BLOCKLEY. 53

was appointed, and by his kind and judicious management all unpleasantness passed away, and the school question was settled on a firm basis, Lord Northwick being patron of the boys' school, and paying the amount required in addition to the endowments to make up the master's salary, and the vicar doing the same by the girls' and infants' schools. As the accommodation for the girls and infants was much too email, new schools have been built on a piece of ground given by Admiral Sir Edward Collier, and were opened September 30th, 1867.

There is excellent arable, meadow, and pasture land in Blockley, with quarries on the hills, and the parish is plentifully watered with brooks. It has been said that a stranger might fancy himself in Derbyshire while walking on the hills here, there being few if any hedges, but dry walling instead. Chief crops, wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, swedes, root crops generally, beans and peas, and numerous orchards for cider. There are places called Old Oven, Hobb's Hole Coppice, Tokenham, Elim Hale, Big and Little Hale, and Foss-way. From the many ancient relics found at Dorn it is supposed to have been a minor Roman station, a day's march from Cirencester. The old Foss-way from Gloucestershire towards Warwick runs through Dorn. Aston is a village situate on a slope of blue clay, which gave immense trouble to the railway engineers, who, in attempting to carry the line through it, were compelled to divert their works by the shifting of the soil having swept away a whole row of cottages, and the dread entertained that the entire village itself would be speedily translated to a lower level. There is a chapel of ease at Aston, built by Lord Redesdale in 1844. There were likewise chapels formerly at Blockley Warren and Faxford. At the latter place a schoolroom, which has also been licensed for divine worship, was recently built by Mrs. Elliott.

A monastery was founded at Blockley in the olden times, and the Bishop held the manor at the Conquest, having a house and park here which he visited in turn with his other