Later lords of the manor of Newport have been more fortunate, or have been such comparatively obscure persons that their misfortunes are scarcely historic. Indeed, with the passing of Gaveston, the annals of the place are purely domestic, but none the less interesting; Newport is, in fact, singularly full of interest. Prominent in its broad street stands the beautiful old house of timbered frame and brick nogging known locally as “Monks’ Barns,” and said to have once been used by the monastery of St. Martin-in-the-Fields as a country sanatorium, but much more likely to have been a Priest’s House at the time when Newport church was under the joint control of Westminster Abbey and St. Martin’s, and served from them. However that may be, this fine relic of the fifteenth century is now in secular occupation, and divided into two cottages. The interior is without interest; and its most beautiful and interesting feature the one most easily seen by the wayfarer—the fine old oak-framed oriel window looking upon the road and decorated with an elaborate and curious carving of the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. [Illustration: “MONKS’ BARNS.”] It was at Newport the route often taken Charles II. to Newmarket, by way of Rye House, passing Rickling Church End and Wicken Bonant, fell into the existing highway. It is still known as “London Lane”; the junction of roads remaining the most old-world corner of the village. The church, dominating the view at this point, looks almost cathedral-like, and its tower is strongly reminiscent of Great St. Mary’s, Cambridge; but the interior proves less imposing, and the bare nave and wide chancel, built in the later and less refined style of Gothic, disappointing. [Illustration: ANCIENT CARVING AT “MONKS’ BARNS.”] A memorial tablet on the chancel wall, plain in design, but grotesquely ornate in the epitaph of the person it praises, hands down to us the memory of the many virtues of “Joseph Smith, M.A., of Shortgrove Hall.” It appears that the worthy Smith, who died in 1822, was private secretary to William Pitt. It would be easier to recount the few virtues he was _not_ possessed of than to recite a list of those that, according to his executors, rendered him such a Phœnix. He—or they for him—wholly lacked humility. Tragical memories are revived by the memorial window in the south aisle to the son of the vicar, one of the 130 who perished in the destruction by fire of the Theatre Royal, Exeter. An inscription tells how “This window was erected by loving friends in memory of Robert Morgan Tamplin, B.A., of Keble College, Oxford, who entered into his rest at Exeter, in the great fire, Monday, September 5th, 1887, aged 23 years.” [Illustration: LONDON LANE, NEWPORT: WHERE CHARLES THE SECOND’S ROUTE TO NEWMARKET JOINED THE HIGHWAY.]