Wytham, amid the deep woodlands, on its bold hill-top in the bight of the river, is a sequestered place, the site of the mansion called Wytham Abbey, seat of the Earls of Abingdon. “Abbey” is a fanciful term, as applied here, for no religious house ever stood upon the site, and the existing buildings arose in the sixteenth century, at the bidding of one of the Harcourts, who then owned the property. How it eventually came through several hands and at last by marriage into the Bertie family, Earls of Abingdon, is not, I imagine, a matter of general interest. Wytham village, lying beneath that lordly seat, is one of the most charming villages in Berkshire, which is saying a good deal in the commendatory sort. It is, and has long been, famed for its strawberry-growing, and was once even recommended by the faculty to invalids for a “strawberry cure.” I cannot imagine the ailment for which the eating of strawberries is a likely remedy, but a pleasanter “cure” could hardly be invented. Wytham woods crest Beacon Hill, and in them the pheasants are plentiful. This is the equivalent of saying that there is no right of way. But anciently the road from Oxford to Eynsham, and on to Witney and Gloucester, ran across this hill: a plaguey bad road, a very beast of a road. The track of it may still be followed (by permission sought and obtained from Lord Abingdon, let me hasten to add) steeply and roughly up through these sylvan surroundings, and as roughly and as steeply down again, to Eynsham Bridge, which was built in 1799 by a former Earl, to replace the ford by which all wayfarers up to that time were obliged to cross the river. It is still a toll-bridge for vehicles, levying the modest sum of one halfpenny for cycles, and sixpence for motor-cars. The arduous road from Oxford across the hill was abandoned about the same time, when the existing so-called “Seven Bridges Road,” leading along the levels to Eynsham Bridge, was reconstructed.