NUNBURNHOLME 47 



at all seasons of the year one of the healthiest in the 

 land a fact which ancient races of men, .whether 

 Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, or Dane, discovered 

 when they 'formed settlements here. The face of 

 the country has been wondrously changed since 

 the beginning of the present century, when the 

 whole of the wold district was a vast down, forming 

 huge sheep-walks and strays for cattle, as well as 

 one of the favourite haunts of the bustard, till Sir 

 Tatton Sykes discovered the capabilities of the soil 

 for turnip and corn growing, and set the plough 

 to work with astonishing results. What the wolds 

 have lost in verdure and picturesqueness they have 

 thus gained in richness. 



It must be noted that Nunburnholme lies at the 

 extreme edge of these wolds. It is this position 

 that makes the view from the summit of Totter- 

 downhill, just referred to, so strikingly varied, alter- 

 nating as it does between long miles of level plain 

 bounded by distant hills, the rich and wooded 

 valley just below you, and the wavy sea of charac- 

 teristic wold country beyond it. 



The Rectory house itself, like so many of the old- 

 fashioned parsonages of the country, shows traces of 

 enlargement at different times. Immediately before 

 Mr. Morris's arrival two wings had been added to 

 the old house by his predecessor, which quite altered 

 the character of the building from what it was thirty 

 years before, when John Keble visited his friend, 

 Charles Dyson, a former rector, and whose illus- 

 trious name figures in one of the parish register 



