A road ascending from Streatley skirts Common Wood, and at its highest point opens out a magnificent panorama of Thames Valley. The tow-path, however, as mentioned in a previous paragraph, now runs along the Oxfordshire bank, and the line of pedestrian traffic is therefore on that side. The short distance intervening between the banks lends undoubted enchantment to the shady recesses and warblings of the feathered songsters of Common Wood. When you have re-crossed by the wooden bridge towards the southern end of the hilly wood, the scene changes. Admirably situated at a bend of the stream stands the substantial, and the reverse of hidden, modern mansion termed the Grotto, surrounded by a clean-shaven lawn, which is intersected by gravelled walks, one of which follows the bank of the Thames, and is o'er-canopied with trees. From the sharp and picturesque curve of the river the bold round-headed hill of Streatley, the cosy village, the broad, divided river, and the Norman tower and delightful grounds of Goring, stand out a clear broad picture, which is almost suddenly lost round the bend studded by the eyots below the Grotto grounds. The undulating chalk lands, rich in corn, roots, or pasture, as the exigencies of crop rotation may require, and dotted here and there by dark clumps of firs and larches, are absorbed opposite the Berkshire village of Basildon by Hart's Wood. The trees fringe the Thames closely, and densely clothe the wooded steeps. At all seasons these fine hanging plantations are fair to see; but there are special effects in spring and autumn, the intermixture of larches, at the former period, giving the wood a glow of dainty colour before other trees have put forth their leaves, and the abounding beeches, elms, oaks, and chestnuts, when mellow October comes round, making it equally conspicuous by the wondrous tints of decay.