56 C.C. NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



In a distant part of the town stands a venerable tree about which 

 a romantic legend has gathered, of which I will give you the summary 

 though I do not vouch for its authenticity. The inhabitants of 

 Swindon village found one day a certain Maude Bowen lying dead 

 in a brook and by her her uncle Godfrey pierced by an arrow. The 

 coroner found that it was a case oi felo de se, and unlike Ophelia's 

 coroner would not give Christian burial. She was buried in the cross 

 road with an elm stake run through her, which in course of time 

 became the present grand tree. Here her widowed mother used at 

 times to sit, and there on one occasion she was taunted by the Lord 

 of the Manor who had wished to woo Maude ; he sent his vassal to 

 take her away, when lo ! his vassal fell dead, transfixed by an arrow. 

 This in the opinion of those times was witchcraft and nothing else. 

 The old mother was condemned to perish by burning at the same 

 spot, but when the sentence was being executed the Lord of 

 the Manor fell a victim to the same sudden death. Who had shot 

 those three arrows ? Years after a white-haired man confessed to the 

 deed. He was called Walter the Archer, he had loved Maude, had 

 killed her uncle while he was trying to secure her in order to turn her 

 mother out of her cottage, and from his place of concealment had 

 subsequently shot the insolent vassal and the oppressive lord. Hence 

 the tree is known as Maude's Elm. 



I have mentioned the various causes that have given the town its 

 success in the past, and we here feel proud of belonging to an insti- 

 tution that is so sure a basis of its present and future prosperity, and 

 when we sing " Floreat Cheltonia " about the College we feel that we 

 are praying for the surest means of the success of the Garden Town 

 of England. 



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