18 DECEMBER 1909, Page 16

HANNAH MORE AND CHEDDAR.

[To THE EDITOR OP TER " SPECTATOR:1 SIR,—The interesting article on "Literary Associations of Cheddar Gorge" in last week's Spectator is altogether at fault in the initial assumption set forth in the following sentence :— " Nearly the whole of the lives of Hannah More and her sisters was spent in the lovely Cheddar Valley, first at Cowslip Green, and thou at a house which Hannah built for herself out of her literary earnings, and which she called Barley Wood."

The Mores established one of their schools at Cheddar, but their home was a long way off, on the far side of the Yeo Valley, which is separated from the Cheddar Valley by the broad range of Mendip. Cowslip Green and Barley Wood lie on the skirts of another range of hills looking across the Yea to the Mendips, and Cheddar, though only six miles or so away as the crow flies, is at the end of a longish excursion, as there is no road across the interposing mass of Black Down, the culmination of the long Mendip plateau.—I am, Sir, &c.,