98 COTHERIDGE.

radiating but sloping lines, like those of a firework wheel in motion. The cross, in nubibus, was no doubt sought to be represented.

Botanists state that rare plants have been found in this neighbourhood; and archseologists always stay to look at two ancient timbered houses in Little Comberton, one of which has near to it an old stone dovecot. The soil is very productive, and the gravel beds are formed of Bredon Hill stone.

Cotheridge.

ABOUT four miles on the road from Worcester to Bromyard, on the left-hand side, near the meandering Teme, a splendid avenue of limes, three-quarters of a mile in a straight line, with a mansion peeping through from the further end, distinguishes the residence of one branch of the historic family of Berkeley, and the little parish church of Cotheridge is hard by. It is a matter for wonder and regret that the ancient custom of planting groves as approaches to ancestral mansions has not been perpetuated, and is never thought of now-a-days: nothing can be more appropriate or in better keeping with aristocratic ideas of position and picturesque beauty than these grand old avenues to family mansions.

Habingdon the historian states that in the reigns of Edward III, Richard II, and Edward IV, the lords of Cotheridge were the following: Hugh Mortimer, of Richard's Castle, co. Hereford; Sir Richard Talbot, of the same place ; Sir Warreyn L'archdecon, of Lanihorne Castle, Cornwall; Sir Walter Lucy, of Dallington, co. Northampton; and Lord Vaulx, of Harrowden, in the same county. The arms of some of these persons are now in the east window of the parish church. Habingdon further states that Sir Robert Acton, not by