INTERIOR ST. MARY’S CHURCH. BANBURY.

The Vicarage House, dated 1649, stands against the south-west corner of the churchyard, and is a handsome specimen of the domestic architecture of the period. The gabled front, window mullions and porch remain of the old work, and also the hall and front rooms. The room over the porch, used as a private chapel, seems to be of its old service. Very carefully has the interior ornamentation been carried out, of which the cornice of music staves of the front room is an instance.

Old Houses.—The gabled houses on the north side of the High Street, and on the south and west sides of the Market Place, are good examples of domestic architecture of late Tudor or early Stuart times. An old sun-dial, bearing the motto “Aspice et abi,” is attached to the front of the High Street houses. The barge boards and pargeting of the front and the good casemated windows of the west side remain, but the roof has been stripped of its Stonesfield slate, and the finials are badly restored. Also worth notice is the front of No. 11 Market Place, and the old jail, No. 3 (1646), though the lower stage has been cut away. Orchard House, Neithrop, the front of which it is said was protected by woolsacks during the siege of Banbury Castle, stands on a mound away from the road side. It bears the appearance of a manor house, as it probably was, and it has a massive oak stair-way. The Woodlands, Horse Fair, has a handsome garden front; it was formerly an inn. The Woodlands, as well as the school house near by, now Banbury Academy (and here Dean Swift commenced his Gulliver’s Travels, taking the title of Gulliver from the name on a tomb in the churchyard opposite), are typical houses of the time. A beautifully carved oak cornice remains in the north-west room of house No. 47 North Bar, Mrs. J. Bolton’s.

Calthorpe House.—The Calthorpe Manor of old time is now sadly diminished, its fish pond drained and its park a building ground. The north-west part of the house is in use as a wool warehouse, but yet the east front, now Calthorpe House School, stands in good order with stone porch, and armorial shield of the Hawtayne’s, and a good oriel window above bearing the arms in stained glass of the Brancestre (1545) and Danvers’ families. The inscriptions thereon are “Danvers Matched D’Oyley,” “Danvers long time owned Calthropp,” etc. The house, one of the religious houses of early date and probably part of the hospice of St. John, was linked with the early history of the town. Beesley and Macnamara speak of its associations with the Brancestre family in the time of Richard II. (1378), and later with that of Danvers. The former granted lands to the master of St. John, thus implying a religious holding. By its reconstruction in Queen Elizabeth’s days we know the reformation had swept away its religious order, and the fine oriel window is of that date. It is said that Nonconformity was preached for the first time in Banbury in the oriel room.

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COURTYARD, REINDEER INN, BANBURY.

Old Inns.—The Reindeer, in Parson’s Street, is probably older than any of the houses before mentioned; the wooden gates are dated 1570, and have inscribed on them the names Iohn Knight, Ihone Knight, David Horne. The richly moulded ceiling and the fine panelling of the principal room, known as the Globe Room, are of the style of the Italian renaissance, and above the window is an inscription of the date 1570. The Unicorn Inn, in the Market Place, and the adjoining house, at one time no doubt part of the inn, belong to a later period; the massive wooden gates are carved with the date 1648. The Old George (1614) seems to have formerly borne the name of The George and Altarstone, from a supposed Roman altar dug up on the site of the inn, and formerly exhibited in one of the rooms.

The Bars.—The entrances to the town were formerly crossed by gates, or bars, five in number. The North Bar, from which the present street is named, stood near the tan-yard, southward of the corner of Warwick Road. The Cole Bar closed the old Adderbury and Oxford Road, which entered the town by way of New Land and Broad Street before the making of the turnpike road. St. John’s Bar closed the entrance from Chipping Norton, and stood at the spot where Monument Street now enters South Bar. When the Bar was destroyed its site was marked by an obelisk, long since removed, from which Monument Street takes its name. Sugarford Bar stood in West Street, close to where it is now crossed by the Shades, and the Bridge Gate stood on the old bridge over the Cherwell. Not a vestige of any of the bars remains.

The Mechanics’ Institute, founded 1835, received the gift of its new building in Marlborough Road in 1884. It has a general library and a reference library and news and magazine rooms well suited to the requirements of the day. There is an excellent replica of Herkomer’s portrait of the donor in the news room.