STRATFORD MENDACITIES.
It is to be hoped that the Council for the Preservation of Rural England will call attention to a serious and immediate threat against the amenities of Stratford-on-Avon. The Welcornbe Estate, which starts from the outskirts of Stratford and covers several adjacent parishes, has been sold, and is to be dispersed in small lots by auction on November 22nd. Welcombe Park is a beautiful spot, and its abrupt little hills and slopes command views characteristic of that wooded and rolling West Midland country. Along its border runs the one unspoilt approach to Stratford. The whole is a typical bit of Shakespeare's England. The borders of the road are now to be cut up into building lots ; and the park and its slopes are almost certain to be bought in small lots. The result might be fatai to the most English place in England and the most popular with visitors from overseas. To put the lowest argument first : the cash value of this park is vastly higher than its sale value, however exalted that may be. It is much more essential to save this approach than, say, to build a pretentious theatre. We cannot permit this Shakes- pearean jewel to be set in a ring of what Carlyle called "con- crete mendacities " ; or in Cobbett's metaphor, must we make a Wen even of Stratford ?
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