DAYS IN DOVE DALE 89 



leave the turnpike road, pass through a hand- 

 some park-like gate with stone pillars, sur- 

 mounted by an escutcheon bearing the Walton 

 and Cotton monogram, and the date 1660, 

 and follow an open coach drive for an eighth 

 of a mile or so, which winds upwards through 

 a pleasant green and banky meadow ; and 

 when you reach <k The Izaak Walton " you 

 will find little or nothing to indicate that it is 

 an hotel ; it has more the look of a substantial 

 rose and clematis-clad farmhouse. 



There is no outward signboard to invite 

 your entrance ; it is too well known to need 

 such commonplace insignia. 



It stands on a gentle eminence, backed up 

 by the handsome hill called Bunster, and 

 flanked on the left by green meadows leading 

 down to "The Dove" and the entrance to 

 the Dale, and beyond that, by the most 

 conspicuous of all the hills, the well-known 

 Thorpe Cloud, and on the right by more 

 meadows and a spur or angle of the Bunster. 



Looking southward from the front is the 

 green meadow already mentioned, at foot of 

 which runs the road leading to the pretty 

 village of Ham, and beyond this road at a 



