On the north, the
great wall of chalk that cuts off the south country from the Vale of
Isis and the Midlands and that has its bastions facing north from
Inkpen Beacon to Hackpen Hill in the Marlborough Downs. East and west
of these summits an arbitrary line drawn southwards to the coast
encloses with more or less exactitude the older Wessex.
Outside the limits here set down but still within Alfred's Kingdom is
a land wonderful in its wealth of history, gracious in its English
comeliness, the fair valleys and gentle swelling hills of South-west
Devon, wildly beautiful Dartmoor and the coloured splendour of Exmoor,
the patrician walls of Bath, and the high romance of ancient Bristol.
Under the Mendip is that gem of medieval art at Wells, one of the
loveliest buildings in Europe, and the unmatched road into the heart
of the hills that runs between the most stupendous cliffs in South
Britain. Not far away is Avalon, or Glastonbury if you will, the
mysteries of which are still being mysteriously unfathomed. From the
chalk uplands of our northern boundary we may look to the distant vale
in whose heart is the dream city of domes and spires--Oxford, and
trace the trench of England's greatest river until it is lost in the
many miles of woodland that surge up to the walls of Windsor.
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