230 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1903 
Where woods and pasture begin they say it is not wold 
country. 
This is an interesting example of how the original meaning of a 
word becomes lost, and then quite a different interpretation is given to 
it. Wold originally meant wood, and the Cotteswolds obtained their 
name from being a great wooded tract. But now the characters of the 
Cotteswolds are an open, almost treeless expanse, stone walls, and 
stonebrash—a sheep and corn growing country; the present day 
inhabitants consider that these are the essential ‘ wold’ characters. 
Directly one passes from these conditions to a wooded area, then such 
area is said not to be Cotteswold country, because it has not the 
‘wold’ character, it is wooded, which is a contradiction in terms. 
Yet there is some truth underlying this generalization. The essential 
feature of the Cotteswold woods would have been trees like beech, 
which grow on the stonebrash ; but the present day wooded tracts_are 
the clay areas, where the oak is the chief denizen. So where the trees 
have gone there remains the stonebrash area as typical Cotteswold ; 
and hence it is the great stonebrash tract in Gloucestershire and parts 
of adjoining counties, from the Inferior Oolite to the Cornbrash, which 
is rightly taken as Cotteswolds: this is the arable tract. This area is 
bounded in a great measure by two broad clay belts, that of the Lias and 
that of the Oxford Clay: these are the wood and pasture tracts. 
GENERAL DEFINITION OF THE COTTESWOLDS. 
Considering the various details supplied by literature, 
and the information kindly given by correspondents, it 
is possible to frame the following general definition of 
the Cotteswolds :— 
High ground mostly in Gloucestershire, bounded on 
the south-west by the Vale of Berkeley, on the west by 
the Vale of Gloucester, on the north-west and north by 
the Vale of Evesham, on the north-east by the Vale of 
Red Horse, on the east by the Vale of Moreton and the 
Evenlode Valley, on the south-east by the Vale of White 
Horse, on the south by the valley of the Bristol Avon. 
The western edge is precipitous, and generally more than 
700 feet at the southern end, to about 900 feet at the 
northern end, above sea level; though there is a consider- 
able area, especially towards the northern part, which rises 
to 900, 1000, and more feet. The highest point is near 
the old race-course at Cleeve Hill, 1083 feet, the next 
