78 SOUTH COUNTRY TROUT STREAMS 



and Great Gaddesden, runs a fourteen-mile course 

 by llcmel Hempstead, Boxmoor, and King's 

 Langley, and flows into the Colne at Rickmans- 

 worth. On its banks, or near by, are two or three 

 notable places, such as Grove Park, belonging to 

 the Earl of Clarendon ; Cassiobury, belonging to 

 the Earl of Essex, " a noble and delicious seat," 

 as it has been called ; and Moor Park. Of the 

 last named. Sir William Temple said, " It is the 

 sweetest place I think that I have ever seen in my 

 life at home or abroad." 



Trout are pretty plentiful in the Gade, and they 

 run up to 3 Ibs.^ The largest of which I have a 

 reliable record was 5 lbs. The red spinner and the 

 march brown are capital flies on this stream, and 

 the May-fly comes on in the last week in May. 

 There are no angling clubs on the Gade, which 

 is nearly all strictly preserved by the riparian 

 owners. The springs of the Gade are very nume- 

 rous, and the stream flows between chalk hills 

 with a clay soil. 



1 The Gade in Cassiobury Park contains more trout of 

 large size than I ever saw in an English stream. In June 

 1897, the Hon. Sydney Holland landed upwards of eighty 

 with the May-fly in a single day. The following day, fishing 

 for a short time only, I landed thirty-one, keeping nine 

 which weighed I32lbs. — Ed. 



