There can surely be no farmhouse more ecclesiastical in appearance than that of Woodspring Priory. As the traveller approaches it across the rough occupation-roads of two large pastures, he sees the noble central tower of what was the Priory church rising exquisitely from a characteristically English rural scene of tall elms, profuse hedgerows, and succulent grass. Rude wooden field-gates and rutty tracks partly filled with straw combed off passing heavy-laden farm-waggons by projecting brambles, conduct him into a farmyard where porkers grunt from their sties and cows low from their linhays in a not unmusical orchestration; the grey and lichened stonework of the Priory tithe-barn and the tall tower surrounding them with an unwonted halo of romantic association. On that spot where, in the olden days of Woodspring’s pride, the porter slid back his hatch in the gatehouse, in answer to the stranger’s knock, the pigs snuffle in their troughs and thrust pink snouts through palisades, enquiring curiously who comes this way. A fantastic thought possibly occurs to the modern pilgrim that they might be re-incarnations of those old fat porters themselves; and a glance into those pig-houses further discloses fine Berkshires there, as sleek and well-larded as any greasy mediæval Prior. The entrance to the farmyard is flanked with a somewhat noble effect by heavy sculptured stones bearing shields. That on the right hand bears the sacred symbols of the five wounds of our Lord, with a heart in the centre; while on the left is the heraldic coat of the Dodingtons, anciently among the benefactors of the Priory; a chevron between three bugle-horns, stringed, two and one; a crescent for difference.