282 AN OPEN CREEL 



widespread, a village whose very existence is an answer 

 to those who cavil at the English nation for not being 

 blessed with artistic sense. I have known rises from 

 four-pounders missed because the angler was so busy 

 admiring Blagdon village, with its grey church tower 

 and wealth of fruit blossom, and one cannot praise it 

 more highly than by that confession. On the left lie 

 richly wooded slopes with a picturesque farm or two 

 nestling among the trees. In front is the lake almost 

 as far as one can see, perhaps three-quarters of a mile 

 wide at the Blagdon end, and gradually narrowing till 

 one comes to the mouth of the River Yeo, which runs 

 in past Ubley Mill, grey stone among the trees, where 

 are the stock-ponds and hatchery. All round the lake 

 are hills, Blackdown, the highest point of the Mendips, 

 being one of them. Its thousand odd feet show very 

 impressively when thunder threatens, and afford a 

 superb spectacle when the lightning plays upon their 

 summit. To agitated human beings at that time the 

 ascent to the village and shelter is formidable. I shall 

 never forget the race that Lorenzo and I raced one 

 Sunday afternoon, or the breathlessness of our entry 

 just before the deluge. 



The lake itself is more than commonly attractive, 

 apart from its surroundings. It is no mere ordinary 

 sheet of water with a deep portion in the middle, 

 shallow portions at the sides, and the other features of 

 " expectedness," if I may so term it. A chart showing 

 all the variations and inequalities in its depth and 

 bottom would be an interesting but complicated thing. 

 Winding tortuously through the middle of the lake is 

 the old river-bed of the Yeo, and criss-crossed every- 



