It is, however, a capital river for bathing, as it has many nice small pools and several good reaches for swimming, all within about a mile of one another, and at an easy twenty minutes' walk from the school.

This mile of water is rented, or used to be rented, for bathing purposes by the trustees of the School, for the boys.

The footpath to Brownsover crosses the river by "the Planks," a curious old single-plank bridge running for fifty or sixty yards into the flat meadows on each side of the river--for in the winter there are frequent floods.

Above the Planks were the bathing-places for the smaller boys--Sleath's, the first bathing-place, where all new boys had to begin, until they had proved to the bathing men (three steady individuals, who were paid to attend daily through the summer to prevent accidents) that they could swim pretty decently, when they were allowed to go on to Anstey's, about one hundred and fifty yards below.

Here there was a hole about six feet deep and twelve feet across, over which the puffing urchins struggled to the opposite side, and thought no small beer of themselves for having been out of their depths.