The Forest of Dean There are few better hides. Although
it suffers -a good deal in high summer from its far too numerous admirers who come in many coaches but (mercifully) mainly to the same places and always for the day only, it is one of the loneliest woods I know. There are glades and clearings where you may lie lost for hours, avenues between the noblest oaks, high places with views over the rolling countryside seen between the dark uprights of distant spinneys. It is set on a hill and its position gives it something of the sanctity of an island.
You go up into the Forest of Dean from Gloucester way, and on a summer's day it is like leaving a Turkish bath for the Alps. An exaggeration, of course, but not so bad as you might think. There is never any useful air to breathe where the Severn crawls down out of the town to its wider reaches, but Goo feet or so higher up you come suddenly into a climate that changes your .outlook. The air is nimble and clean, the sun shines straight upon you and not through a veil, you get out of the car and walk in the woods, delighting in the smell of ancient trees still growing, of moss and bracken, of very old and still undefeated England.
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