The third of these necessary rites is the viewing of the “Globe Room” at the “Reindeer.” What the exterior of that room is like, let the illustration of the courtyard show. The date of its building is still faintly traceable in the figures “1637” on the masonry of the gable. They charge you threepence to view the interior, and if so be you cannot frame to admire the richly decorated plaster ceiling for yourself, the printed notice that a cast has been taken from it, and is to be seen in South Kensington Museum, is calculated to impress the intellectually snobbish. For our own part, seeing things with our own eyes and judging of them comparatively, there seems no very adequate reason for South Kensington acquiring such a cast, unless, indeed, (which is unthinkable) the Department of Science and Art is bent upon copies of all the old ceilings in the country. This is, in short, to say that although the plaster decoration of the “Globe Room” is fine, it is neither so intrinsically fine, nor so original above all others, that it deserves so great an honour. The really supremely fine feature of the room is the beautiful Jacobean panelling in oak, now almost coal-black with age, covering the walls from floor to ceiling, and designed and wrought in unusually thorough and bold style. There is not a finer room of its period in the country, and it may even be questioned (leaving the mere matter of size alone) if there is even another quite so fine or in every detail so perfect. The reason of this magnificently panelled apartment being added to the older and very much less ornate portion of the inn is obscure; and it will be noted, as a matter of curiosity, that, entered as it is only by a doorway from the open courtyard, the room is not, structurally a part of the house. The name of the “Globe Room” given to it is not explained in any way by the decorations or by its history, which is as obscure as its origin. Tradition says Cromwell “held a council” here, and accordingly, although history does not tell us anything specifically about it, a picture, reproduced in a variety of ways, showing a number of stern and malignant Roundheads interrogating an elegant and angelic-looking Royalist clad in white, and bearing a very strong likeness to Charles the First himself, is one of the commonplaces of the town. [Illustration: THE GLOBE ROOM, “REINDEER” INN, BANBURY.] For one of the most entertaining examples of history enacted at an inn, we must shift the scene to Chester.