Bamford Wood is a cluster of leafy dells or dingles, reached, in the first instance, by going to Heywood, the rather tedious and uninteresting streets of which have to be pursued till we come to "Simpson Clough." The dells are disposed in the form of a V, the upper extremities again forked, and feathering away until at last they merge into fields. Down every dell comes a stream, rushing over large stones, the various waters all meeting eventually in the angle of the V, and soon afterwards swelling the river Roche, which in turn flows into the Irwell not far from Radcliffe. The various portions have all their distinctive names, "Dobb-wood," upon the left, holds "Cheeseden-brook." Beyond this we have Windy-cliff-wood, Carr-wood and Jowkin-wood; while upon the right are Ashworth-wood and Bamford-wood, emphatically so called. The stream descending the latter is Norden-water. Exact routes through these pretty glades it is impossible to prescribe, so much must depend upon personal taste and leisure. The extent, the beauty, and the wildness, require in truth many visits to be appreciated. There is more than one round natural lawn in the curves of the stream, where the silence has often been broken by pic-nics and music. Most parts may be trodden dry-shod, but it is well always to reckon upon four or five miles and a few adventures. All ladies who go the entire circuit deserve to be commended as Bamford heroines. Not to leave the way altogether undescribed, the best mode of procedure upon arrival at Simpson Clough is perhaps, soon after entering, to ascend the path among the trees upon the left, then into some fields and to the edge of a precipice, from which a view is obtained of a considerable portion of the wood, where an idea may be formed of the route it may be pleasantest now to follow. No part is uninteresting; the question is simply where to begin. Compared with the warm glades of Cheshire, Bamford Wood is upon the average quite a fortnight later in escaping from winter. Spring's "curled darlings" have already stepped into the green parlours of the Bollin valley, while up here a leaf is scarcely open; even the palm-willow, elsewhere always ready for the earliest April bee, is cautious and dilatory. The most interesting plant of the wood is the _Rubus saxatilis_, which, though found nowhere else in the neighbourhood of Manchester, is abundant near Coal-bank Bridge, but very seldom flowers. On some of the cliffs, at a tantalizing height, just out of reach of the longest arm, grows that beautiful sylvan shrub the Tutsan, _Hypericum Androsæmum_. The sides of the glen are in most parts lofty and steep, clothed with trees, and often decorated with little waterfalls, while the bed of the stream itself is so rugged that the wood after much rain is filled with the sound of its hindered efforts to escape. On emerging from the wood, at the upper extremity, or furthest from Simpson Clough, there is a