[Illustration:  Gable, Upper Deal, Kent]

The Vale of Aylesbury is one of the sweetest and most charmingly characteristic tracts of land in the whole of rural England, abounding with old houses.  The whole countryside literally teems with picturesque evidences of the past life and history of England.  Ancient landmarks and associations are so numerous that it is difficult to mention a few without seeming to ignore unfairly their equally interesting neighbours.  Let us take the London road, which enters the shire from Middlesex and makes for Aylesbury, a meandering road with patches of scenery strongly suggestive of Birket Foster’s landscapes.  Down a turning at the foot of the lovely Chiltern Hills lies the secluded village of Chalfont St. Giles.  Here Milton, the poet, sought refuge from plague-stricken London among a colony of fellow Quakers, and here remains, in a very perfect state, the cottage in which he lived and was visited by Andrew Marvel.  It is said that his neighbour Elwood, one of the Quaker fraternity, suggested the idea of “Paradise Regained,” and that the draft of the latter poem was written upon a great oak table which may be seen in one of the low-pitched rooms on the ground floor.  I fancy that Milton must have beautified and repaired the cottage at the period of his tenancy.  The mantelpiece with its classic ogee moulding belongs certainly to his day, and some other minor details may also be noticed which support this inference.  It is not difficult to imagine that one who was accustomed to metropolitan comforts would be dissatisfied with the open hearth common to country cottages of that poet’s time, and have it enclosed in the manner in which we now see it.  Outside the garden is brilliant with old-fashioned flowers, such as the poet loved.  A stone scutcheon may be seen peeping through the shrubbery which covers the front of the cottage, but the arms which it displays are those of the Fleetwoods, one time owners of these tenements.  Between the years 1709 and 1807 the house was used as an inn.  Milton’s cottage is one of our national treasures, which (though not actually belonging to the nation) has successfully resisted purchase by our American cousins and transportation across the Atlantic.

[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.