Northmoor village, near at hand, has an interesting church of the Early English period, and a charming and unspoiled Jacobean mansion adjoining, which has the appearance of never having been altered since the first building of it. Oddly placed by the road between mansion and church, is a delightful old timbered pigeon-house, which seems to be contemporary with the old residence. At the west end of the church a quaintly balustered bell-loft bears the following inscription, obviously considered (by those who inscribed it) to be poetry: “Richard Lydall: Gave a new Bell, And Built This Bell Loft Free: And Then He Said: Before He Dyed, Let Ringers Pray For Me. 1701.” Which was very wrong of him, a Protestant, living under the reformed religion. The inner sides of the aisle-window splays here at Northmoor exhibit that peculiarity already noticed in several churches of the upper Thames Valley: a more or less decorative treatment of the inner arch. Here the special treatment is confined to a corbelling-out of the archway; but this is effected in a quaint manner: the corbel on one side being provided with a kind of vaulting-shaft. Here, as elsewhere along, or near, the course of the Thames, the strong influence of the river upon the imagination and work of the old architectural sculptors is distinctly to be noted: the capitals of the shafts being carved with representations of aquatic plants. But the chief attraction, in all these parts adjacent, is of course the village of Stanton Harcourt, and that it is so, you who penetrate to it, along the level roads, cannot fail easily to perceive, if not by evidence of many sightseers making for it, then, at any rate, in the numerous notices displayed offering accommodation for tea-parties. Stanton Harcourt is beautiful, alike in its old-world rustic village of thatched, unpretending cottages, screened by noble elms from rude blasts, and in the romantic and unusual group formed by the ancient church-tower and the towers of the old manor-house. Approaching, it is as though the church had two towers, for the chief one of the manor-house is very like its ecclesiastical neighbour. Stanton Harcourt must have derived the first part of its name from some stone road, but the road is obscure, and an absurd local legend, almost too childishly-ridiculous to be repeated, tells us that it arose from the brave deeds of a former Harcourt, who, in that conveniently vague period, “ages ago,” was fighting desperately in some unnamed battle, and was enjoined by his chief to fight on. “Stand to un, Harcourt,” he exclaimed; and Harcourt feats of arms in “standing to un” accordingly won the day. A curious thing may be noted: that the stones called the “Devil’s Quoits,” near the village, are themselves thought to be relics of a battle fought in A.D. 614, between the Saxons and the British; long before there were any Harcourts in the land. [Illustration: STANTON HARCOURT: MANOR HOUSE AND CHURCH.]