SWEET EVENLODE

Godfrey Hodgson (Wychwood Press £10)

Godfrey Hodgson has lived in the area since 1975, in several places near to the Evenlode River. He has been principally a writer of American politics and history, but was laid up at home following a period of time in hospital, and decided to write this book, his "votive offering to a landscape I love".

The book is an agreeably eclectic mixture of anecdotes and facts, both personal and historical, walking notes and natural history, given roughly in geographical order as he traces the river from its source to its joining with the Thames near Eynsham.

And it is a labour of love. Hodgson describes many favourite spots along the river, not least Rupert's beach, on a curving stretch near Blenheim, where his eponymous dog liked to splash in the water and where there is a tiny cascade opposite the beach of hard sand. There is a picture of the beach, one of many black-and-white photographs which illustrate the text.

These snaps are all of buildings and landscapes, save one which shows the author waving to the reader from a rubber dinghy floating at an idyllic spot near Pudlicote Bridge.

There are historical tales in the book, many about the great estates and families who live in the valley. The Churchill family features more than most, which is not surprising as the descendants of John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, have owned much of the Evenlode valley.

The "grey stone metropolis of the valley", which is Charlbury, and the interesting characters that have lived in the town merit a chapter to themselves.

Although this is not a book of walks as such, several good short walks are described, mostly on proper footpaths, and mostly circular. It is an easy landscape to walk in, offering peace and tranquillity - unless a train is whooshing along the Cotswold Line.

This delightful book has few faults. Perhaps the only one is the omission of any map of the area.

I got out my two Ordnance Survey Landranger maps and followed the text with them to hand.

This book has rekindled my interest in this lovely part of Oxfordshire.