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Malmesbury
is unique in its beauty in England. It is the only hill town in England, and there were very many, surrounded by streams on three sides and still with its border of natural country. And what attractive country this north Wiltshire scenery is, with its huge elms, hedges, meadows, pasture and stone farms.
From all sides Malmesbury gives you the sense of being a place of pilgrimage, a city set on a hill which cannot be hid. I think my favourite views are from Daniel's Well, where you can see the skirt of cottage gardens and then the stone roofs and hanging gardens climbing the hill, and from the north near the station, where the bulk of the Abbey rises above the wooded bank below it. Then, as you approach the town nearer, there are the mediaeval entrance ways and from the High Street, the sight of the Abbey with the Market Cross in the foreground. In addition to this, except for a chain store and a cinema, Malmesbury is a perfect town, largely of limestone, and a walk along the King's Wall and up and down the steep lanes reveals a variety of glimpses, each of which would make a good photograph. Always there is the quality of weathered stone and many a fine house, Georgian or earlier, with its little garden looking out into Wiltshire and reminding one of the long history of this royal, ancient and holy place.
John Betjeman
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