1847.] PRESTWICH ON THE BAGSHOT SANDS. 3/9 



selves always barren and bare. In many parts of the lower Bagshot 

 sands more particularly, some of the most pleasing scenery in the 

 neighbourhood of London is to be met with. On their eastern border 

 they form a belt of country frequently of considerable beauty and 

 interest*, comprising the well-known parks and grounds of Clare- 

 mont, Esher, Painshill, Burwood, Oatlands,Woburn, Botley, St. Anne's 

 Hill, Virginia Water, Sunninghill, Sillwood, and further westward 

 those of Easthampstead, Brainshill, Heckfield, and the eastern and 

 higher part of Strathfieldsaye. Between these more prominent locali- 

 ties, and mostly just on the borders of the clays and sands, are many 

 pleasant villages t embosomed in woods, in which the oak and elm of 

 the clays are interspersed with the firs and larches of the sands J. 

 This is the general character of the country in most parts of the zone 

 of outcrop of the lowest strata of the Bagshot sands at their junction 

 with the London day. Even the upper sands themselves, although 

 generally barren, exhibit here and there a few cultivated spots, and 

 these are gradually extending § ; but as a mass, the district covered by 

 them is bleak and wild enough for a mountain moor |1 . There are how- 

 ever, between the upper and lower sands, a few green sand and argil- 

 laceous strata, whose outcrop in the transverse valleys intersecting the 

 ridges of the upper sands is marked by areas of considerable fertility, 

 well-wooded and beautifully verdant^. Such spots as these are like 

 oases in a desert, and viewed from the higher grounds around form 

 scenes of much beauty, heightened by the contrast of the surromiding 

 heath-clad hills, with their clear and well-marked outlines, broken only 

 by occasional conspicuous clumps of firs on the highest levels. 



"Range and Structure. 



The Bagshot sands have a far wider range and more important 

 development than has hitherto been assigned to them. The main 

 mass extends on the east from Esher and Claremont, with little inter- 

 ruption, westward to Heckfield and Strathfieldsaye, and from near 



* A walk from the Great Western at Slough, through Windsor and Virginia 

 Water, to the South-Western at Weybridge, and another from Weybridge over 

 St. George's Hill, by Cobham, Ockshot, Claremont, to the Esher station, leads 

 through a great part of this district. The walk from Windsor to Woking, through 

 Sunninghill and Chobham, is interesting and characteristic. The more peculiar 

 features of the Middle and Upper Bagshot sands may be seen by walking from the 

 Woking station over Goldsworthy and Knap Hills, through Bisley to Bagshot ; 

 thence over Penny Hill, along the Devil's Highway to Finchampstead, and over 

 Farley Hill to Reading. 



t Esher, Ockshot, Weybridge, Byfleet, Addlestone, Englefield, Eversley, Hazely, 

 WinchfipJd, Ewshot, Aldershot, Ash, Littlefield, Ripley and others. 



X An agreeable character of these mixed sandy and argillaceous lands is their 

 rapid absorption of excessive wet, thek general freshness (from the underlie of 

 clay), and good by-roads. 



§ Especially in the neighbourhood of Farnborough and Frimley. 



II Romping Downs, Chobham Ridges, Fleet-pond Heath, Hartford Bridge Flats, 

 Sandhurst Heath and Bagshot Heath are examples of this. 



^ As at Goldsworthy, Knap Hill, Pirbright, Bisley, Ottershaw, Windlesham, 

 Bagshot, Elvetham, the valley of the Blackwater, and of various other small streams. 

 The first two localities are celebrated for their nursery-grounds. 



VOL. III. PART I. 2d 



