BECKETT 131 



five miles from Beckett, and the whole neighbour- 

 hood is filled with quaint old legends of him and 

 his people. 



In former days Beckett used to be written 

 " Becote," and belonged to the Earls of Evreux, 

 who gave it to the Priory of Norion, in Normandy. 

 King John, coveting the house and lands, seized 

 them in 1 204, and liked the place so well that he 

 lived there for some time a fact proved by an 

 existing mandate sent by him to the Sheriff of 

 Oxfordshire, which bears his signature and was 

 written at Becote. Later the Manor belonged to a 

 family who took their name from it, calling them- 

 selves " De Beckote," and who held it by tenure of 

 a very fanciful kind, reading quite like a passage 

 from Malory's " Morte d' Arthur" it was that they 

 were to meet the King, whenever he should pass 

 Fowyeares Mill Bridge, Shrivenham, with two 

 white capons in their hands, saying, " Ecce Domine 

 istos duos capones quos alias habebitis sed non 

 nunc." 



Beckett is much altered since the days of Inigo 

 Jones. The old Manor House has disappeared ; 

 it was partly destroyed during the Civil Wars, and 

 was finally pulled down to make way for the new 

 house, which is placed a little further back than the 

 old site, and was built in 1831 by the sixth Viscount 

 Barrington from the designs of his brother-in-law, 

 the Hon. Thomas Liddell. 



