entioned Dean Bradley and
Dean Farrar.

[Illustration: GARDEN FRONT, MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE.]

King Edward the VI Grammar School is at the far end of the town. The
old buildings were pulled down in 1905. In this school Dr.
Sacheverell, who was born in Marlborough, received his education. The
present St. Mary's Church practically dates from the great fire of
1653, and is a very poor specimen of debased Perpendicular. The
chancel was added in 1874. A Norman doorway at the west end should be
noticed. The tower of the church shows traces of the Royalist attack
on the town in 1642. St. Peter's Church, not far from the College, is
Perpendicular, and from its high and finely designed tower, curfew
still rings each night through the year. Within, the groined roof and
beautiful design of the windows are worthy of notice.

Beautiful in the extreme is the walk through Savernake Forest which,
if it is not to be compared with the New Forest either in size or
wildness, does in one particular surpass the latter, namely in its
magnificent vistas and beech avenues. The central walk between
Marlborough and Savernake is unsurpassed in England and probably in
Europe. It leads to Tottenham House, situated at the eastern extremity
and belonging to the Marquis of Ailesbury. This mansion stands on the
site of an old house of the Seymours, to whom the Forest passed from
the Plantagenet Kings (it was a jointure of Queen Eleanor). By marriage
the estates afterwards went to the Bruces, who still hold them.

Herds of deer roam the open glades, and wild life is abundant and
varied. In some parts of the Forest the thickets and dense undergrowth
are reminiscent of the district between the Rufus Stone and
Fording-bridge in the greater Forest, but the highest beauty of
Savernake lies in the avenues of oak and beech which extend for miles
and meet about midway between Durley and Marlborough. Here are no fir
plantations to strike an alien note. Rugged and ancient trees that
were saplings in Stuart times or before and the dense young growth of
to-day are all natural to the soil. The column that stands on high
ground, a little over a mile from Savernake station, commemorates,
among other events, the temporary recovery of George III from his
mental illness.

Great Bedwyn was once a Parliamentary borough and, in more remote
times still, a town of importance. It has a station on the
Reading-Taunton Railway and can be reached by circuitous roads from
Savern