13 JULY 1951, Page 24

COUNTRY LIFE

THE Cotswolds must be feeling rather sheepish under the glarTof publicity that they are standing in this year, and perhaps the endless wreckage of drystone walls on the wolds is assuming the glamour of-the picturesque. But who spares a glance for the remarkable phenomenon of an/extension of the Cotswold architectural style (which was Gothic from 1500 to 1800) and its oolite limestone, that absorbs the light as soil a shower, in the flat lush hay-lands of the upper Thames basin ? I once plotted out the surprising breadth of area covered by this felicitous invasion from the Cotswolds, whose natural environment is in extreme contrast to it. But here I confine myself to a group of four villages between Witney and Leehlade, which are not so much as mentioned in Byways in Berkshire and the Cotswolds, though they excel in bywaywardness.