li 



civil contentions, once unhappily so rife in England, plundering soldiers, like 



those mentioned by Southey in his " Battle of Blenheim," may have done here 



as they did to the unfortunate occupant mentioned by the poet : — 



" They burned his cottage to the ground, 

 And he was forced to fly ; 

 So with his wife and child he fled, 

 And had not where to lay his head." 



Doubtless the Asarabacca has been very long naturalized here, as shown by the 

 hold it has taken upon the ground, but to endorse its growing here in the days of 

 Caractacus is more than can truly be done. Near the same spot the many-flowered 

 Solomon's Seal(Po1ygonu7n multiflorum) was gathered by several of the botanists, 

 and this is also indicative of garden cultivation. 



"When the botanists had contented themselves with specimens, the high 

 ground of the Forest had again to be surmounted, and the road was kept for a 

 considerable distance. Here a division took place, a few gentlemen kept to the 

 programme, and had a lovely walk round the northern boundary of tbe Forest, 

 whilst the main body went direct to the Chapel Farm house, which has recently 

 had so much attention drawn to it as the actual spot, and probably the chapel 

 itself of the Lollards, in the 14th and 15th centuries. The high ground of the 

 Forest on its northern side dips down suddenly into the extensive plain below. 

 The walk round its edge is singularly fine, and the views from it are varied and 

 interesting. The plain itself is rich and smooth. It might be, as it probably 

 once was, a vast lake, and beyond it, with Harley's mountain and the little conical 

 tree-covered Berkeley's knoll in the foreground, a succession of hills \ipon hills 

 stretch in every direction. Happy he who had with him the Ordnance map to 

 make out their various names, and recognise Brampton Brian park bill, Coxwall 

 knoll, Caer Caradoc, and the numerous other summits of interest in view. It 

 was a long round, but for varied interest and beauty on such a day, it takes rank 

 with the finest scenery of Herefordshire. 



At the Chapel Farm the parties reunited, and glad enough were many of 

 the wearied explorers to be refreshed with a draught of the " famed Silurian 

 juice," as Phillips, the cider-poet, expresses it, which was liberally supplied by 

 the kind and attentive resident of the place. The Forest district affords a greater 

 up and down pilgrimage than had been calculated upon by many, and before 

 the day's work was done, the "under five miles walk" of the programme must 

 have been greatly exceeded, for in such a country a crow's flight may not be 

 taken by a f eatherless biped. 



The Chapel Farm hoxise has little about it to attract attention on a first 

 aspect, but the more closely it was examined the more it grows in interest, and 

 the more all those interesting features come out — its position east and west — its 

 rich carved-oak beams and roof ties of the XlVth. century, and its communion 

 table with the moveable top of a somewhat later date, and which have been so 

 minutely described and so well sketched by Mr. Blashill in the "Woolhope Club's 

 Volume of Transactions for 1869, that it is not necessary to allude to them 

 further. That this place was the refuge of some of the leading Lollards during 



