RESOURCES. “Ws 
T have been travelling very rapidly through the twelfth and 
_ thirteenth centuries in search of the art of those periods in our 
; neighbourhood, and now arrive at the early part of the fourteenth 
century, in which the decorated style flourished; and there are 
some good examples of that style to visit within easy distance. 
_Shottesbrooke church, beautifully situated amid the richly wooded 
country around Maidenhead, is a perfect specimen of decorated 
work; no busy perpendicular workman, nor, far more serious, 
untutored churchwarden has marred the design of its original 
architect ; the spire is, I understand, being now rebuilt strictly in 
accordance with the first model. Burnham church, with its fine 
‘roof, and Hitcham church, are fair examples of the decorated 
‘period, and nearer home the manorial chapel at Widmer, 
near Marlow, now forming part of a farmhouse, and described 
in an interesting chapter of the Records of Buckinghamshire 
for 1865, by the late Rev. W. H. Kelke, has its east and 
‘south windows of the early fourteenth century period. 
_ We now come to the last or perpendicular age. We have left 
behind us the graceful shafts, the pointed arch, and the high- 
pitched roof: great and grand were—if we only take York Minster 
as an example—the works of the perpendicular builders, and 
most industrious and popular builders they were; hardly any 
eathedral or parish church escaped their industrious hands, but 
we see in their designs the unmistakeable signs of the decline of 
Fothic art, and when they had chiselled the last pinnacle to 
fenry the Seventh’s chapel at Westminster, its reign was over ; 
the art itself died only to be revived in modern days. The nave, 
lerestory, and tower of our parish church, also the nave and 
ransepts of Thame church, would be classed with this order ; but 
is I have before hinted, there is scarcely any village church near 
us that does not present some specimens of this style. Grateful as 
we should be that the sacred buildings throughout the land have 
very generally been reverently preserved, it is to be lamented 
 that—at least, in our own locality—so little is left us of the 
_ domestic art of the Middle Ages. No doubt many houses in the 
‘3 present day and in this ancient borough from their numberless 
mutilations disguise their antiquity ; still we look in vain for the 
