32 THE THAMES AND ITS TRIBUTARY RIVERS. CHAP. 



miles of the source of the Churn, in a valley of upper lias, which 

 separates the lofty oolitic outlier of Cleeve-Cloud from the high ridge 

 above Winchcombe. The village of Charlton- Abbots is seated near 

 its source ; not far off, on the east, is an oval entrenchment. The 

 feeble origin of the water is an obscure gathering on the laminated 

 lias clays, scarcely more than a broken thread among water 

 plants. The course of the stream is southward, by Brockhampton, 

 Sevenhampton, Syreford, Andover's Ford, Frogmill, and Withing- 

 ton, at which places it receives strong springs. Here it turns 

 eastward, the lias disappears, and the woodland scenery of Rend- 

 combe on the Churn is repeated in the vicinity of Compton Park 

 and Stowell. At Foss Bridge the great Roman road crosses the 

 river, which below this point gives its name to the parishes of 

 Coin St. Denis, Coin Rogers, and Coin St. Aldwyn's. At Ched- 

 worth, on the estate of the Earl of Eldon, a Roman villa has been 

 explored with success. 



The dale of the Coin is continued northwards to meet a branch 

 of the stream which descends to Winchcombe. The line of this 

 remarkable valley is on a low anticlinal, as determined by Mr. Hull, 

 and this may probably account for the direction of the valley and 

 the lowness of the pass, which is only 750 feet above the sea, and 

 is overlooked by oolitic ridges from 950 to 1084 feet in height. 



Swelled by many fine springs in its course, the Coin, so small 

 at its origin, grows to a considerable stream at Fairford, where 

 4700 cubic feet in a minute were registered by Mr. Taunton, in 

 March 1 854, a time of full water. 



Fairford, famous for its church and the coloured glass windows 

 said (but erroneously) to have been designed by Albert Durer 

 famous also for the Saxon graves which yielded to Mr. Wylie a 

 rich treasure of arms and implements, glass, pottery and ornaments 

 of many kinds now deposited in the Ashmolean Museum at 

 Oxford is bordered by the Coin, which from this point carries its 

 full body of water. In some parts of the valley, where it traverses 

 the oolite, part of the stream finds subterranean channels in that 

 fissured and cavernous rock, and is much reduced in dry seasons ; 

 a common circumstance in limestone countries. The length of the 

 Coin is about twenty-five miles. 



The Leach. The Leach, which enters the Thames on the other 

 side of Lechlade, is a smaller stream than the Coin, with a shorter 



