7a A MIDLAND VILLAGE :. GARDEN AND MEADOW. 



combination produces a little river of some pretension, wHch 

 enjoys a somewhat more rapid descent for some miles from 

 this junction, and almost prattles as it passes the ancient 

 3,bbey-lands of Bruerne and the picturesque spire of Shipton 

 church. 



Close to the point of junction, on a long tongue of land 

 which is a spur of Daylesford hill, and forms a kind of pro- 

 montory bounded by the meadows of the Evenlode and the 

 easternmost of its two tributaries, lies the village where much 

 of my time is spent in vacations. It is more than four hundred 

 feet above the sea, and the hills around it rise to double that 

 height; but it lies in an open country, abounding in com, 

 amply provided with hay-meadows by the alluvial deposit of the 

 streams already mentioned, and also within easy reach of long 

 stretches of wild woodland. For all along the valley the 

 observant passenger wiU have been struck with the long lines 

 of wood which flank the Evenlode at intervals throughout its 

 course ; he passes beneath what remains of the ancient forest of 

 Wychwood, and again after a considerable gap he has the abbey- 

 woods of Bruerne on his left, and once more after an interval of 

 cultivation his view is shut in by the dense fox-covers of 

 Bledington and Oddington, the border villages of Gloucester- 

 shire. It is just at this interval between Bruerne and Bledington 

 that the junction of the two streams with the Evenlode takes 

 place; so that from this point, or from the village already 

 spoken of, it is but a short distance to an ample and solitary 

 woodland either up or down the valley. Beyond that woodland 

 lies a stretch of pasture land which brings you to the foot of the 



