One other point remains to be noted in these somewhat desultory remarks on the old surveys. In several places occur lines marked “Forest Wall.” This was the stone wall of a very considerable circuit that enclosed most of the Campana or Champagne district of the Peak Forest, where the feeding for the King’s game of deer was the best. It was not a high park wall to keep the deer in, but a comparatively low one, with a dyke. Its object was to prevent sheep or cattle that might be agisted within the forest from trespassing on the parts particularly serviceable as pasturing ground for the often hardly tried deer; but it had to be low enough to allow hinds and fawns, as well as harts, readily to leap it when desirous of roaming further afield. It is quite possible to trace in certain places the building of this unmortared forest wall, which is constructed in a decidedly superior fashion to other and later wall fences. One of the best places in which to note it is on the lofty ridge that separates Edale from Castleton dale. In the midst of this there is a pass and gateway in the forest wall, called Ludgate in the old plans. In June, 1561, Queen Elizabeth issued a commission of enquiry as to the condition of Peak Castle and Forest. The commissioners were instructed, among other matters: “To view the height of one wall erected and made in or about one parcell of one pasture called the Champion within our saide foreste, how brode and depe the Dike in and about the same wall is, whether the same dike be drye or standinge with water for the most parte of the yere, pasture notwithstandinge the said walle and dike, and whether the said wall and dyke be noisome or hurtefull to or for our deare and game there, and to thinderance of the grasse for our said deare, or be better for the cherisshinge of our said game and deare there or not.” OLD COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY By Sir George Reresby Sitwell, Bart., F.S.A. The charm of country life, as we know it in England, lies almost as much in old associations as in scenery and sport. An ancient hall without its records is a body without a soul, and can never be fully enjoyed until one has learnt something of the men and women whom it has sheltered in the past—of their lives and manners, their love affairs, their wisdom, and their follies; how the oak furniture gave way to walnut, and the walnut to mahogany; how they laid out the gardens, raised the terrace, clipped the hedges, and planted the avenue. Such reflections have committed me to a task which has proved heavier than I desired or anticipated. Indeed, I should never have persevered with it had I not early come under the influence which an old house so often exercises upon those who live under its roof; sometimes for evil, as when a family inheritance of ill-health depends upon faulty drainage or a waterlogged soil; sometimes as a spur to ambition, an incentive to effort, or a liberal education in art.