The next village of South Newington, a village of stone-built cottages with thatched roofs, had by way of contrast a very small and poor church with square-headed windows, not those of the usual pointed Gothic type. I did not trouble to inspect it, though generally the poorest little country church can boast of some architectural feature more or less interesting. I came to a country church with only one point of interest, and that was a narrow priests' doorway gracefully designed; I presume it served the priests of past times, but I was told there was one parson of the good old Georgian days who could not use it because he was too fat! So he could not enter by the "narrow way," but had to go through the porch like any sinner. Doorways in human habitations are often the keynote to the character of the house, and I was tempted in some of the country villages I passed through to photograph a few of their ancient doorways, for they interested me; two of these photographs, reproduced, will be found in pages farther on. The one of the fourteenth century is noteworthy, for it is a rare thing for so ancient a doorway to belong to a dwelling-house. I gathered the house had originally been a pre-Reformation vicarage; now it makes a quaint and picturesque home, with its low stone-slated roof, its mullioned windows, and its ivy-clad walls, boasting too the bloom of age that so beautifies a building. The other shows a simple type of Tudor doorway with steps up to it from the village street, but, though so simple and devoid of ornament, it is so well proportioned that it both pleases and satisfies the eye. I am rather fond of photographing architectural bits that take my fancy, and the English country abounds in such bits, apart from the larger features of buildings. It is curious to note how different districts afford and abound in special subjects: here you find ancient pigeon-cotes, often centuries old, of some pretence, and frequently most picturesque; here the minor items of sun-dials and of artistically wrought weather-vanes are most in evidence; at another spot you discover interesting "lion-guarded" gateways and picturesque doorways; again, it may be, it is the inn signs, with their crudely painted signboards and their elaborate scroll-work of wrought iron that surrounds them, that attract your attention; here a gazebo, and there an ancient roofed-in village fountain, claims your notice; anon a quaint conceit in carving on church or house, and so forth, not to waste space in needlessly enumerating the many and varied architectural tit-bits the wanderer by road constantly comes across, nor need he keep his eyes very wide open to discover them. [Illustration: THE PRIEST'S DOORWAY.]