ther seasons the rich little gardens are all gay with
old-fashioned flowers. The church is admirably situated, and has a tall
and graceful spire with grotesque ornaments at the base, which from a
distance bear a fantastical resemblance to roosting birds. In 1679 the
folk of Edwinstowe humbly petitioned for permission to take two hundred
oaks for the repair of the building, and one reads that, seven years
before, the steeple had been beaten down by thunder, and the old body
shaken, and in a very ruinous condition; also that without the king's
charitable help the whole church must absolutely perish. After the
resultory survey, the Surveyors General of the Woods wrote that most of
the trees of Birkland and Bilhagh were decayed, very few of use to the
navy being left. Finally it was decided that such trees might be taken
as were not fit for Government purposes. Strangely enough, neither in
this church nor in its sister of Ollerton are any ancient monuments,
such as one might expect to find in so interesting a neighbourhood. At
the vicarage here lived for some years Dr. E. Cobham Brewer, best known
for his _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_; whilst in a house that stood
beside the stream lived William--afterwards Sir William--Boothby, the
uncle of pretty Penelope, whose white marble tomb is one of the wonders
of Ashbourne in Peakland.

The birches from which Birkland takes its name are accounted amongst the
finest in the kingdom, and at no time look better than on a sunny
winter's morning, when they present a wonderful symphony of brown and
silver. After crossing Edwinstowe, in a sufficiently dangerous way, the
road continues, with Bilhagh in sight, to Ollerton, where it bridges the
placid Maun. Not far away is a small red quarry, its toy precipice
pierced with the retreats of sand-martins. To the left is Cockglode, the
only large house left in the forest proper--a Georgian place with a fine
avenue of Scots pines. This was the residence of the late Earl of
Liverpool, who, like all his noble neighbours, counted the great Bess of
Hardwick amongst his forbears.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
_At the Villafield Press, Glasgow, Scotland_

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| Spelling and punctuation have been retained as in