View larger image Back to List of Illustrations THE DUKERIES Described by R. Murray Gilchrist Pictured by E. W. Haslehust...

Although within the last twenty-five years Worksop has suffered many changes, unfortunate enough from an æsthetic point of view, the Dukeries end of the principal street still suggests the comfortable market town in the neighbourhood of folk of quality. The only relic of notable antiquity is the quaint inn, known as the Old Ship—a building with projecting upper story and carved oaken beams that might have been transported from Chester. The twin-towered Priory Church, a gatehouse of singular inte

To savour the full charm of Sherwood Forest one must stray from the highroad, lose one's path, and wander in happy patience until a broad avenue is reached, or above the treetops one sees the slender and graceful spire of some stately church. The formal beauty of the frequented ways—trimly kept and splendidly coloured—precludes all illusion: only in the remote solitudes with their monstrous old trees is it possible to evoke a mind picture of Robin Hood and his devoted followers. And even in the

The present house of Welbeck was built upon the site of an abbey for Premonstratensian canons, which was begun in 1140. Nothing, however, remains of the old place save some stonework in the cellars and a few inner walls. A portion of the house dates from 1604; in an engraving from the great Duke of Newcastle's book on Horsemanship we find that it originally bore some resemblance to a French château. Charles the First and Henrietta Maria were entertained here—the house being placed at their dispo

The most impressive approach to Clumber is by way of Normanton Inn, a red-brick hostelry draped luxuriantly with virginia creeper. At some slight distance is a magnificent glade of varied greens, with great patches of blood-coloured bent-grass. In the neighbourhood grow many fine Spanish chestnuts; when I was last there the ground was littered with the fallen flowers. A vast, festooned cloud, grey as the smoke of some monstrous fire, drifted from the east; then lightning sported wickedly amongst

The village of Budby, beyond the confines of Thoresby Park, is one of the most placid and sleepy places I know. The stuccoed houses are perhaps devoid of picturesqueness, but the shallow Meden, which runs quietly beside the roadway, is crystal-clear, and from the wilderness on the farther bank one often sees pert black water hens slip gently from the shelter of the long grass, and glide to and fro like tiny boats. Beyond the bridge swans swim very proudly, with the austere dignity that has naugh

There is one splendid approach to Thoresby, now, unfortunately enough, barred from the public. To reach this from Ollerton one crosses the bridge, turns to the right for a few yards, then on the left sees beyond a stout palisading the celebrated Beech Avenue. The first time I visited this place was on a stormy evening in August, about sunset-time. The western sky was overcast with grey low-hanging clouds; at intervals rain fell in brief showers. Once breathing the atmosphere of this strange secl

Rufford Abbey, which is within easy walking distance of Ollerton, surpasses in interest and beauty the other great houses of the neighbourhood. The view from the pelican-crowned gateway, with its avenue of limes (some of which are considered the finest in all England) and beeches and elms, terminating in a glimpse of the façade of reddish stone, reminds one of the palace of the Sleeping Beauty in the days before briers and brambles barred the way. Separated from this avenue by a gravelled space,

Of the few trees of distinction pertaining to old Sherwood, perhaps the most famous, and certainly the least picturesque, is the "Parliament Oak", which may be seen to the right of the Mansfield road as it approaches Edwinstowe. To this venerable ruin, which an iron palisading protects from wanton hands, clings the tradition that Parliaments of King John and Edward the First met under its shade, the last in October, 1290. Queen Eleanor was ill—she died in the following month at Harby near Lincol