STANWAY HOUSE.
Farther south the country becomes more wooded and hilly. The high ground rises on the left above Stanton, and at the foot of the hill near the village nestle the pretty old church and gabled manor-house, with its complement of old farm buildings adjacent. The village street, like Broadway, consists of rows of grey stone gables, at the end of which stands the sundial-surmounted cross. The interior of the church has not been spoiled; the carved oak canopied pulpit towering above the ancient pews is quite in keeping with the old-world village. The Stanways are about two miles to the south, but there are so few houses that one wonders where the children come from to attend the village school. Wood Stanway is not disappointing like many places possessing picturesque names that we could quote, for it is enveloped in trees, and so is Church Stanway for that matter.
STANWAY HOUSE.
Turning a corner of the road one comes suddenly upon a wonderful old gateway with fantastic gables and a noble Jacobean doorway. On one side of it is a high garden wall with great circular holes in it, and over the wall peep the gables and ornamental perforated parapet of a fine mansion of Charles I.'s time. This is always a most fascinating picture; but to see it at its best is when the roses are in bloom, for above the old wall and through the rounded apertures, the queen of flowers flourishes in gay festoons as if rejoicing at its surroundings. But if one is so fortunate as to obtain admission to the gardens then may he or she rejoice also, for upon the other side of that grey old wall are the prettiest of gardens and the grandest trees, one of which, an ancient yew, is no less than twenty-two feet in girth. There are terraces, stone summer-houses, and nooks and corners such as one only sees in the grounds of our ancestral homes. Within, the mansion has been much restored and somewhat modernised, but the great hall and other rooms take one back to the time of Inigo Jones, who designed the entrance gateway. In the churchyard close by is buried the most popular local man of his time, Robert Dover. If he lived in our day he surely would be the president of the "Anti-Puritanical League," for he it was who made a successful crusade against the spirit of religious austerity, the tendency of which was to put down holidays of sport and merry-making. As a result of his efforts, the hills above Chipping Camden were annually at Whitsuntide the scene of a revival of the mediæval days of festivity and manly exercise. Upon these occasions the originator acted as master of the ceremonies, and was duly respected, for he always wore a suit of King James' own clothes. Dover died at the beginning of the Civil War, so, fortunately for him, he did not live through the rigid rule of Cromwell. The Cotswold games, however, were revived at the Restoration. To this public benefactor (the shadow of whose cloak has surely fallen on the shoulders of Lord Avebury) Drayton wrote in eulogy:
"We'll have thy statue in some rock cut out
With brave inscriptions garnished about,
And under written, 'Lo! this is the man
Dover, that first these noble sports began.'
Lads of the hills and lasses of the vale
In many a song and many a merry tale
Shall mention thee; and having leave to play,
Unto thy name shall make a holiday."
Yet nobody did set up his statue, as should have been done on "Dover Hill" by Chipping Camden.