Never did gold in vestment or chalice of emperor shine so brightly as do the buttercups at Tewkesbury.

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Tewkesbury is hardly the place you would of choice resort to if it had been raining for a week.

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Tewkesbury is watered by four rivers, like the garden of Eden.

(All priceless)

Below are edited extracts from what may loosely be described as guidebooks. While they add virtually nothing to our knowledge of Tewkesbury they make an interesting read from the point of view of literary style and poetic or prosaic license. When words such as paradise and garden of Eden are used in a description it almost begs to be read. Some of the language used is obviously not aimed at the common man, but then, he probably did not travel much anyway. The first extract is very short, because, as the author states, his intention was to include Tewkesbury in his book on the river Severn. Unfortunately I have not been able to locate it. As usual most of the text regarding the Abbey and the Battle has been omitted from all extracts.

A.Hewett.

From Picturesque Views of the Upper or Warwickshire Avon from its source at Naseby to its junction with the Severn at Tewkesbury; with observations on the Public Buildings and other works of art in its vicinity. Samuel Ireland.

1795.

Before we reach Tewkesbury, our Avon receives considerable aid from the river Carrant, which rises in Beckford, and is a boundary between Worcester and Gloucester. Approaching Mythe bridge, the ancient tower of the abbey church of Tewkesbury, and other objects, pleasingly combine in the general landscape of this venerable place; and we cannot select, towards the conclusion of this work, a more proper object than a representation of that spot,

"Where Avon's friendly streams with severn join,

and Tewkesbury's walls, renown'd for trophies, shine"

Mythe bridge was built in 1632; and this structure constitutes a part of what is called the long bridge. Previous to the period of building this bridge, the old one measured above seven hundred yards in length. A bridge of this extent became necessary from the frequent floods that happen in the long level of this country. The greatest ever remembered took place in 1770: it was occasioned by a very heavy fall of snow, succeeded by rain that continued for three days; during which time large boats with twelve or fourteen people passed and repassed trhe town to supply the inhabitants with necessaries. The next year the tide flowed in Avon five inches perpendicular, a circumstance never before on record. Mythe bridge derives its name from a hamlet belonging to Tewkesbury, called the Mythe, a word of Greek derivation, which signifies a military station. For this purpose it is happily formed by nature, being difficult of access in every part, and receiving additional security from the confluence of the Severn and Avon in the valley beneath. The summit of the hill, or Tumulus at this beautiful place, formerly bore the nameof the Mythe Toot; but since it received a royal visit in the year1788, it has changed its name to Royal Hill.

Tewkesbury, although it may properly be considered as appertaining to our present pursuit, being on the bank of what is called the Old Avon, is yet an object, we conceive, better suited to the more extensive and impetuous Severn, than to the gentle and soft flowing Avon. We shall therefore suspend any remark on that respectable and ancient town till the History of the river Severn is laid before the public. In the interim we beg to submit, with all due respect, as some return for our want of ability to render justice to the beauties of the present subject, the fidelity and attention with which the views were made, and the ernest and unremitted diligence used in procuring the information cotained in this volume.

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From the Warwickshire Avon. Notes by A.J.Quiller-Couch.

1892.

Tewkesbury lies along the southern bank of the Mill Avon, the longest branch of our divided river, which, flowing under Mythe Bridge, washes on its left the slums and back gardens of the town before it passes down to work the Abbey Mill. One of these gardens, that of the Bell Inn and Bowling Green will be recognized by all readers of "John Halifax, Gentleman" and the view from the yew-hedged bowling-green itself shall be painted in Mrs.Craik's own words: At the end of the arbor the wall which enclosed us on the rverward side was cut down----my father had done it at my asking----so as to make a seat, something after the fashion of Queen Mary's seat at Stirling, of which I have read. Thece one could see a goodly sweep of country. First, close below, flowed the Avon---Shakespeare's Avon---here a narrow, sluggish stream, but capable, as we sometimes knew to our cost, of being roused into fierceness and foam. Now it slipped on quietly enough, contenting itself with turning a flour-mill hard by, the lazy whir of which made a sleepy, incessant monotone which I was fond of hearing. From the opposite bank stretched a wide green level called the Ham, dotted with pasturing cattle of all sorts. Beyond it was a second river, forming an arc of a circle round the verdant flat. But the stream itself lay so low as to be invisible from where we sat; you could only trace the line of its course by the small white sails that glided in and out, oddly enough, from behind clumps of trees and across meadow-land."

This second stream is, of couse, the Severn, sweeping broadly by the base of Mythe Hill. An advertisement that we saw posted in Tewkesbury streets gave us the size of the intervening meadow; it announced that the after of latter math of the Severn Ham was to be sold by order of the trustees--172 acres, two roods, 28 perches of grass in all. The Ham is let by auction, and the money divided between the inhabitants of certain streets.

Then a standard bit about the Abbey Church and the Battle.

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From the Idyllic Avon. John Henry Garrett.

1906.

Near the end of the river Avon is the town of Tewkesbury, which is situated, as is told in that great old work, Rudder's History of Gloucestershire, "in a rich vale near the confines of Worcestershire, and watered by four rivers, like the garden od Eden." These four rivers are the Severn and its great tributary the Avon, and the Carrant and Swilgate, which in an ordinary way, it is sufficient to call brooks. these two last mentioned flow into the Avon, one at either end of the town, which has water upon almost every side--too much of it upon occasions, for there is a phrase that tells that "the water is out at Tewkesbury," when you may know that the place is uncomfortably wet, its meadows being flooded by a too precipitate meeting of its several rivers, which are hurrying forward in deep swirling currents under pressure of heavy continuous rain. More generally, however, the appearance of Tewkesbury and its neighbourhood is suggestive of a Paradise, and perhaps it was upon a fine May morning that our old author saw it, such as that upon which we now make its acquaintance.

We are standing together upon the Avon Bridge, over which the town is entered at one end of its chief street. It is a very ancient stone bridge, long and low, and with strong, narrow arches, built seven hundred years ago to the order of King John. That monarch married a daughter of the lord of Tewkesbury and had a great house or castle here. He built the bridge and gave the tolls of Tewkesbury Market, which were his due, to keep it in repair. But the townspeople , whilst being relieved from paying their tolls, forgot their obligation, and the old bridge requiring repairs in the fourteenth year of the reign of King Charles I., the work was ordered to be done at the expense of the County of Gloucester, and the town thereafter to keep it in good condition.

The Avon, having discharged a portion of its waters over a weir to join the Severn by a shorter course, passes on under the bridge and at the backs of the houses of High Street and Church Street towards its mouth a mile distant. The grey tower of Tewkesbury Abbey overlooks it on the left, and in its course below the bridge lie two or three flour mills, a last lock, with a little haven of barges and a quay to one side. They call this part of the Avon the "Mill Avon." There have always been mills and millers at Tewkesbury, for in the Domesday Book, that remarkable record of the survey of England ordered by William the Conquerer, it is mentioned that there were two mills here at that time.

In the angle between the Avon and the Severn there is a wide expanse of flat green meadow-land called "The Ham," and a quarter-of-a-mile up the meadow-bordered road rises a little hill called The Mythe, near which the course of the Severn is marked by a high bridge that spans the greater river finely by a single arch of iron. Over that bridge lies the way to Herefordshire , while the road straight up over the Mtyhe Hill brings one to the city of Worcester.

The bright green grass of the meadows is partly hidden by a covering of the most brilliant gold. Never did gold in vestment or chalice of emperor shine so brightly as do the buttercups at Tewkesbury, and it is a gold that awakens no avarice, or desire to clutch it all for self, but only a pure delight, which everyone who can see may share. Beyond the buttercups over the Severn rise low hills clad in verdure or darker green, over which hover white clouds; but further away the misty purple of the mountain-line of Malvern makes a background more or less clearly visible. On the other side of Tewkesbury there is a repetition of the bright green and wealth of gold, and, on the higher ground, still within hearing of the abbey bells, are cultivated fields and farmhouses with orchards about them, where the apple-trees are now showing their pink and white bloom; and that way there are other hills, the green Cotswolds also within sight.

An unkempt-looking drover, driving cattle, passes over the Avon Bridge, and a cloud of dust higher up the Mythe Road betokens the approach of other persons and animals, all making their way to Tewkesbury Market, for it is Wednesday and a market-day. Just above the bridge on the town side, the old, black beamed Bear Tavern is receiving its share of the incomers, whose traps and carts and gigs are, one after another, wheeled out under the great elm-tree opposite, until they grow into quite a considerable aggregation of wheels and shafts. It is the same at the Swan and the Hop Pole higher up the town, for there is a great deal of jogging in and out of Tewkesbury on the part of jolly millers and farmers from country places around to the market here. Tewkesbury Market was first eatablished, as Domeday Book says, "by the Queen," presumably the wife of the Conquerer. How many generations have come and gone since then, humanity, as represented by the marketers, always much the same as it may be seen in the various inns and market-places to-day.

At the Swan we presently have an opportunity of meeting the marketers at dinner, when we go there to partake of a "market ordinary." Would that every dinner were no less ordinary, for surely anyone should be able to make a dinner of Severn salmon, roast beef and mutton, vegetables, bread and cheese and salad, with bright ale and cider to drink ad libitum; if not, or if he grumbles at the inclusive charge of two shillings, it may indeed be questioned whether he be worthy to claim descent from the good saxon thanes and churls who came to Tewkesbury Market in the days of William the Conquerer. There is a hum of conversation amongst the bronzed big men around the festive board, whilst waiters are running to and fro, and up and down stairs, with well filled jugs and well loaded dishes, and the rattle of plates and glasses accompanies the satisfaction of good appetites. We open conversation with one of the millers and tell him we have heard that the mills at Tewkesbury turn out gold instead of flour; in reply he only laughs and declares there is more put into mills than comes out.

They used to manufacture cloth here; when that failed they took up the manufacture of stockings; when the trade in stockings drifted elsewhere, they took to shirt making, the stiffened fronts and cuffs of shirts particularly, which are now made and sent away in gross quantities, and, as the shirt seems likely to remain a garment of common wear, this industry may perhaps continue for some time in Tewkesbury. The most classic manufacture of Tewkesbury, however, was "smart biting mustard" made into stiff balls. This is no longer a purchasable product, but Sir Robert Atkyns, in his book The ancient and present State of Gloucestershire, 1712, mentioned it as being in vogue.

When from the Avon bridge we turn the Black Bear corner and walk up the High Street, a wonderful variety of ancient houses challenges inspection, such as hardly to be met in any other town in England. The Black Bear itself, could it relate its experiences, would have much to tell us of the happenings in Tewkesbury during many centuries. This inn appears to stand in appropriate relationship to the old bridge, and may be of equal age. Opposite to it is a good modern house, and in the course of the street above, specimens of house architecture of every succeeding era since the thirteenth or fourteenth century up to the present time are met with. Some of the existing houses were undoubtedly standing at the time of the Wars of the Roses, and some even at an earlier date, and their inhabitants lookd into the street upon many a pageant and procesion, as when a king visited the town, or when the feudal lord of Tewkesbury led forth his following to fight the king's wars in France or elsewhere abroad, or to fight for or against the king in the several civil walls that raged at any one age or another in England. At the battle of Tewkesbury, and again to a minor extent in the time of Cromwell, the fighting was brought to the very thresholds of these old houses, and the streets were stained with the blood of the combatants. Not seldom the warrior-lord of Tewkesbury, who rode forth the town in the pride of life and power, was slain at the war, and his dead body alone brought back to the lady who waited his return, and the procession of pride was turned to one of sorrow and tears as they bore him to the Abbey for burial with his forefathers and kindred. These old houses, too, have passed through periods of feasting, and of hunger-riot and cry for bread. They, which once stood in the shadow of a great monastic institution, saw that, and the power for good and evil which it represented, swept away, and the families that dwelt in these houses have come and gone, and change has followed change, and still they remain the witnesses of history. With timbered walls, odd windows, and upper stories thrust forward upon extended beams or corbels, they appear to the beholder as links to the long past, which it would be a pity to destroy, for it is well to have reminders of what things mankind suffers in attaining to a civilization that is some trifle more advanced than that which used to hold.

At the other end of the town from the Black Bear, opposite the abbey, and at the corner made by Church Street and the short lane that goes down to the abbey mill, stands another old inn. This is the Bell. Externally this inn, also, is of uncommon appearance, being a good well-preserved example of an ancient type of house. The black wooden beams in its walls and its many gables are likely to address the notice of the passer-by, who may cease to pass by, as a result of the attraction, and, entering in, be not disappointed by the aspect of the interior. There are a couple of parlours, one over the other, the lower one being the eating-room, cool, clean, old, quaint, with windows looking down the street, which shows, through its curving length, some other old houses in black-and-white and more in Georgian red brick. This is Church Street, and is the main road in from Gloucester and the Lower Lode. On summer days the sun shines straight down it or, getting to one side or other, throws the shadow of the houses across the road, from left to right and from right to left alternately; and sometimes the shadows are the only occupants of the street. From time to time a vehicle or two go past, or a few pedestrians tread the narrow pavement, and a good many stop opposite the inn, because the Abbey is there, and that is the centre of interest for most visitors. Probably the close proximity of the Abbey has a cnnection with the name of the inn.

The Bell has comfortable bed-chambers, with windows looking towards the Abbey, the street, or river, upon scenes that are that are simple and reposeful. All day and all night the Abbey chimes and the strokes of the hours upon the great tenor bell can be heard in every room of the inn; but these sounds, as well of those of the rushing water that drives the millwheel, are soon unperceived by the accustomed ear.

Down at the mill, there is a foot-bridge leading across the river into the Ham meadows, the great black wheel turns all day, churning the water to a white foam beneath it. Barges and waggons approach the mill on the upper side, bringing sacks of grain, which are swung up aloft through the hoist-hatch, to be ground and sifted and carried out again some day from below and placed in other barges and waggons by the flour-whitened miller's men. The mill is much in evidence at the inn, and in crossing over the river by the foot-bridge you pass close by the open door, through which can be seen a great many full sacks, and sometimes a figure moving in the dusky interior; and you may hear an occasional voice raised to be heard above the hum of machinery.

Out by the skittle-alley and across the stable-yard of the Bell there is a gate leading into a garden where old fashioned border plants flourish---such as flags and columbines and monkshood, the latter being appropriate to its location as a reminder that the garden occupies part of the site of the old monastery, an original remnant of which is still to be seen in the heavily buttressed wall, which at present supports an ancient brick malt-house, and between this and the river there is a small pleasaunce, with sunny seats against the old wall and facing the river. At the further end of the Bell garden another gate opens upon a famous bowling-green, where the fine piece of level greensward is surrounded by a thick , high hedge of yews, with lilacs, thorns, elders, and other blossoming trees. All around are arbours and ivy bowers, very pleasant to sit in upon summer afternoons, as now, when the air is heavy with the sweet odours of the blossoms which show white and yellow and mauve to relieve the fresh, intense verdure of the foliage and turf of the bowling-green. No less soothing than these sights and odours is the sound of the water rushing down the mill-race hard by, and the drone of the mill. Sometimes the old bowling-green is very quiet, and you may sit in one of the arbours undisturbed, excepting, perhaps, by the song of a robin that repeats the few bars of his plaintive lay from a branch of a tree a few yards away. Presently come a couple of members of the bowling-club to play bowls, which being one of the quietest of all out-door sports, is well suited to this delectable bowling-green of the Bell Inn.

Not very far aboved the Bell, branching off the main road, is the lane to the Lower Lode. It runs parallel to the Avon as this river proceeds towards its ultimate bourne at the lode. The word lode is from the Anglo-Saxon laden to lead, and, in connection with the river, is intended to signify a road leading over the river, or a passage. At Tewkesbury there were of old two passages over the Severn, called the Upper Lode and the Lower Lode, and four or five miles below Tewkesbury, on the Severn, is also the Wainlode, whilst below Gloucester is Framilode.

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From the Westminster Budget. May 31, 1901.

In the heart of the green Midlands, on the northern border of Gloucestershire, there lies in a fertile vale one of the most picturesque and famous of old English cities. It has passed through many vicissitudes, this ancient town of Tewkesbury, and is of such an ancient date that the actual meaning of its name is enveloped in impenetrable mystery. Tradition, however, ascribes its origin to Theocus, a recluse who erected a chapel and lived in the peaceful' valley where now the quaint old town lies dreaming in its setting of rich green. That was about the end of the seventh century. The Saxons, we are told, thereupon called the place Theotisbyrg, which theory is accepted by Leland, who writes of "Theocus' court, with spacious market-place.

Soon after, the chronicles have it, we'find two noble Saxon brothers joint lords of the manor. When the Doomsday survey was taken, Tewkesbury contained thirteen burgesses, and the manor formed part of the Crown demise. After the death of William the Conqueror the lordship of Tewkesbury was given by Rufus to Robert Fitz-Hamon as a reward for opposing the pretensions of the King's brother to the Crown of England. Some generations later the unfortunate Duke of Clarence, brother of King Edward, obtained it by marriage, and the town with many other valuable possessions was annexed by the Crown, until in 1546 Edward VI. granted it to his uncle. Soon, however, it reverted to the Crown, till in 1609 it was sold to the Corporation of Tewkesbury.

But more than a century before the flourishing Midland town had become famous for the great battle which Shakespeare has immortalised in "Richard III.," between the adherents of the rival Houses of York and Lancaster. Again, in the disastrous quarrel between Charles I. and his Parliament, the town being contiguous to the garrison of Gloucester and close to Worcester, it was of considerable importance strategically to both parties. But so fruitful was the vale in which the township lay, watered by four rivers and possessing a soil of almost inexhaustible richness that, in spite of devastation following in the wake of marauding armies, it possesses one long, unbroken record of prosperity. Its grain and fruit harvests were enormous ; its grapes were of such abundance that large quantities of them were manufactured into wines, the lusciousness of which was equal to the famous wines of France.

By means of its four navigable rivers the town sent its wealth of grain and flour to all parts of the country, and it is curious to find that the good old proverbial saying, even now occasionally applied to those gifted with a more than ordinary share of pertness, " he looks as if he lived on Tewkesbury mustard," arose out of the fact that at one period the town was celebrated for its very pungent mustard balls, in which a large trade was done.

But the time is long past when Tewkesbury, in its strenuous prime, was foremost among progressive Midland centres of trade. It has now arrived at the period of a serene and smiling old age, which gives it a quite peculiar fascination to the visitor who comes to it from the ceaseless turmoil of the world's high-road. There could not easily be found in England a town more entirely pervaded by a spirit of leisured, though in no way luxurious, ease than Tewkesbury. Its dreamy peace steals over you and enwraps you unawares as you stroll about, dimly picturing the stirring scenes enacted long centuries ago " in the field of Tewkesbury," drinking in the sweet pure air blowing from the distant hills, and letting your eyes rest with delight upon the varying features of the quaint old town. Wherever you turn, your artistic sense is stimulated and satisfied. You walk down the principal street, and to the right and left there open out passages and alleys with the most interesting specimens of the architecture of days that are no more. Again and again you come upon ancient timber-built houses in which each story overhangs the one below, till the gable, with its diamond-shaped, leaded window-panes, seems so high above that one can scarcely reach it, except from a distance.

Some of the old houses have been immortalised in "John Halifax, Gentleman," as, for instance, Halifax's Mill and the Bell and Bowling Green, in old times called " Eight Bells." But the chief '' show feature '' of Tewkesbury is, of course, the ancient Abbey church, one of the most perfect Norman churches in England for design and arrangement. Eight centuries ago it was completed, and still it stands as one of the noblest monuments of the workers and worshippers who impressed upon their beautiful handiwork the fact that with them the saying laborare est orare was a part of their creed which was put into daily practice.

This brief sketch is in no way intended to be a "guide" to Tewkesbury. Its object is merely to draw the attention of some of the holiday-makers who are beginning to speed by train or on wheel towards the green places where spring is at work for a brief respite from " the trivial round, the common task " of workaday life. They will not find many conventional social "entertainments " at Tewkesbury, but they will find more of natural beauty, of quaint old-world charnVthan in many places.

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Fom the Avon of Shakespeare's Country. A.G.Bradley.

1910.

The composition of the picture ln which Tewkesbury forms the central feature, as unfolded to the traveller descending the Severn Valley, is singulary felicitous. For the mile or so of uncompromising meadow flats, bare of either house or tree or fence, which marks the confluence of the Severn and the Avon between the low bordering slopes, seems to make for the better setting and greater glory of the noble pile that rises upon the farthest edge. Indeed the scenery hereabouts is altogether laid upon a broad canvas, as befits the greatest of English rivers, drawing within measurable distance of the tide. The long range of the Cotswolds forges up from the far south-east and, drawing within a few miles of Tewkesbury, swerves away to the south-west and the bolder heights of Cleeve, thence dropping in successive and gradually fading headlands into the verdant plain which spreads from Tewkesbury to Gloucester, and through which the Severn meanders seaward. Isolated heights of no mean altitude, outliers of the Cotswolds, rise picturesquely and inconsequently behind the old town, and not far away from it, while up the tribtary river to the eastward, the huge humpy mass of Bredon fills the eye and proclaims itself, as most assuredly it is, the dominant feature of the whole Avon valley. Along the southern bank of the smaller river, and no distance from its mouth, the ancient little town extends itself between the same limits practically as marked it two or three centuries ago: while at the western end, rising above a girdle of foliage, the long massive nave of the abbey, surmounted by one of the finest Norman towers in England, makes a scene that seems to celebrate with singular distinction the union of two famous streams.

Tewkesbury is hardly the place you would of choice resort to if it had been raining for a week. It is one that deals notoriously in floods, and even in photography does not shrink from representing itself as given over wholly to the dominion of great waters. The natives show you watermarks treasured in their back gardens, or on their kitchen doors touched by the combined efforts of the Severn and Avon on various memeorable occasions, each of which serve as mental finger-posts in the flight of a time, and help to place the date of a birth, a marriage, a new curate, or an attack of influenza. Nor would it be well to fix on Tewkesbury for a month of sunny June or July days, since it is one of the hottest little places within my knowledge. Indeed, the general atmosphere of the lower Severn valley is perhaps as ill adapted to the strenuous life, for the alien at least, as any in England, while Tewkesbury itself, lying on the river flat, has not a particle of shade worth mentioning within its venerable limits, except the pleasant groves that screen the abbey precincts. But as here you may not walk or sit upon the well-kept turf beneath them, and cannot well lie upon the pavement walks to any comfort or advantage, I should not recommend this interesting little town to those who follow the pipe-and-hammock, or book-and-campstool method of encountering such after all but moderate suns as shine upon the Briton. As few readers of this little work are ever likely to consider the question of a month in Tewkesbury, these discouraging comments are no doubt irrelevant and only excusable from the fact that, despite the seeming paradox, I spent an exceedingly pleasant one myself beneath the shadow, speaking figuratively, of course, after what I have said, of its noble pile. I spent it, too, with the jolly miller of the ancient abbey mill and his even jollier wife. Not in the mill, the interior of which, I must admit, has been shorn of all romance in the exigenses of modern science, but in a snug and modest cot hard by, whose garden strip bent downwards to Shakespeare's Avon, purling just here below the mill wheel, as if it had come from Wales rather than Warwickshire---a garden strip that, like the rest, had of course its floodmarks, which happily were not even threatened in those long and sunny days.

Speaking, however, in all gravity, Tewkesbury is an admirable centre for exploring a district rich in history, in fine churches, in ancient houses, in village architecture, and much above the average; over a radius of a dozen or fifteen miles, in physical beauty. There are two hotels, the one Georgian and sedate in complexion, where I should imagine the more fastidious souls would be happy and at ease. There are others that rank high among the black and white Tudor buildings of the west Midlands and the border country, and are beautiful to behold, but more popular perhaps with the merry tripper, who comes in shoals from the Midland towns to Tewkesbury in the active season. But when the wheels of his loaded chariots have whisked him away, or in the autumn, winter, and spring, when he is watching football matches in Birmingham, Tewkesbury is as if he had never been, and shows no sign of being itslef anything whatever but an ancient market town, somewhat short of any importance it may have had by the passing of railroads at a distance, for it is only linked to the main line by a branch. The town consists of three streets, which form a rude Y, and there is practically nothing more. It boasts, however, of more half-timbered Tudor houses for its size than any other town in this region of England form Cheshire to Gloucester, and from Warwick to the west limits of Hereford, which is so distinguished for them. I know all these towns, and should certainly give Tewkesbury, in this respect, the palm. But what is more convincing, its rivals themselves are inclined to admit its superiority in their confidential moments. Tewkesbury has no suburbs, no outlying red brick villas worth mentioning. Its three streets end virtually where they ended in ancient times, and precipitate you almost without warning into green fields. Its burghers live mostly over or beside their shops, and sometimes in houses that are a joy to behold. But Tewkesbury is not without self-consciousness and pride. It does not altogether follow these picturesque methods from belated habits. There has been some restoration, but generally by loving, careful, and knowledgeable hands. The town has no trade to speak of save a couple of flour mills on the Avon, but there is a civic sense of architectural continuity rare enough in England. In short, there is no expanding industrial prospect whatever, and the enlightened native feels that, as a bit of England in these feverish days of travel, the mission of this town, as well as its most promising industry, is to maintain that character as studiously as may be; to preserve, in short, a stage upon which the flamboyant modern, with his usual resounding presense, whether complacent motorist, or exuberant bean-feaster, may make survey of his complete antithesis, and himself supply a contrast between the then and now. This is a new resource and a worthy one by which, within the last two decades, many a sleepy old English town has in part repaired the loss of other vanished trades. It is not as lucrative as nails or gloves, boilers or boots. But it is steady, nay, even improving and independent of the world's commercial convulsions. It does not promote national wealth, with the squalid accessories and interludes of unemployment contingent on that process, except to the negative extent of keeping a certain amount of money within the country that would be spent on the foreigner, and perhaps of encouraging the latter to return an infinitessimal but increasing fraction of the enormous sums John Bull has in the past lavished upon him and his for like hospitalities.

Tewkesbury possessed, in the peson of the late Mr.Thomas Collins, a perhaps unexampled combination of a builder by trade who was also an architect and antiquary of enthusiasm, taste, and learning. The abbey in all matters of recent restoration owes a great deal to this gentleman, and the town almost as much. A pride in the preservation of its many beautiful old houses was greatly fostered by him, and much of the work done under the same felicitous auspices. His own late residence facing the Cross, where the three streets of the town meet, is perhaps the finest of all these half-timbered houses. Tradition has it that this was in ancient times the court-house of the town where the feudal lords of Tewkesbury abode when in residence, and that from its windows Edward the Fourth enjoyed the spectacle of the executions that followed on the battle. None are more imposing than the two old hostleries, the "Bell" and the "Black Bear", already alluded to, which stand at the opposite entries to the town from Gloucester and Worcester respectively, while the "Wheasheaf Inn" in the High-Street, and an old, lofty, narrow-gabled house, with its projecting fourth storey next to the "Swan Hotel", are as striking as any. But in addition to the many conspicuous old and partially restored timbered dwellings, which make Tewkesbury a delight to the passing visitor, a great deal of old interior, as in other such places, lurks behind what are more or less modern fronts. But the fact that a bowling-green with all those mellow attributes of of exquisite turf and embowering foliage, that give many such places a flavour of their own, and in this case embellished further with some topiary work, exists behind the "Bell Hotel", reminds me that Tewkesbury is also the scene of a Victorian novel of repute. I blush to say that I could never grapple joyfully with "John Halifax, Gentleman", and again failed, to my shame, no doubt, even under the shadow of the fictitious hero's inspiring presense to get much forward with it. That, however, is no doubt my loss, and it only matters here that Tewkesbury sets forth "John Halifax" as one ot its assets in the literature with which it courts the visitor and seeks to stimulate the stranger already within its gates. The connexion is in a sense fortuitous; the authoress had, I think, no immediate association with the town and was, I believe, very little there. A mural monument, however, in the abbey to Mrs. Craik, placed there by her admirers, confers upon that lady an enduring citizenship, and the verger tells me it interests visitors much more than the tomb of Fitzhamon, which is quite characteristic of the average tourist. One cannot refrain, since it is all in the same neighbourhood, comparing the local atmosphere of "John Halifax" and those of another gifted authoress of the same period with the scene of so many of her books. The middle-class town life depicted by Mrs.Henry Wood in her Worcester books one feels to be without intention a really valuable if ingenuous picture of a cathedral town atmosphere, though illustrated mainly through the medium of babes and sucklings, merely because the authoress was part of it, and and vastly different, of course, from Trollope's brilliant handling of Salisbury. ----

----I have spoken of the old abbey mill on that diverted channel of the Avon which washes the back of the town, and from whose banks the latter gives such a picturesque display of irregular gables and well-mellowed red walls. Like an ancient timepiece with new works in its case the abbey mill and even its old wheel still holds with the past, but its interior has had to conform to the pressure of modern needs, and help to maintain the reputation of Tewkesbury for its one remaining industry of milling. Now when the floods are out, a vast sheet of water spreads from this town edge over the Ham, that wide expanse of meadow land which fills the angle of Severn and Avon.

---But the most effective bit of the Avon, in its association with Tewkesbury, beyond doubt is the old brick bridge beneath which it enters the town, before parting its streams: the one to receive boats and barges from the Severn, the other to turn its two mills, for besides that of the abbey there is a large modern one with no claim whatever to the picturesque. Here above the old red bridge are boat-houses with pleasant suggestive surroundings, while below it the old hostelry of the "Bear and Ragged Staff" of Warwick, though the second appanage has dropped out, displays itself in harmonious company. From here in the summer months you may embark on most days upon a small steamer from Worcester, or Bewdley, or Gloucester, or other Severn towns and plough the sombre, little-travelled waters of that majestic river, or travel up the Avon slowly through locks and more immediately attractive surroundings to Pershore and Evesham. Here the Cheltenham College boys, delivered by special trains, may be seen embarking in their outrigged fours and eights for practice on the Severn, and all sorts of holiday people being launched in craft of a more domestic pattern for gentler pilgramage on the narrower but more engaging waters of the Avon. Scarrcely anybody indeed goes boating on the Severn except in racing fours and eights, for which its broad, deep and leisurely curent offers a course that Oxford or Cambridge might well envy. For Sabrina is a strange river.

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