A Cotswold Village; Or, Country Life and Pursuits in Gloucestershire

The ancient town of Cirencester--the Caerceri of the early Britons, the Corinium of the Romans, and the Saxon Cyrencerne--has been a place of importance on the Cotswolds from ti...

Whilst walking by the river one day in May I noticed a brood of wild ducks about a week old. The old ones are wonderfully tame at this time of year. The mother evidently dislike...

It is in the autumn that life in an old manor house on the Cotswolds has its greatest charm; for one of the chief characteristics of a house in the depths of the country surroun...

Every village seems to possess its share of quaint, curious people; but I cannot help thinking that our little hamlet has a more varied assortment of oddities than is usually to...

A very marked characteristic of the village peasant is his extraordinary honesty. Not one in ten would knock a pheasant on the head with his stick if he found one on his allotme...

It cannot be said that there are many pleasant walks and drives in the Cotswold country, because, as a rule, the roads run over the bleak tableland for miles and miles, and the...

The village is not a hundred miles from London, yet "far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife." A green, well-wooded valley, in the midst of those far-stretching, cold-lookin...

Nowadays, thanks in a great measure to Mr. Madden's book, the "Diary of Master William Silence," it is beginning to dawn on us that the Cotswolds are more or less connected with...

The finest days, when the trees are greenest, the sky bluest, and the clouds most snowy white are the days that come in the midst of bad weather. And just as there is no rest wi...

It is not surprising that in those countries which abound in sunshine and fresh, health-giving air, the inhabitants will invariably be found to be not only keen sportsmen, but a...

"Just in the dubious point where with the pool Is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank Reverted plays in undulating flow, Th...

Time passes quickly for the sportsman who has the good fortune to dwell in the merry Cotswolds. Spring gives place to summer and autumn to winter with a rapidity which astonishe...

"We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did; and so, if I might be judge, God never did...

Burford and Cirencester are two typical Cotswold towns; and perhaps the first-named is the most characteristic, as it is also the most remote and old-world of all places in this...

About the middle of May the lovely, sweet-scenting lilac comes into bloom. It brightens up the old, time-worn barns, and relieves the monotony of grey stone walls and mossy roof...

"I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright:-- And round beneath it, time in hours, days, years, Driven by the sphere...

The next morning you are up betimes, for the hounds meet at the house at nine o'clock. You are not sorry on looking out of your window to see that a thick mist at present envelo...

London is becoming miserably hot and dusty; everybody who can get away is rushing off, north, south, east, and west, some to the seaside, others to pleasant country houses. Who...

The Centre of Elizabethan Sport--A Digression on South Africa--The Halo of Association--A Day's Stag-Hunting in 1592--A Benighted Sportsman--"A Goodly Dwelling and a Rich"--An O...

A Walk in the Fields--Hedgerow Flowers--The Brookside--By "the Pill"--Remarks on Gray--A Fine Piece of Miniature Scenery--The Cricket Ground--The Book of Nature--At the Ford--Ha...

Strange Travellers--Smoking Concerts--The Carter's Song--Village Choirs--The Chedworth Band--Sense of Humour of the Natives--Their Geography "a Bit Mixed"--A Large Family--_Nobl...

Roman Remains--The Corinium Museum--The Church--Cirencester House--The Park--The Abbey--The "Mop" or Hiring Fair--A Great Hunting Centre--A Varied Country--The Badminton Hounds-...

Quaint Hamlet Folk--The Village Impostor--Rural Economy--Stories of the People--A Curious Analogy--Tom Peregrine, the Keeper--A Standing Dish--A Great Character--Peregrine's Acc...

Whitsun Ale--Sports of Various Kinds--The Peregrine Family at Cricket--_Prehistoric_ Cricket--A Bad Ground--A "Pretty" Ball--Charles Dickens on Cricket--Dumkins and Podder, Limi...

Remarks on Country Life--Thrashing--The Flail--Gipsies--Harvest Feasts--Fifty Years Ago--The Wolds in Autumn--By the Stream--Wildfowl--Migration of Birds--Lapwings--Winter Visit...

Loch Leven Trout--Curious Capture of an Eel--The Author Catches a Red-Herring--Macomber Falls--A Sad Episode--South Country Streams--Course of the Coln--Charles Kingsley on Fish...

Far from the Madding Crowd--An Old Farmhouse and Its Occupants--The Manor House--Inscription on Porch--Interior of the House--The Garden--A Fairy Spring--The Village Club--Labou...

Derby Day on the Coln--A Good Sportsman--The Right Fly--Pleasures of the Country--Peregrine's Quaint Expressions--Sport with the Olive Dun--A Fine Trout--Effects of Sheep-Washin...