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
Renaissance. The choir-stalls are also lavishly ornamented with the
linen-fold decoration.
The centre of Thame's broad High Street is narrowed by an island of
houses, once termed Middle Row, and above the jumble of tiled roofs
here rises like a watch-tower a most curious and interesting medieval
house known as the "Bird Cage Inn." About this structure little is
known; it is, however, referred to in an old document as the "tenement
called the Cage, demised to James Rosse by indenture for the term of
100 years, yielding therefor by the year 8s.," and appears to have
been a farm-house. The document in question is a grant of Edward IV to
Sir John William of the Charity or Guild of St. Christopher in Thame,
founded by Richard Quartemayne, _Squier_, who died in the year 1460.
This house, though in some respects adapted during later years from
its original plan, is structurally but little altered, and should be
taken in hand and _intelligently_ restored as an object of local
attraction and interest.
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