decorated with patterns in line, and there was abundant thatch. Here and there the cottages were interrupted and a gateway opened into a farm-yard. The church, a flint one, was as cool as it was old, and full of christened sunlight and the chirping of sparrows. There were many tablets in it to the memory of people named Hanchett--a name not in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. The most conspicuous thing in the church was a circular frame over an arch, enclosing the inscription in large letters: “This church was repair’d 1820. Henry Chambers and John Hill, Churchwardens.” Much smaller letters below said: “Fear God and honour the King.” [Illustration: Ickleton.] Leaving Ickleton by its chief street, Abbey Street, I entered an open country rising on all sides. I took the south-westerly road towards Elmdon, and then a right-hand turning out of that which went in a straight line to Ickleton Granges. This is probably a new country road, with hedges and only the narrowest of green strips beside it: it is not the Icknield Way. The old road possibly ran along the gently rising ploughland half-way up it, past Rectory Farm. There is still a footpath from near Abbey Farm and the Priory remains to Rectory Farm, which may represent the course of the Icknield Way, continued by a broken line of thorns reaching almost to Ickleton Granges fifty or a hundred yards north-west of the present road. Past the Granges I turned sharp to the right along a drove coming through the corn from Littlebury and Saffron Walden. At a turning on the left to Redland’s Hall this road became a county boundary, and I went uphill to the corner of a copse, where it made another bend westward. At the bend there was a triangle of turf upon the right, so that the right-hand bank, which lies beyond this turf, suggested a road coming from the east, that is to say from Rectory Farm and Ickleton Priory. The road was now well up above the land to its right, and I could see the straight ridge near Cambridge which carries the Mare Way. On the other hand were the gentle Anthony Hill and Clay Hill, and in front the high land above Royston and its straight bars of wood. The road was making almost due west for Royston. It went between corn, clover, or new-ploughed land; white bryony grew in its low hedges, and even sprawled over the dusty, rabbity mound by the wayside; and it had grass borders of its own width. At first it was rough, but hard and white. Soon it became practically a green road, and then wholly so, but level and rideable. In one place it was lined by lime trees; in others all was elder flower, wild rose, and lady’s slipper, and the chatter of young birds. Beyond the road to Dottrell Hall and the lovely group of sycamore and hornbeams at the crossing, it was much worn again. It was a farm road used only by waggons and men between field and field, or at most between farm and farm. It might have seemed no more than a series, four miles long, of consecutive