Old Works and Past Days in Rural Buckinghamshire. By G.
Eland. (Aylesbury : G. T. De Fraine ; and Simpkin, Marshall. 2s. net.)—Lord Lee, in a friendly preface, commends this little book " because the hope of the future is built upon the lessons of the past." Mr. Eland has collected much curious information about old moats, mills, dovecots, and barns, and other relics of ancient Buckinghamshire. He tells us, for instance, of the spit racks, still to be found in a few inns, which used to hold the long steel spits for roasting joints before the fire. He has found one mediaeval dovecot, at Notley Abbey, which is still in use. One old dovecot has been turned into a cottage which the occupant, oddly enough, finds too large. There is an interesting chapter on barns and threshing-floors. The (Lather tells us that the width of a bay in an old barn was usually 16 feet—" the room needed for housing two pair of oxen "—and that this width is connected with the familiar " rod, pole, or perch " of 16/ feet. The boards placed on either side of the threshing-floor were called the " mowstead." Oxen, the author says, were used for ploughing in Bucks within the last half-century. The book is illustrated ; a good photograph of a fine old Tudor barn is noteworthy.
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