There is something in this ancient house which seems to support the theory: a substantial something in the shape of a large and elaborately-carved old oaken four-poster bedstead, fine enough to have been used by such distinguished personages. No one knows how it came here, but here it remains, and goes with the property. Tenants may come and go, but the bedstead, left by the last royal occupant, stays. An exceptionally interesting spot exists at a distance of a mile-and-a-half to the north of Cricklade town, in the neighbourhood of Latton and Down Ampney. You will not easily discover this interesting spot, because no map marks it, no guide-book tells of it, and only very few among the older generation of the rural agricultural labourers cherish any recollection of it. The younger folk know nothing whatever of this historic landmark, which is so insignificant and elusive a thing that one might readily be in the same field with it, and yet not see it. It is the pure and never-failing spring of St. Augustine’s Well, once famed in all the country round about; either by that name, or by the alternative title of the “Lertoll Well,” or stream. This pure and cooling fount was long credited with medicinal virtues, less because of any properties in the water itself than because it was blessed by Saint Augustine. For it was to these parts that Augustine came, somewhere about thirteen hundred and twenty years ago, for his conference with the dignitaries of the native British Church. Augustine, accredited by the Pope, Gregory the Great, to England, on a mission to reconvert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, in addition sought to reconcile the early British Church, which had continued to survive in Wales, with the Church of Rome; and to that end he arranged a conference on or near this spot, beyond the then boundary of Saxon England, in the territory of the British clan known as the Hwiccas. Had Augustine been a different manner of man, the proposals he had to offer for a fusion of the Churches would probably have been entertained; but although long since canonised, he was really very little of a saint, and by no means the eager missioner he is generally represented. He came to England, in the first instance, only because he was sent, very much against his inclination, by his spiritual head, whom he dared not disobey; and his haughty, intolerant temper brought these ideas of unity to naught. At the place of meeting was an oak-tree, for many centuries afterwards known as “St. Augustine’s Oak,” but long since utterly decayed and vanished away. It is said to have been felled about 1825, and the site of it is supposed to be a small group of farm-buildings, rebuilt in modern times, known as the “Oak Barn.” The British clergy had heard unfavourably of Augustine’s domineering spirit, and went with suspicion to meet him. They had agreed, however, when they proceeded to this oak, which must have been a notable landmark, that if