94 
NATURE NOTES 
said that a clerk remained unnoticed in the room pretending to be asleep, and 
when discovered, Cromwell would have run him through the body but for the 
intervention of Thurloe. So the clerk escaped and warned the royal trio of 
their danger. 
In the square before the old arch took place many executions, and we read 
how a masked headsman, all in black, beheaded Lord William Russell in 1683, 
for alleged complicity in the Rye House Plot. The whole district is saturated in 
history, and it ought to be the duty of the County Council to preserve such 
ancient landmarks as fall into their hands. 
Nettlebed Common. — The following passages are from an 
interesting article, with reference to a Bill now before Parlia- 
ment, in a recent issue of the Times : — 
The Chiltern Hills form one of the most beautiful tracts of chalk downs to 
be found anywhere. The smooth expanse of turf, the closely nibbled furze 
clumps, and the weird junipers which are familiar to us in Surrey and Sussex, 
give place on the Chilterns to great beech woods, which spread a carpet of warm 
russet over the white ground. 
* * * * * 
There are few fences or hedges in the Chiltern country. In some places low 
banks mark off copse or wood ; in others the beech groves spring straight from 
the open down. It may be imagined that in such a country it is not easy to 
distinguish common land from land in private ownership ; and it is probable a 
large area has passed from one category to the other. The process is something 
of this sort. The beeches thrive in some corner of a common, which from this 
cause becomes less and less useful for purposes of pasture. A bank is thrown up, 
not high enough to exclude cattle, but sufficient to mark off the ground and 
indicate an enclosure ; in process of time uncertainty arises whether the piece of 
woodland ever was common, and finally it takes rank as private land. There 
can be no doubt that this process has gone on, and is going on, upon the Chilterns, 
and it is accelerated at the present day by the comparatively slight use which is 
made of common for grazing or wood-cutting. For purposes of human enjoy- 
ment, commons, of course, never had so high a value ; but the man who strides 
over the Chiltern Hills for the purposes of refreshing mind aud body is the last 
man to know anything of the ownership or legal characteristics of the beautiful 
scenes through which he passes. 
When, therefore, in such a country, we find a lord of a manor ready to dedi- 
cate to the public a large stretch of common land, and to put it out of danger 
of enclosure for all time, we may rejoice at once over the good fortune of the 
public and the handsome conduct of the landowner. Such an occasion for rejoic- 
ing is furnished by a Bill now before Parliament, entitled the “ Nettlebed and 
District Commons Preservation Bill.” Mr. Robert Fleming, of Joyce Grove, 
Nettlebed, is the owner of the manorial rights over a large tract of common land, 
of which the more notable portions are Nettlebed Common, Highmoor Common, 
and Highmoor Common Wood. The village of Nettlebed stands at the top of 
a steep ascent, five miles from Henley-on-Thames, and is said to occupy as high 
ground as any village in England. On both sides of the village lies the common 
— near the houses smooth turf, leading away to gorse and bushes, beech scrub, 
and the fine woods and cherry trees of Highmoor. A better specimen of a 
Chiltern common, breezy upland, fine down turf, well-grown beech and oak, it 
would be impossible to find. This beautiful tract, and others like unto it, Mr. 
Fleming proposes to place under the management of a body of conservators, 
representing the owners of the several groups of commons and the neighbouring 
local authorities. 
* * =:= * * 
By means of an exchange to be effected by the Act, a hill near Nettlebed 
village, which at some date was no doubt part of the common, but which has 
long since been enclosed and crowned with a windmill — we can imagine old 
references on the Court Rolls to the Lord’s Mill, and its occasional use for 
grinding the grain of the village — is to be restored to the common, in substitution 
