

 the camp was clear. Down another pitch and up another hill brought the travellers 

 to a narrow lane-end, where orders were given to descend from the carriages and 

 mount the hill. 



OLDBURY CAMP 

 and Oldbury hill on which it is situated, form the southern extremity of Marcle hill, 

 or the Ridge hill, as this end of it is called. The camp is elliptical in shape, and 

 contains an area of about thirty acres, now divided into two fields. The entrance 

 was on the northern side, and it is still well marked by embankments on either side 

 covering the approach. The ditch, or fall in the ground, on the western and part 

 of the siiuthern sides, varies from about six to fourteen feet ; but, on the eastern 

 and northern sides, the fields extend beyond the ditch, and the entrenchments are 

 now regularly ploughed over, and are almost obliterated by cultivation. The 

 camp is not lofty, nor is the hill difficult of approach. The barometers carried to- 

 jlay, as compared at fixed times with that at the Free Library in Hereford, made 



