LECHLADE
The Lech and the Coln meet the Thames at the town, and the united streams suddenly assume an air of dignity, having reached a width of some 20 yards and a depth sufficient for vessels of 80 tons. Across the 'stripling Thames' there stands the first stone bridge, whose core is the medieval structure built somewhere about the beginning of the thirteenth century, or possibly earlier, in the days when bridge-building was regarded as a pious enterprise. In its prosperous days Lechlade sent great quantities of cheese down the river to London. The church is mainly Perpendicular, dating, according to Bigland, from about 1470.
Continuing northwards, the road climbs among the eastern slopes of the Cotswolds, and reaches picturesque old Burford (see [p. 276]). The next place to the north is
SHIPTON-UNDER-WYCHWOOD,
an interesting and attractive old village on the east side of Wychwood Forest. The spacious church is chiefly an Early English building, with alterations in Perpendicular times, and no indications at all of Decorated work. The spire, like that of Witney, is Early English, while the font and stone pulpit are Perpendicular. Adding immensely to the picturesqueness of the church, there is on the east side a group of timeworn buildings of ecclesiastical origin dating back to the time when Shipton was a prebend of Salisbury Cathedral. One should also notice the sixteenth-century work of the Crown Inn, standing near the centre of the village.
Going on towards Chipping Norton, one comes after two miles to some tumuli, called Lyneham Barrows, and not far beyond these there is a standing stone about 6 feet high.
CHIPPING NORTON,
another of the towns with the distinctive term revealing an old-time importance as a market, is the highest town in Oxfordshire, being nearly 700 feet above the sea. The place consists chiefly of one long and picturesque street, and what there is to tell of its history is almost exclusively in relation to its cloth manufactures, its breweries, or its glove factories. The conspicuous church is mainly Decorated and Perpendicular, with the tower above the obviously Early English work, rebuilt in 1825.
There is a story of Bishop Juxon having been the cause of a complaint to Cromwell because once, when the prelate was hunting, the hare, closely followed by the hounds, ran through the churchyard. The Protector's reply, however, took the form of a question: 'Do you think the Bishop prevailed on the hare to run through the churchyard?'
Nothing whatever is left of the castle formerly standing to the east of the church, but the almshouses, built in 1640, still survive.