It was a high
windy place, seeming higher and windier on account of the numbers of
pigeons that were always circling round the church tower. There was
hardly a house in Wych that did not have its pigeon-cote, from the great
round columbary in the Rectory garden to the few holes in a gable-end of
some steep-roofed cottage. Wych was architecturally as perfect as most
Cotswold villages, and if it lacked the variety of Wychford in the vale
below, that was because the exposed position had kept its successive
builders too intent on solidity to indulge their fancy. The result was
an austere uniformity of design that accorded fittingly with a landscape
whose beauty was all of line and whose colour like the lichen on an old
wall did not flauntingly reveal its gradations of tint to the transient
observer. The bleak upland airs had taught the builders to be sparing
with their windows; the result of such solicitude for the comfort of the
inmates was a succession of blank spaces of freestone that delighted
the eye with an effect of strength and leisure, of cleanliness and
tranquillity.
The Rectory, dating from the reign of Charles II, did not arrogate to
itself the right to retire behind trees from the long line of the single
village street; but being taller than the other houses it brought the
street to a dignified conclusion, and it was not unworthy of the noble
church which stood apart from the village, a landmark for miles, upon
the brow of the rolling wold.
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