36 THE THAMES AND ITS TRIBUTARY RIVERS. CHAP. 



Before joining the Thames, it receives from Woodstock, Wootton, 

 Glympton, and Heythrop the pretty rivulet called Glyme, or Glime, 

 whose origin is near Chipping-Norton. 



The Cherwell. A broadly-undulated tract of lias, capped here 

 and there by outliers of oolite, gives origin to branches of the Avon 

 of Warwickshire, the Nene of Northamptonshire, and the Cherwell 

 of Oxfordshire. The highest springs of these branches are traceable 

 to the caps of oolitic rock ; heavy rainfalls cause rapidly-rising 

 floods from the surfaces of lias, and thus considerable inundations 

 are frequent and hurtful along each of these rivers. The elevation 

 of the summit of drainage, taken at its lowest point, near Fenny- 

 Compton, on the line of passage from the Cherwell valley to that 

 of the Learn, is about 450 feet. 



A circle of one mile radius, near Charwelton, includes branches 

 of the three rivers named, to each of which belongs a conspicuous 

 hill, Shuckburgh overlooking the Learn, Arbury the Nene, and 

 Marston Hill the Cherwell. Old camps and entrenchments are 

 frequent in the district ; while a few miles to the north-east, and 

 a few miles to the south-west, are the ill-omened but beautifully- 

 situated ranges of Naseby and Edgehill. 



The principal source of the Cherwell is at Charwell House, whence 

 it flows to Charwelton, Church-Charwelton, and Woodford. Below 

 this place it receives rivulets from Byfield and Aston, on the west, 

 and a larger feeder from Canons- Ashby and Moreton-Pinkney, on 

 the east. Other branches come in near Trafford Bridge, on the 

 south, and the river, as it may now fairly be called, passes by 

 Edgcott (anciently Brinavce) to Cropredy, both places famous in 

 the Civil War ; the former as the resting-place of King Charles I 

 before his first great fight at Edgehill, the latter as the scene of 

 a skirmish between * hot Rupert ' and the Parliamentarians. 



lands 'set Eulangelade qui situs est in oriental! parte fluvii, qui nominatur Bladen ;' 

 and, in A. D. 777, marks the course of ' Bladene' by Deilesford, Eunelade, Ceastletone, 

 Cornuelle, Salteford, Deorneford, and Sipton, places all recognised on the banks 

 of the Evenlode. The name of Bladene occurs in the boundaries (landgemsera) of 

 a grant made by Offa in A.D. 779 to Eoueshame, of lands in Dunnestreatun, on the 

 line of the Fosse Way. Bladene is the name of the stream in a charter from Oswold, 

 Bishop of Worcester, in A. D. 969 ; and again in A. D. 979, in a gift of land at 

 Dseglesford by Archbishop Oswald. 



Evenlode is the name of a hamlet near the source ; Bladen that of a village not 

 far from the embouchure of the river. 



