The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-07-26
THE ENGLISH BERKSHIRE
 DOWNS.

mere IS a W0nderIul contrast IO eye and mind about one of the typical Sleepy Follows that lie, like creek of the sea, between the great green shoulders of the Berkshire Downs. Above, the crest of the hill is knobbed and scared with earthworks and bar rows innumerable, turf-wrapped mon-' uments of the dim, prehistoric people who once thronged these hills, when all else was fierce, impossible jungle. Below a single farmstead, often aban- doncd ard in ruins, alone of human habitations breaks the smooth contour of the hanging slopeS or waits a lone ly thread of smoke down the sinuous, level cornlands that floor this blind al- ley into the hills. To-day depopula- tion, solitude, abandonment; in that dim era. the central concentration of existing human activity. The continu- al presence of those camps and tumult, ancient roads. and defaced and silent Notifications heightens in strange and fascinating degree the serene and kindly solitude of the breezy downs which is always so grateful to the rambler fresh from cities.
 At the end of June this little-known tract of country is at it's very best. The scanty unharvested hay crop that cov- CTS the even turf is full of flowers that wait light, clean scent, and advanc- ing summer has warmed the far vistas over the great Thames valley to an aI- most southern hue, Even on days when. the air by the riverside below hangs moist and heavy, the hill-crowns 500 feet above are skinned by breeze of upper heaven that Is full of cham paghe-like exhilaration. Rolling spurs of smooth green turf 1ut into the vale, and, resting upon their junlper-dotted summits, we hear only the cry of the peewits or the, grasses signing in the wind and sunshine, while the lower earth spread far beneath us seems as remote from our present state as q landscape in dream.
 The downs are reached most easily from Goring and Streatly station, be- tween which and Paddington the rive traffic has called into being an excel lent service of trains all through tn sun mer. It isqa ashort and beautiful miles walk from the station into Streatley village; and from the cross roads by the Bull Hotel we can make for the downs, either by the road to AldWorth, that starts straight up ths almost rrecipiGous hill at the side Of this capital old, ,,inn, or else turn the right along the old Oxford coach road, then turn first to the left, and first to the left again. By the latter route we rise more slowly, but make more df- rcctly for the heart of the down coun- try. Seven miles from Streatley viI- lage lies East Ilsley, which is a capital center for longer walk or weekend | txcrHsion. It is two and a half miles from Compton station, on the brancf, line. from Didcot to Newbury. and the | best of its many inns is the Lamb.
 There are few villages in England l better worth a visit than Aldworth. a lonely little place on the edge of the downs, with immense views over all l the country for thirty or forty miles round. It has some fine old Berkshire 1 cottages, half-timhered and faced with red weather-tiltng, but it's chief glory is it's church and churchyard yew. This tree is freely ascribed by the in- | habitants to any period of ancient his- | tory that may be named, but 1t Is clear ly of immense antiquity, and is a striking spectacle with it's squat, swoI- len trunk, like an African bacbab. and the chain hanging from one of it's shunken boughs on which, or on it's lineal predecessor, the bodies of high Waymen caught on the downs used once to dangle in edifying corruption. The interior of the small and ancient church is more remarkable picture still It is full to overflowing of huge altar tombs, bearing recumbent effigies of more than Iife-size. They are ranged in three rows down the narrow building, and for the last five hundred years can have left but little room for animate worshippers. They belong to the family of the De la Beches, who
 had castle here in the fourteenth
 century, and are locally reputed to have been giants, as indeed they must have been, and giantesses too, if their effigies do them justice.
 There are few districts for English
 orchid hunting so good as the wide chalk hills, for these quaints and
 beautiful flowers have here the soil and the surroundings they love. Half-a.
 dozen species at least, including some of the scarcer and more beautiful
 variations, are to be found upon the
 downs within mile or two of Aldwortt Church. On these midsummer eve-
 nings the strangely tinted and fretted
 butterfly orchid fills the isolated patch
 es of woodland, where it grows with ar almost overpowering sweetness. Very