Wargrave itself might be taken as a typical Thames-side village. Here we have collected together many of the features to be found singly in other river villages, notably the weather-worn look about the small irregular houses, probably due to the damp atmosphere, and, though not exactly an attraction from the house-hunter's point of view, yet a most desirable feature in the eyes of artists. No crudity can long exist by Thames side; with gentle fingers the soft atmosphere caresses the hard red brick and adds a touch of lichen here and there, and straightway the wall becomes a thing of beauty. Added to this, this same atmosphere, aided by the rich soil, possibly at one time part of the river bed, produces creepers in profusion in every nook and corner; and those asperities which will not yield to gentler methods are veiled by climbing clematis, by masses of wistaria, or by the stretching withy branches of rose bushes. The result is a sweet vista of glory in flower-time, a glory out of which peep casement windows, gable ends, and irregular angles. Roses and sweetbrier, purple clematis and starry jasmine, tall garden plants, and delicate overhanging mauve blooms of wistaria, looking like rare coloured bunches of grapes, mingle with or succeed one another from spring to autumn. The prolific growth in Thames village gardens is one source of beauty to the river. In autumn no strip of a few square yards but has its tall hollyhocks, its royal sunflowers, and, in gay carpets, its scented stocks. The gardens of the lock-keepers, often situated on small islands, are among the gayest on the river; a prize is offered every year for the best of them, a prize which, I believe, Goring has carried off frequently. Matthew Arnold must have had some of these cottage gardens in his mind, when he wrote: Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-william with his homely cottage smell, And stocks in fragrant blow; Roses, that down the alleys shine afar, And open jasmine-muffled lattices. Besides its flowers and its general architecture, Wargrave has other claims to rank as a typical Thames-side village. The old inn, The George, whose lawn runs down to the water, is just the kind of hostelry one expects to find. Its signboard, indeed, was painted by two R.A.s, a fact eloquent of the kind of "wild-fowl" which forgathers at Wargrave. This unique sign is preserved indoors, while an understudy swings out over the village street.