d many picturesque old houses remain in the village, among them
being one called Stonewall Farm, a structure of the fifteenth century
with an original billet-moulded porch and Gothic barge-boards.

There is a certain similarity about the villages that dot the Vale of
Aylesbury. The old Market House is usually a feature of the High
Street--where it has not been spoilt as at Wendover. Groups of
picturesque timber cottages, thickest round the church, and shouldered
here and there by their more respectable and severe Georgian brethren,
are common to all, and vary but little in their general aspect and
colouring. Memories and legends haunt every hamlet, the very names of
which have an ancient sound carrying us vaguely back to former days.
Prince's Risborough, once a manor of the Black Prince; Wendover, the
birthplace of Roger of Wendover, the medieval historian, and author of
the Chronicle _Flores Historiarum, or History of the World from the
Creation to the year 1235_, in modern language a somewhat "large
order"; Hampden, identified to all time with the patriot of that name;
and so on indefinitely. At Monk's Risborough, another hamlet with an
ancient-sounding name, but possessing no special history, is a church
of the Perpendicular period containing some features of exceptional
interest, and internally one of the most charmingly picturesque of its
kind. The carved tie-beams of the porch with their masks and tracery
and the great stone stoup which appears in one corner have an
_unrestored_ appearance which is quite delightful in these days of
over-restoration. The massive oak door has some curious iron fittings,
and the interior of the church itself displays such treasures as a
magnificent early Tudor roof and an elegant fifteenth-century
chancel-screen, on the latter of which some remains of ancient
painting exist.[15]

[15] The rood-loft has unfortunately disappeared.

[Illustration: Fifteenth-century Handle on Church Door, Monk's
Risborough, Bucks]

Thame, just across the Oxfordshire border, is another town of the
greatest interest. The noble parish church here contains a number of
fine brasses and tombs, including the recumbent effigies of Lord John
Williams of Thame and his wife, who flourished in the reign of Queen
Mary. The chancel-screen is of uncommon character, the base being
richly decorated with linen panelling, while above rises an arcade in
which Gothic form mingles freely with the grotesqueness of the
R