SEVEN miles over the hills from Churn to Coln, and ten from Coln to Windrush-such is the bracing ride before us this morning. After last night's frost the mid-October sun is already high above the broad acres of stubble and dew-drenched down, as we quit the capital of the Cotswold by the eastern gate, and set our faces towards Bibury and Burford. The tall hedges are festooned with silvery wreaths of Traveller's Joy, and trees and hedgerow alike are fast assuming all the varied hues of autumn, the pale yellow of the ash, the deeper yellow of the elm, the rich brown of the oak, and the fiery red of the beech. Three miles out we diverge from the line of Akeman Street which we have hitherto followed, and passing through Barnsley cross the Coln at Bibury bridge. As we ascend the hill beyond, we take our last look at Bibury Court and church, and soon cross the infant Leach, where it comes down from Northleach, and Lord Sherborne's hunting Park, to find its way through the Keble country to the Thames at Lechlade. A mile further the lonely village of Aldsworth lies on the hillside to our left. Aldsworth is certainly one of the places where farming still flourishes; I doubt if it contains a single inhabitant who is not in some way connected with the rearing of sheep or the tillage A A 354 ALDSWORTH CHAP. of the soil. Resident parson it has none, and has not had for years at present he comes from Fairford, six miles to the south, and formerly he came from Turkdean, six miles away to the north. This was a perilous journey in those days, up hill and down dale, and not one to be lightly undertaken in bad weather : the oldest inhabitant will tell you how it was the custom to post a sentinel at a window in the church tower with his eye fixed upon the ridge that bounds the northern horizon. If he descried Turkdean parson's gig outlined upon the summit, he gave the signal, and the bell was rung for service: if no gig appeared, the villagers for that Sunday went without their service. It is only fair to add that there is no danger of such a deficiency in future, for a vicarage house is now being built, and Aldsworth will soon have its vicar resident in its midst. From a notice affixed to the church door it may be inferred that with some of the inhabitants it is a custom to leave the church before the conclusion of the service, to the disturbance of the rest of the congregation. Perhaps this is a survival from the days when the services were so irregular; but matters must have been much worse in the seventeenth century, if anything like the same state of things prevailed here as at Ciceter, where it was found necessary to fence off the west end of the church by closing the aisles with strong spiked gates, which were opened only for the admission of the respectable part of the community, while the space without was the resort of idlers, dogs, and children. It was the duty of one of the officials to keep order among this unruly assemblage, but he found the task a hard one, and in 1641 it was ordered that in consequence of the continuance of "divers abuses in the church by unruly boys and children making a noise in the time of divine service and sermons, to the great disturbance of the minister and congregation" the sexton should "henceforth walk about in the church and see a reformacion therein, and if he find them unruly shall pen them in the vestry or belfry until sermon be ended, that they may have such correction XV ALDSWORTH CHURCH 355 for their fault as shall be thought fit by some of the best of the inhabitants." Aldsworth church occupies a commanding position at one extremity of the village, and three centuries of neglect and defacement have hardly succeeded in obliterating all its interesting features; witness the quaint grotesques on the north side of the body of the church, with the richly ornamented corner buttress, and the tower with its short broach spire, which some genius with a nautical turn of mind has attempted to set off with four stiff ugly pinnacles, for all the world like miniature lighthouses. The visitor had better not inspect the interior, unless he wishes to see what the churchwardens a few generations back could do. It Just below the church is a beautiful old house, surrounded by a pleasant garden. It looks as if it ought to be the parsonage, and perhaps it once was. At any rate it is here that we have borrowed the church key, and after calling to return it, we may regain the high road by the drive. On the south side of the road, at the fifth milestone from Burford, you will find "Bibury Race Course" with its "Grand Stand" marked in the old ordnance map. has disappeared from the new survey, and few traces of it are now to be seen-yet here it was that the once famous Bibury Club held their race meetings down to the middle of the last century. This club seems to have been formed when the enclosures of 1775 put a stop to the races which had long been held on Upton Downs a few miles nearer Burford. The palmy days of the Bibury Club were those of a hundred years ago, when the races were patronised by the first gentleman in Europe. In Nimrod's Life of a Sportsman may be seen a coloured plate of the course, with his Royal Highness, mounted on his favourite crop-eared cob, receiving the salutes of the leading members of the club. The Prince himself stayed at Sherborne, but every spare bed in Bibury and Burford (the course is exactly half way between these two 356 BURFORD CHAP. places) was occupied by the multitude of visitors who crowded to the sports. The Oxford man would hire a tandem and drive over for the day, and to ensure his getting back to College the same night would send on a pair of fresh horses for the return journey. If, like Nimrod's hero and his friend, he had sat too long over the bottle at Burford the consequences were apt to be disastrous. As for the earlier Burford races, like Dover's meeting at Campden, they appear to have grown out of the Whitsuntide merrymaking. At least as early as 1676 they had become an annual affair. Nor did they by any means stand alone; the open downs afforded many a good stretch of galloping ground, and where this was within easy reach of a town, as at North Cerney and Baunton near Ciceter, horse racing was sure to become popular. Charles II. twice visited Burford. The second occasion was in March, 1681, during the session of the Oxford Parliament, when the King found it convenient to have the Newmarket Royal Plate run for at Burford, thus anticipating for once the date of the regular meeting. The account of his Majesty's two days' jaunt, given by a contemporary print, is particularly interesting as illustrating the sporting possibilities of a county still unenclosed. At six o'clock on the morning of the 17th the King left Oxford for Witney in his coach. There he mounted a horse which was in readiness, and rode hawking across the downs to Burford. Here he was met by the Corporation and presented with a rich silver-laced saddle with holsters and bridle "worth about fifty guineas." Then after dining with Squire Lenthall at the Priory, he attended the races, and when they were over he proceeded to Cornbury Park, where he spent the night as the guest of Lord Clarendon. After dinner the next day, he took horse and hawked across the country through Wychwood Forest to " Woodstock plain,"-Campsfield that is, where his coach met him and brought him. back to Oxford. It had of old been a common practice to carry a hawk on a long cross-country journey, which might XV BURFORD TOWN 357 be flown at any chance game that the rider put up. Even long business journeys were beguiled in this fashion; Richard Cely, for instance, the wool merchant, would ride down to Gloucestershire with his hawk on wrist, and if he could bring a fairly furnished game bag to his inn, his victualler's bill would be so much diminished. It is just on the site of the old race-course that our road enters Oxfordshire, and joins the road from Gloucester and Cheltenham. If we keep to the left down the hill we shall enter Burford in the centre of the town, but the more impressive entrance is accomplished by keeping to the main road for another mile, and coming down upon the town from above. The scene which then presents itself will be our reward. The great wide street flanked by its line of houses on either side, a line broken by every kind of irregularity, descends sharply to the river. Facing us at the bottom is a picturesque gabled dwelling, towards which the lines of the street seem to converge, while beyond the river the eye rests on the green slopes and copses of Shipton Downs. Burford is fortunate in having escaped the invasion of the railway. It is still one of those places which cannot be reached without the expenditure of some time and trouble, and there is therefore all the more satisfaction in accomplishing the journey. It remains exclusive, select, aristocratic; your visit is an honour to yourself. It is a real pleasure to reflect upon the fate which this venerable town has escaped. With the whistle of the steam engine, with signal boxes, telegraph poles, and the inevitable red-brick suburb that springs up around a railway station, all the old-world charm of one of the most beautiful spots in the pleasant windings of the Windrush would have been annihilated. For it must be remembered that in this narrow valley, unlike the low, flat plains through which the Witney line runs, there is no room for a railway to be lost; its presence must always be obtrusive, and impossible to ignore. As it is, the stranger who lumbers over the rampart of the downs in the toiling |