In the eighteenth century several quaint ships embellished the lake. The last, we learn, was broken up more than half a century ago; and, as they must have seemed singularly out of place, one is not disposed to regret their disappearance. OLLERTON There is one splendid approach to Thoresby, now, unfortunately enough, barred from the public. To reach this from Ollerton one crosses the bridge, turns to the right for a few yards, then on the left sees beyond a stout palisading the celebrated Beech Avenue. The first time I visited this place was on a stormy evening in August, about sunset-time. The western sky was overcast with grey low-hanging clouds; at intervals rain fell in brief showers. Once breathing the atmosphere of this strange seclusion one forgot the quaintness of Ollerton and the pleasing wildness of the forest: here the formality brought a suggestion of some old French colour print--the avenue might have been the state road to some royal chateau. [Illustration: OLLERTON] Four rows of gigantic beeches stretched for almost half a mile from the roadway; between the second and third might still be seen the old pebble and gravel drive. The monstrous boles, strangely curved and divided, were coloured like green-rusted bronze; overhead the branches mingled like the upper tracery of some ancient cathedral window. There were no grass or flowers underfoot: the ground was covered thick with last year's mast and withered leaves--"yellow and black and pale and hectic red"; sometimes I saw a strange black and grey fungus, large as a fine lady's fan. The colouring was magnificent, and yet, looking from the palings at the farther end (beyond which one sees a green and cheerful vignette) one realized that something was lacking. The handsome coach-and-six with white horses and postilions in scarlet coats and white breeches--an equipage such as is depicted in the engraving of old Worksop Manor--should always be present in this suggestive place; and even a wheeled and curtained sedan of the kind fashionable at Marie Antoinette's Court would not appear incongruous, drawn by one officious purple-liveried lackey and pushed by another along the side paths. The Beech Avenue is the only spot in the Dukeries that permits one to recreate mentally the life of the eighteenth century. It should not terminate in a roadway of comparatively slight interest, but should instead reach a water-theatre with a hornbeam hedge, with rockwork basins, and with tall silver fountains. There is something nobly pathetic in this deserted avenue--even the trees themselves have a mournful look, as though they repined because of the loneliness of to-day. No living thing moves here--it might be a sacred grove, never to be frequented by creatures of the woodland.