THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



I 



CHAPTER I 



THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



The name of " South Country " is taken from a poem 

 by Mr. Hilaire Belloc, beginning — 



" When T am Hving in the Midlands, 

 They are sodden and unkind, 

 I light my lamp in the evening, 



My work is left behind ; 

 And the great hills of the South Country 

 Come back into my mind." 



The name is given to the south of England as distin- 

 guished from the Midlands, " North England ", and 

 " West England " by the Severn. The poet is thinking 

 particularly of Sussex and of the South Downs. In using 

 the term I am thinking of all that country w^hich is 

 dominated by the Downs or by the English Channel, or 

 by both; Cornwall and East Anglia have been admitted 

 only for the sake of contrast. Roughly speaking, it is 

 the country south of the Thames and Severn and east 

 of Exmoor, and it includes, therefore, the counties of 



B 



