[Illustration: A Portsmouth "Row"]
The entrance to the churchyard in Chalfont St. Giles is through a
wonderfully picturesque turnstile or lich-gate under an ancient house
in the High Street. The gate formerly closed itself mechanically by
means of a pulley to which was attached a heavy weight. Unfortunately
this weight was not boxed in--as in the somewhat similar example at
Hayes, in Middlesex--and an accident which happened to some children
resulted in its removal.
[Illustration: Lich-gate, Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks]
A good 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.
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