In Unfamiliar England: A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland.Murphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler)
History
In Unfamiliar England: A Record of a Seven Thousand Mile Tour by Motor of the Unfrequented Nooks and Corners, and the Shrines of Especial Interest, in England; With Incursions into Scotland and Ireland.
Murphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler)
Great Britain -- Description and travel
There are other traditions and relics of the royal fugitive in the
vicinity, for we passed Little Compton Manor, plainly visible from the
road, which was once the home of Bishop Juxon, the bosom friend of
King Charles. Here for many years was preserved the block upon which
the King's head was severed, and also his favorite chair; but these
disappeared shortly after the Bishop's death.
A few miles farther, just off the upland road from Little Compton to
Moreton-in-the-Marsh, one may see the Rollright Stones, a druidical
circle; and tradition declares that these stones were once Danish
invaders who were thus metamorphosed for some presumptuous act.
Descending a long and dangerously steep hill sloping from the upland,
we came into Chipping Campden, and, possibly excepting Broadway, it has
hardly an equal in a section famous for picturesque towns and villages.
A wide street between a long array of gray gables with many time-worn
carvings, odd signs and frequent sun-dials, leads from one end of the
town, marked by a huge oak, to the other, where a giant chestnut
stands sentinel. Here again the almshouses attract attention. They are
built of soft-toned brown stone and the walls are surmounted by pointed
gables and clustered chimneys. Near by rises the graceful church tower,
overshadowing a building whose vast proportions seem to ill accord
with the decayed little town about it. But we learn that it was built
when Chipping Campden was the greatest wool market in the country, and
a brass tablet of 1401 commemorates one of the ancient benefactors of
the church as the "flower of all wool merchants in England." We found
inside some of the most perfect brasses that we had seen, but a general
restoration had quite robbed the church of its greatest charm. The
large pillared cross in the wool market and the massive proportions of
the courthouse, with its heavily buttressed walls, testify mutely of
the time when Chipping Campden was a place of much greater importance
than it is today.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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