Two roads intersected each other on
the middle of Copperhouse Common, which, as all the world knows, lies
just on the outskirts of Copperhouse Forest. A steep winding hill
leads down from the Wood to the Cross, and there is no such thing
within sight as an enclosure. At the foot of the hill, running under
the wooden bridge, straggles the Copperhouse Brook,--so called by the
hunting men of the present day, though men who know the country of
old, or rather the county, will tell you that it is properly called
the river Cobber, and that the spacious old farm buildings above
were once known as the Cobber Manor House. He would be a vain man
who would now try to change the name, as Copperhouse Cross has been
printed in all the lists of hunting meets for at least the last
thirty years; and the Ordnance map has utterly rejected the two b's.
Along one of the cross-roads there was a broad extent of common, some
seven or eight hundred yards in length, on which have been erected
the butts used by those well-known defenders of their country, the
Copperhouse Volunteer Rifles; and just below the bridge the sluggish
water becomes a little lake, having probably at some time been
artificially widened, and there is a little island and a decoy for
ducks.
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