mill being mentioned in the Abbey records; and they were afterwards
set down in Domesday Survey.

The Vale of Evesham, in which Aldington is situated, lies at the foot
of the Cotswold Hills, and when approached from them a remarkable
change in climate and appearance is at once noticeable. Descending
from Broadway or Chipping Campden--that is, from an altitude of about
1,000 feet to one of 150 or less--on a mid-April day, one exchanges,
within a few miles, the grip of winter, grey stone walls and bare
trees, for the hopeful greenery of opening leaves and thickening
hedges, and the withered grass of the Hill pastures for the luxuriance
of the Vale meadows.

The earliness of the climate and the natural richness of the land is
the secret of the intensive cultivation which the Vale presents, and
year by year more and more acres pass out of the category of farming
into that of market-gardening and fruit-growing. The climate, however,
though invaluable for early vegetable crops, is a source of danger to
the fruit. After a few days of the warm, moist greenhouse temperature
which, influenced by the Gulf Stream, comes from the south-west up the
Severn and Avon valleys, between the Malverns and the Cotswolds, and
which brings out the plum blossom on thousands of acres, a bitter
frost sometimes occurs, when the destruction of the tender bloom is a
tragedy in the Vale, while the Hills escape owing to their more
backward development.

The Manor House had been added to and largely altered, but many years
had brought it into harmony with its surroundings, while Nature had
dealt kindly with its colouring, so that it carried the charm of long
use and continuous human habitation. Behind the house an old walled