CHAPTER III.
Chaldicotes Chaldicotes is a house of much more pretension than Framley Court.
Indeed, if one looks at the ancient marks about it, rather than at those of the present day, it is a place of very considerable pretension.

There is an old forest, not altogether belonging to the property, but attached to it, called the Chace of Chaldicotes.

A portion of this forest comes up close behind the mansion, and of itself gives a character and celebrity to the place.

The Chace of Chaldicotes--the greater part of it, at least--is, as all the world knows, Crown property, and now, in these utilitarian days, is to be disforested.

In former times it was a great forest, stretching half across the country, almost as far as Silverbridge; and there are bits of it, here and there, still to be seen at intervals throughout the whole distance; but the larger remaining portion, consisting of aged hollow oaks, centuries old, and wide-spreading withered beeches, stands in the two parishes of Chaldicotes and Uffley.