There are some good monuments to the Overburys in the church: a Norman
one with saddle-back tower. Near here is the Four-Shire Stone, described
by Leland as "a large bigge stone; a Three-Mile-Stone from Rollerich
Stones, which is a very mark or line of Gloucestershire, Whichester
(Worcestershire), Warwickshire, and Oxfordshire."
Little Woolford manor-house, the old seat of the Ingrams, is now, or was
some years ago, used as a school. It is very picturesque, and its gables
of half-timber, facing the little courtyard, remind one of the
quadrangle of Ightham Mote. Opposite the Tudor entrance-gate is the
hall, with its open timber roof, minstrels' gallery, panelled walls, and
tall windows, still containing their ancient painted glass. Barton,
which properly should have its ghost, presumably is not so favoured; but
here there are two at least,--a certain "White Lady," who, fortunately
for the juvenile scholars, does not appear until midnight; and the last
of the Ingrams, who has a restless way of tearing about on horseback in
the adjacent fields. This gentleman could not die decently in his bed,
but must needs, upon the point of dying, rush into the stable, mount his
favourite steed, and plunge into the raging tempest to meet his
adversary Death. What a pity there are not more educational
establishments like this. They might possibly make the pupils less
matter-of-fact and more imaginative. But we had almost forgotten a
moral lesson that is to be learned from a rude projection in the masonry
on the left-hand side of the entrance gateway. This is the oven, which
opens at the back of a wide hearth; and here some seventeenth-century
I O U's are said to have been found for money lost at play; while some
Cavaliers were concealed there in the time of the Civil Wars. But the
punishment for gambling was providentially arranged. Some Cromwellian
soldiers dropping in at the manor-house, lighted a tremendous fire, and
gave the unfortunate fugitives a roasting which they did not readily
forget. This is roughly as the story goes; indeed it goes further, for
by local report King Charles himself was one of the victims.
Brailes, a few miles to the north-east, is famous for its church, the
cathedral of southern Warwickshire; but it is principally interesting
exteriorly, the old benches having been long since cleared away and many
nineteenth-century "improvements" made. Still there are parts of the
fourteenth-century roof and a fine font, some ancient monuments,
particularly melodious old bells; and the lofty embattled
fifteenth-century tower is exceptionally graceful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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