England

Marlborough is in Wiltshire, but it will be legitimate to start a slight exploration of the middle course of the Kennet from the old Forest town. Here the clear chalk stream, fresh from the highlands of the Marlborough Downs, runs as a clear and inviting little river at the foot of the High Street gardens. For Marlborough is a flowery and umbrageous town in its "backs," however dull it may appear to the traveller by the railway, from which dis-vantage point most English towns look their very worst.

An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter

by Edric Holmes

The following brief notes will assist the traveller who is not an expert in arriving at the approximate date of ecclesiastical buildings.

SAXON 600-1066. Simple and heavy structure. Very small wall openings. Narrow bands of stone in exterior walls.

NORMAN 1066-1150. Round arches. Heavy round or square pillars. Cushion capitals. Elaborate recessed doorways. Zig-zag ornament.

TRANSITION 1150-1200. Round arched windows combined with pointed structural arch. Round pillars sometimes with slender columns attached. Foliage ornament on capitals.

The kingdom of Wessex; the realm of the great Alfred; that state of the Heptarchy which more than any other gave the impress of its character to the England to be, is to-day the most interesting, and perhaps the most beautiful, of the pre-conquest divisions of the country.

The foundations of the ancient capital of England were probably laid when the waves of Celtic conquest that had submerged the Neolithic men stilled to tranquillity. The earliest records left to us are many generations later and they are obscure and doubtful, but according to Vigilantius, an early historian whose lost writings have been quoted by those who followed him, a great Christian church was re-erected here in A.D. 164 by Lucius, King of the Belgae, on the site of a building destroyed during a temporary revival of paganism.

Bitterne is now a suburb of Southampton on the opposite side of the Itchen, but it may claim to be the original town from which the Saxon settlement arose. It is the site of the Roman Clausentium, an important station between Porchester and Winchester, and when the Saxons came up the water and landed upon the peninsula between the two rivers they probably found a populous town on the older site.

VISIT TO A THREE-THOUSAND-ACRE FARM - SAMUEL JONAS - HIS AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS, THEIR EXTENT, SUCCESS, AND GENERAL ECONOMY.

ROYSTON AND ITS SPECIALITIES - ENTERTAINMENT IN A SMALL VILLAGE - ST. IVES - VISITS TO ADJOINING VILLAGES - A FEN-FARM - CAPITAL INVESTED IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN AGRICULTURE COMPARED - ALLOTMENTS AND GARDEN TENANTRY - BARLEY GROWN ON OATS.

THE MILLER OF HOUGHTON - AN HOUR IN HUNTINGDON - OLD HOUSES - WHITEWASHED TAPESTRY AND WORKS OF ART - "THE OLD MERMAID" AND "THE GREEN MAN" - TALK WITH AGRICULTURAL LABORERS - THOUGHTS ON THEIR CONDITION, PROSPECTS, AND POSSIBILITIES.

FARM GAME - HALLETT WHEAT - OUNDLE - COUNTRY BRIDGES - FOTHERINGAY CASTLE - QUEEN MARY'S IMPRISONMENT AND EXECUTION - BURGHLEY HOUSE: THE PARK, AVENUES, ELMS, AND OAKS - THOUGHTS ON TREES, ENGLISH AND AMERICAN.