Woods round Stoncy- Cross. 



Mark Ash, and, circling for hours round the trees, will again 

 fly back to its favourite haunt. 



All these woods there are for rambles, flushed in the spring 

 with wood-anemones and wood-sorrel, set in the green moss 

 and the greener heather of the bilberry. Nowhere, too, in the 

 Forest, than in these woods, have I seen more lovely sunsets. 

 Through some deep-cut oriel of the trees have I watched the 

 sun begin to sink, each moment burning brighter, and then 

 suddenly its great brand of fire would fall, reddening each 

 tree trunk, and crimson billows of clouds come rolling east- 



r 



ward. 



Instead of following the Bingwood Eoad, beautiful as that 

 is in many parts, especially at Woody Bratley, with its old 

 thorn trees, we will turn off to the right. To the west now 

 rises Ocknell "Wood, and its clump of firs, a well-known land- 

 mark, and beyond that lies the new Slufter Inclosure, and 

 Bratley Plain, with its great graveyard of barrows. In front of 

 us stretches the East Fritham Plain, with its three barrows, 

 locally called " butts," the central known as Keachmore. At the 

 second mound we will go into North Bentley Wood, following 

 the wood-cutter's track. Very wild and unfrequented is this. 

 Here a stray deer will bound across the road ; and sometimes a 

 small herd of as many as six or seven are browsing on the ivy 

 clinging to some tree just felled, startled at the slightest sound, 

 and trooping off down the glades. The grey hen rises up at 

 our feet from the heather ; and, as we enter the wood, the 

 woodpecker shrieks out his shrill laugh, whilst a buzzard is 

 heavily sailing over the trees. 



The road winds on through the valley amongst oaks flecked 

 with silver flakes of moss, broken here and there by open glades 

 and green spaces of fern. At last, we reach Queen's North Lawn, 



Q us 



