ii4 -d Midland Village : Garden and Meadow, 



more than a ditch ; but shortly after passing the 

 historic lawns of Daylesford, it is joined by two 

 other streams, one descending from the slope of 

 the Cotswolds, and the other from the high ground 

 of Chipping Norton eastwards. These two join the 

 Evenlode exactly at the point where it enters 

 Oxfordshire, and the combination produces a 

 little river of some pretension, which enjoys a 

 somewhat more rapid descent for some miles from 

 this junction, and almost prattles as it passes the 

 ancient abbey-lands of Bruerne and the picturesque 

 spire of Shipton church. 



Close to the point of junction, on a long tongue 

 of land which is a spur of Dayle'sford hill, and 

 forms a kind of promontory bounded by the 

 meadows of the Evenlode and the easternmost of 

 its two tributaries, lies the village where much of 

 my time is spent in vacations. It is more than 

 four hundred feet above the sea, and the hills 

 around it rise to double that height ; but it lies 

 in an open country, abounding in corn, amply 

 provided with hay-meadows by the alluvial deposit 

 of the streams already mentioned, and also within 

 easy reach of long stretches of wild woodland. 



